3 ms·

There is plenty of blame to throw around during interventionist policies during the Great Depression. Take a look at Wickard v Filburn: > An Ohio farmer, Rosco

by bko 6y ago

There is plenty of blame to throw around during interventionist policies during the Great Depression. Take a look at Wickard v Filburn: > An Ohio farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat to feed animals on his own farm. The US government had established limits on wheat production, based on the acreage owned by a farmer, to stabilize wheat prices and supplies. Filburn grew more than was permitted and so was ordered to pay a penalty. In response, he said that because his wheat was not sold, it could not be regulated as commerce, let alone "interstate" commerce (described in the Constitution as "Commerce... among the several states"). The Supreme Court disagreed: "Whether the subject of the regulation in question was 'production', 'consumption', or 'marketing' is, therefore, not material for purposes of deciding the question of federal power before us.... But even if appellee's activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce and this irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have been defined as 'direct' or 'indirect It was illegal for farmers to grow wheat above a certain amount... on their own land... to feed their own animals... You have people trying to tinker with complicated system. Gold is not complicated. It's a unit of account. There's a fixed amount of it with a pretty well known supply and demand. This is the way the world existed since 1971. That's the main value prop of crypto currencies, and by the price appreciation and interest, its a pretty strong feature. Its good to have a fixed unit of account available in the world when money supply can jump by 25% at any time due to the actions of a dozen or so individuals appointed by politicians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

pixl97 6y ago
>Gold. There's a fixed amount of it with a pretty well known supply and demand. At least until someone lands a autonomous mining craft on an asteroid full of it can crashes the market. Anything can be upset by changes in technology.
- bko 6y ago
  That's the innovation of bitcoin. Lot harder to break SHA256 ;-)
  - hammock 6y ago
    Do you really believe we will be (profitably) bringing gold back from asteroids before a quantum computer is developed?
    - gruez 6y ago
      Quantum computers isn't going to break hashing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography >In contrast to the threat quantum computing poses to current public-key algorithms, most current symmetric cryptographic algorithms and hash functions are considered to be relatively secure against attacks by quantum computers
    - bko 6y ago
      Not sure. I don't think quantum computer would necessarily break bitcoin encryption. I don't think it would come out of nowhere, but if it were to happen, I think there would be a hard fork to change the algo to one that is quantum secure (such algorithms do exist). I have more faith in the organization capabilities of the Bitcoin core developers especially with so much wealth at stake. Compare that to a gold supply shock. You'd have to get a lot of participants and organization to designate an alternative metal as defacto store of wealth. But bitcoin is superior to all of them in terms of verification and fixed supply, so I think they would come over to the dark side as well
gamblor956 6y ago
It was illegal for farmers to grow wheat above a certain amount... on their own land... to feed their own animals... The wheat limits already assumed that farmers would feed their own animals first and then sell the remainder on the open market. The goal was to prevent the price of wheat from dropping too low by limiting the amount available for non-feed purposes. However, by doing the opposite, selling up to the limit and then growing "extra" to feed his own animals, Filburn was deliberately contravening the wheat restrictions. If he had succeeded in challenging the law, everyone would have done the same, the supply of wheat would have skyrocketed, and the price of wheat would have dropped through the floor, financially ruining Filburn and thousands of other farmers. The wheat restrictions worked for the purpose they were intended: they eliminated the swings in wheat prices during a time of economic crisis, allowing the price (and the market) to stabilize. It worked so well that the these restrictions were included in successor laws and are still part of U.S. agricultural law today.
- jtbayly 6y ago
  > The wheat restrictions worked for the purpose they were intended And they are unconstitutional.
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    Literally all case law disagrees with you on that point. The wheat restrictions were constitutional and the power to impose such restrictions is still part of U.S. law.
- areyousure 6y ago
  > It worked so well that the these restrictions were included in successor laws and are still part of U.S. agricultural law today. Just to be clear, there are restrictions on how much wheat you can grow now in the U.S.? (And if so: On your own land? To feed your own animals?)
maest 6y ago
> It was illegal for farmers to grow wheat above a certain amount... on their own land... to feed their own animals... I don't find that surprising or scandalous. Wheat is (approximately) fungible, so if you produce more for yourself, you're decreasing the marginal demand for wheat in the market. Besides, barring everyone from overproducing wheat makes more sense than only banning people who somehow intend to sell the wheat: 1. Intent is hard to prove or judge 2. By not applying a blanket ban, you're unfairly hurting net consumers of wheat, or farmers who can't internalise their wheat consumption and rewarding those who can. I'm having a hard time seeing how the blanket ban was wrong in any way.
- second--shift 6y ago
  > I'm having a hard time seeing how the blanket ban was wrong in any way. Before this decision, the federal government did not have the "right" to compel a property owner what (not) to do with his land. The framers of the Consitution were pretty clear about states' rights, and limits of federal power. Prior to this decision, a reasonable reader of the Constitution and case law would have concluded "yea, the federal gov't cannot compel the property owner in this way". The (court decision) and ban is wrong because A) it's essentially a Constitutional rewrite without the amendment process and B) the Federal gov't does not have the moral authority to mandate how a property owner interacts with his own property. The intent from the 1790 text is pretty clear about the hierarchy of individual rights > state rights > federal rights. To be clear: I'm not arguing against federal regulation of interstate commerce. The Constitution defined that as "commerce [...] between the states". There needed to be an Amendment to formally redefine (or clarify) that section. There was no Amendment process for this expansion of gov't power.
- bko 6y ago
  Imagine being a poor starving farmer in the worst economic depression in this history of your country, and being told you cannot grow wheat on your land to feed your family. When you ask why, you get a lot of handwaving about how food prices are too low, despite people starving.

by bko 6y ago

pixl97 6y ago

>Gold. There's a fixed amount of it with a pretty well known supply and demand. At least until someone lands a autonomous mining craft on an asteroid full of it can crashes the market. Anything can be upset by changes in technology.

bko 6y ago
That's the innovation of bitcoin. Lot harder to break SHA256 ;-)
- hammock 6y ago
  Do you really believe we will be (profitably) bringing gold back from asteroids before a quantum computer is developed?
  - gruez 6y ago
    Quantum computers isn't going to break hashing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography >In contrast to the threat quantum computing poses to current public-key algorithms, most current symmetric cryptographic algorithms and hash functions are considered to be relatively secure against attacks by quantum computers
  - bko 6y ago
    Not sure. I don't think quantum computer would necessarily break bitcoin encryption. I don't think it would come out of nowhere, but if it were to happen, I think there would be a hard fork to change the algo to one that is quantum secure (such algorithms do exist). I have more faith in the organization capabilities of the Bitcoin core developers especially with so much wealth at stake. Compare that to a gold supply shock. You'd have to get a lot of participants and organization to designate an alternative metal as defacto store of wealth. But bitcoin is superior to all of them in terms of verification and fixed supply, so I think they would come over to the dark side as well

gamblor956 6y ago

It was illegal for farmers to grow wheat above a certain amount... on their own land... to feed their own animals... The wheat limits already assumed that farmers would feed their own animals first and then sell the remainder on the open market. The goal was to prevent the price of wheat from dropping too low by limiting the amount available for non-feed purposes. However, by doing the opposite, selling up to the limit and then growing "extra" to feed his own animals, Filburn was deliberately contravening the wheat restrictions. If he had succeeded in challenging the law, everyone would have done the same, the supply of wheat would have skyrocketed, and the price of wheat would have dropped through the floor, financially ruining Filburn and thousands of other farmers. The wheat restrictions worked for the purpose they were intended: they eliminated the swings in wheat prices during a time of economic crisis, allowing the price (and the market) to stabilize. It worked so well that the these restrictions were included in successor laws and are still part of U.S. agricultural law today.

jtbayly 6y ago
> The wheat restrictions worked for the purpose they were intended And they are unconstitutional.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  Literally all case law disagrees with you on that point. The wheat restrictions were constitutional and the power to impose such restrictions is still part of U.S. law.
areyousure 6y ago
> It worked so well that the these restrictions were included in successor laws and are still part of U.S. agricultural law today. Just to be clear, there are restrictions on how much wheat you can grow now in the U.S.? (And if so: On your own land? To feed your own animals?)

maest 6y ago

> It was illegal for farmers to grow wheat above a certain amount... on their own land... to feed their own animals... I don't find that surprising or scandalous. Wheat is (approximately) fungible, so if you produce more for yourself, you're decreasing the marginal demand for wheat in the market. Besides, barring everyone from overproducing wheat makes more sense than only banning people who somehow intend to sell the wheat: 1. Intent is hard to prove or judge 2. By not applying a blanket ban, you're unfairly hurting net consumers of wheat, or farmers who can't internalise their wheat consumption and rewarding those who can. I'm having a hard time seeing how the blanket ban was wrong in any way.

second--shift 6y ago
> I'm having a hard time seeing how the blanket ban was wrong in any way. Before this decision, the federal government did not have the "right" to compel a property owner what (not) to do with his land. The framers of the Consitution were pretty clear about states' rights, and limits of federal power. Prior to this decision, a reasonable reader of the Constitution and case law would have concluded "yea, the federal gov't cannot compel the property owner in this way". The (court decision) and ban is wrong because A) it's essentially a Constitutional rewrite without the amendment process and B) the Federal gov't does not have the moral authority to mandate how a property owner interacts with his own property. The intent from the 1790 text is pretty clear about the hierarchy of individual rights > state rights > federal rights. To be clear: I'm not arguing against federal regulation of interstate commerce. The Constitution defined that as "commerce [...] between the states". There needed to be an Amendment to formally redefine (or clarify) that section. There was no Amendment process for this expansion of gov't power.
bko 6y ago
Imagine being a poor starving farmer in the worst economic depression in this history of your country, and being told you cannot grow wheat on your land to feed your family. When you ask why, you get a lot of handwaving about how food prices are too low, despite people starving.