There's quite a difference between saying "we don't have enough cops on the street, so people are afraid of going to the store to buy stuff" and saying "the city has enacted a law preventing loitering in public places." Only the latter is a direct force being applied to people, in violation of their individual rights.
Or, maybe you meant something different by that vague comment. If you did, please elaborate with examples and rationale.
It seems you do not know what the whole story is about. The government was doing the wiretapping, and demanded companies comply with their requests. Normally, if someone wiretaps you, you can take them to court for violating your rights. Only when the government does the wiretapping do you not have that option. The rights violation has still occurred, however.
All you're basically saying is, "these two groups got it wrong, so if we throw more groups at the problem, maybe we'll find a solution." The end result is whoever has the most interesting personality will win.
The problem is there will always be a loophole as long as politicians are able to pass legislation affecting the economy. You're trying to patch things up on the wrong end of the problem, and you'll end up repeating this process forever. The only way to fix it is to ban politicians from manipulating the economy. Then companies will then have no interest in them.
"I mean the public sentiment was about as obvious as it could ever be."
It's like voting for Kodos after 6 years of Kang. All you're voting for is a different name for the same thing. The public, it would seem, is easily fooled.
Money does not corrupt reasoning. Greed in an uncoerced, free market demands efficiency from all involved parties. What does lead to corruption is when a force-backed entity - such as the government - gets involved in the money game, with the promise of financial protection through favorable legislation. Companies and cronies will immediately seek out corruptible politicians - to do otherwise would be to risk seeing unfavorable legislation passed.
"If you want to grow an economy, you have to cultivate the supply and the demand."
It is not everyone's goal to grow the economy. Maybe some economists and others see it as an overarching goal, but you cannot justify violating everyone's rights in the name of a goal that they don't subscribe to. If it is your goal to help grow the economy, then you can help make that happen by spreading the knowledge and persuading businesses to pay their workers more (just as you assert Ford did; you can even use him as an example). If your reasoning is solid and convincing enough, they'll agree.
What you should not do is force everyone to accept this goal at the expense of their rights, through government regulation.
I think for you to have a case you would also have to show that the average "lowest wage" could not also be increased by workers simply rejecting employment from employers who offer too little. If a worker agrees to work N hours for X pay, then why the need for legislation to get more money to him. He agreed to those terms. If enough workers strike or refuse employment from low-paying companies, those companies will have to offer more money to get employees.
"If you don't pay your workers enough, their disposable income drops and the market for everything other than basic needs shrink."
And if such a "problem" becomes widespread, prices will drop as the workers producing those basic needs are also "not getting paid enough". Then your workers have more disposable income.
"What, not even if they're a psychopath, and what they want to do with their lives is kill people?"
Did you even read what I said? "Forcing anyone to do with their lives and property other than they wish is a violation of their rights as human beings." If a psychopath forces anyone to do with their lives other than they wish, he has violated their rights................
"Or, less extreme - what if they're a truck driver. They want to work an 80 hour week. Fine?"
"Except you want to make it not a criminal offence"
No, I don't. Pollution that does damage to anyone's life or property is a violation of their rights, and any polluters should be brought to justice for their crimes. Of course those people who dumped pollutants in Italy should be punished.
"But well done on trolling an entire thread for hundreds of posts."
Ad hominem. Also, it's not trolling when you believe it to be true. Or are you just going based on the moderation? Does majority determine reality for you?
"what technology do you think would prevent kids from working down there?"
Responsible parents. Successfully raising children is a goal initiated by certain individuals. Whether they get to that goal is up to them entirely - not the public.
Lots of claimed correlations, no evidence of causation.
"when a larger percentage of your population becomes consumers everyone wins"
Can you elaborate on what you mean by this? I take it to mean that when people produce less and consume more, everyone wins. Surely that's not what you mean because that's obviously false.
And noone has yet to address the fundamental problem with such regulations - how do they justify the rights violations that come with it? Forcing anyone to do with their lives and property other than they wish is a violation of their rights as human beings. Any gain that results from such endeavors is not justified - ie, the ends do not justify the means.
"You need only look at the average income of an American over the last 100 years to see that when you make more money your quality of life goes up."
And as average income has shot up, likewise the value of the dollar has dropped and taxes have increased. The amount of money you make simply represents how much you produce. To make more money requires producing more. Any increases in production over the last 100 years are likely attributable to technological advances, not to some arbitrary wage floor introduced in the '30s.
"More people today are making more money and enjoy a much higher quality of life than my grand parents did during the depression."
"Why do you think minimum wage laws and unions were formed in the first place?"
My personal opinion? People who were making less than that amount thought they would be getting extra money, and voted for candidates who would give them that result. That is quite often how candidates get elected - whether through tax cuts, tax refunds, services funded by selective taxation (cigarette tax comes to mind), and other government manipulations of the economy. A candidate can gain a lot of support if he basically tells people that he's going hand them extra money. What people don't realize is that any benefit is temporary because everyone else is also seeing these benefits, and in the long-term it is detrimental, as we are seeing now - jobs shipped overseas en masse.
How does this address the subject of the discussion? There are always going to be cases of criminal activity in any system. Those criminals can be brought to justice and face the consequences. That is the sole purpose of the government.
And if they are caught they will face punishment, just like any other criminal. I don't see how this addresses the current situation. There is always fraud in any system. It is not the responsibility of the government to account for every possibility, but to apply the punishment when the crime is uncovered.
They do not have the infrastructure to support that technology. They can import the hardware, but they need trained people to operate it. They need the power grid to keep it going. They also need people to monitor, repair, and generally maintain it. They need the equipment for that maintenance, and the replacement equipment. They can try importing it all, but the costs would be high because they would have to offer those people a lot of money to pull them away from their First World existence.
You've created a fantastic hypothetical. Why should I consider it? Anyone can create an unlikely hypothetical for every situation. The point is not to account for every possibility where rights can be violated, but to stop government-forced rights violations.
Slashdot Mirror
In fact, it crashes any time I use LogMeIn - which, at work, is always. So I'm going back to FF2.
"Blaming Congressional Democrats for not getting done what they wanted is highly disingenuous, regardless if you agree with them or not."
I would not blame them, but rather thank them for not getting done what they wanted.
There's quite a difference between saying "we don't have enough cops on the street, so people are afraid of going to the store to buy stuff" and saying "the city has enacted a law preventing loitering in public places." Only the latter is a direct force being applied to people, in violation of their individual rights.
Or, maybe you meant something different by that vague comment. If you did, please elaborate with examples and rationale.
"So I guess we don't have a free market in any sense."
Currently, we don't. Not even close.
It seems you do not know what the whole story is about. The government was doing the wiretapping, and demanded companies comply with their requests. Normally, if someone wiretaps you, you can take them to court for violating your rights. Only when the government does the wiretapping do you not have that option. The rights violation has still occurred, however.
All you're basically saying is, "these two groups got it wrong, so if we throw more groups at the problem, maybe we'll find a solution." The end result is whoever has the most interesting personality will win.
The problem is there will always be a loophole as long as politicians are able to pass legislation affecting the economy. You're trying to patch things up on the wrong end of the problem, and you'll end up repeating this process forever. The only way to fix it is to ban politicians from manipulating the economy. Then companies will then have no interest in them.
"I mean the public sentiment was about as obvious as it could ever be."
It's like voting for Kodos after 6 years of Kang. All you're voting for is a different name for the same thing. The public, it would seem, is easily fooled.
Money does not corrupt reasoning. Greed in an uncoerced, free market demands efficiency from all involved parties. What does lead to corruption is when a force-backed entity - such as the government - gets involved in the money game, with the promise of financial protection through favorable legislation. Companies and cronies will immediately seek out corruptible politicians - to do otherwise would be to risk seeing unfavorable legislation passed.
... companies will flock to politicians. It's one big protection racket.
Granted, the tests were done on the Price is Right.
"600 jelly beans?"
"Higher"
"900?"
"Looower...."
"If you want to grow an economy, you have to cultivate the supply and the demand."
It is not everyone's goal to grow the economy. Maybe some economists and others see it as an overarching goal, but you cannot justify violating everyone's rights in the name of a goal that they don't subscribe to. If it is your goal to help grow the economy, then you can help make that happen by spreading the knowledge and persuading businesses to pay their workers more (just as you assert Ford did; you can even use him as an example). If your reasoning is solid and convincing enough, they'll agree.
What you should not do is force everyone to accept this goal at the expense of their rights, through government regulation.
I think for you to have a case you would also have to show that the average "lowest wage" could not also be increased by workers simply rejecting employment from employers who offer too little. If a worker agrees to work N hours for X pay, then why the need for legislation to get more money to him. He agreed to those terms. If enough workers strike or refuse employment from low-paying companies, those companies will have to offer more money to get employees.
"If you don't pay your workers enough, their disposable income drops and the market for everything other than basic needs shrink."
And if such a "problem" becomes widespread, prices will drop as the workers producing those basic needs are also "not getting paid enough". Then your workers have more disposable income.
"What, not even if they're a psychopath, and what they want to do with their lives is kill people?"
Did you even read what I said? "Forcing anyone to do with their lives and property other than they wish is a violation of their rights as human beings." If a psychopath forces anyone to do with their lives other than they wish, he has violated their rights................
"Or, less extreme - what if they're a truck driver. They want to work an 80 hour week. Fine?"
Yes.
"Except you want to make it not a criminal offence"
No, I don't. Pollution that does damage to anyone's life or property is a violation of their rights, and any polluters should be brought to justice for their crimes. Of course those people who dumped pollutants in Italy should be punished.
"But well done on trolling an entire thread for hundreds of posts."
Ad hominem. Also, it's not trolling when you believe it to be true. Or are you just going based on the moderation? Does majority determine reality for you?
So how does it become the responsibility of everyone else in the country if a person does not take responsibility for his or her own goals?
"what technology do you think would prevent kids from working down there?"
Responsible parents. Successfully raising children is a goal initiated by certain individuals. Whether they get to that goal is up to them entirely - not the public.
I'm for the second amendment and opposed to wiretapping, torture, disregard of habeas corpus.
How much hypocrisy do I have?
Lots of claimed correlations, no evidence of causation.
"when a larger percentage of your population becomes consumers everyone wins"
Can you elaborate on what you mean by this? I take it to mean that when people produce less and consume more, everyone wins. Surely that's not what you mean because that's obviously false.
And noone has yet to address the fundamental problem with such regulations - how do they justify the rights violations that come with it? Forcing anyone to do with their lives and property other than they wish is a violation of their rights as human beings. Any gain that results from such endeavors is not justified - ie, the ends do not justify the means.
"You need only look at the average income of an American over the last 100 years to see that when you make more money your quality of life goes up."
And as average income has shot up, likewise the value of the dollar has dropped and taxes have increased. The amount of money you make simply represents how much you produce. To make more money requires producing more. Any increases in production over the last 100 years are likely attributable to technological advances, not to some arbitrary wage floor introduced in the '30s.
"More people today are making more money and enjoy a much higher quality of life than my grand parents did during the depression."
And you need look no further than government manipulation of the economy for the cause.
"Why do you think minimum wage laws and unions were formed in the first place?"
My personal opinion? People who were making less than that amount thought they would be getting extra money, and voted for candidates who would give them that result. That is quite often how candidates get elected - whether through tax cuts, tax refunds, services funded by selective taxation (cigarette tax comes to mind), and other government manipulations of the economy. A candidate can gain a lot of support if he basically tells people that he's going hand them extra money. What people don't realize is that any benefit is temporary because everyone else is also seeing these benefits, and in the long-term it is detrimental, as we are seeing now - jobs shipped overseas en masse.
How does this address the subject of the discussion? There are always going to be cases of criminal activity in any system. Those criminals can be brought to justice and face the consequences. That is the sole purpose of the government.
And if they are caught they will face punishment, just like any other criminal. I don't see how this addresses the current situation. There is always fraud in any system. It is not the responsibility of the government to account for every possibility, but to apply the punishment when the crime is uncovered.
They do not have the infrastructure to support that technology. They can import the hardware, but they need trained people to operate it. They need the power grid to keep it going. They also need people to monitor, repair, and generally maintain it. They need the equipment for that maintenance, and the replacement equipment. They can try importing it all, but the costs would be high because they would have to offer those people a lot of money to pull them away from their First World existence.
You've created a fantastic hypothetical. Why should I consider it? Anyone can create an unlikely hypothetical for every situation. The point is not to account for every possibility where rights can be violated, but to stop government-forced rights violations.
Ad hominem.