His instructions. From the Alien Overlords, Tri-lateral commission, Illuminati, CowboyNeal, or whatever other conspiracy that you believe is really controlling everything.
They have no government at all. Right, the lesson to be learned from Somalia is that some centralized government, preferably a democratic elected government, with armed force is necessary to maintain lawful society and keep the peace. I have never advocated anarchy as the solution to big government because obviously people will behave badly when there is absolutely nothing, except perhaps the strength of their opponents, from taking whatever they want from their neighbors by force. Somalia clearly demonstrates why "no government" doesn't work. However, no government is NOT the same thing as limited government and therefore it is necessary to state and defend the distinction.
Makes you wonder how long we need to support the programmer welfare for Boeing's "software engineers" and their 60 million line monstrosity if it can all be done with 400 times less code than that? Very few decisions in government, and particularly technical decisions, are based upon logic or reason but rather upon the shifting sands of the political calculus and the wonderfully irrational conclusions reached by our politicians. The private sector is becoming just as bad in many ways, albeit with less red tape. My own theory is that the generally decreasing number of Americans with a background in science, engineering, or mathematics in relation to the overall population is leading us towards a more politically correct, willfully ignorant, and reactionary society that is increasingly abandoning logic, reason, and the scientific method for whatever is politically acceptable and expedient or fits with what the marketers, pollsters, and politicians are trying to sell this week.
As for aiding the poor... food aid clobbers the only useful sector of third world economies, and agricultural tariffs prevent them from getting any realistic prices for what's left. The third world is left with no way to better themselves. They end up dependent on handouts from rich countries. Precisely, and it is first world farmers, particularly in France but also here in the United States (where there are many agribusinesses as well as a declining number of family farms), who form powerful special interests that lobby for the continuation of agricultural subsidies, food-aid, and other policies that ensure poverty for billions of their third world counterparts. The issue of farms subsidies has brought world trade talks to a standstill year after year as blocks of third world nations demand (rightfully) an end to agricultural subsidies under the WTO rules and wealthy first world countries, such as the United States, refuse to budge.
Another common rejoinder of the anti-capitalism crowd is that more government is needed to control the markets when in fact it is very often the government itself which is captured and controlled by the corporations and special interests. There are some people who will simply never accept the possibility, despite all evidence to the contrary, that minimal government combined with free markets produces the greatest amount of wealth and prosperity for everyone. The poor will always be among us, no matter what we do, but at least the in capitalist system, if allowed to work and combined with minimal government, their numbers will be minimized.
it's about time they got paid for their overtime AND STILL recieved a salary commensurate with the difficulty of their jobs and the level of their education. Salary is dependent upon the demand for a particular type of labor and the supply of workers available to fill that demand. It has nothing to do with the difficulty of the labor, the amount of time spent in school to gain necessary degrees, etc. Now, jobs which require extensive education have historically paid better because it cost both time and money to acquire the necessary skills to fill the position and even then not everyone in the society was capable of doing that so the supply remained low relative to the demand and wages were high. However, as societies have become more open due to globalization and increasing numbers of qualified people in formerly closed economies, such as India and China, have entered into the job market with the same or similar education and skills it has driven down the wages of better educated workers in the first world, despite the fact that the jobs in question require highly specialized skills and education which are difficult and require a great deal of effort to obtain. Just as the price of a good or service is not determined by the value of the labor that went into creating it, the so-called defunct labor theory of value, the value of the labor itself is not determined by the difficulty of the education or training required to qualify for the job in question.
He should definitely let his counsel know about Recording Industry vs The People which is a wonderful source of briefs, documents from related cases, decisions, and other strategies and tactics used by others defending cases against the RIAA and the music labels. Perhaps NewYorkCountryLawyer or his firm can help him out if can scrape together a few bucks to pay their fees.
It would suck to realize that your industry was subject to a disruptive technology that was already well past the tipping point. They have nobody to blame for that but themselves. They tried to ignore digital music and when that didn't work they tried to sue the file sharing companies and when that didn't work they tried to sue their users and now it is too late for them to do anything about it. The big music companies may fall, but new companies, probably smaller labels, will rise from their ashes to continue the music business in some new shape or form, probably live performances and tours. As recorded digital music becomes ever more common, ubiquitous, and cheap the cachet and desirability of hearing a live performance at a good venue with the intimacy of the band and the full richness of live sound will probably become more popular, particularly if the ticket prices are reasonable. The music business will continue, just not in its present form and (hopefully) not with the MAFIAA and their big label backers.
Your comments imply that hippies took over the colleges, which is why universities are perceived to have a left wing bias Perhaps not the hippies in a literal sense, but certainly by those who claim to be or are their spiritual successors in interest. There is most definitely a left wing bias in the American universities today with the possible exception of a few conservative and small private colleges or fringe institutions.
The reason "campus Republicans" are perceived to be the campus underdogs is that at this point in history the right tends to produce ideologues, who don't deserve and rarely qualify for university positions. The left produces its fair share of ideologues as well, Ward Churchill for example.
This lack of open-mindedness is the biggest hinderance to right-leaning scholars playing a bigger role on campuses. Except that many on the left are so open-minded that their brains seem to have fallen out the backs of their collective heads and their common sense along with them.
The ideologues have all the answers and simply must find away to make data and evidence fit their ideology; Sounds like Noam Chomsky to me.
whereas, a credible and open-minded conservative can soundly analyze data, let chips fall where they may. This is what Bill O'Reilly does every night.
The manufactured threat that accompanied the run up to the Iraq war is a perfect example of the soft thuggery of the neocons (leave out contradictory evidence, use the most bizarre interpretation of data--the Al centrifuge tubes come to mind). Neocon is a subset of conservative it does not encompass all things conservative.
Bring back the buggy, unforseen, wild, insulting, violent mess that was Ultima Online back in the early years. Perhaps not the paper doll graphics mind you, but I agree with you on the spirit of the game. The thing that was cool about the original Ultima Online was that with the exception of the major cities, anyone could kill anyone else at anytime and anywhere and for whatever reason. The quests and areas were more interesting because they were not instanced so you never knew what was going to happen. Sure, your avatar died lots but that is what made the game exciting was that luck and skill factor.
But once you're done leveling, the game is over. Which is why many of these games end up being little different than a regular CRPG, like the Baldur's Gate saga, except that CRPGs usually have better and more involved PvE stories than MMORPGs do. It is surprising to me that World of Warcraft would not try to maximize the real strengths of online play while at the same time attempting to compete on features where the regular CRPG has a tremendous advantage. They should focus on the strengths of online play rather than attempting to shore up weak areas that will never be as good as regular CRPG storylines which can be much more epic in scale and involved in setting.
That reminds me of those IBM ads where the office nerds in their makeshift office armor (Japanese Kabuto style helmet made out of a binder w/chair shield if I recall) battle the "hacker" barbarians attempting to "get into" the network.
I doubt even 1% have ever done more than asking for a little off their bill this month for an ISP outage I always try and get a deal when I can. I even try to get deals on things which I actually don't care much about, just to see if I can get the deal and to keep my negotiating skills sharp. As you say, most people would be surprised at how often this effort pays off in the form of a substantial discount (about 30% of the time or so in my own experience) or in more frequent if modest discounts for much of the remainder.
Yeah but in these days of corporatocracy, who wants to actually provide better service to their consumers The corporations themselves will be forced to do so as soon as competition arrives with better service and disruptive technology. It is competition that will force them to give the consumer what they want. You have the power of the purse here so use it to make your displeasure known when a better alternative comes along OR call up the corporation and demand a better rate and threaten them with cancellation if they do not make concessions. The squeaky wheel gets the grease after all.
The "right to drive a car to work" is not exactly a basic human right. That depends upon who you ask, but have you taken the bus recently in any major metropolitan area? Let us simply say that one meets "interesting" people on the bus and leave it at that. I will keep my car thank you very much, it is worth every penny.
And indeed, I have a problem with the government that subsidies mega corporations There is something that we agree on completely. The subsidies must end. No more corporate welfare. As for limited liability, I believe that it is on balance more positive than negative, but we obviously disagree on that point.
it should be that companies should be making concessions to me in order to have my vote to retain their legal existence. So take a hard line in the negotiation and demand concessions, but do not be surprised if they tell you where to put your concessions. It is easier to attract flies with honey than with vinegar after all. As for voting, the trouble with voting is that we all have only one vote, no matter how important a particular issue is to us, and we are frequently forced to chose some things at the expense of others (i.e. no candidate perfectly represents any one voters views...or at least that is very rare). In the marketplace we can spend more or less of our available income on greater or lesser quantities of a tremendous variety of goods and services, but we generally cannot do that when we vote (imagine having only one dollar to spend every four years, it would be tough to fully express our consumer desires with only that one dollar to spend). I enjoy the freedom to vote and I think democracy is a good thing, but lets be honest here: voting is about as close to all of this and nothing of that we as individuals can get when it comes to making economic decisions. Just listen to the campaign speeches or the debates, the positions are very well staked out now and I for one don't much care for any of the candidates with the possible exception of Ron Paul and even he is not perfect. Imperfect choices for an imperfect world I suppose.
The people in your camp certainly seem to outnumber the few libertarians among us so all I can say in reply is vote for your mixed economy and wealth redistribution and see where that goes. My fellow libertarians and I will be waiting at the end of that ruinous road to greet you and say, "we told you so". As for my job going to India, it already has and I have moved on to a new one. They moved my cheese so I found something else. I suggest you do the same.
Actually, companies routinely try to push back on work orders after work has commenced and work has been completed.
That is what the courts are for. If the contract is clear and the work was provided then they will not have a leg to stand on for not paying.
No its not. It's a contractual obligation for a service provided.
Errr...not quite. Most people place money in a separate category because of its supreme liquidity (i.e. you can spend it on anything you want right now). Borrowing money is not the same thing as paying for a good or service, it is a special case. However, if you feel that you have been treated unfairly or that the contract is unfair then the courts await your fair hearing. The companies may bet that you won't take them to court, but it is surprising how quickly they pay out after your lawyer calls. If the company won't honor the contract then call their bluff and take them to court.
Arguing that we should equate a business relationship with a corporation as a personal promise is utterly ridiculous.
It is an individual promise. If you do not keep your promise to pay back, whether that be to a person or a company, then don't be surprised when others, whether they be people or companies, are reluctant to loan money to you again in the future. If you want access to credit in the future then you have to pay your dues, it is really that simple.
Companies break every promise they ever make. Products do not live up to advertised promises, services do not live up to promises
Talk is cheap, get it in writing.
and companies routinely say in nearly every contract that they make that they reserve the right to change its terms simply because they do not feel like keeping up with their so-called promises.
They can say whatever they want in the contract, but what is actually enforceable in court is another matter entirely.
Companies and corporations were created, originally, to benefit society in general and it is debatable at this point whether or not they have lived up to that very fundamental promise!
Corporations were created to benefit the shareholders and owners not society per se although they often have the effect of benefiting society, even though there are abuses from time to time. What is the alternative? Government planning and central control? Corporations may be somewhat bad, but most people who have lived under central planning would agree that the government can be even worse.
So, my argument to you is, surely, if you believe in promises so much, then really, why should what you say to any company even matter, when, at the end of the day, no company will keep its word with you.
I have never had a company fail to fulfill the terms of a contract that I entered into with it. I have sometimes had to renegotiate the contracts periodically, but you would be surprised how willing most companies are to negotiate. Many consumers simply take whatever terms are initially offered because they dislike confrontations or they are weak willed, but negotiation and court if necessary can generally get you what you want and if they cannot, well you are always free to say "no" or go somewhere else.
You argue against government intervention as a moral wrong
Not morally wrong, but rather undesirable. The government has to provide some things (i.e. military, laws, courts, police, etc.) but that does not mean that I want them providing everything.
So, for you to say that government is evil and private sector is good, is simply disingenous, as you cannot have today's private sector without the government!
Government is not "evil" and the private sector is not "good" they are simply different ways of organizing society and production. I prefer the private sector because it is my opinion and the opinion of a great many others that they produce a better outcome on the whole of it then
Companies DO cut your paycheck when they don't feel like paying you any more
Perhaps, but have you ever NOT been paid for work that you have already done? Even if you are laid off or fired you still received a final check for any work outstanding for which you have not yet been paid.
Go ahead, please make that argument to any contractor whose gone through rate reviews or December freezes or any employee whose had their pension cuts, benefits cut, raises frozen or salaries cut. All of that is rather common in the USA today.
In all of those cases which you mention they are reducing future payments which is NOT the same thing as refusing to pay bills already incurred. Unless you have a contract with them spelling out future salary or benefits over a fixed period of time (this is what unions attempt to do for their members, albeit inefficiently, for this precise reason) then they are perfectly within their rights to do so. If you don't like the terms then you can quit and find another job or else you can suck it up and continue working.
So yeah, companies do not pay their bills, and they only pay people when they want to. Why shouldn't I act like they do?
An actual person can be put in prison whereas a corporation cannot.
Corporate america has limited liability. If Enron goes belly up, or if other companies do not pay their bills, the people who own the company, ie, the shareholders, do not have to pay any of the debts.
That is a good thing. Who would take the risk of sticking their neck out with an investment if they thought that the lawyers would strip them of their personal assets when the venture went south? Probably not many people and they would certainly demand a very high rate for their level of perceived risk. If you don't protect investors then nobody in society gets any sort of credit. If you think that credit is not important than take a look at countries like Bangladesh where industrious people are condemned to poverty not because they are not willing to work or have no skills, but simply because they cannot even get a loan of $40 US dollars to get started in a business or a trade.
That's patently a right that I as an individual do not have.
Any individual who files the papers and pays the filing fees can start his or her very own corporation or trust fund which provides the same sort of personal liability and asset protections of the big corporations. Most people simply do not have enough assets to protect to merit the additional complication at tax time, but the same legal advantages of the corporation remain open to you as they do to all citizens.
Please, tell me what moral code requires me to pay a credit card company?
Do you know what it means to have credit? What is credit? Credit is your promise to repay in the future, possibly with interest, what you have borrowed today. Credit is your word of honor or your promise. Do you break promises that you make simply because you may not like the person to whom you made the promise? If you don't want to bear that burden then don't make the promise in the first place (i.e. don't use the credit card to borrow money).
Islamic countries don't, not even to this day.
Are you a Muslim? Perhaps you can emigrate to a Muslim country if you like their terms better than ours. However, even the Muslims, the more secular minded among them anyway, take out loans with interest and borrow money on credit cards. If these loans are not offered then there are alternative schemes which circumvent the prohibition on charging interest in Islam with fractional ownership structures and rents which amount to very nearly the same thing in the end (i.e. Islamic Mortgage) at least from a functional standpoint (i.e. the borrower makes payments for something).
Charging interest is a -sin-. Even under catholicis
You can't say that they you are free to choose your own destiny and succeed and fail on your merits when any established player uses a deep layer of patent, copyright, insider contracts and market force to crush you? Patents, copyright, and to some extent insider contracts exist because of government interventions not because people are free to buy from and sell to whomever they please. One cannot make good the effects of government interventions with even more interventions. That too has been tried and failed. The fact that these impediments exist in our system today is not a failing of capitalism per se but rather the result of an attempt to create a mixed system.
I mean, if we were as free as you suggest, then, should I not just be able to develop a word processor, a car, or a CPU? Nobody is stopping you, but from a practical standpoint a single individual, however smart and industrious, is limited simply because certain modern goods and services requires millions of man hours and tons of resources to produce. You could still go into the processor business if you wanted to. The practical barrier of entry might be high due to high capital startup costs, need of specialized skills and expertise, and myriad other difficulties but that is true in any free system and no amount of government intervention is going to change that without destroying the industries that it seeks to change.
Social stability matters, and there is none, when at any given moment you might find yourself without a job because they just yanked your business to India or some other third world country. So take some responsibility for your own situation. Save some of your money for hard times and buy assets instead of spending it all on depreciable liabilities every month. I am not saying that you personally do not do these things, maybe you do, but there are tons of people out there with a flat screen TV, boat or RV, and myriad other pieces of depreciable personal property complaining about how they can't save anything for tough times or they aren't getting ahead. People make poor choices, but that is not my problem and it shouldn't be the government's problem either. If you are an adult and want adult privileges then you have take on adult responsibilities and that includes making your own choices and enjoying the rewards or suffering the consequences.
but, really, the basic purpose of a class being allowed to rule is that we expect that class to bring home the bacon for the rest of us. You speak as if their success was only by the leave of the rest of us, when in fact that is not necessarily the case. In the past, when kings or warlords raised armies and conquered neighboring lands they did not take or receive by the leave of the conquered, but by their right of victory and success. The people in charge are very often in charge because they were successful, not because they inherited their position (there are few reigning hereditary monarchs with any real power left these days). I have no responsibility to bring home the bacon for you or anyone else and neither do you. The world doesn't owe me or you or indeed anyone else a living, we earn a living and succeed or fail based upon our own efforts and merits.
Seriously, why pay your bills, if, at the end of the day, your mortgage is held by a foreign country or a credit card is issued by a foreign bank, and the interest really is so much imaginary money designed to pad the pockets of someone whose already far richer than you'll ever be? Think about how you would feel if they didn't cut your paycheck because they didn't feel like paying you what you were owed and you will see your answer. A responsible adult pays her bills period. Any attempt to rationalize not paying ones bills is going to be met with unsympathetic ears by the vast majority of hard working people everywhere.
so put away the McCarthyism. The GP suggests that "they should be shot" which strongly implies either an anarchist or communist type of outlook.
Without getting into a lengthy debate, let me just say that it was not socialism that brought you the improved living conditions that we have today, but rather sustained economic growth over a long period of time. The difference between the average American lifestyle today and the poor people living in Africa is 238 years of relatively sustained economic growth, sometimes faster and sometimes slower and with the occasional backtracking due to recessions. It WAS the free market that achieved the good things that people generally attribute to unions and socialism. The sweat shop was a necessary transitional phase on the road to economic growth. You enjoy a better life today because your grandparents and their parents had the courage to suck it up and provide a better life for their children and their children's children. They had the ability to look beyond themselves to the future and that is something that is becoming lost in America today.
What is capitalism but freedom? Freedom to buy from and sell to whomever you want, the freedom to spend or save your own money as you see fit and the freedom to choose your own destiny and succeed or fail based upon your own merits, luck, efforts, and hard work. Why should we seek to limit the freedom of the individual to live his life as he chooses? If you are talking about a mixed system then you are talking about taking away freedom and self determination to a greater or lesser degree and that is the great trap of socialism. In order to redistribute you must first take by force and that is the opposite of freedom.
and he's much more focused on cutting down the excessive spending that the Republicans have led us to over the last nearly 8 years. If you really want to see wasteful spending cut then you should be voting for Ron Paul because he is the only one with the credibility to actually do it or try to. If you vote for anyone else then don't fool yourself, government spending will continue to increase our of proportion to actual revenues. Ron Paul is the only candidate who is really serious about making spending cuts and keeping taxes low.
So what are you trying to say, "workers of the world unite" or perhaps, more to the point, "death to the bourgeoisie"? Communism has already been tried and failed in every meaningful instance of national scale. The Chinese are communists now in name only and the other few remaining communist states are ruthless, authoritarian, or both.
Nope, most states have laws in place to protect "good samaratins" from legal reprecusions. Generally speaking, if you were genuinely trying to help and your help was not specifically denied or the victim was unable to respond one way or another then regardless of the outcome you will not be prosecuted or be held liable for trying to render assistance, however bumbling and ineffective that assistance may turn out to be, in good faith.
If foreigners are so smart, why do they have to come to the US for jobs? They come here precisely because they are smart. As bad as the US government is in terms of taxation and economic policy it is still easier for a smart individual to get ahead in the United States than it is in many other parts of the world. Thus, in light of the higher pay, lower taxes, better recognition for intellectual accomplishments (i.e. bonus, raises, and promotions) it is easy to see why many smart people, particularly in medical research for example, choose to work in the United States, if possible, rather than remain in their native country where they will take a bath in taxes and generally receive less financial reward for their work. Does this answer your question?
Why are people surprised noone wants to go into engineering in the US: stagnant wages, offshoring, age discrimination, long hours. Perhaps, but even so it is still better than many of the alternatives. I often hear the lament, particularly from new college graduates, that offshoring is killing their job opportunities or that their wages are stagnant and any number of other gripes with the possible exception of age discrimination. Personally, I think that these perceptions have more to do with the so called "praise generation" which was raised by their parents with statements like "you're special", "award for participation", and "it's not important what other people think, but only how you feel about yourself". Is it any wonder that we have raised a generation of young adults who have a highly inflated opinion of themselves with insatiable egos who think that the world is their oyster and should dance to their tune? Many of these praise generation youths are getting their first taste of the real world now and they are shocked with the realities of not making 100k right out of college, not having the luxury car and the fancy house, and generally not being the all important center of attention. All I can say is, "welcome to the first day of the rest of your life".
It's still possible for the runner to compete, so long as he does not use equipment that gives him an unfair advantage. There is a fine line between giving him an advantage and hobbling him with a qualified disadvantage (i.e. equipping him with standard prosthetic legs which are not designed for competitive running). This is bound to come up more and more in the future of the Olympic Games as certain nations, China for example, will be tempted to begin experimenting with genetically enhanced athletes or perhaps even true bionic implants eventually.
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Another common rejoinder of the anti-capitalism crowd is that more government is needed to control the markets when in fact it is very often the government itself which is captured and controlled by the corporations and special interests. There are some people who will simply never accept the possibility, despite all evidence to the contrary, that minimal government combined with free markets produces the greatest amount of wealth and prosperity for everyone. The poor will always be among us, no matter what we do, but at least the in capitalist system, if allowed to work and combined with minimal government, their numbers will be minimized.
He should definitely let his counsel know about Recording Industry vs The People which is a wonderful source of briefs, documents from related cases, decisions, and other strategies and tactics used by others defending cases against the RIAA and the music labels. Perhaps NewYorkCountryLawyer or his firm can help him out if can scrape together a few bucks to pay their fees.
That reminds me of those IBM ads where the office nerds in their makeshift office armor (Japanese Kabuto style helmet made out of a binder w/chair shield if I recall) battle the "hacker" barbarians attempting to "get into" the network.
The people in your camp certainly seem to outnumber the few libertarians among us so all I can say in reply is vote for your mixed economy and wealth redistribution and see where that goes. My fellow libertarians and I will be waiting at the end of that ruinous road to greet you and say, "we told you so". As for my job going to India, it already has and I have moved on to a new one. They moved my cheese so I found something else. I suggest you do the same.
Actually, companies routinely try to push back on work orders after work has commenced and work has been completed.
That is what the courts are for. If the contract is clear and the work was provided then they will not have a leg to stand on for not paying.
No its not. It's a contractual obligation for a service provided.
Errr...not quite. Most people place money in a separate category because of its supreme liquidity (i.e. you can spend it on anything you want right now). Borrowing money is not the same thing as paying for a good or service, it is a special case. However, if you feel that you have been treated unfairly or that the contract is unfair then the courts await your fair hearing. The companies may bet that you won't take them to court, but it is surprising how quickly they pay out after your lawyer calls. If the company won't honor the contract then call their bluff and take them to court.
Arguing that we should equate a business relationship with a corporation as a personal promise is utterly ridiculous.
It is an individual promise. If you do not keep your promise to pay back, whether that be to a person or a company, then don't be surprised when others, whether they be people or companies, are reluctant to loan money to you again in the future. If you want access to credit in the future then you have to pay your dues, it is really that simple.
Companies break every promise they ever make. Products do not live up to advertised promises, services do not live up to promises
Talk is cheap, get it in writing.
and companies routinely say in nearly every contract that they make that they reserve the right to change its terms simply because they do not feel like keeping up with their so-called promises.
They can say whatever they want in the contract, but what is actually enforceable in court is another matter entirely.
Companies and corporations were created, originally, to benefit society in general and it is debatable at this point whether or not they have lived up to that very fundamental promise!
Corporations were created to benefit the shareholders and owners not society per se although they often have the effect of benefiting society, even though there are abuses from time to time. What is the alternative? Government planning and central control? Corporations may be somewhat bad, but most people who have lived under central planning would agree that the government can be even worse.
So, my argument to you is, surely, if you believe in promises so much, then really, why should what you say to any company even matter, when, at the end of the day, no company will keep its word with you.
I have never had a company fail to fulfill the terms of a contract that I entered into with it. I have sometimes had to renegotiate the contracts periodically, but you would be surprised how willing most companies are to negotiate. Many consumers simply take whatever terms are initially offered because they dislike confrontations or they are weak willed, but negotiation and court if necessary can generally get you what you want and if they cannot, well you are always free to say "no" or go somewhere else.
You argue against government intervention as a moral wrong
Not morally wrong, but rather undesirable. The government has to provide some things (i.e. military, laws, courts, police, etc.) but that does not mean that I want them providing everything.
So, for you to say that government is evil and private sector is good, is simply disingenous, as you cannot have today's private sector without the government!
Government is not "evil" and the private sector is not "good" they are simply different ways of organizing society and production. I prefer the private sector because it is my opinion and the opinion of a great many others that they produce a better outcome on the whole of it then
Companies DO cut your paycheck when they don't feel like paying you any more
Perhaps, but have you ever NOT been paid for work that you have already done? Even if you are laid off or fired you still received a final check for any work outstanding for which you have not yet been paid.
Go ahead, please make that argument to any contractor whose gone through rate reviews or December freezes or any employee whose had their pension cuts, benefits cut, raises frozen or salaries cut. All of that is rather common in the USA today.
In all of those cases which you mention they are reducing future payments which is NOT the same thing as refusing to pay bills already incurred. Unless you have a contract with them spelling out future salary or benefits over a fixed period of time (this is what unions attempt to do for their members, albeit inefficiently, for this precise reason) then they are perfectly within their rights to do so. If you don't like the terms then you can quit and find another job or else you can suck it up and continue working.
So yeah, companies do not pay their bills, and they only pay people when they want to. Why shouldn't I act like they do?
An actual person can be put in prison whereas a corporation cannot.
Corporate america has limited liability. If Enron goes belly up, or if other companies do not pay their bills, the people who own the company, ie, the shareholders, do not have to pay any of the debts.
That is a good thing. Who would take the risk of sticking their neck out with an investment if they thought that the lawyers would strip them of their personal assets when the venture went south? Probably not many people and they would certainly demand a very high rate for their level of perceived risk. If you don't protect investors then nobody in society gets any sort of credit. If you think that credit is not important than take a look at countries like Bangladesh where industrious people are condemned to poverty not because they are not willing to work or have no skills, but simply because they cannot even get a loan of $40 US dollars to get started in a business or a trade.
That's patently a right that I as an individual do not have.
Any individual who files the papers and pays the filing fees can start his or her very own corporation or trust fund which provides the same sort of personal liability and asset protections of the big corporations. Most people simply do not have enough assets to protect to merit the additional complication at tax time, but the same legal advantages of the corporation remain open to you as they do to all citizens.
Please, tell me what moral code requires me to pay a credit card company?
Do you know what it means to have credit? What is credit? Credit is your promise to repay in the future, possibly with interest, what you have borrowed today. Credit is your word of honor or your promise. Do you break promises that you make simply because you may not like the person to whom you made the promise? If you don't want to bear that burden then don't make the promise in the first place (i.e. don't use the credit card to borrow money).
Islamic countries don't, not even to this day.
Are you a Muslim? Perhaps you can emigrate to a Muslim country if you like their terms better than ours. However, even the Muslims, the more secular minded among them anyway, take out loans with interest and borrow money on credit cards. If these loans are not offered then there are alternative schemes which circumvent the prohibition on charging interest in Islam with fractional ownership structures and rents which amount to very nearly the same thing in the end (i.e. Islamic Mortgage) at least from a functional standpoint (i.e. the borrower makes payments for something).
Charging interest is a -sin-. Even under catholicis
Without getting into a lengthy debate, let me just say that it was not socialism that brought you the improved living conditions that we have today, but rather sustained economic growth over a long period of time. The difference between the average American lifestyle today and the poor people living in Africa is 238 years of relatively sustained economic growth, sometimes faster and sometimes slower and with the occasional backtracking due to recessions. It WAS the free market that achieved the good things that people generally attribute to unions and socialism. The sweat shop was a necessary transitional phase on the road to economic growth. You enjoy a better life today because your grandparents and their parents had the courage to suck it up and provide a better life for their children and their children's children. They had the ability to look beyond themselves to the future and that is something that is becoming lost in America today.
What is capitalism but freedom? Freedom to buy from and sell to whomever you want, the freedom to spend or save your own money as you see fit and the freedom to choose your own destiny and succeed or fail based upon your own merits, luck, efforts, and hard work. Why should we seek to limit the freedom of the individual to live his life as he chooses? If you are talking about a mixed system then you are talking about taking away freedom and self determination to a greater or lesser degree and that is the great trap of socialism. In order to redistribute you must first take by force and that is the opposite of freedom.
So what are you trying to say, "workers of the world unite" or perhaps, more to the point, "death to the bourgeoisie"? Communism has already been tried and failed in every meaningful instance of national scale. The Chinese are communists now in name only and the other few remaining communist states are ruthless, authoritarian, or both.
Nope, most states have laws in place to protect "good samaratins" from legal reprecusions. Generally speaking, if you were genuinely trying to help and your help was not specifically denied or the victim was unable to respond one way or another then regardless of the outcome you will not be prosecuted or be held liable for trying to render assistance, however bumbling and ineffective that assistance may turn out to be, in good faith.