The Bentley Fed Challenge team wins the Northeast regional
The northeastern part of the US contains some decent colleges that you might have heard of: Harvard, Dartmouth, Boston College, etc. But none of them was able to stop the Bentley team, which won the Northeast regional Fed Challenge on Friday, and now advances to the National competition in DC. Congratulations to the team:
Aizhan Uzakova
Sal Visali
Michael Liotti
Brian Levine
Dan Reeves
Santiago Rada
Alexis de Bruin
Mirtha Dominguez
Matt Paniati
. . . as well as the two coaches David Gulley and Aaron Jackson. As you may recall, the Bentley team has been a real juggernaut in recent years, with one national championship, a second place in the nationals, and a number of other northeast regional wins over very stiff competition.
Well done!
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9. November 2014 at 13:24
Are they allowed to implement NGDPLT? 🙂
9. November 2014 at 13:30
What policy did they advocate for?
9. November 2014 at 14:09
I’m not sure I’m allowed to say, as there may be spies from other teams in the nationals. 🙂
9. November 2014 at 14:13
Thanks, Scott. For now, we’d like to keep things under wraps
9. November 2014 at 14:57
This level of success is nothing new for the Bentley team, is it?
9. November 2014 at 15:40
marioluigi, I’ll spill the beans.
We advocated for a “reverse helicopter drop.” In our policy proposal, we suggested that Yellen would fly a helicopter over Times Square NYC, but instead of dropping cash on the ground she would drop overnight reverse repurchase agreements.
9. November 2014 at 16:42
How many monetary socialists does it take to change a lightbulb?
No really, I don’t know, because they all seem to be too busy engaging in self-congratulatory rituals and kowtowing whilst being totally oblivious to the innocent people being harmed by the very existence of the institution running this ridiculous “competition”.
How about investing one’s education in something that doesn’t require initiations of violence? Too much to ask? These kids are too young to know any better.
9. November 2014 at 17:30
mf’s comment is a very weird way of saying that he doesn’t like paying taxes.
9. November 2014 at 17:39
Calling it now: the team advocates for the FOMC to switch from targeting the FFR to the RRP rate.
9. November 2014 at 19:43
‘…there may be spies from other teams in the nationals. ‘
Hanging’s too good for them!
10. November 2014 at 04:50
Philippe:
That’s your way of saying you secretly like taxes financing torture in offshore political prisons, invasion of countries for oil, studies on prostitution in China, and drones that drop bombs on family weddings.
You’re saying you support everything you pay taxes for.
Me? I’m not allowed to not want to be part of torture and killing. Yeah, my bad on that one.
Actually my comment was my way of saying there is no rational reason to be proud of or congratulate the “accomplishment” of kowtowing to socialist engineering, based on aggression.
10. November 2014 at 04:53
But thanks for showing you don’t know the difference between monetary policy and fiscal policy. To you everything is fiscal policy. Or maybe that’s your ideal. Heli drops on your front lawn in exchange for your trash. Them bankers shouldn’t have all the fun!
10. November 2014 at 07:35
whenever you are asked why you say that Fed policy constitutes ‘violence’ or ‘aggression’ you inevitably reply that you have to pay taxes.
10. November 2014 at 09:11
Philippe:
I also bring up the coercion in legal tender laws. Imagine anyone who tried to mint and distribute coins or currencies that directly compete with the Fed. Such activity is deemed illegal, even if it does not constitute a violation of anyone’s homesteading/trade based property rights.
It is not just paying taxes that makes monetary socialism authoritative or violent.
If the government taxed you in whatever money you chose, then there would no longer be monetary socialism, but there would still be taxation. It is not taxation per se, but taxation in dollars specifically that enables the fed monopoly to persist, so that is why pro-market money arguments might appear to you as merely anti-tax ones.
Note: I am not at all concerned on how difficult it would be for anyone to tax a whole group of people if those people were able to choose their own money. I am not here to help make people more efficient killers and thieves. That is the prerogative of this blog.
10. November 2014 at 10:08
“a violation of anyone’s homesteading/trade based property rights”
You’re just referring to your claims as ‘rights’. In reality there are no particular “homesteading/trade based property rights” outside of those established by laws or equivalent systems of rules.
There is no real reason why the government should not have the power to regulate the creation of money within its jurisdiction, including placing restrictions on the creation of certain types of money.
“If the government taxed you in whatever money you chose”
That’s just stupid. Taxation would be meaningless in that case. It’s like saying that you should be able to pay debts with anything you feel like, or pay for anything in a store with whatever you feel like, regardless of whether the creditor or store owner agrees.
10. November 2014 at 13:52
Could you add a sentence describing what the Fed challenge is, for those of us uninformed?
Thanks,
S
10. November 2014 at 14:32
Philippe:
“a violation of anyone’s homesteading/trade based property rights”
“You’re just referring to your claims as ‘rights’.”
You’re just referring right there to your claims of rights, in that they differ. You’re just suggesting that your opinion of rights is different.
“In reality there are no particular “homesteading/trade based property rights” outside of those established by laws or equivalent systems of rules.”
In reality not all laws are just simply because they’re laws.
In reality all positive laws can be subject to principles that go beyond mere status quo, or in your case status quo plus might makes right.
“There is no real reason why the government should not have the power to regulate the creation of money within its jurisdiction, including placing restrictions on the creation of certain types of money.”
Sure there are, you just refuse to think about those reasons, because you feel better not having to think about them, which is why you fallaciously presume to prove or confirm or otherwise validate your opinion rights by referring to various argumentative fallacies, such as status quo, ad populum, and whatever Latin phrase represents your might makes right ideology.
“If the government taxed you in whatever money you chose”
“That’s just stupid.”
No, you’re just stupid.
“It’s like saying that you should be able to pay debts with anything you feel like, or pay for anything in a store with whatever you feel like”
No, it is NOT “like saying” thise voluntary, mutually consensual agreements whereby contracts are formed and obligations to pay in specific commodities arises due to those voluntary contracts.
No such mutually consensual agreements or contracts exist for paying taxes in dollars.
10. November 2014 at 15:23
I didn’t say that status quo or might equals right.
Property is not voluntary. It’s a system of rules or laws, no more voluntary than any other system of rules or laws.
You don’t believe a contract is necessary to enforce a property claim.
10. November 2014 at 16:22
UChicago is coming for Bentley ;). We won the 7th district regional competition for the first time this year. I’ll keep our policy proposal secret as well.
Expect some tough competition 🙂
10. November 2014 at 18:28
Philippe:
“I didn’t say that status quo or might equals right.”
I know, you’re too chicken to say it yourself. I had to be the one to do your job and write down what you believe.
You have never contradicted my assessment by explicitly writing what you believe makes a law “right”.
You are so afraid of exposing your garbage to public critique.
But you can’t hide it. It can be narrowed down based on what you have made all the effort you can muster to reject. You don’t accept this, you don’t accept that, you think this is wrong, you think that is wrong, you hate this, you hate that.
What is left are the very premises I wrote above. Status quo and might makes right.
What else do you have? Nothing.
“Property is not voluntary.”
Yes, it is. Property ARISES in purely voluntary, individual activity whereby the individual asks permission from nobody else on Earth, and needs no permission from anyone else on Earth.
When an individual homesteads land, that is the creation of property. It’s in the mind of the homesteader, even if the word “property” isn’t used. The thought is “This is something that not just anyone can come along and destroy. This is something I built, and I intend to dispose of it according to my desires, including hoarding it, or giving it away, or sharing it with my family and friends. I believe it would be wrong for an invading army to threaten me with force and demand to take possession of my property against my consent.”
The creation of property need not even be thought of in the above way at all in the mind of the homesteader either. Even if he never has any thought of being robbed, he is still the legitimate owner. If he gives the land away, that’s his right to exercise.
Homesteading is voluntary because nobody else’s person or property is infringed upon. It is land previously unowned.
“It’s a system of rules or laws, no more voluntary than any other system of rules or laws.”
No, property rights ENFORCEMENT is a rule. The systematic, principled based reaction to violations of it is a rule.
If a homesteader is alone in the thought that he is the sole exclusive owner of the land he homesteaded, while 100 other people around him who are armed and wanting to take his land, then even if those other 100 people “vote” on a rule that says “We can take this man’s land away from him, and kill him or imprison him is he resists”, then that does not mean that homesteader property rights suddenly disappeared. The right is there and always was there. It was just violated by the thugs.
“You don’t believe a contract is necessary to enforce a property claim.”
I don’t need your permission to defend my own person or my homesteaded property from your violence. It is a right that is “natural” by virtue of me being who I am.
You have the same natural right.
Nobody needs to acquire permission from a rapist before they can “legally” defend themselves from the rapist. Nobody needs to acquire permission from a thief before they can “legally” defend their property from the thief.
Property is voluntary. Property violations are involuntary.
Responding to involuntary acts against one’s person and property with actions that are perceived as involuntary from the perspective of the person initiating the involuntary act, is not a creation of an involuntary action. It is stopping them.
It doesn’t matter if the rapist or thief perceives defenses against them as involuntary. The involuntary feeling they experience is due to others asserting their right to not have involuntary actions initiated against them.
I don’t need your permission to defend myself against your aggression. I am not creating a victim by defending myself. I am stopping the creation of a victim. You not being able to steal from me does not make you a victim. You not being able to steal from me does not constitute the creation of an involuntary act. Your aggression is not the standard of human rights.
10. November 2014 at 19:28
Steven, They present a 15 minute policy proposal, as if at a regular FOMC meeting, with discussion among the team. Then they are asked tough questions by the judges, and have to defend their ideas. It’s pretty challenging, especially for undergrads. But they work hard on preparation and do extremely well at it. You can’t just go in and wing it and expect to win.
Basil, I’m hoping John Cochrane is coaching them to go full neo-Fisherian. The UC team should advocate higher interest rates to push inflation up to 2%. The judges in DC will love it.
I promise. 🙂
11. November 2014 at 02:02
mf,
if property was voluntary then it wouldn’t be enforced. Obviously it’s not voluntary.
As I said, you don’t believe a contract is necessary to enforce a property claim. You just confirmed this. You shouldn’t pretend otherwise whenever it is convenient for you to do so.
11. November 2014 at 09:06
Wait til you hear how U Chicago edged out Northwestern, Scott. Of which, I presume, David Gulley will inform you.
11. November 2014 at 10:51
Patrick, I know, but how did you know that David knew? Just a lucky guess?