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Economy is NOT a social construct, fabricated or not. Economic laws are direct consequences of physical laws (i.e. scarcity is the result of Fermi statistics wh

Economy is NOT a social construct, fabricated or not. Economic laws are direct consequences of physical laws (i.e. scarcity is the result of Fermi statistics which makes material things to take space and of the no-cloning theorem which means the material things cannot just pop into existence because somebody wished them), or otherwise rather tautological mathematical statements (for example the first welfare theorem or the law of comparative advantage). Economy doesn't require humanity or consciousness to exist, it's a resource allocation and optimization algorithm. So is political means of acquiring wealth - this is known as intra-species aggression and is common to all social species; this is another, older, and less efficient, algorithm for resource allocation. Basically, every time politicians and their enforcers barge in to "fix" things they break the efficient algorithm (aka "market economy") to replace it with the older one (aka "the biggest ape gets to boss others around"). And, yes, it doesn't make any economic sense. "Bailouts" are nothing more than taking from many people by force and giving to few politically-connected ones. It's just indirect form of force: instead of simply looting, they print more money - but everybody else is prevented by force by doing the same, so they have no choice but to see the value of their money to decline and be transferred to the recipients of new money.

crocal 6y ago
I have to disagree. Economy is the interface between producers and consumers of resources. It’s big time a social construct, and therefore the subject of political action. Importantly, the idea that state intervention is bad for the economy as a universal rule is simply wrong. In the long run, history clearly teaches that mixed economy work (e.g. a la Keynes), while laissez-faire (e.g. a la Friedman) or centralized economies (e.g. a la Communist) don’t. Striking the right mix requires society input in the form of political debate. We desperately need this to happen now in the West. While I have nothing about Jeff Bezos as a person, but billionaires simply should not be allowed to exist. They are the symptom of a « Laissez Faire » system in terminal state.
- JackFr 6y ago
  Jeff Bezos became a billionaire by making the lives of Amazon’s customers better. Sam Walton did more to improve the lot of poor families than most government programs. (Those guys at least built something. Why does no one complain about America’s grandpa Warren Buffett. He just shuffled around money, plays with warrants and options (while telling others not to) and makes a couple hundred million by going to Congress and talking his book. )
  - loudmax 6y ago
    Shuffling money around is absolutely an important part of the economy. It moves resources from unproductive or low productive companies to higher producing companies. The name for this activity is called "Capitalism". One could argue that Warren Buffet should pay higher taxes. And he would agree! But unless you find capitalism itself unethical there is nothing wrong or underhanded with searching for undervalued firms and investing in them.
    - JackFr 6y ago
      I agree in general. My biggest complaint is that that instead of paying higher taxes Warren Buffet could maybe not jawbone Congress into bailing out AIG. AIG should have gone bankrupt and Goldman Sachs (and their other counterparties) should have borne that pain, and possibly gone bankrupt themselves. Instead Warren Buffet refuses to come to the rescue of AIG, comes to the rescue of GS, and then tells Congress that the economy will freeze up if AIG and other banks aren't bailed out. That is not efficient allocation, that's crony capitalism.
      - loudmax 6y ago
        Any private citizen has a right to jawbone Congress. By itself, that isn't a problem. What is a problem is that congressional representatives are enormously influenced by donations to political campaigns. Even if they lose a reelection there's a whole industry in place to put them into cushy jobs if they've followed their party line. And the party line is to do what the campaign donors want, not necessarily what the constituents want. That is a problem.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > In the long run, history clearly teaches that mixed economy work (e.g. a la Keynes) History teaches no such thing. History teaches that governments messing with the money supply, which is the centerpiece of Keynesian economics, leads to civilizational collapse. The Roman empire being a prime example. > centralized economies (e.g. a la Communist) don’t Government messing with the economy by manipulating the money supply is just a different form of central planning, and doesn't work for the same basic reason that Communist central planning in the Soviet Union didn't work.
  - crocal 6y ago
    Err... Keynes « center piece » is not manipulation of money supply. This extreme monetarism you describe is... Friedman’s!!! And boy do I agree it does not work! Ultra liberal economics lead to accumulation of wealth by few super riches. This happens to be one of the reason the Roman Empire fell because all this money could not be spent on keeping the army in working conditions. Super riches of the time hoarded the necessary gold for themselves. But don’t put that on Keynes’ tab. It’s twistedly wrong.
    - pdonis 6y ago
      > Keynes « center piece » is not manipulation of money supply. Yes, it is. Keynes said at one point that the government printing dollar bills and burying them for people to dig up would be a valid form of economic stimulus. > This extreme monetarism you describe is... Friedman’s!!! Milton Friedman did not advocate anything like the arbitrary manipulation of the money supply by the government that is practiced by the Federal Reserve. (He was in fact a consistent opponent of the Federal Reserve; he thought it should be abolished.) He advocated tying the growth rate of the money supply to the growth rate in real productivity, with no discretionary element at all. > Ultra liberal economics lead to accumulation of wealth by few super riches No, the government printing money and giving it to a few favored parties, which is exactly what the Federal Reserve does and always has done (the favored parties have almost always been financial institutions, no surprise given the background of most Fed members), leads to accumulation of wealth by a few super riches. > This happens to be one of the reason the Roman Empire fell because all this money could not be spent on keeping the army in working conditions. I don't know where you're getting your history from, but it's wrong. The reason the empire had trouble paying for a competent army was that it had debased the coinage so much that people were refusing to take Roman coins as payment. It even got so bad that the Roman government itself, knowing that its coins were worthless, stopped accepting them in payment of taxes and insisted on payment in kind instead. The emperor Constantine managed to get hold of a large supply of gold bullion and used it to mint new gold coins, which were accepted in payment of taxes. That helped for a while as the empire could use these to pay the army and the civil servants; but many people could not afford to buy the new gold coins and therefore could not pay their taxes, so the improvement didn't last too long. It also didn't help that the size of the army and civil service kept increasing, for no tangible reason, which just increased the tax burden.
RobertoG 6y ago
I don't think you are prevented by force to print your own money, you just are prevented of printing dollars.
WealthVsSurvive 6y ago
A whole lot of wild claims in that first paragraph without so much as a mote to back it up; some of it boils down to "because we can't magic things, thus scarcity."

crocal 6y ago

I have to disagree. Economy is the interface between producers and consumers of resources. It’s big time a social construct, and therefore the subject of political action. Importantly, the idea that state intervention is bad for the economy as a universal rule is simply wrong. In the long run, history clearly teaches that mixed economy work (e.g. a la Keynes), while laissez-faire (e.g. a la Friedman) or centralized economies (e.g. a la Communist) don’t. Striking the right mix requires society input in the form of political debate. We desperately need this to happen now in the West. While I have nothing about Jeff Bezos as a person, but billionaires simply should not be allowed to exist. They are the symptom of a « Laissez Faire » system in terminal state.

JackFr 6y ago
Jeff Bezos became a billionaire by making the lives of Amazon’s customers better. Sam Walton did more to improve the lot of poor families than most government programs. (Those guys at least built something. Why does no one complain about America’s grandpa Warren Buffett. He just shuffled around money, plays with warrants and options (while telling others not to) and makes a couple hundred million by going to Congress and talking his book. )
- loudmax 6y ago
  Shuffling money around is absolutely an important part of the economy. It moves resources from unproductive or low productive companies to higher producing companies. The name for this activity is called "Capitalism". One could argue that Warren Buffet should pay higher taxes. And he would agree! But unless you find capitalism itself unethical there is nothing wrong or underhanded with searching for undervalued firms and investing in them.
  - JackFr 6y ago
    I agree in general. My biggest complaint is that that instead of paying higher taxes Warren Buffet could maybe not jawbone Congress into bailing out AIG. AIG should have gone bankrupt and Goldman Sachs (and their other counterparties) should have borne that pain, and possibly gone bankrupt themselves. Instead Warren Buffet refuses to come to the rescue of AIG, comes to the rescue of GS, and then tells Congress that the economy will freeze up if AIG and other banks aren't bailed out. That is not efficient allocation, that's crony capitalism.
    - loudmax 6y ago
      Any private citizen has a right to jawbone Congress. By itself, that isn't a problem. What is a problem is that congressional representatives are enormously influenced by donations to political campaigns. Even if they lose a reelection there's a whole industry in place to put them into cushy jobs if they've followed their party line. And the party line is to do what the campaign donors want, not necessarily what the constituents want. That is a problem.
pdonis 6y ago
> In the long run, history clearly teaches that mixed economy work (e.g. a la Keynes) History teaches no such thing. History teaches that governments messing with the money supply, which is the centerpiece of Keynesian economics, leads to civilizational collapse. The Roman empire being a prime example. > centralized economies (e.g. a la Communist) don’t Government messing with the economy by manipulating the money supply is just a different form of central planning, and doesn't work for the same basic reason that Communist central planning in the Soviet Union didn't work.
- crocal 6y ago
  Err... Keynes « center piece » is not manipulation of money supply. This extreme monetarism you describe is... Friedman’s!!! And boy do I agree it does not work! Ultra liberal economics lead to accumulation of wealth by few super riches. This happens to be one of the reason the Roman Empire fell because all this money could not be spent on keeping the army in working conditions. Super riches of the time hoarded the necessary gold for themselves. But don’t put that on Keynes’ tab. It’s twistedly wrong.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > Keynes « center piece » is not manipulation of money supply. Yes, it is. Keynes said at one point that the government printing dollar bills and burying them for people to dig up would be a valid form of economic stimulus. > This extreme monetarism you describe is... Friedman’s!!! Milton Friedman did not advocate anything like the arbitrary manipulation of the money supply by the government that is practiced by the Federal Reserve. (He was in fact a consistent opponent of the Federal Reserve; he thought it should be abolished.) He advocated tying the growth rate of the money supply to the growth rate in real productivity, with no discretionary element at all. > Ultra liberal economics lead to accumulation of wealth by few super riches No, the government printing money and giving it to a few favored parties, which is exactly what the Federal Reserve does and always has done (the favored parties have almost always been financial institutions, no surprise given the background of most Fed members), leads to accumulation of wealth by a few super riches. > This happens to be one of the reason the Roman Empire fell because all this money could not be spent on keeping the army in working conditions. I don't know where you're getting your history from, but it's wrong. The reason the empire had trouble paying for a competent army was that it had debased the coinage so much that people were refusing to take Roman coins as payment. It even got so bad that the Roman government itself, knowing that its coins were worthless, stopped accepting them in payment of taxes and insisted on payment in kind instead. The emperor Constantine managed to get hold of a large supply of gold bullion and used it to mint new gold coins, which were accepted in payment of taxes. That helped for a while as the empire could use these to pay the army and the civil servants; but many people could not afford to buy the new gold coins and therefore could not pay their taxes, so the improvement didn't last too long. It also didn't help that the size of the army and civil service kept increasing, for no tangible reason, which just increased the tax burden.

RobertoG 6y ago

I don't think you are prevented by force to print your own money, you just are prevented of printing dollars.

WealthVsSurvive 6y ago

A whole lot of wild claims in that first paragraph without so much as a mote to back it up; some of it boils down to "because we can't magic things, thus scarcity."