All Things Being Equal…
- Category: Austrian Economics
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Oftentimes we are thrown into discussions about the so-called "benefits" that governments provide to "society" at large (this is, of course, assuming that the term "society" actually means something tangible - which does not - see for example Do Not Talk To Us About Society).
This type of discussion and argumentation invariably ends up in something like this:
If governments would not exist, who will pay for (insert your favourite…
The Monopoly Of Absolute Truth
- Category: Libertarianism
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INTRODUCTION
Today we are going to analyze a little hiccup that just occurred between Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Everybody knows that the city of Mecca is located in Saudi territory. Furthermore, everybody also knows that all Muslims are mandated to pilgrimage to the Mecca at least once in their lifetime if they are physically and financially capable of so doing. This pilgrimage is called the Hajj and typically occurs approximately between…
The Just-In-Time Barrier - Part 4 of 4
- Category: Austrian Economics
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JUST-IN-TIME, CERTAINTY AND OTHER ISSUES
Just in time means that we will have to wait until the Free Market produces a solution to the problem and we don't like waiting. Furthermore, we do like certainty, certainty that a Free Market cannot deliver and only governments can. This much is true.
However…
Yup… there is always a however.
There is a high price to be paid for this luxury of having…
The Just-In-Time Barrier - Part 3 of 4
- Category: Austrian Economics
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LET'S COMPARE
Up to this point we have explained what happens with a government solution and with a Free Market one. Now, let's put them together in the same graph as we did before and let's compare.
(See the first graph below)
And just because we are evil, we will rub it in by adding a second axis as we did before and remove the Issue Cost for better visibility.…
The Just-In-Time Barrier - Part 2 of 4
- Category: Austrian Economics
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AS TIME GOES BY
A few comparisons
So far we can't see major differences between what governments propose and the products Free Markets plan to offer, cost-wise. This is so because we are only at the initial stages of this process. If we want to understand the full picture, we need to move forward in time and analyze how the proposed solutions behave in real life, but before we do…
The Just-In-Time Barrier - Part 1 of 4
- Category: Austrian Economics
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Some time ago we published the article The Time Preference Barrier. In it we explained how our desire to satisfy our needs as soon as possible determines, for the most part, when The Three Laws of Political System Changeare triggered. We are now going to apply this analysis to explain how this phenomenon impacts our way towards Libertarianism and Austrian Economics. But first, we need to understand how governments operate in…
Net Neutrality - A Very Stupid Idea - Part 3 of 3
- Category: Internet
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AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS
This school of economic thought talks about the market structure and how government decisions affect it. The market structure is simply everything logistic that has to happen in order for a company to get itself into business.
Think about it.
- Managers have to be hired.
- Plans need to be drawn.
- Buildings need to be rented.
- Contractors contracted.
- Staff needs to be trained.
- Computerized systems (for accounting, administration and…
Net Neutrality - A Very Stupid Idea - Part 2 of 3
- Category: Internet
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THE ACTUAL ISSUE
The actual issue is quite simple; there simply isn't enough bandwidth to go around and what do we do about it?
Do we "allow" bandwidth-hungry corps to cap our bandwidth? To slow it down so that they may make more money?
In a word? Yes.
ALLOW US TO EXPLAIN
Let's ignore the fact that governments built backbones with our money and "gift-wrapped" them for corporations. Theft is…
Net Neutrality - A Very Stupid Idea - Part 1 of 3
- Category: Internet
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This is a topic that springs up into the public life once in a while, like ants after a rain. Flustered socialist (i.e. elected) government officials tell us how the thing (i.e. Net Neutrality) is on the verge of collapsing if we don't "do something about it". How, if we do nothing, corporate hordes will overrun our everyday life and we will forever be subjected to the dictatorship of greed.…
