Libertarians claim that the only legal way to make money, is to trade. Does this mean that economic speculation in valutas and on the stock exchange should be illegal?
That’s still trading. Anyway, the act of trading involves the freedom to chose when to trade.
That is a very bizzarre non-sequitur. No.
In a free market, there’s nothing wrong with speculating.
If you buy a lot of grain expecting a famine, then you’re entitled to profit if a famine occurs. Under such circumstances, it’s fair for you to sell your grain for whatever people are willing to pay. To suggest otherwise means that there’s no incentive to plan for disasters.
In the present, the Federal Reserve credit monopoly encourages speculators.
In the housing bubble, mortgage rates were 6% while housing rates were going up 10%-20%/year due to inflation. This encouraged people to load up on the biggest mortgage they can and buy the biggest house they can.
When the bust occurred, individuals lost their homes and savings while insiders qualify for a bailout.
Right now, the Fed Funds Rate is 0%-0.25%. That provides an incentive for the banksters to borrow as much as they can and buy stocks or other assets.
The Federal Reserve credit monopoly and negative real interest rates is the reason that people make unearned profits from speculating.
In any case, it’s not correct that the only way to make money is to produce goods and services that other people value with today’s system?
Do libertarians want the government to issue our money?
Once again, libertarianism is a rejection of force as a means to an end. As long as the speculation doesn’t involve fraud (which is theft) then it is fine. It might not be smart, it might generate a loss, it might annoy someone, but as long as it is done voluntarily and honestly, then it is fine.
You could produce goods and services you value. Money is not an end, it is a medium of exchange. We trade for money, and money lets us trade for other goods, without having so seek out a “coincidence of wants”, that is a barter exchange where someone wants what you have, and you want what they have.
The way to increase prosperity is to increase production. You can do that through investment, through labour etc.
Most of the people here are for free market money, which usually means commodity money (like gold) that might be denominated in paper certificates issued by warehouses and banks.
Today’s banking system is fraud, and should be illegal, right? And should misinformation (e. g. in advertisements) be illegal?
All fraud is illegal under libertarianism. And, no, “defrauding” the state is not actually fraud. Just like it isn’t stealing when you forcefully take something that is rightfully yours away from a theif.
Today’s banking system is fraudulent, but it is law by virtue of a legal monopoly backed by force.
But who would make it illegal in a free market? If someone was defrauded by a banking system, then they could make a claim. But just because we don’t like the way a business operates, doesn’t give any 3rd party a right to regulate or control it.
Anything that results in profit is productive service. There was a seller who was looking to sell, and a buyer who was looking to buy. If they agree on the exchange price, then they both profit. What was the purpose of the buyer (direct use or speculation) is of no importance.
According to my friends, a lot of governmental intervening is necessary for the economy to thrive and to secure a life worthy of living for as many people as possible.
your friends are not economists. they are telling you bedtime stories.
Some of them are economists. But not austrians…
I am not an economist, however, so I can’t really argue against them, other than saying that the so called austrians would disagree with them.
Or not economists, period.
Non-austrians are not real economists?
Government necessary for the economy to thrive? So why are we in an economic crisis?
Government necessary for security? So why were a dozen men with box cutters able to high jack 4 airplanes, and crash two planes into the WTC, and crash one plane into the PENTAGON???
Depends on what you call an economist. Most mainstream “economists” are not into social science. They are quasi-political scientists with a heavy bent towards econometrics. Any economist who “assumes” that central planning is necessary, without testing and questioning that premise, isn’t really a scientist.
If they believe in twaddle like that they are taken in by too many fallacies to merit the label. No scientist in any other discipline who believed so many wrong premises would be taken seriously, and economics is not and should not be any different. So no, it has nothing to do with there not being “Austrian”… there are plenty of non-“Austrians” I consider economists. They don’t believe in fairy tales concerning the state though.
Too little control, maybe?
And I still haven’t seen pictures of the Pentagon plane.