Economics is Taught with a Left Wing Bias

I would not put off buying a house for a year if it would cost 2% less money units then, especially since the money units I earn a year from now will be 2% less valuable. It's a wash.

 

Standard econ 101:
Why is Deflation Bad for the Economy? | Investopedia
www.investopedia.com/articles/.../why-deflation-bad-economy.asp‎
Jul 14, 2016 ... Deflation can adversely affect the economy in significant ways. ... Why would you spend a dollar today when the expectation is that it could buy

 

Ohohoh this will be fun, in a brutal and depressing way of course. How can you people really be free if a certain part of the population must always own workplaces and the means of production? 'Economic liberty' is a buzzword thrown mostly by people who want to ensure that their ideology 'makes you feel good' so they slap some FREEDOM into it. Now enough galivanting, let's talk about just the concept of private property itself. It always excludes the party who contributed the most to the end product, thus it builds antagonisms in that one party always has to make more profit to keep itself afloat. This antagonism and the position of power that is being held by the owning party has led to many instances of violence and must use the threat of violence to maintain power.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5rVD_TXrjo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Ubico
https://www.amazon.com/Bananas-United-Fruit-Company-Shaped/dp/1847671942
https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/Guatemala 0582_1.pdf

Well let me tell you a perfect example, an epic of brutality and torture unseen by any before: Guatemala, which by the way, gotta give props to my mate Libertarian Socialist Rants for the specifics of this one.

From 1898-1920 the United Fruit Company essentially ruled the country, there was a Dictator known as Manuel Estrada Cabrera but his power was measly compared to what the United Fruit Company had been granted. In return for his power, Cabrera gave the UFCO tax exemtion, land grants, and almost complete control over the whole country, essentially the company could do whatever the (*)(*)(*)(*) it wanted with no reprecussions. Meanwhile they could kill any workers who stood against United Fruit. Things got so bad in fact, that the workers tryed to assasinate Cabrera, only for it to fail and for their families to be horrifically tortured and put in prison. The US threatened invasion if the workers were to ever rise against the UFCO and Carrera. A regime change occured as Cabrera was thrown off for curroption of all things, and the 'presidency' was transfered to several curropt military scum.

Eventually Jorge Ubico took over in 1931-44, His election featured himself as the only person on the ballot, meanwhile he maintained himself as a 'little Napoleon'. Having portraits of his epic hero in his home and even dressing up like him. However, he was just a mere pawn to the United Fruit Company, to which were the overlords of the country. He essentially sold Guatemala to the UFCO, turning it into an fuedal/agrarian system. Thus the UFCO had almost complete control of the Guatemalan economy, and allowed the US to establish bases in Guatemalan territory, starting a wonderful relationship with the US of A.

1944-51: A mild Juan Jose Arevalo was democratically elected, although he still maintained the feudalism, he implemented several literacy programs and gave labor unions more power, meanwhile lifting the minimum wage. How did UFCO react? They tried to overthrow him of course! 25 (*)(*)(*)(*)ING TIMES MIND YOU!! Arevalo eventually left and Jacobo Arbenz took power in his stead, in a country where 2% of the population held 70% of the land. He actually tried to grant land to the Guatemalan peasents yay! And had continuing literacy programs as well.

This was no good to the UFCO so in order to make more 'economic liberty' and 'freedom', they funded a MASSIVE propaganda campaign with one of the greatest propogandists of the 20th century, with their powers together they succesfully ensured that Guatemala was a Soviet puppet state. Ensuring that the gilded days of Guatemala Inc. could return once again, meanwhile getting the CIA on the boat as well. Arbenz was mistakingly called a Communist and quietly pushed out of his Presidency as a result. During this time UFCO had its pockets deeply put in with the US government, in which one of the board members of the company was in fact in Eisenhower's administration!

1954: The CIA put in Carlos Castillo Armas as the 'liberator' of Guatemala. Who forced the peasants out of their land and purged all potential left-wingers, and restricted voting of non-literate people, meanwhile also reestablishing a secret police just like the good olde' days! Then he created the National Commitee of Defence against Communism. Armas got $90 Million USD by the US and good two thumbs up by Richard Nixon: 'the first time a Communist government has been replaced by a free one'.

1954-1993: Armas was overthrown and a military government took over, UFCO got its lands back and terrorized the Guatemalan population for 40 years. 200,000 people had died and around ~40K who 'went missing' meanwhile 7,000 miners were killed. Around 1979 a final scorched-earth strategy was persued by the government in which anything potentially useful in opposition to the UFCO and the Junta were destroyed. The population was terrorized, burying people alive, smashing the heads of infants, and saving women to raped for later. Human rights watch document over 400 massacres across Guatemala by the military. In 1960-1996 the Civil war of Guatemala occured, in which the a white terror was placed against anyone who seemed to be linked or even innocent natives, this lasted "Your hour has come. Communists at the service of Fidel Castro, Russia and Communist China. You have until the last day of March to leave the country."
Guerrilla sympathizers, labor union leaders, intellectuals, students, and other vaguely defined "enemies of the government." were all killed. The violence kept on going until the civil war formally ended in 1996 ending the bloodshed, and leaving the country ruined, UFCO at least was finally gone. It was eventually replaced with a brand of bananas you can still see in shelves in your grocery store!

No reprecussions, no war crime trials, nothing! And you my friend call this system to be innocent?! No it is not! Capitalism is not run on the propoganda they use, it is run on fear and blood. All who partake in this system are partaking in violence on a global scale, and this violence will not be fixed by arguing if this system can be fixed with a few tweaks and accessory changes. Private property is a violation of human rights, owning something like the means of production and locking it to other's use is absolutely preposterous and should not be the case in a society that tries to give its citizens the most freedom and prosperity. And yet, I get to be called the fool! I have thick-headed cretins like you-know-who constantly argue over and over and over again about utter bull(*)(*)(*)(*), enough!

 

so that's your best example of capitalism killing people????????????????????????????????

if a company rules a county it is not capitalist company. It is more lib govt dictatorship. 1+1=2.

capitalism is free trade among free people. 1+1=2

why not try again with your second best example of free trade if you are not too embarrassed?

 

You're just making up a single example. I'm just saying when you buy a house would rather sell it for more than you bought it or less than you bought it? If you own a business would you rather sell your products for more or less?

 

Not an argument.

Private ownership over the means of production, meanwhile supporting a market with a currency system. This is precisely what happens when a capitalist government runs the country, capital accumulation will lead to a monopolistic/oligopolistic supercorporation taking over all aspects of life, eliminating all luxury and freedoms of their servants in the name of profit. Meanwhile butchering all who oppose them to keep their stupid money.They murdered over a million innocents including natives, farmers, workers, and socialist/liberal agitants. And now all you can say is THATS NOT CAPITARISM ITS A DICTATORSHIP! Newsflash moron, capitalism is a dictatorship, its the dictatorship of the bourgeois class over all aspects of the economy. Now shut the hell up and go back to your hole you twit, before I burn your ignorant ass again.

 

we have anti trust so that is 100000% impossible. 1+1=2. Today there are 85 million corporations in the world, not one super corporation. isn't that so embarrassing?

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so we have tens of millions of dictators in the world???????

 

That's because there is a state to mediate the capital growth and divide it, but what happens when even the state is directly subservient to a corporation or a group of corporations?

And yes, this is happening in real life as well as we can see in many industries. Let's take telecommunications/information where there are just a few companies that dominate the market. Or entertainment, where several major corporations are able to spread whatever they want to spread to consumers.

Well yes to be honest, the US has a reputation for propping up dictators to extract resources from other countries or for strategic dominance. Guatemala, The Dominican Republic, Cuba, Nicaragua, Congo, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, etc. etc.

 

Just to make sure you know what @akphildelt2007 and I were discussing, we were talking about the Austrian position that inflating the money supply is bad. His position is that inflating the money supply is good.

He argued that it is good because when the money supply is inflated by 2% per year, the price of each money unit drops by 2% per year. Therefore one can sell an asset he bought a year ago for 2% more money units, each of which is worth 2% less.

He hasn't explained how this is anything other than a wash.

Are you arguing that people won't buy beer, cigarettes, groceries, electricity, housing, college education, medical services, transportation, entertainment, or water for a year because they know that in a year all these things will be 2% cheaper?

 

Your example is an example of the Guatemalan state violating the private ownership and economic liberty of its citizens. Pretty much the opposite of what I said I propose: private ownership and economic liberty.

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2% more money units each of which is 2% lower in price? That would be a wash, so it does me no good.

 

probably a little less like in Japan but the big difference would be in big ticket items like real estate, capital goods vacations. Make sense?

 

People buy things now because they want them now, even though they know that the price may be lower in the future. Think computers and other products that are experiencing rapid technological advance.

It's an economic principle called time preference. People prefer something now over something in the future. From this arises the concept of interest rates.

If what you are saying is correct, nobody would have bought capital goods or real estate during the period in which the US was on the gold standard, which saw the largest economic growth in history.

Sometimes theory doesn't match up with reality.

 

and people don't buy $trillions of things they want now. Deflation helps them put off buying even a little longer. This is Econ 101. Do you want 5 or 10,000 more websites to prove it?


Deflation in the euro zone: Should we worry about deflation? | The ...
www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/.../deflation-euro-zone-1‎
Jan 16, 2014 ... We are hosting a round-table discussion of the risk of deflation in the ... lower next year it gives consumers incentives to postpone purchases.
The Economist explains: Why deflation is bad | The Economist
www.economist.com/blogs/economist.../01/economist-explains-4‎
Jan 7, 2015 ... But concerns about deflation traps and downward spirals abound. ... is that in anticipation of falling prices, consumers delay purchases, causing ...
Some Questions about Deflation - The Dollar Vigilante
https://www.dollarvigilante.com/.../some-questions-about-deflation.html‎
Feb 7, 2013 ... Deflation discourages spending and investment because consumers, expecting prices to fall further, delay purchases, preferring instead to ...
Guest Post: The Deflationary Spiral Bogey | Zero Hedge
www.zerohedge.com/news/.../guest-post-deflationary-spiral-bogey‎
Feb 14, 2013 ... Deflation discourages spending and investment because consumers, expecting prices to fall further, delay purchases, preferring instead to ..

 

I'm not arguing in favor of deflating the money supply. I'm arguing against inflating the money supply.

Money has three purposes in a society: medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value. I don't see how eliminating it's ability to store value helps anyone. It just forces people to sell their money in order to buy things that will store value.

Why is it bad if a person receives a money unit and waits 1, 2, or 50 years to exchange that money unit for something else? Why should we want them to exchange their money units sooner rather than later?

 

with me anyway you have argued mistakenly that deflation won't lead to lower demand and depression

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I agree it is none of the govt's business but it is their business to keep inflation at 0% so there is no penalty for saving or spending and so that prices reflect value.

 

[MENTION=57189]akphidelt2007[/MENTION] and I are referring to inflation and deflation of the money supply, specifically the base money supply.

I think you are talking about price inflation.

 

they are the same! the money supply, and velocity, determine price

 

Well, I'm glad to see that you see inflation as solely a monetary phenomenon.

The US adopted a gold standard in (I think) 1870 something. It did not inflate the money supply up until the advent of WWI (wars take money).

That period of time saw a massive increase in GDP.

Your theory that people won't buy things because they will be cheaper in the future doesn't seem to be born out by the historical evidence.

 

what is the best evidence????

 

1870s thru 1900s. Money supply held relatively constant. People still bought things. Huge GDP growth.

 

no idea what you mean, there were periods of huge economic turmoil there,huge economic cycles,huge monetary changes, and huge new inventions that transformed our living standards. I have no idea what conclusions you are trying to draw from all that. If you want to read about it why not read Friedmans Monetary History of the US.

 

We need to go back to the beginning.

Conservative economic philosophy is based upon "Ownership of Property Established byiber Title" that was the economic philosophy created under the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings that existed for thousands of years.

Liberal economic philosophy is based upon the Natural Rights of the Person where nothing is literally owned but instead where the person establishes a "right to use and consume" (with some constraints) that which is necessary for their "support and comfort" based upon the expenditure of their physical labor (predominately as put forward by John Locke in 1690 in his Second Treatise of Civil Government, Chapter 5).

All of our economic teachings are based upon the conservative economic philosophy of "Ownership of Property by Title" while none of our current economic teachings are based upon the "Natural Right of Property" where no one literally owns anything but instead has a right to use and consume that which is necessary for their "support and comfort" based upon their labor.

It doesn't matter if we're addressing Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek or even Karl Marx all of their economic philosophies revolve around "Ownership of Property Established by Title" and those are all "conservative" economic philosophies. These different economic philosophers merely address different aspects of conservative economic philosophy and never address liberal economic philosophy where they would have to abandon "Ownership of Property Established by Title" that's existed for thousands of years.

 

Well, sure, I agree that property rights have existed for thousands of years. But surely you're not equating this notion of "conservatism" with the political notion of conservatism? I would hardly called Marxism a conservative philosophy.

 

In point of fact property ownership as it exists in the United States is NOT based upon the Natural Right of Property. Ownership by Title, which is what our economic laws of property are based upon, have virtually no foundation based upon the Natural Right of Property.

While "Marxism" is at on the left end of the spectrum and Mises is on the right end of the spectrum the spectrum is "conservative economic philosophy" and not "liberal economic philosophy" which is based upon the Natural Right of Property where nothing is actually "owned" by the person. The Natural Right of Property only establishes a "Right to Use and Consume" that which is necessary for the "support and comfort" of the person.

For example, when my father died I inherited "Title of Ownership" to the house he built but I didn't have a "Natural Right of Property" to that house. The Title had nothing to do with any Natural Right of Property. It was only after I moved in and started taking care of the house and property that I established a "Natural Right of Property" to use the house to live in. Under the Natural Right of Property if I move from the house then I lose "Title" to it because I never owned it and it would return to being a part of the "common" where another person could move in, start maintaining it, and then they have established a "Natural Right of Property" to use the house as their home.

Under the Natural Right of Property there is a recognition of "Title" but it's only granted once the Right of Use is established by labor and it only exists so long as the "use" and the "labor" continue. The Title merely represents that the person is expending the personal labor and actually using that which the title recognizes. The moment the person stops expending the labor and/or stops using the property for their support and comfort then the "Title" ceases to exist.

That is the "liberal economic philosophy" and it's not being taught in any of our schools that I'm aware of.

Our schools only teach varying degrees from Marx to Mises of "conservative economic philosophy" and never to my knowledge teach anything else.

 

I don't see what your overall point is, I'm afraid.