patrick.net

GraooGra says

Profit is not greed or maybe 'greed is good'. If markets are normal there are competing players and prices are equalized so the profit is right. When market is not in balance then there is 1% and 99%. Who makes imbalance?

Greed is just another name for the will to power. It is not only good, it is the defining property of anything.

There will always be the 1% and the 99% though. But only technocrats are obsessed with such numbers.

When I'm not in my right mind, my left mind gets pretty crowded.

Steven Wright

I don't want to bury my question:

Who creates/who is responsible for imbalances in the free market economy?

Peter P says

Greed is just another name for the will to power. It is not only good, it is the defining property of anything.

Profit is just a reward for the risk taking. It is not greed. Marxists always talk about corporate profit as if it is ugly, bad, and evil greed.

GraooGra says

Profit is just a reward for the risk taking. It is not greed. Marxists always talk about corporate profit as if it is ugly, bad, and evil greed.

Well, I really think greed is good because it is the life force of the universe.

Yes, profit is the reward for the risk taking. But the want for profit is greed.

Want is NEVER wrong.

Bellingham Bill says

If markets are normal there are competing players and prices are equalized so the profit is right.

this is free marketeer theology with a tenuous relation to reality.

Profits from mere ownership of natural wealth -- resource rents -- are never "right". We just allow it because we are stupid.

Bill, I just wrote that profit is a reward for the risk taking. But in non-mystical world it is only the end result of the accounting formula:
Revenue - Expenses = Profit (Loss).

If you don't make enough profit you won't do the business. As simple as that.

Peter P says

Want is NEVER wrong.

Want and Greed are not this same things for me. Greed might be excessive want.
Excessive want/greed means that you do anything for obtaining it even immoral, unethical or illegal.

Many progressives hate profit because they do not understand risks and they refuse to accept the stochastic nature of worldly affairs.

GraooGra says

Want and Greed are not this same things for me. Greed might be excessive want.
Excessive want/greed means that you do anything for obtaining it even immoral, unethical or illegal.

I think want is always good.

How you manifest wants can have other moral and/or legal consequences.

Who is to tell someone that he is wanting too much?

when you break the moral/ethical and legal code.

Legal code is questionable because the current legislature can create a law which is immoral. Example socialist government created a law of no private market. Black market of everyday goods for sale was illegal but it was moral. People broke that law constantly and didn't feel bad about it.

GraooGra says

when you break the moral/ethical and legal code.

Wants cannot possibly break any code. On the other hand, actions can break code.

One must take moral responsibility for his actions but one should never censor his wants.

I suspect many poor people are poor now mostly because they grew up hearing their parents moaned and bitched about those "evil" rich people.

Peter P says

Many progressives hate profit because they do not understand risks and they refuse to accept the stochastic nature of worldly affairs.

They don't understand profit. K. Marx misunderstood profit. He equated it to greed. Progressives take it from Marxists.

This is my meta-ethical belief:

1) everyone should self-legislate his own moral code, and

2) a moral code is valid if and only if the moral value of any given action can be determined ex ante

GraooGra says

They don't understand profit. K. Marx misunderstood profit. He equated it to greed. Progressives take it from Marxists.

I guess Karl Marx misunderstood greed too.

Progressives tend to favor certainty over unknown. They also tend to confuse "knowledge" with epistemology and they loathe to contemplate unknowability.

JohnLaw says

Therefore they know that it is unsustainable. Furthermore, government has put further cost burdens on private business through new healthcare requirements. So why would any responsible business executive hire more people and ramp up production under these circumstances?

You are answering my question of who is creating imbalances in the free market economy.

Government creates imbalances. Big government and its interference into the free market creates imbalances.

I believe in laissez faire market. You let it go it is going to self adjust really fast.

Peter P says

This is my meta-ethical belief:

1) everyone should self-legislate his own moral code, and

2) a moral code is valid if and only if the moral value of any given action can be determined ex ante

Don't go to metaphysics with me. I believe in ethical monotheism. The code has to be external and dissociated from our emotions and subjectivity.

GraooGra says

Government creates imbalances. Big government and its interference into the free market creates imbalances.

One paradox though: the sole function of an ideal government is to protect private properties. This alone can create distortions in the market.

As market participants, we just have to make business decisions around these distortions.

GraooGra says

If you don't make enough profit you won't do the business. As simple as that.

Sure. I make profit on my work, everybody makes profit.

But economics rents -- profit -- are eroded by competition, so the powerful seek to find economic areas with reduced competition.

This is called rent-seeking.

Real estate, natural resources, telecommunications (both wired and RF), health care have been natural monopoly opportunities with high barriers to entry and thus protected profits.

The imbalance comes from the 99% having to "willingly contract" with these rent-seekers for life's necessities.

Money just keeps flowing up the pyramid, and the rent-seekers just buy up more natural monopolies.

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/11/15/hedge-fund-blackstone-buying-100-million-in-foreclosed-homes-every-week/

Recall your last game of Monopoly for how this dynamic ends.

GraooGra says

Don't go to metaphysics with me. I believe in ethical monotheism. The code has to be external and dissociated from our emotions and subjectivity.

Meta-ethics is not the same as meta-physics.

I give up on external value systems long ago. And we really do not need one. Now I am a subjectivist who respects Ayn Rand.

The market is supposed to

1) allow individuals with different values communicate expectations
2) enforce that such expectations be met

It really is an amazing thing.

Peter P says

One paradox though: the sole function of an ideal government is to protect private properties. This alone can create distortions in the market.

So whoever has property creates the government. I believe if government is small enough it would be true representative of the people. It doesn't become a self serving beast.

GraooGra says

The code has to be external and dissociated from our emotions and subjectivity.

now that's some good "pseudo-rationalist" thinking!

GraooGra says

So whoever has property creates the government. I believe if government is small enough it would be true representative of the people. It doesn't become a self serving beast.

Absolutely. The government should exists only to protect individual private properties.

But since the government is comprised of self-serving individuals it too can become self-serving.

GraooGra says

So whoever has property creates the government

No, government creates property. No property exists without government.

Well, real property at least:

"A right of property in moveable things is admitted before the establishment of government. A separate property in lands, not till after that establishment. The right to moveables is acknowledged by all the hordes of Indians surrounding us. Yet by no one of them has a separate property in lands been yielded to individuals. He who plants a field keeps possession till he has gathered the produce, after which one has as good a right as another to occupy it. Government must be established and laws provided, before lands can be separately appropriated, and their owner protected in his possession. Till then, the property is in the body of the nation, and they, or their chief as trustee, must grant them to individuals, and determine the conditions of the grant." --Thomas Jefferson, 1812.

Bellingham Bill says

Recall your last game of Monopoly for how this dynamic ends.

So the one of government roles is to protect us from monopolies, oligopolies and cartels.

This conversation is fun. I feel like in my economy class all over again. But it was long time ago, I must miss something ;)

There is no real objectivity. There is only subjective understanding of objectivity. Hence it is better for the system NOT to rely on objectivity.

GraooGra says

So the one of government roles is to protect us from monopolies, oligopolies and cartels.

That has some philosophical consequences. However, if that is true, labor unions belong to one of those categories.

Bellingham Bill says

GraooGra says

The code has to be external and dissociated from our emotions and subjectivity.

now that's some good "pseudo-rationalist" thinking!

I really don't want to go into religion. However, atheists in the real world borrow from moral code of believers.

Bellingham Bill says

No, government creates property. No property exists without government.

Government can act as a registry and protector of properties. But of course one can have properties without a government. But you will need to:

1) get others to recognize your ownership
2) defend the properties against those who disagree

Peter P says

There is no real objectivity. There is only subjective understanding of objectivity. Hence it is better for the system NOT to rely on objectivity.

Some explorers discovered that even cannibalistic tribes never accustomed with the modern world felt deeply inside that it was something wrong with their rituals.

GraooGra says

I really don't want to go into religion. However, atheists in the real world borrow from moral code of believers.

Is God dead?

GraooGra says

Some explorers discovered that even cannibalistic tribes never accustomed with the modern world felt deeply inside that it was something wrong with their rituals.

If that is the case subjective codes will quite resemble one another. No worries.

Government is a representative of the group of people who has the greatest power. If private property owners have power they create government institutions.
My key word is LIMITED government.

Peter P says

GraooGra says

I really don't want to go into religion. However, atheists in the real world borrow from moral code of believers.

Is God dead?

I don't know but I believe just in case...
Anyway you said there is no objective, external code. I said it is.

Yes, limited government is good.

GraooGra says

I don't know but I believe just in case...
Anyway you said there is no objective, external code. I said it is.

Yep. Pascal's Wager. This is why I believe atheism is irrational.

Peter P says

Pascal's Wager.

LOL. Your entire worldview is literally based on a logical fallacy.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/false-dilemma.html

"Pseudo-rationalist" indeed.

Peter P says

But of course one can have properties without a government. But you will need to:

1) get others to recognize your ownership
2) defend the properties against those who disagree

Congratulations, you just recreated a government.

Bellingham Bill says

Peter P says

Pascal's Wager.

LOL. Your entire worldview is literally based on a logical fallacy.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/false-dilemma.html

"Pseudo-rationalist" indeed.

There is a difference. I make decisions based on the understanding of unknowability.

GraooGra says

atheists in the real world borrow from moral code of believers.

belief in mythical beings is positively correlated with immorality, not morality.

religion is just one massive appeal-to-authority fallacy.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html

I wonder how many fallacies you have incorporated into your daily life.

We probably haven't even gotten started yet.