r3volution 3.0
Member

I see much more potential for civil unrest in the US than China, even with Hong Kong. BREXIT is relatively unimportant. The UK (or England, as it will be after Scotland and N. Ireland secede) is a sad little island on the edge of civilization. It would have been better if they'd remained in the EU, but they've now become a nearly failed state, which should not qualify for EU membership if they were applying today, so let them go (or push them out), I say. As for Europe, the EU will survive, because there are still enough Germans and French who remember the last two wars and don't want to refight them.

Aren't you always talking about civil war in the US? ..and you're not even a psychotic. What, specifically, were the Chinese concessions?

Listen to his podcasts from the summer and fall of 2015, if he hasn't deleted them.

The whole world is heading into a devastating recession. The difference between China and the US is that their political system can survive this, while our's cannot. He undid his own tariffs in exchange for meaningless promises; he blinked.

We're Britain in the 1950s, delusional about our power in the world. China is a giant fucking gorillla, like the US 70 years ago. The US just blinked in a major way (because the US is about to go into recession and can't afford this nonsense). Historians of the future will note that agreement as the highwater mark of the Pax Americana. You wait.

That would be the PR release, designed to persuade the goobers that it was all worthwhile. The reality is that this is total capitulation on the part of the United States. I'm shocked, actually; I thought the combination of Trumps' stubborn idiocy and the impending election would ensure that nothing happened. Someone who actually understands what's happening must have explained it to Trump with the right crayons.

He undid some of the tariffs that he previously implemented, which is good; these should never have been implemented in the first place. But what did he get in exchange? A vague promise to buy some soybeans at some point in the future? LOL

By halving tariffs in exchange for nothing?

Beijing just made Washington blink.

lulz That's because we have the greatest, healthiest, biggerest economy ever, of course.

Lew is trash. He was never a libertarian, never an Austrian.

That's correct. Theft, despite being highly popular, is immoral and destructive.

...a fine example of the identity of the populist left and populist right. The essential question, when there's not some great uproar about bathroom matters, is: who can we rob? This is, lol, as you might imagine, a popular idea.

Yep Only an idiot would have believed that. To be fair, it's possible that Tom's an idiot. I've been assuming that he isn't an idiot, in which case he has no excuse.

As to where this is all heading: Liquidation, i.e. the reallocation of presently misallocated resources, is the only solution, but this is politically impossible, as the Fed's only true mandate is to reelect politicians, and politicians who preside over depressions don't get reelected. So, as always, the Fed is trying to provide a "soft landing," i.e. print enough to allow a tad of liquidation (i.e. future growth), but without serious unemployment (= lost elections). But they always fail, because what they're trying to do (control, in a rational way, the most important price in an immensely complex market economy) is impossible. All the Fed can do is print so much that the current debt problem is delayed., or print somewhat less, and then react to the recession by printing that larger amount anyway. Anyway, recession or not, Fed reacting quickly enough or not to present stresses, the long-term situation is that the Fed is going to have to either allow total liquidation (politically impossible - see above), or go absolutely apeshit with money printing, to the point that last episode's QE will be not noticeable on a chart. And have no doubt; the Fed can and, if politically necessary, will, monetize every fucking dollar denominated liability on planet Earth. Hyperinflation is preferable, politically, to liquidation.

That would be Tom Woods? If so, he should be unceremoniously ejected from the party as a notorious Trump shill, which is what he was last election. ...and he is, AFAIK, totally unrepentant. That said, I've heard good things about the Mises Caucus. If the LP is ever to efficiently reorganize itself, it must be around the ideas of Mises, which included basic civility.

I've never found the build quality of a bikini a serious impediment to my earnings.

Now, I myself love the USMCA. ...especially the part where were export our socialism to Mexico by way of forcing them to adopt a minimum wage and support unionism. Make The World Red Again (so GM can pay those union pensions)!

Turn left and follow the officer to the remagafication facility.

For anyone who is a libertarian, the LP is obviously, infinitely, better than either of the major parties. Whenever partisans of either of those leftist parties attack the LP, the goal is to push some votes one way or the other. It's transparent and dumb.

Market actors are determining the fate of the world (within the constraints imposed by jackass politicians). Meanwhile, those jackass politicians, who ultimately caused 100% of the problem, fight over who will get the blame. So, same ol same ol... P.S. Really, they should be be fighting over getting out of dodge; whichever party's in power when this blows is done.

The event which caused the Fed to lose their minds and suddenly restart QE was the breaking of the normal short term debt markets. It started in repo markets, with something called asset backed commercial paper: ^^^not normal The ABS market is about lending to lower quality borrowers against collateral.

Aggression means the violation of property rights. What constitutes aggression therefore depends on the distribution of property rights. Your objection, to the extent that it has any merit, is: "what if the distribution of property rights is unjust?" Rather than debate the legitimacy of the present distribution of property rights, I will tell you that the essence of the market economy is that, given any initial distribution of property rights, the principle of voluntary exchange will ensure that property rights end up in the right hands in the long term: i.e. in the hands in which those factors of production will be most efficiently used to increase social welfare.

My pleasure Nope, and my French is terrible to non-existent, but you pick a few things up along the way reading the history.

Nationalism is alive; that's all.

He was immensely rich on his own account. No doubt he borrowed money from time to time, as everyone did, but I know of no evidence that any of his creditors, or any others, played any noteworthy role in the revolution. As for muskets, there's nothing unusual about a large arsenal in the capital, and the Hotel des Invalides was a state owned building designed for military purposes; it served primarily as a military hospital (hotel in French just means house, ala House of Commons, not hotel in the English sense). A general point to keep in mind when thinking about early revolutions is that states in this period had very little in the way of internal security. What might appear by modern standards as shocking negligence on the part of the authorities in terms securing important places, supplies, and people was typical of that era. For the Russian issues, I'll take a look at that and get back to you. P.S. On "hotel," you'll also frequently come across action at the Hotel de Ville during the revolution. This was the town hall ("house of the village," or something along those lines).

The market economy (aka free market, aka laissez faire) is a system in which property rights are transferred only on a voluntary basis (rather than by coercion). This system is sometimes called capitalism, but that term is essentially derogative, meant to imply that the purpose of the system is to unjustly enrich the owners of capital at the expense of everyone else. The term derives, I assume (don't quote me on this), from Marx's "Das Kapital." This is the way in which someone like PRB (or Lenin) would use the term; and this is nonsense. The purpose of the market economy is to maximize the production of consumer goods and services and to distribute them on the basis of merit; i.e. the more you produce, the more you get to consume. Greed is not a feature of "capitalism." It's a feature of human beings. The great virtue of "capitalism" is that it channels greed in such a way as to benefit society. Adam Smith called this the "invisible hand" (i.e. no one greedy person in the market is seeking the social good, but he achieves it anyway, simply by pursuing his own good).

Nonetheless, accepting a clearly lopsided deal is likely to be a political problem. Trump's whole brand is basically "WINNING!" There are plenty of Dems, and even a few lingering free trade GOPers, who would be happy to identify a losing deal as such. In other words, I don't see Trump accepting a (significant) deal either, but we can expect plenty of hope-based hype.

Depends on its spinnability