Jimmy Carter post President life goal is almost complete

[Gaius]

@Gaius

Two free people freely agree to do something. One of them renegues. Making a deal then reneguing on it is fraud. It is the same fraud as if he made the deal intending to break it once he got his part.

A: "Give me $100 and I’ll give you my watch.
B: “Okay, here’s the $100.”
A: “A I changed my mind. I’ll keep your money and I’ll keep the watch.”

And why should the government intervene to enforce promises? People should be responsible for themselves instead of looking to daddy government to hold their hand.

Yeah well in my early 30s the drug dealers and gangsters I knew had no need for cops and courts. They handled disputes on their own.
Tax-paying civilians thought cops and courts were both good ideas.

@Gaius

As to the first part if your list it’s kinda all over the board, not 100% incorrect per se, but a poor representation of what the various economic conservatives are referring to when we say intervention.

That’s fine. My point is that the it’s a nonsense word, like “robot” or “relative morality”.
[/quote]

@Samson_Corwell

@Gaius

Except for intellectual property

That’s curious because the MPAA and the RIAA would definitely call the enforcement of the intellectual property law enforcement. Who was Kim Dotcom arrested by for copyright infringement if not law enforcement

@Gaius

the second part of your list describes law enforcement.

Nope. The distinction is completely arbitrary. All those things in the first list are or would be laws and the enforcement of them is therefore law enforcement.

Let’s take environmental protection. There is absolutely no case that could be made that would explain why environmental protection is “intervention” while stopping efforts by environmental extremists to protect the environmemt is not.

If animal rights are considered “regulation” by some libertarians I’ve seen, then why shouldn’t their property rights be considered regulation, too? Like I said, it’s arbitrary.

@Gaius

Two free people freely agree to do something. One of them renegues. Making a deal then reneguing on it is fraud. It is the same fraud as if he made the deal intending to break it once he got his part.

A: "Give me $100 and I’ll give you my watch.
B: “Okay, here’s the $100.”
A: “A I changed my mind. I’ll keep your money and I’ll keep the watch.”

And why should the government intervene to enforce promises? People should be responsible for themselves instead of looking to daddy government to hold their hand.

@Gaius

As to the first part if your list it’s kinda all over the board, not 100% incorrect per se, but a poor representation of what the various economic conservatives are referring to when we say intervention.

That’s fine. My point is that the it’s a nonsense word, like “robot” or “relative morality”.

@Samson_Corwell

That’s fine. My point is that the it’s a nonsense word, like “robot” or “relative morality”.

Well the “thing” is making the ceteteus paribus assumption one could count any one of the following:

• more saving = bigger economy
• more borrowing = bigger economy
• more aggreg demand = bigger economy
• more corporate profits = bigger economy
• more money on the sideline= bigger economy,
• more private spending = bigger economy
• more gov’t spending = bigger economy
  etc… etc…

Eons ago economists started using using “aggregate demand,” (which includes both private and gov’t spending) as the single most frequently used indicator.

Thus if gov’t increaes taxes and buys $400 toilet seats the economy grows. If it pays $500 for those same toilet seats, the economy grows even more.

Services count too.
If it pays you $500 to dig holes and pays me $500 to fill them up again the economy grows twice as fast.

In short, the more seed corn we eat the better the economy. Saving seeds to plant next year is, on paper, a terrible thing to do.

BOTH PARTIES use this factoid to tout their programs as “growing the economy.”

So long as some of the money the gov’t diverts money from any category into aggregate demand,
wars grow the economy, and welfare grows the economy.

As a result both parties continue to pass spending packages requiring us to eat the seed corn.