06 Feb 2013

“The Banker” Needs to Call Me for a Lifeline

All Posts 125 Comments

This video is ridiculous. They’re trying to simultaneously make it look like (a) the banks won’t be taxed a lot and (b) the banks will be taxed a lot.

125 Responses to ““The Banker” Needs to Call Me for a Lifeline”

  1. Dan says:

    That was stupid

  2. Blackadder says:

    For some reason that reminds me of this.

  3. Major_Freedom says:

    Is anyone else getting a blank screen where the video should be?

    • Archaeopteryx says:

      It’s God punishing you, heathen.

      Are you using Chrome and does it say “Couldn’t load plugin”?

    • Ken B says:

      I wish.

      • Major_Freedom says:

        “I wish” = Ken B’s way of saying he shouldn’t have the ability to choose turning off his PC or visiting other websites.

        Scary.

        • Tex Avery says:

          No, MF. He is saying that if you cannot watch the video, then you’ll have less to actually say and be less likely to post one of your comments here. It’s not scary at all and well justified.

          • K.P. says:

            Can Ken B no longer speak for himself?

          • Major_Freedom says:

            A blank screen is just a new challenge for me to fill the void. Obviously you don’t know me very well, and yet you’re chirping like you do. Scary.

            • Ken B says:

              Very droll Tex_Freedom, very droll.

              • Tex Avery says:

                What a load of cobblers!

              • Ken B says:

                I am sure MF agrees …

              • Major_Freedom says:

                Seriously, why are people saying Tex and I are the same person?

                We’re saying virtually opposite things, I don’t like what he writes, and it would be pointless to be doing what you seem to be implying I am doing.

                For the record, we’re not the same person. Period. End of story. I swear on my parents’ grave, my siblings’ grave, and everything else I could possible swear on.

                You people are paranoid.

  4. Lord Keynes says:

    “They’re trying to simultaneously make it look like (a) the banks won’t be taxed a lot and (b) the banks will be taxed a lot. “

    No, they’re not.

    Any honest reading of it would admit that it *sounds* big, but, comparatively speaking, isn’t really for the banks themselves that are such wealthy institutions: it is big, comparatively speaking, in terms of what could be DONE with the money.

    The tax on certain speculative transactions would be 0.05% – not even 1%.

    If you’re not having a joke, then your reading of this video ought to be regarded as a joke.

    • guest says:

      If we stop accepting paper for actual stuf, then they wouldn’t be able to steal from us through inflating the supply of money we use, and through fractional reserve lending.

      No need to make “greed” or bankers the scapegoat. Just take away government protections and regulations.

    • Jason B says:

      Listen, regardless of whether I disagree with you or not on some of your views of the political economy, this here, claiming Murphy is wrong, is nothing more than complete and utter buffoonery. That(that being the difference between the minuscule percentage of the tax versus the incredibly large nominal sum it will generate) is PRECISELY one of the things they were portraying in the video to help justify their point of view. To say they weren’t is either implying you’re just a peddler and a huckster for their cause, or that whatever basic comprehension skills most humans acquire in elementary education bypassed you.

    • Transformer says:

      The video claims that the tax could raise over 200 billion pounds which I suspect would pretty much wipe out the UKfinancial sector.

      On this occasion LK, I think it you and not Murphy who is not reading this correctly

      • Lord Keynes says:

        The video claims that the tax could raise over 200 billion pounds ..

        And 5 minutes of research would have shown you that the 100-200 billion pounds is a estimate of the global revenue from such a tax (on case it was ambiguous in the video):

        “This month, 350 prominent economists, including Nobel prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz, have publicly backed a proposed ”Robin Hood tax” on speculative financial transactions, which could raise about $US400 billion ($A450 billion) a year worldwide to prop up failing infrastructure, boost health and education resources, fight poverty etc.”

        http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/robin-hood-tax-takes-from-the-banks-to-give-to-the-worthy-20100224-p3fs.html

        Note how 200 billion pounds = $313 billion US (at current exchange rate), so it is obvious we’re not talking about the UK alone here.

        • Transformer says:

          OK: A “$US400 billion ($A450 billion) a year worldwide” is a small tax and only *sounds big”.

          Got it.

        • Blackadder says:

          And 5 minutes of research would have shown you that the 100-200 billion pounds is a estimate of the global revenue from such a tax

          Five minutes of research would probably reveal the truth about most false or misleading claims made in ads.

        • Matt Tanous says:

          US$400 billion from an average 0.05% tax would mean you are taxing $800 trillion. Where are you finding $800 trillion to tax?

          • Matt Tanous says:

            World GDP isn’t even a tenth of that!

            • Matt Tanous says:

              And it includes the government spending, which is not taxed!

              • Ken B says:

                Aha! Aha! Let’s tax THAT!
                All in favor of taxing gov’t spending raise their hand [my hand shoots up]

              • Matt Tanous says:

                Tax government spending 100%, and eliminate all other taxes. This would basically eliminate government.

            • Ken B says:

              It’s not a tax on GDP Matt, it’s worse. It’s a tax on any financial exchange. So I (a bank) convert cash to bonds today, and then back tomorrow, taxed twice. etc.

              • Matt Tanous says:

                Well, that’s precisely my point, though. GDP counts all those financial exchanges each time, does it not? (Just as it counts if I buy a car, and then sell it six months later.) So if you can’t even get that number by taxing all of GDP at the proposed rate, how the hell are you getting it by taxing just the financial exchange part of it?

              • Lord Keynes says:

                Matt Tanous:
                Well, that’s precisely my point, though. GDP counts all those financial exchanges each time, does it not?

                GDP does not count financial asset transactions or foreign exchange trading: what are you even talking about?

              • Ken B says:

                No Matt, that’s why it’s worse. Move funds from a 3 year CD to a saving account — that’s a transaction. Not part of GDP. That particualr example wouldn’t nbe covered, but the big investor equivalent would. Or overnight spot market loans, which is how many businesses, finance. Say you do that, and get dinged .005% on the loan every day. That’s 2% a year, and not on the income but on the gross amount. And if you tax the repayment separately, 4%.

            • Lord Keynes says:

              It does need to be.

              See below.

          • Transformer says:

            Its a good point about the $800 trillion but I don’t think most financial transactions (stock trades etc) would count in GDP, which is just final goods.and services.

          • Lord Keynes says:

            On the basis of the BIS Triennial Survey data (in 2007):

            Global annual value of foreign exchange turnover: US $800 trillion.

            Global annual value of stock market trading based on the World Federation of Exchanges statistics (excluding bonds and other over-the-counter transactions):
            US $101 trillion.

            Total: US$900 trillion.

            http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2009/10/28/global-imbalances-demand-global-fiscal-system/

            • Matt Tanous says:

              Taxing transfers of fictional money to be able to extract real resources from the economy will hurt GDP, and it will prevent the private sector from functioning at all.

              So, what you are telling me is “nah, man, we can totally do this – it’s just a soft capital control”. That’s not better!

        • Peter Šurda says:

          Lord Keynes,

          this assumes that the tax won’t have a detrimental effect on the trade volume (which it probably will, since it increases transaction costs of trade), and that people cannot switch to a system with lower transaction costs (Bitcoin). I expect this “robin hood tax” to end up very badly for the statists.

    • Ken B says:

      Let me ask a question. There is an idea that, by making capitla work a wee bit harder, can generate .005% profit. Rinnhood are not talking about taxing that *profit*. You are taxing on the gross amount in the exchange. In other words, ie that whole .005%. So the transaction won’t happen. No gain from more efficient use of capital at all.

      Since profits are small % of huge gross amounts, a tax on the huge gross amount will have a large effect on incentives. It isn’t a “small amount” tax proprotionally at all.

      So maybe that clarifies the small amount/large amount issue.

    • Peter says:

      LK:
      That’s how it always starts; “It’s only 0.05% (or was that 0.5, Freudian slip?), not even 1%!”. That’s how the income tax started too: ” It’s only on millionaires and only a couple of percent!” Then you wake up one day and it’s 39.6%…
      So, certain “speculative transactions” today (And what transactions aren’t speculative? Do tell, we like a sure bet.), all transactions tomorrow.
      And no thanks, I really don’t want the government involved in healthcare, infrastructure pension schemes or education. Or anything else, come to think of it.

      • Tel says:

        Yes, good point.

        Every tax is a “Robin Hood Tax”… on day one at least. Willie Sutton’s Law: an effective thief does not steal from impoverished orphans.

        • Lord Keynes says:

          (1) First, such an analysis works only if you accept the prior libertarian rejection of taxes. You’re begging the question.

          (2) the slippy slope argument is not very convincing either. Why is that we see plenty and plenty of examples of taxes being cut, lowered or abolished?

          • Tel says:

            There’s a better chart but this is all I could find at short notice.

            http://comparativetaxation.treasury.gov.au/content/report/images/05_Chapter_3-30.gif

            Very obviously a steady upward trend in evidence. Actually, if you chart it right back to World War I you see an even more obvious trend. Australia looks low in that graph because Treasury like to pretend that compulsory super and compulsory workers comp and a bunch of other compulsory stuff aren’t really tax (but economically they are tax too, so this is just trickery), at any rate providing the trickery is consistent over the whole chart the trend is still valid.

            • Lord Keynes says:

              What is this graph even showing? Tax revenue as percentage of GDP? That also falls/rises with GDP growth/contraction – so it is hardly much of a real measure of tax burden.

              Apart from which, the weighted OECD average looks mainly flat for a good many years, and not far above the point where it was in 1980.

              Anyway, try looking at other measures, like corporate tax rates:

              http://taxfoundation.org/article/oecd-corporate-income-tax-rates-1981-2012

              There is a clear downward trend since 1980.

          • Tel says:

            This one shows the trend even better.

            http://archive.treasury.gov.au/documents/1156/images/01_Brief_History-1.gif

            Seems to me we can’t continue going the same way, but I guess we will see what we see.

            • Lord Keynes says:

              There is an upward trend there certainly, but that is no reason to think it will keep going up forever. Look at the clear downward trend from 1947-1968. That was the height of Keynesian demand management.

              In any case, tax as a % of GDP is not giving you the whole picture, for reasons stated above.

          • Tel says:

            First, such an analysis works only if you accept the prior libertarian rejection of taxes.

            In terms of Willie Sutton’s Law, no it is completely amoral, a matter of practicality. It makes a statement about the way the world is, rather than the way we might like it to be.

            • Matt Tanous says:

              No, Tel, LK wants to steal from… I mean, tax impoverished orphans. He thinks that will close all the deficits.

  5. joeftansey says:

    Oh man, I cracked up when the tween music started playing.

    Taxing taxpayer money… the hoops people will jump through to not lower spending.

  6. Peter Šurda says:

    Transaction tax increases, by definition, transaction costs of trades. In particularly since this “robin hood tax” is designed to affects highly liquid instruments (e.g. forex, derivatives, …), the result will be less liquid markets. Normally, this would merely be a bad thing. However, nowadays the result will also be more comparative advantage to decentralised trading systems based on Bitcoin, an increase in demand for Bitcoin and a decrease in demand for fiat currencies. The statists are shooting themselves in the foot. By wanting to increase state’s control over the banks, they decrease the state’s control over the monetary system.

    • Lord Keynes says:

      Note that a Tobin Tax (proposed by some Keynesians) is different from this Robin Hood tax.

      There is in fact a Post Keynesian/MMT argument against this Robin hood tax in its current form:

      http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=9006

      But this is not my point above. My point is that Murphy’s lazy claim that it “simultaneously make[s] it look like (a) the banks won’t be taxed a lot and (b) the banks will be taxed a lot” is not true.

      That statement is certainly not based on anything like analysis of the effect of profit margins.

      • Peter Šurda says:

        It is nice to see that at least some non-Austrians understand the relationship between liquidity and transaction costs. I know that the proposals for transaction taxes differ, that is why I used the quotation marks.

        The issue with the video is that the tax is to be calculated based on the turnover rather than profit, and the trade volume on highly liquid specialised markets does not act linearly with respect to the profit margin. A 0.1% turnover tax can result in a cutting of profit margin by half, and a cutting of the trade volume tenfold. The video misleadingly conflates the turnover and profit.

  7. Tex Avery says:

    Bob is taking this video way too seriously. The Robin Hood tax sounds pretty sensible to me when one thinks about it on a global scale. Selfish, greedy right-wing snobs can’t stand it when taxes are levied on anything especially when it is used to repair worn out infrastructure and combat poverty.

    • Wonks Anonymous says:

      I think most right-wing economists would regard a consumption tax to finance infrastructure (a rather small percentage of current spending) as far superior to a “Robin Hood” tax.

      • Peter says:

        And we have that, it’s called the gasoline tax, and it more than covers that. It also fairly distributes the burden, since you have to assume that those who burn the most gasoline make the most use of the infrastructure. Better would be to get fed.gov out of the infrastructure business altogether.

    • Dean T. Sandin says:

      “especially when it is used to repair worn out infrastructure and combat poverty”

      Any general tax like this can be used for any purpose. Trying to convince people that whether a tax is good or bad based on what you arbitrarily claim it will be spent on is absurd. Would liberals approve a federal abortion tax if we promised to spend the money on the emotional rehabilitation of orphan puppies?

      • Tex Avery says:

        The Republican Party would do something as ludicrous as what you have described above. That would only result in political gridlock and get nowhere.

        • guest says:

          That would only result in political gridlock and get nowhere.

          By the way, gridlock is a feature, not a bug. The government isn’t supposed to just “do something”.

          When Republicans aren’t, themselves, violating their oaths to the Constitution, and they become “The Party of ‘No'”, then the appropriate action by government is to do nothing at all (on that matter).

          The representatives believe their respective constituents want them to take mutually incompatible positions; Their constituents’ values are represented when they don’t cave to the other representatives.

          All a representative is required to do is to represent. We don’t send them to “get something done”. It is up to the people, themselves, to decide, in the event of gridlock, whether they are then confortable with remaining in the Union.

    • Matt Tanous says:

      ” The Robin Hood tax sounds pretty sensible to me when one thinks about it on a global scale.”

      Just don’t think about it too hard, or you might realize why it is absolutely ridiculous from an economic perspective. And that’s coming from a “selfish, greedy snob” that wouldn’t be directly affected by the tax at all. (If I’m really so selfish and greedy, why would I care if SOMEONE ELSE gets taxed?)

      • Tex Avery says:

        So you don’t care about the impoverished or the uneducated? It’s not ridiculous and Lord Keynes is correct on every front.

        • Richie says:

          “So you don’t care about the impoverished or the uneducated?”

          So you run a soup kitchen and teach?

        • Dan K. says:

          Ah, the statist strawman, it makes me smile.

          “Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.

          We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain. ” Frederic Bastiat

          Bad trolling is great.

          • Tex Avery says:

            So anyone who believes in socialist ideas is suddenly some troll to you. I’m starting to see your MO. The capitalist system has brought us great wealth, but an abundant amount of inequality and abuse to the workers. It can be improved with a Nordic model or a socialist system where there is still some degree of private sector production.

            • Dan K. says:

              Clearly you lack reading comprehension skills. You made the same tired statist argument that if you don’t support using the State to “help the poor”, then you hate the poor and want them to die. This is why you are a troll, not the fact that you support socialism.

              • Tex Avery says:

                Thank you for your clarification. I’m pretty happy I’m not a Rothbardian myself.

              • Richie says:

                “I’m pretty happy I’m not a Rothbardian myself.”

                So are we, because you obviously don’t have the intellectual capacity to be one.

              • Tex Avery says:

                You don’t have the intellectual capacity to understand the brilliance of Modern Monetary Theory and Post-Keynesian economics. Suit yourself.

              • Richie says:

                Why not make a cogent argument for yourself, rather than rely on links to someone else’s post full of links?

              • Tex Avery says:

                No one in the comment section was able to successfully defend Rothbard.

        • Peter says:

          I do. Which is why I donate to charities. I don’t expect the government to steal from one person to give to another.
          Didn’t like that Robin Hood character either. But that’s just me, I don’t like thieves.

          • Ken B says:

            “I don’t expect the government to steal from one person to give to another.”

            Then you are an outlier here; most of us expect exactly that.

            🙂

        • Christopher says:

          So you don’t care about the impoverished or the uneducated?

          This is what it makes it so hard to take people like Tex Avery seriously. If you dont like their solution they take it as proof that you don’t want any solution at all.

          • Tex Avery says:

            That’s coming from a Austrian cultist.

            Look at this article, stupid.

            http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/02/philip-pilkington-the-fear-industry-austrian-school-propaganda-and-the-gold-market.html

            You fools act exactly the same way.

            • Christopher says:

              So you agree that what you write is on the same level as some crooked gold scam. Thanks.

              • Tex Avery says:

                I could easily note a similar observation about you, thank you very much. Pilkington is writing against the gold scam.

                Austrian economics is a vehicle for the goldbugs to peddle their crap. It’s undeniable.

              • Christopher says:

                Tex,

                those are strong words for someone who wants a full debt relief for all american home owners.

              • Tex Avery says:

                So what? I also don’t want to see people lose their money because they blew it all on gold and silver especially the inexperienced.

              • Christopher says:

                You actually think everyone should get a full relief? Since you repeatedly put me in the Austrian camp, I thought we were just making stuff up…

              • Tex Avery says:

                Absolute rubbish. I made the mistake of jumping to conclusions too soon, though I am also opposed to the scourge that is called monetarism.

        • guest says:

          So you don’t care about the impoverished or the uneducated?

          Government interventions are the source of impoverishment and lack of opportunities for education:

          Good Intentions 2of3 Minimum Wage, Licensing, and Labor Laws with Walter Williams
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DS0XXFdyfI

          Guess Who Openly Admits That Gov’t Intervention Increases Prices? Joe Biden
          http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/02/06/guess-who-openly-admits-that-govt-intervention-increases-prices/

        • Ken B says:

          “So you don’t care about the impoverished or the uneducated?”

          Audi contraries. I want them well fed, calm, and content. They are much more tender and well-marbled that way.

          • Ken B says:

            Sigh. Auto correction. Au contraire I meant.

            • Tex Avery says:

              That I can agree with you on. I have a distrust of private charities.

              • Anonymous says:

                woosh

              • Tex Avery says:

                I second such a woosh.

    • Tel says:

      Selfish, greedy right-wing snobs can’t stand it when taxes are levied on anything especially when it is used to repair worn out infrastructure and combat poverty.

      If only governments had a good track record of directing their tax collection toward maintenance and repair. If only they had a good track record of eliminating poverty…

      • Tex Avery says:

        It’s more likely to happen with a strong efficient government than no government at all, don’t you think?

        • Tel says:

          How would you go about creating an efficient government?

          • Tex Avery says:

            From a progressive and pragmatic standpoint, it really depends on how the Supreme Court sets precedent and interprets the Constitution. From there, I would think about how their judgments can apply to the idea of moving forward and not just doing things because our parents and grandparents did them before. I would appoint a Fed chairman with a progressive viewpoint and understood the dangers of deflation. The rest would involve educating the public about how good government can be and how the social democratic model can be modernized for the 21st century. Universal healthcare done with a cost benefit analysis is a must.

            In some respects, I do have some sympathies towards the left-libertarians, but don’t believe fully that the power of markets can carry about the social justice that I would be attempting to accomplish with my social democratic system.

          • guest says:

            Precedent is not law, and the Supreme Court is to interpret – not define – the Constitution; The final judge of the Constitutionality of laws are the people, themselves:

            How stare decisis Subverts the Law
            http://constitution.org/col/0610staredrift.htm

            There is a fundamental logical problem with stare decisis as it is currently practiced, which is that it is a logically separate system of propositions that is independent of, and potentially inconsistent with, constitutional enactments.[3] [4] One who takes an oath to uphold the written constitution is bound to ignore precedents in conflict with it, and to rest decisions strictly on propositions that are logically derived from constitutional enactments, considering precedents only where they sharpen ambiguities in the language of the written enactments.

            Federalist Paper #83
            http://constitution.org/fed/federa83.htm

            The rules of legal interpretation are rules of common sense, adopted by the courts in the construction of the laws. The true test, therefore, of a just application of them is its conformity to the source from which they are derived.

            Federalist Paper #78
            http://constitution.org/fed/federa78.htm

            There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.

            Nor does this conclusion by any means suppose a superiority of the judicial to the legislative power. It only supposes that the power of the people is superior to both; and that where the will of the legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in opposition to that of the people, declared in the Constitution, the judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former. They ought to regulate their decisions by the fundamental laws, rather than by those which are not fundamental.

        • guest says:

          It’s more likely to happen with a strong efficient government than no government at all, don’t you think?

          The opposite is true. But the free market is then blamed for creating wealth inequality.

          Who cares that the free market is eliminating poverty if, by way of voluntary patronage, a relative few are made filthy rich?

          Why, we should be equally poor!

          Government necessarily creates monopolies by trying to eliminate them:

          Dominick Armentano: The Case for Repealing Antitrust Laws
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBT-fnJsfo0

          Government necessarily creates poverty by trying to eliminate it:

          Good Intentions 2of3 Minimum Wage, Licensing, and Labor Laws with Walter Williams
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DS0XXFdyfI

          And they do so to stop a problem that does not exist:

          The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, Lecture 8 | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGeA1Sbd4XM
          (“Myths and Facts About Big Business”)

  8. Max.Hy says:

    Is it just me or did LK just got burned?

  9. Christopher says:

    Things that should make you realize that you have a week case:

    1. You try to use the Socratic method but have the interlocutor give dumb answers rather than actual arguments.

    • Tex Avery says:

      No, LK pwned you all.

      http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2013/02/remember-this.html

      Coincidentally enough, I was asking about where the heck the hyperinflation and debasing of the currency was back in the Dean Baker thread. Maybe Keynes must have read some of that lovely exchange.

      I’m going to clarify again. I am one of Mike Norman’s growing following of fans and I’m appalled at how much ground Austrian econ has gained and want to stop it.

      • Christopher says:

        You seem to have found your purpose in life, good for you. Here are some facts that might help you on your way.

        1. LK didn’t produce the banker video.
        2. The “robin hood tax” is not believed to cause hyperinflation.
        3. Disapproving of the tax does not imply one believes in Austrian hyperinflationism.
        4. Insulting people on the internet won’t get you laid. Those times are gone.

        • Tex Avery says:

          1. I already knew that. That wasn’t the point of my post.

          2. I knew this too and again, you’re conflating me.

          3. But this is an Austrian econ blog, primarily where those Ancraps post. Every Austrian I’ve ever heard has talked about sound money and all this garbage.

          4. That wasn’t my objective ever.

          • Christopher says:

            Christopher: I disagree with the idea proposed in the banker-video.
            Tex: No! LK proved Austrian hyperinflationism was bullshit.
            Christopher: The video wasn’t about hyperinflation.
            Tex: You are conflating me.

            ?!

            • Tex Avery says:

              What an absurd straw man.

              I was proving my point that Lord Keynes didn’t get burned like that “Max.Hy” character claimed. It was my mistake for responding to the wrong message.

              • Christopher says:

                Haha, great! If your “destroy-austrian-economics” mission fails, you can still be a comedian.

              • Tex Avery says:

                Stephen Colbert, Chris Rock, and Jon Stewart have a ton of political influence right now.

                I guess William K. Black is a comedian for speaking the truth. Brad DeLong, Paul Krugman and others on my side are comedians too! What a riot.

              • Anonymous says:

                Yes, and it’s a good thing that comics and sportscasters do have such influence. Their arguments confuse no-one, being so simple and straight forward, and their appeals to raw emotion ensure that no-one feels left out, or worries about not really understanding the issues well enough.

              • Tex Avery says:

                Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert both went to reputable schools. College of William and Mary and for Colbert, he eventually ended up transferring to Northwestern University. They obviously have some impressive credentials.

              • Ken B says:

                That anonymous was me btw.

              • Tex Avery says:

                Egads!

              • Richie says:

                “Egads!” = M_F.

              • Tex Avery says:

                Uh no. Sorry.

  10. Tex Avery says:

    Philip Pilkington again asks a very valid question and links to this video from SchittReport.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ7wnX9lcvc

    Seriously, this guy is the key representative of the Austrian School in the media. How long before the likes of Murphy and the Von Mises crowd distance themselves from him?

    More evidence that the right-wing has become very intellectually bankrupt in the field of economics.

  11. Stupid guy says:

    Why does schittreport moderate all comments and delete the ones that defend schiff? Weak.

    • Tex Avery says:

      To prevent the videos from being flooded with insulting comments from Schiff fans who do not wish to engage in a rational discussion. That’s why.

      • Richie says:

        Kinda like how you’re doing here?

        • Tex Avery says:

          Sometimes one has to be blunt in order to get the message across.

          • Richie says:

            You have to insult to get your message across? Interesting tactic.

            • Tex Avery says:

              Libertarians have an obsession with calling anyone they hate statists. I don’t understand why. They often use that term in place of an actual argument.

              • Economic Therapist says:

                Did you get enough attention when you were a kid?

              • Richie says:

                Statists have an obsession with saying that anyone who disagrees with government involvement in the economy hates the impoverished and the uneducated. I don’t understand why. They often use that phrase in place of an actual argument.

              • Tex Avery says:

                Economic Therapist:

                I grew up pretty normal. I just wasn’t convinced by any conservative or libertarian arguments.

                Richie:

                But does that justify chaotic anarcho-capitalism?

              • Richie says:

                “But does that justify chaotic anarcho-capitalism?”

                Your crazy, neurotic obsessions? Hardly.

              • Tex Avery says:

                Right-wingers have an obsession with George Soros. It’s the Koch Brothers and Rupert Murdoch who are the real problem.

              • Richie says:

                “It’s the Koch Brothers and Rupert Murdoch who are the real problem.”

                Yeah, that’s NOT an obsession. LOL.

              • Tex Avery says:

                The Young Turks, one of my favorite talk shows, exposes right-wing cranks every so often. They have done good work exposing the hypocrisy of FOX News.

              • Richie says:

                Ah, I’m not falling for your tactics. You bring up random shit that is totally irrelevant to the comment you made previously. Your intention is clear: To troll and spam. Why Dr. Murphy allows this to continue, I’ll never understand.

              • Tex Avery says:

                Sigh. I give up, even though my opinions on Austrian economics have not been changed one bit.

              • guest says:

                But does that justify chaotic anarcho-capitalism?

                Anarcho-capitalism ISN’T chaotic, though:

                The Not So Wild, Wild West
                http://mises.org/daily/4108

                Applying Economics to American History | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-LJ3wZjD4I#t=24m00s

                It’s the Koch Brothers and Rupert Murdoch who are the real problem.

                You would find these interesting:

                The Kochtopus vs. Murray N. Rothbard
                http://www.lewrockwell.com/gordon/gordon37.html

                The Kochtopus vs. Murray N. Rothbard, Part II
                http://www.lewrockwell.com/gordon/gordon39.html

              • Tex Avery says:

                I hate to admit it, but Ken B. was right. I went overboard with my ramblings about the Koch Brothers.

              • Tex Avery says:

                And after reading some of my comments over again, I can understand why people thought I was being over the top. I let my emotions cloud my judgement and I often went into non-sequitirs out of frustration because I thought Austrian economists had a vested interest in trying to sell people something rather than figuring out the truth.

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