Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[CGVT]

Nate Silver has picked 99 of 100 states correctly in the last two elections

[Wild Hoss]

If all of the polls have a systemic error, then aggregating them just aggregates the same error.

...if the various polls had the same errors then it would stand to reason that their results would be the same, or at least, very similar. If there are different errors, leading to different results, then aggregating would tend reduce the effect of those errors.

[hack]

Capitalism always presupposes a free market. It always presupposes competition. And, it presupposes that the "invisible hand" of the market turns man's basically evil nature to the benefit of society in general.

Have you ever read economic texts called "anti-capitalism"? Three years ago, I was talking to a student from Wayne State who told me he was taking a class in Anti-Capitalism. My first question was, well if you are against it, what are you for. Answer: I don't know but not capitalism. His professor had told them the first day that any mention of N. Korea would mean an F for the course.

Does it presuppose those things? On paper maybe, but not in reality. Capitalists don't want competition. People with ideas want competition. I think the current global economy shows that. China is not a free market, but there's a whole lot of capitalism. Same for Dubai, and maybe Singapore. And we can go sector by sector through the US economy and see where there is actual competition and where there are barriers set up by existing market leaders. Of course free market, capitalism, etc. -- these conditions are not on-off switches. There's a spectrum from free and competititve to controlled, and everybody lands on one spot between the extremes.

That said, that and the difficulty of defining anti-capitalism (good anecdote) dovetail back into my point. There is a natural tension between free markets and capitalism. That we think the two go hand in hand, whether it's true or not, hurts us in defining what an alternative would be. For me the alternative is free markets. Plenty in what would be called the post-capitalism movement would disagree with me and come up with more socialist solutions of course, but this is a movement that is just finding its feet. There are going to be some crazy ideas tried on for size.

[WingsFan]

[Da Geezer]

Well, let's google capitalism. The first entry is the Webster definition: Full Definition of capitalism. : an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.

That is basically what I've been saying. Now, give this a read: http://www.worldsocialism.org/english/what-capitalism

I think that contains a lot of the elements that you are talking about. It is about what capitalists do not what capitalism is, and it comes from the Communist Manifesto (not a really good place to start to learn about the capitalist economic system) And it is about class and the labor theory of value. I don't mean this as something I have to walk back later, heh. I just believe some of this comports with what you believe.

so you have said

Capitalists don't want competition. People with ideas want competition. I think the current global economy shows that. China is not a free market, but there's a whole lot of capitalism.

to which I'd reply that, given man's nature, he would much prefer no competition and would like to totally control a market to extract non-economic profit (economic profit being the profit that is necessary to allow the actor to remain in production). And as you have pointed out, it is a legitimate goal of government to try to make all sectors as competitive as possible (with exceptions like utilities).

When you get to "people with ideas want competition", I'd say true...but...what about Bill Gates as an example or Steve Jobs. Or Rich De Vos at Amway. Gates and Jobs developed both soft goods and hard goods, but both became rich from their inventions. De Vos, on the other hand, invented no product, but rather a distribution method. All men rich. Really only De Vos coming from hardscrabble roots. Do you figure you want more rich men like these guys, or less? Ask yourself whether anyone would take a chance and devote their life to an idea if they could only make as much as a person working a 9-5 job.

I say China is booming because the government has allowed disparity of income, and a quasi-market economy. And I still maintain that the really disruptive technologies have almost all come from the US in the last 150 years. Ultimately the test of any economic system is its predictive ability. I'll predict the next great disruptor (like fracking) will be developed in the US.

Gotta go and do unto others for now. Economics is just about limited goods and unlimited wants and how to distribute the goodies. IMO, the market is the only way to discover what people want.

[froot loops]

It's way too close. To me the trend of this whole general election is when there is a big event Clinton gains in the polls and favorably ratings, conversely when Trump is front of the big audience his fall. You can see it after the conventions and the debates, huge gains. But when it is just run of the mill campaigning he creeps back.

Just think of how little his authority will be checked by the GOP with control of both chambers with AG Chris Christie and SOS Guiliani by his side.

[Cody_Russell]

Trump's Fivethirtyeight (Nate Silver) odds have also done up from 11% seven days ago to currently 34.7%.

I'm curious how Democrat turnout is going to look in these Midwest swing states...

[hack]

Well, let's google capitalism. The first entry is the Webster definition:Full Definition of capitalism. : an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.

I just don't know about that last one. Things are subsidized, things are regulated, etc. Ever read Asian Godfathers by Joe Studwell? The SE Asian guys all sought a cash-cow monopoly and then based risks in new ventures off that. Again, it's not an on-off switch, but points on a spectrum. My point is that if you say something often enough it becomes accepted, and ``capitalism and free markets go together'' counts in that category. I agree about the World Socialism link. I don't like or would use words like exploit, or that the motive is only profit and not to meet needs, etc. Those are loaded terms. But, basically, yeah. I think Marx' diagnosis was of higher quality than his cure.

[Da Geezer]

Just think of how little his authority will be checked by the GOP with control of both chambers with AG Chris Christie and SOS Guiliani by his side.

yup. Not good.

I hope you expressed similar sentiments when Obama had control of everything including a fillibuster-proof Senate. That's how we got Obamacare.

Not to worry, froot, that is not going to happen. Betting is still 3-1 Hillary. I do enjoy your panic though. Your freebies are safe.

[Hannibal]

Trump will never get a free pass from the media like Obama did, and he has a lot of enemies in his own party. If Trump wins then we will actually have a legitimate opposition media and the usual suspects will still be calling him "racist", "Nazi", etc.

[Da Geezer]

Hack, more later. I was writing while you were posting. Thanks for reading the definition I posted. So much of what you have said in the past is coming much clearer to me now. We have been using the same word, capitalism, to describe very different things.

[Hannibal]

The best part about this election is that what little credibility the Liberal media had left has been utterly destroyed. They abandoned all pretense of objectivity and Wikileaks has exposed numerous incidents of collusion between the media and the Clinton campaign. Profits at The New York Times are down 95%. Wikileaks has dumped scandal material at such a blinding pace that none of them have had any time to be fully digested. A CNN contributor passing debate questions to Hillary is an absolutely massive media scandal that would be getting much more attention in any other year. But there's so much else going on that nobody even has time to look at it. It's easily as big as Dan Rather's forged documents.

It will be the textbook definition of a Pyrrhic victory of Hillary wins. The amount of money that has been spent to defeat Trump has to be in the tens of billions by now. Maybe hundreds of billions. Not to mention the numerous careers that were destroyed by fools charging up Trump Hill (lol Glenn Beck, Jeb Bush, Ben Shapiro, etc). The #NEVERTRUMP Republicans have built themselves up to be a scapegoat if Trump loses a close election. There will be retribution and hell to pay. This election exposed the phony opposition in the Republican Party for what it is and they will never be able to pull off the illusion again.

[froot loops]

Freebies, you consistently don't know what you are talking about.

[Da Geezer]

Trump will never get a free pass from the media like Obama did, and he has a lot of enemies in his own party. If Trump wins then we will actually have a legitimate opposition media and the usual suspects will still be calling him "racist", "Nazi", etc.

True. And won't that seem nice? In line with your previous posts,Hanni, there is absolutely no way the Republicans in DC will make any waves against Hillary when she wins. No chance.

I'm sick of the words "pay-to-play" and "selling influence". I think we should call it what it was. Bribery. Racketeering. UBS pays a bribe and she flies to Zurich to talk down the IRS investigation of tax cheats (getting only 4,000 names, not the 56,000 UBS had). Putin puts cash in the Clinton Foundation, and she authorizes the Uranium One sale to his partners. If Hillary is so transparent, let's just dump the whole 650,000 on the internet and well get to the truth by next Tuesday. She should want that.

[Wild Hoss]

Is this real life? Wikileaks is trustworthy, but the NYT is not?

My goodness...talk about going down the rabbithole. Not only do our intelligence agencies say that Wiki is essentially an offshoot of Putin's imagination, but many of those from our NATO allies do as well.

But, Clinton.