Argentina - another right-wing government teeters on economic crisis

Discussion in 'Latest US & World News' started by EarthSky, Apr 28, 2019.

  1. EarthSky

    EarthSky Well-Known Member

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    I'm not trying to muddy anything. I'm trying to show the fallacy that it is always left-wing governments that tank a country's economy. How would you describe it then? His cabinet was overwhelmingly made up of neo-liberal , banking execs and former CEO's. His first days in office he lifted devaluation of the peso and cut export taxes and restrictions on investment and coupled that with massive public sector layoffs. Couple that with movement to free trade with the US and alignment with US foreign and economic policy and what have you got?

    This is not a capitalist?

    So give me a working example of a true, pure capitalist nation in the world today and a brief summary of why this is so in your opinion.

    Then why are you pushing an extreme, right-wing, neo-liberal, objectivist viewpoint? And yes, in power, Macri put in place policies that neo-conservatives and neo-liberals extolled. You can't just disavow because of the results. If Argentina was booming economically you would be warbling on about the success of the free market. Quite hypocritical to be trashing his policy and actions now just because he is failing.

    What a load of horsecrap. Capitalists don't create value and the are blindly printing money and creating debt as well as derivatives of economic growth in place of actual economic growth all the while gaming the system for their own benefit.

    As usual Rand's mutterings are completely unsupported and meaningless drivel. This is why no one with any insight into philosophy or economics takes her seriously with the possible exception of Alan Greenspan and a few other deluded greedbags trying to justify their own entitlement and greed.

    I wouldn't even know where to begin in critiquing her completely unjustifiable wingnuttery. I can't believe that you actually take it seriously.

    I guess if was willing to go through her tedious moralizing and fallacies of logic I would start with her view of objective reality which completely ignores the works other great philosophers like Kant, Hume and Descartes and declares that what you see is what you get which is complete, unsupported nonsense. A is only A when you've convinced yourself that your view of the world is the only correct one. People have been making this mistake forever. Nothing new about that. Our interactions with the world are of course taken through the lens of our fallible senses and biased by our emotional natures which are subjective to each person and open to all our own biases, past experiences and beliefs. Objectivism starts with a fallacy and everything else, all her other fallacies begin from there. You could start with your own fallacy that you re entitled to do what ever you want without restriction but the so-called savages you deride don't have that very same right. And you can't justify this delusion anymore that Rand could - just keep repeating the same old maxims over and over and hope people get bored trying to get you to give a coherent justification for such nonsense.

    But when she starts her endless, humorless moralizing which she wraps around every chapter, she really starts to become rancid. She somehow thinks that capitalists have some moral imperative to do whatever they want with no consequences or regulations while completely ignoring, as you do that they have no more right to anything than anyone else and that they benefit from social progress and mutual cooperation just they same way everyone else does.

    But then there is the stupidity of thinking that selfishness is some kind of moral high-road and compassion or altruism an evil that holds society back when a study of history makes it obvious that we are a social, cooperative species and that our greatest achievements and economic well-being comes when we work together and pool our resources as a society. From the time of the Greeks onward it has been known that the greatest societies are those that are most stable, prosperous, cohesive and flexible to change in a changing world and that those with great levels of inequality and led by inflexible oligarchs enriching themselves at the nations expense are the most unstable and prone to upheaval and revolution.

    Yet your hero finds the very idea of cooperation and social stability repugnant even evil. You yourself have said as much. It's all about rewarding the few with vast riches and scorning the rest to poverty and misery. What a horrible way to look at the world.

    Oh but all we need is a little more selfishness and everything will be alright - right? I can't even waste anymore time on such a repugnant women.

    You know she had the gall to collect social security at the end of her life right?:confused:

    Here is some reading you might like though:

    "The so-called philosophy of Ayn Rand, known as Objectivism, has become a rather odious cult in the United States. Europeans find it baffling, while academic philosophers use it as opening for easy jokes. If a philosophy conference is getting especially dull and grim you can simply say the name Ayn Rand and you will get at least a few amusing jabs at her. Followers of Rand are impervious to any criticisms of her work however. When one mentions the obvious problems and contradictions in her work they are greeted with an almost religious parroting of her maxims. Maxims are really all they are because Rand rarely gives justification for any of her claims but simply states her point of view as emphatically as possible and then she (or her followers) accuses anybody who disagrees as being irrational. What follows is a detailed critique of Ayn Rand’s philosophy with the work of REAL philosophers used to form a number of objections to her claims. If anybody doubts that my portrayal of Rand is an accurate representation of her philosophy then I invite you to go to aynrandlexicon.com where her philosophy is presented in great detail by Objectivists."

    Another main problem I have with Rand’s view is that all her political arguments result from a false dichotomy. She states over and over again that you really only have two choices, capitalism and socialism. The problem with that is that you obviously don’t. If that is the case then every developed country in the world, including the United States is a Socialist country. Socialism (or collectivism if you prefer) and capitalism have co-existed in the United States government since the beginning. We have a lot of values in our society that contradict each other. We respect the rule of law but most people think that there are times when breaking the law is justified. We believe in individuality but we also believe in equal opportunity.

    Rand herself has this problem in her philosophy. She says that force is unjustified but gives us no real criteria to judge this on. Then she turns around and addresses the idea of anarchy. Rand believes in a night watchman state and this basically means that the government can use force when it benefits the rich but can’t do so when it benefits the poor. This really makes no sense whatsoever. To Rand taxation is theft but then what is the debt owed for the benefits society gives us? Don’t we get some benefit from living in a society, like roads, military protection, police? Once again my previous Hub addresses this in much greater detail which is a pretty good thing because Ayn Rand never does."

    https://owlcation.com/humanities/The-Virtue-of-Stupidity-A-Critique-of-Ayn-Rand-and-Objectivism

    "Despite her popular appeal, perennially best-selling books, and the breathless testimonial of politicians, actors and businessmen–Ryan is scarcely alone in his praise–professional academics almost universally disdain Rand. An online pollby widely-read philosophy professor and blogger Brian Leiter had Ayn Rand elected the one thinker who “brings the most disrepute on to our discipline by being associated with it,” by a landslide. She is almost never taught in classrooms. Her name elicits jeers and funny, exasperated tales of fierce, bright undergraduates under her spell arguing her case for hours on end.

    This near-unanimous rejection has led to some remarkably uncharitable, and bizarre, attempts to explain away the lack of academic interest: in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Rand, its authors write that “her advocacy of a minimal state with the sole function of protecting negative individual rights is contrary to the welfare statism of most academics,” claiming outright that the overwhelming majority of professional philosophers and political theorists have been simply unable to fairly evaluate her work because of the biasing factor of their prior political commitments.

    Somehow the same ‘welfare statism’ of academics has not prevented the close study of Robert Nozick’s landmark Anarchy, State and Utopia, a sophisticated libertarian text that mounts an original, and far more effective, argument against redistributive policies. Apart from John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, there is perhaps no more commonly-assigned book in undergraduate political philosophy classes.

    Surely there must be some other reason for Rand’s academic neglect. The authors of the SEP entry do go on to suggest an additional number of largely psychological hypotheses having to do with Rand’s dogmatic tone, cult-like following, and emphasis on popular fiction–never entertaining the possibility that professional philosophers think her work is, quite simply, of poor quality. Objectively, ahem, speaking."

    I could give you many other reviews but I've wasted enough time on Ayn Rand. The question is why are you so enraptured with her dogmatic, humourless tone and acting like one of her cult-like followers?

    Lol, my dad had a copy of Atlas Shrugged in his bookshelf but despite reading anything I could get my hands on, AS was so tedious and obviously misguided that I never made it past a few chapters of tortured moralizing and hopeless boredom. I asked dad if he had read it and he just rolled his eyes and said "don't bother":D
     
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  2. EarthSky

    EarthSky Well-Known Member

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    The soup kitchens were mostly run by charities and private citizens in the beginning until the new deal got under way. The state mostly did keep their hands off the wealth of the robber barons during the gilded age. It was not until Roosevelt convinced the wealthy it was in their interest to support socialist policies in the New Deal that taxation rates began to climb and expenditures on relief grew.

    And the government did not buy the food. A lot was grown locally and donated and farmers who could not sell food on the market donated much of it before gov. relief kicked in.
    "
    As a result, the first major soup kitchens of the Great Depression were privately funded by individual citizens and businesses that had survived the stock market crash. They saw it as their social responsibility to help the less fortunate and placed their money into organizations like the Salvation Army or local churches to fund soup kitchens.

    These private soup kitchens quickly became community-based institutions. Some neighborhoods planted gardens in order to grow ingredients for soups and stews. Others maintained fundraising drives to gather vegetables and other supplies. The soup kitchens were entirely staffed by local volunteers. They were symbols of community strength and perseverance, with accounts today of some serving literally hundreds to thousands of people.



    For many, soup kitchens provided their only meals for the day
    [​IMG]


    The soup kitchens became a sign of something else as well: the failure of the government to protect its citizens. Across America, people saw private organizations go far out of their way to help the unemployed while the government did nothing. This presented an interesting opportunity for some, most notably the infamous Chicago mobster Al Capone. Capone was a crime lord who had risen to prominence by defying the government and overseeing black market liquor sales during Prohibition. When the Great Depression hit, he was also one of the first private citizens to open a soup kitchen, one which fed hundreds daily. According to accounts of the time, his private soup kitchen served over 5,000 people on Thanksgiving Day of 1930 alone. For this service, Capone was worshipped in Chicago. He was seen as a man of the people, a savior of the city, and therefore untouchable by the law."

    https://study.com/academy/lesson/soup-kitchens-during-the-great-depression.html
    https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1660.html
     
  3. EarthSky

    EarthSky Well-Known Member

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    She probably can't see it because there is no truth to what you are saying. Being a selfish prick isn't being a saint. It's being a selfish prick. And he stifled a deal that would have helped Argentina restructure it's debt and carry on.

    There is no morality in any of what you say other than the cultish Rand platitudes you are trying to justify.
     
  4. EarthSky

    EarthSky Well-Known Member

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    Don't know about vast but empty surely...I suppose the abyss can be vast, lol.
     
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  5. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    LOL. OK.
     
  6. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Ok. If you say so.
     
  7. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    If you really wish to discuss Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and of “things to come”, go here. This is not the place. http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/mans-future-the-pedestal-or-the-cross.550884/

    As to the rest, if he’s printing money, he isn’t a capitalist, any more than a fornicating priest is a celibate—and refuting with meaningless floating abstractions won’t change that reality.

    Though I would add, what kind of human soul would feel so much angst, and disrespect, and ridicule, and mockery, and hatred toward a human mind who wrote this:

    “Ayn Rand famously wrote: “Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries.” (“For the New Intellectual,” For the New Intellectual.)”

    As I said, if you really wish to discuss, click the link.
     
    Last edited: May 7, 2019
  8. EarthSky

    EarthSky Well-Known Member

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    I absolutely have no desire to discuss Ayn Rand. The only reason I even bother is because you are always quoting her in order to justify your, a few rich white guys have the moral right to do what ever they want and everyone else is evil savages and can f*^# off ad die, platitudes.

    I don't hate Ayn Rand, I find her tedious and irrelevant. You seem like a nice guy in many respects but when you quote Rand to justify your disdain and contempt for anyone who does not measure up to whatever bizarre standards you are using to judge and dismiss those you despise as unworthy, it makes you appear as petty and ugly as she herself shows her laughable platitudes to be.

    Not only that, it comes across as quite racist and bigoted when you apply Randesque gibberish to aboriginals and immigrants.

    I would rather hear your own opinion rather than regurgitating the philosophically bankrupt and morally contemptible ramblings of a mean-spirited, borderline psychopathic fruitcake.

    I think you can do better than this. Move beyond Rand and re-embrace your humanity.
     
    Last edited: May 8, 2019
  9. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'd rather be free than chained; rather think, than go along with the crowd, rather look up to an ideal, than look down at others with pity. The choices are ours to make; I choose the words of an artist who looked at Man and saw greatness.

    Let those who disagree with that choice and claim her views are insane, bizarre, evil, bombastic, immoral, ridiculous, unreal, refute this:

    Ayn Rand: "Man cannot survive on the perceptual level of his consciousness; his senses do not provide him with an automatic guidance, they do not give him the knowledge he needs, only the material of knowledge, which his mind has to integrate. Man is the only living species who has to perceive reality—which means: to be conscious—by choice. But he shares with other species the penalty of unconsciousness: destruction. For an animal, the question of survival is primarily physical; for man, primarily epistemological.

    Man’s unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself. If a drought strikes them, animals perish—man builds irrigation canals; if a flood strikes them, animals perish—man builds dams; if a carnivorous pack attacks them animals perish—man writes the Constitution of the United States. But one does not obtain food, safety or freedom—by instinct." http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/man.html

    In other words, to live is to think, to think is to know right from wrong, and to live right is to be happy. And that is what is considered fantasy. And that's the ultimate tragedy of our age.

    Further discussion available here: http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/mans-future-the-pedestal-or-the-cross.550884/
     
    Last edited: May 8, 2019
  10. help3434

    help3434 Member

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    It is not redundant in the least. Capitalism is a system that works at the behest of the owners of capital. That can certainly entail "statism" and even authoritarianism.
     
  11. help3434

    help3434 Member

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    A fictional character "knows" things? How delusional are you "Objectivists"?
     
  12. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Hmmm. Capitalism—free men trading freely—can entail authoritarianism? Only if you consider the best product at the best price “authoritarian”.
     
  13. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Enough to want to continue to live free, happy, and prosperous.
     
  14. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Sad. Stuck in the concrete as the abstraction flies above at the speed of light.
     
  15. help3434

    help3434 Member

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    There is a lot more to capitalism than "free men trading freely". Things like who owns large amounts of capital and how they use their tremendous wealth and power to shape society.
     
  16. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    As long as they’re free, the rest is the dogmatic nonsense spewed by pragmatic altruists, no matter what side of the post-modern political spectrum they fall on.
     
  17. help3434

    help3434 Member

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    No, how the owners of capital shape society is reality, you waxing poetical about "free man trading freely" is Randian dogmatic nonsense. Why would pragmatic people spew nonsense? Do you even understand the meaning of the terms you use?
     

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