Aidan

“But the basis is simple enough: when the government employs people directly, obviously that decreases unemployment.”

A number of objections:

1.
You haven’t answered my question above. Can you see any problem with that line of reasoning (increase of $5 bills, decrease of apple supply)? Or not? Answer please?

2.
It is only obvious that employment increases by the extra number that government directly employs, all other things being equal.

It is not obvious that the *net effect* on employment would an increase. What about the reduction in employment caused by the government’s withdrawal of the capital from its alternative market uses?

3.
And in reality, all other things aren’t equal.

We cannot validly conclude that an overall increase in the employment level is because of, or despite, the government intervention, rather than, say, the price of meat or iron in China.

4.
Furthermore, that is to count only the possible effects of the intervention *on employment*. You haven’t accounted for the negative effects as a matter of want-satisfaction in general, or utility, or social benefit, or whatever you want to call or define the ultimate human welfare criterion.

5.
Therefore you have not established your “evidence”.

6.
Furthermore, the evidence doesn’t interpret itself, because it is common ground that you don’t know all the factual variables. You can’t just assume that monetary policy does or may have net beneficial effects, because that’s precisely what’s in issue; and you agree you must be logical.

7.
It is true that any opinion on this matter will always involve value judgments, which is unavoidable, as is the fact that people, in forming an opinion, will always have to rely on an unknowably huge data set full of contingencies and variables.

But you’re not the only one with value judgments! Everyone’s got ‘em! Result: you admit your standard relies on arbitrary and imperfect opinion, including error and prejudice like everyone else!

8.
The existence of imperfection in human affairs does not self-evidently justify the proposition that government is perfect, or better. That’s what’s in issue! You need to *prove* it by ....

(cont).
the same standard you apply to markets, not just assume that government is perfect or better.

This fact completely demolishes your justification of governmental action, namely: “So [i.e. because of market imperfections therefore] there are many situations where government intervention can be justified.”

You yourself admit that you can’t supply proof, even in theory. In practice no-one knows or can know the data set. All you’ve got for “evidence” is post hoc ergo propter hoc, and you avow logic.

Therefore we agree that neither reason nor evidence support you.

9.
Therefore we have also established by agreement everything I have contended against you in this thread, namely:

9.1
You have no objective standard, by which to maintain there should be more government stimulus and borrowing, let alone that I am “100% wrong”.

Cutting out all the circumlocution, the argument looks like this:
I: “You don’t know, do you, and have no objective way of establishing, that government should do more stimulus and borrowing?”
You: “No.”

9.2
It is common ground that the relevant data set is too huge, too complex, too variable, too contingent, and too unknown to be known by anyone, including government.

Therefore you have attributed to government the capacity to do what it is physically impossible to do.

This is in the exact same logical category as other physical impossibilities, therefore you have attributed supernatural powers to government.

9.3
Furthermore, government intervention
a) is central planning, and
b) imports the ECP
*to the extent of the intervention*.

For example, suppose government imposes a minimum price on something, such as the minimum wage. And suppose everyone complies.

Then it follows that
a) the minimum price of labour is centrally planned, and
b) the market data for what would have been the price of labour, absent the intervention, will not be available; and the ECP will apply to that extent.

But if not, why not?

TO'R
Can government suspend the laws of physics?

Answer, fool.

Jardine K. Jardine says: "TO'R Can government suspend the laws of physics? Answer, fool."

No I will not. Jardine, YOU need to learn how to READ what I said correctly, and STOP creating mythical Strawman arguments out of your own stupidity or dyslexia!

You also need to learn how to READ what other people write as well.

You are incompetent!

"The Dunning-Kruger effect is the finding that the poorest performers are the least aware of their own incompetence.

Philosopher Bertrand Russell said: “One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.”

(Modern 21st century) Psychological research has now shown he was right. The reason for the Dunning-Kruger effect seems to be that poor performers fail to learn from their mistakes. The proposed solution is that the incompetent should be directly told they are incompetent.
http://www.spring.org.uk/2012/06/the-dunning-kruger-effect-why-the-incompetent-dont-know-theyre-incompetent.php

Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.
Kruger, Justin; Dunning, David - Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 77(6), Dec 1999
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1999-15054-002

Buy it, Read it!

When peers are not peers and don't know it: The Dunning-Kruger effect and self-fulfilling prophecy in peer-review
Author Sui Huang, First published: 6 February 2013
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201200182/full

It's FREE, Read it!

And READ WATCH the content in the other links I provided - oh don't.

Frankly, I do not bloody care if you do or don't, nor what you think or say.

I make a final comment to you Jardine in another thread - go find it!
-

Jardine,

1. Of course that "one of reasoning" is an obvious non sequiter. I pointed out in my response that there's a need to avoid false assumptions as well as avoiding non sequiters. The 350 word limit prevented me from emphasising it more.

2. The governments withdrawal of the capital from its alternative market uses is NOT part of the spending process. Stimulus spending isn't diverted spending, it's new spending and that generally means deficit spending.

3. We can always tell what effect the government intervention is having, even though other factors may prevent us from precisely determining its magnitude.

4. Lack of employment has the biggest negative effect of all. Pollution is the only significant negative effect that's worse when more work is available, and that's something that people are more willing to address when the economy's going well.

5. You'll need to reconsider that in light of the above.

6. Government intervention doesn't have to be directed at the variables themselves. Instead it can address their effects, so unknown variables can be compensated for.
(This also invalidates your point 9.2)

And I wasn't just assuming monetary policy does or may have net beneficial effects, I was explaining to you why it can.

7. You're the one who objects to value judgements other than your own. I accept that politics and economics are closely intertwined. What I object to is basing economic decisions on false assumptions.

8. I'm certainly not saying the government is perfect. What I'm saying is that governments are best placed to deal with the problems stemming from the markets' imperfections.

9. What you have claimed, often when failing to seriously consider my argument, is NOT what we have established.

9.1 We have objective ways of measuring even though the threshold for intervention is subjective.

9.2 (Invalidated by my response to point 6)

9.3 Intervention in a market doesn't replace the market, nor prevent it from functioning. The ECP (in its original form and as generally understood) is irrelevant.

Out of words for now; the case for labour market regulation will take far longer to explain.

Aidan

1.
Unclear. Do you mean you agree that that line of reasoning is illogical?

2.
What about the reduction in employment (or utility) caused by the government’s withdrawal of the capital from its alternative market uses?

How have you accounted for it?

3.
“3. We can always tell what effect the government intervention is having”

3.1
Contradiction. See 1 above. You’ve admitted this methodology is illogical.

Given you don’t know all the factual data, your reasoning as to the evidence is only 'post hoc ergo propter hoc'.

Prove how you know.

3.2
“even though other factors may prevent us from precisely determining its magnitude.”

The issue is what the *magnitude* of stimulus and borrowing should be.

So if you don’t know the magnitude of the effect of governmental action, how do you know what the magnitude of the stimulus should be?

4.
“4. Lack of employment has the biggest negative effect of all.”

What about death?

Prove how you have
a) known about, and
b) taken into account
any unnecessary tendency to deaths - anywhere in the world – caused by your interventions - eg by withdrawing resources from making medicines or ambulances, or by reducing food production - the capital for which was confiscated by government to spend on the interventions you advocate.

Show your calculations.

5.
Therefore you have not established your “evidence”.

It’s not a precondition of the discussion that everyone must uncritically swallow down all your bald assumptions in favour of the State.

All you’ve done is assume – over and over – that the State knows, what you have already admitted it doesn’t and cannot know. Contradiction.

But if it does know, then prove it! Even in theory! Your bald assertions aren’t proof. Show how you took into account the relevant subjective values of all the affected people!

6.
“Government intervention doesn't have to be directed at the variables themselves.”
True, and irrelevant.

“Instead it can address their effects, so unknown variables can be compensated for.”
True.

The question is whether it can compensate for them *more economically and ethically* i.e. in terms …

… of the relevant competing human values; which you haven’t a) identified, or b) proved.

All you’re doing is pointing to benefits, and claiming this justifies governmental action.

You’re not taking account of the downsides; and this invalidates your process of economic reasoning.

7.
It’s not me dismissing subjective values and value judgments, it’s you.

That’s why I keep asking you how you
a) know,
b) calculate, and
c) justify
interventions in terms of the subjective values of all the millions of people whose values and welfare will be overridden by them. And you keep not explaining how you accounted for them.

I’m *in favour of* people being free to choose on the basis of their subjective evaluations (subject to a general ban on aggression and fraud), and you’re *against*. That’s what the argument is about, remember?

I’m only rejecting *your* value judgments as superior at representing others’.

8.
“governments are best placed to deal with the problems stemming from the markets' imperfections.”

Prove it.

Government has all the same defects as those you cite, and numerous more serious defects as well, not least, a coercive monopoly on force and threats; legalising for itself what it criminalises for everyone else; aggressive war; privileges and immunities; a licence to print money; and the economic and social chaos of the ECP.

You have not established that government is best placed to do anything economic. You have merely asserted the ECP doesn’t apply where government coercively overrides market processes; never explaining how government overcomes the ECP it causes, but by *market* data.

9.1
An objective standard by which 7 billion people are equally entitled to different opinions is not an objective standard, it’s arbitrary.

9.2
Contradiction.

Either you admit, or you deny, that you have the theoretical means to solve the ECP.

Which is it?

9.3
Prove it.

______

These are not matters of mere opinion or ideology. I am disproving your claims by your admissions, self-contradictions, non sequiturs, and circularity. I am inviting and imploring you to falsify my claims, even showing you how to do it, and you’re not doing it.