Just to add a bit more info, since a slightly similar foreign-currency situation happened in Zimbabwe, and I was there. The exchange controls were pretty bad as they were, but the additional problem came in when the government was applying favoritism to give out what little foreign currency it had. Basically how it went was the politicians and their friends/family earned the local currency, and were then allowed to exchange it into foreign currency at the central bank using the official rate. After that, these individuals just went back and sold the foreign currency at the black-market rates. Either by buying items from shops that were forced to peg their prices to the official rate, or by simply exchanging it and using it as they please. Usually this meant that they could afford ridiculously extravagant goods while the people they were supposedly there to serve/protect were screwed over constantly.
Getting by in such a situation meant that people had to get by on the black market for almost everything, especially the basic goods. Society, as a whole, there became very favoritist. The poor laborer that just earned some money working in the field had to wait in a long queue to buy bread, while the guy that knew the manager of the store came in with some foreign currency and got what he needed without a problem. The harder the government there tried to squeeze the people for more foreign currency, the harder people worked in order to evade it. Barter, hawala trading, and just simple friend/neighbour cooperation all formed in order for people to get by without being destitute. Also, payment in the form of goods/services also became common; in essence turning day-to-day commodities into a sort of currency.
Since I don't live there, I can only speculate that a similar situation is arising in Venezuela as the populace tries to lead a normal life in the midst of all this turmoil and exploitation.
Yes, of course... And when it becomes inconvenient to take care of them anymore, we discard them. Let's face it, people only care because they don't want to be the ones that let an entire species die out under their watch. Once they become a nuisance, then everyone suddenly changes their moral opinions on the matter of killing animals.
Sometimes force and regulation is not the answer, so here's an alternative. How about farming them to make poaching too costly.
And yet people still up mod him regularly. There is strong contingent of pro-hate people that support him on this site, including the editors that approve his dip-stick articles.
At about 150 aerodynamic forces like to lift the front wheels off the ground on cars that aren't specifically setup (spoilers and airdams) to go that fast.
Does that mean the car will flip over, or something?
The problem is that if someone controls, say, 1/10th of the buying power in the entire economy, any move they make will have an effect on me and thus becomes my problem.
It's their money, period. Assuming they earned it fairly, in a free and just society you should have no say in how/where/if any person should spend their money, or any of their property for that matter. It matters not how their actions affect the market, and as a consequence you. Because you're drawing an arbitrary and magical line somewhere between "participating in the market" and "affecting the market such that it is detrimental to me somehow, somewhere".
The current worldwide economic crisis is an excellent example: most of the people getting hurt had nothing to do with the whole affair but got to suffer the results all the same. And of course that makes them angry, which in turn is causing social instability.
They sure did have a whole lot to do with it, and they should be the ones to blame most of all. They voted for, and continued to vote for the governments/politicians that caused the mess in the first place. We'd all be way better off if there was no government meddling going on, period. Further down, you speak of great responsibility. Well, the population has great power through the politicians/government, thus it is their responsibility to make sure the politicians/government play nice towards the greater good of society, and as a consequence should share all the blame for the ills that arose from the financial crises.
Money is power, and with great power comes great responsibility. That's why financial regulations exist, and that's why removing them results in the rich behaving like cartoon supervillains. You get to choose whether you buy bread from supermarket; you don't get to choose whether you buy all the bread from a country and tell the residents to eat cake.
Look, I'm not going to debate government vs liberty with you, as you obviously don't believe people should have liberty judging by your views on currency, regulations and the use of "guillotines" to solve societal problems. If you don't leave people alone to do their own peaceful thing, then you're a tyrant and have no moral standing when it comes to "social responsibility" and "civil society".
However, if the value of bitcoins grows a great deal, in part due to the money supply shrinking, shouldn't we be worried that some of that money could suddenly come back?
The reason could be completely benign or it could be intentional manipulation. Either way, isn't it a danger of the "divisibility rather than expansion" approach?
The divisibility only comes into play because there are fewer bitcoins, or a greater need/demand for them. As the value of the bitcoin grows, certain commodities/services will cost a whole lot less in terms of bitcoins. As far as I know, the divisibility only means I send you 0.0001 for something that used to cost 0.01 bitcoins. Perhaps at some stage, people will even come up with different "names" for the divisions. Kind of like a cent is 0.01 of a dollar.
But I can't really answer your question without knowing why you think this sudden jump in money supply is bad. These things happen, have happened, and could happen to a lot of the commodities and currencies out there. The question is, why must there be some sort of mechanism in place to dampen the effects of a sudden increase in money supply. That's why I asked, and eventually went off on a tangent.
On a side note. The "expansion" approach you suggested as an alternative has the major downside that only a specific subset of people get the influx of currency. They get the most 'benefit' out of it as the prices have not taken into account the extra currency in the market, and as the currency diffuses into the system, each subsequent entity gets less of that benefit until the prices stabilize. In the "division" approach as you call it, the benefits are first given to the hoarder. But remember, that hoarder lost the utility of that currency for all that time he hoarded it in order to somehow drive up the value, when he could have spent it in exchange for tangible goods/services.
Imagine that a large proportion of bitcoins have stopped circulating. Isn't there a risk that lots of them could suddenly resurface, make some enormous purchases and increase the monetary supply significantly overnight?
Those coins still belong to someone. If that person/group chose to not use those coins and have them sit idly and uselessly by, then that's their choice and their loss. The system will regulate itself. As hoarding grows, the value of the currency grows, and so incentive to spend increases.
Please can you honestly tell me your reasoning for wanting to control the money supply? You do realize that by controlling the money supply, you are effectively devaluing other peoples' money, that they earned. I say that, because no one will want or suggest for us to decrease the money supply. Frankly, I think a lot of people are just obsessed with it from years of listening to the Fed and politicians talking about influencing the economy, purchasing power, consumer spending, and who-knows-what-other-fancy-measure of the economy that they can pander to the public with.
It should also be noted that this private property only exists because of the structure provided by the government, it is not really 'their' property in the first place.
Perhaps the world would be a better place if you used your intellect in solving world hunger, instead of coming up with obtuse and fallacious arguments to justify what is essentially theft.
As an example, if there are price controls for drugs, the cost of drugs will come down, whether there's an evil capitalist insurance company involved or not.
You're making two assumptions with that statement that you'll need to substantiate.
1. That price controls won't affect the demand of a product. There are quite a few examples out there where price controls have caused shortages due to artificially increasing demand; as it's been researched and discussed to death by many economists.
2. That price controls will set the price above the actual cost to produce/perform the product/service. If you set it below the cost price, you're basically forcing companies to function at a loss. That's both short-sighted, and immoral no matter how noble your intentions are.
This argument is really getting tiresome now, as I've seen it umpteen times in this discussion. You've created this hypothetical little scenario in which yes, the person is desperate and has no time to look for and weigh prices and options. Now, please do tell me... How does this scenario have any relevance to 99% of the other situations a healthy/sick/desperate individual may find themselves in? Because you're describing a person that has consistently made very narrow and specific decisions that led to them being in the predicament you describe. Meanwhile, the rest of us normal and stupid people will be very well prepared for such a consequence. People today shop around and make decisions about their health and what should happen to them in case of an emergency/accident. Heck, I am bombarded daily with offers and "specials" and "add-on" packages from a myriad of health and insurance providers that all seek to add value to their product. Be it emergency accident cover, road-side assistance, free traffic-guards to prevent accidents, etc. Note, I don't live in America, we provide free health-care to the public, as well as allowing people to have their own private healthcare.
All in all, your post smacks of someone that thinks very little of his fellow man. There may be very careless and dumb people out there. The sad part is that "intellectuals" such as you take the opportunity to aggrandize your superiority over them by forcing them to subscribe to your narrow ideas, instead of educating and helping them. How about instead of forcing upon them what you think is right, perhaps you should rather engage with them and try gain their agreement with your ideas.
Do you think in a free market, you would get urgent care at a reasonable price? Fuck no.
That's already happening at the moment. I pay a reasonable price every month for healthcare, and I will get urgent care in case I need it. I call the hospital, they send an ambulance over. Does that concept not get through to you, or are you living in a socialist bubble? Oh and just to fuck with you a little more: I shopped around for the best price!
The amount of hate in your post is astounding. Sounds like you have a lot of pent up anger at someone for doing something to you. Probably some sort of childhood abuse.
No matter what you say. Your reasoning is flawed, being based on a yet-to-be-proven assumption. You assume that these "spoiled brat rich guys" were made rich by society instead of their own doing. Until you challenge your own assumptions, you're just a petty voice that's part of the angry, spiteful and hateful mob.
How many cable companies are you going to put up with digging you your street and year becasue each on has to lay it's own infrastructure?
But then who will build the roads?!!?
Seriously though, why does it matter? I may only want one per year, others may want one per decade. The number is irrelevant to the discussion. You're basically using a utilitarian argument. "Oh, it's better that we only have one competitor because that's the easiest and most practical solution." Meanwhile, the only reason you're asking your question is because you can't fathom how this situation can play out; where some snappy young businessman will solve this conundrum for us at a price we are willing to pay.
We obviously don't agree on this. However, you and the rest of the statists are perfectly content in not allowing me to be free to live the way I choose. I'm more than happy in letting you believe that your daddy government can protect you from everything. But as soon as you cross over and force that belief on me, you lose all moral standing and you're nothing more than a violent individual.
Oh, and before you think of suggesting Somalia, don't. We both know that's not a valid alternative to escaping a statis society, and if you suggest it you're just being facetious about the whole thing.
I agree with you. It's something that statists completely don't understand or get. Government's don't usually grant clear-cut monopolies. Instead, what they do is put rules, legislation, and all sorts of other barriers that nurture and protect monopolies. Even something as simple and innocuous as a "cellphone frequency" licence has the effect I mention above.
Quit responding like a dick, and actually say something in retort. This is the second post of yours I've read now where you simply respond with childish remarks about "first week economics 101, study economics" or "read up on what capitalism is".
Wait, what? The free-market did, and is doing to Microsoft (or rather Windows), exactly what we expected to be done to a monopoly. Linux, android, OSX, and countless other OS's and distros have sprung up and have slowly been eating away at the "monopoly" market share that we so hate Microsoft for having and abusing. It may not be the best example, but it is indeed an example of the free market fixing a monopolistic situation. Contrast that with the countless examples of state-enforced or state-aided monopolies, and you'll quickly realize that the guy you are responding to is right for the most part.
Show me a long-standing monopoly or oligopoly and I'll show you the government regulations, laws and red-tape that are behind it.
2. Now that the competition is dead, raise prices arbitrarily high.
This is one of the reasons why a completely free market does not work.
And what happens when the sole entity in the market place raises their prices "arbitrarily high"? Yes, you guessed it, boys and girls, competition moves right back in, like cockroaches. Really, Economics 101...second week. Did you flunk-out early, or did you skip that week?
The only time the above is not true, is when the entity has a government-enforced or government-aided monopoly. Either that, or some other really weird and extreme scenario that people like you usually come up with. I've debated with statists too many times to not include this addendum.
Amazon doesn't make anything, they just force the publishers to sell wholesale for less than they do to other vendors.
Then shouldn't you rather be complaining about the publishers charging too much, period? People obviously want books for cheaper, and that's why the majority of them are buying from Amazon, instead of little bookstores. Because, according to what you just wrote above, Amazon is able to negotiate better prices from the publishers.
The system has not failed you. Just leave it be, because all you'll end up doing is distorting the marketplace. As if it isn't already distorted enough with all the government regulation and interference.
The marketplace is changing, and the only thing you don't like is what it's changing to. The fact that the consumer get's cheaper prices on the goods that he/she wants is somehow totally irrelevant to you, and people like you, it seems. It's like democracy and free-speech: You love majority rule, and hold it up as an ideal solution, but as soon as someone does something, says something, or votes differently than you with their purchases/wallet, then you start complaining and being looking for people to blame.
If that comes at a slightly higher price overall, I am gladly willing to pay for that.
You might be, and you even might be in a position to do so. However, the vast majority of people out there are not willing to pay a higher price for their morals. The truth of the matter is that Amazon is doing exactly what people want it to do. Because most people aim squarely for a smaller price on the items they buy. I'd take a guess and say that that is predominately due to the consumer mindset that we as a society have been forced into breeding. Just listen to some of the leading Fed economists and how they talk about "boosting" "consumer spending" all the time. This is not a free market, it is not a natural market, and you can't blame a profit-seeking entity for trying to exploit it in whatever way they can. Instead, look at cause of such behavior.
That wasn't non-sequitur, it was a perfect argument rebuffing your comment. No taxes (money taking by force) means no government, means anarchy.
No taxes (money taken by force), simply means people aren't forced to pay to support a system of governance. That doesn't imply anarchy, or necessarily any political system. All it implies is that people are free to do with their money as they please. For all we know, some brilliant person may come along and invent a workable tax-free form of democracy. The fact that you can't separate taxes from governance means you've already been brain-washed.
Lack of compassion is the exact problem of the - everybody for themselves, I'll give to charity if I want to help - crowd, they are usually well off and do not understand and relate to the plights of people who are not. It is not about advocating against violence, just violence against them. They are perfectly willing to use violence to keep people hungry, poorly educated and without adequate shelter.
Ok, that's just taking it too far. Sounds like you have some animosity towards the people you describe. Either way, I'll bite. You may very well be right. For all we know, every single person that you describe as being in the "everybody for themselves, I'll give to charity if I want to help" crowd is a mean human being, and only cares for his/her self. Ok, now... From that assumption, you have to jump to justify stealing from them, in order to fulfill your noble(and kind) goal of helping the needy/sick/poor. Whatever compassion you display for one group will become morally worthless if it is at the expense of another.
The same could be said of government "charity", then.
Either way, I refuse to be double-taxed for charity. I pay my taxes, and I fully expect the government to fulfill it's end of the bargain. That includes caring for the truly needy, and the sick that can't afford care. Political debates about types of government aside... Why are we not holding government accountable for the great amounts of suffering people? And for all the faux-attempts at fixing the problem at our expense. Democracy, and statism in general, may not be fair and ethical. But it can work if we hold the rulers accountable for the things they promised to do on our behalf using the taxes we give them.
Slashdot Mirror
So it's a 105% terrorist group. Is that part of the 99%, or the 1%, then?
Just to add a bit more info, since a slightly similar foreign-currency situation happened in Zimbabwe, and I was there. The exchange controls were pretty bad as they were, but the additional problem came in when the government was applying favoritism to give out what little foreign currency it had. Basically how it went was the politicians and their friends/family earned the local currency, and were then allowed to exchange it into foreign currency at the central bank using the official rate. After that, these individuals just went back and sold the foreign currency at the black-market rates. Either by buying items from shops that were forced to peg their prices to the official rate, or by simply exchanging it and using it as they please. Usually this meant that they could afford ridiculously extravagant goods while the people they were supposedly there to serve/protect were screwed over constantly.
Getting by in such a situation meant that people had to get by on the black market for almost everything, especially the basic goods. Society, as a whole, there became very favoritist. The poor laborer that just earned some money working in the field had to wait in a long queue to buy bread, while the guy that knew the manager of the store came in with some foreign currency and got what he needed without a problem. The harder the government there tried to squeeze the people for more foreign currency, the harder people worked in order to evade it. Barter, hawala trading, and just simple friend/neighbour cooperation all formed in order for people to get by without being destitute. Also, payment in the form of goods/services also became common; in essence turning day-to-day commodities into a sort of currency.
Since I don't live there, I can only speculate that a similar situation is arising in Venezuela as the populace tries to lead a normal life in the midst of all this turmoil and exploitation.
More importantly, 49% are always losers in any democratic system. Whether it is a two party system, or N party system.
jellyfishies.
Did you mean to say jelly babies?
Yes, of course... And when it becomes inconvenient to take care of them anymore, we discard them. Let's face it, people only care because they don't want to be the ones that let an entire species die out under their watch. Once they become a nuisance, then everyone suddenly changes their moral opinions on the matter of killing animals.
Sometimes force and regulation is not the answer, so here's an alternative. How about farming them to make poaching too costly.
And yet people still up mod him regularly. There is strong contingent of pro-hate people that support him on this site, including the editors that approve his dip-stick articles.
At about 150 aerodynamic forces like to lift the front wheels off the ground on cars that aren't specifically setup (spoilers and airdams) to go that fast.
Does that mean the car will flip over, or something?
Indeed. So why do you assert it's okay when tyranny is enabled by economic power?
Lol... I don't. You're such a little troll, good day.
The problem is that if someone controls, say, 1/10th of the buying power in the entire economy, any move they make will have an effect on me and thus becomes my problem.
It's their money, period. Assuming they earned it fairly, in a free and just society you should have no say in how/where/if any person should spend their money, or any of their property for that matter. It matters not how their actions affect the market, and as a consequence you. Because you're drawing an arbitrary and magical line somewhere between "participating in the market" and "affecting the market such that it is detrimental to me somehow, somewhere".
The current worldwide economic crisis is an excellent example: most of the people getting hurt had nothing to do with the whole affair but got to suffer the results all the same. And of course that makes them angry, which in turn is causing social instability.
They sure did have a whole lot to do with it, and they should be the ones to blame most of all. They voted for, and continued to vote for the governments/politicians that caused the mess in the first place. We'd all be way better off if there was no government meddling going on, period. Further down, you speak of great responsibility. Well, the population has great power through the politicians/government, thus it is their responsibility to make sure the politicians/government play nice towards the greater good of society, and as a consequence should share all the blame for the ills that arose from the financial crises.
Money is power, and with great power comes great responsibility. That's why financial regulations exist, and that's why removing them results in the rich behaving like cartoon supervillains. You get to choose whether you buy bread from supermarket; you don't get to choose whether you buy all the bread from a country and tell the residents to eat cake.
Look, I'm not going to debate government vs liberty with you, as you obviously don't believe people should have liberty judging by your views on currency, regulations and the use of "guillotines" to solve societal problems. If you don't leave people alone to do their own peaceful thing, then you're a tyrant and have no moral standing when it comes to "social responsibility" and "civil society".
However, if the value of bitcoins grows a great deal, in part due to the money supply shrinking, shouldn't we be worried that some of that money could suddenly come back?
The reason could be completely benign or it could be intentional manipulation. Either way, isn't it a danger of the "divisibility rather than expansion" approach?
The divisibility only comes into play because there are fewer bitcoins, or a greater need/demand for them. As the value of the bitcoin grows, certain commodities/services will cost a whole lot less in terms of bitcoins. As far as I know, the divisibility only means I send you 0.0001 for something that used to cost 0.01 bitcoins. Perhaps at some stage, people will even come up with different "names" for the divisions. Kind of like a cent is 0.01 of a dollar.
But I can't really answer your question without knowing why you think this sudden jump in money supply is bad. These things happen, have happened, and could happen to a lot of the commodities and currencies out there. The question is, why must there be some sort of mechanism in place to dampen the effects of a sudden increase in money supply. That's why I asked, and eventually went off on a tangent.
On a side note. The "expansion" approach you suggested as an alternative has the major downside that only a specific subset of people get the influx of currency. They get the most 'benefit' out of it as the prices have not taken into account the extra currency in the market, and as the currency diffuses into the system, each subsequent entity gets less of that benefit until the prices stabilize. In the "division" approach as you call it, the benefits are first given to the hoarder. But remember, that hoarder lost the utility of that currency for all that time he hoarded it in order to somehow drive up the value, when he could have spent it in exchange for tangible goods/services.
Imagine that a large proportion of bitcoins have stopped circulating. Isn't there a risk that lots of them could suddenly resurface, make some enormous purchases and increase the monetary supply significantly overnight?
Those coins still belong to someone. If that person/group chose to not use those coins and have them sit idly and uselessly by, then that's their choice and their loss. The system will regulate itself. As hoarding grows, the value of the currency grows, and so incentive to spend increases.
Please can you honestly tell me your reasoning for wanting to control the money supply? You do realize that by controlling the money supply, you are effectively devaluing other peoples' money, that they earned. I say that, because no one will want or suggest for us to decrease the money supply. Frankly, I think a lot of people are just obsessed with it from years of listening to the Fed and politicians talking about influencing the economy, purchasing power, consumer spending, and who-knows-what-other-fancy-measure of the economy that they can pander to the public with.
It should also be noted that this private property only exists because of the structure provided by the government, it is not really 'their' property in the first place.
Perhaps the world would be a better place if you used your intellect in solving world hunger, instead of coming up with obtuse and fallacious arguments to justify what is essentially theft.
As an example, if there are price controls for drugs, the cost of drugs will come down, whether there's an evil capitalist insurance company involved or not.
You're making two assumptions with that statement that you'll need to substantiate.
1. That price controls won't affect the demand of a product. There are quite a few examples out there where price controls have caused shortages due to artificially increasing demand; as it's been researched and discussed to death by many economists.
2. That price controls will set the price above the actual cost to produce/perform the product/service. If you set it below the cost price, you're basically forcing companies to function at a loss. That's both short-sighted, and immoral no matter how noble your intentions are.
I could die before I find a price I could pay.
This argument is really getting tiresome now, as I've seen it umpteen times in this discussion. You've created this hypothetical little scenario in which yes, the person is desperate and has no time to look for and weigh prices and options. Now, please do tell me... How does this scenario have any relevance to 99% of the other situations a healthy/sick/desperate individual may find themselves in? Because you're describing a person that has consistently made very narrow and specific decisions that led to them being in the predicament you describe. Meanwhile, the rest of us normal and stupid people will be very well prepared for such a consequence. People today shop around and make decisions about their health and what should happen to them in case of an emergency/accident. Heck, I am bombarded daily with offers and "specials" and "add-on" packages from a myriad of health and insurance providers that all seek to add value to their product. Be it emergency accident cover, road-side assistance, free traffic-guards to prevent accidents, etc. Note, I don't live in America, we provide free health-care to the public, as well as allowing people to have their own private healthcare.
All in all, your post smacks of someone that thinks very little of his fellow man. There may be very careless and dumb people out there. The sad part is that "intellectuals" such as you take the opportunity to aggrandize your superiority over them by forcing them to subscribe to your narrow ideas, instead of educating and helping them. How about instead of forcing upon them what you think is right, perhaps you should rather engage with them and try gain their agreement with your ideas.
Do you think in a free market, you would get urgent care at a reasonable price? Fuck no.
That's already happening at the moment. I pay a reasonable price every month for healthcare, and I will get urgent care in case I need it. I call the hospital, they send an ambulance over. Does that concept not get through to you, or are you living in a socialist bubble? Oh and just to fuck with you a little more: I shopped around for the best price!
The amount of hate in your post is astounding. Sounds like you have a lot of pent up anger at someone for doing something to you. Probably some sort of childhood abuse.
No matter what you say. Your reasoning is flawed, being based on a yet-to-be-proven assumption. You assume that these "spoiled brat rich guys" were made rich by society instead of their own doing. Until you challenge your own assumptions, you're just a petty voice that's part of the angry, spiteful and hateful mob.
How many cable companies are you going to put up with digging you your street and year becasue each on has to lay it's own infrastructure?
But then who will build the roads?!!?
Seriously though, why does it matter? I may only want one per year, others may want one per decade. The number is irrelevant to the discussion. You're basically using a utilitarian argument. "Oh, it's better that we only have one competitor because that's the easiest and most practical solution." Meanwhile, the only reason you're asking your question is because you can't fathom how this situation can play out; where some snappy young businessman will solve this conundrum for us at a price we are willing to pay.
We obviously don't agree on this. However, you and the rest of the statists are perfectly content in not allowing me to be free to live the way I choose. I'm more than happy in letting you believe that your daddy government can protect you from everything. But as soon as you cross over and force that belief on me, you lose all moral standing and you're nothing more than a violent individual.
Oh, and before you think of suggesting Somalia, don't. We both know that's not a valid alternative to escaping a statis society, and if you suggest it you're just being facetious about the whole thing.
I agree with you. It's something that statists completely don't understand or get. Government's don't usually grant clear-cut monopolies. Instead, what they do is put rules, legislation, and all sorts of other barriers that nurture and protect monopolies. Even something as simple and innocuous as a "cellphone frequency" licence has the effect I mention above.
Quit responding like a dick, and actually say something in retort. This is the second post of yours I've read now where you simply respond with childish remarks about "first week economics 101, study economics" or "read up on what capitalism is".
Wait, what? The free-market did, and is doing to Microsoft (or rather Windows), exactly what we expected to be done to a monopoly. Linux, android, OSX, and countless other OS's and distros have sprung up and have slowly been eating away at the "monopoly" market share that we so hate Microsoft for having and abusing. It may not be the best example, but it is indeed an example of the free market fixing a monopolistic situation. Contrast that with the countless examples of state-enforced or state-aided monopolies, and you'll quickly realize that the guy you are responding to is right for the most part.
Show me a long-standing monopoly or oligopoly and I'll show you the government regulations, laws and red-tape that are behind it.
2. Now that the competition is dead, raise prices arbitrarily high.
This is one of the reasons why a completely free market does not work.
And what happens when the sole entity in the market place raises their prices "arbitrarily high"? Yes, you guessed it, boys and girls, competition moves right back in, like cockroaches. Really, Economics 101...second week. Did you flunk-out early, or did you skip that week?
The only time the above is not true, is when the entity has a government-enforced or government-aided monopoly. Either that, or some other really weird and extreme scenario that people like you usually come up with. I've debated with statists too many times to not include this addendum.
Amazon doesn't make anything, they just force the publishers to sell wholesale for less than they do to other vendors.
Then shouldn't you rather be complaining about the publishers charging too much, period? People obviously want books for cheaper, and that's why the majority of them are buying from Amazon, instead of little bookstores. Because, according to what you just wrote above, Amazon is able to negotiate better prices from the publishers.
The system has not failed you. Just leave it be, because all you'll end up doing is distorting the marketplace. As if it isn't already distorted enough with all the government regulation and interference.
The marketplace is changing, and the only thing you don't like is what it's changing to. The fact that the consumer get's cheaper prices on the goods that he/she wants is somehow totally irrelevant to you, and people like you, it seems. It's like democracy and free-speech: You love majority rule, and hold it up as an ideal solution, but as soon as someone does something, says something, or votes differently than you with their purchases/wallet, then you start complaining and being looking for people to blame.
If that comes at a slightly higher price overall, I am gladly willing to pay for that.
You might be, and you even might be in a position to do so. However, the vast majority of people out there are not willing to pay a higher price for their morals. The truth of the matter is that Amazon is doing exactly what people want it to do. Because most people aim squarely for a smaller price on the items they buy. I'd take a guess and say that that is predominately due to the consumer mindset that we as a society have been forced into breeding. Just listen to some of the leading Fed economists and how they talk about "boosting" "consumer spending" all the time. This is not a free market, it is not a natural market, and you can't blame a profit-seeking entity for trying to exploit it in whatever way they can. Instead, look at cause of such behavior.
That wasn't non-sequitur, it was a perfect argument rebuffing your comment. No taxes (money taking by force) means no government, means anarchy.
No taxes (money taken by force), simply means people aren't forced to pay to support a system of governance. That doesn't imply anarchy, or necessarily any political system. All it implies is that people are free to do with their money as they please. For all we know, some brilliant person may come along and invent a workable tax-free form of democracy. The fact that you can't separate taxes from governance means you've already been brain-washed.
Lack of compassion is the exact problem of the - everybody for themselves, I'll give to charity if I want to help - crowd, they are usually well off and do not understand and relate to the plights of people who are not. It is not about advocating against violence, just violence against them. They are perfectly willing to use violence to keep people hungry, poorly educated and without adequate shelter.
Ok, that's just taking it too far. Sounds like you have some animosity towards the people you describe. Either way, I'll bite. You may very well be right. For all we know, every single person that you describe as being in the "everybody for themselves, I'll give to charity if I want to help" crowd is a mean human being, and only cares for his/her self. Ok, now... From that assumption, you have to jump to justify stealing from them, in order to fulfill your noble(and kind) goal of helping the needy/sick/poor. Whatever compassion you display for one group will become morally worthless if it is at the expense of another.
The same could be said of government "charity", then.
Either way, I refuse to be double-taxed for charity. I pay my taxes, and I fully expect the government to fulfill it's end of the bargain. That includes caring for the truly needy, and the sick that can't afford care. Political debates about types of government aside... Why are we not holding government accountable for the great amounts of suffering people? And for all the faux-attempts at fixing the problem at our expense. Democracy, and statism in general, may not be fair and ethical. But it can work if we hold the rulers accountable for the things they promised to do on our behalf using the taxes we give them.