Forum Post: Why Free Markets are Counter-Intuitive
Posted 11 years ago on April 12, 2013, 12:44 p.m. EST by john32
(-272)
from Pittsburgh, PA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I get chewed out all the time on this forum because I think free markets are the best system to date at providing the most opportunity and prosperity for the people. I agree with most of you that at face value it seems like it would be the opposite. I actually used to believe that. But when you sit down and really study it and start to understand why it works it's like a light bulb switches on and it really does start to make sense. Anyways, here are some graphs that people should look at to start to understand why I believe what I do:
http://hmscoop.com/index.php/10-whole-website/politics-economy/14-economic-freedom
Please explain to me how you can think America still has a free market system when monopolies and conglomerates are:
allowed to dictate the laws of this nation with lobbying, outright bribery, and superfunds as well as put forth candidates of their own choosing whom they back and members of Congress and probably our COURTS are allowed to hold stocks and shares in the very corporations for which they are charged with regulating while creating new laws that benefit them and drown out the entrepreneurial capabilities of the people with red-tape and tax codes, that are impossible for an average person to afford.
the government hires private banks to print money for which we the people are charged an interest rate of said banks choosing, banks are also allowed to keep their own scoring system on the people and track them yet allowed to hold the scoring system secret
boards set up to ah haa ha "regulate" corporate entities, (whereby instead of making them go to court they just get fined (if that) since the members of the board usually also belonged to the board of the corporations, for which they are charged with "regulating" and probably still hold shares),
The anti-trust monopoly laws are subverted by simply dividing into subsidiary holdings with separate tax ids and bank accounts but for which the profits still go back into the same entity and pockets which has enabled them to grow so large as to create so much wealth that they can then subvert the will of the people with it. (And drown out small business competition)
I could go on and on here - but the bottom line is a free market can't exist when the markets have been fixed. How can an average person compete with a monopoly? Can you pay what they can pay in rent? Can you pay what they pay for land? Can you pay what they pay for shelf space? Can you pay the local politician to allow you a business license? Can you pay the corporate tax rate that I believe is artificially inflated so small business can't compete, but for which a conglomerate can pay an accountant to evade or simply offshore their headquarters? Can you get a million dollar start-up loan from a bank? Can you afford the insurance you will have to pay? How will you pay the mortgage before profits are being made? Can you afford to pay up when your partners pull a note? Can you afford the rent when the landlord finds out your business is doing well and decides to go up on your rate? Can you compete with prices born of slave labor in a despot country? Can you afford to sue them when they outright steal your business model or idea or infringe on your patent? There are so many barriers to the average person, and yet so many loopholes for fortune 500's. So many laws specifically geared to help them out and keep you from being able to compete.
I keep getting this response on my post....i agree with you....america isn't a free market. Very good points arguing the case though. It's set up to benefit big business because of the lucrative ties to government.
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there's no such think as a free market as long as the land is stolen from the people. it may be partially free however
There is no as long as. There is no partial freedom.
Free markets are an impossible illusion.
You're chasing rainbows to believe otherwise.
just for shintz and giggles if my phone rings more than I can keep up with, and I go out and repair a job and make $1000 (1700 yesterday but 700 was for parts) and every day my phone calls for another similar repair job, A. should I feel free or is it an illusion? (all my bills including my 670 dollar mortgage is about 1000 a month.)
It's an illusion.
There are no shintz and you're no giggle.....
You didn't create that "market".
Now please continue to dance and sing around the issue.
"Free" markets are an impossibility. Just like perpetual motion.
well generically speaking that sounds like something a college professor would say. but generalities rarely accomplish anything in my opinion. I say that because I have built up my motor brain in the specifics of life, so can you give a couple of short specifics of why free markets are an impossibility. Is it because 1. Government entities and corporate snake oil salesmen are put in place to shut down or capitalize on the small business man? Definitely something I have seen from my personal experience.
You're the one speaking in generalities, by accepting an illusion as reality.
"Free market" is the ultimate in destructive snake oil.
Once a market is created, it is bound.
A "free" market is impossible.
We don't have a free market system; we have an oligarchy market that enables those that dominate the market to avoid real competition while workers have to complete with those half way around the world and consumers get much lower quality merchandise.
You're right...we're pretty far away from a free market system. An economy manipulated by interest rates is very far from free markets.
A free market requires much more competition than we have now and this is supposed to keep oligarchies from price gouging or cutting the quality of their merchandise. This isn't happening any more; thirty years ago we had much better quality merchandise for reasonable prices; as the mergers and acquisitions escalated the quality has gone steadily downhill.
They reluctantly enforced anti-trust laws after a lot of pressure before this trend began but even if we did restore the free market for some things others can't be in the free market because they just don't work. This includes utilities, roads, education, the media and several other things. For these institutions we need to consider other ideas that work better.
Oh, I dunno. We make some pretty low quality merchandise ourselves. Detroit is a f'n quality disaster. Much of the stuff in stores is produced in Asia, but DESIGNED here and by design, it's schit.
There's plenty of blame to go around. Let's be honest about our downfall. The American worker is more interested in surfing the internet or his/her SmartPhone than working for a living.
American made is a quality disaster I hear ya. I spend half my day fixing everyone elses products from quickbooks, to hp print drivers, windows 8 and even screwing in screws on my "new roof" that someone else forgot to screw in before they layed the fabric membrane over it, oh and how can I forget my new heater duct which had a 12 inch hole in it losing heat in my basement. Im sure I can think of more... oh ya, papermate pens that don't write, papermate correction paper that fails after 1 or 2 uses, hmm I know theres more... oh heres a doozy, 4 out of 5 companies I had vehicle work on forgot to rotate my tires, and so after 3 years, when walmart finally did rotate my tires my 1500 tires wore from like new down to nothing within 6 months, not to mention the incessant wale I hear when I drive now. (It would be better to never rotate tires as they were like new before the rotation after 3 years old). Im telling you this is the united states of idiots.
And let me be the first person to say : Your teachers don't know anything! And they sure as hell can't teach.
I remembered another one, I recently changed a foreign made motor to a leeson motor (American made) and it failed and the customer has been waiting 4 weeks with their property unsecured for this piece of crap American made product to be "warrantied". It wasn't my choice to buy American, the previous made in Taiwan motor lasted 10 years, someone at the factory thought I wanted American made, this idiocracy added to the fact my customer had to wait a month for a part, when he could have just sold me the in house brand motor (the reason why I called the manufacturer in the first place) he said he could have warrantied it and sent out a motor withing a couple days. Im telling you you people are getting genitically dumber, and I think Im smarter than all of you put together.
That's because all our teachers are getting degrees in "education". No need to have a degree in math to teach it or science to teach science, etc.
You want to know what's wrong with us, take a look:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4126233n
F'n millenials are useless and they've infested OWS too.
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You look like a fart in the wind to me, pissant.
The millenials that I know personally in OWS work or go to school all day, then meet in parks, cafes, or public halls at night
And they are some of the best people that I have ever known
I do find the divisiveness that you promote in supporting the corrupt status quo kinda trite and desparate
~Odin~
Who cares who you personally know? Plus, they're in OWS. THAT speaks volumes.
YOU are the corrupt status quo (AKA, the "something for nothing crowd" or the FSA).
Sorry pal...not really...., but you are talking to someone who has done his thing in life with very few regrets
Defending the corrupt status quo "speaks [even more] volumes"
~Odin~
Free market ideology has definitely been good to the Koch bros. who happen to be the largest backers of the Heritage Foundation- the organisation that put the nonsense together that you linked to.
Please provide the specifics of that data that you call into question. As far as I'm aware their economic freedom index is the main one used by most economists. GDP per capita and unemployment were gathered through government sources by heritage.
Please indicate what data is inaccurate.
The other data - Poverty, income equality, average salary, Pollution, and life expectancy all came from other sources...government sources. Is this inaccurate as well?
"Free market ideology has definitely been good to the Koch bros"
We don't live in a free market...we live in a crony capitalist society.
Well, most economists today have fallen into the free market ideology. I guess the first thing we need to do is define what free market means. Was the US in the 50s through the 70s a free market economy. At the time there were strong unions, a 92% top marginal tax rate, and a lot less "free trade". There was also a lot less wealth inequality and a rising (income wise) middle class. Scandinavian countries are far more socialist than the US, but have greater income equality and report a higher level of general happiness, health, longevity, etc.
"Scandinavian countries are far more socialist than the US, but have greater income equality and report a higher level of general happiness, health, longevity, etc."
Yeah, but you're looking at it with a microscope. You can always pick out a certain country and say they're less free but have greater economic growth or prosperity for their people....I think that's a false way of looking at the stats though as countries vary with the amount of natural resources and other factors (scandinavia being a great example with its massive oil reserves). If you look at a broad range of countries to see if statistically the more free groups of countries become the greater prosperity for the people, the more accurate the results.
Scandinavia is a great example....based on the statistics when looking at all the countries as a whole...it could be concluded that if they worked in the direction of becoming freer, there would be even greater prosperity than there is now for the people....but their wealth of resources allows them to be lax in that area.
"Well, most economists today have fallen into the free market ideology"
See i think there are still a bunch of economists that are very much anti-free market....Krugman being a great example who has a pretty big following. They actually have a monopoly on the way economists are schooled these days....pretty much everyone in school learns Keynes approach.
You have a good point in mentioning oil. North Sea oil, the source of Scandinavian oil, reached peak production in 1999 and has been declining ever since. This is going to create problems for them as time goes on. However, the two largest oil producers are Saudi Arabia and Russia, Neither of which are known for even wealth distribution. As I said earlier, we have to define "free market". Free for who to do what. Many of today's economists give lip service to Keynes while disregarding some very critical parts of his theories. Keynes cautioned against trade deficits. Which economist has come out against free trade agreements (which has been the only historical effective defense against trade deficits) ?
Norway is the beneficiary of the North Sea oil & gas platforms
Sweden did have the chance early on to go in with them and they turned it down, much to the chagrin of many Swedes
Despite Norway's state-run Statoil being considered one of the safest oil & gas drilling companies in the business, they have had their problems
Sweden has an innovative and relatively clean method of incernerating its trash and turning it into energy to heat homes
This has become so efficient that they now take Norway's garbage too, returning the really toxic ashes to them
Just to add to this, a Swedish friend told me that all new homes built in Sweden must have an in ground geothermal type heating system which reduces their need for fossil fuels
~Odin~
Yes, Scandinavia seems to be one of the leaders in finding ways to get off fossil fuels. They have at least two good reasons to do so. One is the environmental impact. Another is the fact that North Sea oil is depleting. .
Yes, the Scandinavian countries seem to do a lot of things right, and I did know that they are running out of North Sea oil and gas
Statoil people are also found all over the world on drilling projects, as they are considered the experts by many
The only good thing that I can see about that though is since it is state-run is the profits go back to the people of Norway
While visiting mostly southern Sweden two summers ago, i went to a really neat greenhouse that seemed to be on the 'cutting edge' too
As the herbs that were growing in long rows advanced (and were automatically watered) a little every day, until they were full grown and shipped out
They also are leaders in composting en masse too, but i cannot really explain that well as i have forgotten most of it
~Odin~
"Keynes cautioned against trade deficits. Which economist has come out against free trade agreements (which has been the only historical effective defense against trade deficits) ?"
Good point...most people don't know that....and if i'm being honest its been so long since i had heard it i actually forgot it...you jogged my memory though.
As far as the definition of freedom. The Heritage (where the raw data for economic freedom comes from) has a link on their site showing what criteria they use to rate the countries:
http://www.heritage.org/index/book/chapter-7
Heritage Foundation???
Really???
One of the largest, most dedicate propaganda mills on the Planet and you post from them???
PS They HATE OWS
So what the fuck??
Being typical dumbass shooz....you failed to read what we were talking about.
I'm not posting for heritage....heritage compiles an economic freedom index to judge relative freedoms of countries....economists use this when in need of economic freedom data.
It has nothing to do with promoting heritage.
Heritage Foundation and you.
A propaganda marriage made in hell itself.
It has everything to do with promoting Heritage, or wouldn't have have posted that shit.
Heritage tells NO truth, None at all.
You name calling fuck.
Heritage is just the place for an OWS hater like you.
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/05/01/occupy-wall-street-a-post-mortem/
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/10/18/morning-bell-wall-street-is-the-wrong-place-to-occupy/
http://www.myheritage.org/tag/occupy-wall-street/
http://www.askheritage.org/what-should-occupy-wall-street-protest-against/
And for that Austrian inside of you.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2809092/posts
I always did wonder why you are here.
Now I know.
It's to propagate Heritage and CATO propaganda.
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Highly centralized corporations NEED a weak, highly decentralized government, in order to maximize shareholder value.
They have been working towards that end since the 70s
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I'd just tax the crap out of those CEOs, but there is a lot of opposition to that, so your solution might be the only effective one they have left us.
Then why is the governement centralizing everything, and has only headed in that direction since the 70's?
Putting power in any group's hands is bad idea, whether its the feds, the states or even the community leaders.
"They have been working towards that end since the 70s" If that is the case, then they have failed miserably.
Yeah, whatever is easiest and as thought free as possible for you.
Shouldn't you be hording bling and chasing liberals anyway?
"What the author fails to acknowledge is that under capitalism, competition in the market has led to monopolization - we are seeing that in the telecom industry, fossil fuel industry, banking and investment, and so on."
I disagree Zen...i feel the exact opposite actually..it is crony capitalism that has caused this in my opinion. "Elf" does a great job of summarizing this if you scroll up to his comment on this page (it's the first comment).
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As far as i'm aware there hasn't been a monopoly in history that didn't occur because of special rules granted to it by government.
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I do believe there is a very important place for government and certain regulations. But i think today government has turned into a corporation protection machine. It no longer works for the people...but works to protects market share for large institutions in this country. Until we correct this problem I think any other battles we win will only be temporary wins...because the environment for corruption still exists in washington....and problems are doomed to repeat because of it.
As long as incentives exist in washington to take the side of corporations over people....things won't change.
Is this where your austerity based libertarian economy based on greed comes in?
LOL
Because humans are social creatures and free markets are a rat race, it's inevitable that capitalism will always manifest itself into crony capitalism. You don't expect those who consolidate power and wealth over time to fight among themselves when they can combine forces and crush up starts.
I've been saying from the get go that the power consolidation that now controls our economy is the logical conclusion of a capitalist system.
Only way competition can be revitalized in America is if the fortune five hundred companies were broken up. But i would be willing to wager that within two generations new monopolies would take their place. Why keep breaking up companies when they inevitably reconsolidate?
It just seems more practical for industry leaders to cooperate and split market shares than to fight among themselves and allow an upstart to conquer them in their hour of division. Industries have always seen it more advantageous to collude. Therefore, through government, we should be colluding against them. Breaking them up just restarts the madness over again. We might as well just leave monopolies the way they are and use government to check their power. The era of perfect economic competition is over. There are no more frontiers to be conquered so new ways of organizing must be devised.
That's an interesting take on it.
Thinking about it, it does seem to make sense...although I think I look at it from a different angle from you, but it ends up with the same conclusion.
Thats all any system is, is breaking it up and starting over.
Recycling is better than relying on criminals to protect us.
Self governance takes a lot of work. Its not just pulling a lever once every four years. People in this country need to kick it into high gear.
I just find it futile for us to compete among ourselves in our communities while being expected to compete against other communities in other states and also compete against other nations.
The era of globalization should change our thinking. If we are expected to compete with other nations, it just seems like a waste of energy to also compete on a local level. If you are a banker profiting off of people racing to the bottom to acquire market share, than competition on a local level makes sense. But if you are a family man trying to raise a family by selling to foreign nations then cooperation makes more sense. I rather get paid adequately and pay more for goods than have cheap goods but no funds to afford them.
" I rather get paid adequately and pay more for goods than have cheap goods but no funds to afford them."
I do too. But most dont agree with that. Hence Walmart.
I would say that recycling our political beliefs would be a good thing as well.
Keep fighting the good partisan fight shooz...have fun with that.
BULLSHIT.
As usual.
There are few organizations in the US as politically partisan as Heritage.
Damn few.
Partisan I might add in a most damaging way.
They HATE OWS, as I've just demonstrated and you ignored.
so what the fuck are you doing here?
I'm not promoting heritage...at all.
If you could read, instead of just focusing on your right wing alert words like "heritage" you would fully understand what the f'k i'm talking about.
"so what the fuck are you doing here?"
providing truth...wherever that truth ends up being...not your f'k up partisan bulllshit.
You're talking about neolibe(R)tarianism.
As partisan as it gets, especially when you promote it through Heritage.
Heritage HATES OWS.
Why would you go there for anything at all?
It's all agenda and no meat.
No truth at all.
So posting info from Heritage ain't promoting heritage? LOL
The heritage foundation is a rightwing, extremist, libertarian. pro austerity, anti 99%/OWS group that rep[resents the antipathy of our goals.
NOTHING they spew should be considered honest true or benefiting the 99%.
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/10/26/the-conservatives-guide-to-the-occupy-wall-street-protests/
What I see on that site doesn't amount to what I would call data. The graphs seem to be arbitrary lines drawn to support an ideology. They do not specify what countries they include or exclude. I measure like per capita GDP tells us nothing about who in that society gets what. This excerpt, from the section titled Open Markets" should raise a red flag..... "Tariffs, for example, directly increase the prices that local consumers pay for foreign imports, but they also distort production incentives for local producers, causing them to produce either a good in which they lack a comparative advantage or more of a protected good than is economically efficient. This impedes overall economic efficiency and growth. In many cases, trade limitations also put advanced-technology products and services beyond the reach of local entrepreneurs, limiting their own productive development." I find this to be patently false. I also might as well state that it is my opinion that the ideology of Friedrick von Hayek has been thoroughly discredited many decades ago. It was precisely this ideology that led to the Great Depression (so called Liberal Economics") and the revival of the same ideas (Neoliberalism or "new" liberalism) that insured the 2007 meltdown. Free trade has caused massive job loss as well as a huge outflow of wealth from the US. Banking deregulation allowed the mortgage disaster. (imo)
"What I see on that site doesn't amount to what I would call data. The graphs seem to be arbitrary lines drawn to support an ideology. "
I wouldn't say the lines are drawn to support an ideology....it gives the r squared value for the fit of the line (most r-squared's on the page are pretty indicative of a good correlation in the data) and it also includes the data points. Sources that are trying to manipulate things usually just show a best fit line and provide no r-squared value.
"I find this to be patently false."
It doesn't matter if it's false or not...it's a measure thats helping them to determine how free a country is. Is it free to restrict trade through tariffs? No. That's the government determining what product it needs more or less of which limits trade and makes people less free...they aren't arguing right and wrong but explaining how they determine how free a country is.
"It was precisely this ideology that led to the Great Depression"
I don't think free markets led to the Great Depression...i actually believe it was the opposite. Mises wrote a great book which shows how the expansion of the money supply (by the Fed) in the 20's caused a huge economic "boom" (the "roaring twenties") which came crashing down as the Great Depression. Markets were very much being tampered with during the 20's.
The 2007 meltdown was predicted by a bunch of free market economists in 2001...when interest rates were artificially lowered and special privileges were granted to fannie and freddie many were screaming "you're creating a housing bubble"...and most got laughed at..great video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnekzRuu8wo&list=PLDDnD1v54oE3dINLmVY7Fe4tTWcqkAoqo
Ironically,what Peter Schiff was saying amounted to was; we need more regulation. Again, Krugman does not follow the admonitions of Keynes. Neither does Bernanke. Although to be fair, Bernanke can't set trade policy. I would say Schiff more closely follow Keynes than the rest. Keynes never advocated QE infinity. Schiff is someone I have some familiarity with. he seems a bit confused. In the video below he first points out that "We need to produce". As in the goods we get from China. He then goes on to state irrationally that tariffs wouldn't work and that in the past it wasn't government that had anything to do with our prosperity. Of course, he was speaking at Ron Paul rally. The fact is, it was indeed the government that enacted and maintained high tariffs for the majority of US history. It was also the time we, starting from virtually nothing, became the top manufacturing nation, as well as the top economy in the world. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IyQh1D_t2Y
One could say that nothing affects trade policy like currency manipulation and bond rate manipulation. But I get what you are saying.
One could say that, but I would have to disagree. History tells us otherwise. The gulf between third world wages and cost of living between here and there is far too great. Trade agreements affect trade. Just to further illustrate what I termed Schiffs apparent confusion, here's a quote from his book , The Real Crash: America’s Coming Bankruptcy – How to Save Yourself and Your Country...
"Yes, tariffs suck. But they suck less than income tax. In fact, they might be preferable to a national sales tax."............. So as you can see, he can't seem to make up his mind. http://lewrockwell.com/orig10/smith-g.f12.1.html
Yeah I actually read that book. When talking about tariffs he was referring to ways to lessen the tax burden on Americans.....if he couldn't get everything he wanted (aka getting rid of tariffs and sales tax) then he would have a preference of getting rid of sales tax first. That's all he was saying.
He's got a better one that he wrote a few years before the 2008 collapse talking about how the housing bubble was forming, what institutions were involved, and how the collapse would unfold. He was spot on. Anyone who had read that book new what was coming.
I don't think Schiff has ever suggested more regulation, and I think he's pretty far from Keynes. He's very anti-Keynes. Even though Keynes didn't believe in budget deficits, he believed in "stimulating" the economy.
Yeah you're right that Bernanke and Krugman don't follow Keynes exact admonitions (they seem to believe in deficits), they are an offshoot of him however....they just believe in manipulating the economy in slightly different ways.
Keynes did advocate utilizing deficit spending to stimulate the economy in a recession/ depression. He also advocated paying them down in good times. This latter is something that has not been done. The very important aspect of Keynesian theory that the current crop of pro-stimulus economists has ignored is what Keynes termed "leakage". This includes trade deficits. At the time the Obama admin. got a 700 billion stimulus through Congress, we had a 700 billion .trade deficit, essentially cancelling out the stimulus. Schiff has at least called attention to the fact that trade deficits DO matter. We don't make real things anymore. This is big problem.
Yeah, I agree. One could almost point back to the Reagan admin for the first time where "deficits don't matter" began to creep into mainstream economic thought.
Bernake saying its unlikely housing prices decline, they've never declined before.
Priceless.
What a scammer.
I don't know why anyone takes him seriously anymore.
They're even openly leaking the shit to inside investors right in public, and the public doesnt even give a shit.
I dont see why he would take any of us seriously either.
lol so true
It's pandemic time again.
Those who have a house will be locking themselves in, and those who don't, will be looking for a bridge to duck under.
The oligarchs will be sipping champers on a yacht in the Maldives.
Ass-hat liberals like you have to blame someone for their failure in life. With you it's the Koch brothers. Just insert "boogeyman". Same thing. Get a job you fucking looser.
I run my own business. Thanks for your helpful advice.
Selling the communist newspaper, and patchouli oil for unbathed hippies, is hardly a career
Yep. They always have to have a devil. Either it's Big Oil, or Corporate Jets, or Big Pharma, or "Repelicans" or George Bush or Ronald Reagan or ATM machines or whatever.
If it's success based on hard work in competitive markets, the left is jealous.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there are no such things as free markets anymore.
I agree with you.
A free market that isn't also a fair market is neither.
America, the most prosperous country in the history of planet Earth, founded on democracy, free enterprise, capitalism and limited government.
Liberals abhor it....trying to do everything in their power to change it.
It's most prosperous if you are in top 10 percent, on backs of the slaves, who may stop working for you soon, you freeloading big mouth
lazy ignorant jerk
Please define liberals. You use the term 100 times an hour.