|
I thought this article by David Stockman is relevent to this discussion. He explains how the creation of the Fed and our foolhardy decision to get involved in World War 1 (fueled by fiat money creation) set the stage for a century of constant war and the Great Depression of the 1930s.quote:One hundred years ago today the world was shook loose of its moorings. Every school boy knows that the assassination of the archduke of Austria at Sarajevo was the trigger that incited the bloody, destructive conflagration of the world’s nations known as the Great War. But this senseless eruption of unprecedented industrial state violence did not end with the armistice four years later.
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 20:54 |
|
|
# ? Jun 3, 2024 21:58 |
|
quote:great evils of the 20th century— the Great Depression, totalitarian genocides, Keynesian economics, permanent warfare states... Two of these things are not like the others, two of these things just don't belong
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 21:03 |
|
I'm pretty sure the World War I dragged the US out of an economic recession and was not, in fact, a cause of the Great Depression. Which was, in turn, ended by World War II! War is Good for Business. Rhjamiz fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Oct 2, 2014 |
# ? Oct 2, 2014 21:09 |
|
David Stockman is not a historian, as various errors in that article show. He's also a true believer of trickle-down economics, aka voodoo economics, aka never-proven-to-work-outside-occasional-instances economics. Boy, you just can't stop namedropping dudes with whackjob political/economic beliefs, eh jrod?
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 21:11 |
|
Jrodefeld, how could the nomadic tribes and other scattered tribal communities not succeed against the state of Rome and their ways of taxation and laws in terms of warfare?
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 21:13 |
|
Vahakyla posted:Jrodefeld, how could the nomadic tribes and other scattered tribal communities not succeed against the state of Rome and their ways of taxation and laws in terms of warfare? They were not true examples of his ideal system, and we can know this because they failed. Stateless societies cannot fail, they can only be failed. -EDIT- Who What Now posted:As per usual [Jrod] immediately dropped that line of discussion and is pretending that it never existed. I'd call this prophetic if it wasn't so obvious it was going to happen again.
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 21:23 |
|
jrodefeld posted:I thought this article by David Stockman is relevant to this discussion. He explains how the creation of the Fed and our foolhardy decision to get involved in World War 1 (fueled by fiat money creation) set the stage for a century of constant war and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Hey everyone, lets read this wall of text courtesy of David Stockman. You may remember him from some of his other work: - He was the head of the Office of Management and Budget under Ronald Reagan. Famously supportive of 'Supply-Side' economics, he was instrumental in getting the 1981 budget passed in hopes of curtailing spending and the 'Welfare Queens'. - In his attempt to curtail spending, the US public debt just shy of doubled. This is well above the levels that would have been projected had Jimmy Carter's policies remained in place. Turns out that cutting taxes pointlessly creates debt. (For perspective, the debt grew by .8 trillion during his five years in office, when it had only been growing by 76 billion during Carter's term. And this was in a booming economy when that number should shrink, not more than double.) - After exiting public service he worked in the financial sector before starting his own private equity group in 1999. By 2005 he had driven at least one major acquisition into the ground. I remember this because he was indicted but never brought to trial under the assumption that he had concluded massive fraud regarding said company. He might not have, but it wouldn't surprise me. So what has he done lately? Well he put out a book recently that 'debunks' these supposed myths. His views in () mine are in []: - FDR's New Deal ended the Depression (it prolonged it); [False according to every major historian and economist.] - The Depression signaled a failure of capitalism (no, the Depression resulted from trade protectionism and the late 1920s stock market bubble that temporarily took down the farm and industrial sectors of the economy); [False, though apparently Capitalism cannot fail, it can only be failed.] - The Reagan military buildup took down the Soviet Union (it was DOA economically by the time Reagan was elected and the vast military bequeathed to Reagan's successors made possible the Iraq and Afghanistan wars without Congressional approval); [I actually don't disagree with this one too much.] - GM was on the verge of collapse in 2008 (actually, GE CEO Jeff Immelt's bonus was on the verge of collapse and GM would have recovered without government intervention); [Do I need to comment here?] - And the biggest Big Lie of all, that the world economy was teetering on the edge in 2008 (Paulson and a few other "feckless bailsters" head-faked a compliant, moronic George W. Bush and a terrified Congress into rescuing Wall Street from nearly a trillion dollars of its drunken sailor-style gambling losses). [Seriously, do I need to say anything here? Only an idiot, a liar or an insane person actually thinks this.] Like most alternate historians posted by Jrodefeld over the years, David Stockman is an amateur with little grasp on the realities of the things he is talking about. He can come off as convincing to an outside observer who lacks any real background or knowledge in the field, but if you talk with actual experts on the eras and issues he talks about you'll find that he is almost universally wrong. Hey Jrodefeld can you do Thomas DiLorenzo's historical revisionism regarding the civil war next? I have a pre prepared rebuttal for those lies and it would save me some time. Caros fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Oct 2, 2014 |
# ? Oct 2, 2014 21:25 |
|
^ Whew, my screen's a bit small to handle it at the moment, but it might be fun to pick through when I get home. It's like those weird alt-hist novels. I don't like Stephan Molyneux because I keep confusing him with Peter Molyneux. Something that pops up in discussions of Gavelkind succession (bane of Crusader Kings players), the hilarity of the Holy Roman Empire, and other bits of the feudal system was they they really didn't see it as 'government' or a state per say, but more like private property and contractual obligations. Lots and lots of contractual obligations. That's why Gavelkind is a thing; it's not breaking up a country on the death of a king, it's distributing your estate out to your sons, like private property. Is this libertarian? It's pretty much all a massive (and confusing) web of private contracts. If so, then are modern states then libertarian, if they're the holders of all fiefs? With an elective system of inheritance, of course. It'd make taxes either rents or vassalage, I think? Is a constitution a contract? Like, literally and hilariously the President of France is the co-Prince of Andorra, which paid it's contractual obligations (uh, I think it's socage or frankalmoin) in hams, cheeses and live chickens until 1993. Rockopolis fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Oct 2, 2014 |
# ? Oct 2, 2014 21:34 |
|
Corvinus posted:David Stockman is not a historian, as various errors in that article show. He's also a true believer of trickle-down economics, aka voodoo economics, aka never-proven-to-work-outside-occasional-instances economics. Stockman is NOT a proponent of "trickle down", supply side economics. He had a short stint as budget director for the Reagan Administration but he quickly became disillusioned and left them to their failures before Reagan's first term was up. Supply side economics is a short of Keynesian economic stimulus that is directed towards subsidizing the privileged rather than the poor. Stockman is far closer to Austrian economic, anti-Fed, and pro sound money. David Stockman is quite well respected even among mainstream journals and publications. His latest book "The Great Deformation" is a tour de force of economic sanity and historical revisionism. It has been very well received by people inside the beltway and out.
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 21:40 |
|
And since we are just posting big essays from other thinkers, I'm going to link you to a piece by Neil Irwin about Stockman's bookThe nihilism of David Stockman posted:I was probably the only kid in my high school who knew who David Stockman was. I found the former Reagan budget director's memoir to be a fascinating window into the world of economic policy. So that makes it a bit ironic that he and I both have books coming out this week that have completely opposite takes on the most crucial questions of how the U.S. economy ought to work. The bolded sections are mine and I think they speak to a lot of the issues with JRodefeld's imaginary view of the depression as well.
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 21:43 |
|
Okay now that I'm not tablet posting lets tear apart the lovely history.quote:This chain of calamity originated in the Great War’s destruction of sound money" No it didn't it originated in the Great War's ravaging of society. quote:This liberal international economic order—that is, honest money, relatively free trade, rising international capital flows and rapidly growing global economic integration—-resulted in a 40-year span between 1870 and 1914 of rising living standards, stable prices, massive capital investment and prolific technological progress that was never equaled—either before or since. Ah yes the wondrous living standards of the gilded age shall never be reached again! Also the idea that since the invention of the computer technological progress hasn't exploded is quote:Yet England was the least devastated. Well gee I wonder why the country where no warfare took place and suffered no blockade didn't suffer as much as those that did. quote:Among the defeated powers, currencies emerged nearly worthless with the German mark at five cents on the pre-war dollar, while wartime debts—especially after the Carthaginian peace of Versailles—–soared to crushing, unrepayable heights. This was because the Kaiser and Reichstag decided that borrowing money to pay for the entire war was the best way to go and the payments put on Germany by Versailles being absurdly high is an artifact of nazi propaganda. If they were so unrepayable why did the Weimer Republic manage to make the $500mil annual payments because the reparations were no where near as bad as the whining Germany issued about them made them out to be. quote:America’s wholly unwarranted intervention in April 1917 prolonged the slaughter, doubled the financial due bill and generated a cockamamie peace quote:Had Woodrow Wilson not misled America on a messianic crusade, the Great War would have ended in mutual exhaustion in 1917 and both sides would have gone home battered and bankrupt but no danger to the rest of mankind. Indeed, absent Wilson’s crusade there would have been no allied victory, no punitive peace, and no war reparations; nor would there have been a Leninist coup in Petrograd or Stalin’s barbaric regime Oh man that would be great proof if the AEF didn't arrive in France until very early 1918. And then after that point he goes into black gay hitler territory which should have been the tipoff to someone as dense as you that he's full of poo poo.
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 21:44 |
|
Raskolnikov38 posted:Oh man that would be great proof if the AEF didn't arrive in France until very early 1918. The Ludendorff Offensives: totally not a thing that happened, due to mutual exhaustion in 1917. Stockman is such a loving hack.
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 21:55 |
|
jrodefeld posted:Stockman is NOT a proponent of "trickle down", supply side economics. He had a short stint as budget director for the Reagan Administration but he quickly became disillusioned and left them to their failures before Reagan's first term was up. Supply side economics is a short of Keynesian economic stimulus that is directed towards subsidizing the privileged rather than the poor. Stockman is far closer to Austrian economic, anti-Fed, and pro sound money. jrodefeld posted:David Stockman is quite well respected even among mainstream journals and publications. His latest book "The Great Deformation" is a tour de force of economic sanity and historical revisionism. It has been very well received by people inside the beltway and out. Did you copy/paste a book cover quote?
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 22:00 |
|
jrodefeld posted:Stockman is NOT a proponent of "trickle down", supply side economics. He had a short stint as budget director for the Reagan Administration but he quickly became disillusioned and left them to their failures before Reagan's first term was up. Supply side economics is a short of Keynesian economic stimulus that is directed towards subsidizing the privileged rather than the poor. Stockman is far closer to Austrian economic, anti-Fed, and pro sound money. Okay, a couple of things. You are right that he does not currently support trickle down economics. Anymore. In fact he currently supports higher taxes than most Republicans because he isn't a total loving idiot, but then again he also supports massive spending cuts so... yeah. Second, did you just really say that Supply Side economics is a sort of Keyensian economic stimulus? You are aware that this isn't true in any meaningful sense, that Supply-Side economics was in fact developed in direct opposition to Keynesian economics in the 1970's. That they both share some vague similarities pretty much only has to do with the fact that they are both part of the field of economics. Third, stockman is a milton friedman era libertarian at best, in that he loves gold, hates government intervention and... yeah that is basically it. The man literally used the quote "Taxes are the price we pay for society." in a recent article as a positive thing, so I don't think you have as much common ground as you'd like. quote:David Stockman is quite well respected even among mainstream journals and publications. His latest book "The Great Deformation" is a tour de force of economic sanity and historical revisionism. It has been very well received by people inside the beltway and out. David Stockman is tolerated because he is rich and still well connected, which is the same reason he didn't go to jail for fraud. His latest book is a depressing rant about how getting rid of gold ruins everything. Apparently the largest period of uninterrupted growth and prosperity, 1946-71 is a symptom of how bad things get when you get rid of gold. Also I know that you're using historical revisionism in the textbook way, but it considering the negative connotation regarding common usage I find it hilarious that you're admitting how much he tries to rewrite history the way he wants it to be rather than the way it is.
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 22:01 |
|
Captain_Maclaine posted:The Ludendorff Offensives: totally not a thing that happened, due to mutual exhaustion in 1917. Well yeah! If Woodrow Wilson hadn't decided to foolishly enter the war for like... literally no reason, Germany and France would have just called it quits. But once the US said they were going to get involved? Well then Germany had its rep on the line, so they had to keep going or people would call them a pussy and steal their lunch money for being afraid of the US. I personally like these ones quote:America’s wholly unwarranted intervention in April 1917 I mean seriously. A cursory look at an encyclopedia (what even are those) would tell you that isn't true. Typing US entry to WWI tells you that isn't true. Germany decided they would engage in unrestricted submarine warfare around britain. The US was told this, and after Germany offered a military alliance to Mexico (a direct threat to the US) and started sinking their loving ships and killing the US citizens, Woodrow Wilson was forced into the war. Germany knew this was going to happen when they made the threat, but they did it anyways because they were gambling that they could win before the US got their poo poo together. quote:giving rise to totalitarianism among the defeated powers and Keynesianism among the victors. Choose your poison. Over a decade later. After a great depression that had nothing to do with it. Yeah. Great historical work there. Caros fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Oct 2, 2014 |
# ? Oct 2, 2014 22:12 |
|
Holy poo poo, catching up on this thread is getting painful. I am just going to pull out the worst bullshit I saw:Caros posted:Yes, it is the state's job to look after the poor considering 50% of our elderly would be living in poverty without social security or medicare. Does this somehow surprise you that people don't want their grandmothers to have to, as one poster put it, suck-start a shotgun to prevent them ruining their children's lives? Page 7: http://www.census.gov/people/wealth/files/Wealth%20distribution%202000%20to%202011.pdf There's also data on the mean net worth by income. Your average social security age person/household has several whole integer multiples of the net worth of your sub-35ers. Additionally, ssa.gov posted:The median income for units aged 65 or older is $24,857, but there are wide differences within the total group. Approximately 13% have an income of under $10,000, and roughly 23% have an income of $50,000 or more. That information + the net worth information above would indicate that the vast majority of the elderly would not be immediately running out to buy cans of Fancy Feast. If you want to work up something a bit more targeted to low-income elderly, maybe that's fine, but consider that at the moment it acts functionally as a transfer payment from working individuals who typically have a lower net worth and not necessarily substantially higher income to the elderly.
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 22:32 |
|
AlternateAccount posted:from working individuals who typically have a lower net worth and not necessarily substantially higher income to the elderly. You mean those same elderly who worked all their lives putting into that system? Say it isn't so!
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 22:35 |
|
jrodefeld posted:I thought this article by David Stockman is relevent to this discussion. He explains how the creation of the Fed and our foolhardy decision to get involved in World War 1 (fueled by fiat money creation) set the stage for a century of constant war and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Why is fiat currency so important given that government already has the power and willingness to tax directly? From your perspective especially taxes are already a huge problem. Fiat currency and the ability to print it just represents another avenue for government to do the same old thing: take money from the population and spend it. But taxation already does this same exact thing. A switchover to fiat currency doesn't actually represent a new power structure.
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 22:36 |
|
Talmonis posted:You mean those same elderly who worked all their lives putting into that system? Say it isn't so! The average social security recipient receives substantially more, as in six figures more, in payouts than payins.
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 22:37 |
|
asdf32 posted:Why is fiat currency so important Because fiat money infringes on gold, the driving power of libertarianism.
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 22:37 |
|
Stockman outs himself as a hack by claiming the Great Crash caused the Great Depression, and the New Deal (the entire thing! Apparently!) prolonged it. The Crash made an increasingly bad situation worse: the US economy was in a major transitional phase in many key sectors, and there would almost certainly have been a major recession regardless of stock market meltdowns. Obviously, some New Deal policy worked better at fixing Depression issues than others. Unified relief administration took over for the dismal failures of private charity, work programs were helpful in providing relief and public goods, government spending helped out dynamic industries like food processing, chemicals, and building materials; TVA and rural electrification was a huge boon to lots of dynamic consumer industries, not to mention construction and transportation trades. The NRA was an obvious failure, but lots of the codes ended up helping industry develop. Other New Deal policy was harmful in the short run, but extremely helpful in the long run; SS taxes took money out of workers' pockets at precisely the worst time, Wagner was great for workers in the long run but may have harmed industry in the short run (in my opinion Wagner was nothing but helpful), and AAA was clearly detrimental to the weakest and poorest farmers and benefitted the rich and powerful. If you want a nuanced, critical, and often negative view of FDR and the New Deal you don't need to read charlatans. You can read real scholars like David M. Kennedy, Robert S. McElvaine, Edward Bernstein, and Arthur M. Schlesinger. Clowns like Stockman, Schlaes, and that Lincoln = Hitler idiot DiLorenzen are universally derided by the profession. They are basically the Conservapedia of history: navel-gazing buffoons, arguing with noone but themselves because nobody else takes them seriously. Grand Theft Autobot fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Oct 2, 2014 |
# ? Oct 2, 2014 22:40 |
|
AlternateAccount posted:The average social security recipient receives substantially more, as in six figures more, in payouts than payins. Sounds like the average age should be raised. But alas, in the current American Business climate, eliminating anyone over 50 is still a profitable venture. Folks still need an income at least until 65. Good news though! An easy solution is to eliminate the cap on income payments. It'd be solvent for the forseeable future.
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 22:42 |
|
Grand Theft Autobot posted:If you want a nuanced, critical, and often negative view of FDR and the New Deal you don't need to read charlatans. You can read real scholars like David M. Kennedy, Robert S. McElvaine, Edward Bernstein, and Arthur M. Schlesinger. Clowns like Stockman, Schlaes, and that Lincoln = Hitler idiot DiLorenzen are universally derided by everyone in the profession. They are basically the Conservapedia of history: navel-gazing bufoons, arguing with noone but themselves because nobody else takes them seriously. David Stockman:economic history :: David Irving:holocaust history.
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 22:43 |
|
Most interesting fact I learned today: The arrival of the American Expeditionary Force in Europe in April 1918 was an event of such momentous power that its effects actually rippled back in time and incited the Soviet takeover of the Russian government in Petrograd November 1917. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Oct 2, 2014 |
# ? Oct 2, 2014 23:02 |
|
Herbert Hoover and the complete failure of Voluntarism (read: Private Charity) in the wake of the Great Crash is particularly instructive for current arguments about dismantling the automatic stabilizers put in place by FDR and others. I can effort post about that later, though I must warn praxeologists that it will involve lots of empirical evidence and factual historical analysis.
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 23:06 |
|
VitalSigns posted:Most interesting fact I learned today: I would expect no less from violating Washington's farewell speech.
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 23:09 |
|
Who knew that WW1 was caused by the Dutch all along! BRB gotta fly my zeppelin to the sky market to buy some children with my gold bars.
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 23:18 |
|
Caros posted:Reposting this from a few days ago because the minimum wage is a much more interesting topic than DRO's since the latter is really, really difficult to discuss in any meaningful way since it does not can will not ever exist in reality. I also just really want an answer. What are you talking about? We have, right now, an example of a fully functional DRO formed voluntarily by people defending their homes from State tyranny and it is whipping a decadent parliamentary regime in the field. ISIS-DRO has done such a masterful job at stopping parliamentary aggression that it's cornered the market on protection services and driven the market share of its less effective competitors in the region to near zero, and it is so popular that whenever its representatives come around villages with invoices, they are promptly paid. Its success is so great that Obama's evil statist regime has actually declared war upon it, even though that's completely unnecessary because applying logical deduction from fundamental principles, it's clear that ISIS-DRO is engaging in some unprofitable and irrational practices like beheading women for not wearing enough clothes or destroying villages for following the wrong religion. These inefficient expenditures will render it less competitive in the market thus it will inevitably be overtaken by a more rational competitor without Obama having to do any bombings at all. After all, the last thing a fundamentalist Muslim wants to see is the group he is supporting go around forcing women to wear scarves. There is the somewhat odd result that their seizing of oilfields and selling the oil is somehow bringing in money, when we know that violence is always unprofitable, but this is probably just mistaken media reporting since we can reason from first principles that it is impossible to grow rich through plunder. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Oct 2, 2014 |
# ? Oct 2, 2014 23:23 |
|
I was wondering when someone would bring up ISIS. I wanted to ask jr how fiat currency is responsible for their existence.
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 23:36 |
|
spoon0042 posted:I was wondering when someone would bring up ISIS. I wanted to ask jr how fiat currency is responsible for their existence. Something something statist imperialism something fiat currency.
|
# ? Oct 2, 2014 23:47 |
|
Okay three things someone clarify for me: 1) I'm confused by what Jrode is referring to with this paper currency thing. He's someone who believes we should return to the gold standard, right? Didn't we have paper money when we were on it? Is he confusing paper currency with the idea of fiat currency? The latter is what I thought he might be referring to, which is when the government can just print money with nothing physical (like gold) to back it up. Money being made of paper by itself has no bearing on inflation or anything else, I don't think. 2) Does he think that the Gilded Age was in fact an extremely pleasant and wonderful time for those in poverty, and that he thinks all the negative stuff you hear about it is cause of evil liberal history professors? 3) What does he think of Ronald Reagan?
|
# ? Oct 3, 2014 00:26 |
|
Mr Interweb posted:2) Does he think that the Gilded Age was in fact an extremely pleasant and wonderful time for those in poverty, and that he thinks all the negative stuff you hear about it is cause of evil liberal history professors? jr wasn't the one who claimed everyone then was middle class, that was some other nutbar, right?
|
# ? Oct 3, 2014 00:30 |
|
Mr Interweb posted:Okay three things someone clarify for me: 1 - Paper currency on the gold standard is nominally redeemable for gold. If you issue more currency in paper than you have gold, there's a problem. Someone better informed than me at the moment can probably elucidate.
|
# ? Oct 3, 2014 00:32 |
|
StandardVC10 posted:1 - Paper currency on the gold standard is nominally redeemable for gold. If you issue more currency in paper than you have gold, there's a problem. Someone better informed than me at the moment can probably elucidate. The problem is that you get less gold per dollar and the dreaded ghost of inflation makes a mess of your pots and pans.
|
# ? Oct 3, 2014 00:34 |
|
Raskolnikov38 posted:The problem is that you get less gold per dollar and the dreaded ghost of inflation makes a mess of your pots and pans. Or if you don't do that, you have deflation, which is deeply perilous to a functional economy because suddenly there's no reason to do business now when it'll be so much better to do business tomorrow.
|
# ? Oct 3, 2014 00:35 |
|
International Statists Interfering with Specie Really makes you think.
|
# ? Oct 3, 2014 00:43 |
|
Mr Interweb posted:2) Does he think that the Gilded Age was in fact an extremely pleasant and wonderful time for those in poverty, and that he thinks all the negative stuff you hear about it is cause of evil liberal history professors? I posted earlier asking him about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory disaster, and he replied with the usual boilerplate about how it was the lack of development that was responsible for bad working conditions, because it just wasn't possible to run an industrial economy with modern safety standards. As usual, he refused to answer any questions about how not-chaining-the-doors-shut would have destroyed the textile manufacturing industry, but luckily for us all, the economy just happened to develop to the exact point necessary to make basic fire safety affordable for businesses at the exact second that starry-eyed progressives signed the law making it mandatory. And a good thing too, if they'd signed that legislation just a month earlier, every industrial concern in the country would have gone bankrupt at once due to the staggering costs of cleaning up scrap fabrics that had piled up everywhere and not locking the doors.
|
# ? Oct 3, 2014 00:51 |
|
spoon0042 posted:jr wasn't the one who claimed everyone then was middle class, that was some other nutbar, right? That was qalnor, one of our old-school libertarian idiots from the pre-LF days, of whom it was once rightly commented "oh no, it's a person who knows something about anything, how did they know his one weakness?"
|
# ? Oct 3, 2014 00:53 |
|
It is a bit like conservatism but reversed. Kinda like the good old days that are always gone, the libertarian days are almost here.
|
# ? Oct 3, 2014 00:55 |
|
|
# ? Jun 3, 2024 21:58 |
|
VitalSigns posted:I posted earlier asking him about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory disaster, and he replied with the usual boilerplate about how it was the lack of development that was responsible for bad working conditions, because it just wasn't possible to run an industrial economy with modern safety standards. I'm also gonna guess that either some recent book he's read or the Econ 101 class he's taking at the night college mentioned the 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' fallacy because it seems to be his new go-to defense for hand waving away any pesky facts that point to a State succeeding in any way.
|
# ? Oct 3, 2014 00:57 |