Children's Suffrage

[Colanth]

I'm willing to bet that if a child puts his name under a contract to buy a house, that contract will be declared void by a court of law. Which means we don't let kids shop for themselves all that much. We just let them play around in a safe enviroment so they can learn how to be responsible.

You'd win your bet.

Contracts signed by incompetent persons (and minors aren't legally competent) are automatically voidable.  Which is why no one will enter into any serious contract with a minor.

In fact, there have been many cases over the decades in which a parent marched a child back to the store and demanded that the store take back the purchase the child made, and refund the price.  (And the law backs the parent's right to do this - the inherent contract of sale made when the child made the purchase is voidable.)

[Colanth]

Feel free to join Edwin in a class I'm giving on basic economics.

Zottistan blew your entire course out of the water with one response.  I know you don't understand why, but that's exactly why you're not competent to teach.  Anything.  Lack of ability to understand simple things.

[Colanth]

if you don't have a basic understanding of how resources are efficiently allocated then you aren't informed enough to vote.

If you don't have a basic understanding of why efficient allocation of resources is not a deciding factor, you aren't informed enough to vote.

I'm not making this stuff up.  If you don't understand the information I shared in the class I linked you to...then please let me know which part you struggle to grasp.

The part where it deviates from reality - IOW, all of it.  It's pure fantasy.

As your teacher I'm here to help you learn.

And there we have just one reason that most kids graduate without knowing anything - teachers who don't know anything.  Don't feel bad though, you're just one of millions.  Understanding the subject you teach is no longer a requisite for teaching, which is why we have art majors teaching economics.

[Colanth]

As your teacher I'm here to help you learn.

You apparently haven't learned that being supercilious and condescending will only alienate your audience.

I don't think he's being supercilious, I think he really thinks that he knows applied economics better than anyone else on the forum.

[Colanth]

that simply means that you probably wouldn't have been able to grasp the concepts anyways.

"If you think my statements are idiotic it's probably because you aren't intelligent enough to understand me".

The mark of ... well, let's just say that it's NOT the mark of a well-educated person.

[Colanth]

What the heck man?  You were simply supposed to do the assigned reading and come back with specific questions/objections.  No specific questions/objections means that you haven't done the assigned reading.

Oh, you want "students" who can't actually think, who can't see the obvious fallacies in your statements before reading anything more.

That clears that up.  It also tells us that you're not qualified to be a student, let alone a teacher.

[Colanth]

Staying with the theme...this clown couldn't teach Pop Warner.

You know why I had to google Pop Warner?  Because I don't have to google Paul Samuelson, James M. Buchanan and Elinor Ostrom

Too bad you don't understand WHY they're well-known.  You give new importance to "reading comprehension", and a fine example of what a lack of it causes.

[Colanth]

I've [s:33tlbf1f]spent[/s:33tlbf1f] wasted more time than most studying economics.

FIFY

Wasted, because you didn't understand anything you studied.  An introductory college economics class would have taught you the difference between theoretical economics and applied economics.

[Colanth]

Uhmm..kids are limited to what they're allowed to shop for such as cigarettes, alcohol, cars and so on. By your crackpot bullshit kids should be allowed to drive, drink hard liquor, smoke cigarettes and carry guns to school..

In order to lower the drinking/driving age...the majority of voters would have to support it.  It's beyond nonsensical to argue that allowing kids to vote would mean that suddenly adults want to have younger kids drinking/driving.

You still don't understand the basics.

Only competent persons can do things like vote and enter into contracts (for painfully obvious reasons).  (Most) minors aren't legally competent.  It's that trivial.  That you don't understand it speaks volumes.

[Icarus]

I've spent more time than most studying economics.  The fact that I can share the names of Nobel Prize winning economists is proof of that.  

This is not proof, 2 minutes with google would give me all the names of Nobel prize winning economists, their entire life stories and collection of works. Would this make me an expert on economics? No, and the fact that you think it does should scare the shit out of you (as it does me).

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I've [s:2rwmu00h]spent[/s:2rwmu00h] wasted more time than most studying economics.

FIFY

Wasted, because you didn't understand anything you studied.  An introductory college economics class would have taught you the difference between theoretical economics and applied economics.

Ha.

Nice.

Heuristic devices.

[Xerographica]

I've spent more time than most studying economics.  The fact that I can share the names of Nobel Prize winning economists is proof of that.  

This is not proof, 2 minutes with google would give me all the names of Nobel prize winning economists, their entire life stories and collection of works. Would this make me an expert on economics? No, and the fact that you think it does should scare the shit out of you (as it does me).

I clearly didn't say that knowing the names of Nobel Prize winning economists makes me an expert on economics.  I said that knowing the names of Nobel Prize winning economists means that I've spent more time than most studying economics.  Just like the fact that I can't name famous foot ball coaches is proof that I have not spent more time than most watching football.  

Here's some evidence regarding my understanding of economics.

The definitive theoretical justification for the public sector...

However no decentralized pricing system can serve to determine optimally these levels of collective consumption.  Other kinds of "voting" or "signalling" would have to be tried.  But, and this is the point sensed by Wicksell but perhaps not fully appreciated by Lindahl, now it is in the selfish interest of each person to give false signals, to pretend to have less interest in a given collective consumption activity than he really has, etc.  I must emphasize this: taxing according to a benefit theory of taxation can not at all solve the computational problem in the decentralized manner possible for the first category of "private" goods to which the ordinary market pricing applies and which do not have the "external effects" basic to the very notion of collective consumption goods. - Paul A. Samuelson, The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure

This paper by the Nobel Prize winning liberal economist has been cited over 5000 times.  Feel free to share a more widely cited paper that also provides an economic justification for the public sector.

Do you grasp the point of the passage I shared?  I do.  It's basically the free-rider problem.  The premise is that individuals are utility maximizers...we all want the most bang for our buck.  We all want goods/services to be as cheap as possible.  Therefore, it's reasonable to assume that if taxation was voluntary that people would have an incentive to give "false signals" (lies) in order to avoid personally paying for "collective consumption goods" (public goods) that they benefited from.  

In order to solve the free-rider problem...we simply force people to pay taxes.  Unfortunately, this doesn't tell us what the true signals are.  

Whereas the income received for providing a private good conveys information about the demand for that good, taxes collected under the threat of coercion say little about the demand for a public good or service.  Payment of taxes indicates only that taxpayers prefer paying taxes to going to jail.  Little or no information is revealed about user preferences for goods procured with tax-supported expenditures.  As a consequence, the organization of collective consumption units will need to create alternative mechanisms to prices for articulating and aggregating demands into collective choices reflecting individuals' preferences for a quantity and/or quality of public goods or services. - Vincent Ostrom and Elinor Ostrom, Public Goods and Public Choices

Without the true signals there's no way that the government can supply the optimal amounts of public goods.  Without knowing how much you value the EPA...the government cannot supply the optimal quantity of environmental protection.  Don't believe the Ostroms?  Would you believe Richard Musgrave?

Essential though the efficiency model [Samuelson] of public goods is as a theoretical construct, standing by itself it has little practical use.  The omniscient referee does not exist and the problem of preference revelation must be addressed. - Richard A. Musgrave   The Nature of the Fiscal State   

How should we address the preference revelation problem?  How can we determine what the true signals are?  How can we figure out how much you value the EPA?  Easily.  We simply give you the freedom to choose where your taxes go.  If you had to pay taxes anyways, then you would have absolutely nothing to gain by giving false signals...

Under most real-world taxing institutions, the tax price per unit at which collective goods are made available to the individual will depend, at least to some degree, on his own behavior. This element is not, however, important under the major tax institutions such as the personal income tax, the general sales tax, or the real property tax. With such structures, the individual may, by changing his private behavior, modify the tax base (and thus the tax price per unit of collective goods he utilizes), but he need not have any incentive to conceal his "true" preferences for public goods. - James M. Buchanan, The Economics of Earmarked Taxes   

So both a Nobel Prize winning liberal economist...Samuelson...and a Nobel Prize winning market economist...Buchanan...were concerned with people's true preferences (signals).  The difference was that Samuelson was overly optimistic regarding the ability of government planners to 'divine' the preferences of consumers...

the Soviet economy is proof that, contrary to what many skeptics had earlier believed, a socialist command economy can function and even thrive

Therefore, the economist who provided the definitive theoretical justification for the public sector failed to understand why command/planned economies fail.  Why do planned economies fail?  Because economies can't function without true signals.  Scarce resources cannot be put to their most valued uses when we don't know which uses consumers value most.

Ok, there you go...the contributions of a few Nobel Prize winning economists and my analysis.  So is my analysis correct?  How's my grasp of economics?

[Icarus]

I've spent more time than most studying economics.  The fact that I can share the names of Nobel Prize winning economists is proof of that.  

This is not proof, 2 minutes with google would give me all the names of Nobel prize winning economists, their entire life stories and collection of works. Would this make me an expert on economics? No, and the fact that you think it does should scare the shit out of you (as it does me).

I clearly didn't say that knowing the names of Nobel Prize winning economists makes me an expert on economics.  I said that knowing the names of Nobel Prize winning economists means that I've spent more time than most studying economics.  Just like the fact that I can't name famous foot ball coaches is proof that I have not spent more time than most watching football.  

Here's some evidence regarding my understanding of economics.

The definitive theoretical justification for the public sector...

You missed the point of my post, but whatever. 2 minutes on google would give you all the famous football coaches, their life story and their collection of works, this is why the criteria you gave for an expert in the field was so ridiculous. It should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that criteria doesn't qualify you as an expert in a setting where using search engines is is common practice. I never doubted your qualifications, just your standards.

[Xerographica]

You missed the point of my post, but whatever. 2 minutes on google would give you all the famous football coaches, their life story and their collection of works, this is why the criteria you gave for an expert in the field was so ridiculous. It should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that criteria doesn't qualify you as an expert in a setting where using search engines is is common practice. I never doubted your qualifications, just your standards.

But that wasn't my standard for "expertise".  

What I did say: I've spent more time than most studying economics. The fact that I can share the names of Nobel Prize winning economists is proof of that.

What I didn't say: I'm an expert in economics.  The fact that I can share the names of Nobel Prize winning economists is proof of that.

If you ask a random person on the street to name some Nobel Prize winning economists then chances are really good that they would not be able to do so off the top of their heads.  However, I would be able to do so.  Therefore, this is proof that I have studied economics more than most people have.  It's not proof that I'm an expert in economics...which is exactly why I didn't offer it as such.  

However, in my last post I did offer some evidence of my expertise.  Is the evidence any good?  How can you possibly know that given that the chances are extremely good that you wouldn't be able to even name any Nobel Prize winning economists off the top of your head?  

How did you arrive at atheism?  Were you born an atheist?  How did you arrive at your current belief in the omniscience of government planners?

[Icarus]

But that wasn't my standard for "expertise".  

What I did say: I've spent more time than most studying economics. The fact that I can share the names of Nobel Prize winning economists is proof of that.

What I didn't say: I'm an expert in economics.  The fact that I can share the names of Nobel Prize winning economists is proof of that.

If you ask a random person on the street to name some Nobel Prize winning economists then chances are really good that they would not be able to do so off the top of their heads.  However, I would be able to do so.  Therefore, this is proof that I have studied economics more than most people have.  It's not proof that I'm an expert in economics...which is exactly why I didn't offer it as such.  

However, in my last post I did offer some evidence of my expertise.  Is the evidence any good?  How can you possibly know that given that the chances are extremely good that you wouldn't be able to even name any Nobel Prize winning economists off the top of your head?  

How did you arrive at atheism?  Were you born an atheist?  How did you arrive at your current belief in the omniscience of government planners?

Again, you misunderstand my point. I questioned your standards not qualifications. Why did you spend half your post defending your qualification if I said I wasn't questioning them? Insecure much.

The first part of your post boils down to semantics. I agree that you said "I've spent more time than most studying economics", and that it can be proven by saying you can do something anyone in an online forum can do in 5 seconds. Numbers speak louder than words.