Libertarian

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Depends on what you shoot for, some dreams are not for you but it also depends on where you live. Hard work in the United States WILL get you ahead, you live in Venezuela so life there must be quite different. Yes humans are pack animals but humans have free choice and the right to choose what they want to do with their life and how to do it. I have the right to do what I want with my life, money, and property (besides paying taxes to recieve federal protection). And no one says you have to be loner

That's a positive right and by your definition not protected. Excuse me while I hack your bank accounts and steal all your cash and ruin your good name. I just told you what happens when you "work hard" do think the masses are lazy!? I've seen the best men you could ask for keel over and die because they never had a chance to succeed.

A good tax merely takes from those who can pay for it and gives to those in need.

He doesn't live in Venezuela. No, we can actually get more and more millionaires, we have inflation and other factors contributing. Of course, what you get depends somewhat upon what you do and what that is worth. I do have some question on the career path of Flagg's grandfather as IQ alone really is not a determinant of anything. Really though, based upon findings in a book called the Millionaire next door, most people who have a million dollars get there through frugality alone.

"The picture of an actual millionaire is dramatically less glamorous than commonly-held visions of exclusive neighborhoods, expensive clothes and colorful social lives. In his 1996 book The Millionaire Next Door, co-authored with Dr. William Danko, Dr. Stanley revealed that the typical millionaire spent less than $400 on their most expensive suit, and only about 1% spent more than $2,800. Only one in ten millionaires had ever spent more than $300 on a pair of shoes. Most millionaires pay a few hundred dollars or less for their watch, and $30,000 or less for their main motor vehicle. They have been married to the same person most of their adult lives.

The wealthy are conspicuous for their lack of consumption: "What are three words that profile the affluent? FRUGAL FRUGAL FRUGAL". The book is full of startling individual cases: the millionaire who refused the gift of a Rolls Royce because he couldn't imagine driving up in one to eat at the crummy restaurants he prefers, or throw caught fish in the back seat; the wife who, after her husband gave her $8 million in stocks, returned at once to clipping the 25 cent grocery coupons from her newspaper.

This is no coincidence. It is not that most millionaires are in the habit of being frugal despite their wealth: it is that they are so wealthy because they are in the habit of living so frugally. The plentiful residual income goes into savings and investments that are left to grow for decades.

It is not inheritance that explains American millionaires: most inherited nothing and fewer than one fifth inherited even 10% of their wealth." - An article that draws off of findings found there.

I reject the idea of the perfect pack animal idea, we are loners and pack animals both. The question of failure ultimately falls down to how markets represent human societies. Failure can only be assessed by goals and attainment, if people do not care about saving their fellows and let them die then it is simply an act of callousness by individuals. Libertarians do recognize that governments can be servants to businesses which is why they want to weaken government in the first place. The question ultimately comes in on how much our class system exists though. Compared to past societies there is no question that we are relatively classless, some groups argue that interclass mobility is poor, others claim that it is not as bad as is claimed and both have their bits of data to support their ideas.

Again, depends on where you live, maybe socialism is right for Venezuela. I think our government leaders need to stop getting on your country for doing their own business. But I dont think socialism is right in the US because frankly its going to bankrupt us, we're about $9,000,000,000 in debt and lending from other countries. And of corse I believe in rights and free choice.

The negative right is self-defense, the government is simply fulfilling this role more effectively by doing the task for us in many cases. You gave an anecdote, we can all find our own favorite anecdote to support our cause, heck, I have heard tales from where I live about students graduating from my area to live high on the hog at Yahoo or Google and one of the important executives for Google came from a public school in my city. I know of many career paths that start off well above the GDP per capita for the young. I have seen too many of quality underdevelop their own gifts and talents and can tell about all of those whom I knew who had the opportunity to do better but forsook it for short term gains.

A good tax avoids distorting economic situations and effectively finances the needs of government.

1. You really didn't read Awesomeglorys post? I AM NOT FROM LATIN AMERICA! Your not supposed to take location seriously around here. Look up Mercanries 2: world in Flames and you'll understand

2. I'm not talking about Socialism, I realize free enterprise is nessesary for proper society but your ruthless cut throat society destorys humans and support the foundation of an upper class. Small things like roads could be controlled by a coporation but everyone deserves the same chance to suceed out of the starting gate of life. I'm not talking about massive taxes, I'm talking about enough to make sure Hospital doesn't cut corners and Schools always have well-paid teachers and good textbooks.

It isn't, you haven't heard of inflationary problems in Venezuela I suppose and the bad idea used to stop it. Venezuela is finding their rule of law ever more corrupted by Hugo Chavez(not that we have not suffered some weakness but nowhere on the same level) and their economy is only sustained by oil, not by the merits and strengths of their industries. If they had no oil then their idea would fail. Socialism is not right for any country, in a society with N people, then they have N goals, in order to deal with this N number of goals the only efficient way to allow this is to bring management down to the lowest of levels and have individuals sort through their problems. Other methods lead to inefficiency. Socialism is for ants. http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2007 ... opert.html (read the part on the kibbutzim)

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 07 Mar 2007, 2:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

Right, well, I think that a lot of people can agree with the idea of some standards. The only possible question ultimately might fall on the extreme libertarians who would argue that the only way to possibly account for human trade-offs is to let the human beings themselves make those trade-offs and who would argue that information on these services would disseminate and that such would allow people to make rational trade-offs.(this is the extreme view, it is supported by extreme market fundamentalists, which do include a few intelligent economists) Of course, I do think that some regulations and minimum standards are necessary for.

Yeah Hugo Chavez is an idiot, no respect for the rule of law or anyone's rights. Hopefully he loses power soon.

Last edited by Santa_Claus on 07 Mar 2007, 2:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

Quite true, I just think people to have a good education and good enough healthcare so they can make living, everyone can stand pay a bit of their pocket for that. Not a private doctor and a PHD. The thing is, free markets if unchecked will ride a wild roller coaster (Great Depression anyone?) and in times of great wealth they'll take over government and subvert it so they can money from it's operation.

Last edited by Flagg on 07 Mar 2007, 2:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think I might need to cool down and try to become more moderate on these things. I think I need to find more good liberal economists, I just do not know of many good blogs by liberal economists. Angry Bear is a good one though!

I can agree, some regulations and standards are very desirable...
to a point, because you are making companies spend their own money.

Last edited by Santa_Claus on 07 Mar 2007, 2:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

True

Money supply anyone? Milton Friedman is known for arguing and economic historian Ben Bernanke is known for agreeing with the idea that the problems of the Great Depression were caused by the federal reserve bank which decreased the money supply by about 1/3 by most measures. This Great Depression started as a normal recession of course, but government intervention made it significantly worse. This includes the tariff added at the time, as we loaned a lot of money to post-war Europe and because we tariffed the crap out of them they could not pay us back, causing many banking issues which added significantly to this issue. Out of the issues that most people say caused the depression, speculation, tariffs, and money supply, it must be noted that stupid government intervention caused 2 out of the 3. You are correct in saying that governments are too easily subverted by any special interests, we have enough bribes now to be distasteful however to decrease them and to keep them low is an ideal. I might not be that clear on this post but I am feeling a bit out of it.

Then does it not stand to reason a tax of moderate amount is not reasonable? Can we not at least agree to something like:

"You may chose how 50% of your taxes are allocated in times of peace and moderate prosperity. You will pay a flat tax of --%"?

Everyone can use moderation of course though. There are 2 ways to avoid truth. Most people use one. I am glad to use the high investment form of it though as at least it allows for me to have clear thoughts.