I think in todays modern day finance is not applicable to the truth that Adam Smith discussed.

And you can bet that in Smith’s day, the people who wanted the government to crack down on engrossing and forestalling were just as willing as you are to grant the value of speculation in theory, but considered their particular circumstances to be different.

My purpose here is simply to refute your claim that Smith did not approve of commodity speculation. That is demonstrably false.

Of course, as is to be expected, you ignore this and continue to pretend that “times were different back then.” No, they were not. People have always and will always fear and misunderstand commodity speculation, just as people have always and will always fear and misunderstand international trade. Some things never change, and there will always be people like Muirgeo around who desperately need but adamantly refuse economic education.

I think in todays modern day finance is not applicable to the truth that Adam Smith discussed.

And you can bet that in Smith’s day, the people who wanted the government to crack down on engrossing and forestalling were just as willing as you are to grant the value of speculation in theory, but considered their particular circumstances to be different.

My purpose here is simply to refute your claim that Smith did not approve of commodity speculation. That is demonstrably false.

Of course, as is to be expected, you ignore this and continue to pretend that “times were different back then.” No, they were not. People have always and will always fear and misunderstand commodity speculation, just as people have always and will always fear and misunderstand international trade. Some things never change, and there will always be people like Muirgeo around who desperately need but adamantly refuse economic education.

my point on libertarianism is that it leads right back to what you call conservative crony capitalism. When deregulated corporations, bankers and Wall Street find easy profit in using their wealth to get new rules favoring their positions and digging into the public trough.

And the pin drops.

No. It doesn’t. It bears burden of proof with such a silly charge. See my cited quote in my previous post in this thread.

This is always where it wants to go. This is always its central point. This why I say it is duplicitous when it talks about free markets. Take note. And it has had this explained to it far too many times to waste time explaining and deconstructing this sophism again. Like I said already: it doesn’t care. It needs crony corporatism and libertarianism to be the same thing in order to make its silly assertions. It needs to overlook everything it has ever been told to make an argument. Basically it needs Peter and Paul to be the same person in blurry kinda way whose bluriness escapes it because it doesn’t care.

It thinks its on to something but it is really just chasing its own tail. It doesn’t get it. It doesn’t care.

And even when many libertarians in the past have flat out contradicted this whole sophism right to its face in plain English at Cafe Hayek…even Dr. Boudreaux and Dr. Russ Roberts themselves have done it…, it evades it, ignores it and shifts its point. Again recall my quote:

It likes to criticize libertarians for supporting things that they do in fact oppose and opposing things that they do in fact support. It also likes to conflate corporatism and free markets when criticizing free markets and separating them when trying to offer a hollow and hypocritical word of support for free markets.

In short, it is a duplicitous character that is not to be taken seriously.

I meant every word of it and it is 100% accurate. Feed it at your own risk.

my point on libertarianism is that it leads right back to what you call conservative crony capitalism. When deregulated corporations, bankers and Wall Street find easy profit in using their wealth to get new rules favoring their positions and digging into the public trough.

And the pin drops.

No. It doesn’t. It bears burden of proof with such a silly charge. See my cited quote in my previous post in this thread.

This is always where it wants to go. This is always its central point. This why I say it is duplicitous when it talks about free markets. Take note. And it has had this explained to it far too many times to waste time explaining and deconstructing this sophism again. Like I said already: it doesn’t care. It needs crony corporatism and libertarianism to be the same thing in order to make its silly assertions. It needs to overlook everything it has ever been told to make an argument. Basically it needs Peter and Paul to be the same person in blurry kinda way whose bluriness escapes it because it doesn’t care.

It thinks its on to something but it is really just chasing its own tail. It doesn’t get it. It doesn’t care.

And even when many libertarians in the past have flat out contradicted this whole sophism right to its face in plain English at Cafe Hayek…even Dr. Boudreaux and Dr. Russ Roberts themselves have done it…, it evades it, ignores it and shifts its point. Again recall my quote:

It likes to criticize libertarians for supporting things that they do in fact oppose and opposing things that they do in fact support. It also likes to conflate corporatism and free markets when criticizing free markets and separating them when trying to offer a hollow and hypocritical word of support for free markets.

In short, it is a duplicitous character that is not to be taken seriously.

I meant every word of it and it is 100% accurate. Feed it at your own risk.

John to summarize my point on libertarianism is that it leads right back to what you call conservative crony capitalism. When deregulated corporations, bankers and Wall Street find easy profit in using their wealth to get new rules favoring their positions and digging into the public trough.

In principle libertarianism sounds good but in practice it doesn’t work as shown by its complete lack of existence in any natural system. It is Darwinistically selected against as an unfit specimen on which to based human society. It’s a cultural evolutionary dead end. My simple request for evidence of a successful libertarian society always goes unchallenged and it is for that reason I favor the idea of well regulated markets as opposed to those where the rules are made by a privileged few. THAT’s IT! Nothing sinister just a pragmatic yet admitted imperfect approach backed by worldly evidence and in my opinion the closest one can get to using competition and market forces for the good of all.

John to summarize my point on libertarianism is that it leads right back to what you call conservative crony capitalism. When deregulated corporations, bankers and Wall Street find easy profit in using their wealth to get new rules favoring their positions and digging into the public trough.

In principle libertarianism sounds good but in practice it doesn’t work as shown by its complete lack of existence in any natural system. It is Darwinistically selected against as an unfit specimen on which to based human society. It’s a cultural evolutionary dead end. My simple request for evidence of a successful libertarian society always goes unchallenged and it is for that reason I favor the idea of well regulated markets as opposed to those where the rules are made by a privileged few. THAT’s IT! Nothing sinister just a pragmatic yet admitted imperfect approach backed by worldly evidence and in my opinion the closest one can get to using competition and market forces for the good of all.

Great post. With respect to this paragraphs that you quote, I don’t think the guy has the logic right. Everybody knows that correlation does not imply causality, but one of the hardest things to get your head around as an analyst is that in a complex system, lack of correlation does not imply lack of causality. Unless we are confident that we have the measurement period right and have properly accounted for confounding variables, we will often see non-correlated variables that, in fact, have a causal relationship.

This doesn’t mean that I have an opinion one way or another about the guy’s conclusion, just that I don’t think his evidence supports his assertion.

Great post. With respect to this paragraphs that you quote, I don’t think the guy has the logic right. Everybody knows that correlation does not imply causality, but one of the hardest things to get your head around as an analyst is that in a complex system, lack of correlation does not imply lack of causality. Unless we are confident that we have the measurement period right and have properly accounted for confounding variables, we will often see non-correlated variables that, in fact, have a causal relationship.

This doesn’t mean that I have an opinion one way or another about the guy’s conclusion, just that I don’t think his evidence supports his assertion.

Let’s recall what I pointed out about its behavior:

It likes to criticize libertarians for supporting things that they do in fact oppose and opposing things that they do in fact support. It also likes to conflate corporatism and free markets when criticizing free markets and separating them when trying to offer a hollow and hypocritical word of support for free markets.

In short, it is a duplicitous character that is not to be taken seriously.

I do not like Limbaugh nor have I ever listened to him EVER. I’m not a conservative, nor a Republican. But like at Cafe Hayek, where Muirgeo was beaten to a pulp on virtually every deceptive faux-argument it ever made, it likes to treat people who see its BS as being its favorite conservative crony capitalist caricature. It likes to accuse people who don’t share its misguided solutions or perception of a problem as being part of the real problem. It continues to suffer from an inability to see arguments from libertarians and understand them as stand alone and consistent arguments that criss cross through the stereo typical monoliths of liberalism and conservatism but are not substitutes for them.

I’ve seen its pointless quibble and inaccurate statements far too often to be lured into them anymore.

Let’s recall what I pointed out about its behavior:

It likes to criticize libertarians for supporting things that they do in fact oppose and opposing things that they do in fact support. It also likes to conflate corporatism and free markets when criticizing free markets and separating them when trying to offer a hollow and hypocritical word of support for free markets.

In short, it is a duplicitous character that is not to be taken seriously.

I do not like Limbaugh nor have I ever listened to him EVER. I’m not a conservative, nor a Republican. But like at Cafe Hayek, where Muirgeo was beaten to a pulp on virtually every deceptive faux-argument it ever made, it likes to treat people who see its BS as being its favorite conservative crony capitalist caricature. It likes to accuse people who don’t share its misguided solutions or perception of a problem as being part of the real problem. It continues to suffer from an inability to see arguments from libertarians and understand them as stand alone and consistent arguments that criss cross through the stereo typical monoliths of liberalism and conservatism but are not substitutes for them.

I’ve seen its pointless quibble and inaccurate statements far too often to be lured into them anymore.

It’s not even MY point that is being made. It is from Michael Greenberger a Former director of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.

If you go to demandside.net you can download the the 7 minute podcast where he makes his case which specificallly adresses any issues that Michah brought. The full interview is on C-SPAN. So take some time away from Rush Limbaugh and go listen to a CSPAN interview.

John it is you who rebuts every item with no counter argument just a claim that everything I say is a straw-man argument without ever actually addressing the points being made.

The fact is John people like you, pavers you might be called, who deny the massive transfers of wealth that are going on based on market manipulation NOT based on standard competitive markets, it is you and your ilk that are pavers of the road to serfdom. I know not your motive weather it be personal profit, sheer ignorance or some grotesque Stockholm sort of syndrome but you are paving either way.
And as roads and debates go its rather fine with me looking down on you walking your low road. I simply wish to air truth whatever it ay be and Mr Greenberger’s interview is critical not to be passed over as some sort of straw-man argument.