Of Austerity and Echezeaux

originally posted by Cliff:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
[L]ibertarians regularly appeal to Locke for their insistence on an untrammeled property right. I don't think they are consistent in their reading, nor do they really attend to the kinds of constraints Locke does put on the rights to property, but it doesn't follow that there isn't a conservative reading of Locke.
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This means that present-day Anglo-American conservatives can find things in Locke that they like but have to ignore all those puritanical parts that tell them they can't exactly do whatever they want with their money -- or they can, but then they're going to hell. Yes?
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Not just the puritanical parts. I give them that since one can read the political theory without it. But Locke also imagined limits on property rights based on the way large acquisition of property limits the rights of further property acquisition by those who come later or reduces the value of property acquired by others. His view of the right in its essential state was not based on scarceness and his theory did factor in the way scarceness could limit it.

The refusal to set any statute of limitations on property rights also has the pretty clear consequence of supporting the African American claim to reparations. Nozick recognized this, but I haven't seen it as among the positions libertarians generally take.
 
Are we talking chapter five here of the Two Treatises? I don't recall that part; it sounds vaguely like Ricardo. I'll have to go back to the text. I remember America being his answer for where people should go when they run out of land in England.
 
Well, chapter 5 is the basic argument. And it entails a pretty clear claim that the argument that adding labor to nature makes a thing one's property has a natural limit to what one can reasonably make use of and not everything one can get one's hands on, that the right to property comes as a reasonable arrangement upon the situation that humans hold everything in common before anyone does anything (or in the thought experiment called the state of nature or what God gave to us or however you want to explain his starting position)and not as something without limits. If I have to, I suppose I can find the section online but I expect if you take a looksee, you'll find it.
 
I seem to recall the key example being about apples. Maybe I invented it? In any event, the message was, you could have as many as you could usefully use. Letting them go to waste was unacceptable and presumably sinful. I guess creating a cider domaine would up the acceptable limit quite a bit.
 
More.

Turns out it was a Santa Claus/Tooth Fairy convention:

But TPM has confirmed that the two other men with Ryan were Cliff Asness and John Cochrane. Both men have doctorate degrees in economics and are well-known in the conservative media world as die-hard proponents of the free market's ability to right itself without government bailouts when the crisis hit in late 2008.
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originally posted by SFJoe:
More.

Turns out it was a Santa Claus/Tooth Fairy convention:

But TPM has confirmed that the two other men with Ryan were Cliff Asness and John Cochrane. Both men have doctorate degrees in economics and are well-known in the conservative media world as die-hard proponents of the free market's ability to right itself without government bailouts when the crisis hit in late 2008.
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That's a bit harsh. Asness does ok in the real world as a hedge fund manager and Cochrane has published extensively in serious finance journals. {Disclaimer: I met Cochrane in various on and off campus events a lifetime or two ago though he is unlikely to remember me; I do not remember meeting Asness but we passed through many of the same places]
 
originally posted by Cole Kendall:
originally posted by SFJoe:
More.

Turns out it was a Santa Claus/Tooth Fairy convention:

But TPM has confirmed that the two other men with Ryan were Cliff Asness and John Cochrane. Both men have doctorate degrees in economics and are well-known in the conservative media world as die-hard proponents of the free market's ability to right itself without government bailouts when the crisis hit in late 2008.
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Asness does ok in the real world as a hedge fund manager
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I can accept that, but are you saying he didn't likely benefit (albeit indirectly) from the government "bailout" (what I'd call market stabilization attempts)?
And he must do OK; he got to have much more than 1/3 (if Ryan is to be believed) of the 2 bottles of wine and Ryan got stuck with the bill for at least one of them. A private bailout, of sorts.
 
originally posted by Cole Kendall:


That's a bit harsh. Asness does ok in the real world as a hedge fund manager and Cochrane has published extensively in serious finance journals.
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SFJ personal view is that the economy might indeed have righted itself without help, but most of the crew would have been overboard.

And if you let traders make policy of any sort, whooeee.
 
Although I should admit my innocence of their specific policy ideas.

But if AIG and Morgan Stanley had been left to follow Lehman, I wonder who AQR's prime broker was, and how their liquidity would have looked in the event of a run on all the big banks.

And Kirk, they might have been short the right things, and had counterparties who could have paid off even after MS went down the drain, and so on.
 
originally posted by kirk wallace:
originally posted by Cole Kendall:
originally posted by SFJoe:
More.

Turns out it was a Santa Claus/Tooth Fairy convention:

But TPM has confirmed that the two other men with Ryan were Cliff Asness and John Cochrane. Both men have doctorate degrees in economics and are well-known in the conservative media world as die-hard proponents of the free market's ability to right itself without government bailouts when the crisis hit in late 2008.
Click to expand...
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Asness does ok in the real world as a hedge fund manager
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I can accept that, but are you saying he didn't likely benefit (albeit indirectly) from the government "bailout" (what I'd call market stabilization attempts)?
And he must do OK; he got to have much more than 1/3 (if Ryan is to be believed) of the 2 bottles of wine and Ryan got stuck with the bill for at least one of them. A private bailout, of sorts.
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Yes, undoubtedly Asness got paid off for various market neutral bets as a consequence of government intervention. Asness is much more libertarian than right-wing as his alleged six-figure donation to get gay marriage passed in NY state would indicate. And his degree is in finance.

And while Cochrane has argued against TARP, the TARP that occurred was not the TARP against which he was arguing.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
Although I should admit my innocence of their specific policy ideas.

But if AIG and Morgan Stanley had been left to follow Lehman, I wonder who AQR's prime broker was, and how their liquidity would have looked in the event of a run on all the big banks.

And Kirk, they might have been short the right things, and had counterparties who could have paid off even after MS went down the drain, and so on.
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I understand, but I think your penultimate paragraph hits on at least one major benefit that is within the indirect benefits that I was imagining he might have reaped. (Winning a bet, especially a short one, is one thing; collecting on it, as you note, can be quite another.)
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Exactly. Being short has a way of making you oppose bailouts.
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Just about to the point where your counterparties wind up insolvent and can't pay off your short, of course.
 
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