All Things in Moderation

Morning Report – Risk off? 03/18/13

16 Responses

1. 

   jnc4p, on March 18, 2013 at 11:59 am said:

   Good, basic overview of Cyprus.

   http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/18/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-cyprus-bailout-in-one-faq-2/?hpid=z3

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2. 

   jnc4p, on March 18, 2013 at 1:03 pm said:

   “Did the Empire Want to Blow Up the Death Star? A Conspiracy Theory Debunked.
   By Quora Contributor

   Posted Monday, March 18, 2013, at 12:07 PM”

   http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2013/03/18/star_wars_conspiracy_theory_did_the_empire_want_to_blow_up_the_death_star.html

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3. 

   jnc4p, on March 18, 2013 at 3:27 pm said:

   Interesting. Hackers being able to falsely dispatch SWAT teams to their target’s houses.

   http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/03/the-world-has-no-room-for-cowards/

   Brian Krebs use to be the Washington Post’s cyber-security writer.

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4. 

   Michigoose, on March 18, 2013 at 4:22 pm said:

   With the Republican party flailing all over the place trying to redefine, re-imagine, rework or whatever it is that they’re trying to do to re-position themselves with voters, I really do think that the Libertarian Party has a window of opportunity here to become the other major party in our two-party system. What do you think? Ron Paul was wildly popular with a subset of young voters, probably the ones the GOP is missing, and with a little tweaking (a little less of the every-man-for-himself and a little more of admitting that Medicare, Medicaid and SS are not going away and should be adjusted rather than eliminated) the Party could appeal to a wide swath of voters. I’m not a historian, so I don’t know how the Whigs managed to eliminate themselves, but could the GOP be going down the same path? And could the Libertarians make a move?

   And, FWIW, I thought that this comment today on PL was brilliant:

   Dear Mr. Priebus,

   Far be it from us to tell you how to do your job, but as subject matter experts we feel it’s our duty to inform you that the lipstick goes on *the other end* of the pig.

   Respectfully,
   The Folks at Revlon

   h/t barandsail

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   • 

     markinaustin, on March 18, 2013 at 5:18 pm said:

     Hi, Kelly –

     I still consider myself a libertarian [small “l”]. I wonder about the line drawing differences for me and say, JNC. JNC and I agree on a whole range of issues. But there are times when my notions of civil liberties clash with various notions of economic liberty.

     For example, Scott and I agree that slavery is wrong.

     Suppose a business has enough leverage by reason of a surplus labor pool to pay wages so low that employees cannot support themselves. Does economic libertarianism dictate the pittance wage or does civil libertarianism dictate a living wage?

     At some low wage point I see this as a slavery issue. At some higher wage point I see this as forcing an employer to pay more than it should in the market. I think there is an area where both issues are accommodated, in between.

     I wonder what JNC and NoVA think; Scott, too.

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     • 

       ScottC, on March 18, 2013 at 8:43 pm said:

       Mark:

       I wonder what JNC and NoVA think; Scott, too.

       I don’t think slavery can be likened to a low-wage paying job. Slavery is defined by both the threat and use of physical coercion to compel labor. There is a relevant and significant difference between being forced to do something by another person, and being forced to do something by one’s personal circumstances or the nature of reality.

       As for the hypothetical you propose, the only reason a surplus labor pool gives an employer leverage over the wages he can pay is if there are people within that labor pool willing to work for the wage he offers. And if the wage quite literally was not enough to support oneself on, who would ever accept it? Certainly they couldn’t accept it for very long, because by definition they cannot survive on it. And so pretty quickly the labor pool would shrink and the employer would be compelled to offer more. I think that when people speak of a wage too low to support oneself, what they really mean is a wage too low to maintain a certain minimum lifestyle that they find acceptable. As McWing rightly points out, we have all kinds of people ready, willing, and able to work for much less than what the government deems a proper minimum wage. So to say that they cannot support themselves on it seems to be wrong.

       BTW, I would also say that setting a minimum wage in your hypothetical situation may provide some part of the labor force with whatever minimum standard of living you find palatable, but it also condemns others to getting quite literally nothing. Remember, by definition there is already a surplus of labor. Artificially raising the price of that labor can only cause demand for it to be lower still, thus increasing the surplus.

       Lastly, I think that any government which offers some kind of a “safety net” or welfare has, by implication, already set a minimum wage below which wages paid by employers cannot naturally fall, and so within the context of a welfare state, there really is no need to introduce a higher, more explicit minimum wage.

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5. 

   Michigoose, on March 18, 2013 at 6:00 pm said:

   I found out that, philosophically, I’m a Left Libertarian during the 2008 election (at least as defined by a surveying web site). I would (in my infinite wisdom and hubris) classify Scott as conservative, while jnc and NoVA are more middle-of-the-road libertarians. You I would classify as a LL like me. . . but this is all my hubris at classifying other people.

   I’m still very interested in answers to my basic question: is the GOP on its way out, and will the Libertarian Party take its place?

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   • 

     ScottC, on March 18, 2013 at 9:02 pm said:

     Mich:

     I would (in my infinite wisdom and hubris) classify Scott as conservative, while jnc and NoVA are more middle-of-the-road libertarians.

     I think there is very little on which I would disagree philosophically with either JNC or NoVa. JNC and I tend to disagree a bit over banking issues, but that disagreement comes within the context of an already existing and distinctly non-libertarian system. If we were to start with a blank slate and build an ideal system, I suspect we would end up in a very similar place.

     I confess that I don’t know what a left-libertarian is. I know what principles define plain old libertarianism, specifically non-coercion. What principles define left-libertarianism?

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6. 

   Troll McWingnut or George, whichever, on March 18, 2013 at 6:02 pm said:

   Mark, the market has spoken and 11 million illegals agreed that a wage above the average campesino was worth accepting. With porous borders, a minimum wage requirement is laughable. You legalize those illegals and what do you get?

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7. 

   Brent Nyitray, on March 18, 2013 at 6:20 pm said:

   The achilles heel of the libertarians is the conspiracy theorist, anti-Fed gold bug wing. They sound like morons and scare business too much. (Can you imagine a gold bug as Treasury Secretary?)

   I still think there needs to be a party that is in favor of free markets, views the tax code as a means of funding the government not a means of social engineering, believes in capitalism and wants to preserve the healthy competition that it promotes, thinks that manipulation of the markets creates more problems than it solves, wants a smaller government footprint, believes that regulation is necessary but at the same time looks for market solutions to problems, doesn’t view the world as a zero-sum game viewed through the prism of inequality, views the safety net as necessary but is wary of making promises we won’t be able to keep, and wants to make the government do as much as they can with as few resources as possible.

   If the GOP dies out, some other party will represent them. They are not welcome in the Democratic Party.

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8. 

   Michigoose, on March 18, 2013 at 6:40 pm said:

   Brent: your middle paragraph pretty much defines left-leaning Libertarianism (at least, as I understand it). I think that you have a more cynical view of the Democratic Party than I do, since many of those issues are establishment policies as far as I can see.

   I don’t see gold bugs as Libertarians, I see them as Tea Partiers in Libertarian clothing.

   Above all I see a need to return to a two-party system where both parties are rational. Right now we’ve got a right leaning party and a far, far right leaning party, and it isn’t working very well.

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9. 

   jnc4p, on March 18, 2013 at 9:41 pm said:

   I don’t see libertarianism replacing the mainstream conservative party based on the results of the last election. The Libertarians ran their most responsible candidate ever and got less of a percentage of the vote than Nader did even though Romney was a much less compelling major party candidate than Gore.

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10. 

    novahockey, on March 19, 2013 at 7:15 am said:

    scott — pretty good breakdown of the left – right strain of libertarian thought.
    http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/libertarian-left/

    [update: this guy runs a blog and identifies as left-libertarian. i read it rarely, usual someone has linked him. http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/%5D

    And I agree with JNC. but this is the great debate. if you spend any time in the comment section at reason, there’s a lot of debate over taking over the GOP vs. blazing away 3rd party. but mostly it’s just “i don’t even care anymore, stick a fork in it, freedom and individual rights lost.”

    the problems are that the GOP isn’t really receptive to our message. and even a credible candidate is going to have a tough go of it on 3rd party. i’d say you need to build up the L party or a co-opted R at the local level.

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    • 

      ScottC, on March 19, 2013 at 8:13 am said:

      nova:

      Thanks for the links. So it sounds to me that what distinguishes left-libertarians from traditional libertarians is not so much policy, but rather the anticipated consequences of the implementation of libertarian ideals. They think that corporate capitalism actually relies upon the interference of the state in markets, and they expect that removing government interference altogether will be a boon for traditionally left-leaning concerns – income inequality, workers rights, wages, etc.

      I think that traditional libertarians advocate for libertarian principles for their own sake, not to achieve any specific outcomes, and are willing to let the chips fall where they may as a result. But based on that link, it seems that left-libertarians advocate for the same libertarian principles as the best means of achieving particular social/economic goals, which are the same goals as those held by what we traditionally call the left.

      As an aside, I don’t think anyone here at ATiM fits that description.

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    • 

      ScottC, on March 19, 2013 at 8:17 am said:

      nova:

      i’d say you need to build up the L party or a co-opted R at the local level.

      I agree. The trouble with this is that as leftist inclinations gain more and more electoral traction, the local level becomes less relevant.

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11. 

    jnc4p, on March 19, 2013 at 9:55 am said:

    “markinaustin, on March 18, 2013 at 5:18 pm said:

    At some low wage point I see this as a slavery issue.”

    Missed this last night. I’ll let Ta-Nehisi Coates respond to this one:

    “In the main, it is not simply the thievery of their labor, the lack of civil rights, or even the floggings that compel them. It is their status as property, the utter inability to construct a secure family due to the threat of rape or sale. It is the making of “barbarous havoc” upon the household. The Underground Railroad springs not simply from the immorality of labor-theft, but from the immorality familiocide.

    This is one reason why comparison between “wage slavery” and the Southern slave society always fall down. The antebellum slave society took as its premise not just zero wages, but the perpetual destruction of the black family.”

    http://www.theatlantic.com/personal/archive/2012/10/slavery-is-a-love-song/264335/

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