Australian economy completely avoids recession (2 Viewers)

[John Galt]

Re: OKay guys, Australia never 'avoiced' the recession, Rudd was not the hero

All hail the invisible hand of the free market. It solves world poverty. It will get rid of nuclear weapons. It will even tie your shoe laces!

Because government has succeeded in achieving all those objectives?

I said universally superior, not universally benevolent or conducive to some utopian ideal.

By its very nature, the market is the outcome of free human action. It is more likely to result in positive outcomes than government however, as it incentivises the positive components of human nature. In contrast, the government often incentivises theft and violence, as should be expected from a body of theives and murderers.

 

[ComingUpForAir]

Re: OKay guys, Australia never 'avoiced' the recession, Rudd was not the hero

By its very nature, the market is the outcome of free human action. It is more likely to result in positive outcomes than government however, as it incentivises the positive components of human nature. In contrast, the government often incentivises theft and violence, as should be expected from a body of theives and murderers.

You seem to have a very muddled understanding of what a market is..
and how does the 'murderer' goverment 'incentivise' theft and violence?
odd stuff.

 

[John Galt]

Re: OKay guys, Australia never 'avoiced' the recession, Rudd was not the hero

You seem to have a very muddled understanding of what a market is..
and how does the 'murderer' goverment 'incentivise' theft and violence?
odd stuff.

Muddled how? If you disagree, your view is the muddled one.

In answer to your second question, there are countless examples, two of the more prominent being the criminalisation of drugs and the welfare system.

 

[ComingUpForAir]

Re: OKay guys, Australia never 'avoiced' the recession, Rudd was not the hero

Muddled how?

another youtube alumni?

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

Re: OKay guys, Australia never 'avoiced' the recession, Rudd was not the hero

Meh, I'll concede that Australia having a mild recession would have probably been just fine and that the government stimulus was not necessary. After all, we suffer none of the problems that plague America and Europe (our only real problem being the trade deficit) and a mild recession isn't the end of the world. In fact a mild recession might make people save more, hence narrowing the trade deficit.

But calling for the removal of central banks just doesn't mesh well with me.

Also, having said that, the stimulus-induced debt is still low, and so is inflation. Claims that the Australina economy will crash a year or two from now seem woefully unfounded.

 

[sthcross.dude]

Re: OKay guys, Australia never 'avoiced' the recession, Rudd was not the hero

All hail the invisible hand of the free market. It solves world poverty. It will get rid of nuclear weapons. It will even tie your shoe laces!

Well it can't get rid of nuclear weapons. They're already invented, thanks to the state.

But the free market could probably come close to eliminating world poverty. Of course it can never ensure that on a planet of 6.7 billion people, that there will never been any poverty or hunger.

You falsely suggest that us libertarians believe the free market will lead to a utopia. In fact, our view is the complete opposite. We are realists. We don't believe we can ever create a perfect society, or anything every closely resembling it.

It is the government with its 'guarantees' and phony promises that it can eliminate poverty and provide everyone with stability and security that is making the false claim that it can solve all our problems. These empty promises appeal to our most primal fears.

Ultimately, we can never achieve a utopia because everyone's idea of what is utopia is different. The best we can do to maximize human happiness is to maximize individual freedom and to refuse to be coerced, subjugated, manipulated and deceived by those who create elaborate power structures and fancy titles for them selves under the guise of protecting us from ourselves.

 

[sthcross.dude]

Re: OKay guys, Australia never 'avoiced' the recession, Rudd was not the hero

Also, having said that, the stimulus-induced debt is still low, and so is inflation. Claims that the Australina economy will crash a year or two from now seem woefully unfounded.

You sound a lot like most mainstream economists in the United States pre-2006 who were claiming that the US economy is in create shape, and who laughed at suggestions that anything resembling the recent crash could ever take place.
Like these guys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0YTY5TWtmU

The Australian economy may not crash at all in the dramatic way it did in the US, but we will experience many years of stagnant growth, high unemployment and high inflation.

I'd agree that we will be better of than in the US and the UK, but it gives me little comfort. Its like being told you have a less aggressive form of brain cancer than the guy next to you. Its still not good news.

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

Re: OKay guys, Australia never 'avoiced' the recession, Rudd was not the hero

You sound a lot like most mainstream economists in the United States pre-2006 who were claiming that the US economy is in create shape, and who laughed at suggestions that anything resembling the recent crash could ever take place.

You're ignoring the fact that Australia has none of the underlying weaknesses (e.g. bad loans/mortgages) of the American economy which lead to its crash.

No, I really don't sound like them at all.

 

[sthcross.dude]

Re: OKay guys, Australia never 'avoiced' the recession, Rudd was not the hero

You're ignoring the fact that Australia has none of the underlying weaknesses (e.g. bad loans/mortgages) of the American economy which lead to its crash.

Our house prices are even more overly inflated the in the US before the crash in terms of the ratio of prices to average incomes.

We have a horrendous debt to gdp ratio and massive negative trade deficit, the government is plunging us deeper into debt and we are cutting interest rates to encourage more unsustainable debt financed consumption.

 

[murphyad]

Re: OKay guys, Australia never 'avoiced' the recession, Rudd was not the hero

We have a horrendous debt to gdp ratio and massive negative trade deficit, the government is plunging us deeper into debt and we are cutting interest rates to encourage more unsustainable debt financed consumption.

Do some research.

Australia's debt to GDP ratio is the lowest in the OECD and is projected to peak at 14%. Compare this to Japan with 180%.

Btw I encourage you to find 5 countries on this earth who are not currently in deficit. As I have posted before in this thread, there is no 'silver bullet'.

Interest rates are predicted to rise next quarter.

In other words you are wrong, wrong, wrong!

That is all.

 

[sthcross.dude]

Re: OKay guys, Australia never 'avoiced' the recession, Rudd was not the hero

Do some research.

Australia's debt to GDP ratio is the lowest in the OECD and is projected to peak at 14%. Compare this to Japan with 180%.

I have done my research, you are confusing public debt with debt to GDP ratio. Australia does have comparatively low public debt, but our debt to GDP ratio which includes private debt is a staggeringly high at 165%, which is right up there with Japan, the USA and Europe, and is at historical all time highs.
Steve Keen's Debtwatch

Also note that our current account balance is one of the largest deficits in the world. Basically this means that we are consuming a whole lot more than we produce, which is obviously an unsustainable position:

List of countries by current account balance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Scroll to the very bottom of that list for Australia)

Btw I encourage you to find 5 countries on this earth who are not currently in deficit. As I have posted before in this thread, there is no 'silver bullet'.

Again, the problem is not public debt per se, the problem is unsustainable debt financed consumption. Many countries, in particular China, do have large current account surpluses. We rely on them devaluing their currency and providing us with cheap imports. This cannot last forever. Eventually the Yuan will appreciate and rising prices of Chinese imports which we rely upon so heavily will drive much of the inflation that is yet to come.

Interest rates are predicted to rise next quarter.

Yeah by 25 basis points. They're still too low. A small increase is certainly not going to come close to reversing years of excessive money creation.

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

Re: OKay guys, Australia never 'avoiced' the recession, Rudd was not the hero

What are you suggesting, sthcross.dude? As a Libertarian, are you suggesting that the government should intervene in the private dealings of businesses and individuals which rack up this private debt?

How odd.

If you're calling on individuals to exercise fiscal restraint on a national level, than that's admirable, but it's got nothing to do with the government (unless you want the government to intervene).

It's also worth noting that as long as our GDP keeps growing at a faster rate than our debt, we have no problem.

 

[sthcross.dude]

Re: OKay guys, Australia never 'avoiced' the recession, Rudd was not the hero

What are you suggesting, sthcross.dude? As a Libertarian, are you suggesting that the government should intervene in the private dealings of businesses and individuals which rack up this private debt?

How odd.

If you're calling on individuals to exercise fiscal restraint on a national level, than that's admirable, but it's got nothing to do with the government (unless you want the government to intervene).

It's also worth noting that as long as our GDP keeps growing at a faster rate than our debt, we have no problem.

The central bank encourages debt and discourages savings by keeping the rate of interest artificially low. It keeps it artificially low by creating new money.

I am saying get rid of the central bank.

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

Re: OKay guys, Australia never 'avoiced' the recession, Rudd was not the hero

Ah. Another one campaigning for the abolition of central banks. Good luck with that.

 

[Planck]

So wait, I'm not sure if I'm reading this right, but you're going against what about 95% of the world's leading economists think and are stating that Hoover was doing the RIGHT thing during the GD?

No I'm saying Hoover did the wrong thing, as you would read, but I'm disagreeing on how he went wrong.

Hoover didn't lassiez-faire with business, he raised tarrifs and instituted the minimum wage.

 

[Planck]

You strike me as the type of person who has never read, or bothered to comprehend the arguments not only against your opinion, but the one's actually in favor of it ...

I own a copy of Keynes' general theory. Again, I did very well in HSC economics and University Economics, I just found that Austrian economics pointed out the flaws that were glaringly obvious in the models used by keynsian and neo-liberals.

Again I think the likely reason is that they demand intellegence and rigor that go beyond watching 2 mintue 'audit the fed' ron paul videos.

Ron Paul is somewhat of a freedom lover but he's also an NWO supporting crackpot. The theories do demand intelligence and rigor, but they are effectively squaring the circle of the magisterium and using an increasingly complex and opaque series of economics to manage the mixed-markets abortion we have now.

It's just sad that you think there is this grand 'debate' against Austrians, most economists, myself included, agree and are sympathetic with many of their conclusions, but they fail to develop formal models of the market process, it is not possible to assess claims concerning the efficiency of that process, and secondly in the absence of such modeling, it is not possible to adress the central issues of concern here, the mix and design of public and private activities..

The primary reasoning behind the lack of modelling is that these outcomes are founded entirely on philosophical claims. They come from a logical extrapolation of the axioms of non-intervention. Modelling whilst sometimes useful to provide a rudimentary insight into the issue is always incredibly inaccurate. The reasoni being that you cannot predict and understand that many variables, so you provide a 'best case' scenario or a biased interpretation.

But its statements like 'natural flow of the market' that really start to raise the alarm bells, and again, nothing your say is new or intelligent, much like your embarrasing attempts to make witty statments.
Basically you should just stick to correcting my spelling mistakes..something the blank-minds seem to relish

I'd much rather try and fail to make an intelligent statement than come across as such a poor communicator.

Your claims come effectively from the allegation that I'm treating the market like a benevolent deity. I'm not. Markets are effectively made up of billions of people making their own independent decisions from which a form of chaotic order is formed. The problem is that there is a natural state to which these systems regress. Intervention causes investment to be misdirected and causes disruptions in the processes of these markets.

It's a battle of the theories, you seem unable to point out any specific flaws in the case made by the austrians other than they're apparently primitive and refuse to use modelling because they see it as antithetical to the actual practice of economics, which is the recommendation of social and economic policy to governmental institutions.

We have a debate of two theories, one provides an optimal solution in the vast amount of scenarios and requires a substantially reduced level of intervention in the financial and social lives of human beings.

The other is a continuous intervention at every level in the livelihoods and lives of people.

One correctly predicted every major crash and identified the situations that prolong crashes and recessions.

The other hasn't and continues to prolong crashes and recessions and effectively stifle overall growth.

This isn't a discussion about facts, it's a discussion about philosophy. If you think you're dealing in facts, you aren't. They are divined insights based on the intersection of the personal and the political.

It is obvious that the cognitive impairment that affects your ability to communicate also substantially impacts your ability to interpret and discuss this on a philosophical level.

I would posit that it would be in your best interests to at least read Rothbard's America's Great Depression and point out what major issues you have with it.

Entertain something you necessarily do not believe with and maybe you'll trick us all into thinking you're an educated man.

 

[Planck]

Re: OKay guys, Australia never 'avoiced' the recession, Rudd was not the hero

Ah. Another one campaigning for the abolition of central banks. Good luck with that.

The political unlikelihood of the policy does not necessarily undermine the evidential basis for the criticism.

It is not politically expedient to legalise and regulate illicit drugs, yet it is the policy that will have the overall best outcomes for society and businesses in general.

 

[Uncle]

Re: OKay guys, Australia never 'avoiced' the recession, Rudd was not the hero

You seem to have a very muddled understanding of what a market is..
and how does the 'murderer' goverment 'incentivise' theft and violence?
odd stuff.

Someone castrate this gelatinous maggot.
His views bear no meaning especially when he can't tell the difference between a Nazi swastika to a Buddhist swastika.

 

[ComingUpForAir]

Your claims come effectively from the allegation that I'm treating the market like a benevolent deity. I'm not. Markets are effectively made up of billions of people making their own independent decisions from which a form of chaotic order is formed. The problem is that there is a natural state to which these systems regress. Intervention causes investment to be misdirected and causes disruptions in the processes of these markets.

Are you claiming such outcomes are pareto efficient..?
Mabye it's just your poor grasp of the english language, but your premise, and subsequent conclusion, seem unconnected. The 'market' either allocates resources most efficiently, or it does not.
Yes, 'intervention' disrupts the market process, but this is the precise aim of an intervention...to stop unfavorable market outcomes, granted, intervention can result in unfavorable unintended consequences, but that does not rule out the case for all interventions.
Do you think that people naturally take actions that expand the apex and nadir of cycles, or do you not,
Are you claiming speculative investment bubbles in financial markets have no endogenous component? Do you assert all agents, and thus the market on a whole is 'rational', if you do (and thus dismiss all empircal studies into the matter), atleast I can understand your ill-concieved position.

Your arguments exert an abject naviety, and I get the feeling you're still in highschool (and english is not your first language?), so I dont want to be too harsh.

 

[ad infinitum]

'Planck' no one is stopping you and your rapture ready pals from buying a farm and a gun and holding out till 2012.