FGB for me today!

Nice picture! Wish I was there...

Awesome run, Mark Matayazic! Was that B-Mac talking there in the dark?

My post on Hayek and price is in the hopper.

Way to go mark! Awesome job!

i know that barry sears has said that no meal should exceed 500-600 calories because of inflammation reasons, but the meal plan at Notre Dame only allows students to eat twice a day. The rest of the food around here is fast food so I am limited to those 2 meals. How much does paleo/zone matter when you are eating 15 block meals? thanks for any thoughts

Great job Mark!
I really need this rest day! 3... 2... 1... REST!!!
But honestly, I'll probably end up going to the gym and doing 5 rounds of the official crossfit warmup with 10 25lb kettlebell TGU's and 500 meter row added to each round.
THANK YOU COACH!!!! THANK YOU CROSSFIT!!!

On another note: I love when the personal trainer come up to us at the gym and are amazed with our workouts. "Man, y'all are on a whole other level!" YEP!!!

Wowzers - Bora, Bora looks incredible!! Mini butt kicker wod tonight -
10 pushups
10 sdlhp (#65)
25 bws
4 rounds - rest two min between rounds
1:17,1:20, 1:22, 1:14
followed by OHS practice -
#45x3,#55x3,#65x3, #75x2
looking forward to rest day!

30/M/150/5'10

starting today i am taking 2 weeks off, havent take 2 weeks off for about 4 or 5 months to give my body a reset, i could tell during the deadlifts.

SANTI

I don't want to start up the same old argument, please just provide an answer if you can. I am training for af pararescue. I know kipping pullups are beneficial, but should I be doing dead hang pullups as well? I will have to perforrm dead hang for my test. Will I be prepared if I only practice one way (kipping)? Thanks.
Benjamin

Benjamin,
Yes

Benjamin,

Go weighted pull ups if you can or do 3 x 10 to 15 pull ups for warm up, you will eat those pull ups for breakfast on your test. on weighted pull ups if you can manage to kip with your weighted pull ups that will be even better, go with a challenging weight for you though. it works for me.

SANTI

#6 college will:

I am far from an expert and defer to others who care to comment, but 2 meals at 15 blocks per just does not sound healthy. Can you take any food to go instead of eating all at one sitting?

College Will,

I agree with Tom (13). A 15 block meal sounds ridiculous; and unless you're about John Welbourn's size (BEAASTLY O-LINEMAN), you probably don't need anywhere near 30 blocks a day.

I think I read somewhere that no zone meal should exceed 5 blocks. I don't think there is any real way to stay true to the zone with just two meals. You can keep the proportions the same (just larger), but it's not "The Zone" it's a variation.

Awesome, a feat of endurance video! We don't see enough of these.

Tomorrow may be a CF rest day, but it is also my first day at Judo.

Lovin that picture! My wife and I spent our honeymoon out there as well at the Le Meridian. Most beautiful place on earth!

College Will - It depends on your goals, 2 giant meals a day is generally how Sumo Wrestlers eat (not to mention inflammation), not sure if thats the physique you're going for. Two 15 block meals is definitely not ideal, is there not a grocery store anywhere? Another strategy that I used way back in college (I was on a 2 meal a day plan too) was to smuggle food out of the cafeteria, some will let you, mine didn't so I had to throw lunch meat and apples in the ol backpack (they throw a lot of that food away anyway, thats how i justified it to myself).

We're a day behind now after going back to work, so did the deadlift WOD today. Need to buy more weights!

I did my first set of unassisted kips today. I think the whole street could hear me whoop whooping. I couldn't do any 9 months ago. Gotta love Xfit!

I didn't read the yellow press article, but hre are my thoughts:
lack of inequality = communism, it's ugliest form.

Equality may be partially achieved when people are equally educated, kind, strong, etc, and even then you need kings, presidents and ministers. No land can be ever devoted to a proposition, that's a lie. Now, if you take ethnically, culturally, biologically different people than it's absolutely impossible to reach equality or democracy, for an instance. People are basically animals but with a soul, the soul permits us to take higher organized forms, but we can't betray nature that much as to propose a Big Ape Project.

Jen, Santi, thank you. Now how can I make a weight vest?

Andres #19- Apologies to the FRAT up front. I appreciate your point of view and understand your position; however, I think you may change your perspective a little bit if you give the 1-7-10 CFJ Podcast a listen. Coach Glassman is fostering an environment of thinkers and doers (the ultimate Renaissance men and women, if you will). I doubt your steadfast convictions will change, and I'm guessing those asking us to do a little homework aren't fostering propaganda. There's nothing wrong with getting a different perspective. One man's martyr is another man's insurgent, as many of us in this community understand. Does anybody think Spealer is less of an athlete because he graduated from Princeton and is currently pursuing a Master's through a very prestigious scholar program?

Incidentally, I believe the intent is that we read and post thoughts during the next rest day.

Tim

Slow bike ride for me today, need to get some calories burnt. Nothing strenuous, though.

Benjamin

Stuff a backpack with weights and some towels so they don't shift around or hit you too much.

College Will -
Stock your dorm room with real food or look into IF

Pararescue Benjamin -
Practice both. Use kipping for met-cons and dead hang during your warm-ups. If 15 dead hang are easy, add weight with a dumbbell between the ankles/bent knees, a weight belt, a vest or a backpack.
I'm not a fan of kipping with added weight, especially when it might bash into my back in my backpack.

I started a trial run today of combining the CF Football Strength WODs with the mainsite. Obviously no issue today with doing the mainsite WOD. Resting is my strong suit. Has anyone else here done this before? If so, what were the results? Good, bad, mixed?

I have been doing Crossfit for several years. I really liked the 12 minute workout from a couple of days ago. I did a slightly modified workout due to my weight and my current fitness level. I was really flushed afterwards.

But - on to the discussion...

Let us use the Clarity Principle and the Fallacy Principle from a couple of days ago...

1) Let's clarify one main point - the CATO institute shows that the from 1979 to 2010 the following...

the real wages at the 10th percentile increased by 30 percent from 1979 to 2005. In other words, the real wages of low earners have not remained stagnant, as suggested by conventional measures, but actually have been rising on average by around 1 percent per year.

There is one major problem with this premise. It assumes that all items in the Consumer Price Index (or CPI) include the food and energy costs. The CPI has only been used since 1990 by government statisticians. Therefore, this argument is proven false by the government records and data. One cannot make this statement without the data.

Furthermore, if one includes the food and energy costs from 1979 to 2010, one would find that the inflationary rate in this time period is more like 9%. Use the Rule of 72 from economics (divide 72 by the percentage increase and you can find how many years it takes for prices to double), this takes 8 years.

Therefore, using this idea...If prices doubled every eight years from 1979 to 2010 (on average), this would mean that the price would have gone up 1600% (2 to the fourth power times 100%). Therefore, the argument of income levels increasing by 1% per year versus the actual increase in consumer goods is also proven false.

Throw this article to the dogs...I am sure that they would not eat this crap.

A little exercise in creativity on rest day: Come up with 3 ways to tell if someone is a crossfitter, similar to the "you might be a redneck" test from Jeff Foxworthy. Here goes:

1. If you're lifting an engine block and think that it's lighter than expected, then you might be a crossfitter.

2. If you're walking around the supermarket doing kettlebell exercises with the 20lb cat litter boxes, then you might be a crossfitter.

3. If you wish you had one of those big tractor tires for your gym, then you might be a crossfitter.

4. If in your familiy picture for Christmas you're lifting your wife above your head, then you might be a crossfitter. Extra credit if the wife is doing the lifting. :)

HAYEK'S POSITION: PRICE ALLOWS INDIVUALS AND FIRMS INFORMATION NEEDED TO ACHIEVE THEIR OPTIMAL MARGINAL RATES OF SUBSTITUTION (ORMS)
One of the problems Hayek thinks is insurmountable for economic planners is their inability to determine optimal marginal rates of substitution (OMRS) between commodities or factors. He says a planner can never know the preferences of individuals and therefore can never know the individuals' OMRSs let alone plan to achieve them. This seems to me to be obviously true. Planners should have no pretense that they can achieve this or that this is their task. Hayek views any group OMRS as being composed of an aggregate of distinct individual OMRSs, so that if a planner fails to achieve the OMRS for one individual, the planner has necessarily failed to achieve the OMRS of the group to which that individual belongs.

In place of planning, Hayek favours the "machinery" of price:

"It is more than a metaphor to describe the price system as a kind of machinery for registering change, or a system of telecommunications which enables individual producers to watch merely the movement of a few pointers, as an engineer might watch the hands of a few dials, in order to adjust their activities to changes of which they may never know more than is reflected in the price movements."

CRITIQUE OF HAYEK'S CONCEPTION OF OMRS AS TOO NARROW
Hayek's attack on planners is undermined by his misunderstanding of what planners do. The goal of the planner is not necessarily (almost never) to set a price as close to equilibrium as possible. For planners price-setting is a technique for achieving policy aims that may be more or less rooted in economic concerns, but the policy aims may also have relatively little to do with economic performance. It seems to me that for the planners and the people who elect them, the problem is not achieving OMRS based on the appetites of every individual, but rather, something like achieving OMRSs between societal values such as individual liberty, rule of law, economic competition, prosperity, mean per capita income, education, health, domestic and international security, democratic participation etc. Of course the planners must be interested in production and consumption, supply and demand, i.e., price, but not exclusively so. Planners may sometimes allow price signals to flow more or less unimpeded by planning measures; allow markets to approach competitiveness, indeed, planners do not need to plan everything all the time and I should hope they plan as little as is compatible with the prevailing OMRSs between democratically identified social values. At other times planners may distort prices to influence what individuals consider optimal substitution. By price distortion the planner may make something like education or healthcare affordable to many people for whom it could not possibly have been before. These people may then choose to walk to work, to cook at home, to put off vacations in order to save for and pay a distorted (lower than "market") price for education or health care. The OMRS between an automobile and savings for tuition or a drug-therapy is altered by the planners' distortion of the tuition or drug price signal. The goal of the planner in these cases is not to achieve equilibrium prices for education and drugs, it is to allow more people to go to school and to take medicines.

INDIVIDUAL AS THE AGENT OF "APPETITE" v. INDIVIDUAL AS "CITIZEN"
Price may be the best solution to the "optimum" problem identified by Hayek if, like Hayek, we hold that the OMRS is the aggregation of individual appetites. If individuals are viewed as creatures not just of appetite (producers and consumers), but as citizens crucially concerned with social and political values, that is, if they care not only about what they produce, buy, consume and contract, but also about the moral/social/political/religious/cultural attributes of the community in which they live, OMRS takes on a different, less "precise", less measurable (less 'price-ish'), but I would argue more nuanced, richer, and more "accurate" meaning than the one I understand Hayek to give it. Hayek and perhaps many North-Atlantic economists have defined OMRS too narrowly. In part, this is a result of their attempt to develop a "positive science" of economics, with metrics (a laudable and valuable goal, one worth pursuing with appropriate reservations - one of Marx's shortcomings was that he did not have sufficient reservations about the "scientific" character of his brand of economic "machinery"). But in doing so these economists have reified the categories of production and consumption as distinct from collective social and political goals (a collective social goal is not necessarily the collectivization of the means of production - each of the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, the female suffrage and civil rights movements embodied collective social goals). When production and consumption are isolated from these other social and policy concerns they can be more or less accurately measured by price, however, when production and consumption are placed in their fuller context, the descriptive capacity of price is greatly diminished.

I would suggest that it is clear that some economists have defined the scope of economic enquiry too narrowly in part to validate their political commitment to laissez-faire capitalism. When they approach the problem of OMRS they define it narrowly as an expression of appetite that can adequately be described by the machinery of price. The concepts and tools of Hayek's and Friedman's "positive science" of economics are forged in the ideological moulds of the "scientists"; they are conditioned by the "scientists' " prior commitments to a cluster of moral and political philosophical values. Planners also have prior commitments to philosophical and political values, but since planners are accountable to citizens in ways price is not (they are the delegates of elected officials), the values that underlay their planning decisions and policies are a matter of public scrutiny, debate, and accountability.

Thanks for the video! That's really useful; I never got any instruction in the movement, and I've been deadlift/knee punching my way through tire flips with a clean grip. I'm sure this will make it a lot easier, especially in the mud.

We have been doing crossfit a work with a home made gym and it has been great. Do you guys always do the same warm-up or do you vary it? We have been using the 10-15 dips, pull-ups, squats, sit-ups and samson stretch list in the FAQ's but wanted to get some idea of what others are doing.

Thanks in advance.

Hayek's and Friedman's prior philosophical assumptions and values are also relatively transparent, and should also be acknowledged by them up front. It seems to me that when Friedman talks of establishing a "positive science" of economics, he really intends to establish the economic branch of a 'science of individual economic liberty'. He is disingenuous when he asks us to stop considering the assumptions on which an economic theory is based. He wants his science of economics to stand outside and independent of morality and politics so that the policies it suggests are not viewed as alternatives among many others, but rather as the "truth", just as Hayek presents price and his conception of OMRS as scientific, independent of moral and political values. If it is "scientific" or "true" then it is outside policy, it is, like the formula for photosynthesis, not something that is subject to public, democratic deliberation, it just "is".

This 'science of individual economic liberty' may describe the narrow scope of individual appetites more or less accurately (if it does I admit it is useful in that respect and should not be abandoned as one analytical tool among many), but on its own, it is deaf to the fuller social and political concerns of the individual as citizen. These social and political concerns are as real for the individual as the needs of the appetite ("Give me liberty or give me death!").

Thus, it seems to me that the ability of the machinery of price to describe the ORMS for appetites of individuals is not a sufficient argument against any and all planning in a liberal democratic republic. This is not to say that all planning in whatever degree is good in a liberal democratic republic. Over-reliance on planning, like over-reliance on the machinery of price and the market price describes, can undermine the attributes of a society that make it a liberal democratic republic. Planning, like the machinery of price, should be understood as a tool for achieving the balance between values that defines the legitimate ORMS.

fini

you guys have been more than helpful. thanks a lot. any ideas on how to keep aquafitness buffs from stealing my lane in the pool?

#Comment 10

Benjamin,

Do dead-hang pull-ups and you will increase your strength accordingly. Once you can perform at least 5 strict deadhangs, add some weight. Work on doing 5 sets of 5 rep strict deadhang PU's with progressively increasing weight as you get stronger. Every week perform max effort pullups to gauge your progress.

Bottom line, don't do kipping pull-ups until you have gained the strength necessary to perform strict deadhang pull-ups.

Semper Fi!

Benjamin,
I was in the class of 90-005. Let me tell you that you must do strict pu's and lots od them. Do ins & outs, everytime you come home or get ready to leave do a set of pu's. Focus on running for time, swimming for time, and cals. You will be fine.

P.S. I didn't make it. I washed out doing underwaters. I don't think they do them anymore.

M/38/5'6"/175 (1st week of CossFit)

5K run today
30:58

longs ways away from my 8:38 1 1/2 mile to qual for Pararescue!

Deadlift workout, details there.

5K run 26:55

#16 Jason1975

I did judo all through college and wish I had been doing crossfit at the time. I think you'll find that the intensity and output of a met-con workout will translate perfectly into competitive judo. And much like crossfit, judo is all about mutual welfare and benefit. Welcome to another great community.

Prole:

Thank you very much for your commentary and piece(s) on Hayek and Friedman. Let me ask this by way of response - don't you think that economic choices that people make can very well include a moral, social, or other (non-price) considerations? That is, don't we "vote" with our wallets? In fact, I might assert that how people spend their money is a much more accurate and realistic measure of what they "value". If I give a bunch of money to my local church because I want to, why do I need to be coerced into some "societal" value of "charity" through price controls - for a group or sub-group that has been selected for special "anti-price" treatment by the planners?

In some sense, like Hayek and Friedman, your assumptions are implicit in your argument - although I would grant that you've been honest about that - and explicit, as well.

Cheers,
dale

We can simplify the debate. Friedman spoke on the economics of individual freedom. However, Obama said community interests are more important than are individual interests, and in this we find the differences between tyranny of the elite few over the many and any economics of individual freedom. There are only those two sides. Obama relates to the oldest, longest-running political system in the world, against the newest formed almost 400 years ago and proven worthy of a free people since, in America only. See Save Pebble Droppers & Prosperity on claysamerica.com.

Gotta love BMack

The guy just ran 91 miles and asks for ibuprofen.

Bmac - "are you kiddin just get the f#@ck out there and finish"

#42- nicely put.

Prole, you have said that it is not the planners goal to achieve an equilibrium price for education or drugs, but to allow more people to go to school or obtain medicine. I agree with you that this might indeed be their goal but it is a flawed one. Changing prices does not actually change availability. In fact, there is a well known phenomenon in economics that forcibly lowering price causes a lower supply because there is less incentive for producers to continue producing. It is just as difficult in these conditions to obtain medicine as before, only now the people who more easily obtain medicine aren't the financially well off, but those who can pull favors with the planners. Either that or everyone waits in line, which isn't a productive use of anyone's time.

Thanks again guys. I have passed the pj test twice and I have no problem doing 15 to 20 dead hang. It feels like I have hit a wall though, so what you are suggesting sounds logical. Adding weight all week and then testing without to gauge progress. What are pu's/ in and outs? Swimming portion is my strongest suit followed by calisthenics. I have been doing alternating days of shorter more intense running and then long(3mi or so). Crossfitting for two weeks only, so when the initial soreness wears off I plan on weekly pt evaluations. Thanks again, any other tips are more than welcome.
Benjamin

Great Job Mark! That's a long F(*&$#! way to run! How dare those bastages not have pizza at the end of such an epic adventure!

#6 College Will:

If you are eating a "15" block meal, you are not in the zone. No zone meal exceeds 5 blocks because even if your ratios are perfect, your body cannot process that much food properly and you get a massive insulin spike. The only way to eat that much food would be on a paleo/intermittent fasting type diet where you would want to go periods of 15-18 hours without eliciting any kind of insulin response before gorging on a giant meal. This is used to put on weight.
Honestly, unless you are trying to become a competitive power lifter or a sumo wrestler, you are not eating well. I would recommend that to start with, eat reasonable meals twice a day, 5 blocks on the zone or until you feel full with paleo (provided you are actually able to eat paleo at a college dinning hall) and for a third meal go eat some fast food. It's not the best quality of food but you can eat it in the right proportions and stay in the zone. This is a lot better than what you're doing now. For snacks, you could hit up the fast food again or you could go to the grocery store once a week and buy some apples and string cheese.

(for a decent zone-ish burger, order what you like and remove one of the buns. That usually cuts the carbs down enough to get where you want although you may still be high on fat - not the end of the world)

Excerpt from HOME AGAIN, A LONG WAY FROM HAITI by Brian Williams, NBC anchor

We see some awful things in our line of work. And then we come home to our comfortable lives in America. As long as I live, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to square the two lives we lead. After all the suffering we witnessed, I arrived home with no way to explain it, no desire to go into detail, and no explanation for why some children are born into poverty and struggle only to die young and in great pain—while my children lead such fortunate lives. I’ve come home from multiple trips to Iraq, Afghanistan, Indonesia, New Orleans and now Haiti asking the same thing. I stood in line this afternoon at the supermarket and listened to two insanely entitled teenagers—wearing the logo clothing of a prominent New England prep school—complaining about obscene topics like how “tight” their mother was with her credit card, and how taxing the task of shopping had been for them. It took everything I had to remain silent and not remind them that people are suffering. I am hoping they have parents for that—maybe they are the ones who should be reminded.

1000m row, 3:12.4. Goal is to get a sub-6:30 2k by mid-March. Felt like I had more power today than in previous 1k tt.

Part deux: OHS 3-3-3-3-3 95-105-115-125-135(3RM+20!!)-145(1 rep, 1RM+10)-155(f). Cool, my old 1RM is now my 3RM, feel I can push the 1RM up to 165 but my shoulders were smoked!

Part III: back squat to 11" box 3x5 @ 185.

I didn't read last week's article very thoroughly, however I was taken by some of the general points being made. In section three of the article scientific knowledge -- what the author claims is often viewed as the end all be all in the knowledge department -- is contrasted against the knowledge of specific time and place. There are certainly qualities and data that are available immediately to individuals lacking total scientific knowledge that would take far too much time and sophisticated machinery for a trained man of science to make use of. Scientific knowledge is great and useful but is not the only useful quality and shouldn't defer to others in certain scenarios.

I have a friend who's very skeptical of trained elite. He' simply doesn't like deferring all the time to "authority." He told me that when he was about nine he injured himself playing sports. His arm was seriously hurt and his parents made an appointment immediately to see a doctor. They were sure it was a fracture, torn ligament, or something else that needed immediate medical attention. My friend was also resigned to this conclusion, as soon as he could he made his way to the public library and picked up some medical textbooks. He concluded that the injury was something -- I forget what -- and told the doctor his diagnosis. The Doctor used the knowledge available to him and made a different diagnosis. My friend insisted, it was his arm and his has senses and data to work with that are not available to the doctor. Turns out, after an x-ray, my friend was right and the Doctor did the operation for the cause that my friend had diagnosed.

In this case, my friend simply had information (qualia such as feeling, internal and external) that was very sophisticated and completely unavailable to the expert. Though the expert had far more scientific knowledge, the knowledge of time and place turned out to be far more valuable and accurate (and perhaps even precise).

“150”

9:50

25 pull-ups – with 70# assist

25 deadlifts at 110 pounds

25 push-ups

25 box jumps with a 24-inch box

25 "floor wipers" 110#

25 "clean and press" at 35 pounds

#28 Tom--

Your points made me smile. Great topic!

You might be a crossfitter if....

-You carry a 40 lb. bag of dog food over your shoulder around the grocery store instead of in the cart.

-You end every meeting at work with "3,2,1, go!"

@ Tom
You might be a crossfitter if....

-Your co-workers ask you to replace the water cooler bottles

-you clean said water bottles

-you are asked to move office furniture

-you want to overhead squat the Christmas trees at the curb

-you've done a Turkish Get Up with the cat

-Yard work gets done "for time"

-your facebook status has the results of your latest wod, (or the wod you're about to do, or a link to beyond the whiteboard)

-you say "wod"

-your facebook profile pic is a workout shot

#43 Mike, with all of the explosive work and leg/lower back work, I am guessing that in a short time, my throws will be pretty powerful.

Therozfather at 12:34 -

Williams is wrong about one thing - I know exactly why my children are so fortunate. It's because a few generations up the family tree, my great-grandfather's family decided to come to this country, forsaking their own. And because my mother's mother fled London during the V2 bombings to come here to safety. And because that generation, and my father's, and my own, were willing to pay with blood so that my children can wear American Eagle and sip a frappuccino. And because our country believed (generally) in an economic system based upon meritocracy - or at least used to. That's no "accident" of birth - those are the "dividends" of three generations of "investment".

College Will - Does your mother know your eating like this? Instead of the constant fast food joints, the internet has some "healthy" food choices instead of the heavy load you cram into your gut twice a day. You can order bars, meal shakes, and most importantly, be sure to take your vitamins. The Zone, Advocare, Shaklee, GNC, are just a few to choose from. You can still have your two meals in moderation, and

Sorry, posted mid sentence there. Children waiting to check there e-mail, standing over my shoulder.
...two meals in moderation, and supplement the other meals with shakes and bars. And like someone else said, grocery store - apples, string cheese, yogurt, look at the list on the Zone website for all the 1 block snacks. Stay healthy through your studies!

Im training for the military so would it be bad if I added a run swim after Crossfit workouts or do I have to wait 3 hours CFE prescribes.

Re: Comment# 20 by Andre "I didn't read the yellow press article, but here are my thoughts:
lack of inequality = communism, it's ugliest form."
As George Orwell observed through the story of "Animal Farm"..."All animals are equal, however some are more equal than others". By the way an academic discourse should not be arbitrarily labeled "yellow press" if you admit to not have even read it! Then in the next breath you offer your own opinion? That approach will somewhat undermine your credibility.

NICE!!! Needed this rest-day, my low back is killing me. Cant wait for tommorow tho.

DO WORK!!!

Haha Greg!!! Hell yeah!!

Run 400M
25 Push Ups
15 snatches w/ a 30lb K-Bell

4 RFT

22:18

I like the direction the recent rest day topics have covered.
It would be great to see less junk posts on here.
Read the faqs before you post.

Prole: "The goal of the planner is not necessarily (almost never) to set a price as close to equilibrium as possible." Yes, this is why Central Planning destroys wealth and represses growth, and largely supresses income mobility across generations.

Comment #30 - Posted by: Prole
Many of the statements in your critique assume good intentions on the parts of the planners. However, central planners plan in order to sustain the power they have achieved. They collect money from all and dispense what is needed to the folks which must be bought to sustain the party in question's power. From the dealth of the Soviet Union - died when commodity prices collapsed to the degree that they could no longer pay of the unions, etc - to the very visible efforts by the incumbents in the US who sell of special conditions to the unions to gain their support in the 'health care reform' - democracy or full fledged statism creates a process by which the only survivors in the political caste are the ones who will do whatever it takes to stay there, regardless of principle or promise.

Whether or not they could do any of the things you suggest is another matter entirely and what Hayek shows is, because they cannot know enough, they cannot succeed even if their souls were pure and their thoughts were clear and they were as self sacrificing as Mother Theresa.

Dale 44

I do think that economic choices can very well include moral, social or other non-price considerations, and can have moral and social effects. That's why I think price is not an adequate indicator of the real (that is economic, moral and social) optimal rate of marginal substitution. Price measures the econonimc ORMS for individuals and individual firms. Your question about voluntary v. coerced contributions raises the question of whether it is legitimate or just for planners (legislators) to force you to make contributions for the furtherance of social values you do not support. This is a different question than the one Hayek raised (whether planners could achieve their objects) - and I agree it is where much of the debate about planning should be focussed.

Apollowabbie,

My point is that I think Hayek's discussion of price and planning is seriously flawed because it is based on a misunderstanding and oversimplification of what planners do and seek to do. Although you state Hayek got the relationship between price and planning correct, you indicated why we should agree.

I agree with you that planners sometimes/often/most often seek to maintain and extend the power they have as planners, and that this has a tendency to corrupt the republic they are intended to serve. But this is an argument that planning is bad policy, not that planners are unable to achieve, to some degree and in suitable situations, what they set out to achieve. When you say that planners (or the politicians that give them marching orders) are beholden to special interests (such as labour - or energy or mining?) are you not implying that their planning policies are in fact able to achieve their objects at least to some degree - if not, why would labour support one candidate's planning program over another's? Planners do not need to be self-sacrificing, they should be competent, hard-working and honest (just like members on a corporation's board of directors).

I'm not arguing for a strict adherence to the status quo, I'm arguing against a doctrinaire opposition to any and all planning qua planning.

awesome playlists available at www.fitmix.co.uk

Prole - I guess I'm going a bit further and asking if that isn't implicit in Hayek's piece and the concept of price itself. In other words, don't the "local conditions" to which he refers, necessarily include such considerations? The person who has or makes a commodity or service in one area knows things, including community sentiment, current events, etc (down to something as trivial as local traffic and construction) that can change the "going rate" of the commodity or service in ways that the planner can never be expected to know or appreciate or react to.

What you are saying, it seems to me, is that the local manufacturer/seller has to account for some larger "societal" good that the central planner has in their eye that "society" has decided has some marginal utility that demands a control on what otherwise would be the price of the good/service as between two people exercising their free choice in a transaction.

Yours is the argument (again, please correct me if I'm mischaracterizing your point) for the "feds", so to speak, over the free market. A local seller who is aware that apples are scarce in his neck of the woods because of some local factors is not entitled to charge what a buyer would buy his product for because there is some "societal value" that the central planner has said demands that apples be given to all at no more than $X/lb. because "everyone deserves access to fresh fruit."

I'm not sure I buy that. Even for what you consider "essentials". The moral argument for "universal healthcare" doesn't convince me that it justifies that which it seeks - more power in the hands of "planners". And I reject Paul's argument (if he's saying this) that the flaw is because people are "inherently bad" or "planners go wrong." That's the Marxist notion that "if we can just get it right, socialism is really good in theory." I disagree completely. It's wrong because it elevates the state over the individual.

Dale,

Your statement of my view in para 2 is accurate, except that I don't think the producer/seller has to account for some larger societal goal - I think that the planner puts regulations in place that influence (force) producers to conduct business in way that tends toward the larger societal goal.

I think it would be a very rare situation in which a planner would be justified in setting the price of a manufactured good, or the freight rates for getting that good to market. I think there have been and will continue to be situations in which planners are justified in requiring producers to produce and bring their products to market in certain ways (Senator Sherman's Anti-Trust Act, TDR's Pure Food and Drug Act, Nixon's Occupational Safety and Health Act). These types of planning laws affect the "price" of production and the "price" of the goods and services marketed by the producers, but they don't set the exact "price". Provided the producers abide by the planners' laws (reporting and auditing requirements, administrative rulings etc), they can set their own relatively competitive price. The local apple seller can sell her apples for any price she chooses, provided the apples are not contaminated, and the migrant apple-pickers she has hired are treated in accordance with labour laws etc.

This price, which now includes the costs of regulation and planning is not a signal of individual OMRS in the way Hayek would wish it to be.

I don't think socialism is good in practice or theory, but not because it puts the public good over the good of the individual. I think socialism's failure is that it is likely to kill the golden goose that is greed, ambition and the drive to distinguish oneself from the crowd (the golden egg laid by this goose is creativity and industry). However, the tension between individual and public good is always present, and the genius of a republic with universal suffrage is that it provides a forum in which powerful individuals and groups can lawfully conflict and sometimes compromise. The compromise, or the bounty (as the case may be) often results in a more-or-less ambitious planning regime.

The big trick is to balance as much individual liberty with the legitmate interests of the many groups that make up the society in which the indivudal lives. Planning has a role to play in achieving that balance.

Prole:
I suspect you and I share many of the same views. I was going to include my "Sherman Caveat" but decided it would make the post too long. I see those "kinds" of legislation as less about "planning" than they are about preventing monopolistic practices. In some sense, planning and cartels are the same thing - attempts to control price artificially - the difference is in who wields the power - private entities (through collusive practices) or government (through the use of force). Either way, the consumer (and more "free market" economics) ultimately get hurt both directly by price-fixing and indirectly by the stifling of the "golden egg".

I have to agree with you that these kinds of legislation are necessary to ensure a "level playing field" and, I concede, the protection of some societal values (work conditions, as just one example). I'll need to think more about your last post, but thanks for giving me more to consider.

Ha, not making your post too long? The length of mine have been vexatious! Next day I'll give myself a 100 word limit.

No rest for the wicked. Created own WOD:
5 situps / pushups / burpees / chins / box jumps
As many rounds in 20 mins.
I think I got about 15-16 out...

Did I hear Mark say that burpees were for children?????!!!!

21, 15, 9
HSPU nose to ground
push-ups

10:00

at work

SNOWBOARDING!!!!