Please help: Another argument with an Anarcho-dogmatist asshole

[Travis Retriever]

I don't know China's intentions and motivations; I'm neither an expert nor psychic. I can tell you what they are economically incentivized to do:

If you recall my video on the trade deficit, you'll know that our government's policy is to devalue the dollar on the foreign market to make foreign goods more expensive. China doesn't want that to happen, for obvious reasons. So their response is to create yuan out of thin air and use them to purchase dollars on the exchange market, thus increasing the dollar's value and protecting their trade with the US.

Their incentive would then be to sit on the dollars, keeping them in reserve. Buying bonds from the Treasury--or doing anything else with them--would invalidate the purpose they had in purchasing the dollars in the first place.

Is that what they're doing? I don't know. I'm not saying that's their intention, nor am I saying that they lack other intentions they may have in buying US Treasury bonds. I'm only talking about their economic incentives vis-à-vis the exchange market.

I was mostly questioning the beginning of this video:
[yt]<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/j2H6cgS6OC0&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/j2H6cgS6OC0&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>[/yt]  basically, it was the idea that if we were in a capitalist society we'd be far less better off, as we pay off debt to China and Asia and work/produce more, even though I thought most of that debt wasn't cosumer spending, was on government spending.

Also, I thought you said that that's what gave us our debt to China, and why Schiff is freaking over it (them buying our bonds, or us going into debt from them because of the trade deficit) in the comments of that video.  I might have misunderstood though.  It WOULD explain how this wouldn't happen with a gold standard, as you pointed out.

I'm just annoyed at this guy, along with Schiff freaking out over our debt to China ($3 trillion) when you add up all of our debt:
Domestic: $11 trillion
Foreign: $12 trillion
SS: $13 trillion
medicare/medicaid:  $86 trillion
------------------------------
you get a total Total U.S. debt of $122 trillion
compared to our GDP of about $13.2, or about 9.24 times our GDP.

[Travis Retriever]

O.o
Odd...

As for the Anarchists and how they feel about Minarchists and Minarchism:
A quote from one regarding my point about the Spectrum: "The problem with minarchism, is that they are all over the spectrum.  They have no idea what "enough government" is or what kind of government should be established to ensure that it does not grow "too big".  They think government without consent of the governed (i.e. slavery) is OK.  They think taking money from people without consent (i.e. stealing) is OK.  Once you have a mindset that stealing and slavery is OK, then there is no way to control the beast." (I will give him that one; at least the point at the top; I verified that on Wikipedia.  I've already stated I'm not for compulsory government...I don't know how the rest of you feel, but...yeah.)

Another quote about the idea of having government by optional with private alternatives for courts, police, defense, etc after one person said it makes me an Anarcho Capitalist: "Not really, he leaves in the option for coercion, if the majority decide that the competition is not desirable, they will cause a civil war scenario by virtue of the "National" aspect, then we are back to square one..." (Show me an example of this happening, and I'll give you that one)

And one having Minarchism be closer to Anarcho Capitalism: "I don't. Considering keeping a "monopoly on the use of violence over a given territory" are the roots of statism, and the rest of the tree will simply grow back over time, once you've cut the branches, it is inevitable. (How the States transcends it's Limits). And "Deathwish of the Anarcho-Communists" by Murray N. Rothbard. No-one owns any property, you have no right to it. No rights at all. Everyone owns everything and no-one owns anything." (Because that NEVER happens with Anarchy, right?)

Me:  "I believe in a government to have courts, police and national defense and only that, and they shouldn't be monopolies (private alternatives possible and the ability to opt out of the public ones).  What does that make me?"

Harry Felker* (in response to the above):  "Utopian..."

*The most dogmatic Anarcho Capitalist I've ever met; with Laughing Man (formally Anarchist Cain) being the second...

Me (in response to the "monopoly of force" = government thing above by the person talking about the spectrum) :  "Not a monopoly.  Check the 2nd Amendment.  It's supposed to be a check and balance against that." (a rebuttal Shane has used against that argument)

Harry Felker:  "Check the supreme court who gave themselves the right to interpret the Constitution, and utter refusal to hear cases at whim...." (Because time doesn't matter right?  If it happens once, or a few times, we automatically have nothing right?)

Any thoughts on these bits of Anarcho-wisdom?

[Travis Retriever]

I don't know China's intentions and motivations; I'm neither an expert nor psychic. I can tell you what they are economically incentivized to do:

If you recall my video on the trade deficit, you'll know that our government's policy is to devalue the dollar on the foreign market to make foreign goods more expensive. China doesn't want that to happen, for obvious reasons. So their response is to create yuan out of thin air and use them to purchase dollars on the exchange market, thus increasing the dollar's value and protecting their trade with the US.

Their incentive would then be to sit on the dollars, keeping them in reserve. Buying bonds from the Treasury--or doing anything else with them--would invalidate the purpose they had in purchasing the dollars in the first place.

Is that what they're doing? I don't know. I'm not saying that's their intention, nor am I saying that they lack other intentions they may have in buying US Treasury bonds. I'm only talking about their economic incentives vis-à-vis the exchange market.

If memory serves, I was talking about the comments you made here:  http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&v=M15ZSlVrPjM

[Travis Retriever]

This will be continued here: https://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=285.0 where this discussion is more relavent.

[Travis Retriever]

"The problem with minarchism, is that they are all over the spectrum.  They have no idea what "enough government" is or what kind of government should be established to ensure that it does not grow "too big".  They think government without consent of the governed (i.e. slavery) is OK.  They think taking money from people without consent (i.e. stealing) is OK.  Once you have a mindset that stealing and slavery is OK, then there is no way to control the beast."

First off regarding the "slavery" deal, this guy needs to watch Shane's first lecture on the Constitution , and on the free market to see that, at least as an individual there is one Minarchist who knows damn well what "enough" government is:  the amount needed to protect people from the initiation of force and fraud.  Nothing more.
Not to mention how, I would imagine if he said that on one of Shane's videos, it would count agaisnt the rules, or something, because (as far as I can tell) it effectively shits all over the graves of the people who actually WERE enslaved.
But that's just me.
What do you think, Shane?

[MrBogosity]

No, that's only if he accuses his opponents (or another group of people) of being slave-owners. It's a libel thing.

[Travis Retriever]

Well, I hate to be the stick in the mud, posting arguments, but for at least archival sake, I'll post the crap I had to put up with from Harry Felker here from this link http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/8551.aspx?PageIndex=2 (starting from the bottom going to near the end of the thread.)
Even as an Anarcho Capitalist, I still want to punch him, along with many others on that board...

Unlike the others, it isn't (just) dogma, so much as how much of a condescending, verbally abusive prick he is...
to quote Matt Dillahunty, "Oh my god, I want to shove my foot right up your condescending ass!" is pretty much how I feel about Felker.

[Travis Retriever]

OK, here is something that NEEDS to be said if it hasn't been already.  Many people (including the dick I was debating here at the Mises Institute forums) when talking about the value of money talk only about the supply side, but always leave out the DEMAND side--something that only makes sense if the demand curve for money isn't just constant, but also completely fixed and immutable.  Yet according to the Austrian school's own damn tenets, placement of both the supply and the demand curves is not fixed or constant and is very fuzzy to boot. Talk about a double standard!

Something else that bothers me about the Austrian School is that, as far as I know, there is very little talk about equilibrium of the money supply and treating it like it can never be changed EVAR!  All the people I've talked to just say, "keep the supply exactly constant!" as this wanker does.  But how, outside of a central coercive authority (e.g. a Federal Government with a monopoly on money), are you going to enforce that?  What, outside of a violent monopoly on the money supply and the banking system is going keep people from mining gold to put into the system because something causes gold to be more valuable, OR to keep people from TAKING MONEY OUT OF THE SYSTEM should gold become less valuable for whatever reason?  And really, how is people trying to keep the system in equilibrium any kind of crime as this guy makes it out to be?
Also, who decides what that arbitrary amount of gold/money/etc is to be for the base that is "not to be changed" in the first place?

The more I think about it, the more the supply of money in a free market for currencies strikes me as a Wisdom of Crowds issue.  Really, how can anyone, short of an all knowing deity, know the EXACT amount of money that an economy should have?

[MrBogosity]

Your reasoning makes complete sense to me.

[Travis Retriever]

Your reasoning makes complete sense to me.

Thanks!   I updated the first paragraph of my last post in this thread a bit to be more descriptive, though the main points haven't changed.

Also, I will add that he seemed to think that, in a gold standard, every atom of gold the entire world has mined & has access to is used (gleaned from his comment about gold being mined being used directly as money) as money.  But as you have informed me, that's NOT how it works.  In a gold standard it's only the supply of gold that the issuing body has that is used as money.  This is the basics of the gold standard.

[MrBogosity]

Yeah, I'm amazed at how many people have that misconception.