Quick question for libertarians

PCT wasn’t developed with a government grant. There is not much interest in a psychology that says “rewards and punishments don’t really work the way you think they do”.

That’s why all this calling for laws (a threat of violence) that attempt arbitrary control makes me wonder if I’ve missed some crucial thing learning PCT. Rick and Bill, what I hear you saying is “I could simply try to force my rich friends to give money to my poor friends, and then everything would be better”. I just can’t see how that would work and how is it possible that you guys think it could work.

Most of economic data is like SR psychology data. It has the same foundation in SR, reliance on statistics, and uselessness.

Also, both is funded by your tax dollars :smiley:

How fun is knowing that you’re paying for all those cognitive and behavioral psychologists work? :slight_smile:

Best

Adam

[Shannon Williams (2011.07.15.930 CST)]

[Martin Lewitt 2011 July 15 0701 MDT]

"The saving rate, although continuing to edge down, remains well above
levels that prevailed prior to the recession (figure 8).
http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/20110713_mprfullreport.pdf

That chart shows 6-8% change in total savings. It does not say what
percentage of the population contributes to that number. For years
various magazines and news articles have lamented that Americans do
not save. I am just saying that if you stop 10 people at Macdonalds
or Walmart (I am picking places where EVERYONE goes), nine of them
will not have any money in savings (Or they have so little that they
have to pay for their checking accounts at the bank- if they even have
checking accounts). Also, if you hand them $500, they will thank you
profusely and spend it immediately. Based on the lottery winners'
track records, you can give them a couple million dollars and they
will spend that immediately too.

Shannon Williams
https://donate.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/2012/openthespillways

···

On 7/15/2011 6:28 AM, Shannon Williams wrote:

[From Rick Marken (2011.07.15.1010)]

Gavin Ritz 2011.07.15.17.38NZT)

The very basis of money
is debt creation; there is no other way money is created in our modern economic
system.

Debt creation is indeed the way new money is created. But I would not say debt creation is the basis. I would say that the basis of money is that is is a claim on goods and services. Adam Smith gives a good description of what money is and how it probably came about. And debt creation was not a big part of it. Indeed, money probably started well before people saw the possibilities of using it for “futures” purchases (which is where debt creation comes in; central banks loan money – create debt for the borrower – based on the promise of future returns based on the borrower’s ability to produce goods and/or services that will allow payback of the debt). The money itself is, therefore, always a claim on existing or future goods and services.

Because money, unlike many goods and services, can be stored for long periods of time without deteriorating (physically; it can lose “value” through inflation, of course) it can be saved for future use. This is one of the many nice features of money (as compared to barter) but it also has a downside, which is that money can be more comfortably hoarded than the goods and services it represents. Hoarding is just excessive saving; what is “excessive” is something that I imagine models of the economy could answer (those models could also answer the question of what is “too much” income inequality).

Hoarding takes money out of the circular flow of the economy ( see http://www.mindreadings.com/HMod.pdf) and brings actual production below what an economy is capable of producing. This results in un- (or under-) employment, which sucks. So if your idea of a healthy economy is one where everyone is able to make enough to support themselves and their families – that is, one where everyone is in control of their lives – then the main enemy of this nice result is hoarding (what T.C. Powers calls "leakage"in his book of the same name and what E. Ray Canterbery calls “the angel’s share” in “Wall Street Capitalism”).

Best regards

Rick

···


Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
www.mindreadings.com

[From Bill Powers (2011.07.16.1010 MDT)]

Rick Marken (2011.07.16.0830) –

Gavin Ritz
2011.07.12.56NZT)–

RM: Hoarding takes money out of the circular flow of the economy (
see

http://www.mindreadings.com/HMod.pdf
) and brings actual production
below what an economy is capable of producing.

GR: this doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, how can the money be
hoarded when it is a balance in the bank account and the bank uses that
to lend to other institutions and individuals… Which part is the
hoarding part?

RM:: Good point. My answer is based on what I know of the US banking
system. I can think of two main ways that hoarding takes money out of
circulation:

BP: You’re both making it too complicated. What takes money out of
circulation is not spending it. The form of the money or where it
is stashed makes no difference. The money has to get to the people who
need things, and it tends to stop moving when it reaches people who
already have more than they need.
That’s how people can get rich: they don’t have to spend all they
receive, so their bank accounts, sugar canisters, mattresses, or other
storage methods where burglars look first just keep getting fatter. The
money is not paid out again as income for the people who do need the
money more urgently.
The idea that the rich can invest the money and thereby benefit the
economy is just a Wall-Street myth. This paradox is mentioned
occasionally, and the solution is always basically “and then a
miracle occurs.” If you invest money in production rather than
spending it to put it into the hands of consumers, with what are the
consumers going to buy the increased production? They aren’t making any
more money than they were before; how can they suddenly start buying
more? Even if you start paying them for producing the added goods and
services, they won’t get paid until the end of the day, week, or month –
if the producer has enough left over to pay them without any increase in
sales. Credit is one answer, but we’ve seen where that gets us. People
who don’t have enough money now to support a mortgage on a nicer house
shouldn’t commit to buying a nicer house. That bubble is doomed to
collapse. It collapses every time, and not because there’s some
mysterious “cycle.” The cycle is a consequence, not a
cause.
Of course people who are driven to become continually richer as fast as
possible get richer faster than those who just let it happen, but people
who have peace of mind and more income than they need will also get
richer unless they positively decide not to. I would guess that the
majority of rich people fall in the latter category, though the ones with
the greatest money obsession will naturally end up with most of the money
unless someone else interferes or they see a shrink.
What drives the economy is not money, it’s people’s needs and desires for
goods and services. That’s where any model of an economy has to start. In
Bill Williams’ model of the Giffen Effect (which is no longer a
“Paradox”), a person has two needs: one is the need for
calories, the other is any other need, want, or preference that can also
be supplied by purchasing the items that provide calories. Prestige is
the other desired ingredient of food that BW used. You could use vitamin
content, taste, packaging, or anything else less important than getting
enough to eat. But it is the need for calories that takes precedence over
any mere preference. Those who do not follow that priority will not be
around to participate for much longer. This is true of every human being,
so we can rely on this fact in building a model.
Because of the absolute requirement for a minimum intake of calories,
when the price of unprestigious bread goes up and the budget is limited
one is forced to buy less meat and substitute more bread in order to get
the required calories without running out of money. The only alternative
is to starve. The control-system model shows the shift happening quite
automatically, every time, and it’s perfectly obvious why it
happens. It’s an amentic phenomenon – a no-brainer. Once, that is, you
have understood how negative feedback control works.
Now we can widen the choice, or in some cases move it up a level: if the
price of food increases enough to break the budget even after all
calories are obtained from bread, what is the next needed good or service
that will become subject to the Giffen Effect? What are we going to give
up in order to increase the food budget? If you need to buy a house, you
will have to buy one that isn’t as nice as you might like, even though
that price has gone up while the price of a nicer and more expensive
house hasn’t. Who knows how far that web of consequences will spread or
how many interlocking loops would be uncovered in building a working
model?
So when will the Giffen Effect not be observed? Only when the
income is great enough to go on buying the same mix of meat and bread and
live in the same kind of more expensive house and send the children to
the same more prestigious school as before regardless of price increases
for any or all of them.

This means that before the price of bread and other things started to
climb, the person must have had more money for food than was needed.
Unless the person tried really hard to spend everything left over by the
end of the day, week, or month, the person would get richer. The richer
the person gets, and the more the person’s reference levels for goods and
services are satisfied by consumption, the less reason there will be to
spend more money. The rich just naturally get richer, for obvious
reasons. They don’t even have to try.

But when they get richer the money flow decreases, because some of the
money that came from consumers stops flowing back to consumers – workers
– to provide them with income. As far as a rich person is concerned, the
buck stops here. It never gets to the worker whose family is having to
buy less meat and more bread with the buck. Investing the money in
producing more meat or bread isn’t going to enable the family to spend
more on meat or bread. That miracle doesn’t occur.

I hope that the conviction is growing in more breasts than mine and
Shannon’s that we really need a model, and that nothing anyone says about
relationships in an economy is going to be of the slightest use without
one. What you think you know about the economy ain’t so. Face it.
Everything I am saying here comes out of elementary control theory. Why
not start using it?

Best,

Bill P.

[Martin Lewitt 2011 July 1744 MDT]

[From Bill Powers (2011.07.16.1010 MDT)]

  Rick Marken (2011.07.16.0830) --
          Gavin Ritz

2011.07.12.56NZT)–

        RM: Hoarding takes money out of the circular flow of the

economy (
see

http://www.mindreadings.com/HMod.pdf
) and brings
actual production
below what an economy is capable of producing.

        GR: this doesn't make a lot of sense to me, how can the

money be
hoarded when it is a balance in the bank account and the
bank uses that
to lend to other institutions and individuals… Which part
is the
hoarding part?

    RM:: Good point. My answer is based on what I know of the US

banking
system. I can think of two main ways that hoarding takes money
out of
circulation:

  BP: You're both making it too complicated. What takes money out of

circulation is not spending it . The form of the money or
where it
is stashed makes no difference. The money has to get to the people
who
need things, and it tends to stop moving when it reaches people
who
already have more than they need.

The velocity of the money supply does slow during a recession.  But

what you are ignoring is that nearly everyone in the US has more
than they need, so can cut back on their spending in times of
uncertainty.

  That's how people can get rich: they don't have to spend all they

receive, so their bank accounts, sugar canisters, mattresses, or
other
storage methods where burglars look first just keep getting
fatter. The
money is not paid out again as income for the people who do need
the
money more urgently.

No, how they get rich has little to do with money, and more to do

with public or private ownership of productive enterprises. They
would often take a huge paper loss, if they tried to liquidate them
too quickly.

The smart ones who have liquidated their assets, often do so in

order to diversify or seek higher returns in hedge or venture
capital funds. The ones that do let their funds lay around getting
poor returns in a bank, may be slowing the velocity of money during
recessions, when the banks have difficulty finding people willing to
borrow. But this doesn’t create a lack of money, because the Fed
can just print more. But it is tough to get activity going once is
has slowed down, but I think that can be remedied by a better way of
printing money.

  The idea that the rich can invest the money and thereby benefit

the
economy is just a Wall-Street myth.

Sounds like you wouldn't know how to benefit the economy if you were

rich.

  This paradox is mentioned

occasionally, and the solution is always basically “and then a
miracle occurs.” If you invest money in production rather than
spending it to put it into the hands of consumers, with what are
the
consumers going to buy the increased production? They aren’t
making any
more money than they were before; how can they suddenly start
buying
more? Even if you start paying them for producing the added goods
and
services, they won’t get paid until the end of the day, week, or
month –
if the producer has enough left over to pay them without any
increase in
sales. Credit is one answer, but we’ve seen where that gets us.
People
who don’t have enough money now to support a mortgage on a nicer
house
shouldn’t commit to buying a nicer house. That bubble is doomed to
collapse. It collapses every time, and not because there’s some
mysterious “cycle.” The cycle is a consequence, not a
cause.

yes, many think the cycle is a consequence of Fed mismanagement.
  Of course people who are driven to become continually richer as

fast as
possible get richer faster than those who just let it happen, but
people
who have peace of mind and more income than they need will also
get
richer unless they positively decide not to. I would guess that
the
majority of rich people fall in the latter category, though the
ones with
the greatest money obsession will naturally end up with most of
the money
unless someone else interferes or they see a shrink.

There is something about being motivated that aids success in most

endeavors.

  What drives the economy is not money, it's people's needs and

desires for
goods and services.

That is the reason they will work, if they pull back to just

appreciating family and freinds in a time of crisis, they may not
spend as much and even want to work less, Unfortunately if a lot of
this is correlated, less workers are needed, and that decreases
demand involuntarily for some.

  That's where any model of an economy has to start. In

Bill Williams’ model of the Giffen Effect (which is no longer a
“Paradox”), a person has two needs: one is the need for
calories, the other is any other need, want, or preference that
can also
be supplied by purchasing the items that provide calories.
Prestige is
the other desired ingredient of food that BW used. You could use
vitamin
content, taste, packaging, or anything else less important than
getting
enough to eat. But it is the need for calories that takes
precedence over
any mere preference. Those who do not follow that priority will
not be
around to participate for much longer. This is true of every human
being,
so we can rely on this fact in building a model.

Yes, a model of a third world economy.
  Because of the absolute requirement for a minimum intake of

calories,
when the price of unprestigious bread goes up and the budget is
limited
one is forced to buy less meat and substitute more bread in order
to get
the required calories without running out of money. The only
alternative
is to starve. The control-system model shows the shift happening
quite
automatically, every time, and it’s perfectly obvious why
it
happens. It’s an amentic phenomenon – a no-brainer. Once, that
is, you
have understood how negative feedback control works.

Substitution of goods is a no-brainer, pretty standard

micro-economics.

-- Martin L
···

On 7/16/2011 12:05 PM, Bill Powers wrote:

  Now we can widen the choice, or in some cases move it up a level:

if the
price of food increases enough to break the budget even after all
calories are obtained from bread, what is the next needed good or
service
that will become subject to the Giffen Effect? What are we going
to give
up in order to increase the food budget? If you need to buy a
house, you
will have to buy one that isn’t as nice as you might like, even
though
that price has gone up while the price of a nicer and more
expensive
house hasn’t. Who knows how far that web of consequences will
spread or
how many interlocking loops would be uncovered in building a
working
model?

  So when will the Giffen Effect *not* be observed? Only when

the
income is great enough to go on buying the same mix of meat and
bread and
live in the same kind of more expensive house and send the
children to
the same more prestigious school as before regardless of price
increases
for any or all of them.

  This means that before the price of bread and other things started

to
climb, the person must have had more money for food than was
needed.
Unless the person tried really hard to spend everything left over
by the
end of the day, week, or month, the person would get richer. The
richer
the person gets, and the more the person’s reference levels for
goods and
services are satisfied by consumption, the less reason there will
be to
spend more money. The rich just naturally get richer, for obvious
reasons. They don’t even have to try.

  But when they get richer the money flow decreases, because some of

the
money that came from consumers stops flowing back to consumers –
workers
– to provide them with income. As far as a rich person is
concerned, the
buck stops here. It never gets to the worker whose family is
having to
buy less meat and more bread with the buck. Investing the money in
producing more meat or bread isn’t going to enable the family to
spend
more on meat or bread. That miracle doesn’t occur.

  I hope that the conviction is growing in more breasts than mine

and
Shannon’s that we really need a model, and that nothing anyone
says about
relationships in an economy is going to be of the slightest use
without
one. What you think you know about the economy ain’t so. Face it.
Everything I am saying here comes out of elementary control
theory. Why
not start using it?

  Best,



  Bill P.

[From Bill Powers (2011.07.16.1820 MDT)]

Martin Lewitt 2011 July 1744 MDT –

BP earlier: You’re both making
it too complicated. What takes money out of circulation is not
spending it
. The form of the money or where it is stashed makes no
difference. The money has to get to the people who need things, and it
tends to stop moving when it reaches people who already have more than
they need.

ML: The velocity of the money supply does slow during a recession.
But what you are ignoring is that nearly everyone in the US has more than
they need, so can cut back on their spending in times of
uncertainty.

BP: No, they don’t have more than they need. (One flat declaration of a
fact without proof deserves another). Who are you to decide what they
need?

BP earlier: That’s how people
can get rich: they don’t have to spend all they receive, so their bank
accounts, sugar canisters, mattresses, or other storage methods where
burglars look first just keep getting fatter. The money is not paid out
again as income for the people who do need the money more
urgently.

ML: No, how they get rich has little to do with money, and more to do
with public or private ownership of productive enterprises.
They would often take a huge paper loss, if they tried to liquidate them
too quickly.

BP: Nonsense (this is fun – no facts or proofs needed: just express
yourself in a very positive and emphatic manner). Being rich means having
a lot of disposable income that you can spend any way you want to. How
you are getting it is irrelevant.

ML: The smart ones who have
liquidated their assets, often do so in order to diversify or seek higher
returns in hedge or venture capital funds. The ones that do let
their funds lay around getting poor returns in a bank, may be slowing the
velocity of money during recessions, when the banks have difficulty
finding people willing to borrow. But this doesn’t create a lack of
money, because the Fed can just print more. But it is tough to get
activity going once is has slowed down, but I think that can be remedied
by a better way of printing money.

BP: Hogwash. Show me a model that behaves that way and I might believe
it. I’m not going to believe it just because you say it’s true.

BP earlier: The idea that the
rich can invest the money and thereby benefit the economy is just a
Wall-Street myth.

ML: Sounds like you wouldn’t know how to benefit the economy if you were
rich.

BP: Yes, I do. I would spend my surplus income by buying things and
paying people for their services. If all rich people did that instead of
trying endlessly to get richer, the economy would pick right up. Why?
Because I say it would.

BP earlier: This paradox is
mentioned occasionally, and the solution is always basically “and
then a miracle occurs.” If you invest money in production rather
than spending it to put it into the hands of consumers, with what are the
consumers going to buy the increased production? They aren’t making any
more money than they were before; how can they suddenly start buying
more? Even if you start paying them for producing the added goods and
services, they won’t get paid until the end of the day, week, or month –
if the producer has enough left over to pay them without any increase in
sales. Credit is one answer, but we’ve seen where that gets us. People
who don’t have enough money now to support a mortgage on a nicer house
shouldn’t commit to buying a nicer house. That bubble is doomed to
collapse. It collapses every time, and not because there’s some
mysterious “cycle.” The cycle is a consequence, not a
cause.

ML: Yes, many think the cycle is a consequence of Fed
mismanagement.

BP: And more don’t think so. It’s really a consequence of free people
abusing their freedom by taking advantage of other people with less power
or education, and thereby risking the freedom of all of us.

I notice that you didn’t have any answer for the paradox of people
spending money that went into investments instead of wages or other
consumer income.

BP earlier: Of course people who
are driven to become continually richer as fast as possible get richer
faster than those who just let it happen, but people who have peace of
mind and more income than they need will also get richer unless they
positively decide not to. I would guess that the majority of rich people
fall in the latter category, though the ones with the greatest money
obsession will naturally end up with most of the money unless someone
else interferes or they see a shrink.

ML: There is something about being motivated that aids success in most
endeavors.

BP: Of course. When there isn’t anything you wouldn’t do to get to the
top, you’re not going to hestitate when you see an opening, no matter
whom you have to hurt. People who have moral scruples or sympathy for
underdogs and sentimental stuff like that work at a disadvantage. That’s
why they get together and try to crack down on the ones who threaten to
spoil the system. And my, how the spoilers weep and moan and protest when
not allowed to do exactly as they please. It’s heartwarming.

BP earlier: What drives the
economy is not money, it’s people’s needs and desires for goods and
services.

ML: That is the reason they will work, if they pull back to just
appreciating family and freinds in a time of crisis, they may not spend
as much and even want to work less, Unfortunately if a lot of this
is correlated, less workers are needed, and that decreases demand
involuntarily for some.

BP: How did you reach that conclusion? I don’t see any justification for
it. Tou’re assuming that if all these unemployed people would just go out
and hustle for a job, they could get one. So the lack of employment is
their fault.

BP earlier: That’s where any
model of an economy has to start. In Bill Williams’ model of the Giffen
Effect (which is no longer a “Paradox”), a person has two
needs: one is the need for calories, the other is any other need, want,
or preference that can also be supplied by purchasing the items that
provide calories. Prestige is the other desired ingredient of food that
BW used. You could use vitamin content, taste, packaging, or anything
else less important than getting enough to eat. But it is the need for
calories that takes precedence over any mere preference. Those who do not
follow that priority will not be around to participate for much longer.
This is true of every human being, so we can rely on this fact in
building a model.

ML: Yes, a model of a third
world economy.

BP: No, a model of any economy in which similar considerations exist.
Don’t take “calories” too literally. Bill Williams had many
other examples, such as one in which jet-setters would be forced to
travel by commercial airlines to special gatherings instead of private
jets if the cost of commercial flights increased. All that’s required is
that their budgets not be quite high enough to let them use private jets
for everything.

BP earlier: Because of the
absolute requirement for a minimum intake of calories, when the price of
unprestigious bread goes up and the budget is limited one is forced to
buy less meat and substitute more bread in order to get the required
calories without running out of money. The only alternative is to starve.
The control-system model shows the shift happening quite automatically,
every time, and it’s perfectly obvious why it happens. It’s an
amentic phenomenon – a no-brainer. Once, that is, you have understood
how negative feedback control works.

Substitution of goods is a no-brainer, pretty standard
micro-economics.

You don’t seem to understand the Giffen Effect. It requires you to
substitute something that costs you more for for something else that
would provide the same benefit and that you would prefer to have for
other reasons. Standard price theory is much too simple-minded to handle
the Giffen Effect, which is why so many economists have loudly insisted
that it just doesn’t happen. Substitution theory assumes an unlimited
budget to begin with, and also that one good has only one scale for
determining value, which allows different goods to be compared as to
value. If each good simultaneously satifies several different kinds of
reference levels at the same time, you have to solve a large system of
simultaneous equations to find out what the result will be. Bill Williams
showed how this works in a simplified situation that we can understand.
Apparently he didn’t simplify it enough. However, he did leave behind a
model that shows how this works and with a bit of study anyone capable of
going to college can understand it.

Economists don’t like to think about budgetary limits. Life is a lot
simpler if everything people do is a free choice, so they can spend more
or less just because that’s what they want to do. But that’s not the
universe we live in.

Best,

Bill P.

[From Rick Marken (2011.07.17.0950)]

Bill Powers (2011.07.16.1010 MDT)--

Rick Marken (2011.07.16.0830) --

GR: this doesn't make a lot of sense to me, how can the money be hoarded
when it is a balance in the bank account and the bank uses that to lend to
other institutions and individuals.. Which part is the hoarding part?

RM:: Good point. My answer is based on what I know of the US banking system.
I can think of two main ways that hoarding takes money out of circulation:

BP: You're both making it too complicated. What takes money out of
circulation is not spending it. The form of the money or where it is stashed
makes no difference. The money has to get to the people who need things, and
it tends to stop moving when it reaches people who already have more than
they need.

Later in your post you say that everything your are saying here is
based on elementary control theory. Is this? How do you know that the
circulation of money stops at people who have more than they need?
Many people assume that the rich put their money in banks which then
lend it out, which puts the money the rich don't use for consumption
into the hands of other (possibly also rich people) who will use it
for consumption. So it seems that money doesn't really ever leave the
circular flow. I suggested two rather plausible ways money does come
out of the circular flow, reserve requirements and bankruptcies
/defaults. Both of these would lead to "leakage" proportional to the
income inequality.

BP:The idea that the rich can invest the money and thereby benefit the economy
is just a Wall-Street myth. This paradox is mentioned occasionally, and the
solution is always basically "and then a miracle occurs." If you invest
money in production rather than spending it to put it into the hands of
consumers, with what are the consumers going to buy the increased
production?

Being a "closed loop" economist I am always aware of this. And there
are some "real" economists out there -- Robert Reich for one -- who
understand this as well. But even economists who know that there is a
"demand problem" in our current economy ( there is an editorial in the
NY Times that recognizes the problem:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/sunday-review/17economic.html?_r=1)
don't quite get that this results from the fact that a small
proportion of people are keeping a larger and larger proportion of the
fruits of production, depriving the vast majority of the means of
purchasing all of what they have produced.

BP: What drives the economy is not money, it's people's needs and desires for
goods and services. That's where any model of an economy has to start.

Yes, and it's where my model of the economy starts. I do it at the
aggregate level, assuming that the aggregate "controller" (H.
economicus) has a virtual reference for consuming the goods and
services it produces for itself.

BP: I hope that the conviction is growing in more breasts than mine and
Shannon's that we really need a model, and that nothing anyone says about
relationships in an economy is going to be of the slightest use without one.

I have already built a model of the economy. It needs work but it is
a working control model of the economy.

I believe that a model tells you something about the relationships in
an economy only if it has been validated against data. So just having
a model is not of much interest. When I get back to it, my model will
be aimed at predicting variations in economic variables that have been
observed.

BP: What you think you know about the economy ain't so. Face it. Everything I am
saying here comes out of elementary control theory. Why not start using it?

Not everything you said here comes out of elementary control theory.
And I have already started using it as a basis for modeling the
economy. You didn't like my model very much but that doesn't mean that
it's not a model or that it wasn't based on control theory. When I
eventually get back to the modeling (I quit because no one seemed to
like it much and I realized that no matter how great the model is it's
not going to change the minds of ideologues anyway. Economics is
really just politics; I believe there can be a science of economics
but it will have no more influence on economic policy than, say,
climate science has on energy policy) I will make it more detailed and
I will test it by seeing how well I can get it match the economic
data.

Best

Rick

···

---
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
www.mindreadings.com

{Shannon Williams (2011.18.0700 CST)]

(Gavin Ritz 2011.18.07.11.02NZT)
Balances in banks and saving
institutions are used for investments, with some cash holding requirements.

Please look at these three scenarios. In these scenarios, focus on
the movement of money. If the thought enters your head that Rick
'could' pay Bill if he wanted, or that Rick
could take a cheaper house or a cheaper car- whatever. Banish that
thought. The focus here is to look at the money, not look at what it
takes to get the money back.

1. Rick makes just enough money to pay his room and board. His child
gets sick and he does not have insurance. Bill gives him money (free
and clear) to cover the doctor bills. Rick carries on without a
glitch, status quo.

2. Rick makes just enough money to pay his room and board. His child
gets sick and he does not have insurance. Bill loans him money (no
interest) to cover the doctor bills. Months go by and Rick does not
pay Bill back. Bill gets really pissed when Christmas comes and Rick
chooses to buy christmas gifts rather that pay him back.

3. Rick makes just enough money to pay his room and board. His child
gets sick and he does not have insurance. Bill loans him money (no
interest) to cover the doctor bills. Months go by and Rick does not
pay Bill back. At Christmas, Rick pays Bill back.

So what is the money doing in these scenarios? Can you draw a diagram
to show the flow?

Thanks,
Shannon
https://donate.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/2012/openthespillways

[From Rick Marken (2011.07.13.1300)]

Martin Lewitt (2011 July 10 0447 MDT)–

The aggregate data you refer to,

includes people in the US without healthcare insurance, and that is
not the way to evaluate the US healthcare system.

Yes, and the statistics on quality of life should leave out poor people. You people are beyond disgusting.

Best

Rick

···
The US healthcare

system is a more expensive more three reasons, it is a luxury system
where more actual healthcare is consumed, it is also a more
complete healthcare system, supporting not just care, but also
research and development, and some of the regulation is excessive
reducing competition and making drugs and devices more expensive.

      The lack of interest in aggregate data by free marketers is

also evidence by the fact that after years of Bush II “free
market” policies that ruined the US economy there should not
be a single “free marketer” left. But here they are again,
pushing for lower taxes and less regulation – the very
policies that produced the catastrophe we are currently living
with – as the way to “prosperity”.

In economic terms you just provided an anecdote, and expect us to

accept the conclusions you draw from it.

      I have learned from personal experience (and I know from PCT,

also) that “true believers” do not readily change their minds
when the results of their “true beliefs” don’t pan out or even
when their policies lead to catastrophe (as in the case of the
communist policies of Stalin or the free market policies of
Bush). It’s difficult to give up beliefs based on evidence,
especially when those beliefs are very important to you (like
economic and religious beliefs).

You are right, free markets and capitalism adherents have a moral or

“religious” aspect, they like the idea that capitalism works better,
but would probably adhere to it, even without that happy
consequence. It is much like how we would reject a life of theft,
even if we had evidence that it worked better. However, that
doesn’t mean we wouldn’t acknowledge the evidence that theft worked
better, some people are capable of objectivity.

      I know how difficult it is because I'm always having to

give up beliefs based on evidence when I do my research (I
just had to give up my belief that I had shown the superiority
of a closed over an open loop model of a reaction time task;
it is not fun to give up such beliefs; it’s what makes doing
science so difficult). I just hope that the destructive
results of people’s reluctance to give up beliefs that hurt
other people (destroying people’s ability to control their
lives effectively, which is the result of policies that
increase and/or preserve huge wealth disparities) don’t result
in violence (French and Russian revolution style).

I'm sure you didn't give up your belief, until you were sure your

conceptualization had been given its full due. There are plenty of
reasons to believe that Bush II and the US healthcare system are not
the full realization of what is possible with the free market
system, in fact it is easy to attribute the faults and failures to
contaminants and impurities, many backed by almost prescient theory
based concerns before they occurred. Recall that the Bush
administration did propose reform of the quasi-governmental status
of FANNIE and FREDDIE, and that free market theory is skeptical that
the Federal Reserve makes things better than worse, and is also
critical of risk introduced into the economy by high levels of
leverage, as incentivised by the double taxation of equity financing
which debt financing is only single taxed or even fully tax
deductible.

regards,

     Martin L
      Best



      Rick

  Richard S. Marken PhD

  rsmarken@gmail.com

  [www.mindreadings.com](http://www.mindreadings.com)


Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
www.mindreadings.com

[Martin Lewitt 2011 July 13 2334 MDT]

[From Rick Marken (2011.07.13.1300)]

Martin Lewitt (2011 July 10 0447 MDT)–

        The aggregate data you refer to, includes people in the

US without healthcare insurance, and that is not the way to
evaluate the US healthcare system.

      Yes, and the statistics on quality of life should leave out

poor people. You people are beyond disgusting.

The US is the third most populous nation in the world.   It's

voluntary healthcare system should be evaluated based upon those who
it fully serves. Many poor people voluntarily choose not to
participate, for instance, they decide to send money back to Mexico
and other home countries. That money is important to the economy of
those countries and even more important to the loved ones they
directly send the money to. Food and shelter are far more basic
needs, why don’t you trust the judgment of the poor, rather than
resenting their usage of the emergency rooms? The US helps far
more of the poor of the world with its porous borders admitting
needy poor and by serving as the economic engine of the world, than
by insular national socialism.

I have no objection to having more statistics, just don't claim they

represent what they don’t, and perhaps include some which actually
represent how the US healthcare system serves those that it serves,
and show why it is the destination luxury healthcare provider of
choice.

Mexico has a per capita income more than 4 times the norm of the

third world, yet do you really doubt that statistics would show that
even Mexican immigrants of doubtful legal status are worse off in
the US? It might be safe to assume that systems in some other
countries are closed systems, but that assumption is too far off the
mark for the US to be valid.

None of this should come as a surprise to you unless you have a

short memory. We should all be gratified to know that freedom is
not only the best system for us individually, but also for the poor
of the world. It didn’t have to work out that way, it is just a
characteristic of how human nature responds when selecting its own
goals rather than having goals selected for it by others.

-- Martin L
···

On 7/13/2011 1:56 PM, Richard Marken wrote:

      Best



      Rick
        The US healthcare system

is a more expensive more three reasons, it is a luxury
system where more actual healthcare is consumed, it is also
a more complete healthcare system, supporting not just
care, but also research and development, and some of the
regulation is excessive reducing competition and making
drugs and devices more expensive.

                The lack of interest in aggregate data by free

marketers is also evidence by the fact that after
years of Bush II “free market” policies that ruined
the US economy there should not be a single “free
marketer” left. But here they are again, pushing for
lower taxes and less regulation – the very policies
that produced the catastrophe we are currently
living with – as the way to “prosperity”.

        In economic terms you just provided an anecdote, and expect

us to accept the conclusions you draw from it.

                I have learned from personal experience (and I know

from PCT, also) that “true believers” do not readily
change their minds when the results of their “true
beliefs” don’t pan out or even when their policies
lead to catastrophe (as in the case of the communist
policies of Stalin or the free market policies of
Bush). It’s difficult to give up beliefs based on
evidence, especially when those beliefs are very
important to you (like economic and religious
beliefs).

        You are right, free markets and capitalism adherents have a

moral or “religious” aspect, they like the idea that
capitalism works better, but would probably adhere to it,
even without that happy consequence. It is much like how we
would reject a life of theft, even if we had evidence that
it worked better. However, that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t
acknowledge the evidence that theft worked better, some
people are capable of objectivity.

                I know how difficult it is because I'm always

having to give up beliefs based on evidence when I
do my research (I just had to give up my belief that
I had shown the superiority of a closed over an open
loop model of a reaction time task; it is not fun
to give up such beliefs; it’s what makes doing
science so difficult). I just hope that the
destructive results of people’s reluctance to give
up beliefs that hurt other people (destroying
people’s ability to control their lives effectively,
which is the result of policies that increase and/or
preserve huge wealth disparities) don’t result in
violence (French and Russian revolution style).

        I'm sure you didn't give up your belief, until you were sure

your conceptualization had been given its full due. There
are plenty of reasons to believe that Bush II and the US
healthcare system are not the full realization of what is
possible with the free market system, in fact it is easy to
attribute the faults and failures to contaminants and
impurities, many backed by almost prescient theory based
concerns before they occurred. Recall that the Bush
administration did propose reform of the quasi-governmental
status of FANNIE and FREDDIE, and that free market theory is
skeptical that the Federal Reserve makes things better than
worse, and is also critical of risk introduced into the
economy by high levels of leverage, as incentivised by the
double taxation of equity financing which debt financing is
only single taxed or even fully tax deductible.

        regards,

             Martin L
                Best



                Rick

            Richard S. Marken PhD

            rsmarken@gmail.com

            [www.mindreadings.com](http://www.mindreadings.com)
  --

  Richard S. Marken PhD

  rsmarken@gmail.com

  [www.mindreadings.com](http://www.mindreadings.com)

[From Rick Marken (2011.07.14.0915)]

Bill Powers (2011.07.14.0810 MDT)]

Rick Marken
(2011.07.13.1300)-
Martin Lewitt (2011 July 10 0447 MDT)–
ML:The aggregate data you refer to, includes people in the US
without healthcare insurance, and that is not the way to evaluate the US
healthcare system.

RM: Yes, and the statistics on quality of life should leave out poor
people. You people are beyond disgusting.

BP: Good thing they are, otherwise you’d have to blame yourself for
choosing to be disgusted instead of looking for solutions.

I’m sorry, did I give the impression that I was not blaming myself for finding Martin’s ideas beyond disgusting. I blame myself – my references for the kind of world I want to live in – completely. As far as looking for solutions, I am constantly looking for solutions. But every time I encounter people like Martin L. I realize there are none; just the vicissitudes of life. Sometimes there are more people around who see (or want) things my way and sometimes there are more people around like Martin L. C’est la vie.

Best regards

Rick

···

ML: The US is the third most
populous nation in the world. Its voluntary healthcare system
should be evaluated based upon those who it fully serves. Many poor
people voluntarily choose not to participate, for instance, they decide
to send money back to Mexico and other home countries. That money is
important to the economy of those countries and even more important to
the loved ones they directly send the money to. Food and shelter are far
more basic needs, why don’t you trust the judgment of the poor, rather
than resenting their usage of the emergency rooms? The US
helps far more of the poor of the world with its porous borders admitting
needy poor and by serving as the economic engine of the world, than by
insular national socialism.

BP: Martin, this is a beautiful example of what I call goal-driven
reasoning. The objective is to justify the way people with means try to
keep what they have and not share any of it with others who (largely
because of the activities of those with the most means) have fewer means.
To reach this conclusion, it is necessary to make up certain premises and
present them as established facts. If you can get those invented facts
into circulation, your conclusion will follow just the way you want it
to. Your argument above has several tiers of invented facts; I’ll just
focus on one.

You are proposing that we evaluate the health-care system by how well it
serves the needs of those who don’t have to worry about how expensive it
is. That, of course, suits a small part of the population very well
indeed. They are quite satisfied with their health care and they can pay
the premiums and extras with ease. To justify this, however, you need to
establish that the poor choose not to participate in the health-care
system rather than being inhumanely and involuntarily shut out of it.
Once this fact is established, it can be used to show that it’s not
selfishness or indifference on the part of the rich that shuts out the
poor, but perverse decisions on the part of the poor for which nobody
else can be blamed.

Understanding this gives some hope of reforming the system, because it
shows that at least the rich do feel that their way of life requires
justification, and that deliberately shutting the poor out of the health
care system or simply being indifferent to their plight would be
unacceptable – unacceptable to others who judge them, certainly, but
maybe in some small way unacceptable even to themselves. If they can find
a way to reason out that it’s not their fault, they can feel free of
guilt or at least culpability. You are describing how they do that, and
helping them do it.

Somebody famous among Christians said, “Father, forgive them; for
they know not what they do.” I wouldn’t presume to give advice to
God, but to human beings I will suggest that to understand all is to
forgive all, so we should focus on understanding what is really going on
here, and do our best to make it so clear that nobody can continue to
pretend it’s not going on.

It should be quite possible to find out which of these invented facts are
true, which are not true, and which are unknowable. Assuming that rich
people and libertarians (and most other people) prefer to think of
themselves as reasonable, kind, self-consistent, and compassionate, and
in some cases even as followers of that famous person quoted above, I
think we can rely on enlightened self-interest to shift the self-image of
many rich people away from the persona of Donald Trump and toward that of
Warren Buffet even if not Mohandas Ghandi. Eventually. We can keep in
mind that if error is reduced a little, and goes on being reduced a
little, after a while it will be reduced a lot.

And we can also forgive, so as not to harden the defenses and encourage
counterattacks, and we can assume that with a clearer view of what is
going on, the rich will see that they are acting against their own
principles and even their own beliefs, so they will look for ways not to
do that. As we know, people change themselves; only their behavior can be
changed by arbitrary control, and what we want is for their perceptions
and highest reference conditions to change. From that, all else will
follow.

Best,

Bill P.


Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
www.mindreadings.com

[Martin Lewitt 2011 July 14 0952 MDT]

[From Bill Powers (2011.07.14.0810 MDT)]

  Martin Lewitt 2011 July 13 2334 MDT --
      [From Rick Marken

(2011.07.13.1300)]

Martin Lewitt (2011 July 10 0447 MDT)–

          The aggregate data you refer to, includes people in

the US
without healthcare insurance, and that is not the way to
evaluate the US
healthcare system.

      RM: Yes, and the statistics on quality of life should leave

out poor
people. You people are beyond disgusting.

  BP: Good thing they are, otherwise you'd have to blame yourself

for
choosing to be disgusted instead of looking for solutions. Moral
disapproval is not the most effective way to get people to change
their
perceptions and goals.

    ML: The US is the

third most
populous nation in the world. Its voluntary healthcare system
should be evaluated based upon those who it fully serves. Many
poor
people voluntarily choose not to participate, for instance, they
decide
to send money back to Mexico and other home countries. That
money is
important to the economy of those countries and even more
important to
the loved ones they directly send the money to. Food and shelter
are far
more basic needs, why don’t you trust the judgment of the poor,
rather
than resenting their usage of the emergency rooms? The US
helps far more of the poor of the world with its porous borders
admitting
needy poor and by serving as the economic engine of the world,
than by
insular national socialism.

  BP: Martin, this is a beautiful example of what I call goal-driven

reasoning. The objective is to justify the way people with means
try to
keep what they have and not share any of it with others who
(largely
because of the activities of those with the most means) have fewer
means.
To reach this conclusion, it is necessary to make up certain
premises and
present them as established facts. If you can get those invented
facts
into circulation, your conclusion will follow just the way you
want it
to. Your argument above has several tiers of invented facts; I’ll
just
focus on one.

Let's discuss what the "people with means" really have.  What if

that is really just stock in companies they control and manage.
Sure they could sell the stock and become just consumers? How do
they benefit society that way? Did it ever occur to you that we are
better off having founders and managers “keep what they have” and
that by keeping it they really are sharing “it with others”?

  You are proposing that we evaluate the health-care system by how

well it
serves the needs of those who don’t have to worry about how
expensive it
is. That, of course, suits a small part of the population very
well
indeed. They are quite satisfied with their health care and they
can pay
the premiums and extras with ease.

The current healthcare system does benefit a large supermajority of

the people, not a “small part”, it is one of the possible flaws that
they don’t have to worry about how expensive it is, that does lead
to over consumption, but it is a luxury system, with little queuing,
and fear or comfort based rather than science based cost effect
levels of screening for scary conditions.

  To justify this, however, you need to

establish that the poor choose not to participate in the
health-care
system rather than being inhumanely and involuntarily shut out of
it.
Once this fact is established, it can be used to show that it’s
not
selfishness or indifference on the part of the rich that shuts out
the
poor, but perverse decisions on the part of the poor for which
nobody
else can be blamed.

I actually think the poor are making the correct decisions, in most

of the world there are more basic priorities than healthcare, and
forcing them to choose otherwise via mandates is what would be
inhumane. As it is there are already too many mandates in the
system that price healthcare out of their range, e.g., having to see
a doctor for prescriptions, or do you think the poor are stupid too?

  Understanding this gives some hope of reforming the system,

because it
shows that at least the rich do feel that their way of life
requires
justification, and that deliberately shutting the poor out of the
health
care system or simply being indifferent to their plight would be
unacceptable – unacceptable to others who judge them, certainly,
but
maybe in some small way unacceptable even to themselves. If they
can find
a way to reason out that it’s not their fault, they can feel free
of
guilt or at least culpability. You are describing how they do
that, and
helping them do it.

Actually, it isn't their fault, so finding a "way to reason" that it

isn’t, is not necessary. Apparently you think merely having wealth
makes it their fault.

  Somebody famous among Christians said, "Father, forgive them; for

they know not what they do." I wouldn’t presume to give advice to
God, but to human beings I will suggest that to understand all is
to
forgive all, so we should focus on understanding what is really
going on
here, and do our best to make it so clear that nobody can continue
to
pretend it’s not going on.

I try to have no pretensions.
  It should be quite possible to find out which of these invented

facts are
true, which are not true, and which are unknowable. Assuming that
rich
people and libertarians (and most other people) prefer to think of
themselves as reasonable, kind, self-consistent, and
compassionate, and
in some cases even as followers of that famous person quoted
above, I
think we can rely on enlightened self-interest to shift the
self-image of
many rich people away from the persona of Donald Trump and toward
that of
Warren Buffet even if not Mohandas Ghandi.

Donald Trump is not an attractive persona, but I suspect that Buffet

has done more good for humanity than Ghandi, whose nationalistic
independence movement cost millions of lives, as India disintegrated
in sectarian warfare. The people would have been better off seeking
full rights under British rule of law. Buffet contributes by being
a good manager and a patient source of capital and an attractor of
patient capital. Trump is really just a deal maker contributing
little to the wealth of society.

  Eventually. We can keep in

mind that if error is reduced a little, and goes on being reduced
a
little, after a while it will be reduced a lot.

  And we can also forgive, so as not to harden the defenses and

encourage
counterattacks, and we can assume that with a clearer view of what
is
going on, the rich will see that they are acting against their own
principles and even their own beliefs, so they will look for ways
not to
do that. As we know, people change themselves; only their behavior
can be
changed by arbitrary control, and what we want is for their
perceptions
and highest reference conditions to change. From that, all else
will
follow.

Unfortunately, too many rich have been duped into feeling guilty for

their wealth, and few are as capable of doing much good with it
other than creating more wealth, than say, Bill Gates is, who has
proven as good a manager of giving as he was of Microsoft. Buffet,
as usually, recognized good management, and will give his wealth to
Gates foundation. Contrast that with a Ted Turner who instead of
working to create more wealth, is instead purchasing large tracts of
land for the benefit of buffalo rather than the poor.

regards,

    Martin L
···

On 7/14/2011 9:27 AM, Bill Powers wrote:

    On 7/13/2011 1:56 PM, > > Richard > > Marken wrote:
  Best,



  Bill P.

[Martin Lewitt 2011 July 14 1033 MDT]

[From Rick Marken (2011.07.14.0915)]

Bill Powers (2011.07.14.0810 MDT)]

              Rick Marken

(2011.07.13.1300)-
Martin Lewitt (2011 July 10 0447 MDT)–
ML:The aggregate data you refer to, includes
people in the US
without healthcare insurance, and that is not the
way to evaluate the US
healthcare system.

            RM: Yes, and the statistics on quality of life should

leave out poor
people. You people are beyond disgusting.

        BP: Good thing they are, otherwise you'd have to blame

yourself for
choosing to be disgusted instead of looking for solutions.

      I'm sorry, did I give the impression that I was not blaming

myself for finding Martin’s ideas beyond disgusting. I blame
myself – my references for the kind of world I want to live
in – completely. As far as looking for solutions, I am
constantly looking for solutions. But every time I encounter
people like Martin L. I realize there are none; just the
vicissitudes of life.

What you have is a failure of imagination.  I have many solutions

that would make things work better, including a rather
redistributionist reform of the federal reserve and an improvement
in tax policy that would make the private sector less dependent on
risky leverage.

      Sometimes there are more people around who see (or want)

things my way and sometimes there are more people around like
Martin L. C’est la vie.

There are probably more people people who want things your way in

Europe, but there are enough here to keep our economy stagnant and
unemployment rate high too.

-- Martin L
···

On 7/14/2011 10:17 AM, Richard Marken wrote:

      Best regards



      Rick
          ML: The US is the third most

populous nation in the world. Its voluntary healthcare
system
should be evaluated based upon those who it fully serves.
Many poor
people voluntarily choose not to participate, for
instance, they decide
to send money back to Mexico and other home countries.
That money is
important to the economy of those countries and even more
important to
the loved ones they directly send the money to. Food and
shelter are far
more basic needs, why don’t you trust the judgment of the
poor, rather
than resenting their usage of the emergency rooms? The
US
helps far more of the poor of the world with its porous
borders admitting
needy poor and by serving as the economic engine of the
world, than by
insular national socialism.

        BP: Martin, this is a beautiful example of what I call

goal-driven
reasoning. The objective is to justify the way people with
means try to
keep what they have and not share any of it with others who
(largely
because of the activities of those with the most means) have
fewer means.
To reach this conclusion, it is necessary to make up certain
premises and
present them as established facts. If you can get those
invented facts
into circulation, your conclusion will follow just the way
you want it
to. Your argument above has several tiers of invented facts;
I’ll just
focus on one.

        You are proposing that we evaluate the health-care system by

how well it
serves the needs of those who don’t have to worry about how
expensive it
is. That, of course, suits a small part of the population
very well
indeed. They are quite satisfied with their health care and
they can pay
the premiums and extras with ease. To justify this, however,
you need to
establish that the poor choose not to participate in the
health-care
system rather than being inhumanely and involuntarily shut
out of it.
Once this fact is established, it can be used to show that
it’s not
selfishness or indifference on the part of the rich that
shuts out the
poor, but perverse decisions on the part of the poor for
which nobody
else can be blamed.

        Understanding this gives some hope of reforming the system,

because it
shows that at least the rich do feel that their way of life
requires
justification, and that deliberately shutting the poor out
of the health
care system or simply being indifferent to their plight
would be
unacceptable – unacceptable to others who judge them,
certainly, but
maybe in some small way unacceptable even to themselves. If
they can find
a way to reason out that it’s not their fault, they can feel
free of
guilt or at least culpability. You are describing how they
do that, and
helping them do it.

        Somebody famous among Christians said, "Father, forgive

them; for
they know not what they do." I wouldn’t presume to give
advice to
God, but to human beings I will suggest that to understand
all is to
forgive all, so we should focus on understanding what is
really going on
here, and do our best to make it so clear that nobody can
continue to
pretend it’s not going on.

        It should be quite possible to find out which of these

invented facts are
true, which are not true, and which are unknowable. Assuming
that rich
people and libertarians (and most other people) prefer to
think of
themselves as reasonable, kind, self-consistent, and
compassionate, and
in some cases even as followers of that famous person quoted
above, I
think we can rely on enlightened self-interest to shift the
self-image of
many rich people away from the persona of Donald Trump and
toward that of
Warren Buffet even if not Mohandas Ghandi. Eventually. We
can keep in
mind that if error is reduced a little, and goes on being
reduced a
little, after a while it will be reduced a lot.

        And we can also forgive, so as not to harden the defenses

and encourage
counterattacks, and we can assume that with a clearer view
of what is
going on, the rich will see that they are acting against
their own
principles and even their own beliefs, so they will look for
ways not to
do that. As we know, people change themselves; only their
behavior can be
changed by arbitrary control, and what we want is for their
perceptions
and highest reference conditions to change. From that, all
else will
follow.

        Best,



        Bill P.
  --

  Richard S. Marken PhD

  rsmarken@gmail.com

  [www.mindreadings.com](http://www.mindreadings.com)

[From Rick Marken (2011.07.14.1110)]

Martin Lewitt (2011 July 14 1033 MDT)–

ML: What you have is a failure of imagination.

It’s true. You right wingers can imagine faster than the dickins. Feynman ran into this same problem when he was trying to explain to a bunch of orthodox Jews that electricity is not fire. According to Feynman, they mopped the floor up with him. So I don’t expect to be able to win any debates with ideologues. But I will point out that your imaginings are not always consistent with those of other free market ideologues. For example, Adam says that the poor US health care statistics (relative to other industrial democracies) result from the fact that the US system is too socialistic already (I think that is more like hallucinating than imagining, but they are similar). You say it’s because these statistics include all those undeserving poor people who choose not to buy health insurance because they see greater benefit in dying young. I think you both should go to the Fox News talking points site (I presume they have one) and get on the same page.

      RM: Sometimes there are more people around who see (or want)

things my way and sometimes there are more people around like
Martin L. C’est la vie.

ML: There are probably more people people who want things your way in

Europe, but there are enough here to keep our economy stagnant and
unemployment rate high too.

True. But there were once more people like you there --that’s why my grandpa left. I can’t keep going back and forth across the Atlantic as societies shift their ambient values toward and away from mine. Besides, the places that are really on the same page with me tend to have lousy weather. And for me, beautiful weather (along with the mountains and ocean) trumps ugly ideas;-)

Best

Rick

···


Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
www.mindreadings.com

[Martin Lewitt 2011 July 14 1212 MDT]

[From Rick Marken (2011.07.14.1110)]

        Martin Lewitt (2011

July 14 1033 MDT)–

ML: What you have is a failure of imagination.

      It's true. You right wingers can imagine faster than the

dickins. Feynman ran into this same problem when he was trying
to explain to a bunch of orthodox Jews that electricity is
not fire. According to Feynman, they mopped the floor up with
him. So I don’t expect to be able to win any debates with
ideologues. But I will point out that your imaginings are not
always consistent with those of other free market ideologues.
For example, Adam says that the poor US health care statistics
(relative to other industrial democracies) result from the
fact that the US system is too socialistic already (I think
that is more like hallucinating than imagining, but they are
similar). You say it’s because these statistics include all
those undeserving poor people who choose not to buy health
insurance because they see greater benefit in dying young. I
think you both should go to the Fox News talking points site
(I presume they have one) and get on the same page.

I think I can agree that  Adam's point is a contributing factor,

recall that in this same thread I mentioned that requirements to go
to a physician for a prescription made medical care less affordable
to the poor, of course, it make it less affordable for us as well.
That paternalistic centralized planning is a few steps down the road
towards socialism.

Feynman shouldn't have been surprised, intelligence is not the

exclusive preserve of the secular scientist.

As far as free market "ideology" goes, I too am frustrated at how

few among us question our assumptions and our inherited wisdom.

            RM: Sometimes there are more people around who see

(or want) things my way and sometimes there are more
people around like Martin L. C’est la vie.

        ML: There are probably

more people people who want things your way in Europe, but
there are enough here to keep our economy stagnant and
unemployment rate high too.

      True. But there were once more people like you there --that's

why my grandpa left. I can’t keep going back and forth across
the Atlantic as societies shift their ambient values toward
and away from mine. Besides, the places that are really on the
same page with me tend to have lousy weather. And for me,
beautiful weather (along with the mountains and ocean) trumps
ugly ideas;-)

I would find it hard to leave my 7070' ridge top abode as well, so I

hope we can reverse this expansion of government spending and power,
and eliminate counter-productive tax, regulatory and monetary
policy.

-- Martin L
···

On 7/14/2011 12:10 PM, Richard Marken wrote:

      Best



      Rick

  Richard S. Marken PhD

  rsmarken@gmail.com

  [www.mindreadings.com](http://www.mindreadings.com)

[Martin Lewitt 2011 July 14 1330 MDT]

[From Bill Powers (2011.07.14.1148 MDT)]

  Martin Lewitt 2011 July 14 0952 MDT --
    ML: Let's discuss

what the
“people with means” really have. What if that is really
just stock in companies they control and manage. Sure they
could
sell the stock and become just consumers? How do they benefit
society that way? Did it ever occur to you that we are better
off
having founders and managers “keep what they have” and that by
keeping it they really are sharing “it with
others”?

  BP: Sure, but why do they have to have so much for themselves that

they
don’t share? Are they that much more deserving than everyone else
is?
I’ve met quite a few of them, and they range from selfish pigs to
very
good people who care about others almost as much as they care
about
themselves. They don’t just own stocks and manage companies (which
any
reasonably competent person can do). Unfortunately, too many of
them have
delusions of grandeur like those of John Galt, thinking that
they’re some
kind of royalty who have to be coddled and reassured of their
importance
by being given huge amounts of money and even huger privileges.

I don't recall Galt being given money, or expect money except in

return for value given.

  They

think they’re the only ones smart enough to run things and (as
imagined
by Ayn Rand) they threaten to take their footballs and go home if
they’re
not appreciated enough, and see how the complainers like that.
It’s sort
of grade-school braggadocio, or middle school on a good day.

  I can forgive someone for having delusions until they start

getting
dangerous.

      BP earlier: You are

proposing
that we evaluate the health-care system by how well it serves
the needs
of those who don’t have to worry about how expensive it is.
That, of
course, suits a small part of the population very well indeed.
They are
quite satisfied with their health care and they can pay the
premiums and
extras with ease.

    ML: The current healthcare system does benefit a large

supermajority of
the people, not a “small part”, it is one of the possible flaws
that they don’t have to worry about how expensive it is, that
does lead
to over consumption, but it is a luxury system, with little
queuing, and
fear or comfort based rather than science based cost effect
levels
of screening for scary conditions.

  BP: Yes, lots of people with insurance benefit from the health

care
system, but not without worry and strain on the budget the way the
wealthy do.

  Don't 47 million people without health insurance weigh just a tiny

bit on
your conscience?

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/567737
. Doesn’t that
large a
number, 15.8 percent of the population, rather defy your attempts
to
minimize the problem? Or are you thinking that if only 15.8% are
without
insurance, that isn’t much of a problem when so many people have
it?

It is only my my conscience to the extent that I have voted for 

people in the past that contributed to our current system,
politicians that supported the FDA for instance, but the election of
Obama has cured me of that, I now accept the less of two evils
excuse.

Doesn't it weigh on your conscience that burdening the American

economy with healthcare expenses for that 15.8 percent might mean
far more deaths through less people lifted out of poverty in the
third world by trade with a healthy US economy? Dialysis or a
kidney transplant for just one of those 15.8 percent represents
resources that could save 100s of lives in the third world. But
that is the kind of selfish thing that most developed countries do.
Worst of all may be Europe where month long vacations are the norm,
instead of producing much needed wealth that could save millions of
lives.

  You know, if the people who have insurance were to contribute 16%

of
their current premiums they could buy health insurance for those
who
don’t have it. That would cost me $22 per month if my premiums are
average.

You must just be referring to your contribution, who is paying for

the rest for you and for that 16 percent, because $352 per month
doesn’t purchase health insurance, unless it is the kind that I have
that has a $10,000 deductible.

    ML: I actually think

the poor
are making the correct decisions, in most of the world there are
more
basic priorities than healthcare, and forcing them to choose
otherwise
via mandates is what would be inhumane. As it is there are
already
too many mandates in the system that price healthcare out of
their range,
e.g., having to see a doctor for prescriptions, or do you think
the poor
are stupid too?

  BP: So you recommend a system under which large numbers of people

have to
make a choice between getting health care for their families and
feeding
their families or themselves? If you have ever had to live on a
limited
budget, you seem to have forgotten how that feels, especially if
you’re
trying to take care of others beside yourself.

Having been unemployed for two years, I understand living on a

limited budget, since it is still occuring, I haven’t had time to
forget. I recommend a system where everyone gets wealthy, since
that is unlikely to happen in most of the world for another century,
I favor a system where everyone has a chance to get wealthy.

  I'm sure you're not really a cold, selfish, uncaring person, but

the way
you’re putting spin on everything could mislead people into seeing
you
that way.

Of course not, but I am an analytical person, who can see that

emotional arguments often aren’t valid, even as the tears well up
in my eyes.

      BP erarlier:

Understanding this
gives some hope of reforming the system, because it shows that
at least
the rich do feel that their way of life requires
justification, and that
deliberately shutting the poor out of the health care system
or simply
being indifferent to their plight would be unacceptable –
unacceptable
to others who judge them, certainly, but maybe in some small
way
unacceptable even to themselves. If they can find a way to
reason out
that it’s not their fault, they can feel free of guilt or at
least
culpability. You are describing how they do that, and helping
them do
it.

    ML: Actually, it isn't their fault, so finding a "way to

reason" that it isn’t, is not necessary. Apparently you think
merely having wealth makes it their fault.

  BP: Their having enormous wealth (let's use the right adjectives

here)
qualifies them as persons of interest, at least. Variously
attributed, it
has been observed that “Behind every great fortune there is a
great
crime.” Those with great fortunes and those who depend on the
owners
of fortunes for income do not normally agree with that, of course.
Not
hard to figure out why.

Since the government has the biggest fortune of all then perhaps it

has committed the greatest crime. I just recently read “The Myth
of the Robber Barons”, some of the evidence for that “crime” is pure
Marxist class warfare rhetoric, great wealth seems more likely to be
associated with great achievement and service. Where there was
crime, it was their competition with the government as a partner.

      BP earlier:

Somebody famous
among Christians said, “Father, forgive them; for they know
not what
they do.” I wouldn’t presume to give advice to God, but to
human
beings I will suggest that to understand all is to forgive
all, so we
should focus on understanding what is really going on here,
and do our
best to make it so clear that nobody can continue to pretend
it’s not
going on.

    ML: I try to have no pretensions.
  BP: Try harder.
Really?  I'm a nihilist already, how do you hold on to pretensions

of higher values except by self-delusion?

      BP earlier: It

should be quite
possible to find out which of these invented facts are true,
which are
not true, and which are unknowable.

  BP: No comment on this? I left out a category: facts which are

held to be
theoretically true but are unverified.

    ML: Donald Trump is

not an
attractive persona, but I suspect that Buffet has done more good
for
humanity than Ghandi, whose nationalistic independence movement
cost
millions of lives, as India disintegrated in sectarian
warfare.

  BP: Golly, I hadn't realize that Ghandi caused all that

destruction and
death. What an evil person! How could anyone have admired him for
persuading people to resist without violence, thus nefariously
causing
the helpless British soldiers to fire their weapons in
self-defense and
kill a few towel-heads? A few hundred, a few tens of thousands,
what’s
the difference?

He just was duped by the religion of nationalism, his non-violence

would have been better spent seeking individual rather than
collective rights.

    ML: Unfortunately,

too many rich
have been duped into feeling guilty for their wealth, and few
are as
capable of doing much good with it other than creating more
wealth, than
say, Bill Gates is, who has proven as good a manager of giving
as he was
of Microsoft. Buffet, as usually, recognized good management,
and
will give his wealth to Gates foundation. Contrast that with a
Ted
Turner who instead of working to create more wealth, is instead
purchasing large tracts of land for the benefit of buffalo
rather than
the poor.

  BP: So you think Ted Turner should use his wealth for the benefit

of the
poor? Funny, I do too. Using common sense, of course: not every
poor
person is that way involuntarily.

Benefitting the poor is a standard I especially apply to liberals

since they have to be the most vocal in adopting that standard,
since they have the high burden of justifying coercion.
Conservatives don’t have to shout the standard from the rooftops,
even though their philosophy is probably more helpful to the poor,
they don’t have immoral means they have to justify.

Isn't it funny how the "liberals" are such misanthropes, caring more

for animals and the environment, or taking the rich down a notch,
than for the poor. Turner could probably have helped the poor by
turning his fortune over to a money manager to be put to productive
use creating more wealth, if he wasn’t interested in managing it
himself anymore.

  I suspect that with further back-and-forth this discussion will

only
degenerate. I’m going back to what this discussion forum is
about.

Why would it degenerate, I'm civil?

-- Martin L
···

On 7/14/2011 1:12 PM, Bill Powers wrote:

  Best,



  Bill P.

[From Rick Marken (2011.07.14.1310)]

Martin Lewitt (2011 July 14 1212 MDT)–

I think I can agree that Adam’s point is a contributing factor,

Unbelievable!!

ML: Feynman shouldn't have been surprised, intelligence is not the

exclusive preserve of the secular scientist.

I don’t think he was surprised at losing a debate with Orthodox Jews and I certainly wasn’t. I think you have to be very intelligent (skilled at manipulating references for program level perceptions/imaginations) in order to maintain a belief in a system concept (Judaism, Xtianity, libertarianism, Republicanism, etc) that is contradicted by all the evidence.

Rick

···
As far as free market "ideology" goes, I too am frustrated at how

few among us question our assumptions and our inherited wisdom.

            RM: Sometimes there are more people around who see

(or want) things my way and sometimes there are more
people around like Martin L. C’est la vie.

        ML: There are probably

more people people who want things your way in Europe, but
there are enough here to keep our economy stagnant and
unemployment rate high too.

      True. But there were once more people like you there --that's

why my grandpa left. I can’t keep going back and forth across
the Atlantic as societies shift their ambient values toward
and away from mine. Besides, the places that are really on the
same page with me tend to have lousy weather. And for me,
beautiful weather (along with the mountains and ocean) trumps
ugly ideas;-)

I would find it hard to leave my 7070' ridge top abode as well, so I

hope we can reverse this expansion of government spending and power,
and eliminate counter-productive tax, regulatory and monetary
policy.

-- Martin L
      Best



      Rick

  Richard S. Marken PhD

  rsmarken@gmail.com

  [www.mindreadings.com](http://www.mindreadings.com)


Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
www.mindreadings.com

[Shannon Williams (2011.07.14.15:30 CST)]

[From Bill Powers (2011.07.14.1148 MDT)]
I suspect that with further back-and-forth this discussion will only
degenerate. I'm going back to what this discussion forum is about.

I would like to say that I have never forgotten that I wanted to work
on an economic model that Rick, and Martin, and Bill, and everyone
else would agree with. Rick and Martin may not agree on a person's
valid goals, but we should be able to agree on what behaviors generate
an active economy and thus prosperity. and thus satisfying everyone's
goals.

I don't have a model yet, but I do have a metaphor. Consider the following:

Do you want to see the economy flowing again? Really flowing. Like it
was in the 90s? Imagine if big corporations and the ultra rich started
investing in new companies. Just like they did in the 90s. That is all
it takes. Martin do you agree? It does not matter WHY the spending
occurs. Love, guilt, greed, whatever the motivation, the result is
the same.

Right now big corporations are sitting on $2 trillion dollars of
savings accounts. Right now here is what the money flow looks like:
You give a
dollar to the grocery store. The store gives a dollar to the clerk.
the clerk gives the dollar back to the grocery store. Or the clerk
gives the dollar for apartment rent, and then the rentor gives the
dollar to the grocery store. See the circle? Everyone gives money to
the grocery store. Everyone gives money to the gas companies.
Everyone gives money to the utility companies. etc. If these
companies *dam* the money, then we are in big trouble. that is what
is happening now. The big companies are controlled by a few people
who all have their goals met, so they are not spending. I can see in
this metaphor that Martin's idea of handing every citizen a credit
card is just as legit as creating cash for banks. Money is a means of
flowing goods and services to the members of society. That is all it
is. Martin's idea would work.

The metaphor is a flow of money and possible dams being built in an
Escher - type world.

Shannon Williams
https://donate.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/2012/openthespillways

[Martin Lewitt 2011 July 14 1415 MDT]

[From Rick Marken (2011.07.14.1310)]

        Martin Lewitt (2011

July 14 1212 MDT)–

        I think I can agree that  Adam's point is a contributing

factor,

      Unbelievable!!
Even with the anecdote I mentioned?   I've had personal experience

of the increased expense imposed by the government, I just paid $122
to an MD to write 3 scripts for medicine my primary physician
already had me on (she was on vacation). Of course that pales
against the thousands I had to spend (or in this case my insurance
had to spend) so that I could get an Azilect script. I could have
easily skipped the three specialists, the MRI, EEG, metabolic tests,
etc and avoided the delay to boot. Perhaps your ideology blinds you
to our government’s huge role in medical care, they may not own the
means of production, but they sure have taken all our ownership by
regulation. Control is sometimes a better marker for ownership than
title is.

-- Martin L
···

On 7/14/2011 2:07 PM, Richard Marken wrote:

        ML: Feynman shouldn't

have been surprised, intelligence is not the exclusive
preserve of the secular scientist.

      I don't think he was surprised at losing a debate with

Orthodox Jews and I certainly wasn’t. I think you have to be
very intelligent (skilled at manipulating references for
program level perceptions/imaginations) in order to maintain a
belief in a system concept (Judaism, Xtianity, libertarianism,
Republicanism, etc) that is contradicted by all the evidence.

      Rick
        As far as free market "ideology" goes, I too am frustrated

at how few among us question our assumptions and our
inherited wisdom.

                      RM: Sometimes there are more people around

who see (or want) things my way and sometimes
there are more people around like Martin L.
C’est la vie.

                  ML: There are

probably more people people who want things your
way in Europe, but there are enough here to keep
our economy stagnant and unemployment rate high
too.

                True. But there were once more people like you there

–that’s why my grandpa left. I can’t keep going
back and forth across the Atlantic as societies
shift their ambient values toward and away from
mine. Besides, the places that are really on the
same page with me tend to have lousy weather. And
for me, beautiful weather (along with the mountains
and ocean) trumps ugly ideas;-)

        I would find it hard to leave my 7070' ridge top abode as

well, so I hope we can reverse this expansion of government
spending and power, and eliminate counter-productive tax,
regulatory and monetary policy.

        -- Martin L
                Best



                Rick

            Richard S. Marken PhD

            rsmarken@gmail.com

            [www.mindreadings.com](http://www.mindreadings.com)
  --

  Richard S. Marken PhD

  rsmarken@gmail.com

  [www.mindreadings.com](http://www.mindreadings.com)

[Martin Lewitt 2011 July 14 1521 MDT]

[Shannon Williams (2011.07.14.15:30 CST)]

[From Bill Powers (2011.07.14.1148 MDT)]
I suspect that with further back-and-forth this discussion will only
degenerate. I'm going back to what this discussion forum is about.

I would like to say that I have never forgotten that I wanted to work
on an economic model that Rick, and Martin, and Bill, and everyone
else would agree with. Rick and Martin may not agree on a person's
valid goals, but we should be able to agree on what behaviors generate
an active economy and thus prosperity. and thus satisfying everyone's
goals.

  I don't have a model yet, but I do have a metaphor. Consider the following:

Do you want to see the economy flowing again? Really flowing. Like it
was in the 90s? Imagine if big corporations and the ultra rich started
investing in new companies. Just like they did in the 90s. That is all
it takes. Martin do you agree? It does not matter WHY the spending
occurs. Love, guilt, greed, whatever the motivation, the result is
the same.

That was the dot.com bubble. But money flowing for legitmate economic activity is a good idea.

Right now big corporations are sitting on $2 trillion dollars of
savings accounts. Right now here is what the money flow looks like:
You give a
dollar to the grocery store. The store gives a dollar to the clerk.
the clerk gives the dollar back to the grocery store. Or the clerk
gives the dollar for apartment rent, and then the rentor gives the
dollar to the grocery store. See the circle? Everyone gives money to
the grocery store. Everyone gives money to the gas companies.
Everyone gives money to the utility companies. etc. If these
companies *dam* the money, then we are in big trouble. that is what
is happening now. The big companies are controlled by a few people
who all have their goals met, so they are not spending. I can see in
this metaphor that Martin's idea of handing every citizen a credit
card is just as legit as creating cash for banks. Money is a means of
flowing goods and services to the members of society. That is all it
is. Martin's idea would work.

The big company's goal is to make money, they can't see a way to do it in an era of high unemployment and risk. But you are right it can become a chicken and egg thing. The Federal Reserve doesn't have a way to print money without a pyramid of debt. I see no reason not to print it directly to the people. It wouldn't be a credit card, the people wouldn't OWE the money they spent, it would be a debit card and the people would OWN the money the Fed had deposited in the account.

The metaphor is a flow of money and possible dams being built in an
Escher - type world.

Nearly everybody becomes a dam in periods of uncertainty. The Feds QE1 and QE2 have resulted in practically nothing, where is that money? Who got the benefit of it? Goldman Sax, the banks and the treasure bond holders. I see no reason for them to be preferred to the people. They are already talking about QE3. Imagine what $8,000 for every man, woman and child in the country, have we seen that kind of benefit? $40,000 for a family of five? Would they be defaulting on mortgages, would housing prices be down? Would manufacturers be cutting back, fearing lack of demand? Somehow the Fed has squandered that amount and more. There is a risk of inflation either way, this way we know where the benefit went. We know we are going to have to inflate our way out of the huge public debt anyway.

-- Martin L

···

On 7/14/2011 2:44 PM, Shannon Williams wrote:

Shannon Williams
https://donate.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/2012/openthespillways