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saturday night live,barack obama,rahm emmanuel,john mccain SNL: What happens when you make Barack Obama angry?
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I dare you to actually read the bible you preach to others.
http://www.amazon.com/SOCIALISM-Lib-Works-Ludwig-Mises/dp/0913966630
http://mises.org/books/socialism.pdf
Try this FAQ written by real, honest to God liberals, rather than a book by one of their most extreme critics (which, by my eye is talking about real socialists, not a 21st Century American liberal).
While you're at it, go read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, and anything at all about modern Keynesian theories, or for that matter, anything by Paul Krugman or Brad DeLong.
Just try to read some goddamn thing that doesn't reinforce your prejudices. Realize that not only have the people at the Mises Institute not won the popularity contest, they haven't even come close to winning the intellectual argument, either.
In the meantime, try and put a comment appropriate to the video. This is humor about the personality of the President, and has little if anything to do with ideology. I invoked the word socialism in several other videos I posted today, challenge me on that there.
You want a high-minded discussion of economics to rant about, this video would be a better place to comment, though it's socialist-free already.
I posted this here because I don't think theres anything funny about 650,000 people losing their jobs last month. Theres a time for jokes but now isn't that time.
>> ^NetRunner
*blocked
There is little doubt in my mind you will not read what I have posted, as it is a 598 page intellectual monster; but I have looked at the 11 page FAQ you linked, and not even past the first section I have had to stomach conjecture.
I do not know what reading is like for you, but when an author makes a lot of unsubstantiated claims, it is really hard for me to get through it. This is the same reason it is hard for me to ever finish reading the bible. Every time I sit down and try, I am left with more questions than I began with because bold claims are constantly made, yet never explained. How can you stand to read Kangas with a critical mind when he raises more questions than he answers?
The opening section of Kangas' FAQ is "What is liberalism?" Yet after only 4 short paragraphs I was left with more than five times as many questions as the section attempted to answer.
1. "...commercial crimes like fraud, copyright infringement, insider trading, breach of contract, price gouging, etc. Without these laws, the market would function either poorly or not at all."
2. "if we did not have copyright laws discouraging people from pirating all their software, computer programmers could not even make a profit, and would have no incentive to produce."
3. "Yet another function of government is to defend the free market -- for example, with police and military forces."
4. "A dramatic example is Eisenhower's Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, which authorized the creation of over 40,000 miles of interstate highway. These highways interconnected, accelerated and expanded the U.S. economy, with profound results."
5. "Much of this infrastructure was too huge and expensive to be funded by private companies, and languished undeveloped until the public sector stepped in."
These statements only raise questions, they do not explain anything. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with them, but if a uneducated reader came across it they would either have to take them on faith, or be riddled with questions: Why does the market perform poorly without those laws? Why can't programmers make a profit without copyright? Why does the government defend the free market? How did the highways accelerate the economy? Why couldn't private companies fund this infrastructure?
Moreso, they have nothing to do with answering the question "what is liberalism?" If you listed those five claims and asked a person to guess what the author was trying to support, would anyone guess "the definition of liberalism?" Why did he even include these assertions when they do not support the heading; and how is that not intellectually frustrating to you? Its not just conjecture, its bad writing.
I do not enjoy nonfiction which requires faith, because the claims are so intellectually impotent they do not arouse in me any desire to see what the author has to say next. I can force myself through the 11 pages of 10th-grade-level writing from an online pundit such as Kangas, but why should I when the question has already been forcefully answered almost 82 years ago in 224 pages of masterful prose by a genius in the field?
I mean, here are both authors answering the same question:
http://mises.org/liberal/isec1.asp
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/ShortFAQ.htm#liberalism
Just compare the force of writing for yourself.
*grabs imstellar, and tosses him out the window*
I do not enjoy nonfiction which requires faith, because the claims are so intellectually impotent they do not arouse in me any desire to see what the author has to say next. I can force myself through the 11 pages of 10th-grade-level writing from an online pundit such as Kangas, but why should I when the question has already been forcefully answered almost 82 years ago in 224 pages of masterful prose by a genius in the field?
I mean, here are both authors answering the same question:
http://mises.org/liberal/isec1.asp
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/ShortFAQ.htm#liberalism
Just compare the force of writing for yourself.
Nonfiction which requires faith? Neither of those links employ science. They are both intellectual claims, one much more thorough than the other. You can argue in favour of one or the other but don't stand there dismissing one because of "faith".
As an example, in section 2-4, it says:
"It is a matter of common knowledge that national and municipal enterprises have, on the hole, failed, that they are expensive and inefficient, and that they have to be subsidized out of tax funds just to maintain themselves in operation."
Where is this claim backed up? In fact, I'll make the claim nationalised healthcare is highly successful. Take the WHO's World Health Report 2000. Overall rankings are at about page 200.
I know the Mises piece was written in 1927 and it shows. Pages 90-95 detail the argument that monopolies are of no concern, that they are undamaging and can't ultimately manifest. He makes the argument (note: argument) that this holds as long as there is no monopoly on land or a resource. I can say the same thing you did about this raising many more questions. What about entry barriers to the market? The desktop OS market has a huge entry barrier - with Windows with the vast majority of the market share it makes it incredibly difficult to promote your own OS, not because your product isn't as good itself but because the usefulness of your product depends on how much market share it has.
What about situations where there is a high up-front cost like running a cable to a house, but running a larger cable costs a tiny fraction more? With private ownership of the cable, the only way for competition to exist is if they run another cable with that high up-front cost. For x competitors you need to run x cables when simply one large cable could perform the task at a fraction of the cost. This is why you see ISPs subsidised for laying a cable and then regulation forcing the renting out of it to other ISPs, or total unbundling, or other schemes involving last-mile broadband.
Those were just as quick examples. There are dozens of ways in which reality breaks things. There is no general case for the economy.
Thus, my point being, the large text is just another argument. It it not definitive, it is not empirical, it should be shrouded in discussion like everything else. If you regard the two earlier linked writings as arguing from different fundamental bases then you are employing a double standard.
And don't even start implying force of writing and eloquence means a better argument. It just means it's a better read.
Regarding the specific issues brought up, those were examples. What has been discussed about them here is a drop in the ocean.
>> ^rychan:
Yeah, what the hell are you guys talking about in the comments? I'm so confused.
...but damn, I love SNL. They nail the humor. This vid was funny.
ill be happy to read any of your published, royalty earning works on socialism.
oh... guess im done.
Sometimes I think life would be easier if I was opaque.
and by the way, i seriously thought the comments here were a joke. i laughed so hard. (i mean jesus! people)
Last time AIG demanded more money, the administration just gave it to them.
Wow I'm slow. I just realized no one is pointing out that you make fun of "christians", yet all you do is endlessly quote from books as if they were gospel.
^I'm not calling you a de jure christian, I'm calling you a de facto christian in order to draw a parallel between the thought processes and conversational tendencies of two groups; i.e. both hold their beliefs on faith alone and react to outside criticism with denial and anger.
Sometimes I think life would be easier if I was opaque.
If i use buzz words and intersperse my sentences with foreign equivalents, i SHOULD, by my calculations, appear a lot more intelligent than i probably am!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR1Ha-8yYbg
Can someone watch that and tell me if it's this video?
>> ^dannym3141
If i use buzz words and intersperse my sentences with foreign equivalents, i SHOULD, by my calculations, appear a lot more intelligent than i probably am!
sift happens.