We learn for instance, that Cisco’s 70 cents earning per share should really be 53 cents, because of dilution by stock options. We learn that Exxon Mobil has $26 billion in pension obligations but only $18 billion in pension fund assets. All in all, it adds up to big money. The problem that obfuscation pays off. It pays off big for the executives because their bonuses are tied to earnings. (Don’t try blaming executive compensation on the government.) If the problem is with ignorant or stupid investors and not with the free market as such, the same can be said about any other human system, including government.

Meanwhile, it turns out our current President has presided over the greatest increase of discretionary non-military spending in recent years.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/23/175346/446
talks about it, while the sorry state of the republic is discussed here
http://prudentbear.com/internationalperspective.asp

Kind of goes to show that the label attached to a politician or any other person for that matter, means nothing, it is what one does that counts. Who you are is determined by what you do, not by what you believe in.

http://www.freestateproject.org/community/nh_info.php

And the question of economic policy has to be driven by some sort of cost analysis. You can emote it up to whatever you want, freedom, tyranny, whatever, but in the end, underlying it, has to be logic. The creation of the cost function itself, almost certainly, is driven by moral imperatives.

Sorry, it’s not clear to me what you mean by that. My argument is simply that each individual has the right to live his or her life as he or she sees fit, doing whatever he or she wants, as long as he or she does not violate the same right of others. This does obviously include spending the result of one’s productive endeavours as one sees fit. It does not in any way preclude collaboration and all kinds of societal involvement. In fact, if 10 (or 10 million, or five billion) people decide that they want to organize themselves in a Stalinist dictatorship, I raise no objection as long as it is their *choice*. I may well shake my head in sorrow (or laugh my ass off in glee, depending on the mood of the moment) but as long as it’s what they want, fine with me.

The moment they try to force somebody else into it against his or her will, that’s when you’ll hear me unsafe my revolver.

Please note the fundamental asymmetry between me and Arun. He wants to impose his will on others. I simply want everybody to be allowed to choose for themselves. The divide between us is therefore a moral one which, contrary to what you say in comment #23 (all in an attempt to keep the peace, I’m sure) can never be reduced to just “a different cost function to you”.

You just don’t get it, do you? If you perceive a value in something, by all means pursue it. Pay all you want for it. It’s your right. But the moment you try to force others to pay for what *you* consider worthwile, you are nothing but a predator and an oppressor, and deserve to be called by your right name, and to be fought back by all necessary means.

Because you see, fighting oppressors, defending the right to live as we choose, not as others choose for us, is at the very core of human nature, no matter what you say. It is your stance that is literally inhuman.

Education is like Vitamin C, one leads a scurvy existence without it.

The interesting thing is that as a child who couldn’t afford anything at all, except courtesy of my parents and of the society around me, I received an education (and I didn’t have a choice in the matter either ), and the benefits of that education, if any, would be mostly received well beyond the lifetimes of those who funded it. So while I do not have any children of my own, I do not mind paying for children’s education in my taxes and by other means. I hope the benefits extend beyond my lifetime, though it can’t possibly benefit me in any way. I do look for wise use of the money. I’m not imposing my values on anyone, the objective good of education is measurable, I’m sorry you didn’t understand that. Do examine the societies I mentioned, if you had to choose (and you had a choice) you’d find yourself choosing the one where the government paid more than lip service to education.

And I wasn’t educated to be called a thief or predator by you. I suppose it hurts when your pet philosophy or scientific theory for that matter, is a failure. The fact is that libertarianism doesn’t work, it does not square with human nature. As I said before, it can’t take man beyond hunter-gatherer. Societies are engineered, not theorized into existence, and engineering has to take into account the highly non-ideal nature of its material. The American Constitution, btw, is a great feat of engineering, and it is not libertarian. Humans are not naturally libertarian; it requires a great feat of government to get the illusion of a working libertarianism. We see not libertarians emerging from Somalia, or Afghanistan or Yugoslavia or Iraq, we see war-lords. We see drug-lords and pirates and armed gangs of all kinds. For libertarians to even get their voices heard, the first thing needed is strong government. Otherwise, they just get shot by the gangs.

Anyway, enough of this. I won’t visit your asylum any more.

-Arun

[Aside: the conservative/libertarian argument after Katrina was - see, government can’t work, it is the problem. But I think, I hope, after Rita, we’ll see just how well the government can work. There is nothing inherent in the nature of government that it will work poorly any more than there is something in the nature of the free market that it will work well; the failures in either case are a failure of accountability.]

I am very financially conservative, and I’m not calling for tax cuts, not until after spending is cut and the budget deficit under control. Tax cuts when the government is spending like a drunken sailor aren’t really tax cuts, they’re tax hikes put off (maybe for someone else to pay altogether). How can more tax cuts be on the table with gigantic deficits, an expensive war and the administration has just committed to something like 200 billion dollars of disaster relief? It just doesn’t seem financially responsible to me. So, current taxrates may indeed be ‘a wrong’ from both our perspectives, but they’re a lesser wrong, so far as I’m concerned, than mortgaging our futures and those of younger generations, for some jam today. Deferred tax is even worse than high tax, because people are bizarrely able to persuade themselves that the time to pay it all will never happen (a trait also demonstrated in personal financial dealings).