Are you a libertarian?

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Libertarian's are wonderful at framing their arguments so that they are always the victim. At the end of the day private property rights are founded on violence just the same as state power.

Then please inform me who is the victim when one group of people takes from another to give to a third. The phone sitting to my right is my property. Who have I committed violence against in acquiring it?

No one gives a hoot about your phone. If you control the resources required for life and the people say F-that and 'violate' your private property rights the guns come out just the same as if you are defiant to the state.

You said private property rights are founded on violence, and I provided an example and asked you to explain how my ownership of my phone constitutes violence against anybody which you were unable to answer. It seems to me that you're unable to make any rational argument in favor of your position. You've engaged in deflection, posted "evidence" for your argument that in actuality completely undermines it, and even failed to make any logical theoretical rationale for your arguments.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

There are email exchanges where you can see the people sowing the mass destruction knew they were creating a disaster. But they did not care. They were going to get their fees, then run off to the Bahamas when the house of cards came down.

This is where the libertarian belief that personal self-interest and the interests of society will always be aligned by the "free hand" is exposed as idiocy. I'm a big believer in the free hand, but I just not THAT stupid.

Thus the need for external controls on markets.

And yet you willfully ignore the fact that the "invisible hand" had nothing to do with the crash in 2008. Massive amounts of regulation and a central bank controlling the economy, basically just to enrich government cronies, and somehow the invisible hand is to blame. It makes no sense.

 

[g5000]

I think the global derivatives crash of a few years ago is a great example of where libertarianism fails. Even that big fan of Ayn Rand, Alan Greenspan, had to admit its shortcomings after the crash.

I know libertarians believe it was the Greenspan and the Federal Reserve's low interest rates which caused the crash, but low interest rates were but one factor. And Greenspan's low interest rates were inspired by his libertarian beliefs. He was simply providing a helping hand to Wall Street. He gave them what they wanted.

At the root of the problem was the fact there was way too much money available for investment and too few good borrowers. It is as simple as that.

The middle men who facilitate the transfer of money from an investor to a borrower get fees for providing this service. It is in their interest to keep the process going as long as there are fees to be had.

And so when they ran out of good borrowers to lend money to, they began lowering the lending standards, and they used derivative products to transfer the subsequent higher risk to others.

It was the throwing out the window of the underwriting laws of the Universe which had been learned over centuries where libertarianism broke down.

The "free market" advocates were able to convince regulators to untie their hands and lower their capital reserve requirements. In addition, they were able to get the government to completely deregulate their derivative products, and thus anyone was allowed to bet on the success or failure of these investment products whether or not they had an insurable interest. That is simply astonishing! And it is still allowed to this day!

These gambling derivatives (credit default swaps) are where the "financial weapons of mass destruction" came in. These instruments of death were time bombs which would greatly amplify the fallout effects of the inevitable defaults that would come from lending people way too fucking much money who had no business borrowing money.

Whether the Fed lowered interest rates or not, the financial middle men of Wall Street were going to make sure that $75 trillion of investor money was moved around and got into the hands of borrowers, good and bad alike. They wanted those fees! Greenspan simply did his part to help Wall Street, in the belief they would self-regulate and not drink too much from the punch bowl.

How wrong he was.

WORLD ECONOMIC COLLAPSE AN HONEST MAN APOLOGISES Alan Greenspan's - YouTube

Nonsense. Greenspan was a follower of Ayn Rand years ago, but turned around and abandoned those beliefs long before he became the Fed Chairman, which in and of itself disqualifies him as a believer in free markets. Nor does artificially lowering interest rates have anything to do with libertarianism or free markets. Austro-libertarians believe that the market should set the interest rates, not a central banker or the government. As such, when savings are low, as they were and are, interest rates should be high. Artificially keeping them low is indeed meant to enrich government cronies, but that is not libertarian at all. It was libertarians who were Greenspan's biggest critics.

And nobody questions that artificially low interest rates were but one factor in the severity of the crash, but it is artificially low interest rates which led to malinvestment and the business cycle.

The market creates 0 percent interest, no money down car loans all the time. Even now.

To get people into mortgages, they created Pick-A-Pay loans, the most toxic of all loans, to keep the music going. They handed out 3 and 5 year ARMs to anyone with a pulse. And then they piled HELOCs on top of those! These types of loans had interest rates way, way below what a subprime borrower should have been paying even in the Fed's low interest environment. They circumvented the underwriting laws of the Universe.

Anything which got in the way of their fees, they eliminated. So Fed or no Fed, they would have and did eliminate higher interest rates to keep the music playing.

 

[g5000]

Look at it this way, Kevin. There are people whose interest rates should have been infinity, and yet they were suddenly able to buy expensive houses. These are people who NEVER should have been handed a pile of cash under ANY circumstances.

That's not the Fed. That's Wall Street all the way.

The government aided and abetted Wall Street by getting out of their way. Then the politicians took credit for all those people being able to buy houses. "Eh eh eh. We got out of the way and look what happens! All these losers and deadbeats get to buy houses. Good times!"

A few years later, KA-BOOM!

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

I think the global derivatives crash of a few years ago is a great example of where libertarianism fails. Even that big fan of Ayn Rand, Alan Greenspan, had to admit its shortcomings after the crash.

I know libertarians believe it was the Greenspan and the Federal Reserve's low interest rates which caused the crash, but low interest rates were but one factor. And Greenspan's low interest rates were inspired by his libertarian beliefs. He was simply providing a helping hand to Wall Street. He gave them what they wanted.

At the root of the problem was the fact there was way too much money available for investment and too few good borrowers. It is as simple as that.

The middle men who facilitate the transfer of money from an investor to a borrower get fees for providing this service. It is in their interest to keep the process going as long as there are fees to be had.

And so when they ran out of good borrowers to lend money to, they began lowering the lending standards, and they used derivative products to transfer the subsequent higher risk to others.

It was the throwing out the window of the underwriting laws of the Universe which had been learned over centuries where libertarianism broke down.

The "free market" advocates were able to convince regulators to untie their hands and lower their capital reserve requirements. In addition, they were able to get the government to completely deregulate their derivative products, and thus anyone was allowed to bet on the success or failure of these investment products whether or not they had an insurable interest. That is simply astonishing! And it is still allowed to this day!

These gambling derivatives (credit default swaps) are where the "financial weapons of mass destruction" came in. These instruments of death were time bombs which would greatly amplify the fallout effects of the inevitable defaults that would come from lending people way too fucking much money who had no business borrowing money.

Whether the Fed lowered interest rates or not, the financial middle men of Wall Street were going to make sure that $75 trillion of investor money was moved around and got into the hands of borrowers, good and bad alike. They wanted those fees! Greenspan simply did his part to help Wall Street, in the belief they would self-regulate and not drink too much from the punch bowl.

How wrong he was.

WORLD ECONOMIC COLLAPSE AN HONEST MAN APOLOGISES Alan Greenspan's - YouTube

Nonsense. Greenspan was a follower of Ayn Rand years ago, but turned around and abandoned those beliefs long before he became the Fed Chairman, which in and of itself disqualifies him as a believer in free markets. Nor does artificially lowering interest rates have anything to do with libertarianism or free markets. Austro-libertarians believe that the market should set the interest rates, not a central banker or the government. As such, when savings are low, as they were and are, interest rates should be high. Artificially keeping them low is indeed meant to enrich government cronies, but that is not libertarian at all. It was libertarians who were Greenspan's biggest critics.

And nobody questions that artificially low interest rates were but one factor in the severity of the crash, but it is artificially low interest rates which led to malinvestment and the business cycle.

The market creates 0 percent interest, no money down car loans all the time. Even now.

To get people into mortgages, they created Pick-A-Pay loans, the most toxic of all loans, to keep the music going. They handed out 3 and 5 year ARMs to anyone with a pulse. And then they piled HELOCs on top of those! These types of loans had interest rates way, way below what a subprime borrower should have been paying even in the Fed's low interest environment. They circumvented the underwriting laws of the Universe.

Anything which got in the way of their fees, they eliminated. So Fed or no Fed, they would have and did eliminate higher interest rates to keep the music playing.

In a free market there's no way to eliminate the interest rate, because the interest rate is set by savings. High savings means low interest rates, giving an incentive to spend and invest, whereas low savings means high interest rates, giving an incentive to save.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Look at it this way, Kevin. There are people whose interest rates should have been infinity, and yet they were suddenly able to buy expensive houses. These are people who NEVER should have been handed a pile of cash under ANY circumstances.

That's not the Fed. That's Wall Street all the way.

The government aided and abetted Wall Street by getting out of their way. Then the politicians took credit for all those people being able to buy houses. "Eh eh eh. We got out of the way and look what happens! All these losers and deadbeats get to buy houses. Good times!"

A few years later, KA-BOOM!

If you look at the massive amounts of regulations on the books, the Fed completely undermining the proper working of the market by creating malinvestment and moral hazard and see the free market or invisible hand or whatever you want to call it at work then there's not a thing I can say aside from your definition of free market has nothing to do with reality.

Which is not to say that Wall Street is innocent in any of this. There's a reason there's a revolving door between Wall Street and their alleged government overseers. People are corruptible, and there's a lot of money to be made for people willing to game the system. That's why they love the Fed though, because it helps them do so.

 

[g5000]

Look at it this way, Kevin. There are people whose interest rates should have been infinity, and yet they were suddenly able to buy expensive houses. These are people who NEVER should have been handed a pile of cash under ANY circumstances.

That's not the Fed. That's Wall Street all the way.

The government aided and abetted Wall Street by getting out of their way. Then the politicians took credit for all those people being able to buy houses. "Eh eh eh. We got out of the way and look what happens! All these losers and deadbeats get to buy houses. Good times!"

A few years later, KA-BOOM!

If you look at the massive amounts of regulations on the books, the Fed completely undermining the proper working of the market by creating malinvestment and moral hazard and see the free market or invisible hand or whatever you want to call it at work then there's not a thing I can say aside from your definition of free market has nothing to do with reality.

I saw a lot of dereguation followed by an astronomical amount of irresponsible and fraudulent behavior.

I agree the government's moral hazard has had a snowball effect. And even now the Fed is creating a massive bond bubble. No doubt about it. One day our banks will no longer be Too Big To Fail, they will be Too Big To Save.

Nevertheless, this is not an argument for no regulation. it is an argument for better regulation.

 

[g5000]

Example: Ban credit default swaps that do not have an insurable interest in the underlying instrument being insured.

That would and should be a regulation in place that to this day still is not.

 

[Zmrzlina]

Then please inform me who is the victim when one group of people takes from another to give to a third. The phone sitting to my right is my property. Who have I committed violence against in acquiring it?

No one gives a hoot about your phone. If you control the resources required for life and the people say F-that and 'violate' your private property rights the guns come out just the same as if you are defiant to the state.

You said private property rights are founded on violence, and I provided an example and asked you to explain how my ownership of my phone constitutes violence against anybody which you were unable to answer. It seems to me that you're unable to make any rational argument in favor of your position. You've engaged in deflection, posted "evidence" for your argument that in actuality completely undermines it, and even failed to make any logical theoretical rationale for your arguments.

Don't be so quick to pat yourself on the back. Your telephone, toothbrush, family heirlooms and the clothes on your back are all examples of possessions. My argument was always that the control of resources and land is founded upon violence, don't believe me go ask a Native American.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Look at it this way, Kevin. There are people whose interest rates should have been infinity, and yet they were suddenly able to buy expensive houses. These are people who NEVER should have been handed a pile of cash under ANY circumstances.

That's not the Fed. That's Wall Street all the way.

The government aided and abetted Wall Street by getting out of their way. Then the politicians took credit for all those people being able to buy houses. "Eh eh eh. We got out of the way and look what happens! All these losers and deadbeats get to buy houses. Good times!"

A few years later, KA-BOOM!

If you look at the massive amounts of regulations on the books, the Fed completely undermining the proper working of the market by creating malinvestment and moral hazard and see the free market or invisible hand or whatever you want to call it at work then there's not a thing I can say aside from your definition of free market has nothing to do with reality.

I saw a lot of dereguation followed by an astronomical amount of irresponsible and fraudulent behavior.

I agree the government's moral hazard has had a snowball effect. And even now the Fed is creating a massive bond bubble. No doubt about it. One day our banks will no longer be Too Big To Fail, they will be Too Big To Save.

Nevertheless, this is not an argument for no regulation. it is an argument for better regulation.

So I think we can both agree that regulation, at least as it stands now, is simply served up by the government, in cahoots with Wall Street cronies, to make it easier for them to game the system, yes? I believe our disagreement is over the fact that you want better regulations as you say, whereas I think it's wrongheaded to expect that the people writing any such regulations won't be co-opted to help their cronies.

Would you say that's a fair assessment?

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

No one gives a hoot about your phone. If you control the resources required for life and the people say F-that and 'violate' your private property rights the guns come out just the same as if you are defiant to the state.

You said private property rights are founded on violence, and I provided an example and asked you to explain how my ownership of my phone constitutes violence against anybody which you were unable to answer. It seems to me that you're unable to make any rational argument in favor of your position. You've engaged in deflection, posted "evidence" for your argument that in actuality completely undermines it, and even failed to make any logical theoretical rationale for your arguments.

Don't be so quick to pat yourself on the back. Your telephone, toothbrush, family heirlooms and the clothes on your back are all examples of possessions. My argument was always that the control of resources and land is founded upon violence, don't believe me go ask a Native American.

Yes, Native Americans had their property rights violated by the U.S. government. No libertarian is going to disagree with that. That, however, is once again an example of state violence, not violence from capitalism.

 

[Unkotare]

Seems like it would be boring to work in a library all day.

 

[Zmrzlina]

You said private property rights are founded on violence, and I provided an example and asked you to explain how my ownership of my phone constitutes violence against anybody which you were unable to answer. It seems to me that you're unable to make any rational argument in favor of your position. You've engaged in deflection, posted "evidence" for your argument that in actuality completely undermines it, and even failed to make any logical theoretical rationale for your arguments.

Don't be so quick to pat yourself on the back. Your telephone, toothbrush, family heirlooms and the clothes on your back are all examples of possessions. My argument was always that the control of resources and land is founded upon violence, don't believe me go ask a Native American.

Yes, Native Americans had their property rights violated by the U.S. government. No libertarian is going to disagree with that. That, however, is once again an example of state violence, not violence from capitalism.

Another piss poor argument of the libertarian ideology. Provided an example of a failure of capitalism? Explain it away as not being in line with libertarian Utopianism. Violence against the Native wasn't all done by the state. It could be as simple as an individual putting up a fence and shooting everyone who crosses it. That is how all private property is enforced, through the threat of violence.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Nope, thank god. I am a middle of the road American that wishes to see America remain a first world country. Losertrians wish for a weak, pointless African future for our country!

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Don't be so quick to pat yourself on the back. Your telephone, toothbrush, family heirlooms and the clothes on your back are all examples of possessions. My argument was always that the control of resources and land is founded upon violence, don't believe me go ask a Native American.

Yes, Native Americans had their property rights violated by the U.S. government. No libertarian is going to disagree with that. That, however, is once again an example of state violence, not violence from capitalism.

Another piss poor argument of the libertarian ideology. Provided an example of a failure of capitalism? Explain it away as not being in line with libertarian Utopianism. Violence against the Native wasn't all done by the state. It could be as simple as an individual putting up a fence and shooting everyone who crosses it. That is how all private property is enforced, through the threat of violence.

It was all state-sanctioned violence, actually. Otherwise the state would have prosecuted people for violating the property rights of the natives.

Yes, I suppose it's possible to characterize private property as saying that it is enforced by the use of defensive violence, but that would be contrasted with state actions which are always offensive violence.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Haven't touched Weed in ohhh about 10 years and I don't even own a video game system..try again wannabe hippy.

Hippy?

I thought I was a bourgeoisie establishment corporate shill?

 

[eflatminor]

It's not the denial of coercion not involving violence, merely the fact that to "correct" this coercion would require an act of violence against somebody else.

So is it the position of libertarians that nothing should be done about coercion that doesn't directly involve a gun pointed at someone's head?

If someone is being forced to do something against their will by an entity other than government, and that is something you say a libertarian would support, I'd like to know about that. Please provide an example.

So...you got nothing? Hmm...

 

[LoneLaugher]

.

I like having them around. They cause me to question my own left-leaning or right-leaning beliefs.

They don't have a chance at national office at any meaningful level, but that doesn't mean they can't contribute to discourse.

For those who actually listen, anyway.

.

When a fence sitter wants to stay on the fence.....this is what you get.

 

[kaz]

The reason I am not a full blown libertarian is because I know that human beings are not perfect and will often follow the path of least resistance. They will cheat, lie, and steal if that is easier in the short term.

I agree that people will "cheat, lie and steal." What I question is your solution of needing government to stop that. Now here's the tricky part, think about this. Government is made up of ... what? Didn't think that one through, did you?

When the light bulb goes off, you'll get libertarian...

 

[LoneLaugher]

Libertarians are narco-terrorist shit suckers who masquerade as conservatives but are in fact second cousins to Bolshevicks.

Sure, so I'm a terrorist then, Rab? Surely you jest? I am a libertarian, just not strict one.

Just so you know, being a libertarian does not mean we advocate complete anarchy. It does not mean we use violence to spread that ideal.

We oppose government involvement in things we can do ourselves. We believe a person has a right to their own property, thoughts, and ideas. The state is the enemy in regards to those things. We fight for control of who we are as people, we rebel against the government definitions of what an individual should be. We think government should protect us, not the rest of the world. We think government is here to serve us, not us them.

We advocate individual rights, not entitlements. We advocate ultimate freedoms, as they were construed to be by the founders. The two party system is corrupt. They no longer embrace ideals or goals, but emotion and exploitation.

We are libertarians, not terrorists or anarchists.

I think I love this thread.