Oh, lets talk about the Nordic model then. due to the crisis in the 90's the Nordic countries started to change their economic and political models to accommodate reality. Currently their governments have in average half the size it had in the 80`s and they are going each year more in the right wing direction, because there is only so much you can do in social democracy until the money ends. Norway is still a bit behind in these changes because of the oil, but it won`t last forever.
If they succeed and keep going into this direction chances are that they will recover, but then again they will be nearer US model than they ever by then. On the other hand, if they turn around and decide to go back to their former social democrat model they will become what Portugal and Spain are today, sooner or later.
What has anything of this to do with regulating economical power?
They never "regulated" the military. The military is paid by the government and is part of it.
The government enforces immigration, because immigrants do not vote against them and no immigrants do.
The government does enforce laws, usually in favor of corporations, and product safety regulations only helps corporations, because the costs are 100% repassed to the consumer and the costier things are the harder it is for competition to enter the market.
In conclusion I challenge you to find any regulation case against corporations that haven't ended benefiting the very corporations that they were supposed to keep under control at the cost of the consumer.
My answer is, we should do what works best, and what works best has never been government regulation.
But you can keep deluding yourself and thinking that an angelic government may come to be that will protect you from economic power even though by doing that they will be going against their own interests. Suit yourself.
You should do it. You will realize that the angry mobs were only the maneuver mass. What really made the revolution possible was the interest of the ones that had the economical power and wanted to take political power from nobility, the Bourgeoisie.
The best analogue for it today would be the people taking down the president and the congress and putting corporation executives in their place.
Corporations weren't successful controlled anywhere in the world, much less in US. Actually in US it can be said that it was always the other way around, my friend. History revisionism is not cool.
I see you have absolutely no clue about what is happening in Venezuela. They have shortages of everything including Toilet Paper. They are quickly becoming New Cuba and things will only go downhill from now on.
Angry mobs can't curb them either because they have better resources and better weapons if violence comes to be.
Competition can control them, though, and it does work. A simple example I give you is the car industry. In US there is no barrier for car imports. There is free and unimpeded competition, and, as consequence, it has the cheapest cars in the world and the most competitive market.
Compare to Brazil, for example, where there are only 4 major companies in the market and huge barriers to importation. Even taking into consideration the greater taxes, cars here are much more expensive and the profit margin much greater than there, and these companies use government regulation to keep competition outside the market.
That is what always happens when you try to use government to control corporations. They go to bed together and both the government and the corporations get much more power than they would have alone. It has never worked as intended and cannot work.
Of all countries US is one of the last in the failing list. Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba and most of socialist Latin America, on the other hand are in utter misery. Social Democrat countries in Latin America and Europe, as France, Spain, Portugal, Brazil and Argentina are not that bad but waaay worse than US.
China is indeed doing fine (compared to what it has been during its communist phase), but it is probably one of the countries who is most practicing free market in the world currently.
So, you see the farther you go from Free Market the poorer the economy of a given country does. You can analyze any country throughout its history.
Exactly. It is simply unenforceable. It is just populist bullshit, in exactly the same way as raising taxes on corporations which end being 100% transferred to consumers. Corporations have way too many ways to work around regulations, and even to buy and warp them to strengthen their positions and block competition many times.
It is past time for people to start realizing that the government is not a solution against corporation abuse and will never be.
It would never work because there are many alternative means, besides salaries, to transfer wealth and it is impossible to control all of them. If a corporation thinks it is worth it to pay millions to a person it will find a way to do so.
Being manipulated is very different from offering consistent returns. All markets and currencies are manipulated. Bitcoin is just more volatile than most currently, and as such an easier target for manipulation.
Correction: Social Democracy, which is a bastard child of Socialism and Capitalism is working very poorly in Europe. That is why most countries that adopted this systems are currently going further and further into the right wing and diminishing the size of the state in their economy, like Sweden and Finland. In both these countries the size of the state is half of what it was 10 years ago and it will most likely keep shrinking, simply because they ran out of money. Norway has oil and thus sometime to go yet, but sooner or later it will get there too.
Same thing happened to France sometime ago, and in only didn't happen with Germany, because Germany proactively started cutting its social expenses for some time. Countries like Portugal and Spain didn't have the same good sense though and are facing a very hard crisis as consequence.
And no, the Muslims, Turkish, Algerian and Romanian immigrants are not "used" to divide the "working class", they are desperate people looking for a better life in more developed countries. And they would have their chance if those countries were more like 19th Century US, but unfortunately the paternal welfare states will always lack the resources to absorb poor people immigrating from outside.
So, in short, no, Socialism, isn't going well neither in Europe nor in anywhere else.
The point of civilization is to create a group effort to dominate, my friend. Any civilization that existed up to this day and that will likely exist in the future is based on power, coercion and violence, and without exception their rules are defined by those who hold power, be it by numbers, military technology or religious doctrine.
The only real difference between civilization and anarchy is that civilization is able to enforce rules and apply violence more efficiently by creating hierarchies and laws.
And we are much better than Monkeys, my friend, exactly because we can take it all from them, not because any naive and illusory notion of caring. We do care as individuals, in a limited way, for others, especially the close ones, but as soon as you start to dig deeper you will understand how shallow this caring is.
That is why socialism never worked and never will. Any system based on a illusion completely removed from human reality is due to collapse, for more than it may appease your moral notions.
You are never going to get rid of it, but the more power you give to a government the more strong Cronyism gets. And the guys who get in charge will always be much much worse than the greed rich guys you so much detest. History is there to prove it.
And you seem to be very confused by Cultural Marxist propaganda. Although Fascism is indeed a subset of Socialism, Mao's China and Stalin's USSR were the prime examples of Communist Socialism, while Hitler's Nazism was an example of Nationalist Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism were an example of Fascist Socialism.
Socialism means only that all political and economical power is centralized, and there is absolutely no example in human History where this didn't end very badly.
The truth is, there was no implementation of Socialism that didn't make the middle class and the poor worse than they were before it. On the other hand the systems that most improved the lives of these people were those that most approached a free market system. Coincidence? I am sure you believe that, as you also believe that the mystic "correct" implementation of Marxism will come someday. A hint: it won't.
Nah, socialism just makes the government bigger and cronyism easier. Rich and powerful people can always buy their way through bureaucracy, and for them, the more the better because it raises the bar for everyone else.
The ones that are really screwed by socialism are middle class and poor people.
One rich guy can't hold back the rest of society and that is exactly why capitalism works, because to gather your resources and to keep them you must provide what people want to buy and better than the competition.
I am not advocating such thing. I am actually very much in favor private property defended by law. Although in the end the differences only resides in who exerts the force, as any law derives its power from its enforcer capacity to inflict violence.
Might is indeed right, be it personal might, financial might or political might. There is no exception. Blaise Pascal has a very interesting essay on the subject that should be elucidative for you:
Your mistake comes from the belief that people "deserve"something or not. From the dawn of life in this world resources are owned by those capable of keeping their ownership, and the only meaningful definition of "earning" is exactly that, being able to gather and keep the resources.
The basis of socialism, that everything belongs to everybody, is as much an artificial construct as the notion of legal property in capitalism. The difference between the two is that the latter actually have improved the lives of most people everywhere it was applied, while the former never did.
So, in short you may believe in any definition of "earning" your Marxist religion tells you to, but keep in mind it is a religious belief and nothing else, and the practical results talk against you.
The problem socialists have is that in their arrogance they think they can control everything including human nature. They are the ones that oversimplify things, and because that their "solutions" always end creating far more problems than they intended to correct.
Very few, on the other hand there are quiet a few would catch fire when hit hard on the sides, where the gas tank is, which wouldn't happen with this Tesla Model.
The fact is these cars were only hit because the drivers were speeding too much and failed to avoid the collision, and in all cases the cars took considerable time to catch fire, warned the drivers in advance and the drivers escaped unscathed.
In all three cases the fire was caused by an event that rarely causes a fire in a conventionally powered car.
In the second case it was a direct hit at high speed against an immovable target. Fires are actually relatively common in non electric cars, and fire or not death is relatively common in these situations. The driver escaped unscathed in this case, though.
In the first and second case the case was hit very hard, again at high speeds, by a large object on the road that punctured through their shielding and hit the battery. And yes, the combustion engine cars usually do not have their energy source in the front, but there are cases, and they are not rare, of cars hit on the sides and catching fire. Additionally these Model S cars didn't lose stability or control and detected the failure quickly enough to allow the drivers to pull over and leave in safety in both cases.
In all three cases the drivers seem to be very satisfied with the degree of safety those cars provided then in the extreme situations they found themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, lets talk about the Nordic model then. due to the crisis in the 90's the Nordic countries started to change their economic and political models to accommodate reality. Currently their governments have in average half the size it had in the 80`s and they are going each year more in the right wing direction, because there is only so much you can do in social democracy until the money ends. Norway is still a bit behind in these changes because of the oil, but it won`t last forever.
If they succeed and keep going into this direction chances are that they will recover, but then again they will be nearer US model than they ever by then. On the other hand, if they turn around and decide to go back to their former social democrat model they will become what Portugal and Spain are today, sooner or later.
What has anything of this to do with regulating economical power?
They never "regulated" the military. The military is paid by the government and is part of it.
The government enforces immigration, because immigrants do not vote against them and no immigrants do.
The government does enforce laws, usually in favor of corporations, and product safety regulations only helps corporations, because the costs are 100% repassed to the consumer and the costier things are the harder it is for competition to enter the market.
In conclusion I challenge you to find any regulation case against corporations that haven't ended benefiting the very corporations that they were supposed to keep under control at the cost of the consumer.
My answer is, we should do what works best, and what works best has never been government regulation.
But you can keep deluding yourself and thinking that an angelic government may come to be that will protect you from economic power even though by doing that they will be going against their own interests. Suit yourself.
And you, my friend, has a really strong case of naivety.
You should do it. You will realize that the angry mobs were only the maneuver mass. What really made the revolution possible was the interest of the ones that had the economical power and wanted to take political power from nobility, the Bourgeoisie.
The best analogue for it today would be the people taking down the president and the congress and putting corporation executives in their place.
Corporations weren't successful controlled anywhere in the world, much less in US. Actually in US it can be said that it was always the other way around, my friend. History revisionism is not cool.
I see you have absolutely no clue about what is happening in Venezuela. They have shortages of everything including Toilet Paper. They are quickly becoming New Cuba and things will only go downhill from now on.
Angry mobs can't curb them either because they have better resources and better weapons if violence comes to be.
Competition can control them, though, and it does work. A simple example I give you is the car industry. In US there is no barrier for car imports. There is free and unimpeded competition, and, as consequence, it has the cheapest cars in the world and the most competitive market.
Compare to Brazil, for example, where there are only 4 major companies in the market and huge barriers to importation. Even taking into consideration the greater taxes, cars here are much more expensive and the profit margin much greater than there, and these companies use government regulation to keep competition outside the market.
That is what always happens when you try to use government to control corporations. They go to bed together and both the government and the corporations get much more power than they would have alone. It has never worked as intended and cannot work.
Of all countries US is one of the last in the failing list. Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba and most of socialist Latin America, on the other hand are in utter misery. Social Democrat countries in Latin America and Europe, as France, Spain, Portugal, Brazil and Argentina are not that bad but waaay worse than US.
China is indeed doing fine (compared to what it has been during its communist phase), but it is probably one of the countries who is most practicing free market in the world currently.
So, you see the farther you go from Free Market the poorer the economy of a given country does. You can analyze any country throughout its history.
Exactly. It is simply unenforceable. It is just populist bullshit, in exactly the same way as raising taxes on corporations which end being 100% transferred to consumers. Corporations have way too many ways to work around regulations, and even to buy and warp them to strengthen their positions and block competition many times.
It is past time for people to start realizing that the government is not a solution against corporation abuse and will never be.
It would never work because there are many alternative means, besides salaries, to transfer wealth and it is impossible to control all of them. If a corporation thinks it is worth it to pay millions to a person it will find a way to do so.
if it won't do its job, we rework it
And fail miserably while trying to do so...
Being manipulated is very different from offering consistent returns. All markets and currencies are manipulated. Bitcoin is just more volatile than most currently, and as such an easier target for manipulation.
BTC has everything BUT unusually consistent returns. It fluctuates widely.
Correction: Social Democracy, which is a bastard child of Socialism and Capitalism is working very poorly in Europe. That is why most countries that adopted this systems are currently going further and further into the right wing and diminishing the size of the state in their economy, like Sweden and Finland. In both these countries the size of the state is half of what it was 10 years ago and it will most likely keep shrinking, simply because they ran out of money. Norway has oil and thus sometime to go yet, but sooner or later it will get there too.
Same thing happened to France sometime ago, and in only didn't happen with Germany, because Germany proactively started cutting its social expenses for some time. Countries like Portugal and Spain didn't have the same good sense though and are facing a very hard crisis as consequence.
And no, the Muslims, Turkish, Algerian and Romanian immigrants are not "used" to divide the "working class", they are desperate people looking for a better life in more developed countries. And they would have their chance if those countries were more like 19th Century US, but unfortunately the paternal welfare states will always lack the resources to absorb poor people immigrating from outside.
So, in short, no, Socialism, isn't going well neither in Europe nor in anywhere else.
The point of civilization is to create a group effort to dominate, my friend. Any civilization that existed up to this day and that will likely exist in the future is based on power, coercion and violence, and without exception their rules are defined by those who hold power, be it by numbers, military technology or religious doctrine.
The only real difference between civilization and anarchy is that civilization is able to enforce rules and apply violence more efficiently by creating hierarchies and laws.
And we are much better than Monkeys, my friend, exactly because we can take it all from them, not because any naive and illusory notion of caring. We do care as individuals, in a limited way, for others, especially the close ones, but as soon as you start to dig deeper you will understand how shallow this caring is.
That is why socialism never worked and never will. Any system based on a illusion completely removed from human reality is due to collapse, for more than it may appease your moral notions.
You are never going to get rid of it, but the more power you give to a government the more strong Cronyism gets. And the guys who get in charge will always be much much worse than the greed rich guys you so much detest. History is there to prove it.
And you seem to be very confused by Cultural Marxist propaganda. Although Fascism is indeed a subset of Socialism, Mao's China and Stalin's USSR were the prime examples of Communist Socialism, while Hitler's Nazism was an example of Nationalist Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism were an example of Fascist Socialism.
Socialism means only that all political and economical power is centralized, and there is absolutely no example in human History where this didn't end very badly.
The truth is, there was no implementation of Socialism that didn't make the middle class and the poor worse than they were before it. On the other hand the systems that most improved the lives of these people were those that most approached a free market system. Coincidence? I am sure you believe that, as you also believe that the mystic "correct" implementation of Marxism will come someday. A hint: it won't.
Nah, socialism just makes the government bigger and cronyism easier. Rich and powerful people can always buy their way through bureaucracy, and for them, the more the better because it raises the bar for everyone else.
The ones that are really screwed by socialism are middle class and poor people.
One rich guy can't hold back the rest of society and that is exactly why capitalism works, because to gather your resources and to keep them you must provide what people want to buy and better than the competition.
Nope. Far from it. You on the other hand is admitting you have absolutely no clue about what is fascism...
I am not advocating such thing. I am actually very much in favor private property defended by law. Although in the end the differences only resides in who exerts the force, as any law derives its power from its enforcer capacity to inflict violence.
Might is indeed right, be it personal might, financial might or political might. There is no exception. Blaise Pascal has a very interesting essay on the subject that should be elucidative for you:
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/pascal/pensees-b.html
Your mistake comes from the belief that people "deserve"something or not. From the dawn of life in this world resources are owned by those capable of keeping their ownership, and the only meaningful definition of "earning" is exactly that, being able to gather and keep the resources.
The basis of socialism, that everything belongs to everybody, is as much an artificial construct as the notion of legal property in capitalism. The difference between the two is that the latter actually have improved the lives of most people everywhere it was applied, while the former never did.
So, in short you may believe in any definition of "earning" your Marxist religion tells you to, but keep in mind it is a religious belief and nothing else, and the practical results talk against you.
The problem socialists have is that in their arrogance they think they can control everything including human nature. They are the ones that oversimplify things, and because that their "solutions" always end creating far more problems than they intended to correct.
Very few, on the other hand there are quiet a few would catch fire when hit hard on the sides, where the gas tank is, which wouldn't happen with this Tesla Model.
The fact is these cars were only hit because the drivers were speeding too much and failed to avoid the collision, and in all cases the cars took considerable time to catch fire, warned the drivers in advance and the drivers escaped unscathed.
In all three cases the fire was caused by an event that rarely causes a fire in a conventionally powered car.
In the second case it was a direct hit at high speed against an immovable target. Fires are actually relatively common in non electric cars, and fire or not death is relatively common in these situations. The driver escaped unscathed in this case, though.
In the first and second case the case was hit very hard, again at high speeds, by a large object on the road that punctured through their shielding and hit the battery. And yes, the combustion engine cars usually do not have their energy source in the front, but there are cases, and they are not rare, of cars hit on the sides and catching fire. Additionally these Model S cars didn't lose stability or control and detected the failure quickly enough to allow the drivers to pull over and leave in safety in both cases.
In all three cases the drivers seem to be very satisfied with the degree of safety those cars provided then in the extreme situations they found themselves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law