Contrasting Problems with Psychology and Psychiatry

[Johan]

To get back on track and respond to the OP: I'd agree with the general thrust of the post. While evidence-based medicine has improved the state of medical interventions somewhat, there are certain areas of medical practice where expert opinion reigns supreme and ex cathedra pronouncements form the majority of discourse, e.g. psychiatry.

These attempts to ''restore balance'' are little more than interventions to produce a simulation of health, i.e. the person appears ''better'' or more normal, but his ''normality'' is not of ''genuine'' origin.

How this is to be rectified, I am unsure. Certainly, these professions are slow to change, given their privileged social position, the many unknowns about the human body and the risk to people's lives. Perhaps studies investigating the relative merits of drug therapy versus psychological interventions.

Some situations, such as ADHD, may not require psychiatry or psychology.. here, we might ask, is the environment perhaps at fault? As in, there is not some, simple ''mechanical'' problem with the child, but that the environment in which they are embedded is wholly at odds with their nature.

As you suggest Dave, the best (and perhaps only!) thing the individual can do is run the hell away from any psychiatrist!

[shytiger]

I'd have to take issue with your proposed ''social-group'' regulation. Having your uncle or cousin as the local cop is more likely to lead to corruption than it is to efficient policing. I imagine a blind-eye would be turned to crimes committed by a relation. Anyone with experience of ''small-town'' politics would be familiar with this. Such social groups will tend to be self-interested, as any special group is.

Peer regulation is of little use when your peers are ruthless and/or utterly self-interested, e.g. bankers. It would also be of less use in big cities, where people are not surrounded by their extended families...people are too mobile nowadays, in general, for a system of ''family policing'' to be practical.


I think the best form of regulation remains the Rule of Law.... the trust in the system necessary for free markets to exist is best generated, IMHO, by people knowing the ''rules of the game'' and having confidence that these rules will be applied in a fair. transparent and systematic fashion.

Ah ha! But that's where you bring in impartial outsiders to police the policers and provide a check on their behavior.

[Goodrum]

Brian->

The market, not the government, was the most effective tool to discipline big business..

...and just how is that working for your country Brian?

Seriously, how has it, and how is it working for you, say since around Jay Cooke-era, (after all from about out of the G10 countries you guys have the most fragmented regulated financial sector there is).

That's the question. How is it working for you seeing as how the States have most fragmented regulated financial sector there is...Jay was mentioned because of the similarities to what occured 2008, what has failed to be learnt.

Your financial sector corporations behaviour circa 2008-->...your country has the least regulated financial sector there is, how is it working for you?

[shytiger]

I think the problem was that banks were doing things that people thought no bank run by sane people would do---lending money to people who should never have gotten those loans because they weren't worth the risk and assuming that the real estate market would always absorb the risk by increasing home values. It's sort of like you hoped that at least corporations fit the "rational" and "self-interested" model of economics, but no. Corporations are just as human as individuals.

[Johan]

Shy,

I will say that in Ireland, government policy played an important role in encouraging reckless lending. Essentially, through their various incentives and pronouncements, the government encouraged home-owning, even for those who could not afford it, as well as encouraging wild-eyed property speculation; they considered the astronomical rise in property values to be a good thing. The whole situation was made much worse through the availability of cheap credit (or ''easy ways to get into debt'') once we joined the euro in 2001.

Despite there being a clear reason for government to change it's policies, they adopted the attitude of ''Yahoo! We'll all be millionaires!''

I don't know how things happened over in the US, but the whole situation is a tricky one, making the blaming of one particular entity, e.g. corporations, over other agents, e.g. people and government, difficult. Of course, while I wouldn't totally blame banks, I wouldn't bail them out either....

[shytiger]

Shy,

I will say that in Ireland, government policy played an important role in encouraging reckless lending. Essentially, through their various incentives and pronouncements, the government encouraged home-owning, even for those who could not afford it, as well as encouraging wild-eyed property speculation; they considered the astronomical rise in property values to be a good thing. The whole situation was made much worse through the availability of cheap credit (or ''easy ways to get into debt'') once we joined the euro in 2001.

Despite there being a clear reason for government to change it's policies, they adopted the attitude of ''Yahoo! We'll all be millionaires!''

I don't know how things happened over in the US, but the whole situation is a tricky one, making the blaming of one particular entity, e.g. corporations, over other agents, e.g. people and government, difficult. Of course, while I wouldn't totally blame banks, I wouldn't bail them out either....

I remember at the time everyone thought that things would just gracefully flatten out. Back in 2005 I would mention that things were going to crash and people would say, "NO! IT WON'T HAPPEN!!!" As if their heartfelt wishes would make things go their way---i.e. make their investments retain their value. There was a sense that if you didn't jump on board, you were going to miss the train. Even I didn't realize it was going to get as bad as it did and foolishly bought in early 2008 when things had started to slide but before things really hit the fan. The attitude at the time was similar to the attitude in the 1920's---that we've reached some new plateau of prosperity. I think sometimes the belief in progress that we all share in the modern Western world, while beneficial, can make us short sighted. I saw similar feelings of blind euphoria in 1999 with the dot-com boom (particularly since I was living at one of the epicenters at the time). So, I tend to believe that regulatory systems are essential because people are not always rational and mass madness happens from time to time. That's one reason we have constitutions. No institution is trustworthy all the time.

[Johan]

Haha, exact same thing over here! Remember well the constant assurance of a ''soft landing'', from politicians and their pet economists, even in the wake of Lehman Brothers' collapse. Remember when you were a kid and you did something bold because your friends were doing it? Recall being told by your parents ''if X ran over a cliff, would you run over it too?'' I think there is a lesson to be learned for the majority of people in that little saying.

As a whole, people are rarely ''rational'', their decision making governed by social factors (and their social networks, as you touched on earlier); these social factors, i.e. what my friends/neighbours are doing, what my betters tell me etc, etc, while they may seem sensible at the personal level, are utterly idiotic when looked at from a strategic vantage point.

Again, The Rule of Law is paramount to protect people and institutions from their own stupidity. While I know little of the treaty, the European Stability Mechanism seems to be a good idea, in that it puts legal limits on deficit expenditure. In Ireland, we have a budget deficit of about E18 billion (about 13% of GDP) and people decry this as ''austerity''.. in my book, a budget deficit of 13% GDP amounts to a stimulus package People seem to think a nation can live outside its means and will not be convinced, by reasoned argument, otherwise. I think the only way around it is, as the ESM does, is to enforce strict limits on government expenditure....might prevent them from buying votes by throwing (borrowed) money at the electorate.

[brian423]

That's the question. How is it working for you seeing as how the States have most fragmented regulated financial sector there is...Jay was mentioned because of the similarities to what occured 2008, what has failed to be learnt.

Your financial sector corporations behaviour circa 2008-->...your country has the least regulated financial sector there is, how is it working for you?

You repeated your question; I'll repeat my answer. You can't blame libertarians for the consequences of un-libertarian policies. The crash of 2008 was caused not by laissez faire but by an ill-advised set of government regulations. If you don't believe me, please follow the damn link. I'm getting tired of repeating myself.