GTKAS - Lord Gurgi

[Adel]

In philosophical terms, what is a number?

[Adel]

In philosophical terms, what is a number?

A human attempt at defining an absolute.

In philosophical terms, what is defines something as being "an absolute"?
Do numbers exist?

[Adel]

What are your plans in the future? College? Job?

Major in two of Economics, Pyschology, and History. And then work wherever I can be happy.

Since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, how has public and political acceptance and promotion of fraction reserve banking changed?

Have you ever read "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn?

How would you characterize Eugene Debs' perception (during the 1880's) of the implicit social contract between labor and management?

Compared with today, how self-sufficient was the United States when Hoover was elected in terms of food and energy production, as well as being able to meet the basic needs of American Citizens?

What effect did the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act have on the US economy, and what effect would a similar bill have on our current economic problems?

Have you ever read The American Conservative magazine? Did you know that you can currently register for a free three-month trial that also gives you online access to to their complete archives?

Have you ever read "The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism" by Andrew Bacevich?

[Adel]

does this image surprise you?

note that the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913.

Where does new money come from?

what you think of the case presented at http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e18205.htm ?

does it jive with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional ... ney_supply ?

[Adel]

When do you think that Eugene Debbs began to subscribe to an ideology that could accurately be described as "socialist"?

[Adel]

What parts of the wikipedia article describing the economic effects of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act do you feel are misleading?

There is no universal agreement about the effect of the tariff. According to the U.S. Statistical Abstract, the effective tariff rate was 13.5% in 1929 and 19.8% in 1933 with 63% of all imports being duty-free. From 1821 through 1900 the United States averaged 29.7% effective tariff rates and peaked in 1830 at 57.3% with only 8% of all imports being duty-free, dwarfing the Smoot-Hawley rate. In addition, imports in 1929 were only 4.2% of the United States' GNP and exports were only 5.0%. Smoot-Hawley's effect on the entire U.S. economy may have been small, compared to the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve System. By 1937 the effective tariff rate was reduced to 15.6% when the reaction of 1937-1938 occurred, demonstrating no statistical correlation between this economic downturn and tariff levels. Senator Robert L. Owen testified at the hearings on HR 7230, the bill to make the Federal Reserve banks a national property, that; "In 1937, when the Federal Reserve Board called upon the banks to raise their reserves to twice what they had been before, there was a contraction of credit of two billion dollars.[9]
Using panel data estimates of export and import equations for 17 countries, Jakob B. Madsen (2002) estimated the effects of increasing tariff and non-tariff trade barriers on worldwide trade during the period 1929–1932. He concluded that real international trade contracted somewhere around 33% overall. His estimates of the impact of various factors included about 14% because of declining GNP in each country, 8% because of increases in tariff rates, 5% because of deflation-induced tariff increases, and 6% because of the imposition of nontariff barriers.
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act "imposed an effective tax rate of 60% on more than 3,200 products and materials imported into the United States", quadrupling previous tariff rates.
Although the tariff act was passed after the stock-market crash of 1929, many economic historians consider the political discussion leading up to the passing of the act a factor in causing the crash, the recession that began in late 1929, or both, and its eventual passage a factor in deepening the Great Depression.[10] Unemployment was at 7.8% in 1930 when the Smoot-Hawley tariff was passed, but it jumped to 16.3% in 1931, 24.9% in 1932, and 25.1% in 1933.[11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot-Hawl ... ic_effects

[Adel]

does this image surprise you?

No. With the income tax which was unconstitutional for a good reason, they did lower tariffs, but both screw over productivity on a whole.

How should the federal government gather revenue? A consumption tax?

Is progressive taxation a fair idea? Is it a morally justified idea?

Where does new money come from?

New resources, technology, information, and increased productivity through any number of means, most usually education.

Why not the government printing press? Why not fractional reserve banking?

What is "money"?

what you think of the case presented at http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e18205.htm ?

A bit pessimistic, but not exactly wrong. The thing is that this only works under a system where the money is not tied to a physical thing. With the printing of money, the government, and the banks by extension, pretty much have free reign.

Did you actually watch the 45min video there?

[Adel]

How would you characterize Eugene Debs' perception (during the 1880's) of the implicit social contract between labor and management?

I would assume, my perception of dates is rather hazy, that he was socialist at this time, as he was later, even though he was technically just a Democrat at the time. That said, his ideas of social cooperation are just that, ideas. And the requisite force required to fit people inside a socialist system, despite his nonviolent tendencies, would inevitably lead to some description of national oppression.

When do you think that Eugene Debbs began to subscribe to an ideology that could accurately be described as "socialist"?

Most likely shortly after getting out of jail. While unions are not an exclusively socialist idea, the leaders tend to be socialist, but I can't really make judgment upon his mindset, in a historical sense.

In the US, what problems were the original trade unions intended to solve?

In the US, did trade socialist ideology predate trade unions?

[Adel]

Although the tariff act was passed after the stock-market crash of 1929, many economic historians consider the political discussion leading up to the passing of the act a factor in causing the crash, the recession that began in late 1929, or both, and its eventual passage a factor in deepening the Great Depression.[10] Unemployment was at 7.8% in 1930 when the Smoot-Hawley tariff was passed, but it jumped to 16.3% in 1931, 24.9% in 1932, and 25.1% in 1933.[11]

This is mostly, if not entirely correlation, not causation. And even when painting it as causation is a stretch from a chronological standpoint, let along an economic.

What were the positive economic effects of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act?

What were the negative economic effects?

Did the good balance out the bad?

[Adel]

What isn't this essay convincing to you?

America's government has at least two fundamental functions, protection and empowerment. Protection includes the police, firefighters, emergency services, public health, the military, and so on. Empowerment includes the infrastructure needed for business and everyday life: roads, communications systems, water supplies, public education, the banking system for loans and economic stability, the SEC for the stock market, the courts for enforcing contracts, air traffic control, support for basic science, our national parks and public buildings, and more. We are usually aware of protection. But the empowerment infrastructure, provided by taxes, is usually taken for granted, hidden, or ignored. Yet it is absolutely crucial, a fundamental truth about America and why America provides opportunity.

This is a basic truth. That is what framing should be about: revealing truths and allowing us to reason using them.

Taxes are part of our common wealth, what we all share. Protection and empowerment serve the common good. Because of our common wealth, we are all protected and America's empowering infrastructure is available to all. That is a fundamental America value: the common wealth should serve the common good. It benefits everyone.

Citizens are financially responsible to maintain this common wealth. If we shirked this responsibility, we could not maintain our roads, fund our schools, protect ourselves from military threats, enforce our laws, and so on. Equally importantly, we could not create prosperity for ourselves, because we would have no protection of our intellectual property, no oversight of our markets, no means to enforce our contracts, no way to educate most of our children.

Several main progressive values support the idea of progressive taxation. One is the belief that the common wealth should be used for the common good. Another is responsibility, the responsibility that citizens have to pay for the benefits we receive from our common wealth. And still another is fairness. These values intertwine on the question of progressive taxation.

Few people dispute this responsibility at some level. Disagreements generally arise over the amount and the relative apportionment of the responsibility. Differing concepts of fairness drive this debate. While many progressives say it is only fair that those who earn more pay a higher percentage of their earnings as taxes compared to those who have difficulty making ends meet, conservatives respond by asserting that it is unfair to "punish" the financially successful by making them pay more.

An important point often lost in this debate is an appreciation that the common wealth, which our taxes create and sustain, empowers the wealthy in myriad ways to create their wealth. We call this compound empowerment — the compounded use of the common wealth by corporations, their investors, and other wealthy individuals.

Consider Bill Gates. He started Microsoft as a college dropout and has become the world's richest person. Though he has undoubtedly benefited from his unusual intelligence and business acumen, he could not have created or sustained his personal wealth without the common wealth. The legal system protected Microsoft's intellectual property and contracts. The tax-supported financial infrastructure enabled him to access capital markets and trade his stock in a market in which investors have confidence. He built his company with many employees educated in public schools and universities. Tax-funded research helped develop computer science and the internet. Trade laws negotiated and enforced by the government protect his ability to sell his products abroad. These are but a few of the ways in which Mr. Gates' accumulation of wealth was empowered by the common wealth and by taxation.

As Warren Buffet famously observed, he likely couldn't have achieved his financial success had he been born in Bangladesh instead of the United States, because Bangladesh had no banking system and no stock market.

Ordinary people just drive on the highways; corporations send fleets of trucks. Ordinary people may get a bank loan for their mortgage; corporations borrow money to buy whole companies. Ordinary people rarely use the courts; most of the courts are used for corporate law and contract disputes. Corporations and their investors — those who have accumulated enough money beyond basic needs so they can invest — make much more use, compound use, of the empowering infrastructure provided by everybody's tax money.

The wealthy have made greater use of the common good—they have been empowered by it in creating their wealth—and thus they have a greater moral obligation to sustain it. They are merely paying their debt to society in arrears and investing in future empowerment.

This is the fundamental truth that motivates progressive taxation.

It is a truth that undercuts conservative arguments about taxation. Taxes provide and maintain the protecting and empowering infrastructure that makes our income possible.

Our tax forms hide this truth. They do not indicate the extent to which taxes have created and sustained the common wealth so you could earn what you have. They make it look like the empowering infrastructure was just put there by magic and that the government is taking money out of your pocket. The most likely truth is that, through the common wealth, America put more money in your pocket than it took out — by far.

But this situation is threatened by conservative tax policy. Through unfair cuts in taxes paid by the wealthy, through payment for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and through borrowing abroad to pay for the tax cuts and Iraq, the common wealth is being drained and the infrastructure allowed to fall apart. We need to return to a fair tax policy that recognizes financial responsibility incurred by the compound use of America's empowering infrastructure.

What is "wealth"?

[Adel]

What were the positive economic effects of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act?

What were the negative economic effects?

Did the good balance out the bad?

Positive:
1. Protected some industries from competition.
Negative:
1. Increased international tariffs on U.S. Goods.
2. Increased dependence on the government.
3. Decreased self-sufficiency.

No, it didn't balance.

Do you think that it generated a tremendous amount of revenue for the US government?

Do you think that it had more negative or less negative effect on our trading partners?

Have you read Chapter 13 of

A People's History of the United States

yet?

[Adel]

What is "intellectual honesty"?

[Adel]

What is "intellectual honesty"?

Subjective. Please elaborate.

My personal definition is shown in this example::

One of the hallmarks of our great Torah scholars throughout the generations has been the uncompromising loyalty to the concept of intellectual honesty in their writings and commentaries. One would almost take this for granted, for the subject that is being dealt with is Torat Emet -- the Torah of Sinai itself, that to Jews represents ultimate and eternal truth and honesty.

Nevertheless, the temptation to falsify, exaggerate, deny, plagiarize and even commit forgery is a well-known affliction in general academic circles. As such, the unswerving path of intellectual honesty that one finds in the writings of the great Torah scholars is exemplary and inspiring.

The Talmud is replete with incidents of great men who said, "I was wrong," or "I do not know." In fact, it is the mark of intellectual greatness to be able to retract previously strongly held opinions, and as well, to be able to say that one does not know everything. The temptation of scholars, because of their vast knowledge, is to maintain that they know everything. And therefore, they fall into the trap of leaving no question unanswered and no query ignored.

http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/jewish ... onesty.asp

What does "intellectual honesty" mean to you?

[Adel]

How high would you say that government spending was during the Hoover Administration?

[Adel]

How high would you say that government spending was during the Hoover Administration?

Would have to research the specifics, but too high.

Does it make sense to express federal spending as a % of GDP?
Is there another metric that you think is more appropriate?

[Adel]

How should the federal government gather revenue?

Which do you like better, the Articles of Confederation or Constitution?

Which Amendments to the Constitution would you like to see revoked?

What kind of Amendments to the Constitution would you like to see ratified?

[Adel]

How high would you say that government spending was during the Hoover Administration?

Would have to research the specifics, but too high.

Does it make sense to express federal spending as a % of GDP?
Is there another metric that you think is more appropriate?

It's the best way I've heard of. Might be useful to compare it next to spending as a percent of taxes collected.

What % of GDP should federal spending be set at, assuming "fair" (neither boom year nor bust year) economic conditions?

[Adel]

What % of GDP should federal spending be set at, assuming "fair" (neither boom year nor bust year) economic conditions and a balanced budget?

[Adel]

What non-fiction by Ayn Rand have you read?

Is either of your parents in the US military?

[Adel]

What % of GDP should federal spending be set at, assuming "fair" (neither boom year nor bust year) economic conditions?

Heck if I know, if you want an answer, I'd give a rule of thumb at below 5%.

what would you cut?

[Adel]

What non-fiction by Ayn Rand have you read?

None.

I think you would dig it: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer? ... nonfiction

[Adel]

what do you think of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism ?

[Adel]

did you miss " most thinkers associated with the transhumanist movement focus on the practical goals of using technology to help achieve longer and healthier lives; while speculating that future understanding of neurotheology and the application of neurotechnology will enable humans to gain greater control of altered states of consciousness, which were commonly interpreted as "spiritual experiences", and thus achieve more profound self-knowledge" ?

Keep in mind that "altered states of consciousness" doesn't mean "getting fucked up" rather it is a broad term that including such things as ludic reading and the "zen-like" state most video-game players enjoy.

Are you saying that you do not want to live a longer and healthier life with more control over your brain's chemistry?