only for some time. In reality money is not really useful in economy without some value to back the money up. When it becomes too painfully clear that these particular money is useless, it's just going to be written off as a bad debt. Sure, the creditor will suffer, but the country, who now will lose its credit (in terms of trade especially) will suffer insanely more. The creditor will recover because the creditor has a strong producing economy.
You mean it's a common resource we all share, and nobody should own?:-)
- it's hard to define which molecule is yours, but if your poisons enter my property, again as I said, I must be able to sue you and gov'ts only real purpose then must come into play: Justice system aimed at resolving contract and property rights. If poison was moved from your territory to mine by wind and you did nothing to prevent that, it is reasonable to sue you because we know how wind works and you can't ask for special treatment based on ignorance about movement of air.
You are correct, it would be all about proving the fact, the question is: how is that different now? We must prove things are true before we can take any action. You can't do anything without some sort of a proof, so we'll have to find the source of the poison that you are releasing into the air, and this is absolutely the same kind of work, regardless whether it's gov't or private property.
BP dumped millions of gallons of oil into the ocean, what is going to be the result? You'd have to wait, probably some people will die from something related to this incident not counting the 11 dead already. So then what's the difference?
The difference is that if BP had to drill on their own property or on property of some actual owner and not a government "nobody's" property, they'd be more liable for any damage, they'd have to carry real insurance, they'd have to pay attention to their equipment and procedures because they costs would not have been capped by any corrupted gov't.
Because when you have neighbors and private properties, you can't ignore them as easily as when it's all government's and really nobody owns it, nobody cares about it.
My point about somebody going to jail for drugs is just that it appears a gov't can put a person it doesn't like to jail, so it's not impossible to punish individuals and it should be possible to punish corporations AND individuals, this entire idea of 'limited liability' is a nice trick played on all people, there is no such thing, it's always possible to find somebody responsible for any action.
People's lives are only important to gov't because those people pay taxes, they are really just resources to be milked. So in a way it is true, nobody cares if you got killed except for your family/friends. But I didn't say anything specific about how a Justice system should be structured and how such events should be approached, I am not a judge or a lawyer.
But I never said that Justice system must be funded by separate people case by case, it has to be funded from taxes obviously, I have problem with taxes on income, but not with levies on sales. Sales tax is the tax that gives incentive to produce and takes away incentive to consume, and that is what economy needs: more production, less consumption on borrowed/printed money.
People argue it's unfair to the poorest, the sales taxes are. Well, if you feel you are too poor to pay those taxes, you would have to file your income statement to prove that you do not have means to pay taxes and your taxes then can be returned to you. Instead what we do is we force everybody, including those who doesn't want to ask gov't for anything to waste their time and give up their Freedoms and file their income taxes, telling the gov't everything we do and letting the gov't decide how much it will let us keep of our money we earned, that's really turning people into slaves, taking away their ability to save and invest on their own, exercising authority over people's lives.
-- As to water supplies, again this is about class action lawsuit that can totally be filed on behalf of all the consumers of that water, not owners of that water, just consumers. There must be no liability caps and there must be personal responsibility. There are plenty of cases just like that one WITH gov't in power and supposedly taking care of this, but they are obviously not taking care of this because gov't can be lobbied and paid to give special privileges, which also destroys competition.
Government involvement into economy is truly the root of all evil, people are still learning about this.
I already answered it. If you are my neighbor and your pollution enters my premises, I have a case against you, and if gov't can do anything right at all, it should be the justice system to resolve contract issues, property issues and such.
So a billion people dumping shit on someones lawn doesn't bother anybody until it bothers the neighbors, and it becomes their private fight, unless it becomes so big that an Action Class Lawsuit must be started, and of-course liability caps prevent this from any meaningful outcome. Gov't does not want to do the right thing: give up its involvement in economy, so it will continue 'owning' assets instead of doing the correct thing and selling assets to private people/companies, who then would become actual owners with actual reasons to protect their properties (even if the only reason is not to be sued by neighbors or by a class action)
The purpose of a Justice system must be resolution of conflict, so if your oil drilling causes my part of ocean to be deprived of oxygen, it's still damage that can be shown. If the cause can be shown then result must be forcing the guilty party to clean up and to pay any retribution.
By protecting our own pieces of land/water/air, whatever we take care of it, we care as owners. The gov't is this big amorphous blob, in itself it doesn't care, but as individual people in it, it's even worse: many get special treatment to not pay attention and even to allow damages and removal of liabilities on purpose.
You really believe your gov't will prevent the next oil spill better than a private owner ever could? You are mistaken. A private owners wouldn't allow anybody to drill for oil without really serious approach to security against pollution and definitely wouldn't set liability caps and would require the drilling/pumping companies to carry enough insurance to cover possible liability costs.
It's just not in nature of people to care about things they don't own.
but you didn't buy the air on my property, and I am definitely not on it.
More to the point, you are consuming as much air as I am (approximately), now if you are poisoning the air by some extra means and we had adjacent properties and your poisons entered my territory, I would be seeking retribution.
As to 'lobbying', you are missing my point. I said already: there must be nothing that a company could lobby a gov't for in order to get any economic advantage. Think what I mean by that, think. It means a gov't that even you gave it money, couldn't help you to remove competition. You can lobby a gov't all you want, a gov't shouldn't be a force that changes outcomes in economies.
According to the "trade balance" view of economy, selling your house/furniture/gadgets/clothes/food to your neighbours to replace it all by a pile of gold made you richer.
According to the "trade balance" view of economy, as son as some good leaves the country to be replaced by some gold, something positive happened. As soon as some good entered the country and some gold left it something bad happened.
This view of economy is so moronically stupid it is frightening.
- the only stupid and frightening thing is the lack of logic and the complete non-sequitur of your comment.
Trade balance has nothing to do with gold, gold is only a store of value but in itself it's just a metal, nothing that is like a real product. Trade balance is achieved when people willingly exchange labor at market prices, not labor for pieces of green paper that are becoming less and less useful with each new action some government takes.
I feel I must tell you this secret about economy you obviously haven't figured out on your own:
Person A makes fuel. Person B makes food. They exchange things they make. Thus they have an economy. Using tokens of exchange (such as gold or fiat currency) works fine, as long as both are feeling they got the best deal based on what the market has to offer.
If person A stops making fuel and instead starts writing IOUs for the food that person B keeps providing, that's called credit. Providing that food to person A is OK, as long as he can be trusted to return the fuel at some point (probably with interest, whatever market decides). However giving food to person A for an extended period of time becomes less and less viable position for person B, at some point it looks like person A is living on a subsidy and not producing anything BUT IOUs. That's when person B should really cut his costs and run. Sure, the IOUs will be useless, but you have to cut and stop the bleeding. That is what will happen between USA and the countries who are subsidizing it.
According to the "government is evil" view of economy, the existence of laws is a perversion to be fought.
- no, involvement of government powers into economy is the evil that corrupts government by providing a reason to corrupt it and destroys economy by killing off competition for those, who corrupt the gov't.
According to the "government is evil" view of economy, it is okay to let restaurants/corporations/(rich) individuals poison their neighbours because the threat of lawsuits will prevent that from happening (but laws are evil, so some ad-hoc mechanism for determining damage need to be established.)
- straws. The justice system needs to be in place, that and military for protection of the borders and cops/prisons. So if someone is murdered, it is a legitimate reason to lay down a law, but the law is about damage, it is not about preventing anybody from doing things the way they want, law is only about damaging someone. The specifics must not be written into law, any damage that can be proven has to be enough to apply the punishment/correction.
Fact: if the productive people of Atlas Shrugged all went to an island where there would be no "oppression", they would quickly degenerate in a pre-stone age society (there are real-world examples of this: a rich society is a large society, even though it might seem to be composed of dull individuals). We are collectively rich as we are because we are all interlinked through exchange of goods, services, ideas. For society to function, markets must function. For that, government intervention is required. To break monopolies, to forbid or compensate externalities, to impose transparency. To impose a measure of equality.
- fact: if 100 people were on a deserted island for an extended period of time, eventually they would split into classes, some would be richer than others, some would rule others, as long as there was no cris
In a sane system, BP would at least have to BUY that part of the ocean before it could pollute it OR it would have to pay someone, who is the actual owner to drill there and they'd have no liability caps. The gov't owning anything is a disaster, it always is because gov't consists of people who take bribes and generally are bad at what they do. Most importantly they are not the owners of the 'common resources', so why should they care? Do you understand that YOU wouldn't care about that ocean if you were in gov't making decisions, because your interest would be around your ever growing bank account and power that is granted to you really by the companies, who help you to get that power, to be elected, etc.
So if BP had to buy the ocean or pay to the owners for real, and have real liability, they'd have proper insurance, they wouldn't have any subsidies from gov't, they would pay more attention to their procedures, any spill would have really been an accident and not what it was here - negligence.
Only real owners really care. Do you care about your apartment? Your car? Do you care about some publicly owned tree somewhere as much? That is tragedy of commons, nobody can be made to care about things far away that they don't actually really own.
Had BP owned that part of the ocean and had it still spilled the oil, it would have stopped it quicker and it would have had to pay real liability to everybody around, whoever would have BP's oil enter their ocean territory.
You can laugh, I know it's very difficult to understand and it's not popular with most people because they truly don't understand economy and gov't and they really think that gov't is necessary to do all of these things, but that is the reason for the economy that is dying.
you can assume all you want and have your little ad hominems all day long, it doesn't change the facts, but I think we don't need to carry on this dialog, because it's not one.
If you are replying to my comments, then I don't understand your point.
My point is precisely that there must be NO COMMONS.
Everything must be owned privately, then any problems are problems between private owners, and I don't think a private owners would lobby to set a liability cap on damages caused by an oil spill in his private property, or do you think people are actually stupid about things like that? Do you come home and take a dump on your kitchen table? What if your guest did, would you be all for it, or would you make him clean up? If he broke your table, would you want it replaced?
Well, the tragedy of commons is a ruse, the real tragedy is that there are no actual owners.
The powers have been usurped, but in a funny way, you are arguing against yourself.
My position is that gov't must give back all of the power it usurped over the years, the powers that it never was supposed to have, the powers that destroy economy.
Also you are wrong, the gov't was able to take away all of those powers from people once, regardless of the Constitution, so it must be really easy to usurp those powers and to turn people into slaves. I don't think it's ever a problem for a gov't to slowly nibble away at Freedoms until there are none left, the trick is, how do you take those powers away from the Gov't?
You are truly arguing that Gov't by giving up what it stole back to the people would be like people usurping powers? It's a straaaange position to have.
Complete deregulation would be horrible. Demonization of all regulation is wrong. People abuse. Companies abuse.
- USA has this little document, it really only is a few pages, it's called The Constitution. The Constitution says that people have all rights because they have them always, not because somebody grants the people these rights, this is different from say, Russia, where Constitution grants rights. In the USA Constitution lists what Gov't can and cannot do, that's the main purpose, because Constitution is a Federal paper, which then has to be ratified by separate States. If a State does not agree with the Constitution it doesn't ratify it, the State doesn't have to participate in the Union, though it's difficult practically, but from point of view of the law it is correct.
Understand that all regulations by Federal government is allowed to it by States only based on most likely a single clause: commerce clause. This clause has been abused to basically go around the Constitution for the past 200 years too many times and at this point the gov't is the actual source of the problem, not a source of any solutions specifically because it has completely abandoned the Constitutional principles.
The USA is a unique society, well, it WAS before, now Switzerland looks more like what USA tried to be than USA does.
I am saying all of this to tell you that by the actual Constitution the Federal gov't has no rights to meddle in economy, it is destructive to economy and people knew it when they wrote it. At this point the gov't is the main reason for its own corruption because it provides those who give it money too much power, that's what corruption is - paying to get privileges and to take away people's rights.
People are Free People, they must NOT be ruled by a Federal gov't, if they wish to collaborate on local levels (municipal/state) it's then their choice and at least THAT provides competition between states. But what has happened with the Federal gov't is that it completely usurped all the power and now is running a nice little dictatorship there and it's destroying the economy, not saving it every single day, and it's going to get it done, USA will lose its economy and the dollar will be gone.
So I take the company to court and...what are they going to tell him? The only thing they can tell him is not to pollute on my property. Easy enough for them to deal with. They'll still be polluting on other people's property. They'll probably be polluting the water supply to.
- a working justice system, which I did not bother describing, would have more authority than 'just telling'.
You are caught with some trivial substances on you in most countries today, you can go to jail, and you didn't even hurt anybody. Why do I have to come up with an entire working justice system to make a point?
If your water supply is polluted you take it up with whoever provides you with your water, and they have to take it up with whoever pollutes it, why is that difficult to see? You probably can program some software, maybe something more than even trivial, is what I am proposing beyond logic?
As to polluters that cause entire communities to suffer, that where Action Class Lawsuits come into play. You sue the MOFO who fucked up the water collectively through the Justice dep't, and if he doesn't fix it immediately he gets shot down, that's what cops and prisons are for, again, same question as before applies...
Now I don't have to spend all day suing people and tracing where the pollution came from to sue the right people. It just gets done.
- really? Does it 'get done'? How many oil rigs have spilled over the decades, what is getting done? The millions of barrels of oil are out there, the damage IS done, your point is INVALID.
The gov't DOES NOT CARE about your public common property! You do not see it? You really really really do not see it? It doesn't care! If it cared, there would be no liability caps, there would be real inspections, etc. But gov't cannot and will not inspect things, because it is unprofitable for politicians to do the work that you THINK they must do, they don't think so, it's NOT what they think of their work, they don't care, it's NOT THEIR PROPERTY!
I was born in the USSR, the property that does not belong to you, but belongs to gov't is nobodies property, people knew it and they destroyed and stole and didn't want to work and cheated, etc. It's just common sense, if you are NOT the owner you don't care, and nobody in gov't is the owner.
It's the same as for large gov't created monopolies, the CEOs are NOT owners, they don't care about anything but their own pockets, so they make sure to line their pockets and they leave mess and destruction behind. HP Fiorina is a good example when compared to the original Hewlett and Packard who started the company. Who CARED MORE? Hewlett and Packard or Fiorina?
It's the same exact precise principle at work, until you have an actual OWNER you won't see any changes at all.
The only single working way to fix the problem is to get all powers of gov't away from gov't except for the bare minimum I have described, which is then controlled by the people closely, and it is much easier to control jobs of 3 departments than of 30000000 departments.
That's just silly, the parent comment was not a troll, it makes sense. Arguing with ACs is silly because there are armies of them and you don't know who's who.
You can pollute in your kitchen all you want, but if the pollutions spreads from your kitchen to a kitchen of a guy below you (say it's an apartment building) and you are leaking water and throwing sewage at him, he now has a reason to take you to court and it's between two property owners.
This problem you have, is that you want to stop a company from polluting on their property, I don't know why, it's their property. The real question is this: if your property is adjacent to his and you get the pollution spreading onto your territory, whether by ground, water or air, you now have the right to take that other owner to court.
That's the only reason to have a gov't:
1. Minimum military to protect against invasion. 2. Court system, justice system to allow people to resolve contract issues, property issues, things like that. 3. Prisons/cops.
Gov't has a role to play, people need a justice system, and a gov't that's not involved in economy and only has 3 roles can be kept in check and controlled to do those 3 jobs right. If you can't have a gov't doing 3 jobs right, what chance do you have in hell insuring it does 3 million jobs right?
since my comments always go through a cycle of being moderated up and then down after a while (well, there are people who wait until nobody is reading further and then they moderate down) I am actually thanking you for quoting my comment completely before answering it and your comment will stay at above 4, so at least people will see what the thread is about.
I see, so saying that I am a 'fucking moron' clearly puts a historic perspective on my statement and makes it 'obviously untrue'. You have solved the mystery, good for you.
The gov't owned property is nobody's property, so it can be polluted.
Gov't must NOT OWN PROPERTY, all property (ocean, land, air, radio spectrum, whatever) and assets, must be in private hands, and then any pollution problem would be solved between owner of the land anybody who'd attempt to destroy that property.
BP, as an example, got permission to drill in the Gulf, in fact over 30K drilling happened there, near 3000 oil drilling/producing rigs are there right now. Did anybody really decide to give them this right but your gov't? Your gov't is giving them the right to drill, it then removes the liability caps.
You think your gov't WILL protect your natural resources and your common land and air and water? NO.
Only an OWNER does that. As an owner do you come home and take huge DUMP in the middle of your kitchen? What if a guest came and did that, would you make sure he cleans up and maybe pays you some damages?
That is the ultimate problem, people have been brainwashed completely into this nonsense.
My friend. You are comparing Enron to gov't today, realize that
1. Enron never was in a free market of any kind at all, you are talking about ENERGY sector! Billions, tens of billions of gov't subsidies and regulations and various laws and you must be crazy to believe this has anything to do with free market.
2. Same for Comcast. AT&T by the way, was given a priority by gov't to own a nationalized phone cable system, but forget AT&T. Gov't is OWNED by these industries: energy, military, banking, insurance, food, telecommunications, there is no free market there, never was, and by looks of it economy will be destroyed and there will be no free market there ever until the gov't dies off as a species (we arent' that lucky)
3. Any disaster that you can point at has a direct correlation to destruction of Freedoms that people must be able to enjoy under Constitution (well, in USA), the gov't is the first entity not to care about private property, gov't doesn't care how it treats property, all property needs to be privatized so that there is always a meaningful owner, who'll stand in the way of others destroying it.
4. Gov't is a pyramid scheme much much much bigger than Enron and Madoff and all other schemes COMBINED.
Fed is printing money, they are printing t-bills, they are setting interest rates, they are a gigantic monopoly on monetary policy.
So when Enron came up with fake income numbers based on future income, what do you think gov't is doing when it's printing t-bills?:))))) Gov't IS ENRON, it IS Berney Madoff.
They are telling you: we are going to have this earnings, look, buy our t-bills, we'll pay you back with interest, when in fact what it does it moves its debt from one credit card to another at this point near every 6 months.
Learn, learn, learn, that's the only way out of ignorance.
The US output can only be measured in real terms by the trade balance numbers, GDP is meaningless, the way it's counted is meaningless and it became more meaningless with bailouts and stimulus spending and printing.
Manufacturing jobs are automated, but while they are eliminated in the USA (the latest job growth in private sector of about 60K jobs was all in service sector, which does not help the trade imbalance at all), in China, Malaysia, Singapore and the rest of Asia these jobs are growing.
The reasons of-course lay in unions but importantly wage laws, because once you compete with a wage law, you are not only competing with other people in your field, you are competing with capital. There is a reason people are no longer answering phones or checking your oil at a gas pump or bagging your groceries and carrying them to your car.
Raw materials are not the problem, at least not for the next few thousands of years, there is Canada and Russia and Africa and probably the Arctic, those have more materials than we can use for now.
The ultimate answer to your question is not government job for everybody. If ALL JOBS are automated WHY do you need to work? What, do you love your job so that you'd rather work than spend time on a beach?
Working is not the goal (for most people anyway,) so paying you a gov't salary to dig a ditch and fill it back in (as Krugman proposed on CNBC radio just a week ago) is retarded.
Using money from productive work to fund gov't jobs is retarded just as well. Your last statement is crazy. That would mean that we have tapped out all possibilities for further expansion of human ideas and that is unlikely. If that were to happen you'd see draconian laws implemented to reduce population to something extremely controlled, and that is not going to happen, so instead people would continue expanding and work would have to continue being productive for the most of population on the planet.
Gov't is less than 10% of all population, 90% of population is funding that monster. Growing that to much bigger number is not sustainable and very dangerous for economy in its totality, less you want to see some extreme wars to wipe out entire countries.
Your private union is your private matter. Having gov't imposed regulations simply undermines economy and kills competition, whatever the competition is. You are faced with reality: other economies are much more competitive and the reasons have been listed. It is really your choice.
The government is broke, USA cannot repay gov't debt, any single % point up in the t-bills (which are all short term) would result in 134billion dollars more of interest. The debt will NOT be repaid, it will be printed, so the dollar will be destroyed.
The GDP means nothing, it's a fake number, especially after all the bailouts and stimulus spending, the real number to look at is the trade imbalance, and that is where the information can be obtained about the health of economy and the picture is crystal clear.
it's called a crisis. In a crisis situation rules change, if they don't then that 'unrealistic' situation will actually meet reality, and reality will win, and there will be no economy left to speak of, while the rest of the world would just completely ignore any position a country, whose economy fell apart takes, and they'd be correct not to care. Losers do not tell winners what to do.
Slashdot Mirror
only for some time. In reality money is not really useful in economy without some value to back the money up. When it becomes too painfully clear that these particular money is useless, it's just going to be written off as a bad debt. Sure, the creditor will suffer, but the country, who now will lose its credit (in terms of trade especially) will suffer insanely more. The creditor will recover because the creditor has a strong producing economy.
You mean it's a common resource we all share, and nobody should own? :-)
- it's hard to define which molecule is yours, but if your poisons enter my property, again as I said, I must be able to sue you and gov'ts only real purpose then must come into play: Justice system aimed at resolving contract and property rights. If poison was moved from your territory to mine by wind and you did nothing to prevent that, it is reasonable to sue you because we know how wind works and you can't ask for special treatment based on ignorance about movement of air.
You are correct, it would be all about proving the fact, the question is: how is that different now? We must prove things are true before we can take any action. You can't do anything without some sort of a proof, so we'll have to find the source of the poison that you are releasing into the air, and this is absolutely the same kind of work, regardless whether it's gov't or private property.
BP dumped millions of gallons of oil into the ocean, what is going to be the result? You'd have to wait, probably some people will die from something related to this incident not counting the 11 dead already. So then what's the difference?
The difference is that if BP had to drill on their own property or on property of some actual owner and not a government "nobody's" property, they'd be more liable for any damage, they'd have to carry real insurance, they'd have to pay attention to their equipment and procedures because they costs would not have been capped by any corrupted gov't.
Because when you have neighbors and private properties, you can't ignore them as easily as when it's all government's and really nobody owns it, nobody cares about it.
My point about somebody going to jail for drugs is just that it appears a gov't can put a person it doesn't like to jail, so it's not impossible to punish individuals and it should be possible to punish corporations AND individuals, this entire idea of 'limited liability' is a nice trick played on all people, there is no such thing, it's always possible to find somebody responsible for any action.
People's lives are only important to gov't because those people pay taxes, they are really just resources to be milked. So in a way it is true, nobody cares if you got killed except for your family/friends. But I didn't say anything specific about how a Justice system should be structured and how such events should be approached, I am not a judge or a lawyer.
But I never said that Justice system must be funded by separate people case by case, it has to be funded from taxes obviously, I have problem with taxes on income, but not with levies on sales. Sales tax is the tax that gives incentive to produce and takes away incentive to consume, and that is what economy needs: more production, less consumption on borrowed/printed money.
People argue it's unfair to the poorest, the sales taxes are. Well, if you feel you are too poor to pay those taxes, you would have to file your income statement to prove that you do not have means to pay taxes and your taxes then can be returned to you. Instead what we do is we force everybody, including those who doesn't want to ask gov't for anything to waste their time and give up their Freedoms and file their income taxes, telling the gov't everything we do and letting the gov't decide how much it will let us keep of our money we earned, that's really turning people into slaves, taking away their ability to save and invest on their own, exercising authority over people's lives.
--
As to water supplies, again this is about class action lawsuit that can totally be filed on behalf of all the consumers of that water, not owners of that water, just consumers. There must be no liability caps and there must be personal responsibility. There are plenty of cases just like that one WITH gov't in power and supposedly taking care of this, but they are obviously not taking care of this because gov't can be lobbied and paid to give special privileges, which also destroys competition.
Government involvement into economy is truly the root of all evil, people are still learning about this.
I already answered it. If you are my neighbor and your pollution enters my premises, I have a case against you, and if gov't can do anything right at all, it should be the justice system to resolve contract issues, property issues and such.
So a billion people dumping shit on someones lawn doesn't bother anybody until it bothers the neighbors, and it becomes their private fight, unless it becomes so big that an Action Class Lawsuit must be started, and of-course liability caps prevent this from any meaningful outcome. Gov't does not want to do the right thing: give up its involvement in economy, so it will continue 'owning' assets instead of doing the correct thing and selling assets to private people/companies, who then would become actual owners with actual reasons to protect their properties (even if the only reason is not to be sued by neighbors or by a class action)
The purpose of a Justice system must be resolution of conflict, so if your oil drilling causes my part of ocean to be deprived of oxygen, it's still damage that can be shown. If the cause can be shown then result must be forcing the guilty party to clean up and to pay any retribution.
By protecting our own pieces of land/water/air, whatever we take care of it, we care as owners. The gov't is this big amorphous blob, in itself it doesn't care, but as individual people in it, it's even worse: many get special treatment to not pay attention and even to allow damages and removal of liabilities on purpose.
You really believe your gov't will prevent the next oil spill better than a private owner ever could? You are mistaken. A private owners wouldn't allow anybody to drill for oil without really serious approach to security against pollution and definitely wouldn't set liability caps and would require the drilling/pumping companies to carry enough insurance to cover possible liability costs.
It's just not in nature of people to care about things they don't own.
but you didn't buy the air on my property, and I am definitely not on it.
More to the point, you are consuming as much air as I am (approximately), now if you are poisoning the air by some extra means and we had adjacent properties and your poisons entered my territory, I would be seeking retribution.
As to 'lobbying', you are missing my point. I said already: there must be nothing that a company could lobby a gov't for in order to get any economic advantage. Think what I mean by that, think. It means a gov't that even you gave it money, couldn't help you to remove competition. You can lobby a gov't all you want, a gov't shouldn't be a force that changes outcomes in economies.
Guys, you can't mode the parent comment as a 5 Interesting while modding this comment as a troll, it's illogical and inconsistent.
According to the "trade balance" view of economy, selling your house/furniture/gadgets/clothes/food to your neighbours to replace it all by a pile of gold made you richer.
According to the "trade balance" view of economy, as son as some good leaves the country to be replaced by some gold, something positive happened. As soon as some good entered the country and some gold left it something bad happened.
This view of economy is so moronically stupid it is frightening.
- the only stupid and frightening thing is the lack of logic and the complete non-sequitur of your comment.
Trade balance has nothing to do with gold, gold is only a store of value but in itself it's just a metal, nothing that is like a real product.
Trade balance is achieved when people willingly exchange labor at market prices, not labor for pieces of green paper that are becoming less and less useful with each new action some government takes.
I feel I must tell you this secret about economy you obviously haven't figured out on your own:
Person A makes fuel.
Person B makes food.
They exchange things they make.
Thus they have an economy.
Using tokens of exchange (such as gold or fiat currency) works fine, as long as both are feeling they got the best deal based on what the market has to offer.
If person A stops making fuel and instead starts writing IOUs for the food that person B keeps providing, that's called credit. Providing that food to person A is OK, as long as he can be trusted to return the fuel at some point (probably with interest, whatever market decides). However giving food to person A for an extended period of time becomes less and less viable position for person B, at some point it looks like person A is living on a subsidy and not producing anything BUT IOUs. That's when person B should really cut his costs and run. Sure, the IOUs will be useless, but you have to cut and stop the bleeding. That is what will happen between USA and the countries who are subsidizing it.
According to the "government is evil" view of economy, the existence of laws is a perversion to be fought.
- no, involvement of government powers into economy is the evil that corrupts government by providing a reason to corrupt it and destroys economy by killing off competition for those, who corrupt the gov't.
According to the "government is evil" view of economy, it is okay to let restaurants/corporations/(rich) individuals poison their neighbours because the threat of lawsuits will prevent that from happening (but laws are evil, so some ad-hoc mechanism for determining damage need to be established.)
- straws. The justice system needs to be in place, that and military for protection of the borders and cops/prisons. So if someone is murdered, it is a legitimate reason to lay down a law, but the law is about damage, it is not about preventing anybody from doing things the way they want, law is only about damaging someone. The specifics must not be written into law, any damage that can be proven has to be enough to apply the punishment/correction.
Fact: if the productive people of Atlas Shrugged all went to an island where there would be no "oppression", they would quickly degenerate in a pre-stone age society (there are real-world examples of this: a rich society is a large society, even though it might seem to be composed of dull individuals). We are collectively rich as we are because we are all interlinked through exchange of goods, services, ideas. For society to function, markets must function. For that, government intervention is required. To break monopolies, to forbid or compensate externalities, to impose transparency. To impose a measure of equality.
- fact: if 100 people were on a deserted island for an extended period of time, eventually they would split into classes, some would be richer than others, some would rule others, as long as there was no cris
If gov't GIVING UP power during a crisis to let the economy heal itself is like 'Hitler', then you are like Glen Beck, how about that leap of logic?
You've made some massive, idiotic leaps and assumptions about the parent's position that simply are not implied.
- no, if you are going to start with things like 'idiotic', you better present a good argument, cause yours is shit.
Usurping power during crisis is the exact opposite of what I am proposing, which is GIVING UP POWER DURING CRISIS.
So both, the GP and you are morons for completely missing the point.
you are confused of-course.
In a sane system, BP would at least have to BUY that part of the ocean before it could pollute it OR it would have to pay someone, who is the actual owner to drill there and they'd have no liability caps. The gov't owning anything is a disaster, it always is because gov't consists of people who take bribes and generally are bad at what they do. Most importantly they are not the owners of the 'common resources', so why should they care? Do you understand that YOU wouldn't care about that ocean if you were in gov't making decisions, because your interest would be around your ever growing bank account and power that is granted to you really by the companies, who help you to get that power, to be elected, etc.
So if BP had to buy the ocean or pay to the owners for real, and have real liability, they'd have proper insurance, they wouldn't have any subsidies from gov't, they would pay more attention to their procedures, any spill would have really been an accident and not what it was here - negligence.
Only real owners really care. Do you care about your apartment? Your car? Do you care about some publicly owned tree somewhere as much? That is tragedy of commons, nobody can be made to care about things far away that they don't actually really own.
Had BP owned that part of the ocean and had it still spilled the oil, it would have stopped it quicker and it would have had to pay real liability to everybody around, whoever would have BP's oil enter their ocean territory.
You can laugh, I know it's very difficult to understand and it's not popular with most people because they truly don't understand economy and gov't and they really think that gov't is necessary to do all of these things, but that is the reason for the economy that is dying.
you can assume all you want and have your little ad hominems all day long, it doesn't change the facts, but I think we don't need to carry on this dialog, because it's not one.
If you are replying to my comments, then I don't understand your point.
My point is precisely that there must be NO COMMONS.
Everything must be owned privately, then any problems are problems between private owners, and I don't think a private owners would lobby to set a liability cap on damages caused by an oil spill in his private property, or do you think people are actually stupid about things like that? Do you come home and take a dump on your kitchen table? What if your guest did, would you be all for it, or would you make him clean up? If he broke your table, would you want it replaced?
Well, the tragedy of commons is a ruse, the real tragedy is that there are no actual owners.
The powers have been usurped, but in a funny way, you are arguing against yourself.
My position is that gov't must give back all of the power it usurped over the years, the powers that it never was supposed to have, the powers that destroy economy.
Also you are wrong, the gov't was able to take away all of those powers from people once, regardless of the Constitution, so it must be really easy to usurp those powers and to turn people into slaves. I don't think it's ever a problem for a gov't to slowly nibble away at Freedoms until there are none left, the trick is, how do you take those powers away from the Gov't?
You are truly arguing that Gov't by giving up what it stole back to the people would be like people usurping powers? It's a straaaange position to have.
My point stands, learn.
Complete deregulation would be horrible. Demonization of all regulation is wrong. People abuse. Companies abuse.
- USA has this little document, it really only is a few pages, it's called The Constitution. The Constitution says that people have all rights because they have them always, not because somebody grants the people these rights, this is different from say, Russia, where Constitution grants rights. In the USA Constitution lists what Gov't can and cannot do, that's the main purpose, because Constitution is a Federal paper, which then has to be ratified by separate States. If a State does not agree with the Constitution it doesn't ratify it, the State doesn't have to participate in the Union, though it's difficult practically, but from point of view of the law it is correct.
Understand that all regulations by Federal government is allowed to it by States only based on most likely a single clause: commerce clause. This clause has been abused to basically go around the Constitution for the past 200 years too many times and at this point the gov't is the actual source of the problem, not a source of any solutions specifically because it has completely abandoned the Constitutional principles.
The USA is a unique society, well, it WAS before, now Switzerland looks more like what USA tried to be than USA does.
I am saying all of this to tell you that by the actual Constitution the Federal gov't has no rights to meddle in economy, it is destructive to economy and people knew it when they wrote it. At this point the gov't is the main reason for its own corruption because it provides those who give it money too much power, that's what corruption is - paying to get privileges and to take away people's rights.
People are Free People, they must NOT be ruled by a Federal gov't, if they wish to collaborate on local levels (municipal/state) it's then their choice and at least THAT provides competition between states. But what has happened with the Federal gov't is that it completely usurped all the power and now is running a nice little dictatorship there and it's destroying the economy, not saving it every single day, and it's going to get it done, USA will lose its economy and the dollar will be gone.
So I take the company to court and...what are they going to tell him? The only thing they can tell him is not to pollute on my property. Easy enough for them to deal with. They'll still be polluting on other people's property. They'll probably be polluting the water supply to.
- a working justice system, which I did not bother describing, would have more authority than 'just telling'.
You are caught with some trivial substances on you in most countries today, you can go to jail, and you didn't even hurt anybody. Why do I have to come up with an entire working justice system to make a point?
If your water supply is polluted you take it up with whoever provides you with your water, and they have to take it up with whoever pollutes it, why is that difficult to see? You probably can program some software, maybe something more than even trivial, is what I am proposing beyond logic?
As to polluters that cause entire communities to suffer, that where Action Class Lawsuits come into play. You sue the MOFO who fucked up the water collectively through the Justice dep't, and if he doesn't fix it immediately he gets shot down, that's what cops and prisons are for, again, same question as before applies...
Now I don't have to spend all day suing people and tracing where the pollution came from to sue the right people. It just gets done.
- really? Does it 'get done'? How many oil rigs have spilled over the decades, what is getting done? The millions of barrels of oil are out there, the damage IS done, your point is INVALID.
The gov't DOES NOT CARE about your public common property! You do not see it? You really really really do not see it? It doesn't care! If it cared, there would be no liability caps, there would be real inspections, etc. But gov't cannot and will not inspect things, because it is unprofitable for politicians to do the work that you THINK they must do, they don't think so, it's NOT what they think of their work, they don't care, it's NOT THEIR PROPERTY!
I was born in the USSR, the property that does not belong to you, but belongs to gov't is nobodies property, people knew it and they destroyed and stole and didn't want to work and cheated, etc. It's just common sense, if you are NOT the owner you don't care, and nobody in gov't is the owner.
It's the same as for large gov't created monopolies, the CEOs are NOT owners, they don't care about anything but their own pockets, so they make sure to line their pockets and they leave mess and destruction behind. HP Fiorina is a good example when compared to the original Hewlett and Packard who started the company. Who CARED MORE? Hewlett and Packard or Fiorina?
It's the same exact precise principle at work, until you have an actual OWNER you won't see any changes at all.
The only single working way to fix the problem is to get all powers of gov't away from gov't except for the bare minimum I have described, which is then controlled by the people closely, and it is much easier to control jobs of 3 departments than of 30000000 departments.
The point is exactly
That's just silly, the parent comment was not a troll, it makes sense. Arguing with ACs is silly because there are armies of them and you don't know who's who.
didn't read, please log in and post under a nick, not as AC, it's stupid to try and carry conversations with ACs as there are too many of them.
You can pollute in your kitchen all you want, but if the pollutions spreads from your kitchen to a kitchen of a guy below you (say it's an apartment building) and you are leaking water and throwing sewage at him, he now has a reason to take you to court and it's between two property owners.
This problem you have, is that you want to stop a company from polluting on their property, I don't know why, it's their property. The real question is this: if your property is adjacent to his and you get the pollution spreading onto your territory, whether by ground, water or air, you now have the right to take that other owner to court.
That's the only reason to have a gov't:
1. Minimum military to protect against invasion.
2. Court system, justice system to allow people to resolve contract issues, property issues, things like that.
3. Prisons/cops.
Gov't has a role to play, people need a justice system, and a gov't that's not involved in economy and only has 3 roles can be kept in check and controlled to do those 3 jobs right. If you can't have a gov't doing 3 jobs right, what chance do you have in hell insuring it does 3 million jobs right?
since my comments always go through a cycle of being moderated up and then down after a while (well, there are people who wait until nobody is reading further and then they moderate down) I am actually thanking you for quoting my comment completely before answering it and your comment will stay at above 4, so at least people will see what the thread is about.
I see, so saying that I am a 'fucking moron' clearly puts a historic perspective on my statement and makes it 'obviously untrue'. You have solved the mystery, good for you.
You are just misunderstanding the problem.
The gov't owned property is nobody's property, so it can be polluted.
Gov't must NOT OWN PROPERTY, all property (ocean, land, air, radio spectrum, whatever) and assets, must be in private hands, and then any pollution problem would be solved between owner of the land anybody who'd attempt to destroy that property.
BP, as an example, got permission to drill in the Gulf, in fact over 30K drilling happened there, near 3000 oil drilling/producing rigs are there right now. Did anybody really decide to give them this right but your gov't? Your gov't is giving them the right to drill, it then removes the liability caps.
You think your gov't WILL protect your natural resources and your common land and air and water? NO.
Only an OWNER does that. As an owner do you come home and take huge DUMP in the middle of your kitchen? What if a guest came and did that, would you make sure he cleans up and maybe pays you some damages?
That is the ultimate problem, people have been brainwashed completely into this nonsense.
My friend. You are comparing Enron to gov't today, realize that
1. Enron never was in a free market of any kind at all, you are talking about ENERGY sector! Billions, tens of billions of gov't subsidies and regulations and various laws and you must be crazy to believe this has anything to do with free market.
2. Same for Comcast. AT&T by the way, was given a priority by gov't to own a nationalized phone cable system, but forget AT&T. Gov't is OWNED by these industries: energy, military, banking, insurance, food, telecommunications, there is no free market there, never was, and by looks of it economy will be destroyed and there will be no free market there ever until the gov't dies off as a species (we arent' that lucky)
3. Any disaster that you can point at has a direct correlation to destruction of Freedoms that people must be able to enjoy under Constitution (well, in USA), the gov't is the first entity not to care about private property, gov't doesn't care how it treats property, all property needs to be privatized so that there is always a meaningful owner, who'll stand in the way of others destroying it.
4. Gov't is a pyramid scheme much much much bigger than Enron and Madoff and all other schemes COMBINED.
Fed is printing money, they are printing t-bills, they are setting interest rates, they are a gigantic monopoly on monetary policy.
So when Enron came up with fake income numbers based on future income, what do you think gov't is doing when it's printing t-bills? :))))) Gov't IS ENRON, it IS Berney Madoff.
They are telling you: we are going to have this earnings, look, buy our t-bills, we'll pay you back with interest, when in fact what it does it moves its debt from one credit card to another at this point near every 6 months.
Learn, learn, learn, that's the only way out of ignorance.
The US output can only be measured in real terms by the trade balance numbers, GDP is meaningless, the way it's counted is meaningless and it became more meaningless with bailouts and stimulus spending and printing.
Manufacturing jobs are automated, but while they are eliminated in the USA (the latest job growth in private sector of about 60K jobs was all in service sector, which does not help the trade imbalance at all), in China, Malaysia, Singapore and the rest of Asia these jobs are growing.
The reasons of-course lay in unions but importantly wage laws, because once you compete with a wage law, you are not only competing with other people in your field, you are competing with capital. There is a reason people are no longer answering phones or checking your oil at a gas pump or bagging your groceries and carrying them to your car.
Raw materials are not the problem, at least not for the next few thousands of years, there is Canada and Russia and Africa and probably the Arctic, those have more materials than we can use for now.
The ultimate answer to your question is not government job for everybody. If ALL JOBS are automated WHY do you need to work? What, do you love your job so that you'd rather work than spend time on a beach?
Working is not the goal (for most people anyway,) so paying you a gov't salary to dig a ditch and fill it back in (as Krugman proposed on CNBC radio just a week ago) is retarded.
Using money from productive work to fund gov't jobs is retarded just as well. Your last statement is crazy. That would mean that we have tapped out all possibilities for further expansion of human ideas and that is unlikely. If that were to happen you'd see draconian laws implemented to reduce population to something extremely controlled, and that is not going to happen, so instead people would continue expanding and work would have to continue being productive for the most of population on the planet.
Gov't is less than 10% of all population, 90% of population is funding that monster. Growing that to much bigger number is not sustainable and very dangerous for economy in its totality, less you want to see some extreme wars to wipe out entire countries.
Your private union is your private matter. Having gov't imposed regulations simply undermines economy and kills competition, whatever the competition is. You are faced with reality: other economies are much more competitive and the reasons have been listed. It is really your choice.
The government is broke, USA cannot repay gov't debt, any single % point up in the t-bills (which are all short term) would result in 134billion dollars more of interest. The debt will NOT be repaid, it will be printed, so the dollar will be destroyed.
The GDP means nothing, it's a fake number, especially after all the bailouts and stimulus spending, the real number to look at is the trade imbalance, and that is where the information can be obtained about the health of economy and the picture is crystal clear.
it's called a crisis. In a crisis situation rules change, if they don't then that 'unrealistic' situation will actually meet reality, and reality will win, and there will be no economy left to speak of, while the rest of the world would just completely ignore any position a country, whose economy fell apart takes, and they'd be correct not to care. Losers do not tell winners what to do.