공중 화장실 변기의 수난시대

문재인 정부가 철수시킨 화장실 휴지통 정책이야말로 외국인들에게 보여주기 위한 전시 행정의 표본으로 시민 편의를 무시한 단견이라고 아니할 수 없다.

조약돌(조갑제닷컴)

 유럽 32개 국가 중에서 지하철 역사에 무료 공중 화장실이 있는 나라가 과연 몇 나라나 될까? 필자가 여행한 유럽 21개 국가 중에서 지하철을 이용해보고 화장실을 확인한 12개 국가 중에는 단 한 곳도 없었다. ​

  한국의 공중 화장실의 냄새나는 쓰레기통을 지적한 외국인들에게 묻고 싶다. 당신 나라에서 공짜 공중 화장실을 이용할 수 있는 곳이 몇 퍼센트나 되느냐고…? 아마 5% 이하일 것이다. 100% 공짜 화장실을 이용할 수 있는 한국은 당신들 나라에 비하면 화장실 천국이다. (발췌)

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나눌 생각만 하면 나눌거리(pie)는 누가 키우나?

證人

白丁   2018-01-09 오후 9:53

돈이야 뭐...자본가, 지주같은 부르주아 계급에서 뜯어내면 되지요. 다 망해서 그게 안되면 조폐공사에서 찍어내면 되고...베네수엘라 처럼. (조갑제닷컴 발췌) ----> 證人의 질문에 백정이란 분이 정답을 말한 것 같다. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21세기에 와서도 19세기 막스의 선동이 먹히고 있다. 그래서 나는 2016년 수컷닷컴에 쓴 글에서 다음과 같이 제안했다. (본인의 책 <자유주의자의 독백>에 수록되어 있음)     논쟁에서 지면 입을 찢기로 하자   자연과학에서는 이견이 있을 때 수학적으로 증명을 하면 어느 한쪽의 오류가 드러나고, 논쟁은 곧 종결된다. 그리고 패배한 이론은 사라지게 된다. 그런데 인문, 사회과학에서는 해묵은 논쟁이 수십년 끝도 없이 진행되고, 진위가 가려진 뒤에도 계속해서 거짓 주장이 성행하기도 한다. 이런 일을 방지하기 위해 내가 대담한 제안을 하나 하기로 하겠다. 즉 “논쟁에서 지면 상대의 입을 찢기로 하자”는 것이다. 그래야 다시는 거짓 주장이 사회에 돌아다니지 않게 된다.   내가 이런 말을 하는 것은 하나의 논쟁을 제안하려 하기 때문이다. 즉 나는 “현재의 혼합경제 체제에서, 좌파 복지국가가 지속 가능한 것인가?”라는 주제로 좌우파가 논쟁을 벌이기를 제안한다. 그리고 논쟁의 결과 지속 가능하지 않다면, 좌파들의 아가리를 찢어버리고, 복지정책을 모두 폐기하자는 것이다.   현재 복지정책을 시행하는 서구의 대부분의 나라는 그로 인해 심각한 경제적 타격을 받았거나, 아니면 막대한 재정 적자와 부채를 떠안고 있다. 아르헨티나는 우리가 잘 알고 있는 복지 망국의 예이다. 현재 미국도 재정이 파탄났지만 아무도 말하지 않고 있다. 보스톤대 교수 코틀리코프는 재정 파탄을 막기 위해 다음과 같이 해야 한다고 주장했다. “미국의 경우엔 현재 가치로 환산한 정부의 모든 지출과 부채, 미래의 세입과 자산 가치 간 차이인 '재정 격차(fiscal gap)'가 199조달러(약 227경3376조원)에 이릅니다. 당장 모든 세금을 53% 인상하거나 재정 지출액을 34% 삭감해야 정부 지출을 현 수준으로 유지할 수 있는 규모입니다. 그런데 개혁을 20년 정도 더 미룬다면, 그때는 미 정부가 채무 불이행을 피하기 위해 세금을 69% 더 걷거나 지출을 42% 삭감해야 합니다.”(조선일보 발췌)   그런데 우리도 복지 예산이 무섭게 증가하고 있고, 이는 국가 재정에 감당할 수 없는 부담이 되어 가고 있다. 그러니 논쟁에서 지면 좀 잔인하지만 상대의 입을 찢어놓더라도, 좌파 복지론자들의 입을 막고, 경제의 방향을 바꾸자는 것이다.   지난 1920 ~ 30년대에 이미 미제스와 하이에크는 좌파 학자들을 상대로 “사회주의 계산논쟁”을 벌여, 사회주의 경제가 합리적으로 운용될 수 없다는 것을 증명한 바 있다. 그때 좌파 학자들의 입을 찢어놓았다면, 지금까지 사회주의가 이렇게 날뛰지는 않을 것이다. 그래서 좀 늦었지만, 나는 아주 진지하게 제안하는 바이다. 좌우의 학자들은 “복지국가 계산논쟁”을 벌이고, 논쟁에서 지는 쪽은 입을 찢기로 하자는 것이다. 토론장에 피가 흐르고 비명이 나오겠지만, 그래도 지구의 수 십억 인구가 빈곤과 경제적 파탄에서 벗어나는 일이 더 중요하다. 정말 진지하게 제안하는 바이다.  -------------------------------  문, 최저임금 인상, 경제체질 바꾼다 - 병신체질로 만들겠네 일베에 올라온 재미 있는 말. -------------------------------------------------------- 유엔 대북제재가 삼엄한 이시기에 통일부는 북한 선수들을 지원 하려면 지원방식 및 규모 정확히 밝혀라! 수십억 달러짜리 핵버튼도 만드는 나라인데 체류비용을 왜 우리가 지불해야되나? 그 이유도 알고싶다 [출처] 수십억 달러짜리 핵무기도 만드는데 북한선수들 체류비를 왜 우리가 지원하나!!! / 일베 ------------------------------------------------    사회과학은 과학이 아니다. 과학처럼 보이려는 사회과학은 염색을 하고 성형 수술을 한 노인과 같다.  그런 노인은 젊지도 않고 가짜처럼 보인다. ------------------------------------------------- 베네수엘라 국민의 기아를 끝내기 위해, 주변 국가들의 연합군이 베네수엘라의 정치에 개입하는 방법이 고려되고 있다고 한다. ------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ 스티글리츠의 자유시장 비판에 대해 The Euro Might Destroy Europe   •David Gordon     As Joseph Stiglitz sees matters, the euro suffers from a fatal flaw. The euro is the currency of 19 European countries; and common money blocks efforts of nations that, according to Stiglitz, need to devalue their currencies. More generally, attempts to restrict government control of the economy arouse the wrath of this implacable enemy of the market.   As he explains, “When two countries (or 19 of them) join together in a single-currency union, each cedes control over their interest rate. Because they are using the same currency, there is no exchange rate, no way that by adjusting their exchange rate they can make their goods cheaper and more attractive. Since adjustment in interest rates and exchange rates are among the most important ways that economies adjust to maintain full employment, the formation of the euro took away two of the most important instruments for insuring that.”   This limitation on government policy is more than a theoretical possibility. The Troika (European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund), influenced by nefarious German bankers, insists on “sound” money, much to the distress of Greece and other countries in need of economic stimulus. Making matters worse, the Troika demands that these countries raise taxes and slash government services, in order to reduce their huge debts. If these demands are refused, the Troika threatens to cut off further loans to the ailing governments.   If the euro is not to Stiglitz’s liking, the gold standard is even worse: “America’s depression at the end of the 19th century was linked to the gold standard ... with no large discoveries of gold, its scarcity was leading to the fall of prices of ordinary goods in terms of gold — to what we today call deflation. ... And this was impoverishing America’s farmers, who found it difficult to pay back their debts. ... So too the gold standard is widely blamed for its role in deepening and prolonging the Great Depression.”   Stiglitz fails to note that many of the strongest defenders of the gold standard, e.g., Jacques Rueff, strongly condemned the gold exchange standard that prevailed in the 1920s. But never mind his historical mistake; let us concentrate on the most essential issue. Why does Stiglitz think that people cannot adjust to falling prices? Why must government control the money supply and, more generally, regulate the free market?   Here we arrive at the key to Stiglitz’s thought. He is a Nobel laureate, according to many the most important economic theorist of his generation, and he claims to have proved that an unregulated free market must almost inevitably fail. “There is an abstract theory (called the Arrow-Debreu competitive equilibrium theory) that explains when such a system of unrestrained competitive markets might work and lead to overall efficiency, it requires markets and information that are far more perfect than that which exists anywhere on this earth. ... The circumstances that they [Arrow and Debreu] identified where markets did not lead to efficiency were called market failures. Subsequently, Greenwald and Stiglitz showed that whenever information was imperfect and markets incomplete — essentially always — markets were not efficient.”   Stiglitz’s criticism of the market rests on a false assumption. General equilibrium theory describes an artificial situation irrelevant to the actual working of the market. (The conditions resemble what Austrian economists call the evenly rotating economy [ERE].) On the free market, the wish to earn a profit induces producers to meet consumers’ demands. We grasp how this process works through simple commonsense reasoning. As Mises explains, “This state of equilibrium is a purely imaginary construction. In a changing world it can never be realized. It differs from today’s state as well as from any other realizable state of affairs ... it was a serious mistake to believe that the state of equilibrium could be computed, by means of mathematical operations, on the basis of the knowledge of conditions in a nonequilibrium state. It was no less erroneous to believe that such a knowledge of the conditions under a hypothetical state of equilibrium could be of any use for acting man in his search for the best possible solution of the problems with which he is faced in his daily choices and activities” (Mises, Human Action).   Stiglitz would no doubt respond with derision. For him, mathematical models trump commonsense reasoning. As he remarks elsewhere, “The standard theorems that underlie the presumption that markets are efficient are no longer valid once we take into account the fact that information is costly and imperfect. To some, this has suggested a switch to the Austrian approach, most forcefully developed during the 1940s and later by Friedrich Hayek and his followers. They have not attempted to ‘defend’ markets by the use of theorems. Instead, they see markets as institutions that have evolved to solve information problems. According to Hayek, neoclassical economics got itself into trouble by assuming perfect information to begin with. A much better approach, wrote Hayek, is to assume the world we have, one in which everyone has only a little information. ... The new information economics substantiates Hayek’s contention that central planning faces problems because it requires an impossible agglomeration of information. It agrees with Hayek that the virtue of markets is that they make use of the dispersed information held by different participants in the market. But information economics does not agree with Hayek’s assertion that markets act efficiently. The fact that markets with imperfect information do not work perfectly provides a rationale for potential government actions” (econlib.org/library/Enc/Information.html). Stiglitz “gives it away” in his last two sentences. The free market is deemed faulty because it falls short of the artificial standard of general equilibrium “efficiency.” Where the free market is concerned, Stiglitz is a hanging judge.   Stiglitz has another argument to deploy against the free market, one that does not rely on the standard of competitive equilibrium. Keynes has shown that the free market needs to be propped up through government spending in order to maintain full employment. “An economy facing an economic slump has three primary mechanisms to restore full employment; lower interest rates, to stimulate consumption and investment; lower exchange rates, to stimulate exports; or use fiscal policy — increasing spending or decreasing taxes. ... I have just described the standard Keynesian theory on economic downturns.” It is significant that here Stiglitz does not require a mathematical model that proves Keynesian stimulus policies must work. What happens, for example, if people fail to spend the money they receive to stimulate consumption — in the manner Keynesian theory assumes?   But why might fiscal stimulus not work? Here Benjamin Anderson and Robert Higgs, among others, have a convincing response. Uncertainty about what the government might do leads investors to lack confidence. If so, Keynesian stimulus will fail. What is needed instead is a “business-friendly” policy from the government. Stiglitz’s objection to this line of reasoning should by now be obvious. No mathematical model supports it: “There is a persistent view that confidence can be restored if governments cut deficits (spending), and with the restoration of confidence, investment and the economy will grow. No standard econometric model confirmed these beliefs.” Stiglitz does not point out that there is substantial historical evidence, e.g., in a classic paper by Robert Higgs that uncertainty about government policy does indeed inhibit investment.   For Stiglitz, the principal enemies are the “market fundamentalists,” but he has odd views about what support for the free market entails. “Faith in markets by neoliberals not only meant that monetary policy was less needed to keep the economy at full employment; it also meant that financial regulations were less needed to prevent ‘excesses.’ To conservatives, the ideal was ‘free banking,’ the absence of all regulations.” But the free market ideal, as described by Mises and Rothbard, is very far from a system of unlimited private creation of fiat money. If the “excesses” Stiglitz mentions refer to speculative loans made possible by fractional reserve banking, the expansionist policies he supports lead to much greater instability than “market fundamentalism” tolerates. One wonders, further, why the Troika’s demands that governments raise taxes to pay off large debts incurred by these governments are regarded as expressions of “market fundamentalism.” It would seem more natural to regard these demands as one government program designed to remedy the defects of another.   Stiglitz does not consider Mises and Rothbard worthy of discussion. “Today, except among a lunatic fringe, the question is not whether there should be government intervention but how and where the government should act, taking account of market imperfections.” He almost without exception proposes interfering with the free market, without demonstrating that the free market does not work. He agrees with the Queen in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. “Sentence first — verdict afterwards.”   David Gordon is Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute, and editor of The Mises Review     ---------------------------------------