I have written extensively on the subject, in comments on this site, in the journal here and in many other places, so to me this is just regurgitation.
Government regulation is mainly helping the government created monopolies, who both, get free money from the government and employ it to kill off competition. Regulations do not affect large government created monopolies, but the regulations kill competition.
Monopolies are economies of scale, who benefited greatly from the collapse of the USSR and ability to globalize production (moving to China) while small and medium size businesses could never profit that much from that kind of a move.
Government created regulations and monopolies, it prints and borrows money and sets stupidly low interest rates, it provided a way to move production overseas and it created the debt based economy following the Keynesian principles. Government moved off of the gold standard to create inflation, which hurts the poor by raising prices. Government's policies are the cause of the economic collapse - the gigantic trade imbalance, the debt that can never be paid back, the inflated money supply that always grows, the moral hazard that government creates by FDIC insuring banks, by Freddy/Fannie insuring mortgages, etc.
Government is even responsible for the obesity epidemic due to Nixon fixing food prices and forcing companies to search for profits in decreasing the costs of food rather than setting fair prices, thus using genetically modified food and fructose in everything, which is the main cause of most modern disease. FDA does not regulate fructose for example, because this substance does not cause immediate damage, but its damage is profound over an extended period of time.
Government killed off competition in banking by using FDIC to insure bank deposits, which now means people spend more time thinking about what kind of shoes they will buy than thinking about what bank to trust money to. Banks don't have to earn trust of the customers and this creates a giant moral hazard, which allows banks to gamble with money rather than be responsible. Of-course the Free money provided by the Government does not help the matters and the regulations are designed to kill small competition.
Free Market existed and did the best job in history of the human development since the beginning of the Industrial revolution to raise the standard of living of all people in industrialized countries. No other development in history of human kind was able to achieve anything even remotely similar in all possible definitions of the word progress and in terms of raising the standard of living for everybody, including the most poor.
The Government has a role: be a judge and a punisher for those, who commit transgressions against individuals or against environment/public property.
This, and a military presence to ensure that the country is safe from external forces must be the only concerns of the government. By getting into economics, into creating moral hazards, into printing and borrowing money, into legislating morals through economic policy, the government started a slow but an inevitable decline towards economic destruction of the country.
When I say 'deep thinker', I am talking about a person who can concentrate on a topic and stay on it, approach the topic from different points of view, rotate it around, see various perspectives, remove the fluff and arrive at some useful conclusion (for various degrees of 'useful'). Thinking through something is about forming an opinion on the subject that is reflected from within, not imposed upon, it is ability to sift through the information and prune the useful or the 'good' from the rest of it, ability to use logic and imagination to derive a satisfactory result.
I don't believe everybody is mentally capable of it, and out of those who are capable only a small minority ever gets to do it.
I do not imply that getting into a conflict is a necessary part of this process, so telling your boss, or joining some activist group is not required.
I think Carr is arguing that with the Web constantly showing us something shiny dancing to techno, we never fall back on that natural reflection.
- people who want to, always find something 'shiny dancing to techno' whether with or without the Internet.
Smart or dumb. What good is a smart person when he does not use his brain?
- maybe they are pretty to look at? I don't know 'what good' is anybody really, except that some are more useful for progress and some are just 'useful idiots'.
Most people have never been, are not and will never be deep thinkers able to contemplate beyond the moment, that's not what most people are by their nature, they are mostly very involved with the current and cannot bother to think at all beyond an established routine.
Then there are those who are thinking and contemplating and imagining regardless of the surrounding environment. The Internet gives us ability to get information very quickly and to test our points of view through many people, sort of like peer review of the thoughts.
I vote that the Internet makes smart people smarter and that those who are dumb benefit from ability to get to information quicker than they ever could (if they ever could before, because those who are impatient and not very deep will not bother to look for information through other, slower means.)
The "free market" existed before the Fed, and yet you seem to gloss over the financial disasters during that time.
- disasters? Do you mean the kind of disaster that brought up the standard of living for everybody across the board? The kind of disaster that lead to the greatest progress in the history of the human kind?
I welcome those kinds of 'disasters'. You'd be hard pressed to show any time in history before the industrial revolution and the creation of capitalism that lead to the same levels of increase in overall standard of living, in everybody's ability to get access to the best that the people could ever provide. You'd be hard pressed to show any time in history before that lead to the kinds of innovations, discoveries and inventions that became possible due to concentration of capital through savings and investment into businesses.
Economic anarchy is not the answer. PEOPLE ARE ASSHOLES. In economic anarchy, the assholes will rule because they don't give a shit about anyone else. They care about money, and go to any lengths possible to get it.
- I HOPE people are assholes, that's the only way that we get progress, because assholes want to have it all and to live better and they work on it pushing the progress forward.
Free Marketers/Economic Anarchists seem to operate in this idealized world where people will play fair. PEOPLE DON'T PLAY FAIR.
- people don't play fair, I hope they don't otherwise we'll have the 'fair hell' on this planet.
The one single problem is that the political system needs to be controlled to make sure nobody can take over it with simply money, that is a problem and we are STILL Learning how to do this right.
The free market operates in the best interest of those who have the money and power. The free market does not care about society,
- you are wrong. Free Market is the ONLY single tool that allows progress and simultaneously brings down the prices through competition.
Governments on the other hand always lead to inflation through printing money / borrowing and living on debt while producing nothing and they always lead to price increases, which is worse than what Free Market does specifically because it decreases the standard of living across the board.
The free market does not care about safety regulations or the environment.
- that is the one single reason to have a collective bargaining power like a government can provide. Government's only role must be in Judging / Punishing those who abuse trust, who hurt people or environment. Of-course that wouldn't make much friends or money for the government, so they obviously don't do this.
French revolution had nothing to do with taking down any 'free market', you are insane for saying this. France was a Monarchy, this implies total dictatorship, what kind of lunacy and fucking idiocy is in your head to say that French Revolution was about Free Market? Are you on actual drugs or are you 12 years old?
Pure free marketers are just as stupid and naive as pure Marxists. They both make grave assumptions about human nature which are patently absurd and have no scientific merit.
- ! Free Market does NOT make any assumptions except for one: GREED.
Greed is Good, no matter what people still tell you, Greed leads to progress, nothing else ever did.
Communism is a state religion, which does not recognize any competition, all must submit to one rule and individuals do not matter. Free Market only needs one thing: government that can do a good job at Judging and Punishing the guilty.
Except that in the Free Market, the actual Free Market a monopoly is more of an exception than a rule, but in what is happening now, the Government creates all sorts of Monopolies and those are the rule rather than exception.
So if you don't like monopolies and what they can charge, talk to the Government that creates them.
Government creates monopolies so that they'll get campaign contributions from said monopolies? Tell me another one.
- no problem. Let's look at what was previously known as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, currently known as BP. That company was enjoying quite a ride before the fifties in Iran and then revolution happened and a democratic government appeared that would not give the Oil company the kind of contract it wanted. That Oil company went crying a river to UK and US governments who promptly destroyed the new democracy and installed a Shah back in Iran.
Guess how much money in various contributions are various politicians in UK and US and maybe other countries are getting from BP etc. for their election campaigns etc.
Tell me that, without government involvement, no corporation would ever engage in union-busting.
- unions. what do they have to do with government unless those are government unions? Do you even know what you are talking about, I see that you do not.
Tell me that, if we just got rid of the MMS altogether, and allowed wildcat oil rigs to poke holes anywhere anytime, oil companies would self-regulate.
- actually there would have been absolutely, 100% no difference at least for this BP disaster.
What did you say MMS do at all to prevent it? I am listening.
Tell me that corporations would have ended child labor on their own, because they knew it was in their long-term financial interest for those kids to be in school.
- I don't have a problem with child labor. You'd rather have poor kids selling their bodies to prostitute rings?
Tell me that I would be happier if, rather than just being able to assume the water coming out of my tap is safe, I had to "develop a relationship" with the private company who owned the pipe to my house.
- Without government created monopolies on such infrastructure items as water/electrical/gas/cable etc., the competition could exist. Obviously the government is instrumental in killing all competition in those areas by providing contracts to their preferred companies who become monopolies in the process. This is all corruption.
Tell me that we'd all be better off if government environmental and safety regulations were reduced down to Chinese standards or below.
- well, it's irrelevant now, isn't it, that US and most other post-industrial nations can no longer compete with China and such in production and manufacturing. You'll see you standards of living decreasing month to month, day to day, as your country produces nothing except for more debt and your trade balance tips more and more to one side. Your unwillingness to compete with places like China on cost/regulations etc. will destroy your way of life.
Tell me the economy would really run more smoothly if it were only allowed to expand at the precise rate at which we mine gold from the ground.
- red herring. Economy expands after people save enough to invest into small businesses, then economy is supposed to bust and release the hot air, remove the fat, restructure jobs so that it can reset and start expanding again. Gold is a way to exchange for produced value, it's actual supply does not matter.
You are the useful idiot, the kind that bought into the propaganda that will destroy your way of life and you are arguing for that very destruction.
1. Redefining a term. 2. Blaming a problem on the term you have redefined and not on the actual meaning behind the term.
This makes no sense.
Let me do it:
the failure of the economy in US is all due to dogs. Dogs have taken over and killed economy by causing the massive debt in the system while at the same time killing the production jobs that reduce trade deficit.
no no no, you don't turn this around on me, I was replying to a post that declared that US economy failures are due to Free Market failures, I am showing that there is no Free Market and thus the Free Market problem is a red herring, nothing more than that.
Would I prefer Free Market to what is happening now? Surely. However that is not the question at hand, the question is: what is failing. Saying that Free Market is failing is disingenuous at best because there is very little Free Market what is happening here.
Standard Oil was not a monopoly at the time of the breakup, there were at least half a dozen of competitors.
More importantly, a monopoly is not an evil thing in itself as long as it provides goods/services at prices that can be born by the consumers. If the prices go too high or the quality suffers, that's when competition steps in unless government creates regulations to help monopolies to destroy competition as has been happening forever now.
Microsoft was a monopoly, it was a government aided monopoly (through copyright laws, through dealings with IBM, which in itself was a government aided monopoly and a war profiteer). Competition kicked in and Microsoft is not really a monopoly any longer.
Your point is what, that an insurance company that does not do its work will go bust?
Totally.
The Government right now IS that insurance company that will go bust because the government run insurance is everything you have just listed a bad insurance company is.
Competition of banks and of-course competition of insurance. Without competition nobody does their actual work.
If anyone here trades, they know how the stocks have looked for the past 10 years at least - if in a single sector, like banking, a stock dips, it means other stocks in the same sector also went down by about the same number of %. If one mining stock dips, you can be certain the others have dipped at the same time, if a pharma stock dipped, the other pharma stocked dipped with it.
Then they swing back, not to exactly the same levels, just a bit under, but they come back. Much more rare is an occurrence where all stocks in a sector all go up, of-course after they all will come down. In fact it's a nice way to make a quick buck: watch for a dip in all stocks in a sector, buy, don't worry if it does not come back up immediately. They all dipped together, they'll come back up (on average it's true). If they all go up unexpectedly, short them and wait a bit, it may take into the next day, but they'll crash back down.
All of this AFAIC is the doings of the HFT scheme. Those are computers fighting computers, those are programs that synch up together for a reason: they all have very similar algorithms, often it's the same people who write them, of-course the algorithms are similar. Even when different people are involved in writing them, they are all aimed at taking money away from humans.
From humans, but not from machines. When machines fight other machines with the same algorithm that they have for taking money away from humans, then they cause these massive swings.
I am certain that the 1000 point dip in May was nothing more than the same thing taking place, only the synchronization was a little too good, they did not get out of their algorithm loops for a little too long of a time (maybe a few seconds too long really).
Then we had a story about banks hiring logicians to improve the HFT algorithms. They will be trying to 'improve' the algorithms to fight other machines now. So it's another arms race and it will end very very bad. They will eventually crash the market totally. Anyone doing anything long term in the US market right now is insane. You are definitely much better of buying gold/silver or something physical to hold on to rather than being in US market but also in US dollars or Euros it looks like.
Another crash is coming, they'll blame it on terrorists with fat fingers I am sure.
Bullshit. The free market is what led us to the brink of economic collapse.
- out of the mouth of a guy who looks like does not even understand what money actually is.
You haven't had free market in banking or money supply economics or government spending economics or borrowing economics and the entire debt based economy for decades, starting mostly since the creation of the Fed. What Free Market are you speaking of? The 'Free Market' where the money is printed with no regard to the actual production behind it? The 'Free Market' where Government nurtures Monopolies into existence just to make sure politicians have a never ending money flow for their campaigns? 'Free Market' where Government regulates competition out of existence on the whims of the Monopolies it creates? 'Free Market' that does not allow failures actually to die off and does not allow small competition to step in and replace the failing businesses? 'Free Market' where Government is in business of insurance of every kind, including every possible loan? 'Free Market' where Government pushes incentives to live on debt? 'Free Market' with a fundamental believe that consuming is the main engine of Economy?
Where is this magical 'Free Market' that caused the economic collapse?
This Free Market is nowhere to be found.
The banks that are in business of High Frequency Trading are Monopolies created and abetted by the Government that keeps them being monopolies by providing free money, by creating regulations that kill off competition.
The FDIC - Government's corporation that insures your funds in a private bank - that's the reason for the banks not to care about actually doing right by their customers and getting into risky behaviors like gambling with High Frequency Trading tools.
A person spends less time thinking about the bank they will put money into than about what kind of a vacuum cleaner they'll be buying.
If the government did not provide free money and insurance to banks, if it did not create impossible to get through regulations that only prevent small competition from entering the business of hedging funds or banking but never stops the giant monopolies who already have the money and man power to overcome any and all regulations to continue their business, then banks would actually have to earn the trust of customers.
Banks would have to insure themselves with private insurance companies, who would require a sane amount of capital to be held at a bank and would not allow a bank to over-leverage itself into bankruptcy in case some investments go bad.
Government is the engine of the economic collapse that is happening. Government prints and borrows money, sets insane interest rates, chooses the friends to become giant monopolies, creates regulations that kill off small competition, kills small business by taking away money from people through income tax system that prevents savings and small business from appearing. Giant monopolies have all of the moral hazard of the Government insurance and Free Money.
The monopolies that are manufacturers, also created with government involvement only need an opportunity to shift their giant economies of scale to zones with least production costs. USSR fell apart, the world opened up and the opportunity presented itself - China. The Government, instead of competing with China by reducing regulations, by reducing or completely removing income taxes that prevent small investors from saving and creating small businesses, just started borrowing and printing more. Government does not create anything except inflation and competition killing regulations.
Just like with the preventable incident with the BP/Transocean/Halliburton/MMS oil spill, you can see the government's actions. There are none. They cannot do anything in a crisis.
Same thing with economy - they can't do anything but print and borrow more money and create more regulations. They can make fake census jobs, but those are not productive jobs, they don't reduce the trade deficit.
Government is on its way destroying the economy, and the useful idiots like you still believe what they have been fed their entire life: this is the Free Market.
How is it similar at all? When is it really necessary to own a laptop but in an IT class and if it is an IT class why is it at all sensible to use an OS that is impossible to look at from code point of view? This is all about product placement and has nothing to do with learning.
first, please, it's not politically correct, they don't like it to be named black anymore, it's an African American hole. Past this, it's fairly easy to destroy the black hole. Paint it in 7 different colors and then tell it that it's OK to come out, they are getting rid of the don't ask don't tell policy.
Unless your political system excludes capitalism as the form of economy and excludes private enterprise then there is no reason expect government to be able to compete in such activities.
Government running businesses will end up as government running businesses as inefficiently as possible. 'Businesses' ran by government will end up with the worst people, they will end up subsidized by taxes or by printed/borrowed money. Those businesses will stagnate and no matter what happens in the industry they will continue be ran because of the government unions.
Basically a government can take over and then kill any business they like, but this will not end up being efficient. Government can change laws and print money or increase taxes in order to kill or forbid competition to their 'businesses'.
When there is no competition, what exactly is the incentive to be efficient? There is none. Government businesses will all die in the long term when the government gets destroyed by the policies it creates that end up ruining the economy.
The government does not understand business of oil drilling or business of food preparation or business of doing eye laser surgery or business of car manufacturing or business of ore extraction or business of pan making.
Government can understand damage to health of people, amage to environment on public property as related to barrels of oil spilled.
It is possible to say what kind of damage was done, in fact it is even possible to put a dollar amount on it.
Example: how much money does it take to grow as much fish doing it by human hand as will is dying in the Gulf right now? How much money would it cost to produce as much oxygen and put it into the air as was done by plankton in the Gulf?
Those are measurable, answerable questions.
When BP management insists on not doing proper tests, when BP and Transocean management decides not to repair the Blowout preventer, when BP and Transocean and Halliburton do not cement the drilling shaft correctly, those are measurable answerable accusations to bring forward against the management ladder and any individuals involved. It is even possible to accuse people of doing the wrong thing by association with the wrongdoers and by not preventing the wrong things from happening. Anybody on the director's board, in the management ladder associated with this particular project must be brought to justice. This has nothing to do with any separate BP gas station.
You are wrong, in case of corporations punishment is a much better deterrent than in case of any single individual.
It is highly unlikely that all parties that can bear part of the blame in case things will go wrong will take very cavalier attitudes towards their responsibilities.
when it is one person committing a violent act, murder or burglary or whatever, then it is only one person that needs to step over the line.
In case of a corporation many people need to step over that line.
If punishment involved actual confiscation of money and property as well as prison time and possibly dis-assembly of the corporation, then punishment on that scale would generate enough 'common sense' in a corporation. Many people don't want to lose everything, money and power and freedoms and lives.
People working in corporations are not actually that immoral, they just feel that they are part of the machine. If the rules changed, and the machine could not protect them and they did not feel that the machine would protect them, they would not be as cavalier about their responsibilities as they are now.
Punishment does not work if it is not done correctly. Punish the management and it will work.
More importantly than that, in life people may not necessarily pay attention to possibility of punishment because they may believe they will get away with murder or anything else.
But in a large company, with MANY people working there, if the blame for the problem can be assigned to more than one person and everybody is aware of the possible consequences punishment will work.
It will work because in case of a company it concerns not a single individual but many people.
Probably one of the most important steps in punishment though is confiscation of all money and property. This must be part of the punishment to severe forms of crime like the one BP, Transocean and Halliburton have committed here.
the only single way to stop such incidents in the future from happening is to punish, punish, punish and punish more and punish severely for any transgressions.
without punishment that is severe swift and strong there are no incentives for anyone to do the job right, this includes the regulators who are also people and will also corrupt the process.
i am against any and all regulations at all, there is not a single regulation i am for. there is only one thing that governments need to do: punish.
There is no regulation that government can come up with to stop all players in all industries from doing some new form of butchery. government does not have man power, money and it does not want to regulate.
regulation = work. regulation = less money for the government.
regulation = corruption.
the only way to achieve balance between the public and the private corporate sector is through severe and swift consequences.
give me the permission and a gun and i will personally execute every single person responsible for this disaster, i promise not to stop for a lunch break either. i will shoot in the head twice always.
this would really put some fear into the rest of the bunch and make them actually do more work on preventing and fixing disasters that destroy public resources, such as the ocean (and eventually the food supplies and the air)
Right, your government overlords have done a great job there at MMS 'regulating' the underpants, gifts, money, hookers and crack off the toaster ovens.
I am a Free Market 'lunatic' by your definition, but my definition of the Free Market includes the government, which does the job of suing the shit out of violators, punishing for any criminal offenses, doing the work that it is supposed to do: punishing the guilty.
Take the BP's money, take the BP management's money, put BP management to prison, put MMS workers to prison.
Take all BP money and use it not to fix the problem and as reparations and as an incentive for other companies to behave.
Government knows jack shit about anything in any actual real business. Government does not understand economy or leaky pipes. Government should do one thing and excel at it: punish the guilty severely. Everything else government will butcher and put an impossible price tag on.
Slashdot Mirror
You are wrong on both counts.
I have written extensively on the subject, in comments on this site, in the journal here and in many other places, so to me this is just regurgitation.
Government regulation is mainly helping the government created monopolies, who both, get free money from the government and employ it to kill off competition. Regulations do not affect large government created monopolies, but the regulations kill competition.
Monopolies are economies of scale, who benefited greatly from the collapse of the USSR and ability to globalize production (moving to China) while small and medium size businesses could never profit that much from that kind of a move.
Government created regulations and monopolies, it prints and borrows money and sets stupidly low interest rates, it provided a way to move production overseas and it created the debt based economy following the Keynesian principles. Government moved off of the gold standard to create inflation, which hurts the poor by raising prices. Government's policies are the cause of the economic collapse - the gigantic trade imbalance, the debt that can never be paid back, the inflated money supply that always grows, the moral hazard that government creates by FDIC insuring banks, by Freddy/Fannie insuring mortgages, etc.
Government is even responsible for the obesity epidemic due to Nixon fixing food prices and forcing companies to search for profits in decreasing the costs of food rather than setting fair prices, thus using genetically modified food and fructose in everything, which is the main cause of most modern disease. FDA does not regulate fructose for example, because this substance does not cause immediate damage, but its damage is profound over an extended period of time.
Government killed off competition in banking by using FDIC to insure bank deposits, which now means people spend more time thinking about what kind of shoes they will buy than thinking about what bank to trust money to. Banks don't have to earn trust of the customers and this creates a giant moral hazard, which allows banks to gamble with money rather than be responsible. Of-course the Free money provided by the Government does not help the matters and the regulations are designed to kill small competition.
Free Market existed and did the best job in history of the human development since the beginning of the Industrial revolution to raise the standard of living of all people in industrialized countries. No other development in history of human kind was able to achieve anything even remotely similar in all possible definitions of the word progress and in terms of raising the standard of living for everybody, including the most poor.
The Government has a role: be a judge and a punisher for those, who commit transgressions against individuals or against environment/public property.
This, and a military presence to ensure that the country is safe from external forces must be the only concerns of the government. By getting into economics, into creating moral hazards, into printing and borrowing money, into legislating morals through economic policy, the government started a slow but an inevitable decline towards economic destruction of the country.
When I say 'deep thinker', I am talking about a person who can concentrate on a topic and stay on it, approach the topic from different points of view, rotate it around, see various perspectives, remove the fluff and arrive at some useful conclusion (for various degrees of 'useful'). Thinking through something is about forming an opinion on the subject that is reflected from within, not imposed upon, it is ability to sift through the information and prune the useful or the 'good' from the rest of it, ability to use logic and imagination to derive a satisfactory result.
I don't believe everybody is mentally capable of it, and out of those who are capable only a small minority ever gets to do it.
I do not imply that getting into a conflict is a necessary part of this process, so telling your boss, or joining some activist group is not required.
I think Carr is arguing that with the Web constantly showing us something shiny dancing to techno, we never fall back on that natural reflection.
- people who want to, always find something 'shiny dancing to techno' whether with or without the Internet.
Smart or dumb. What good is a smart person when he does not use his brain?
- maybe they are pretty to look at? I don't know 'what good' is anybody really, except that some are more useful for progress and some are just 'useful idiots'.
Most people have never been, are not and will never be deep thinkers able to contemplate beyond the moment, that's not what most people are by their nature, they are mostly very involved with the current and cannot bother to think at all beyond an established routine.
Then there are those who are thinking and contemplating and imagining regardless of the surrounding environment. The Internet gives us ability to get information very quickly and to test our points of view through many people, sort of like peer review of the thoughts.
I vote that the Internet makes smart people smarter and that those who are dumb benefit from ability to get to information quicker than they ever could (if they ever could before, because those who are impatient and not very deep will not bother to look for information through other, slower means.)
The "free market" existed before the Fed, and yet you seem to gloss over the financial disasters during that time.
- disasters? Do you mean the kind of disaster that brought up the standard of living for everybody across the board? The kind of disaster that lead to the greatest progress in the history of the human kind?
I welcome those kinds of 'disasters'. You'd be hard pressed to show any time in history before the industrial revolution and the creation of capitalism that lead to the same levels of increase in overall standard of living, in everybody's ability to get access to the best that the people could ever provide. You'd be hard pressed to show any time in history before that lead to the kinds of innovations, discoveries and inventions that became possible due to concentration of capital through savings and investment into businesses.
Economic anarchy is not the answer. PEOPLE ARE ASSHOLES. In economic anarchy, the assholes will rule because they don't give a shit about anyone else. They care about money, and go to any lengths possible to get it.
- I HOPE people are assholes, that's the only way that we get progress, because assholes want to have it all and to live better and they work on it pushing the progress forward.
Free Marketers/Economic Anarchists seem to operate in this idealized world where people will play fair. PEOPLE DON'T PLAY FAIR.
- people don't play fair, I hope they don't otherwise we'll have the 'fair hell' on this planet.
The one single problem is that the political system needs to be controlled to make sure nobody can take over it with simply money, that is a problem and we are STILL Learning how to do this right.
The free market operates in the best interest of those who have the money and power. The free market does not care about society,
- you are wrong. Free Market is the ONLY single tool that allows progress and simultaneously brings down the prices through competition.
Governments on the other hand always lead to inflation through printing money / borrowing and living on debt while producing nothing and they always lead to price increases, which is worse than what Free Market does specifically because it decreases the standard of living across the board.
The free market does not care about safety regulations or the environment.
- that is the one single reason to have a collective bargaining power like a government can provide. Government's only role must be in Judging / Punishing those who abuse trust, who hurt people or environment. Of-course that wouldn't make much friends or money for the government, so they obviously don't do this.
French revolution had nothing to do with taking down any 'free market', you are insane for saying this. France was a Monarchy, this implies total dictatorship, what kind of lunacy and fucking idiocy is in your head to say that French Revolution was about Free Market? Are you on actual drugs or are you 12 years old?
Pure free marketers are just as stupid and naive as pure Marxists. They both make grave assumptions about human nature which are patently absurd and have no scientific merit.
- ! Free Market does NOT make any assumptions except for one: GREED.
Greed is Good, no matter what people still tell you, Greed leads to progress, nothing else ever did.
Communism is a state religion, which does not recognize any competition, all must submit to one rule and individuals do not matter. Free Market only needs one thing: government that can do a good job at Judging and Punishing the guilty.
Grow up.
Except that in the Free Market, the actual Free Market a monopoly is more of an exception than a rule, but in what is happening now, the Government creates all sorts of Monopolies and those are the rule rather than exception.
So if you don't like monopolies and what they can charge, talk to the Government that creates them.
Government creates monopolies so that they'll get campaign contributions from said monopolies? Tell me another one.
- no problem. Let's look at what was previously known as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, currently known as BP. That company was enjoying quite a ride before the fifties in Iran and then revolution happened and a democratic government appeared that would not give the Oil company the kind of contract it wanted. That Oil company went crying a river to UK and US governments who promptly destroyed the new democracy and installed a Shah back in Iran.
Guess how much money in various contributions are various politicians in UK and US and maybe other countries are getting from BP etc. for their election campaigns etc.
Tell me that, without government involvement, no corporation would ever engage in union-busting.
- unions. what do they have to do with government unless those are government unions? Do you even know what you are talking about, I see that you do not.
Tell me that, if we just got rid of the MMS altogether, and allowed wildcat oil rigs to poke holes anywhere anytime, oil companies would self-regulate.
- actually there would have been absolutely, 100% no difference at least for this BP disaster.
What did you say MMS do at all to prevent it? I am listening.
Tell me that corporations would have ended child labor on their own, because they knew it was in their long-term financial interest for those kids to be in school.
- I don't have a problem with child labor. You'd rather have poor kids selling their bodies to prostitute rings?
Tell me that I would be happier if, rather than just being able to assume the water coming out of my tap is safe, I had to "develop a relationship" with the private company who owned the pipe to my house.
- Without government created monopolies on such infrastructure items as water/electrical/gas/cable etc., the competition could exist. Obviously the government is instrumental in killing all competition in those areas by providing contracts to their preferred companies who become monopolies in the process. This is all corruption.
Tell me that we'd all be better off if government environmental and safety regulations were reduced down to Chinese standards or below.
- well, it's irrelevant now, isn't it, that US and most other post-industrial nations can no longer compete with China and such in production and manufacturing. You'll see you standards of living decreasing month to month, day to day, as your country produces nothing except for more debt and your trade balance tips more and more to one side. Your unwillingness to compete with places like China on cost/regulations etc. will destroy your way of life.
Tell me the economy would really run more smoothly if it were only allowed to expand at the precise rate at which we mine gold from the ground.
- red herring. Economy expands after people save enough to invest into small businesses, then economy is supposed to bust and release the hot air, remove the fat, restructure jobs so that it can reset and start expanding again. Gold is a way to exchange for produced value, it's actual supply does not matter.
You are the useful idiot, the kind that bought into the propaganda that will destroy your way of life and you are arguing for that very destruction.
You are doing 2 things:
1. Redefining a term.
2. Blaming a problem on the term you have redefined and not on the actual meaning behind the term.
This makes no sense.
Let me do it:
the failure of the economy in US is all due to dogs. Dogs have taken over and killed economy by causing the massive debt in the system while at the same time killing the production jobs that reduce trade deficit.
It is not, there are enough choices and people can make them.
no no no, you don't turn this around on me, I was replying to a post that declared that US economy failures are due to Free Market failures, I am showing that there is no Free Market and thus the Free Market problem is a red herring, nothing more than that.
Would I prefer Free Market to what is happening now? Surely. However that is not the question at hand, the question is: what is failing. Saying that Free Market is failing is disingenuous at best because there is very little Free Market what is happening here.
Standard Oil was not a monopoly at the time of the breakup, there were at least half a dozen of competitors.
More importantly, a monopoly is not an evil thing in itself as long as it provides goods/services at prices that can be born by the consumers. If the prices go too high or the quality suffers, that's when competition steps in unless government creates regulations to help monopolies to destroy competition as has been happening forever now.
Microsoft was a monopoly, it was a government aided monopoly (through copyright laws, through dealings with IBM, which in itself was a government aided monopoly and a war profiteer). Competition kicked in and Microsoft is not really a monopoly any longer.
Your point is what, that an insurance company that does not do its work will go bust?
Totally.
The Government right now IS that insurance company that will go bust because the government run insurance is everything you have just listed a bad insurance company is.
Competition of banks and of-course competition of insurance. Without competition nobody does their actual work.
destroy them - they are thieves, stealing money every day, every second, millions of times per second. I said on the 7th of April that HFT is theft, have been saying it for years, then of-course on the 6th of May we had the 1000 point drop on the stock market.
If anyone here trades, they know how the stocks have looked for the past 10 years at least - if in a single sector, like banking, a stock dips, it means other stocks in the same sector also went down by about the same number of %. If one mining stock dips, you can be certain the others have dipped at the same time, if a pharma stock dipped, the other pharma stocked dipped with it.
Then they swing back, not to exactly the same levels, just a bit under, but they come back. Much more rare is an occurrence where all stocks in a sector all go up, of-course after they all will come down. In fact it's a nice way to make a quick buck: watch for a dip in all stocks in a sector, buy, don't worry if it does not come back up immediately. They all dipped together, they'll come back up (on average it's true). If they all go up unexpectedly, short them and wait a bit, it may take into the next day, but they'll crash back down.
All of this AFAIC is the doings of the HFT scheme. Those are computers fighting computers, those are programs that synch up together for a reason: they all have very similar algorithms, often it's the same people who write them, of-course the algorithms are similar. Even when different people are involved in writing them, they are all aimed at taking money away from humans.
From humans, but not from machines. When machines fight other machines with the same algorithm that they have for taking money away from humans, then they cause these massive swings.
I am certain that the 1000 point dip in May was nothing more than the same thing taking place, only the synchronization was a little too good, they did not get out of their algorithm loops for a little too long of a time (maybe a few seconds too long really).
Then we had a story about banks hiring logicians to improve the HFT algorithms. They will be trying to 'improve' the algorithms to fight other machines now. So it's another arms race and it will end very very bad. They will eventually crash the market totally. Anyone doing anything long term in the US market right now is insane. You are definitely much better of buying gold/silver or something physical to hold on to rather than being in US market but also in US dollars or Euros it looks like.
Another crash is coming, they'll blame it on terrorists with fat fingers I am sure.
Bullshit. The free market is what led us to the brink of economic collapse.
- out of the mouth of a guy who looks like does not even understand what money actually is.
You haven't had free market in banking or money supply economics or government spending economics or borrowing economics and the entire debt based economy for decades, starting mostly since the creation of the Fed. What Free Market are you speaking of? The 'Free Market' where the money is printed with no regard to the actual production behind it? The 'Free Market' where Government nurtures Monopolies into existence just to make sure politicians have a never ending money flow for their campaigns? 'Free Market' where Government regulates competition out of existence on the whims of the Monopolies it creates? 'Free Market' that does not allow failures actually to die off and does not allow small competition to step in and replace the failing businesses? 'Free Market' where Government is in business of insurance of every kind, including every possible loan? 'Free Market' where Government pushes incentives to live on debt? 'Free Market' with a fundamental believe that consuming is the main engine of Economy?
Where is this magical 'Free Market' that caused the economic collapse?
This Free Market is nowhere to be found.
The banks that are in business of High Frequency Trading are Monopolies created and abetted by the Government that keeps them being monopolies by providing free money, by creating regulations that kill off competition.
The FDIC - Government's corporation that insures your funds in a private bank - that's the reason for the banks not to care about actually doing right by their customers and getting into risky behaviors like gambling with High Frequency Trading tools.
A person spends less time thinking about the bank they will put money into than about what kind of a vacuum cleaner they'll be buying.
If the government did not provide free money and insurance to banks, if it did not create impossible to get through regulations that only prevent small competition from entering the business of hedging funds or banking but never stops the giant monopolies who already have the money and man power to overcome any and all regulations to continue their business, then banks would actually have to earn the trust of customers.
Banks would have to insure themselves with private insurance companies, who would require a sane amount of capital to be held at a bank and would not allow a bank to over-leverage itself into bankruptcy in case some investments go bad.
Government is the engine of the economic collapse that is happening. Government prints and borrows money, sets insane interest rates, chooses the friends to become giant monopolies, creates regulations that kill off small competition, kills small business by taking away money from people through income tax system that prevents savings and small business from appearing. Giant monopolies have all of the moral hazard of the Government insurance and Free Money.
The monopolies that are manufacturers, also created with government involvement only need an opportunity to shift their giant economies of scale to zones with least production costs. USSR fell apart, the world opened up and the opportunity presented itself - China. The Government, instead of competing with China by reducing regulations, by reducing or completely removing income taxes that prevent small investors from saving and creating small businesses, just started borrowing and printing more. Government does not create anything except inflation and competition killing regulations.
Just like with the preventable incident with the BP/Transocean/Halliburton/MMS oil spill, you can see the government's actions. There are none. They cannot do anything in a crisis.
Same thing with economy - they can't do anything but print and borrow more money and create more regulations. They can make fake census jobs, but those are not productive jobs, they don't reduce the trade deficit.
Government is on its way destroying the economy, and the useful idiots like you still believe what they have been fed their entire life: this is the Free Market.
How is it similar at all? When is it really necessary to own a laptop but in an IT class and if it is an IT class why is it at all sensible to use an OS that is impossible to look at from code point of view? This is all about product placement and has nothing to do with learning.
schools is where they begin to indoctrinate the young people to step the line, not to do anything that is even remotely different.
How is it at all sensible for a school to require everybody to buy a laptop, especially a laptop with a non-Free operating system?
this is insane, if a laptop is really required it must be a laptop with an operating system that is Free to look at the code and probably free to own.
first, please, it's not politically correct, they don't like it to be named black anymore, it's an African American hole. Past this, it's fairly easy to destroy the black hole. Paint it in 7 different colors and then tell it that it's OK to come out, they are getting rid of the don't ask don't tell policy.
Government is not in any business.
Unless your political system excludes capitalism as the form of economy and excludes private enterprise then there is no reason expect government to be able to compete in such activities.
Government running businesses will end up as government running businesses as inefficiently as possible. 'Businesses' ran by government will end up with the worst people, they will end up subsidized by taxes or by printed/borrowed money. Those businesses will stagnate and no matter what happens in the industry they will continue be ran because of the government unions.
Basically a government can take over and then kill any business they like, but this will not end up being efficient. Government can change laws and print money or increase taxes in order to kill or forbid competition to their 'businesses'.
When there is no competition, what exactly is the incentive to be efficient? There is none. Government businesses will all die in the long term when the government gets destroyed by the policies it creates that end up ruining the economy.
The government does not understand business of oil drilling or business of food preparation or business of doing eye laser surgery or business of car manufacturing or business of ore extraction or business of pan making.
Government can understand damage to health of people, amage to environment on public property as related to barrels of oil spilled.
It is possible to say what kind of damage was done, in fact it is even possible to put a dollar amount on it.
Example: how much money does it take to grow as much fish doing it by human hand as will is dying in the Gulf right now? How much money would it cost to produce as much oxygen and put it into the air as was done by plankton in the Gulf?
Those are measurable, answerable questions.
When BP management insists on not doing proper tests, when BP and Transocean management decides not to repair the Blowout preventer, when BP and Transocean and Halliburton do not cement the drilling shaft correctly, those are measurable answerable accusations to bring forward against the management ladder and any individuals involved. It is even possible to accuse people of doing the wrong thing by association with the wrongdoers and by not preventing the wrong things from happening. Anybody on the director's board, in the management ladder associated with this particular project must be brought to justice. This has nothing to do with any separate BP gas station.
and I just can't spell :(
You are wrong, in case of corporations punishment is a much better deterrent than in case of any single individual.
It is highly unlikely that all parties that can bear part of the blame in case things will go wrong will take very cavalier attitudes towards their responsibilities.
when it is one person committing a violent act, murder or burglary or whatever, then it is only one person that needs to step over the line.
In case of a corporation many people need to step over that line.
If punishment involved actual confiscation of money and property as well as prison time and possibly dis-assembly of the corporation, then punishment on that scale would generate enough 'common sense' in a corporation. Many people don't want to lose everything, money and power and freedoms and lives.
People working in corporations are not actually that immoral, they just feel that they are part of the machine. If the rules changed, and the machine could not protect them and they did not feel that the machine would protect them, they would not be as cavalier about their responsibilities as they are now.
Punishment does not work if it is not done correctly. Punish the management and it will work.
More importantly than that, in life people may not necessarily pay attention to possibility of punishment because they may believe they will get away with murder or anything else.
But in a large company, with MANY people working there, if the blame for the problem can be assigned to more than one person and everybody is aware of the possible consequences punishment will work.
It will work because in case of a company it concerns not a single individual but many people.
Probably one of the most important steps in punishment though is confiscation of all money and property. This must be part of the punishment to severe forms of crime like the one BP, Transocean and Halliburton have committed here.
oh, and shooting in the head is not optional.
the only single way to stop such incidents in the future from happening is to punish, punish, punish and punish more and punish severely for any transgressions.
without punishment that is severe swift and strong there are no incentives for anyone to do the job right, this includes the regulators who are also people and will also corrupt the process.
i am against any and all regulations at all, there is not a single regulation i am for. there is only one thing that governments need to do: punish.
There is no regulation that government can come up with to stop all players in all industries from doing some new form of butchery. government does not have man power, money and it does not want to regulate.
regulation = work. regulation = less money for the government.
regulation = corruption.
the only way to achieve balance between the public and the private corporate sector is through severe and swift consequences.
give me the permission and a gun and i will personally execute every single person responsible for this disaster, i promise not to stop for a lunch break either. i will shoot in the head twice always.
this would really put some fear into the rest of the bunch and make them actually do more work on preventing and fixing disasters that destroy public resources, such as the ocean (and eventually the food supplies and the air)
Right, your government overlords have done a great job there at MMS 'regulating' the underpants, gifts, money, hookers and crack off the toaster ovens.
I am a Free Market 'lunatic' by your definition, but my definition of the Free Market includes the government, which does the job of suing the shit out of violators, punishing for any criminal offenses, doing the work that it is supposed to do: punishing the guilty.
Take the BP's money, take the BP management's money, put BP management to prison, put MMS workers to prison.
Take all BP money and use it not to fix the problem and as reparations and as an incentive for other companies to behave.
Government knows jack shit about anything in any actual real business. Government does not understand economy or leaky pipes. Government should do one thing and excel at it: punish the guilty severely. Everything else government will butcher and put an impossible price tag on.
If the speed limit is 50, it was set there for a reason.
My grandmother was nearly killed by a driver going 70 in a 55 zone.
- wow, that's one fast granny, how long can she run 55 for?
There could be companies like that, at least one: Standard Oil would be worth more than $1 trillion today if it was not broken up.