Jardine,

It is not actually myself that I'm contradicting; it's just your assumptions.

As for the rest of your point 3:

3.4 What you regard is obvious is actually simplistic crap! In fact I notice you're doing what you've falsely accuse me of:
Your technique - ignoring [benefits] of government interventions - consists only of failing to account for the same quantity on both sides of the equation = gibberish.

In this case, if you haven't worked it out yet, the other side is that the government, by paying pensions, prevents millions of Australians from going broke in retirement. And in some cases the government is what enabled them to make so much money while they were working.

3.5 As for your take on economics, I'll be generous and give you two out of ten. You understand some of the concepts, but most of your opinions are based on ludicrous assumptions and extrapolations. And you fail to understand that being unable to calculate a precise value doesn't make the value zero.

3.6 I certainly don't want to get rid of markets, so Mises's rant is irrelevant. I've got nothing against economic calculations - indeed I very much approve of them when they fit the situation and avoid false assumptions, for then they would provide a good basis for political and economic decision making. But calculations based on false assumptions are often worse than useless, as they're used to convince people to support harmful actions. And useful conclusions about government intervention in a market economy cannot be derived from a critique of a form of socialism that most socialists now reject!

You're contradicting yourself, and begging the question

Contradicting myself, Jardine? Then perhaps you'd care to provide evidence?
I've numbered my sections, so which are contradictory? Or what have I previously said which contradicts them?

Before answering, try rereading what I've written, for ITYF what they really contradict are the false assumptions that you've made about my position.

As for begging the question: in the post I was responding to, you asked two questions. The first, in section 2, I did not answer because it was conditional on a false assumption. The second, in question 3, I answered: I explained that while inflation itself decreases the purchasing power of money, the expansionist economic policies that cause inflation can also increase purchasing power; and I briefly explained the circumstances in which they do.

If any of my answers are unsatisfactory, you're welcome to ask for a more detailed explanation.

But what you seem to be doing is accusing me of logical fallacies to avoid seriously considering the arguments I make. I suppose that's a good technique if you want to avoid learning anything. But if that's your objective, an even better technique would be to ignore it completely.

You’re contradicting yourself by saying you don’t support the use of aggressive violence, and then supporting all the government interventions you advocate. Whether government "should" confine itself to defensive force is irrelevant; *in fact*, it uses its monopoly of force and threats to enforce anything it wants, including the violation of liberty and property for non-defensive purposes. The law defines crimes of violence as anything from common assault upwards – and common assault doesn’t even require touching, let alone injury. And government’s ability to enforce law or policy without threatening bodily injury, presupposes that you’re going to submit and obey at their first threat – otherwise they’ll escalate, and if they do, they’ll threaten bodily injury, up to and including tasers and shooting. If this were not so, obeying the law would be voluntary – you’d just have to escalate disobedience up to the point at which the state renounces violence. This doesn’t happen, which means, you’re wrong.

So you’re contradicting yourself saying you don’t agree with aggressive violence when you do, you’re equivocating by using a different definition for government than for others and hence using a double standard, and you’re begging the question because
a) your limitation of force presupposes a governmental right of further escalation to make good their first order, and
b) the use of even limited force is justified for your economic ends, in the first place.

Your defining of “the rich” as those with “substantial” wealth does not avoid the critique I have made of your marxoid reasoning. The problem isn't the semantics, it's the economic theory. You need to understand and deal with the issue, not evade it by merely running out to another arbitrary definition that begs the same question.

The rest of what you say is also just a welter of self-contradiction and question-begging too.

It is enough for me to point out that you’re arguing that inflation reduces the purchasing power of money, and that it does not; which is a self-contradiction.

If you want to argue that inflation does and it does not increase the purchasing power of money, at the same time, that's a self-contradiction. And if you want to argue that it does and it doesn't at different times, then you need to prove it. Referring off to a bunch of variables is not an “explanation” - it only begs the question. In any event, you have admitted that you can’t say when it does, which is also a self-contradiction.

You do this every time. I point out the illogic and unethics of your support for arbitrary power and violations of liberty and property, and you just circularly affirm and deny that you’re doing it in a garbled welter of self-contradiction, question-begging, smarmy ad hominem, and misrepsentation. And you *still* haven't read the economic calculation argument, have you? Last time you gave a garbled paraphrasing of wikipedia, and concluded that the economic calculation problem DOES NOT EXIST if anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world owns any private property.

Yes, it’s gibberish. I’m not going to waste time doing further analysis of your illogic. That’s what you should be doing before you post, let alone presume to talk down to me about economics.

If what you’re saying were right, then counterfeiting could conceivably be an instrument of monetary policy to help with the retirement affordability crisis, because inflating the supply of money substitutes supposedly makes society as a whole richer. You’re just making a complete fool of yourself.

Jardine,

Firstly, there is no contradiction in wanting the government's ability to use violence restricted and supporting government action to improve the economy and people's standard of living even if it isn't satisfactorily restricted. Similarly there's no contradiction between wanting to end our reliance on coal for generating electricity and using electricity. Nor for wanting the GST abolished (as I do) and paying it. Treating everything as conditional on things being done your way is likely to make you severely worse off, and is not even an effective way of changing things.

Secondly, the conditional threat to use violence in self defence or the defence of others is usually sufficient to prevent the situation from escalating.

Thirdly, I am not using a double standard. You're the one equating "violence" with "crimes of violence". AIUI assault isn't actual violence but the threat of violence; the actual violence is battery. Whether assault is classified as a crime of violence is irrelevant to my argument.

Now, exactly what question am I presupposing when I say that the use of even limited force is justified to enforce the law?

Your absurd critique of my "marxoid reasoning" because I dared to mention "the rich" appears to be an example of the tu quoque fallacy.
But if you really get that upset about the rich, I can rephrase the question without mentioning them:
So tell me, do you think the ability of the ANYONE to maintain the value of their wealth while doing nothing ISN"T more important than the wellbeing of the population?

As for the apparent contradiction regarding inflation:
Inflation reduces the purchasing power of money.
Inflation tends not to reduce the purchasing power of people, as people are usually paid more to compensate for inflation.
Expansionary economic policy, which can result in inflation, can also have the result of greatly increasing the purchasing power of people. How much of each effect it has depends mainly on how much spare capacity is in the economy.
I hope you now understand my position even if you disagree with it.

I'll answer your other post tomorrow.