Libertarianism not liberalism
Mea Culpa

Well "libertarianism" is a made-up word hijacked from leftwing anarchists by rightwingers who want a completely privatized society backed by the guns of the state. It has lost any political meaning. You were right the first time, sort of.

You're evidently incapable of answering a basic question.

Many libertarians, like the sect which dominates the Von Mises Institute and idolize Rothbard, defend the Confederacy because they believe Lincoln was a tyrant who greatly expanded government and government never went back to its pre-civil war size. Before the Civil War federal spending was miniscule. After the Civil War we have seen an uninterrupted expansion of BIG GUBMINT.

But you're not going to answer the question because you're a coward.

""Did African Americans want to be enslaved?" How utterly stupid are you Putin?"

Well according to some rightwingers here southern slavery compared to northern free labor was benevolent and lots of southern blacks owned slaves. I agree the question is stupid but many of your ilk make these claims. I can't be held accountable for their 'stupidity'.

Socialist?

That word... I don't think it means what you think it means.

"Big government quacks chiming and ignoring liberal policies with mandatory spending on entitlements created that deficit. Nothing like lies from the statists making excuses for their electoral defeats. The "voters are idiots" because they didn't agree with my socialism is so predictable it's nauseating. "

Re-read the posts you are replying too.

We never once say the voters are idiots. I describe what is an unprecedented swing towards the left and the collapse of the centre, and Mafia just says that just because Canadians voted in a conservative government doesn't mean that Canada has now rejected social democracy for ever and ever.

Additionally, yes it was spending from the big government that brought about that deficit that was exactly my point. Canada hasn't swung away from a social welfare state. Because the "conservative' government we just elected isn't about to scrap it, in fact they are spending more money then ever in addition to expanding the size of the government through appointed members of the senate.

Additionally the surplus that was erased was created by a liberal government. The liberal party of Canada is a mix of the right and left. Essentially big government lots of social parties with an eye for economics.

In short Canada isn't moving right, ad voters aren't idiots they're minds just aren't set in stone.

Damian I guess you are too lazy too read Maffligators post where he says voters are idiots.
How lazy are you?

Putin, You posted the stupidity asking if libertarian philosophy supported chattel slavery. It isn't my fault that you posted such an intellectual indefensible piece of stupidity.
If you don't want to be caricatured as stupid then don't post such indefensible nonsense.

Manganese, you obviously don't understand what socialism means, and you don't bother to read what I said it means in the statement that began this thread. Why doesn't that surprise me?

"Lincoln was a tyrant"

There were some policies that were... rather authoritative (suspension of habeus corpus wheeee), but nah.

"who greatly expanded government and government never went back to its pre-civil war size. Before the Civil War federal spending was miniscule. After the Civil War we have seen an uninterrupted expansion of BIG GUBMINT."

This is more or less the case. I think the dividing question among people isn't that this happened or didn't, but whether or not that's a good or bad thing. And I'm not touching that with a 10-foot pole right now.

I think Tettleton is some clone of Krellin. Krellin disappeared and instead we get this guy who says the same nonsense except with no caps.

Your definition of socialism is facile and ridiculous. Socialism is the state control of the means of production and requires the replacement of the anarchy of production with central planning.

It appears you're too much of a coward to answer a basic question. Why doesn't that surprise me?

For the absolute idiocy of socialism and it's focus on putting entitlement programs ahead of common sense, any conception of fiscal sustainability, or giving job creation even a passing shot.
In testimony before the House Small Business Committee Secretary Geitner said that raising taxes including those on small businesses is the only alternative that will allow a balanced approach to reduce deficits.
Raising taxes on employing individuals invariably leads to individuals losing jobs which puts them on the various entitlement programs which negates any tax increase which does nothing to address the deficit.
The entire deficit is caused entirely by spending and not by taxes that are too low.
For those of you not old enough to live through the 1970's Tim Geithner and Barack Obama are doing everything they can to recreate those economic conditions for the present generation of Americans.

Tax rates and actual taxes paid are at record lows. Tax cuts and unpaid wars got us into this deficit hole. The allergic reaction to taxation that your ilk have have fiscally ruined this country. None of your economic predictions have come true. Tax reductions lead to reductions in taxes paid per capita. Look at the data. Corporations already effectively pay zero in taxation, which means that low taxes hasn't done a damn thing for "job creation".

Stalin was a tyrant. Mao was a tyrant. Lincoln was a saint. Let's post accurate historical facts.

No actually they are not Putin, but your ignorance knows no bounds. Reagan's tax rates were the historic lows of post WWII America. We are not at historic lows for taxes on income for the 53% of Americans who still pay income tax.
Putin's addiction to ever increasing size, scope, and power of government only matched by his ability to create straw men to battle and his ability to create out of thin air statements that were never posted.
If you look at Bill Clinton's reduction of the capital gains tax it increased revenue brought in from taxes on capital gains.
That's right Putin. A reduction in rate increased overall revenue.
I'll call the authorities to put you on suicide watch immediately.

High taxes in Greece? Are you blind? I just showed you that corporate tax in Greece is at 25% and businesses get exemptions on all shipping and sale of stocks on the greek stock exchange.

Alright, Tettleton, I see a problem in your reasoning here. You say a reduction in tax rate can cause an increase in overall revenue. this is correct. There is such a thing in economics as the Laffer Curve, which shows that when you reach a certain tax rate, revenue will start to decrease because spending will decrease. Problem is that economists haven't been able to figure out what that rate is, because it constantly fluctuates with economic conditions. So unless you have a degree in economics from an Ivy, NYU, or University of Chicago, don't claim to know what that tax rate is because even the best don't know.

Also, you may be contributing the overall increase in revenue from the uncorrolated economic boom of the 90s. The increase in overall economic activity could have offset a decrease in revenue from a lower tax rate. Now, there is a time lag of about a year or two between the implementation of monetary policy and its effects. The boom of the 90s was well underway by 1995, so you can't really contribute the economic prosperity of the 90s to that tax cut (just foreseeing an argument that you could make).

You're wrong on capital gains and wrong on everything else too.

http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2008/05/05/the_official_word_on_whether_c/
http://www.ctj.org/pdf/regcg.pdf
http://www.econdataus.com/recgro8y.html
http://www.econdataus.com/recgro8y.html

Largeham, you don't understand taxation at all do you? The corporate tax is 25%, but what is the income tax of the executives who work for that corporation, 40% income tax. Then you have to pay the VAT which is 23%.
So you are going to attract some great talent to Greece when you take 63% of your anyone making six figures.
You also don't seem to realize why austerity is necessary.
When you have a debt that is so large that just paying the interest on the debt takes up your annual tax receipts where does the money come to pay benefits?
You have to borrow it at ever increasing rates of interest.
Do you have any idea what the prime rate in Greece is today?
30% to the government.
So you are a business whose best employees get taxed at a 63% rate and you have to pay 30% to borrow money if you can find any money to borrow since the Greek government is crowding out the private sector by borrowing every dime it can that crosses the Greek frontier.
MobileFX, Velti, InternetQ are already relocating out of Greece.
Austerity reduces the overwhelming needs of government on the entire economy.
No doubt in my mind that the EURO as a currency is doomed.
The way to profit from the idiocy of the socialists in Europe is to buy German bonds now while they are in EUROS because when the EURO disappears those same German bonds will be denominated in a new German Mark which will be valued significantly higher than the modern EURO.
It's basically the same thing George Soros did to the English Pound.
Yep Largeham, you sure know how to pick a great business climate.

Way to completely ignore Putin and myself.

But the Euro will not collapse. It is outperforming the dollar and is perhaps the most solid currency in the world right now, despite Greece's, Ireland's, and Spain's problems. What currency would there be to take its place in world trade? Already more and more companies are shifting away from dollar denominated assets to go to euro denominated assets. The US could default on its debt in August, our credit rating is going down. If anything, the dollar will collapse first

Oh, and Soros got the money when the pound was *devalued* What you just stated was an appreciation of the currency, which I don't know how that would happen, because they'd have to create an exchange rate to go from Euros to Marks when according to you the Euro would no longer exist!

Goldfinger, so go invest all of your money in Spanish, Greek, Italian, Irish, and Portugese bonds nitwit. I'll take US and German securities.
As far as Soros my point was he recognized the strength of Germany.
That is the commonality in both examples.
I guess you couldn't see that.
As far as "shifting away from dollar denominated assets" you obviously don't follow bond markets.

Putin, you cite "curiouscapitalists.com" as a reputable source?
Do you get your latest news from youtube?
Historical evidence undermine the claim that capital gains tax reductions lower revenue.historically, taxes paid on capital gains have tended to increase after a reduction in the capital gains tax rate. When capital gains tax rates were lowered in 1978 and again in 1981, revenue climbed steadily despite government forecasters' claims that it would fall. Conversely, when the tax rate increase was enacted in 1987, revenue began declining, although forecasters predicted it would increase. For instance, capital gains tax revenue equaled $36.2 billion (0.5 percent of GDP) in 1994 (the last year for which finalized IRS data are available). In contrast, $36.4 billion (0.6 percent of GDP) was collected in 1985, after adjusting for inflation. Thus, tax revenue in 1994 was slightly lower than in 1985 even though the tax rate was higher, the economy was larger, and the stock market was stronger in 1994. The historical data suggest that the government could collect more revenue if the capital gains tax rate were reduced.

Quotes from the 1997 Joint Economic Committee Study
http://www.house.gov/jec/fiscal/tx-grwth/capgain/capgain.htm

Thanks for citing "curiouscapitalist.com"
That was funny.

Benjamin J. Cohen

"The euro has failed to mount a successful challenge to the global dominance of the U.S. dollar and is fated to remain a distant second to the greenback far into the foreseeable future. " http://www.polsci.ucsb.edu/faculty/cohen/working/pdfs/Euro_Future.pdf

The 23% VAT tax doesn't apply to all products, legal services are exempt from the VAT. Also, what does the VAT have to do with corporate tax, it's a consumption tax. Also, the corporate tax is falling by 1% a year to 20% by 2015. Germany, the UK, France and Australia all have comparable or higher rates of tax in the top tax bracket, yet none of those countries are falling apart at the same level Greece is. France, the UK and Australia all have higher rates of corporate tax.

As for the US and the Euro, the AUD is above parity with the USD. This is in part due to China and their huge imports, and the rate has been rising since the 2000s, but it shot up after 2008-09. IMHO, the best currency to invest in for the mid-long term would be the Yuan.

As for the prime rate being 30%, where did you get that number? I can't find any country with it above 10%, not even the 'socialist' Spain, Canada and Scandinavia (not a country, I know), and I can't find the prime rate for Greece. However, this site (http://www.tradingeconomics.com/greece/risk-premium-on-lending-prime-rate-minus-treasury-bill-rate-percent-wb-data.html) shows the prime rate for Greece between 1974 and 2004. Notice that it was falling during the time the PASOK was in power (late 1980s and early 2000s).

Look at the rate paid on Greek bonds right now Largham. Do you not know how to look up government rates on bonds?

3 year Greek Bonds at 28.6%
The official 4.6% 30 year Greek Government bond is trading at a premium of 40.6%.
In other words if you own $100,000 of 4.6% Greek bonds you will get $40,600 on the open market.
The info is found at ZeroHedge.com
Here is a link to a chart that shows how Greek government borrowing is crowding out the private sector.
http://macrotragedy.blogspot.com/2011/06/snapshot-of-good-old-days-in-greece.html
The caption below the chart-As you can see in the chart above, from March 1998 up until Greece’s ascension in the EMU, loans to the private sector roughly matched Greek government bonds holdings as a % of total banking assets. This is as textbook a case of crowding out as it gets…
So if you want to borrow money in Greece as a private business you have to compete with the interest rates the government is paying to private investors, and that is if there are any private funds at all left to borrow after the government pigs feed at the trough.
Yep, the Greek business climate is just peachy isn't it.
You also don't understand how the Yuan is valued at all.
It is pegged to the dollar because the Chinese economy is not a free market.
The government in Beijing has no idea how to set price levels without a free market mechanism.
The same thing that put the Soviet economy into the tank as well.
So the Chinese pegged the Yuan to the dollar in an attempt to import general price levels from the United States.
You are investing in a devalued dollar when you invest in the Yuan.

Nice quote that explains Chinese need for the dollar.
"China benefits from a fixed rate to the dollar for two big reasons. First, the price relationships in the United States are duplicated in China — which is a command economy. If shoes sell for $100 in the U.S., and you want to make them in China, keep your costs nicely under CNY662. Capital and labor get allocated in kind. You don’t have to imagine what this would be like in the absence of a fix. On its best days, communist economic history is that of commissars ordering quotas of production and the useless stuff piling up outside, the shops empty of things that matter.

The other reason the fix works for China is that no one wants a currency produced by a country with a horrific recent past and a dodgy political system, unless that currency is readily convertible to something tender in parts of the world that are economically and politically functional — the dollar, if not gold."

Heh. Guess you're right Tet he did say voters can be idiots. However it was hardly related to the theme of his post. So you decided to fixate on a single line and ignore two posts worth of actual content.

You were addressing an argument that was never made. Imagined from a comment made in passing.

"Santa Claus, since you obviously need an education in American History I will being yours today."

My graduate degree says I have a pretty damn good education

"To begin with you need to learn what a century is.
The nineteenth century that you keep mentioning began in 1800 end until 1899.
The Trans-continental railroad did not begin construction until after the American Civil War began because the southern states had been blocking Federal funding of infrastructure projects from the end of the war of 1812 in 1815 until the beginning of the American Civil War."

And... Did I ever dispute that? what does that do to dispell the fact that the US largely funded the Transcontinental Railroad through landgrants and built dams, roads, and massive amounts of infrastructure throughout the west?

O"nce you come to grasp this irrefutable fact I will begin your education on the motivation behind the southern delegation in the Congress."

Again irrelevant, why are you even bringing this up, you said that the United States forswore infrastructure programs in 1820 and since we have been largely free of them, which is completely false

"For a particular examples, which I see you are unable to give because of course you are discussing fantasy and not fact, the John Quincy Adams administration tried repeatedly to federal fund infrastructure projects and was repeatedly rebuffed.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 tried to build the trans-continental railroad and ended up failing."

Yes because the south wanted the railroad to go through the south and the north wasnt too keen on the idea, but again... IRRELLEVENT

These are called specific statement Santa Claus.
Something else you seem incapable of making.
For instance you use the phrase "internal projects" whatever that means.
I especially like your "Fed Government supported research to the point where R+D departments were not part of major corporations until following WWI.
Whatever that nonsensical statement means.
It might help if you would give an example of what you are talking about to illustrate your point, but of course that is a process that any undergraduate has mastered so I guess that means you haven't reached that stage of basic education yet.
When you get back home from your special ed summer school next week please "bitch slap" me as you posted earlier.
I can't wait to read about your endless list of examples of massive federal expenditure on infrastructure projects from 1815-1860 since it will obviously be groundbreaking work since it didn't happen.