You are trying to argue that economic disparity does not exist because the facts do not fit your world view.
- patently ridiculous and false attempt at putting words into my mouth. I don't know where you are getting THAT BULLSHIT from, I never sy: "economic disparity does not exist", it takes a special kind of mind to believe that and you should go and reread what is written.
My statement:
- cost of living in USA is only high because of government destruction of currency, the free market and individual liberties.
- THIS? This does not compare cost of living in USA to cost of living in Zimbabwe.
This says: cost of living in USA is only high because government destroys currency and otherwise hurts economy, which is correct. Cost of living in USA IS only high due to government raising cost of living. Free market was doing wonderfully LOWERING cost of living in USA.
I am clearly not comparing Zimbabwe to USA, but go ahead, put words in my mouth, see how stupid you can get in your comments.
You are trying to argue that collusion, price fixing and corporate feudalism is the free market, and you call *me* ignorant??
- 'corporate feudalism' is bullshit, and yes, YOU are ignorant on what free market is.
Free market is absolutely only one thing: market free of government meddling, nothing else.
Any company paying anybody to use only their product is fine, it doesn't break any contract, it doesn't force anybody to do anything. Two companies working together against one other company, or whatever the balance is - this are all perfectly legitimate business decisions made in free market.
Why not move to a government free country like somalia then.
- I prefer Switzerland to a former communist heaven torn by war created by the people who decided to oppose the communist rule.
Parts of Somalia are definitely more free than USA, with more democracy in fact. They are poor, but that's a consequence of decades of communist rule and the resulting war.
Because the general public are not capable of making those decisions; they do not have the background to be able to judge the merits of one argument against each other. This is why we have funding committees comprising trained scientists in charge of doling out the funding.
- I know a bunch of people, who truly believe that what they do is absolutely necessary, and the rest of the population is incapable of recognising it on merits, these people can't sell the idea on merits, so instead let us use government force based on violence and compel everybody to give some of their life - time - money towards this particular cause.
These individuals are really really amazing, they'll be doing things that you just can't understand, they are so awesome, but clearly the rest of the public is too dumb to get it, so let's use their time and money, let's enslave them to our excellent cause of sheer awesomeness.
Can't say i've ever heard of someone being robbed at gunpoint to fund science,
- that's strange, are income taxes that you pay not mandatory and there will be no people with guns coming to you to take your money and your person away if you decide that you will not 'cooperate' and pay them the Dane geld?
I don't agree that blue sky science is frivolous
- of-course it is frivolous, but nobody says it's completely unnecessary, but it is frivolous.
as it has very real and measurable economic benefits
- things that provide 'measurable economic benefits' can be sold on merits, not with threat of government.
I also don't agree that by cutting taxes every Joe is going to become some sort of philanthropist.
- you clearly want EVERY Joe to give you to your cause. I didn't say EVERY Joe would either. Many people will, many people won't, people will decide HOW to spend their money and different people will spend their money on different causes. Can't happen at all in an economy that's being destroyed by the government, and this is the story that provides a little bit of proof to that as well.
The probable outcome is that the prices of everyday products will just increase as the removal of taxes would just devalue the currency.
- now that's funny, for a guy who thinks he understands science. USA 1800 to 1913, US dollar gained 100% value, since 1870 to 1913 the economy of USA boomed by huge amount, creating all of the wealth that could be then squandered over the next 70 years. There were no income taxes, no corporate taxes, no payroll taxes at all. Prices went DOWN, there was slight monetary deflation (thus money increased in value by a factor of 2) and prices were constantly going down with more and more businesses and ideas and competition coming on line.
You have an interesting point of view concerning taxation. Personally I have no issue with paying taxes, as health, social security, defense, science funding and all those other things are in my opinion much better handled by an organisation that is (at least in principle) answerable to the people - the government.
1. Government does not answer to people, it's a misunderstanding. Just because a POTUS or any member can in principle be elected from people, doesn't actually mean much at all. There are very few people in gov't that came out of general public, it's a privileged government class, and this idea that you are part of the government is just a ruse.
2. Government does NOT answer to the people, but corporations DO answer to people UNLESS they are the government, which is what you get, once you allow government to deal for corporations - to do things that are unauthorised by the law. In USA all of the things that government does nowadays is unauthorised, there is very very little that gov't does that is in fact legal and allowed by the contract with the people that is the Constitution.
Where the fuck do you live that you don't pay taxes and everything is run by the free market.
- five flags.
You are stupid if you think that the free market is the cure all for all that woes the world
- freedom is.
The majority of my economics books are dedicated to why the free market fails.
- obviously majority of your books are dedicated to that, you should really think about that.
Less gov't got us that nice housing bubble, child labor, and the great depression.
- housing bubble was created by gov't easy credit, fake money and policy of 'affordable housing'. Child labour only ended as the free market created enough wealth that the new efficient machines could no longer be operated by people without enough knowledge and parents of those children became much more productive, allowing the children to stop working, all while the employers needed a more educated work force. Great depression was created by the Federal reserve's policy of buying out bad UK debt and then Hoover and FDR deciding to meddle with the free market administering of the necessary rebalancing recession.
You really need to think again, why your books tell you what they tell you. Economics, history, politics, those are not sciences, those are tools of used to keep you the way you need to be kept - away from reality.
There is nothing wrong with stupid people, it's OK they are stupid, the problem is only that they are allowed to vote in the first place, which should really be discouraged.
I don't believe car insurance, as an example, is such a complex issue to understand and I don't believe you have a COP following you 24/7, protecting your person from all matters that are likely to happen to you, or maybe you DO?
It's called insurance. You pay insurance premiums and they are used to fund a private security force.
However you are absolutely correct - those with very great means can have much better security. The question you should ask yourself is: how is it different from today, as many celebrities and politicians and bankers have MUCH better security than you do, as they literally can afford bodyguards?
Any other currency than Zimbabwe dollars. So, it is cheap by almost any measure.
1. To make it clear: destruction of currency that I am talking about is printing of that currency.
2. I am talking about buying things in the destroyed currency. To the people living in Zimbabwe it is clearly not an easy task to get currency other than their own, and owning gold is the way to go, they use gold as money. You think it's easy for them to get gold for their work, is that your premise? Because you are wrong on it.
3. So how many people in Zimbabwe have all the things they want exactly? What the hell does it mean: "why is the cost of living lower in Zimbabwe"? It is a ridiculous statement. How much time does one Zimbabwe citizen have to spend looking or working for gold in order to have enough to buy his own place? Have you ever BEEN in Zimbabwe and have you seen their houses? Have you seen them owning TVs and fridges and computers and cars en mass? Is life in Zimbabwe great, because they destroyed their currency and NOBODY wants to sell them things in ZIMBABWE DOLLARS?
So when USA fails and everybody's USA DOLLARS collapse in value, what would it do to the purchasing power of the people holding the USA DOLLARS? If you have a box full of them, or a bank account ('guaranteed' by FDIC, what a laugh, it's 'guaranteed' by the Fed's ability to issue worthless credit) what would you be able to BUY with US dollars once they are worth little less than Zimbabwe dollars?
How can you say that cost of living in Zimbabwe is lower than in USA with a straight face? How much TIME does it take for a person in Zimbabwe to do enough work to satisfy his entire demand, and how does it compare to USA and what gives you the right to throw these 2 together in a sentence and believe that you have said anything of any value to anybody anywhere on the entire planet?
It's certainly not a free market. It's completely distorted.
- this is such nonsense. If I have a company and I make a deal with another company that I pay them not to use competing products - that's FREE MARKET.
If GOVERNMENT came out and said: this is the only supplier of this, and here is the price, and here is the license one has to buy to build the same thing, and here are the regulations that one must abide by and here are the taxes, and if you try and enter this business, you will be paying for these regulations and these taxes, and this will go to fund your competitor. THAT would be NOT free market.
You have no idea what free market is, you are literally illiterate on the issue.
Only monopolies are those, who have the power to destroy with the force of the government. Nothing else is a monopoly, only a current player, possibly a dominant one at the time.
Governments create monopolies, that's all they can do.
USA is absolutely NOT the biggest exporter in the world, that's such a ridiculous statement in the face of the 50BILLION US DOLLARS A MONTH TRADE DEFICIT, while China (as an example) has positive 30 billion dollars a month, not deficit.
By the way, USA has trade deficit with everybody, including Germany, but also Mexico and Canada.
None of the private entities that are not backed up by government force are a monopoly. They are a temporary dominant player, they are likely a large player, likely an economy of scale, and as long as they satisfy their customers, they will keep their position.
The moment there is a new technology trend or the moment there is a way to provide the product at a cheaper rate there will be a competitor born, because you can't prevent people without government intervention from trying.
Only government creates real monopolies, all this other stuff that gov't says about monopolies is nonsense. Gov't anti-trust stuff is nonsense, it's all about somebody trying to enter a field, where there is a very good provider of an acceptable solution at an acceptable price, which is always the best thing for the market, and this somebody cannot actually compete, but they have access to government (likely somebody with access already based on their other businesses, like a bank) and they start the attack on the current dominant company by using government as a violent force, but this means that the prices will be raised.
That's right, the gov't isn't concerned about you - the consumer, it's concerned about somebody who is paying. Thus when Alcoa Aluminum was attacked by the gov't dogs, it was because somebody else couldn't enter the market because they couldn't match the PRICE of their offering.
Gov't is a force that destroys the market, sets prices higher than they should and thus hurts the consumer, it does this under the guise of helping you.
Well, if you believe the gov't in this nonsense, then you are probably buying too much of their propaganda anyway.
You would end up with scientists becoming some cross between beggars and salesman, trying to sell a theory to the public based on little evidence and lots of bad analogies; I really don't think this would be good for science.
- there is literally no problem with that. No problem with some people becoming beggars and some people becoming salesman, WHY SHOULDN'T THEY SELL THE IDEA to somebody, that they should be funded, even if their research is never going to create any monetary incentives? Why not?
Why do you want to put a GUN to the heads of the individuals to steal money from them they earned this way, rather than allow somebody try and convince them that they may want, for the love of science or art, fund some of it?
People who don't have taxes to worry about are definitely much more likely to spend on frivolous things, and this IS frivolous, and people would spend this way too, even just for bragging rights, or maybe they have a personal agenda.
But instead you'd have gov't put guns to their heads, and then what happens? Military and destructive SS and Medicare eat up all this wealth, and what does science get?
I bet, I am absolutely positive, that people are much more charitable, when they are not taxed by their government under the barrel of a gun, and they have more money to spend, and they then are the ones deciding how to spend it.
It is the ONLY moral way to go about it - personal choice. And let some of these scientists sell the idea or have somebody sell the idea, let them have charity.
However in a free society there is much more wealth created than in a non-free society you prefer, and with much more wealth, there would be much more funding for all sorts of science, even seemingly irrelevant.
Why?
Because the wealth allows people to work less. That's why Ford decreased the working hours to 8 and days to 5 and increased wages twofold - he needed to retain talent to become more productive, and he did become more productive and people worked fewer hours.
With more wealth in the system, eventually people would work even fewer hours to get the same output, and they could fund all sorts of things, and even just DO all sorts of things in their spare time.
People can absolutely have freedom of association, and if there is huge interest in very expensive scientific tools, there could be literally millions of people putting money together to chip in for your most expensive toy.
But not the way it's done now. Not with military contractors. Not with mandatory taxes and ever growing and ever more spending and printing government. What you have now is complete destruction of all science, because you have destruction of manufacturing base, and that's all thanks to gov't destroying the economy with counterfeiting, spending (thus taxes) and destruction of individual liberties.
And by the way, even philosophically - you want your science to be funded by who? Slaves, that are stolen from, or free people, who care enough about it to chip in?
No. The fundamental reason the US did so well before is not this. The fundamental reason is that USA had competitive advantage against the entire world, it was this:
Individual rights and the laws limiting government ability to abuse individual rights, laws limiting government ability to tell individual what to do and what not to do, laws that would limit government ability to destroy competition, destroy money, destroy businesses, destroy the economy with massive spending, all this stuff - this was their main competitive advantage. In one word that is often misunderstood: freedom. It may be cheesy, but that was their competitive advantage that nobody could touch. They gave it up.
Increase of wealth in one country actually does increase wealth around the world, that is true, but this does not mean that US domination in wealth creation would have been slowed past 1913 as it was, if US citizens didn't allow the government to destroy their productivity and money via regulations, huge government spending (thus taxes) and counterfeiting.
The reason why I am confident is that the people came to USA for freedoms from their own governments. People came to USA searching for better life, based on the assumption that they would find justice and fairness based on government NOT ABUSING THEM. That's the main reason that USA attracted all kinds of enterprising individuals in the first place.
Eventually other countries would emulate that too, hopefully, and that would allow them to become major manufacturers as well. But things didn't quite work out that way in reality. US citizens have forgotten all about the reasons for USA being 'exceptional' - not what the current POTUS would have you believe, not because everybody would 'look out for one another' and not because everybody would be 'their brothers keeper', but because the justice and government system in USA was based not on nobility but on an idea that individuals actually have the rights and government must obey the law and protect individual RIGHTS.
That's the main competitive advantage that USA had.
say 'thank you' to the spending policy again, it's about gov't creating the highway infrastructure based on subsidies, I also have a comment on that. This caused urban sprawl, pollution, reliance on subsidised infrastructure, destruction of private mass-transit companies, not to mention rail road destruction and huge overtaxation of airlines, all so that gov't could pretend to deal with the problem it created in the first place.
That wasn't an "attack", that was a clear case of antitrust violation.
- everything government does is an attack. What, you didn't know? Every single move by gov't is an attack. It's all violence. Whatever shape and form it takes, it is only possible because of the barrel of a gun pointed at your head, nothing else at all.
As to 'anti-trust' -every time this was used, it was used by gov't as a response to various underhanded deals, helping out the competitors (existing or possible) of the company that is being attacked.
Kodak was NOT a viable company
- that is irrelevant. Today we cannot say how things would have worked out for them, because we know how things worked out based on real events. It's impossible to know for a fact what would have happened, and that's why your argument is nonsense.
You do not in fact know, what would have happened to Kodak if it was not for the government preventing their business ideas (acquisitions, whatever) from taking place.
But presumably these investors expect some sort of return on their investments?
- not necessarily. Basically it's the same reason that people funded artists out of pocket - for the love of the idea, it's not like all those artists made them money.
I know that most science that can be done will never lead to anything, you can literally do trillions upon trillions upon trillions to the trillionths degree of experiments and never derive a single cent out of all that spending, is it wise to allow government to spend money stolen from individuals that way? No way in this world. That's way to destroy the economy.
You can destroy the economy in plenty of ways - war is just one. You can start funding all science or whatever, you can start funding all stamp collectors or all sand collectors, it doesn't matter, it will always lead to increase in that part of spending, more people will be attracted to it and it will grow, and if that's the ONLY thing that gov't is allowed to spend on, then it will still amass itself, have huge growth and huge spending there, it will still destroy the economy through one single thing if that's the one thing it is allowed to spend on.
There are no bounds to how many experiments or ideas one can test. There are no bounds at all. You can spend the GDP of this planet until the Sun blows up on this stuff.
No. We must not allow the government to spend money this way at all. Gov't must be given a mission: border protection, maintaining criminal and contract law at most.
The government and the Federal Reserve. No different in concept. The super wealthy and corporate lobbies have complete control over the government and they mold it to consolidate power that protects their cartels.
The problem becomes when government and market become one entity, so then there is no market, there is ONLY government, then prices can only go up.
Yeah, it's not a hidden secret, not a surprise. It's a bunch of groups working to different ends. The dumb population doesn't mind the gov't seizing the controls it's not supposed to have, because it's promised the bread and circuses, and those, who see this as an opportunity push for the same agenda for different reasons - they see it as the golden opportunity to corrupt the system, so it can be then easily controlled.
But the groups that corrupt the system become the government and the groups that allow the system to be corrupted by not demanding that the system follows the pre-set rules, is the group that truly allows it.
Tomorrow if a very large number of people decided they've had enough, they could completely take down the entire government system simply by refusing cooperation.
COOPERATION of a very large portion of the population is behind all of this - every unconstitutional and illegal thing that gov't does is done with cooperation and even often with approval of the public.
Competition among private security companies. They want clients, they need to work for them. It's the same principled that works forever with all sorts of private militias, mercs.
Bondholders are investors. Investments carry a risk of loss. Sad trombone and tuba music for those bondholders.
- not the risk of destruction of law, not the risk of confiscation of property by government, not the risk of destruction of contract.
Risk of losing the investment to bad management decisions, to a better competitor, whatever - yes. Risk of losing the investment to government confiscating it?
Well, now yes.
Kodak couldn't restructure because they couldn't.
- they were prevented, they couldn't, because government prevented them from doing it on their terms.
Normal contract laws do not apply anymore in the US? If anything, they're seeing a resurgence, at least at the consumer level.
Except that none of this was on economics. You just wanted to rant against governments.
- how can you separate the two, what kind of a strange trick do you need to allow yourself to play on yourself to be able to have this illusion, that your government is not what is ailing your economy in the exact ways that I described? Don't answer, it's self evident.
That is a fat load of bullshit, just like everything else you've said in this thread. Employers are the ones with power, which is why you've seen wages stagnate and drop in the last 30 years.
- you are so stiff in your brain, not even glimmer of hope for you.
1971 - gold shock. Why? Because of massive gov't created inflation. Why? Because gov't got out of hand, out of control. How? By promising the people to give them free lunch, bread and circuses.
So then what? Inflation. Destruction of savings. Destruction of investment capital. Promotion of easy credit. Credit for consumer products, not for businesses generating actual real wealth.
Is that all? No. Growth of gov't based on fake credit creates more departments (as is seen from 1965 and on). This means many new regulations, much higher taxes, various labour laws, price and wage controls.
So what? Manufacturing and agriculture and mining and all sorts of other jobs leave, and you are left with what cannot be exported easily, so you have your so called "service economy".
And? And you have no jobs, because all the stuff you actually use on daily basis is not produced by service economy, it's produced by somebody making it somewhere and importing into your country, while you only export fake currency.
So how will that end? Eventually you won't have anything at all, your money is not good, nobody will trade with you, you won't be able to pay for your exports with anything but most mundane things - like raw energy you can still mine somewhere: oil, coal.
Bitcoin is fake money, just like federal reserve notes, so you'd not be able to find a comment of mine saying any different ever.
Your problem is you are unable to see the obvious, it's like trying to explain the concept of the Sun to a microbe.
Yes, the reason for the failing US (and European) economies is destruction of money, destruction of individual liberties, growth of the government, growth of regulations and taxes. That's what has to be stopped for jobs to come back.
Slashdot Mirror
You are trying to argue that economic disparity does not exist because the facts do not fit your world view.
- patently ridiculous and false attempt at putting words into my mouth. I don't know where you are getting THAT BULLSHIT from, I never sy: "economic disparity does not exist", it takes a special kind of mind to believe that and you should go and reread what is written.
My statement:
- cost of living in USA is only high because of government destruction of currency, the free market and individual liberties.
- THIS? This does not compare cost of living in USA to cost of living in Zimbabwe.
This says: cost of living in USA is only high because government destroys currency and otherwise hurts economy, which is correct. Cost of living in USA IS only high due to government raising cost of living. Free market was doing wonderfully LOWERING cost of living in USA.
I am clearly not comparing Zimbabwe to USA, but go ahead, put words in my mouth, see how stupid you can get in your comments.
You are trying to argue that collusion, price fixing and corporate feudalism is the free market, and you call *me* ignorant??
- 'corporate feudalism' is bullshit, and yes, YOU are ignorant on what free market is.
Free market is absolutely only one thing: market free of government meddling, nothing else.
Any company paying anybody to use only their product is fine, it doesn't break any contract, it doesn't force anybody to do anything. Two companies working together against one other company, or whatever the balance is - this are all perfectly legitimate business decisions made in free market.
Why not move to a government free country like somalia then.
- I prefer Switzerland to a former communist heaven torn by war created by the people who decided to oppose the communist rule.
Parts of Somalia are definitely more free than USA, with more democracy in fact. They are poor, but that's a consequence of decades of communist rule and the resulting war.
Because the general public are not capable of making those decisions; they do not have the background to be able to judge the merits of one argument against each other. This is why we have funding committees comprising trained scientists in charge of doling out the funding.
- I know a bunch of people, who truly believe that what they do is absolutely necessary, and the rest of the population is incapable of recognising it on merits, these people can't sell the idea on merits, so instead let us use government force based on violence and compel everybody to give some of their life - time - money towards this particular cause.
These individuals are really really amazing, they'll be doing things that you just can't understand, they are so awesome, but clearly the rest of the public is too dumb to get it, so let's use their time and money, let's enslave them to our excellent cause of sheer awesomeness.
Can't say i've ever heard of someone being robbed at gunpoint to fund science,
- that's strange, are income taxes that you pay not mandatory and there will be no people with guns coming to you to take your money and your person away if you decide that you will not 'cooperate' and pay them the Dane geld?
I don't agree that blue sky science is frivolous
- of-course it is frivolous, but nobody says it's completely unnecessary, but it is frivolous.
as it has very real and measurable economic benefits
- things that provide 'measurable economic benefits' can be sold on merits, not with threat of government.
I also don't agree that by cutting taxes every Joe is going to become some sort of philanthropist.
- you clearly want EVERY Joe to give you to your cause. I didn't say EVERY Joe would either. Many people will, many people won't, people will decide HOW to spend their money and different people will spend their money on different causes. Can't happen at all in an economy that's being destroyed by the government, and this is the story that provides a little bit of proof to that as well.
The probable outcome is that the prices of everyday products will just increase as the removal of taxes would just devalue the currency.
- now that's funny, for a guy who thinks he understands science. USA 1800 to 1913, US dollar gained 100% value, since 1870 to 1913 the economy of USA boomed by huge amount, creating all of the wealth that could be then squandered over the next 70 years. There were no income taxes, no corporate taxes, no payroll taxes at all. Prices went DOWN, there was slight monetary deflation (thus money increased in value by a factor of 2) and prices were constantly going down with more and more businesses and ideas and competition coming on line.
You have an interesting point of view concerning taxation. Personally I have no issue with paying taxes, as health, social security, defense, science funding and all those other things are in my opinion much better handled by an organisation that is (at least in principle) answerable to the people - the government.
1. Government does not answer to people, it's a misunderstanding. Just because a POTUS or any member can in principle be elected from people, doesn't actually mean much at all. There are very few people in gov't that came out of general public, it's a privileged government class, and this idea that you are part of the government is just a ruse.
2. Government does NOT answer to the people, but corporations DO answer to people UNLESS they are the government, which is what you get, once you allow government to deal for corporations - to do things that are unauthorised by the law. In USA all of the things that government does nowadays is unauthorised, there is very very little that gov't does that is in fact legal and allowed by the contract with the people that is the Constitution.
Where the fuck do you live that you don't pay taxes and everything is run by the free market.
- five flags.
You are stupid if you think that the free market is the cure all for all that woes the world
- freedom is.
The majority of my economics books are dedicated to why the free market fails.
- obviously majority of your books are dedicated to that, you should really think about that.
Less gov't got us that nice housing bubble, child labor, and the great depression.
- housing bubble was created by gov't easy credit, fake money and policy of 'affordable housing'. Child labour only ended as the free market created enough wealth that the new efficient machines could no longer be operated by people without enough knowledge and parents of those children became much more productive, allowing the children to stop working, all while the employers needed a more educated work force. Great depression was created by the Federal reserve's policy of buying out bad UK debt and then Hoover and FDR deciding to meddle with the free market administering of the necessary rebalancing recession.
You really need to think again, why your books tell you what they tell you. Economics, history, politics, those are not sciences, those are tools of used to keep you the way you need to be kept - away from reality.
and none of what you said negates the fact: COMPANIES only exist to provide their investors with profits.
What the fuck does that have to do with family etc.? Nothing.
There is nothing wrong with stupid people, it's OK they are stupid, the problem is only that they are allowed to vote in the first place, which should really be discouraged.
Yeah, they have their freedoms, but they would love to stomp out freedoms of other people to do what they want with themselves, like not to eat.
I don't believe car insurance, as an example, is such a complex issue to understand and I don't believe you have a COP following you 24/7, protecting your person from all matters that are likely to happen to you, or maybe you DO?
It's called insurance. You pay insurance premiums and they are used to fund a private security force.
However you are absolutely correct - those with very great means can have much better security. The question you should ask yourself is: how is it different from today, as many celebrities and politicians and bankers have MUCH better security than you do, as they literally can afford bodyguards?
You just can't win.
Any other currency than Zimbabwe dollars. So, it is cheap by almost any measure.
1. To make it clear: destruction of currency that I am talking about is printing of that currency.
2. I am talking about buying things in the destroyed currency. To the people living in Zimbabwe it is clearly not an easy task to get currency other than their own, and owning gold is the way to go, they use gold as money. You think it's easy for them to get gold for their work, is that your premise? Because you are wrong on it.
3. So how many people in Zimbabwe have all the things they want exactly? What the hell does it mean: "why is the cost of living lower in Zimbabwe"? It is a ridiculous statement. How much time does one Zimbabwe citizen have to spend looking or working for gold in order to have enough to buy his own place? Have you ever BEEN in Zimbabwe and have you seen their houses? Have you seen them owning TVs and fridges and computers and cars en mass? Is life in Zimbabwe great, because they destroyed their currency and NOBODY wants to sell them things in ZIMBABWE DOLLARS?
So when USA fails and everybody's USA DOLLARS collapse in value, what would it do to the purchasing power of the people holding the USA DOLLARS? If you have a box full of them, or a bank account ('guaranteed' by FDIC, what a laugh, it's 'guaranteed' by the Fed's ability to issue worthless credit) what would you be able to BUY with US dollars once they are worth little less than Zimbabwe dollars?
How can you say that cost of living in Zimbabwe is lower than in USA with a straight face? How much TIME does it take for a person in Zimbabwe to do enough work to satisfy his entire demand, and how does it compare to USA and what gives you the right to throw these 2 together in a sentence and believe that you have said anything of any value to anybody anywhere on the entire planet?
It's certainly not a free market. It's completely distorted.
- this is such nonsense. If I have a company and I make a deal with another company that I pay them not to use competing products - that's FREE MARKET.
If GOVERNMENT came out and said: this is the only supplier of this, and here is the price, and here is the license one has to buy to build the same thing, and here are the regulations that one must abide by and here are the taxes, and if you try and enter this business, you will be paying for these regulations and these taxes, and this will go to fund your competitor. THAT would be NOT free market.
You have no idea what free market is, you are literally illiterate on the issue.
Only monopolies are those, who have the power to destroy with the force of the government. Nothing else is a monopoly, only a current player, possibly a dominant one at the time.
Governments create monopolies, that's all they can do.
USA is absolutely NOT the biggest exporter in the world, that's such a ridiculous statement in the face of the 50BILLION US DOLLARS A MONTH TRADE DEFICIT, while China (as an example) has positive 30 billion dollars a month, not deficit.
By the way, USA has trade deficit with everybody, including Germany, but also Mexico and Canada.
None of the private entities that are not backed up by government force are a monopoly. They are a temporary dominant player, they are likely a large player, likely an economy of scale, and as long as they satisfy their customers, they will keep their position.
The moment there is a new technology trend or the moment there is a way to provide the product at a cheaper rate there will be a competitor born, because you can't prevent people without government intervention from trying.
Only government creates real monopolies, all this other stuff that gov't says about monopolies is nonsense. Gov't anti-trust stuff is nonsense, it's all about somebody trying to enter a field, where there is a very good provider of an acceptable solution at an acceptable price, which is always the best thing for the market, and this somebody cannot actually compete, but they have access to government (likely somebody with access already based on their other businesses, like a bank) and they start the attack on the current dominant company by using government as a violent force, but this means that the prices will be raised.
That's right, the gov't isn't concerned about you - the consumer, it's concerned about somebody who is paying. Thus when Alcoa Aluminum was attacked by the gov't dogs, it was because somebody else couldn't enter the market because they couldn't match the PRICE of their offering.
Gov't is a force that destroys the market, sets prices higher than they should and thus hurts the consumer, it does this under the guise of helping you.
Well, if you believe the gov't in this nonsense, then you are probably buying too much of their propaganda anyway.
You would end up with scientists becoming some cross between beggars and salesman, trying to sell a theory to the public based on little evidence and lots of bad analogies; I really don't think this would be good for science.
- there is literally no problem with that. No problem with some people becoming beggars and some people becoming salesman, WHY SHOULDN'T THEY SELL THE IDEA to somebody, that they should be funded, even if their research is never going to create any monetary incentives? Why not?
Why do you want to put a GUN to the heads of the individuals to steal money from them they earned this way, rather than allow somebody try and convince them that they may want, for the love of science or art, fund some of it?
People who don't have taxes to worry about are definitely much more likely to spend on frivolous things, and this IS frivolous, and people would spend this way too, even just for bragging rights, or maybe they have a personal agenda.
But instead you'd have gov't put guns to their heads, and then what happens? Military and destructive SS and Medicare eat up all this wealth, and what does science get?
I bet, I am absolutely positive, that people are much more charitable, when they are not taxed by their government under the barrel of a gun, and they have more money to spend, and they then are the ones deciding how to spend it.
It is the ONLY moral way to go about it - personal choice. And let some of these scientists sell the idea or have somebody sell the idea, let them have charity.
However in a free society there is much more wealth created than in a non-free society you prefer, and with much more wealth, there would be much more funding for all sorts of science, even seemingly irrelevant.
Why?
Because the wealth allows people to work less. That's why Ford decreased the working hours to 8 and days to 5 and increased wages twofold - he needed to retain talent to become more productive, and he did become more productive and people worked fewer hours.
With more wealth in the system, eventually people would work even fewer hours to get the same output, and they could fund all sorts of things, and even just DO all sorts of things in their spare time.
People can absolutely have freedom of association, and if there is huge interest in very expensive scientific tools, there could be literally millions of people putting money together to chip in for your most expensive toy.
But not the way it's done now. Not with military contractors. Not with mandatory taxes and ever growing and ever more spending and printing government. What you have now is complete destruction of all science, because you have destruction of manufacturing base, and that's all thanks to gov't destroying the economy with counterfeiting, spending (thus taxes) and destruction of individual liberties.
And by the way, even philosophically - you want your science to be funded by who? Slaves, that are stolen from, or free people, who care enough about it to chip in?
You ever think beyond your current circumstance?
No. The fundamental reason the US did so well before is not this. The fundamental reason is that USA had competitive advantage against the entire world, it was this:
Individual rights and the laws limiting government ability to abuse individual rights, laws limiting government ability to tell individual what to do and what not to do, laws that would limit government ability to destroy competition, destroy money, destroy businesses, destroy the economy with massive spending, all this stuff - this was their main competitive advantage. In one word that is often misunderstood: freedom. It may be cheesy, but that was their competitive advantage that nobody could touch. They gave it up.
Increase of wealth in one country actually does increase wealth around the world, that is true, but this does not mean that US domination in wealth creation would have been slowed past 1913 as it was, if US citizens didn't allow the government to destroy their productivity and money via regulations, huge government spending (thus taxes) and counterfeiting.
The reason why I am confident is that the people came to USA for freedoms from their own governments. People came to USA searching for better life, based on the assumption that they would find justice and fairness based on government NOT ABUSING THEM. That's the main reason that USA attracted all kinds of enterprising individuals in the first place.
Eventually other countries would emulate that too, hopefully, and that would allow them to become major manufacturers as well. But things didn't quite work out that way in reality. US citizens have forgotten all about the reasons for USA being 'exceptional' - not what the current POTUS would have you believe, not because everybody would 'look out for one another' and not because everybody would be 'their brothers keeper', but because the justice and government system in USA was based not on nobility but on an idea that individuals actually have the rights and government must obey the law and protect individual RIGHTS.
That's the main competitive advantage that USA had.
It dropped the ball.
say 'thank you' to the spending policy again, it's about gov't creating the highway infrastructure based on subsidies, I also have a comment on that. This caused urban sprawl, pollution, reliance on subsidised infrastructure, destruction of private mass-transit companies, not to mention rail road destruction and huge overtaxation of airlines, all so that gov't could pretend to deal with the problem it created in the first place.
That wasn't an "attack", that was a clear case of antitrust violation.
- everything government does is an attack. What, you didn't know? Every single move by gov't is an attack. It's all violence. Whatever shape and form it takes, it is only possible because of the barrel of a gun pointed at your head, nothing else at all.
As to 'anti-trust' -every time this was used, it was used by gov't as a response to various underhanded deals, helping out the competitors (existing or possible) of the company that is being attacked.
Kodak was NOT a viable company
- that is irrelevant. Today we cannot say how things would have worked out for them, because we know how things worked out based on real events. It's impossible to know for a fact what would have happened, and that's why your argument is nonsense.
You do not in fact know, what would have happened to Kodak if it was not for the government preventing their business ideas (acquisitions, whatever) from taking place.
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I agree with the rest of your comment.
But presumably these investors expect some sort of return on their investments?
- not necessarily. Basically it's the same reason that people funded artists out of pocket - for the love of the idea, it's not like all those artists made them money.
I know that most science that can be done will never lead to anything, you can literally do trillions upon trillions upon trillions to the trillionths degree of experiments and never derive a single cent out of all that spending, is it wise to allow government to spend money stolen from individuals that way? No way in this world. That's way to destroy the economy.
You can destroy the economy in plenty of ways - war is just one. You can start funding all science or whatever, you can start funding all stamp collectors or all sand collectors, it doesn't matter, it will always lead to increase in that part of spending, more people will be attracted to it and it will grow, and if that's the ONLY thing that gov't is allowed to spend on, then it will still amass itself, have huge growth and huge spending there, it will still destroy the economy through one single thing if that's the one thing it is allowed to spend on.
There are no bounds to how many experiments or ideas one can test. There are no bounds at all. You can spend the GDP of this planet until the Sun blows up on this stuff.
No. We must not allow the government to spend money this way at all. Gov't must be given a mission: border protection, maintaining criminal and contract law at most.
The government and the Federal Reserve. No different in concept. The super wealthy and corporate lobbies have complete control over the government and they mold it to consolidate power that protects their cartels.
well, how is it different from what I normally say?
The problem becomes when government and market become one entity, so then there is no market, there is ONLY government, then prices can only go up.
Yeah, it's not a hidden secret, not a surprise. It's a bunch of groups working to different ends. The dumb population doesn't mind the gov't seizing the controls it's not supposed to have, because it's promised the bread and circuses, and those, who see this as an opportunity push for the same agenda for different reasons - they see it as the golden opportunity to corrupt the system, so it can be then easily controlled.
But the groups that corrupt the system become the government and the groups that allow the system to be corrupted by not demanding that the system follows the pre-set rules, is the group that truly allows it.
Tomorrow if a very large number of people decided they've had enough, they could completely take down the entire government system simply by refusing cooperation.
COOPERATION of a very large portion of the population is behind all of this - every unconstitutional and illegal thing that gov't does is done with cooperation and even often with approval of the public.
Competition among private security companies. They want clients, they need to work for them. It's the same principled that works forever with all sorts of private militias, mercs.
The way it was always done: angel investors.
Bondholders are investors. Investments carry a risk of loss. Sad trombone and tuba music for those bondholders.
- not the risk of destruction of law, not the risk of confiscation of property by government, not the risk of destruction of contract.
Risk of losing the investment to bad management decisions, to a better competitor, whatever - yes. Risk of losing the investment to government confiscating it?
Well, now yes.
Kodak couldn't restructure because they couldn't.
- they were prevented, they couldn't, because government prevented them from doing it on their terms.
Normal contract laws do not apply anymore in the US? If anything, they're seeing a resurgence, at least at the consumer level.
- all evidence is to the contrary.
Do you think Obama or Bernanke are better 'currency'?
But I don't trust any currency.
I am not an American, you are right about these things, but it's absolutely not what current France is about.
Except that none of this was on economics. You just wanted to rant against governments.
- how can you separate the two, what kind of a strange trick do you need to allow yourself to play on yourself to be able to have this illusion, that your government is not what is ailing your economy in the exact ways that I described? Don't answer, it's self evident.
Out of interest, how do you propose that anyone stops the real Mafia doing exactly the same?
- private security.
It's the price of civilisation. If you don't like it, feel free to move to the libertarian paradise of Somalia.
- it's price of poverty. I did move out of USA, not Somalia, but that's not pertinent to the conversation.
That is a fat load of bullshit, just like everything else you've said in this thread. Employers are the ones with power, which is why you've seen wages stagnate and drop in the last 30 years.
- you are so stiff in your brain, not even glimmer of hope for you.
1971 - gold shock. Why? Because of massive gov't created inflation. Why? Because gov't got out of hand, out of control. How? By promising the people to give them free lunch, bread and circuses.
So then what? Inflation. Destruction of savings. Destruction of investment capital. Promotion of easy credit. Credit for consumer products, not for businesses generating actual real wealth.
Is that all? No. Growth of gov't based on fake credit creates more departments (as is seen from 1965 and on). This means many new regulations, much higher taxes, various labour laws, price and wage controls.
So what? Manufacturing and agriculture and mining and all sorts of other jobs leave, and you are left with what cannot be exported easily, so you have your so called "service economy".
And? And you have no jobs, because all the stuff you actually use on daily basis is not produced by service economy, it's produced by somebody making it somewhere and importing into your country, while you only export fake currency.
So how will that end? Eventually you won't have anything at all, your money is not good, nobody will trade with you, you won't be able to pay for your exports with anything but most mundane things - like raw energy you can still mine somewhere: oil, coal.
And what about standard of living? It's down the drain. Today a person making 350,000 living in New York, has life style that is no better than his father was able to provide him with on a CARPENTER salary back in the fifties.
Is it going to get better? No. Not if you continue with the same structure - government destroying liberties, money.
Bitcoin is fake money, just like federal reserve notes, so you'd not be able to find a comment of mine saying any different ever.
Your problem is you are unable to see the obvious, it's like trying to explain the concept of the Sun to a microbe.
Yes, the reason for the failing US (and European) economies is destruction of money, destruction of individual liberties, growth of the government, growth of regulations and taxes. That's what has to be stopped for jobs to come back.