4 ms·

Where are you guys getting these idiots. Yesterday it was comparing the US today with the Weimar Republic. Today it's some idiot who says it was better 500 ye

by russell 18y ago

Where are you guys getting these idiots. Yesterday it was comparing the US today with the Weimar Republic. Today it's some idiot who says it was better 500 years ago than today because they had local currencies based on grain. What utter bullshit. The great cathedrals were built as tourist attractions. The great cathedrals were built 800-900 years ago in a competition to glorify God. There weren't any tourist then. Tourism is a pretty recent invention. All our woes are a legacy of the British East India Corporation. The guy doesn't even understand what a limited liabiity corporation is. Apologies for the impolite put down, but apply some critical thinking before you submit this stuff.

dangoldin 18y ago
Oh I don't agree with the article at all. I personally don't think the author understands the way economies work but still thought it was an entertaining read that can hopefully get some debate going.
- davidw 18y ago
  So ... submit it to reddit, or somewhere else appropriate for these kinds of discussions?
  - run4yourlives 18y ago
    Agreed - this is blatantly off topic.
  - dangoldin 18y ago
    I prefer the discussions here. The same topics will have different discussions depending on where they are introduced. Submitting to reddit won't give you the same result.
    - davidw 18y ago
      Once upon a time, submitting it to reddit would have produced a fine discussion. The problem, however, is that this sort of article is what attracts people who only want to discuss this sort of article, rather than, say, Hacker News. That's what happened to reddit. Since it's a lot easier to dig up articles on batty economics (or even good economics, for that matter), those topics can very easily crowd out the 'on topic' stuff.
      - dangoldin 18y ago
        You're probably right in that regard. But then if you can't go to reddit and you can't go to HN, where do you go?
        davidw 18y ago
        I'm sympathetic to the desire to talk about a broader range of topics with the bright people that inhabit this site, but don't have an answer. I don't think "how to have an intelligent, civil, wide-ranging and long-lasting on line forum" is an easy problem to solve, either. This forum works, in part, because its scope is somewhat limited.
        dangoldin 18y ago
        Yea. I don't have an answer. The only solution seems to be to just be more selective in what you post. Non strictly hacker articles can be submitted but not too often.
        ars 18y ago
        This site was the attempt to be exactly that: http://nonhackernews.com/ http://nonhackernews.com/ but it doesn't seem like it ever reached critical mass.
jhancock 18y ago
The article has good thoughts and I do not dismiss them so quickly. It is important to ask "how much value do banks and other investment vehicles create?". It is clear they are (or have become) highly inefficient and corrupt and some aspects either need to be eliminated or reinvented (possibly two sides of the same coin). I hear many people talk about today's current economy issues without going back to basics. More so, without requiring proof that the current economic theory is correct. If you believe this man's thoughts are patently incorrect, can you at all prove (and I'm talking mathematical proof) the current system is? Where is the "critical thinking" that proves the current system should be supported?
russell 18y ago
(Edit so to speak :-) This guy is so wrong that it is hard to know where to begin. He is arguing from a false premise to a false conclusion. It's like a creationist argument. He says that things were great in the late middle ages. Wages were the highest ever. Well that is true for a few hundred years either side of the fourteenth century. But the real reason is not the superiority of economic system, but because everyone else was dead. Sure wages were high. but that was because the hundred years war, the black plagues, and the little ice age had killed off 2-thirds of the population. As soon as the good times were over, it was misery all over again. Contrast that with now. Half the world's population is middle class. Three billion vs a few 10's of thousands in the late 14th century. And middle class today is a lot better than well-to-do of 600 years ago. Then he conflates a whole bunch of things, government monopoly with corporations, the British East India with American trade. Government monopolies have a history as long as history. The medieval guilds are an example. The American patent system is another. Before the invention of corporations, investors were partners in an enterprise and all were liable far beyond their investments in the event of the enterprise's default. Over the long run the two are independent concepts. If he made the argument that large corporations tend towards monopoly, he made it in an exceedingly roundabout way. As far as I know the British East India Company had nothing to do with the Americas. There was a lot of tension because of a British law that all trade to and from British ports had to be on British ships. The Americans sent their cotton to England because we did not have the manufacturing capacity to produce fine woven cloth. (IP restrictions also.) He also argues against government monopoly of currency. You get things like grain based currency when there is no stable currency. Early in US history currency was privately issued by banks. That proved to be a pretty lousy system. If the bank went under, not only did you loose any deposits, the value of the currency went to zero. Yeah, I would really like to be holding AIG currency right now. It's bad enough they have my life insurance. I live in California and we damned near had California currency, because Republicans refused to allow a budget. Nobody here was looking forward to it. I personally think we have a huge problems with monopolies: the banks, the energy companies, the information infrastructure, the drug companies. And the recovery financing is making it worse. Good stuff for HN discussion. It's just that this guy is so wrong in so many places that he pollutes the discussion.
- 18y ago
Spyckie 18y ago
I think you're being close-minded. There's an underlying thought process that leads to these conclusions that you're missing out on. You're applying your view of the world to his conclusions and thinking them ridiculous. This essay is based on a top down view of economics. A top down view runs a game theory thought experiment based on the properties of money, trading, and investing, and ends up with the conclusion that bankers end up with all the wealth as time approaches infinity. Watch money as debt for an introduction to this kind of thinking: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279
vlisivka 18y ago
> Yesterday it was comparing the US today with the Weimar Republic. He comparing two economic systems. What wrong? > The great cathedrals were built as tourist attractions. Yes, that is right. ( s/tourist/believer/ ) Attractive church gathered tons of gold.

by russell 18y ago

dangoldin 18y ago

Oh I don't agree with the article at all. I personally don't think the author understands the way economies work but still thought it was an entertaining read that can hopefully get some debate going.

davidw 18y ago
So ... submit it to reddit, or somewhere else appropriate for these kinds of discussions?
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  Agreed - this is blatantly off topic.
- dangoldin 18y ago
  I prefer the discussions here. The same topics will have different discussions depending on where they are introduced. Submitting to reddit won't give you the same result.
  - davidw 18y ago
    Once upon a time, submitting it to reddit would have produced a fine discussion. The problem, however, is that this sort of article is what attracts people who only want to discuss this sort of article, rather than, say, Hacker News. That's what happened to reddit. Since it's a lot easier to dig up articles on batty economics (or even good economics, for that matter), those topics can very easily crowd out the 'on topic' stuff.
    - dangoldin 18y ago
      You're probably right in that regard. But then if you can't go to reddit and you can't go to HN, where do you go?
      - davidw 18y ago
        I'm sympathetic to the desire to talk about a broader range of topics with the bright people that inhabit this site, but don't have an answer. I don't think "how to have an intelligent, civil, wide-ranging and long-lasting on line forum" is an easy problem to solve, either. This forum works, in part, because its scope is somewhat limited.
        dangoldin 18y ago
        Yea. I don't have an answer. The only solution seems to be to just be more selective in what you post. Non strictly hacker articles can be submitted but not too often.
      - ars 18y ago
        This site was the attempt to be exactly that: http://nonhackernews.com/ http://nonhackernews.com/ but it doesn't seem like it ever reached critical mass.

jhancock 18y ago

The article has good thoughts and I do not dismiss them so quickly. It is important to ask "how much value do banks and other investment vehicles create?". It is clear they are (or have become) highly inefficient and corrupt and some aspects either need to be eliminated or reinvented (possibly two sides of the same coin). I hear many people talk about today's current economy issues without going back to basics. More so, without requiring proof that the current economic theory is correct. If you believe this man's thoughts are patently incorrect, can you at all prove (and I'm talking mathematical proof) the current system is? Where is the "critical thinking" that proves the current system should be supported?

russell 18y ago

(Edit so to speak :-) This guy is so wrong that it is hard to know where to begin. He is arguing from a false premise to a false conclusion. It's like a creationist argument. He says that things were great in the late middle ages. Wages were the highest ever. Well that is true for a few hundred years either side of the fourteenth century. But the real reason is not the superiority of economic system, but because everyone else was dead. Sure wages were high. but that was because the hundred years war, the black plagues, and the little ice age had killed off 2-thirds of the population. As soon as the good times were over, it was misery all over again. Contrast that with now. Half the world's population is middle class. Three billion vs a few 10's of thousands in the late 14th century. And middle class today is a lot better than well-to-do of 600 years ago. Then he conflates a whole bunch of things, government monopoly with corporations, the British East India with American trade. Government monopolies have a history as long as history. The medieval guilds are an example. The American patent system is another. Before the invention of corporations, investors were partners in an enterprise and all were liable far beyond their investments in the event of the enterprise's default. Over the long run the two are independent concepts. If he made the argument that large corporations tend towards monopoly, he made it in an exceedingly roundabout way. As far as I know the British East India Company had nothing to do with the Americas. There was a lot of tension because of a British law that all trade to and from British ports had to be on British ships. The Americans sent their cotton to England because we did not have the manufacturing capacity to produce fine woven cloth. (IP restrictions also.) He also argues against government monopoly of currency. You get things like grain based currency when there is no stable currency. Early in US history currency was privately issued by banks. That proved to be a pretty lousy system. If the bank went under, not only did you loose any deposits, the value of the currency went to zero. Yeah, I would really like to be holding AIG currency right now. It's bad enough they have my life insurance. I live in California and we damned near had California currency, because Republicans refused to allow a budget. Nobody here was looking forward to it. I personally think we have a huge problems with monopolies: the banks, the energy companies, the information infrastructure, the drug companies. And the recovery financing is making it worse. Good stuff for HN discussion. It's just that this guy is so wrong in so many places that he pollutes the discussion.

18y ago

Spyckie 18y ago

I think you're being close-minded. There's an underlying thought process that leads to these conclusions that you're missing out on. You're applying your view of the world to his conclusions and thinking them ridiculous. This essay is based on a top down view of economics. A top down view runs a game theory thought experiment based on the properties of money, trading, and investing, and ends up with the conclusion that bankers end up with all the wealth as time approaches infinity. Watch money as debt for an introduction to this kind of thinking: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279

vlisivka 18y ago

> Yesterday it was comparing the US today with the Weimar Republic. He comparing two economic systems. What wrong? > The great cathedrals were built as tourist attractions. Yes, that is right. ( s/tourist/believer/ ) Attractive church gathered tons of gold.