You could pay for massive upgrades to child protective services, social security, medicare, etc. with $100 billion.
Not at all. Are you aware how much those things cost? Medicare alone costs over $600 billion a year. $100 billion over 10 years would be a drop in the ocean.
Commercializing the moon is not likely to involve building a trillion dollar planet size company logo. It's just a dead rock. If there are resources there that we can use of course we should.
Whether poker is a game of skill or a game of luck depends on the number of hands played. Of course luck has an effect on any individual hand or for that matter on an individual tournament, and a skillful player can have a bad day or a bad month. Over a large enough number of hands though, the good hands and bad hands will be distributed evenly between all players. Therefore, the difference between a successful player and an unsuccessful player is a difference in skill, not a difference in luck. To me, that's a strong enough argument to classify poker as a game of skill.
And the polls show that the Republicans will not pick up a majority next election.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/127319/Republicans-Lead-Congressional-Ballot.aspx hence, you are uninformed. Considering that Republicans in an average election get 4-5% more vote than the polls show because their voters show up to vote more, and the fact that their base and independents (majority of whom are right leaning now) are particularly energized for the next election by Obama's policies, I think November is going to be a historic bloodbath for the Democrats. That will lead to Congress defunding Obama's health care bill until the next Republican president can repeal it. Don't worry though, it's good for the country.
The Republicans are a sad, tired regional party of deep south racists
Considering that a county breakdown map in a typical election in the USA looks something like this, I think it is fair to say that you are spectacularly wrong:
There are almost to many things wrong with your post to reply to them all but I'll have a go.
As a democracy, we get to define what we mean by freedom. We vote on which freedoms we will protect and which we won't. It's pretty difficult to have liberty and pursue happiness without life.
Umm, no we are a constitutional republic where individual rights and freedoms are written in constitution, and not subject to the popular vote, specifically to avoid the tyranny of the majority. Of course there is a process to amend the constitution so technically you are right, we can vote to eliminate for example the right of free speech, but that is deliberately made a very difficult process that requires 2/3 of both houses just to propose, and then 3/4 of all states to agree.
I, for instance, don't think anyone should have the freedom to oppress others, by any means including economic. If I came to you and said, "your money or your life," that would obviously be oppression. But when an insurance company says to a poor person, "your money or your life," that is oppression too.
Of course I agree that nobody should have the right to say "your money or your life" but that is a red herring because the insurance companies don't in fact say that.
the freedom to live a healthy life is protected. In other places, like America, it isn't really. But we just voted to protect the right to health care, and so it is a right, created as we create any right: by agreeing as a society to protect it.
I don't really understand that, of course you have freedom to live a healthy life in America. If what you are saying is that if you can't afford something, then you don't have the freedom to enjoy it then fine, but I think that's a misuse of the word freedom. You can work hard, earn some money and then you can afford it, so you do have freedom to obtain healthcare.
This isn't charity, either. It's an externality, a public good. Universal health care is good for everyone, even those who do not need it personally. An unhealthy population is a less productive population. Our current health care system eats up a huge percentage of our economic output, it is hugely less efficient than states that have universal care. We pay twice as much, per capita, for our health care as the next most expensive country. And we get health outcomes that are only marginally better than most third world countries outcomes.
This assumes that a government run healthcare is going to provide a healthy population and the free market isn't. The evidence is actually very different. Our healthcare is better than in vast majority of countries with government run health care systems have, including countries such as UK and Canada. I used to live in UK and I am having a far higher quality helthcare in the USA than I did in UK. Access to the latest treatments and latest medical technology is a lot more available, waiting lists are non-existent, hospitals are much better equipped, emergency services are more efficient etc etc. Survival odds for most major diseases are much better in the USA than in those countries. I pay around $130/month for my private health insurance which isn't terrible. Yes there are about 15% of the population who are uninsured (about half of them by choice) except for emergency treatments (which are free for everybody). While that is a problem that something should be done about, I don't see any evidence that something as drastic as Obama bill (especially considering the sleazy way it was passed) or universal care is justified.
So, we will all benefit from a more efficient public health care system.
Again, you are assuming that a government run system it will be more efficient. Do you mean this in the same way that the bankrupt postal service is efficient? Or bankrupt madicare? Or bankrupt social security? Or bankrupt and awful public education system? There is no evid
There is no such thing as free healthcare, the only question is who pays for it. If you think that you have a moral duty to pay for my healthcare if I can't afford it (which is what universla healthcare amounts to) then I disagree. If that is the morality you adopt, then just about everything that you spend your money on is immoral. How can you be so immoral to own a car, or a cell phone, or go on vacation, while there are hungry people in the world? What you are talking about is charity. There is nothing wrong with charity but don't confuse it with duty.
No, my objection is that the minority choses who the majority gets to pick.
If by minority you mean those of us who choose to get involved in the selection process (such as vote in the primaries) then you are right. But the reason for it is that most people are uninterested in it, not that they don't have the opportunity.
See what many on here don't realise is that some of us do have a sense of duty. While you and your colleagues may derive your work ethic from the fact that you're being paid, some of us derive ours from the social effect of our jobs. Meaning we have a much greater incentive than money could ever provide.
If you consider helping others to be of higher value to you than helping yourself and your family than you go right ahead, I don't have any problem with it. If you think it is everybody's moral duty to help others first, then I do have a problem with that. Let me phrase it as a question, actually a quote Ayn Rand:
Why is it moral to serve the happiness of others, but not your own? If enjoyment is a value, why is it moral when experienced by others, but immoral when experienced by you? If the sensation of eating a cake is a value, why is it an immoral indulgence in your stomach, but a moral goal for you to achieve in the stomach of others? Why is it immoral for you to desire, but moral for others to do so? Why is it immoral to produce a value and keep it, but moral to give it away? And if it is not moral for you to keep a value, why is it moral for others to accept it? If you are selfless and virtuous when you give it, are they not selfish and vicious when they take it? Does virtue consist of serving vice? Is the moral purpose of those who are good, self-immolation for the sake of those who are evil?
The answer you evade, the monstrous answer is: No, the takers are not evil, provided they did not earn the value you gave them. It is not immoral for them to accept it, provided they are unable to produce it, unable to deserve it, unable to give you any value in return. It is not immoral for them to enjoy it, provided they do not obtain it by right.
Such is the secret core of your creed, the other half of your double standard: it is immoral to live by your own effort, but moral to live by the effort of others--it is immoral to consume your own product, but moral to consume the products of others--it is immoral to earn, but moral to mooch--it is the parasites who are the moral justification for the existence of the producers, but the existence of the parasites is an end in itself--it is evil to profit by achievement, but good to profit by sacrifice--it is evil to create your own happiness, but good to enjoy it at the price of the blood of others.
Political campaigning for rights in the digital domain is a "good thing".
I agree. However, forming single-issue political parties is generally a "bad thing". Pushing as hard as you can on a single issue and ignoring the rest of the world is ok when you are a non-governmental pressure group but not when your goal is to be in the government. If you think that is unrealistic in case of the pirate parties, take a look at crazy coalitions in some European countries where parties with 0.5% of the vote are actually represented in the government and able to influence things way beyond their mandate since their limited platform allows them to trade support on all kinds of issues in exchange for their favorite issue. Canada doesn't have a proportional system so it's not as much of a problem there.
If there is a need for products of that land that means that there is a market for it and therefore there is a need for workers to labor on it so it won't be lying idle for long. This will be done a lot more efficiently the land is privately owned and the owner stands to gain or lose his own money.
Science is one thing that if done right under socialism works best.
Umm, do you have any real world examples to back that up? Yes, a lot of funding for science comes from the government, even in capitalist system, but there is also funding from private universities the best of which tend to be in capitalist countries, not least because they tend to be quite wealthy. Also, while private sector might not have strong incentives to invest in basic research, there is a lot of research that falls under science that is done within private companies, in non-profit research labs funded by private money, or in university research departments also sponsored by private money. In any case, that is not the issue here. What they are trying to do is convert that research into commercial products and that historically is not done well under a government plan.
Grateful has nothing to do with it. If you offer a free service that I like (this SO does not apply to twitter, but speaking in general) I might use it. If you then start charging for it or bugging me in a way that in my opinion outweighs the value I get from it, then I might stop using it. Your business model is up you you but frankly I don't find it particularly ethically superior to offer a "free" service while having full intention in the back of your mind to changing the rules as soon as you got enough people hooked in, compared to just charging for it in the first place.
Regardless, I don't think either of us are going to change our minds, so I won't be replying any further.
That's probably a good idea but I can't resist replying to a couple of points. China is obviously only as successful as they have opened up their economy a few small steps towards the free market and away from central control. I guess they have learned the lessons from famines in their own and other socialist countries and compared it to what their compatriots made of countries like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore etc which were some of the freest and wealthiest countries in the world during the same period. Even after all that growth China's per capita GDP is around 1/13 that of the USA and less than that of Albania: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
I happen to think that China's communists are simply postponing the inevitable political collapse by generating temporary growth by offering their proletarian masses as cheap labor for Western capitalist companies, but that will only take them so far. No government in the world has ever figured out how to control something as complex as the economy with anywhere near the efficiency of the free market and China won't either. As for Ayn Rand, all I can say that you completely misunderstand her philosophy and maybe should try reading some of it before you criticize it.
I was suggesting that text simply as an example of a well reasoned article on why antitrust regulations tend to produce a variety of negative effects in the economy, including precisely the opposite effects of those intended. It doesn't really matter who the author was, but if you prefer feel free to look around for Friedman or a variety of libertarian thinkers, or any Austrian school economist for more of the same. Btw, I think you are reading way too much into what Greenspan said about a specific case of regulating speculation in derivatives if you think that suddenly he is not any more in favor of a largely laissez faire approach to the economy.
I didn't dispute that businesses are not friends of the free market and they don't have to be. I agree that it is perfectly obvious that they are not, just look at how eager corporations are these days to take free money from the taxpayers, to bribe and lobby politicians into enacting laws that will benefit them or harm their competition in some way etc. In fact, many kinds of regulation that make conducting business more difficult are lobbied for and supported by large corporations since they affects their smaller competitors more than them. I simply draw a different conclusion from this, which is that in a majority of these cases, the real source of the problem is the government regulation, not lack of it. I have not seen any evidence that left to it's own devices (of course I am talking specifically about laws regulating competition in order to "improve" on the free market, such as antitrust laws, not about all laws - I am not in favor of anarchy) free market would produce lasting natural monopolies that choke competition. In fact I am betting that you can't provide a single example - Milton Friedman mentioned De Beers diamond company as the only example he could find.
My point was that if you think that a) free market naturally tends to produce a failure that needs to be artificially corrected and that b) government regulation is obviously the cure that makes things better, you are contradicted by all experience in modern history, which is that the more free the economy of a country is, the more prosperous that country is. Google "index of economic liberty" and it is obvious at a glance that the most prosperous countries in the world are also economically the most free.
Also, I have to say this, when you say that Ayn Rand offends you, without saying why, you risk joining a long list of ignoramuses who don't (can't) offer even the tiniest sliver of a rational argument against her philosophy and therefore seek to satisfy their knee-jerk emotional reaction to certain keywords (such as "selfish") by falling back to name-calling as their last resort.
Typically, government regulation is what is used to achieve this, by holding businesses that violate various agreed on "principles" of fair trading and conduct accountable. Which makes the staunch objections of many to any sort of regulation all the more bizarre as rational analysis of the capitalist model would seemingly conclude that some reasonable degree of regulation is in almost everyones interest, possibly excluding the filthy rich at the top of the hierarchy of enormous multinationals.
Presumably what you are talking about when you say that the "natural tendency of business is to damage the economy for selfish material gain" is that, if left unregulated, something like monopolies will tend to naturally establish which will reduce the diversity? That's what people think for some reason, but historically that hasn't been the case. Please supply some real world examples of unregulated market leading to monopolies? Almost all examples of real monopolies have arisen due to the government regulation while unregulated markets actually tend to encourage diversity. Here is a good article on the damage caused by antitrust regulation, by Alan Greenspan http://politicalinquirer.com/2007/12/12/interrupting-the-election-coverage-alan-greenspan-on-antitrust-circa-1961/
Apple relies entirely on their cult to fund its sales.
Well, decent products too. Not to mention killer marketing. Can any other company manage 8 stories on the front page of http://cnet.com/ as Apple has at the moment as well as front pages of CNN, BBC, New York Times etc etc, just because they released a tablet?
I agree but I don't think it's a good thing. I'm afraid that Google has such a lead in the search engine technology as well as the market share, and the brain power behind it all, that it is almost impossible to beat. I think it will take a paradigm shift in how people access the information on the Internet before Google is unseated but that is nowhere on the horizon. The problem I have with this is that every company that carves itself such a secure and powerful position tends to abuse it however well intentioned its founders were.
I don't know about your country but in America if a factory next door dumped their waste into your backyard it will be the equivalent of winning a lottery ticket. In other words you will sue them for millions and win easily and there is no shortage of lawyers who will be fighting over representing you for a share of the winnigs, with no money upfront. If there is one thing corporations are scared off it is negligence lawsuits. Remember the old lady who initially won $2.8 million because McDonalds sold her a cup of hot coffee and she put it between her legs while driving and spilled it on her vagina.
I still don't see how this is the officers' fault. If they violated their department's policy by emailing these photos, then that is the extent of their guilt. There is a penalty for that I'm sure. If the family experienced pain and suffering as a result of some idiots emailing or calling them, then those idiots are responsible for that and the family has every right to sue them. Was there no way to track down and expose any of them?
One can make an inferior product in a foreign country and sell it for less money.
And what's the problem there?
One can buy the competition and close them down.
Again, what is wrong about that?
One can make unreasonable patents that scare away competition.
Last I heard the patent office was part of the government. Who is more immoral, a company that asks for unreasonable monopoly on an idea or the government that grants it?
One can collude with other companies to lock out certain competition.
Your list is really nothing more than saying that competition is tough and not everybody wins. As a general rule that is good for the consumer in the long run and where it isn't you will typically find that it is most often the government regulation that is causing the problem, not the free competition.
It is modded as troll for the same reason that any post in favor of free market and economic liberty is modded down. It is not that the left wing/.ers have more mod points, it is that they are more likely to lack arguments for their beliefs (for the simple reason that their beliefs are not based on sound reasoning but on emotions) and to use the modding system instead.
This definitely does NOT deserve to be modded "insightful".
Corporations? Damned thieves can tramply anyone, and everyone, with no repercussions.
Really? If people don't like the actions of a corporation they have the right not to fucking buy that corporations products, and you'll see how quickly the things change.
Go ahead, people, cheer for the corporations. None of them are doing anything for you.
Except for everything you see around you. Was PC made by a government decree? Can you remind me which government invented, and made economically profitable electricity, car, airplane, TV, cell phone, etc etc?
Your government supplies your drinking water, builds your roads, responds in the event of disaster, and much, much more.
I'm glad you saved the most idiotic comment for last. The government DOES NOT do any of those things. It is the taxpayer money that pays for all of those things, the government simply manages it (usually in a notoriously inefficient, wasteful and corrupt way). Yes in some cases it is a necessary evil to put all our money together and pay for some things that way though it should be avoided wherever possible. In any case, there is nothing to be thankful to the government for! It is simply taking our money and paying for things on our behalf. Please try to remember that simple concept.
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You could pay for massive upgrades to child protective services, social security, medicare, etc. with $100 billion.
Not at all. Are you aware how much those things cost? Medicare alone costs over $600 billion a year. $100 billion over 10 years would be a drop in the ocean.
Commercializing the moon is not likely to involve building a trillion dollar planet size company logo. It's just a dead rock. If there are resources there that we can use of course we should.
If you happen to find any glowing green crystals please do not sell them to an evil looking bald guy, however lucrative the offer may be.
Whether poker is a game of skill or a game of luck depends on the number of hands played. Of course luck has an effect on any individual hand or for that matter on an individual tournament, and a skillful player can have a bad day or a bad month. Over a large enough number of hands though, the good hands and bad hands will be distributed evenly between all players. Therefore, the difference between a successful player and an unsuccessful player is a difference in skill, not a difference in luck. To me, that's a strong enough argument to classify poker as a game of skill.
And the polls show that the Republicans will not pick up a majority next election.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/127319/Republicans-Lead-Congressional-Ballot.aspx hence, you are uninformed. Considering that Republicans in an average election get 4-5% more vote than the polls show because their voters show up to vote more, and the fact that their base and independents (majority of whom are right leaning now) are particularly energized for the next election by Obama's policies, I think November is going to be a historic bloodbath for the Democrats. That will lead to Congress defunding Obama's health care bill until the next Republican president can repeal it. Don't worry though, it's good for the country.
The Republicans are a sad, tired regional party of deep south racists
Considering that a county breakdown map in a typical election in the USA looks something like this, I think it is fair to say that you are spectacularly wrong:
http://www.culture-war.info/voting2004map-g.jpg
There are almost to many things wrong with your post to reply to them all but I'll have a go.
As a democracy, we get to define what we mean by freedom. We vote on which freedoms we will protect and which we won't. It's pretty difficult to have liberty and pursue happiness without life.
Umm, no we are a constitutional republic where individual rights and freedoms are written in constitution, and not subject to the popular vote, specifically to avoid the tyranny of the majority. Of course there is a process to amend the constitution so technically you are right, we can vote to eliminate for example the right of free speech, but that is deliberately made a very difficult process that requires 2/3 of both houses just to propose, and then 3/4 of all states to agree.
I, for instance, don't think anyone should have the freedom to oppress others, by any means including economic. If I came to you and said, "your money or your life," that would obviously be oppression. But when an insurance company says to a poor person, "your money or your life," that is oppression too.
Of course I agree that nobody should have the right to say "your money or your life" but that is a red herring because the insurance companies don't in fact say that.
the freedom to live a healthy life is protected. In other places, like America, it isn't really. But we just voted to protect the right to health care, and so it is a right, created as we create any right: by agreeing as a society to protect it.
I don't really understand that, of course you have freedom to live a healthy life in America. If what you are saying is that if you can't afford something, then you don't have the freedom to enjoy it then fine, but I think that's a misuse of the word freedom. You can work hard, earn some money and then you can afford it, so you do have freedom to obtain healthcare.
This isn't charity, either. It's an externality, a public good. Universal health care is good for everyone, even those who do not need it personally. An unhealthy population is a less productive population. Our current health care system eats up a huge percentage of our economic output, it is hugely less efficient than states that have universal care. We pay twice as much, per capita, for our health care as the next most expensive country. And we get health outcomes that are only marginally better than most third world countries outcomes.
This assumes that a government run healthcare is going to provide a healthy population and the free market isn't. The evidence is actually very different. Our healthcare is better than in vast majority of countries with government run health care systems have, including countries such as UK and Canada. I used to live in UK and I am having a far higher quality helthcare in the USA than I did in UK. Access to the latest treatments and latest medical technology is a lot more available, waiting lists are non-existent, hospitals are much better equipped, emergency services are more efficient etc etc. Survival odds for most major diseases are much better in the USA than in those countries. I pay around $130/month for my private health insurance which isn't terrible. Yes there are about 15% of the population who are uninsured (about half of them by choice) except for emergency treatments (which are free for everybody). While that is a problem that something should be done about, I don't see any evidence that something as drastic as Obama bill (especially considering the sleazy way it was passed) or universal care is justified.
So, we will all benefit from a more efficient public health care system.
Again, you are assuming that a government run system it will be more efficient. Do you mean this in the same way that the bankrupt postal service is efficient? Or bankrupt madicare? Or bankrupt social security? Or bankrupt and awful public education system? There is no evid
guarantees free health care
There is no such thing as free healthcare, the only question is who pays for it. If you think that you have a moral duty to pay for my healthcare if I can't afford it (which is what universla healthcare amounts to) then I disagree. If that is the morality you adopt, then just about everything that you spend your money on is immoral. How can you be so immoral to own a car, or a cell phone, or go on vacation, while there are hungry people in the world? What you are talking about is charity. There is nothing wrong with charity but don't confuse it with duty.
No, my objection is that the minority choses who the majority gets to pick.
If by minority you mean those of us who choose to get involved in the selection process (such as vote in the primaries) then you are right. But the reason for it is that most people are uninterested in it, not that they don't have the opportunity.
See what many on here don't realise is that some of us do have a sense of duty. While you and your colleagues may derive your work ethic from the fact that you're being paid, some of us derive ours from the social effect of our jobs. Meaning we have a much greater incentive than money could ever provide.
If you consider helping others to be of higher value to you than helping yourself and your family than you go right ahead, I don't have any problem with it. If you think it is everybody's moral duty to help others first, then I do have a problem with that. Let me phrase it as a question, actually a quote Ayn Rand:
Why is it moral to serve the happiness of others, but not your own? If enjoyment is a value, why is it moral when experienced by others, but immoral when experienced by you? If the sensation of eating a cake is a value, why is it an immoral indulgence in your stomach, but a moral goal for you to achieve in the stomach of others? Why is it immoral for you to desire, but moral for others to do so? Why is it immoral to produce a value and keep it, but moral to give it away? And if it is not moral for you to keep a value, why is it moral for others to accept it? If you are selfless and virtuous when you give it, are they not selfish and vicious when they take it? Does virtue consist of serving vice? Is the moral purpose of those who are good, self-immolation for the sake of those who are evil?
The answer you evade, the monstrous answer is: No, the takers are not evil, provided they did not earn the value you gave them. It is not immoral for them to accept it, provided they are unable to produce it, unable to deserve it, unable to give you any value in return. It is not immoral for them to enjoy it, provided they do not obtain it by right.
Such is the secret core of your creed, the other half of your double standard: it is immoral to live by your own effort, but moral to live by the effort of others--it is immoral to consume your own product, but moral to consume the products of others--it is immoral to earn, but moral to mooch--it is the parasites who are the moral justification for the existence of the producers, but the existence of the parasites is an end in itself--it is evil to profit by achievement, but good to profit by sacrifice--it is evil to create your own happiness, but good to enjoy it at the price of the blood of others.
Political campaigning for rights in the digital domain is a "good thing".
I agree. However, forming single-issue political parties is generally a "bad thing". Pushing as hard as you can on a single issue and ignoring the rest of the world is ok when you are a non-governmental pressure group but not when your goal is to be in the government. If you think that is unrealistic in case of the pirate parties, take a look at crazy coalitions in some European countries where parties with 0.5% of the vote are actually represented in the government and able to influence things way beyond their mandate since their limited platform allows them to trade support on all kinds of issues in exchange for their favorite issue. Canada doesn't have a proportional system so it's not as much of a problem there.
If there is a need for products of that land that means that there is a market for it and therefore there is a need for workers to labor on it so it won't be lying idle for long. This will be done a lot more efficiently the land is privately owned and the owner stands to gain or lose his own money.
Science is one thing that if done right under socialism works best.
Umm, do you have any real world examples to back that up? Yes, a lot of funding for science comes from the government, even in capitalist system, but there is also funding from private universities the best of which tend to be in capitalist countries, not least because they tend to be quite wealthy. Also, while private sector might not have strong incentives to invest in basic research, there is a lot of research that falls under science that is done within private companies, in non-profit research labs funded by private money, or in university research departments also sponsored by private money. In any case, that is not the issue here. What they are trying to do is convert that research into commercial products and that historically is not done well under a government plan.
Grateful has nothing to do with it. If you offer a free service that I like (this SO does not apply to twitter, but speaking in general) I might use it. If you then start charging for it or bugging me in a way that in my opinion outweighs the value I get from it, then I might stop using it. Your business model is up you you but frankly I don't find it particularly ethically superior to offer a "free" service while having full intention in the back of your mind to changing the rules as soon as you got enough people hooked in, compared to just charging for it in the first place.
Regardless, I don't think either of us are going to change our minds, so I won't be replying any further.
That's probably a good idea but I can't resist replying to a couple of points. China is obviously only as successful as they have opened up their economy a few small steps towards the free market and away from central control. I guess they have learned the lessons from famines in their own and other socialist countries and compared it to what their compatriots made of countries like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore etc which were some of the freest and wealthiest countries in the world during the same period. Even after all that growth China's per capita GDP is around 1/13 that of the USA and less than that of Albania: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
I happen to think that China's communists are simply postponing the inevitable political collapse by generating temporary growth by offering their proletarian masses as cheap labor for Western capitalist companies, but that will only take them so far. No government in the world has ever figured out how to control something as complex as the economy with anywhere near the efficiency of the free market and China won't either. As for Ayn Rand, all I can say that you completely misunderstand her philosophy and maybe should try reading some of it before you criticize it.
I was suggesting that text simply as an example of a well reasoned article on why antitrust regulations tend to produce a variety of negative effects in the economy, including precisely the opposite effects of those intended. It doesn't really matter who the author was, but if you prefer feel free to look around for Friedman or a variety of libertarian thinkers, or any Austrian school economist for more of the same. Btw, I think you are reading way too much into what Greenspan said about a specific case of regulating speculation in derivatives if you think that suddenly he is not any more in favor of a largely laissez faire approach to the economy.
I didn't dispute that businesses are not friends of the free market and they don't have to be. I agree that it is perfectly obvious that they are not, just look at how eager corporations are these days to take free money from the taxpayers, to bribe and lobby politicians into enacting laws that will benefit them or harm their competition in some way etc. In fact, many kinds of regulation that make conducting business more difficult are lobbied for and supported by large corporations since they affects their smaller competitors more than them. I simply draw a different conclusion from this, which is that in a majority of these cases, the real source of the problem is the government regulation, not lack of it. I have not seen any evidence that left to it's own devices (of course I am talking specifically about laws regulating competition in order to "improve" on the free market, such as antitrust laws, not about all laws - I am not in favor of anarchy) free market would produce lasting natural monopolies that choke competition. In fact I am betting that you can't provide a single example - Milton Friedman mentioned De Beers diamond company as the only example he could find.
My point was that if you think that a) free market naturally tends to produce a failure that needs to be artificially corrected and that b) government regulation is obviously the cure that makes things better, you are contradicted by all experience in modern history, which is that the more free the economy of a country is, the more prosperous that country is. Google "index of economic liberty" and it is obvious at a glance that the most prosperous countries in the world are also economically the most free.
Also, I have to say this, when you say that Ayn Rand offends you, without saying why, you risk joining a long list of ignoramuses who don't (can't) offer even the tiniest sliver of a rational argument against her philosophy and therefore seek to satisfy their knee-jerk emotional reaction to certain keywords (such as "selfish") by falling back to name-calling as their last resort.
Typically, government regulation is what is used to achieve this, by holding businesses that violate various agreed on "principles" of fair trading and conduct accountable. Which makes the staunch objections of many to any sort of regulation all the more bizarre as rational analysis of the capitalist model would seemingly conclude that some reasonable degree of regulation is in almost everyones interest, possibly excluding the filthy rich at the top of the hierarchy of enormous multinationals.
Presumably what you are talking about when you say that the "natural tendency of business is to damage the economy for selfish material gain" is that, if left unregulated, something like monopolies will tend to naturally establish which will reduce the diversity? That's what people think for some reason, but historically that hasn't been the case. Please supply some real world examples of unregulated market leading to monopolies? Almost all examples of real monopolies have arisen due to the government regulation while unregulated markets actually tend to encourage diversity. Here is a good article on the damage caused by antitrust regulation, by Alan Greenspan http://politicalinquirer.com/2007/12/12/interrupting-the-election-coverage-alan-greenspan-on-antitrust-circa-1961/
Apple relies entirely on their cult to fund its sales.
Well, decent products too. Not to mention killer marketing. Can any other company manage 8 stories on the front page of http://cnet.com/ as Apple has at the moment as well as front pages of CNN, BBC, New York Times etc etc, just because they released a tablet?
I agree but I don't think it's a good thing. I'm afraid that Google has such a lead in the search engine technology as well as the market share, and the brain power behind it all, that it is almost impossible to beat. I think it will take a paradigm shift in how people access the information on the Internet before Google is unseated but that is nowhere on the horizon. The problem I have with this is that every company that carves itself such a secure and powerful position tends to abuse it however well intentioned its founders were.
I don't know about your country but in America if a factory next door dumped their waste into your backyard it will be the equivalent of winning a lottery ticket. In other words you will sue them for millions and win easily and there is no shortage of lawyers who will be fighting over representing you for a share of the winnigs, with no money upfront. If there is one thing corporations are scared off it is negligence lawsuits. Remember the old lady who initially won $2.8 million because McDonalds sold her a cup of hot coffee and she put it between her legs while driving and spilled it on her vagina.
I still don't see how this is the officers' fault. If they violated their department's policy by emailing these photos, then that is the extent of their guilt. There is a penalty for that I'm sure. If the family experienced pain and suffering as a result of some idiots emailing or calling them, then those idiots are responsible for that and the family has every right to sue them. Was there no way to track down and expose any of them?
One can make an inferior product in a foreign country and sell it for less money.
And what's the problem there?
One can buy the competition and close them down.
Again, what is wrong about that?
One can make unreasonable patents that scare away competition.
Last I heard the patent office was part of the government. Who is more immoral, a company that asks for unreasonable monopoly on an idea or the government that grants it?
One can collude with other companies to lock out certain competition.
This at last has a semblance of a real problem until you realize that this just does not happen in practice. Good article on a nightmare that is the antitrust law by Alan Greenspan (back when he was still a libertarian): http://politicalinquirer.com/2007/12/12/interrupting-the-election-coverage-alan-greenspan-on-antitrust-circa-1961/
Your list is really nothing more than saying that competition is tough and not everybody wins. As a general rule that is good for the consumer in the long run and where it isn't you will typically find that it is most often the government regulation that is causing the problem, not the free competition.
No, you would sue them.
It is modded as troll for the same reason that any post in favor of free market and economic liberty is modded down. It is not that the left wing /.ers have more mod points, it is that they are more likely to lack arguments for their beliefs (for the simple reason that their beliefs are not based on sound reasoning but on emotions) and to use the modding system instead.
It is the duty of governments to ensure equitable distribution of wealth, without discouraging wealth creation.
That's impossible. Please find a solution that is not based at its core on a contradiction and you might be taken more seriously.
This definitely does NOT deserve to be modded "insightful".
Corporations? Damned thieves can tramply anyone, and everyone, with no repercussions.
Really? If people don't like the actions of a corporation they have the right not to fucking buy that corporations products, and you'll see how quickly the things change.
Go ahead, people, cheer for the corporations. None of them are doing anything for you.
Except for everything you see around you. Was PC made by a government decree? Can you remind me which government invented, and made economically profitable electricity, car, airplane, TV, cell phone, etc etc?
Your government supplies your drinking water, builds your roads, responds in the event of disaster, and much, much more.
I'm glad you saved the most idiotic comment for last. The government DOES NOT do any of those things. It is the taxpayer money that pays for all of those things, the government simply manages it (usually in a notoriously inefficient, wasteful and corrupt way). Yes in some cases it is a necessary evil to put all our money together and pay for some things that way though it should be avoided wherever possible. In any case, there is nothing to be thankful to the government for! It is simply taking our money and paying for things on our behalf. Please try to remember that simple concept.