Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.
This is also a continuation of previous Sandbox threads (1) and (2) that have fallen victim to the dreaded page bug.
The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
Yeah, some of those older voters had the illustrated Atlas Shrugged comic read to them in bed by their mumsies.
BTW, I really love the theory that all these countries that leave the EU will magically devise free trade treaties among themselves. The actual fact of the matter is that an awful lot of supporters of LEAVE are protectionists. The only thing keeping trade as free as it is in the EU has been, uh, the EU. Free trade as a reason for leaving a confederacy is contradictory–absolute nonsense.
walto,
I believe that part of the issue is that trade outside of the EU is regulated and negotiated by the EU, so that each member country gets the same deal. Some British, looking at commonwealth ties, probably think they can do better.
Different people have different and often contradictory ideas about what libertarian means. I would like to convey my own idea, starting with a few rhetorical questions.
When you go to a hospital in an emergency, do you know who is in charge or who your doctors will be? When you go to a store, do you know who your clerk will be? When you hail a cab do you know who your driver will be?
All of these systems tend to function independently of who is on duty at any moment, or who has just been hired and who has just retired. That’s an ideal, and reality differs somewhat, but in most cases we live as if it were reality.
To be a libertarian of my stripe is to desire a government in which my life is not dramatically affected by who gets elected. Somewhat affected, perhaps, but not overturned. And not ruined by the results of referenda.
The rather odd thing is that I live as if this were already true. I make no important decisions based on who is in power. I pretty much accept whatever happens in politics. In the 2008 real estate crash, my personal net worth (my retirement savings in the form of property) lost more than half its value. Worse, it can’t be sold, because there are no buyers at any reasonable price.
But I refuse to consider my life ruined. I continue to work with no prospect of retiring before age 80. But I will not allow other people’s decisions make me miserable. If I have to, I will bag groceries in order to eat.
Richardthughes,
That makes sense, but look what they stand to lose trading inside the eu, based on wild hopes regarding what they can achieve outside it–and as I said, what most of them are actually hoping for is protection, not free trade. Check the Labour Party results in the voting.
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
— Albert Camus
Economists make terrible investors and are generally wrong about forecasts. My source for this opinion is my college roommate, who was for a number of years, the chairman of the economics departmen at Rutgers. I’ve read eqivalent statements many places.
In my completely unsupported opinion, trade deals are cronyism. They abuse ordinary people to the advantage of the super wealthy, who can afford to pay politicians half a million dollars for a speech that no one listens to or cares about.
At least it’s a lot less boring than a “remain” vote would have been.
Not much else to add, as I have absolutely no say in the matter.
Glen Davidson
Well, sort of. What the young don’t yet realise is that they lack economic power, that is being stolen from them, but they also don’t realise they possess physical power. When they realise they don’t have to play by the rules of the status quo the shit will hit the fan.
Just note it for the future. Need I say “Trump”?
Well, indeed! What are we going to do about it?
Fuck ’em.
Don’t think I can do much about him either, in fact.
Glen Davidson
Yup, we’re all fucked! 🙁
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/camus/#AgaCom
That’s always been the case. Fortunately we as a species seem to not often discover that until we’re already old enough to be the status quo.
How do you see the economic power of the young being stolen?
We could start by not voting for the candidate who does that just because her opponent might be worse. The lesser of two evils is still evil.
Exactly the strategy Trump supporters hope will prevail. What’s hilarious here is that Clinton is the free-trader by comparison with Trump who is pushing protectionism hard. Every vote for your guys by those who support the Clinton free trade agreements is a half vote for Trump and protectionism.
BTW I was in one of your candidate’s old Cambridge neighborhood the other day. I hadn’t realized that his mansion on Fayerweather sold only recently, but one of his neighbors reminded me that when he left Mass. he also left his wife (Prof. Susan)–who continued to live there until recently.
Pragmatically, why is “non of the above” not a valid option? Why are we forced into such choices. That’s, in my view, why people vote with their feet.
BTW Hillary Clinton, from this outsider’s perspective, is not evil. Colin Powell would be indictable under the same charges.
Double post. Expletives deleted!
That option is no different from not voting, right? Maybe it would be better to be able to vote and then also check an ‘all the candidates suck’ box.
ETA: is the idea that if the ‘all suck’ votes poll the highest, new candidates have to be provided? I kinda like that idea.
French supermarket shelves are laden with frozen New Zealand lamb. Ask a New Zealander if she thinks the UK pulling out of the EU is a good idea.
Who’s listening to our voice of reason?
Alan Fox,
Thx, but I actually like your idea better if it has teeth. (See my ETA above.)
I think that the EU referendum has highlighted the clay feet of most UK political figures, especially David Cameron, Boris Johnson (opportunists) and Jeremy Corbyn (non-entity who got where he is by the wheeze that anyone could register as a Labour party member and then vote for him. If you’re a Tory supporter, what’s the downside*?)
Lessons to be learned here for the upcoming US presidential election. Good luck!
*We’re already seeing it!
Of course. If “none of the above” wins, it must disqualify competing candidates and demands a fresh set.
All banter aside, this is my greatest concern. The effective disenfranchisement of the young is a time bomb. Pensions, health care for the elderly and so on all depend on the elderly and wealthy keeping economic control. When you have nothing to lose…
Indeed. The Libertarian Party has “None of the above are acceptable” as a binding option on all ballots. I’d like to see that nationwide, the cost of rerunning elections be damned.
That’s not the case. No previous secretary of state ran their own insecure server for the sole purpose of evading FOIA requests. Neither violated the very clear guidelines (which were created after Powell left office, in any case) about email security. Neither explicitly instructed their staff to send confidential material over insecure channels.
Hillary Clinton should be in jail, not running for president.
As I said, I’m an outsider. But it seems a
selectiveharsh judgement. Too many people reside in US jails to little purpose.keiths:
Patrick:
What value does the federal government provide that can’t be achieved through treaties between the states?
What value do state governments provide that can’t be achieved through treaties between and among the cities and counties?
What value do city governments provide that can’t be achieved through “treaties” between neighborhoods?
I have no idea how far your libertarianism extends into anarchism, but most people see added value in government versus mere treaties, and in institutions versus mere agreements.
Sorry, I phrased my question poorly. What exactly do you mean by the “effective disenfranchisement of the young”? Yes, the welfare state depends on a continuous stream of new taxpayers. That’s nothing new, though.
I support releasing all non-violent drug offenders to make room for people like Hillary Clinton who put the country as a whole at risk with their behavior.
As both petrushka and I have noted, we’d have been fired and prosecuted for far less.
It can act to ensure that individual states do not violate the rights of individuals. It can maintain national defense. Other than that, there is not much that needs to be done at that level.
It can mediate disputes among the smaller political organizations and represent them at the national level.
If there are economies of scale that can be realized in particular areas, town and city governments can be useful to achieve those.
That value needs to be proven not merely asserted. I see no value in an additional layer of government over that of the member countries in the case of the EU. Again, where’s the baby?
petrushka:
That’s a bit too sweeping. Ever heard of a guy named Keynes?
Again, millions of people are billions of dollars poorer now, and Patrick spouts religious tenets that apparently came from comic books in defense of that occurrence.
I’m not an expert on this, but I think Keynes is dead. My opinion on this is mainstream, which doesn’t mean it’s correct.
I would like to revisit the drop in the pound in six months or a year. Deal?
I already answered that. You and I have approximately zero influence on the world, but quite a lot of influence on how we lead our lives.
Live as nearly as possible so that politics does not wreck our lives. Hedge. Avoid unsecured debt. And if politics does wreck our lies, ask what decisions we could have made that would have mitigated the disaster.
Saying different things online probably isn’t among those things.
petrushka:
Not sure what your point is. That if he’d been a better investor, he would still be alive?
Again, I’m not sure what your point is.
What was your point in mentioning Keynes? Does one person who made a good run a hundred years ago refute the generalization that economists are not good at predicting markets? Of the dozen or two top living investors, how many are trained in economics?
Of the dozen or two living Nobel laureates in economics, how many predicted the housing bubble? Or any major market shift?
My point about returning to this in a year should be obvious. I predict the doomsayers are wrong.
Even if the market claws its way back after a couple of years, that doesn’t mean that millions weren’t harmed for bad reasons this week. Some of the losses will be permanent even if ‘the market’ bounces back. How many retirees in Spain will have to return to England? And for what? Will European relations be better or worse? Will trade be freer or less free? What will have been gained?
Patrick,
The points you made for the usefulness of national and subnational governments — their role in promoting human rights, defense, mediation, economies of scale — also apply to supranational organizations like the EU, NATO and the UN.
What is the principled reason for drawing the line precisely at the national level? You’re arguing that governments can be appropriate below the line, but that only treaties are suitable above it. I’m not seeing the rationale.
petrushka,
That you were painting with an overly broad brush when you wrote:
They don’t all make terrible investors, and you haven’t presented any evidence that they generally do.
Being unable to predict market movements does not make one a “terrible investor”.
The doomsayers aren’t all economists, nor are all economists doomsayers. For example, see what Paul Krugman has to say about the Brexit aftermath.
petrushka, to Alan:
To which I would add: Save. Diversify.
Perhaps the biggest lesson to be drawn from your experience — pay attention, any young’uns out there — is the danger of not diversifying. From what you wrote, it sounds as though your retirement savings were invested completely in local real estate:
Richardthughes,
The People’s Republic of London, South Cumbria and The Best Bit Of Wales, if you don’t mind! All were In.
Interesting times. The petition, started before the vote, to rerun if turnout is below 75% and margin less than 60% (in either direction), went up a million overnight. Right now, I clock it at 3,020,000 (it passed 3 million while I was chewing my virtual pencil). Of course there will be a substantial section of the population royally pissed if they don’t get what the vote gave. Their hatred of the EU is passionately felt. Where’s me pitchfork?
Have you looked for it in some hapless peasant?
Glen Davidson
Patrick,
I’m not sure how extensive that perception of a correlation is – I’ve not come across it. That there are two voting correlations, one with age group and one with education level, does not automatically force a third, between age and education.
What we do have is a well-travelled and outward-looking younger demographic. The backpack generation, with a friend on most continents, if only on Facebook. The older generation tend (huge generalisation) to go abroad, if at all, to a Britain-in-the-sun. Also, you are more likely to find some spectrum xenophobia (if not outright racism) among the older. I think these, rather than education, are the perceived sources of the skew.
The young are being told to shut up and mind their manners. “Never had to shovel coal or fight in a war”, from someone who evidently has done neither. In fact the ‘fought-a-war-for-your-freedoms’ meme is funny. The youngest WW2 vet is 90. Most of these older voters are baby boomers.
GlenDavidson,
Ah, thanks, got it now.
Some say the vote can be reversed if an election were held on the issue and the winning party campaigned against invoking article 50.
But the Conservatives are split and it is hard to see how they would campaign for ignoring the referendum. OTOH, could Labor be elected given the other policies of its leadership?
Re the 2008 crash, it resulted largely from UNDER-regulation of such financial vehicles as mortgage derivatives. The issuers took the position that anything that could be done to avoid government oversight ought to be done. FWIW, I see insurers trying the same thing every day– although, unlike the true believers here, for whom remarks about government being evil are just like (to others) Biblical passages about Ba’al being bad, these long-suffering captains couldn’t care less about principles of any stripe. They just want the quickest route to the trough. If Randian libertarians or crony capitalists or labor activists will get them there fastest, it’s all the same to them. Their interest is in $ for their owners and managers, retirement nest eggs be damned (I mean, except their own).