If they devalue, they earn the same US dollars, but pay less in wages and also for any raw materials that are sourced locally. So their profit margins go up, at least temporarily, until the resulting inflation starts pushing up wages and local prices.
Doesn't work that way. If they devalue relative to other currencies, the foreign exchange changes but in the short term, the internal value is approximately the same until the internal economy adjusts.
So relatively speaking, they'd actually be bringing in more $ (relative to their own currency), but paying the same for wages and domestic raw materials. Pretty much the opposite of what you said.
As a practical matter, their export prices would normally go down along with their currency, so the only thing they gain is a bit more export business.
I fully expect... prices for all consumable goods will go down in Chinese currency but up in other currencies, as the Chinese money will go up in value relative to other currencies.
It's not that simple. That would be very bad for their economy, since they rely so much on exports. Higher value Chinese currency = higher-priced exports. That would be very bad for their economy, since it relies so much on exports.
Not so much if it didn't rely on exports, but that would be a very big change, over a long period of time.
If you want the meaning of the Constitution to change, then there are well-established rules for changing it. But I'm afraid you don't get to just assign whatever meaning you want to it. If that were true, we'd have a million different versions of the Constitution.
Again, that's just plain not the way law is intended to work. The common understanding of what it means now is based on what was meant when it was written.
Ya, that law was never going to work. You need to be able to track 13 year olds to be able to "not" track them otherwise how would you know if they're 13 or not?
Which is one of the reasons I wrote that "Opt-In" is the only way to make tracking work in a reasonable and legal manner.
I will share with you here part of a historical discussion of the origins of the amendment:
"Instead, the Convention presumed that a militia would exist, but it gave Congress almost unfettered authority to regulate that militia, just as it gave the new federal government almost unfettered authority over the army and navy."
...
Implicit in the debate between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists were two shared assumptions: first, that the proposed new constitution gave the federal government almost total legal authority over the army and the militia; and second, that the federal government should not have any authority at all to disarm the citizenry. The disagreement between Federalists and Anti-Federalists was only over the narrower question of how effective an armed population could be in protecting liberty.
...
As a political gesture to the Anti-Federalists, a gesture highlighted by the Second Amendment's prefatory reference to the value of a well-regulated militia, express recognition of the right to arms was something of a sop. But the provision was easily accepted because everyone agreed that the federal government should not have the power to infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms, any more than it should have the power to abridge the freedom of speech or prohibit the free exercise of religion.
the founders did NOT desire a standing army, and indeed we didn't really have one
I am aware they didn't desire one, and I wrote as much. Did you actually read what I wrote?
However, they DID agree that it was necessary to have one, and the records of the Constitutional Convention clearly show as much.
The meanings of the words are clear from historical writings. "Well-regulated militia" meant a standing army. Historical records show that those were the meanings of the words at that time.
this stuff is basic military history, and in this historical context militia and people are used synonymously.
Often that was true. But NOT "well-regulated militia". That is a specific phrase with a specific meaning.
Like so many others, you are ignoring that the Constitutional Convention, as well as the ratification debates, clearly agreed on the unfortunate necessity of a standing army. I'll repeat that again: necessity, not desirability.
However I also I think arguing over the meanings of the words feels more like a theological discussion, it shouldn't matter what they thought if they were mere men who were not divinely inspired.
Ridiculous.
Laws have meaning. They have meaning because the words in them have meaning. The meaning of a law is determined by finding the meaning of the words when the law was written.
Unless you discover the meaning of the words when the law was written, then the law can change arbitrarily over time, as the meanings of the words change over time. That is not how law is supposed to work.
---
"The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it." -- James Wilson
That is exactly and only what a "stand your ground" law is: one that says there is no "duty to retreat".
I am aware of that. But in some states it is an explicit law, saying as much in as many words, in a law designed just for that purpose. In many other states, the same idea is expressed implicitly via other laws.
Many people make the mistake of thinking that just because a state doesn't have an explicit "stand your ground" law, that the law requires you to flee. On the contrary: in most states without such a law, a person is still allowed self-defense without having to give ground.
I can't understand how you equate "necessary" to "not desirable". It just does not follow from any reading I can get out of that.
I did not try to say that they were synonymous.
But there are reams upon reams of writings from the time of the writing and ratification of the Constitution, some from the Founders themselves, about why a standing army was not desirable at all, because it endangered the Union from withing. Rather, it was a necessary but definite evil.
Let's also not forget that in the U.S., it is against the law to track someone who is under 13 years old. But only maybe 1 in 1000 trackers really knows or cares about age. So many trackers in the U.S. are violating the law thousands or even millions of times a day.
And I, for one, object to that. I agree that children should not be tracked. Something must be done.
My own position, and the position EFF has (finally!) adopted is: tracking by opt-in only!
It is the only remaining viable way to protect privacy (and children).
Again, you are committing historical fail and probably doing it on purpose.
The existence of the militia was never dependent on the existence or lack of existence of a national army. Even when a standing Army existed on this side of the pond, it was not considered unnecessary.
While I agree with most of what you say, you are equally committing a historical fail.
There are actually TWO militias: the "well-regulated militia" which is a standing army (often called "regulars"), and the citizen's militia.
When the Constitution was written, "well-regulated" meant trained and disciplined. The citizen's militia is pretty much by definition not trained and disciplined (and are not part of the "regulars"). The phrase "a well-regulated militia" did NOT refer to the "the people". There are two parts to that sentence.
Our founders had just fought a war against the "regular" army of their own government. They considered the necessity of a standing army, for defense, to be the single biggest threat to the new union. (And well they should have.)
Thus the wording: "A well-regulated Militia (standing army), being necessary (not desirable) to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
There are two DIFFERENT groups being referred to here: the (well-regulated) standing army, and the (not-well-regulated) People. The people were guaranteed arms, in order to oppose the standing army, should it ever (again) get out of hand.
The phrase "The People" occurs 7 times in the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. In every case, it meant the whole body of citizens. There is about zero probability that the Founders used it 6 times to mean the same thing, and just one time to mean something else.
All of those laws limit speech in some way, but they are generally accepted.
True.
We have the right to bear arms, but there are limitations on which arms can be owned, and by who. Some weapons require more stringent permits, and some aren't allowed at all.
There isn't a single weapon that requires "stringent" Federal permits. All can be obtained by nearly anybody by filling out a form and paying the proper excise tax. It's usually called something other than an excise tax but that's basically what it is.
All other restrictions are at the State level.
There are also already classes of people who aren't allowed to own firearms.
Most states prohibit convicted felons from owning firearms. But many allow that right to be restored via hearing after a sentence has been served.
Many States also have restrictions such as: you may be prohibited from owning a firearm if you have been involuntarily committed to a mental institution.
But again: these are State restrictions, not Federal. The Constitution, in general, was written to restrict the Federal government, not the people, or the States.
It would be instructive to determine whether these incidents are more common in states where handgun purchasers aren't require to take a gun safety class. I'm too lazy to do that.
No, it wouldn't be very instructive at all. It's extremely misleading to do it by state. For example, the states that have the toughest gun laws tend have the lowest per capita firearm crime... but also tend to have the highest overall firearm crime, because they contain the cities where gun crime is most rampant.
So state statistics likely won't tell you anything meaningful. However, we can make some very general observations:
The highest year reported recently far was 2013, with 82 cases. The average has been more like 69, and so far this year is a bit lower than past years. But at 82 that makes about toddler (person) shot per 3.8 million people in the population.
That means that even at the 2013 rate, people in general are 4 times more likely to get struck by lightning.
And around the home? FAR, far greater dangers! Bathtub injuries and household chemicals kill VASTLY more people. I am not sure, but I would not be surprised if pets killed more kids every year than firearms.
So why don't we outlaw going outside in the rain? Or regulate bathtubs? Make you take a government test before getting one? Or make people sit in on a course about the family dog before having children? Maybe show them movies about what happens when the Drano is left out where children can reach it?
Or maybe we should just plaster the victims all over the news media. Think that would help?
While they might not have invented all the hardware, they were the first to consumer market with an awful lot of new stuff. Just some examples off-hand:
Touch-wheel on the iPod.
Super-resolution laptop screens. (For that matter, very-high-resolution LCD desktop displays many years before comparable TVs.)
DisplayPort
Magic Mouse and Trackpad (capacitive touch interface for mainstream input devices)
PCIE-interface SSDs
Etc. This is just a few things off the top of my head. You don't have to "invent" things to be innovative. Being the first to put them in mainstream products is still innovative.
Many of the "common" components you see in Apple products are common NOW, but were far from common when Apple first marketed the product.
Or the supplier was in a position to either sell for below cost, and cut his losses, or not sell at all and run out of money quickly. This can go on for extended periods of time (because of these rainy day funds) before someone is forced to relent. It is entirely possible for large players, or players on unequal footing (say they have influenced their government to totally ignore laws which increase their costs) to arbitrarily undercut fair competitors just to run them out of business and ultimately corner the market
That is where the role of government comes in. Even Adam Smith recognized this, and called for a robust body of antitrust laws, which prevent monopoly or oligopoly from happening.
And we have such laws. They haven't been enforced often under Bush then Obama, but we do have those laws.
So no, the situations you describe do not normally occur in free markets, because that is one of government's few legitimate roles in the economy: to keep people playing within the free-market rules.
"Dumping", as you describe, by selling goods below cost, is generally illegal in free-market countries.
Again I will admit that U.S. has been lax at enforcing anti-competitiveness laws; still the laws exist. It's a failure of government, not of the concept.
So we agree that police have extra privileges. Do you really think the police should have parked in the lot and ran towards someone reportedly brandishing a firearm and aiming it at people? They needed to get close as quickly as possible under as much protection as possible.
I was responding to your comment that police "can do many things that a civilian cannot do". Not the rest of this.
That is a false statement. In most states, police can do a few things that most citizens cannot, not "many".
Do you really think the police should have parked in the lot and ran towards someone reportedly brandishing a firearm and aiming it at people? They needed to get close as quickly as possible under as much protection as possible.
They probably broke the law. I think we can agree that if so, it was likely a trivial law which can be ignored under the circumstances. That's different from saying they can break the law whenever they think it's important.
You may be surprised to learn that in many if not most states, a citizen would not be prosecuted for speeding if they were doing so under dire circumstances to get someone to the emergency room. Police are no different. So driving on the lawn is not an "exemption" from civil law. It's the circumstances that matter, not the badge.
He sees the cop car coming so instead of standing still he walks toward the officers and tries to take the gun from his waistband. If that had been a real gun, which it looked like, the kid could have shot in the next second.
Completely irrelevant. Not only did they not give themselves enough time to properly evaluate the situation, they did not give the victim enough time to respond to their warnings.
Citizens, when confronted by dire circumstances, must act on reasonable belief that they were in danger. Lately, police have been getting on based on fear for their well-being. Fear is a bullshit basis for justice, because people fear many things, often irrationally. Fear is not an objective standard. "Reason to believe" is... well... reasonably objective.
The police in this case did not have time to "reasonably believe". They did not leave enough time to reason. They acted in abject fear. They are unsuited to the position of "peace officer".
I have been in that position before. Pardon me for not wanting to recite the details.
Sounds like a nice idea.
Good luck hiring cops, then.
I think I understand what you're saying. I'm agreeing that it's a problem.
Positions of power like "police officer" tend to attract people who enjoy having power over others. But it is precisely those people who are least fit for the job.
And it is compounded by the fact that it is primarily old police officers who choose the new police officers. A vicious circle.
He does not have any idea, or concern, about whether his investment covered the costs from his suppliers (human, corporate or natural).
Of course he does. Because they are motivated by the same things with which he is concerned: making a profit.
Free markets develop price signals. This is true in both wholesale and retail markets... in fact whenever there is free trade. The producer does in fact know that the supplier's needs are met, because otherwise the supplier would have asked more for his goods. People just don't normally sell stuff for less than cost. That's an act of a company or corporation with a diverse package of goods. Not a seller of fertilizer.
Nor does he know for t>0 that his costs will be covered by the market price, it may happen he has to sell for a loss.
Not often, and again that's because of the nature of free markets. The market as a whole will not sell for a loss, that's not sane practice and most people aren't insane. The market finds a price which satisfies both the seller and the buyer, or the market ceases to exist.
He has some historic data about market prices for oranges that may or may not hold true leading him to believe that he can sell profitably (or he'd probably get out of the business), but at any time that can change arbitrarily. He will then be forced to sell for a loss.
Only in the very short term. Markets do not persist in that condition. And a smart trader plans for weak seasons. This is all baked into the price of the goods.
You neglect the very engine that drives free markets: the finding of a price point over time. Throwing in these abrupt disasters you imagine can indeed happen, but usually don't, and again the savvy player plans for bad weather. That's HOW they set the price.
Yes, in fact Roosevelt's own Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, thought Roosevelt was completely insane. He wrote as much in his diary:
We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.
I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises.
I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. ⦠And an enormous debt to boot!
Sound familiar? It should. Because Roosevelt's interventionist polices have been copied by Obama. Now the Fed has nowhere to go. Interest rates are still at rock bottom, and 3 rounds of "Quantitative Easing" did not work. Worker participation rates are at an all-time low in recent decades.
Many modern economists believe that Roosevelt actually prolonged the Depression, by as much as 10 years. And just look around you today... a result of the same old non-working policies we should have ditched 80 years ago. It's pathetic.
That is imaginary, not real. Most people in their 20s-50s go deep in debt to buy a house, own a car, educate their kids, etc. Their wealth is in the assets they own, not cash under a mattress. They do NOT benefit from deflation.
It's far from "imaginary". It's normal. It is the current "debt-based economy" which is abnormal.
Your great-grandparents (and maybe even grandparents) bought what they could with the cash in hand. They worked and saved, and paid cash.
Today, few people actually own property anymore. It belongs to the banks. How did that happen? Predatory lending. Over a period of 100+ years. More than that, really.
There was a day, not that long ago, when most American families had real savings. Now most of them have net debt.
Again, I ask: how did that happen? I leave it as an exercise for the reader.
When a cash surplus for the common man is normal, deflation is a good thing. Only when debt is king does it become a bad thing. And debt being king, all by itself, is a bad thing for most people.
Indeed... Inflation benefits the big banks, often Wall Street, and governments. It harms the vast majority.
You can see signs of this everywhere: from the completely bullshit way government calculates real inflation, to the Keynesian idea that a low amount of inflation is "healthy" or even necessary for the economy.
Austrian economists on the other hand (and monetarists too for that matter) have been astronomically more adept at predicting real events. Which means economics (or at least the neo-classicist and Keynesian versions of it) have predicted almost nothing over the last 120 years, give or take. In fact as often as not they have been wrong by 180 degrees.
And since the entire worth of a theory is how well it predicts, that is pretty much the bullet through the heart for "classical" or Keynesian economics.
One of the great failings of classical economics is the insistence on using Wall Street as an indicator of the health of "the economy". But it is very easy to show that Wall Street was doing very well right up to the very day before a big recession or crash hit. That was true in 1929, as well as in 2001 and 2008. And all the Keynesians and neo-classicists were yelling "Come on in! The water's fine!"
No, what today we call classical economics is long on theory but short on skill. If it's a "science", in an incredibly weak one.
I suggest that the Austrians and the Monetarists have a far better handle on it.
You're not going to have many cops if you make that a requirement.
Then we should definitely have fewer cops. Because they have just as definitely crossed that invisible line. It's a clear problem with our society today.
And most of the ones you get will be complete psychopaths (or hopelessly rude)
No, it's the rude and psychopathic ones we must get rid of. They need to be reminded they are public servants, not masters.
Police on a call can do many things that civilians can not do. Speeding for example.
Actually, in most states, no. The extra privileges are very few and strictly defined.
In states around here, for example, police are not allowed to speed without having their lights and siren on... and there are defined limits under which they can do that.
The kid did have what appeared to be a gun.
I saw the video. The police weren't out of their car for longer than about 2 seconds before they shot. That's not even enough time for the kid to fully register the command and actually put the bb gun down.
The officers very obviously screwed up. I don't give a damn if they irrationally feared for their lives under these circumstances. They clearly are not fit for such duty.
Slashdot Mirror
If they devalue, they earn the same US dollars, but pay less in wages and also for any raw materials that are sourced locally. So their profit margins go up, at least temporarily, until the resulting inflation starts pushing up wages and local prices.
Doesn't work that way. If they devalue relative to other currencies, the foreign exchange changes but in the short term, the internal value is approximately the same until the internal economy adjusts.
So relatively speaking, they'd actually be bringing in more $ (relative to their own currency), but paying the same for wages and domestic raw materials. Pretty much the opposite of what you said.
As a practical matter, their export prices would normally go down along with their currency, so the only thing they gain is a bit more export business.
I fully expect ... prices for all consumable goods will go down in Chinese currency but up in other currencies, as the Chinese money will go up in value relative to other currencies.
It's not that simple. That would be very bad for their economy, since they rely so much on exports. Higher value Chinese currency = higher-priced exports. That would be very bad for their economy, since it relies so much on exports.
Not so much if it didn't rely on exports, but that would be a very big change, over a long period of time.
I almost forgot to add:
If you want the meaning of the Constitution to change, then there are well-established rules for changing it. But I'm afraid you don't get to just assign whatever meaning you want to it. If that were true, we'd have a million different versions of the Constitution.
Again, that's just plain not the way law is intended to work. The common understanding of what it means now is based on what was meant when it was written.
Ya, that law was never going to work. You need to be able to track 13 year olds to be able to "not" track them otherwise how would you know if they're 13 or not?
Which is one of the reasons I wrote that "Opt-In" is the only way to make tracking work in a reasonable and legal manner.
"Instead, the Convention presumed that a militia would exist, but it gave Congress almost unfettered authority to regulate that militia, just as it gave the new federal government almost unfettered authority over the army and navy."
...
...
Implicit in the debate between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists were two shared assumptions: first, that the proposed new constitution gave the federal government almost total legal authority over the army and the militia; and second, that the federal government should not have any authority at all to disarm the citizenry. The disagreement between Federalists and Anti-Federalists was only over the narrower question of how effective an armed population could be in protecting liberty.
As a political gesture to the Anti-Federalists, a gesture highlighted by the Second Amendment's prefatory reference to the value of a well-regulated militia, express recognition of the right to arms was something of a sop. But the provision was easily accepted because everyone agreed that the federal government should not have the power to infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms, any more than it should have the power to abridge the freedom of speech or prohibit the free exercise of religion.
the founders did NOT desire a standing army, and indeed we didn't really have one
I am aware they didn't desire one, and I wrote as much. Did you actually read what I wrote?
However, they DID agree that it was necessary to have one, and the records of the Constitutional Convention clearly show as much.
The meanings of the words are clear from historical writings. "Well-regulated militia" meant a standing army. Historical records show that those were the meanings of the words at that time.
this stuff is basic military history, and in this historical context militia and people are used synonymously.
Often that was true. But NOT "well-regulated militia". That is a specific phrase with a specific meaning.
Like so many others, you are ignoring that the Constitutional Convention, as well as the ratification debates, clearly agreed on the unfortunate necessity of a standing army. I'll repeat that again: necessity, not desirability.
However I also I think arguing over the meanings of the words feels more like a theological discussion, it shouldn't matter what they thought if they were mere men who were not divinely inspired.
Ridiculous.
Laws have meaning. They have meaning because the words in them have meaning. The meaning of a law is determined by finding the meaning of the words when the law was written.
Unless you discover the meaning of the words when the law was written, then the law can change arbitrarily over time, as the meanings of the words change over time. That is not how law is supposed to work.
---
"The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it." -- James Wilson
That is exactly and only what a "stand your ground" law is: one that says there is no "duty to retreat".
I am aware of that. But in some states it is an explicit law, saying as much in as many words, in a law designed just for that purpose. In many other states, the same idea is expressed implicitly via other laws.
Many people make the mistake of thinking that just because a state doesn't have an explicit "stand your ground" law, that the law requires you to flee. On the contrary: in most states without such a law, a person is still allowed self-defense without having to give ground.
I can't understand how you equate "necessary" to "not desirable". It just does not follow from any reading I can get out of that.
I did not try to say that they were synonymous.
But there are reams upon reams of writings from the time of the writing and ratification of the Constitution, some from the Founders themselves, about why a standing army was not desirable at all, because it endangered the Union from withing. Rather, it was a necessary but definite evil.
It's not simply about shame...
Let's also not forget that in the U.S., it is against the law to track someone who is under 13 years old. But only maybe 1 in 1000 trackers really knows or cares about age. So many trackers in the U.S. are violating the law thousands or even millions of times a day.
And I, for one, object to that. I agree that children should not be tracked. Something must be done.
My own position, and the position EFF has (finally!) adopted is: tracking by opt-in only!
It is the only remaining viable way to protect privacy (and children).
Again, you are committing historical fail and probably doing it on purpose.
The existence of the militia was never dependent on the existence or lack of existence of a national army. Even when a standing Army existed on this side of the pond, it was not considered unnecessary.
While I agree with most of what you say, you are equally committing a historical fail.
There are actually TWO militias: the "well-regulated militia" which is a standing army (often called "regulars"), and the citizen's militia.
When the Constitution was written, "well-regulated" meant trained and disciplined. The citizen's militia is pretty much by definition not trained and disciplined (and are not part of the "regulars"). The phrase "a well-regulated militia" did NOT refer to the "the people". There are two parts to that sentence.
Our founders had just fought a war against the "regular" army of their own government. They considered the necessity of a standing army, for defense, to be the single biggest threat to the new union. (And well they should have.)
Thus the wording: "A well-regulated Militia (standing army), being necessary (not desirable) to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
There are two DIFFERENT groups being referred to here: the (well-regulated) standing army, and the (not-well-regulated) People. The people were guaranteed arms, in order to oppose the standing army, should it ever (again) get out of hand.
The phrase "The People" occurs 7 times in the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. In every case, it meant the whole body of citizens. There is about zero probability that the Founders used it 6 times to mean the same thing, and just one time to mean something else.
All of those laws limit speech in some way, but they are generally accepted.
True.
We have the right to bear arms, but there are limitations on which arms can be owned, and by who. Some weapons require more stringent permits, and some aren't allowed at all.
There isn't a single weapon that requires "stringent" Federal permits. All can be obtained by nearly anybody by filling out a form and paying the proper excise tax. It's usually called something other than an excise tax but that's basically what it is.
All other restrictions are at the State level.
There are also already classes of people who aren't allowed to own firearms.
Most states prohibit convicted felons from owning firearms. But many allow that right to be restored via hearing after a sentence has been served.
Many States also have restrictions such as: you may be prohibited from owning a firearm if you have been involuntarily committed to a mental institution.
But again: these are State restrictions, not Federal. The Constitution, in general, was written to restrict the Federal government, not the people, or the States.
Agree with OakDragon. There isn't anything even remotely Libertarian about GP's comment.
It would be instructive to determine whether these incidents are more common in states where handgun purchasers aren't require to take a gun safety class. I'm too lazy to do that.
No, it wouldn't be very instructive at all. It's extremely misleading to do it by state. For example, the states that have the toughest gun laws tend have the lowest per capita firearm crime... but also tend to have the highest overall firearm crime, because they contain the cities where gun crime is most rampant.
So state statistics likely won't tell you anything meaningful. However, we can make some very general observations:
The highest year reported recently far was 2013, with 82 cases. The average has been more like 69, and so far this year is a bit lower than past years. But at 82 that makes about toddler (person) shot per 3.8 million people in the population.
That means that even at the 2013 rate, people in general are 4 times more likely to get struck by lightning.
And around the home? FAR, far greater dangers! Bathtub injuries and household chemicals kill VASTLY more people. I am not sure, but I would not be surprised if pets killed more kids every year than firearms.
So why don't we outlaw going outside in the rain? Or regulate bathtubs? Make you take a government test before getting one? Or make people sit in on a course about the family dog before having children? Maybe show them movies about what happens when the Drano is left out where children can reach it?
Or maybe we should just plaster the victims all over the news media. Think that would help?
They're not a hardware innovator.
What utter nonsense.
While they might not have invented all the hardware, they were the first to consumer market with an awful lot of new stuff. Just some examples off-hand:
Touch-wheel on the iPod.
Super-resolution laptop screens. (For that matter, very-high-resolution LCD desktop displays many years before comparable TVs.)
DisplayPort
Magic Mouse and Trackpad (capacitive touch interface for mainstream input devices)
PCIE-interface SSDs
Etc. This is just a few things off the top of my head. You don't have to "invent" things to be innovative. Being the first to put them in mainstream products is still innovative.
Many of the "common" components you see in Apple products are common NOW, but were far from common when Apple first marketed the product.
Or the supplier was in a position to either sell for below cost, and cut his losses, or not sell at all and run out of money quickly. This can go on for extended periods of time (because of these rainy day funds) before someone is forced to relent. It is entirely possible for large players, or players on unequal footing (say they have influenced their government to totally ignore laws which increase their costs) to arbitrarily undercut fair competitors just to run them out of business and ultimately corner the market
That is where the role of government comes in. Even Adam Smith recognized this, and called for a robust body of antitrust laws, which prevent monopoly or oligopoly from happening.
And we have such laws. They haven't been enforced often under Bush then Obama, but we do have those laws.
So no, the situations you describe do not normally occur in free markets, because that is one of government's few legitimate roles in the economy: to keep people playing within the free-market rules.
"Dumping", as you describe, by selling goods below cost, is generally illegal in free-market countries.
Again I will admit that U.S. has been lax at enforcing anti-competitiveness laws; still the laws exist. It's a failure of government, not of the concept.
So we agree that police have extra privileges. Do you really think the police should have parked in the lot and ran towards someone reportedly brandishing a firearm and aiming it at people? They needed to get close as quickly as possible under as much protection as possible.
I was responding to your comment that police "can do many things that a civilian cannot do". Not the rest of this.
That is a false statement. In most states, police can do a few things that most citizens cannot, not "many".
Do you really think the police should have parked in the lot and ran towards someone reportedly brandishing a firearm and aiming it at people? They needed to get close as quickly as possible under as much protection as possible.
They probably broke the law. I think we can agree that if so, it was likely a trivial law which can be ignored under the circumstances. That's different from saying they can break the law whenever they think it's important.
You may be surprised to learn that in many if not most states, a citizen would not be prosecuted for speeding if they were doing so under dire circumstances to get someone to the emergency room. Police are no different. So driving on the lawn is not an "exemption" from civil law. It's the circumstances that matter, not the badge.
He sees the cop car coming so instead of standing still he walks toward the officers and tries to take the gun from his waistband. If that had been a real gun, which it looked like, the kid could have shot in the next second.
Completely irrelevant. Not only did they not give themselves enough time to properly evaluate the situation, they did not give the victim enough time to respond to their warnings.
Citizens, when confronted by dire circumstances, must act on reasonable belief that they were in danger. Lately, police have been getting on based on fear for their well-being. Fear is a bullshit basis for justice, because people fear many things, often irrationally. Fear is not an objective standard. "Reason to believe" is... well... reasonably objective.
The police in this case did not have time to "reasonably believe". They did not leave enough time to reason. They acted in abject fear. They are unsuited to the position of "peace officer".
I have been in that position before. Pardon me for not wanting to recite the details.
The police very clearly were in the wrong.
Sounds like a nice idea.
Good luck hiring cops, then.
I think I understand what you're saying. I'm agreeing that it's a problem.
Positions of power like "police officer" tend to attract people who enjoy having power over others. But it is precisely those people who are least fit for the job.
And it is compounded by the fact that it is primarily old police officers who choose the new police officers. A vicious circle.
He does not have any idea, or concern, about whether his investment covered the costs from his suppliers (human, corporate or natural).
Of course he does. Because they are motivated by the same things with which he is concerned: making a profit.
Free markets develop price signals. This is true in both wholesale and retail markets... in fact whenever there is free trade. The producer does in fact know that the supplier's needs are met, because otherwise the supplier would have asked more for his goods. People just don't normally sell stuff for less than cost. That's an act of a company or corporation with a diverse package of goods. Not a seller of fertilizer.
Nor does he know for t>0 that his costs will be covered by the market price, it may happen he has to sell for a loss.
Not often, and again that's because of the nature of free markets. The market as a whole will not sell for a loss, that's not sane practice and most people aren't insane. The market finds a price which satisfies both the seller and the buyer, or the market ceases to exist.
He has some historic data about market prices for oranges that may or may not hold true leading him to believe that he can sell profitably (or he'd probably get out of the business), but at any time that can change arbitrarily. He will then be forced to sell for a loss.
Only in the very short term. Markets do not persist in that condition. And a smart trader plans for weak seasons. This is all baked into the price of the goods.
You neglect the very engine that drives free markets: the finding of a price point over time. Throwing in these abrupt disasters you imagine can indeed happen, but usually don't, and again the savvy player plans for bad weather. That's HOW they set the price.
No argument there.
Yes, in fact Roosevelt's own Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, thought Roosevelt was completely insane. He wrote as much in his diary:
We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.
I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises.
I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. ⦠And an enormous debt to boot!
Sound familiar? It should. Because Roosevelt's interventionist polices have been copied by Obama. Now the Fed has nowhere to go. Interest rates are still at rock bottom, and 3 rounds of "Quantitative Easing" did not work. Worker participation rates are at an all-time low in recent decades.
Many modern economists believe that Roosevelt actually prolonged the Depression, by as much as 10 years. And just look around you today... a result of the same old non-working policies we should have ditched 80 years ago. It's pathetic.
That is imaginary, not real. Most people in their 20s-50s go deep in debt to buy a house, own a car, educate their kids, etc. Their wealth is in the assets they own, not cash under a mattress. They do NOT benefit from deflation.
It's far from "imaginary". It's normal. It is the current "debt-based economy" which is abnormal.
Your great-grandparents (and maybe even grandparents) bought what they could with the cash in hand. They worked and saved, and paid cash.
Today, few people actually own property anymore. It belongs to the banks. How did that happen? Predatory lending. Over a period of 100+ years. More than that, really.
There was a day, not that long ago, when most American families had real savings. Now most of them have net debt.
Again, I ask: how did that happen? I leave it as an exercise for the reader.
When a cash surplus for the common man is normal, deflation is a good thing. Only when debt is king does it become a bad thing. And debt being king, all by itself, is a bad thing for most people.
Indeed... Inflation benefits the big banks, often Wall Street, and governments. It harms the vast majority.
You can see signs of this everywhere: from the completely bullshit way government calculates real inflation, to the Keynesian idea that a low amount of inflation is "healthy" or even necessary for the economy.
Austrian economists on the other hand (and monetarists too for that matter) have been astronomically more adept at predicting real events. Which means economics (or at least the neo-classicist and Keynesian versions of it) have predicted almost nothing over the last 120 years, give or take. In fact as often as not they have been wrong by 180 degrees.
And since the entire worth of a theory is how well it predicts, that is pretty much the bullet through the heart for "classical" or Keynesian economics.
One of the great failings of classical economics is the insistence on using Wall Street as an indicator of the health of "the economy". But it is very easy to show that Wall Street was doing very well right up to the very day before a big recession or crash hit. That was true in 1929, as well as in 2001 and 2008. And all the Keynesians and neo-classicists were yelling "Come on in! The water's fine!"
No, what today we call classical economics is long on theory but short on skill. If it's a "science", in an incredibly weak one.
I suggest that the Austrians and the Monetarists have a far better handle on it.
I used to practice with a cut broom handle because it was heavier than the rattan we used.
That's WHY you use rattan, you dork. It's light and flexible. Broomhandles are neither.
Because it's flexible, you can hit harder with it. But at the same time, it's more controllable and light taps don't do much damage.
I have my rattan sticks, and also a pair of broomhandles. The broomhandles are only used far away from other people.
You can also use waxwood, because it's flexible too, and tough. But I don't recommend it because it's very heavy so harder to control.
You're not going to have many cops if you make that a requirement.
Then we should definitely have fewer cops. Because they have just as definitely crossed that invisible line. It's a clear problem with our society today.
And most of the ones you get will be complete psychopaths (or hopelessly rude)
No, it's the rude and psychopathic ones we must get rid of. They need to be reminded they are public servants, not masters.
Police on a call can do many things that civilians can not do. Speeding for example.
Actually, in most states, no. The extra privileges are very few and strictly defined.
In states around here, for example, police are not allowed to speed without having their lights and siren on... and there are defined limits under which they can do that.
The kid did have what appeared to be a gun.
I saw the video. The police weren't out of their car for longer than about 2 seconds before they shot. That's not even enough time for the kid to fully register the command and actually put the bb gun down.
The officers very obviously screwed up. I don't give a damn if they irrationally feared for their lives under these circumstances. They clearly are not fit for such duty.