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Consensus is the business of politics.

Exactly, darn it...

And yet, we are constantly bombarded with assertions that, though there are still perfectly valid debates in almost any other branch of science (dieting, economics, pedagogy, biology, and even computers — you name it — it is all in flux), the science of climate is "settled" and anybody doubting the line pushed by the governments must also believe, the Earth is flat.

And, for some reason, all measures proposed (and mandated) to solve the problems require the industrialized West to slow down, to not produce as much stuff, and to not enjoy themselves as much. And, for another mystery, all of the propositions lead to increased government control of both the industries and the individual lives.

Is it just, as Thomas Jefferson put it, "the natural process" of liberty yielding and government gaining ground? Or is there some foreign "help" leaning on Western academics to "settle" the branches of science, that would slow the West down and otherwise help the competing cultures prove, they aren't as inefficient as the history suggests?

Are you seriously trying to imply that the only reason to address an ebola outbreak is to score popularity points?

I personally wouldn't think so, no. But the state of play as given easily supports the notion that, despite its independent merits, it's definitely a convenient political lever as well, a.k.a. "Rahm's Rule":

TFA states somewhat in passing that this is part of a package of so-called "anomalies" to the upcoming Continuing Resolution, including, as the article coyly puts it, "additional flexibility" for border control, without providing any numbers or other details. Being the curious sort, I just spent about 10 minutes looking for the actual details on the rest of the proposal and could find only a few me-toos of TFA. One therefore might be forgiven for wondering if the administration is teeing this up as the heartstring-front-runner to put pressure on Congress to accept its entire package of spending "anomalies" that's doubtless orders of magnitude larger than $58MM.

As a matter of fact it WAS in class at school, maybe your school sucks? Here, this will get you started.

https://www.google.com/webhp?c...

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

http://www.fee.org/the_freeman...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa...

That's a pretty skewed view of political history.

Only if you're significantly myopic by limiting "history" to a tiny portion of its totality.

Try reading the histories of Standard Oil and Southern Pacific Railroad et. al.

I have, and your view is propaganda spread in government-run schools designed to support trust in government, and is not an accurate depiction at all. Most learned historians know that Standard Oil's market share was shrinking before the government went after them, and that the primary motivation for doing it was a desire for greater power by Huey Long, who had designs on the Presidency. His fame comes from taking on the supposed "boogeyman", even though competition from other oil companies was already correcting the issue before started his campaign.

when the largest corporations bought the Supreme Court

Back then, there was more money in private hands than government. So I can't imagine why they would want the SCOTUS unless they got it for firesale prices, so you'll have to provide some citation for that. The specific case you cite (both in Wikipedia AND a progressive propaganda site that promotes Democracy because they think minorities are always wrong), was correct on the law. There was no reason to treat corporate deductions for mortgages different than individuals, based on the rule of law. The real issue (which the court didn't address), was the congress using revenue raising powers for behavior modification, a problem worse today than ever, with a tax code so complicated even the professionals can't follow it all.

Those who perpetuate the myth of government oppression are either ignorant of corporate history, are willfully recalcitrant about corporate malfeasance, are merely regurgitating corporate propaganda or are themselves blind to the foundation of western capitalism- personal self-interest and greed.

You're and indoctrinated, statist piece of shit. There is no educating useful idiots like you. Go worship on the alter of totalitarian government, and good luck to you. Why not try North Korea. They have EXACTLY what you're looking for already implemented.

That's a red herring. First, the proper point of comparison would be cost per mile per year per capacity. Second, roads get an even bigger taxpayer subsidy than rails do!

Why per capacity and not actual usage? Anyway, you're drastically underestimating the capacity of roads. If everybody with a car got in and pulled out of their driveways, we'd have a significant part of the population on the roads simultaneously taking up a tiny fraction of the capacity (i.e. the space in front of their driveway).

According to http://www.fee.org/the_freeman... the subsidy per passenger-mile is less for cars than for rail and for public transportation in general.

The picture was pretty complex as it turns out - there was a lot going on. But I wouldn't be surprised that the flu outbreak could have had a major impact. The economy was horse driven at the time. Imagine if cars could catch the flu and you couldn't drive them, or they even "died." That could be very disruptive to many sectors of the economy.

The Long Depression (1873-1878)

The period following the Civil War in the United States from 1865-1873 is generally considered one of economic prosperity. Northern owners of industry and bankers had become wealthy in the war, while cotton exports in the south within the U.S. and abroad met the growing demands of foreign manufacturing for raw materials. In addition to a developing of manufacturing at home and abroad, technological innovations led to improvements in mining, agriculture, and infrastructure.

The Economic Costs of the Civil War

The first and most important point is that the Civil War was expensive. In 1860 the U.S. national debt was $65 million. To put that in perspective, the national debt in 1789, the year George Washington took office, was $77 million. In other words, from 1789 to 1860, the United States spanned the continent, fought two major wars, and began its industrial growth—all the while reducing its national debt.

We had limited government, few federal expenses, and low taxes. In 1860, on the eve of war, almost all federal revenue derived from the tariff. We had no income tax, no estate tax, and no excise taxes. Even the hated whiskey tax was gone. We had seemingly fulfilled Thomas Jefferson’s vision: “What farmer, what mechanic, what laborer ever sees a tax-gatherer of the United States?”

Four years of civil war changed all that forever. In 1865 the national debt stood at $2.7 billion. Just the annual interest on that debt was more than twice our entire national budget in 1860. In fact, that Civil War debt is almost twice what the federal government spent before 1860.

What’s worse, Jefferson’s vision had become a nightmare. The United States had a progressive income tax, an estate tax, and excise taxes as well. The revenue department had greatly expanded, and tax-gatherers were a big part of the federal bureaucracy.

Furthermore, our currency was tainted. The Union government had issued more than $430 million in paper money (greenbacks) and demanded it be legal tender for all debts. No gold backed the notes.

exactly. Alos lets not forget that at the time of ford, most parts on a car were off patened and they made it very dificult for new automakers to come in (in a way not much different than today re tesla) There are some interesting reads about how ford went about getting around it to start his company, I just pulled this one up but there are many more http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/how-henry-ford-zapped-a-licensing-monopoly#axzz2omaK6uK7

And, while I agree that the ATF has badly bungled the whole Waco fiasco, I have zero compassion for <strike>religious nuts</strike human beings.

I fixed that for ya, bud. With all respect, please take your demonization and arrogant intolerance, and stuff it.

I don't know if Mr. Ulbricht's bitcoins have been improperly seized or not, but I do know that property is seized all the time in the US from people who have not been found guilty of a crime. Funny, I don't find authorization for anything of the kind in my copy of the Constitution. In fact, mine says "No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law".

But I rather expect your conception of due process of law is rather different than mine.

There was less personal privacy in pretty much all spheres of life under communist rule, before you even begin considering personal liberty, and the economic system was a failure to boot.

The Collapse of Communist Economic Theory - APRIL 01, 1961

Factory managers in Russia are examined once a year on political theory. To hold his job, a manager must qualify anew every year in "Dialectical and Historical Materialism," and in "The History of the Communist Party." His compulsory reading list includes 64 official textbooks, plus 93 selections from Lenin, 11 from Engles, 24 from Marx, 13 from Stalin, 14 from Khrushchev, and one from Mao Tse-tung. It is easy to imagine what happens to Russian production when every factory manager is occupied with these predetermined studies as the prime vehicle of his bureaucratic advancement.

Every factory manager has but one aim in life—to make this month’s production quota. His entire career, and all his incentive bonuses, are based on annual quota accomplishment. On this score, another reputable American economist reported: "The incentive system also encourages falsification of records, the hoarding of labor and supplies, and numerous unusual activities such as working employees on a Sunday and giving them a day off in the following month"

This general pattern of phony quota-making has resulted in a broad panorama of totally unreliable production statistics from every sector of the Bolshevik economy.

Russian labor is regimented in a measure which kills all striving for excellence. Trained workers are in short supply in every line of production, and in-plant incentives often are discouraged by meticulously designed production norms delivered by Gosplan, Moscow, for every factory operation.

Communist China is still in business, so to speak, despite the pervasive surveillance of its police state. Why?

China's rising GDP and economic miracle (Follow link to see graph)

The seeds of China's rapid economic growth since the 1990s were first planted back in 1978 when the Communist Party started to introduce capitalist market principles, initially in the agricultural sector.

There is an open question about how long Europe will be able to continue under its current arrangements. They are facing long term problems with their economies, social policy, and demographics. European governments have been shown to engage in spying as well.

The US government substantially worsened the housing bubble by one set of actions, and slowed the recovery by others. Politics prevented reforms that could have stopped the government intervention leading to the first problem, and is directly resulting in the second.

Since you are marginally "on topic" today....

Circa 1961: The Collapse of Communist Economic Theory

Factory managers in Russia are examined once a year on political theory. To hold his job, a manager must qualify anew every year in "Dialectical and Historical Materialism," and in "The History of the Communist Party." His compulsory reading list includes 64 official textbooks, plus 93 selections from Lenin, 11 from Engles, 24 from Marx, 13 from Stalin, 14 from Khrushchev, and one from Mao Tse-tung. It is easy to imagine what happens to Russian production when every factory manager is occupied with these predetermined studies as the prime vehicle of his bureaucratic advancement.

Every factory manager has but one aim in life—to make this month’s production quota. His entire career, and all his incentive bonuses, are based on annual quota accomplishment. On this score, another reputable American economist reported:

"The incentive system also encourages falsification of records, the hoarding of labor and supplies, and numerous unusual activities such as working employees on a Sunday and giving them a day off in the following month"

This general pattern of phony quota-making has resulted in a broad panorama of totally unreliable production statistics from every sector of the Bolshevik economy.

I have another reason for opposing Obamacare: It is immoral. "Thou shalt not steal'"

Suppose you woke up tomorrow and the Constable was towing away your car.

The reason is that the widow woman down the street can't afford to buy one, she needs one to go to work, and yours is handy. Besides, you have job, you have money, you can obviously buy another if you want. Are you happy now? Are you better off now? Is Society better off?

And since the Constable and title people don't work for nothing, about every 5th car they seize must be sold to pay their expenses.

And here's the kicker: If YOU seized someone else's car to give to another less-privileged person, you would be arrested for theft.

IMO, since you cannot authorize another person to do something that would be illegal for you to do, you cannot authorize government to do it either.

So, one of my favorite stories is about Davy Crockett's "Not yours to give" speech to Congress: http://www.fee.org/library/detail/not-your-to-give-2#axzz2k1CYkjKQ

Unfortunately, it is not true: http://crockettincongress.blogspot.com/2009/10/not-yours-to-give-fable-re-examined.html

However, the proposition and conclusions seem to be correct, and I agree with the sentiment.

We had affordable medical care once.

-jcr

But was The Jungle anywhere close to true? It does not seem so.


Instead, some of these same historians dwell on the Neill-Reynolds Report of the same year because it at least tentatively supported Sinclair. It turns out that neither Neill nor Reynolds had any experience in the meatpacking business and spent a grand total of two and one-half weeks in the spring of 1906 investigating and preparing what turned out to be a carelessly-written report with preconceived conclusions. Gabriel Kolko, a socialist but nonetheless an historian with a respect for facts, dismisses Sinclair as a propagandist and assails Neill and Reynolds as “two inexperienced Washington bureaucrats who freely admitted they knew nothing”8 of the meatpacking process. Their own subsequent testimony revealed that they had gone to Chicago with the intention of finding fault with industry practices so as to get a new inspection law passed.9
9. U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Agriculture, Hearings on the So-called “Beveridge Amendment” to the Agriculture Appropriation Bill, 59th Congress, 1st Session, 1906, p. 102
Read more: http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/ideas-and-consequences-of-meat-and-myth#ixzz2gK8kSBB9

“The Jungle” is a pure work of fiction. It has absolutely no basis in reality. A 1906 report by the Bureau of Animal Industry refuted Sinclair’s severest allegations, characterizing them as “intentionally misleading and false,” “willful and deliberate misrepresentations of fact,” and “utter absurdity.” Quoting Mr. Crumpacker on Sinclair’s allegations of diseased meats, “the chief inspector said there was not a single animal that went into the slaughterhouses that was not inspected before it went on foot; and if one was diseased, had a lumpy jaw, or appeared to be out of condition, he was separated, and then a skilled veterinarian made a thorough examination of that animal after the rest had been passed; and then they had inspection on the inside.”
Read more at http://www.libertariannews.org/2010/09/17/meat-packers-rape-you-and-you-love-it/

Yes, we get that Bitcoin is potentially useful for tax evasion. Can you spell out why that is socially desirable?

There are massive arguments in favour of tax havens. Most effect and help people who don't use them more then you would ever think.
The biggest one in my opinion is that it creates competition for governments. You might think this is a bad thing if you are a big and unwieldy government, who isn't providing visible value for the taxation. But if you are a normal person, then it means that there is downward pressure on the government to provide value for the money it is stealing from its citizenry.
Forbes: Why Tax Havens Are A Force For Good
CATO Institute: Why Tax Havens Are a Blessing
Foundation for Economic Education: In Praise of Tax Havens

I don't think I can agree with you on that. People gravitate toward their interests, not just to what they feel comfortable with. That often results in picking up ever more rarified knowledge, or higher skills. In my experience that can provide plenty of challenge. There are also plenty of people that will strike out in a totally new direction just to learn something about a topic or to acquire a new skill.

People often joke about basket weaving classes, but it is a useful skill with a significant knowledge base and many skills to learn. If you care to master all aspects of the craft there is much to learn about different materials and preparation techniques, suitable construction methods with different materials, etc.

Consider the humble pencil in this classic: I, Pencil

Yay, fascism.

http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/herbert-dow-and-predatory-pricing#axzz2OIXQkkrp

Lamps were not heat, and the amount of houses that could afford to burn whale oil for heat was almost zero. Kerosine and Coal, okay I'll give you that however: Coal was usually burned in addition to wood in the same stoves at least early on. Kerosene was a bit more affordable later, but the majority of housing went from wood/coal burning stoves to Gas/Diesel/Electric furnaces.

As I previously mentioned, transportation did change. To imply we have to move from gasoline cars to horses is not realistic though is it? Not that this was your point, but it is implied.

As to the horse crisis, it was not exponential growth. It was a problem I admit, but London was able to manage with more horses than NYC. Remember that manure was sold off, and often used as heating fuel by the poorer areas. The issue with horses was not just with the manure (which as as mentioned mostly recycled) but the space required to stable them and the farmland required to feed them. This article sums up the problem rather well in my opinion

http://www.fee.org/nff/the-myth-of-the-robber-barons/

I think the point being made by the GP is that if government was kept to its proper place, you wouldn't have favorable treatment, or government contracts. This point was made by Bastiat in the 1800s: http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/The_Law.pdf

When government has control over each and every industry, then the "success" of anyone engaging in those industries is just as much driven by how much value they provide, as how much political clout they wield. If anything our "best and strongest years" represented a transition from the wartime controlled economy to more liberty - to use that as a reason to return to a war economy or a 90% tax rate is to miss the point of the post-war prosperity we enjoyed.

At the end of the day, you've got to come up with some rationale for why you think a politician can provide more value for you than someone competing in a free market, if you're going to suggest that the government should rightfully be a primary driver of the economy. You're right to point out that both the commercial sector and government can be negative forces, but in end, in the commercial sector, providing value produces success, and in the government, political influence produces success. Which driver would you rather have?

you are copying and pasting Wired's content

Wow, considering there are only 7 words there, it's amazing that you managed to fit at least four logic errors in there!

First of all, the text does not "belong" to anyone - Wired may (or may not, see point 2) have a limited legal right to prevent copying of the text, but that does not equate to ownership of the material - and it's dangerous to think that it does.

Second, the copyright doesn't necessarily belong to Wired - it could belong to one (or more) of their authors or contributors, or even one of their advertisers.

Third, this has nothing to do with copying. If you read the fscking summary, you'll see that this invasion of privacy takes place even if the text is never copied to the clipboard.

Fourth, as it has nothing to do with copying, it also has nothing to do with pasting.

Is there any level at which collective action (otherwise known as 'government') is a good thing?

Yes. The legitimate function of government is to secure our rights. Bastiat did a very fine job of explaining this in The Law.

The private sector exists to give you as little value for your dollar as you can be convinced to accept.

If you actually believe that, then you should never be in charge of a business.

The government is an agent working on your behalf.

It seems that you're confusing what a government is supposed to be, with what it actually is.

-jcr

Other folks on here think copyright should be more like regular property laws.

Except that copyright actually conflicts with regular property laws by preventing an owner from crafting his own property into certain objects.

It's Henry Hazlitt's Economics in one lesson

Geez, I think I slashdotted the other guy's site. Better watch my back from now on. :-)

There's another way to look at this that makes a lot more sense: intellectual property law subsidizes monolithic methods of information distribution. The music, publishing, software, and movie industries are all deeply distorted by this intervention, and widespread information technology is eating into their subsidies. These markets have been so distorted for so long (since 1787, as a matter of fact!) that the massive enterprises which control them have no incentive to come up with new distribution mechanisms that compensate and still guarantee some form of income. They're so big and well-entrenched that they can simply exercise influence with the central government, destroying rather than creating.

Hell, the concept that people deserve economic rent from this artificial form of property is so deep-set that you, an average Joe on the street, accepts it at face value without considering how society can evolve to jettison it, now that it threatens to become overtly harmful. Kevin Carson has a good article on such institutions of social engineering here: http://www.fee.org/Publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=8271 that might get you thinking.

Please see this article.

He isn't saying every single person be a fire-fighter. He's saying, let fire departments be a private business, and not propped up by taxes. It's a service. Not a fundamental right.

If you don't want to pay for the fire station's fees, then you miss out on that service.

Easy, simple, and is working in many cities in America just fine, thank you.

This is two thirds correct. Juries also have the responsibility to decide laws, it's called Jury Nullification. Ultimately it's the jury that has the ultimate power. If a juror believes a law is bad or wrong it's the juror's duty to nullify the law.

Actually if you get called for jury duty but you don't want to be picked to serve on a jury then during questioning all you have to say is you believe in jury nullification. That' basically an automatic disqualification. Though it's part of the founding of the USA most judges and prosecutors try to avoid those who know about it, because it reduces their power. John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, said "The Jury has the right to judge both the law and the fact in controversy."

You do know that we got our idea of a Republic from the Iriquois Confederacy, right? Obviously, you didn't get very accurate or in depth "native American heritage".

I haven't ever heard that, but admittedly I don't know a whole lot about Native American heritage. I assumed that our idea of a Republic came from Greek, Roman, and European sources. What evidence is there that it stemmed directly from the Iroquois?

• "In 1727 political theorist and scholar Cadwallader Colden wrote of the Iroquois Confederacy: "The Five Nations have such absolute Notions of Liberty that they allow no Kind of Superiority of one over another, and banish all Servitude from their Territories."[3] The five nations of what is today the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York--the Onondagas, the Senecas, the Mohawks, the Cayugas, and the Oneidas--had ended their intertribal warfare and formed a federal union in approximately 1200. The constitution uniting the nations was called Kaianrekowa, the Great Law of Peace. Recorded and preserved in wampum, this document codified laws for each nation, rules for the confederacy, and consistent rights protection for all citizens. National membership remained open, and other peoples joined the confederacy. The northeastern body eventually became known as the Six Nations after the formal addition of the Tuscaroras around 1714."
• "Book Review: Great Law v. Handsome Lake Code"
• Mohawk Nation News: Great Law and the Handsome Lake Code

The idea of the form of government came from the Iroquois Confederacy however while the Iroquois also had liberty the liberty envisioned by the USA's Founding Fathers especially with Thomas Jefferson was grounded in the Age of Enlightenment in Europe.

Because it's immoral.
The Immorality of Antitrust Law

Although the potatoes died because of the blight, the famine was caused by the corn laws:

http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=2019

The situation of Irish tenant-farmers explains how the failure of a single crop could devastate an entire country. Since most of the farmland in Ireland belonged to a few wealthy English and Irish landowners, the majority of the Irish agricultural population did not own land and had to trade their labor for the use of a dwelling and a garden plot. Although some of these tenant-farmers paid rent by raising and selling a pig, many worked in their landlords' fields of oats, rye, or other grains. For their own families they planted only potatoes, which cost little and yielded more food per acre than most other crops (Woodham-Smith, p. 35). Also, potatoes thrived on this rented land: ground unfit for the landowners' grain or animals (Green, p. 103).

For most rural laborers, then, their potato crop was the only source of food. Tenant-farmers lived in constant danger of famine, not only because they depended upon a single article of food, but also because the potato "in its very nature [is] peculiarly liable to fail in certain seasons" (O'Brien, p. 223). The crisis that began in 1845 was not Ireland's first potato famine. An 1851 census reported that the potato crop had failed in some degree at least 24 times since 1739 (Woodham-Smith, p. 38). Every summer more than two million people went hungry until the new crop came in (Woodham-Smith, p. 165). So the failure of the potato crop yearly from 1845 to 1851 greatly increased the misery of a country already burdened by extreme poverty.

Although historians emphasize Parliament's free market stance, the best way to describe the British economy of 1845 is that it was a fusion of free market principles and certain govern mental interventionist measures. Parliament's critics assert that free market policies increased the ill effects of the famine. Yet evidence shows that government intervention in the form of the corn laws, the navigation laws, and the poor laws intensified Ireland's difficulties.

When the potato crop failed, Parliament adhered to free market principles by refusing to close Ireland's ports. Critics insist that Parliament should have prevented the export of other crops, arguing that the Irish people should have benefited from Irish produce. However, not only did those crops rightfully belong to the landowners, they were also needed to feed English laborers (O'Neill, p. 257). If Parliament had closed Irish ports, famine, rather than being prevented, would have been transferred from Ireland to England. The suggestion that the government buy Ireland's produce and distribute it among the Irish would have solved the problem of paying the landlords (Woodham-Smith, p. 75), but not the problem of feeding the English laborers.

Yet the corn laws and the navigation laws show that Parliament was less dedicated to the free market than many historians would indicate (O'Brien, pp. 265-6). The corn laws, passed to protect British agriculture, kept the price of grain artificially high by imposing tariffs on imported grain. The navigation laws protected the British shipping industry. Under these laws, only British ships could carry goods into British ports.

Such protectionist measures worked against both the English laborer and the Irish tenant- farmer. The corn laws increased the price that the English laborers paid for food. And while thousands of Irishmen were dying of starvation, food that private societies in the United States had sent to distribute to the Irish could not go directly to Ireland. It first had to be transferred to a British ship, increasing the cost of aiding the needy and lengthening the time that starving people had to do without food (O'Brien, p. 266). The combination of the corn laws and the navigation laws made it unprofitable for foreign markets t

You assume that the Founding Fathers intended for 90% of the government to come from local/state level, it might even be correct. However, the question is not what were their intentions but what is written in the constitution. By the way, they also intended for black people to be slaves and for women to have no vote, do you think anyone who think differently should not be entitled to vote? You might not say there is only one correct way to do things, but you definitly say there is a very small number of ways, and they can't be very different from yours.

I know of no writings left by the Founding Fathers where they stated that they believed slavery was right; I personally tend to believe that they realized they could not win that battle (look how long it took for the abolition movement to succeed) and focused pragmatically on what was within their power to achieve but I have not seen much evidence on this either way. Also, when it is studied objectively, it has been found that allowing women to vote may not be the best idea, because they tend to value security more than freedom and the type of security that government has to offer is a very dangerous thing. Please see the studies; there are very strong correlations between granting women suffrage and the expansion of the size and power of government. Some links: A brief summary that mentions this same belief, shared by a woman, a paper by John Lott on the subject (I believe this one is originally from here) and a general, light read on why big government is a bad idea here. You will find, however, that this is a subject where the facts tend not to reflect what people want to hear, and (because people often act like spoiled children when this is the case) it's hard to have a discussion about it in which people actually stick to facts and logic.

Regarding the "very small number of ways", I didn't just make this up in a vacuum, you know. Study a little history and you will find it plainly evident that every nation which has ever become a police state or a fascist dictatorship did so by allowing its government to become too large and too powerful and too involved in the everyday lives of its citizens and by considered myriad things other than defense, public works, and law enforcement to be its business. The idea is so simple. When an organ in the body carries out its function and serves the rest of the body (when the heart's only concern is pumping blood, when the lungs' only concern is respiration, etc.), that body is healthy; when an organ draws a disproportionate share of resources and multiplies its cells beyond what is necessary for its function, it grows out of control, concerns itself only with its own perpetuation, and becomes a cancer that threatens to kill the rest of the body. Likewise, government does the same and becomes a parasite feeding on its own people when it becomes the all-important solution to every problem and starts making decisions for its people when there is no legitimate public interest in doing so (although plenty of busybodies will invent such reasons to satisfy their need to control others), such as when it attempts to tell consenting adults what they may and may not do in their own homes.

As for income tax, it allows you a higher level of taxation over those who can handle it (that is, relatively rich people). This allows Capitalism to work, without an income tax, the ever-growing income differences will make one of the two systems collapse - the Democracy or the Capitalism. You could get the same effect from sales tax, but only if you make it progressive by different levels of taxation on different products, so basic products will be (at least, almost) tax free, and luxuries will be taxed heavily.

I am not eager to force anyone to do anything. That is exactly why I oppose the public funding of all services. Socialists, on the other hand, are eager to force their morals on everyone possible. It is well known that economic freedom is the single most important factor in reducing poverty. When governments stick to protecting life, liberty, and property, there is more prosperity than there would otherwise be; poor included. The best way to reduce poverty is through allowing this individual choice.

http://www.fee.org/in_brief/default.asp?id=1568
http://www.mises.org/efandi.asp

That's why people proposing drastic action need to ask Climate Change: What if They're Right?.

Where I am in east TN, it used to be just Comcast offering cable and cable internet services. As a result, their internet service was like $70/mo, and their cable TV was way overpriced.

Since several more cable providers have moved into the area, they all have roughly the same price, which is around $30-40 for internet service.

Now what could POSSIBLY warrant a $30/month drop in price for Comcast? Competition, maybe?

The only way they'd be in competition is you could pick cable service from one or more of 3 (you did say several came into the area) or more cable companies.

(That article notes that Henderson, TN has comeptition, but that's west TN, not where you live, in east TN).

I have trouble believing it. Very few markets have two providers. Three would be a miracle.

I do believe that DSL and/or broadband wireless are driving your cable TV internet service down, so competition is working for you, but not in the cable TV market.

Nonetheless, as the article says, cable TV rates drop when there is competition.

As an aside, I lived for a few years in the early 1980s in a market in Orange County, FL (which the link I gave mentions as competitive), and will say the the prices, customer service, and channel selection were excellent.

Where I live now in Colorado, a few years the city allowed cable TV competition, but stipulated that the newcomer had to provide 100% coverage of the city before they'd get a franchise. Needless to say, the newcomer said thanks but no thanks. Idiot governments.

Poverty - Destitution has been virtually eliminated in North America and Europe. While there are still some homelessness, most of it is caused by chemical dependency and mental illness.

Famine - Primarily caused by the government! There has not once been a famine in the United States. Even in the midst of the Dust Bowl we didn't have a famine. See African Famine for more information. And yes, that site is biased. What did you expect me to do, give you a link from the Karl Marx home page?

Forced relocation - The Japanese internment was indeed an unfortunate (and tyrannical) event. But it was not the result of capitalism, but the result of ignorance. On the other hand, a lot of forced relocations around the world are done for "economic" reasons under communist regimes. At least that's the stated reason.

Gulags - Camp X-Ray, while extemely unfortunate, houses prisoners of war. I'll even grant you the point that many of them are best described as political prisoners instead of military combatants. However, there are no *economic* prisoners. No one is there for opening up a fruit stand, competing "unfairly", refusing to hire the party chairman's son, etc. Hell, you can't even find any tax cheats at Gitmo! So don't compare it to the Gulag.

Slavery, subjugation, murder. Yes, we made mistakes in the past. Today these acts are crimes. Not national policy, but crimes. Not the normal economic way that capitalists sell their goods in the free market, but crimes. Crimes.

No one is claiming that capitalism is perfect. But the half-assed micro-managed statist versions of it in North America and western Europe have never been as totalitarian as any communist state.

The truth about the Great Depression is that the government got us into it and the government kept us in it. The postwar boom was fifteen years of catching up.

A quick link to a F.E.E. article: The Mysteries of the Great Depression Finally Solved

Gates is to be commended for this. He's no slouch when it comes to spreading the wealth around.

I tend to agree with your remarks regarding libertarianism, especially since I'm going to a state supported college right now, on Federal loans and grants! And I've received unemployment in the past, and food stamps, etc., etc. Oh, yes - I'm driving around on Federal and State highways, in a truck that is subject to Federal standards, when I don't take the bus, which is partly paid for by a tax on local business and partly with Federal support.

I don't consider myself Libertarian, although most of the folks here where I live on the Left Coast consider me a reactionary neo-fascist conservative. I've taken the tests, and come out as Centrist every time.

The Libertarians do have a point. Frederick Bastiat, a primary source for the libertarian philosphy, noted that law is "the collective organization of the individual right to lawfull defense." ("The Law", translation pub. 1998, Foundation for Economic Education - I was kindly given my copy by The Cato Institute - I looked for it on their website but found it in every language except English.) He argues that, since government is given the right to govern by those who are governed, the government cannot have any rights not given to an individual. Since an individual cannot lawfully use force against another person to get his way, neither can the government. This reasoning has merit.

Pragmatically, Libertarians argue that all these great services could be done without the government's intrusiveness, and that theft by government pervert's the individual's moral sense, encouraging private theft.

In my (prgamatic) view, "the thief you will always have with you". Those who seek to exploit or control others (for noble or ignoble reasons) will gravitate to whatever system is dominant, so the system has to continually evolve. In the late 1800's private enterprise was seens as the salvation against government corruption; in the early 1900's professional bureaucratic government was seen as the salvation against the greedy robber-baron capitalists. The tension between private and public institutions can act as a tool to prevent either from getting too blatant.

I tend to agree with your remarks regarding libertarianism, especially since I'm going to a state supported college right now, on Federal loans and grants! And I've received unemployment in the past, and food stamps, etc., etc. Oh, yes - I'm driving around on Federal and State highways, in a truck that is subject to Federal standards, when I don't take the bus, which is partly paid for by a tax on local business and partly with Federal support.

I don't consider myself Libertarian, although most of the folks here where I live on the Left Coast consider me a reactionary neo-fascist conservative. I've taken the tests, and come out as Centrist every time.

The Libertarians do have a point. Frederick Bastiat, a primary source for the libertarian philosphy, noted that law is "the collective organization of the individual right to lawfull defense." ("The Law", translation pub. 1998, Foundation for Economic Education - I was kindly given my copy by The Cato Institute - I looked for it on their website but found it in every language except English.) He argues that, since government is given the right to govern by those who are governed, the government cannot have any rights not given to an individual. Since an individual cannot lawfully use force against another person to get his way, neither can the government. This reasoning has merit.

Pragmatically, Libertarians argue that all these great services could be done without the government's intrusiveness, and that theft by government pervert's the individual's moral sense, encouraging private theft.

In my (prgamatic) view, "the thief you will always have with you". Those who seek to exploit or control others (for noble or ignoble reasons) will gravitate to whatever system is dominant, so the system has to continually evolve. In the late 1800's private enterprise was seens as the salvation against government corruption; in the early 1900's professional bureaucratic government was seen as the salvation against the greedy robber-baron capitalists. The tension between private and public institutions can act as a tool to prevent either from getting too blatant.

Smith set forth two linked and indispensable conditions to be met if the economic system he described were to work: There must be free movement for all in the system so that each man might seek the best opportunity for his labor or resources. And there must be free competition among all, for the buyer's shilling, for markets, for labor and for jobs. There must be no monopolies or combinations in restraint of trade or limiting entry into new fields, and no government-granted privileges for a favored few.

To me, it's not about ideology ("free markets" or whatever), it's about worldview. Have you read the Wired article on Indian progammers? It's got both sides of the story. These aren't faceless foreign devils, they're ambitious, well-educated, talented people who are doing a job cheaper than we can do it. Our character will be shown by whether we face this challenge openly, with optimisim, or as defeatist isolationists.

"Buy American" campaigns won't work, whether it's cars, VCRs, or progamming labor. Capital and labor mobility have been the norm for the past couple of centuries. That means that when labor is too expensive, either jobs or workers will move across borders.

The wages some of those unemployed 9% of American programmers want exceed the demand for their labor. Dell sells more PCs than Alienware. That doesn't mean Dell should be restricted from selling its low price PCs so Alienware can sell more of its expensive systems.

I'm not necessarily a total advocate of the way these immigration programs work. But it's better than nothing for foreign workers who get better jobs here. Do you think idle workers in "third world" countries shouldn't be allowed to move to where their skills can be best applied? How can the global economic engine not benefit from India's enormous idle labor pool being put into gear?

Correction to myself: Trade deficits exist, but they are not inherently harmful.

See here.

See here.

See here.

See here.

Most importantly, read this entire CBO report on the effects of NAFTA.

Correction to myself: Trade deficits exist, but they are not inherently harmful.

See here.

See here.

See here.

See here.

Most importantly, read this entire CBO report on the effects of NAFTA.

Hey, it's not entirely implausible. Congress still has the power to issue "letters of marque", which are basically licenses to be a pirate.

These are two different questions. The 'value of a human life' is something intangible.

The price, or dollar cost of saving a human life, on the other hand, is generally accepted to average between $3 million to $7 million USD, according to studies on how much people pay for safety devices, and how much income they are willing to sacrifice by taking safer jobs, and insurance costs.

That is to say, statistically speaking, in the marketplace, a TOTAL cost of up to $3 million to $7 million to save a life is generally acceptable (the cost to a single individual might be a fraction of a cent or two; it's spread out over everybody). That's the marginal value of saving a human life.

What's interesting is the idea that many government regulations impose a far greater cost per life saved than this marginal value. For example, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations on benzene storage are estimated to cost $260 million per life saved. So it can be argued that actually, these regulations are (from the economic perspective) actually costing more lives than they are saving, through the reduction of wealth and the consequent loss of life expectancy.

Here's a succinct article on this subject. Please note that this analysis is purely from an economist's viewpoint, and not from any moral or ethical stance.

I work for a nonprofit, charity dependent group, so I know a bit about what it takes to get money to the people who can best use it. My recommendation is to look for smaller organizations (not the bloated bureaucratic machines that dominate the infomertial world) and those which are known for having strict accountability. Even though I'm not religious, I would recomend giving to church-based charities simply because they are less likely to fall prey to moral impropriety and squander the funds. Also, organizations which do not have endowments also tend to be more responsible and responsive to donor preferences -- they live very hand-to-mouth and thus tend to work a lot more efficiently. And lastly, any organization that has been privately organized by an individual or set of individuals with their own funds tends to be a good investment. When someone decides to put their money into starting up a non-profit (assuming its not just some lame tax-shelter) and perhaps even dropping their career in order to devote their attention to it full-time, there's a good chance that they're serious about helping people.
Anyhow, I'm happy to offer specific suggestions if anyone's interested. And if your giving interests are in the realm of education, I can definitely point you to some people who are doing good work and can always use some help (and, no, I'm not just plugging my own group -- I don't work in dev. so I can be a bit more honest about it). Email me.

So, you won't explain why you don't think that the DoJ prosecution of Microsoft was political in origin?

But, to be fair, yes, my claim is the one that requires support. Previously, I missed out on the opportunity to explain and support this (I wasn't at the computer for a couple of days, and I didn't think anyone would actually SEE the reply), so I will do so now, briefly.

Before the anti-trust case, Microsoft avoided both the subtler and grosser forms of lobbying and contributing money to politicians.

Until a few years ago, Microsoft proudly refused to open a Washington office. Oddly, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman viewed this as demonstrating contempt for "rules and institutions."

From "Social Engineering by Legal Brief", The Washington Times, HTMLed here.

In contrast, the instigating companies in the case all happened to come from states (particularly California) with much more Congressional clout than Washington. Orrin Hatch, the Senator from Utah (the home of Novell) chaired the hearings where he personally blasted Microsoft and Bill Gates.

As pointed out in "Texas Swing", which appeared in the August/September 1998 issue of Reason, it's silly to try to pretend that anti-trust proceedings are disinterested government actions. Like most actions in our government, they involve the advancement of personal and corporate agendas and the application of political leverage in the form of favors and political contributions. Essentially, this entire trial is a big political favor to some of Microsoft's competitiors that also serves to promote the career of Joel Klein, one of the most active (and hence, famous) heads of the DoJ Antitrust Division in decades. (It's had little benefit to anyone else trying to jump on the bandwagon, and in fact, G.W. Bush got a little boost in the polls from announcing his opposition to the whole thing.) "The New Trustbusters" from the March 1999 Reason gives an interesting look at the curious history of antitrust, but more usefully, at its present application by those such as Klein. "Barbarians at Bill Gates" from the web site of the Foundation for Economic Education expands some of the points from that article with regards to MS's case.

Ultimately, this trial is a joke. The actions Microsoft is being punished for are only considered crimes because Microsoft holds a "monopoly" (meaning that it has no competition). This accusation of monopoly was brought by its competitors, of course. The trial showed that the presiding judge was biased against MS from the start, and the proposed and actual "remedies" wouldn't do anything to remove a monopoly if it really existed. (Or does anyone actually have a cogent explanation of how, if Windows is a monopoly, spinning it off into its own company will stop it from being a monopoly?)

What really gets me about this is that Linux and other forces would have brought down Microsoft in the marketplace in about the same timeframe this case will, assuming it doesn't get thrown out. And now, of course, when Windows slips from its current dominant position in (desktop intel-based system) OSes, as Lotus slipped away from its dominant position in spreadsheets years ago, interventionists will claim it was somehow due to the trial and not the workings of the free market. And Joel Klein will claim credit for that for the rest of his life.

even intelligent and concerned consumers cannot really understand the full implications of the products they buy...

Yes they can. They look at the price of one thing, and compare it to the price of another. AS LONG as everyone's property rights are recognized, and air and water pollution is paid for by those producing it, then all the social and environmental factors can be considered just by comparing prices.

You should read Leonard Read's "I, Pencil".
-russ

You're right about one thing:

nobody has a decent idea of how to fairly organize really large groups of people

But capitalism isn't a "body" or a "union" or even a "corporation". Capitalism is a natural(1) system that promotes the common good without requiring the compulsion, or compliance, or even the knowledge of any of its participants. Read about Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand", or Leonard Read's "I, Pencil".

(For the benefit of greenrd:)

1. Natural (system): In this context, any social structure that arises out of the self-interest of each of the participants. This is in contrast with "managed" systems that are planned and organized by a single person, or by a committee that is small in comparison with the total number of participants.