Free Market Fundamentalist Ideology is based on a Logical Fallacy.

Probably too busy helping Chilean dictator?

 

I think the whole world agrees but you repeat it like a child who has just learned that 1+1=2?

 

when you buy bananas at one market because they are cheaper than at another you have achieved a free market that is desirable. Notice how easily as a typical liberal you are defeated?

 

You think agricultural markets are free? Wow, that's ignorant!

 

if I said that I will pay you $10,000. Bet or run away?? Do you know what a strawman is?

 

You can't answer a simple question? You referred to agricultural product. Do you think agricultural markets are consistent with free market grunt?

 

what question?????????????????????

 

what agricultural markets exactly??

 

All US and EU markets, coupled with any trade agreements with the developing world.

 

The Libertarian Fallacy lies in the fact that they only observe a Supply&Demand market-economy from the buyers point of view. They have very little understanding of the Supply-side that employs significant money to induce consumers to buy products/services, or the cost-of-production that can be minimized by having either having products made abroad or services performed at-home at the lowest cost possible.

The lowest cost possible is most often defined (in some sectors of the economy) by the national minimum-wage applicable. Which, at the moment in the US, is $7.25 an hour. When, in fact, Poverty Threshold wage (for a family of four) is $25K per year. That is, with only one member working (often the case in families with young children) an hourly rate of $12.

In a country (the US) where the national Minimum-Wage is around $7 an hour that is 42% of the Poverty-Threshold wage.

America's refusal to understand some very simple wage-mathematics is the key reason we have around 14 million men, women and children living below the Poverty Threshold.

It's a simple as that, and will remain unfair until we make the Minimum-Wage in America equivalent to the Poverty Threshold wage for an "average family" of four. Which, for such a family where perhaps both parents work, the Minimum-Wage for each at $12 an hour transforms into $50K of annual family income, which is just below the "average wage in the US" at around $54K annually per family.

America has a long way to go before it gets there ...

 

Absolute rubbish! The minimum wage is an ineffective poverty alleviation device. Its role is closer to economic efficiency, given it reduces underpayment associated with monopsonistic labour markets. You can refer to living wage analysis (which is really about encouraging structural change in the economy), but that needs to be considered in conjunction with other policies (such as a switch to worker ownership and use of social banking)

 

On the other hand, the macroeconomic understanding of the economy is so often wrong that maybe it's good to be more prudent and hesitant about implementing macro policies. The free market may not be completely 'efficient', but many attempted macro policies are even less so.

 

You've said nothing. Macroeconomics is crucial, given the tendency of the economy towards involuntary unemployment and economic crisis. Eliminate that policy and you can expect more financial crisis!

 

Anyone who thinks he understands all the intricacies of the market, doesn't,
It is too big and too complex to reliably predict. Let alone safely manipulate.

 

Any one that suggests we can maintain market fundamentalism is a Daily Mail reader.

 

very true and yet the libcommies have 100001 manipulations of the free market all ready to go should they get the chance that Hitler Stalin Mao Castro and Pol Pot had.

 

wow good argument for libcommieism. Why waste your time here?

 

worker ownership? but you said you were not a libcommie Marxist statist??

 

You continue to sound like a child having a tantrum. Of course worker ownership is consistent with numerous libertarian schools, from Anarchism to the Austrians. Take Hayek. We have an outcome that avoids socialist calculation problems while eliminating coercion in the labour contract.

 

Good point. I think such people rely on the argument for "free markets" because they want to see capitalism continue and they know there will be no change to create any "free market capitalism", but it sounds good, is easy to argue, wins the support of some people, and serves well as a diversionary tactic that wastes our time to keep us from real change.

 

China just switched from socialism to capitalism and saved another 60 million from slowly starving to death. How is that for real change?

 

oh, so libertarians and Marxists are essentially the same?

 

Libertarianism is inherently heterodox. Most would fall under the anarchism umbrella. Only in America would someone like you, who celebrates human rights abusing China, be able to abuse the term.

 

libertarians like Rand Paul want limited govt not anarchy. isn't learning fun?

 

"Rand Paul spent hundreds of donor dollars on shopping trips and thousands on meals, travel and other expenses abroad". Might give a clue about the nature of his economics!