DiscussMormonism.com

Sorry Droopy, looks like it is all over:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/contin ... rov,19856/

"And when people are buying 3,000 'Orange You Gonna Feel Better Soon?' bouquets a day, the idea of consumers as 'rational actors' goes out the window pretty fast."

Supply and Demand rules. Rationality is nowhere defined in Economics. Cannot be, never will be. What is rational to you is not necessarily rational to someone else. Capitalism remains the only viable econominc system temporally and even spiritually.

Capitalism is doomed to failure, eventually. Probably later than sooner, but it is not sustainable. The only consistency in capitalism is that the wealth gets funneled to a smaller and smaller minority, and eventually the majority will revolt. The only reason the wealthy minority have been able to get away with this for so long is because they've invested a good portion of their wealth into brain washing the general public about what capitalism is. Once you convince the ignorant that it is God's pure system, and everything else is evil, then they will continue to let the system abuse them, with a smile on their face, thinking they are living the good life, when in reality they are merely doing the bidding of those who are pulling their strings.

Sad, but true.

Anyone who thinks Jesus will return and keep a Capitalistic system running, is an idiot. He was more anti-Capitalist than Marx.

bcspace wrote:Rationality is nowhere defined in Economics. Cannot be, never will be. What is rational to you is not necessarily rational to someone else.

Rationality actually has been defined in economics, and the definition takes into account people's differing preferences. The best rational-choice models currently available can accurately predict people's choices up to 80-90% of the time.

Kevin Graham wrote:Capitalism is doomed to failure, eventually. Probably later than sooner, but it is not sustainable. The only consistency in capitalism is that the wealth gets funneled to a smaller and smaller minority, and eventually the majority will revolt. The only reason the wealthy minority have been able to get away with this for so long is because they've invested a good portion of their wealth into brain washing the general public about what capitalism is. Once you convince the ignorant that it is God's pure system, and everything else is evil, then they will continue to let the system abuse them, with a smile on their face, thinking they are living the good life, when in reality they are merely doing the bidding of those who are pulling their strings.

Sad, but true.

Anyone who thinks Jesus will return and keep a Capitalistic system running, is an idiot. He was more anti-Capitalist than Marx.

Hey Kev

I few weeks ago I finished the Krugman book The Return of Depression Economics. In the intro chapters he extolled free markets and capitalism and pointed to the failure of the USSR and the Eastern block as indicative of the failures of socialism. The book then went on to give many examples of what Krugman viewed as essentially bad monetary and fiscal policies that many nations employed when faced with economies on the brink. He then used that to bolster up his strong view of Keynesian economic policies of deficit spending in bad times as well as a liberal supply of money and argues that is what we need now.

But I was surprised he seemed so pro capitalism.

Kevin Graham wrote:Capitalism is doomed to failure, eventually. Probably later than sooner, but it is not sustainable. The only consistency in capitalism is that the wealth gets funneled to a smaller and smaller minority, and eventually the majority will revolt.

Your statement here is a COMPLETE FALSEHOOD.... and misrepresentation of what Capitalism is and does.
Capitalism does just the opposite of your claim. It places more wealth into the hands of the average person by giving opportunity for the average person to start businesses, and gain a better quality of life. Capitalism is the one and very thing that has allowed society to rise out of a agrarian society, a society that allows Art, and all other kinds of fields of life and career, allowing people to do things according to their talents and interests, not simply out of necessity of survival.

You need to really stop reading liberal/marxist etc. propaganda, because you are completely ignorant.

The only reason the wealthy minority have been able to get away with this for so long is because they've invested a good portion of their wealth into brain washing the general public about what capitalism is. Once you convince the ignorant that it is God's pure system, and everything else is evil, then they will continue to let the system abuse them, with a smile on their face, thinking they are living the good life, when in reality they are merely doing the bidding of those who are pulling their strings.

Sad, but true.

Not true at all.... What is true is that every society that lives like you believe is a complete FAILURE.... And more often than not ran by fascists. And if they aren't ran by fascists they tend to be poor as heck. YOUR ideology is the failure, not capitalism. You and your kind are trying to make America like all your other failed country's. In contrast, every single country that lives according to principles of capitalism, they thrive. Just look at China's turn around as the most recent example. The more they've embraced freedom and capitalism the more they've raised the quality of life for every single person. Just compare North Korea to South Korea, what they were, and what they now are. You don't know at all what you are talking about when it comes to actual "reality". You swallow communist propaganda as if it's the true reality.

Anyone who thinks Jesus will return and keep a Capitalistic system running, is an idiot. He was more anti-Capitalist than Marx.

You clearly don't know the scriptures.... Financial principles that founded Jewish success and American success are found in the scriptures, they are the foundations of these society's. Society's however founded on YOUR ideology's are ALL complete failures. Capitalism while not perfectly the same as what Christ would have, it's certainly a significant part of the system, a system based on Freedom, a system based on everyone having the same chance for success according to their needs and wants, etc. Capitalism is the closest thing this world has to being and bringing about that reality and life. It's not that there aren't "some" good points in liberal/communist/marxist etc. ideology's, it's that the main aspects of those ideology's are completely non-workable and false, are satan's perversions of God's laws, etc.

Obiwan wrote: It places more wealth into the hands of the average person by giving opportunity for the average person to start businesses, and gain a better quality of life. Capitalism is the one and very thing that has allowed society to rise out of a agrarian society, a society that allows Art, and all other kinds of fields of life and career, allowing people to do things according to their talents and interests, not simply out of necessity of survival.
...
You need to really stop reading liberal/marxist etc. propaganda, because you are completely ignorant.
...
You swallow communist propaganda as if it's the true reality.
...
Capitalism while not perfectly the same as what Christ would have, it's certainly a significant part of the system, a system based on Freedom, a system based on everyone having the same chance for success according to their needs and wants, etc. Capitalism is the closest thing this world has to being and bringing about that reality and life. It's not that there aren't "some" good points in liberal/communist/marxist etc. ideology's, it's that the main aspects of those ideology's are completely non-workable and false, are satan's perversions of God's laws, etc.

****************************************************

UAE. Forbes Middle East revealed in its sixth edition, the list of the 34 wealthiest Arabs of 2011. The total sum of their wealth accumulates to US$127 billion, in comparison to US$115.3 billion last year. Al-Waleed Bin Talal from Saudi Arabia remains on the top of the list despite his decline in the Forbes Worldwide ranking of the world’s richest billionaires in which he was ranked number 26, with a fortune amounting to US$19.6 billion.

from Al-Waleed Bin Talal tops Forbes list of the wealthiest Arabs

This list is considered the main indicator of wealth and where it is distributed throughout the economic sectors of the world. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, UAE and Kuwait had the highest number of billionaires throughout the MENA region with Saudi Arabia and Egypt leading the way with the highest number of billionaires, with 8 billionaires each.

...a system based on Freedom...

********************************************************************************
"communist propaganda"
Was Ezra Taft Benson the last You read?

by the way
"satan's perversions of God's laws"

Are they not Santa's perversions of Easter Bunny's laws?

I don't mention the Pink Invisible Unicorn. I didn't see him (her? it?) in my garage. I can prove it. I have no garage.

I am sorry. Obiwan reached my limits.

ludwigm....

What in the world do fascist Arab dictator's have to do with the Freedom and Capitalism I mentioned in my post? I gave several specific examples of Capitalism, NONE of which were Mideast. The Mideast is Liberal ludwigm.... Liberalism and liberals are ideological bedfellows with Arabs, and all the rest of the ignorant. They hate Israel, they hate America, Capitalism, etc.

Those country's are not ran according to Capitalist ideals. You're an idiot trying to claim the quasi-capitalism of Arab dictators, ruling casts etc. as being somehow "capitalism" for a Country itself, etc. that I was talking about.

No-one denies there are those in the world who are leeches, who have unrighteous dominion over others, gaining power and wealth. That's not what I'm talking about, and those are the exceptions to the rule. I gave examples of the Capitalism that I was talking about. Do you STILL then condemn it..... Or do you insist on misrepresenting the facts and my position, by creating your "Mideast Strawman"???

Your statement here is a COMPLETE FALSEHOOD.... and misrepresentation of what Capitalism is and does.
propaganda, because you are completely ignorant.

No great shock to the system this. Kevin's special pleading above is a textbook example of what virtually no one but the most psychologically and emotionally committed true believing faithful could possibly take seriously if they, themselves, really wished to be taken seriously by others to really do...well, take this subject seriously.

It's interesting to see Graham defending what is perhaps the singularly most discredited crackpot theory of economics, history, and the nature of the human condition in all of human history, and to be doing so at this historical juncture and in its most intellectually infantile terms.

It takes a great deal of effort - the effort necessary to willfully suspend disbelief, deny history, and shut one's eyes to a vast deposit of empirical knowledge and facts - to actually swallow whole Marx's magisterial falsification of history and metaphysical fancies regarding the wellsprings of human action and motive. Kevin was only able to achieve this level of intellectual disorder once his apostasy from the gospel was complete, and the door separating him from "light and truth" closed and locked behind him.

This is, as it were, a natural progression for many, once the "lights go out' within one's soul.

Rationality actually has been defined in economics, and the definition takes into account people's differing preferences. The best rational-choice models currently available can accurately predict people's choices up to 80-90% of the time.

As Von Mises showed, value preferences are fundamentally subjective, idiosyncratic, and always in flux over various time scales.

Rational economic calculation by an entrepreneur seeking to correctly predict, as accurately as possible, the future state of the market relative to a particular good or service should not be confused with the actual preferences of consumers at any given time, who's value preferences are fundamentally subjective and given to change based upon numerous variables, a number of them, again, subjective.

Even upon basic goods necessary for subsistence, such as food, shelter, transportation, and other necessities, human value preferences are as wide and variable as the vast variety of competing goods in similar lines can be given an open, unhampered free market.

Rational Choice models assume that human beings have stable and unchanging preferences over time, which is true if all we are speaking of are subsistence necessities in a fairly constricted market for goods and services. In a complex, capitalistic economy in which affluence at various levels is the norm, even those stable preferences (bread, for example) enter into much more complex, subjective value relations with many other similar, but not identical goods or substitutes for those goods that are far to complex and unstable to be captured by econometric models.