Interesting Links for 09-12-2012

[andrewducker]

• You can teach a dog to drive.
  (tags: driving dogs )
• Fran Walsh - co-writer of LOTR/The Hobbit, and the voice of the Nazgul Scream.
  (tags: TheHobbit lotr )
• The non-libertarian FAQ. (I could have done with this 20 years ago)
  (tags: morality society economics libertarianism )
• Nintendo only allows access to 18+ rated Wii U games in its shop between

Comments

[gonzo21]

Yes, the ConDem's insistence on pursuing Austerity Uber Alles is starting to look more and more like social engineering and class war than any sort of serious effort to repair the economy.

[andrewducker]

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that people's chosen economic theories line up with their worldview - people mostly believe what they want to, and it seems very hard to completely discredit an economic theory.

But when something is clearly not working, smart people should change their minds. And I'd hope that the tide is turning against austerity. I'm hopelessly naive though.

[gonzo21]

The comic I was reading last night (Economix, very good) was explaining about how economic theory has been stuck in the 1970s, and no new theories have originated to explain how economics actually work in the modern world.

Which is maybe why it's very hard to discredit anything, because we don't actually have a working modern world system?

And I guess the problem with giving up on Austerity and going back to Keynes is that Labour didn't put away a surplus when times were good, so we don't have national savings to spend to stimulate the economy. And I get the feeling we're about at the limit of what can be borrowed?

[andrewducker]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt seems to indicate that we're near the top end. I don't want to be more like _any_ of the countries above us in the list.

Which does rather put us in a sticky situation.

[strawberryfrog]

Do you know any Libertarians? I don't. If I did, I would be very interested in how they respond to that FAQ. I mean respond in a debating sense, not an emotional one. I feel that there really should be a reasoned, intelligent rebuttal to the Non-libertarian FAQ somewhere if Libertarianism is to be taken at all seriously.

It seems pretty solid to me, but what do I know? Either libertarians have a valid point of view, have already processed these objections and can argue against this FAQ in adult terms, or are children going "lalala can't hear you, and you smell".

[andrewducker]

I've hung out in a very libertarian mailing lists/fora in the past, and mostly there aren't good responses to most of these points.

[strawberryfrog]

Ok. But how do they respond? e.g. Badly, not at all or by realising the error of their ways?

[andrewducker]

I don't frequent those places now,so I don't know. Hence me wishing I'd had that page when I was still doing so!

[theweaselking]

Regarding that last one:

It's not that people outside the church have low expectations of Christians. It's the opposite. They expect us to actually live out the things we proclaim on Sunday. They expect us to love our neighbor, care for the least of these and love our enemies.No, it is that people outside the church have low, AND ACCURATE, expectations. They really do expect you to proclaim all those things and then immediately and without a moment's consideration continue to hate your neighbour, screw the poor, and kick the dogs of your enemies, while lying about it. Because that's what you DO. That is, historically, what you've always done, and there's no sign of you changing any time soon

[andrewducker]

In this case I think he's talking about people who used to go to church, and haven't necessarily lost their faith, but have stopped going because they were driven out.

Presumably the ones who stopped believing aren't hanging out in the "I'm a Christian but I don't go to church" forums he was doing his research in.

[ext_208701]

Hmm, I'd put a large part of the US bounce back due to exploitation of shale gas which has resulted in a huge boom of very cheap energy and raw feedstocks for the chemical industry.

Similarly if you're arguing with a libertoonian about the merits of Ayn Rand ask them what's so great about Atlantis in Atlas Shrugged. Once they've explained it's all because libertoonia is great, the next question to ask is 'Do you think that John Galts motor, which is a pollution free perpetual motion machine, is as significant as the political system?'.

I had a dyed in the wool libertarian come and work for me as a holiday student. If I'd known when he attempted to renegotiate his salary on the first day, instead of issuing a fairly stern bollocking about this was a terrible way to behave I should have cut it to minimum wage to deliver an important lesson about why libertoonianism doesn't work with an unequal power balance.

[apostle_of_eris]

You may be mistaken about the existence of "the US bounce back". The Depression has enabled the powerful to drive down wages while pocketing the resulting gains. That is how the stock market can skyrocket while median household income continues to accelerate downward. The slight declines in unemployment are the result of formerly well-paid, or adequately paid, people getting crappy McJobs.
Earlier this afternoon I ran into the statement that one quarter of the children in the United States are on food stamps . . .

[philmophlegm]

You can't use a country that has not actually incurred reduced public expenditure in an example to show that "austerity economics doesn't work". UK public expenditure has risen since the last general election, despite what people think

[andrewducker]

The problem is that we have reduced government spending - except in welfare, because reducing our spending has pushed our welfare bill up.

The problem being that reducing our spending in almost any area will put people out of work, which will increase our spending more than we're saving, so far as I can tell.

[philmophlegm]

Health spending is also up since 2010, by 2.6%, and due to increase further)

Education spending is up by 3.7%.

Defence spending is up by 6.0%.

Welfare spending is up by 4.6% over that period.

Pensions spending - up 11.0%.

And of course spending on debt interest will increase while the national debt increases, ceteris paribus. It is up 55.5% in the last two years.

All major government departments have increased expenditure since this government came to power. It might suit the government to pretend they're being tough to put the economy on the right track, and it equally suits the opposition to pretend that there are "evil cuts", but neither is actually true.

[andrewducker]

Pension Spending mostly seems to be down to a massive spike of people being offered early retirement (see comment just down from here).

I agree that an awful lot of the discussion around this is posturing.

Although, apparently, most of the cuts are still to come:
http://fullfact.org/factchecks/nine_out_of_ten_88_94_spending_cuts_still_to_come-27489