Anti-War FAQ

[Raven]

That was pleasantly short.

I'm not sure what to say though, I know perfectly well that WMDs are more of an excuse to attack then anything else, but it's a good enough excuse. And besides, the actual reasons (being prevention of terrorism, oil, and such not) are perfectly adequate.

[Menchise]

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That was pleasantly short.

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Short? The keynote address alone was over an hour long.

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I'm not sure what to say though, I know perfectly well that WMDs are more of an excuse to attack then anything else, but it's a good enough excuse. And besides, the actual reasons (being prevention of terrorism, oil, and such not) are perfectly adequate.

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Considering that you haven't countered the argument that attacking Iraq will stimulate terrorism rather than prevent it, among other costs that far outweigh any benefits (which are marginal at best for the people in general), your assertion seems premature to me.

[ 11-21-2002, 10:26 AM: Message edited by: Menchise ]

[Starfighter08]

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Originally posted by Jaguar:

Privately owned and the free enterprise system, it is seklf correcting, if the government doesn't step in and screw it up.

We don't need more government, we need more capitalism.

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Externalities and public goods are to classical cases where markets fail. Or do you propose that water (as in rivers and oceans), air and tranquillity (noise is pollution too) should all be privately owned?

[Epsilon 5]

A little OT to a OT statement - as I remember the lack of government intervention caused the 1929 depression. An economy of laissez-faire is always heading for auto-destruction. It's like running a nuclear reactor without the carbon bars.

[Guest]

EP5, where you heard that, I have NO idea.

As a matter of fact the opposite is true.

Government intervention is what CAUSED the depression.

They raised taxes, wrong move, they created tarriffs, WRONG move, they had the fed RAISE interest rates, WRONG move.

Government intervention CAUSED the great depression. Did you get that EP5?

A little explanation is in order here I think.

This was put together by a guy at the following website, I found it absolutely fascinating.

Americas Great Depression

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Recessions, Depressions, and Business Cycles

The exact cause of business cycles is one of the biggest problems in economics. There are several explanations. The current Keynesian models rely on what is referred to as "sticky wages" (or "sticky prices") to explain why the cycles occur. Under these models, wages or prices fail to reach their market clearing level. The Austrian School explanation is that all business cycles are due to government intervention in the economy. In particular, government efforts to manipulate the interest rate causes a boom and bust cycle because people over-invest ("malinvestment") when interest rates are low and when interest rates are raised to stave off the inevitable inflation, a bust is caused due to the mismatching of consumer and business goods.

There are six depressions in American history that are thought to be the worst since detailed records of economic data started to be kept (around 1867), 1873-79, 1893-97 (actually two contractions separated by an incomplete expansion), 1907-08, 1920-21, 1929-33, and 1937-38. Although depressions vary on length and severity, the similarities are so profound that Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas has stated, "business cycles are all alike." Since it's been about 60 years since we've had a depression, one might think that the economy is being managed better than it used to be. It's not clear why the economy is being managed better. The Federal Reserve Board was created in 1913 and yet half of the worst depressions happened after its creation. A better candidate might be the adoption of Keynesian management techniques, which were not fully implemented until after the last severe contraction in 1937. But there are some indicators that that is not responsible either. Detailed studies have been done to compare post-war business cycles with prior ones. At least one indicates that there was no improvement.

A key insight into the difficulties of managing the economy was made by Robert Lucas. Looking at post-World War II business cycles, he argued that if one could choose between smoothing out the cycles completely and increasing the annual economic growth by 0.1%, the latter would make people better off overall. As we consider the different policy options, it is important to keep this insight in mind as one more trade off that has to be considered.

The Federal Reserve Board

The Federal Reserve Board was created in 1913. Ostensibly, it was to act as the lender of last resort to prevent bank panics like the one that had occurred in 1907. Although some conspiracy minded folks might weave elaborate tales regarding its creation, the reason is rather straightforward. The big banks simply wanted government protection and bailouts and were more than willing to endure a little government regulation in return. Like the Interstate Commerce Commission before it, the Fed would be staffed with people from the industry that it was supposedly a watchdog over and who would most likely feel that what's good for banks is good for America. Throughout the years preceding the Stock Market crash, the Fed did just that. The Fed set below market interest rates and low reserve requirements that all favored the big banks. The money supply actual increased by about 60% during this time. The phrase "buying on margin" entered the American vocabulary at this time as more and more Americans over-extended themselves to take advantage of the soaring stock market.

So what went wrong? It was in 1929 that the Fed realized that it could not sustain its current policy. When it started to raise interest rates, the whole house of cards collapsed. The Stock Market crashed and the bank panics began. But what would make this depression worse than all the rest? There was a depression in 1921, but no one remembers that one. What was different? As we'll see, there were a number of policies enacted over the next few years that, from both a free market and a Keynesian perspective, would do nothing to help America recover and do everything to exacerbate the depression. Over the next few years, the Fed would allow the money supply to contract by a third.

A free market advocate's response would be to do nothing and let the market work itself out. Ideally, what would happen is that businesses would realize that no one was buying and lower prices accordingly until people started buying again. The same thing would happen with labor and capital. Prices would be lowered until they reached the market clearing price and the economy would recover. Keynesians claim that some prices or wages will be "sticky" and may take a long time to reach their market clearing price, causing needless suffering along the way. The Keynesian prescription is two-fold. First, the Fed should inflate the money supply. Keynes even whimsically suggested leaving jars of money around where enterprising young boys could find them. However, this may not work if the depression is severe enough to enter what is called a liquidity trap. Under this scenario, no amount of running the treasury's printing press will restore order. In this case, the government should simply start spending money itself, thus "priming the pump" so to speak. As we'll see, Hoover (and later FDR) implemented a mixture of policies, some of which were Keynesian (increased government spending) and some of which were not (price supports and other attempts to keep prices and wages high).

Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover has been accused of being a do-nothing president who allowed the country to continue to slide into its worst depression ever. Some will grudgingly admit that Hoover did take some action, but that it was too little, too late. But the truth is far more complex. Hoover did intervene after the Stock Market crash, but the acts passed by Congress and signed by Hoover were the worst kind of intervention: they actually exacerbated the problem. The most famous of these interventions was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. Raising tariffs was one of the worst things that could be done. Remember, both free market advocates and Keynesians agree that lowering prices would cure a depression, it's just that the Keynesians believe government intervention is necessary. A tariff does exactly the wrong thing by raising prices. Thus Smoot-Hawley was guaranteed to worsen any depression, not improve it. Other acts passed during Hoover's administration had similar effects of either raising prices or keeping them artificially high when they should have been dropping. Thus, it's not that Hoover was a do-nothing president, it's that he intervened in exactly the wrong way.

FDR

Ironically, FDR, the president who implemented so many government programs himself, was elected on a platform of a balanced budget and economic non-intervention. So what did he do upon getting into office? He promptly expanded on Hoover's programs. Some of these programs, the ones that increased spending, would get approval from Keynesians. Others, however, like the minimum wage and the Davis-Bacon Act, suffered from the same problems that Hoover's programs did: they reduced price flexibility, often setting a minimum and thus continued to exacerbate the Great Depression.

FDR's policies seemed to work at first. The economy began to expand again in 1933 and continued to do so until May of 1937. At that point, a second depression began and lasted until June of 1938.

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[ 11-21-2002, 02:44 PM: Message edited by: Jaguar ]

[CommanderJohnson]

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Originally posted by Menchise:

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I'm not sure what to say though, I know perfectly well that WMDs are more of an excuse to attack then anything else, but it's a good enough excuse. And besides, the actual reasons (being prevention of terrorism, oil, and such not) are perfectly adequate.

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Considering that you haven't countered the argument that attacking Iraq will stimulate terrorism rather than prevent it, among other costs that far outweigh any benefits (which are marginal at best for the people in general), your assertion seems premature to me.[/QB]

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I've already countered that BAD ARGUMENT about 50 times. And to counter that, you STILL haven't responded to my multitude of numbered points why the results of an Iraq attack would be GOOD.

Now, to answer your "stimulate terrorism" argument, you need to weigh the impacts of a worst case scenario in each of our views. Now, in either worst case, all of those GOOD RESULTS that I listed earlier on this thread will happen.

Now lets say worst case scenario (in YOUR view) from an attack. We attack Iraq. There's more terrorism. They try to blow up various embassies and ships around the world with more frequency. Our increased security measures may or may not mitigate it. There's a body count of 5,000 per year. Hell, make it 10,000.

Ok, now lets compare it with the best case scenario from MY view if we DONT attack. Saddam gets WMDs or hides them. The current level of terrorism and hatred toward America continues (no reason for it to drop). Some terrorist gets a Nuclear or Biological weapon (from Iraq). They don't even need to get CLOSE enough to buildings to get affected by security measures. They infect people with smallpox or set off a nuclear device in Atlanta or New York. At ***LEAST*** 100,000 killed, and that's probably a VAST understatement.

Weigh the body counts, buddy. If terrorism increases from an Iraq attack and there's a reduced chance of a WMD attack (since Iraq wont be able to supply em), it's always going to be better than the increased risk of a WMD attack.

Oh yeah, and all of this assumes that the people of Iraq wont WANT to be freed from an OPPRESSIVE REGIME and helped into some sort of FREE regime where they actually have freedom of information, and they get fed, etc without the constant threat of death. For a mindset that values individual lives, people seem to not care that the Iraqi people are constantly oppressed.

EDIT:

As for Ritter's little speech, you all know how much MONEY he is making off of giving these speeches and lectures for the left about our Iraq policy, right? And you all ALSO realize that if the US really was obstructing the inspections, there would be many OTHER inspectors agreeing with him, and there would be people on the inspections team speaking out THIS TIME when inspections start again. Ritter is about to go totally out of the spotlight because, guess what, ITS NOT HIS JOB ANYMORE.

[ 11-21-2002, 04:06 PM: Message edited by: Dredd ]

[Starfighter08]

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Originally posted by Jaguar:

EP5, where you heard that, I have NO idea.

As a matter of fact the opposite is true.

Government intervention is what CAUSED the depression.

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What caused the depression was the burst of the bubble at the stock exchange (the same thing happened in March 2000 with the new economy bubble). People were able to get loans by offering their stocks as safeties. With that money they bought new stocks etc. etc. That's why today the possibility of borrowing by giving stocks as safety is significantly reduced compared to the 20s.

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They raised taxes, wrong move, they created tarriffs, WRONG move,...

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Agree.

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...they had the fed RAISE interest rates, WRONG move.

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Disagree. They tried to reduce the bubble by reducing the ability of people to borrow money. That's the same thing Greenspan tried to do, a "soft landing". If the interest rates aren't increased then the bubble continues to grow. The wealth effect (illusion) of increasing stock prices lead people to consume too much. That creates demand pull inflation which quickly gets out of control.

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Government intervention

CAUSED

the great depression. Did you get that EP5?

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Government intervention didn't create/cause the great depression, it "just" made it worse. A recession was bound to happen anyway for the reasons I stated above.

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A little explanation is in order here I think.

This was put together by a guy at the following website, I found it absolutely fascinating.

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Have you checked his bio? I have, and I found some disturbing things.

Career: "toiling as wage slave for the burgeoisie"

Education says only University, what did he study and did he graduate?

and other little things.

[Lotharr]