At 11/27/09 11:48 AM, Elfer wrote:

At 11/27/09 11:24 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Likewise, if I had to hire a 'Government' to protect my rights.

You've already hired a government. You might know it as the U.S. government.

I never hired the US government. I never signed any document stating that the people who call themselfs 'the united states of america' would provide my protection, law, utilities, etc.

And don't tell me about the social contract, it's a sad excuse for the love-it-or-leave-it-argument.

Politicians are incentivized to go with majority rule. The actual purpose behind making certain branches of government independent of popular vote was to have a protection against majoritarian rule.

The main reason the framers only had popular elections for congressmen was because they felt that the only control the people needed was control over the tax purse.

_____________

True protection from majoritarian rule occurs best in a free market.

It isn't merely profitable to produce objects that are demanded by only 51% of the population.

Likewise, if I had to hire a 'Government' to protect my rights. Would I be willing to pay extra money to see to it that people in my neighborhood were thrown in jail for smoking pot? of course not. I would want my person and my property protected. (And family if i wasn't living alone) And that would be it.

At 11/26/09 11:18 PM, ArrowLance wrote:

At 11/26/09 09:40 PM, Korriken wrote:

ns are for nothing once i use one of these action packed words to describe big government.

An important question is what is even meant by 'big' and 'government'? Government of and for who?

In a sense during much of the USSR's history it had a relatively small government. But if you mean power wise, it was not all bad. Although it used it's power to eliminate those who it saw as a danger to the revolution, it had great success in industrializing, and don't forget, defeating Fascism.

An omnipotent state can never be used as an instrument of the 'lower classes' For obvious reasons. All human beings are susceptibility to the same vices of human greed and power just, some more than others. Those who are the most self interested and most power hungry will work the hardest to attain positions in which

When the Bolsheviks seized the power of the state. It didn't take long before you saw a new class of Commissary. If you control the power to force people to do things against their will you control the power to easilly and effortlessly enrich yourself. You had people living miserably as subjects to the rulers in Moscow.

When it becomes most profitable in a country to enter into the government, rather than in the productive sectors, that's where you will see the most greedy people entering. This is why in America today you have bloated health, education, and government sectors.

Totalitarianism of that kind can only work if human beings are selfless and perfect, and even if they were selfless and perfect Totalitarianism would be unnecessary since even the most hard headed statist would admit that a state would be unnecessary in a state of human perfection.

Communism as a theory has been blasted time and time again by the Austrian Economists, long before the Berlin wall ever collapsed.

http://www.amazon.com/SOCIALISM-Lib-Work s-Ludwig-Mises/dp/0913966630/ref=sr_1_1?
ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259338777&sr=8-1

The title of the book is called socialism only because it's criticism is against a very broad range of philosophies that are unified in that they advocate state control of the means of production, communism being one of them.

At 11/24/09 03:45 PM, gumOnShoe wrote:

At 11/24/09 03:40 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

At 11/24/09 01:08 PM, gumOnShoe wrote:

In this case returns are assumed to be related to profits and that a return doesn't exist until profit does. IE shareholding.

In either situation, in the case of a loan or in the case of an investment, there is an assumption that the money put in to a particular thing pays out more than is put in. Either in the form of interest or in the form of dividends, the choice of either being made in accordance with the time and risk preferences of the parties involved.

With dividends its more of a hope than with interest. If a business doesn't make money, investors don't get money. Same idea here.

It's a matter of preference on the part of the person with the money or the person wanting to start up a business whether or not to go with investment or with a loan. And provided that there is voluntarism involved the decision will reflect the considerations and preferences of the parties involved. When a third party makes their preferences, informed or otherwise, universal law for all individuals what you get is Chaos.

If investments are that much safer for entrepreneurs then i think you would see a lot less banking and a lot more investment in a free society. So even if you're thesis is correct, banning interest is simply a superfluous. And if you're thesis is incorrect, you would see a black market in loans arise, in which case interest rates would invariably be much higher and reposession would be the least of a person's worries if they couldn't pay back.

At 11/24/09 06:03 PM, gumOnShoe wrote:

At 11/24/09 05:38 PM, Sajberhippien wrote: So, by using an extremely wide definition of government, you've made the word more or less worthless. Congratulations! -.-

I don't believe I made it wider at all. Again, I think the thing you really don't like is a dictatorship because you seem fine with democracy.

What modern 'Democracies' Do is a very far from what individuals do contractually.

In a certain sense i can agree with you that there is a tendency for people to organize themselves in accordance with their preferences, there is also a tendency to defer to those of greater 'wisdom' for things such as establishing precedent rules and dispute resolution. But if people veiwed government the same way they veiwed the contracts and arrangements they made with regular individuals and companies on a daily basis they would realize one exploitative and dangerous their relation to the state really is.

You have these elections where thousands and sometimes millions of people who all too often care nothing about politics, or know virtually nothing about it, vote for individuals who, if those individuals get 51% percent of the vote, are given license to do a wide variety of what would otherwise be considered anti-social activities.

Democracy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c-Sge8Hw k0

At 11/24/09 01:08 PM, gumOnShoe wrote:

In this case returns are assumed to be related to profits and that a return doesn't exist until profit does. IE shareholding.

In either situation, in the case of a loan or in the case of an investment, there is an assumption that the money put in to a particular thing pays out more than is put in. Either in the form of interest or in the form of dividends, the choice of either being made in accordance with the time and risk preferences of the parties involved.

At 11/24/09 05:49 AM, Cuppa-LettuceNog wrote: So what, the police officers would be hired, organized as a for-profit capitalist enterprise? If I get mugged, and I want the police to arrest the mugger, I pay them to do so? Yeah, that won't ever lead to abuse.

Something like this, in theory, could happen with any service or any form of insurance. (My guess is that a free market protection agency would operate in insurance) or for any service for that matter. The only difference is that it's easier to imagine something bad happening in a case where a service was never provided for voluntarily. If the government was in the business of making pencils throughout most of history, if i advocated privatization of pencils you would be incredulous to the practicality of my proposal.

You could purchase insurance against X, and find that the insurance agency refuses to pay you.

And by your perception of reality, voluntarily funded insurance agencies of any kind could not operate honestly, the only solution is to establish Involuntarily funded agencies in which people are forced into when they are born.

And somehow, miraculously, we are to assume that these agencies are going to be more honest in their practices... Because... Why? They don't opperate for profit?

But is not an election founded on the assumption that politicians will act responsibly in their own self-interest? If politicians want to remain in office, they behave as the public demands of them? If a politician had no intention of running a second term would he not do anything in his power within the scope of legality to enrich himself and his political allies?

At 11/23/09 04:07 PM, gumOnShoe wrote:

At 11/23/09 03:22 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: GumonShoe you still haven't outlined how ending interest wouldn't be catastrophic.

For the current system it would be very catastrophic. But that's because the current policy is entirely debt ridden. Debt is the only thing backing our money and its how our system works. That is real slavery for you, just shifted.

Fractional reserve banking is inherently bankrupt, but interest is not, at least without the support of a fractional reserve bank, which is a key thing that the videos on fractional reserve banking don't care to talk much about.

Insurance works in a similar respect, theoretically, no insurance pool is large enough to cover every single individual if they were to all simultaneously get into some sort of accident. However there is always enough to cover the disaster that do occur because insurance is not 'insured' by a 'lender of last resort' Imagine if, if an insurance agency couldn't make all of their claims, the government simply stepped in and gave them the money they needed every time they failed to make the payments. Insurance agencies would be incentivized to set premiums at actuarially unsound levels.

Lets consider the situations you have proposed. They'll be considered in this order:
1) Jerry invests his own money in a restaurant hoping the restaurant makes him money
2) Bank loans Jerry the money to open the restaurant
3) Bank invests the money in Jerry for a cut of the profits

[ ONE ]
-- Jerry has no guarantee he will make money back, but because he has no guarantee (if he isn't a total failure), he'll work very hard to make more money because its his ass riding the line. He still might fail and lose everything, but then he's just back at square 1.

[ TWO ]
-- Bank loans Jerry the money and just expects a certain amount of it back each month after a certain point. If Jerry's business fails, the bank will repossess it and all of his assets [CHAPTER 7]. Either way, Jerry's essentially back at square 1 and the bank has gained something so it doesn't care.

Banks do care, banks would much rather see the loan repaid then have to go through the paper work of repossessing people's bad restaurants and then sell them to someone. Odds are that if the restaurant was a failure, and say, 250,000 worth of a loan went in to it. (Assuming no money down) if the bank repo'd the restaurant they probably wouldn't be able to sell it at a price higher than what they loaned the restaurant owner for in the first place, since the restaurant was a poorly applied use of resources.

The Bank's loss is perhaps less than the loss incurred by Jerry, but they would still much rather have the loan repaid.

If this wasn't the case, and banks preferred to just Repossess things people had, then things like the community reinvestment act and the artificially low fed-interest rates would be unecessary, since we would live in a world where banks would unhesitatingly give loans out even if they knew they were going to fail. This is also why you have things like credit score, where banks are more lenient towards people who they know can pay back the loan quickly.

Unfortunately, for educational loans and some other loans, this isn't the case at all. The debtor can't ever get off the hook. They will forever be in debt and there is no risk to the bank. They loan the money out knowing every kid in America will have to pay them back and be debt for the rest of their lives if they ever want a job.

The thought behind a student loan is that the loan should be low enough that the increased income gained by the education is enough to pay off the

It's ironic you're talking about failure to pay off a loan, as if this wouldn't happen without interest. To the contrary it would be more common. The fact that remains if interest rates were forcibly set at zero, the only one's interested in making loans would be the government. (Since the loans are not made by any money that state agents had to work for, who do they care if the loans aren't paid back) Government loans are inherently careless for obvious reasons, and loans made out by governments are of lower quality then loans made where the lender is putting his neck on the line, a concept that proves itself true by simply observing common (purely voluntary and encouragement)

[ THREE ]

The bank loans the money to Jerry. If the restaurant fails, the bank loses out completely. There's no guarantee, so they aren't going to invest the money in Jerry unless he's got a really good idea and knows how to cook. Additionally, once they've invested, depending on their terms, they stand to make more money if the business continues to do well. There's also an implied relationship here. Because the bank's returns rely heavily on the success of the business, they will want to do what they can to make sure the restaurant is a success, whether this means helping to advertise or something else entirely like securing rights to audit the restaurant or have the food taste tested.

While Jerry may find this obtrusive, if he's made enough profit or met the initial terms of the investment contract, he could possibly terminate his relationship with the investor, in this case the bank. This means that BOTH Jerry and the Bank have mutual goals and the relationship becomes about cooperation and not the power to collect and repossess.

I completely fail to see what is the difference between situations 2 and 3. In both cases the bank is lending the money to Jerry and expects returns. The returns being made from revenue earned by Jerry's business, except the idea of repossession. Which, Again, Banks do not want to do. You're concern seems to be that in the case of loans, and not investments, it is possible to reposes something if the deal goes wrong, which is an incentive for lenders to make loans that they know will fail. But as i said before the value of what is being lent out is almost NEVER lower than the value of the collateral, and the collateral only helps the bank reduce the pain of it's losses.

At 11/23/09 04:19 PM, gumOnShoe wrote: The way insurance works is that you create a risk pool. Everyone pays into it and then when a few people get hurt or sick there's money to cover it. You might be one of those people, so if you're paying into the pool you are safe and if not, you're possibly ruined.

The high deductible plans tend to suck off the people who think they don't need it yet. But their leaving also raises rates for everyone else. And when they do get to the age that they need it costs will have risen further and having not paid into it they then join a plan they haven't been investing in and that plan continues to suffer.

Um... High Deductibles means that the monthly premium is generally lower. High Deductibles are a way to encourage relatively healthy people to buy into insurance since over time the lower premiums pay for themselves within a matter of years.

The Reason young people aren't buying into insurance now is because, Statist Fiat decrees have made health insurance competition to all but an elite few essentially illegal, and thus have raised the cost of health insurance above what it would be worth getting.

"There are also "community ratings," which require insurance companies to charge the same amount to all members of a pool. Maine, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington are the most severe. These "community rating" laws effectively force insurance companies to finance people with preexisting conditions, and as a result they vastly increase the premiums for healthy people.

With community ratings in effect, an 18-year-old's premium is the same as 60-year-old's. Often, when a young and healthy person sees their premiums rise, he or she drops out of the insurance pool, which then leaves it more full of sick people, again increasing premiums for the remaining members. These community ratings contribute a great deal to the large number of uninsured, and are among the reasons why healthcare in New York and New Jersey is the most expensive in the country."

And yes, its a socialist idea to begin with. You give your money and its redistributed to the people who need it. No matter who runs it, it is socialist. But clearly, insurance isn't always bad, so don't let that word taint the idea of it simply because its become rhetoric.

Bullshit, Risk pools are a form of Voluntary and self-beneficial arrangement between Consenting individuals. Since you already seem to grasp that concept I need not explain why.

The first risk pools were in European joint-stock companies, who consolidated the risk of failed voyages by pooling money together.

The Friendly societies in Europe and the fraternal societies in America had their own health insurance programs until they were de-facto outlawed by license wielding medical associations.

And to that end I recommend reading R.T. Long's "How the Government Solved the Healthcare Crisis"

"Lodge practice" refers to an arrangement, reminiscent of today's HMOs, whereby a particular society or lodge would contract with a doctor to provide medical care to its members. The doctor received a regular salary on a retainer basis, rather than charging per item; members would pay a yearly fee and then call on the doctor's services as needed. If medical services were found unsatisfactory, the doctor would be penalized, and the contract might not be renewed. Lodge members reportedly enjoyed the degree of customer control this system afforded them. And the tendency to overuse the physician's services was kept in check by the fraternal society's own "self-policing"; lodge members who wanted to avoid future increases in premiums were motivated to make sure that their fellow members were not abusing the system.

Most remarkable was the low cost at which these medical services were provided. At the turn of the century, the average cost of "lodge practice" to an individual member was between one and two dollars a year. A day's wage would pay for a year's worth of medical care. By contrast, the average cost of medical service on the regular market was between one and two dollars per visit. Yet licensed physicians, particularly those who did not come from "big name" medical schools, competed vigorously for lodge contracts, perhaps because of the security they offered; and this competition continued to keep costs low.

The response of the medical establishment, both in America and in Britain, was one of outrage; the institution of lodge practice was denounced in harsh language and apocalyptic tones. Such low fees, many doctors charged, were bankrupting the medical profession. Moreover, many saw it as a blow to the dignity of the profession that trained physicians should be eagerly bidding for the chance to serve as the hirelings of lower-class tradesmen. It was particularly detestable that such uneducated and socially inferior people should be permitted to set fees for the physicians' services, or to sit in judgment on professionals to determine whether their services had been satisfactory. The government, they demanded, must do something.

And so it did. In Britain, the state put an end to the "evil" of lodge practice by bringing health care under political control. Physicians' fees would now be determined by panels of trained professionals (i.e., the physicians themselves) rather than by ignorant patients. State-financed medical care edged out lodge practice; those who were being forced to pay taxes for "free" health care whether they wanted it or not had little incentive to pay extra for health care through the fraternal societies, rather than using the government care they had already paid for.

The State, has, and wants to increase the current coercive health care situation by enhancing it's power to force individuals and groups to accept terms set by... Them. That is what you call socialism, it is not mutually beneficial, and is it not voluntary, it is primitive and brutish. Stop supporting advocating violence.

GumonShoe you still haven't outlined how ending interest wouldn't be catastrophic.

And investing is more like banking than you know. Investing is the act of sacrificing present goods, in favor of acquiring a larger amount of future goods. For example, I save, and then spend, 100,000 dollars to build a restaurant. I sacrificed that 100,000 dollars which i could have spent on a fancy new car, or a vacation, or something else, in order to acquire some value of money greater than 100,000 dollars in the future.

When a bank loans 100,000 dollars at, say, 10% Interest over a period of five years. That Bank is sacrificing the money that they could have spent on themselves in the immediate for some sum of money larger than 100,000 that they value equal to or higher in the future.

As for Wang, Slavery is the act of owning another human being, I.E, treating one human as being the property of another human.

Property rights arguments and their relationship to slavery aside...

When you advocate Statism, particularly the heavy handed 'boot-in-your-face' statism, you are advocating slavery.

To criticize property rights philisophangoricals like Sadistic Money, who believe Individuals have a right to own their voluntarily acquired property, as having ties to slavery, while at the same time peddling your own property rights philosophy in stating that the State has the right to make property out of anyone who lives in the geographic area they have 'claimed' is rather hypocritical.

Simply because they have bigger weapons, or wear funny uniforms, or give themselves high titles doesn't exempt them from the rules that govern civilized (and largely voluntary) society. And the State has as much a right to commit acts of robery then they have a right to blow a hole in your face.

America's political system was primarily rooted in classical liberalism. Which originated in Europe and itself was a rejection of the European Status Quo, Monarchy and Merchantilism.

But in the end Both America and Europe Embraced a Mix of Nationalism, Socialism, and Imperialism.

At 11/22/09 08:20 PM, MickTheChampion wrote:

At 11/21/09 10:48 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 11/21/09 11:13 AM, MickTheChampion wrote: I could fart daisies and cough up gold but a western country is never going to vote for a socialist who wants to legalise all drugs.

you'd be surprised the number of people stupid enough to be willing to vote for a socialist.

you'll find there are probably even more greedy idiots who'll vote for a neo-liberal government that only stands to screw them.

Greedy because they're not willing to pay the protection and service money that you and your 'gang' think is appropriate for them?

Or greedy because they are all too often apologists for state-capitalism

At 11/22/09 05:26 PM, Sajberhippien wrote:

But I like the basic idea, and you could do the reverse - you get to sign a contract that you will NOT do X and Y.

You mean like... The constitution?

L0L I just hope you see the pure fail that that would be.

At 11/22/09 12:40 AM, Der-Lowe wrote:
It would have a similar effect as fluctuations of commodities prices in export oriented economies such as Australia and Argentina: suddenly you had full employment, and a month later you had to lose the gold standard to avoid strangling the financial sector with high interest rates, which had already caused a substantial contraction of the GDP.

For the second part, deflation is not a problem except to big debtors like the government.

While I do not agree with this as I will elaborate before, the effect on the public sector's finance is crucial. A government that already has lower revenues from a recession, expanded by deflation, would have to
a) Increase taxes
b) Lower its expenditures
c) Debt

Increasing Taxes, Yes. Lowering it's expenditures, in the long run no. This means that resources are freed to pursue more sustainable and less arbitrary ends. And, if the government expenditures themselves are backed by nothing, it will hurt for awhile but it will give a more realistic view about the actual amount of goods and services in the economy.

If your fear is that deflation is bad because it increases the cost of credit, which you would contend is bad in a time of falling demand i would add that this increases the profits of creditors, which attracts more credit to begin with.

I disagree. The wealth of creditors indeed is an important factor in the financial sector, yet not the only one. But firstly let me talk about the debtor's situation.

The credit market is frozen, and the deflationary spiral becomes stronger than ever.

Problem here is that making it so that the loans CAN be re-payed, and that lending can continue, doesn't change the fact that those investments that were made during the boom time were not sustainable. At some time in the future, increasing the money supply will eventually re-create inflation, at some point in the future, demand will have to fall again, and the only difference this time is that even more projects need to fail, perhaps permanently and perhaps temporarily.

For example, in the recession of 1839-43 you had a 1/3rd contraction in the money supply, 23% bank collapses, and real investment declined by 21%, but actual spending and GNP rose by 21%/16%, respectively.

At 11/22/09 01:15 AM, gumOnShoe wrote: I wouldn't be elected for three reasons:

1) I have 10,000 + posts on an internet forum and would be easy pickings

2) I'm Jewish.

Agreed.

A) Equality under the state becomes official in all respects of the word between consenting adults. An adult is someone who is 18 years of age. A consenting adult is not necessarily in a sexual relationship, though it would certainly be an example of such. IE, Kavorkian probably wouldn't have gone to jail if I had been writing laws. Abortions are legal. Gay marriage, great. And polygamy, if that's your thing, ok, your biz.

Equality under the state means equal treatment of all citizens of a particular age, arbitrarily decided but none the less objective so long as equality is kept in all aspects.

B) Abolish the current tax code and replace it with an increasing percentage based tax on earnings. There are absolutely zero tax breaks anywhere to inspire anything. Taxes are expected and the economy can grow around them.

Which runs contractory to part A. Equal treatment of all under the law. You are discriminating higher tax rates on those who's labor is valued higher by society than those whose labor is valued lower by society.

C) Remove almost all restrictions on scientific research, neglecting unsafe studies on live, born individuals and create a general fund for experimentation and business growth. Money is to be supplied for start ups only (not to save failing businesses) & for ground breaking research. Money is made back after a profit is turned, but not more than what was loaned out. Focus research includes robotics, space flight, and biology (drugs, biological engineering, etc).

State funding of scientific research is a bad joke, and government loans to businesses are always a bad idea. If a start up businessman can't get a loan from a bank, or accumulate enough of his own money from savings, it's very likely the reason he can't is because it's obvious that his business plan is likely not going to succeed. If you're so inclined i can defend both of those statements.

D) Abolish interest as a practice. The idea of making money because you have money and not an actual product is a defunct one.

It makes me angry when people propose economic policies without thinking about the consequences of them. Either that or you're not as smart as i took you for originally.

There's something called the time value theory of money and to put it simply, 100$ in your pocket today is worth MORE than 100$ tomorrow or the week after. It's worth more because subjectively people prefer to have their desires met sooner rather than later, in other words, people have time preference.

To deny this is to say that people wouldn't care if they got 100$ today, or 100$ 30 years from now. (Let's ignore the effects of inflation, even if inflation was non-existent, people would still prefer to have money at present than in the future)

For this reason, a certain quantity of money today is equal in subjective value to a greater quantity of money in the future. For example, I will not deny myself 100$ today if i only get 101$ next week, But i will deny myself 100$ today if i make AT LEAST 125$ next week, because 100$ today is worth 125$ next week, according to my subjective valuation. Loans are not all that different from the sale of any good or service in the market, only that the trade involves present money for future money.

People who made trades will only make trades if the value of what they get in return is greater than the value of whatever it is they are forfeiting in the trade.

For this reason, if you outlaw interest, you're essentially setting a price floor of zero for a loan. Any individual who made a loan would be operating at a subjective loss. Banks could not operate because the interest that they earn is used to manage the bank itself, if the Bank makes no interest on it's loans it has no way to pay it's staff or pay for its running costs. The only people who would be able to

Notions of interest or usury being evil are ancient and mystical. Interest is an emergent order. And to better explain why interest is a mutually beneficial interaction between two people i recommend reading Irwin Schiff's picture book, pages 9-22 give information on interest. It's 13 pages long but it's a picture book.

http://freedom-school.com/money/how-an-e conomy-grows.pdf

E) Move to end conflicts abroad and reduce the army further. I'd close down bases that weren't required, but leave some. They would be there for diplomatic purposes only and eventually be demilitarized where permitted.

Yay.

F) Access to Universal Healthcare & Education.

An entire thread needs to be dedicated to the topic of why State provision of these services leads to exploitation and chaos.

G) Shortening of the work day to 6 hours to encourage exercise, mobility & a better moral.

You're either not thinking enough about this, or you're an incredible narcissist. People make decisions based upon their own situations and upon their own subjective valuations. This kind of policy may be impossible for some people whose job is not productive enough to provide them for six hours a day. (And NO, increasing the minimum wage does not solve the problem).

If they're working for more than 6 hours it's because they want to make the extra money. You're in as much a position to tell them how they should work as you are in a position to tell them what they should be doing in the bedroom and who they should be doing it with.

H) Net neutrality & support of the arts.

There was already a thread on net neutrality awhile ago, the need for net neutrality is absurd, just like all theories of free market collusion. The Government is solely and single-handedly responsible for the creation of all cartels, oligopolies, and monopolies.

Supporting the arts just adds another politically driven parasitic class to society. How are you going to

I) Weed out bad regulators and force regulators & finance companies to post information on the internet to encourage good practices (ie wiki leaks on crack).

How are you going to weed out bad regulators exactly? Do you think congress isn't trying hard enough to 'regulate' properly?

J) Remove standardized tests from curriculum and encourage more trade based & hands on learning.

Try changing the curriculum without getting a storm of protest from teachers unions.

Related Topic.

http://www.youtube.com/user/CSMIRROR#p/s earch/0/wR0tJtHOCH0

K) Place strict limits on market share maximums. IE, no company can have a market share of greater than 33% and any that does has to split up.

Yeah, Free market monopolies are nonsense. Anti-trust legislation creates, not eliminates, large market shares.

Maybe not market shares, Theoretically someone could run a business so competitively that they do end up with very large market shares, but those market shares are earned and they are not a threat to 'the public good' provided that the quality is high and the prices are low. The higher market share itself is founded on those two elements of business competition and as long and if they were to end, so too would the market share.

So when i say monopolies I don't mean a company that charges prices so competitively that profits are too narrow for competitors to want to form, I mean a company that charges prices at the monopoly rate, 50+ percent market share or not.

And i encourage you to ask me "Why" this is the case.

At 11/21/09 08:55 PM, Der-Lowe wrote:

Elaborate on the not-so-negative aspect of a fixed money supply, please.
I'd think that a variable demand of money with a parametrical money supply would lead to an unstable interest rate in the money markets, and ever declining prices in the goods market.

For the first part, First, Define "Unstable". Market-determined interest rates would be unstable in the sense that they would fluctuate the same way any price for anything under dynamic conditions changes. But I might be misreading you.

For the second part, deflation is not a problem except to big debtors like the government.

If your fear is that deflation is bad because it increases the cost of credit, which you would contend is bad in a time of falling demand i would add that this increases the profits of creditors, which attracts more credit to begin with.

If you could elaborate or provide your own disaster scenario i could probably do a better job of answering your question.

At 11/21/09 12:56 PM, morefngdbs wrote:

At 11/21/09 12:49 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

At 11/20/09 09:12 PM, morefngdbs wrote:

At 11/20/09 08:21 PM, Dawnslayer wrote: Am I the only who's noticed that winters are getting colder, but summers are getting hotter?

;;;
Must depend fairly specifically on where you live.
Elmsdale, Nova Scotia is where I am

I went to nova scotia in july, too bad i didn't see you there.

did you attend any music festivals/concerts ?

Actually i played in one of them.

http://www.novanewsnow.com/article-35895 4-Canning-news.html

At 11/20/09 09:12 PM, morefngdbs wrote:

At 11/20/09 08:21 PM, Dawnslayer wrote: Am I the only who's noticed that winters are getting colder, but summers are getting hotter?

;;;
Must depend fairly specifically on where you live.
Elmsdale, Nova Scotia is where I am

I went to nova scotia in july, too bad i didn't see you there.

At 11/20/09 11:39 PM, Dawnslayer wrote: So let's say for the sake of argument that you're running for political office. You're tired of just sitting around watching everybody else screw up and have decided to take up the mantle of power yourself, to do things the right way. So you've announced your bid to run for election and represent your people in state/provincial or federal government.

Question is, can you get elected?

No. Not influential enough, not good looking enough, not charismatic enough.

Here's our chance to find out. It doesn't matter where you're from or what party or office you're running for; all you need is a platform and an agenda.

Rules/guidelines:
-Politics is complicated, but please keep your platform as short and simple as possible. Explain everything in layman's terms; if you must use jargon, tell us what it means.

Platform counts for maybe 10% of what get's a politician elected, and once in power the politician is not at

George W Bush Ran on a platform of nonintervention and a humble foreign policy.

Barrack Obama ran on a platform of withdrawing troops from Iraq and restoring fiscal responsibility.

FDR Ran on a platform of reversing Herbert Hoobert Hoover's policies which he claimed were fiscally irresponsible and would lead down the path to socialism.

These men will tell you what they want to tell you, and once you give them the right to impose upon you what they want, with no recourse, expect results VASTLY different from what you thought or intended.

-If you can't understand what someone is saying, ask them to clarify - specific questions like, "What do you mean by this? How would that affect the issue?" etc., are especially helpful. Chances are you're not the only one who's confused.

Personal attacks are not very effective in local elections, I've noticed for some reason. A local television add running a smear campaign against a politician tends to be less effective than mudslinging on a national level.

But Yeah, I'm an Atheist, an "Anarchist", and have a whole bunch of other things on my resume that would disqualify me from entering office instantly.

-If another user gives you feedback, please respond to it with your reaction and then let it go. This reaction should be the end of the discussion on the issue - one argument, one round of discussion. If you wish to discuss further, please use the PM system.

I try.
________________________________________
_______________________________

My Platform:

This is a theoretical Construct that could never occur because no Anti-Statist or anything close is going to get into office.
Foreign Policy:

The military will only be large enough to defend the borders of the country, possibly large enough to attack any other another country but not large enough to occupy it afterward, but then again maybe not. We have nukes, and countries with nukes simply do not get invaded, ever. The United States will apologize to the world for being an imperial power for over a half century.

And of course this means there will be no foreign bases.

All Foreign aid will be stopped and the US will Withdraw from the united nations.

Any territories outside of the continental borders of the united states will be return to their respective countries. Puerto Rico can either vote on becoming a state of the Union or being it's own country, but the ELA status needs to go.

The War on Terror:

All private institutions are permitted to discriminate on a religious basis. This includes major offices and airports. Gradually transition security from the CIA and FBI to a communications network of all of the different local police and law enforcement agencies, either local or on a state level. Local and state troopers are not viewed as having as much legitimate authority to attack and violate citizens rights as much as federal agents.
Energy

Allow all areas currently claimed by the united states and unused by the united states federal government to be claimed and privatized, sold on a first-use and active-use basis. You can't claim lands you haven't improved upon in some way. Again this is a theoretical construct, in truth you can't trust the US government to sell lands to people on any basis other than a political basis.

This includes oceans.

End all federal power to restrict the production of nuclear facilities, solar plants, wind plants, oil drills, or whatever.

Enviroment

Gradually privatize all waste disposal and allow market prices to be set for the disposal of certain kinds of items. A private waste disposal company would end up HAVING to charge more for people who used plastic over paper. private waste disposal could also filter people's garbage and sort it according to what is inside, for a fee to cover the cost of doing this themselfs, or, and this is more likely for people since it is cheaper, have customers sort their own trash.

The privatization of natural resources will prevent them from being despoiled.
Economic Policy

Over a period of maybe eight to ten years, (But written in law) Reduce all federal transfer payments and social safety nets by roughly ten percent each year.

Abolish the federal minimum wage (on a federal level this wouldn't have very much of an effect, the areas where the min-wage do the most damage are states where it's even higher), and abolish all licensing laws, though companies are still permitted to use existing licensing systems as requirements for hiring employees, they are not required to do so by the federal government.

States and local governments are permitted to withdraw from social security, medicare, and medicaid before those ten years are over. Their citizens will not have to pay taxes on those services nor will they receive them.

Establish a date in the near future but not immediately. (3 to 4 years in the future) in which regulations of all industries will be drastically cut. Citizens will be aware of the fact that the federal government no longer 'regulates' industries and, justified or not, will know to be more careful with who they give their money to. the three to four year time period also allows entrepreneurs to work on information systems for rating the quality and trust-worthiness of other businesses, which is far more fluid and reliable than a federal regulator.

At the same time, Abolish right to work laws, Abolish all legally granted union or worker privileges, abolish all special legal status to particular industries, especially the health industry.

I'm trying to think if i missed anything...

Education

End all federal funding and federal agencies relating to education. End ALL student loans for college education. Public education can continue since i don't want people thinking that the federal government has the right to interfere politically in local governments. A political program of libertarianism is impossible, but if it wasn't, I can imagine gradually local governments would abolish public education for reasons i don't have enough characters to explain.

The lack of license laws will make it possible for those who want to become professionals to chose less expensive alternatives for education. Their value as a worker will not be determined by artificial barriers to entry like the Bar exam but whatever standards are set by the company which are, at the root of it, determined by purchasers of those professional services.

Domestic policy and civil rights
All states are legally recognized by US government as having a right to secede from the Union.

Marriage as a federal legal construct would not be recognized by the federal government, only by individual people as a matter of tradition. The Federal government would register groups in households or as purely 'civil unions' Libertarians should recognize that Gay marriage is more an act of granting state privileges to ANOTHER group without granting them or denying them from every individual.

At 11/20/09 02:50 PM, gumOnShoe wrote:

IE Their website, which sounds Libretarian even though they aren't:

Helping those around you is worthwhile

That's the second time you spell it libretarian, are you spanish or something?

The Republican Party, like our nation's founders, believes that government must be limited so that it never becomes powerful enough to infringe on the rights of individuals.

** Unless you want to marry someone of your own gender, grow a new trachea, or wait to have a kid.

Glad I'm not a republican. But it might be useful for me to point out that the republican party does this for obvious and rational reasons. The Religious right still has a hold in politics and clings to the republican party as their enforcement arm in exchange for votes. That is how political 'democracy' works. And until you can convince enough of them out of it the threat of republican guns pointed at non-conformists and non-believers is eminent. And until i can convince people like you that the state is an illusion the people living under the state will continue to be crushed into civil war and poverty.

You know what to do with your money better than government

The Republican Party supports low taxes because individuals know best how to make their own economic and charitable choices.

** But we'll spend your children's money

Free markets keep people free

The republicans have it backwards. Free markets do not make people free, free people make free markets.

The Republican Party is supportive of logical business regulations that encourage entrepreneurs to start more businesses so more individuals can enjoy the satisfaction and fruits of self-made success.

This probably means handouts and favoritism.

** Because a free market has regulations.

Peace Ho! You and I never finished that discussion now did we. I'm still waiting on you. The Free market, whatever it means to you, (And this state of affairs is certainly no free market by what it means to me) cannot be regulated by gods and angels, only by men. And I've said time and time again there is no logic behind trusting the enlightened oligarchy as a solution to 'free market' regulation.

Our Armed Forces defend and protect our democracy

** Because nothing says freedom like a gun in your face.

Because It's wrong to point guns at Arabs but it's OK to point guns at your own citizens... For their own good.

The Republican Party is guided by these principles as it develops solutions to the challenges facing America.

** Please note we won't be proposing any legislation any time soon so long as our man isn't in the white house.

Wilson's Bill that congress shall have the same health care as all Americans is really the only health care reform that the republicans need. I personally don't care about Wilson as a person, all politicians are expendable. But he did ask the brilliant question of why Congress isn't willing to impose it's brilliant plans and point it's own guns at itself as much as it is willing to do on it's own citizens.

Democrats

HEALTHCARE FOR ALL

Actually working this.

I'm having trouble wondering whether I should laugh at, or pitty the health insurance companies. They ask the government for all of these special privileges. And in doing so unwittingly spread the false notion that the government has a beneficial role in health care regulation. They reel in high profits by consequence and the public blames the free market. The State steps in as the rightful regulator of these evil companies and proposes a bill which undoubtedly will make private provision of health care services without subsidies impossible. Since imposing a single payer system through the front door is impossible, the state is left with no other choice to carve a long drawn and bloody path via the back.

and the rest of the two thousand pages that aren't related to health care are probably bribes or the political equivalent to buy off the senators and congressman who won't buy ON to the bill.

ENVIRONMENT & CLIMATE CHANGE

All talk. Even though they talk the talk, they aren't walking it.

That's because the state is, has, and always will be the biggest polluter.

Whereas a private owner, secure in his property, plans the use of his resources of a long period of time, and attempts to maximize the output gained from resources given the "humanistically" determined value of the goods and services which those resources can render.

I will admit though that the free market can do nothing to advance misanthropic environmental goals, since the free market is run by those anthropoids.

ENERGY INDEPENDENCE

Again, looking to be mostly talk.

When the production of goods and services becomes a political issue, efficiency and utility are thrown out the window, and which pressure groups have the most influence becomes the key factor in deciding what energy paths a country takes and what paths are ignored.

Uncle Sam has no plans for changing energy policy.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform
America has always been a nation of immigrants.

We'll never see this happen in the next 4 years.

When there are enough Latinos in this country to pose a truly formidable political bloc to the anglos, assuming the US government isn't gone by this time, both republicans and democrats will pander to them and sell them whatever stolen goods they're votes can buy.

National Security

Mostly the same stuff.

I wouldn't be surprised if Obama NEVER withdraws any troops from Iraq or Afghanistan.

Reclaiming Our Civil Rights & Liberties

Guantanamo is being shut down, but Obama is keeping up to 90 prisoners in permanent detention. Also, haven't heard a word about the patriot act.

Expect nothing to change.

Needs Improvement on that whole debt bit.
Tax Code - lol
Balance to the Housing Markets - No politician could hope to achieve that, they just put ice on a bleeding chest wound is all. I guess it might have hurt less.

Over 90% of all houses are insured by the FHA and Fannie/Freddie. There's a glut of houses and they're STILL being built. The democrats know that and they'll continue it for as long as it remains political expediency.

Personal Savings - Yeah, encouragement. Go Team America! (fuck yeah). Interest rates are so low, saving sucks.

Yep, that and inflation. Real interest rates are probably zero or negative.

OPEN, HONEST & ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNMENT

I don't know 60%. Yay for websites! But congress remains indecipherable as does new legislation.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Didn't fully lift restrictions as they should have on stem cell research. Broken promise.

The government is too busy giving money to scientists to study cow farts.

And let's not forget corn ethanol.

LOLSCIENCE

Secure Retirement

Probably not going to happen either.

Old people are notoriously republican. When inflation and the health care reforms are over they're as good as dead. But if they're going to die they better do it, and decrease the surplus population!

Anyways, the Republican party doesn't really support anything it says it does and the Democratic party says its going to do a lot of really awesome things and then can't follow through.

each of them are half evil in their rhetoric and fully evil in their practice. When the republican party is in power they increase the size of the state military side, and when the democratic party is in power they increase the size of the state economic side. Clinton being a unique exception.

I don't like either party even if both of them present themselves as a Godsend. Obviously the rhetoric sounds excellent and the plans on both sides appear to have merit, but when you get down to the execution or nitty gritty details you find out they were just lying at worst, and at best making a wish list they knew they couldn't cash in.

Are you truly befuddled at the fact that political solutions have failed to produce the results you desired?

What's key to realize is that even if global warming is a definitive fact, decreasing carbon emissions is something that cannot be achieved by a state, unless it was a global state. I can elaborate further but since it's not the topic (although i would bet a lot of money that it will be in a matter of... hours?)

As to whether or not the article confirms people's long held biases against global warming is at moot point since the contrary can be said to any evidence supporting anthropogenic global warming.

As far as the melting of the Artic, i am personally more concerned about the growing ice in the Antarctic, since anthropogenic global cooling is far worse than anthropogenic global warming.

At 11/19/09 09:29 PM, Gorstak wrote: This picture says it all :P

Most anarchists of the kind portrayed in that picture Oppose government on purely heiarchical grounds. And they treat the abolition of private property as being the primary objective, the abolition of state as being a secondary objective. They ignore that private property is an emergent understanding between individuals to allow each other total sovereignty over what they have acquired voluntarily from others via labor, trade, or as gifts, and in exchange recognize the right of the other person to do the same with theirs. Government is an exception to this rule and a perversion of emergent understanding, that governments can disobey these rules with very limited restraints for reasons that are never explained, or are of such poor argumentative quality that those who profess the arguments defeat themselves by simply explaining what the mean by them.

Anarchists who want to abolish private property are like Noam Chompsky, they're egalitarian despots who pretend to hate the government.

If Obama wins the election in 2012 Those tea party protesters might lose faith in government entirely and decide to take actual steps towards securing their freedom, and secede from the government entirely....

GObama 2012!

Smashing blind faith in religion is what atheism is all about. Smashing blind faith in the state is what libertarianism is all about, unfortunately, the medicine needed to smash faith in crown and country is going to have to be as powerful as it is hard to swallow, and the only medicine good enough is a combination of education combined with the clear spectacle of a government that is so completely and undeniably evil, corrupt, and inefficient.

At 11/20/09 03:12 PM, morefngdbs wrote:

I guess we know why Nixon go the US off the Gold Standard !

To make it possible to have the kind of debt we have today.

On another note, it's important to realize that a growing economy does not necessarily need 'more gold' to back it. Having more goods and services in an economy with a relatively unchanging amount of gold is better than inflation, where businesses are given the false impression that they are making gains.

At 11/20/09 08:51 AM, morefngdbs wrote:

At 11/19/09 05:20 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: So Yeah, if we go bankrupt, expect a free music download on iTunes to cost one 1,000,000,000 dollar bill.

;;;
It'll probably more than that !
I have 100 Trillion Zimbabwean dollar notes, as well as 50,20 & 10 trillion. I have their Hundred billion & billion dollar notes as well. THe last I checked which was in 2008, 100 Trillion Zimbawean dollars would buy you 3 loaves of bread...it then sank farther, but I stopped watching it.

As a point of interest...22 years ago, the Zimbawean dollar traded on par with the British pound...which is today worth -1 pound = $1.648 .
I don't believe the Zim is being used anywhere any more. Even in Zimbabwe they use other currencies including the US dollar.

Or other non-perishable, easily divisible goods.

Of course, no one would actually buy goods with dollars any more, but that would be the official exchange rate between a dollar and a particular good.

in POW camps, cigarettes were a common 'barter' currency, but they were currency none the less.

If the US government goes bankrupt, what currencies are used depends entirely on what the 'US policy' towards currency would be. If the US government were to collapse entirely, You would likely see the emergence of private gold-backed currencies. The trading would be shitty for awhile, since the structure of a free market in the coinage and printing of money would have to mature and i can imagine many people making mistakes and possibly getting swindled out of their money because they invested with shady characters.

Regardless, nothing that any of these mountebanks of money could do would come anywhere near the obvious swindle that the US government had pulled on it's people, by completely destroying their life's sweat and toil.

After awhile, assuming there are no legal tender laws, good money will drive out bad money and you'll have a fairly stable currency system again.

However, if the US government went bankrupt, i do not think foreign powers and foreign financiers would tolerate the emergence of a free market in banking and currency let alone a free market in any other key-control industry. Nor would they tolerate the 'death' of their key debtor, nor tolerate the liberation of the people from having to fork over their first borns to pay for a government so toxically debt-drunken.

If the US government floundered near bankruptcy, foreign powers would do everything within their power to maintain and stabilize it. Even if it meant strong-arming the US government to drastically cut it's expenditures, the foreign lenders may even negotiate reduced payments on the loan since a net loss is better than a total loss.

And if the US government could not be maintained, foreign armies would attempt to impose a state in a similar regard to how foreign powers see fit to impose a state in Somalia. Whether or not such a 'new state' would work would depend largely on the willingness of the Americans on the whole to accept such a new state, democratic or not. If not, Guerrilla warfare would squash the foreign occupiers with ease.

At 11/18/09 08:32 PM, Elfer wrote:

At 11/18/09 08:28 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: No i mean as an internet joke.

SNL wouldn't do much about it, probably.

Well this is going to be an internet joke on Al Gore as well, and it'll actually probably last longer than it would with Palin, because it's funnier if Gore says it.

Rukiddinmeh

Palin is far more amusing.

At 11/19/09 02:39 PM, gumOnShoe wrote:

However, if we can't get our loans, the system crashes, but we are left with a lot of weaponry and raw resources, so while we won't have traditional capital, we'll have all sorts of other goods still.

The problem is, it's getting to the point where confiscatory tax rates would not be sufficient to pay the debt.

Is it possible for a country to declare bankruptcy. Aside from not getting more loans, what are the consequences of not paying debt back?

It's basically what happened to the Wymar Republic, though not caused by the same thing.

Herbert Hoover's stoned-ass retarded idea of a super-duper-tariff hike in the middle of a recession (The tariff is pretty much what pissed on the ashes and made a recession into a depression) made it impossible for Germany to sell it's products to the united states, which ironically were to be paid to the british and french powers which in turn would go back into the hands of the united states which lent the money to France and Britain in the first place. (Had the united states never done the bullshit corporatist move and bailed out all of those companies that lent money to the french and british, millions of innocent people would have been saved from Adolf Hitler)

Since Germany could not pay it's debts, the nation's "Currency" Became useless and hyper inflation ensued.

In the case of our own country, it wouldn't be a tariff hike and an ensuing trade war that would destroy our currency, but the parasitic state simply incapacitating it's host and doling out more bonds then it can suck out in the blood of it's subjects.

So Yeah, if we go bankrupt, expect a free music download on iTunes to cost one 1,000,000,000 dollar bill.

At 11/18/09 08:15 PM, Elfer wrote:

At 11/18/09 08:11 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Hardly. It would become next biggest number joke since Vegeta's nine thousand

Eh. At best it would be a throwaway as part of a larger sketch.

No i mean as an internet joke.

SNL wouldn't do much about it, probably.

At 11/18/09 08:09 PM, Elfer wrote:

At 11/18/09 07:31 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Consider the implications if something like this was said by our beloved Sarah Palin.

I mean, you CAN imagine her saying something like that, right?

It would probably not even be notable among the multitude of much, much funnier things she's said or done.

Hardly. It would become next biggest number joke since Vegeta's nine thousand

At 11/18/09 07:27 PM, Elfer wrote:

Personally I think Al Gore is kind of a wang, but a whole topic to blast him on a single flub like this? You're really overstating the importance of it, I think.

Consider the implications if something like this was said by our beloved Sarah Palin.

I mean, you CAN imagine her saying something like that, right?