Whatever I build as part of my work is very well received. I don't build phones, if that's what you are asking, but that's not what you are asking.
iPhones maybe the best thing since sliced bread, but how would that change at all if Apple sold a way to jail-break their devices for some extra cash and then sold more after-market gadgets and apps for the phone?
The only problem for Apple in that space is likely government regulations and private contracts with phone companies.
But I am not talking about Android, I am talking about iPhone, which has its following. For some reason most people replying here think that Apple wouldn't make the profits they make today if their platforms were more open.
I believe they are mistaken, there is no reason why Apple would make less money if they provided a more open platform. What if you had to pay extra 50 bucks to Applet to jail break the phone to get the 'privilege' to buy gadgets built by Apple for the aftermarket?
How would that reduce Apple's profits rather than increasing them?
No, I don't believe that in order to have plausible deniability you would build in an easy to access way to remove security. You would provide a way to do whatever via a method that is complex enough that it cannot be done by a normal user but still it would be technically simple to do for somebody with specific knowledge.
To continue my line of thinking - I wouldn't at all be surprised if at some point it came out that Apple is actively involved in providing ability to quickly jail break the iPhones and other devices that Apple sells on their own to the community through proxy.
Would you be surprised to find out that they did that? To me it seems that the only logical explanation as to why Apple is even locking the phones at all would be 2 fold: 1. Some government regulation. 2. Some private contract with a phone company, like AT&T to prevent Internet enabled phones from cutting into long distance call profits.
So in that case, if Apple wanted to increase its market share while still technically be bound by the above reasons to not allow the phones to be completely open, it would make sense for them to provide ability to jail break those phones by proxy and not openly on their own.
What we know about open and free software likely applies to all other aspects of economy. The more open a platform is, the more users it will have given all other things being equal. I am sure Apple does want a piece of that after market as well.
Well, my phone is a very simple nokia, all features are off, camera is removed. So from my POV if I wanted to get a device similar to iPhone or some Android based thing it wouldn't be because it's a phone, it would be because it's a tiny computer.
However saying that because Apple has excellent profits now with the phones locked doesn't at all mean that they couldn't have even more profits if they allowed an option (maybe for some extra money) to those who wanted this option to remove any sort of protection against USER using the device the way they wanted to, and then to sell various gadgets and attachments for these phones. Why would that make them less profit rather than more? Doesn't seem logical.
Again, just because they have large profits now, doesn't mean they couldn't have even more profits by luring in more customers who want more out of their hand held computers.
To be honest, I don't actually know. I don't own any fancy device like that, my phone is a very very very simple tiny nokia, I disabled every feature on it that I could and removed the camera. I made an assumption that there is a market for more open phones and I believe, (maybe incorrectly), that Android based phones are more open than iPhones. I could be wrong, but that would amaze me actually. They are not more open?
It's amazing that Apple and Jobs in it are so shortsighted that they don't provide official tools that people want. Of-course they have contracts with AT&T and who knows what else, that's most likely why they don't want to let people use these devices as general purpose computers, so that normal apps could be executed (and then you can use Skype or whatever to go around long distance phone charges obviously). But still, this is just so screwed up that a company would not see that it is in its best interest to sell the phone with the maximum possible features in it. OK, have an official Apple utility to so called "jail break" the thing and enter another lucrative market of various adapters and gadgets that could be then used together with the phone.
These devices are general purpose computers with wireless access and an odd phone application installed on them. Let the people use them the way they want to.
Of-course the unwillingness of Apple to allow people to use their own freaking product the way they want to provides HUGE market for all the other types of phones (Android) to fill that gap. It's just the short-sightedness of Apple is amazing in this instance.
Shooting people with cameras? I am not suggesting that, the camera is to be shoot up into the air to give you a glimpse of where the opponents are (and maybe your side as well).
Of-course this would look funny if too many people got themselves these in paintball and all started using them all at once, shooting cameras into the air. It would probably give out your position too.
more stuff created for war. These cameras instruments are not going to be sold to civilians, here is the purpose:
Soldiers shoot it off and for eight glorious seconds it gives them a bird's eye view of the terrain around them, tipping them off to enemy positions. Then it crashes back to earth.
Private citizens can't buy these flying cameras, much less the 40mm grenade launchers used to shoot them. But Vlad Gostom and Joshua Marpet think they'd be great tools for a search and rescue operation, or maybe a boon to some local police force's SWAT (special weapons and tactics) team. So they're building their own version and showing off what they've learned at Defcon this week.
of-course outside of a war or a 'rescue operation' there may be not much use for these things, but it just adds to resources that are mis-allocated for wars instead of going towards normal consumer market. The only use for consumer market I can think of is war games unfortunately, like paintball.
I did not overlook your list. It just doesn't mean jack. We were discussing the US economy and how to fix it, as far as I am concerned.
- you were never discussing how to fix any economy, your views can't fix an economy.
All the nations you're citing are facing far more dire problems than the question whether cheaper production or more money in the pockets of the people is the solution.
- affordable food is near the top of all dire problems.
I'm not responsible for every nation around the globe
in your own words:
Is there anything you could not buy, provided you had the money? Food? There's more food getting produced than we can possibly eat. Hell, government subsidies exist to destroy food, if anything could be more backwards I can't think of it. So we need cheaper food? Food IS already as cheap as it could possibly get, there is a certain amount of work and investment to get food produced and the margins are already razor thin, how much cheaper do you want to make it?
so you are not responsible for world's problems yet in your estimate food is as cheap as it must be and it is correct that governments are involved in food production, subsidizing production and destruction of the resource, production of which the world sees huge shortages of.
And I guess you're happy about that as well.
- people with views like yours are in power in European countries and some are in US and other places. The fewer of people like you there are in governments around the world the better.
These problems cannot be solved by "more production" or "cheaper production", at the very least not alone that way.
- all of their problems would be solved by exactly the same thing: more and cheaper production.
on, the problem is certainly not a shortage of goods.
Food is not the only resource of which there is shortage of, and in your socialist ideology and complete misunderstanding of what economy is about the people must be consuming, never mind if they are producing anything, thus people can be consuming with other people's money, producing nothing of value in exchange for their consumption and somehow that's supposed to be an equitable and workable economic model.
Anyway, you may want to find a more useful way to waste your time and to talk to me and I have things to do.
Oh, no, bring W. Bush back, we need to strike into this new enemy's lair before it attacks the American way of life (and also these may be used to power up SUVs somehow, GM, GE, Boeing and Lockheed Martin should look into this right now.)
You'd be very popular in these places, all of which could produce more food on their own if government was not taxing and subsidizing and regulating food in the world:
I bet it would get pretty personal for you if you came to these places and started spouting your socialist views on how cheap food is that your government is subsidizing farmers and then paying farmers to destroy it
Yeah, I bet it would get pretty personal for you if you showed up with your assertions that food is cheap and abundant during the Middle Eastern revolutions this year, be it Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain or Libya. It would have gotten pretty personal for you there and you wouldn't have made it out of there alive.
Are you kidding me? Are you honestly saying we are lacking products?
- absolutely.
We are lacking people producing. We are lacking production. We are lacking investment. We are lacking capital. We are lacking ability to successfully put capital and labor and other resources together to produce more products that we want and I have given but a tiny subset of the products that we are completely lacking in the comment you are responding to.
You are lacking economic understanding, that is why you believe that economy is about consumption and not about production. You are wrong, but it's not surprising, you were 'educated' by a system that doesn't understand it either.
Food?
- absolutely. With all the government regulations and subsidies into the food market in various countries, the prices are high because of the government regulations and taxes, food is expensive. Just because YOU do not understand it in your (current) socialist paradise doesn't mean the Middle Easterner doesn't understand it or an African doesn't understand it or an Indian doesn't understand it or a South Asian doesn't understand it or a Russian doesn't understand it and in fact many Americans understand it well enough.
What is lacking is cheap food. What is preventing it is government intervention and taxes and subsidies. What should be done is government must be removed from food business. What will happen is many lands that are currently outcompeted by government subsidies become profitable, mainly in Africa and South America and some in Eastern Europe and some even in the Middle East. More food would be grown and it would become cheaper and we would have more choices of different products at better prices.
Hell, government subsidies exist to destroy food
- hell indeed. While some are TAXED so that some others can be SUBSIDIZED to DESTROY an asset like that, some other starve because of those exact actions taken by the government, which taxes and subsidizes destruction.
Food IS already as cheap as it could possibly get
- go and say it to somebody in the Middle East or Africa or South America or Russia or even North America and obviously China (which creates the problem for itself by following the USA footsteps of currency destruction.) Are you being purposefully obtuse or is this a natural state of affairs with you?
how much cheaper do you want to make it?
- the production must satisfy the demand, this means that there is always a way to make more money, more profit, by selling into less wealthy markets. This means literally the food could become FACTORS cheaper than it is today if only the governments didn't participate in destruction of that market.
Please tell me one single area where there is simply not enough supply to satisfy a possibly existing demand
- are you from THIS planet? People want IMMORTALITY, how about THAT for a demand? Government will absolutely not give it to you even if it could, government wouldn't understand what to do with such a product.
Most of them either due to a lack of resources or a monopoly situation.
- monopolies are always created by governments, never by free markets.
Supply on the other hand is not limitless and not just the trivial consequence you try to make it.
- I fucking never said that SUPPLY was a trivial consequence, are you drunk?
Demand is crucial for the economy to work.
- DEMAND is the TRIVIAL CONSEQUENCE. I am beginning to doubt you have a brain cell that is still operational.
No demand, no sale.
- you are again, completely off on what economy is.
Demand always exists and will always exist as long as there are living creatures.
It does not matter who bought the land, money was not spent but it was saved up and invested at some point to buy that land, and if you want to buy it from the current owner - make an offer.
Stealing other people's property because you believe they don't own it goes against the principles of private property at the very least in USA and in many other places, so your bizarre notion that owning a piece of land somehow means you stole something makes no sense.
There is always a price to buy a piece of land for, and you are welcome to go ahead and buy it.
Right, because Afghanistan was obviously going to attack USA and it needed to be stopped before it did. Or maybe the people who attacked USA were mostly in Saudi Arabia, not Afghanistan. But who cares about minute details, prepare for war.
And I bet many of you are wondering: what is up with all this spending on more war and having this debt problem all at the same time?
Nixon defaulted on the promise to pay gold for US reserve notes in 1971 to keep financing the war when France was actively trying to redeem their USD for gold. Now THAT was a real default. What they have today is a joke. But the wars must go on.
Wars must always go on. Robots must roll in the deserts of Afghanistan. Well, many they tried different types of wars in Afghanistan, I don't think they really tried this many robots before. Think it will work this time?
What can be more cool than robots in war, right? I guess the only thing that's even more cool is to have the Chinese finance it.
16 amendment, ah, yes, the proof that SCOTUS is just an arm of government and doesn't give a shit about the Constitution it swore to uphold. Same as with Congress and the White House.
I would say that 4th and 5th amendments are more important and 16 amendment was the time of beginning of decline for USA.
No it doesn't, in the absence of taxes once you have sufficient ownership of land you can live handsomely on rent ever more... no work required, just rent seeking. To a lesser extent the same goes for sufficient levels of ownership of companies with natural (local) monopolies... but especially land. Neither the free market nor technological advancement will create more land.
- not true. More land can always be created. Be it highrises or be it even artificial islands or whatever. But that's not the point.
Land is not always a good asset to own, and people buy and sell land all the time, so I don't your point at all. You want to BUY some land? You can always do that. But that's not what you are talking about, you are talking about stealing other people's investment that they made by saving the money they made from working and not spending it.
Where does this free market capitalism exist that you speak of?
- I find the freest market in existence today in Asia. Hong Kong, Singapore, China.
they get bailed out for being "too big to fail".
- that's the problem with allowing government to regulate business, participate in business, print money, set interest rates, accrue debt, tax income. The system that allows it will be always subverted by special interests, no exceptions.
Innovation only exists if there is an incentive for it.
- the only effective motivator for innovation that humans have invented is profit.
Someone certainly already patented what you'd want to do
- that's why I like the Asian economies, it's a mixed bag, but mostly they don't give a hoot and they shouldn't. There must be no such thing as 'patents'. If you want to keep secrets keep them. Have your trade secrets, etc. Don't expect me to give a shit about your patent.
Neither system ever was even close to this ideal.
- USA 19 century. Asia today.
you a parasite and treat you as such.
- whatever you say, government boy. People get huge benefits from my products, which make their businesses more efficient and at the end allow more competition and thus more choice for end consumers.
happened lately in the west either. The reasons are similar as they were in the USSR: Lack of motivation.
- in USA the lack of motivation comes from government stifling any attempt at innovation. Regulations, taxing income, labor laws, subsidies to monopolies, etc.
More production? What for would you want to produce more? Everyone is already producing more than could be sold, what we need is more demand!
- and that's why you don't have even basic understanding of economics.
Production is what economy is based on. Consumption is a trivial consequence of production. I want more products. I want more services. I want more different types of products that I can't even imaging that somebody else can imagine. I want cheaper everything.
I want cheaper food. I want cheaper clothing. I want cheaper energy. I want cheaper transportation. I want cheaper medical attention. I want cheaper insurance. I want many and cheap robots to help me in my life. I want cheap computers everywhere, up to wazoo. I want more ways to improve my health with new products that could be created that are not even thought of today, because there is all this government around, which destroys any genuine thought and opportunities and promotes monopolies. I want healthier life based on more innovative products. I want to go to space. I want to go travel under the sea. I want to have my own flying car. I want to have my own space ship. I want everything that can possibly be.
I hope you understand that "I" here is not all myself, many people want things, and those are just some of the things they want. Innovation and competition is destroyed by government mis-allocating resources towards government spending and removing incentives to start new businesses. Government destroys any innovation by granting patents, by supporting copyrights and by limiting liability of corporations.
Government destroys ability of market to produce all the things that market wants to consume.
It's not demand that's lacking, it is NEVER the demand that is lacking, it is SUPPLY that is lacking.
Where are the sources of cheaper energy? I want my OWN NUCLEAR or THERMONUCLEAR REACTOR NOW.
I want it. Unfortunately government actively prevents people from working in this area with their own ideas.
The government stands in my way. The government stands in everybody's way. The government stands in the way of technology. The government stands in the way of investment. The government stands in the way of opportunity. The government stands in the way of economy. The government stands in the way of progress.
Did production suddenly plummet and hence economy hit rock bottom?
- OF-COURSE. What else do you think the problem is? Lack of paper money?
Ha.
Money itself is not what stands in the way of production capacity. It never stood in the way of production capacity, which was demonstrated clearly by USA 19 century and is today by Asian economies. Government destroyed money with inflation, it destroyed ability to start businesses to compete with established ones with regulations, it destroyed ability to allocate resources efficiently with subsidies and it destroyed ability of people to take care of their own needs and to make their own investments into their own businesses with income taxes.
I don't know what country you specifically are referring to, when you talk about 'your' country it sounds dramatically awful. However even Sweden is moving away from the pure socialist ideology, and moving closer to capitalism, they know they can't have a system where nobody is producing and everybody keeps consuming.
Export you say? Produce more and export it? Great plan. Where to?
- Did I actually SAY export? I don't think so.
I said PRODUCE. Exports will happen all on their own if you produce something that somebody else somewhere else wants. That's how you trade for real, not printing worthless currency and expecting the world to absorb it, while giving you all of the products you are too high brow to produce yourself, but actually producing something of value and exchanging your products for foreign products.
Slashdot Mirror
So by your logic just because Android sells worse than iPhone it means that if iPhone was more open it would sell less?
Is this /. or some other place, where comments are generally not expected to follow normal rules of logic?
Whatever I build as part of my work is very well received. I don't build phones, if that's what you are asking, but that's not what you are asking.
iPhones maybe the best thing since sliced bread, but how would that change at all if Apple sold a way to jail-break their devices for some extra cash and then sold more after-market gadgets and apps for the phone?
The only problem for Apple in that space is likely government regulations and private contracts with phone companies.
But I am not talking about Android, I am talking about iPhone, which has its following. For some reason most people replying here think that Apple wouldn't make the profits they make today if their platforms were more open.
I believe they are mistaken, there is no reason why Apple would make less money if they provided a more open platform. What if you had to pay extra 50 bucks to Applet to jail break the phone to get the 'privilege' to buy gadgets built by Apple for the aftermarket?
How would that reduce Apple's profits rather than increasing them?
No, I don't believe that in order to have plausible deniability you would build in an easy to access way to remove security. You would provide a way to do whatever via a method that is complex enough that it cannot be done by a normal user but still it would be technically simple to do for somebody with specific knowledge.
Having great profits with the closed platform doesn't mean that profits would be any less with a platform that was open.
To continue my line of thinking - I wouldn't at all be surprised if at some point it came out that Apple is actively involved in providing ability to quickly jail break the iPhones and other devices that Apple sells on their own to the community through proxy.
Would you be surprised to find out that they did that? To me it seems that the only logical explanation as to why Apple is even locking the phones at all would be 2 fold:
1. Some government regulation.
2. Some private contract with a phone company, like AT&T to prevent Internet enabled phones from cutting into long distance call profits.
So in that case, if Apple wanted to increase its market share while still technically be bound by the above reasons to not allow the phones to be completely open, it would make sense for them to provide ability to jail break those phones by proxy and not openly on their own.
What we know about open and free software likely applies to all other aspects of economy. The more open a platform is, the more users it will have given all other things being equal. I am sure Apple does want a piece of that after market as well.
Well, my phone is a very simple nokia, all features are off, camera is removed. So from my POV if I wanted to get a device similar to iPhone or some Android based thing it wouldn't be because it's a phone, it would be because it's a tiny computer.
However saying that because Apple has excellent profits now with the phones locked doesn't at all mean that they couldn't have even more profits if they allowed an option (maybe for some extra money) to those who wanted this option to remove any sort of protection against USER using the device the way they wanted to, and then to sell various gadgets and attachments for these phones. Why would that make them less profit rather than more? Doesn't seem logical.
Again, just because they have large profits now, doesn't mean they couldn't have even more profits by luring in more customers who want more out of their hand held computers.
To be honest, I don't actually know. I don't own any fancy device like that, my phone is a very very very simple tiny nokia, I disabled every feature on it that I could and removed the camera. I made an assumption that there is a market for more open phones and I believe, (maybe incorrectly), that Android based phones are more open than iPhones. I could be wrong, but that would amaze me actually. They are not more open?
It's amazing that Apple and Jobs in it are so shortsighted that they don't provide official tools that people want. Of-course they have contracts with AT&T and who knows what else, that's most likely why they don't want to let people use these devices as general purpose computers, so that normal apps could be executed (and then you can use Skype or whatever to go around long distance phone charges obviously). But still, this is just so screwed up that a company would not see that it is in its best interest to sell the phone with the maximum possible features in it. OK, have an official Apple utility to so called "jail break" the thing and enter another lucrative market of various adapters and gadgets that could be then used together with the phone.
These devices are general purpose computers with wireless access and an odd phone application installed on them. Let the people use them the way they want to.
Of-course the unwillingness of Apple to allow people to use their own freaking product the way they want to provides HUGE market for all the other types of phones (Android) to fill that gap. It's just the short-sightedness of Apple is amazing in this instance.
Shooting people with cameras? I am not suggesting that, the camera is to be shoot up into the air to give you a glimpse of where the opponents are (and maybe your side as well).
Of-course this would look funny if too many people got themselves these in paintball and all started using them all at once, shooting cameras into the air. It would probably give out your position too.
more stuff created for war. These cameras instruments are not going to be sold to civilians, here is the purpose:
Soldiers shoot it off and for eight glorious seconds it gives them a bird's eye view of the terrain around them, tipping them off to enemy positions. Then it crashes back to earth.
Private citizens can't buy these flying cameras, much less the 40mm grenade launchers used to shoot them. But Vlad Gostom and Joshua Marpet think they'd be great tools for a search and rescue operation, or maybe a boon to some local police force's SWAT (special weapons and tactics) team. So they're building their own version and showing off what they've learned at Defcon this week.
of-course outside of a war or a 'rescue operation' there may be not much use for these things, but it just adds to resources that are mis-allocated for wars instead of going towards normal consumer market. The only use for consumer market I can think of is war games unfortunately, like paintball.
that's easy stuff, they should try the other way around: nanoelectronics out of microdiamonds.
I did not overlook your list. It just doesn't mean jack. We were discussing the US economy and how to fix it, as far as I am concerned.
- you were never discussing how to fix any economy, your views can't fix an economy.
All the nations you're citing are facing far more dire problems than the question whether cheaper production or more money in the pockets of the people is the solution.
- affordable food is near the top of all dire problems.
I'm not responsible for every nation around the globe
in your own words:
Is there anything you could not buy, provided you had the money? Food? There's more food getting produced than we can possibly eat. Hell, government subsidies exist to destroy food, if anything could be more backwards I can't think of it. So we need cheaper food? Food IS already as cheap as it could possibly get, there is a certain amount of work and investment to get food produced and the margins are already razor thin, how much cheaper do you want to make it?
so you are not responsible for world's problems yet in your estimate food is as cheap as it must be and it is correct that governments are involved in food production, subsidizing production and destruction of the resource, production of which the world sees huge shortages of.
And I guess you're happy about that as well.
- people with views like yours are in power in European countries and some are in US and other places. The fewer of people like you there are in governments around the world the better.
These problems cannot be solved by "more production" or "cheaper production", at the very least not alone that way.
- all of their problems would be solved by exactly the same thing: more and cheaper production.
on, the problem is certainly not a shortage of goods.
Food is not the only resource of which there is shortage of, and in your socialist ideology and complete misunderstanding of what economy is about the people must be consuming, never mind if they are producing anything, thus people can be consuming with other people's money, producing nothing of value in exchange for their consumption and somehow that's supposed to be an equitable and workable economic model.
Anyway, you may want to find a more useful way to waste your time and to talk to me and I have things to do.
Oh, no, bring W. Bush back, we need to strike into this new enemy's lair before it attacks the American way of life (and also these may be used to power up SUVs somehow, GM, GE, Boeing and Lockheed Martin should look into this right now.)
You'd be very popular in these places, all of which could produce more food on their own if government was not taxing and subsidizing and regulating food in the world:
Swaziland: HIV patients 'eat dung to make drugs work'
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/out_of_food_zimbabweans_eating_cow_dung/
Food Prices Fuel Egypt Unrest
Egypt and Tunisia usher in the new era of global food revolutions
Spike in global food prices contributes to Tunisian violence
Food price jumps protested in Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco
Egypt and Tunisia: rocked by the global food crisis
Hunger in Syria, Libya and Yemen
Ukraine to control food prices
Rising food prices increase squeeze on poor - Oxfam
As Food Prices Spike, Azerbaijanis Endure Border Chaos To Shop In Iran
For dummies: The impact of the global food crisis on Azerbaijan - in pictures
Estonia Raises Inflation Forecast on Global Food and Fuel Prices
Nigeria: food price up as inflationary rate drop
High food prices 'caused Niger hunger'
Mexico: Food prices reach record high
China's food price inflation hits 14.4% in June
Lithuania and Latvia catching up with Estonia
Food prices rise, wages donâ(TM)t
China food prices spike as floods ruin farmland
Brazil: Food Prices Surge and Head Toward Dangerous Levels
Rise in food prices causing major concerns in Russia
Stockpiling as Russian food prices soar
Food prices have soared most in Venezuela, Bolivia and Argentina
Thousands protest against high food prices in Delhi
India: A spike in food prices is especially painful for the poor
I bet it would get pretty personal for you if you came to these places and started spouting your socialist views on how cheap food is that your government is subsidizing farmers and then paying farmers to destroy it
Swaziland: HIV patients 'eat dung to make drugs work'
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/out_of_food_zimbabweans_eating_cow_dung/
Food Prices Fuel Egypt Unrest
Egypt and Tunisia usher in the new era of global food revolutions
Spike in global food prices contributes to Tunisian violence
Food price jumps protested in Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco
Egypt and Tunisia: rocked by the global food crisis
Hunger in Syria, Libya and Yemen
Ukraine to control food prices
Rising food prices increase squeeze on poor - Oxfam
As Food Prices Spike, Azerbaijanis Endure Border Chaos To Shop In Iran
For dummies: The impact of the global food crisis on Azerbaijan - in pictures
Estonia Raises Inflation Forecast on Global Food and Fuel Prices
Nigeria: food price up as inflationary rate drop
High food prices 'caused Niger hunger'
Mexico: Food prices reach record high
China's food price inflation hits 14.4% in June
Lithuania and Latvia catching up with Estonia
Food prices rise, wages donâ(TM)t
China food prices spike as floods ruin farmland
Brazil: Food Prices Surge and Head Toward Dangerous Levels
Rise in food prices causing major concerns in Russia
Stockpiling as Russian food prices soar
Food prices have soared most in Venezuela, Bolivia and Argentina
Thousands protest against high food prices in Delhi
India: A spike in food prices is especiall
Yeah, I bet it would get pretty personal for you if you showed up with your assertions that food is cheap and abundant during the Middle Eastern revolutions this year, be it Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain or Libya. It would have gotten pretty personal for you there and you wouldn't have made it out of there alive.
Are you kidding me? Are you honestly saying we are lacking products?
- absolutely.
We are lacking people producing. We are lacking production. We are lacking investment. We are lacking capital. We are lacking ability to successfully put capital and labor and other resources together to produce more products that we want and I have given but a tiny subset of the products that we are completely lacking in the comment you are responding to.
You are lacking economic understanding, that is why you believe that economy is about consumption and not about production. You are wrong, but it's not surprising, you were 'educated' by a system that doesn't understand it either.
Food?
- absolutely. With all the government regulations and subsidies into the food market in various countries, the prices are high because of the government regulations and taxes, food is expensive. Just because YOU do not understand it in your (current) socialist paradise doesn't mean the Middle Easterner doesn't understand it or an African doesn't understand it or an Indian doesn't understand it or a South Asian doesn't understand it or a Russian doesn't understand it and in fact many Americans understand it well enough.
What is lacking is cheap food. What is preventing it is government intervention and taxes and subsidies. What should be done is government must be removed from food business. What will happen is many lands that are currently outcompeted by government subsidies become profitable, mainly in Africa and South America and some in Eastern Europe and some even in the Middle East. More food would be grown and it would become cheaper and we would have more choices of different products at better prices.
Hell, government subsidies exist to destroy food
- hell indeed. While some are TAXED so that some others can be SUBSIDIZED to DESTROY an asset like that, some other starve because of those exact actions taken by the government, which taxes and subsidizes destruction.
Food IS already as cheap as it could possibly get
- go and say it to somebody in the Middle East or Africa or South America or Russia or even North America and obviously China (which creates the problem for itself by following the USA footsteps of currency destruction.) Are you being purposefully obtuse or is this a natural state of affairs with you?
how much cheaper do you want to make it?
- the production must satisfy the demand, this means that there is always a way to make more money, more profit, by selling into less wealthy markets. This means literally the food could become FACTORS cheaper than it is today if only the governments didn't participate in destruction of that market.
Please tell me one single area where there is simply not enough supply to satisfy a possibly existing demand
- are you from THIS planet? People want IMMORTALITY, how about THAT for a demand? Government will absolutely not give it to you even if it could, government wouldn't understand what to do with such a product.
Most of them either due to a lack of resources or a monopoly situation.
- monopolies are always created by governments, never by free markets.
Supply on the other hand is not limitless and not just the trivial consequence you try to make it.
- I fucking never said that SUPPLY was a trivial consequence, are you drunk?
Demand is crucial for the economy to work.
- DEMAND is the TRIVIAL CONSEQUENCE. I am beginning to doubt you have a brain cell that is still operational.
No demand, no sale.
- you are again, completely off on what economy is.
Demand always exists and will always exist as long as there are living creatures.
Supply is limited by ability of the economy to
Here is an excellent video reviewing the event in question.
It does not matter who bought the land, money was not spent but it was saved up and invested at some point to buy that land, and if you want to buy it from the current owner - make an offer.
Stealing other people's property because you believe they don't own it goes against the principles of private property at the very least in USA and in many other places, so your bizarre notion that owning a piece of land somehow means you stole something makes no sense.
There is always a price to buy a piece of land for, and you are welcome to go ahead and buy it.
Right, because Afghanistan was obviously going to attack USA and it needed to be stopped before it did. Or maybe the people who attacked USA were mostly in Saudi Arabia, not Afghanistan. But who cares about minute details, prepare for war.
And I bet many of you are wondering: what is up with all this spending on more war and having this debt problem all at the same time?
Nixon defaulted on the promise to pay gold for US reserve notes in 1971 to keep financing the war when France was actively trying to redeem their USD for gold. Now THAT was a real default. What they have today is a joke. But the wars must go on.
Wars must always go on. Robots must roll in the deserts of Afghanistan. Well, many they tried different types of wars in Afghanistan, I don't think they really tried this many robots before. Think it will work this time?
What can be more cool than robots in war, right? I guess the only thing that's even more cool is to have the Chinese finance it.
16 amendment, ah, yes, the proof that SCOTUS is just an arm of government and doesn't give a shit about the Constitution it swore to uphold. Same as with Congress and the White House.
I would say that 4th and 5th amendments are more important and 16 amendment was the time of beginning of decline for USA.
No it doesn't, in the absence of taxes once you have sufficient ownership of land you can live handsomely on rent ever more ... no work required, just rent seeking. To a lesser extent the same goes for sufficient levels of ownership of companies with natural (local) monopolies ... but especially land. Neither the free market nor technological advancement will create more land.
- not true. More land can always be created. Be it highrises or be it even artificial islands or whatever. But that's not the point.
Land is not always a good asset to own, and people buy and sell land all the time, so I don't your point at all. You want to BUY some land? You can always do that. But that's not what you are talking about, you are talking about stealing other people's investment that they made by saving the money they made from working and not spending it.
Where does this free market capitalism exist that you speak of?
- I find the freest market in existence today in Asia. Hong Kong, Singapore, China.
they get bailed out for being "too big to fail".
- that's the problem with allowing government to regulate business, participate in business, print money, set interest rates, accrue debt, tax income. The system that allows it will be always subverted by special interests, no exceptions.
Innovation only exists if there is an incentive for it.
- the only effective motivator for innovation that humans have invented is profit.
Someone certainly already patented what you'd want to do
- that's why I like the Asian economies, it's a mixed bag, but mostly they don't give a hoot and they shouldn't. There must be no such thing as 'patents'. If you want to keep secrets keep them. Have your trade secrets, etc. Don't expect me to give a shit about your patent.
Neither system ever was even close to this ideal.
- USA 19 century. Asia today.
you a parasite and treat you as such.
- whatever you say, government boy. People get huge benefits from my products, which make their businesses more efficient and at the end allow more competition and thus more choice for end consumers.
happened lately in the west either. The reasons are similar as they were in the USSR: Lack of motivation.
- in USA the lack of motivation comes from government stifling any attempt at innovation. Regulations, taxing income, labor laws, subsidies to monopolies, etc.
More production? What for would you want to produce more? Everyone is already producing more than could be sold, what we need is more demand!
- and that's why you don't have even basic understanding of economics.
Production is what economy is based on. Consumption is a trivial consequence of production. I want more products. I want more services. I want more different types of products that I can't even imaging that somebody else can imagine. I want cheaper everything.
I want cheaper food.
I want cheaper clothing.
I want cheaper energy.
I want cheaper transportation.
I want cheaper medical attention.
I want cheaper insurance.
I want many and cheap robots to help me in my life.
I want cheap computers everywhere, up to wazoo.
I want more ways to improve my health with new products that could be created that are not even thought of today, because there is all this government around, which destroys any genuine thought and opportunities and promotes monopolies. I want healthier life based on more innovative products.
I want to go to space.
I want to go travel under the sea.
I want to have my own flying car.
I want to have my own space ship.
I want everything that can possibly be.
I hope you understand that "I" here is not all myself, many people want things, and those are just some of the things they want. Innovation and competition is destroyed by government mis-allocating resources towards government spending and removing incentives to start new businesses. Government destroys any innovation by granting patents, by supporting copyrights and by limiting liability of corporations.
Government destroys ability of market to produce all the things that market wants to consume.
It's not demand that's lacking, it is NEVER the demand that is lacking, it is SUPPLY that is lacking.
Where are the sources of cheaper energy? I want my OWN NUCLEAR or THERMONUCLEAR REACTOR NOW.
I want it. Unfortunately government actively prevents people from working in this area with their own ideas.
The government stands in my way.
The government stands in everybody's way.
The government stands in the way of technology.
The government stands in the way of investment.
The government stands in the way of opportunity.
The government stands in the way of economy.
The government stands in the way of progress.
Did production suddenly plummet and hence economy hit rock bottom?
- OF-COURSE. What else do you think the problem is? Lack of paper money?
Ha.
Money itself is not what stands in the way of production capacity. It never stood in the way of production capacity, which was demonstrated clearly by USA 19 century and is today by Asian economies. Government destroyed money with inflation, it destroyed ability to start businesses to compete with established ones with regulations, it destroyed ability to allocate resources efficiently with subsidies and it destroyed ability of people to take care of their own needs and to make their own investments into their own businesses with income taxes.
I don't know what country you specifically are referring to, when you talk about 'your' country it sounds dramatically awful. However even Sweden is moving away from the pure socialist ideology, and moving closer to capitalism, they know they can't have a system where nobody is producing and everybody keeps consuming.
Export you say? Produce more and export it? Great plan. Where to?
- Did I actually SAY export? I don't think so.
I said PRODUCE. Exports will happen all on their own if you produce something that somebody else somewhere else wants. That's how you trade for real, not printing worthless currency and expecting the world to absorb it, while giving you all of the products you are too high brow to produce yourself, but actually producing something of value and exchanging your products for foreign products.
Excha