Hmmm... Increased welfare and social programs Increased spending (Bush hasn't controlled spending very well, but Kerry very rarely sees a spending bill he doesn't like. Increased control of economy by government Pro Gun control, voting to ban the 30-30 calibur, among other things.
Ok, I still don't see how it's not true. If McD's can't get workers for say, $7 an hour, and they can't pay $8 and still make a profit, they have to either: A) Raise prices (and the ensuing loss of business) B) Economize on their $8 help, through more automation (more production per worker), being smarter about manning levels, etc. C) Go out of business D) Move elsewhere where the labors cheaper
There are a number of inustries that have taken course D. McD, as a service industry, can't always take D except maybe for their factories.
As for the cotton picking comment, workers are always free to go elsewhere. And Worldcom/Enron are both in highly regulated businesses. Their situation doesn't even come close to a free market.
Your copyright idea would work, as they'd have to still be making a profit off from it (and distributing it), in order for it to be worth it to keep it copyrighted. Though in this case, for copyrights, because some take a while to be popular, I'd start at 20 years. Patents are still at ok levels, in my opinion, as long as you restore the requirement for a working model.
It would also tend to counter the tendency right now for copyright to last so long that you don't have any media left to copy from, and it's been out of print for so long that you can't get a new copy.
Companies can't employee people if they don't make more than the cost
And this is a lie how? Sure McD's and Walmart make money off their employee's labor. Otherwise they'd go broke. Back in 1994-95 timeframe, I worked at a McD's. Guess what, I didn't make just minimum wage. Made close, but it was still over by about a quarter. Heck, I've seen the job offeres where I live now. They can't get workers for minimum. I remember being pissed off when the wage increased because I saw it as a pay cut. I had been working at the new minimum.
Enron, Worldcom, and their employee's 401k's was a result of the employees trusting their company too much and not diversifying. Oh, yeah, 401k's? They're a result of government regulation? Why not just pay a person a straight wage (maybe a few frills), so they can more easily compare jobs? They can go to the insurance company for their medical. Save on their own if they ever want to retire.
As for "Minimum wage increases unemployment". It does, for the marginal workers. Alternatives are found for unskilled but labor intensive jobs, as it's not practicle to pay for them
"Small businesses can't afford employees". This is more due to regulatory costs. You add one employee, suddenly you have to worry about OSHA, payroll, the IRS (in an entirely NEW role, drop your pants and bend over!), benefits such as medical, worker's comp, liability. Trust me, even with coop and "managerial companies" where they actually hire your worker and contract him to you, and worry about all those details. It's said to figure out the cost of an employee, take their wage and double it. It's a true nightmare.
And the pre-union days? Well, maybe the workers will take back the unions and make them something!
I'll admit, this is a point that I break away from many of my fellow libs. Especially the big L's.
In today's society, with today's technology, offense is more powerful than defense. I can spend a thousand, even a million times the effort, and I still won't stop all of your attacks.
Therefore a position that allows pro-activly taking out threats is necessary. It may not be clean, it may not be pretty, but it is necessary if we're going to survive when there are those out there who want to destroy us, our way of life, or liberties, in the name of religion.
I believe in Honor. We need to support those who show themselves to be our allies. We need to recognize those who are our enemies. We need to clean up after ourselves.
I support the taking back of Afghanistan. They were our ally. We should of helped them rebuild. We should of taken Saddam out ten years ago. If we had remained resolute we wouldn't of lost Vietnam. If we don't stay resolute we'll lose Iraq, before we can coax the Iraqi people into building a government that can withstand the mullahs.
North Korea, China. I don't know. I really don't know. Would it be worth the effort? Would it be worth the Cost? Heck, we could take out Castro tommorrow if we wanted to. But we don't. I don't get the briefings the president does. I've heard rumors about Kim's preperations enabling him to release an artillery barrage to devestage Seol in 15 minutes. Iraq is a field exercise in comparison. China and Iran are in the same situation. The educated youths (essential to a non-midevil society), are demanding a say in government. The lives of young patriots have been lost. What support can we give? If we intervene, those brave youths will be seen as puppets of a foreign power. Better to sit, and wait, and hope.
Big L libs maybe. Some are just another name for anarchists. Allowing your structure to catch fire, endangering other buildings, would allow the others to have the fire put out, or at least contained by the private department, and you'd be billed for the expense, for the safety of others.
Also, going with the lowest level of government, I'm not saying that you couldn't have a city/county fire department. It could even get state assistance. But why should the feds regularly get involved?
libertarians are for less government, starting with the federal. The line for the 'perfect' amount of government in this imperfect world is drawn different for each person. It's just that the feds have already passed that line for the libs.
Personal responsability is just that. It's not always easy, it's not always nice. If they become a burdon on society (criminal), we'll force them to dry out in order to be usefull for paying restitution.
The airline industry is typically regarded as an economic success. Amid bankruptcy, federal bailouts, subsidies, etc...
Safety by regulation? We're talking about the same government that ended up admiting that they required air bags to be too powerful, and they knew it?
There have been a number of innovative safety devices developed, especially for small planes. One is a plane sized parachute. It won't save the plane, but it'll get the people inside down alive.
Couldn't there be a flight wing of the UL labs(a commercial venture).
As for the standard rule set, we manage to have a more or less international rule set for flying. It only makes sense to lay out airports certain ways, and the layouts DO tend to vary. Multiple runways, different headings, all that.
Heck, look at computing. Did the government just come down from on high and say "Ethernet is the networking standard, x86 is the CPU instruction set, Windows3.1 the OS(remember government's slow), this is the CD standard, that is the DVD standard". They still manage to interoperate. The same thing was happening with the flight industry. Don't want your airport to conform to the standards? Good luck getting many airlines to fly in(unless they REALLY need your airport, or the rules make special sense in your case).
And even with federal regulation the smaller airports get fewer runs. But they still get served, why? They still make money. The closest airport to me only has 2 communter flights a day.
Roads: Can be done by the state/local area. libs aren't all against public roads, but why should the feds be messing around, putting all sorts of limits on the highway dollars (interstate commerce clause), like the legal drinking age. It should be "we'd like the road to run from this spot on the border to that spot on the border, be less than x miles long (more or less straight), and be kept in y condition. For which we'll pay you z dollars". The state doesn't want the road, they don't get the dollars, the feds are stuck. Toll roads are ify. There's considerable expense just to run the booths(inefficient to meter), if you charge enough to pay for both, on many runs people will take alternate routes. And down in florida I understand most of the booths make money.
Urban sprawl: Zoning restrictions? It used to be that housing was above the stores. Why don't we see that much anymore? Built right, you're just an elevator ride away from a mall, offices, etc. I believe they're called arcologies in Simcity.
And the trusts in the 1800's had plenty of governmental help. If the government makes sure that strong-arm tactics can't be used, they won't be able to bilk the consumers too much, because an alternative will be found. Government regulation adds a huge amount of expense to starting a business today. Heck a young entreprenuer was almost arrested for starting her own hair-braiding business. But she didn't have a cosmetology diploma/certificate (taking a year and thousands of dollars). Now that's crazy. How much beyond a car, clean driving record, and a knowledge of the city's layout do you need to be a cabbie?
As far as utilities go, I'm aware that they're tough to have compitition with, so I tend to like coops.
This might be strange, but I felt that Bush's emphasis on the WMD was more to try to get allies as the Europeans wouldn't come on board unless they felt threatened.
1) Politicians go further left or right into the party to get the nomination (excepting early appeals to independants).
2) They then proceed to race to the center, to try to get the independents and other members of the other party to cross over and vote for them. Without upsetting enough of their core voters into not voting.
Wyoming is "ignored" because it's so strongly Bush. California is ignored because it's so strongly Kerry.
At the moment, Nevada, Florida, and Maine are the tied states. Now Florida has 27 votes, Nevada 5, Maine 4. But Florida's a big state. Nevada, Maine, and say, Michigan require less population, less campaigning to move (for 1 less vote). Substitute Iowa and Wisconsin for Michigan (same votes), and you need even fewer people.
This is how Bush won the last election. He understood the game.
Well, even if the government fires half their workers all at once, they're not trained for civilian jobs such that they wouldn't require a period of retraining. Just like the hiring of contracters for many government jobs anymore, many will find work in almost the same position.
Expect a drastic short term drop in wages for paper pushers, though. With the firing of the majority of the IRS, for example, you'd have more accountants to do auditing work. Assuming that they're actually accountants, of course.
Economics are not a zero sum game. I don't really care if the "rich" get richer if I get richer at the same time.
Given how a lot of taxes are progressive Didn't we just fix that? So just what did we do to enable us to fire most of the IRS?
Depending on how L of a Libertarian you are, final tax schemes vary from a flat % with a moderatly big deductable, to a flat percent, to a flat charge. As a small l lib, I support the first. The idea is that without all the deductibles that allow the rich to evade taxes, combined with the more reasonable rates, will reduce the incentive and oppertunity to evade taxes. Combine this with a smaller government overall (which has been shown to be very inefficient with money) so you don't need so much money.
The constitution forbids cruel *and* unusual punishments.
This means that to be unconstitutional, the punishment has to meet both standards. If the punishment is done to all inmates of the crime classification, it's not unusual, so even though it's cruel, it's allowed. And unusual punishments, if they're not cruel, are also allowed. What's the standard? Well, if the convict agrees to it in exchange for a reduction in the standard punishment, it's not so cruel (like chemical sterilization for a child-molester. The guy's agreed to it!!! Let it happen!).
I've seen constitutional arguments based on weaker interpretations.;)
For that industry. Increased supply leads to lower prices. You're going to get fluctuations. The idea is that it'd happen slowly enough, in enough industries, that the effects would be very gradual.
Personally, I'd rather take the extra income and invest in quality products. Have a bigger house (not necessarily a bigger lawn). Better quality house. I don't like the idea of getting a stick-built.
Not really. The idea is that you'd have fewer people manning unproductive governmental regulation jobs, they'd go out and become productive members of the workforce, helping to produce a service/product, that would keep inflation and check, and allow all of us to live better.
Get rid of welfare and the minimum wage and watch outsourcing stop cold.
But if the lib party grabs a significant part of the vote, chances are that the repubs/demos might change some of their planks to try to appease us. Also, it increases the knowledge about us, makes us appear a more serious party.
Actually, that'd tend to put you in democrat territory.
Libertarians disagree with republicans more on social issues, siding with the democrats, while they disagree with the democrats on economic issues, siding more with the republicans.
This is a vast simplification, as the Libertarian party is likely to strike off into their own territory at any time, disagreeing with both.
Say one of the parties no longer really represents even 33% of the population's beliefs. Let's say the party's internal politics are such that an "Old brigade" has contol of the party and it's planks, so they don't change to adapt. The other major party doesn't pick up the slack. Another party emerges that better represents the views of about a third of the population. They gain power in a state or two, and a good percent of the popular vote elsewhere. As they're now seen as "viable candidates", large groups of people stop voting for the old parties, and vote for the new one, resulting in a loss of power in the old parties. The weaker of the old parties eventually dies away.
For example, Libertarians take planks from both parties, but with a number of unique planks that address issues that aren't normally addressed.
Heh, as a libertarian NRA member, I found both of those sentences non-sensical! I finally made sense of the NRA comment, but it took me six readings.;)
I've gotten it from a number of sources, backed up with actual governmental sites. These sites also say the recent jump in crime in England is attributable to more accurate tracking.
As for "plea-bargaining" not happening in England, maybe I should have said "where charges are reduced". I was operating off of memory.
Murder Rates If the large cities have rates in the 20-60 range, but the whole country rates a 9.8, the cities are dragging the rate up quite a bit. The site also points out that a large study showed that liberal (more free) gun policies reduced the crime rate, to include murder. I've also heard that we'd rate right with Europe if you remove African Americans from the ratings. I blame the high murder rate of the USA on the drug war, welfare, and stupid policies in the cities.
Oddly enough, the areas in the USA with the toughest gun control tend to have the most crime, including homicide. We do tend to have lower rates for other crimes. Besides, alot of our homicide rate comes from the "drug war", and the fact that other countries tend to massage the numbers. For example, England has had a history of tracking each killing, and if the court plea-bargains down to manslaughter, it's removed from the stats. And our homicide rate today is comparable for the most part with the rest of the developed world.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmm...
Increased welfare and social programs
Increased spending (Bush hasn't controlled spending very well, but Kerry very rarely sees a spending bill he doesn't like.
Increased control of economy by government
Pro Gun control, voting to ban the 30-30 calibur, among other things.
Ok, I still don't see how it's not true. If McD's can't get workers for say, $7 an hour, and they can't pay $8 and still make a profit, they have to either:
A) Raise prices (and the ensuing loss of business)
B) Economize on their $8 help, through more automation (more production per worker), being smarter about manning levels, etc.
C) Go out of business
D) Move elsewhere where the labors cheaper
There are a number of inustries that have taken course D. McD, as a service industry, can't always take D except maybe for their factories.
As for the cotton picking comment, workers are always free to go elsewhere. And Worldcom/Enron are both in highly regulated businesses. Their situation doesn't even come close to a free market.
Great Idea!
Your copyright idea would work, as they'd have to still be making a profit off from it (and distributing it), in order for it to be worth it to keep it copyrighted. Though in this case, for copyrights, because some take a while to be popular, I'd start at 20 years. Patents are still at ok levels, in my opinion, as long as you restore the requirement for a working model.
It would also tend to counter the tendency right now for copyright to last so long that you don't have any media left to copy from, and it's been out of print for so long that you can't get a new copy.
Companies can't employee people if they don't make more than the cost
And this is a lie how? Sure McD's and Walmart make money off their employee's labor. Otherwise they'd go broke. Back in 1994-95 timeframe, I worked at a McD's. Guess what, I didn't make just minimum wage. Made close, but it was still over by about a quarter. Heck, I've seen the job offeres where I live now. They can't get workers for minimum. I remember being pissed off when the wage increased because I saw it as a pay cut. I had been working at the new minimum.
Enron, Worldcom, and their employee's 401k's was a result of the employees trusting their company too much and not diversifying. Oh, yeah, 401k's? They're a result of government regulation? Why not just pay a person a straight wage (maybe a few frills), so they can more easily compare jobs? They can go to the insurance company for their medical. Save on their own if they ever want to retire.
As for "Minimum wage increases unemployment". It does, for the marginal workers. Alternatives are found for unskilled but labor intensive jobs, as it's not practicle to pay for them
"Small businesses can't afford employees". This is more due to regulatory costs. You add one employee, suddenly you have to worry about OSHA, payroll, the IRS (in an entirely NEW role, drop your pants and bend over!), benefits such as medical, worker's comp, liability. Trust me, even with coop and "managerial companies" where they actually hire your worker and contract him to you, and worry about all those details. It's said to figure out the cost of an employee, take their wage and double it. It's a true nightmare.
And the pre-union days? Well, maybe the workers will take back the unions and make them something!
I'll admit, this is a point that I break away from many of my fellow libs. Especially the big L's.
In today's society, with today's technology, offense is more powerful than defense. I can spend a thousand, even a million times the effort, and I still won't stop all of your attacks.
Therefore a position that allows pro-activly taking out threats is necessary. It may not be clean, it may not be pretty, but it is necessary if we're going to survive when there are those out there who want to destroy us, our way of life, or liberties, in the name of religion.
I believe in Honor. We need to support those who show themselves to be our allies. We need to recognize those who are our enemies. We need to clean up after ourselves.
I support the taking back of Afghanistan. They were our ally. We should of helped them rebuild. We should of taken Saddam out ten years ago. If we had remained resolute we wouldn't of lost Vietnam. If we don't stay resolute we'll lose Iraq, before we can coax the Iraqi people into building a government that can withstand the mullahs.
North Korea, China. I don't know. I really don't know. Would it be worth the effort? Would it be worth the Cost? Heck, we could take out Castro tommorrow if we wanted to. But we don't. I don't get the briefings the president does. I've heard rumors about Kim's preperations enabling him to release an artillery barrage to devestage Seol in 15 minutes. Iraq is a field exercise in comparison. China and Iran are in the same situation. The educated youths (essential to a non-midevil society), are demanding a say in government. The lives of young patriots have been lost. What support can we give? If we intervene, those brave youths will be seen as puppets of a foreign power. Better to sit, and wait, and hope.
Big L libs maybe. Some are just another name for anarchists. Allowing your structure to catch fire, endangering other buildings, would allow the others to have the fire put out, or at least contained by the private department, and you'd be billed for the expense, for the safety of others.
Also, going with the lowest level of government, I'm not saying that you couldn't have a city/county fire department. It could even get state assistance. But why should the feds regularly get involved?
libertarians are for less government, starting with the federal. The line for the 'perfect' amount of government in this imperfect world is drawn different for each person. It's just that the feds have already passed that line for the libs.
Yep.
Personal responsability is just that. It's not always easy, it's not always nice. If they become a burdon on society (criminal), we'll force them to dry out in order to be usefull for paying restitution.
The airline industry is typically regarded as an economic success.
Amid bankruptcy, federal bailouts, subsidies, etc...
Safety by regulation? We're talking about the same government that ended up admiting that they required air bags to be too powerful, and they knew it?
There have been a number of innovative safety devices developed, especially for small planes. One is a plane sized parachute. It won't save the plane, but it'll get the people inside down alive.
Couldn't there be a flight wing of the UL labs(a commercial venture).
As for the standard rule set, we manage to have a more or less international rule set for flying. It only makes sense to lay out airports certain ways, and the layouts DO tend to vary. Multiple runways, different headings, all that.
Heck, look at computing. Did the government just come down from on high and say "Ethernet is the networking standard, x86 is the CPU instruction set, Windows3.1 the OS(remember government's slow), this is the CD standard, that is the DVD standard". They still manage to interoperate. The same thing was happening with the flight industry. Don't want your airport to conform to the standards? Good luck getting many airlines to fly in(unless they REALLY need your airport, or the rules make special sense in your case).
And even with federal regulation the smaller airports get fewer runs. But they still get served, why? They still make money. The closest airport to me only has 2 communter flights a day.
Roads: Can be done by the state/local area. libs aren't all against public roads, but why should the feds be messing around, putting all sorts of limits on the highway dollars (interstate commerce clause), like the legal drinking age. It should be "we'd like the road to run from this spot on the border to that spot on the border, be less than x miles long (more or less straight), and be kept in y condition. For which we'll pay you z dollars". The state doesn't want the road, they don't get the dollars, the feds are stuck. Toll roads are ify. There's considerable expense just to run the booths(inefficient to meter), if you charge enough to pay for both, on many runs people will take alternate routes. And down in florida I understand most of the booths make money.
Urban sprawl: Zoning restrictions? It used to be that housing was above the stores. Why don't we see that much anymore? Built right, you're just an elevator ride away from a mall, offices, etc. I believe they're called arcologies in Simcity.
And the trusts in the 1800's had plenty of governmental help. If the government makes sure that strong-arm tactics can't be used, they won't be able to bilk the consumers too much, because an alternative will be found. Government regulation adds a huge amount of expense to starting a business today. Heck a young entreprenuer was almost arrested for starting her own hair-braiding business. But she didn't have a cosmetology diploma/certificate (taking a year and thousands of dollars). Now that's crazy. How much beyond a car, clean driving record, and a knowledge of the city's layout do you need to be a cabbie?
As far as utilities go, I'm aware that they're tough to have compitition with, so I tend to like coops.
This might be strange, but I felt that Bush's emphasis on the WMD was more to try to get allies as the Europeans wouldn't come on board unless they felt threatened.
My view on Iraq was "about time".
Well, you end up with two phases:
1) Politicians go further left or right into the party to get the nomination (excepting early appeals to independants).
2) They then proceed to race to the center, to try to get the independents and other members of the other party to cross over and vote for them. Without upsetting enough of their core voters into not voting.
Wyoming is "ignored" because it's so strongly Bush. California is ignored because it's so strongly Kerry.
At the moment, Nevada, Florida, and Maine are the tied states. Now Florida has 27 votes, Nevada 5, Maine 4. But Florida's a big state. Nevada, Maine, and say, Michigan require less population, less campaigning to move (for 1 less vote). Substitute Iowa and Wisconsin for Michigan (same votes), and you need even fewer people.
This is how Bush won the last election. He understood the game.
Well, even if the government fires half their workers all at once, they're not trained for civilian jobs such that they wouldn't require a period of retraining. Just like the hiring of contracters for many government jobs anymore, many will find work in almost the same position.
Expect a drastic short term drop in wages for paper pushers, though. With the firing of the majority of the IRS, for example, you'd have more accountants to do auditing work. Assuming that they're actually accountants, of course.
Economics are not a zero sum game. I don't really care if the "rich" get richer if I get richer at the same time.
Given how a lot of taxes are progressive
Didn't we just fix that? So just what did we do to enable us to fire most of the IRS?
Depending on how L of a Libertarian you are, final tax schemes vary from a flat % with a moderatly big deductable, to a flat percent, to a flat charge. As a small l lib, I support the first. The idea is that without all the deductibles that allow the rich to evade taxes, combined with the more reasonable rates, will reduce the incentive and oppertunity to evade taxes. Combine this with a smaller government overall (which has been shown to be very inefficient with money) so you don't need so much money.
*****HUMER WARNING*******
;)
The constitution forbids cruel *and* unusual punishments.
This means that to be unconstitutional, the punishment has to meet both standards. If the punishment is done to all inmates of the crime classification, it's not unusual, so even though it's cruel, it's allowed. And unusual punishments, if they're not cruel, are also allowed. What's the standard? Well, if the convict agrees to it in exchange for a reduction in the standard punishment, it's not so cruel (like chemical sterilization for a child-molester. The guy's agreed to it!!! Let it happen!).
I've seen constitutional arguments based on weaker interpretations.
Uh, the only problem with that is that it'd be more expensive to renovate it to bring it up to code...
I remember reading that the UN building doesn't come close to meeting building codes.
For that industry. Increased supply leads to lower prices. You're going to get fluctuations. The idea is that it'd happen slowly enough, in enough industries, that the effects would be very gradual.
Personally, I'd rather take the extra income and invest in quality products. Have a bigger house (not necessarily a bigger lawn). Better quality house. I don't like the idea of getting a stick-built.
Not really. The idea is that you'd have fewer people manning unproductive governmental regulation jobs, they'd go out and become productive members of the workforce, helping to produce a service/product, that would keep inflation and check, and allow all of us to live better.
Get rid of welfare and the minimum wage and watch outsourcing stop cold.
But if the lib party grabs a significant part of the vote, chances are that the repubs/demos might change some of their planks to try to appease us. Also, it increases the knowledge about us, makes us appear a more serious party.
The problem I have is that on most of the issues I disagree with Bush about, is that Kerry is even more extreme.
Actually, that'd tend to put you in democrat territory.
Libertarians disagree with republicans more on social issues, siding with the democrats, while they disagree with the democrats on economic issues, siding more with the republicans.
This is a vast simplification, as the Libertarian party is likely to strike off into their own territory at any time, disagreeing with both.
okay here's a scenario.
Say one of the parties no longer really represents even 33% of the population's beliefs. Let's say the party's internal politics are such that an "Old brigade" has contol of the party and it's planks, so they don't change to adapt. The other major party doesn't pick up the slack. Another party emerges that better represents the views of about a third of the population. They gain power in a state or two, and a good percent of the popular vote elsewhere. As they're now seen as "viable candidates", large groups of people stop voting for the old parties, and vote for the new one, resulting in a loss of power in the old parties. The weaker of the old parties eventually dies away.
For example, Libertarians take planks from both parties, but with a number of unique planks that address issues that aren't normally addressed.
Heh, as a libertarian NRA member, I found both of those sentences non-sensical! I finally made sense of the NRA comment, but it took me six readings. ;)
I've gotten it from a number of sources, backed up with actual governmental sites. These sites also say the recent jump in crime in England is attributable to more accurate tracking.
As for "plea-bargaining" not happening in England, maybe I should have said "where charges are reduced". I was operating off of memory.
Murder Rates
If the large cities have rates in the 20-60 range, but the whole country rates a 9.8, the cities are dragging the rate up quite a bit. The site also points out that a large study showed that liberal (more free) gun policies reduced the crime rate, to include murder. I've also heard that we'd rate right with Europe if you remove African Americans from the ratings.
I blame the high murder rate of the USA on the drug war, welfare, and stupid policies in the cities.
There is a case on record of a criminal continuing to advance despite warning shots fired from a full auto!
F*** you and your high powered rifle!
Oddly enough, the areas in the USA with the toughest gun control tend to have the most crime, including homicide. We do tend to have lower rates for other crimes. Besides, alot of our homicide rate comes from the "drug war", and the fact that other countries tend to massage the numbers. For example, England has had a history of tracking each killing, and if the court plea-bargains down to manslaughter, it's removed from the stats. And our homicide rate today is comparable for the most part with the rest of the developed world.