[Michaeluj]

Because the focus of most right wingers' attention on these forums is on America. America has the biggest economy, the biggest financial industry, it was where the crash started, it is what most people focus on. You mentioned Obama. I am simply stating the fact that America's government spending is no higher than anywhere else.

That really doesn't follow from my previous assertions. But, whatever.

Did Clinton shoot anyone who agreed with Friedman?

The only way that I could rationalize this is that, because Clinton did not kill anyone who agreed with Neoliberalism, he was basically a Neoliberalist himself. So what you're saying is that Clinton was Neoliberal, and that leads me to say that most of your sources are, therefore, wrong for not calling him one. People call him a lot of things, but Neoliberal was never uttered, so I guess your sources have higher potential to be inadequate.

No, you have read some bollocks somewhere and cant get it out of you head. You cant see the wood for the trees. Read the two articles above, one is by former chief economist at the IMF. The other is Money Morning, a typical investment blog. "Our worldwide research staff includes former investment bankers, international financiers, emerging markets specialists and veteran financial journalists."

Nope, I've read sources and developed a disdain for people saying things just because everyone else says them, primarily "The USSR was communist" and "The world became Neoliberal," most often by the same people. Your whole argument is based on people, very much potentially biased people with their own ideologies and perceptions and attempts to follow the generalities spewed by everyone else, being correctly subjective. Your whole argument is now practically, "I have allowed others to arbitrarily assign values to banking regulation, or just pick a few regulations and say that they're important, and they say that the number which occurred is smaller than before."
If your main thesis is: "Neoliberalism exists because of deregulation," you really shouldn't add: "But I get to assign whatever values I want to each law, pricing apples and oranges to show that the total price is higher." How can anyone take that seriously in a forum of debate!?

The FT, WSJ, Economist, EconoMonitor, former chief economist at the IMF, Money Morning, anyone and everyone influential in the world of finance, everyone knows that deregulation happened and neoliberalism did to a large extent.

I can only wonder how many arguments I've made you drop, pushing you further back until your only shield is, "Well, I'm in agreement with the status quo!"

I am not gonna debate this any more. Let me know when you are ready to move on. Lets agree that neoliberalism happened 50% if it makes you happy.

Only if we can talk about the economic calculation of central banking without bringing up this lame-brained argument of 'bigger' regulations.

Oh, another point: people may not want to say that Neoliberalism never existed because they would be outcasts for saying something so libertarian.

I also realize that you ended this:

Quote:
My definition of the USSR being communist is mainstream. It is also based on politicians like Stalin followingMarx and Hegel and it is based on the policies adopted. It might not be quite what my communist voodoo blogs require in their imaginary world, but it is communism as practised by the socialists since the early 20th century.

with effectively nothing more than, 'You're wrong, you would say that Neoliberalism existed if it did well.'
Now, I could have developed a proclivity for defending Neoliberalism's existence if that were so, even though I can never say for sure, but that is besides the point. The point is that your logic of using the mainstream and the based policies can be equally detrimental to yourself, which is why you should stop using it.

[ReformistStalinist]

As an Econometrician that deals with Time Series Analysis this is interesting subject for me.

Well the answer to how they determined prices during Communism is easy, they just set the price and left it there, regardless of wage increases or growth/declines in productivity and inflation. Managers were given bonuses based on whether they could meet their quota and surpass it. This system was often abused as people would just set their initial production so low that it was easy to surpass the quota. Mangers were also given benefits, such as better cars, better houses and better vacation destinations. Certain types of ordinary workers had the same.

A more interesting question would be to know whether we will be able to establish a society that runs just based calculation, and the answer is maybe in the future. Various fields have arose in the recent past, such as quantitative financial analysis that seeks to predict future trends in financial markets using advanced mathematics (mostly stochastic processes) and computer programming. Although this field is narrowed to the financial field for the time being, it shows steps are being made towards market calculation. I believe that as these types of fields advance further we will become more and more capable of predicting our future needs, until we reach a point where we can do so with absolute certainty. When will this be? Maybe in several hundred years. Maybe thousands, but I am a firm believer that it will be possible and has to be possible for the progress of humanity.

[apparatchik]

I made a research study basing them on records kept in the Soviet archives. I compared the number of years that the Soviets perfected the technology for tractors and harvesters and compared their numbers with their American counterparts. In a span of 10 years the Soviets were able to manufacture and perfect the same number of harvesters and tractors that the Americans manufactured in 80 years. 1,000, 000 tractors and 2,000,000 harvesters were amassed and manufactured by the year 1927, ten years after the revolution with the same number of tractors and harvesters in America during the year 1927 too. Socialism is really a valid theory!!

[Michaeluj]

A. That's not calculation.

B. Are you sure that the US didn't already have its tractor and harvester supply at a sufficiently high level to procure most of its food? It is much easier to see the difference when going from 0 to 50; but, when one is at 40, one doesn't need it to step up to 90 when 50 is an acceptable option. Perhaps Americans had no need to grow fast, with an already high supply.

[apparatchik]

You have a point so as to give justice to your argument. But Soviet Union was known to be a highly industrialized country in that vast resources and manpower were allocated in the manufacture and perfection of the tractors and harvesters not at the expense of other industries like food. Ukraine was really a food basket. Tens of millions died in the war in the city of Leningnrad not because of economic planning but because the Germans put a blockade on the hundreds of trucks transporting the food both to Leningrad and Stalingrad. As I kept on repeating and repeating in my lectures in universities, capitalist countries invest 80% more on wasted and bankrupt film industries compared to socialist countries rather than allocate them to science and technology. Aside from these, they remain inutile and helpless importing machineries from imperialist countries like USA and Britain which increased the GDP of these countries when these neocolonial countries can manufacture them themselves using the scientific manpower who are creams of the crops in universities, professors and Phd graduates. Read Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. They are novels written by our national hero, Jose Rizal. It vividly narrates the servile and subservient attitude Filipinos have to their colonial masters. Whatever USA or Spain wants, political puppets implement them.

[Michaeluj]

There was so much random in what you said. It doesn't apply. The closest you get to making an argument that relates to calculation is that the entertainment industry is wasteful; but part of calculation is that people chose to spend that money towards it at the expense of everything else they could have purchased, so, in terms of the economy being a spontaneous design meant for satisfying current needs and expectations, there's nothing wrong with entertainment.

[apparatchik]

There is not only waste in the film industry but on the clothing industry as well. Competition in the clothing industry causes the industry to overproduce thereby causing a crisis of overproduction. Out of a hundred name brands, 50% go bankrupt never to recover again except for a very few brands. As you can see in Soviet magazines, the ladies' dresses and men's coat are presentable enough to wear basing them on American standards. As I said exact measurements and calculations using consumption in past records as basis plus other variables while applying exact statistical forumulas can create a highly efficient centrally planned socialist economy. Here! Debate with the Chairman of the Communist Party of Canada.

http://thesparkjournal.blogspot.com/200 ... ition.html

[Michaeluj]

That argument only makes sense if everyone en masse suddenly purchases a singular or few different clothes suppliers entirely different from their typical spending. Have you ever heard of the concept: Sell to your customers, not to your opponents'?
The point is that the over-consumption through competition argument is senseless because there is no reason for someone to overproduce based on the idea of them selling more or selling higher. If there was only one clothes industry, would it try to sell to, let's say, nudists, or others who don't normally buy from them? Sure, new experimental clothes lines are tested, but they aren't sold in bulk before their market value is attested.
Also, again, you miss the point of calculation: in this sense, you don't realize that it's about choosing the most efficient PRODUCTION method, as in the types of machinery and resources in respect to the supply of machines, labor, other goods, and the tolerance of demand for the employed costs. It also provides a way for people to CHOOSE their methods, instead of being constrained by statistical data demanding the absolute minimum expenditure of resource components for a single industry in relation to capitalist industries. For example, what if someone wants more than 3 pairs of clothing of solitary colors x,y, and/or z, when that is, effectively arbitrarily, the cheapest way to provide clothes that suit the maximum people who (presumably) vote for that without any actual ability to regard how this will effect spending in, let's say, home furnishings (and, so, may actually vote higher).

Also, don't try to prove your point with a communist who has only lived in a capitalist world.

[apparatchik]

There is one universal rule that applies to mankind basing them on the lives of the poor and I would say including the middle class or even the rich: CONSUMPTION HAS LIMITATIONS or THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS UNLIMITED CONSUMPTION. Even the rich CEO, owner of a company or the biggest shareholder saves some of his CEO salary to buy 1 (only 1) photography enlarger and 3 pieces of cameras with different grades plus 10 lenses. The poor in capitalist countries cannot afford this set of camera equipment knowing that there are poor people whose inclinations are in the arts or photography. The centrally planned economy made them sure that these products which only the rich can afford are available also to the poor. As long as a state planner knows his mathematics and operations research (I taught this subject in university), you are well assured there is balance in production which can satisfy all kinds of consumptions and that limits of consumption extends farther than what capitalist economies can offer. America cannnot sustain its economy without selling their products worldwide whereas the Soviet Union attained her superpower status without exporting their goods or products to her satellite countries. That to me means the Soviet Union dealt with her satellite countries or with any countryy for that matter in good faith devoid of evil intentions to siphon off each country's dollar earnings by forcing her to buy outdated military equipment or siphon it by selling their (Soviet Union's) armaments or high-tech products like satellites.

I lived in the Soviet Union for 5 years, my friend. Alma Ata, Kazakztan..

[Michaeluj]

Again, so much random.

Now you're claiming that calculation is satisfying the needs of the poor. That's not calculation, which you're trying to pretend that it's not a big deal by claiming that it's easy.

[apparatchik]

There is no random. As I said, economic planners of Cuba apply basic mathematical formulas on Operations Research. Managing a Leninist centralist economy is a fixed science. Just like the way how private company managers manage a large company. The only difference is that it is the country's economy the state planner is managing. You know how North Korea computes domestic consumption? They apply Pavlov's conditioning to their military officers. Whatever quantity and quality they consume, the North Korean masses do so too. Although they take into account the depreciation of machinery like tractors and harvesters. Then they include them in the yearly computation of their expenses. Then they apply some statistical computations. Of course, even though managing centrally planned economies are exact sciences, accidents happen like storm, typhoon or hurricane. They allocate resources to anticipate these kinds of accidents by hoarding using their dollar reserves to import as much food they can. What happened to Japan when they were caught by a hurricane in the 1930s? They experience famine which North Koreans through their smart management of the economy has not.

[Michaeluj]

They apply Pavlov's conditioning to their military officers. Whatever quantity and quality they consume, the North Korean masses do so too.

That definitely sounds arbitrary. How do they choose whether to use machine A built with metal B using labor quality C and have repair cost D that could otherwise go to machine E? You named attempts at calculation, but not calculation itself. All that happened in your examples is the standardization of total output alongside not giving a shit for how to make that output, which is, again, NOT CALCULATION.

Picture this: I am a chef, and I get all of my ingredients from slaves. But I'm benevolent, so I give each of them a loaf, a muffin, and some kind of pastry every day. I know how to make those items of food. However, because I don't know the price of each individual ingredient, I don't know which is best to conserve, or, in other words: which workers would benefit the most from me not forcing them to work so much for something that can be removed. Should I cook half an hour longer, increasing the amount of water to reduce the grain cost? What should I remove without pricing? Well, I could count the hours needed to produce the energy and supplies....
But some slaves are smart enough to make their respective ingredients easily, some use machinery, and others have good soil conditions for their crops, so I can't simply add labor hours to decide which is the most expensive.
So, what is the best method for producing my entirely arbitrarily designated meals?

[apparatchik]

We admit the state planner was groping in the dark for 10 years during the time that they were able to manufacture 1 million tractors and 2 million harvesters. But North Korea and China before she went ideologically bankrupt before embracing market socialism had the solutions. The state planner takes into account depreciation and wearing down. Bolts and screws, yes, were prone to wearing down. They were all anticipated. If the Soviet Union was able to anticipate the possibility of its first satellite's 'bolts and screws' to wear down, don't you think it does not apply to tanks and navy ships which you can all see in May Day parades proudly displayed by the apparatchicks? Think my friend. Think....

[Michaeluj]

That. Doesn't. Answer. My. Question.

[apparatchik]

Anticipating the wearing down of bolts and screws refer to your 'repair costs'. Prices are determined by what has to be generously alloted to every working or even non-working individual of the communist system. And they are a thousand times plentier than what is alloted to citizens of capitalist countries. Ballet instruction in capitalist countries cost hundreds of thousands. They are offered free in the Soviet Union.If the baking powder has to cost 1 ruble to be able to produce apple pie worth 3 rubles, they include them. But to save costs, they mass produce apples by planting apple trees by the hundreds of millions in Ukraine, so plenty that kids get indigestion from eating too much apple cake. Apple trees and apple picking in capitalist countries has strict limitations due to the costs of labour which are tied to the international market. Capitalist Greece is falling apart! It's time to install a communist regime there. Don't you think so, my friend?

[Michaeluj]

Okay, you are going in every direction, and I don't have time to prattle against every little detail, so I'll settle for focusing on your very simple point of repairs. I chose repairs because it ought to be the most simple form of calculation and, thus, if it proves to exist insufficiently in socialism, everything more complicated relating to the matter will collapse as well.

You are pretending either that there is only one way to make repairs or that there's only one possible way to make a tractor that is clearly efficient (and which subsequently requires only one method of repairs). Suppose that one tractor type needs bolts n of type x and quality ranging from 1-10, made from labor quality l, resources r, and machinery which also costs its own respective l1 and nx(1-10) and r2. Then there's another tractor of bolts b of type z ranging from 2-12 made from labor quality l3 and resources r3 and its own machinery. You simply can't add all of those together and see what comes out ahead, because the different resources have their own extraction and supply-limit costs (which won't, basically, exist if everyone is paid the same or arbitrarily), the labor is valued equivalently, and the only way you can measure quality is by the effect (length of function) and not cost.
So, repair costs are different in every conceivable way, not just 12 bolts for one tractor per year vs 15 bolts of another tractor per 2 years. The differences can't be calculated because the difficulty of procurement has to be balanced by a completely different set of standards for another object's procurement! So, while it is possible to look at a tractor, see what parts need to replaced per given time, and then instruct another to make those parts, you can't tell if there would be a better alternative to machinery, methods, or resource type and quality. You simply can't compare apples and oranges without a universal standard of some sort which needs every variable to be a component of what it represents. Thus, I can see whether it's cheaper to grow apples with method A in place B, transporting it with cost C and storing it for purchase at cost D, or oranges of method D, place E, transport F, storing G. Those prices account for labor differentials based on their skill and proportion to the entire labor market of their respective regions; the variable costs of obtaining fuel and making it usable and transporting it; the costs of materials which are also based on the previous two points and everything those points are holistically connected to pricewise; and so on.

Also:

Prices are determined by what has to be generously alloted to every working or even non-working individual of the communist system. And they are a thousand times plentier than what is alloted to citizens of capitalist countries.

I am laughing so much. Where did you get this number? If every capitalist gave his or her money away, each person would get about 2,000 US/ Australian dollars. That money was acquired after, let's say, 200 years of what was managed to be acquired after constant reinvestment of profits, so, if investment in socialism is meant to stay at the same level as capitalism or increase, it'll take about as much time or longer for another infusion of cash. But sure, spending for mansions and other luxuries would go down, so perhaps that 2,000 will come sooner, but that is still not remotely comparable to the "thousands of times" as much as people would get according to you.

[apparatchik]

You don 't have to complicate matters with variables like x and y. It is easy to manage repairs in a centrally planned economy. Since 80 percent of the population are assigned in the collective farm, reduce them. Educate them on mechanical engineering. Or assign honorees in Mechanical Engineering to evaluate the repairs project. Make a survey of every machinery that breaks down. Calculate the costs. Assign mechanical engineers to draft the spare parts usually needed for replacement. Research on how Ford car plants automate their productions. Bingo! You solve the problem. Assigning a Phd Mechanical Engineer in a city is good enough investment. He can hire his men and women who would do the repairs through Pravda.

By the way are you serious with your signature? If yes, then so with Kim Jong Un. That is why I tremble in defending the centrally planned socialist economy. I know he'll wish he'd be dead if he cannot exact his revenge on me if I oppose him. From now on debate with him. You scare me with your signature.

[Michaeluj]

Calculate the costs.

I would love to barrage the rest of what you said with statements calling out your naivety, but I will restrain myself and focus on where you went wrong: right here.

You can't calculate the costs! Not in energy, not in labor-hours, not with just assuming that every variant of the screw is made essentially the same. You can use them to approximate, thus getting the gist, but that's really not a good sign of a system's functionality when every choice is pure guesstimate after guesstimate piled on top of one another for years after years. All of those x's and y's are just me showing you how everything, from the tangible to the intangible to the result of even holistic factors like limitation--and difficulty of acquiring--of different resources, can lead to different costs, so that you can see that there are things that can't be compared, therefore uncalculable.

Your example of:

Research on how Ford car plants automate their productions.

Is either stating that labor is not a worthy factor for the future, or that it's easy for a corporation to make calculations, or something else, and I won't focus on it until you explain.

Gah, your entire argument in your post appears to be, "It's simple! Just measure things! People can do math! Look at my example which probably has nothing to do with socialist calculation!"

[apparatchik]

Look, I rest my case, ok. I do not want to attract the watchers out there of the police state and your signature frightens me. Like it's like a quote of Joker of Batman..I am sorry. I rest my case..

[Michaeluj]

Wow. Your input is a shame to debate.

WILL NO-ONE CHALLENGE ME!!?