does the government have too much control over the economy?

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Like wise to you Ferel-sapien

Everyone here should take the time to watch that video you posted if they want to understand the mess America and the world is in and why, otherwise it will continue untill we are all thier slaves of debt to them.

Interesting that this film was posted 27th March and in the first couple of minutes its telling us the system is about to crash, and sure enough!

There isn't ENOUGH government intervention. Corporate robber barons of multinational corporations that have no loyalty to any government get away with so much crap that is detrimental to peoples' well being, civil society, and democratic government it is disgusting. That's not to say I want a command economy, I think it was Hayek that rightly argued that a truly planned economy could never work properly because the economic planners would never have enough information, but there needs to be more oversight and regulation as well as a trade policy based on the principles of Fair Trade.

Well, we can argue that we have the wrong kind, but I think it is practically fact that we have harmful governmental intervention.

Why should they have any loyalty to any government? They are not nationalist organizations but rather organizations meant to act without regard to nations. Not only that, but really, all systems

Hayek did that, and I think Mises argued that economic calculation would fail under this system, and I think that neoclassical economics claims that there are simply too many markets to calculate, all 3 are sort of different, with Mises and Hayek probably being the closest to each other.

Yeah, you really sound Hayekian there. Fair trade is a huge example of an attempt to plan rather than simply work off of the information available. We go in, give these people a wage based upon what we want and make them sign off to things that we, in our infinite wisdom, think they should do, and this is not in regard to market signals, which is the information source that Hayek tended to think of and really is more often a rallying cry for unions and other groups who want people to think that free trade is unfair despite the fact that the majority of economists cry out about free trade being the best system.

This really reminds me of the Stalin quote: "Our task is not to study economics but to change it- we are bound by no laws." It exemplifies the typical government-interventionist belief that accepted economic fact can simply be overruled if the government so desires. Unfortunately this is not the case. Capitalism may not result in what everyone perceives as an "equitable" distribution of wealth but it WILL ensure that resources are allocated as efficiently as possible. I would rather accept what the most highly educated and respected economists have to say than the rhetoric of some politician angling for more votes.

lol

Welcome to Zimbabwe!

Look, I admit I don't know much about economics, but this much is very obvious: The wealthiest people and corporations have control of our Government, so it is creating laws and policies that favor the wealthy over everyone else. They have made staggering gains during the Bush administration, while everyone else's pay has been relatively stagnant. With prices, especially energy prices, going up, it means that we are actually poorer than we were in 2000. Much additional money has been borrowed from China and Japan and simply given to the rich. It's not that Government control is necessarily bad, it's just that some very evil people have gained control of that power, and are using it to steal huge amounts of money.

where did you buy your gold, if you dont mind me asking?

I thought of doing so back when it was £210/oz but never got round to it. Last time i looked it was up to £300/oz - i missed out there! :/

Is there any particular reason your getting a mixture gold + silver, is it a to reducing your liability should either change dramatically?

Because it means they can't be controlled by democratic means and they cause countries to engage in a race to the bottom that hurts everyone except the multinational corporate elities.





There is a difference between influencing the market in order to promote economic fairness and controlling it outright, and certain areas, like healthcare, do not function well without strong government intervention. Also, there are plenty of economists out there that have no problem with government intervention in the economy, they just don't have much influence because they don't have the ear of the corporate elites and right-wing think tanks like the CATO Institute and the Heritage Foundation. Finally, IMO what is fair and just is more important then what the elites consider "efficient."

Efficiency is a slippery fish - it can be defined only in terms of specific factors. Look at agriculture around the world. Many would say that US agriculture is the most efficient. By some measures (yields per acre) it may be. But in terms of energy in vs energy out, it is one of the least efficient.

Please explain to me how America's love affair with the SUV (and government's reluctance to interfere with it) has resulted in the most efficient use of petroleum.

Democratic means? Who says that democratic means good? I mean, nobody would put democratic means in charge of speech so why trade? Besides, if anything the market is a dollar democracy. Not only that, but they cannot "cause" countries to do anything, but rather their government is weak. These organizations trade, some countries are easier for them to trade with and others are harder, but there is nothing more here than a trade off.


Health care currently doesn't function well partially(or perhaps even largely) because of strong government intervention(overregulation from the FDA, overregulation of health care, subsidization of corporate financing of health care costs leading to a system of insulation from costs rather than merely insurance, heck, we practically pay for a private system and a public system to get one half of a private system). Umm.... no, there are economists who support more and less government intervention, but ones who don't care are morons. There is no reason to be indifferent between 2 clearly different alternatives and if intervention is taken then there must be a good justification as otherwise this is often just a means of helping elites get more control by increasing costs of entrance and allowing more rules to pervert. Also, the average economist is a left-winger, not a right-winger, and non-right-wing economists have gotten plenty of influence in the field, however, most economists, even left-wingers believe in the power of free trade and most economists believe in the power of markets in contradiction to their ideology. Fair and just are relatively meaningless concepts, and even partially social constructs. The market is fairer and more just than most systems throughout all of history, and even from studying the emergence of capitalism in America, one can see this as capitalism rose out of the desire for equality, not of outcome but of freedom, rather than the hierarchical systems and caste systems that have existed for centuries before.


No, it really isn't as I am talking about economics, and economic efficiency does not inherently care about any of those factors outside of their relationship to other factors and ultimately human desires. If we posit an economy for human desires than efficient will relate to our needs and the uses of resources. We can argue some other methodology, but I don't see the purpose as by invoking efficiency on an economic issue, I am inherently invoking the concept of efficiency in economics just as how efficiency has a specific meaning in physics. The US agriculture system is inefficient from many standpoints, if only in the uses of the crops grown(the government tends to destroy crops to maintain high prices and I think from most views this is without a compelling cause), however, I would also likely say that its oversubsidization in general will likely point to economic inefficiency.

Um.... petroleum has an externality associated with it, but ignoring that, there is nothing wrong with it. People want SUVs and consider the petroleum costs worth it to maintain these SUVs, and assuming something even approximately close to a utility maximizer or even just an acting person, these facts alone and the fact that they pay the resource costs for that which they consume, means that the system is efficiently using petroleum.

I personally would not choose to drive an SUV because I would view the fuel costs associated with it to be an inefficient use of my resources. However, I don't need the government stepping in to tell me what kind of car I should or should not buy. That's called fascism, and I prefer to make my own choices based on what I think would be best for myself.

Corporate elites are the main driving force behind government intervention in the economy. The tobacco companies themselves pushed the government to restrict cigarette advertising, as just one example. Big airlines have pushed for over-regulation of the industry in order to drive small competitors out of business and maintain an oligopoly. And how do you define "influencing the market to promote economic fairness?" My idea of fairness may be different from yours. A significant part of my opposition to government intervention in the economy is not just ideological, bit practical. Let's face it: our government sucks at organizing and utilizing resources. I currently attend a government-run school and it is a mess, despite spending quite a bit of money. At the start of the Iraq war, we sent troops into the desert dressed in jungle camo. Our government just loses huge amounts of money and has no idea where it went. I don't trust these people with any more responsibility than they're already failing to live up to.

I think the Federal Reserve has too much control over the Economy.

I didn't read this entire thread, but the Federal Reserve has control over the ENTIRE economy. They create the bubbles, such as the housing bubbles. And for those that think it's a government entity, it's NOT.

The Federal Reserve is not federal, nor a reserve. It's a private monopoly.

That's one of the biggest problem with some versions of economics - the idea that certain factors can be labeled external and ignored. The idea that the bottom line is all that matters.

Petroleum has more than one externality associated with it - there are a host of environmental, social, military, economic and generational externalities.

Another major problem with economics is that it is based on the assumption that consumers are informed and rational. I see little evidence for this.

Basically, too much economic inequality (AKA not enough equality of outcome) not only damages equality of opportunity, it can damage the value of civil rights and liberties.