List of steps/reasons to help explain economic situation to others

[Xerographica]

No, both are simplistic rationale. What does "morally" mean? And "negative consequences" to WHOM? I'm not an aggregate thinking collectivist when it comes to "the economy".

Instead, we could try:

C. There is no requirement, let alone compelling reason, to tax individual Citizens, and there never was.
D. Individual Citizens alone own the country - all others can pay to play.
E. No individual Citizen is entitled to another individual Citizen's goods or services. (Ron Paul's standard line, which I wholeheartedly endorse)

"Morally" simply means whether you consider an action to be right or wrong. So I really don't see the difference between A, C, D and E. You're saying that it's wrong to take somebody's property. That's a deontological argument. A consequentialist argument would evaluate the action based on the consequences. I steal a loaf of bread from a billionaire to save the life of a starving child. Most people would consider my action to be right because the consequences were positive.

Your initial response seemed to be primarily consequential...but your follow up seems deontological. If you argue that taxes are never justified...then there's absolutely no need to offer any consequentialist argument. It's like debating whether following the 10 commandments has positive consequences. A commandment is a commandment...the consequences are irrelevant.

People justify taxes using consequentialist arguments...so I could care less about deontological arguments. My goal is to help people understand how the invisible hand works...which has absolutely nothing to do with deontological arguments. So you're really in the wrong forum category if you want to debate morality. Economics is completely value neutral.

At no time did I argue that "we should get rid of taxes". Where did you get that idea? Did you even read what I wrote?

I don't believe private individual Citizens should be taxed (on anything) in the first place - ever.

Uh, yeah, I read your initial post several times and still struggled to understand it. Generally my reading comprehension skills are fairly decent...but perhaps not good enough to unravel your argument. Feel free to try again.

Here's how I see the problem. The large majority of people believe the market fails in at least a few areas. The only exceptions are anarcho-capitalists. They believe the market can supply everything. In order to discern the extent of market failure...I believe we should simply allow taxpayers to directly allocate their taxes. Their tax allocation decisions would reveal supply shortages in the private sector. For example...if people choose to give their taxes to the dept of education...then we would be able to discern how much of an education shortage there was in the private sector. Because if there were adequate levels of education available in the private sector...then why would taxpayers choose to spend any of their taxes on public education?

[Steven Douglas]

I read your initial post several times and still struggled to understand it. Generally my reading comprehension skills are fairly decent...but perhaps not good enough to unravel your argument. Feel free to try again.

In a nutshell:

For example...if people choose to give their taxes to the dept of education...
...if there were adequate levels of education available in the private sector...then why would taxpayers choose...

The question begged above centers around your assumption that "people" (Citizens) = "taxpayers" (as you interchanged the terms freely, conflating the two as if they were one and all-inclusive.

Some people are taxpayers, but not all taxpayers are people.

Humans acting individually in the market are not the only entities that exist and operate in the market. Thus, if you had a market where individuals (free and natural Citizens) with unalienable rights were not taxed at all, that would NOT mean that there were no taxes, or "taxpayers". And that could be modeled, with consequentialist "value neutral" economic arguments made for that as well.

In its simplest form, my logically positive assertion that an economy -- a free market -- does not, nor did it ever, require taxes from human individual Citizens to exist, is true on its face. There is nothing to disagree with on economic grounds (economics can entertain anything at all, giving answers that are strictly economic), so any exception you might take to that must be on moral grounds -- just as your proposal is.

Economics is completely value neutral.

Another word for value neutral is amoral. As I said in another thread, economists could, in vacuo, model the consequential effects of mass genocide -- with focus strictly on the economic consequences only. That would also be "value neutral". The "scientific-ish" nature of economics provides economists and the policy makers who rely on them a way of washing their own hands. Because, after all, policy makers are only interested in doing what is good for "the economy" (never mind whose, specifically).

What economists, policymakers and you yourself fail to acknowledge are all the normative underpinnings to economics theories, models and conclusions that actually influence policy makers into enacting policy based on putative outcomes. Truly amoral economists like to feign indifference to this, as they flatter themselves into believing that they are strictly logical positivists. After all, the reasoning goes, we aren't telling anyone to steal from anyone else, or to pull any triggers. That's not even in our scope of reasoning. Those are matters for the policy makers to decide. We are merely modeling economic consequences (e.g. "'good' for the economy if you do x, but "bad" for 'the economy' if you do y"). :::: wash, rinse, pat pat pat :::

You seem to see yourself as making a consequentialist argument only, while ignoring the fact that you are the one actually making a policy proposal (always normative, never positive, never value neutral). You are not merely entertaining a "what-if" scenario. You have started with a SHOULD/OUGHT, as you invoke a normative question, but then gloss over this fact as you attempt to move quickly onto a consequentialist rationale (the argument in favor of your proposal). That is anything but value neutral, because someone with a truly value neutral point of view would not care one way or the other who made what decisions with regard to taxes.

My goal is to help people understand how the invisible hand works...

Hardly. You are interested in illustrating how you believe the invisible hand would work if the policy proposal you are advocating (your primary objective) was enacted. The invisible hand is always at work, regardless of any policy proposal. Your proposal is not required to illustrate that, or to help people understand in any general way how the invisible hand works.

[cbc58]

please don't hijack this thread. if you folks want to discuss monetary theory and moral responsibility, please start your own discussion somewhere else. i was putting together a list and am simply looking for help with that - specific steps that are likely to happen.

[Steven Douglas]

please don't hijack this thread. if you folks want to discuss monetary theory and moral responsibility, please start your own discussion somewhere else. i was putting together a list and am simply looking for help with that - specific steps that are likely to happen.

You're right, and I apologize.

Your objective is one that I share and think about constantly, but it as daunting as the economy is complex, even without all the rampant distortion and corruption. I believe that's because it is human nature to think primarily in terms of what affects people personally, and what they can have influence or control over personally, first and foremost. How do you explain moral responsibility as it relates to monetary theory when the very concept of money is taken for granted, as if it has no beginning, middle or end, but all just magically appears from somebody else's pocket in a closed loop that has always existed.

To make matters worse, most people cannot even conceive of invisible forces that could erode something that they can see and hold in their hand. If someone holds a wad of bills in their pocket, they will not change their physical form even if it is held for decades. So it is safe, it is thought, so long as it stays in their possession. The cause of price changes are always and obviously external to them. Price changes reflect changes in the value of other things, goods and services only. Currency is almost never a suspect. It rarely occurs to most people that the value of the currency itself could even be subject to manipulation. So they walk into a grocery store, see a rise in prices, and the simplest among us will blame the merchants for simply being too greedy. All of them. Those with a little more critical thinking capacity will extend themselves out a little more. For example, some will see the price of oil can affect the price of many other things. So, like Steve Martin in "The Jerk", they will look for a singular attribution, a single villain, as they blame something else...



But all of this "reasoning" is still only in an Alpha and Omega closed loop currency system, with no beginning, middle or end -- and no suspicion that the value of whatever is in their pocket also has a price, and a relative value that is being manipulated and controlled by others.

Getting people to understand what is really happening with money is like getting many to believe in fairy tales. So even if you can get someone interested enough to hear how fiat currency originated and works today, you might as well be talking about astrophysics, quantum physics, evolution, or the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, or something else that is just as big and completely out of their grasp. It may be interesting, debatable, or somewhat comprehensible if stated simply enough -- but once it is seen as beyond their immediate sphere of influence or control, eyes glaze over as we focus instead on "the real problem" (e.g., back to who we can really blame, or what to do about it personally).

The specific steps of lessons taught are meaningless without specific steps taken by the would-be teacher:

1) Know your audiences, and don't get frustrated. One size does not fit all. People can only grow from where they really are - not from where others think they ought to be by now. Science can be taught to the 3rd grade, 8th grade, high school and college and beyond. The very best you can do is plant seeds that cultivate and alter current understanding. Here a little, there a little.

2) You're basically writing a syllabus. Separate your lessons/messages. Keep them all simple, focused, and most of all separate. Economics theory and moral responsibility can fill an entire library. You're not going to condense that down to anything that is readily to be poured into anyone's mind. There are no magic bullets, no one condensed lesson that will serve as a panacea for understanding. If your objective is to want people to eat an elephant of understanding, you're going to have to dice it up into smaller pieces and make each part palatable, and always leaving them wanting more.

3) Lay the primary foundations first. You can't even talk economic theory or have it mean anything to anyone without a solid foundation. We can quote directly from the Federal Reserve's own publications, things which I think should cause anyone to gasp, but it's only because there is a foundational understanding. The Fed really can tell much of the plain truth about what it is doing in plain sight. But that's only because a) foundations of money are poorly understood, without which b) the moral implications are not grasped, and most importantly, c) The Fed is the incumbent, already sitting on a demigod's throne, with an air of authority, under color of law.

Break that laundry list up and get each message honed.

[idiom]

[Xerographica]

Steven Douglas, here's my reply...Xero and Douglas: The Invisible Hand

[Xerographica]

please don't hijack this thread. if you folks want to discuss monetary theory and moral responsibility, please start your own discussion somewhere else. i was putting together a list and am simply looking for help with that - specific steps that are likely to happen.

You bumped your own thread...not just once...but twice. Who does that? So I figured I'd try and throw you a life line and bumped your thread by asking a simple question. And now you say that your thread is being hijacked. Can you please explain to me how the discussion between Douglas and myself prevents other people from responding to your thread? How could you...a person who bumped their own thread twice...fail to understand that the discussion between Douglas and myself bumps your thread...which gives it more exposure...which increases the likelihood that somebody will respond with the answer that you are looking for?

The answer that you're not looking for is that you clearly do not understand basic economics. So please don't waste your time trying to explain the economic situation to others. First read Smith, Bastiat, Hayek, Mises and Friedman...and then go out and try to explain the economic situation to others. Hopefully by then you should realize that the monetary policy is simply a symptom of allowing a small group of government planners to spend more than $3.5 trillion dollars.

In other words...once you can truly understand why socialism fails...then go out and explain the economic situation to others. But maybe I'm wrong...maybe you do understand why socialism fails? If so...please feel free to prove it.

[cbc58]

Xerographica - I appreciate your attempt to try and help my thread gain views - but your responses are not on point. I am looking for simplistic step-by-step scenario responses - not chapter-and-verse economic theory or moral conduct beliefs. Feel free to discuss those elsewhere but please don't do it here.

I talk to a few people who understand that things are bad and getting worse - but we all can't figure out what will likely happen as it gets really serious. People keep saying the fed will print, print, print - but when they go to devalue.. what is likely to happen if you have any money or investments denominated in dollars? I get the impression that people think this will just build up and break at some point - but when that happens - what really happens?

I was driving around my state yesterday (NC) and everything was humming along - people traveling, working, buying stuff - no real signs of any economic problems. I can not imagine everything grinding to a halt or the economy being reset so that it is based on a sound currency because so much of the economic activity I see is based on people spending money on "stuff".