Phil, man, I'm with you. We both wish "free market" were a term we could use to promote our preferred notion of optimal market regulation. I totally sympathize with that.
My point is that "free market" does not, in fact, mean what we wish it did. And so, when people like you and I use "free market" to mean something different, it lends credence and credibility to the kooks and wackos who are actually, in reality, from a legal policy perspective, trying to implement a "free market" in the literal sense.
If those people are successful, that will be very bad, so we should be careful not to lend those nutters that credence. I wish I could proffer a term to replace "free market", but I don't know of one. The best I can come up with is "market". That's why I insist that markets are good, but free markets are bad.
The problem is the word "free". Who doesn't want free stuff? We like free speech, free love, free popcorn, Free Willy, free Tibet... which is exactly why the economic freaks use the term "free market" in the first place, because it's great misleading advertising for their perverse point of view.
"I like markets, and I like free stuff, so obviously free markets must be good, so I'm going to say that free markets are good." Well, they're not good, they're bad, very bad.
Well, you know, I'm just rambling, but I really do think it's an important point. Do what you will, Phil, but know that to the extent you use the term "free market" in a friendly way, in my opinion you are helping people who, I suspect, you don't really want to help.
Oh, yes yes of course it is intentionally bad grammar. And also yes, I am a grammar snob. I get the joke, and appreciate it, so I suggested enhancing the joke with an improper apostrophe.
I used to think that, but I was wrong, as you are. In common modern parlance, "free market" refers specifically to unregulated markets. I had to look it up before I believed it. This is an example of when a phrase means different things to different people, but there is one definition which is most common.
"A free market is a market without economic intervention and regulation by government..."
This is why it is so so so important for people to refrain from talking about the "free market" as if it were a good thing -- because it's not, free markets are bad. Free/unregulated markets tend to be opaque, uncompetitive, and anti-consumer; whereas with appropriate (perhaps minimal but targeted) regulation, we can have well-functioning, transparent, competitive, consumer-oriented markets.
So, when people speak nicely of free markets, they are unwittingly giving credence to a small, dedicated group of ideologically driven people who seek to actually tear down the regulations which make modern markets function well for consumers. So we should be careful not to do that.
My credo is "Markets are good! Free markets are bad!"
Please excuse me for making this point over and over again on Slashdot and elsewhere. I think it's important.
You probably aren't an American, so you must not be familiar with the rules of the Senate. If you care enough as a foreigner, you can look up more details, but the important rule in this case is that any one Senator can block any bill, secretly, without having to even announce it publicly. That happens frequently. More frequently, the person goes ahead and announces their opposition publicly. Either way, it takes 60 votes to get past the objections of that one Senator, which is an exceedingly difficult thing to achieve, even when the Democrats have 59 votes on their own, as they do today.
Republicans in the last couple decades have demonstrated an ability to vote as an absolute bloc, with 100% of them voting the same way on bill after bill after bill. But the Democrats have never had that sort of top-down discipline, they tend to vote much more independently; so 59 votes becomes 55, then 53, then just 50 pretty quickly. (If votes on a bill are split, the Vice President votes as the tie-breaker, and in this case the VP is a Democrat, so 50 votes for a bill would often be enough if it weren't for that one lone opponent.)
So, you see, even if we got all 59 Democrats to vote for the bill, any one Republican can and will block the bill. It's fair to say that most often all 40 Republicans are united in their opposition, but still, it only takes one.
Anyway, that's just the kind of stuff that good, well-educated, interested, involved, informed Americans would know about. Since you are not an American, there is little reason you would know any of that.
Just to be clear, no honest person favors free markets. None. Zero. (But, some dishonest people claim to favor free markets, but really don't.) Everyone supports regulated markets, we just disagree about what kinds of regulations there should be.
Blah blah yadda yadda. Dude, a bill was proposed and one party supported it and the other didn't. It's fucking stupid for you to try to blame the party that supported it for the failure of the bill. Give me a break, nobody buys that shit, and I bet neither do you.
Frankly, I'll always take an openly partisan blog over a supposed "news" outlet that pretends to balance when they are really staffed almost completely by leftists. At least the partisan blog is up front about their biases.
Now begone you leftist troll.
Ah ha ha ha! Dude, you are going from funny to fucking hilarious!
Sheesh. First of all, it's "toe the line". That's a common mistake, but still embarrassing for you. Second and more important, it's HIPPIE, you damn hippie, not HIPPY.
No. Markets do not provide solutions to this kind of problem, and people who say they do are ideologues and fools.
Still, I'd say no to the examples given by the OP, but yes to the monitoring of computers in workplaces. Even as I participate in this conversation while at work.
The second thing you said contradicts the first thing, because it would be meaningless to consider them without their mutual context. The question can only be understood as a comparison of the two outcomes.
Just to be clear, Macs are popular because they run MacOS, not because the hardware is stellar. If you want to run MacOS, which many people consider substantially superior to the alternatives, and you don't want to screw around with hackintoshes, then you have to buy a Mac.
I do like my few-year-old Mac very much, but for political and ethical reasons I am no longer an Apple customer. People who do not share my politics and ethics are the people who continue to buy Macs, for that comfy Mac experience.
To me, no. Not at all. My ISP should not be blocking spam or providing a firewall. Perhaps if I select and pay for those services, yes; but it is my email provider who should be blocking spam, and it should be my router which runs a firewall. I expect my ISP to deliver 100% of the packets addressed to my IP, even if they carry hack attempts or spam. I can, of course, pay for the additional services of filtering out certain content if I want, but that isn't Net Neutrality that's just buying a service. Another service I could select would be protection from DDOS attacks
Net Neutrality is the notion that the ISP should be delivering all of my packets by default, with no filtering by default.
Perhaps I'm not using the phrase in the way most people use it. Would others care to weigh in with what you think NN means?
It seems to me that the simple defense to such a charge would be to go get the person who recently sucked the defendant's dick, test that person's DNA, and compare it to the other DNA samples. Presumably, however, even a bad lawyer would have thought of this, so I must not really understand the case.
Three cheers, for sure, for an opportunity to topically discuss fellatio on Slashdot.
Oh. Okay well perhaps my comment is directed at you. It's hard to tell without asking you for more details, which I want to be careful to explicitly refrain from doing, because I don't care.
Slashdot Mirror
Phil, man, I'm with you. We both wish "free market" were a term we could use to promote our preferred notion of optimal market regulation. I totally sympathize with that.
My point is that "free market" does not, in fact, mean what we wish it did. And so, when people like you and I use "free market" to mean something different, it lends credence and credibility to the kooks and wackos who are actually, in reality, from a legal policy perspective, trying to implement a "free market" in the literal sense.
If those people are successful, that will be very bad, so we should be careful not to lend those nutters that credence. I wish I could proffer a term to replace "free market", but I don't know of one. The best I can come up with is "market". That's why I insist that markets are good, but free markets are bad.
The problem is the word "free". Who doesn't want free stuff? We like free speech, free love, free popcorn, Free Willy, free Tibet... which is exactly why the economic freaks use the term "free market" in the first place, because it's great misleading advertising for their perverse point of view.
"I like markets, and I like free stuff, so obviously free markets must be good, so I'm going to say that free markets are good." Well, they're not good, they're bad, very bad.
Well, you know, I'm just rambling, but I really do think it's an important point. Do what you will, Phil, but know that to the extent you use the term "free market" in a friendly way, in my opinion you are helping people who, I suspect, you don't really want to help.
Oh, yes yes of course it is intentionally bad grammar. And also yes, I am a grammar snob. I get the joke, and appreciate it, so I suggested enhancing the joke with an improper apostrophe.
Damn that posted anonymously even though I didn't check Post Anonymously.
You should consider putting an apostrophe before the s in "cares" in your sig; or maybe in "begs".
Steve Jobs? Is that you?
I used to think that, but I was wrong, as you are. In common modern parlance, "free market" refers specifically to unregulated markets. I had to look it up before I believed it. This is an example of when a phrase means different things to different people, but there is one definition which is most common.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market
"A free market is a market without economic intervention and regulation by government..."
This is why it is so so so important for people to refrain from talking about the "free market" as if it were a good thing -- because it's not, free markets are bad. Free/unregulated markets tend to be opaque, uncompetitive, and anti-consumer; whereas with appropriate (perhaps minimal but targeted) regulation, we can have well-functioning, transparent, competitive, consumer-oriented markets.
So, when people speak nicely of free markets, they are unwittingly giving credence to a small, dedicated group of ideologically driven people who seek to actually tear down the regulations which make modern markets function well for consumers. So we should be careful not to do that.
My credo is "Markets are good! Free markets are bad!"
Please excuse me for making this point over and over again on Slashdot and elsewhere. I think it's important.
You probably aren't an American, so you must not be familiar with the rules of the Senate. If you care enough as a foreigner, you can look up more details, but the important rule in this case is that any one Senator can block any bill, secretly, without having to even announce it publicly. That happens frequently. More frequently, the person goes ahead and announces their opposition publicly. Either way, it takes 60 votes to get past the objections of that one Senator, which is an exceedingly difficult thing to achieve, even when the Democrats have 59 votes on their own, as they do today.
Republicans in the last couple decades have demonstrated an ability to vote as an absolute bloc, with 100% of them voting the same way on bill after bill after bill. But the Democrats have never had that sort of top-down discipline, they tend to vote much more independently; so 59 votes becomes 55, then 53, then just 50 pretty quickly. (If votes on a bill are split, the Vice President votes as the tie-breaker, and in this case the VP is a Democrat, so 50 votes for a bill would often be enough if it weren't for that one lone opponent.)
So, you see, even if we got all 59 Democrats to vote for the bill, any one Republican can and will block the bill. It's fair to say that most often all 40 Republicans are united in their opposition, but still, it only takes one.
Anyway, that's just the kind of stuff that good, well-educated, interested, involved, informed Americans would know about. Since you are not an American, there is little reason you would know any of that.
Just to be clear, no honest person favors free markets. None. Zero. (But, some dishonest people claim to favor free markets, but really don't.) Everyone supports regulated markets, we just disagree about what kinds of regulations there should be.
Blah blah yadda yadda. Dude, a bill was proposed and one party supported it and the other didn't. It's fucking stupid for you to try to blame the party that supported it for the failure of the bill. Give me a break, nobody buys that shit, and I bet neither do you.
Frankly, I'll always take an openly partisan blog over a supposed "news" outlet that pretends to balance when they are really staffed almost completely by leftists. At least the partisan blog is up front about their biases.
Now begone you leftist troll.
Ah ha ha ha! Dude, you are going from funny to fucking hilarious!
Ha ha. Dude, you are hilarious.
You're kidding, right? I mean, I should be laughing with you, not at you, right?
Right?
Yeah. You are annoyed because it is wrong in a smugly condescending way. Another way to say that is Sockatume is a troll.
Sheesh. First of all, it's "toe the line". That's a common mistake, but still embarrassing for you. Second and more important, it's HIPPIE, you damn hippie, not HIPPY.
It's a dicey tradeoff, but the right to fire without cause is balanced with the right to quit without cause.
your fired
Bwa ha ha! Oh crap, that's hilarious. CLEARLY you are a successful business person with stellar grammar like that.
Oh, I also disagree generally with your post, and find it phrased disrespectfully.
payed
Ha, ha! That's funny.
The rest of your post was fine.
No. Markets do not provide solutions to this kind of problem, and people who say they do are ideologues and fools.
Still, I'd say no to the examples given by the OP, but yes to the monitoring of computers in workplaces. Even as I participate in this conversation while at work.
you're sarcasm
Ha!
The second thing you said contradicts the first thing, because it would be meaningless to consider them without their mutual context. The question can only be understood as a comparison of the two outcomes.
superfluousapostropheguysayswhat?
I only kid. It's an easy mistake to make.
Just to be clear, Macs are popular because they run MacOS, not because the hardware is stellar. If you want to run MacOS, which many people consider substantially superior to the alternatives, and you don't want to screw around with hackintoshes, then you have to buy a Mac.
I do like my few-year-old Mac very much, but for political and ethical reasons I am no longer an Apple customer. People who do not share my politics and ethics are the people who continue to buy Macs, for that comfy Mac experience.
Really? Is that true?
To me, no. Not at all. My ISP should not be blocking spam or providing a firewall. Perhaps if I select and pay for those services, yes; but it is my email provider who should be blocking spam, and it should be my router which runs a firewall. I expect my ISP to deliver 100% of the packets addressed to my IP, even if they carry hack attempts or spam. I can, of course, pay for the additional services of filtering out certain content if I want, but that isn't Net Neutrality that's just buying a service. Another service I could select would be protection from DDOS attacks
Net Neutrality is the notion that the ISP should be delivering all of my packets by default, with no filtering by default.
Perhaps I'm not using the phrase in the way most people use it. Would others care to weigh in with what you think NN means?
Huh. I had never heard of that. Thank you for being informative.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laches_(equity)
It seems to me that the simple defense to such a charge would be to go get the person who recently sucked the defendant's dick, test that person's DNA, and compare it to the other DNA samples. Presumably, however, even a bad lawyer would have thought of this, so I must not really understand the case.
Three cheers, for sure, for an opportunity to topically discuss fellatio on Slashdot.
Oh. Okay well perhaps my comment is directed at you. It's hard to tell without asking you for more details, which I want to be careful to explicitly refrain from doing, because I don't care.