free-market capitalism

Discussion in 'Economics & Trade' started by bricklayer, Jan 7, 2020.

  1. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    From you. Yes. Right.
    Wrong again. I do reject its importance because it isn't important.
    I'm not a Georgist, and the fact that you refuse to know facts no matter how many times they are explained to you does not make those facts a "script."
    The super-yachts do not result from monopsony. They result from privilege, of which monopsony can also be a result. You just confuse cause with effect.
    True: you claim, absurdly, that it is of less importance than discrimination.
    Just makin' $#!+ up again I see....

    I have on many occasions stated that bankster privilege, IP monopoly privilege, etc. are also important. Just not as important as landowner privilege.
     
  2. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Of course you deny your Georgism. That's quite rational. That's the only rational part of your argument mind you. Its a slice of obviously to refer to how monopsony generates economic rents. I've even given an example of a beneficiary: Phillip Green.
     
  3. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    More irrational Marxist grunting from you. Sorry, it's just of no interest whatsoever.
     
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  4. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    There was nothing Marxist in my post. This only informs me that you attack Marxism without know what it actually entails.

    Back to the point. Monopsony refers to market power. Classical and neoclassical economists refer to how such market power guarantees economic rent. And its just economic reality to refer to the super yacht consequences of that market power. Of course in your make believe Georgist world, super yacht ownership is available to all :)
     
  5. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    It's all Marxist.
    Nope. Flat wrong, as usual. Classical economics was aware that rent is the return to land. Neoclassical economics redefined rent to erase that meaning.
    It's available to all who can produce that much.
     
  6. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Your reactions are akin to a 3 year old having a tantrum. There is nothing Marxist about monopsony. Its the one area where neoclassical economics has been quite innovative, reflecting labour insights required to explain empirical phenomena (i.e. wage differentials unexplained by human capital and compensating differentials criteria.

    Adam Smith and co knew full well the importance of bargaining power in determining labour market outcome. Except for those who dont understand supply and demand (e.g. right wingers parading under the Austrian banner), that is something that unites the schools of thought. Post Keynesianism goes as far to show how wage bargaining cannot be understood within the standard market criteria.

    $170 million? God bless your innocence :)
     
  7. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    You are aware that that is false.
    Your claim that monopsony creates rent is based on Marxist confusion.
    Yes, neoclassical economics has to be quite innovative to avoid knowing the fact that the labor market is dominated by the removal of workers' rights to liberty by privilege, especially landowner privilege.
    Thank you for admitting that classical economics did not ascribe rent to monopsony in labor markets.
    Unlike you, I'm not going to just ASSUME it is impossible. Take the example of Warren Buffett. He has obtained tens of billions just by being more astute than others at judging which rent seekers will be most successful, and buying into their action. Maybe if rents of privilege were not available, someone else would be just as successful at judging who was going to be best at predicting the market. The fact that financial markets run on differences of opinion, and some people's opinions are more reasoned and informed than others', implies that someone who is astute enough can accumulate a very large amount of wealth without resort to privilege. Hell, there are professional poker players who are well on the way to accumulating a hundred million. The Wall Street poker game offers vastly larger opportunities.
     
  8. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Less bile in this one. Well done. Unfortunately it was full of very basic error. There is nothing Marxist about monopsony. Its a reference to supply and demand conditions after all. I can only conclude that you do not understand either Marxism or neoclassical economics. And the idea that you can be a billionaire without benefiting from rent is simply cretinous.
     
  9. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    Yes: the passages I quoted from your post.
    Nice attempt to dodge your evasion of your disingenuous sleight of hand.
    There is a difference between a reference to and an understanding of. You have the former, but not the latter.
    No, that's you.
    Nope. The amount of money available in the financial markets practically guarantees that someone will be astute and lucky enough to accumulate that much without collecting rent. It's simple statistics. Apply the inverse exponential distribution of skill to the normal distribution of luck, and it is highly probable that a jackpot winner will emerge.
     
  10. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    So you think a billionaire who achieved that through speculation is not a beneficiary of rent? Wowsers! You're coming across as clueless as the fake libertarians :)
     
  11. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    No, you are just makin' $#!+ up again, as usual. I said that if the rent were removed from the financial markets, there would very likely still be enough money on the table and enough variation in participants' skill and luck to produce a few winners capable of buying a $170M super-yacht.
    I.e., an order of magnitude more clueful than you.
     
  12. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    If you moved rent from the financial markets it wouldn't be possible to become a billionaire. Your position is extraordinarily naive. Shepherd summarises it nicely in the Review of Social Economy: "Capital gains are instead merely economic rent, obtained as windfall gains in the course of speculation in portfolio securities, land and resources. As this paper explores, the process of speculation creates little economic value, while it absorbs substantial volumes of resources"
     
  13. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    I have explained why it would, and you have offered no counter-argument. Why don't you offer any economic evidence for your claims?
    That's a fallacy, not an argument.
    He is of course objectively wrong. Portfolio securities per se do not yield any rent, except to the extent that the underlying corporate vehicle owns rent collection privileges.
    Again, that is not evidence for your claim about what could happen in a market without rents.
     
  14. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    You make nonsense claim and ask for response. You could not become a billionaire from capital gains without rent. That's a feckin obvious point.

    The trouble with Georgists is that they are one dimensional. They have rant and nothing more. When confronted with evidence, like Shepherd's review, they just stamp their foot. It is why, despite the importance of land, you're as bleedin useful as fake libertarians crowing about supply side economics. Same result, empowering the status quo.
     
  15. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    No. I asked you to support your claim, and you cannot do so.
    I have already explained how you could: it's a clear implication of the relevant statistical distributions.
    But somehow, not one that you can support....
    Whereas Marxists are more zero-dimensional...
    Already refuted.
    That was just claims, not evidence.
    If that were true, the privileged elite would not oppose justice in taxation and land tenure with such maniacal ferocity, which they notably do not devote to opposing socialism/Marxism.
     
  16. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    One sentence grunt, no content as usual. Why do you think I can quote economists to directly support my opinion (i.e. capital gains is rent) and you can't quote to reject that opinion? Why are you now stuck in supporting financial market speculation? Have a word with yourself!
     
    Last edited: Feb 18, 2020
  17. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    False, as usual.
    Because you would rather continue to BE wrong than ADMIT you are wrong.
    I don't have to quote anyone, I refuted it myself.
    You made that up.
    You mean about wasting my valuable time on you? Good point.
     
  18. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    No content again. You're getting worse. Let's ask you to flesh out your argument. How do you think financial markets can deliver billionaire outcome without rent involved? I'd ideally like you to use economic theory and empirical evidence in support. However, your argument is so ludicrous let's pretend you don't need that!
     
  19. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    I already explained it to you very clearly and simply: there is sufficient variation in returns and skill that the luckiest and most skillful investors will likely be able to achieve accumulations in the billion-dollar range. I even gave you the example of professional poker players, the best and luckiest of whom have managed to accumulate ~$100M fortunes without rent, in a negative-sum game (investment is positive sum), from an initial capital pool orders of magnitude smaller than that of the financial markets.
    Luck is normally distributed. Skill is probably inverse exponential. Multiply those two distributions and you will get a few extreme outliers in the billions-to-one range.
    There is nothing ludicrous in the facts I have identified or their mathematical implications.
     
  20. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    You referred to speculation which is 'capital gains' rent. This merely describes how you ignore economics in order to peddle your snake-oil.

    Luck cannot account for a billionaire. They are outliers describing failure in the economic paradigm. You simply blinker your outlook and have a ludicrously simplistic view of rent.
     
  21. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    No, because that is gibberish. Rent seeking and speculation are quite different.
    I ignore stupid, anti-scientific Marxist gibberish, not actual economics.
    It could. Some lottery wins have been well into the hundreds of millions! It just doesn't do so now because rent crowds out non-rent returns.
    They are NOW because if one has accumulated any significant wealth, rent is almost guaranteed to be a component of it. Your claim is not about now, it is about what would be possible in a totally different environment.
    No. My view is empirically valid, which yours is not.
     
  22. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Such innocence! It adds nothing to the value of production. It has no value in resource allocation, providing no inducement towards Pareto Efficiency or innovation. And let's not forget that I referred directly to economic publication on the topic ::

    This is so churlish. Economists haven't been able to ignore Marxism. That's just a matter of fact. You can't understand unemployment trends without reference to Marxism. The only debate is how far we have to go. Take the military sector. Why would Military Keynesianism be adopted when we know its less effective at stabilising the economy? Do we have to rely on Military Industrial Complex, or do we need to factor in Marxist analysis into the impact of market concentration (and how military 'waste' reduces the fear of economic crisis without empowering the working class?

    This made me laugh! We know that there is no lottery winner billionaire. We also know that the lottery is worse than a zero sum game and therefore of no economic value.

    Its not much different. Crikey, LVT cannot even eliminate the need for distortionary income tax.

    A childish foot stamping won't help you. It just reinforces the point: You simply blinker your outlook and have a ludicrously simplistic view of rent.
     
  23. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    But unlike rent, it doesn't stop production.
    Clearly false. Speculation smooths price variations and has induced a lot of research in market dynamics.
    By Marxists and other know-nothings.
    Sorta like you can't ignore appendicitis...
    You can't understand them WITH Marxism:
    See?
    But a few have come close, even though the capital pool is orders of magnitude smaller than the pool in financial markets, proving me right.
    But it still proves me right and you wrong, because it concentrates wealth in a few hands through sheer chance.
    It's entirely different.
    False.
    No, it is the correct view. Economic understanding requires separation of quantities that are different in their economic causes and effects. Your definition conflates as rent many returns that have very different economic causes and effects.
     
    Last edited: Feb 21, 2020
  24. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Rent, given market power, is often part of production. Nonsense comment.

    I like this. I think its just grand that Georgists are pro-speculation. It creates rent that feed economic crisis, but at least the Georgist is honest in their irrelevance.

    Childish. I typically reference the mainstream. You just can't.

    Wow, you're getting more and more immature. Why can't you ever refer to economics? Let's try again. Can you understand the military investments in the US without reference to Marxism? If so, how? Content please! I grow bored of your non-economic Georgist grunt.
     
  25. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    Capital gains are only rent when the underlying asset value is based on rent. If you were right, the value of a winning lottery ticket would be rent. It isn't, and that conclusively proves you wrong. You have just been proved wrong. I'm not sure there is any clearer or simpler way to explain that to you.
    Marxism is the ultimate in economic snake oil, as history proves so very, very conclusively.
    Yes, of course it can, as already proved: It already accounts for some multi-hundred-millionaire lottery winners, drawn from a capital pool orders of magnitude smaller than the pool in financial markets.
    In the CURRENT environment. That says nothing about what is possible in an economic environment without rents.
    No. Marxist garbage is garbage precisely because it conflates as rent things that are rents with things that aren't.
     

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