Reddit mentions: The best economic policy & development books

> Your first point is woefully absurd to the point of idiocy. All of those people have been ruthlessly scrutinized and strawmanned. There are too many respectable people who talk highly of those men to believe that they actually hung out with Nazis.

This isn't an actual argument; I'm not sure if it's a logical fallacy or just a statement of nothing, but in any case, the Ron Paul letters thing is very well documented.

>The Mises institute is an economics think tank not a political one. But what I’m talking about is what would a good state look like rather than a bad state. That’s a metric we are using not some mental gymnastics to justify a state. A good state acts more like the free market than a bad state does. To just say “Public libraries are illegitimate.” That’s fine, but they still exist as they do and I am still interested in how they conduct themselves.

The problem here is that you approach it in a way which fundamentally legitimizes the claim of the State. "I don't really think you own this property legitimately, but I certainly support your right to act like you do so" is extraordinarily weak sauce. Additionally, it ignores the extent to which the State is responsible for generating the problems you seek state governance to resolve. Criminality, for example, is largely the result of State policies, both insofar as most crimes are not property crimes and therefore not crimes but rather justifications for the expansive use of state violence on marginalized populations, and also in that state policy creates economic winners and losers which, in turn, increase the propensity of those losers to turn to criminality to sustain themselves. As long as the State exists, the things that justify the State's power will exist, because the State is largely responsible for generating them. Not entirely, but largely.

>Moving on, you are forced to interact with people when your wealth is violently appropriated to pay for the subsidization of people through the programs I presented before.

Okay, but far, far, far more of my wealth is violently appropriated to pay for programs which benefit white American citizens; and far, far, far more of my wealth is appropriated to pay for the salaries of the violent thugs who enforce those laws. And again, the easier solution is that we simply stop violently appropriating people's wealth, not that we reduce immigrant communities because they might increase the absolute amount of wealth violently appropriated. And furthermore, increased immigration, while possibly increasing absolute welfare costs, almost certainly reduces relative welfare costs, both in that immigrants disproportionately do not benefit from the welfare state (particularly illegals who very typically aren't able to benefit from it at all but are still subject to taxation) and in that, by paying taxes, they increase the size of the pie from which the government violently appropriates its funds.

>The one third of second wave immigrants went home because they didn’t like it in America and went back home for whatever reason. That doesn’t happen anymore due to subsidies and artificially granted due to the policies of the USCIS.

So the success of an immigration system is judged by the amount of people who don't stay here? That doesn't seem like a relevant metric at all; furthermore, the gap between the United States and the rest of the world in quality of life is much larger now than it was during earlier waves of immigration. Even if you're from a relatively developed country, like the U.K. or France, the standard of living for someone falling at the same point of the income distribution is typically going to be significantly higher in the United States. When there aren't exogenous political factors which compel immigration, like an ongoing civil war or something like that, economic factors tend to be the most important factor driving immigration. If you're better off in America than anywhere else, there's no reason to leave. That speaks to the relative success of the American model, compared to other countries, in generating wealth and standard of living. It doesn't speak to failures within our immigration system.

>We already have an agreement on the welfare state, so please tell me how someone sponsoring their elderly grandparent to live in the United States and receive American social security without having paid into it reduces my tax burden?

>But you will just say “but that’s rare.” But that doesn’t matter, it’s a principle not a statistical matter.

Well, it's not rare. It doesn't happen. You only qualify for social security if you accumulate a certain number of 'social security credits' through payroll taxation. Generally, unless you've worked for about a decade in the U.S., you can't qualify, though there are some exceptions in cases where the U.S. has an agreement with a foreign country to allow it (this is almost entirely limited to developed countries like France, Italy, and Japan, and doesn't really benefit immigrants from developing countries). Ditto Medicare.

Our welfare state isn't designed with any form of universality in mind; it's one of the key axes of distinction which separate us from the Nordic and continental models (e.g. Germany and France). The book is going to be somewhat dated now in terms of the policies described since it was written a while ago, but consider reading Gosta Esping-Andersen's Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (link).

>You entirely ignored my whole story about my friend who can’t be a good capitalist, but I guess that makes it easier to smear myself and The Mises people as racists.

I'm trying to keep this relatively contained in terms of length since I don't want to start hitting the upper bounds of Reddit's character limits in posts.

>But my main point being here is that I agree 100% that modern American immigration is a horrible government program. My proof being that my friend is being denied despite the fact he could produce horrendous wealth for the country, whereas people who are reliant on the state for a whole ton of stuff are being subsidized and let in. If there was a free market immigration system, this would be totally backwards.

Except, that isn't true. Depending on how we define high vs. low-skilled immigrants in terms of labor market position, we get different stats, but in no circumstances do low-skilled immigrants outnumber skilled immigrants. If we compare by type of visa, the US issued 197,129 H-1B visas to "skilled" immigrants vs. 83,600 H-2B visas for "unskilled" laborers source 1 source 2. It evens out a bit when you consider the 134,368 H-2A visas for seasonal migrant farm labor, but these are typically temporary seasonal jobs granted to nonresident aliens who typically can only stay for about ten months. In terms of new prospective Americans, we let in nearly two times the number of skilled immigrants compared to unskilled immigrants.

It's closer when we consider by education, though; 55% of immigrants have high school education or better.

>Like I said the fact that school budgets are higher, have worse results, and that my taxes are raised is not insignificantly based on the fact that there needs to be so much superfluous stuff related to public education that there wouldn’t be in a free market system.

But immigrants aren't a burden on the American education system, in net. Or at least, I've yet to see any actual evidence they are. I mean, insofar as I'm sure property ownership is less common in immigrant communities compared to native communities, they may be relatively less likely to be directly responsible for property tax payments which fund American schools; the thing is, that's built into their rent (unless their landlord is an idiot) so I don't even buy that argument.

>Oh by the way, you have to be naturalized to vote, and pray tell do naturalized people tend to vote for more freedom, less spending, and less regulation?? I think we both know the answer to that.

This is a terrible argument, though, since we can draw all sorts of arbitrary demographic lines to point out that lots of people tend to vote for less freedom, more government, and more regulation. And in fact, I'd argue that there isn't a single demographic that doesn't, on average, do precisely that. When fewer than 2% of Americans routinely vote for the Libertarian Party (the only political movement in the United States that can claim to be in favor of more freedom, less government, and less regulation), literally everyone's a villain.

Though, for what it's worth, the only evidence I've seen suggests that immigrants tend to be very similar to natives, increasingly so over time (i.e. second-generation Americans from immigrant families are more like natives in terms of political opinion than first-generation Americans). See here and here.

Plus, if ideology is really a concern, why not just screen for ideology? We don't let anyone in if you don't express a belief in individual property rights. I'd be willing to accept that, as long as we start kicking people out on that basis, too, including citizens, and particularly citizens, since they can and do vote for more government and less freedom.

>But just out of curiosity, if every single dollar of social spending were shut down tomorrow and whoever was allowed to leave or come to the US was just totally free after that, would you be happy with the outcome?

In re: this specific discussion, yes. More generally, as long as the government exists, I won't be.

I'm trying to be more on the SEO/IM side of things for my own personal affiliate sites so in my opinion, the best way to learn is trial and error. I put a bunch of things online and see how they do and then test and adjust. That being said, I do use a fair few other things to try and boost my knowledge.

YouTube

Steven Bartlett
24 year old owner of a successful social media marketing company in the UK, vlogs his daily life and shares a few nuggets now and then.

Valuetainment
Based on an Iranian immigrant to the USA, not 100% on his back history but the way he talks about the immigrant fire to earn money I am pretty sure he went there with little to nothing in his pocket. Judging by his house, cars and life style he has did very well. He has kind of diluted the channel recently in my opinion though by letting other people make videos for him.

Gary Vaynerchuk
Pretty much owns the entrepreneur vlogging space right now. He seems the type of guy where you either love him or hate him. Personally, I like his no BS approach of giving people reality checks on what it really takes to be an entrepreneur rather than posting photos on Instagram of a nice life.

Podcasts

How I Built This
He basically interviews a bunch of CEO/MD types of massive successful businesses. It's not really a how to type of thing but I enjoy listening to how people got their projects off the ground and I have picked up a fair few things from it.

Indie Hackers
Only recently found thing one but so far so good.

Black Hearted
I'm a bit of a fan boy when it comes to these guys to be honest, they are US military vets who now own a number of successful businesses and they get other vets on the podcast who also own their own businesses and talk about them. Its not just focused on business though but I love the military humor and get it done attitude of them.

Reading

I update this post with all of the books I have read but here are my top picks.

Zero To One
The first book that I couldn't put down until I completed it. Picked a fair few things up from it as well as a bunch of things I hope to move forward with in the future with startups.

The 33 Strategies of War
Not a business book but definitely my style if you take the examples and strategies and turn them into business. This is the second book I have not been able to put down once picking it up.

The E-Myth Revisited
Although I had a decent understanding of how to allocate duties to people depending on their job role this helped me better understand it as well as the importance of doing it.

ReWork
Another book I loved, just introduced me to a bunch of new concepts with a fair few I hope to use in the future.

Black Box Thinking
Coming from and engineering background I was already used to being ok with my failures provided I was learning from them but this book is based around how different industries treat failure and how it is important to accept it and grow from it.

The 50th Law
Currently reading it but so far i'm loving it. Never realized how much crap 50 cent had to go through and I love Robert Greene's work so I can see my classing this as a tier one book.

PARIS — In the 1950s, French President Charles de Gaulle understood that if France wanted to create its own space for sovereign action in a world dominated by the United states and the Soviet Union, it had to possess its own nuclear force. Today, in the emerging global order dominated by the United States and China, artificial intelligence has become the most powerful resource that will determine the fate of nations in the times ahead. The only chance for not just France but Europe as a whole to remain a player is to participate fully in the development of AI.

The robust competition between America and China is accelerating the rapid evolution of machine learning, which will transform all aspects of life from employment and the social contract to genetic engineering and warfare. The pace of change is so swift that being left behind will make it nearly impossible to catch up. If that happens, Europe will become irretrievably subordinated to the geopolitical algorithms of others.

A new book by AI technologist and entrepreneur Kai-Fu Lee, “AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order,” ought to serve as a loud wakeup call for Europe. Not surprisingly, Europe warrants little ink in Lee’s book. As Lee sees it, while Silicon Valley and China are driving each other forward in the advance of AI, with an entrepreneurial frenzy abetted by abundant capital and a densely connected consumer base, Europe lacks a comparable innovation ecosystem or integrated digital marketplace. Its default alternative has been simply to accept the full platforms of the likes of Google, Facebook and Twitter. In essence, Europe has become a colony in the American tech empire.

Because emergent technologies arise in response to social demand, Lee does, however, see an opening for Europe. While AI development in China and the United States is driven primarily by the quest for data and analytics that can be used commercially, Europeans are focused more on protecting the privacy of the user. As Lee told us in an interview: “That will cause the American giants some amount of trouble and may give local European entrepreneurs the chance to build something that is more consumer and individual-centric and that would go further than American companies would ever contemplate in protecting privacy.”

Europe’s leaders should seize this opportunity by fostering a continent-wide collaboration to put its distinct stamp on AI. The most promising prospect for Europe would be to blaze a different path than the United States or China. It could put its resources behind the proposal of Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, to “re-decentralize” the Internet, both to assure a fairer allocation of the digital dividend and hand back control of personal data from big tech to individuals.

This culture-bound constraint on data collection, in turn, would reorient the development of AI in a more social instead of consumer-marketing direction, which has been the main focus of both China and Silicon Valley. Europe could further choose to compete where it has an advantage in basic science. Just as Europe joined together to create the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator, European nations could cooperate on a project to be the first to build super-intelligent machines, ones that surpass human capacities.

The potential is there. The Scandinavian countries, of course, have long been engaged in the fray with such innovations as Skype and Spotify. Germany has its own digital modernization strategy, “Industry 4.0,” aimed at upgrading its manufacturing base through machine-learning tools. And though not gaining much traction so far, Chancellor Angela Merkel has highlighted the importance of European Union investment in AI. She has even mused that Europe could present a third way for AI.

France, a core nation of Europe alongside Germany, can make a critical contribution. As the most active modernizer on the European scene today, French President Emmanuel Macron is well positioned to promote Europe’s role as a third pillar of the AI revolution. Like de Gaulle in his time, Macron has an intuitive sense of what it takes to stay in the game — and a bold political imagination to figure out how to do so. From his first days in office, he has focused on invigorating Europe’s entrepreneurial culture and bolstering state support for innovation, especially in AI.

“My goal is to recreate a European sovereignty in AI,” he said. “If you want to manage your own choice of society, your choice of civilization, you have to be able to be an acting part of this AI revolution.” Drawing on his country’s heritage as a cradle of scientific discovery and the Enlightenment, he has recruited the brainy mathematician and AI guru Cédric Villani to lay the foundation for France’s effort.

Macron is on the right track. The AI challenge may be just the summons a continent torn apart by persistent centrifugal forces — financial crisis, immigration and populism — needs to embrace unity more fully. An ambitious historic project aimed at reaping the economic benefits of AI, securing an independent presence for European values in the new world order and leading a scientific breakthrough to superintelligence would provide a binding narrative for a continent adrift. Such a moonshot vision would be far more compelling for Europeans than the tired pitch from Brussels that dourly sells a common Europe as canned spinach, something the paternal authorities say is good for you but that everyone hates.

Belatedly grasping what is at stake, E.U. regulators are now taking rearguard action against American big tech through the General Data Protection Regulation and other means. But if Europe wants to get ahead of the game, to recover the sovereign ability to chart its own course, it needs an innovation ecosystem that makes it the author of its own algorithms while at the same time building on its unique strengths in science.

Describing the best form of taxation involves a combination of economics and values. The economics asks "how does the policy change the way people behave?" which is the positive side of the question. The value side of things asks "is that consequence something we want?" which is the normative side of the question.

The economic, or positive side of things is completely game for social science, and is the subject of a great deal of research for different tax systems. The normative stuff we talk about sometimes, but we try to be very cautious about separating values from predictions and only say a policy is definitely a bad idea when we're pretty sure society views the consequences of the policy as unacceptable.

From a positive side, I don't think the arguments that are made to support the Flat Tax hold too much water. I don't know of any strong evidence that it would induce a great deal of growth. But I also don't know of strong proof that it doesn't. So positive economics maybe doesn't have too much to say here. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong, and point me towards a paper or two (I'm talking about research on the Flat Tax specifically, not just the ETI literature)).

From a normative angle, it comes down to the following question: your policy will probably make the rich better off (they'll have lower tax liabilities) and the poor worse off (they'll have higher tax liabilities). The rich might be more productive and this could mean more income for everyone. Is it worth it to you? Given that the research on the responses of the rich finds that they've been pretty small in the past, I think the flat tax is a bad idea. But there's some values there that have nothing to do with social science.

On the other hand, simplification of the tax code in a way that approximately maintains the progressivity of the system would be a welcome change. Taxes are way too complicated, and a large literature on salience suggests that you could make people better off by making their choices easier to understand. (Incidentally, salience is right in the middle of my research.) Some of the arguments around the flat tax take this route, and this is something I agree with. Even though I don't think the flat tax specifically is a good idea at all.

A further complication is that sometimes when people say the flat tax they mean/don't mean a Negative Income Tax. I think that an NIT is not entirely a bad idea if you're going to do a flat tax, because it would allow you to make sure the system is still progressive. What I've written above mostly applies to the flat tax without a NIT built in.

If you're interested in hearing the full debate, instead of what your professor (who, by the way, isn't representatives of economists who study tax) thinks, I would recommend this book.

Edited for citations and typos. There's probably still some typos. Oh well.

Here are all the books with amazon links, Alphabetical order :)

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• Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1591396190
  
• Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh et al. Link: http://amzn.com/160941280X
  
• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown Link: http://amzn.com/0804137382
  
• Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston Link: http://amzn.com/1590597141
  
• How Google Works by Eric Schmidt et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1455582344
  
• Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World by Gary Vaynerchuk Link: http://amzn.com/006227306X
  
• Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way by Richard Branson Link: http://amzn.com/0307720748
  
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1400064287
  
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck Link: http://amzn.com/0345472322
  
• Never Eat Alone, Expanded and Updated: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferrazzi et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0385346654
  
• Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable by Tim S. Grover et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1476714207
  
• Rework by Jason Fried et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0307463745
  
• Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin Link: http://amzn.com/1591842948
  
• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss Link: http://amzn.com/0307465357
  
• The Choose Yourself Guide To Wealth by James Altucher Link: http://amzn.com/150100994X
  
• The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: *God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison by Mike Wilson Link: http://amzn.com/0060008768
  
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz Link: http://amzn.com/0062273205
  
• The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business by Clayton M. Christensen Link: http://amzn.com/0062060244
  
• The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries Link: http://amzn.com/0307887898
  
• The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime by MJ DeMarco Link: http://amzn.com/B004BDOUAI
  
• The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday Link: http://amzn.com/1591846358
  
• The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1885167776
  
• The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company by Steve Blank et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0984999302
  
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell Link: http://amzn.com/0316346624
  
• Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth by Gabriel Weinberg et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1591848369
  
• Unlabel: Selling You Without Selling Out by Marc Ecko Link: http://amzn.com/1451685319
  
• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0804139296

​

VI. Logrolling and Vote Trading

The public choice concept of ‘ logrolling ’ denotes the exchange of favors among the political factions in order to get one’s favored project through by supporting the projects of the other group. This conduct leads to the steady expansion of state activity. Through the ‘quid pro quo’ of the political process, the lawmakers support pieces of legislation of other factions in exchange for obtaining the political support for their own project. This behavior leads to the phenomenon of ‘legislative inflation’, the avalanche of useless, contradictory and detrimental law production.

VII. Common Good

The so-called ‘ common good’ is not a well-defined concept. Similar terms, such as that of the ‘public good’, which is defined by non-excludability and non-rivalry, misses the point because it is not the good that is ‘common’ or ‘public’ but its provision when this is deemed more efficient by collective than individual efforts. However, this is the case with all goods and the market itself is a system of providing private goods through cooperative efforts. The market economy is a collective provider of goods as it combines competition with cooperation. Any of the so-called ‘public goods’, which the government supplies, the private sector can also deliver, and cheaper and better as well. In contrast to the state, the cooperation in a market economy includes competition and thus not only economic efficiency but also the incentive to innovate.

VIII. Regulatory Capture

The term ‘ regulatory capture ’ denotes a government failure where the regulatory agency does not pursue the original intent of promoting the ‘public interest’ but falls victim to the special interest of those groups, which the agency was set up to regulate. The capture of the regulatory body by private interests means that the agency turns into an instrument to advance the special interests of the group that was targeted for regulation. For that purpose, the special interest group will ask for extra regulation to obtain the state apparatus as an instrument to promote its special interests.

IX. Short-Sightedness

The political time horizon is the next election. In the endeavor that the benefits of political action come quickly to their specific clienteles, the politician will favor short-term projects over the long-term even if the former bring only temporary benefits and cost more in the long run than an alternative project where the costs come earlier and the benefits later. Because the provision of public goods by the state severs the link between the bearer of the cost and the immediate beneficiary, the time preference for the demand for the goods that come apparently free of charge by the state is necessarily higher than in the market system.

X. Rational Ignorance

It is rational for the individual voter in a mass democracy to remain ignorant about the political issues because the value of the individual's vote is so small that it makes not much difference for the outcome. The rational voter will vote for those candidates who promise most benefits. Given the small weight of an individual vote in a mass democracy, the rational voter will not spend much time and effort to investigate whether these promises are realistic or in a collision with his other desires. Thus, the political campaigns do not have information and enlightenment as the objective but disinformation and confusion. What counts, in the end, is to get votes. Not the solidity of the program is important but the enthusiasm a candidate can create with his supporters and how much he can degrade, denounce, and humiliate his opponent. As a consequence, election campaigns incite hatred, polarization, and the lust for revenge.

my company, cymbal, is trying to answer this question directly.

trends largely suggest listeners are transitioning from mp3s to streaming services. streaming services have partly competed by attempting to differentiate their catalogs, but it's hard to imagine these differences persisting over time. sure, kanye is holding TLOP on tidal for now, but eventually even the beatles broke.

peter thiel, in "zero to one", used card readers like square to illustrate the challenges of entering a market where it's hard to differentiate from competition, and streaming services know their goals will have to orient around platform-specific offerings, rather than differences in libraries. i think there's reason to believe that because the simple proposition of $10/month for the entire recorded history of music has been replicated, the challenge will need to be about helping users navigate that vastness.

speaking specifically to the future of the music business, it's important to remember that streaming music is still a very new phenomenon, and on-demand services have yet to penetrate their market. growth, across demographics and nationalities, could scale these services' revenue models many times over. changes in how we listen – in our cars, for example – are just as important to this discussion as how we get the music itself delivered to us.

if i had to predict, i'd expect streaming to become increasingly dominant now that smartphones have proliferated, and the most-dominant software providers to these devices (android and ios) have built streaming services (google music / youtube red / youtube music and apple music) that come pre-loaded on devices. i'd also expect a consolidation of streaming apps, which the fall of rdio and songza already suggest.

which brings me back to why i believe the future of the music business has less to do with libraries or delivery, and more with recommendation and navigating those services' tens of millions of songs. music creation, dissemination, and promotion that is almost entirely digital needs a very different staffing model than the compound structure that now exists and serves physical and digital sales, distributed over myriad channels from radio to streaming playlists. that's tough, though, because streaming services weren't built for sharing, and can only ever speak to their segment of the market. alternatively, a focus on the promotional models that have worked in other realms of celebrity – viral and social marketing, using instagram, twitter, snapchat – might really work. but those platforms weren't made for listening to music.

our idea is that the best recommendations come from the people – friends, artists – who matter to you. we want to let our users show up from any streaming service (right now we support soundcloud and spotify) and find their friends, regardless of how those friends listen, to discover the songs they love. and since every play on cymbal counts on spotify and soundcloud, premium users on our app are driving revenue to the artists they like.

i think we're in as volatile a period of change the music industry's ever seen, but streaming services are proving successful in price and product in their battle against piracy. the next frontier is figuring out how to get everybody listening to the right stuff on them.

Couple points

• As for the "most support progressivism", I don't doubt they do, but at the same time, I think they support conservatism, in that I'm sure a poll could be made to say "lower taxes, less wasteful government, etc etc". I'm a bit cynical of the polls.
  
  
• As far as the left's support of socialism and communism, I sort of meant the intellectual elite of the 60's.
  
  
• I agree socialism is often used as a boogie man word, in the same way fascism is used as a boogie man everytime the police fuck up.
  
  >Out of the New Deal and the G.I. Bill came a robust middle class
  
  I thought that the world was bombed out, and our having so much industrial technology from the war was what made us "great". And I support a stronger GI bill, 100%.
  
  >Has it occurred to you that allowing the "smarter" people control the distribution of wealth really is the best way to go?
  
  Ok, this is, and I say this without hyperbole or exaggeration or lying, communism. Supporting programs or creating barriers is one thing, but a smart cabal controlling the wealth scares me.
  
  I would also ask, if you get mad at the Republicans for using government to enrich themselves, why do you wish to give the government more power over wealth?
  
  I'm a libertarian, but unlike many, I'll support common sense, workable programs that benefit all. I just am not sure that letting a central group in Washington call a bunch of shots is good. here's an example
  
  And what about "stagflation" of the 70's, wasn't that a result of too much social spending not enough growth?
  

Switzerland Follows Iceland In Declaring War Against The Banksters

Above Photo: From WakingTimes.com.

“If you want to continue to be slaves of the banks and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit.” –Josiah Stamp.

Iceland has gained the admiration of populists in recent years by doing that which no other nation in the world seems to be willing or capable of doing: prosecuting criminal bankers for engineering financial collapse for profit.

Their effective revolt against the banking class, who drove the tiny nation into economic crisis in 2008, is the brightest example yet that the world does not have to be indebted in perpetuity to an austere and criminal wealthy elite.

[http://www.wakingtimes.com/2012/06/07/icelanders-force-accountability-for-banks-why-cant-we/]

In 2015, 26 Icelandic bankers were sentenced to prison and the government ordered a bank sale to benefit the citizenry.

[http://theantimedia.org/first-they-jailed-the-bankers-now-every-icelander-to-get-paid-in-bank-sale/]

Inspired by Iceland’s progress, activists in Switzerland are now making an important stand against the banking cartels and have successfully petitioned to bring an initiative to public referendum that would attack the private banks where it matters most: their power to lend money they don’t actually have, and to create money out of thin air.

http://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/12/12/conspiracy-bring-honest-money-world/

“Switzerland will hold a referendum to decide whether to ban commercial banks from creating money.

The Swiss federal government confirmed on Thursday that it would hold a plebiscite, after more than 110,000 people signed a petition calling for the central bank to be given sole power to create money in the financial system.

The campaign – led by the Swiss Sovereign Money movement and known as the Vollgeld initiative – is designed to limit financial speculation by requiring private banks to hold 100pc reserves against their deposits.” [The Telegraph]

Switzerland is in a key position to play a revolutionary role in changing how global banking functions.

In addition to being the world’s safest harbor for storing wealth, it is also home to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), a shadowy private company owned by many of the world’s central banks, and acting as a lender to the central banks. [https://www.bis.org/]

The BIS is the very heart of global reserve banking, the policy that enables banks to lend money that does not actually exist in their bank deposits, but is instead literally created electronically from nothing whenever a bank extends a line of credit.

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/091298645X/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?]

Reserve banking is the policy that guarantees insurmountable debt as the outcome of all financial transactions.

The Sovereign Money initiative in Switzerland aims to curb financial speculation, which is the intended and inevitable result of reserve banking, the tool that makes financial adventurism possible by supplying the banks with endless quantities of fiat money.

[http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/06/29/can-this-economy-be-saved-by-injecting-fiat-money-into-banks/]

Limiting a bank’s ability to produce money from nothing would be a direct blow to the roots of the banking cartel, and would cripple their ability to manipulate the world economy.

Here’s how it works, in rather simplified terms:

“…if we had access to the same computer terminals the banks have, we could magic in or out of existence all the imaginary stuff we are trained to think of as important – money – in whatever quantities we liked.

This is how it works: when they print quite a lot of this stuff there is a boom. When they print too much of it, there is inflation (actually, the printing of money is inflation). When they stop printing it or simply hold on to it, there is a depression.” [https://www.rt.com/op-edge/327191-switzerland-money-banks-ban-referendum/]

In Switzerland, 90% of all money in circulation is electronic, and for this, The National Bank of Switzerland has become the direct target of the Sovereign Money Campaign.

Swiss law has in the past required required banks to back all currency creation with collateral assets like physical silver or gold, however in recent decades the climate has changed, and, “due to the emergence of electronic payment transactions, banks have regained the opportunity to create their own money.”

The grass roots campaign said in a public statement regarding the intentions of the referendum, “banks won’t be able to create money for themselves any more, they’ll only be able to lend money that they have from savers or other banks.”


This is an interesting twist in the human saga of man vs. banks, and while it remains to be seen if the referendum passes or not, it must be pointed out that it does have its own problems, articulated by Sam Gerrans:

[https://www.rt.com/op-edge/327191-switzerland-money-banks-ban-referendum/]

“… it does say that the central bank should be given sole right to create money.

This would essentially leave the creation of money in the same hands as those who control the Federal Reserve or the Bank of England rather than allow them to farm out the process.

But at least it shows that people are beginning to wake up to where the true power lies.

In the unlikely event that this grass-roots movement in Switzerland should get its way and its proposed legislation be enacted, and then begin to morph into something which really does threaten the banking elite, we must not be surprised if Switzerland is shortly discovered to be harboring weapons of mass destruction, or to have masterminded 9/11, or to be financing Islamic State.”

Part of the cultural conditioning of our time is an ingrained, pre-assumed dependency on sacred cow institutions like banking.

Just like it is impossible for most Americans to envision a world without Democrats and Republicans, it is difficult for most people to imagine a world without predatory global banking.

Yet, there are a number of other possibilities for trading, storing wealth, and facilitating development in the world.

[http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/08/24/the-next-global-financial-crisis-is-here-and-this-is-what-we-can-do-about-it/]

This is not the only economic system we can imagine, and as Iceland has proven, people can regain control of their collective wealth, so perhaps this revolution will foment further in Switzerland, presenting a chance to at least bring greater awareness to the truth about central banking.

https://www.popularresistance.org/switzerland-follows-iceland-in-declaring-war-against-the-banksters/

Great to hear! People respond to truth and passion. You'll find that even folks who resist certain ideas at first will warm up to them if you stick with it. Persist my friend, and you will help us win many converts and fans. Thank you for believing in this campaign - let's go fight for our future! if we don't, nobody will.

I'm hoping that my book will open people's hearts and minds, so if you know someone open-minded enough to read it, it may help you make the case. https://www.amazon.com/War-Normal-People-Disappearing-Universal/dp/0316414247/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506708384&sr=8-1&keywords=andrew+yang+the+war+on+normal+people. I love this book and am very proud of it and can't wait to get it out there. Let's do it!

I got about 25 minutes into the video; I'm not wasting more time. If you want to know serious data about the dangers of central planning of the monetary system, there are vastly better sources that talk in real, economics, and not lofty, sensationalist terms.

The International Role of the Dollar: Theory and Prospect by Paul krugman

Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell

The Creature from Jekyll Island by Griffin

Milton Friedman's Free to Choose videos

--------

My main objections in the first 25 minutes of this "documentary" are:

1) They're not correctly defining or using the terms currency or money and not identifying their economic role. Money is not the center of an economy, it is the lubrication that permits economics to happen. Economics is the analysis of how scarce resources that have alternative uses are allocated by people (by markets).

Money doesn't create those allocations, money enables those allocations.

Even in an economic system without money, there would still be allocations of scarce resources that have alternative uses by people; whether that is choosing to use your time to cut down a tree for your neighbor in exchange for beef or choosing to use your time to mow a lawn for your mother in exchange for a smile and a thank you; your time is a scarce resource and you're choosing how to allocate it with zero money being involved.

Money is any medium of exchange and is created as a store of one's labor.

You receive a dollar in exchange for X minutes of your labor. That piece of paper stores those X minutes of your labor and you can use it in exchange for something you value.

So anyway - this video does a shitty job identifying what money is at the outset... I don't think it'll get better.

2) The banking system, monetary policy, and politicians making a killing off of those systems has not been hidden from anyone. As they admit, almost in a very quick juxtaposition with their incorrect statement, the bankers, academics, and politicians are very open about their systems.

The problem is that people are just happy with their lives and are safer than they've ever been throughout history.

3) A complete misunderstanding of what "interest" is and what fractional reserve banking is.

Interest is the cost of lending money... it is the price tag on a product just like on the coat or iPod you buy. The baker isn't going to give you all his bread for free; why should a bank give you money for free?

Fractional reserve banking can be done responsibly. Much like the interest rate, it should be done at the rate set by free markets. A fractional reserve rate of 90% almost completely guarantees that when you withdraw, you will always be able to withdraw all of your money. In exchange, banks will give you vastly lower of an interest rate than at a 10% fractional reserve rate because it is higher risk and lower reward for the bank.

Anyway - like so many other documentaries out there about extremely complex matters, this one is just trying to sell a product like every other good capitalist out there. They need to catch your attention and get you to talk about it to others to make money - so of course they're going to play to the 8th grade education market.

>When you claim the government collecting taxes is theft, you are claiming the government has no right to collect taxes. For example, a parent can strike a child without that child having recourse to pressing assault charges. A parent can ground a child without the child having recourse to kidnapping and false imprisonment charges. This is because parents have the right to do those things to the children under their authority. Likewise, the state has certain rights it secures over the people under its authority.<

This is a terrible analogy. The government isn't a family. They aren't our parents. It's a separate entity full of people you and I don't know. Taxation is theft, but I pay my taxes only because I don't want to spend my time in prison.

>I never said the common good is from the state. The common good exists anytime you have two people in the same room. What I, and the Church, are saying is that it is the responsibility of the state to safeguard the common good.<

My apologies - I thought you did say that. But my point remains, though. What I'm saying is that if The State only supports the protection of property rights and courts, then I'll concede to your point, although I do believe that The State isn't necessary for either of those functions. However, a limited State hardly exists. It's expansive powers corrode away at individual freedoms, are riddled with bureaucratic waste, and it supplies benefits in the form of rents to the concentrated and well-informed while socializing the costs on the dispersed and uninformed. That's the logic of public choice. Because resources are scarce, we need to take extreme care that those resources aren't wasted. I'm arguing that the government, by it's very nature, does create waste when it transfers resources from X to Y, which comes at the expense of everyone else.

I'm guessing you'll reply with "doesn't matter - although the government might be doing bad things A, B, and C, it's still promoting the common good by doing D, E, and F." So how should we fix this? I think you'll say "exercise their power" by voting or calling their legislators, but voting is an unaccountable action that pollutes democracy and, in the case of activist governments, lead to terrible policies that come at the expense of the general welfare. I think we can do better than that. You're right that if I conceded to your point (based on my comment above), then what I'd accept the fact that some tax is owed. However, because of those biases and realities, I would argue that starving the beast (withholding taxes) is the more ethical approach to direct government toward promoting only the common good.

But I have also been arguing that there is no way to know if the government is promoting the common good. There is no metric that will assure an outside observer (you) that the loss to A (me) from being forced to pay for G's (government) common good intervention on behalf of B (a stranger) is less than the loss to B of persisting in a world without that particular public good. Because there is no solid evidence, or strong reason to believe, that A's losses aren't at least as great as B's gains from G's action, the presumption of liberty should keep G and B out of A's pocket.

This is getting pretty long, but I think I've addressed all your points. But regarding FICA, all I'm trying to show is that it is possible that your dollar can be earmarked. What that means to me is that the government does have the ability to institute a tax for a very specific purpose (which does happen - especially in local governments). If I was guaranteed that my money was earmarked only to the provision of courts and property rights, then I'll concede as I mentioned above. But to a large degree (with exceptions), we don't know where our money is going and, to me, that is the problem.

>The whole attempt at steering (centrally planning) the economy by playing with interest rates is pure Keynsianism. It explicitly contradicts what Friedman said.

Friedman believed in using the central bank to steer the economy as well. He wanted to maintain small constant inflation. If you read the book I cited at the beginning of this discussion, you will see that he calls the early 30s the "Great Contraction" because the Federal Reserve ran too tight and allowed deflation to happen. If you look at the inflation table in the other post I just made on stagflation, the 30s showed major deflation in the CPI. So nothing about using the central bank really contradicts Friedman.

If anything is "pure Keynesianism", it is the idea that governments should use explicit fiscal policy during recessions. McCulley's point was that this part of Keynes was dead in the water after Reagan was elected.

>Mattress stuff would lower prices for all the people who aren't stuffing their mattresses. Fluctuating prices can absorb changes in spending habits if you let them.

And in the meantime, debtors would be destroyed. Do you think that businesses and workers with some debt but were otherwise well behaved should be destroyed in a recession? This is the primary reason that made the Great Depression so horrible.

>As far as how much more savings savers need before they choose to start investing again? That's up to each individual.

You completely dodged the question. You basically admit that liquidity trap conditions can exist, but you offer absolutely no solution. This is a failure of Austrian economics.

>This is further evidenced by the fact that crashes come, first and hardest, in capital goods instead of in consumer goods.

A much simpler explanation of a drop in capital goods investment is what I gave. Those with savings flight to safety.

>It had nothing to do with letting irresponsible banks fail.

Keep telling yourself that. This is yet another example of you putting your head into the sand and dodging questions for ideological reasons. Bank runs can destroy well managed banks as well as bad banks and made the Great Depression far worse than it should have been.

>Money is just the medium of exchange. It is not the wealth.

This is just more Austrian doublethink. Money is used to acquire wealth.

>If you were right, if crashes were caused by savings, then the crash would begin in consumer goods, right?

You are getting confused. I was talking about a liquidity trap, which happens after a crash (by which I mean the end of a speculative bubble). If you are interested in why crashes happen, read some Hyman Minsky and Robert Shiller, but that is a separate issue. The point is that in a liquidity trap, everyone trying to save makes a recovery difficult.

>They attempt to understand human society in all its complexity but their only tool is a tape measure.

That is simply not true. That is like saying science in general only relies on the tape measure while discounting everything else that is done. Mises's problem is that he did not understand how the scientific method works. Science is a process of making predictions about the world based on models and then using evidence to identify which models work and which do not. Whether Mises wants to admit this or not, this is how all non-trivial knowledge is acquired. And his solution is pure snake oil. If the tools of science can't manage the complexity of human economics (which I already agreed that they cannot fully), then deductive logic certainly cannot.

For example, the claim that "human action is purposeful action" is useable as an axiom is laughable and demonstrates the Mises also does not understand logic. Here is an example of an axiom: A and B implies A. Axioms are incredibly simple. Before we can use Mises's action-axiom, we have to define what it means to be human, what an action is, and what it means for an action to be purposeful. Hence, this is not really an axiom at all, but merely the basis of a pseudo-logic. And yes, I know that Mises defines action as "will put into operation and transformed into an agency". But then you have to start talking about what "will" is, and that gets into deep questions of how the human brain works. None of this is as simple as anything traditionally called an axiom. It makes a bunch of simplifying assumptions and defines things in such a way that a certain conclusion always arises. It is not logic in the way that something like first-order predicate calculus is a logic.

>Show me the empirical evidence of the need for a central bank, of free market fallibility, of the need for public education, bank bailouts, stimulus packages.

Those are enormous questions. I recommend you read books and study history outside of the writings of Mises, Rothbard, and their ideological ilk if you want the answers to those questions. The only short answer I can give is that every first world country goes by these rules and they generally work well, while no first world country has relied on strict Austrian economics because it is merely a non-practical pipe dream just as much as something like pure communism. Austrians believe in spontaneous order, right? Well, the successful countries have all spontaneously ordered themselves in such a way.

>I'm not arguing against data. You need data. But the numbers tell you nothing without a meaningful, deductively sound theory.

This is exactly the basis of empiricism and the scientific method. As I said, I believe you have fallen for doublethink.

>I think we'll live to see a collapse of the dollar. It lost 97% of it's value since the Fed was created a hundred years ago. I think it might lose the next 97% much more quickly.

Losing 97% over 100 years is not that important. The dollar does not need to be a store of value over 100 years. Even gold cannot provide such long term guarantees (especially in the next few hundred years as things like deep ocean mining and asteroid mining possibly become within our technological reach). If someone refuses to spend a dollar in that time rather than doing something useful with it over such a long period of time, I'm really not concerned if they lose the value. As time goes on, past earnings should depreciate in value. If they want to keep the value, there are easy ways to do so (TIPS, real estate, stocks). Most economists agree that given the tradeoffs, small positive inflation is the best option. The world is vastly wealthier now than 100 years ago by any measure even in the face of a declining dollar. In the short and medium term, as long as inflation is kept in check, the dollar is a practical store of value, unit of account, and medium of exchange.

As for hyperinflation specifically (by the definitions we gave above), you are dodging my question. If the federal reserve's actions in the last 3 years really are Armageddon, then we should see something happen soon. Otherwise, you and Peter Schiff should apologize to the world for fearmongering.

>Where in the essay does Rothbard talk about a debt deflation scenario which ended quickly?

You are confused again. He doesn't give an example and that is my point. He says this: "this expectation hastens the fall in wages and other factor prices, hastening the recovery, and permitting normal prosperity to return that much faster." Clearly he believes that if deflation is allowed to happen, the recovery will happen sooner. I'm asking for such a scenario.

>I don't think I can answer your question, because you're asking for something non-Austrian.

You just said that you don't dislike data. You can cite international examples if you want. You can cite pre-Fed examples if you want. I just want Austrians to support their claims with actual evidence.


>The Austrians point to 1921 or 2001 and say, no, the problem is here.

Quick question: how did the Fed go from 1929 to 2001 without having a major speculative bubble pop in the United States? My answer is because we had Fed chairman like William McChesney Martin Jr., who was quoted as saying his job at the Fed is "to take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going". The point is that other than the early days of the Fed and Greenspan, we've had a pretty damned good run at preventing major bubbles, especially compared to the panics of the 1800s that I cited before. So my argument is that lowering rates during a recession is not the problem because the Fed did that for decades without creating bubbles. The problem is that during the good times, the fed needs to be willing to "take away the punch bowl". As I mentioned before, McCulley criticized Greenspan for not using the tools available to him to do so and for being Mr. Magoo on the upswing of the market. And further, given that we've had speculative bubbles even without central banking, it is clear that the cause is more complex. If you have not read it, I encourage you to read this book. It gives a very detailed explanation from a Keynesian point of view of exactly how bubbles can take off. The fed certainly has an influence (especially by raising rates when a bubble is forming), but in the end, it is the private market that actually goes through with all of the malinvestment.

Actually there is a brilliant book that everyone should read, which you might have heard of:

The creature from Jekyll Island

You will find that this is in fact not the first time the bailouts have happened. The author has done some wonderful research to show how this cycle has played out ad nauseam. In fact it is in chapter 2 itself. I encourage you to read it.

The origins as well as the mission of the Fed is anything but altruistic. I'm going to sound like a crazy right-winger for a moment, but the system really is geared towards enriching a small segment of elite while tying the rest in debt servitude for life.

That's what housing bubbles like the current one do. They force you and me to auction our future wages against each other in a giant competition, so that we can sign our lives into debt-servitude. (Don't get me wrong, debt can be good if used productively, but not like this). Rising house prices benefit only the banks, who can collect massive interest over 30 years. Again I'm hesitant to quote RT, but literally like it says, Read it and weep.

The banks meanwhile can use fractional reserve banking to create money, and lend it to you and profit. If they make risky loans, they get paid more interest. If the loans default... why hello Uncle Sam, where's our bailout? It is a zero-risk way to make tons of money, and it is bullshit.

Let's see what happens with all these treasuries now. I'm amazed that we have all concluded that QE was such a grand success, when QT hasn't even been done yet. The Fed is looking to stop their purchase of treasuries in the coming months, and let the current ones roll off the balance sheets. China is looking to slow down or stop treasury purchases. The Government on the other hand gave out massive tax cuts, and is looking to finance a $1 trillion dollar deficit by issuing more treasuries! The NK war, which will happen soon, will also be financed with debt. Jesus. This is not going to end well.

I love the crap out of books. One of life's greatest joys is learning and books are such an excellent way to do it.

Business books you should read:

• Zero To One by Peter Thiel - Short, awesome ideas and well written.
  
  
• My Startup Life by Ben Casnocha. Ben's a super sharp guy. Learn from him. He started a company in his teens. He was most recently the personal 'body man' for Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn)
  
  
• The Lean Startup by Eric Reis - Fail fast and fail early. Build something, test, get feedback, and refine.
  
  Non Business Books (That Are Essential To Business
  
  
• Money Master The Game by Tony Robbins - I am a personal finance Nerd Extraordinaire and I thought Tony Robbins was a joke. Boy was I wrong. Hands down the best personal finance book I've ever read. Period.
  
  
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Ever seen Gladiator? This is the REAL Roman Emperor behind Russel Crowe's character. This book was his private diary.
  
  
• Man's Search For Meaning by Victor Frankl - Hands down one of the most profound and moving books ever written. Victor was a psychologist and survived the Nazi training camps
  
  As a way of background I have newsletter where I share proven case studies of successful entrepreneurs. I outline step by step how they made money and got freedom from their day job. If you’re interested let me know and I can PM you the link to the newsletter or if you have any questions.

The Law by Frederic Bastiat (awesome, short, soooo many quotable quotes)

Healing Our World by Dr. Mary Ruwart (old version available free)

Haven't read any of his books (have listened to many lectures and radio show), but something by Harry Browne should do quite nicely. I've heard great things about Why Government Doesn't Work

Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity - John Stossel (do check out his excellent Fox Business show "Stossel" on hulu.com, and look for his old 20/20 specials on libertarianism - they're fantastic)

good economists: Peter Schiff, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Walter Block

You might be better off waiting til you get more comfortable with libertarianism, but G. Edward Griffin's Creature From Jekyll Island is a must read. It's more about the monetary system and the Federal Reserve than libertarianism in general though.

I haven't read anything that makes a good argument against libertarianism, but can recommend a guy who makes a seemingly good argument against capitalism and for socialism - Michael Parenti. I haven't read any of his pro-socialist books (but have one on foreign policy called The Terrorist Trap which is quite good and very short. Libertarians and socialists tend to agree on not inviting war and not waging war). But I have listened to his pro-socialist lectures - they're well delivered and impassioned and a person who didn't know any better would easily be tempted. They're worth listening to to use his arguments and twist them to actually make the case FOR libertarianism. He'll use some faulty facts/data that leftists typically do such as "Hoover was an ardent free-market advocate and we can blame him and capitalism for causing the Great Depression" (we can blame him for the depression all right (prolonging it, to be specific), not b/c he was a capitalist but b/c he really started all the policies that FDR continued when he got into office)

This book is more of a political/economic approach to global warming, but I really enjoyed This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein. It has a decent amount of issues and is pretty slanted politically, but you rarely hear about how drastically different our relationship to economics and politics and the environment will have to be if we are to seriously combat global warming. While the whole Paris Accord is pretty groundbreaking, it leaves out how seriously different our lives will be in 50-100 years if we want meaningful change. Take this one with a grain of salt because it is kind of pop-non-fictiony, but Klein does put forth some really interesting points.

 

If you want a more scientific read, check out Climate Change: The Facts. I enjoyed this book because my father works at an atmospheric research center and we always talk about how poorly climate change (and really all fields in science) are portrayed in the media, which is where most people get their information on it. It's pretty dense but I enjoyed it.

R1:

Today I bring you this WaPo Op-Ed on how the Carrier deal will return business norms back to ones that favor labor and community because firms will fear Trump’s wrath. Here the author offers a distorted view of America’s past, a dysfunctional view of how contracts and norms interact, and a wayward portrayal of economists as unable to fathom agents and systems which do not follow strict mathematical functional forms.

>There was a time in America when there was an unwritten pact in the business world — workers were loyal to their companies and successful companies returned that loyalty by sharing some of their profits with their workers in the form of higher wages, job security and support for the local community.

The author wistfully describes a past that did not exist when businesses and workers in long term marriages because it was what was right and good for the community.

At its heart this period existed because unionization (or more accurately worker bargaining power) made it possible. Certainly on the point of loyalty, unionization decline is the largest contributor to declining tenure (see Bidwell. As unionization fell, this loyalty also disappeared.
However, unionization's decline can largely be explained by the rule of law (right-to-work laws, unionization process etc.) though governing and business norms played a role (to be discussed).

With bargaining power largely reduce, workers had additional difficulty (for better or worse) attempting to hold their jobs in the face of international pressures and especially technological change as countless economist (Autor just to name check one) have documented.

>modern day economists tend to ignore such shifts in social norms because they can’t quantify them in the same way they can quantify trade flows or technological innovation or changes in educational attainment. They assume that social norms change in response to economic fundamentals rather than the other way around.

This is the sort of things that can ruin my work day as a nominally institutionalist style economist. To begin, several Nobel prize winning economists have done significant work studying norms formation and effects such as North, Ostrom, Akerlof, Akerlof again!.

Beyond this, others have built off these works (Ostrom was focusing on the importance of norms, but not specifically addressing the problem) to try to model norm development in game theory example.

In fact, in Samuel Bowles’ Microeconomics, discusses in detail the way contracts influence the norms and institutions of exchange (Chapter 8, p. 265). The long and short of Bowles’ discussion is that norms are well understood, evolutionary, and in the absence of complete contracting have significant influence on the results of exchange.

Norms matter greatly to economists in the event that contracting is incomplete. One would hope, it seems in vain, that contracting between the federal government and American firms is more complete than most contractual situations.

>the new norm is not longer acceptable, and [Trump] intends to do whatever he can to shame and punish companies that abandon their workers.
>He may even have to make an example of a runaway company by sending in the tax auditors or the OSHA inspectors or cancelling a big government contract.

Many economists see the potential change of market norms that will result from government contracts suddenly being less than 100% enforceable as a problem. Coming back to Bowles, he notes that said norms “are sustained by the structure of the market and other social interactions in which traders routinely engage.” If having government contracts and enforcement become less predictable is to be the new norm of enforcement, surely the market response will be to ask government from some premia in contracting to account for uncertainty. New firms may avoid starting their business under the supervision of this government altogether.

Tyler Cowen points out that the new norms that would arise likely involve more complex contractual agreements to skirt restrictions, degradation of U.S. tech advancement, a ramping of favoritism to levels not seen since the Harding administration, potential de facto capital controls, or at best a politicization of the economy with no real rule of law effects.

>Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt understood that. So did Ronald Reagan when he fired thousands of striking air traffic controllers and set back the union movement for several decades.

Perhaps most crucially, the author here references a variety of Presidents who enforced their support (or lack therefore) for labor, but did so through the rule of law via various anti-trust acts, the championing and enactment of a large set of labor relations legislation, and the decision to enforce laws enshrined in code 15 years prior that had been previously ignored. As opposed to potentially undermining the rule of law as Trump does by leveraging government contracts and regulation.

A bonus on this point is that—though Reagan’s actions may have signaled willingness from government to support changing business norms by supporting them through rule of law—unionization’s decline had already begun years prior to the changes in business norms Reagan’s ruling supposedly incited.

The study of economics is not one that lacks an understanding of how norms influence market interactions. Though I am not as well versed in studies accounting for changes in norms mathematically, I’d wager someone here could produce good examples of studies that do just this through the use of good instrumental variables.

The Carrier deal will likely change norms in business actions, but those are likely to be related to businesses’ certainty in contracting with government during the Trump presidency. Just as is seen in Trump’s cabinet, the only people left to provide work will be those certain they can take advantage of information asymmetry to get a better deal from U.S. governments. Any mass effort to enforce job retention on a scale much more massive than the Carrier deal will be enacted via law and will be just as harmful to business culture as Cowen and other economist predict, but it will be the changes to contractual enforcement that drive these results and not revolution in norms spurred on by backroom dealing.

Great question - my preferred “leftist” system - social democracy/welfare capitalism with a strong public sector.

Pretty much every important component in an iPhone - touchscreens, internet, search engine algorithms, GPS, microchips, computer memory, would not have been possible without government investment in basic and advanced research. No federal government funding the universities and government organizations conducting this research, no iPhones.

There are multiple examples of the public sector creating or fueling a new markets and future offshoots of innovation.

The problem with leaving innovation to the private sector is that it will usually only invest in things that are obviously able to be monetized. Basic and advanced research, which is absolutely necessary to innovate across a wide range of disciplines, - technology, medicine, transportation, etc - is not something that the private sector is good at because the way to profit from it isn't readily apparent.

Let's take Elon Musk launching a car into space. The technological know-how in order to safely launch and return something from space was done by governments in different countries funding their space programs, like NASA in the U.S. No NASA no Elon Musk launching cars.

The problem with this subreddit is that it sees the public sector vs the private sector as a zero sum game. A strong entrepreneurial public sector creates innovations and markets that the private sector can run with.

If you're serious about having a deeper understanding of this question, pick up the following:

This Financial Times Book of the Year

And this one by a political scientist working out of Yale.

Or, at the very least, read reviews of the books.

The term neoliberalism is usually heard in the pejorative sense, often coming from Latin American leaders such as Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales. The term refers to an international economic policy that has been predominant in policy-making circles and university economics departments since the 1970's. The four faces on the cover of this book (Reagan, Deng, Pinochet, and Thatcher) are considered by David Harvey the primemovers of this economic philosophy. Reagnomics, Thatcherism, Deng's capitalism with Chinese characteristics, and Pinochet's free market policies marked the beginning of new era of global capitalism.

Neoliberlism as a philosophy holds that free markets, free trade, and the free flow of capital is the most efficient way to produce the greatest social, political, and economic good. It argues for reduced taxation, reduced regulation, and minimal government involvement in the economy. This includes the privitization of health and retirement benefits, the dismantling of trade unions, and the general opening up of the economy to foreign competition. Supporters of neoliberlism present this as an ideal system. Detractors, such as Harvey, see it as a power grab by economic elites and a race to the bottom for the rest.

http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Neoliberalism-David-Harvey/dp/0199283273

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

http://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296

If you want to build a better future, you must believe in secrets.

The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things.

Thiel begins with the contrarian premise that we live in an age of technological stagnation, even if we're too distracted by shiny mobile devices to notice. Information technology has improved rapidly, but there is no reason why progress should be limited to computers or Silicon Valley. Progress can be achieved in any industry or area of business. It comes from the most important skill that every leader must master: learning to think for yourself.

Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won't make a search engine. Tomorrow's champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today's marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique.

Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places.

Apply for a job at our company :) DM for details

Or, if you go solo, try to create a product that generates at least $10 a day in revenue. Like /u/enantiodromia said in another post:

> Software helps normal people get early wins, which keeps them motivated, which keeps them interested enough to keep trying.

It was in a different context, but the idea's the same. You need an early win. Mixed In Key was my early win. It gave me the strength to keep going. I recommend a book called Zero to One, it might be relevant for what you're asking about:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J6YBOFQ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

> Which has happened throughout human history. We have cars today because Ford figure out how to make them in mass.


Yes, I totally agree with this but those kinds of economic transformations like that didn't happen without literal riots. The Yang campaign is trying to get the US economy in front of the coming changes to prevent the riots from disrupting your way of life. We're not talking about disruption as in "I can't get a date on tinder", but like "my money has no value anymore because people are looting stores".

>Amazon has created opportunities for thousands of merchants that couldn't build a brick and mortar store, created the cloud revolution which in turn generated millions of tech jobs.

Again, I agree with what you are saying. Amazon and other tech companies have created millions of jobs. The problem is that at the same time they're taking away millions more jobs from people who have nowhere else to turn. The reality is that those people who lose their jobs predominantly never enter the workforce again, let alone get retrained as a skilled worker like a programmer. The point of the Yang campaign is that we need to stop thinking of a person's economic worth as being the same thing as their human worth. Humans have intrinsic value that is more important than their economic value, since more and more of our economic values are going to tend towards zero over time. Check out this video to learn about why automation is different this time. Or read this book, also about why it's different this time around.

The only reason your company can exist is because of an enormous amount of market manipulation by the government, the exact market manipulation you and Gary Johnson are against. I promise you, without it, you would be out of a job. Technologies like solar, wind, and hydrogen fuel cells suffer from massive start-up costs and would never be able to compete with fossil fuels which benefit form massive economies of scale. The free market got us into this mess because the free market, while it is good for lots of things, is terrible at discounting for the future costs of pollution, a lot of the problem being that it's so damn hard to know what those costs will be. The free market is why Lake Erie died. The free market is why Centralia, PA is completely uninhabitable. The free market is why people's water all over Pennsylvania is now flammable. The free market is why the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico is now crippled and will be for decades.

I have a Masters of Economics, my focus was Environmental Econ, and I'm working on my PhD in Envi Econ now. This is my life. I eat, breathe, and sleep environmental economics.

Here's some good reading on the subject:

Public Policies for Environmental Protection, Portney and Stavins (2000)

The Wealth of Nature: Economics as if Survival Mattered, Greer (2011)

Environmental Policy: New Directions for the Twenty-first Century, Vig and Craft (2009)

The Environmental Case: Translating Values Into Policy, Layzer (2011)

And a couple blogs that I like:

env-econ.net

greeneconomics.blogspot.com

You should check out this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Start-Future-ebook/dp/B00J6YBOFQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414433748&sr=1-1&keywords=zero+to+one

It's only partly about startups. A lot is general and philosophical. I wouldn't say I agree completely with everything, but I have seldom read a business book that I agreed with more.

Among the things I agree with are Peter's comments about what happened culturally in the 70s. I've personally believed this for years, and when I saw him start talking the same way I was very encouraged. Now I hear more and more people talking about this issue, and it's got me hopeful that we can dethrone the cultural hegemony of the reactionary baby boomers in my lifetime.

BTW... on IT having been the exception... imagine if energy, transportation, medicine, etc. had been advancing at the same rate as information technology for the past 40 years... wow. We really would not be having these discussions about an "energy problem." Instead we'd be discussing how new political experiments in the Martian colonies might affect things here at home.

Very interesting article, thanks for posting!

The article mentions several books advocating for UBI, including Annie Lowrey's Give People Money, Andy Stern's Raising the Floor, Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght's Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy, Andrew Yang's The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future, and Rutger Bregman's Utopia for Realists. I have not read them, but from the article it sounds like they all make similar arguments in favor of a UBI and differ over the amount it should be. I believe all of them are assuming that it would be done at a national scale - I don't really understand why this couldn't be done at smaller jurisdictions (different states already have different policies about sales and income taxes, and Alaska has the closest thing in the US now to a UBI with its annual oil revenues share), or most ideally (but also more unrealistically) at a global scale (as the article points out a few dollars a week could lift millions of Indians out of extreme poverty.

I hadn't planned to include any of these books in the seminar, but if there is a strong interest in going into more depth on UBI, we could definitely do this. Maybe it would make most sense to select a set of books on the topic and split them amongst the class rather than having everyone read the same book, unless there is one book that is particularly good.

I'm an economics grad so I've got a fair amount of understanding in all this. The main thing I would say is that while you're arguements are definitely not wrong per se, they are very optimistic.

One of the main things that I noticed from studying university economics opposed to more basic high school economics classes, is that there are so many theoretical ideas about capitalism and anarchism that make sense. However, you apply these ideas to the real world and the majority of them fall dead in the water because it is so easy for economists and just generally smart, analytical people such as yourself to assume that everyone else is as rational and unimpulsive. You'd be surprised how many people make poorly imformed choices that negatively affect society as a whole. It isn't something I can sum up on here (if it was, my degree would have been a huge waste of tens of thousands of pounds), but if you're interested I would definitely suggest studying economics. If you're past that stage in your life though, the link below is to a book that I think you'd find hugely insightful. Keep in mind this is a link to UK amazon though.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Animal-Spirits-Psychology-Economy-Capitalism/dp/069114592X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

Anyway, I've enjoyed our chats. All the best!

Here is the source, it's WaPo but just open it in a private window to get around the quota.

Some details from the article:

>Americans in the bottom 90 percent derive 85 percent of their income from labor, data shows, while those in the top 1 percent get more than half their income from capital.
>
>...
>
>In their new book, “The Triumph of Injustice,” Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of the University of California at Berkeley present data showing that in 2018, labor income was taxed at a higher rate than capital income for the first time in modern U.S. history.
>
>...
>
>The proximate cause of the shift was the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which dramatically slashed taxes on corporate profits and on estates — both forms of capital income — according to their analysis. But Saez and Zucman also note that the trend has been decades in the making, driven in large part by the same forces that have pushed billionaires’ tax rates below those of the working class.

Worth noting:

>Saez and Zucman’s findings are controversial in some quarters of the economics field because they upend a number of long-held orthodoxies about the distribution of income and spending in the United States. The differences largely amount to decisions about how to assign various categories of income, wealth and taxation to different segments of the population: Are taxes on corporate profits paid by shareholders, or do they get passed on to workers? Is the earned-income tax credit a reduction in taxes or a transfer of income?

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone when I say this but Andrew Yang's message clicked with me almost immediately. It's no coincidence when a politician posts 100+ policies and a majority of them matches with your view.

I remember very early on Andrews bid for presidency was front page of /r/futurology. I think it is very important to maintain the effort to be inclusive and convert new voters. But I'm sure there are still a huge number of people that didn't need any convincing but just haven't heard of Andrew's campaign.

One thing that really struck me when hearing Andrew speak on Freakonomics was that this guy actually respects the academia aspect of Economics. Instead of the average politician that panders by regurgitating highschool level macroecon concepts, this guy seemed to actually understand what he's talking about. So I bought his book:
https://www.amazon.com/War-Normal-People-Disappearing-Universal/dp/0316414247

And that was really what put me on 100% for Yang. If you guys haven't read this already, I highly recommend it. If Andrew was writing stuff like this when I was in school, it would've influenced all my research.

The strategy of pushing tiny snippets of Yang to the mainstream like his interviews or listing his top 10 views is great. But Yang is more than that. He has actual substance that most other candidates lack. So for the "research" phase of this post, one of the first steps should be to read this book!

I'm not sure how we can get this book into more hands? Are there political book clubs? Can we get this on more must read lists?

> You’re suffering from something called impostor syndrome, which is something many successful people have. No matter how good you are and how far you come, you still feel like it’s a mistake and you aren’t worthy.

You know, that really puts things into perspective for me. I've recently had an interview and just looking at my resume you can see I'm very successful; I have a patent pending, ivy education, and president of some things which their contributions have seen positive attention from media.

The interviewer asked me the following question:

> What is an achievement that you are particularly proud of?

There was a long pause, and she was surprised. I could objectively see why, but I wanted to be honest--so I thought about it. I don't really feel that way. In the end, I answered something along the lines of being able to create something out of nothing, which is something that few people seem to be able to do. Zero to One by Peter Thiel is a book that kind of puts this idea into perspective. Honestly though, I still feel like I could do better and I feel like I've made far too many mistakes that I shouldn't have made in the past.

Start With Why [Simon Sinek]

48 Laws of Power [Robert Greene] (33 Strategies of War, Art of Seduction)

The 50th Law [Curtis James Jackson]

Tipping Point:How Little Things Can Make a Difference and Outliers: The story of Succes [Malcolm Gladwell]

The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy [Ryan Holiday] (stoicism)

[Tim Ferris] (actually haven't read any of his books, but seems to know a way to use social media, podcast, youtube)

Get an understanding to finance, economics, marketing, investing [Graham, Buffet], philosophy [Jordan Peterson]

I like to think us/you/business is about personal development, consciousness, observing recognizable patterns in human behavior and historical significance. It's an understanding of vast areas of subjects that connect and intertwine then returns back to the first book you’ve read (Start with Why) and learn what you've read past to present. Business is spectacular, so is golf.



To Add:

Irrationally Predictable:The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions - [Dan Ariely] (marketing)

The Hard Things About Hard Things - [Ben Horowitz] (business management)

Black Privilege: Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It - [Charlamagne Tha God] (motivation)

The Lean Startup: Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses - [Eric Ries]

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, How to Build the Future - [Peter Theil]

I’ll give you my favorite: The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve

It’s a must read in my opinion. Long, but well worth it. Don’t waste your time with other books on the subject like “End the Fed” by Ron Paul. This book blows it out and is very comprehensive. It’s read like a story also, which makes it easy to read.

Also, take your pick from Mark Levin. I’d recommend picking any single one of his books that interest you.

> Where is free banking and how was it implemented?

Free banking is simply treating the enterprise of banking like other free enterprises. Private banknotes drawn on reliable, credible banks can circulate freely, with transparent clearinghouse activity. Fractional reserve may be practiced, or not, so long as there is transparency and competition. George Selgin is probably the most well-known, modern proponent. It has been practiced successfully in England and Scotland in the 19th century. The temptation to legislate bank privilege tends to confound free banking.

> I don't understand what banking cartels were present during the instituting of the federal reserve system. Care to tell me

Mostly the House of J.P. Morgan, but there are British connections. The Federal Reserve Act succeeded where a previous, similar, and competing Aldrich Plan failed.

Rothbard has written some very dry but very thorough compendiums of activity by the major players. He certainly has other polemics against the Fed, but I would not recommend them to you. I have not read The Creature from Jekyll Island, but it is on my list.

I have read Secrets of the Federal Reserve, and I would certainly recommend it. It is more thorough than I cared for, and while it certainly indulges in speculation at times -- a necessary evil when journaling closed-door events -- such occurrences are not misleading. I cannot attest to the veracity of the facts presented, but they are quite specific and thorough and presumably verifiable.

John Curl's Humanizing the Economy is solid, and the beginning and final chapters get into some interesting theoretical territory.

Pretty much anything by Brett Fairbairn, but this essay is a good place to start.

Though he passed on a few years ago, I believe Ian MacPherson was one of the 20th century's greatest scholars of cooperativism. Start with this collection of essays that he curated.

Finally, if you're interested in credit unions, here's a list of book reviews I wrote while in grad school.

>These income-generating assets are what economists call capital. And because capital is heavily concentrated among the rich, the U.S. government taxed earnings derived from capital at a higher rate than earnings made through labor for the entirety of the 20th century.

>But that’s no longer the case, according to economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of the University of California at Berkeley. In their new book, “The Triumph of Injustice,” they present data showing that in 2018, labor income was taxed at a higher rate than capital income for the first time in modern U.S. history.

>The proximate cause of the shift was the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which dramatically slashed taxes on corporate profits and on estates — both forms of capital income — according to their analysis. But Saez and Zucman also note that the trend has been decades in the making, driven in large part by the same forces that have pushed billionaires’ tax rates below those of the working class.

>“From the 1940s to the 1980s, the average tax rate on capital exceeded 40%, while labor paid less than 25%," they write. “Since its peak of the 1950s, however, the average capital tax rate has been cut by twenty percentage points. At the same time, labor taxation has risen more than ten points, driven by the upsurge in payroll taxes.”

>For the latter part of the 20th century, many economists — particularly those who worked closely with lawmakers to craft public policy — tended to make ideologically conservative, market-oriented assumptions about how the world does and should work. In recent years, however, more economists like Saez and Zucman have started to question those assumptions.

>One of the orthodoxies Saez and Zucman challenge is the idea that the optimal tax rate on capital should be as low as possible — zero, or even less. Proponents of this idea argue that keeping capital taxes low gives businesses more money to spend, which allows them to hire more workers and pay them better wages, benefiting everyone in the economy.

>This thinking underpins much of the erosion of the capital tax rate that Saez and Zucman observe. It was the driving force behind the dramatic reduction of the corporate tax rate ushered in by President Trump’s 2017 tax cut.

>Under this line of thinking, you’d expect savings and investment to decline during periods of high capital taxation, and to rise when such taxes are low. But Saez and Zucman didn’t find any evidence of this pattern in the data: “Since 1913,” they write, “the saving and investment rates have fluctuated around 10% of national income despite enormous variation in capital taxation.”

>A more recent piece of evidence also bolsters their conclusion: Proponents of the corporate rate cut in the TCJA promised it would unleash new business investment. But the data so far shows “little reason to believe the TCJA substantially boosted investment to date,” as economist Jason Furman recently summarized for the American Enterprise Institute.

>Saez and Zucman contend that, rather than boost investment in American workers, falling tax rates on capital simply have served to fatten the wallets of corporations and their shareholders. “Less capital taxation means that the wealthy — who derive most of their income from capital — can mechanically accumulate more. This feeds a snowball effect: wealth generates income, income that is easily saved at a high rate when capital taxes are low; this saving adds to the existing stock of wealth, which in turn generates more income, and so on.”

This app, like WhatsApp, is dependent on network effects -- both parties need to have the app to reap any benefits. But unlike this app, What'sApp has over 500 million users all across the world and they've also got Facebook behind the platform to ensure global domination...

This app has to start from scratch and there is little to distinguish it from the many competitors... competitors like Google Hangouts. The Stock Android App which ships on every Android smartphone & CANNOT be uninstalled ^(w/o root). Hangouts is also being pushed as The default app for SMS and IM on Android. Hangouts now offers free calling throughout the US and free calls among Gmail/Google users across the world.

Like I said before, this app is going to have to face tremendous hurdles... just because they got into YC != success.


Also the Dropbox analogy is pretty terrible.

For one, dropbox use isn't subject to network effects. Secondly, Dropbox is getting crushed by Google, and Microsoft, and Amazon and Box and iCloud and other services who are battling for the same cloud storage market. They're undercutting each other like crazy to lock down users and profits are razor thin. Dropbox's entire business is dependent on Storage whereas the 'other guys' have other cash-flows to keep them in the fight. The hope of Dropbox IPO has also evaporated.... so in short yes, competition is crushing Dropbox.

I'm gonna go against the tide here and recommend that you don't read the older books written by Marx, Engels, etc., and find books that discuss socialism today. Here are some I would recommend:

• A Brief History of Neoliberalism from David Harvey, a Marxist political economist, is pretty good in terms of giving a cursory overview of modern capitalism
  
• Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High-Technology Capitalism is a fantastic, under-appreciated book that talks about capitalism and socialism in the context of modern First World societies oriented around technology and the service sector. It also devotes a whole chapter to discussing the origins of socialist thought via Marx, 18th century debates about socialism, and so forth. Well-written and easy/fun to read.
  
• Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction is possibly my favorite book ever. It does a great job of pointing out how socialism/marxism were key to Third World struggles in the 20th century and how the Third World developed and utilized socialist/marxist theory and practice to fit their own local situations. An overall fantastic book that really brings home how socialism is not a monolithic, Eurocentric theory, but something that has a great deal many currents and competing schools of thought.

Apart from being a citizen in what is called a social democracy, I do have some knowledge on the term, however in effect limited mostly to theories regarding the Nordic model and how welfare capitalism is done in the Nordic countries. So not as much theory on social democracy in itself as a concept, but rather more empirically perhaps, on how social democracies incorporates these notions into welfare and work policies.

With that said, I believe looking into the Nordic model will give you some good insights into what exactly it is that social democracy entails, and it will surely give you some additional "meat to the bone" after reading the wiki article.

A good start, I believe, is Gøsta Esping-Andersen's The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (there are abridged versions available in various scholarly databases). I can also produce some key concepts from the book worth mentioning, if you like.

Perhaps if you could formulate more precicely what it is you're most interested in regarding social democracy, I could provide you with some more litterature or insights?

There is so much more that I could get into with all of this, but I have work in 2 hours and this has already gone on far too long. If you somehow made it all the way through this and are still not convinced that the original post is a massive misrepresentation of what is actually going on in Venezuela right now, the only thing I can do is point you to some of my sources so that you can hopefully get a more articulate deconstruction of what's going on in a less-clunky format.

The main sources I cribbed from with this post are:

1. Associate Professor of Politics and Global Studies at Drexel University George Ciccariello-Maher's Building the Commune.
   
2. George Cicariello-Maher's We Created Chávez
   
3. Distinguished Professor of anthropology and geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York David Harvey's, A Brief History of Neoliberalism
   
4. Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. Mark Weisbrot's Failed: What the "Experts" Got Wrong about the Global Economy
   
5. Keynesian economist and University Professor at Columbia University Jeffrey Sachs' continued work including this report, specifically.
   
6. Political activists and independent journalists Mike Prysner and Abby Martin's work on Empire Files.
   
   I highly recommend anyone who's interested in the history of Venezuela to read the literature. The history of the people there is not only fascinating but deeply profound, in my opinion. If anyone has more specific questions I'm not against answering them here, but I you'd be much better off just looking into it yourself. Understanding what's happening in Latin America is key to understanding the flow of capital worldwide and you can't be an informed political actor without educating yourself on the dynamics of modern capitalism.
   
   Love & Solidarity.

Fake news shouldn't be that hard to define. It's mostly exemplified by hyperpartisan news sources that either doesn't completely fact check it's information or presents information that is misleading due to lack of sufficient pertinent information.
I explained how propaganda works. You've proven you do not understand the difference between a conspiracy theory and an opinion.
" Clintons did have power simply because they accumulated it.
Why would they acculumate that power? The oldest reason all. She wanted it. Thats all."
Those are not the words of an epistemic rationalist, those are the ramblings of a cynic. She "wants power" is such a cartoonish unrealistic motive. The world cannot be interpreted and broken down using motifs from your typical Hollywood movie.
I've listened and read the speeches of Goeebels at the Nurenburg rallies, I've read Bryan Capland books on rationality, I've read Orwells 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World. If you want to talk about books, I suggest you try out The Believing Brain and The Myth of The Rational Voter.

Anthony Reiner was a completely separate case.

"Sounds like a man who had evidence but couldnt use it." Which just so happens to sound exactly like someone who doesn't have evidence to indict to begin with. I'd take Occram's razor on this one.

Disney owns a lot of companies. So what? Conglomeration is apart of capitalism. It only proves they are on the same side and unlikely to compete, doesn't necessarily prove they are guilty of a sinister plot simply due to association. Obviously MSM is controlled by corporations. Would you expect the worlds top grossing films to come out of some Hungarian teenagers basement? No, that is not how the free market works. The MSM is merely a pet name given to major monopolies in journalism. They are owned by corporations because that is how they get the necessary resources and funding to adapt to the growing needs of the world for information.
I like to keep it civil, but seriously? Implying that FOX news is a paragon of good journalism over any other mainstream media is laughable. This is not real journalism. I will admit to my Liberal bias, now you need to admit to yours.
Why did Trump win despite the hate? If you've ever lived in Manhattan and dealt with professional con men, then you would know. He has mastered only the art of the New York style con. Making all these impossible promises while showcasing a massive amount of confidence and bravado. He's demonized all of his opponents and critics. He's convinced you and millions like you to block out all of his criticism as meaningless propaganda. Propaganda doesn't need to come from corporations, it's all within your head m8. You put all corporate media under the same category of legitimacy as every fringe site out there. You do this to justify believing only in media that matches your beliefs, the truth doesn't matter to you because you already admitted you don't think it exist. The fact you think FOX news is exceptional helps prove my theory that you truly believe your way of thinking is superior. So you judge news by how closely it aligns with your preconceptions. You think labeling me with an overused psychology term proves anything?

Rule by Secrecy by Jim Marrs is a good starting point. It's not really about hidden cabals, but instead elucidates the existence and workings on known secretive groups. For example the CFR, Trilaterals, and Bilderbergers are quite real and any intellectual discussing forgein policy, such as Chomsky, will bring them up. They are the shot callers including Queens, US presidents, and the stupid crazy rich. Marrs can be a little out there as far as aliens and stuff, but this book is mostly a research about these organizations that call the shots. Everything is indexed and footnoted, as Marrs is an investigative journalist by education and career.

Next I would recommend The Creature from Jekyll Island. The federal reserve is the most important institution involved in our economy and every American should know about it, love it or hate it.

Thats all I can think of off the top of my head. My books are packed for a move but I'm sure you'll get some good comments.

Firstly we are getting really off topic here but ok.
your argument assumes that the government is competent enough to know what is best for society, something that I would disagree with: https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies-Policies/dp/0691138737
as for your examples, I feel like debating healthcare would be too far off topic, there is no need to provide for dependents with UBI in place, people should give to charity through kindness, not because of a tax break and why should the government encourage house buying and starting a small business?

Central banks would be the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, etc. These are the banks that "create" money into existence by loaning it to banks such as BoA, HSBC, etc.

For the long answer, I'd suggest you check out James Corbett's Century of Enslavement: The History of The Federal Reserve. For the more digestible version, see The American Dream Film (edit: just watched it again. I would say it makes some important errors, but on the whole is a good primer if you don't take it as gospel.) For the in-depth history of the creation of the US Fed, see G Edward Griffin's excellent The Creature from Jekyll Island (available in pdf in many places on the net, but please support the author if you have the ability).

I could spend a lot time responding to these counter points, but, first, I want to know - are you proposing a democratic system for controlling a monopoly on the initiation of force (domestic and foreign)? How would the system you are proposing solve fundamental economic problem for dealing with scarcity in a more efficient way than free market capitalism?

> What does brain surgery have to do with anything? Like, at all? No one is suggesting that we have Twitch Performs Brainsurgery or Rocket Design by Popular Vote.

This part of your response, though, really surprises me. Most people I communicate with easily grasp this point. Voters (direct or representative democracy) would have to thoroughly understand very complex economic issues to vote 'correctly' or 'optimally'. That's the point about brain surgery. You can't hand a small group of people a monopoly on the initiation of force and then have the majority of voters be extremely ignorant on the issues. If this is still unclear, the following from Bryan Caplan is highly recommended:

Myth of the Rational Voter

http://www.amazon.com/The-Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies/dp/0691138737

Dear llordlloyd,

I am not an expert in taxation, but there is theory of optimal taxation called Ramsay taxation that to minimize tax distortion and inefficiencies, the tax rate has to be *inversely proportional" with its elasticity. The idea here is that higher tax rate lowers incentive to work. But if a person's effort on a particular occupation is inelastic, a high tax rate is efficient because it only reduces work effort by a small amount, while an occupation in which its work effort is sensitive to a higher tax rate, then a smaller tax rate should be implemented because you don't want to drastically reduce the amount of work effort.

I wish I could tell you more about taxation but Joel Slemrod's Taxing Ourselves is a good layman's book on the subject of taxation.

>... should be considered?

This is a normative question. In normative questions the values of some actor(s) determines the answer.

In the case of public policy this means that all manners of people values could have an impact on the policies goals. For example, policymakers (such as legislators) all often have competing visions about what the goal of a policy should be. Bureaucrats often have their own opinions about what the goals should be. Constituents might have all sorts of other competing opinions. The target population may have other opinions. What this means is that in order for policy to pass it usually has to have a certain amount of ambiguity baked in, so as to satisfy the competing values of all the different groups/actors.

Deborah Stone's book Policy Paradox is principally about the role of ambiguity in public policy and in establishing policy goals. Policy Paradox is mandatory reading for any student of Public Policy. She demonstrates how vague (ambiguous) goals are often necessary in order to achieve the votes of all the possible veto actors (committee chairs, speakers, majority leaders, median voters, Presidents, etc...). In short, many actors make it difficult to reconcile what the policy should do. And, often times not all goals can be achieved simultaneously ; Some goals are mutually exclusive to a point. This can make it difficult to determine whether a policy is actually a success or a failure.

Policy Paradox builds on some of the decision making work of Cohen, March, and Olsen who described how ambiguity of goals plays a role in decision making in "organization anarchies" such as governments and universities. Cohen and March also developed the theory of bounded-rationality and discussed the importance of ambiguity in individual decision making as well.

Implementation by Pressman and Wildavsky additionally touches how important it is that the goals of a policy have "buy in" amongst the bureaucrats responsible for implementing the policy. Essentially, if the goals are to outside the organizational culture of the bureaucracy responsible for running the program, the bureaucrats may just not implement the policy fully (or at all).

Anecdotally, I've spoken, in the course of researching legislative oversight, with policy makers who have been personally (and professionally) frustrated when they voted into creation a new policy program and appropriated money to a bureaucracy to implement that program. And then had the bureaucracy simply not implement the program in the slightest because it was simply to far afield from the goals/mission of the bureaucrats.

This is much less of a problem outside of public policy. In "Design Thinking" the only person whose values matter to the "designer" is the clients. The designer merely designs to the clients singular values. This is why "design thinking" approaches are not generally a good approach for policy analysts or policy makers.

If you're looking for a guide on how to perform a policy analysis, I suggest you read Bardach's Eightfold Path to Policy Analysis. It's essentially the standard.

If you enjoyed this short movie, and you'd like more detail, I'd recommend checking out this book as well. I read this 608-page book in 2005 and I loved it. This movie is very impressive because it condenses 608 pages of information into a 30-minute movie.

imho "they" are the super wealthy of the world.

Is this a vast, dark conspiracy? No. They know that for them to continue gaining and holding power they need control a currency. The inevitable outcome is a concentration of those currencies. It's as simple as you and your neighbors all getting jobs because you know that it will pay your rent. Did you all "conspire" to get those jobs? No. You just all knew it was in your best interest. It was the logical next step for you.

If you want to get an idea of how they operate then read this book that details the creation of the US Federal Reserve. It's not boring, and is actually a fun read kind of like a spy novel since so much of what they did was covert.

Sorry for the delay! I hear you. I grew up in similar surroundings in the southeastern US and then moved to NYC after graduating thinking there I’d finally be surrounded by woke intellectuals who question everything. Got involved in politics. Turns out people have been pretty brainwashed for about 3 generations now, the people in highest levels of government and business are only making shit up as they go, and it’s literally the blind leading the blind everywhere you turn. Everyone in life is just faking it until they make it - you, me, everyone. Some do have more of a financial/socioeconomic advantage than others.

On one hand that’s a horrifying realization since we grow up instilled with this idea that there’s some sense of order to the world, that people are out there with more experience than us who have a plan and know what they’re doing. Trust the system, trust the hierarchy, obey. On the other hand, realizing that’s all BS is also liberating because it means you can lead by first always always always questioning everything, then learning how to synthesize and articulate these ideas for the people around you, and online if you participate in discourse/discussion groups.

Idk where you stand politically, but for starters - one thing that really kickstarted my awakening and changed my worldview was reading This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein. It’s bleak at first, really makes you feel nihilistic how these corporations exploit disaster for profit and NGOs that are supposed to provide relief end up playing into the system because they’re run just like corporations. BUT once you get through that, Klein starts to show you how we get out of this mess.

The other thing I read early on that changed my life is Dark Ecology by Tim Morton. He’s an object oriented ontologist and tries to lay out a new way of thinking about ourselves our systems and our society in the Anthropocene because our current frameworks are way outdated - dating back to 12,000 years ago when humans first started transitioning from hunting/gathering to agriculture. He takes you on a fascinating journey about how this illusion of separating ourselves from nature has shaped the way most people think today.

I’m probably not doing either book any justice but they really helped me start to articulate these things I’ve always felt were wrong but didn’t have the language for yet. Klein is a well known journalist (The Nation, The Intercept) and Morton is a professor currently at Rice University). Check them out:

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate https://www.amazon.com/dp/1451697392/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_G-eRAbB05R3CY

Dark Ecology: For a Logic of Future Coexistence (The Wellek Library Lectures) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0231177526/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_9-eRAb1HD75J7

I mean...I don't know how quick you want things to happen? This company went from 200m @ IPO to 10bn rev in 6yr, which is the fastest company in history save for GOOGL (5yr). Tied with FB. Beats AMZN (7 I think), BABA, MSFT (all those around 8-9) They grew in revenue as fast as a dude who monetized half the world in ~8 years (our man zuck)

I'll only defend myself with some food for thought. I'll re-hash these points once in awhile, I can't help it.

Profit point has been hit for auto mfg for a couple years, but everything else has been capex and R&D which, in mfg is huge -- (TSLA is the only mfg example of the aforementioned tech platforms...mfg has high capex and tech has R&D. Double whammy of expensive thangs)

They are hyperspending while other auto mfgs are avoiding the elephant by putting half-assed efforts and retaining stale assets. They have to create a tesla-esque-or-better-2025 plant while still showing profit (to please shareholders) on an already razor-thin margin. If they aren't doing the definition of kicking the can down the road ...well, godspeed. Added bonus: they're literally paying a dividend to shareholders instead of investing in EV infrastructure. Why? Because the board & CEO are old as fuck and think short-term politics is a good thing.. "Fuck that, I'm retiring in 5 years, funnel money out of the pensions and get me the fuck outta here."

(Existing PPOE of a car mfg is a technologically stale asset. To re-adjust for the EV revolution -- which is 100% happening -- is ungodly expensive)

As odd as it sounds, seeking a profit on TSLA's balance sheet at this stage is penny-wise, dollar stupid. Much like amazon and most other tech companies, the shit you do in the early stages really fucking pays off later. But much like amzn pre-profit...it was always there, but it was just immediately spent on R&D & infrastructure rather than cash hoarding and dividends (lol)

> Is your current assessment seriously that “people always vote for the most reasonable and prepared candidate but the parties just won’t put them out?”

Nope, I pretty much agree 100% with what you said. I would agree with the notion that the parties won't put out their "best" candidates, but it's not like I would expect the populace to vote for a candidate based on his/her merit anyway.

You might like the book the Myth of the Rational Voter.

There is nothing I said by which you can infer I was a neoliberal; further, as I pointed out, Bush and Clinton are both neoliberal in governing ideology, so that's really the angle you wanted to hit on how they're the same.

Looking through your post history, it looks like you quite like the term. If that's the case, might I recommend either Harvey's A Brief History of Neoliberalism or Peck's Constructions of Neoliberal Reason. Of the two, I prefer Harvey. You might also look into Foucault's lectures on biopolitics, he traces neoliberal thought back through the ordoliberals in Germany.

To be clear, I'm not condescending here, if you are actually interested in these ideas, I really do want you to take them up and if you already have, perhaps we could discuss why you think pointing out the previous presidents support Clinton makes one a neoliberal...

>To the extent that Huawei copies other parties' IP, it is unlikely to suffer consequences in China because it does not subscribe to international IP norms.

Yes but the Chinese market is so big they don't care and it is only growing. The US market is also huge but we already are disinclined to purchase Huawei products, yet they are still top 3 in phone sales globally.

​

You asked how copyright laws handicap innovation? I'm speaking on the overall technological innovation of a society, currently the US' overall technological innovation is being hindered, in part, by copyright laws such as the DMCA and DRM.

​

In the book, AI Superpowers, the author, Kai-Fu Lee, argues much the same, but in the specific lens of Artificial Intelligence. He goes in to explicit detail about many examples, much better than I could explain them. There you will specifically find the examples you demand, then you can go and tell him he has no idea what he is talking about.

​

Edit:

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-lawsuit-takes-dmca-section-1201-research-and-technology-restrictions-violate

https://www.eff.org/cases/green-v-us-department-justice

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-wins-dmca-exemption-petitions-tinkering-echos-and-repairing-appliances-new

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/08/topple-track-attacks-eff-and-others-outrageous-dmca-notices

https://cdt.org/insight/the-cyber-hard-questions-in-the-world-of-cybersecurity-research/

https://cdt.org/blog/taking-the-pulse-of-security-research/

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/closed-proprietary-felonious-toxic-rainbow-locked-technology

https://cdt.org/files/2018/04/2018-04-09-security-research-expert-statement-final.pdf

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/01/anyone-even-government-can-ask-patent-office-review-invalid-patents

​

Look, I'm not interested in getting into a debate about semantics. My primary reason for replying was to point out some of the shortcomings of a "free market" (or laissez faire capitalism).

Anyway, I'm not an economist nor a philosopher. You should decide what you value most: markets or human beings. If you have a religious devotion to the former then there is nothing I can do for you.

If you're interested in criticisms of a capitalist free market you should check out Profit Over People by Noam Chomsky or anything by Karl Marx who obviously has some interesting views on the matter.

My point is simply that the claim that contracting to a private company would necessarily save money is false. You seem to be acknowledging that so I don't see what the issue is.

Tech derives its value from publicly funded research, government protected intellectual property, rent extraction of data, an iron triangle between firms, governments & universities, often using public or privileged information and then placing it under non-compete clauses.

As such, rather than farm it out to a tech firm why not produce a commonly held form that can be used over and over and isn't under privately held lock and key?

Sources for Further Reading if this subject interests you:

Mazzucatto:

https://www.amazon.com/Entrepreneurial-State-Debunking-Private-Economics/dp/0857282522

Article form:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/americas/2014-12-15/innovative-state

Boldrin & Levine:

http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/against.htm

Stiglitz:

http://www.lse.ac.uk/assets/richmedia/channels/publicLecturesAndEvents/slides/20120628_1830_creatingALearningSociety_sl.pdf

(Also a book)

Saxenian:

http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/articles/pdf/v08/08HarvJLTech521.pdf

(Also, also a book)

Shapin:

https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Scientific_Life.html?id=KSQJ1m9VsxEC

Most libertarians hold that intellectual property would not exist (at least in its current form) in a voluntaryist society. Although IP has the word "property" in its name it's really not the same as real property, in the same way that the 'patriot act' is not actually patriotic.

Intellectual property--ideas--can be reproduced without the original holder of the idea losing the idea. Rather it is multiplied. Think of the difference between me stealing your Ferrari or me looking at your Ferrari then building my own identical model at home with my own equipment. The second example does not infringe on your property rights although some will argued it infringes on intellectual property rights.

Here is a short videon Russia Today that makes the case against IP:

• Case Against Intellectual Property
  
  For a much more in-depth, academic examination of this topic, the following book is well reviewed:
  
  
• Against Intellectual Monopoly free online version
  
  
• Against Intellectual Monopoly at Amazon
  
  An example of a libertarian not holding the typical view is the prolific Reddit poster JamesCarlin. He has written in defence of Intellectual Property in a voluntaryist society. You can read his arguments at his website here.

> Because they can use the State, insulating themselves from having to provide value at all.

Then that seems to undermine your entire point. That the State has no subjective value to you personally, is wholly irrelevant to the fact that businesses and corporations love it to secure their economic advantage over others. (i.e. States have tremendous value contra your original claim)

> Ooh, this'll be good.

> Sat on the backburner until Xerox got a hold of it.

> Seriously. This is a google search away.

> AT&T[1]

> Did Alexander Graham Bell secretly work for the government, or something?

> Chalk's International Airlines began operation in 1919. Prior to this, St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line operated for about four months, carrying around 1200 passengers during its time, in 1914.

Learn your history.

> Investing 101: No investment is without risk.

Wrong. Ever since the end of the Cold War, economists have understood that the mechanism by which the US government stimulates production is essentially by creating a State guaranteed market for industries and R&D alike.

Sometimes the state or government just provides the best service. Economist Mariana Mazzucato is really good on this: basically, the state is far, far more innovative and creative than the private sector.

The Creature at Jekyll Island does a good job at revealing the Fed's shady inception.

It's quite upsetting, to be frank.

Here's a quick review:

>At first glance The Creature from Jekyll Island is a huge book. While this may be daunting to some, once the book is actually started, it flows smoothly and reads quickly. There are so many fascinating tidbits of information here that the reader won't even be concerned about the size of the book. The title refers to the formation of the Federal Reserve System, which occurred at a secret meeting at Jekyll Island, Georgia in 1910. It was at this meeting, as Griffin relates, that the "Money Trust", composed of the richest and most powerful bankers in the world, along with a U.S. Senator, wrote the proposal to launch the Federal Reserve System (which Griffin calls a banking cartel) to control the financial system so that the bankers will always come out on top. The biggest problem in modern banking, according to Griffin, is and has always been the creation of fiat money. Fiat money is money that is "declared" money by the government. It is not backed by anything but promises and deceit. All societies were sound financially when they used gold or silver to back their currency. When the bankers finally get their way and install fiat money, the result is inflation and boom and bust cycles. Griffin gives numerous examples of this, such as repeated failures by American colonies and European states in using fiat money. The purpose of fiat money is so that the government can spend more then they take in through taxes. Without writing reams on this book, it is sufficient to say that this is a must read for anyone who is interested in learning how the money system operates. Griffin gives comprehensive accounts of how the Fed creates money, and how this affects everyday life. I would have to say these sections are better than Murray Rothbard's book, The Case Against the Fed, because Griffin gives himself more room for explanation. Griffin does believe in the conspiratorial view of history, and he believes that the bankers are working in concert with such groups as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission to bring about a socialist-world system in which an elite composed of intellectuals and bankers will rule over the entire planet. Griffin even spends a chapter outlining how this system could come about, and the consequent results of this socialist system. These chapters are a bit unsettling, but even if you aren't interested in this worldview, you can still learn much about the economy from this book. Recommended --By Jeffrey Leach on July 29, 2001

Sorry to hijack BUT... Enough (not a lot) of the comments here made feel that a lot of people could use a nice primer on taxes (esp the income tax)

I recommend reading this book: http://www.amazon.com/Taxing-Ourselves-4th-Edition-Citizens/dp/0262693631

It is a very good book that merely seeks to inform the reader about taxes never taking a stand by condoning or condemning. It was published in 2008 and the statistics reflect that BUT the underlying analysis is still relevant AND it is easy to attain up to date statistics.

Funniest thing about the book is the opening quote:

Albert Einstein, "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."

Animal Spirits by George Ackerloff and Robert Shiller is a really good one. It sort of expands on Keynes' ideas about human psychology and subsequent unpredictability of the macroeconomy. Pretty interesting read. Pretty easy and non-technical read.

Innovation is what leads our economy to growth.

>they must provide the good or service at the lowest possible cost

With or without regulation, this requires assumptions that aren't realistic like:

• All firms must sell identical products. (They don't)
  
• All companies can't control market price of their goods. (Business strategy encourages otherwise)
  
• Companies have small market share. (Companies advertise, buy each other out, push each other out the market, etc.)
  
• All buyers full info about all product/pricing offerings out there. (We have AOL subscribers paying broadband rates for dial-up in 2017)
  
  In this libertarian world, imagine if a company owned the lands & home you were born and raised. How is this different than from the era of serfs, lords & aristocracy?
  
  ----
  
  Also, if you get a chance, I'd highly recommend taking a few minutes to read through Zero To One by Peter Thiel.

How about if in my example, I compared pirating music with using Wikipedia without ever donating money to them? That's the same then. Does the financial situation of wikipedia employees matter? Would it be worth documenting the wikipedia workers' lives? Could that be done without looking like a "donate to wikipedia!" ad?

The best comparison of music piracy is undoubtedly movie piracy; there's clearly no ethical difference. Is it worthwhile to look at how movie producers have been affected financially? Do you think that such a thing could be made without looking like it's pushing a political agenda for the MPAA?

I know that journalism without advocacy exists though, and sure, this information could be useful to people, but like I said in my original post, I just think it's writing the wrong narrative.

Lets say a Walmart moves into town, and runs the local Kmart out of business (not a comparison to music piracy, just an example of voluntarism). Is it appropriate to document the lives of those displaced Kmart workers? Should we make people feel bad about shopping at Walmart? I would say it doesn't matter because everything is completely voluntary, as long as Walmart doesn't purchase from slave owners and doesn't steal things from other people. Voluntary interactions are generally ethical and coercion is generally unethical. It's pretty easy to see what is voluntary and what is coercive when it comes to slavery vs labor, and theft vs trade of physical property. However, It's not clear that violations of intellectual property are unethical or coercive. It's wrong to steal someone's car, because if you do, they don't have a car. If you steal someone's recipe, they still have that recipe.

There are actually very strong arguments that protecting intellectual property causes a net loss for society. This is a very good book, if you're interested. This one is good too, and talks extensively about the philosophy of property rights. In short, IP protection can be very damaging to creative industries because it hampers derivative works, causes a chilling effect which stifles innovation even more, and increases barriers to enter those markets.

Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey. Although it's not specifically about Reagan, the book covers lots of ideas and policies employed since 80s by not only Reagan Administration on large scale. Book was published in 2005 for the first time and it's amazing how almost everything Harvey describes happened during erstwhile macroregional economic crises is again in progress since 2008. Although the late actions were results-wise mushy at best.

Don't try to "subvert her without her knowing", be forthright with your intentions.

If she likes to read or is willing to read, possibly suggest a "book swap" or just recommend her a book about libertarianism. For someone who might be coming from a more liberal or progressive persuasion, I would recommend Healing Our World by Mary Ruwart.

Healing Our World - Paperback Available from Amazon.com

Healing Our World - E-book

Healing Our World - Free Audiobook

I used to call people out on their preconceptions and bullshit. I tend not to anymore, unless they seem capable of seeing something from another point of view. Holding firm to your views and using facts to quash counter arguments is your best bet. If that doesn't work you need to give up, no amount of logic is going to sway them.

I also copy and paste previous comments I have made, 9/10 I can get them to fit into a counter argument and you don't get emotionally drained by typing up a response.

But if you insist on being a masochist here are my go to rebuttals....

My top three most annoying things capitalists say to me.

At number three we have the classic:

"Face it socialism failed get over it"- my go to response is this. No system is implemented overnight the transition from feudalism to capitalism wasn't spontaneous it took years of struggle for capitalism to win out. the capitalists took ground and lost ground, learned from their mistakes and eventually overcame the system that came before.

Coming in at number two:

"look how successful capitalism is compared to socialism "- you can use various arguments on this one.

• 8 economic downturns in the past century suggest that capitalism isn't as successful as you are being led to think.
  
• higher wages are a thing of the past. The computer, the ever increasing automation of production, the transferal of jobs overseas, the introduction of women into the labour force all mean that there is a huge surplus in the workforce now. These well paid jobs were only ever there because of the demand for labour, this is no longer the case
  a capitalist can pay what ever he wants as there are a 100 people waiting in line for your job.
  
• when 1% of the population owns 50% of the wealth that isn't a success.
  
• most of the great inventions trumpeted as huge successes of capitalism are due to huge funding from the government. Huge advancements made in technology are down to public funding, capitalists hate risk the only way to get them to innovate is to make sure it's not their money being spent. The internet, the algorithm Google uses etc were all created using government funds. Read this book and you will have plenty of counter arguments http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0857282522?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00
  
  And finally, you guessed it folks, number one:
  
  "why do you want to take all my stuff and put me in a gulag"
  
  If you can manage to unroll your eyes a direct quote of what socialism actually is, is a good start.
  
  

There is an economist and author I like called Mariana Mazzucato and she responds by pointing out that Silicon valley's tech giants would not exist if the government had not invested in technologies like the internet. She also makes a case that the government should extract patent royalties from these tech firms which could be used to fund research.


I also think that you can point to the runaway success stories of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China which developed at a double digit growth rates for decades using "leftist" interpretations of Capitalism.

And which Austrian books have you read? Because if you haven't read either:

-The Theory of Money and Credit (Mises)
-Human Action (Mises) or
-Man, Economy & State (Rothbard),

then you haven't read any of them and don't know anything about Austrian economics. Here's a book for you that will explain why trash economics is taught at all the major universities and why Goldman Sachs makes a profit every trading day of every quarter. Here's a clue as to why banks are doing well: borrow at zero % in the fed funds market and deposit the money with the fed which pays 0.75% and earn a free lunch

http://www.amazon.com/The-Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal/product-reviews/091298645X/ref=sr_1_2_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Edited to account for comments

The Guardian had this great overview of the leftist criticism of neoliberalism a few months ago.

If you want something a little longer but also very good, look at David Harvey's A Brief History of Neoliberalism. As /u/ThickTurtle rightly points out, Harvey is a Marxist and that's the approach of the book here. Even if you disagree with the methods, the bibliography is a valuable resource.

/u/leehyori suggested that the article is not balanced. That criticism is correct. It is absolutely a criticism of neoliberalism. However, the term "neoliberalism" is used almost exclusively as a term of opprobrium. Advocates of a radically free-market tend to use other terms for their beliefs. I take OP's use of the term "neoliberal" to mean s/he is looking for these criticisms, and if so, the sources listed are a good starting place. One other book that is worth considering is Daniel Jones's Masters of the Universe. It is more properly a history, but it's a history that goes from the early 20th Century roots of neoliberalism through its economic conceptualization in figures like Freedman to its practice in Reagan and Thatcher. The book argues the three stages are not all cut from the same cloth, and it looks at how neoliberalism in practice is not what it was in theory (among other things).

What John is essentially talking about here is Neoliberalism. If anyone is interested in learning more, David Harvey has a fantastic introductory book called A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Our current economic develop trajectory began in the 1970s and is increasingly creating these enticing investment opportunities for corporations at the expense of the masses. Whether you're liberal, conservative, republication etc., your government has been economically neoliberal for the past 45 years.

Well, it's available on Google Books free preview, but the pages cut off right before this diagram. Also, I'm not going to pay $12 just to see if there's any additional information then what's already contained here.

But, to give you an example, one only needs to look at the Wikipedia page for Li-On batteries to see that that specific invention, while probably funded in part or whole by the DoE, was not an invention of the DoE. So many people, from around the world, contributed knowledge and expertise to create it. It's not a DoE invention.

The State, especially the US State, is one of the primary catalysts for scientific research, but to say that huge corporations and university systems contribute nothing to that landscape is false. They all take and iterate and innovate on each other, and they all fund each other. Looking at scientific articles and reading their funding sections and delving into their cited references points that out.

> paper

u/tromp u/johnalan u/buqratis u/Hauch u/geezas u/PrivacyToTheTop777 u/DeviateFish u/JollyMort

Happy thanksgiving for all. Finally I got some time, so I am replying it.
I am listing the books that I think it is very useful for people who are designing new monies! The topics are like the history of money & theories, problems of the current fiat money system, the fractional banking system, plans after next financial crisis which the global elites are planning etc.

The most of books are from Austria school of economics, which is in my opinion only anti government and grassroots economic study in the current age. They support sound money policy.

Economics are very politically manipulated (or government manipulates) subjects especially, Macro economics- monetary policies are under the category. Government naturally love loose monetary policy because that give them free money to spend. They used to dilute gold coin with other cheaper metals to get some extra money you know. Nowadays they creates money from thin air through the fiat/ central bank system.

Macro economics are used to be called, Political economics. So please be aware. If we are challenging the status quo of government monetary system, to me it is very clear that which policy we should take.

Please people who think inflationary currency is good idea list some books or papers to back up your claim. Both side read them all and discuss one more time?

reference:
What Has Government Done to Our Money? by Murray N. Rothbard
https://mises.org/library/what-has-government-done-our-money
Good short book about theory and history of money.

End the FED by Ron Paul
https://mises.org/library/end-fed

The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve by Edward Griffin
https://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/091298645X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511489201&sr=8-1&keywords=creature+from+island


The Road to Ruin: The Global Elites' Secret Plan for the Next Financial Crisis by James Rickards
https://www.amazon.com/Road-Ruin-Global-Elites-Financial/dp/1591848083/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511489318&sr=1-1&keywords=road+to+ruin

little more balanced book, talking about the global elites plan about after the next financial crisis.

I guess he can always say "people I know in Silicone Valley." But that would sound like Trump's exaggeration/lying. Besides, what if those "people" are actually his friends. I will be very surprised if he and Kai-Fu Lee are not friends. Silicone Valley is littered with people with Asian persuasion, be it East or South. If he kept his mouth shut about his relationships there, then you can imagine some people accusing him of trying to cover up his "techbro" cred. Anyway, transparency is the best policy.
Edit: BTW, Yang is not a techbro. Not sure why people think he is.

I feel you. Though, I feel a reasonable counterpoint might be "how sturdy did you expect 1/1000 of an ounce of an extremely malleable metal to be?" FWIW, I can definitely commiserate. When I get a full set I'll update you on what I think.

Edit: I am also planning on getting several 1/1000 notes to use as bookmarks in the copies of The Creature From Jekyll Island That I give out to people I'm trying to save.

Edit, the second: Worth mentioning, however, as that last statement might give you the wrong impression, I am actually an advocate for the silver standard, not the gold standard, but could be convinced to embrace bimetallism at the right ratio, namely 16:1.

The Creature from Jekyll Island gives a comprehensive and fascinating account on the history, creation, and role of money. Plus, it's not dry or boring! From Amazon's description:

>Where does money come from? Where does it go? Who makes it? The money magicians' secrets are unveiled. We get a close look at their mirrors and smoke machines, their pulleys, cogs, and wheels that create the grand illusion called money. A dry and boring subject? Just wait! You'll be hooked in five minutes. Reads like a detective story — which it really is. But it's all true.

Admittedly, the author sometimes gets a little conspiracy-focused at times, but the book is well-researched with many citations.

Yeah, semantics aside, I would agree with you that China dodged much of the pitfalls primarily due to not liberalizing their capital account too quickly. Not relying on hot money like Mexico, Thailand, ID, etc likely helped dodge the bullet of the financial crises of the 90's.

SOEs still represent about 30% of Chinese GDP, though most are owned locally rather than nationally and of the latter more than half are publically traded.

However, if China hopes to transition out of the middle income trap, I would argue they need more reforms for underperforming SOE's, domestic consumption, and more liquid and transparent financial markets.

P.S. I said "poster boy" simply because Deng Xiaoping is literally on the cover of Harvey's textbook on Neoliberalism, not because China embodies every facet perfectly.

Well innovation drives the world forward doesn't it?

Here in San Jose, I feel that we're not making progress in reducing stray cat populations with our TNR (trap neuter release) programs, it's the same story every year. Shelters get flooded with cats, not enough takers.

I'm reading this book called 0 to 1 where the author talks about something similar. According to him, going from:

• 0 to 1 - Innovating, creating something novel.

• 1 to n - Globalizing. Taking an innovation and propagating it thru the world. E.g. if a cure for ebola is found and given to every country in the world eradicating the disease.

He believes that we've had few 0 to 1 moments since 1975 (outside of technology), and a lot of 1 to n ones.

Go for your new shelter idea if you can. And keep me posted.

I agree, that it sounds more like covet, but the word covert makes much more sense in the context of the rest of this speech.

> It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions--by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.

Like the speech "The President and the Press", Executive Order 11110 is usually distorted and important information is missing. Add to this the fact, that one member of the Warren Commission was John J. McCloy, who had also served as the head of the world bank and you get the impression that powerful bankers were the masterminds behind JFK's assassination. Jim Marrs and his prominent book Crossfire is partly to blame. Jim Marrs's interpretation of Executive Order 11110 has been picked up by many other conspiracy researchers and documentaries like Zeitgeist.

Here are two sources which expose the mythical nature of his interpretation. Both sources cannot be qualified as banker-friendly. G. Edward Griffin wrote the classic The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve. He wrote about this misinterpretation here - THE JFK MYTH
Was he assassinated because he opposed the Fed?

Michael Collins Piper wrote an article called Hard Facts Refute
`JFK Greenback' Myth for American Free Press.

Great book corrected info and a link

Also a doc readily available on YouTube Zeitgeist has a great part on the Fed System
G. Edward Griffin
The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve https://www.amazon.com/dp/091298645X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_AcryzbK12VP65

Nonfiction books:

How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States

In How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light. We travel to the Guano Islands, where prospectors collected one of the nineteenth century’s most valuable commodities, and the Philippines, site of the most destructive event on U.S. soil. In Puerto Rico, Immerwahr shows how U.S. doctors conducted grisly experiments they would never have conducted on the mainland and charts the emergence of independence fighters who would shoot up the U.S. Congress.

A Brief History of Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism--the doctrine that market exchange is an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action--has become dominant in both thought and practice throughout much of the world since 1970 or so. Writing for a wide audience, David Harvey, author of The New Imperialism and The Condition of Postmodernity, here tells the political-economic story of where neoliberalization came from and how it proliferated on the world stage.

I highly recommend the creature from jekyll island, very interesting topic and it reads well enough that it flows as a novel.

Read Bryan Caplan's The Myth of the Rational Voter . His basic thesis is that in politics there is no incentive to change from biased/wrong beliefs. I never challenge my beliefs even if seeing them implemented could bring me great harm, because the probability that my vote is the decider is practically zero. A result of this is people supporting parties as they support sports teams.

Bryan Caplan wrote a great book a couple of years ago called The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies and he explained (convincingly to me) that there is a very good reason why voters are misinformed.

Voters are rationally irrational. What this means is that the benefits of being an informed voter are outweighed by the information costs of being informed. In other words, the time and effort that it takes to be informed, to learn the issues, to learn candidate's policy positions and what experts say in various fields just far outweighs the benefits of actually being informed. Instead, people either take shortcuts or they vote based on their feelings rather then on evidence.

The problem with this (besides the obvious) is that there is no feedback mechanism in politics. Politics is a commons (see tragedy of the commons). No individual is responsible for the effects of their vote. An uninformed vote is equal to an informed vote. And if you are uninformed, there is no direct link to the negative consequences of your vote and your life outcomes. So if there is no direct feedback, you have no incentive to be informed. This doesn't even touch on the fact that candidates mislead on their platforms or change their minds once in office. How can you have an effective feedback on your choices if you may not even get what you wanted if the person you wanted gets into office?

A contrast to this is our market choices. Now of course there are information asymmetries in the market, but it is many magnitudes different than in politics. For instance, when you buy a new refrigerator usually you can do your research online and compare and contrast specifications, quality, and price. You can read reviews from other people who bought the same item. You can go and see it in a retail establishment and talk to a customer service representative. The point is that even though you don't have perfect information about the product, you can still make a pretty damn good decision about what product you want to buy. And when you purchase it, the feedback mechanism is immediate. You are either happy with the purchase (because it matched the research you did beforehand) or you aren't (meaning you will probably buy from another brand in the future or change your research methods). Our choices directly affect our outcomes so therefore we have the incentive to be more informed.

Politics generally lacks this incentive.

For the longer version of this article I really recommend Klein's book This Changes Everything. Even if you think you might reflexively dislike Klein's work because of the anti-capitalist stances she has taken on many issues, it's extremely well-written, and I found it well-researched and thought-provoking too. At the very least, if you think of yourself as an intellectual, open to good ideas and not rooted in any particular ideologies, and especially if you understand that free markets aren't perfect, you ought to consider her thoughts on the matter.

>But if you pirate the seven seas, or plunder northern France, you can definitely make a profit on non-voluntary transactions.

Sure I can agree with that, but for the purposes of our discussion, I was distinguishing between the two types of exchange.

>And government programs do fail when their policies are failures, or at least unpopular.

Such as? There are far more examples of the opposite.

>And if you think that corporations make maximal use of their resources

It doesn't matter what I think or if corporations make maximal use of resources. The question is whether consumers value their output more than the inputs resulting in more revenue then expenses, i.e. profit.

>In general, governments are still subject to feedback mechanisms, but the feedback mechanism is usually the ballot box, 1 vote per person, and not the profit box, 1 vote per customer dollar.

First, not everyone votes, everyone engages in economic exchange. Second, the incentives in the public and private are completely different. I suggest Bryan Caplan's The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies for serious insight into this.

>Capital One was convicted of failing to send a certain percentage of credit card statements each month in order to increase the amount of late fees they could collect. This is the opposite of satisfaction.

Private companies are not perfect all the time because they are run by humans who are not perfect. The system does not require perfect humans to be efficient. It requires a feedback mechanism to ensure that not satisfying consumer demand is punished. Banks are a special case because they don't rely as much on consumers for their bottom line as traditional industry - their balance sheets can be enhanced by borrowing from the central bank.

It's kind of funny to see conservatives think neoliberalism is some kind of left wing phenomenon.

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were two of the greatest proponents of Neoliberalism - free movement of capital, people, goods, and services across borders. Everyone should read A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey.

It's not a defense of conservatism, but Liberals should read Healing our world in an age of aggression by Mary Ruwart.
Free ebook here

This book changed my life, and view of politics. I was raised by card carrying members of the US Socialist Party.

Anything new is hard. It doesn't mean it isn't worth it. That's what a lot of the startup space is about. I would recommend you go check out /r/Entrepreneur and read some blogs/books on the matter before giving up because this guy says he couldn't do it.

Zero to One by Peter Theil (http://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296) is a pretty good book about completely new ideas.

[EDIT] I don't mean to sound like I'm bashing OP. People should know that the majority of new ideas will utterly fail and that it is very hard work to get one to succeed. They should also know that the hard work and the right idea can pay off.

> I think some economic debates could benefit from tabooing “money” in favor of “energy.”

Remind's me of JM Greer's Wealth of Nature, along with other fringey theorists and peak-oil people. Modernity is built on cheap energy; what happens when energy isn't so cheap? Economies are too abstracted to keep going.

First off, thank you. This response was amazing and thorough.

> We need to maintain the ability to talk about these processes with lay people without them assuming that AGW=CO2. Since then we have to try and reeducate them before we can even start explaining what's changed.

My only "qualifications" in this realm would be from Naomi Klein's This Changes Everything. I'm interested on your take of the book if you have read it. But more importantly, as a layman in this regard, what books can I read that would educate me on the topic? Ironically, I work as a software developer at an environmental agency maintaining their financial applications. I'm not a scientist, but would love to learn more.

> I presume you didn't live through the era of actual AGW denial but people that don't want to hear their actions are negative will grasp at anything to ignore/disprove your opinion.

I grew up and currently live in the south eastern part of the US and denial is most of the conversation, regardless of age. It's pretty shocking.

> Anyone recommend some useful books that can help me

http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Neoliberalism-David-Harvey/dp/0199283273

http://www.amazon.com/Dealing-China-Insider-Economic-Superpower/dp/1455504211/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1452819640&sr=8-4&keywords=China+economy

http://www.amazon.com/Age-Ambition-Chasing-Fortune-Truth/dp/0374535272/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452819640&sr=8-1&keywords=China+economy

http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-China-Economy-History-Political/dp/0809016516/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1452819640&sr=8-2&keywords=China+economy

Nice list. You missed off Naomi Orskes Klein's book: "This changes everything: Capitalism Vs The Climate"

Naomi is one of the nutters behind the shit digging on Exxon. (It's Naomi Orskes who is one of the nutters behind the shit digging on Exxon, not Klein. But my God they look identical).

Edit: I was wrong. H/t Fungus.

And who sets the price? The patent holder? Congress?

Just this month a pharmaceutical company hired former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker, Linda Daschle (the current Senate Minority Leader's wife), four other former members of Congress, and more than a dozen other lobby and PR firms to try to extend drug patents that would otherwise be expiring soon. The cost for just one of the drugs, Claritin, for which the company would have its monopoly extended could cost Americans over 3 billion dollars. See Action Alert: Drug-Patent Bill Could Cost Patients $3 Billion+; Hearing July 1.

You might want to read Against Intellectual Monopoly, which presents an alternative viewpoint.

On the economic side, there's a fair amount to choose from:

• What is money? - short debunking of Austrian assumptions on the nature and origin of money (this affects Marxist commodity money views too).
  
• Economic theory of the leisure class - Bukharin's classical polemic with marginalism and the Austrian school.
  
• Calculation, complexity and planning - reassessment of the socialist calculation debate and rebuttal of the Austrian position.
  
• Myth and Measurement: the new economics of the minimum wage - regarding the economic effects of the minimum wage, contrary to the marginalist value product theory.
  
• Production of commodities by means of commodities - Sraffa's proof by construction that homogeneous treatment of capital as well as marginal value product theory when applied to capital (in neoclassical and Austrian approaches alike) is logically untenable.
  
• There is no natural rate of interest - review by Sraffa against Mises' theory of money.
  
• Sen Paradox - libertarianism cannot be Pareto efficient on an unrestricted domain.
  
• The entrepreneurial state: debunking public vs private sector myths - on the state's role on R&D.
  
  
  There's more I could think of, but this should be a good start.
  Edited for format.
  

Governing The Firm

Cooperatives and Local Development

Humanizing the Economy

The Cooperative Workplace

The above books are useful if you are looking for a wide range of opinions and solid information on cooperatives. Some of them are more of "yay, cooperatives!" Whereas others are more academic discourses on cooperatives and their challenges.

Hope this is helpful.

I'm surprised at the outrage. Do people not understand that this is how our economy works? Large industries are given all kinds of incentives, whether that's cash, tax breaks and deductions, interest free loans, capital cost allowance acceleration, exemptions from carbon pricing, etc.

Take a look at the effective tax rate paid by corporations, and you'll find that it's much lower than whatever the rate announced by the government is. A lot of companies are paying taxes in the range of 0-10%. This is neoliberalism, our economic philosophy for the last 30+ years. Maybe you need an introduction?

Noam Chomsky is the author of Profit Over People: Neoliberalism & Global Order, What Uncle Sam Really Wants, and countless others.

Naomi Wolf is the author of The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries, and others.

Chris Hedges is the author of "Someone You Love: Coming to a Gulag Near You", The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress, Death of the Liberal Class, and others

Daniel Ellsberg @ http://www.ellsberg.net/articles

Cornel West @ http://www.cornelwest.com/

Birgitta Jónsdóttir's website & twitter

Alexa O'Brien's website & twitter

Kai Wargalla's twitter account.

Tangerine Bolen @ RevolutionTruth; website & twitter

The oligarchs not only own the banks, but also control politicians: they finance their electoral campaigns and own the newspapers and TV channels which decide whether an election is won or lost. They also control various masonic networks, secret societies and elitist clubs to which every meaningful politician belongs. There is one thing politicians are repeatedly ordered to do, namely defraud taxpayers to 'rescue' the banks (allegedly 'too big to fail'). So our taxes go straight into the oligarchs' pockets. This racket has been going on for over a century now. Anyone who reads should get a copy of Edward Griffin's book

Anyone with a serious interest in what neoliberalism is would benefit by reading David Harvey's A Brief History of Neoliberalism.

https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Neoliberalism-David-Harvey/dp/0199283273

Neoliberal policies favor markets and capital, gut social programs, and privatize EVERYTHING.

My point was that there are plenty of people who are thinking about what we'd transition to. For instance Gar Alperovitz's Pluralist Commonwealth, or the transition towns movement, or the various organisations, peer reviewed journals, and books researching and promoting co-operatives. And there are thousands more authors, thinkers, activists, and professionals doing the same thing. Brand's strength is in highlighting the problems and sharing that with a wide audience. In his book he does tackle what would come next (in broad strokes) but that's not his role. For that try A. Sen, Andrew Jackson, and Proudhon etc.; lessons learned from the Paris Commune and the Spanish Revolution (and Greece now); and experiences of people today setting up credit unions, co-ops, non-profits, and open-source enterprises.

edit: Also its not true that capitalism has been here for all of time. Charles Eisenstein discusses evidence for the gift society (start from "Let us begin by better understanding the dynamics of the gift...") in early civilisations. And capitalism didn't really start until after the beginning of the industrial revolution when people had large amount of capital not tied to land. People were still exploited obviously. The point is the system changed, so can change again!

Happy New Year to everyone at r/btc! May we finally slay the Creature from Blockstream Island in 2016! :)

Crimea? Isn't that a river?

Yes, people are ignorant about economics and politics. And that's fine as long as there aren't systematic biases that pull policy away from the ideal (ideal based on some aggregation of everyone's preferences). But that condition doesn't seem to be the case.

Okay, so there is systemic and damaging ignorance and we can't simply wave a wand and make people spend less time having fun and all go out and learn economics, sociology, political science, etc. But your friends can surely discuss ignorance. What are its sources? (hint: time is scarce) What are it's implications? (hint: reducing the scope of government would reduce the problem)

> That's perhaps the root of your misunderstanding here.

It is actually two separate issues. One is on whether there is an obligation to vote. The other is whether most people are warranted in voting. My arguments against there being an obligation to vote may stand even if my argument regarding most people being irrational about politics (and thus shouldn't vote) fails.

> You think most people have no idea at all what sort of government and laws there should be? That's a ridiculous statement.

Well, I wouldn't exactly phrase it like that ("no idea"). For example, they are aware that representative democracy is better than a dictatorship or a new monarchy. But you'd be kidding yourself if you think most people are highly informed on the facts surrounding todays political issues or if you think people are sufficiently reflective enough in their philosophy. This isn't just confusing jargon. There are good reasons to think voters are irrational about politics. People like watching American Idol. And they have jobs to do and families to raise and friends to spend time with. They don't like reading policy analysis and rigorously reflecting on their thoughts and values. It's too much work, and not enough benefit (unless they personally enjoy it.) So they don't do it.

> Barack Obama is running against a Neo-Nazi in 2012. The Neo-Nazi candidate is proposing that we kill all the Jews in America. You think most people would have no good reason to oppose the new holocaust that is being proposed by the Neo-Nazi? Would you still advocate not voting?

As I said above, people know enough to oppose neo-nazis. But don't pretend like modern political issues aren't far more complex than that.

> Would you still advocate not voting [in the Obama vs. Neo-nazi scenario]?

There are two issues here: (1) Would I advocate not voting? (2) Would I advocate that someone doesn't have an obligation to vote?

As to (1), recall my reasons for saying most people shouldn't vote. It was that they are irrational when it comes to politics, and they are thusly not often epistemically warranted in supporting the candidates they support. In this hypothetical scenario, because people are epistemically warranted in being anti-Nazi, then it would certainly be permissible for them to vote to avoid the Nazi. (But in reality, people aren't typically epistemically warranted in being for/against Obama or Romney or whoever -- they sway whichever way fear mongering, propaganda, and their ideological upbringing directs them.)

As to (2), in the Obama vs Neo-nazi election, whether someone has an obligation to vote depends on whether their vote is likely to effect the outcome. If it isn't (say they don't live in a swing state, and their district is solidly pro-Obama or pro-Neo-nazi), then they don't have an obligation -- voting in such a scenario does nothing to promote the public good. If it is likely to matter, then yes, one should go vote.

In reality, in my case, in my state and my district, my vote has no such meaning and impact. It is not likely to effect the outcome (I am far more likely to win the lottery. And it isn't often even clear to me which outcome, which candidate, would be better.

The creature from Jekyll Island

Just finished this. Also would recommend John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit man if you want something easier to read. Not sure if he is telling the truth about his life but its an easy way to get into the paradigm to understand more complex books.

Also the documentary Money Masters by Bill Still.

Yes, it is a plain and simple fact. The vast majority of funding for research comes from the government. Call me when a private company builds something like the LHC.

Good book on the topic: http://www.amazon.com/Entrepreneurial-State-Debunking-Private-Economics/dp/0857282522

I wish everyone (supporter or not) would read this. I wish everyone would listen to the No Agenda show. I wish everyone would read The Creature from Jekyll Island.

International Yang Gang can phone bank or text bank for the campaign. It's the most impactful way to help. This video should help, if you want to phone bank (there might bea more updated video out there though): https://youtu.be/iohN7qG4ylg

You could donate to Steve Dannely's patreon. Steve does unofficial advertising for Yang and is planning to mail out 5,000 cards to older voters in New Hampshire. I got confirmation from him that international people can donate to him. Here's a link to his patreon: https://www.patreon.com/stevedannely

You can also buy "The War on Normal People." I think Yang is using the profits from this book to help fund the campaign. Here's a link to it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/War-Normal-People-Disappearing-Universal/dp/0316414247

Only that the left out a few things! Like the ever-important establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913 through a secret conspiracy you can find out in The creature from Jekyll Island and a ton of other instances of world Jewry collaborating against the world. However, it's a pretty great summation.

I just bought a book about cooperatives. I haven't read it yet, but it's got good reviews on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Humanizing-Economy-Co-operatives-Age-Capital/dp/086571651X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409343161&sr=8-1&keywords=cooperatives

You could always speak with an attorney who specializes in business law. Tell them your intentions and ask them for a report on any legal possibilities available in your area.

Patents do not encourage innovation. They are barriers to entry only and barriers to entry only restricts innovation, barriers to entry leads to less competition.

Big Pharma pays a high entry cost because of FDA regulations that require it do so. Another barrier to entry that restricts competition. R&D is the companies cost in any industry and pharma is no different. Competition in any industry has to reverse engineer their competitions goods and services if they want to compete with them. The selling factor of big pharma without the FDA and patents would be that they are a known brand and can be trusted. Just like people trust apple, people trust GSK to sell them a quality product.

If we accept every industry has the same type of incentives and risks and so on, then we can compare pharma to any industry.

Take for example mobile phone industry, my favourite example because it shows that even with patents, competition that copies a product can struggle to out compete the original product. Look at companies that try to emulate apple but have failed to achieve their success.

Read

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Against-Intellectual-Monopoly-Michele-Boldrin/dp/0521879280

As soon as the FDA is included in the mix the generic drugs do not make sense because the big pharma have paid them for the right to have a monopoly. Due to the FDA over the top and expensive testing requirements, apparently. It could very well be the big pharma uses it as a way to socialise their R&D costs through subsidies. Generic competition will have to adhere to some level of competence at producing the drugs, compared to the cost requirements to research and develop the drugs. It is apparently cheaper to reverse engineer drugs and manufacture them, than it is to research and develop them. Due to this, the idea is that pharmaceutical industry needs patents. Every industry has the same problems, some how the pharma industry has convinced everyone that they are affected to the point where they would stop investing in R&D if it was not patents because people could just copy their drugs and sell them. This seems as unlikely to occur in the pharma industry than it does in any other industry.

I mostly read non-fiction, and am interested in politics, morality and how smart people can come to construct completely different versions of reality... soooo if any of that kind of stuff is your bag, I can recommend:

​

One Nation, Two Realities

The Myth of the Rational Voter

Stop Being Reasonable

Mistakes were made by not by me

The Big Picture

​

The first two are are semi-academic texts, so there is some experiments/data in there that you can skip over. The second two are meant for popular consumption about how people come to form and change opinions, and the big picture is a really approachable summary about everything from epistemology, quantum physics and consciousness. It's broken into lots of very short chapters so great to read before and after going to sleep.

Recently, I came across the book, The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths by Mariana Mazzucato, and I was struck by the incredible novelty of this book really.

As someone who has worked in both the public and private sectors and in organizations both large and small, I have seen firsthand just how inefficient large corporations can be, as well as how much power they can wield. I also know firsthand that every major corporation could not have risen to its current position without the support of a government, either in the form of direct or indirect investment.

For example, Apple's Siri was originally developed at the Stanford Research Institute. Although SRI now takes money from the private sector, it has always received the majority of its funding from the US government. In the USA, recipients of SNAP (aka food stamps) benefits are a significant source of revenue for the major food companies. Defense contractors rely exclusively on the federal government. Pharmaceutical companies would never invest in new drug targets without the NIH funding basic research first.

So many people believe that government is inefficient and only private, for-profit institutions can deliver goods and services efficiently. Why is this belief so prevalent in the USA?

>And why the hell do we keep on ignoring government ineffectiv and wasteful spending?

Who is "ignoring" this and why not "go after" wasteful spending in the private sector? Why stop there? Maybe we could establish more democratic forms of workplace management. We can hold the "private sector" more accountable if workers have unions to bargain with corporate. Unions lost bargaining power. It needs to come back in a radical way. Only socialism can do it. A revolution needs to occur.

The Hackers, a book by Walter Isaacson, details how public funding helped Google and Microsoft get established. Bill Gates stole tens of thousands of dollars of tax payer dollars to learn to code BASIC. The founders of Google stole millions of dollars worth of internet bandwidth from Stanford.Computers, the internet, and even phones have all benefited from substantial public funding.

​

>And of the top 88 innovations rated by R&D Magazine as the most important between 1971 and 2006, economists Fred Block and Matthew Keller have found that 77 were the beneficiaries of substantial federal research funding, particularly in early stage development.

Funny how corporations always steal from both the government and people, but then when Bernie Sanders holds them accountable, people have backlash and want to protect billionaires like Zuckerkorn.

I'm one of those libertarians who doesn't believe in "intellectual property". Basically, property is something that is rivalrous, something that if I possess it you cant--for example, a car or a book, only one of us can have it at any given time.

Ideas, however, are not rivalrous. You and I can possess the exact same idea at the exact same time. And, even though we possess the same idea we can implement it differently. Thus, the reason for developing new ideas isn't the "idea" itself but rather it's implementation. There's lots of room for competition in implementation--something that doesn't exist if government grants a monopoly on the idea itself.

For a book length treatment, take a look at Against Intellectual Monopoly in pdf or in printed book form.

Should read the book "Against Intellectual Monopoly". Very worthy read:

http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm
http://www.amazon.com/Against-Intellectual-Monopoly-Michele-Boldrin/dp/0521879280/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254079179&sr=8-1

Thomas Piketty (of "Capital in the 20th Century" fame) has just published a 1,000 pages opus called "Capitalism and Ideology". I sure hope Destiny will buy and read it.

Will probably hit the US shelves in a few months. Meanwhile everyone should buy Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman: " The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay"

Note that they are the ones who proved that billionaires pay 23% of taxes when the other classes pay 24% in average, and that Zucman is an economical advisor to Bernie and Warren.

yeah I know these book recommended by startup community, there is also http://theleanstartup.com, and from zero to one

anyone know another recommended or similar books ? would like to have another books to read

Have you spent all of your long existence taking part without contributing? I though you didn't like socialsim...

Because I'm the better man. I'm going to help you with your millenial political theory with more recommended reading: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brief-History-Neoliberalism-David-Harvey/dp/0199283273/

I STRONGLY recommend reading his book, AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order. https://www.amazon.com/AI-Superpowers-China-Silicon-Valley/dp/132854639X

​

Also, I think that Kai-fu Lee would make an excellent US Ambassador to China under President Yang

The Law - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1936594315/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thmariwi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1936594315

Economics in one lesson - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0517548232/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thmariwi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0517548232

That which is seen and is not seen - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1453857508/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thmariwi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1453857508

Our enemy, the state - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001E28SUM/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thmariwi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001E28SUM

How capitalism save america - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400083311/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thmariwi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1400083311

New Deal or Raw Deal - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416592377/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thmariwi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1416592377

Lessons for the Young Economist - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933550880/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thmariwi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1933550880

For a New Liberty - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1610162641/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thmariwi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1610162641

What Has Government Done to Our Money? - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/146997178X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thmariwi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=146997178X

America's Great Depression - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/146793481X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thmariwi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=146793481X

Defending the Undefendable - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933550171/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thmariwi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1933550171

Metldown - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1596985879/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thmariwi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1596985879

The Real Lincoln - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0761526463/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thmariwi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0761526463

The Road to Serfdom - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226320553/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thmariwi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0226320553

Capitalism and Freedom - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226264211/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thmariwi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0226264211

Radicals for Capitalism - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1586485725/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thmariwi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1586485725

Production Versus Plunder - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0979987717/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thmariwi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0979987717

Atlas Shrugged - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452011876/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thmariwi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0452011876

The Myth of the Rational Voter - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0691138737/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thmariwi-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=0691138737

Foutainhead - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452273331/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0452273331&linkCode=as2&tag=thmariwi-20

Anthem - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452281253/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0452281253&linkCode=as2&tag=thmariwi-20

There are of course more books, but this should last you a few years!

Nice idea (if it would work), but where's the profit in that?

We all know that we'd be better off if we stopped using anti-biotics for farm animals too. But under the greed-based logic of our capitalist economic system, that does not happen.

Thus, the odds of this actually occurring is nil or next to nothing. As Naomi Klein has repeatedly stressed -- even writing a book on it -- the choice is capitalism versus the climate.

We're going to have to change a lot of minds to choose the climate and to abandon capitalism for proposals like this to work -- or to even have a chance of passing in our warped political system.

Honestly...I don't.

Until I'm at the point where I have a consistent stream of referrals and organic leads from search engines, my free time (within reason) becomes prospecting time.

In many ways, prospecting is more important than client work. If you end up finishing with a fantastic project, but then are left with a barren period of time afterwards, you run the risk of screwing with your finances (and subsequently your mental health).

Just got done reading Zero to One by Peter Thiel, and there was a really fantastic quote in there that rings true for freelancing:

> If you've invented something new but you haven't invented an effective way to sell it, you have a bad business - no matter how good the product.

If you liked The Lean Startup, Zero to One by Peter Thiel is also a very good read

In the 70's the difference between an average CEO's salary and the salary of his employees was around 30:1, these days its more like 350:1 because decades of deregulation and privatization has moved billions of dollars of public wealth into private hands. Do some reading on distribution of wealth and where some of big guys actually made their money.

Thank you! Please don't rock the vote! Check out the myth of the rational voter for a cleared eyed explanation of why this is a terrible idea

Two good videos on youtube to watch are the debate with William Buckley as well as the documentary on Manufacturing Consent.

Two books I'd recommend for a beginner in him are Profit Over People and, probably the best introduction to him, Problems of Knowledge and Freedom.
The second book is a collection of two different lectures that were given by Chomsky after the death of the philosopher Bertrand Russell. The first half deals with Chomsky's philosophy of language and the second half with the immorality of the Vietnam war. I highly recommend it.

OP, please don't just try and pick up Shock Doctrine. It's pretty much a 2x4 of Leftist thought to the face. If you're interested in the class and labor perspective start with something by David Harvey. He's much less... strident. I would suggest Neoliberalism

>>modern day economists tend to ignore such shifts in social norms because they can’t quantify them in the same way they can quantify trade flows or technological innovation or changes in educational attainment.
>They assume that social norms change in response to economic fundamentals rather than the other way around.
This is the sort of things that can ruin my work day as a nominally institutionalist style economist. To begin, several Nobel prize winning economists have done significant work studying norms formation and effects such as North, Ostrom, Akerlof, Akerlof again!.

I think your formatting failed there, it appears like one quote, whereas I think the seconds part is supposed to be your response. Pretty confusing to read.

> From the wikipedia article

To someone who likes to say what others do and do not understand: you don't understand what constitutes a reliable source. Even Investopedia would have provided a more concise, accurate definition: "Neoliberalism is a policy model of social studies and economics that transfers control of economic factors to the private sector from the public sector."

In a North American context, the nomenclature is somewhat difficult to reconcile with the rest of the world. Neoliberalism is more closely associated what is referred to as "neoconservativism" as in the "neocons" of George W. Bush's presidency. We're probably going to see it again under Trump.

Here is a book that will get you started on what neoliberalism means inside and outside of North America. However, familiarizing yourself with the Washington Consenus will give an idea of what mainstream American economists have advocated domestically and globally for the last half-century. The associated "Structural Adjustment Programs" (SAPs) have been implemented more easily outside North America, as they were conditions attached to IMF and World Bank loans (the conditions have since been largely abandoned because they've been empirically shown to not work). But there has also been less resistance since political masters in developing countries have been more easily bought (or supported by the UK and the US in other ways).

EDIT: including sources.

> Andrew Yang--who is openly advocating for a saner politics--is getting smeared by hyperbolic, fear mongering, and poorly informed media outlets.

See, I'm not so sure. Yang himself is engaged in hyperbolic fear mongering. No doubt inspired by Trump himself, he's pushing a very extreme agenda of populism and identity politics. That's why Yang writes about "the Great Displacement" and why his book is called The War on Normal People and it is also why Yang's message echoes well with the rants of actual right-wing populists like Tucker Carlson. Let's be frank: these guys are all selling the same poison. At best Yang is interested in expanding the consumer market.

So, quelle surprise, Yang's extremist populism is going to be called out for being... extreme populism. And while Yang may take calculated risks to appeal to those groups who like extreme populism, the down-side is that people are going to accuse him of... appealing to extreme populists. None of this is particularly disturbing.

Anyways it will be interesting to see if Americans will ever find the language to unite and overthrow their capitalist overlords. I very much doubt it but it's interesting to watch figures like Yang and Sanders test out words and phrases.

The Creature from Jekyll Island is my favorite political book ever. Would recommend anyone to read.

See Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai-Fu_Lee

And Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/AI-Superpowers-China-Silicon-Valley/dp/132854639X

The author isn't a socialist, but the subject matter should interest every marxist.

The source article for this whole discussion has some nice sources. I think the original study, and the response they made to criticism is a good start.

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1324002727/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=gs2&linkId=db49e4d67f8bcc75b6753ce0958333da&creativeASIN=1324002727&tag=slate01-21&creative=9325

https://www.aei.org/economics/not-much-what-macroeconomic-data-say-about-the-impact-of-the-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act/

http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/PSZ2019.pdf

> But true neoclassical economics has actually never been tried.

Yes it has, and it sucks every time.

>Keynesian economics is bad enough

It created the greatest rise in living standards in Western history. It was called the "golden age of capitalism" for a reason.

>on what possible basis can you really believe that a state acting on national interests can make a better choice than a system which automatically reacts to market forces?

Read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Entrepreneurial-State-Debunking-Private-Economics/dp/0857282522

>See China. Our state managed economy only really grew after they relaxed their control.

No one here is arguing for communism. By the way, China has more state-owned enterprises than Venezuela.

It is a very valid concern. China is going very hard at AI, while our government seems to only care about the Donald Trump sideshow.

Andrew credits this book with largely shaping his opinions on the coming AI Race:
https://www.amazon.com/AI-Superpowers-China-Silicon-Valley/dp/132854639X

Here is the author speaking on Andrew's campaign:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7gSD-LXT34

>Because since they receive all these amazing perks by paying such a high tax rate, then wouldn’t it be logical to say that they could achieve perfection if they paid 100% in taxes.

That doesn't follow logic? The logic is that higher input (at a manageable % of income) + higher output (at a manageable % of GDP) = more productive society; not that 100% input = more productive society. I understand where it's possible to get confused, but it does take a bit of a leap to take it to the absolute extreme there.

It could be good for you to read Esping-Anderson's Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Clasen's Comparative Social Policy and Pierson's The Welfare State Reader, if you're confused about some of the logic behind Social Democratic states.

Just sayin... I suspect the wholesale adoption of neoliberal economic policy from the mid 70s onwards might be somewhat more responsible for the erosion of the western middle class than television.

A couple of books give pretty compelling evidence of this:

https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Neoliberalism-David-Harvey/dp/0199283273

https://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/067443000X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1499813570&sr=1-1&keywords=capital

Fiction:

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin is a great start (good critique of anarchist philosophy).

The Red Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson actually cites Mondragon and discusses cooperative economics in detail.

After The Deluge (of Critical Mass fame) by Chris Carlsson is a novel about a post-capitalist San Francisco.

Non-fiction:

After Capitalism by Seymor Melman.

America Beyond Capitalism by Gar Alperovitz.

Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism by Richard Wolff.

Capitalism's Crisis Deepens: Essays on the Global Economic Meltdown by Richard Wolff.

After Capitalism by David Schweickart.

Against Capitalism by David Schweickart.

Capitalism or Worker Control by David Schweickart

Putting Democracy to Work by Frank T Adams.

Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice by Jessica Gordon Nembhard.

Humanizing the Economy: Co-operatives in the Age of Capital by John Restakis.

Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution by Marjorie Kelly.

For All the People: Uncovering the Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements, and Communalism in America by John Curl.

This is US specific, but gives a pretty unbiased overview of the many different tax systems.

> decided to actually treat the customers as logical actors

LOL, such silliness!

You don't treat people as logical actors, ever.

Hijacking this comment: Every single person in this sub needs to read A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey

https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Neoliberalism-David-Harvey/dp/0199283273

It's short and jam packed with great info.

Implementation. literally. You'll run into politics for days when talking about implementation.

Here's a great book on the subject: https://www.amazon.com/Implementation-Expectations-Washington-Programs-Foundation/dp/0520053311

They were intentionally created with the word "Federal" in them so people would think the government was running them.

EDIT: Anyone who wants to know more should read "The Creature From Jekyll Island" It is an in-depth exploration of the creation of The Federal Reserve, and is eye opening.

Congratulations on the studies. Here is another book for your consideration:

https://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/091298645X/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

There's a million things most people on this sub could recommend, and really the learning never stops.

Here are some good starting points:

The Hard Thing About Hard Things - Ben Horowitz

Zero to One - Peter Thiel

The Personal MBA - Josh Kaufman

The Four Hour Work Week - Tim Ferris

Paul Romer tem um nobel de economia por "Paul Romer has demonstrated how knowledge can function as a driver of long-term economic growth. He showed how economic forces govern the willingness of firms to produce new ideas. Romer’s central theory, which was published in 1990, explains how ideas are different to other goods and require specific conditions to thrive in a market."

uma das milhares de fonte q eu poderia citar éc essa aqui https://www.amazon.com.br/Entrepreneurial-State-Debunking-Public-Private/dp/1610396138

Not sure how they do things where you came from, but read this stuff and you should be good:

• https://a16z.com/2012/06/15/good-product-managerbad-product-manager/
  
  -http://www.gv.com/sprint/
  
  -https://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296
  
  

Wouldn't matter much if people did care about the issues.

The Myth of the Rational Voter

>Caplan argues that voters continually elect politicians who either share their biases or else pretend to, resulting in bad policies winning again and again by popular demand.

Dean Baker, one of the most prominent Keynesians writers, correctly identified the housing bubble in 2002 and was the most vocal voice during the bubble build up.

Robert Shiller, another bubble predictor and author of Animal Spirits, co created the Case Shiller Home Price Index, which is the basis of Peter Schiff's and other Austrians prediction of the housing bubble.

http://www.amazon.com/Profit-Over-People-Neoliberalism-Global/dp/1888363827

Specifically: You see it everywhere. Pretty much every large corporation (or even small). Flint, Methane in CA, Slave labour, Oil spills with little repurcussions, Banking crisis, Wood shavings in parmesan at Walmart, 20% meat in the meat at Taco Bell, etc... It´s often not the corporations themselves, but the system that allows these ongoings to thrive and even encourages them.

Bonus redpill: https://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/091298645X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1518294645&sr=8-1&keywords=the+creature+from+jekyll+island

Amazon link to the book for anyone interested. It's a fascinating read.

You think Bernanke is concerned with income equality? His monetary policy is designed to keep the "too big to fail" banks as healthy as possible. He is the banks' #1 crony.

I highly, highly suggest you read a couple books:

End the Fed

and

The Creature from Jekyll Island

The second book is especially interesting. It was the banking elite that wanted the Federal Reserve. Binding money to a commodity like gold restricts any sort of control of monetary policy. That is why Nixon ended Brettan Woods in '71 as well.

This book explains the history and thinking super concisely. But broadly, GOP needed a voter base that wouldn't question power of the state being handed over to private industry -- thus they won over the devoutly religious who wouldn't question anything beyond simple morality. Then beginning with Carter, and going full steam with Reagan, to escape 70's stagflation (rising inflation causing a stagnant economy) America rejected the economic theories of the preceding 40 years under Keynes and embraced slow but steady deregulation of all markets and public services, or at least everything they could, under the guise of "small government" and an ideal of the individual. Around the time of Clinton's presidency, Democrats could do nothing but sustain the cycle as Reagan had butchered much of what was previously under government ownership -- to turn the tide back would be far too costly and lose the election, as it would be a total U-turn of the country.

God their constant attempts to redefine "neoliberal" are so fucking annoying. Also the "post-ideological" posturing. How do they not realize how transparent this is?

In a fair society, this book would be in their sidebar.

I don't even know what this question means. Its clear you don't have enough understanding of all of the relevant content required to debate these topics.

2008 unprecedented central bank action drove the time value of money (interest rates) down to all time lows.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DGS10

This is allowing us to spend wantonly and basically have no consequence from it since the debt is nearly free.

If the US has to issue more debt, all else equal, they have to pay more in interest rates.

Once the amount of interest takes over an outsized part of the debt (See Detroit, Chicago, etc), investors stop buying it and it starts a death spiral as they cannot pay the already issued debt coming true. The problem with sovereign debt is we can just print more, which makes each outstanding dollar worth less.

Whether or not being the "reserve currency" does much for the US is a topic of debate as well. However, as a libertarian, you should hate the central banks most of all for allowing this mess to go on. A great book on the topic, if a little over the top:

https://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/091298645X