Free trade never existed, because free trade requires free market and USA hasn't had free market in a century. There can be no free market when government is so entrenched into running the fiscal and economic situations in the country while not letting the people do business without being regulated and taxed on work.
Ben Bernanke and the government are on a tight course to keep housing prices up no matter how much it hurts the rest of the economy. Why are they doing it? Why are they bailing out banks and insurance companies and home owners (banks in reality of-course)?
Because there is a perception that housing prices must stay up and go up for the economy to be perceived as viable and because this is the same course that allows the Fed to counterfeit currency and give it to the banks, who then appear to be viable and they turn around and buy T-bills and bonds from the Treasury, because the Fed sets interest rates artificially low but real rates are so high, that no business can afford them, and the government is interested in keeping its own Pyramid scam going - pretending it's solvent simply by the fact of being able to sell more debt.
The Fed monetises government's debt - that's where all of these issues are coming from. Keynesian economics, built into the system to prop the richest people who own the banks, military, etc., to prop up the politicians.
And the stupid population is used as pawns in this game, where they are promised some form of entitlement system and the obligations are pushed towards the REAL PRODUCTIVE PART OF SOCIETY - those who actually do work, like Apple in this case.
People then look at Apple trying to escape this nightmare and are convinced that it's Apple's fault, all this outsourcing and joblessness, when in fact of-course it's the political system designed only to enrich the most connected most politically successful people in either business or government (not 1%, more like 0.01%), and because the people want government to steal from some, to give them some of the proceeds of the theft (all against the Constitution), the government is able to steal the power from the people.
Then the income taxes, corporate taxes, payroll taxes, regulations, IRS, FED, EPA, FDA, FAA, FCC, FHA, HUD, FBI, FDIC, F&F, SS, Medicare, wars, dept's of energy, education, commerce, agriculture, interior, etc.etc., all this is created that actually suffocates those who actually produce stuff.
So they leave, and the system has one last medicine - print money, use money to monetise debt.
This system will collapse under its own weight and all the wars will stop because there will be no money coming in to keep the fighting. USA will become 3rd world nation only selling raw resources (well, and processed fuels,) I expect USA to become a NET OIL and FUEL EXPORTER within a few short years to be able to EAT.
Now, there was no 'trickle-down' economics in USA.
The real supply side economy was built in China. USA cannot supply, it has 50Billion USD/month trade deficit, it can't feed its own population, 90% of seafood comes to USA from Asia.
USA has no supply side economics, it's all printing fake money and consumption based on idea that USD will be good and interest rates will stay low forever.
That makes as much sense as a belief that housing prices will always go up and never come down.
There is no free trade in America, there can be no free trade without free market, and there is no free market in America.
To have free market in America you have to get government out of counterfeiting money, setting rules and regulations above individuals and businesses and stop the income/payroll/corporate taxes and stop all of this welfare state BS - SS, Medicare, minimum wage laws, favouritism of unions via government laws, also wars have to stop, otherwise the real tax isn't what's being taken from the economy, but what's being spent. When gov't spends money - that's a tax. Now or in the future (then with interest) or through counterfeiting (inflation).
If Apple had no other option than NO OTHER COMPANY would have that other option, then it means that USA would still be the home of all manufacturing it once did and more.
That's not the case - Apple and other companies do have that option and it is a good thing that they do, because USA is unbearable and nobody should have to be put into a position of hiring an American or a European worker with all the rules, regulations and taxes (including the counterfeiting tax of inflation, that destroys investment capital) present in those systems.
By hiring a worker in USA or some of Europe the entrepreneur becomes a whipping boy and a slave of the system, the entrepreneur has to be a fool to subject himself to such a stupid predicament.
A person who gets 3 dollars/hour in Taiwan can afford an apartment, about 1000 sq/f for about 400USD/month. A similar apartment in US would be more than twice that price.
Everybody still eats, shops, people drive bikes or small cars, etc.etc. Looking at absolute numbers is completely useless, given the difference even in taxes, in USA somebody has to make 30USD/hour to be equal to somebody making 3USD/hour in Taiwan.
1. Nobody owns you a job. 2. Apple didn't get help from government coming up with their own computer, it was all private enterprise. 3. Apple has done PLENTY for USA and the world, produced products people loved, hired other people, who got paid, weren't a drain on the system, paid their taxes. 4. Add the taxes that Apple paid to that. 5. Corporations do not pay taxes. People pay taxes.
Look at the republican debates. Any time that the warmongers on the stage talk about attacking Iran and building the most powerful military in the world that nobody would ever even think about attacking USA - there are applause.
When Ron Paul says: do to others as you want to be done to you - he gets booed by the crowed.
What Ron Paul needs to suggest is that it is not he, who is 'weak on defence', it's the people then, because if asking Congress to declare a proper war is 'weak on defence', then it means the people don't trust themselves to be 'strong on defence'.
These people have either no ability to think beyond any sound bite or are real cowards.
Never forget that governments are inherently evil, because they occupy the space that is historically occupied by the inherently evil forces that fight for power over people.
That's why Constitution is important - law above the government set by the people to limit what government can do.
That is why people who should really be supporting a system of laws set by the Constitution, but who find themselves defending government's action that go above and beyond any Constitutional restrictions are so confused. Often those are the people who want government to cuddle them and give them entitlements and put obligations on others to provide those entitlements, but then government gains strength over all people and those who rely on entitlements are the ones who are going to suffer at the end, because those don't want entitlements can already take care of themselves and always see a government for what it is.
no surprise that you'll see that gov't subsidised so called 'education' industry has the lowest unemployment rates there.
Of-course this will cost the economy dearly, as all these gov't subsidised education loans are going to cause the same exact effect as gov't subsidised housing loans and other debt (bonds) had.
Corporations are not individuals, but they are legally (de-facto actually) given rights that are similar to rights of people, and it's for a reason.
If you start your own news outlet and you want to be able to produce news that are not favoured by the government, then you better have some form of protection against government shutting you down, so that's how corporations gained the 'first amendment' right as an example.
Of-course corporations are not individuals, not humans (not Homo sapiens), but they are de-facto people under the law, even if the law is somehow wrong and it's based on an actual mistake originated about hundred years ago.
Subsidies are not necessarily a bad thing.
- I cannot agree on this, haven't agreed with anybody on this ever.
Founders compromised on many things, including slavery, so I am not holding the original US Constitution and and founders as some infallible beings.
Encouraging people to keep new ideas secret is exactly what we DON'T want.
- yes we do, because the opposite of it is much more evil - copyrights and patents and destruction of liberty through government.
You should consider the fact that the Industrial Revolution started at about the time patents were instituted in England.
- I DID consider this. Without patents the businesses would have still done what they did, they just would have faced much more competition and the profession of lawyers wouldn't be as important in peoples' lives.
Trade secrets are much better than copyrights and patents, trade secrets encourage competition and discovery of different approaches and it creates more investment and jobs in the process (just a side effect of more people looking at how that one company does that one particular thing so well).
This economic explosion led to the greatest period of human progress in the history of the species. Going back to the old ways is exactly what we don't want because that restricts the dissemination of ideas.
- you are mistaken of the cause and effect.
Cause - new capitalists were looking for new ways to grow investment.
Effect - various innovations were looked at with more capital investments and more innovations were built upon previous innovations, driving progress.
More effect - more people decided that innovation was a good way to make money, so they started copying what they saw others do. This of-course BENEFITS the consumers and markets by providing more choices and making things cheaper.
More effect - capitalists and innovators decided that it would be easier to make more money by using the money they already had to buy politicians to pass copyright/patent laws that would create artificial scarcity and would give them a monopoly (even if temporary).
Eventual effect - so much more money was gathered by larger and larger capitalists, that were able to stifle the market with their new found riches, that they decided to buy more politicians to do more to keep their monopolies - rinse and repeat and you get your ACTA and SOPA and PIPA etc.
Why is it possible? Because unfortunately politicians are for sale and so far we haven't had success in preventing them being for sale. But giving them more power over companies to stifle innovation just grows their appetites to be for sale, and it grows gov't, and eventually the economy is destroyed.
--
The correct thing of-course is trade secrets where possible but no patents and copyrights, no gov't in any of businesses, finances, money, subsidies of any type.
Gov't must be forced into a position, where it cannot get out of - to protect population against the evil that government represents, a gov't is a system to keep a check on gov't, not a check on people.
Well, if that's in the charter, then it's their right to forbid that.
However holding long is also 'insider trading', isn't it?
Holding 'long' is based on insider information of how the company is doing. But it's not perfect knowledge. Nobody actually can predict future, thus nobody knows that a company will be OK in a year from now for real.
Well, you can get one, once they are shipped back to USA from Finland, where Fisker is outsourcing the manufacturing to. I wonder how the Finnish are taking this, after all, it's only 529,000,000 USD that the Obama administration (well, US gov't), has 'invested' into this deal.
There is no difference, as patents and copyrights can be moved from person to person by signing away the rights, so that's a primitive loophole right there to ensure that a corporation could hold copyrights / patents.
But that makes no sense either, all copyrights and patents must be abolished, because that's subsidy by government and resources must be spent by government to protect somebody's copyright/patent, and this hurts the public.
If a private individual does not want to have his materials being passed around, the simple thing is not to RELEASE the information and hold it to himself.
The reason patents/copyrights exist is to subsidise somebody by government force to give them monopoly on the distribution channels as if that benefits the public - it does not.
And to think that people are still arguing over the fact that government is inherently evil and the primary function of the government that was set up in the USA was to protect people's freedoms and liberties.... from the government itself
No business must be in a position to get a subsidy or any other type of preferential treatment from a government (for the people, of the people, by the people, yes?)
Individuals, citizens, consumers - they are supposed to be the constituents of their governments, not businesses, companies, corporations.
Of-course businesses, companies, corporations are also 'people', as in there are people behind them - owners, shareholders, whatever. But they as groups must not be able to get more preferential treatment than individuals (and not group must be able to have that,) but also as a group they must not be punished in ways that undermines rights of individuals that run those businesses.
The correct answer is to get government out of business, finance, money, regulations and subsidies and this also means abolishing copyrights and patents.
Copyrights and patents are preferential treatment to a subgroup of businesses that rely on those instruments to get a subsidy of special type of protection by government, and this must not be accepted by individuals.
Real insider trading is done in government, before it releases a law or decision upon a company's future (like knowing whether FDA will deny or allow a new drug to the market), and Senators / Congressmen being bribed in stock options where straight up cash would be considered an illegal bribe, because they voted themselves this little neat trick.
Insider trading idea is a bunch of crap. The only problem is FRAUD, all other trading that is done privately is done based on some form of information.
For a top manager to bet against his company and then tank the stock by doing something that would undermine the company's value is FRAUD.
For a top manager to bet against his company because he THINKS that the company is going in the wrong direction - that's not fraud, that's common sense.
For a government official to accept a bribe in form of a stock option or to short stock of a company before passing a LAW that would hurt that company financially - that is REAL insider trading fraud.
Sovereignty of a nation is paramount for independence of an individual, because it allows more direct control of the government system.
The other truth is of-course that the sameanswerapplies to the topic of this discussion - copyrights and patents must be abolished.
No business must be in a position to get a subsidy or any other type of preferential treatment from a government (for the people, of the people, by the people, yes?)
Individuals, citizens, consumers - they are supposed to be the constituents of their governments, not businesses, companies, corporations.
Of-course businesses, companies, corporations are also 'people', as in there are people behind them - owners, shareholders, whatever. But they as groups must not be able to get more preferential treatment than individuals (and not group must be able to have that,) but also as a group they must not be punished in ways that undermines rights of individuals that run those businesses.
The correct answer is to get government out of business, finance, money, regulations and subsidies and this also means abolishing copyrights and patents.
Copyrights and patents are preferential treatment to a subgroup of businesses that rely on those instruments to get a subsidy of special type of protection by government, and this must not be accepted by individuals.
Rogers Canada (a telecom) switched all of the users to yahoo mail, so people are paying Rogers for the Internet connection, but their email is handled by Yahoo.
The big mistake that Kodak made was staying in US and not outsourcing immediately from US and running the business the way they saw fit and moving out of the way of IRS and US regulators. Big mistake, that was not repeated by many other companies since the nineties.
to simply "copy" physical objects, would you then declare that OK too?
- oh, it would be fantastic, not just OK.
You think economy is about work, no, economy is about satisfying the needs of people regardless of how it's done. We are trying very hard to do as little as possible to get as much out of it as possible and we should want that, that's the goal.
Copying physical objects is an excellent way to do that, and whether the original content/object creator should get paid is purely a function of people deciding whether they want to subsidise this author so that he could do more of that in the future. The gov't is not here to protect business models.
It's none of gov'ts business to protect either property or intellectual property, that's not what gov't is for.
Thus a restaurant should have as much protection from theft as a music author would have from copyright violation - none from the government. All of this is a private matter.
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Free trade never existed, because free trade requires free market and USA hasn't had free market in a century. There can be no free market when government is so entrenched into running the fiscal and economic situations in the country while not letting the people do business without being regulated and taxed on work.
You can thank uncle Sam for that.
Ben Bernanke and the government are on a tight course to keep housing prices up no matter how much it hurts the rest of the economy. Why are they doing it? Why are they bailing out banks and insurance companies and home owners (banks in reality of-course)?
Because there is a perception that housing prices must stay up and go up for the economy to be perceived as viable and because this is the same course that allows the Fed to counterfeit currency and give it to the banks, who then appear to be viable and they turn around and buy T-bills and bonds from the Treasury, because the Fed sets interest rates artificially low but real rates are so high, that no business can afford them, and the government is interested in keeping its own Pyramid scam going - pretending it's solvent simply by the fact of being able to sell more debt.
The Fed monetises government's debt - that's where all of these issues are coming from. Keynesian economics, built into the system to prop the richest people who own the banks, military, etc., to prop up the politicians.
And the stupid population is used as pawns in this game, where they are promised some form of entitlement system and the obligations are pushed towards the REAL PRODUCTIVE PART OF SOCIETY - those who actually do work, like Apple in this case.
People then look at Apple trying to escape this nightmare and are convinced that it's Apple's fault, all this outsourcing and joblessness, when in fact of-course it's the political system designed only to enrich the most connected most politically successful people in either business or government (not 1%, more like 0.01%), and because the people want government to steal from some, to give them some of the proceeds of the theft (all against the Constitution), the government is able to steal the power from the people.
Then the income taxes, corporate taxes, payroll taxes, regulations, IRS, FED, EPA, FDA, FAA, FCC, FHA, HUD, FBI, FDIC, F&F, SS, Medicare, wars, dept's of energy, education, commerce, agriculture, interior, etc.etc., all this is created that actually suffocates those who actually produce stuff.
So they leave, and the system has one last medicine - print money, use money to monetise debt.
This system will collapse under its own weight and all the wars will stop because there will be no money coming in to keep the fighting. USA will become 3rd world nation only selling raw resources (well, and processed fuels,) I expect USA to become a NET OIL and FUEL EXPORTER within a few short years to be able to EAT.
Now, there was no 'trickle-down' economics in USA.
The real supply side economy was built in China. USA cannot supply, it has 50Billion USD/month trade deficit, it can't feed its own population, 90% of seafood comes to USA from Asia.
USA has no supply side economics, it's all printing fake money and consumption based on idea that USD will be good and interest rates will stay low forever.
That makes as much sense as a belief that housing prices will always go up and never come down.
There is no free trade in America, there can be no free trade without free market, and there is no free market in America.
To have free market in America you have to get government out of counterfeiting money, setting rules and regulations above individuals and businesses and stop the income/payroll/corporate taxes and stop all of this welfare state BS - SS, Medicare, minimum wage laws, favouritism of unions via government laws, also wars have to stop, otherwise the real tax isn't what's being taken from the economy, but what's being spent. When gov't spends money - that's a tax. Now or in the future (then with interest) or through counterfeiting (inflation).
If Apple had no other option than NO OTHER COMPANY would have that other option, then it means that USA would still be the home of all manufacturing it once did and more.
That's not the case - Apple and other companies do have that option and it is a good thing that they do, because USA is unbearable and nobody should have to be put into a position of hiring an American or a European worker with all the rules, regulations and taxes (including the counterfeiting tax of inflation, that destroys investment capital) present in those systems.
By hiring a worker in USA or some of Europe the entrepreneur becomes a whipping boy and a slave of the system, the entrepreneur has to be a fool to subject himself to such a stupid predicament.
A person who gets 3 dollars/hour in Taiwan can afford an apartment, about 1000 sq/f for about 400USD/month. A similar apartment in US would be more than twice that price.
Everybody still eats, shops, people drive bikes or small cars, etc.etc. Looking at absolute numbers is completely useless, given the difference even in taxes, in USA somebody has to make 30USD/hour to be equal to somebody making 3USD/hour in Taiwan.
1. Nobody owns you a job.
2. Apple didn't get help from government coming up with their own computer, it was all private enterprise.
3. Apple has done PLENTY for USA and the world, produced products people loved, hired other people, who got paid, weren't a drain on the system, paid their taxes.
4. Add the taxes that Apple paid to that.
5. Corporations do not pay taxes. People pay taxes.
Import and sales taxes are paid by the customers.
Payroll taxes are paid by the employees.
Corporate taxes are paid by the owners/investors.
Definitely.
Look at the republican debates. Any time that the warmongers on the stage talk about attacking Iran and building the most powerful military in the world that nobody would ever even think about attacking USA - there are applause.
When Ron Paul says: do to others as you want to be done to you - he gets booed by the crowed.
What Ron Paul needs to suggest is that it is not he, who is 'weak on defence', it's the people then, because if asking Congress to declare a proper war is 'weak on defence', then it means the people don't trust themselves to be 'strong on defence'.
These people have either no ability to think beyond any sound bite or are real cowards.
Never forget that governments are inherently evil, because they occupy the space that is historically occupied by the inherently evil forces that fight for power over people.
That's why Constitution is important - law above the government set by the people to limit what government can do.
That is why people who should really be supporting a system of laws set by the Constitution, but who find themselves defending government's action that go above and beyond any Constitutional restrictions are so confused. Often those are the people who want government to cuddle them and give them entitlements and put obligations on others to provide those entitlements, but then government gains strength over all people and those who rely on entitlements are the ones who are going to suffer at the end, because those don't want entitlements can already take care of themselves and always see a government for what it is.
As I say: abolish copyrights and patents.
I am going to post once again on this same topic.
Abolish copyrights and patents.
Government is out to destroy everything, it has to be stopped.
AC - honestly, because you have nothing between the two floppy ears does not mean I did not go to college.
no surprise that you'll see that gov't subsidised so called 'education' industry has the lowest unemployment rates there.
Of-course this will cost the economy dearly, as all these gov't subsidised education loans are going to cause the same exact effect as gov't subsidised housing loans and other debt (bonds) had.
Corporations are not individuals, but they are legally (de-facto actually) given rights that are similar to rights of people, and it's for a reason.
If you start your own news outlet and you want to be able to produce news that are not favoured by the government, then you better have some form of protection against government shutting you down, so that's how corporations gained the 'first amendment' right as an example.
Of-course corporations are not individuals, not humans (not Homo sapiens), but they are de-facto people under the law, even if the law is somehow wrong and it's based on an actual mistake originated about hundred years ago.
Subsidies are not necessarily a bad thing.
- I cannot agree on this, haven't agreed with anybody on this ever.
Founders compromised on many things, including slavery, so I am not holding the original US Constitution and and founders as some infallible beings.
Encouraging people to keep new ideas secret is exactly what we DON'T want.
- yes we do, because the opposite of it is much more evil - copyrights and patents and destruction of liberty through government.
You should consider the fact that the Industrial Revolution started at about the time patents were instituted in England.
- I DID consider this. Without patents the businesses would have still done what they did, they just would have faced much more competition and the profession of lawyers wouldn't be as important in peoples' lives.
Trade secrets are much better than copyrights and patents, trade secrets encourage competition and discovery of different approaches and it creates more investment and jobs in the process (just a side effect of more people looking at how that one company does that one particular thing so well).
This economic explosion led to the greatest period of human progress in the history of the species. Going back to the old ways is exactly what we don't want because that restricts the dissemination of ideas.
- you are mistaken of the cause and effect.
Cause - new capitalists were looking for new ways to grow investment.
Effect - various innovations were looked at with more capital investments and more innovations were built upon previous innovations, driving progress.
More effect - more people decided that innovation was a good way to make money, so they started copying what they saw others do. This of-course BENEFITS the consumers and markets by providing more choices and making things cheaper.
More effect - capitalists and innovators decided that it would be easier to make more money by using the money they already had to buy politicians to pass copyright/patent laws that would create artificial scarcity and would give them a monopoly (even if temporary).
Eventual effect - so much more money was gathered by larger and larger capitalists, that were able to stifle the market with their new found riches, that they decided to buy more politicians to do more to keep their monopolies - rinse and repeat and you get your ACTA and SOPA and PIPA etc.
Why is it possible? Because unfortunately politicians are for sale and so far we haven't had success in preventing them being for sale. But giving them more power over companies to stifle innovation just grows their appetites to be for sale, and it grows gov't, and eventually the economy is destroyed.
--
The correct thing of-course is trade secrets where possible but no patents and copyrights, no gov't in any of businesses, finances, money, subsidies of any type.
Gov't must be forced into a position, where it cannot get out of - to protect population against the evil that government represents, a gov't is a system to keep a check on gov't, not a check on people.
Well, if that's in the charter, then it's their right to forbid that.
However holding long is also 'insider trading', isn't it?
Holding 'long' is based on insider information of how the company is doing. But it's not perfect knowledge. Nobody actually can predict future, thus nobody knows that a company will be OK in a year from now for real.
Back in 2003 Kodak still had 64000 employees.
Oh, oh, if you are dying for a 60,000 dollar car, wouldn't you die 50% more if you had to pay a 50% more for a government sponsored car?
You can get this Al Gore mobile (Fisker Karma) for just 95,000 USD.
Well, you can get one, once they are shipped back to USA from Finland, where Fisker is outsourcing the manufacturing to. I wonder how the Finnish are taking this, after all, it's only 529,000,000 USD that the Obama administration (well, US gov't), has 'invested' into this deal.
There is no difference, as patents and copyrights can be moved from person to person by signing away the rights, so that's a primitive loophole right there to ensure that a corporation could hold copyrights / patents.
But that makes no sense either, all copyrights and patents must be abolished, because that's subsidy by government and resources must be spent by government to protect somebody's copyright/patent, and this hurts the public.
If a private individual does not want to have his materials being passed around, the simple thing is not to RELEASE the information and hold it to himself.
The reason patents/copyrights exist is to subsidise somebody by government force to give them monopoly on the distribution channels as if that benefits the public - it does not.
And to think that people are still arguing over the fact that government is inherently evil and the primary function of the government that was set up in the USA was to protect people's freedoms and liberties .... from the government itself
The same answer applies - copyrights and patents must be abolished.
No business must be in a position to get a subsidy or any other type of preferential treatment from a government (for the people, of the people, by the people, yes?)
Individuals, citizens, consumers - they are supposed to be the constituents of their governments, not businesses, companies, corporations.
Of-course businesses, companies, corporations are also 'people', as in there are people behind them - owners, shareholders, whatever. But they as groups must not be able to get more preferential treatment than individuals (and not group must be able to have that,) but also as a group they must not be punished in ways that undermines rights of individuals that run those businesses.
The correct answer is to get government out of business, finance, money, regulations and subsidies and this also means abolishing copyrights and patents.
Copyrights and patents are preferential treatment to a subgroup of businesses that rely on those instruments to get a subsidy of special type of protection by government, and this must not be accepted by individuals.
Real insider trading is done in government, before it releases a law or decision upon a company's future (like knowing whether FDA will deny or allow a new drug to the market), and Senators / Congressmen being bribed in stock options where straight up cash would be considered an illegal bribe, because they voted themselves this little neat trick.
Insider trading idea is a bunch of crap. The only problem is FRAUD, all other trading that is done privately is done based on some form of information.
For a top manager to bet against his company and then tank the stock by doing something that would undermine the company's value is FRAUD.
For a top manager to bet against his company because he THINKS that the company is going in the wrong direction - that's not fraud, that's common sense.
For a government official to accept a bribe in form of a stock option or to short stock of a company before passing a LAW that would hurt that company financially - that is REAL insider trading fraud.
Sovereignty of a nation is paramount for independence of an individual, because it allows more direct control of the government system.
The other truth is of-course that the same answer applies to the topic of this discussion - copyrights and patents must be abolished.
No business must be in a position to get a subsidy or any other type of preferential treatment from a government (for the people, of the people, by the people, yes?)
Individuals, citizens, consumers - they are supposed to be the constituents of their governments, not businesses, companies, corporations.
Of-course businesses, companies, corporations are also 'people', as in there are people behind them - owners, shareholders, whatever. But they as groups must not be able to get more preferential treatment than individuals (and not group must be able to have that,) but also as a group they must not be punished in ways that undermines rights of individuals that run those businesses.
The correct answer is to get government out of business, finance, money, regulations and subsidies and this also means abolishing copyrights and patents.
Copyrights and patents are preferential treatment to a subgroup of businesses that rely on those instruments to get a subsidy of special type of protection by government, and this must not be accepted by individuals.
Well, everybody on this site has read a comment or two of mine.
lose your manufacturing and lose your economy.
Rogers Canada (a telecom) switched all of the users to yahoo mail, so people are paying Rogers for the Internet connection, but their email is handled by Yahoo.
Actually Kodak's destruction was helped not in a small way by government's actions preventing Kodak from diversifying their business the way they wanted to (we already had a discussion on this very topic only a few days ago here).
The big mistake that Kodak made was staying in US and not outsourcing immediately from US and running the business the way they saw fit and moving out of the way of IRS and US regulators. Big mistake, that was not repeated by many other companies since the nineties.
to simply "copy" physical objects, would you then declare that OK too?
- oh, it would be fantastic, not just OK.
You think economy is about work, no, economy is about satisfying the needs of people regardless of how it's done. We are trying very hard to do as little as possible to get as much out of it as possible and we should want that, that's the goal.
Copying physical objects is an excellent way to do that, and whether the original content/object creator should get paid is purely a function of people deciding whether they want to subsidise this author so that he could do more of that in the future. The gov't is not here to protect business models.
I gave a more thorough here to the same question
here is what gov't is about
I gave the real answer here
It's none of gov'ts business to protect either property or intellectual property, that's not what gov't is for.
Thus a restaurant should have as much protection from theft as a music author would have from copyright violation - none from the government. All of this is a private matter.