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flickad
08-04-2010, 09:56 AM
The difference between China and laisez faire in this regard is that in laissez faire, employees get to choose their working conditions, and the people get the choice of starting their own businesses - in competition with the foreign corporations. One major point to a country under totalitarian rule is that it is a captive market, both consumer and labor.

This analysis ignores that, in general, workers need their jobs far more than business needs that particular worker. A person in need of a job is going to have to take what's on offer. There's not a lot of room for negotiating the employment contract, except at management level.

You are right, however, that totalitarianism equals a captive market.




It was regulation of everything else that kept people from being able to choose who they work for. That is, economic conditions were such that working under these conditions was the only choice for many people.

This is pure ideology - an article of faith. How can we know that the complete absence of regulations would help rather than hurt the economy? It is arguable that deregulation of the financial sector was a major causal factor of the sub-prime mortgage crisis.




You can stop it with government legislation, but you can also stop it by abolishing all other government legislation, because freeing people to prosper by their own efforts makes them less dependent on employment by a wealthy few - and less dependent on government protection.

See above. An ideal system would be deregulated enough to permit invention and creativity, and in some ways America has been a role model in that respect. However, you are always going to have a hierarchy of workers - someone has got to do the grunt work - and without some protection, it is easy for the bottom rung to end up exploited, simply because the top rung is in a position to do it and because it is profitable.




Again, our society is not free, so people's choices of who to buy from are restricted to those companies (and industry practices) which are favored and protected by government legislation.

What is a slave? A slave is someone who is dependent on the care of another person, is forced to give the fruits of his labor to that person, and must obey the wishes of that person. Each of those partly describes everyone in the U.S. today. If you are part free, you are all slave.

It's true that regulation of industry does dictate consumer choice, at least to a degree. However, in a democratic capitalist country, the choice is very wide.

A slave is all those things, but it is more than that. A slave is a human being who is legally owned by another human being. Using this legal definition, there are no slaves in the contemporary democratic world.



Or how about this: Insolvent trading would cease to exist precisely because it is insolvent. Nobody would extend credit to a business deemed likely to go insolvent in the first place. Nobody would start a business which nobody would be stupid enough to provide credit for.

It would not mean less business, it would just mean less of the wrong kinds of businesses - and more of the right kinds.

The legal definition of insolvency with respect to a corporation (in Australia, that is - the US definition is something you'd be more likely to know, if you have a legal or business background) under the Corporations Act is 'inability to meet its debts as and when they fall due'. As the internal workings of a corporation are often secret, it is very difficult for a creditor or even a shareholder to know whether a company is on the brink of insolvency. Only the company's directors and financial officers are in a good position to know the financial status of a company. Without insolvency law, creditors would find it very difficult to protect their interests. Indeed, if you take deregulation to the extreme, there would be no contract law, and so a loan agreement would not bind either party. Skipping out on creditors could be done without consequence and the extension of credit to business would be very likely to dry up, creating a disastrous ripple effect across the economy.


In a free market, consumers, employees, creditors and shareholders look out for their own rights, and they have the range of choices which enables them to easily do so. The people in government are usually likewise looking out for their own rights - which often conflicts with ours.

Again, all very fine-sounding in theory, but a deeper analysis reveals flaws. Firstly, where there is no civil law, there are no consumer protection provisions such as the proscription against misleading and deceptive conduct that you'll find in the Trade Practices Act. With business free to mislead and deceive, consumers, creditors and rival businesses are unable to look out for their needs since to look out for one's own interests requires an awareness of the facts. I have already covered the danger that creditors will be in if there is no contract law. And workers tend to rely on their jobs and are thus not in a position to give ultimatums to employers. Nor are they as mobile as businesses. It is difficult for an individual to just pick up and go elsewhere, particularly if that person is supporting a family.


Pollution is something which has decreased from technical advancement. For example, today, instead of throwing the bones and entrails of animals and fish-heads out onto the street, we buy our food already prepared in packages, which we throw into garbage bins. Part of the impetus for technical advancement is lower energy expenses, which means increase in efficiency of energy use. It's not like we enjoy spending money on carelessly burning any amount of fossil fuel. The same goes for industry. Companies also don't want to be paying out huge sums of money in lawsuits over health effects on the community or their own employees.

You don't need the government to legislate any of that.

But in your ideal deregulated system, there is no civil law. That means that tort law goes by the wayside, which means that there are no lawsuits for negligence where people become ill due to pollution. Pursuing a legal claim also requires a lot of money, even if you decide to spare tort law the axe. Ordinary workers and consumers will find it difficult to pursue a remedy in the courts, particularly if they have been disabled by illness due to pollution. Further, even a victory in the courts can be a pyrrhic one, given the huge costs involved in legal representation. And an unrepresented plaintiff will usually not have enough legal knowledge to successfully argue their case.

Industry will continue to pollute so long as it is more profitable to do so than not to do so.

flickad
08-04-2010, 10:07 AM
Why would they have to agree to do it? They can do it voluntarily, simply because it is the most economically beneficial thing for them to do. With the kind of agreements we are talking about, removal of tariffs is not the whole picture.


They don't have to agree, but it would make very little sense for one party to end protectionism if the other side maintains it. That would be a lose-win situation.

flickad
08-04-2010, 10:11 AM
Have you come across the book "The Triumph Of Conservatism", by Gabriel Kolko? The book shows that corporations and mergers were too inefficient to dominate the market and that government legislation of the early 20th century was enacted not to restrain them, but to assist them. Kolko is a socialist (New Left), so his book could be said to be an admission against interest. The book is still in print. His other book "Railroads and Regulation 1877 - 1916" complements "Triumph", but last time I checked it is out of print. "Tiumph" is an academically researched book but would be a walk in the park for a girl with your head for economics and business.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Kolko

You can browse the book here at the publisher's website: http://books.simonandschuster.com/Triumph-of-Conservatism/Gabriel-Kolko/9780029166505

Someone has photocopied the book at scribd.com: http://www.scribd.com/doc/17413331/Gabriel-Kolko-The-Triumph-of-Conservatism

I know this was aimed at Melonie, but I would like to thank you for these links also. They seem very interesting and I plan to look at this in more detail later.

jimboe7373
08-04-2010, 10:31 AM
So throughout history there were wars, oppression, plagues, famines, depressions, slavery etc and then after WW2 things in the U.S. just suddenly came good, and will stay that way all by themselves, with slight fluctuations, while the whole rest of the world continues as before? Put your analyst on danger money now, baby.

I agree about the spin on TV for the sake of furthering political agendas, though the media and the spin are both liberal and conservative. But they don't tell you one thousandth of what you really do need to be afraid about. If there is a hidden agenda, doesn't that mean that they are already carrying it out - and not telling you? Wouldn't that mean that things really aren't hunky dory?
Please stop flip-flopping arguments and respond to my central point; that right NOW for most people in the U.S. things are pretty good. Please note that since this whole discussion came up in relation to armageddon that I'm using the barometer of "pretty good" on a historical scale. Because of this food, shelter, clothing and a degree of security weigh in heavy as do bonus stuff like internet access, mobile communications and cars etc. As I've stated the vast majority of people I know are working stable jobs and fully functioning in the society. I do know some unemployed people and some people who are struggling but they are in the firm minority. Please address that point. I travel a lot and there isn't a city I go to where restaurants, airplanes, nightclubs and entertainment venues aren't packed. Once again, I'm not talking about predictions or probabilities of what's GOING to happen or how this has to lead to that etc. What are the vast majority of people actually experiencing now?.

As a side note to your previous post- you are grossly misinformed. U.S. economic supremacy came about after WWII not because we had the best system but because all the other systems were largely destroyed and there was no competition. We were the only one with our manufacturing capacity still in place and most of the modern world had nowhere else to buy stuff except from us. The rest of the world in no way "continued as it had before". Countries like Chile and Brazil came up with economic systems that are probably more efficient than our own and are far surpassing us in growth.

Eric Stoner
08-04-2010, 12:35 PM
Please stop flip-flopping arguments and respond to my central point; that right NOW for most people in the U.S. things are pretty good. Please note that since this whole discussion came up in relation to armageddon that I'm using the barometer of "pretty good" on a historical scale. Because of this food, shelter, clothing and a degree of security weigh in heavy as do bonus stuff like internet access, mobile communications and cars etc. As I've stated the vast majority of people I know are working stable jobs and fully functioning in the society. I do know some unemployed people and some people who are struggling but they are in the firm minority. Please address that point. I travel a lot and there isn't a city I go to where restaurants, airplanes, nightclubs and entertainment venues aren't packed. Once again, I'm not talking about predictions or probabilities of what's GOING to happen or how this has to lead to that etc. What are the vast majority of people actually experiencing now?.

As a side note to your previous post- you are grossly misinformed. U.S. economic supremacy came about after WWII not because we had the best system but because all the other systems were largely destroyed and there was no competition. We were the only one with our manufacturing capacity still in place and most of the modern world had nowhere else to buy stuff except from us. The rest of the world in no way "continued as it had before". Countries like Chile and Brazil came up with economic systems that are probably more efficient than our own and are far surpassing us in growth.

I'm sorry but what is this based on beyond some anecdotal observations ? We have unemployment and underemployment of AT LEAST 20 %. Wages have been effectively stagnant for at least a decade. Consumer debt is high; housing values are down; the value of 401K's and IRA's for most people are still down about 1/3 since mid-2007.

Been to Vegas lately ? How about A.C. ? Detroit and the rest of Michigan ? Cleveland and the rest of Ohio ? Illinois ? Upstate N.Y. ? Milwaukee ? L.A. ? New Orleans ? Mobile ? Florida's Gulf Coast ? Most people today are struggling to stay solvent and deal with mounting uncertainty. The rich stayed healthy and are the only real strata that has "recovered".

We became an industrial state during and after the Civil War. Yes, after W.W. II many of our competitors had their industrial bases destroyed or seriously damaged: Germany, Japan, Italy, France etc. Sweden didn't. British and Canadian production was higher than before the war.

Brazil and Chile have made remarkable progress BUT their per capita GDP is nowhere close to ours. Neither is China's or India's.

Melonie
08-04-2010, 01:54 PM
have already covered the danger that creditors will be in if there is no contract law.

unfortunately, based on recent events at least, you seem to be confused in regard to which types of governments support contract law and which do not. Case in point the US gov'ts bailout of bankrupt GM and Chrysler ... where the contractual 'first claim' rights of bondholders were thrown overboard along with the rule of law re bankruptcy court priorities, with the bondholders accused of being 'greedy' ... in favor of continuing paychecks to UAW workers.

For a fact theoretical capitalism is very 'strict' in regard to the rule of law re contracts being 'sacred'. It is socialism that often deems contractual rights / property rights as having second priority to the 'needs of the workers' or the 'needs of the state'.

jimboe7373
08-04-2010, 02:05 PM
I'm sorry but what is this based on beyond some anecdotal observations ? We have unemployment and underemployment of AT LEAST 20 %. Wages have been effectively stagnant for at least a decade. Consumer debt is high; housing values are down; the value of 401K's and IRA's for most people are still down about 1/3 since mid-2007.

Been to Vegas lately ? How about A.C. ? Detroit and the rest of Michigan ? Cleveland and the rest of Ohio ? Illinois ? Upstate N.Y. ? Milwaukee ? L.A. ? New Orleans ? Mobile ? Florida's Gulf Coast ? Most people today are struggling to stay solvent and deal with mounting uncertainty. The rich stayed healthy and are the only real strata that has "recovered".

We became an industrial state during and after the Civil War. Yes, after W.W. II amny of our competitors had their industrial bases destroyed or seriously damaged: Germany, Japan, Italy, France etc. Sweden didn't. British and Canadian production was higher than before the war.

Brazil and Chile have made remarkable progress BUT their per capita GDP is nowhere close to ours. Neither is China's or India's.
Eric, I'm not debating that everything is as good as it was or even that it's good- I'm saying that we are nowhere near armageddon and that even with all the unemployment that most of those that are unemployed are right now living well in regards to food, clothing and shelter and other luxury items. I have been to Detroit, central Michigan, Floridas west coast, New Orleans and while all those areas are suffering- the vast majority ofpeople right now aren't starving or living in the streets or in anything close to an "armageddon" type situation. Michigan is undergoing a revival and has all kinds of incentives for green technology that is bringing companies and jobs into the state. It's just getting started but shows great promise. There is nothing to stop the other areas you mentioned from doing the same.

As to Brazil and Chile and their GDP, I never stated that they were surpassing our GDP but that their rates of growth were far greater than ours. Comparing GDP to GDP is kind of meaningless as population differences has too great an affect. The rate of growth however shows how efficiently and well the various economies are doing. Brazil has 2/3 of our population and Chile only 16,000,000.

Deogol
08-04-2010, 07:29 PM
[quote]Originally Posted by jimboe7373
^^Um...yes you do have to imagine it. Can you possibly call anything going on today armageddon?..

Aside from the constant predictions of impending doom (which have been going on for years and years now) and what's GOING to happen and all the bad signs etc. Things are still functioning and most people are living pretty well.


Please explain why you are left speechless. Can you argue that MOST people in the U.S. are living pretty well today?. Is there rioting in the streets?, has the stock market crashed?, has the electrical grid gone down?, are millions fleeing the country because of the horrors occuring here financially and otherwise?. Is food scarce and have banks shut their doors?, has trade and transit stopped?. Please let me know if I've missed any of these things. All of them combined would be a small example of what the armageddon the OP was talking about would look like.

You're fucking with me right?

The stock market has crashed - multiple times.
The electrical grid has gone down - I was working in California when the lights went out.
Hundreds of thousands are fleeing various states for economic reasons.
Banks have shut their doors - have you heard of Lehman Brothers?
Record numbers on food stamps and food banks complain they have empty shelves.
Millions are facing foreclosure and being expelled from their homes.
Millions are losing their only income in form of unemployment checks.

(I shake my head.) Do I hear "Nearer, My God, to thee?" being played?

flickad
08-04-2010, 08:45 PM
unfortunately, based on recent events at least, you seem to be confused in regard to which types of governments support contract law and which do not. Case in point the US gov'ts bailout of bankrupt GM and Chrysler ... where the contractual 'first claim' rights of bondholders were thrown overboard along with the rule of law re bankruptcy court priorities, with the bondholders accused of being 'greedy' ... in favor of continuing paychecks to UAW workers.

For a fact theoretical capitalism is very 'strict' in regard to the rule of law re contracts being 'sacred'. It is socialism that often deems contractual rights / property rights as having second priority to the 'needs of the workers' or the 'needs of the state'.

I think you're actually the one who's a little mixed up here (understandably as I have veered off topic considerably). Hopper and I have been discussing a system which is utterly deregulated, not capitalism per se. I'm quite aware of the strength of a contractual right and the even greater strength of a property one in the common law world. Hopper and I went off track in terms of the topic with respect to the discussion as to whether China and India are evil and are now discussing the end results of far-end libertarianism. I'm very doubtful that anyone here has the desire to toss out capitalism, myself included (and am even more doubtful that the end of capitalism is nigh). In fact, I plan to pursue commercial litigation (including contractual, corporations law and IP claims) on my admission later this year, which is about as capitalist as you can get in my field. There's a difference between supporting a social safety net and wanting, Arts student style, to 'smash capitalism' in favour of an entirely socialist or communist system. The former is called social democracy and exists quite successfully in most of the developed world, while the latter is pretty loony if you know anything at all about history.

Total deregulation means no more civil law. Contract law forms part of civil law. Hopper has stated elsewhere that in his view the government should be involved in criminal law only, which presumably means that the only remaining fields of law, besides criminal, would be its adjuncts of criminal evidence and procedure, as well as some sort of enforcement legislation. Now you see why I said that contracts would lose the force of law.

jimboe7373
08-04-2010, 10:08 PM
[quote=jimboe7373;1966513]

You're fucking with me right?

The stock market has crashed - multiple times.
The electrical grid has gone down - I was working in California when the lights went out.
Hundreds of thousands are fleeing various states for economic reasons.
Banks have shut their doors - have you heard of Lehman Brothers?
Record numbers on food stamps and food banks complain they have empty shelves.
Millions are facing foreclosure and being expelled from their homes.
Millions are losing their only income in form of unemployment checks
(I shake my head.) Do I hear "Nearer, My God, to thee?" being played?
Can you be a little more melodramatic????

The stock market has crashed - multiple times. And is back near historic highs

The electrical grid has gone down - I was working in California when the lights went out. They were out from Corp. Corruption and are back on. I meant all the grids in the nation going off and not coming back-even that is not armageddon

Hundreds of thousands are fleeing various states for economic reasons. And going to other states-millions have been leaving the North East for the better weather and lower taxes of Fla. for decades until recently

Banks have shut their doors - have you heard of Lehman Brothers? And their deposits have been guaranteed and bought off by other banks and peoples savings are all still intact

Record numbers on food stamps and food banks complain they have empty shelves. Partially because Bush and Republicans slashed their budgets-there still aren't people starving to death- show me one case of that anywhere in the country please.

Millions are facing foreclosure and being expelled from their homes. Almost all are renting or living with relatives- show me the tent cities and roving gangs with thousands of homeless-even that is not armageddon

Millions are losing their only income in form of unemployment checks. And almost all will live with relatives or downsize if there is one income earner instead of two. That's how it was at the turn of the century- sometimes 3 generations living together in one house or apartment- tight and unpleasant if you're used to more room but nowhere near armageddon

eagle2
08-04-2010, 11:26 PM
Indeed Americans do 'buy' a lot of durable and consumer goods every year ... or try to. The larger question is whether or not they actually PAY for them !!!


The manufacturers do get paid for their products, either directly by the consumer or by the banks that lend the consumer money through credit cards, car loans, etc..



In the context of exported foreign made products for sale to US consumers, the makers of those products wind up assuming both US dollar exchange rate risk as well as default risk. They also typically wind up transferring these risks to their governments i.e. China and Japan hold trillions of US dollars worth of US gov't and other bonds generated by their industries' export balance of trade surplus. Both are indeed aware that significant ( and rising ) risk exists as to whether these will be 'paid off' at full value. Thus China and Japan are increasingly reluctant to keep investing raw material cost, energy cost, and labor cost ( even if it is dirt cheap ) into US export products that may never be fully paid for !!! This leaves the US, and US consumers, with far less influence than they once had as the BOJ and BOC are already sitting on, and trying to diversify away from, mountains of US dollar denominated long term debt obligations !



Neither China, nor Japan hold more than a trillion dollars worth of US gov't bonds. As of May 2010, China held $867.7 billion and Japan held $786.7 billion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt#Foreign_ownership

If there is such a significant risk that they will be paid off at full value, why is the interest on a 10 year bond approximately 3 percent?

Melonie
08-05-2010, 03:40 AM
Total deregulation means no more civil law

I did get your point. However, it must be clarified that what this actually means is no more 'gov't enforcement' of contracts. There is quite a bit of historical precedent, both in the American West and Australia, that in a non-regulated 'frontier' situation businesses were very capable of 'enforcing' their own contracts and property rights ( thinking railroads, mines, cattle ranches etc. ) !!!



Neither China, nor Japan hold more than a trillion dollars worth of US gov't bonds.

misdirected nitpicking again ? This is the reason that I specifically posted 'US gov't and other' bonds. If you want to take the time, you can add the value of US Agency bonds, of US corporate bonds, etc. that are owned by the Chinese and Japanese and the total indeed exceeds a trillion ( well at 'face value', anyhow )



why is the interest on a 10 year bond approximately 3 percent?

Put extremely simply, because the US Treasury / gov't cannot afford to have T bond interest rates rise any higher since the increased debt service cost would make the gov'ts borrow and spend situation even more untenable. To that end, the US Treasury has 'given' billions of US taxpayer dollars ( via TARP and other bailout mechanisms ) to primary dealer US financial institutions. Those primary dealer US financial institutions have then deployed that taxpayer money to purchase newly auctioned T bonds at bid prices corresponding to low interest rates. When you're working with 'free' capital, there's no easier way to earn a gov't guaranteed profit i.e. cost is zero and return is 3%. And from the gov'ts standpoint, printing up new money out of thin air and using it to 'buy down' interest rates ( by proxy ) also serves another goal ... to try and 'reinflate' the economy.

After all, what is the alternative for these financial institutions but to loan to businesses and consumers not knowing what their actual rate of return will be net of delinquencies, bankruptcy write-offs, settlements and short sales, legal fees, new laws barring timely foreclosures, etc. And even if the financial institutions were to 'risk' that this net return would exceed 3%, there's still the issue of the equivalent cash value of negative publicity. Or put another way, those bank execs whose homes in Fairfield county were visited by busloads of 'irate citizens' did not forget the 'pitchforks' ... nor did they forget the gov't's willingness to throw certain financial institutions 'under the bus' i.e Lehman Bro's.

The real worry will set in if and when those financial institutions DO decide to start loaning out the money they currently have parked in treasuries. At that point, the fractional reserve money multiplier effect will actually kick in ... as will rising interest rates and rising price inflation !!!



The manufacturers do get paid for their products, either directly by the consumer or by the banks that lend the consumer money through credit cards, car loans, etc

This is NOT true for manufacturers, miners, refiners, agriculture, importers, or a whole host of 'goods' and 'service' businesses that are not directly involved in retail sales. In all of these cases, goods and services are provided to other businesses based on business to business credit ... with agreed 'terms' of payment i.e. net 30 for example. If the downstream business has received the goods or services and is unable to meet the 'terms' of payment, the upstream business then has a MAJOR problem ! Case and point Illinois and California not paying such businesses per original 'terms' for everything from prison toilet paper to capital building office cleaning to new computer systems, leaving those upstream businesses with their own cash sunk into the toilet paper / computer hardware, no incoming cash from these states with which to pay their employees and no ( timely ) recourse to pry the money they are owed from state treasuries !

Also consider how many 'suppliers' take a hosing when a major retailer like Circuit City files for bankruptcy. If the supplier profit margin is say 25% on the agreed wholesale price ( meaning the suppliers' sunk cost is 75 cents on the dollar), but the bankruptcy settlement is ultimately 65 cents on the dollar, that's a 10% across the board loss for the supplier ( on top of the supplier having to pay interest / carrying costs on their sunk costs for the months / years until they actually receive SOME of the money needed to pay for those sunk costs from bankruptcy court ).

flickad
08-05-2010, 04:25 AM
^^

Not everyone is in a position to enforce their agreements with a gun ;). And with criminal law maintained, that would probably be illegal.

And maybe I'm biased, but enforcement in court seems preferable to a gun battle. A writ may lack the je ne sais quoi of a firearm, but it involves a lot less blood. Particularly if the contract-breaker also comes armed.

But, I suppose all this may be moot anyway. In a system with no civil law, the government has no power to make currency, so we're back to a barter system. Contracts as we know them would therefore disappear regardless of whether or not they could be enforced. In fact, the economy as we know it would disappear.

It also has no power the levy any taxation without civil law, not that there's a currency in any event. No tax, no roads. And, on a more sinister level, no law enforcement. And no penal system. I guess the criminal law will exist in name only, in Hopper's ideal world. I'm sure the existence of a Crimes Act alone will be a huge deterrent for the violently inclined, since they've shown such respect for the law in the first place. Perhaps we'll all just have to carry guns and hope that the criminal gangs don't shoot straighter.

Perhaps there's a reason or two that there's a civil law body in the first place...

Deogol
08-05-2010, 04:46 AM
[quote=Deogol;1966992]
Can you be a little more melodramatic????

The stock market has crashed - multiple times. And is back near historic highs

The electrical grid has gone down - I was working in California when the lights went out. They were out from Corp. Corruption and are back on. I meant all the grids in the nation going off and not coming back-even that is not armageddon

Hundreds of thousands are fleeing various states for economic reasons. And going to other states-millions have been leaving the North East for the better weather and lower taxes of Fla. for decades until recently

Banks have shut their doors - have you heard of Lehman Brothers? And their deposits have been guaranteed and bought off by other banks and peoples savings are all still intact

Record numbers on food stamps and food banks complain they have empty shelves. Partially because Bush and Republicans slashed their budgets-there still aren't people starving to death- show me one case of that anywhere in the country please.

Millions are facing foreclosure and being expelled from their homes. Almost all are renting or living with relatives- show me the tent cities and roving gangs with thousands of homeless-even that is not armageddon

Millions are losing their only income in form of unemployment checks. And almost all will live with relatives or downsize if there is one income earner instead of two. That's how it was at the turn of the century- sometimes 3 generations living together in one house or apartment- tight and unpleasant if you're used to more room but nowhere near armageddon

Ah well, I am glad that everything is OK then. Phew! No frustration or anger to ferment revolution out of.

Eric Stoner
08-05-2010, 08:09 AM
[quote=Deogol;1966992]
Can you be a little more melodramatic????

The stock market has crashed - multiple times. And is back near historic highs

The electrical grid has gone down - I was working in California when the lights went out. They were out from Corp. Corruption and are back on. I meant all the grids in the nation going off and not coming back-even that is not armageddon

Hundreds of thousands are fleeing various states for economic reasons. And going to other states-millions have been leaving the North East for the better weather and lower taxes of Fla. for decades until recently

Banks have shut their doors - have you heard of Lehman Brothers? And their deposits have been guaranteed and bought off by other banks and peoples savings are all still intact

Record numbers on food stamps and food banks complain they have empty shelves. Partially because Bush and Republicans slashed their budgets-there still aren't people starving to death- show me one case of that anywhere in the country please.

Millions are facing foreclosure and being expelled from their homes. Almost all are renting or living with relatives- show me the tent cities and roving gangs with thousands of homeless-even that is not armageddon

Millions are losing their only income in form of unemployment checks. And almost all will live with relatives or downsize if there is one income earner instead of two. That's how it was at the turn of the century- sometimes 3 generations living together in one house or apartment- tight and unpleasant if you're used to more room but nowhere near armageddon

You are right that there is social safety net that for the most part is working to prevent outright privation.

As to the Stock Market, the Dow has not come close to its 2007 high of over 14,000. Neither has the Nasdaq which in fact has yet to recover and get back to its 1999 highs before the Tech Bubble burst.

Melonie
08-05-2010, 08:58 AM
As to the Stock Market, the Dow has not come close to its 2007 high of over 14,000. Neither has the Nasdaq which in fact has yet to recover and get back to its 1999 highs before the Tech Bubble burst.

And also keep in mind the 'dirty little secret' of the US stock market indexes .... i.e. that they are measured in US dollars - a unit of measure that is FAR from constant ( especially from the point of view of foreign investors measuring US stock market valuations in terms of Yen or Euro !!! ).

From the 1999 US stock market index 'peak', in order to EQUAL that 'peak' today in terms of true value / purchasing power the US stock market indexes would actually need to be 29% higher in numeric / US dollar terms than they were in 1999. This is the simple result of $1000 in 1999 US dollars having been devalued such that $1290 is now required to purchase the same amount of goods and services value !!!



but hey let's not allow a 29% margin of error get in the way of an ideologically valuable but factually deficient presumption !



You are right that there is social safety net that for the most part is working to prevent outright privation.

and it is that same social safety net that is allowing many Americans to avoid facing economic facts for as long as those benefits continue ! But it is also the same social safety net that is being maintained via increased gov't debt and increased money printing at a level that is clearly unsustainable. Ask Greece what happens when you owe so much money, and have so little productivity that you can't service existing debt, thus your 'creditors' cut off further loans !

jimboe7373
08-05-2010, 10:02 AM
[quote=jimboe7373;1967050]

Ah well, I am glad that everything is OK then. Phew! No frustration or anger to ferment revolution out of.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26776283/
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/columnist/krantz/2008-11-24-tax-loss-ira_N.htm
http://politics.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/07/28/a-growing-trend-of-leaving-america.html
I'm not sure why such a simple idea isn't getting through. Did I ever say everything was OK? or that there was no frustration or ferment?. As all I said is that the way things are now MOST people are living well and we are nowhere even close to armageddon.

I read your links and just because some people are leaving the country for better opportunity doesn't mean we are living in the "end times". As to the tent cities there are an extremely small fraction of people living in tent cities- there were only 150 people total in the only one mentioned in Reno from your article which was 2 years old. I did some research and most of these have been shut down with the residents moving to apartments, staying with family or friends or being housed by social organizations. Point is that even if there were millions leaving the country, hundreds of thousands homeless- even that is NOT armageddon.

Melonie
08-05-2010, 02:44 PM
^^^ in brutally pragmatic terms, I have to agree with Jimboe that 'most people' ... which can be translated to mean a majority of registered voters ... have been sufficiently placated by extended unemployment benefits, HAMP delays in delinquent mortgage foreclosures, food stamp benefits, medicaid benefits etc., and have been sufficiently 'reassured' via US taxpayer FDIC bailouts of failed banks, US taxpayer GM & Chrysler bailouts, US taxpayer Wall St. bailouts, US taxpayer Fannie / Freddie bailouts etc, that they are nowheres near the 'torches and pitchforks' level of outrage. The 'gold foil hat' crowd would tell you that continuing this placation through this coming November is a top priority for the politicians that back these placation measures.

However, what 'most people' fail to realize is that this placation is being accomplished by the unprecedented assumption of debt and the printing of money out of thin air ... the consequences of which will probably not manifest themselves in any serious way until next year. But once those consequences do work their way through the economy to the point of translating into higher US dollar denominated prices for virtually everything, failing US businesses with an associated resurgence in unemployment rate, de-facto reduction in the purchasing power of savings / investments / retirement funds etc. they will be harder to ignore. With significant tax rate increases heaped on top, it's probable that 'most people' may finally start thinking about 'torches and pitchforks'. However, at that point, the US economy will already be on a course for at least 2 more years of the same sort of economic policies and, arguably, the same sort of economic results.

Hopper
08-06-2010, 05:36 AM
This analysis ignores that, in general, workers need their jobs far more than business needs that particular worker. A person in need of a job is going to have to take what's on offer. There's not a lot of room for negotiating the employment contract, except at management level.

You are right, however, that totalitarianism equals a captive market.

Employers and employees need one another equally and both compete each for the other. Who needs who more depends on which happens to be in the greatest demand and least supply.


This is pure ideology - an article of faith. How can we know that the complete absence of regulations would help rather than hurt the economy? It is arguable that deregulation of the financial sector was a major causal factor of the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

It's no more an article of faith than what you said. I stated a sensible and logical idea.

Deregulation of the financial sector is another example of what I meant. Yes, some restrictions on loans were relaxed; but more restrictions were also made which encouraged and in some cases forced irresponsible behavior on the part of home owners and buyers and banks.. And the only reason the deregulation of loans led to irresponsible risk-taking is that the legislated system which has been in place for almost a century makes irresponsible risk taking possible. That system is fractional reserve banking, whereby money can be created from nothing. Irresponsible banking had been happening for decades before the crisis due to this legislation. When you can create credit from nothing with a few keystrokes, you are not risking real money, so you can make irresponsible loans. Therefore if the legislation which created this system were abolished - this would be a form of deregulation - then bankers would be MORE restrained - not by legislation, but by honest money.

(Here is one excellent book on the financial crisis, banking and money. You can read the first chapter online for free. http://www.thomasewoods.com/books/meltdown/)

In the same way, reducing, instead of adding to, government intervention in Victorian England would have placed natural restraints on workplace practices - by giving the general population a free hand with which to prosper rather than become slaves of industrialists. This would also mean the industrialists, who would also be less hard up against it themselves, would have less excuse to abuse their workers.


See above. An ideal system would be deregulated enough to permit invention and creativity, and in some ways America has been a role model in that respect. However, you are always going to have a hierarchy of workers - someone has got to do the grunt work - and without some protection, it is easy for the bottom rung to end up exploited, simply because the top rung is in a position to do it and because it is profitable.


If a worker wants to avoid being exploited, all he does is find another employer who does not exploit him. That way the exploitative employers end up with the worst employees and therefore also end up at the bottom end of the market.

By the way, exploit just means "use", it is not a bad word - the word you should be using is "abuse". "Exploit" properly has bad connotations only in socialist ideology, since they believe there should be no employer-employee relationship in society. It is one of their basic objections to capitalism. It is socialists who made "exploit" a bad word. Employers use the services of their employees and this is perfectly okay, since they pay to use them.


It's true that regulation of industry does dictate consumer choice, at least to a degree. However, in a democratic capitalist country, the choice is very wide.

It's not very wide now. In a free society, the government should not dictate anything - and there is no need to.

BTW - a free society is not "democratic". We elect our government representatives democratically, since it is the fairest way we know of, but our system of government is not democratic. Democracy is the dictatorship of the minority by the majority. It is dictatorship by vote. Everyone decides collectively what every individual should do. In a FREE society, individuals decide individually and independently what they each should do. In other words, everyone minds his own business.


A slave is all those things, but it is more than that. A slave is a human being who is legally owned by another human being. Using this legal definition, there are no slaves in the contemporary democratic world.

So if I were to enslave someone illegally it would not really be slavery? If all we had to do to eliminate some crime was to make it illegal, we would not need courts and a police force to enforce the law. The slavery I was describing is legal - it is created by laws which regulate individuals.


The legal definition of insolvency with respect to a corporation (in Australia, that is - the US definition is something you'd be more likely to know, if you have a legal or business background) under the Corporations Act is 'inability to meet its debts as and when they fall due'. As the internal workings of a corporation are often secret, it is very difficult for a creditor or even a shareholder to know whether a company is on the brink of insolvency. Only the company's directors and financial officers are in a good position to know the financial status of a company.

I don't have a legal or business background but it seems to me that it would be easy for a creditor or shareholder to find out whether a company is unable to meet it's debts simply by making credit or share purchasing conditional on seeing some proof of solvency. It's silly to hand over money with your eyes closed.


Without insolvency law, creditors would find it very difficult to protect their interests. Indeed, if you take deregulation to the extreme, there would be no contract law, and so a loan agreement would not bind either party. Skipping out on creditors could be done without consequence and the extension of credit to business would be very likely to dry up, creating a disastrous ripple effect across the economy.


Contracts don't come under the type of regulation I am opposing. If you make a contract, and you don't keep it, you are guilty of theft - the same as if you pay the store only half the marked price and walk out.


Again, all very fine-sounding in theory, but a deeper analysis reveals flaws. Firstly, where there is no civil law, there are no consumer protection provisions such as the proscription against misleading and deceptive conduct that you'll find in the Trade Practices Act. With business free to mislead and deceive, consumers, creditors and rival businesses are unable to look out for their needs since to look out for one's own interests requires an awareness of the facts. I have already covered the danger that creditors will be in if there is no contract law. And workers tend to rely on their jobs and are thus not in a position to give ultimatums to employers. Nor are they as mobile as businesses. It is difficult for an individual to just pick up and go elsewhere, particularly if that person is supporting a family.


I'm not advocating the abolition of all law. Criminal law is necessary to protect people's liberties and it is the only just kind of law - the only kind of law we should have. Deceptive conduct - promising one thing and delivering another - would be covered by criminal law. Don't confuse libertarianism with anarchy or survival of the fittest, though some libertarians would like to abolish all government and law enforcement and leave it to individuals. In a society where most people are moral, that could work. In a society where most people aren't moral, I doubt any kind of libertarianism - or any other type of system - could work.

Businesses more mobile than employees? It's harder to move premises or rebuild a plant than it is to take a different train to work.


But in your ideal deregulated system, there is no civil law. That means that tort law goes by the wayside, which means that there are no lawsuits for negligence where people become ill due to pollution. Pursuing a legal claim also requires a lot of money, even if you decide to spare tort law the axe. Ordinary workers and consumers will find it difficult to pursue a remedy in the courts, particularly if they have been disabled by illness due to pollution. Further, even a victory in the courts can be a pyrrhic one, given the huge costs involved in legal representation. And an unrepresented plaintiff will usually not have enough legal knowledge to successfully argue their case.

See above. An employer is just as likely to want to avoid court costs as an employee - or a businessman as likely as a customer. Especially if it is more than one.


Industry will continue to pollute so long as it is more profitable to do so than not to do so.

Pollution often involves polluting someone else's back yard and that is as likely to be some other business as it is a resident. Nobody wants pollution. A person may not mind his own pollution, but he does mind other people's pollution.

Hopper
08-06-2010, 05:44 AM
They don't have to agree, but it would make very little sense for one party to end protectionism if the other side maintains it. That would be a lose-win situation.

Removing tariffs benefits people in a country as much as people in a country it trades with. Tariffs only protect the particular industry they are applied to. To other industries, they just increase costs of buying the goods the tariffs are placed on and restrict their choices.

Countries don't have to sign agreements to remove tariffs. Each country decides freely whether it wants tariffs according to what benefits them. One of the factors in deciding would of course be whether other individual countries have tariffs. It would work itself out without agreements. Therefore why get bogged down with silly, binding international legislation of it?

Agreements lead to arguments. Without agreements, people and countries mind their own business and each do what individually suits them. Agreements between countries are what started WW1.

Hopper
08-06-2010, 05:49 AM
Please stop flip-flopping arguments and respond to my central point; that right NOW for most people in the U.S. things are pretty good. Please note that since this whole discussion came up in relation to armageddon that I'm using the barometer of "pretty good" on a historical scale. Because of this food, shelter, clothing and a degree of security weigh in heavy as do bonus stuff like internet access, mobile communications and cars etc. As I've stated the vast majority of people I know are working stable jobs and fully functioning in the society. I do know some unemployed people and some people who are struggling but they are in the firm minority. Please address that point. I travel a lot and there isn't a city I go to where restaurants, airplanes, nightclubs and entertainment venues aren't packed. Once again, I'm not talking about predictions or probabilities of what's GOING to happen or how this has to lead to that etc. What are the vast majority of people actually experiencing now?.

On a historical scale, armageddon does look good. You just haven't lived through the bad parts of history. For example, in Europe during the middle ages and for some time after, there were famines ever few years. Famines were normal. Wars were just as frequent. It was all due to big government.

I'm not talking about what's going to happen either - I'm talking about what is happening, and the even worse things this will eventually lead to. What the "vast majority" of people are experiencing now is akin to a woodworm-ridden tree - it's still standing and outwardly it looks fine, but it will at some time collapse under it's own weight.

I didn't seriously mean that armegeddon is coming. But what we have now is practically as bad, and worse will probably come. For people who, say, lose their homes or businesses; or suffer horribly from disease due to our totalitarian medical and "health" industries, or are in the middle of a war, famine or plague, it may as well be armageddon or the seven woes of the apocalypse.

When I said it, I was not refering only to the U.S. You talk a bit like the "end times prophecy" Christians who talk about wars, famines, plagues and religious persecution as things yet to come. They don't realise that these things have been happening throughout history and continue to happen in other parts of the world. They talk as if the U.S. is the world.


As a side note to your previous post- you are grossly misinformed. U.S. economic supremacy came about after WWII not because we had the best system but because all the other systems were largely destroyed and there was no competition. We were the only one with our manufacturing capacity still in place and most of the modern world had nowhere else to buy stuff except from us. The rest of the world in no way "continued as it had before". Countries like Chile and Brazil came up with economic systems that are probably more efficient than our own and are far surpassing us in growth.

What I meant by that comment was that you were acknowledging that things had been very bad throughout history, in all parts of the world and at the same time saying that in your own country in your own era things are different and will continue on as they are. The same laws that affect other societies affect the U.S.

Hopper
08-06-2010, 05:51 AM
Michigan is undergoing a revival and has all kinds of incentives for green technology that is bringing companies and jobs into the state. It's just getting started but shows great promise. There is nothing to stop the other areas you mentioned from doing the same.

"Green" industries will be created off the backs of all other industries and workers in them. The technology will be imposed on the people through laws and "incentives" (really a form of coercion) and will be heavily subsidized by taxpayers). It will merely be another economic burden on the general population. And it is entirely unnecessary, since the pretext for it is nothing but environmentalists pseudo-science about climate change and peak oil - both of which are complete frauds.

Hopper
08-06-2010, 05:57 AM
There's a difference between supporting a social safety net and wanting, Arts student style, to 'smash capitalism' in favour of an entirely socialist or communist system. The former is called social democracy and exists quite successfully in most of the developed world, while the latter is pretty loony if you know anything at all about history.

"Social democracy" is socialism. (Remember what I said about democracy - it is collectivist and coercive.) It is gradual socialism. Instead of "smashing" capitalism, our elites introduce socialist "reforms" a piece at a time in the guise of "safety nets". After they install enough "safety nets" we wind up with socialism. These "reforms" don't just act as safety nets for capitalism, they distort and undermine it and also are used to regulate it. Of course, when capitalism does go wrong, the socialists don't blame the reforms, they blame capitalism - even though it isn't free-market capitalism anymore - and then use this as an excuse to make further "reforms"; and on it goes until one day you wake up in an Orwell novel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy


Total deregulation means no more civil law. Contract law forms part of civil law. Hopper has stated elsewhere that in his view the government should be involved in criminal law only, which presumably means that the only remaining fields of law, besides criminal, would be its adjuncts of criminal evidence and procedure, as well as some sort of enforcement legislation. Now you see why I said that contracts would lose the force of law.

Whatever the terminology, any law which protects the liberties and property of individuals is legitimate. That is good intervention.

Hopper
08-06-2010, 06:05 AM
[quote=Deogol;1966992]

Banks have shut their doors - have you heard of Lehman Brothers? And their deposits have been guaranteed and bought off by other banks and peoples savings are all still intact


This is partly a good point - the government used the threat of customers losing their savings as an excuse to bail out banks, yet some or all failed banks are bought by other banks, with the accounts intact. The fact remains though that the bank failed, and when all the banks fail, the savings will be lost. Not all of the banks will fail, though; the big ones will survive and will form a virtual monopoly, which will mean they can dictate terms to those customers.


Millions are facing foreclosure and being expelled from their homes. Almost all are renting or living with relatives- show me the tent cities and roving gangs with thousands of homeless-even that is not armageddon

What about when their relatives and landlords have to foreclose?


Millions are losing their only income in form of unemployment checks. And almost all will live with relatives or downsize if there is one income earner instead of two. That's how it was at the turn of the century- sometimes 3 generations living together in one house or apartment- tight and unpleasant if you're used to more room but nowhere near armageddon

That may have been good back in 1900 but today it means something is seriously wrong. Going down to 1900 standards of living and technology is a big drop. Sure we didn't have armageddon in 1900 but do you want to lose cars, the interstate highways, and aircraft and travel everywhere by horse or steam train?

Hopper
08-06-2010, 06:11 AM
In a system with no civil law, the government has no power to make currency, so we're back to a barter system. Contracts as we know them would therefore disappear regardless of whether or not they could be enforced. In fact, the economy as we know it would disappear.

Money did not arise from government mints. Money began as simply a convenient medium of exchange for other goods, which is of course still it's function. Governments institutionalised it only after it had been worked out and practiced by individuals for some time. Paper money originated as a convenient means of exchanging metal money kept deposited in banks and so themselves became the medium of exchange.

There is no reason for the government to coin money. The U.S. Constitution allows the federal government to coin it's own money and the only other controls it is allowed over currency is to decide the unit value of that and foreign currency and set standards and measures for assuring honest valuing.

U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8:


The Congress shall have Power... To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A1Sec8.html

No need for barter system.


It also has no power the levy any taxation without civil law, not that there's a currency in any event. No tax, no roads. And, on a more sinister level, no law enforcement. And no penal system. I guess the criminal law will exist in name only, in Hopper's ideal world. I'm sure the existence of a Crimes Act alone will be a huge deterrent for the violently inclined, since they've shown such respect for the law in the first place. Perhaps we'll all just have to carry guns and hope that the criminal gangs don't shoot straighter.

Perhaps there's a reason or two that there's a civil law body in the first place...

The government gets more than enough money to pay for it's functioning through other forms of revenue (duties, imposts, excises) than the income tax. The income tax was enacted in 1913. The U.S. government was established in 1789. The U.S. government did not collapse at any time in the nearly 115 years in-between. In fact, in the late 19th century the treasury was complaining about an enormous surplus of revenue.

Carrying guns is not a bad idea. The police can't be everywhere and many criminals carry guns. Often, the cops are the criminals.

jimboe7373
08-06-2010, 07:27 AM
"Green" industries will be created off the backs of all other industries and workers in them. The technology will be imposed on the people through laws and "incentives" (really a form of coercion) and will be heavily subsidized by taxpayers). It will merely be another economic burden on the general population. And it is entirely unnecessary, since the pretext for it is nothing but environmentalists pseudo-science about climate change and peak oil - both of which are complete frauds.
Wow!, now I'm speechless. The incentives Michigan is offering is in the form of tax benefits to lure companies into the areas that are hardest hit by the decline of it's auto industry and where some of the highest unemployment in the nation is. The goal is to take the thousands and thousands NOT working and put them to work in VACANT factories. Not really sure how that is coercion or is "created off the backs of other industries and the workers in them". If we can take the lead in the green technology boom we can reinvigorate our economy as we did in the 90's with that tech boom.
I won't even get into your comments regarding global warming and peak oil but the fact that we can increase employment by a large margin and get ourselves out from under the foot of foriegn oil is reason enough embrace projects like this.

threlayer
08-06-2010, 07:51 AM
UNO, WTO, IMF, GATT, FTAA, NAFTA, CAFTA, ASEAN, EU. The whole world is piece by piece coming under increasingly more international control.
Appears that you believe international cooperation is international capitulation. Without some degree of cooperation between nations, wars are inevitable. We've had military coalitions and trade agreements from pre-history. Because of greatly increased globalization we now find needs for more countries to be involved with others. Merely because we have more acronyms does not mean that we will soon have a one world government. There is simply too much power pressure intranationally for that to occur. Wars likely would occur first.

eagle2
08-06-2010, 08:22 AM
"Green" industries will be created off the backs of all other industries and workers in them. The technology will be imposed on the people through laws and "incentives" (really a form of coercion) and will be heavily subsidized by taxpayers). It will merely be another economic burden on the general population. And it is entirely unnecessary, since the pretext for it is nothing but environmentalists pseudo-science about climate change and peak oil - both of which are complete frauds.

No, like most conservatives you don't understand either issue and you don't understand that you don't understand either issue.

threlayer
08-06-2010, 08:29 AM
So much wrong here......

...
The difference between China and laisez faire in this regard is that in laissez faire, employees get to choose their working conditions, and the people get the choice of starting their own businesses - ...The majority of individuals have little choice of employers or working conditions.This is only true for really talented individuals whose talents/experience/knowledge corporations need; this does not apply to 99% of individuals. so how can you even imagine that as a default statement? Since when did individuals have any chance of standing up for their rights against big federally empowered corporations?


It was regulation of everything else that kept people from being able to choose who they work for. That is, economic conditions were such that working under these conditions was the only choice for many people.
Regulation is required for corporations, given tremendous rights well above rights given to individuals, in order to keep them from obvious explotration and acts that would be criminal if committed by an individual.


You can stop it (child labor etc) with government legislation, but you can also stop it by abolishing all other government legislation, because freeing people to prosper by their own efforts makes them less dependent on employment by a wealthy few - and less dependent on government protection.
Are you saying that there is a need for government regulation but also a need for no regulation? Are you also one of those who say there ought to be no corporate income tax? (Maybe there is just no hope for some people.)


Again, our society is not free, so people's choices of who to buy from are restricted to those companies (and industry practices) which are favored and protected by government legislation.
You are saying that government legislation of corporations ought to be reduce or even eliminated so that "people's choices of who to buy from are" NOT restricted. Even though the suppliers "are favored and protected by government legislation"? That doesn't make any sense since it's contradictory as stated.


In a free market, consumers, employees, creditors and shareholders look out for their own rights, and they have the range of choices which enables them to easily do so....
In a free, unregulated market (which was the case many generations ago), the results was worker exploitation, unhealthy products, unsafe working conditions, and massive pollution. That is a fact that libertarian ideology cannot erase.


Pollution is something which has decreased from technical advancement. For example, today, instead of throwing the bones and entrails of animals and fish-heads out onto the street, we buy our food already prepared in packages, which we throw into garbage bins....
So we are't stepping over fish-heads and horse droppings now. At least those were hazards we could avoid. Now because of the complications of production technology, we have so many hidden, insidious hazards in our water, food, air, and even medicines. We have longer lives but many are lives are ridden with debilitations and long-term diseases necessitating permanent dependence on expensive medicines. Pollution surely has changed its nature but by no means has it been effectively decreased.

threlayer
08-06-2010, 09:10 AM
unfortunately, based on recent events at least, you seem to be confused in regard to which types of governments support contract law and which do not. Case in point the US gov'ts bailout of bankrupt GM and Chrysler ... where the contractual 'first claim' rights of bondholders were thrown overboard along with the rule of law re bankruptcy court priorities, with the bondholders accused of being 'greedy' ... in favor of continuing paychecks to UAW workers.

That fight was about the bondholders desire for the dissolution of GM with proceeds used to pay off bond holders who assumed the risk vs the unemployment of tens of thousands of GM's and suppiers' workers at a desperate time when unemployment was decreasing at a phenomenal rate of 500,000-700,000 per month. GM held tremendouse resources for restructuring and re-emergence as a profitable company unlike FreddieMac, FannieMae, Bear-Sterns, Lehman Bros, AIG, and even Citibank. If the fed could help those, they could help GM. If you had one micro-ounce of sympathy for the UAW, you would understand that.

threlayer
08-06-2010, 09:23 AM
I did get your point. However, it must be clarified that what this actually means is no more 'gov't enforcement' of contracts. There is quite a bit of historical precedent, both in the American West and Australia, that in a non-regulated 'frontier' situation businesses were very capable of 'enforcing' their own contracts and property rights ( thinking railroads, mines, cattle ranches etc. ) !!!
You been watching a few too many cowboy movies lately? Just think about the unbridled violence and very sketchy legal system at that time. And women's and minorities' rights--forget it. And intimidation of the individual by big business coveting land and other resources for their own profit. You aren't relieved that that era is over and done with? Or perhaps you are only concerned with the welfare of the heads of big businesses at any cost.

threlayer
08-06-2010, 09:30 AM
[quote=jimboe7373;1967050]

You are right that there is social safety net that for the most part is working to prevent outright privation.
Aaaah! So there is a need for asocial network in a libertarian world? Or is that an inadvertent slip-up?

threlayer
08-06-2010, 09:45 AM
THE FOLLOWING ONLY APPLIES TO UTOPIA. In the real world it is utter hogwash!


Employers and employees need one another equally and both compete each for the other. Who needs who more depends on which happens to be in the greatest demand and least supply.

It's no more an article of faith than what you said. I stated a sensible and logical idea.

Deregulation of the financial sector is another example of what I meant. Yes, some restrictions on loans were relaxed; but more restrictions were also made which encouraged and in some cases forced irresponsible behavior on the part of home owners and buyers and banks.. And the only reason the deregulation of loans led to irresponsible risk-taking is that the legislated system which has been in place for almost a century makes irresponsible risk taking possible. That system is fractional reserve banking, whereby money can be created from nothing. Irresponsible banking had been happening for decades before the crisis due to this legislation. When you can create credit from nothing with a few keystrokes, you are not risking real money, so you can make irresponsible loans. Therefore if the legislation which created this system were abolished - this would be a form of deregulation - then bankers would be MORE restrained - not by legislation, but by honest money.

...

In the same way, reducing, instead of adding to, government intervention in Victorian England would have placed natural restraints on workplace practices - by giving the general population a free hand with which to prosper rather than become slaves of industrialists. This would also mean the industrialists, who would also be less hard up against it themselves, would have less excuse to abuse their workers.

If a worker wants to avoid being exploited, all he does is find another employer who does not exploit him. That way the exploitative employers end up with the worst employees and therefore also end up at the bottom end of the market.

By the way, exploit just means "use", it is not a bad word - the word you should be using is "abuse". "Exploit" properly has bad connotations only in socialist ideology, since they believe there should be no employer-employee relationship in society. It is one of their basic objections to capitalism. It is socialists who made "exploit" a bad word. Employers use the services of their employees and this is perfectly okay, since they pay to use them.

It's not very wide now. In a free society, the government should not dictate anything - and there is no need to.

BTW - a free society is not "democratic". We elect our government representatives democratically, since it is the fairest way we know of, but our system of government is not democratic. Democracy is the dictatorship of the minority by the majority. It is dictatorship by vote. Everyone decides collectively what every individual should do. In a FREE society, individuals decide individually and independently what they each should do. In other words, everyone minds his own business.

So if I were to enslave someone illegally it would not really be slavery? If all we had to do to eliminate some crime was to make it illegal, we would not need courts and a police force to enforce the law. The slavery I was describing is legal - it is created by laws which regulate individuals.

...

Contracts don't come under the type of regulation I am opposing. If you make a contract, and you don't keep it, you are guilty of theft - the same as if you pay the store only half the marked price and walk out.


I'm not advocating the abolition of all law. Criminal law is necessary to protect people's liberties and it is the only just kind of law - the only kind of law we should have. Deceptive conduct - promising one thing and delivering another - would be covered by criminal law. Don't confuse libertarianism with anarchy or survival of the fittest, though some libertarians would like to abolish all government and law enforcement and leave it to individuals. In a society where most people are moral, that could work. In a society where most people aren't moral, I doubt any kind of libertarianism - or any other type of system - could work.

Businesses more mobile than employees? It's harder to move premises or rebuild a plant than it is to take a different train to work.

....

threlayer
08-06-2010, 09:52 AM
"Social democracy" is socialism. (Remember what I said about democracy - it is collectivist and coercive.) It is gradual socialism. Instead of "smashing" capitalism, our elites introduce socialist "reforms" a piece at a time in the guise of "safety nets". After they install enough "safety nets" we wind up with socialism. These "reforms" don't just act as safety nets for capitalism, they distort and undermine it and also are used to regulate it. Of course, when capitalism does go wrong, the socialists don't blame the reforms, they blame capitalism - even though it isn't free-market capitalism anymore - and then use this as an excuse to make further "reforms"; and on it goes until one day you wake up in an Orwell novel.
....
What we had had until very recently is akin to socialism for big corporations with their lobbyists and payoff men. You are just not seeing it due to the rose-colored glasses of your ideology.

jimboe7373
08-06-2010, 10:23 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimboe7373 http://forum.stripperweb.com/images/themes/sw4/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forum.stripperweb.com/showthread.php?p=1967050#post1967050)
You are right that there is social safety net that for the most part is working to prevent outright privation.


[quote=Eric Stoner;1967168]
Aaaah! So there is a need for asocial network in a libertarian world? Or is that an inadvertent slip-up?
That is not my quote, I never said and am not sure what it refers to.

flickad
08-06-2010, 10:40 AM
Employers and employees need one another equally and both compete each for the other. Who needs who more depends on which happens to be in the greatest demand and least supply.

In theory, yes, this is true. In reality, there is more frequently a job shortage than a labour shortage. Employers also have greater resources at their disposal and usually a choice of numerous people eager to fill the role. At the entry level, it's unusual for someone seeking work to be able to cherry pick offers.




It's no more an article of faith than what you said. I stated a sensible and logical idea.

I'm not sure that's true. Your idea is quite extreme and untested. I don't see the common sense there.



In the same way, reducing, instead of adding to, government intervention in Victorian England would have placed natural restraints on workplace practices - by giving the general population a free hand with which to prosper rather than become slaves of industrialists. This would also mean the industrialists, who would also be less hard up against it themselves, would have less excuse to abuse their workers.

Again, an article of faith. There were already few, if any, restrictions on business during the industrial revolution.




If a worker wants to avoid being exploited, all he does is find another employer who does not exploit him. That way the exploitative employers end up with the worst employees and therefore also end up at the bottom end of the market.

This assumes a favourable labour market and flexibility on the part of the employee. If you're paying off a mortgage and trying to feed and educate four kids, that flexibility and mobility isn't there.



It's not very wide now. In a free society, the government should not dictate anything - and there is no need to.

It's incredibly wide. There's very little you can't buy in America, and usually for a reasonable price to boot.



BTW - a free society is not "democratic". We elect our government representatives democratically, since it is the fairest way we know of, but our system of government is not democratic. Democracy is the dictatorship of the minority by the majority. It is dictatorship by vote. Everyone decides collectively what every individual should do. In a FREE society, individuals decide individually and independently what they each should do. In other words, everyone minds his own business.

It's true that democracy does not create an utterly free society. But it does create a relatively free one. The United States, for instance, compares very favourably to, say, China in terms of liberty.



So if I were to enslave someone illegally it would not really be slavery? If all we had to do to eliminate some crime was to make it illegal, we would not need courts and a police force to enforce the law. The slavery I was describing is legal - it is created by laws which regulate individuals.

You've expanded the definition of slavery to a point where it carries no meaning. Yes, it's possible to illegally enslave somebody, but essentially slavery means the ownership of one human being by another.


I don't have a legal or business background but it seems to me that it would be easy for a creditor or shareholder to find out whether a company is unable to meet it's debts simply by making credit or share purchasing conditional on seeing some proof of solvency. It's silly to hand over money with your eyes closed.

This would be a process more complex than you'd think, even if the company allowed you to access their financial records. The records may not be complete and would likely be complex.



Contracts don't come under the type of regulation I am opposing. If you make a contract, and you don't keep it, you are guilty of theft - the same as if you pay the store only half the marked price and walk out.

Contract law is civil law, not criminal. Breach of contract gives rise to damages, not charges of theft. Loss of bargain damages are a far better remedy from the point of view of the innocent party than it would be to have the contract breaker locked up and pay nothing. Also, it is possible to break a contract in ways other than non-payment. There can, for instance, be non-delivery of goods when the other party has not yet paid for them (in a payment on or some time after delivery agreement), or delivery of unsuitable goods. No confiscation or unjust enrichment is involved here, but it is still brutal for the affected business.



Businesses more mobile than employees? It's harder to move premises or rebuild a plant than it is to take a different train to work.

This ignores the fact that business has the resources to be mobile, while individuals often don't, and may be responsible for children and a mortgage or paying the rent. Taking a different train to work sounds simple, yes, but finding work may involve relocating oneself if there is no other suitable job within the vicinity.




See above. An employer is just as likely to want to avoid court costs as an employee - or a businessman as likely as a customer. Especially if it is more than one.

An employer has the resources to weather a lawsuit, and often public liability insurance to boot. An individual can't compete in financial terms.

So, you're going to turn tort law, contract law and the Trade Practices Act into criminal law? That's just putting old wine in new bottles. More suspect bottles, I might add. With respect to all these fields of law, the plaintiff is put in a far better position by receiving monetary damages than by the imposition of criminal penalties on the defendant. It's hard to lock a corporation up in any event.

Regardless, this would create less freedom rather than more. The same legal restrictions exist, but now instead of the defendant having to make good by compensating the plaintiff, he/she/it is locked up. So much for liberty.


Pollution often involves polluting someone else's back yard and that is as likely to be some other business as it is a resident. Nobody wants pollution. A person may not mind his own pollution, but he does mind other people's pollution.

That doesn't mean that a business that finds it more profitable to pollute than not will stop.

flickad
08-06-2010, 10:46 AM
Removing tariffs benefits people in a country as much as people in a country it trades with. Tariffs only protect the particular industry they are applied to. To other industries, they just increase costs of buying the goods the tariffs are placed on and restrict their choices.

Countries don't have to sign agreements to remove tariffs. Each country decides freely whether it wants tariffs according to what benefits them. One of the factors in deciding would of course be whether other individual countries have tariffs. It would work itself out without agreements. Therefore why get bogged down with silly, binding international legislation of it?

Agreements lead to arguments. Without agreements, people and countries mind their own business and each do what individually suits them. Agreements between countries are what started WW1.

International agreements aren't actually binding. Each country has sovereignty and decides whether or not to enshrine the treaty legislatively at home or not.

Agreements can avert arguments as well as cause them.

flickad
08-06-2010, 10:57 AM
"Social democracy" is socialism. (Remember what I said about democracy - it is collectivist and coercive.) It is gradual socialism. Instead of "smashing" capitalism, our elites introduce socialist "reforms" a piece at a time in the guise of "safety nets". After they install enough "safety nets" we wind up with socialism. These "reforms" don't just act as safety nets for capitalism, they distort and undermine it and also are used to regulate it. Of course, when capitalism does go wrong, the socialists don't blame the reforms, they blame capitalism - even though it isn't free-market capitalism anymore - and then use this as an excuse to make further "reforms"; and on it goes until one day you wake up in an Orwell novel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy



Whatever the terminology, any law which protects the liberties and property of individuals is legitimate. That is good intervention.

Social democracy is actually today a hybrid system, despite its origins, and has worked extremely well in Europe, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. It is now an end in itself, rather than a system of gradualism. There is no comparison between it and a true Orwellian system, such as China and the former USSR. New Zealand, for instance, has an extremely free market and yet provides a safety net for those who slip through the cracks as well. To my mind, this creates more, not less freedom, in that there is freedom from starvation and extreme deprivation as well as the liberty that goes with a capitalist economy.

Re - contract and property law - again, it seems to me that criminalising what was formerly a civil matter creates less, not more freedom.

Re guns - I've actually changed my views quite a bit on this subject recently and see the value of being able to defend oneself with a firearm in certain sorts of sticky situations. However, when everyone is able to carry a gun, the value of carrying one is, in part, lost. A gun is an equaliser if the victim is smaller than the attacker or is dealing with a gang of attackers. But if the big person and the gang all have guns too, the ability of the victim to use his or hers in self-defence is greatly compromised.

Again, it seems much less messy - and less potentially fatal to all parties - to sort things out in court than settling matters via a gun battle.

Hopper
08-06-2010, 09:18 PM
Wow!, now I'm speechless. The incentives Michigan is offering is in the form of tax benefits to lure companies into the areas that are hardest hit by the decline of it's auto industry and where some of the highest unemployment in the nation is. The goal is to take the thousands and thousands NOT working and put them to work in VACANT factories. Not really sure how that is coercion or is "created off the backs of other industries and the workers in them". If we can take the lead in the green technology boom we can reinvigorate our economy as we did in the 90's with that tech boom.

The decline is due to long and hard government meddling in the economy and restriction and burdenning of businesses and wage earners. All that is necessary for economic recovery is to take all this away.

The "green" industries will employ people, yes, but all other industries, and all employees, will be paying for it, by purchasing all the "green" devices and services the "green" industry produces and provides. Overall, then, it's an economic loss. Only the people in that industry stand to directly gain from it. The money made by people in the green industry will reach other industries when they make purchases from them, but other industries will send that money back to to the "green" industry when they purchase from it. Any industry benefits society as a whole not by merely making money and spending it, but by producing something everyone can genuinely use to some economic advantage. Green technology provides no economic advantage - it is just a sinkhole for money and therefore a drain on the economy.


I won't even get into your comments regarding global warming and peak oil but the fact that we can increase employment by a large margin and get ourselves out from under the foot of foriegn oil is reason enough embrace projects like this.

To get out from under foreign oil producers, the U.S. need only extract it's own oil deposits. The U.S. has as much oil as Saudi Arabia. There are better ways to increase employment than create a mickey-mouse industry for them. You may as well just build a local Disneyland.

Get into these links on global warming and peak oil.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zOXmJ4jd-8
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/categories/C19
http://www.theregister.co.uk/science/environment/
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58682

There is a list of other relevant articles at the bottom of Jerome R. Corsi's article on oil

Hopper
08-06-2010, 09:53 PM
Appears that you believe international cooperation is international capitulation. Without some degree of cooperation between nations, wars are inevitable. We've had military coalitions and trade agreements from pre-history. Because of greatly increased globalization we now find needs for more countries to be involved with others. Merely because we have more acronyms does not mean that we will soon have a one world government. There is simply too much power pressure intranationally for that to occur. Wars likely would occur first.

Agreements caused wars. WW1: Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia. Russia had a treaty with Serbia, so Russia sided with Serbia. Germany had a treaty with Austria-Hungary, so Germany sided with them. It spiraled from there. Korean War: The US was a member of the UN (effectively a treaty organisation), so McArthur was asked to come over from Japan and be UN "peacekeeper" and drive North Korean invaders out of the south. Vietnam: the U.S. was a member of SEATO and this treaty was used as a justification to help South Vietnam.

That was cooperation but increased war, it didn't prevent it. Military coalitions increase war, they don't prevent it. Governments and war industries love to get into wars and coalitions increase their options.

Saying trade and military agreements are prehistoric is not a justification for them. Traveling by horse is prehistoric too. We have advanced politically and economically beyond the stage of having to make agreements and ask somebody for permission for everything we do. The founding of the U.S. was such an advance. It was the realisation that kings don't manage any better than individuals.

Countries can be involved with each other as much as they please - without making agreements. Individuals within countries can trade with each other without their governments making agreements with one another. Without the agreements, individuals in a given country can trade with foreigners more freely and so be more "involved" than they would be with those agreements in place.

Those acronyms are capitulation because the agreements countries make with them are laws. The term often used for those bodies is "institutions of global governance". So they are governments, and together they make up an international government on various activities. Further, they do not just affect international activity, but domestic activity - i.e. within them countries signed to them - as well.

Whenever you bind yourself with an agreement, you do concede some of your freedom and power. An agreement - a treaty or a contract - is law, which you are required to obey. You can choose not to make an agreement, but once you do, you must honor it.

All that is needed for international cooperation is for individuals in different countries to cooperate with one another.

Whether it is in the interests of politicians within countries to capitulate to an international body depends on what benefits them personally, not what benefits the country they are leading. Don't confuse what benefits a politician with what benefits the country - they are not the same thing. You know they are not identical in international business, so you should also know that they are not the same thing in international politics. It depends on what pays the most. It's not like they are loyal to their countries. Their domestic policies often benefit themselves and harm their country. Their foreign policies are no different. It's true that a national leader is capitulating his own power by making international agreements, but today national leaders are not the real power in our countries - they are only figureheads.

Hopper
08-06-2010, 10:13 PM
So much wrong here......
The majority of individuals have little choice of employers or working conditions.This is only true for really talented individuals whose talents/experience/knowledge corporations need; this does not apply to 99% of individuals. so how can you even imagine that as a default statement? Since when did individuals have any chance of standing up for their rights against big federally empowered corporations?

So take away the federal empowerment - the legislation.


Regulation is required for corporations, given tremendous rights well above rights given to individuals, in order to keep them from obvious explotration and acts that would be criminal if committed by an individual.


Who gives corporations those rights? Government. That is one of the reasons I oppose regulations - many of them directly favor corporations. Others indirectly favor corporations.


Are you saying that there is a need for government regulation but also a need for no regulation? Are you also one of those who say there ought to be no corporate income tax? (Maybe there is just no hope for some people.)

I say that there should be no income tax -for both individuals and corporations. I also say there should be no corporations. What were the American revolutionaries fighting? They fought the English government, because the English govenment was taxing the colonists to protect the monopolies of big corporations like the British East India company and the Hudson Bay company. Therefore when the revolutionaries were planning their constitution, they wanted to abolish the government's power to create corporations. That is how corporations are created, by government charter. They used to be created by act of parliament.

The revolutionaries later decided to allow corporations, but only for limited purposes, for limited durations, and only for clear public benefit. But those restrictions soon fell by the wayside - like everything else in the constitution. Ironically, you seem to be defending the loss of the "everything else".


You are saying that government legislation of corporations ought to be reduce or even eliminated so that "people's choices of who to buy from are" NOT restricted. Even though the suppliers "are favored and protected by government legislation"? That doesn't make any sense since it's contradictory as stated.

I'm saying that legislation of all businesses and all other individuals activity be reduced, not just legislation of corporations. That includes - especially includes - legislation which directly favors corporations. The free market itself will restrict corporations more than the government ever has. It is only government legislation which has made it possible for big corporations and to even exist and dominate the market as much as they presently do.


In a free, unregulated market (which was the case many generations ago), the results was worker exploitation, unhealthy products, unsafe working conditions, and massive pollution. That is a fact that libertarian ideology cannot erase.

We still have all of that now as you say yourself in the next paragraph below. It seems that no matter how massive we make government legislation of industry, it just keeps getting worse. Logic should lead us to ask whether that is the reason it is getting worse.


So we are't stepping over fish-heads and horse droppings now. At least those were hazards we could avoid. Now because of the complications of production technology, we have so many hidden, insidious hazards in our water, food, air, and even medicines. We have longer lives but many are lives are ridden with debilitations and long-term diseases necessitating permanent dependence on expensive medicines. Pollution surely has changed its nature but by no means has it been effectively decreased.

Are we learning yet?

Hopper
08-06-2010, 10:21 PM
THE FOLLOWING ONLY APPLIES TO UTOPIA. In the real world it is utter hogwash!

You're not just arguing with me, you are arguing with the founders of your own country and other great thinkers. Before consigning it to Utopia, we should try it in the real world. In the rare and brief times it has been, it worked a lot better than what we have now.

Hopper
08-06-2010, 10:23 PM
What we had had until very recently is akin to socialism for big corporations with their lobbyists and payoff men. You are just not seeing it due to the rose-colored glasses of your ideology.

Not seeing it? I was SAYING it. Socialism always has been for corporations.

What do you mean "until very recently"? I don't recall the government being dismantled. I couldn't have missed a change that big.

jimboe7373
08-06-2010, 10:29 PM
The decline is due to long and hard government meddling in the economy and restriction and burdenning of businesses and wage earners. All that is necessary for economic recovery is to take all this away.
Not exactly sure what you're referring to here, we are just getting out of one of the largest eras of deregulation in our history in which the government HAD to step in before the whole system collapsed.


The "green" industries will employ people, yes, but all other industries, and all employees, will be paying for it, by purchasing all the "green" devices and services the "green" industry produces and provides. Overall, then, it's an economic loss. Only the people in that industry stand to directly gain from it. The money made by people in the green industry will reach other industries when they make purchases from them, but other industries will send that money back to to the "green" industry when they purchase from it. Any industry benefits society as a whole not by merely making money and spending it, but by producing something everyone can genuinely use to some economic advantage. Green technology provides no economic advantage - it is just a sinkhole for money and therefore a drain on the economy.
I don't mean to sound rude but your reasoning here seems quite naive. First off the green products will only sell if there is a market for them. Current trends and market studies suggest the market is huge- worldwide!. The products will be for domestic as well as export sales. The green technology will provide products people can "genuinely use" and can provide "economic advantage." There are thousands of people who are using solar and selling surplus for profit. Some of them have effectively cut their electric bill by 90%. Solar swimming pool heaters are another product that saves the customer thousands of dollars and is high demand. All the unemployed people who will now be working will be paying taxes and buying products they previously had not been able to afford. This will stimulate the overall economy at multiple levels. The companies that are creating these products will pay payroll taxes, real estate taxes (many times on formerly vacant property) and money from exports will help reverse the trend of too many of our dollars leaving the U.S.



To get out from under foreign oil producers, the U.S. need only extract it's own oil deposits. The U.S. has as much oil as Saudi Arabia.
We consume 18 million barrels per day or roughly 7 billion barrels per year, we have 134 billion in estimated reserves. Assuming our need for more oil doesn't increase we have 19 years of our oil left. Most of these reserves are not easily extractible oil which means the price may go up dramatically. What do we do when the 19 years is up?. Sure, technology may find access to oil that was previously not recoverable and may increase the efficiency at which we consume but does it make sense not to explore other technlogies and use them when practical. It's 2010 and we're mapping genomes- do we really need to be using fossil fuel concepts over 100 years old?
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2174rank.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_the_United_States

Hopper
08-07-2010, 12:35 AM
Not exactly sure what you're referring to here, we are just getting out of one of the largest eras of deregulation in our history in which the government HAD to step in before the whole system collapsed.

Not true. The government deregulated certain things, but left by far most of the regulation in place and also created a lot of new regulations in other related areas which directly worsened the problem. Read the book by Thomas Woods I posted the link to above. Or just read the first chapter online.


I don't mean to sound rude but your reasoning here seems quite naive. First off the green products will only sell if there is a market for them. Current trends and market studies suggest the market is huge- worldwide!.

There is a market for them because people have been deceived into thinking they are necessary and because a lot of it is or soon will be required by "climate change" law.


The products will be for domestic as well as export sales. The green technology will provide products people can "genuinely use" and can provide "economic advantage." There are thousands of people who are using solar and selling surplus for profit. Some of them have effectively cut their electric bill by 90%. Solar swimming pool heaters are another product that saves the customer thousands of dollars and is high demand.

The U.S. won't be the only country with such an industry so won't have the global monopoly for exporting and will possible be importing too.

Solar power systems are very expensive. That is why governments are heavily subsidising them with rebates. They profit from selling power into the grid only because the government artificially increases the selling price with tariffs, to one much higher than what those same people buy it for from coal-fired power stations.

Not everybody has heated swimming pools but I guess those who can afford them can afford solar power systems too and perhaps power consumption in that range makes the purchase of one economical.


All the unemployed people who will now be working will be paying taxes and buying products they previously had not been able to afford. This will stimulate the overall economy at multiple levels. The companies that are creating these products will pay payroll taxes, real estate taxes (many times on formerly vacant property) and money from exports will help reverse the trend of too many of our dollars leaving the U.S.

This is a major economic fallacy. The money they spend on the community comes from the community in the first place. You are taking water out of one end of the pool and putting it back in at the other end and claiming you are raising the water level.


We consume 18 million barrels per day or roughly 7 billion barrels per year, we have 134 billion in estimated reserves. Assuming our need for more oil doesn't increase we have 19 years of our oil left. Most of these reserves are not easily extractible oil which means the price may go up dramatically. What do we do when the 19 years is up?. Sure, technology may find access to oil that was previously not recoverable and may increase the efficiency at which we consume but does it make sense not to explore other technlogies and use them when practical. It's 2010 and we're mapping genomes- do we really need to be using fossil fuel concepts over 100 years old?
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2174rank.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_the_United_States

We have far more oil than just enough to last 19 more years. Read those articles I linked to. The figure you stated is probably based on the fact that environmental restrictions prohibit us from recovering oil from many of the deposits that actually exist. They could also be based on wrong projections of oil use, wrong population increase projections, etc.

We will explore other technologies when we need to. When the oil really does start to become scarce it's price will go up and it will become less viable. This will be a natural incentive to find alternatives as well as to economise on usage.

Alternatives may already have been found and have been suppressed by oil interests. This is due to the power of the oil cartel, which is easily removed by removing the government powers which are exercised in favor of them. Then we may see some serious research into other, better technologies.

flickad
08-07-2010, 03:08 AM
Agreements caused wars. WW1: Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia. Russia had a treaty with Serbia, so Russia sided with Serbia. Germany had a treaty with Austria-Hungary, so Germany sided with them. It spiraled from there. Korean War: The US was a member of the UN (effectively a treaty organisation), so McArthur was asked to come over from Japan and be UN "peacekeeper" and drive North Korean invaders out of the south. Vietnam: the U.S. was a member of SEATO and this treaty was used as a justification to help South Vietnam.

That was cooperation but increased war, it didn't prevent it. Military coalitions increase war, they don't prevent it. Governments and war industries love to get into wars and coalitions increase their options.

Saying trade and military agreements are prehistoric is not a justification for them. Traveling by horse is prehistoric too. We have advanced politically and economically beyond the stage of having to make agreements and ask somebody for permission for everything we do. The founding of the U.S. was such an advance. It was the realisation that kings don't manage any better than individuals.

Countries can be involved with each other as much as they please - without making agreements. Individuals within countries can trade with each other without their governments making agreements with one another. Without the agreements, individuals in a given country can trade with foreigners more freely and so be more "involved" than they would be with those agreements in place.

Those acronyms are capitulation because the agreements countries make with them are laws. The term often used for those bodies is "institutions of global governance". So they are governments, and together they make up an international government on various activities. Further, they do not just affect international activity, but domestic activity - i.e. within them countries signed to them - as well.

Whenever you bind yourself with an agreement, you do concede some of your freedom and power. An agreement - a treaty or a contract - is law, which you are required to obey. You can choose not to make an agreement, but once you do, you must honor it.

All that is needed for international cooperation is for individuals in different countries to cooperate with one another.

Whether it is in the interests of politicians within countries to capitulate to an international body depends on what benefits them personally, not what benefits the country they are leading. Don't confuse what benefits a politician with what benefits the country - they are not the same thing. You know they are not identical in international business, so you should also know that they are not the same thing in international politics. It depends on what pays the most. It's not like they are loyal to their countries. Their domestic policies often benefit themselves and harm their country. Their foreign policies are no different. It's true that a national leader is capitulating his own power by making international agreements, but today national leaders are not the real power in our countries - they are only figureheads.

They actually aren't laws, despite the use of the global governance euphemism. They are non-binding agreements. As I said previously, each country has sovereignty and can decide whether or not to implement the agreement via legislation. Even if implemented legislatively, a parliament can not bind its successors and the law may be varied or repealed. International treaties are frequently honoured in the breach and there isn't a damned thing the other parties can do about it. The US itself has violated international treaties during the Bush regime (as has Australia), and was legally entitled to do so as a sovereign nation.

This is probably difficult to wrap your head around unless you've studied constitutional law.

flickad
08-07-2010, 03:17 AM
You're not just arguing with me, you are arguing with the founders of your own country and other great thinkers. Before consigning it to Utopia, we should try it in the real world. In the rare and brief times it has been, it worked a lot better than what we have now.

This isn't true. The founders created a constitution that allows the federal government to legislate in areas which you, given your choice, would not allow it to be involved in. For instance, there is a corporations power which is plenary.

I'd also like an example of a time and place when there was no civil law and things worked better than the way they do currently.

Hopper
08-07-2010, 03:53 AM
They actually aren't laws, despite the use of the global governance euphemism. They are non-binding agreements. As I said previously, each country has sovereignty and can decide whether or not to implement the agreement via legislation. Even if implemented legislatively, a parliament can not bind its successors and the law may be varied or repealed. International treaties are frequently honoured in the breach and there isn't a damned thing the other parties can do about it. The US itself has violated international treaties during the Bush regime (as has Australia), and was legally entitled to do so as a sovereign nation.

This is probably difficult to wrap your head around unless you've studied constitutional law.

Then why have them at all?

flickad
08-07-2010, 04:04 AM
Then why have them at all?

I think that they are symbolic as much as anything. They are entered into in the hope that all parties will implement them, but as I said, they lack the force of law. No one can sue the United States for its breach of the Geneva Convention, for instance. The government of one sovereign nation has no jurisdiction over the government of another sovereign nation.

Hopper
08-07-2010, 04:35 AM
This isn't true. The founders created a constitution that allows the federal government to legislate in areas which you, given your choice, would not allow it to be involved in. For instance, there is a corporations power which is plenary.

Maybe so but not in most of the areas it actually does legislate now. The income tax is unconstitutional. So is the Federal Reserve Act and the whole system of banking and currrency manipulation which has arisen from it. The Civil Rights Act is unconstitutional too.

It is 10% civil rights and 90% extension of Federal executive power. If this legislation becomes law and is upheld by the Courts–It will, in fact, extend Federal control over business, industry and over individuals (with a corresponding destruction of State power) in a degree that exceeds the total of such extensions of power by all judicial decisions and all Congressional actions since the Constitution of the United States was adopted.


–It will, in fact, destroy the Constitutional checks and balances between the Federal Government and the States; and

–It will, in fact, destroy the Constitutional checks and balances between the Executive branch of the Federal Government and the Legislative and Judicial branches.

–The "civil rights" aspect of this Legislation is but a cloak; uncontrolled Federal Executive power is the body.

If it is enacted, the states will be little more than local governmental agencies, existing as appendages of the central government and largely subject to its control.

This legislation assumes a totally powerful National Government with unending authority to intervene in all private affairs among men, and to control and adjust property relationships, in accordance with the judgment of Government personnel.

It is impossible to prevent Federal intervention from becoming an institutionalization of special privilege for political pressure groups.

This must lead eventually, not to greater human freedom, but to an ever-diminishing freedom.

John C. Satterfield and Lloyd Wright, "Blueprint for Total Federal Regimentation" (Washington, D.C., The Co-ordinating Committee for Fundamental Freedom, n.d.).

Lloyd and Satterfield were past presidents of the American Bar Association. Civil Rights or Human Rights legislation, so-called, actually takes away rights. The basic rights we have are liberty and private property, and "human rights" legislation serves as a pretext for the government to have unlimited control over both of these.


I'd also like an example of a time and place when there was no civil law and things worked better than the way they do currently.

I didn't mean that we should have no civil law, I meant that we should only have laws which relate to prtoection of liberties and property. Contracts relate to property - i.e. the terms under which individuals agree to exchange things.