The American Dream

[sasguru]

Thanks to government the UK and the US is mired in debt. Youth unemployment again, is huge, thanks to government. So yeah, try not to be such a condescending ignoramus in the future.

In spite of this the US is the richest country in the world (ignoring all the microstates and oil barons) and has been at times in its recent past without a government created deficit problems. So that kind of pisses on your point anyway.

You're rapidly approaching village simpleton status.
So the debt is nothing to do with the vaunted free-market sector?
Or in your simplistic dream world, do you reckon the banks should have been allowed to fail?

[doodab]

Equal opportunity is all that matters.

Beyond that the free market should determine equality. It tends to make everyone richer to different degrees. Instead of making everyone equally poor.

I think the fact that people would choose very differently depending on whether their starting point is random or not speaks volumes about how equal opportunities actually are.

[doodab]

Btw is a bona fide scientist engaged in a field of research that is at least partially aimed at grounding economics in actual measured human behaviour, not someone with a particular political axe to grind. He does all sorts of research into cognitive biases and how people make economic and moral decisions.

I'd recommend his book, predictably irrational.

What interests me is the overlap between what he and his colleagues measure and theoretical predictions grounded in game theory. That seems to me to be the future of economics as a means to improve the human condition.

[sasguru]

I'd recommend his book, predictably irrational.

Yes read it - it explains a lot of CUk behaviour.

[Robinho]

You're rapidly approaching village simpleton status.
So the debt is nothing to do with the vaunted free-market sector?
Or in your simplistic dream world, do you reckon the banks should have been allowed to fail?

No, it's all to do with government. Government backed fiat currencies and fractional reserve banking, government sent low interest rates, government backed mortgages (in the US), government deficit spending.

None of these are free market concepts.

[sasguru]

No, it's all to do with government. Government backed fiat currencies and fractional reserve banking, government sent low interest rates, government backed mortgages (in the US), government deficit spending.

None of these are free market concepts.

Well it seems that free market systems as defined by you have never existed ever in the history of mankind. Unless you have a time and place in mind?
Much like geniuine communism.

[Robinho]

Well it seems that free market systems as defined by you have never existed ever in the history of mankind. Unless you have a time and place in mind?
Much like geniuine communism.

The early USA was much like what i describe.

[sasguru]

The early USA was much like what i describe.

What period exactly?

[Robinho]

What period exactly?

Prior to the federal reserve so more than 100 years ago.

[sasguru]

Prior to the federal reserve so more than 100 years ago.

Tariffs on foreign imports were only removed in the US in 1912. The Federal Reserve was formed a year later. So the the US had a free market for about a year?
Prior to that the economy was first enabled by indentured labourers coming from Europe followed by free slave labour. Hardly free enterprise, eh?

I put it to you, sir, that you are talking out of your arse.