Economic Insanity

[Travis Retriever]

Man, what an asshole! HIS generation spends us into massive debt, HIS generation gets rich off of our backs, HIS generation sets that up to continue so that WE pay for HIS retirement even though he's now a part of the richest demographic in America, and as a result WE'RE the first generation IN AMERICAN HISTORY that won't be at least as well off as our parents, and somehow that's OUR fault???

And again, I go back to that "richest demographic" statistic.

And speaking of Socialism Security: http://mises.org/daily/5026
That made my blood boil and burn...

I disagree about the bit of the older being able to always tax the young.
It ain't gonna happen.  First off, the state WILL sooner or later run out of money, if they have to tax that high, people will just move to the black market, like they did around the collapse of the old USSR.

[Travis Retriever]

Prof:  "The riots in Egypt could lead to a rebel or terrorist blocking off the Suez canal.  2 million barrels of oil go through that a day.  If it gets blocked off, $6/gallon easy."
(He does realize that those people are rebelling against an oppressive regime that our glorious government funded, right?  And that what is happening there is like what was happening in 1776, right???  Or that his scenario is about as pie-in-the-sky not likely to happen as can?  He might as well have said, "If the entire Empire State building is turned into ice cream; all of NYC will be flooded with it when it melts."  He also fails to realize that, including the costs of war, taxes, subsidies, regulations, etc, we're already paying about $12 per gallon easy, right now.)

And bear in mind that he claims to be a capitalist.
His idea of a rebuttal about a specific reduction in government spending is,
Prof:  "Well what's going to happen to the people who once received X from the government?"
(I know one possible rebuttal to that would be, "What's going to happen to ALL the people dependent on government when the money runs out?"
It really annoys me when he responds to an idea of reducing gov't spending with, "What's going to happen when those people receiving it don't get that money anymore?"
Gotta love being bludgeoned on the head with morality:  its original application.)

OK, this one's a bit too complicated for my standard format, but I'll try and stick close to it:
Alright, this next one's a doosey, whenever someone disagrees with prohibition like one student did today,
he says, "well, unless it's bad for their health, then prohibiting it is a good thing." (Paraphrased)
I also shared him the Cracked.com bit of the people pretending to be actors to get around a bar smoking ban.
He took a legalization of it as, "I should do this."
So if there was no law saying, "Don't murder." He'd take that as, "I should murder"?

I even tried correcting him, saying, "No, I didn't say you should smoke, only that it was legal so long as you were playing a person who smokes."
But no, he continued on with, "Yes, so I should smoke if my persona smokes."

I was thoroughly disgusted at this.
Keep in mind:  he claims to be a capitalist conservative.
Really, if he wanted to help the cause of free markets, he's switch to the other side...

[Travis Retriever]

We have a special guest today!  I won't say who the student's real name is, so I'll call him Jack--based on how much he seems to know:

Prof:  "Whenever I'm told about global warming, I'll get something like, 'well the temperature of Earth's crust has risen in 40 years!'  And I'll say, 'so what was the temperature of Earth's crust then?'  And he would respond like, 'um...well we have the science, so you have to believe it!'  and I'm like, 'OK, g'bye.'"
Jack (in response to the above):  "Global Warming was shown to be a hoax from those e-mails at that university in England."
(Prof's bit:  Citation needed, bro.  Jack's stuff:  He needs to take a look at Potholer54's videos on the subject.  He's covered this in deep detail, complete with sources.  I should also note that my prof, the 'capitalist republican' is also operating under the assumption that if the problem exists with Global Warming, it must be the government that solves it.  *facepalms*  Because evidently he lives in a world apart from here where governments AREN'T the world's biggest polluters...)

Prof:  "The job of the Federal Reserve is to stimulate the economy through monetary stability.  That is, to keep people spending, which creates economic growth."
(So how's that working out?  At another point he even acknowledges that printing money to grow the economy doesn't work.  Gotta love it when they can't even speak coherently.  I swear, this internal contradiction stuff is only taken seriously in Keynesian Economics...)

Prof:  "The best thing about corporations is that they don't have the unlimited liability issue that sole proprietorships and partnerships do.  Another disadvantage of non-corporate businesses is how hard it is for them to raise enough funds to operate:  that is, only corporations can offer and sell stock and bonds.  The others don't have all of those advantages.  And because 80% of small businesses fail within the first year, and of the ones that remain, 80% of those will fail within 5 years (only 4% remaining after five years) unless you've got a near spotless record, a bank isn't going to loan you money."
(1.  Because corporations being able to initiate force against others, and get away with it is a good thing right?  Ironically, economists also bitch about externalities...yeah, consistency or lack thereof, right?  Also, as for the funds thing, especially the 4% of businesses being there after 5 years, I wonder if the huge amount of government regulation and taxation, etc has anything to do with that...I don't know as much about the being able to sell bonds thing, but if it's against the law for non-corporate entities to do that, it would be a failure of government, not of the free market that they can't get enough capital.)

Prof:  "Well, the government now owns GM, and who's the government?  That's right, us!"
(*Headdesk*  Debunked so many times it's ridiculous.  "We" are not the state.)

[Travis Retriever]

My professor is actually doing pretty good:  only two today.

Prof:  "Now we're getting into the stuff that is a bit more varied from person to person, instead of more, 'this is true, period' stuff."
(Um...yeah...Considering he also said that 12 economists in a room would have 14 different opinions on that, "this is true, period" stuff, we can chalk that up as bullshit.)

Prof:  "I hate this term--'it's a win-win situation.'"
(If he means this as a subjective preference, I don't care.  If not, he's even worse at economics than I thought...
This bit from him is especially ironic as he was one of the people who taught me about the win-win situation of economic surplus.)

[Travis Retriever]

Crap, I forget something else worthy of mentioning.
My professor stated that utility is something measured and quantified using "utils" or something like that.
My internal bogometer started going off upon hearing that.  I'd say that article I linked to from the Mises Institute on the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility made a pretty damn bullet-proof case that utility is not something that can be measured like force or acceleration:  It can't be quantified.

[Travis Retriever]

My prof showed us a video of the Federal Reserve's Inspector General (the person who was in charge of auditing the Fed), that she doesn't know what happened to $9 trillion.
My prof was all, "if that doesn't freak you out, nothing will."
I asked him if this level of incompetence surprised him. He said, "No."
   
It got me thinking...
He knows the Federal Reserve doesn't do a good job, and that historically, it doesn't work.
Yet he thinks we should still have one...
Hm...well, I guess that makes sense.  How else is he going to get the rest of us to pay for his retirement?

[Travis Retriever]

Prof:  "The automobile industry is a free market, or it was until the government bailed out the big three."
(A free market?  Is he on crack?  Citation from the Federal Register or he declares himself full of shit.)

[Travis Retriever]

After listening to the 5/23 Bogosity Podcast, I was reminded of these little gems by my economics professor.

Prof:  "Only Congress can declare war, the President cannot.  This war (Iraq) is not the President's war, it's Congress' [according to our constitution]."
(It also says that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Period, by ANY level of government.
How's that working out for us?  What's more, the president DOES still have responsibility:  I learned--even in grade school--that the president is the leader of the armed forces.  Meaning he could, at any time he chooses, simply command the troops out.  But he always chooses not to.
So no, he is still responsible as the leader of the armed forces, I mean, duh.  "Ah", you might say, "but what if the they don't listen to the president?"  Irrelevant.  If the President doesn't even TRY to exercise what is his own power for the sake of justice, then he is still responsible.  He *did* swear an oath to uphold and defend the constitution AND promised to bring all the troops home, for those who weren't paying attention.  As Lord T Hawkeye stated, if I could end world hunger with but a word but chose not to, would you believe me for even a second when I said I was concerned about the matter?)

Prof:  "The President does not lower or raise taxes.  No President has ever lowered taxes, because Congress holds the purse strings and is the one that passes laws, not the president."
(Again, yeah, it does say that in the constitution, however...
He also forgot to mention something the president CAN do:
Veto.  If the President vetoes it, it's as good as gone, unless Congress can get a 2/3rds vote.
Unless the President has been literally been vetoing every single idiotic (read: every) bill that comes into his office, guess what, he still bears at least some responsibility for those laws.  But it gets even worse than that.  Perhaps most importantly the President is the head of the executive branch of his country's government.  This means it's that part of government to execute and enforce the law (so police are a part of this branch for example).  Thus, the president does have some say, and can simply use executive order when needed (as in the case of Harry Browne using that to free all non-violent drug offenders and other such victimless 'criminals').  Or simply refuse to enforce bogus or tyrannical laws. (courtesy's of Shane's Ultimate Arbiter Constitution Lecture series video).
Again, if he doesn't even make the attempt, he is STILL responsible for the laws, including the money used to fund them (how many of us would pay taxes, especially for crap like the wars--including the war on drugs and prostitution--if we knew we wouldn't go to jail for it (and rightfully so)?))

Prof:  "The Constitution means whatever the Supreme Court says it means."
(I swear to the Flying Spaghetti Monster I'm not making that up.  And yet he claims to be for freedom, thinks America is the greatest country ever, blah blah blah. Even forgiving that this completely contradicts his last set of fail quotes, last I checked, the Constitution was supposed to limit and apply to THEM--The Supreme Court--too. As Lord T Hawkeye pointed out, then it is the Supreme Court who are the ultimate arbiters of what the government can and cannot do, not the constitution.  We are ruled by a bunch of unelected politicians in robes called "judges".

Because fuck basic reading and logic, right?)

[Travis Retriever]

Another thing my professor said that I NEED to share here.  Despite him leaning to the right politically, he still supported Al Gore winning the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.  His reasoning?

"Because it has the potential to save lives in the future by making people aware of climate change."

Paraphrased since it was about 6 years ago, but that was the gist of it.

[bp_28]

And even more today.

Prof: "Government intervention into the economy doesn't fail all the time, or even most of the time, just some of the time."
(What's even better are his examples.  Keep in mind he considers himself something of a 'capitalist' republican)

Prof: "For example, when government raises the taxes on cigarettes, causing more people to stop smoking."
(He didn't say it specifically, I don't think, but he also talked of government prohibition of drugs/alcohol/cigarettes as good too.
Because as we all know, prohibition never causes any blow-back, amirite? *Awesomeface*)

Prof: "Or when the government pays some farmers not to grow food, so that the supply doesn't get too high, causing farmers to go backrupt.  That would cause much higher prices."
(Yeah....citation needed bro.)

Prof: "We don't feel the effects of corn ethanol subsidies in the USA."
(Contradicting an earlier statement that it leads to higher corn and food prices...)

Yeah, I'll let those ones speak for themselves.

Yeah here's something that will show him as a person who is contradictory:
[yt]W1xmGK8PEJw[/yt]