PeakTrader.com

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PeakTrader said...

Morganovich says: "the drugs issue is one in which the laws are actually bad."

So, if you believe a 65 MPH speed limit is a "bad" law, you drive 100 MPH and kill some innocent people, it's the law that's bad, not the lawbreaker.

You want to get rid of the illegal drug problem? Then stop buying illegal drugs.

Why reward lawbreakers?

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VangeIV says: "It is government that drops incendiary bombs on innocent families, uses torture on people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

The U.S. military does a much better job than any other military killing its, and its allies, enemies without killing innocent civilians.

Also, the U.S. doesn't use torture, just because some people consider it torture:

Ex-CIA chief defends waterboarding of al Qaeda leader
April 26, 2012

The former head of the CIA's Clandestine Service talks to Lesley Stahl about those methods, including waterboarding, for the first time and defends their use - even comparing them to the current policy of killing al Qaeda leaders with drone strikes.

Rodriguez says everything his interrogators did to top-level terrorists like Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah was legal and effective.

Pressed by Stahl about charges that Zubaydah, who was waterboarded and sleep deprived, gave false information that wasted U.S. resources, Rodriguez replies, "Bull****!, He gave us a roadmap that allowed us to capture a bunch of al Qaeda senior leaders," says the ex-spy.

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Morganovich, calling people names is a "nonsensical argument."

You don't even realize the contradictions in your statements, e.g. "what people choose do do recreationally i(s) up to them so long as it does not hurt others."

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Morganovich, there are contradictions in your statements. Otherwise, you'd be against people who buy illegal drugs too.

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If illegal drugs were legal, people could take drugs until they OD, although it'll likely cause more harm than good for society or the economy.

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Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Getting rid of Saddam saved lives.

Saddam used real torture methods and killed many people.

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Failure by the U.S. and its allies to root-out the evil and cowardly enemy from their hideouts can lead to lots of dead civilians, e.g. in the U.S., Europe, Africa, etc. (which we've seen before).

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VangelV, you need a lesson about what is torture:

Iraqis pour out tales of Saddam's torture chambers
4/13/2003

Pictures of dead Iraqis, with their necks slashed, their eyes gouged out and their genitals blackened, fill a bookshelf.

An Iraqi soldier, who according to the facility's records witnessed the beatings, said interrogators regularly used pliers to remove men's teeth, electric prods to shock men's genitals and drills to cut holes in their ankles.

"I have seen interrogators break the heads of men with baseball bats, pour salt into wounds and rape wives in front of their husbands," said former Iraqi soldier Ali Iyad Kareen.

(I left some of Saddam's techniques out, because it may be too much for VangelV to handle).

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Morganovich, torture is bad whoever does it.

Unfortunately, too many countries use actual torture.

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Ron says: "That's nonsense. It's illegal to kill people at any speed. The speed limit is irrelevant."

So, laws are irrelevant, because people illegally kill anyway.

VangelV says: "Saddam's torture is to be condemned. So is Obama's and Bush's."

So, when another country tortures people, it's Obama's and Bush's fault.

Can you cite the U.S. law that countries must torture people?

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VangelV, based on only a couple of factors, legalizing drugs can be a net positive for society.

Saddam could've complied with UN inspectors. You're blaming the wrong people.

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The U.S. captured thousands of suspected terrorists.

Rather than send them all to Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. decided to send some low level suspects to their home countries.

If some of those countries use torture, that's their policy, not U.S. policy.

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Ron, if my comments seem like nonsense, it's because they reflect your (and VangelV's) comments.

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PeakTrader said...

Without the War on Drugs, drug use and social costs would be much higher.

The U.S. saved trillions of dollars over the past few decades.

Spending $1 to prevent $10 of damage is worth the price.

The War on Crime will never be won either, using a ridiculous definition of winning.

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Morganovich says: "peak-you trot that claim out over an over, but do not have a shred of evidence to support it..."

I can understand some of the pro-legalization attitudes from the enormous drug propaganda and strong emotional feelings.

However, you should know better, because I've shown you extensive data many times before. Yet, you still have your head in the sand or worse.

You need to come clean for once in your life.

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Ron says: "The demand curve for labor slopes upward."

You don't have to keep proving you have no comprehension of economics beyond a two-dimensional partial equilibrium model.

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Social costs of drug abuse include lost productivity, traffic & work accidents, health problems & drug treatment, mental illness, unemployment, crime, domestic violence, child abuse, and other social services.

Just the lost productivity would be well over $100 billion a year:

The Economics of Drug Legalization - 1995

"Already, drug addicts cost the country roughly $33 billion dollars a year in lost productivity and job-related accidents, according to a study conducted in 1987 by the Research Triangle Institute of Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

If legalized, addiction rates would increase and the cost would rise to between $140 billion and $210 billion a year.

And who will pay for lost productivity and job-related accidents? Consumers will, of course, in the final costs of the produced goods."

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Ron says: "My favorite two-dimensional partial equilibrium model works well."

If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe Wikipedia:

Minimum Wage

"The argument that minimum wages decrease employment is based on a simple supply and demand model of the labor market. A number of economists (for example Pierangelo Garegnani, Robert L. Vienneau, and Arrigo Opocher & Ian Steedman), building on the work of Piero Sraffa, argue that that model, even given all its assumptions, is logically incoherent.

Michael Anyadike-Danes and Wyne Godley argue, based on simulation results, that little of the empirical work done with the textbook model constitutes a potentially falsifying test, and, consequently, empirical evidence hardly exists for that model.

Graham White argues, partially on the basis of Sraffianism, that the policy of increased labor market flexibility, including the reduction of minimum wages, does not have an "intellectually coherent" argument in economic theory.

Gary Fields...argues that the standard "textbook model" for the minimum wage is "ambiguous", and that the standard theoretical arguments incorrectly measure only a one-sector market.

An alternate view of the labor market has low-wage labor markets characterized as monopsonistic competition wherein buyers (employers) have significantly more market power than do sellers (workers)...Such a case is a type of market failure and results in workers being paid less than their marginal value.

Under the monopsonistic assumption, an appropriately set minimum wage could increase both wages and employment, with the optimal level being equal to the marginal productivity of labor."

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Ron says: "In fact I don't even need a model, I only need to look around me and observe how people react to changes in price."

You look, but don't see. I stated before:

A rise in the minimum wage can increase real economic growth.

The higher wage attracts better workers, with higher reservation wages, to increase productivity.

Minimum wage workers have high marginal propensities to consume. So, a higher minimum wage increases consumption.

Only a portion of the higher minimum wage may be passed along in higher prices, because portions will be absorbed by "excess" wages of other workers and "excess" profits.

Weak or poorly managed firms will lose business or fail. However, stronger or better managed firms will gain their business, and also gain from the increased demand.

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Minimum Wage Increases Promote Jobs: Study
05/25/11

"Even though some economists have argued that paying workers more tends to discourage hiring, wage increases actually leave employment unaffected or even improved, argues the study, authored by Arindrajit Dube of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, T. William Lester of UNC Chapel Hill and Michael Reich of UC Berkeley.

"We actually found absolutely no evidence of any kind of disemployment effect -- in other words, jobs being killed -- when the minimum wage went up," Dube said on the Real News Network. "The answers were somewhat surprising.""

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An Increased Minimum Wage Is Good Policy Even During Hard Times
June 7, 2011

"University of California, Berkeley, economist David Card and Princeton economist Alan Krueger’s seminal study of the effect of the New Jersey 1992 minimum wage increase comparing fast food industry employment in New Jersey and Pennsylvania found no negative employment effect.

In fact, it found stronger employment growth in New Jersey.

Similarly, Lawrence F. Katz, a Harvard economist, and Alan Krueger studied fast food employment in Texas from 1990 to 1991 and found that employment slightly increased when the minimum wage was raised."

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If you add up all the basic living expenses, you'll get a subsistence wage.

However, I'll add, government has raised the cost of living substantially.

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Another politically-biased make-believe rant by Morganovich and supported by his side-kick Methinks.

If more drug addicts was a net benefit for society, I'd be all for it.

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Ron says: "I too support morganovich's comment."

That strengthens my case.

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Ron says: "You don't have a case. Only a collection of baseless assertions that sound emotionally appealing."

That's a remarkably accurate description of your position.

All my statements are supported by actual data.

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Ondra says: "it is very likely that in case of legalization, some (maybe quite a lot) of the current drug-addicts would switch to safer alternatives."

And Ron says: "Only a collection of baseless assertions that sound emotionally appealing."

Ron agrees with you.

Gateway Drug

"The Journal of the American Medical Association reported, based on a study of 300 sets of twins, that marijuana-using twins were four times more likely than their siblings to use cocaine and crack cocaine, and five times more likely to use hallucinogens such as LSD."

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Examining the Impact of Marijuana Legalization on Marijuana Consumption
Insights from the Economics Literature

"From this review it is clear that total consumption will rise in response to legalization due to increases in the number of new users, increases in the number of regular and heavy users, and probable increases in the duration in which marijuana is consumed for average users."

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U.S. Illegal Drug Use Down Substantially from 1970s
17 April 2012

"The Obama administration is working to reduce the demand for illegal drugs inside the United States.

Drug use in the United States “has dropped substantially over the past thirty years,” thanks to local, state and federal government efforts, as well as international cooperation.

“The rate of Americans using illicit drugs today is roughly one-third the rate it was in the late '70s.

More recently, there has been a 40 percent drop in current cocaine use and meth use has dropped by half.”"

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Teen Drug and Alcohol Use on the Rise Again - Health - Families.com

"Both alcohol and marijuana use are up from 2008. Prior to 2009, drug and alcohol use rates had been on a steady decline since 1988."

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Chapter Four: The Economics of Drug Legalization

"It should be stated initially that most people misconceive the amount of resources expended under the status quo for drug control.

The FY 1994 federal budget allocates $7.51 billion for drug control (supply reduction) which includes criminal justice, interdiction, international programs and intelligence. State and local governments spend even more, $12.6 billion a year.

If we legalized drugs on the assumption that by taxing them we could raise large amounts of revenue, we would be sadly mistaken.

First, as discussed in Chapter Two, any such taxation scheme would perpetuate a criminal black market. Consequently, we would still have to spend money funding police, courts and the like to fight this problem.

Second, if alcohol is any indication, we simply would not make that much money by taxing drugs. The total revenue collected from alcohol taxes at the federal, state, and local levels amounts to about $13.1 billion a year," a paltry sum compared to the social costs associated with alcohol consumption."

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Ron says: "It's a rights issue, Peak, the rest is secondary."

It's not a right:

Controlled Substances Act of 1970

Passed U.S. House 392-16
Passed U.S. Senate 97-2

Similary, you don't have the right to pollute unabated.

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The assumption seems to be legalizing drugs will turn criminals into angels.

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We know high crime neighborhoods tend to be poor and have liquor stores on almost every block.

Why promote criminal activity, e.g. murder, rape, robbery, etc.

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Drug use and crime declined substantially over the past few decades:

US crime rate at lowest point in decades.
January 9, 2012

The last time the crime rate for serious crime – murder, rape, robbery, assault – fell to these levels, gasoline cost 29 cents a gallon and the average income for a working American was $5,807. That was 1963.

In the past 20 years, for instance, the murder rate in the United States has dropped by almost half...Meanwhile, robberies were down 10 percent in 2010 from the year before and 8 percent in 2009.

The declines are not just a blip, say criminologists. Rather, they are the result of a host of changes that have fundamentally reversed the high-crime trends of the 1980s.

James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston. "We are indeed a safer nation than 20 years ago."

He and others give four main reasons for the decline:

*Increased incarceration, including longer sentences, that keeps more criminals off the streets.

*Improved law enforcement strategies, including advances in computer analysis and innovative technology.

*The waning of the crack cocaine epidemic that soared from 1984 to 1990, which made cocaine cheaply available in cities across the US.

*The graying of America characterized by the fastest-growing segment of the US population – baby boomers – passing the age of 50.

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PeakTrader said...

We decriminalized marijuana and got more of it.

Should we also decriminalize cocaine?"

Cocaine Incorporated
New York Times
June 15, 2012

"The Sinaloa cartel can buy a kilo of cocaine in the highlands of Colombia or Peru for around $2,000, then watch it accrue value as it makes its way to market.

In Mexico, that kilo fetches more than $10,000.

Jump the border to the United States, and it could sell wholesale for $30,000.

Break it down into grams to distribute retail, and that same kilo sells for upward of $100,000 — more than its weight in gold.

And that’s just cocaine.

Alone among the Mexican cartels, Sinaloa is both diversified and vertically integrated, producing and exporting marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine as well."

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When you decriminalize something, you get more of it.

When you lower the price of something, you get more of it.

When you declare something is safe, e.g. legalizing it, you get more of it.

Can the U.S. afford another dimension of mass devastation?

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Methinks, the U.S. has little or no control over policies of foreign countries.

However, illegal drug users in the U.S. control the number of murders in Mexico.

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Methinks says: "Were Mexicans slaughtering each other in great number before the U.S. kicked off its drug war?"

Are you blaming the brave men and women in U.S. law enforcement for the murders in Mexico?

Are you going to blame the U.S. military for the hatred in the Middle East too?

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The data suggest we need to spend more on the War on Drugs, particularly rehabilitation, and get rid of decriminalization.

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Methinks, why pay a high price for marijuana when it grows like a weed in your backyard?

Or selling it like cigarettes will promote usage.

What about the second hand smoke.

Do you want a free high on your way to work?

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Methinks, there are a lot more alcohol users than illicit drug users, because alcohol is legal.

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Jon, you're making an assumption based on an assumption.

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The pro-legalization crowd ignores the data and relies on propaganda, assumptions, questionable data, or just tries to inflate problems to strengthen their positions.

The also make up situations like comparing marijuana to Prohibition. Marijuana was never both legal and popular, like alcohol, and sold widely. Opium is a better comparison, because of opium dens.

I've had these conversations many times before with the pro-legalization crowd.

They make statements. They're proved wrong. And two days later they make the same statements.

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