RoR: Forum

Rebirth of Reason

Forum : Article Discussions : Machan's Musings - Alan Greenspan's Open Secret

Thursday
September 8, 2005

Machan's Musings - Alan Greenspan's Open Secret by Tibor R. Machan

Free market champions have, of course, had their complaints about Greenspan, most of them expressing perplexity -- some virulent hostility -- given his early unapologetic support of the gold standard and total laissez-faire. What is most interesting to me, though, is how silent the Washington press corps has been on Greenspan’s views of central banking. Maybe they all like the Fed so much, they do not want to broadcast the fact that the Pope himself doubts whether the church is even needed or doing any good at all. (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (110 messages)

Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 9:16pm

Jon,

This depends on the concept of wealth. If the concept is rooted in material goods only (like a beaver building a dam, or a bird building a nest, which would be their "wealth"), then the trade idea has no meaning.

If property rights are involved, then we have a social issue, which needs more than one person.

As we were discussing money, which is a means of trading and distributing wealth (the wealth based on property rights), I was limiting my meaning to that.

You are right, however, in stating that a hoard can be considered as an individual's wealth (in the first sense of merely a hoard of produced goods, including alternate shelters).

Michael

Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 8:47pm

Andy, I think it would be even better that absent central banking and fiat money that the terms "inflation" and "deflation" be retired as having no practical application except to journalists who need them for their stories out of mental inertia.

--Brant

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 5:23am

Brant,

I don't quite agree.

Inflation and deflation are distortions in price that will occur to some extent with any type of money, because no market is perfectly efficient. The supply of money will never track perfectly with its demand (higher with economic growth, lower with economic contraction) because they will always be lags, mistakes, and irrationality (like bubbles and panics).

Hard money is less subject to these distortions than fiat money, though it tends to be deflationary. "Free market" money created through credit extended by a free banking system I think will track better with supply and demand. We won't know for sure until the government is out of the business of regulating the money supply. That desirable state is something we both agree upon.

Andy

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 5:29am

Now I'm beginning to understand the late ruckus on this thread. Jon says to Michael K ...

While worded poorly, your post seems to agree with what I have been saying about the mind being the foundation of all values, that there can be no ‘physical wealth’ without mind.

So, you two do understand what I wrote. This distinction between value and wealth was implicit and then explicit throughout everything I wrote on the subject. I now see that what I was up against was a desire for conflict, not conversation.

Andy

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 5:36am

Andy,

I now see that what I was up against was a desire for conflict, not conversation.

Wrong. The ideas are what is important. Not Andy.

Andy is relatively important - sometimes a bit important, depending on the ideas discussed, and other times not at all, depending on the ideas discussed.

Michael

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 6:25am

MSK wrote:

For example, Objectivism (in all five areas, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and esthetics) is primary wealth.
btw - One essential characteristic of wealth is that it is traded.

How much money have you made so far this year trading Objectivism?

LOLLOLLOLLOLLOLLOLLOLLOLLOLLOL ("spelled" correctly)

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 7:00am

Merlin,

Quite a lot, frankly, as correct identification of reality has real monetary value.

If values are not correctly identified, then you stand to lose a great deal of money throwing it away on the useless.

Values do not exist without evaluation and appraisal. Reason is the best standard. But you are free to use another standard - or no standard at all - if you like for your own money transactions.

Also, there is a concept that has only reached this discussion vaguely, intellectual property, which is a tremendous amount of wealth.

What is being discussed is the possibility of divorcing material goods from the ideas that generated them and endowed them with trade value and calling only that wealth. As has been stated, goods without ideas have extremely limited value - as do ideas without goods. They are interdependent in creating wealth. One does not exist without the other if wealth is the standard.

But then again, I am presuming that most on this thread have read Atlas Shrugged. (Remember? The guys with the good ideas left, so the wealth went away? Hmmmmmmm...) I might be wrong though. Or then again, maybe some people just didn't understand it.

I suggest the speech that Francisco D'Anconia gave about money in Atlas Shrugged. You can find it here and here and here. I highly recommend buying the book and reading the full thing, though.

btw - That stylistic mannerism is something I came up with, so the correct spelling is what I gave it. My laughing is mostly benevolent, but I can see your spelling as a possible way to denote sarcasm.

Michael

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 9:47am

Andy,

“I now see that what I was up against was a desire for conflict, not conversation.”

No, you were up against a well-intentioned effort to help you see an error. I’ll accept your attempt now to assert that you’ve been agreeing with me all along as an acknowledgement that you get it now. And I accept the implied thank you.

Jon

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 9:58am

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL...

Jon, stop it!

Oh, the pain...

You're funny as all hell when you want to be.

(not sarcastic laughing - oh, fuck it - I can't discuss this right now - LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL...)

Michael

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 10:51am

First, procurement of material needs, then spare time for the luxuries of mind (and it’s “tertiary” activities) might be a description of man’s historical procession. It is not a correct description of man’s proper value hierarchy today.

Post-Industrial Revolution, we know that making physical stuff is *not* the foundation of man’s life, the mind is. And we know that the activities of the mind are not “tertiary” to his survival, but central to it. And we know that we could never make the physical stuff that we do without the men of the mind. *Not* stuff first, then niceties of mind—but the other way around.

The activities of the mind do not make work more productive, they make it possible.

Jon

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 11:24am

Jon,

Bonk.

Thank goodness we agree on something...

(But don't get too comfortable, nor will I... //;-)

Michael

(Edit - sorry, I forgot the laugh. Bonk.)

(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 9/14, 11:25am)

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 12:09pm

Jon,

You are either invincibly ignorant regarding what I wrote or being deliberately obtuse for the sake of controversy.

For some perverse reason you want to assign weight to words like first and second, primary and tertiary, that the context of their use cannot bear. It is truly possible that you do not comprehend that you must feed, shelter, and clothe yourself before you can take on grander pursuits? Maybe it is nothing more than that simple observation in which classifications like primary, secondary, and tertiary make sense?

I don't know what your misreading of my posts profits you other than the wet kisses you now get from Michael. Was it worth it?

Andy

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 12:26pm

Michael,

I haven't been responding to you in this thread. It's not because I'm giving you the cold shoulder. It's just that you are not only hopelessly muddled on this subject, you appear to be immune to the clarity of my writing. You have jumbled up things like wealth, trade, and value and have dropped the context of economics. For example, everything I have written deals only with the economic value of wealth - that is, its value in trade. I've even made that explicit a couple of times now because of the obtuseness I have encountered in this thread.

If you can explain to me how an idea can have economic value, not subjective value to the person who has the idea, without any physical manifestation of it - for instance, acting upon the idea or giving it physical form - then you will have put forward an astonishing hypothesis that we can at least discuss. Until then there is nothing but your confusion for me to respond to.

Andy

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 1:05pm

Andy to MSK:

It's just that you are not only hopelessly muddled on this subject, you appear to be immune to the clarity of my writing. [Emphasis added.]

Andy: like a fine wine, you just get better with age.
Glenn

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 1:25pm

Once again, Andy, you misread and such impatience leads you make mistakes in your characterizations.

I never stated that an idea can have economic value without any physical manifestation of it. You did just attribute that thought to me, didn't you? Please pay attention.

I stated something completely different.

I implied, then outright stated that both the idea and the physical manifestation of it (meaning simultaneous - together - two parts of the same thing - jointly - not separate - did the idea get across or do I need to be clearer?) are necessary for primary wealth to exist.

btw - That includes the medium of exchange itself - money.

Do you really need examples of worthless stuff laying around that nobody knows what to do with, but becomes great wealth in the right hands (and minds)?

Alongside this stuff+idea is an area of services that mankind has always supported wealth-wise, always considering such to be primary wealth - spiritual concerns, which become intellectual concerns in modern rational society. The physical manifestations of these areas, also, range from the extremely simple, like a meeting place, to the highly complex, like broadcasting technology. Wars constantly have been fought over such primary wealth as holy grounds.

Even in spiritual matters, there is a need for stuff+idea.

Michael

Edit - Sorry, Andy. I can't resist this. You wrote:

It is truly possible that you do not comprehend that you must feed, shelter, and clothe yourself before you can take on grander pursuits?

How do you propose to do these things without the ideas of how to go about them?
(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 9/14, 1:31pm)

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 1:36pm

“I don't know what your misreading of my posts profits you other than the wet kisses you now get from Michael. Was it worth it?”

No, it wasn’t. I don’t see what Kat sees, frankly. Maybe he’s too worked up about Jim and Casey—he was breathing out his mouth, for example. Blah.

Thanks for the discussion, Andy. ‘Till next time…

Jon

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 5:12pm

Thanks for the compliment on my wordsmithing, Glenn.

Andy

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 5:24pm

Michael,

Sorry, Andy. I can't resist this. You wrote:
It is truly possible that you do not comprehend that you must feed, shelter, and clothe yourself before you can take on grander pursuits?
How do you propose to do these things without the ideas of how to go about them?

You should have resisted. When I previously wrote that you must think before you can even dig a ditch, I did assume that a person of normal intelligence would glean from that statement that you must also think - that is, have an idea - before engaging in more complex endeavors.

I never stated that an idea can have economic value without any physical manifestation of it.

[Sigh.] If you understand that then why are you arguing with me, Michael? There are other ways to get close to me other than being a stone in my shoe.

Andy

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 5:29pm

I suppose we could try wet sloppy kisses...

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 5:53pm

Thanks, Michael, but I think the Warden wouldn't approve.

Andy