What if you are wrong?

[freemarketfascist]

What if free market capitalism naturally leads to extreme income inequality and destroys jobs through automatization?
What if Ben Bernanke and bankers are actually good guys and use fractional reserve banking to create jobs that were destroyed by free market capitalism?
What if gold is just a commodity?
What if Austrian economics is wrong?(And I don't say that Keynesians are right)
What if Ron Paul is a false messiah?
What if you are wrong?

[Travlyr]

What if free market capitalism naturally leads to extreme income inequality and destroys jobs through automatization?
What if Ben Bernanke and bankers are actually good guys and use fractional reserve banking to create jobs that were destroyed by free market capitalism?
What if gold is just a commodity?
What if Austrian economics is wrong?(And I don't say that Keynesians are right)
What if Ron Paul is a false messiah?
What if you are wrong?

I would still be free.

[AuH20]

Hopefully, one of these days we actually will see the exercise of free market capitalism in this country, but very powerful special interests have made that a no-go for quite some time. Robust, DECENTRALIZED economic activity threatens those in power and always has throughout history.

[aclove]

What if free market capitalism naturally leads to extreme income inequality and destroys jobs through automatization?


This assumes that the purpose of business is to create jobs. It isn't. The purpose of business is to create goods and services that people need. Employment is only a byproduct, not the product itself.

It's government that specializes in the creation of make-work jobs which exist only to redistribute wealth without actually creating anything that people would have voluntarily paid for. That's why the salaries of government make-work jobs have to be paid with money forcibly extracted from citizens instead.

The elimination of unneeded jobs through automation increases the amount of wealth (products) that can be produced while simultaneously reducing the cost involved in making them. This lowers prices and benefits consumers, and is a net gain, not net loss, for society.

[jmag]

What if war is peace and theft is charity?

[Sam I am]

Silly OP, thinking that you can get people on a political forum to ever admit that they're wrong.

[jkr]

What if Ben Bernanke and bankers are actually good guys and use fractional reserve banking to create jobs that were destroyed by free market capitalism?


yes, those jobs:
bureaucrats that push paper at us and tyrannize EVERY aspect of life
"law enforcement" that kick in the wrong doors and shoot our pets and steal our property without due process
prison guards for private prisons
goons to make sure little girls don't sell teh deadly LEMONADE
engineers that design robotic kites to blot out the sky and violate our privacy AND threaten our lives
tsa pedophiles grabbing our collective junk
cops with tanks, drones, and machine guns
we got money to research how to splice dna from two males to "create" an "offspring"
nucular-fucking-weapons

yep, thats some gooooooood jobers!

money is not the only bubble being inflated.
the value AND NEED for these services is skewed and based on fictitious inputs
they actually CAUSE harm by enabling these destructive, restrictive, counterproductive "services"



All the roadblocks in life that we struggle against are maned by these gr8 folks.
every NO comes from these idiots with "authority"
take these non productive people and put THEM on welfare until they can find a PRODUCTIVE job

THAT would be a gr8 use for fiat money...

[LibertyEagle]

What if free market capitalism naturally leads to extreme income inequality and destroys jobs through automatization?
New industries will pop up. Think of what happened when cars were developed. Wagon wheels were not needed as much, but tires sure were.


What if Ben Bernanke and bankers are actually good guys and use fractional reserve banking to create jobs that were destroyed by free market capitalism?
How would stealing the value of the money in our pockets somehow benefit us?


What if gold is just a commodity?
What if Peter Pan really exists? If you read history you know that gold has been used as money for a very, very long time. Nothing is perfect, but I'd rather take my chances with gold and silver, than pieces of paper.


What if Austrian economics is wrong?(And I don't say that Keynesians are right)
Anything is possible, I suppose. But, it is logical, where Keynesian economics is not.


What if Ron Paul is a false messiah?
It wouldn't matter. Ron Paul is not who brought me to this movement.


What if you are wrong?
I think most of us are open and willing to adapt with new data. But, keep in mind that many of us have come to the beliefs we hold now over many years of study and we have seen these beliefs be confirmed over and over again by what has been happening in our own government, the markets, and the world around us.

[TheGrinch]

"What if our foreign policy of the past century is deeply flawed and has not served our national security interest?

What if we wake up one day and realize that the terrorist threat is the predictable consequence of our meddling in the affairs of others, and has nothing to do with us being free and prosperous?

What if propping up repressive regimes in the Middle East endangers both the United States and Israel?

What if occupying countries like Iraq and Afghanistan and bombing Pakistan is directly related to the hatred directed toward us?

What if someday it dawns on us that losing over 5,000 American military personnel in the Middle East since 9/11 is not a fair tradeoff with the loss of nearly 3,000 American citizens no matter how many Iraqi, Pakistanian, Afghan people are killed or displaced?

What if we finally decide that torture, even if called “enhanced interrogation technique”, is self-destructive and produces no useful information and that contracting it out to a third world nation is just as evil?

What if it is finally realized that war and military spending is always destructive to the economy?

What if all war-time spending is paid for through the deceitful and evil process of inflating and borrowing?

What if we finally see that war-time conditions always undermine personal liberty?

What if Conservatives who preach small government wake up and realize that our interventionist foreign policy provides the greatest incentive to expand the government?

What if Conservatives understood once again that their only logical position is to reject military intervention and managing an empire throughout the world?

What if the American people woke up and understood that the official reasons for going to war are almost always based on lies and promoted by war propaganda in order to serve special interests?

What if we as a nation came to realize that the quest for empire eventually destroys all great nations?

What if Obama has no intention of leaving Iraq?

What if a military draft is being planned for for the wars that would spread if our foreign policy is not changed?

What if the American people learned the truth, that our foreign policy has nothing to do with national security, that it never changes from one administration to the next?

What if war in preparation for war is a racket serving the special interests?

What if President Obama is completely wrong about Afghanistan and it turns out worse than Iraq and Vietnam put together?

What if Christianity actually teaches peace and not preventive wars of aggression?

What if diplomacy is found to be superior to bombs and bribes in protecting America?

What happens if my concerns are completely unfounded?

Nothing.

But what happens if my concerns are justified and ignored?

Nothing good.”

- Dr. Ron Paul

[libertyfanatic]

Well played Grinch.

[mczerone]

What if free market capitalism naturally leads to extreme income inequality and destroys jobs through automatization?
What if Ben Bernanke and bankers are actually good guys and use fractional reserve banking to create jobs that were destroyed by free market capitalism?
What if gold is just a commodity?
What if Austrian economics is wrong?(And I don't say that Keynesians are right)
What if Ron Paul is a false messiah?
What if you are wrong?

If we're wrong and we stay out of power, then nothing happens.

But let's say we get power and completely turn every policy into a voluntarist utopia.

If we're wrong, then a monopoly agency will develop that will eventually claim complete domain over the area.
It will run the court system, the police system, the regulatory system and everything else just well enough to prevent rioters from dismantling thier system. It will put poor people out of work by placing barriers to entry. It will limit you freedoms to the point that it will control everything you do.

In other words, if we're wrong, the worst case scenario is exactly what we have today.

[freemarketfascist]

But, keep in mind that many of us have come to the beliefs we hold now over many years of study and we have seen these beliefs be confirmed over and over again by what has been happening in our own government, the markets, and the world around us.Keynesians study economics for many years too and they don't change their beliefs either so that is not an argument.

[matt0611]

We don't believe Ron Paul is a "messiah" he is only a man.

What do you mean "what if gold is only a commodity" ?

We all know that it is a commodity, this is common knowledge. That's why it makes better money than monopoly money AKA federal reserve notes.

Automation hurts us? Are you kidding? That's such a fallacy that its hilarious you'd even bring that up.

That's like saying we should get rid of trains because then people could lug freight on their backs across the country. That would improve our lives? Really?

[TheGrinch]

How would stealing the value of the money in our pockets somehow benefit us?

This also answers question #1 about economic inequality... Hyperinflation (or really an inflation tax) doesn't matter so much when you have millions or billions, but it matters alot when you have very few dollars, increasingly dedicated to just necessary expenses, with less for discretionary spending. This contributes to people working their whole lives just to have to still end up dependent on SS and Medicare, and along with other policies is destroying our middle class... It is quite evident that these policies then only make for much more drastic inequality....

And how many of you who had trouble paying your mortgage after the collapse got an extension, assistance or bail-out?


In other words, if we're wrong, the worst case scenario is exactly what we have today.
Very true and succinct way to put it... We can see now what the alternative of too much government intervention causes. We need not debate the alternative, when we live in it, and our kids will be paying for decades for our high standard of living and needless interventions overseas, if we even still have a country by then...

[wizardwatson]

I'm glad there are no trolls here at RPF.

But what if I'm wrong?

[Elwar]

What if free market capitalism naturally leads to extreme income inequality and destroys jobs through automatization?
What if Ben Bernanke and bankers are actually good guys and use fractional reserve banking to create jobs that were destroyed by free market capitalism?
What if gold is just a commodity?
What if Austrian economics is wrong?(And I don't say that Keynesians are right)
What if Ron Paul is a false messiah?
What if you are wrong?

Jobs destroyed through automatization? You mean like dish washers, washers, dryers, tractors, copy machines, calculators, computers, ATMs? You mean those jobs destroyed?

Ben Bernanke may be a fine gentlemen and have our best interest at heart. Creating jobs in exchange for destroying wealth means that everyone who uses the dollar for anything has now lost money and is worse off.

What if gold is just a commodity? It would lose as a competitor to other currencies if competing currencies were legalized.

What if Austrian economics is wrong? Then it is wrong and the right economics would prevail if one economic theory is not instituted at the point of a gun.

Ron Paul would be a false messiah, as he is an individual, and a man.

If I am wrong and government is the solution to everything? Then it should have solved everything by now.

[Jovan Galtic]

What if you actually read a few books on economics?

[kuckfeynes]

I love when jobs are destroyed due to automation. Now all those people that were wasting their time on unnecessary menial tasks can find something more productive to do!

[Elwar]

What if you are wrong and you own yourself?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv9XoeNYGdg

[ShowMeLiberty]

What if it's dangerous to be right when the government is wrong?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=432r-utKgAg&feature=player_embedded

[cajuncocoa]

Trolls be trollin'

[mczerone]

I had to bite a second time at this tasty bait.

First, I'm not wrong ethically. Starting from Descarte's "cogito ergo sum" I've derived an ethic that is peaceful and consistent. It is the only correct ethical basis, and it's compatable with daily life, all major religions, and any voluntary political/societal structure. It is to live and let live.

Second, who cares if I'm wrong? I'm letting you do what you think is right, right? And if I'm wrong, then only I suffer. You can't protect me from myself through force. And if my decisions do affect you, then my ethic says that I'm responsible to you.

So what if I'm wrong? I'll be wrong, and I'll either correct it or I'll suffer. But if YOU'RE wrong, then we suffer together and you'll shirk your responsibility to me for the harms you caused.

Part of our message is that we must be free to be wrong so that all of society can learn what's right.

[sailingaway]

Well at least you aren't pretending free markets can be fascist like you tried the last time you posted the otherwise identical thread.

Ron Paul has a thirty year record of sticking to his principles and fighting for what is right. If I don't back him, when would I EVER get the foundation to back someone?

[sailingaway]

Trolls be trollin'\

Well, yeah, but I think we're kinda bored, so maybe it will be entertaining.

[torchbearer]

What if war is peace and theft is charity?

/thread

[roho76]

I program robots that build cars. My job was created through automatization. Now, someone has to design robots, fabricate them, install them, create all the little devices that the robots utilize for the process they are doing (welders for welding, cameras for geo locating, sealers that keep the rain out of your car, wires, pumps, DC motors, so on and so forth), program them (me), coordinate the entire process, and make everything dance. Should we rehire those who used to pick up horse shit out of the street now that we drive cars instead of riding horses because technology and human understanding has pushed us to the point where manual back breaking labor can be replaced with machines and those original jobs dispersed and usually multiplied in the end? Just because one job goes away doesn't mean that another is not made somewhere else.

When jobs are taken over by automation the costs of producing those goods becomes cheaper and there for less expensive to buy in the retail market which is easier on the entire population and therefore the average person has to work less to acquire them. Now that we have heavy equipment means that we don't need to break our backs doing things the old way.

What you should be bitching about is why your government incentivizes taking jobs out of the country and also allowing American companies to plop down in some foreign land that rules their people with an iron fist and more times than not accompanied by a tax break for proving jobs under a "free trade" agreement. Our government should go after American companies that support tyranny in the work force abroad. But they don't. They pass legislation that breeds this type of mentality in the corporate structure. But the most important thing you should be bitching about is the central banking system in this country that steals from you right under your nose and you don't even know it. You will chase inflation your whole life and then complain about companies that are just doing the same thing your doing, getting by the best they know how under a fiat monetary system.

[AGRP]

What if trolling was wrong?

[dannno]

What if free market capitalism naturally leads to extreme income inequality and destroys jobs through automatization?

Because I can see instantly that you are completely uneducated in free market economics.

Think of everything that everybody has in the world as a pie.

Let's go back a few decades and say the problem is that poor people don't have enough cars, because people make cars instead of machines. When automation occurs, suddenly they can make many more cars at lower prices. The pie gets bigger instantly, there are more cars and less fortunate people can now afford them. Now the people who made cars and lost their jobs are free to make new products and services. The pie is now EVEN BIGGER!! More products, more services and more cars are all available and everybody's standard of living increases.

All keynesianism does is shrink the pie and redistribute it, which shrinks the pie even further. Standard of living falls for everybody, DESPITE or relative to human innovation!!



What if Ben Bernanke and bankers are actually good guys and use fractional reserve banking to create jobs that were destroyed by free market capitalism?

Central planning simply gets in the way of what individuals in the market actually desire. Central planners think everybody wants product X, so they take away people's ability to buy product Y by taxing them, which is the product they really want, and are then left with the option of buying product x at a discount, which they may not even want, and then losing out. Too much of product X is made, it's a bad investment, the business ultimately fails when product Y could have been a big hit and created jobs.




What if gold is just a commodity?

Then people will still trade it for things because it has value. As long as you force people to use the money the bankers have control over, there will be theft. Bankers counterfeit money for themselves and their buddies.

[Austrian Econ Disciple]

What if you are a troll?
What if I am right?
What if..........

[TheGrinch]

I program robots that build cars. My job was created through automatization. Now, someone has to design robots, fabricate them, install them, create all the little devices that the robots utilize for the process they are doing (welders for welding, cameras for geo locating, sealers that keep the rain out of your car, wires, pumps, DC motors, so on and so forth), program them (me), coordinate the entire process, and make everything dance. Should we rehire those who used to pick up horse shit out of the street now that we drive cars instead of riding horses because technology and human understanding has pushed us to the point where manual back breaking labor can be replaced with machines and those original jobs dispersed and usually multiplied in the end? Just because one job goes away doesn't mean that another is not made somewhere else.

When jobs are taken over by automation the costs of producing those goods becomes cheaper and there for less expensive to buy in the retail market which is easier on the entire population and therefore the average person has to work less to acquire them. Now that we have heavy equipment means that we don't need to break our backs doing things the old way.

What you should be bitching about is why your government incentivizes taking jobs out of the country and also allowing American companies to plop down in some foreign land that rules their people with an iron fist and more times than not accompanied by a tax break for proving jobs under a "free trade" agreement. Our government should go after American companies that support tyranny in the work force abroad. But they don't. They pass legislation that breeds this type of mentality in the corporate structure. But the most important thing you should be bitching about is the central banking system in this country that steals from you right under your nose and you don't even know it. You will chase inflation your whole life and then complain about companies that are just doing the same thing your doing, getting by the best they know how under a fiat monetary system.
It's pretty ironic, isn't it, that liberals claim to be all about "progress", but then can't wrap their heads around how economic prosperity and progress allows for more prosperity for everyone, while their socialistic views only deter progress. When everyone is compensated (entitled) regardless of their input to society, then there is no incentive for progress, and input will suffer and everyone involved will be much worse off.

I thought by now it was more than evident that communism simply doesn't work, and ironically only makes for more personal responsibility (if we didn't have the automation of water treatment, you'd have to go collect and boil any water you wish to use, etc.), than does a society where people work towards common goals, incentivized by our desire to have money for things...

Further, it seems like many socialists want to believe that society would be better without money, but as long as there is society, there will be bartering, and money will necessarily be created as the medium, rather than making bartering extremely difficult without it, needing a partner who needs what you have, and you have what he needs. Money is the medium to that, and thus will always exist.

[Elwar]

I program robots that build cars.

Instead of building robots that build cars you should quit your job and encourage everyone else in your field to do the same.


You should then gather together with thousands of unemployed workers and build a car by hand using only tools you gather from the ground.

You will all dig out the ore to create the metal built on a fire started with two sticks and use rocks to mold the metal into the right shape.

I would estimate that about 100,000 people working for a year on a car in this way could produce such a vehicle (BE SURE TO THROW AWAY ANY ROCKS YOU USED AND FORGET ANYTHING ABOUT HOW YOU ACCOMPLISHED ANYTHING FOR FUTURE CARS).

If this is done, with the fact that over 10 million vehicles were sold last year...this would mean that this one simple move would create 100 trillion jobs.

I am an economic genius. I will run in 2016 for the Democratic Party nomination with this job creating idea and win in a landslide.

[LibertyEagle]

Keynesians study economics for many years too and they don't change their beliefs either so that is not an argument.

Sure, but by now you should be able to see the fruits of Keynesianism. A centrally-managed economy with booms and busts, a dollar that is only worth 3 cents of what it was when the Federal Reserve was created, bailouts, quantitative easing, etc.

Keynesianism is a failed school of economics.

[TheGrinch]

With all of the controversy here lately, I'd just like to thank the liberal troll for reminding us about all of things we agree on...

Much appreciated, but you have a thing or two to learn about trolling from those among us causing the real infighting :rolleyes:

[NoOneButPaul]

What if free market capitalism naturally leads to extreme income inequality and destroys jobs through automatization?
What if Ben Bernanke and bankers are actually good guys and use fractional reserve banking to create jobs that were destroyed by free market capitalism?
What if gold is just a commodity?
What if Austrian economics is wrong?(And I don't say that Keynesians are right)
What if Ron Paul is a false messiah?
What if you are wrong?

I've often asked myself this before and came to this conclusion...

IF we are wrong we are still RIGHT for this point in time in history.

Imagine a pendulum... thanks to Kenyes and a bunch of other events after the creation of the FED we have swung the pendulum ALL THE WAY to the left...

It has caused disastrous things to happen... the argument could be made it's killed tens of millions... or that it made it possible for amazing advancements in space technologies, and the history of the universe, and expanded things in places the free market wouldn't have seen as profitable even though they do have a value ABOVE money.
The problem is the Kenyesians went too far- they got cocky and went blind- they had no argument, no opposing side to their system and this caused them to go WAY too far with it and now they have brought the world to the brink.

Let us say in the coming decades we win out in the end... let us say we take control and swing it back... jobs come, prosperity in sues, freedom rings, and the people cheer for Ron Paul and Free Markets like God himself. Everyone in the world wakes up to the fact we had it totally right. Kenyesianism is phased away, almost for good, as people embrace Human Action over Central Banking...

The pendulum would now be all the way back to the right side...

But, I predict that there will be serious consequences to this... consequences that even Mises, or Rothbard, or Hayek, or Ron, could have foreseen. Stuff none of us would have foreseen... these consequences could end up being very bad for a lot of people in the coming decades after we "won" and full free markets reigned throughout the earth... unchecked in our truest sense...

My guess is these consequences, and the victims of them, would bring a rebirth of Kenyesianism through a bizzaro version of Ron Paul and they would become the tireless irate minority keen on setting the brush fires of slavery... the pendulum would eventually swing back to the left and we'll be back where we started.

Decades of that would happen and the ideological reincarnation of Ron Paul/Free Markets would come back, become the new tireless minority, and swing the pendulum again.

As both economic sides start to "work" (in different ways for different people) different generations will embrace the methods for all sorts of different reasons, probably go too far with them, and let things happen that shouldn't... the same way the greatest generation and baby boomers embraced Kenyes. Every generation of embracement of ANY economic idea would probably cause problems and go too far (like now) and these problems would give rise to all sorts of tireless, irate, minorities keen on changing it back to "their" way.

This process, I think, will go on a long time... until one day humanity finds a perfect medium between ALL the schools of thought that the past has offered up throughout history and we'll finally develop the most efficient way to run our economies.



The way I spin it is... no matter what you want to say about us being right or wrong, WE ARE RIGHT FOR THIS POINT IN HISTORY, we are the force that will bring the pendulum back and that will ultimately start the fight all over again.

It doesn't even matter if our ideas are wrong... they are right.

[TheGrinch]

Obama's not a Keynesian, He's an American!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBrHkxqNT7s

[georgiaboy]

What if free market capitalism [...] destroys jobs through automation?


Then you should throw away your computer and cancel your internet service. Glad to see you're sticking by your position by not using automated spell-check. I just had to spend a few seconds of my time fixing your typo. Without that little job to do for ya who knows what I'd have been doing today.

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

What if free market capitalism naturally leads to extreme income inequality and destroys jobs through automatization?
What if Ben Bernanke and bankers are actually good guys and use fractional reserve banking to create jobs that were destroyed by free market capitalism?
What if gold is just a commodity?
What if Austrian economics is wrong?(And I don't say that Keynesians are right)
What if Ron Paul is a false messiah?
What if you are wrong?

This isn't Europe. What do I mean by this? Well, a Democratic Republic is more than just a political theory as every political theory devised reduces to an economic theory. In other words, in a Democratic Republic, if you don't like the social communism taking shape within the triangle created by the boundaries of Washington DC, New York City, and Boston, you are free to move to a more productive state.

In regards to checks and balances, with this method being the American way, Watkinsian socialism is the best solution for our problems today as it deals with the evils of both the capitalistic banking system and the threat of social communism -- the two biggest persecutors of the disadvantaged people in history. In order to breed both of these evils out of business, social communism should be implemented in the banking system solely and strictly. In other words, every employee working in the banking system from top to bottom makes exactly the same wage period -- no exceptions -- with no bonuses, perks, stock options, or added benefits whatsoever.
The capitalist banking system is never going to work for the disadvantaged people.
Likewise, social communism is never going to work for the disadvantaged people.
This will.

(You know you are really onto something when you can bring together every capitalist banking bastard and every social communist son of a bitch and make them laugh.)

[jbauer]

I'll take my chances with all you've said over what we have today. Even if we are wrong.....which my entire life has taught me we're not. Ron Paul didn't teach me the things he says. He just happens to be the only politician talking about them.


What if free market capitalism naturally leads to extreme income inequality and destroys jobs through automatization?
What if Ben Bernanke and bankers are actually good guys and use fractional reserve banking to create jobs that were destroyed by free market capitalism?
What if gold is just a commodity?
What if Austrian economics is wrong?(And I don't say that Keynesians are right)
What if Ron Paul is a false messiah?
What if you are wrong?

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

I've often asked myself this before and came to this conclusion...

IF we are wrong we are still RIGHT for this point in time in history.

Imagine a pendulum... thanks to Kenyes and a bunch of other events after the creation of the FED we have swung the pendulum ALL THE WAY to the left...

It has caused disastrous things to happen... the argument could be made it's killed tens of millions... or that it made it possible for amazing advancements in space technologies, and the history of the universe, and expanded things in places the free market wouldn't have seen as profitable even though they do have a value ABOVE money.
The problem is the Kenyesians went too far- they got cocky and went blind- they had no argument, no opposing side to their system and this caused them to go WAY too far with it and now they have brought the world to the brink.

Let us say in the coming decades we win out in the end... let us say we take control and swing it back... jobs come, prosperity in sues, freedom rings, and the people cheer for Ron Paul and Free Markets like God himself. Everyone in the world wakes up to the fact we had it totally right. Kenyesianism is phased away, almost for good, as people embrace Human Action over Central Banking...

The pendulum would now be all the way back to the right side...

But, I predict that there will be serious consequences to this... consequences that even Mises, or Rothbard, or Hayek, or Ron, could have foreseen. Stuff none of us would have foreseen... these consequences could end up being very bad for a lot of people in the coming decades after we "won" and full free markets reigned throughout the earth... unchecked in our truest sense...

My guess is these consequences, and the victims of them, would bring a rebirth of Kenyesianism through a bizzaro version of Ron Paul and they would become the tireless irate minority keen on setting the brush fires of slavery... the pendulum would eventually swing back to the left and we'll be back where we started.

Decades of that would happen and the ideological reincarnation of Ron Paul/Free Markets would come back, become the new tireless minority, and swing the pendulum again.

As both economic sides start to "work" (in different ways for different people) different generations will embrace the methods for all sorts of different reasons, probably go too far with them, and let things happen that shouldn't... the same way the greatest generation and baby boomers embraced Kenyes. Every generation of embracement of ANY economic idea would probably cause problems and go too far (like now) and these problems would give rise to all sorts of tireless, irate, minorities keen on changing it back to "their" way.

This process, I think, will go on a long time... until one day humanity finds a perfect medium between ALL the schools of thought that the past has offered up throughout history and we'll finally develop the most efficient way to run our economies.



The way I spin it is... no matter what you want to say about us being right or wrong, WE ARE RIGHT FOR THIS POINT IN HISTORY, we are the force that will bring the pendulum back and that will ultimately start the fight all over again.

It doesn't even matter if our ideas are wrong... they are right.

There is only one pendelum and it is the American dichotomy. Concerning oneself with the pendelums of false dichotomies not only got an enemy of the disadvantage people elected into office, but it is beginning to like he is going to get re-elected as well. Endless shallow issues about black and white doesn't even begin to cover what we have inherited from our ancestors. Male versus female is also a fallacy. In the end, our Founding Fathers established the true formal dichotomy as the ultimate existential natural law above all others.

[helmuth_hubener]

What if free market capitalism naturally leads to extreme income inequality and destroys jobs through automatization? Then if we implement free-market capitalism many jobs will be destroyed and there will be extreme income inequality.

Actually, I think this is exactly what would happen. I just don't think that would be a bad thing. Trillionaires and thousandaires, living together in harmony, working side by side to destroy millions of jobs every year. It's a beautiful, beautiful vision.


What if Ben Bernanke and bankers are actually good guys and use fractional reserve banking to create jobs that were destroyed by free market capitalism? Umm, then I guess if you're in favor of jobs being created, then you should put them on your Christmas Card list.

Actually, other than them being good guys, I think this is absolutely what they do. They create/preserve jobs which the free market wants to destroy. Is that a good things? Well, judge for yourself. Are there other people creating even more jobs than they are? Probably. Certainly more productive jobs, anyway. So if you're going to be fair, your Christmas card list may get long.


What if gold is just a commodity? If that were true, then... they world would probably be a lot like it is now.

Because actually, gold is just a commodity. Now it happens to be the commodity that free societies tend to choose as money (along with silver). I don't know if the "just" part of your statement was meant to rule that out. But anyway: yes. Gold is a commodity.


What if Austrian economics is wrong?(And I don't say that Keynesians are right) Well, then we would have to figure out what was wrong and change or improve upon it.

Incidentally, if you someone who is saying "Austrian economics is wrong" and then writing books about what exactly is wrong about it, then you are probably a type of person we know as.......

An Austrian Economist!!

Austrian economists are constantly working to improve the science and move it forward. That's what scientists do. Mises showed how Menger was wrong on some things. Rothbard showed how Mises was wrong here and there. Today, there are people showing or trying to show how Rothbard was wrong on various issues. So go to the Austrian Scholar's Conference -- that is the best place with the best scholarship and the most vigorous attempts to prove various pieces of Austrian Economics wrong or incomplete.


What if Ron Paul is a false messiah? Then he will probably not save us.



What if you are wrong? I almost certainly would never know it. Especially as I get older, the probability of my discovering my mistake plummets ever-lower. So, I will unfortunately just have to manage with whatever sub-ideal living state my false ideas and traditions bequeath me.

[twisted]

I'm not wrong. Those who are unfit to live as free men should live need to go ahead and perish, quit wasting resources.