Posted on 09/10/2009 6:11:45 PM PDT by sickoflibs
We all encounter more than our share of foolish blog posts. Most of the time you simply have to let them be. You could spend the rest of your life correcting drones and automatons who will never have an original or unconventional thought no matter how much you prod them. Their seventh-grade teacher, who was also the track coach, taught them what they know, and they're sticking to it.
Once in a while, though, for your own sake and for the sake of readers who suspect the post is all wrong but aren't quite sure why, you let loose with a full-blown response. And that's what I'm doing here in reaction to a blog entry called "Peter Schiff: Medicare Recipients Are Lazy People Who Refuse to Pay for Their Own Health Care."(MSNBC video at Mises link)
This is longer than my usual pieces, but I hope I am not trying the reader's patience too much. In block quotes are the words of a blog author who identifies himself, interestingly enough, simply as "Che."
Here we go.
I love it when right wing economists talk about "market forces" and "letting the free market run our economy." They make it sound like the free market is some altruistic being that always knows exactly what to do and when to do it.
I do not know of anyone who subscribes to this junior-camper caricature. For one thing, no free-market economist is dumb enough to use a phrase like "letting the free market run our economy." The free market is merely the matrix of free exchanges entered into by individuals. How can a matrix of free exchanges "run" anything?
Secondly, no free-market economist thinks the market "always knows exactly what to do and when to do it." If that were the case, how could free-market economists account for firms that go out of business?
The argument that free-market economists actually make is that on the free market, decisions regarding what to produce, in what quantities, using what methods, and in what locations, are made in light of satisfying the most urgent demands of consumers. Business firms find out very quickly what consumers want and what they do not want, and they adjust their production decisions accordingly.
Article continued at Mises link above (go up)
If you realize both parties in Washington think our money is theirs and you trust them to do the wrong thing, this list is for you.
If you think there is a Santa Claus who is going to get elected in Washington and cut a few taxes and spend a few trillion and jump start the economy, and get our lost money back, this list is not for you.
You can read past posts by clicking on : schifflist , I try to tag all relevant threads with the keyword : schifflist.
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If you like this you can get Thomas Wood's book 'Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse ' at :
Liberals are just SO smart ping!
Woods rocks. Mises.org is a daily stop for me.
This was great, read this on facebook.
Long read and worth every minute! Thanks for posting!
I hope I am not overquoting, but this is delicious:
“The brighter kids figure out they’re being fed propaganda of the crudest and most obvious kind, which is designed to make them obedient little servants of their overlords, who claim to protect them from the evil exploiters they read about in their textbooks. These kids seek out the truth, and discover that the real exploiters are the overlords themselves, parasites on the productive economy, who live on the fruits of other people’s labor while blaming the resulting social ills on the various bogeymen the kids have been taught to hate.
The slower kids, by contrast, memorize what the teacher tells them, reproduce it on the test, and repeat it like drones for the rest of their lives.”
I swear these people can’t subtract four pennies from fourteen.
Mises’ Opus, “Human Action” can form a basis for understanding what the free market is: The collective decisions of consumers of what their prioroties are and acting on those decisions.
Woods is always a good read, Thanks for posting!
Excellent article! Just what the Dr. ordered, to send to a thick-skulled lib (redundant, I know) who seems to think I need educayshun cuz they are oh so much smarter, dontcha know, being a part-time teacher and all...
Thanks. Love Woods. Love Mises.
Oh, I don’t know why I even try to read anything from von Mises. Its the same old predictable blah blah blah free market blah blah government sucks blah blah blah.
I thought I was going to have to read some “Che”, there because he was making some pretty good points, then I found out it wasn’t really Che after all, just what passes for humor on von Mises site.
I wish a meteor would strike the next von Mises convention and rid us of these blamed idiots.
parsy, who is reminded of Mark Twain’s muddy water. (You can dip it out a cup at a time and never get a glass of muddy water)
Nothing about the effects of globalization on U.S. wages...which have been stagnant for 30 years. Before anyone flames me...google “wage stagnation in U.S.”
The only blight on this excellent piece is the author’s isolationism and description of America as an empire.
Only on the economic stuff. Seriously, think about the music industry. For decades, did they give us what we wanted, or did we buy what they packaged and sold us? How may times did you buy an album to get the one or two songs you liked. How many decades di we all go thru this.
How many of us can buy a new vehicle that we like? That is high quality? We pretty much have to buy what’s offered, with planned obsolescence built in. The markets don’t respond to us on so many things. We have to respond to them. Or live in a tent at the beach.
parsy, who hopes Michael Moore kicks some capitalist b*tt with his new movie.
That’s because von Mises.org is a Lew Rockwell front organization dedicated to the overthrow of our democracy.
parsy, who did a post on this once, some time ago
****How many of us can buy a new vehicle that we like? That is high quality? We pretty much have to buy what’s offered, with planned obsolescence built in. The markets don’t respond to us on so many things. We have to respond to them. Or live in a tent at the beach.****
So I take you drive a Yugo? It is only because of competition from the Japanese that automobiles have improved from the 80’s. Why were American cars so bad during that time? Ralph Nader, bureaucrats and unions made the cost of production go up so high that it became more difficult to deliver affordable cars. Once the Japanese started kicking our butts because of lower costs, some friendly government officials kept raising the cost for all manufacturers so that the Japanese now have a lower overall advantage.
I don’t mind it if the American democracy is overthrown, so long as the American republic is given the reins again.
Don’t blame Nader. Blame GM. Do I want a new car with composite intake manifolds? Did I even know what this was or that it existed until tonite? No. A certain mfg does this and down the road, when it warps, you are out a bunch of money to fix it?
Even Jap and Korean cars. Much engineering is stupid. Dodge computers engineered to require trip to dealer to “flash” the computer. Plus tow bill?
Is this the union? Heck no. Its management.
parsy, who does not want to buy cheap rotors made out of inferior steel in China.
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