User talk:Lawrencekhoo/Archive 6

Mediation cabal

Hi,
Andrewedwardjudd (talk · contribs) has opened a mediation cabal case on fractional reserve banking. Just letting you know, since you're named in the case but andrewedwardjudd may have forgotten to notify you. I do a little work at medcab but am wary of taking this one due to prior involvement. Have fun... bobrayner (talk) 14:38, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I'm going to wait and see if this amounts to anything before responding to it. LK (talk) 12:11, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Fractional reserve banking mediation cabal notification

This notifies you of my request for mediation to prevent you deleting:

1. My reliable sources, and

2. My attempts to create a neutral point of view:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2011-04-12/fractional_reserve_banking Andrewedwardjudd (talk) 11:16, 21 April 2011 (UTC)andrewedwardjudd

Hi Wonderful Person!!^^

A case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2011-04-12/fractional_reserve_banking was brought up so that we may all solve any and all existing problems quickly. While it seems like problems have diminished, would you please join the talks and express any concerns you may have? If the requesting party "Andrewedwardjudd" (who also would like solve the problem) is making it difficult, and the problem comes to no resolution, then the case will simply be closed. As the mediator, my only goal is to solve the problem as efficiently, as objectively, and as kindly as possible^^ Thank you for your consideration and understanding. rm2dance (talk) 03:30, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I've left a note on the mediation page. Unfortunately, work load issues mean that I will be off-wiki for some time. I'll accept any settlement out of mediation as long as it's acceptable to the regulars at WP:ECON. LK (talk) 12:09, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Full reserve - edit

I have challenged your recent edit on the full reserve banking page on the talk page. Reissgo (talk) 14:00, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Wiki policy on user talk pages

I agree i earlier quoted text from the discussion talk page, however the purpose of user talk pages is

• to draw the attention or discuss the edits of a user.

• Evidently i have your attention as per wiki policy. I suggest if you feel very strongly upset by my talk page then you should contact the appropriate wiki authority

Edit: I have now moved that stuff to my user page. Andrewedwardjudd (talk) 16:14, 27 April 2011 (UTC)andrewedwardjudd

your comments on 'strong' endogenous money and your comment about banks creating reserves.

hi

Private banks do not create loans that create deposits of reserves. They create loans that create deposits of commercial bank money.

As i showed on the cabal page after your comments, a private bank AAA can generally create a loan and be sure it can create commercial bank money deposits in AAA that are held in favour of some other institution in a process that does not have to involve any direct transfer of reserves because the banks have traditionally netted payments so that money due to be passed from AAA to BBB, is instead owed to BBB as a deposit, if BBB is happy to lend money to AAA. If BBB is short of reserves it can of course demand reserves, but BBB can just as easily find reserves more cheaply from another institution while expecting an interest gain from AAA and then be in a good position to expect AAA to act similarly when BBB creates a loan. However, Bank AAA

• can borrow intraday from the central bank to pay BBB and then repay the central bank before close of business via some other lender who then has a deposit with AAA, or
• it can, before the day of the loan 'drawdown' time, have arranged to borrow money from some other party which after the loan is paid to the other bank, only exists as a deposit in AAA. There is outside of exstremely exceptional periods, always parties who will lend excess reserves to a bank so that the other party has a deposit in for example bank AAA

Loans therefore create deposits.

It is for these kinds of reasons that the text book money multiplier has almost zero relevance to how banks create money. Banks are not generally lending existing cash but are rather creating deposit liabilities via the way they interact with the money market players.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrewedwardjudd (talk • contribs) 22:29, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

The 'weak endogenous money view' (described by Goodhart, etc.)

You are just not getting his viewpoint correctly.

• he says the relending model is totally inappropriate.
• he knows that banks create loans and then create deposits via the way the banking systems interlink together via established protocols that academia has had almost no interest in examining and where the people who have correctly described it have been labeled as wackos. For example Basil Moore and Randy Wray he says. And he was in their party all along he says.
• The money multiplier exists as a mathematical reality but it cannot be used in a simple mechanical relending manner as you are insisting modern money mechanics is rewritten to describe.

The end result is that you are simply bending what is real to support your belief system — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrewedwardjudd (talk • contribs) 22:29, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

The Fed's Modern Money Mechanics presents the textbook multiplier model.[1] I've read through the whole thing, some parts several times, it's classic textbook. I think you may be thinking of Modern Monetary Theory.

And for crissakes, please do try to curb your enthusiam for accusing others of misdeeds. What possible reason could I have to want to promote a particular 'belief system' about money? My 'belief system' can best be described as geoist with a large anti-misery/anti-poverty slant. I do research about Inequality, Education Economics and Development Economics. I happen to teach a Macro course, but I'll happily teach whatever's in the textbook. I have no horse in this race. When Endogenous money or Modern Monetary Theory makes it into the New Palgrave or graduate level university textbooks, I'll enthusiastically rewrite the Wikipedia articles to reflect this.

I'm not here to promote a 'belief system'. I'm here on Wikipedia so that its economics articles are not a laughing stock to other academics. LK (talk) 03:50, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

The last time i mentioned MMM it also did not end happily for either of us. I copied in this text around 8th of April.

The purpose of this booklet is to describe a basic process of money creation in a "Fractional Reserve" banking system. The approach taken illustrates the changes in bank balance sheets that occur when deposits in banks change as a result of monetary action by the Federal Reserve System - the central bank of the United States. The relationships shown are based on simplifying assumptions. For the sake of simplicity, the relationships are shown as if they were mechanical, but they are not, as is described later in the booklet. Thus, they should not be interpreted to imply a close and predictable relationship between a specific central bank transaction and the quantity of money.

And later says:

In the real world, a bank's lending is not normally constrained by the amount of excess reserves it has at any given moment. Rather, loans are made, or not made, depending on the bank's credit policies and its expectations about its ability to obtain the funds necessary to pay its customers' checks and maintain required reserves in a timely fashion. In fact, because Federal Reserve regula- tions in effect from 1968 through early 1984 specified that average required reserves for a given week should be based on average deposit levels two weeks earlier ("lagged" reserve accounting), deposit creation actually preceded the provision of supporting reserves. In early 1984, a more "contemporaneous" reserve accounting system was imple- mented in order to improve monetary control.

That second paragraph is clearly describing an endogenous view of deposit creation where in the real world the relending model shown in the MMM text is only for accounting illustration purposes.

That the relending examples are for accounting illustration purposes, and cannot be used to describe how banking really operates is made clear in the very first paragraph of the booklet

Curiously, Bigk also mentioned MMT when this text was quoted and used MMT to justify the deletion.

Holmes, MMM and Tucker and many others are all saying the same thing. Banks do not lend their customers existing money in the real world. for example i agree to lend you 100 to buy a radio from BigK who banks with BBB. Contemporaneously to when i create the loan account entry, I arrange an interbank loan from BBB for 100 and record the deposit in my books. BBB 'lent me' money as shown by the new deposit, but I already owed BBB money. BBB did not need to deposit with me for me to owe him a deposit. No reserves were required. A retail and a wholesale deposit gets created. Alternatively i have an agreed open line of credit with BBB so that my overdraft with BBB can be increased by 100.

Please try to focus on the topic in hand rather than whatever you might think about my reading abilities.

Thanks

Andrewedwardjudd (talk) 10:13, 28 April 2011 (UTC)andrewedwardjudd

About Modern Money Management. One paragraph, from a 40 page document, giving a caveat that 'things are a little bit more complicated than as described here', does not suddenly turn a document on its head and mean that it rejects the view expressed in the rest of the document. The rest of the booklet is clearly describing the textbook money multiplier process. For example, this page clearly describes the standard money multiplier expansion process. There are numnerous other example of the standard multiplier working throughout the booklet.

You have to understand that economists don't believe that models are true. Models are never true, the world is more complicated than that. Models are judged by whether they are useful simplifications, which give accurate predictions, and do not leave out any significant factors. So, even though a single bank may not behave as described by the standard money multiplier, it's still a useful model to use when thinking about the system as a whole.

BTW, this statement, "Please try to focus on the topic in hand rather than whatever you might think about my reading abilities", is exactly what I have been complaining about. You seem unable to communicate without including at least one personal attack in your message. Kindly STOP. If you can't refrain from insulting me, please don't expect me to respond to any more of your messages.

--LK (talk) 11:01, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

as politely as i could i asked you to avoid accusing me of being unable to know the difference between a booklet called modern money mechanics and MMT and instead to focus on the topic at hand.

I have written to Charles Goodhart since you appear to respect him and cannot possibly be agreeing with him in my estimation.Andrewedwardjudd (talk) 12:28, 28 April 2011 (UTC)andrewedwardjudd

OK, point taken, but I hope you can also understand why I felt insulted by that sentence. From now on, let's treat each other with kid gloves OK? Let's bend over backwards to be nice to each other. BTW, I doubt that Goodhart will answer, he probably has better things to do. The only time I've seen high-level academics get involved in Wikipedia is when we attribute views to them that are diametrically opposed to what they actually believe in. For instance George Selgin showed up once to say that the article on Full reserve banking that listed him as a supporter was wrong, and that he had been a long time opposer of the idea.

It would help with our future communication if I had some idea of your training or background. That way I would know what framework you are using, and can explain myself better to you and understand your arguments better. I explain on my user page exactly where I'm comming from. I teach economics at a large public university, and have a PhD in Economics from one of the ivy league universities. My views on all economic issues are pretty mainstream, albeit a little left of center. LK (talk) 04:34, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

There is no need to put kid gloves on. I have no problem with a robust adult interaction. We just need to avoid being abusive. I know i have snapped with you, but I do not like you dismissing my reading abilities, or describing my comments as missives or commentaries. And you do not need to educate me about models or any other simple concept. Goodhart seems to have described the money multiplier model as 'absolute baloney' (1984 page 200) and that should be sufficient. I am 55. My impression so far about you and I, is that there is a generation gap between us.

My background is one of fairly trivial non-bank financial programming (i did what i was told to do) and small scale building/renovation. I was also been interested in later years in alternative health in particular eyesight.

As you have noted, my emphasis is on the institutional/operational side of banking. I have almost zero interest in theories about it - i only got involved with endogenous money because it seemed the only way forwards where nobody at Wiki is interested in the mechanics of banking. If necessary I can ask a person who writes some form of central bank/interbank systems and another person who owns an american bank to clarify things i do not understand. I have had no contact with either of them for some months and generally speaking i do not need their assistance.

If you speak to me as if i was a wiki editor like you, i am sure we will get along fine.Andrewedwardjudd (talk) 07:11, 29 April 2011 (UTC)andrewedwardjudd

Actually 'robust adult interaction' is not fine with me, if by that you mean to interact as you have before. Please treat me as you would a co-worker, and I think we can get along. I find it hard to believe that, if you were writing a memo to a co-worker, you would have replied:

  "Please try to focus on the topic in hand rather than whatever you might think about my reading abilities"

    in response to,

  "I think you may be thinking of XXX (instead of YYY)"

This is a basic policy on Wikipedia (see Five Pillars), before any other issues (like, how to use talk pages, punctuation, or even, what should be in the articles), we demand politeness in our interactions. If you wish to edit here you must be polite.

LK (talk) 08:01, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

If you are unable to deal with robust adult interaction then please may i ask you to never again

• tell me that anybody who has read right thru a book you have read will agree with you, or
• tell me the text i have just quoted word for word, does not mean what i think it says, or
• attempt to rub salt into the same wound by saying i must be confused with another book when the same book comes up again.

The nature of a discussion is that we attempt to understand the other persons point of view as if we were coworkers rather than lord and master. Andrewedwardjudd (talk) 09:24, 29 April 2011 (UTC)andrewedwardjudd

This is what I think. I've been polite with you, but you've been reacting badly to disagreement. You've lashed out by being rude to perceived slights. So again, I ask you, either we both bend over backwards to try to be nice to each other, or you and I don't interact anymore. Life's too short for these kinds of hassles. LK (talk) 10:32, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I do not need to be told by anybody, that everything they say is what they think. And i do not need to be told by the person who is thinking and perceiving me that i have perceived slights.

Please stop this style of conversation where you are the intelligent one and the proper and correct one and that i am the dumb arse lacking self awareness who over reacts to what other people say. I perceive you as being constantly rude towards me. And this happened from the moment you arrived in my user space to educate me on proper wiki procedure while you quoted the law as if you were god almighty.

I am however easily able to bend over backwards to be nice to you providing i also perceive the same thing coming from you.Andrewedwardjudd (talk) 12:15, 29 April 2011 (UTC)andrewedwardjudd

For example you just began a message to me that said,

• you are polite.
• I react badly to disagreement
• I lash out by being rude
• and then you want us to be nice to each other

Earlier you insulted me by saying i could not tell the difference from one book from another.

Everything is perception and we each have our own perceptual filters. Andrewedwardjudd (talk) 12:35, 29 April 2011 (UTC)andrewedwardjudd

I find it hard to credit that you are 55 and have experience in a work place, and yet you obviously cannot tell the difference between polite communications and insults; neither have you learned how to communicate appropriately in a collaboratively fashion.

Since you obviously cannot keep your responses polite, I am asking you not to leave me any more messages. Any further messages from you will be deleted unread until such a time when you can credibly undertake to be polite with your future communications.

--LK (talk) 09:33, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

So now you insult my maturity and work place experiences. Andrewedwardjudd (talk) 20:51, 3 May 2011 (UTC)andrewedwardjudd

(talk page stalker)

I'm going to disagree with both of you.

• LK: We're not going to overcome the content dispute any time soon, but perhaps a change of tone might reduce friction.
• Andrewedwardjudd: it's difficult to imagine any way in which you could make yourself happier, or make other people happier, or further the content that you want to see in the article, by responding to LK on this thread. Disengagement could be the best way forward.

If either of you really feel the need to have a fruitless argument with somebody, feel free to argue with me instead bobrayner (talk) 21:04, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

LK invited me to email him. I assumed he meant to contact him here. I assumed he was interested in discussing the issues i had raised about banking practices versus economic theory. Andrewedwardjudd (talk) 09:06, 4 May 2011 (UTC)andrewedwardjudd

Flying Spaghetti Mess

Hello, I thought I would inform you that a discussion about the FSM and our recent edits is happening on Tryptofish's talk page, I was a bit riled by your revert which didn't seem to take into consideration all of the stuff that I put on the talk page, but mainly by the comment that one cannot 'create' something that doesn't exist - this is the definition of create. So I figured that you had just reverted for the hell of it, also you spoke about grammar but I (now) think you were referring to the user who changed all of the due tos to because ofs.
So, no hard feelings I hope, and praise (Pesto) Jar Pastafari! Captain Screebo (talk) 20:10, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

The user was silly to accuse me of obfuscation and counter productive editing while agreeing with freeloader who was totally wrong

Please remove Bigk's unwarranted personal attack on me to show you are capable of abiding by wikis policy in a fair and reasonable manner where you show good faith to other editors and do not attack an editor who has very moderately responded to yet another assault upon his good character Andrewedwardjudd (talk) 06:39, 12 May 2011 (UTC)andrewedwardjudd

Note the rules: "comment on the edits, not the editor". One can say that an edit is erroneus, confusing, or stupid. One cannot say that an editor is error-prone, confused, or stupid. Learn the difference, and you will understand what is acceptable language on wikipedia. LK (talk) 06:46, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Can you please direct me to the rules which say it acceptable behaviour to say an edit performed by an editor is deceitful or deliberately misleading? I see no such rules.Andrewedwardjudd (talk) 13:33, 16 May 2011 (UTC)andrewedwardjudd

Please see No personal attacks, for our policy on what to avoid. Note that the lead states "Comment on content, not on the contributor." It is fine to note that an edit makes the article erroneus or confusing; it's even borderline ok to refer to an edit as 'stupid'. However, it's never ok to call someone confused or stupid.

It's not OK to imply that "an edit performed by an editor is deceitful or deliberately misleading". I have never implied such – please do not twist my words. It's never ok to imply that someone is malicious or has ulterior motives, unless you have strong evidence and are starting a formal complaint about his behavior. LK (talk) 06:01, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

So you are telling me you do not know what the word obfuscation means? You are saying that Bigk can a short time earlier say my edits are silly obfuscation and then shortly thereafter he can say my edits amount to counterproductive obfuscation and you or he do not know what the words mean? I note you say it is borderline ok to say, as Big k did. that my edit was silly. So presumably once you get a dictionary you will understand why i feel twice insulted by the same person who has never apoligised to me for accusing me of being Reissgo. [User:Andrewedwardjudd|Andrewedwardjudd]] (talk) 16:30, 18 May 2011 (UTC)andrewedwardjudd

No matter what BigK has said or done, your actions have been worse. You seem to have a battlefield mentality, kindly reform your behavior if you want to edit here. I suggest that you read your own messages and pretend they are from another directed at yourself. You may then understand why I and many others here find your actions problematic. LK (talk) 08:04, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Battle field mentality is about right. You refused to concede that your comment about BOE on demand repos means banks are not required to have reserves at all to lend money provided they have gilts. And in the usa they can just get a fed overdraft which you also refused to properly discuss so that you could be shown to be wrong in your theories that it had no big impact on lending. You also produced an opinion about the nature of fractional reserve where in reality the important point in a central bank environment is not central bank reserves but rather something the central bank can convert to reverses such as treasuries or bonds, and without a central bank it still means very hiqh quality assets can be part of a meaningful reserve, which even so is only a fractional reserve. Focusing on central bank reserves is meaningless in todays environment. So little wonder when faced with your opinion, without you producing any useful citations and your constant reversions of my edits i felt like i was in a war zone. And your defense of bigk's 'obfuscation' is just more of the same bias and determination to defend an opinion which has no basis in reliable citations. There is nothing wrong with my behaviour. You and Bigk and your opinions and arrogance were the problem. People dont have to roll over and play dead when the likes of you and him and the others start dishing out your toxic abuse in support of your own pet ideas. You need to look at your behaviour and frankly speaking you need to grow up a bit and stop what you are doing towards other people that is so spiteful and horrible, while you imagine you are some kind of expert in kindness or whatever it is you are writing about. Please consider what i am saying and please dont just throw it back in my face like it is 100% my problem. Obviously i am not the only person who has suffered by your actions or who has complained it.Andrewedwardjudd (talk) 08:07, 20 May 2011 (UTC)andrewedwardjudd

You are wrong. I don't want to waste my time with someone who can't learn to interact in an adult fashion. Go away and don't leave me anymore messages. LK (talk) 08:47, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Are we able to move beyond the current situation so we can work together as editors?

Could you help me to understand what you had in mind when you encouraged me to believe i could make changes on wiki if i went about it in a different manner?

I can bend over backwards to be polite and kind to you and i dont expect anything from you if that is something that enables this situation between us to be resolved.

Can this situation between us be resolved? Please let me know if it possible for us to work collaboratively together by some method.

For example what do you have in mind so that i can communicate on the discussion board my desired changes as you have just indicated on your reversion? What i am required to do? You must know there is already a discussion open on this change? And yet you appear to be inviting me to open yet another discussion in order that people will collaborate with me - when all others have failed.

Could you help me please? What should i do?Andrewedwardjudd (talk) 11:16, 13 May 2011 (UTC)andrewedwardjudd

First thing you have to do is to stop leaving messages, and especially edit summaries, such as the last one you left. LK (talk) 06:05, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

geo-Austrian business cycle

Given your professed Georgeist (sp?) sympathies and frequent interactions with Austrians, I thought of you when I skimmed this article: [2]. I haven't dived into the original article in question, so I can't speak to it's quality myself, just thought you might be interested. CRETOG8(t/c) 06:57, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, it makes for interesting reading. Unfortunately, I think Foldvary (with his Austrian influenced economic theorizing) is a bit of a crank.

I'm georgist insofar that I think that the world would be a much better place if we could i) institute high land value taxation and taxes on other natural resources, and ii) use the proceeds to fund a generous citizen's dividend. I think such a change is well supported by standard economic theory. I also agree with George that real estate speculation is a major cause of economic bubbles, and can lead to major financial meltdowns. Henry George was a remarkably insightful economist for the time he was writing in, and a remarkable writer as well. However, I don't believe in a 'georgist economics' that stands apart from the current mainstream. LK (talk) 06:19, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm geoist like Ed Clarke[3] is geoist. He gave a nice speech about it recently.[4] --LK (talk) 09:06, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Notable by what standard?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Austrian_School#Is_David_Gordon_notable_by_wikipedia.27s_standards.3F

Byelf2007 (talk) 1 June 2011

This topic is addressed at WT:ECON#Which_viewpoints_are_notable_enough_for_inclusion. LK (talk) 09:52, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Quantitative easing

Please ..

1] Do not leave patronising and thus offensive messages on my talk page

2] do not remove information from articles that are a] sourced and b] arrived at by consensus.

You claim of "original researched" and POV are patently false. Please refer to the discussion I have started on the articles talk page before entering into an edit war.

Thankyou Vexorg (talk) 20:18, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Refering to your edit.[5] First, consensus is against it not for it. And second, it is POV wording that is improperly sourced, the words 'ex-nihilo' appear nowhere in the source cited. LK (talk) 06:36, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Also, I believe the Level 1 Twinkle notification is entirely appropriate. If you believe it to be offensive, please take the issue up with them. LK (talk) 06:42, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

No. You are the one that sent a notification appropriate for new users to an experienced editor, therefore YOU are the one being offensive. Please have the courage to stand by that and not try and shift the blame. Vexorg (talk) 20:29, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

How about you stand by and accept the blame for making an edit that introduced obviously POV language and then edit warring over it. That edit had noob written all over it, and so I twinkled it. Little did I know that a supposedly 'experienced editor' would make such a noob edit. LK (talk) 02:06, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Fluctuation

In simple English, please explain what causes the fluctuation in the value of our currency? Pass a Method talk 18:03, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

In the long run (average exchange rate over 10 years), the exchange rate is that which equalizes Imports (on one hand), and Exports plus Capital Inflows (investment by foreigners into our country). The situation is complicated in the short run, and cannot be explained easily. LK (talk) 02:09, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

BigK

Perhaps you could have a go at explaining to BIgk what he does not understand on how current practices on interest rate targeting are different to only use of OMO. I am sure my efforts would be entirely wasted on him. Thanks. Andrewedwardjudd (talk) 06:41, 17 June 2011 (UTC)andrewedwardjudd

Edit warring at Quantitative easing

You have been engaged in an edit war at Quantitative easing. Given the currently heated atmosphere surrounding that article, I would like to request that you take a voluntary unilateral no-fault one month break from editing that article (but not the talkpage). There are enough editors paying attention there that any edits you propose that attain consensus will be swiftly enacted by another editor. This is a request for voluntary action, but please be aware that any further edit warring may result in you being blocked from editing. Please also be more circumspect in your communications with other editors; Wikipedia is not a battleground. When an editorial disagreement starts to get out of hand, it is best to restrict your comments carefully to potential improvements of the article while following the steps outlined at WP:Dispute resolution. Thank you, - 2/0 (cont.) 22:01, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Hello LK-This looks like a bad choice to me. Pandemonium may follow your absence, but it's Wikipedia, so any damage needn't be permanent. If watching the pandemonium is too stressful, then maybe make the break more complete by not watching for the time, either. I'd rather see you take the high road, regardless of what others do. CRETOG8(t/c) 13:45, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Don't worry. I don't intend to reengage at Quantitative easing. If you check my history, you'll see that the only thing I've done over there is to ID a KiK sock. Leaving KiK unchecked tends to cause problems. LK (talk) 04:22, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

History of macroeconomic thought

Hej LK!

Please join us for a "cross-training" period at history of macroeconomic thought! Our biggest disagreement is whether we should stick to sources labeled "histories" or whether we should favor historical remarks in the Handbooks of Economics!

:)

We are good people!

Cheers,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:17, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the invite and the kind words, I've left a short comment on the article talk page. I apologise for leaving a comment and running off, but I think 2over0 is right, and I'll be taking his advice and taking a wiki-break for the next month or so. regards, LK (talk) 01:32, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Now

I saw your comment in the edit summary, but you might not be aware that MOS:DAB says, "On longer lists, {{TOC right}} may be used to move the table of contents to the right hand side of the page. This reduces the amount of white space and may improve the readability of the page." From what I've seen, lengthy dab pages generally use that format. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 03:22, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Noted. Will fix. LK (talk) 03:27, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

500th message I've received

Hi LK - I'm an avowed exopedian, so despite being a Wikipedian for nearly ten years and an admin for over nine years, I still do most of my article editing anonymously. Anyway, as a pointless side hobby, I try to keep track of all of the welcome messages I've received over the years. The welcome message you left here is (I believe) the 500th one ever issued to me. So thanks for that. Manning (talk) 01:28, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Err, congratulations ... I guess? LK (talk) 06:45, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Deficit links

Hello. Since you moved Deficit to a new title, and then converted the old title into a disambiguation page, I hope you will remember to WP:FIXDABLINKS. There are a few hundred other Wikipedia articles that contain links to "Deficit" that now need to be fixed to link to the correct article. Thanks. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 11:00, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

This tool may help. Cheers, --JaGa^talk 17:58, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm fixing them now. LK (talk) 03:54, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Compass edits

Hi there:

A few days ago, you undid some edits I had made to the Compass article. I think you were mistaken, and have written a few paragraphs on the Compass discussion page to explain why.

Best wishes.

DOwenWilliams (talk) 03:51, 31 July 2011 (UTC) David Williams

krugman challenged min wage law

hi i am having trouble finding the specific support in the source, would you post the text here from the source that you believe best supports the claim? thx in advance Darkstar1st (talk) 17:35, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Answered on the article talk page. Let's keep this conversation there, thanks. LK (talk) 03:52, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Paul Krugman - inaccurate edit summary

Here: [6]

"Shorten"?! - some, yes, but you RE-lengthened from "Keynesian" to "New Keynesian." In fact, Krugman has been dismissive at times of New Keynesian theory, so you'll have to show evidence that he has fully changed his mind. Try reading his Nobel lecture [7] for an example of the ambivalence he has often expressed. He thinks New Keynesian approaches are overcomplicated, with little or no benefit, often leading to results you could get through simpler ("Old Keynesian") theoretical instruments. I'm not sure where he has said so, but it appears he's also suspicious of New Keynesianism where it can be gamed to lead to Greg Mankiw's "tax cuts are enough stimulus, stimulus spending probably doesn't work" position. Yakushima (talk) 06:09, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Krugman has a New Keynesian paper (DSGE and all) with Eggertsson Gautti.[8] Given his blog entries, it's also pretty clear he's a New Keynesian. I agree that he has expressed skepticism about the last decade or so of macroeconomic research, but to label him an 'old Keynesian' would be a mistake, as that would imply that he rejects the significant advances made in Keynesian macroeconomics since the 1960s. LK (talk) 06:13, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

"Given his blog entries, it's also pretty clear he's a New Keynesian." Eh?! Could you cite which blogs of his show him to be unambiguously New Keynesian? I've been reading his blog daily for years.

In 2009, from his most controversial piece ever (so you couldn't possibly have missed it) [my emph. added]: [9]

But the self-described New Keynesian economists weren’t immune to the charms of rational individuals and perfect markets. They tried to keep their deviations from neoclassical orthodoxy as limited as possible. This meant that there was no room in the prevailing models for such things as bubbles and banking-system collapse.

...Somewhat surprisingly, however, between around 1985 and 2007 the disputes between freshwater and saltwater economists were mainly about theory, not action. The reason, I believe, is that New Keynesians, unlike the original Keynesians, didn’t think fiscal policy — changes in government spending or taxes — was needed to fight recessions. They believed that monetary policy, administered by the technocrats at the Fed, could provide whatever remedies the economy needed.

...And as long as macroeconomic policy was left in the hands of the maestro Greenspan, without Keynesian-type stimulus programs, freshwater economists found little to complain about. (They didn’t believe that monetary policy did any good, but they didn’t believe it did any harm, either.)

It would take a crisis to reveal both how little common ground there was and how Panglossian even New Keynesian economics had become.

...But the New Keynesian models that have come to dominate teaching and research assume that people are perfectly rational and financial markets are perfectly efficient. To get anything like the current slump into their models, New Keynesians are forced to introduce some kind of fudge factor that for reasons unspecified temporarily depresses private spending. (I’ve done exactly that in some of my own work.) And if the analysis of where we are now rests on this fudge factor, how much confidence can we have in the models’ predictions about where we are going?

The state of macro, in short, is not good. So where does the profession go from here?

Even when he shows he can work within New Keynesian frameworks, he's obviously pretty unhappy about it: [10] The whole tone of that blog entry is "Why do I have to go through all this micro foundations crap when it just gives me the same bleeding obvious answer I get more easily without it?" Yes, sometimes he goes New Keynesian, but look: sometimes he even goes Rational Expectations [11]. He's not married to either. Yakushima (talk) 06:50, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I still disagree, as I think one can have doubts about recent DSGE work but still embrace current mainstream macroeconomics (which I would describe as New Keynesian). However, if you feel strongly about it, feel free to change it back to 'Keynesian economics'. I guess that's ambiguous enough that I don't have an objection to it. LK (talk) 06:56, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

BigK talk

I have copied&pasted the BigK discussion to WT:ECON. If you wish, let's continue the conversation there. --S. Rich (talk) 21:18, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Harmfulness of government spending

If I am not mistaken, you support the view that is commonly promoted by the mainstream media and many politicians that we, in the current economic depression, are suffering from an insufficiency of aggregate demand and that this can be remedied by an increase in 'stimulus' spending by USG on infrastructure projects, education, and other so-called investments.
I disagree with this idea. In my view, virtually all spending by USG (whether paid for by taxation, borrowing, or printing money) is essentially parasitic. It damages the economy by drawing resources (inputs) away from productive activities. The common view is a result of confusing economic activity which serves USG's purposes and is thus wasteful with economic activity which is actually productive because it serves the needs of producers. What we need to clarify this is some statistic to replace GDP which excludes 'production' in the service of parasitism. For example, if a contractor builds a 'bridge to nowhere' because the government paid him to do so, then this should not be counted as production; neither should the activity of his subcontractors and suppliers to the extent that they are supporting this non-productive 'production'. JRSpriggs (talk) 09:59, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to use an extremely simplified story to hopefully convince you that it is not impossible for government spending to be helpful.

Consider a small village of potato farmers, where each family grows their own distinctive species of potato, with its own distinctive flavor. Suppose each family can grow 10 potatoes a week, but if a family only consumes the potatoes they grow themselves, they can only eat 1 potato a week, and can't stomach anymore because of the blandness of the diet. So, families trade with each other to get a variety of potatoes, and because of the deliciousness of a varied diet, they all eat 10 potatoes a week. By culture, custom and law, these families do not barter, but trade potatoes at a fixed price of 1 coin per potato. (Keynesian-type recessions only occur in monetary economies.)

One day, a great and respected Shaman shows up and declares that some time in the next six months, the potato harvests of half the families will fail for 10 weeks straight, and unless they had adequate savings, they would starve. Let's say that potatoes go bad unless eaten the week they are harvested. All the families start to save and horde coins. However, the total number of coins in the village is fixed. So, as a whole, savings cannot rise. The desire to save, causes people not to spend, and if things get really bad, no one buys potatoes from each other, and they're down to eating one potato a week. They can grow 10, but they can't eat it themselves, and no one wants to buy it, for fear that their savings will drop. (This is a Keynesian recession.)

The village money lender has tons of coins buried in his yard, and seeing this sad turn of events, decides to lend coins at zero interest rates to families for I.O.U.s payable next year. This can allow people to save enough coins that they will start buying from each other again. (This is expansionary monetary policy to mitigate a recession.)

Suppose instead that the money lender is a miserly sort of fellow. The village chieftain decides to intervene. He uses the village's land as collateral to borrow coins from the money lender. He then buys 1 potato from each family each week, and gives it to a different family, spending 1 coin per family per week. He declares that after 50 weeks, he will raise a tax of 1 coin a month for the next 50 months, in order to collect back the coins spent, and repay the money lender. (This is expansionary fiscal policy, financed by government borrowing.)

What is the result? Families that previously ate one potato a week, now eat 2 potatoes a week. Families also accumulate coins, as the government is buying from them. As their coin savings rise, they might decide that they've saved enough, and start buying potatoes from each other again. In which case, they may even eat 3 potatoes a week. (This the Keynesian multiplier.)

The point of my parable is to show that it is at least possible for government spending to be helpful, without any large downsides. I am not claiming that government is always helpful – only that it is unreasonable to believe that it is always harmful. Regards, LK (talk) 10:58, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

How does one respond to what amounts to a loaded question without being insulting? (Although, I suppose you may have felt the same way.) Clearly, your example is a grossly unrealistic and over-simplified. More specifically:

• It portrays the government as wise and benevolent while ordinary people are foolish and inconsiderate. History shows that this is, if anything, the opposite of the truth.
• It treats money as indivisible and prices as inflexible.
• It defines physical capital out of existence.

I agree that it is possible for government to do good which is why I said "virtually all" rather than "all" government spending is parasitic. Government can be productive when it acts like a private business rather than as a government. Specifically, if it charges a fee for providing a valuable good or service and does not force people to buy it and makes a profit on the transaction, then it is being productive. But this is an almost infinitesimal part of what government does these days.

By the way, I should have pointed out that transfer payments, i.e. entitlement programs like social security, medicare, medicaid, and welfare, result in consumption by their clients without promoting production. So these clients and those who provide for them are also parasites. JRSpriggs (talk) 03:24, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Parasites and moochers all. I can't imagine why you might characterize LK's example unfavorably. Not to stir the pot but if you don't think medicare stimulates production I might inquire as to what possibly might. Presumably the argument is something like crowd-out. Medicare (and friends) stimulates production in one sector by taking resources from another (confiscatory might by your word). If that is the case, say so. but don't say production isn't promoted. Protonk (talk) 03:33, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

To Protonk: Remember money is just a symbol. Money does not cause production; at most, it steers production. What causes production is the labor, capital goods, and raw materials consumed in the production process. So, the money government spends on medicaid does not cause production. Rather it causes wasteful activity to replace production. JRSpriggs (talk) 04:40, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I think I'm done here. Good luck to you. Protonk (talk) 04:46, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Governments are made of people, corporations are made of people, why is it that one group's actions are always misguided and harmful, whereas another group's are not? Putting that aside, economists believe that government action is helpful when there are market failures, which happens in two general situations:

1. Micro-market failures: externalities, asymmetric information, natural monopolies, etc.
2. Macro-market failures: business cycle recessions and depressions.

My example above was a parable of business cycle recessions. Note that, for government intervention to be helpful, the government need not be wise and benevolent and ordinary people foolish and inconsiderate. All that is needed is that the government not be idiotic (unfortunately, the current US congress seems to fail in this), and be able to carry out counter-cyclical policy with some economic sensibility (something which conservatives used to believe that Greenspan did well). Even if ordinary people are wise and benevolent, the recession will still persist, since the amount of coins is fixed, and so net savings cannot rise.

You are correct in saying that I am assuming fixed prices; most Keynesian models assume price stickiness in the short run (micro studies back up short-run price stickiness). Interestingly, Krugman and Eggertsson have recently shown (in a New Keynesian model, where everyone is smart and rational) that when a large fraction of households are heavily indebted, price flexibility can actually prolong a recession (as originally claimed by Keynes). Think of the above parable, but with household holding 15 coins each, but owing 50 coins to the money lender. A drop in the price level will actually reduce savings.

Lastly, I have ignored physical capital, as I have many many other aspects of 'real-world' economies. The relevant question is, does it matter? Is there a coherent story, backed up by evidence, that can show why the existence of physical capital can negate the existence of Keynesian-type recessions in monetary economies?

Regards, LK (talk) 10:23, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I neglected to mention this, but in the parable above, suppose the village chief announces that when the disaster hits, the government will give one coin a week to families whose potato harvests fail. This will not only prevent people from starving, it will also encourage people to save less, reducing the economic recession. (This shows why unemployment insurance is helpful in mitigating recessions, and why cutting unemployment insurance is a bad idea during recessions.) LK (talk) 12:16, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Neither is always misguided and harmful, and neither is always wise and helpful. But government is above the law, so when it is wrong, it is allowed to continue to be wrong unlike the private sector where failure is punished.

For an activity to contribute to the production of the economy, it should be sustainable without externalizing its costs. That is, it should be profitable and voluntary. Private businesses are mostly voluntary (excluding scams and criminal gangs), and if they fail to be profitable they soon go out of business. Government is notably involuntary and unprofitable.

For the most part, government creates externalities rather than eliminating them. It is the biggest monopoly and it creates other monopolies, e.g. labor unions, utilities, patents, etc.. It also amplifies the business cycle rather than damping it, e.g. its promotion of excess investment in housing.

Generally, if a government activity is beneficial, it could have been done by the private sector (if the government did not prevent that). The primary thing which only government can legally do is use force, i.e. destroy things.

In my paper on monetary policy, I explain how a proper monetary policy would cause almost all debt (outside the banking system) to disappear.

If physical capital exists (in your example, if potatoes could be preserved for long periods by refrigeration), then it could be purchased by the monetary authority and new money issued for people to use until they need to redeem it after a crop failure or whatever.

Taxing people to subsidize the needy will result in less production both because productive people will have less resources to use in production and because the subsidy will reduce the motivation to work. JRSpriggs (talk) 00:46, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps I should have mentioned earlier that there are good things which do not operate by directly increasing production. For example, national defense does not add to production but it may prevent an enemy from destroying production and so has value.

I just read a reprinted translation of "What is Money?" by Frederic Bastiat. If you have not read his works, you should. He explodes many economic fallacies and clarifies things amazingly. JRSpriggs (talk) 05:28, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Getting back to my original purpose in starting this section — do you have any lead to or suggestion for a statistic to replace GDP which excludes economic activity which does not support production? JRSpriggs (talk) 02:51, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Are you familiar with the "circular flow" conception of the economy? This is the standard simplified model of the economy. There are two groups 'firms' and 'households'. Firms pay households for the use of the factors of production (labor, capital), which they use to produce goods and services. Households use the income they get from the factor payments (wages, rents) to buy the goods and services produced. GDP can be measured as the total produced, or the the total bought by households, or the total income of households. The three are equivalent.

The two most accurate methods for measuring this flow (GDP) is a) the income method (you query the IRS as to the total income of all households), and b) the 'value added method', you add up the value added for all the producers in the economy. Both of these are reported by the US government. LK (talk) 09:31, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I vaguely remember something like this from taking ECON 101 in summer school at CASE circa 1971.

I want to take out government spending (including transfer payments), and to balance that, taxation and the part of saving which is borrowed by the government. But it is more complicated than that because as I indicated above, expenditures which derive from those (spending by government's clients and suppliers) should also be removed; and their suppliers also; etc.. But then would anything be left? And how could one distinguish which part of a firm's expenditures derive from which part of its revenues? Perhaps one could have a fraction from 0.0 to 1.0 for each firm or household representing the productive portion of its activity. Calculate it by averaging over its sales/income weighted by quantity and apply the result to all its purchases/expenditures equally?

To begin with, assume G has 0.0 and X has 1.0. JRSpriggs (talk) 11:56, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

You could start by assuming that all government spending is worthless – so take expenditure based GDP, and remove Government spending, both numbers are easy to get. Expenditure based GDP is just the total amount spent buying final (excluding intermediate goods) goods and services. It's gives the dollar value of total amount produced and sold in a country.

BTW, taxes are not part of GDP (taxes are not an expenditure on final goods and services). Also, transfer payments are not part of GDP (production of final goods and services) and also not part of government spending (government use of final goods and services) as defined by macroeconomists. Transfer payments just move spending around, ie. Family A spends $1000 more, Family B spends $1000 less, the macroeconomic effect is negligible. LK (talk) 12:05, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

On the one hand, intermediate goods are supposed to be excluded from GDP. On the other hand, investment is supposed to be included in GDP. But are not the goods purchased as part of an investment intermediate goods? Is this not a contradiction?

From the article on Gross Domestic Product, Y=C+I+G+(X−M). I want to exclude G entirely and include X entirely, but it is not clear at this point what fractions of C and I to include. And M poses a problem because it is subtracted. Perhaps we need to divide M into pieces according to which of the others it is deducted from, that is, how much of imports are consumed by households versus invested versus consumed by government versus re-exported?

Anyway, Y as it stands is biased because it includes government expenditures and spending by the recipients of transfer payments. Thus it encourages wasteful policies. We need to look at a measure of activities which support production to eliminate that bias and find out what policies really stimulate the economy. JRSpriggs (talk) 12:29, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

OK, here is a possibility

$Z={\frac {I+X-M}{G+E+I+X-M}}\cdot Y\cdot {\frac {100}{d}}=\left(I+X-M+{\frac {I+X-M}{G+E+I+X-M}}\cdot (C-E)\right)\cdot {\frac {100}{d}}$

where Z is the new statistic, and E is entitlement spending and interest on the national debt to the extent that they are included in C (i.e. paid to US households), and d is the GDP deflator. The idea is that G+E should be excluded and I+X-M fully included while the other terms (C-E) are divided proportionately to those between excluded and included. And of course, we have to adjust it for inflation. JRSpriggs (talk) 11:23, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

See "Job-Creation Lesson from the Past: When government spending goes up, employment goes down" by Richard Rahn. JRSpriggs (talk) 04:46, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Mediation request to be closed

Since there has been no discussion at Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2011-04-12/fractional_reserve_banking in several months, and the mediator who accepted the case has, per his talk page, apparently chosen to leave Wikipedia. I will close the listing after 22:00 UTC on September 2, 2011, unless someone edits that page to ask that it be left open. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:41, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Third party

Hi. A few months ago, I asked a question about the definition of third party - Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability/Archive_49#Please_clarify_what_is_meant_by_a_.22third_party.22. You answered on Talk:The Dating Guy, but the article was deleted. It has come up again, in the same place, so I'd be interested to see your response to this debate. Elizium23 (talk) 05:07, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments

At the risk of implying WP:GANG or whatever: Thanks for your support. I was a little surprised about what came of my edit waring report. But that's life. I admit that Misessus really did get under my skin. Maybe it's for the best... maybe. Anyway, thanks again.--Dark Charles (talk) 07:11, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Austrian School criticisms section of Keynesian Economics

Hello. I know that it has been quite some time (a few months) since this edit occurred (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Keynesian_economics&action=historysubmit&diff=433164075&oldid=433112707), but I wanted to give my reasons for the inclusion of Where Keynes Went Wrong and to get your thoughts on the matter.

I included Lewis's Where Keynes Went Wrong (2009) in the Austrian School criticism section since there's no mention of any work after Hazlitt (1959) and Where Keynes Went Wrong is oriented as an update to Hazlitt. It is the only book-length refutation of Keynes to appear in print (in English) since Hazlitt's work. You can find reviews of the work at the publisher's site (here).

I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Wormbread (talk) 15:42, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

If no notable works are available, we do not include non-notable works just because nothing else exists. IMO, Lewis's work, since it has not generated scholarly discussion and critiques, is not notable enough for inclusion. LK (talk) 04:19, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Krugman

Could you please explain on talk page of the article why do you think that this edit doesn't accurately reflect source? Thanks. -- Vision Thing -- 06:26, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Nomination of Duran Bell for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Duran Bell is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Duran Bell until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. aprock (talk) 05:04, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

AN notice

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. →Στc. 08:37, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Blaug and macro

Hello LK-Your recent addition to Austrian school on Blaug's comments about methodological individualism and macro were the subject of an almost-edit-war including myself. I decided to stop short of an actual edit war because I don't have strong feelings about the addition, and I expected you would take it up. Perhaps you've decided to drop it, which is fine by me since I don't have strong feelings, but perhaps you just missed it in which case you can see discussion here.

(One of the reasons I don't have a strong feeling about it is that I don't understand that methodological individualism is peculiar to Austrians, although they're more likely to use that expression. Essentially, isn't the methodological individualism sentiment of mainstream economics what gets us into all the microfoundations stuff? Of course, I still don't understand Austrianism, so it may be they mean something more extreme than standard economics when they appeal to MI.) CRETOG8(t/c) 17:15, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry I totally missed this almost edit war. Since it's contentious, I guess it best to solicit more comments. I'll post about the issue on WP:ECON. LK (talk) 06:41, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Endogenous growth theory

please can you help to put the topic endogenous growth theory in sidebar or create a sidebar for economic growth, so that I can put it in the article.(shikha —Preceding undated comment added 06:27, 12 October 2011 (UTC).

Thank you and question

Thank you for the invitation to join Wikiproject economics.

I am working to expand my Productivity improving technologies (historical) into a paper or short book. Also, I am thinking about rewriting Technological and industrial history of the United States or possibly turning my notes in this area into a book, but perhaps the latter book may be too much to take on.

A question I have is: Where can I find the purchasing power of the average U.S. worker's hourly wage over the last the last half or the nineteenth century? Phmoreno (talk) 15:38, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in replying. I didn't know off-hand, and thought I would wait till I had enough time to research the question. Unfortunately I haven't found anything about late-nineteenth century wages. You may wish to ask User:JayHenry who is much more familiar with the econmic history of the US than I am. LK (talk) 09:55, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Noted

Hi LK!

I appreciate the thought and good will evident in your remarks, especially at the RfC.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:14, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear this - I was afraid of giving offense. I think all that is needed is that you be more mindful in your future interactions. IMO, the RfC should be closed if you make such a commitment, and we can move forward. regards --LK (talk) 09:39, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Lawrence,

You suggested that I should state a commitment to mindfulness in future interactions. Please read Professor Bialy's statement, which I signed.

You seem to take the principal critics to be well intentioned, fair editors.

• Have you looked around at their edits, particularly Du's? Why is this not a joint RfC, suggesting the interaction ban, long ago suggested by me, by Fetchcomms, mentioned by Geometry guy, etc.?
• Have you examined the previous RfC draft by Worm That Turned, or his statements in the earlier ANI/AN or his talk page: This is a fellow that can spend months preparing and RfC, but claims to have trouble finding problems with Du because I have not presented him with diffs!

I distinguish between honest, sincere criticism and dishonest hypocrisy. I gratefully acknowledge and seriously read the former, as a look at my talk page should reveal. I was raised not to enable vice, so I do not reward the latter, even when politically expedient. Even the patience of Kwai Chang Caine had limits ....

If I had the cash, I would attend an introduction to Robert Fripp's Guitar Craft, which does introduce mindfulness and the practice of a morning sitting.

Sincerely,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:15, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Kiefer, back in August you demanded a delay of two months before any RfC/U could take place. Worm assumed good faith on this, and very kindly granted you that delay on the assumption there was a good reason for your request. It then turned out that you were editing almost daily during that period anyway.

When the RfC/U was filed (with your requested two month delay over), you then began demanding another delay, at one point even suggesting a refusal to participate until January. Five months of delays in total! You also accompanied this by trying to set restrictions on the circumstances under which the RfC/U could take place - restrictions which Worm, again, very helpfully complied with, even though he was under no obligation to do so. Under these circumstances, it's hardly surprising that your attempts to impose an interaction ban on the people who raised concerns about your editing behaviour, should be viewed with some scepticism.

"Dishonest hypocrisy" indeed! --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:28, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

If you want to have a reality check, I suggest you stop pontificating and open an RfA. I have no interest in your childish bullshit. 21:34, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

An RfA for who? The only suitably qualified candidate I can think of right now is on an extended break from editing (and Worm has already said he intends to nominate him at some point, so being co-nominator is probably the best I'll manage).

Or do you mean WP:RfARB? A lady in the USA said she was going to open an arbcom case about me, but I haven't heard much about that recently. I'll send you an invite if it ever happens. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:54, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

You should file for your own RfA, silly goose. :)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:00, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Ha! Not unless the deal comes with something better than just a mop and a crappy t-shirt :) There's quite enough unanswered help requests on my talk page already, without looking for hats that will provoke a few dozens more. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:17, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks LK

Thanks for the fix on minimum wage. I was obviously too sleepy when I cut Tobin. I just looked at the tag, but not one paragraph up. Duh. Academic38 (talk) 18:04, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

No problems. Someone actually needs to go through that article and either source or delete the tagged statements. Unfortunately, time constraints and all that... LK (talk) 04:41, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Sock detector pinging slightly

• EuroFiatTrashed (talk · contribs)

Smells a bit like a Kik sock to me - what do you think? It been such a long time that I don't want to open the SPI w/o a double-check. Ravensfire (talk) 14:25, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Yah, I concur. Less than 5 edits and already edit warring. Username is political. Looks like a KiK sock to me. LK (talk) 14:29, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Alternative (minimum) tax?

As you know, several Republican candidates for president have proposed plans to revamp the income tax (and perhaps other taxes) of the United States. In particular, Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich have suggested an optional flat income tax. Effectively, one's tax would be the lesser of the current tax and the new flat tax. Generally, the Republican plans would try to reduce and simplify the income tax and (for some of them) balance that by large spending reductions. However, Perry's and Gingrich's plans have been criticized as not actually simplifying the tax code since the old complex system would be incorporated into it as an alternative which middle class tax payers would still have to calculate because they would likely find it to be lower than the new flat tax. This started me thinking (again) about how simplification could be accomplished without raising anyone's tax.

One idea which has been considered previously was to eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). But it occurs to me that, instead, we might eliminate the regular income tax and only have the AMT. This would certainly simplify the tax code and each household's tax would be reduced (or at least not increased) from the larger of the regular tax and the AMT to just the AMT. In this case, the main benefit might flow to the middle class rather than the upper class. And all the deductions and credits which occur in the regular tax but not in the AMT would disappear. I would also like to index the AMT for inflation to fix the main existing problem with it.

How do you feel about this idea? What problems do you see in it? JRSpriggs (talk) 12:45, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I'ld favor it as superior to the current system. However, the AMT is still more complicated than needs be. (See Alternative_Minimum_Tax#AMT_basics.) For income taxes, I'ld favor a negative income tax system, perhaps a flat 25% tax on all income with a generous income subsidy to keep it progressive (and keep people from being homeless and starving).

Ideally of course (speaking as a geoist), the US should transition to a system that relies mainly on land value taxation. LK (talk) 04:21, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback.

As you can see from my user page, I would prefer to do away with taxes altogether and replace them with voluntary user fees. Since taxes violate natural rights, I see it as morally imperative to avoid raising the tax on any person.

I understand that you consider helping the needy to be a moral imperative, but under Objectivist ethics it is considered immoral to help someone unless you get something of greater value in return. And as a practical matter, if government were reduced to its proper size and funding, it simply could not afford such largess.

Wow, I am surprised to see that you are a Georgist. I thought that you-all were extinct. How would you justify preventing someone who wanted to homestead land which is unowned (or you would say owned by society at large and not rented out) from doing so? JRSpriggs (talk) 13:37, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

A person can homestead all he likes, as long as the land is neither claimed nor used by anyone else. But once he tries to prevent someone else from using the land, that is infringing on people's right to access common resources. No one has the right to do this. In a system of land ownership, a person could negotiate with the rightfully elected government to rent land, that is the right to exclude other people from it. This is economically equivalent to a land value tax.

As for the 'homesteading principle', I take a dim view of it. To me, that's the moral equivalent of some kid running on the playground and camping out on the monkey bars, 'homesteading it', then preventing other kids from playing on the monkey bars 'cause I was there first'. LK (talk) 06:33, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Forgive me if I am repeating arguments to which you have had to respond too many times already.

You said "A person can homestead all he likes, as long as the land is neither claimed nor used by anyone else.". However, once the land is homesteaded, then it is in use by the homesteader so anyone else who tries to use it thereafter (without his agreement) is violating this condition, is he not?

"But once he tries to prevent someone else from using the land, that is infringing on people's right to access common resources." The nature of material objects and places is such that one of them can only be used for a single purpose at a time. So using land for one purpose, say growing beets for the use of Angela, necessarily excludes its use for other purposes, say providing space for a house to be used by Bob. Any use by anyone necessarily excludes all other uses by anyone else for the duration. So a right to access common resources would be self-contradictory. There cannot be any such right.

As for the kid on the monkey bars, he is just ignoring the fact that the playground already belongs to someone else (the one who made it into a playground or his successors). Homesteading only applies to land which is in a state of nature, not already in use by someone else. JRSpriggs (talk) 11:25, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

When I was young, I was an avid amateur philosopher, and readily debated anyone who wanted to debate me. Now I am old, and I have given up this habit, for I have realised that I seldom if ever change anyone, and that they seldom if ever change me.

But one more time, for memories' sake. The monkey bars in a public playground are owned by society, just like the ground we walk on is owned by society. My planting a flag (or beets) in the ground doesn't make it mine, and neither does pissing on the monkey bars. LK (talk) 13:43, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I am getting somewhat long in the tooth myself; and I agree that people of our age seldom change their minds. However, I have not had the opportunity to argue with a Georgist before. So I do not know your arguments with certainty (although I could guess some of them).

Rhetorical questions: What does it mean to own something? What purpose does ownership serve? Should the concept of ownership be discarded?
If a second child climbs up on the monkey bars and pushes the first child so that he falls and gets hurt, is that OK? I hope we agree that that is not OK. If Bob ignores Angela's planting of beets and builds a house on top of it thereby killing the beets and depriving Angela of the vegetables of her labors, is that OK? No. If I drive a truck through the dinning room of your house, is that OK? No.
Respect for the person and the labor (liberty) of other people implies the necessity of a concept of property.
But does this apply to land in a state of nature, i.e. unimproved land? Why would it? Who would be injured by someone making use of land which others are not already using? No one.
To me, the claim of "society" (i.e. a world government) to all unowned land is nothing but a rationalization for those who have not invested in the land to demand protection money from those who have. JRSpriggs (talk) 14:35, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Some quick answers, but first an observation. Georgists aren't some rare strange birds with strange novel ideas. We're mostly just normal economists who take seriously Optimal tax theory, Pigou taxation, diminishing marginal utility from consumption (and hence favor more income equality), and come to the conclusion that: 1. The best (most efficient, fair and progressive) tax system is one that taxes land value (no deadweight loss), and the use of common resources (taxes negative externalities from use). 2. It would be beneficial to reduce income inequality and guarantee a minimum income, and the most efficient way to achieve that is via a citizen's dividend scheme. So, what type of answers should you expect from Georgists? Very mainstream ones, with somewhat 'left-wing libertarian' and free market tendencies.

> What does it mean to own something? What purpose does ownership serve?

Normal economist answer here. Ownership is defined by the prevailing system of laws, and allows a market society to function. It is fair and just that we own the fruits of our labor, and what we trade for with those fruits.

> If a second child climbs up on the monkey bars and pushes the first child so that he falls and gets hurt, is that OK?

No, but it's also not 'ok' for the first child to push off a second child who wants to play on the monkey bars. In the beetroot example, it's not 'ok' for a homesteader to prevent me from letting my goats graze on his beetroot plants. Society makes arrangements to apportion use of land. A fair arrangement would be to allow all to benefit equally from land and other common resources, no matter who 'got there first'. If I don't want you to drive a truck through my fields, I should arrange through the local government to rent the land that I want to plant on. I shouldn't shoot people who drive through my fields, just because I'm unwilling to share land and unwilling to share the bounty from it. I have no 'right' to do this.

When I use the term 'society' I don't mean a world government, I mean humanity in general. If someone improves land, this does not mean they own it. They may own the improvements to the land, but the land belongs to all humanity. As I said before, pissing on a piece of land (thereby improving it's fertility) doesn't make it mine.

Perhaps you'll feel differently about the 'homestead principle' if you had lived in Victorian Ireland where the English lords had claimed all the commons land for their estates, and if you caught a salmon in the local river, you were 'poaching' and could be hanged for it. Or if you washed ashore on an island where one family claims 50% of the productive land for their goats, and leaves the other 99 families scratching a living farming on marginal land. LK (talk) 06:42, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Your argument for the land tax appears to assume that: people are equally valuable; income is used only for consumption, not investment; and some taxation (as opposed to fees for services) is necessary and desirable. I dispute all of those assumptions.

Allowing goats to graze on Angela's beets without her consent is not consistent with "we own the fruits of our labor". What about Angela's labor planting the beets?

"Society makes arrangements to apportion use of land." Only individual persons can act. There is no such person as 'society'. Corporations and governments are groups of individuals cooperating to achieve some common purpose. To the extent that the actions of their members pursue that purpose, they may be regarded as agents acting on behalf of the groups and so the groups may be thought of as acting. But society has no common purpose, so no one may be regarded as a agent of society.

If everyone has equal freedom of access to unimproved land, then the first comer (homesteader) must have the freedom to use it. Otherwise, everyone would be blocked from using it until given permission by the world state. But that is not equality, because that would favor the pets of the world state over other people.

The Irish (or Palestinians or American aborigines) would have done better to assert individual claims to the property before the newcomers arrived. If they did and the invaders ignored it, then the invaders would be the trespassers.

If those raising goats are not making the best use of the land, then it should be possible to buy the land from them or gain a share of it through inter-marriage. JRSpriggs (talk) 11:55, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I've stated my case, you know where I stand. This is how I feel about continuing the discussion.[12] LK (talk) 03:54, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

See User:JRSpriggs#Non-contradiction. JRSpriggs (talk) 03:06, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Here's my favourite article in that vein: [13]

I would be tempted to continue this conversation if I had any hope that you (or I) would recognize any contradictions in thinking. But I'm sure that the power of rationalizations and aversion of cognitive dissonance will overcome all. After all, a few years ago, you as much as admitted that no events in the real world could ever cause you to question your beliefs. LK (talk) 03:03, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I believe that you can still argue back here on your talk page even though you blocked generally for the day.

I think that the attitude of politicians (and many others) that treats tax-payers (other people) as prey-animals is just such a practice for which future generations will (or at least should) condemn us.

I do not think that I quite said that no real world event would change my mind. That would certainly be irrational of me. What I was probably saying was that before I could change my mind based on such an event, I would need a clear argument from my old beliefs that leads inevitably to the conclusion that such an event cannot occur. Also, before I would accept a new belief in place of the old one, I would have to understand what the new belief is. That is, I would have to be able to interpret and apply it on my own. Just saying that "mainstream economics is correct" for example would not be acceptable, if I cannot determine what that means. Surely there are many 'mainstream' economists who do not all agree with one another all the time. So which one should I accept as the 'authoritative' source for mainstream economics? JRSpriggs (talk) 03:29, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I think you are overstating the difference in 'schools of economics'. If you stick to the mainstream (e.g. what's in the textbooks, and what's taught in universities) there is quite a lot of agreement about many economic issues. There is disagreement, but we agree about a large amount. More importantly, we agree about how to disagree, and how to discuss issues. In general, academic economists will agree about what is unsure, about which people can have legitimate disagreements. IMO, if you want to know more about any subject, you should start by finding out what the academics who study that subject think. They will also give you a long list of what we are pretty sure about.

On a totally different issues, I think the fundamental difference in our worldviews is about the role and nature of governments in the world. The way I see it, whenever a group of people get together, a power structure ('a government') naturally evolves. The best we can do is to try to make sure the government is reasonable, fair and responsive to the desires of the people. In this sense, democracies are the best system we've come up with so far, and the actions of a properly elected democratic government is legitimate. This includes the taxation and spending decisions of such a government.

I find a bit ridiculous, the libertarian position that getting rid of government will result in a fairer society 'without government'; since getting rid of a democratic government will just cause another (probably far worse) system of government to take it's place. E.g., the tribal chieftainships in Somalia. IMO, a good government is the best way to ensure that the rights and needs of the people are protected. LK (talk) 10:04, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Government

Not all libertarians consider themselves anarchists. For example, Objectivists (although they do not like to be linked to other libertarians) definitely believe that government is necessary and proper.

I believed in anarcho-capitalism for a long time, but now I think that the correct position is at the point where minarchism (small night-watchman state) and anarcho-capitalism touch, the cross-over point. If you see my user page, I do not call for the abolition of government. Rather I say that it should follow the same laws it imposes on other people, i.e. do unto others as you would have them do (a form of the golden rule).
Regarding the formation of government: To the extent that it arises by mutual consent, respecting the rights of other people, it will tend to be good (at least for a time). Unfortunately, most governments historically have arisen by conquest, which means that it will enforce the exploitation of the losers by the winners. JRSpriggs (talk) 10:51, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how the historical formation of a government (which may have been centuries ago) has much relevance to it's legitimacy today. I think what matters is how currently the laws and the government are chosen, and how easy it is for citizens to 'throw out the bastards'.

How do you reconcile your miniarchist view with you utter opposition to taxation? If you believe in a nightwatchman state, you should believe in the taxation necessary to pay for it. Leaving law enforcement to private provision and funding is an open invitation to corruption, cronyism and legal extortion. LK (talk) 14:05, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I should have mentioned the Cato Institute who are almost all minarchist libertarians, I think. Cato would probably be a better place for you to learn about libertarianism than the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

I think what matters re government is how ethical it is or is not. Unfortunately, even democracy does not guarantee ethics. Governments which were founded to oppress a conquered population will of course be designed to perpetuate that oppression, that is, their institutions will have a built-in bias in favor of the ruling class including the mechanisms for changing the system.

I do not know for certain that an ethical government is possible since there has never been one (although a few came close). But I think we need to try to work in that direction. Giving up and accepting eternal corruption and oppression would be like committing suicide.

I do not see how you reach the conclusion that ethical constraints on law enforcement invite unethical behavior. JRSpriggs (talk) 23:06, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

This reminds me why I didn't want to start this conversation in the first place. What I said was, "leaving law enforcement to private funding is an open invitation to corruption, cronyism and legal extortion"; how you got from there to "ethical constraints on law enforcement invite unethical behavior" is beyond me. You still haven't answered my question though, how do you reconcile a miniarchist view, with the total opposition to all taxation? Since government activities must be paid for, taxation needs to exist. LK (talk) 05:27, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Similarly, some of your statements seem to me to come out of nowhere, including the one you just quoted. What do you mean by "private funding"? I was suggesting that government charge fees for its services instead of taxation. How is that any more "private" than the tax system? In either case, one party is the government and the other is a private entity. And you provided no explanation for how that might cause "corruption, cronyism and legal extortion". Indeed, TAXATION IS LEGAL EXTORTION. So on that account at least, fees for services is less corrupt than taxation. As for how I got there, it is ethical constraint on law enforcement which prohibits taxation (and lotteries and gifts) and thus leaves one with fees for services as the alternative.

If it turns out that government cannot exist without relying on committing crimes such as extortion, then it would be better not to have a government at all. However, I do not think that we have enough evidence to reach such a conclusion at this time. JRSpriggs (talk) 09:22, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I had forgotten the "voluntary user fees" bit at the beginning of this conversation. I guess you believe that police and law enforcement can be funded by "voluntary user fees". I see our fundamental disagreement. When I see "voluntary user fees", those look to me like "private contributions" aka "bribes", which for me is an open invitation to "corruption, cronyism and legal extortion". I believe that most of what a miniarchist government would provide (law enforcement, national defense, fire depts, CDC) are public goods (goods and services that are both non-rivalled and non-excludable). Public goods need to be funded via taxation (or if you will 'involuntary' user fees), as the 'free-rider' problem and the principle of non-revelation (sorry, no article) would prevent the free market from providing the good.

A georgist alternative (which I thoroughly support) is to have the government own the land and use land value rents to fund government services. LK (talk) 09:58, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I am amazed that you would think of bribes when you should know how concerned I am about ethics in government.

Neither law enforcement nor fire protection are public goods. Each can be divided into parts which benefit a particular individual, family, neighborhood or business firm rather than the country as a whole. National defense might be a public good, if you have an enemy who is set on overrunning the whole country. Protection against disease is only a public good in a case like smallpox where one is trying to eradicate a communicable disease. CDC and fire departments would not be part of the government, but private entities. Insurance companies might find it in their interest to pay for public goods which would reduce their liabilities.
Taxation has created a much larger free rider problem than anything it might have solved. JRSpriggs (talk) 07:55, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

In economics, the terms 'public goods' and 'free-rider problem' have very specific meanings. Textbooks and scholarly articles use law enforcement and fire protection as classic examples of public goods, as they are non-rival, but more importantly non-excludable. To say that fire protection is not a public good is to argue that it is excludable. So there's a fire downtown, if left to burn it would burn the whole town down. The fire department puts it out, saving the town, how is that excludable? Do they take some of the fire and throw it at your particular apartment but not at the rest of the apartment building because you haven't paid fire service fees? Do we lock up murderers but let them out on weekends targeted at only certain individuals who haven't paid police fees? If you look-up 'free-rider problem', you'll see that it has nothing to do with taxation. It is the problem that arises when goods are non-excludable, and so no one has the incentive to pay. (BTW, "taxation is legal extortion is a value judgement", not a statement of fact. Are club member fees extortion? Are toll roads? Are rents by a landlord who owns all the land in the district extortion?)

So, has this discussion you changed your mind about anything? I haven't learned anything. I haven't even heard any new arguments. (I heard and rejected the 'voluntary fees can pay for police' argument a long time ago.) I'm reminded again why I didn't want have this discussion. Arguing with libertarians is like arguing with a religious sect, in that their understanding about the way the world works is based on what should be. I don't think any amount of real world observation matters. As a scientist, I'ld like to believe that I approach questions without a preconceived notion of what should be, and instead observe what is. LK (talk) 06:25, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Can you observe the fact that the world political/financial system based on the Keynesian delusion is collapsing even as we speak? Greece is in default. Italy will soon follow. Then much of the world banking system.

Fire protection is excludable. Fire departments could just spray water on neighboring buildings which are under their protection. I believe that this was done in the past. People who want to live in apartment buildings or townhouses should insist that the landlord or community association buy fire protection before they make their purchase. Alternatively, the fire department could just fight the fire anyway and then send a bill to the property owner for their expenses. If he refused to pay, then his properties would be put on a black-list of properties which would not receive service.

Law enforcement is partially excludable. People who are the victims of crime would often be willing to pay to have the criminal punished regardless of whether this would benefit other people or not. They might be able to recover part of their cost from the criminal and his family. Police departments could publish lists of people or properties which are under their protection. This might deter some criminals from targeting those people or properties. If people were allowed to own weapons and defend themselves (which is often forbidden or discouraged today), then crime would be less of a problem. Imprisonment is not something I support; I think a combination of fines or corporal punishment for minor offenses and the death penalty for major or often-repeated offenses would be better. Of course, some "crimes" (mainly drug offenses) should be made legal which would reduce the problem considerably.

What is the correct value judgement is a matter of fact! See the writings of Ayn Rand. A tax is the threat to punish a person in violation of his natural rights for failing to pay a sum of money to the government. That makes it a species of extortion which is the threat to hurt a person (in a way which violates his natural rights) for failing to do what you ask of him. Whether a toll is extortion depends on whether the person exacting the toll owns the road. If he owns the road, then charging for its use is not extortion.

I would say that a person receiving welfare or some other unearned benefit from the government is getting a free ride; wouldn't you? And the biggest free rider of all is the government itself which is getting a free ride from the tax payers. JRSpriggs (talk) 10:55, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

1. What I see is the world economy threatened by the anti-Keynesian 'austerian' delusion that budget cuts in the middle of severe recessions are expansionary, when all evidence shows that they make recessions worse, and may in fact aggravate the debt problem.
2. The fact that societies all around the world have concluded that it's best for government to provide fire protection, police and courts argues that private provision of those services have never worked well.
3. Ayn Rand was a bad novelist (cult leader) with delusions of philosophership who was never taken seriously by any real philosopher.
4. We were speaking of minimal governments — no welfare; how does taxation for defense, fire protection, CDC, police and law courts, cause 'free riding'?

--LK (talk) 05:09, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

1. It is the tax-increase aspect of the austerity program which aggravates recession. Cutting subsides and privatizing state enterprises may cause a brief loss of jobs, but will promote growth in the long run. Thus I would recommend drastic spending cuts rather than the usual policy which is a mix of tax increases, mild spending cuts, and some continued borrowing. The fact that politicians prefer the wrong kind of austerity is why I believe this problem will continue to get worse. Trying to fix the problem with more spending (as Krugman would do) is like drinking to 'cure' a hangover.

At the risk of repeating myself, Keynes's ideology provided a rationalization for excessive spending which enabled politicians to spend too much. This put the nations deeply into debt which caused the recession. Spending will not solve the problem which it has created.

2. I think that the reason that we have moved away from the correct kind of government for a long time is due to altruism (people want to help others even when that is actually harmful) and vested interests (e.g. government employees or contractors and their unions) trying to enhance their own position at the expense of other people.

3. I am not aware of any other philosopher who has created something like The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand. It explains why values are not subjective, but objective. The cult was created by Nathaniel Brandon and some of Rand's other followers. Its existence is inconsistent with her philosophy. Unfortunately, she failed to adequately resist the temptation to be its figurehead.

4. But will it remain minimal? Once taxation is accepted for any purpose, the availability of that revenue will create an almost irresistible temptation to expand the functions of the government. To avoid externalities (which is what we are talking about), the cost of government should be imposed on its beneficiaries. More specifically, the cost of each part of each program should be paid for by its beneficiary. Then to avoid wasteful (counterproductive) activity, the beneficiary should be able to limit the program to the point where the marginal cost rises past the marginal benefit. This is best accomplished by using the market mechanism as in a private business. In other words, finance government by voluntary user fees. JRSpriggs (talk) 09:56, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

1 OR, opinion without evidence, also fringe as it contradicts all known theories of economics.

2 OR, opinion, speculation.

3 See Descartes; actually, in general, any philosopher from the last 300 years who has created a moral code.

4 a) Logical fallacy, specifically, a false dilemma or slippery slope fallacy. You are assuming that no stable level of taxation can exist between 0% and socialism.

4 b) You appear to be using the word externalities inaccurately, please look it up. With public goods, you need government funding to avoid the problem of externalities.

--LK (talk) 12:54, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Balderdash! And irrelevant since we are not talking about an edit to the encyclopedia.

You may think that libertarians are cruel in wanting to take away many programs upon which millions of people depend. However, I think that you and the majority who think like you are the cruel ones. You are making life harder for productive people, the people who really deserve a break, who are the victims in your schemes. JRSpriggs (talk) 06:46, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Epistemology

The question is, how do you come to believe what you believe concerning how the world works. For me, for any particular issue, I would defer to what the consensus of scientists in a particular field hold to be true. So, I believe what the scientific consensus says on global warming, evolution, and more relevantly, of how changes in taxes and government spending affect economic activity during a recession. My principles may affect how I interpret these issues, but I would try my best not to let my principles affect what I believe is true about the way the world works.

The trouble I see with your thinking is that you believe in some very non-orthodox things – without evidence – just because it coincides with your philosophy. I'm guessing that you trust that experts know what they are doing (in their field of expertise) about many commonplace things, like when your doctor diagnoses and prescribes treatment, or the dictionary about etymologies of words, or driving over a bridge you trust that engineers knew what they were doing. Wouldn't it be strange if the world's academics were radically wrong about only those issues where your worldview contradicts mainstream belief, and that they were wrong in a way that happens to coincide with your worldview? LK (talk) 10:19, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

You should not abdicate the responsibility of thinking for yourself.

The consensus of scientists is not always right. This is evidenced by the fact that they have changed their minds often in the past. How do you know who is real scientist rather than someone who pretends to be a scientist to make money or to enhance his reputation? How do you determine whether there is a consensus and, if so, what it is? Scientists are fallible people like the rest of us. What makes a scientist better than anyone else? That they use a certain method? If so, then why do you not use that method yourself rather than merely trusting the authority of supposed scientists?

You say that I believe things without evidence. How do you know that? Do you read all the newspapers, journals, and books that I read? I am aware of the difference between what I know from my direct observation or calculation (which is reliable) and what I am surmising based on the claims of fact by reputable people (which is less reliable) and mere speculation (which is not reliable).

Generally, many people are expert in concrete matters on which they directly work with great frequency. Otherwise, expertise is very rare (even among those generally accounted to be experts). JRSpriggs (talk) 12:58, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

How does one know what the consensus of scientists in a particular field believe? By reading their works, and checking textbooks and the relevant academic handbooks. I am humble enough to understand that I do not know enough about many things, so that I can disbelieve (based on my own introspection) those who have spent their lives studying the issue, who have been celebrated as the best by other people who have spent their lives studying the issue. That is why I humbly defer to the experts about diverse issues such as environmental science, evolution, quantum physics, tensor mathematics, computational theory.

You ask also how I know you believe things without evidence. Because I know economics. This is my field of expertise. And I know what you believe, and the reasons you give for believing so. To put it bluntly, I can state pretty categorically that you use economic terminology incorrectly, are ignorant of many of the techniques and principles in this field, hold opinions that are self-contradictory, and overall suffer from the fuzzy minded thinking that afflicts those who try to 'self-study' a field without learning the basics first. If you truly want to understand economics, I suggest you put in the effort necessary to read the standard undergraduate texts, or audit the core economics courses at a nearby university.

I see that you, yourself, have studied mathematical logic and set theory. How should one become knowledgeable in set theory? By reading standard texts? Or by reading Marxist critiques of set theory, and blog entries of Marxist neo-math aficionados who believe that set theorists misunderstand the intrinsic self-organizing principle of sets? Or by deep introspection into what set theory should be after hearing some of the results? LK (talk) 07:41, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Which of my opinions are self-contradictory? JRSpriggs (talk) 20:22, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, there's the one I've been pushing you to see, which is that you can't have a government without taxation, so if you believe that a minimal government should exist, you should also consider which types of taxation would be least harmful or intrusive. (I know, 'user fees', but a 'government' that is funded by fee payers is not a government, it's a mafia.)

From some time ago, I remember thinking that you had some strange beliefs about deflation, but I can't remember if they were self-contradictory or just contradicted known historical facts.

Your belief that tax increases "aggravates recessions" but cutting government spending will only "have a short run effect, but will promote growth in the long run" can be seen to be contradictory once you model the issue. Actually, both have the same short run and long run effects. In the Keynesian model, tax increases and cutting government spending "aggravates recessions", but they also both "will promote growth in the long run". In the classical model, only the long run effects exist. To understand why tax increases tend to increase growth in the long run, you just have to reflect that it will reduce the budget deficit, which will allow more private investment.

Also, you likely believe that you learnt something about mathematical logic and set theory through your university education that those who did not go through the process do not understand, but you seem to hold that PhDs in economics are essentially worthless. LK (talk) 02:33, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

None of these are cases where one of my opinions contradicts itself or another of my opinions.

Using "mafia" to describe an ethical government and not to describe the institutionalized crime of tax-based government is absurd. Where do you come up with these ridiculous ideas? In any case, this is a contradiction between some (not clearly stated) beliefs of yours and my ideas, not an internal contradiction in my ideas.

Since you did not specify what you thought about my ideas on deflation, I will have to pass over this.

You have neither explained your Keynesian models to me nor given me a link to a text which explains them at a level which I can understand, that is, without assuming that I know a lot of jargon at the outset. Regarding the idea that taxes allow more private investment: this is false because historically Congress just spends the additional revenue rather than reducing the debt; even if Congress did reduce the debt, that would not make more funds available to the private sector, it would just replenish with one hand what it took away with the other; and you also fail to consider the harm caused to the economy by the costs of compliance and enforcement which rise as the tax burden rises.

Education is neither necessary nor sufficient for wisdom although it can be helpful to people who think critically. I do not pre-judge people who make statements about set theory based on whether they have taken the kind of college courses which I have taken. I evaluate their arguments/proofs on their own merits. JRSpriggs (talk) 06:27, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

1. You appear to be unaware of the history of the Mafia; they started as paid extralegal arbitrators and protectors in a situation where there was almost no government enforcement.

2. For your argument to make sense, you must assume that Any increase in tax revenue always leads to an increase in government spending until deficits are the same as before. This is just a restatement of the 'starve the beast' doctrine, which

i) contradicts historical experience (see Do Tax Cuts Starve the Beast: The Effect of Tax Changes on Government Spending)

ii) has been rejected by political science academics who have studied the issue, (Google scholar search) and

iii) implies that budget deficits can never be reduced by tax increases (which contradicts historical experience.)

3. Formal education is not necessary to understand a field, but that misses the point. How can you reject the major findings of a field of knowledge without even being able to understand the models and arguments that result in those findings?

BTW, you are likely feeling cognitive dissonance right now. Unfortunately, psychological studies have shown that conservatives tend to buckle down and hold even more strongly to their beliefs after being presented with evidence that contradicts it. (US Libertarians, for all their claims of being neither, usually test as conservative.) Likely, you are not viewing the arguments unbiasedly and asking yourself, 'what should I believe?' Rather, you are even now, formulating responses, and wondering 'How I can I avoid changing my beliefs?' Here's an interesting article on the issue.[14]

LK (talk) 06:10, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

1. When you said "it's a mafia", you did not make clear that you were talking about the historical origin of the Sicilian Mafia. So I naturally assumed that you meant "organized crime" which is what people usually mean when they say "mafia". I do not know much about the origin of the Sicilian Mafia, but from the article you linked that situation appears to be different from what I envision might happen here. I am postulating that at some time in the future there is a ground swell of support for libertarian ideas. Then the voters install Congressmen who will turn the clock back (speaking figuratively) and reduce the national, state, and local governments to something approaching their original functions (but keeping modern technology and preserving the freedoms of women and minorities). Eventually, taxes would be completely replaced by voluntary user fees. I see no reason to think that the police in such a society would be any more corrupt than they are now or that they would choose to include criminals in their membership as happened in Sicily.

2. You are ignoring the other two arguments which I made: (a) that reduced debt as a result of tax increases would not increase the resources available for investment since the tax takes away what is made available by the pay-down of the debt; and (b) the damage to the economy caused by: keeping tax records, filling out forms, responding to audits, avoiding circumstances where one would be subject to tax, fines, interest, jail time, and seizures of property :increases as taxes increase. So these still argue that raising taxes does not have an effect similar to cutting spending. Also, "starve the beast" is about cutting taxes, not raising them, so your reference is not quite on the point. And at first look, Romer and Romer seem to be saying that tax cuts are usually followed by tax increases rather than spending cuts. So what does that have to do with the issue of the relative economic effects of spending cuts versus tax increases?
3. How can I reject astrology without having spent years studying it? I think the burden is on the one who claims that his field has some truth in it to show that, rather than demand that others waste their time trying to prove that it is all false.
4. Please do not try to psychoanalyse me. It is very insulting. I see no evidence that conservatives or libertarians are more inclined to deny facts inconsistent with their prior beliefs than other people are. I know that I have changed my opinions on numerous occasions. For example, I recently changed my mind about how social security should be wound-up after my previous idea was criticized by my brother. JRSpriggs (talk) 07:46, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

1. IMO, the history of the mafia illustrates how a 'user funded government' would devolve. They will come to serve those interests that can provide the most funds.

2. You only made one other argument, which was, "you also fail to consider the harm caused to the economy by the costs of compliance and enforcement which rise as the tax burden rises." For changes currently discussed in the US (e.g. 25%->30%), these are negligible. As for your two new arguments, (a) is fuzzy logic, if you model it, you'll see that the tax will reduce consumption, it is this reduction in consumption that allows more investment. (b) again, negligible for the changes in rates under consideration in the US.

3. They don't give Nobel prizes for astrology, nor do they have departments of Astrology in almost all accredited universities.

4. I was trying to use cognitive dissonance theory in order to force you to reconsider your beliefs, I'm sorry (but unsurprised) that I've failed.

Really, I think we're done here. LK (talk) 08:06, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

See my talk

I responded there. From mobile sorry no copypaste--BirgitteSB 00:09, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is "Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_public_debt". Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by William Jockusch (talk • contribs) 23:58, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Civility Barnstar
	An award given for serious calm taken in the face of an anti-NYT POV pusher. Achowat (talk) 00:36, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Much thanks! I fear I don't currently, but I shall strive to deserve it. --LK (talk) 04:47, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Influence of Dixit on Krugman

... is obvious and in more than one way, but you have to start somewhere. Any thoughts on this start?[15] Oh, and whatever you do, don't talk about the war. (You'll see what I mean when you get to the Krugman Talk page.) Yakushima (talk) 04:14, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Yakushima, you know I appreciate your efforts, and I respect your research highly, but you've got to chill out a bit. You've getting much too fired up about minor issues on the page, and are not as polite as you might be there. Many of those there, even if they disagree with you about certain issues, likely only wish to improve the Krugman page. (I'm not talking about those who want to throw every negative thing ever written about Krugman into the article.) Can I suggest paying more attention to other pages that interest you, and looking at the Krugman page more infrequently? I think that will make for less wikidrama. LK (talk) 04:43, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't planning on asking for your help in this dispute. So far I haven't asked your opinion on it. But I'll take your advice above -- IF you can be bothered to contribute a point to the discussion, no matter how small. Try commenting here,[16] after giving the point I make there all due attention. Yakushima (talk) 10:04, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

QE Talk

There are some comments on your amendments waiting for your reply.-Caparn (talk) 23:14, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Citation Barnstar
	In regards to your work on History of the United States public debt, I award you this barnstar for fighting trolls and POV-pushers with facts and sources. Achowat (talk) 13:58, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Much thanks! LK (talk) 02:06, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Central banks

It seems like you have been removing information from the central bank article, and judging by your page you seem to have aggrevated more users regarding the process of money creation. I urge you to open a talk page article, when in doubt or apparent disagreement. It does seem like this magic of money is in heart of some people. lets learn from each other.

Per your edit, the claim removed was that central banks do not have a limit on their ability to create new credit. that unlike fractional reserve commercial banking, they do not yield to any such impositions.

any claim to this statment, please make in the talk page, or here.

Thanks --Namaste@^? 22:59, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Diza, you appear to be a reasonable guy. However, you should know that you have unorthodox beliefs about central banking. So please don't keep on changing the central bank article to what you believe to be true, without reference to the references cited. LK (talk) 06:49, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Emailed you recently

Hey LK, I recently sent you an email through Wikipedia. I'm just following up to make sure you've received it? I know you're probably fairly busy; it was kind of a lengthy email too (unintentionally), so no rush or anything. Cheers, John Shandy` • talk 22:00, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I sent you an email back last week. Did you get it? LK (talk) 09:18, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

Hi LK. Thank you for commenting on the Concerns and controversies over Confucius Institutes merger proposal. This article would benefit from more contributors, and if you're interested, please add it to your watchlist. Best wishes, Keahapana (talk) 20:27, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

RFC

I am writing an RFC regarding Vision Thing. Will you certify it? Hipocrite (talk) 12:47, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I think it's long overdue. LK (talk) 02:22, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Bruce Bartlett

I started discussion on RS noticeboard on your interpretation of Bruce Bartlett's views. -- Vision Thing -- 13:15, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

RFC

I filed the previously discussed RFC at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Vision Thing. It requires a second certifier. Hipocrite (talk) 15:29, 20 March 2012 (UTC)