jail terms for directors. It's the only way corporations will change their ways. Why should a corporation as a whole be held to a lesser moral standard than an individual is?
Better: jail terms for shareholders. Why should the owners of the corporation (who choose the directors) be held to a lesser moral standard than other individuals?
The exodus from the Church of Finland is just another example of the desire of citizens to opt out of certain government services that do not serve them. As an American I would like to opt out of Social Security, farm subsidies, K-12 public schools, and public television.
Bzzzzt! Wrong! Public education serves everyone, most especially the ones who are upper class and/or business owners. . . . Everyone benefits.
Actually, compulsory public education systems have pretty much always been implemented for the purpose of encouraging blind obedience to those in power (either the State or the Church), not for any particular economic advantage. Voluntary education programs are generally forced to remain politically and religiously neutral to maintain attendance; compulsory attendance was introduced mainly to get around that limitation on State power. A good reference on the history of compulsory public education programs can be found in Education: Free and Compulsory, by economist, historian and political theorist Murray N. Rothbard. It's quite an interesting read.
This is not to say that there aren't benefits to having an educated workforce, much less that education isn't beneficial on an individual level; both are generally true. Modern public schools, however, tend to do very little educating, in favor of "progressive" programs designed to eliminate all traces of individuality and creativity. Just look at the typical "curriculum" in most of our schools; it's clear that their function is to squeeze as many children as possible into a perfect conformist mould. What little education does occur is little more than an excuse to justify the continuation of the system to the (now relatively uneducated) taxpayers.
</end-rant> You may now return to your regularly scheduled life. Don't forget to stop by the clinic for your monthly mind purge -- if you let those yucky cynical thoughts build up you might just end up becoming a libertarian! You wouldn't want that to happen, would you?:-)
That's better than nothing, at least -- maybe then they'll have a chance to actually get enough power to make a difference!
I agree that it's better than nothing, and better than the current system. I'd rather have the LP in control than either of the two major parties, and I hope that they do manage to "make a difference." I just hope that they don't confuse their means with their destination, or lead others to do so. People have a tendency to look at the LP and see their proposals as authoritative, as if the term "libertarian" was defined by the LP and not visa-versa, which inevitably leads to confusion when those proposals (such as the ones discussed previously) are only liberal by comparison to the current policies. (This is a particularly acute issue when those proposals advocate the creation of new taxes and regulations, since both are very much against the underlying principles the LP was founded on.)
Of course, my impression is the opposite: the LP still seems to be too radical for many people to accept.
I concur. There are also a fair number of people unwilling to join or vote for the LP simply because they're a third party, and thus (historically) unlikely to achieve a majority vote (this is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy, BTW). There are others (particularly libertarians) who are opposed to voting in the first place, because it can be seen as giving support to the majority-rule system, and thus subtly subverting libertarian principles. Lastly, there are many individuals (a.k.a. "busybodies" or "politicians") who are fundamentally opposed to the exercise of liberty by others, and who instead favor a system that gives control over legalize coercion to them instead -- the "freedom means 'free to do as your told'" and "it's for your own good" crowds. I don't think that this last group is in the majority, but they do tend to be more vocal than the rest; I doubt this group could every be entirely content in a liberal society (i.e. a society built on liberty for all).
Inflation can only go through the roof if the government print lots of extra money. Money's a commodity like anything else, supply and demand. . . . If you live in the US, you have a boatload of inflation coming your way in the next few years.
While I agree with the principle here, don't forget that with legalized banking fraud ("fractional reserve banking") they don't have to actually print more money to increase the effective amount of currency; they can simply lower the mandantory reserve ratio. Should the LBF system ever fail, the FDIC will be forced to step in and print massive amounts of paper currency to back all those accounts.
Conversely, credit contraction (higher interest rate & reserve ratio) has a deflationary effect equivalent to that of taking paper currency out of circulation. While I do believe that the long-term trend is toward inflation, indications are that we may be approaching a credit contraction phase, and thus short-term deflation. It may or may not manage to balance out the overall inflationary trend, but it's something to watch for none the less.
True, but there are laws that regulate the prices of these types of monopolies. You'd better count them as owned by the government.
I don't really consider the telcos to be "owned" by the government, but I do consider their regulations to be part of the anti-trust laws (albiet a part that only applies to telcos).
Actually, how do you think these kinds of monopolies come into existance? If you think about big businesses, you'll see that they have a lot of advantages over the small ones:
Advertisment is cheaper. MUCH cheaper.
They can dump prices for a substantial amount of time.
The government is usually afraid of big businesses going bankrupt (unemployment and so on), therefore in case of emergency they can call for support. It is not illegal or something, that is policy.
I believe that we are in agreement on the fact that incumbent monopolies have advantages not generally available to startups. I don't consider this to be a problem by itself; often these advantage work to the consumer's favor. For example, advertising is definitely cheaper when you don't have to out-market your competition. Cheaper advertising lowers the cost of selling the product, and may reduce prices as well (with an increased supply), depending on the specifics of the market. The transaction costs of dealing with a monopoly are often lower due to economies of scale. The point is: not all monopolies are bad for consumers; artificially creating competition where none naturally exists may make things worse rather than better.
The point about dumping is true, but irrelevant. The practice of dumping is beneficial to consumers in the short term, and cannot harm long-term competition; the competitors, with their lower (and perhaps non-existant) costs, can wait out the incumbent for as long as it takes. Finally, I believe that I specifically stated that government-created artificial monopolies do have the properties you described. While the practice may not be illegal, that would include inefficient companies bailed out by the government. If a company chooses to accept the government's (i.e. the taxpayer's) funding, then it should be prepared to deal with the consequences (anti-trust regulations). Unsubsidized companies, however, should not be subject to the same constraints. (Incidently, why would the government declare something it wanted to do "illegal" in the first place?)
Monopolies try to preserve their state. That is natural. Everybody tries to do it. If left on their own, they can do it forever, because they have the money, therefore they have the power. And yet again, these kings of tactics hurt everyone but the competitor. They are illegal for monopolies, because the monopolies have the strength needed to lock the market. That is why the government have to intervene, not because it is "fair".
I agree with the first three sentences. I disagree on the point that monopolies can continue to exercise active anti-competitive influences indefinitely. Even if they can manage to retain their cash reserves, doing so will reduce their flexibility and raise their costs, making their target market even more attractive to (potential) competitors and increasing the costs of maintaining the monopoly -- a self-defeating cycle. I also find it ironic that you would have the government -- the ultimate monopoly power -- step in to eliminate its economic competition and take control of the market. Even assuming that this is not contradictory, I would still conclude that application of antitrust law to unsubsidized private organizations is both unjust and unjustified.
For all I know laws are passed so people can live better. If that is achieved through business, so be it. But, in the end, it is the PEOPLE that matter.
Laws are passed so that justice will be preserved; living better is onl
So, a chair that it took me 30 minutes, a few bits of wood, a few nails and an hour or so to make is worth more than a theory that is the culmination of thirty years or more of work?
It certainly can be worth more; the chair may perform its intended function, while the theory may be completely nonsensical (or, more likely after 30 years, obsolete). The time spent working is not an accurate measure of the resulting value, except perhaps for the value to the producer itself. Effort is only worth anything if the result of that effort has value to someone.
On the other hand, I do agree that people can and do value immaterial things. I am opposed to arbitrary, coercive monopolies on data and/or algorithms (a.k.a. "IP") for entirely different reasons.
Libertarianism isn't necissarily opposed to taxes and regulations. It is opposed to FORCED taxes and regulations. Taxes should be "optional" in the sense that if you "use" (buy/sell/trade) something that is taxed, you are volunteering to pay/levy that tax.
You do realize that this policy would justify every existing form of regulation and taxation? Income, after all, is nothing more than a straight trade, currency for labor. Even inheritance taxes would be justified, since inheritance is a gift from one person to another, and gifts are merely a subset of trades in which "goodwill" is traded for tangible property. What, then, would you consider a "forced" tax, since you have apparently chosen to define all taxes and regulations as "voluntary"?
More generally, any claim by a third party for a portion of the goods exchanged in any trade against the will of both the buyer and the seller must be considered theft from a libertarian point of view. That includes all taxes, which -- by definition -- differ from trades only in that they are coerced, i.e. non-voluntary. That has always been the libertarian position, despite the claims of the so-called Libertarian Party to the contrary. The LP has been sacrificing libertarian principles for political power for some time now; their present goals, while more liberal than the two major parties, are hardly "libertarian" in nature.
Ask everybody here and he will say to you that antitrust laws are good.
Here's one who disagrees (after a fair amount formal and informal of study). The only justifiable use of anti-trust laws is to regulate government-created monopolies (the telcos, for example). They created that mess, it's only right that they should clean it up. For private, unsubsidized organizations, however, even potential competition is sufficient to avoid "market failure" over the long term. Sure, a few billion dollars in cash reserves can hold real competition off for a fair amount of time, even without the government's assistance, but those reserves must eventually be exhausted. In the meantime consumers benefit from the below-cost pricing and other marketing incentives. Besides bribing the government for increased regulation (raising the long-term legal and financial barriers to entry for the market), all of the efforts of the incumbent organization to hold off competition can only serve to gradually undermine the incumbent's position.
Take, for example, the practice of "dumping" a product on the market (selling it below cost to make competition unprofitable). This requires existing cash reserves, and it loses the company money over time (and is thus unsustainably over the long term). Additionally, a smart startup would use the opportunity to buy its competitor's products below cost, selling them at a profit once the incumbent's reserves are expended. Far from destroying the competition, the "monopoly's" efforts can serve only to ultimately strengthen their opponents position -- trading short-term monopoly gains for a long-term loss of market share. Similar principles apply to such "undesirable" monopoly practices as bundling, price-fixing, and horizontal and vertical market integration; none of these methods can save an inefficient company from competition in the end, and they can all be used by efficient producers (even monopolies) to the benefit of the consumers.
There are loads of jobs which pay minimum wage, however they are jobs that need to be done - or stuff would just start to fall to pieces. Should people working these jobs be forced to hold 2-3 jobs and work 60-80 hour work weeks while getting paid peanuts simply because they may not be 'glamorous jobs'[.]
First let me say that I believe that the whole "forced to hold 2-3 jobs and work 60-80 hour work weeks" thing is both overstated, and (to the extent that it is not overstated) due to poor and "policy-biased" education. The government wants meek, obedient consumers to solidify its own power and to "stimulate the economy", and thus schools teach exactly that, churning out perfect little subjects for our New Democratic Empire (note the sarcasm). (It is interesting to note that before the advent of mandantory public schools, most individuals owned their own businesses. The school system has clearly reshaped the population in that regard. That, however, is a topic for another debate.)
People with no real, marketable skills leave school thinking that they have a "need" for, or a "right" to, a level of consumption that their productivity cannot accomodate, and thus the multiple jobs and overwork. It shouldn't be difficult (in the USA) to find adequate food and shelter for a family with a single job; it may require a bit of looking around, and possibly moving to a less costly area, or to one with better job opportunities. Some individuals or families may choose not to do so, depending on their own priorities, but that doesn't mean that the opportunity doesn't exist, provided their expectations are reasonable.
Going back to the situation at hand, the minimum-wage workers are clearly not opposed to their own choice of job, which would include the level of pay they were offered; in most cases the alternative was probably unemployment, since there are no (legal) lower-paying jobs. They could have attempted to negotiate for a higher wage, but in all likelihood there were many others presently unemployed who would have "jumped at the chance" to land an unskilled job at the original, minimal wage, and thus there is no reason for the employer to pay more than the minimum, reducing his own profits and those of the business (which would later be reinvested in expanding the business, creating more jobs and improving the general standard of living). As far as I can see, no rights have been violated here; it would, in fact, appear to be the best possible outcome under the circumstances. Why then all the opposition?
I love that idea that if minimum wage was raised, Wal-Mart would be forced to cut workers, rather than reduce their huge profit line to meet the new line.
If I have one worker, and I pay him $15,000 a year, and I make a profit of $60,000 a year, and the government raises his minimum wage to $20,000 a year, I can still make a big profit and afford him.
I seriously doubt that most minimum-wage workers have a productivity four times their annual pay rate. You can't just count take-home pay here, or even "gross income" before taxes -- it costs the company quite a bit extra per employee for training, mandantory services and procedures, matching payroll taxes, etc., and these costs (excepting payroll taxes) do not scale with the employee's income, so minimum-wage workers tend to cost employers more in indirect expenses. There is a profit margin there, but it isn't as much as you appear to assume. If that margin did not exist, then the company (and the jobs) wouldn't exist either.
. . . If minimum wage is raised, Wal-Mart doesn't have to cut marginalized jobs. They can also raise the costs of their products, or *gasp* not profit *as much* as they were. Profit is still profit. If you can pay a certain wage and make a profit, then that wage is not detrimental to the job market. . ..
Prices are set so as to maximize revenues -- this is basic Econ 101 here. Changing the prices, in either direction, would reduce revenues. As I have argued above, companies do not have the kinds of margins that you're claiming they have; a reduction in revenue will result in cuttings costs, including both customer service and marginal employees. Also, "making a profit", no matter how small, isn't enough reason to run a business; the amount of profit matters as well. If an invester (or business owner) can make a greater profit in another line of work, then the company will close, eliminating numerous jobs.
Of course the goal is to maximize profit, but it's maximizing it *under certain conditions*, which include providing your workers with a livable wage. If the only reason Wal-Mart executives take home huge paychecks (executive : laborer pay ratios are at an all-time high) and I have cheap goods at Wal-Mart is because they aren't paying their workers a livable wage, that's not a sufficient reason to continue paying their workers that same wage.
The "goal" (as you put it) is nothing more or less than to carry out the will of the corporation's shareholders -- a "profit", yes, but not necessarily in a monetary sense. If you think that offering these laborers what you consider to be a "livable wage" is more important than making a profit, then why don't you offer them something better? (Hint: you won't be able to offer them much at all if you don't manage to make a profit first.) The "executive : laborer pay ratios" are a non-sequitor in this context; the executives are appointed, not be magic, but by the shareholders, as their representives and managers of the company. If anyone ought to be upset about excessive executive pay rate, it would be the shareholders (the owners of the corporation and all its assets, including all profits). Since they generally don't seem to mind, I must conclude that the skills necessary to manage a company of that magnitude are probably quite rare, and/or the risks of being such a manager are quite high. Certainly very few of the workers you're siding with would be qualified for the job. Finally, the only justification that they need for continuing to pay their workers their current wages is that their workers agree to it. Their competition (real or potential) hasn't found a way to pay any better, or they would be forced to adapt.
The truth (ie reality, not econ 101 theory) is that we have been on a major trend of reverse distribution of wealth - the rich get richer, the po
Well, that's the thing. Extreme capitalism is just another form of extreme opression [sic]: work like a dog and do what you're told, or be homeless. That's the biggest problem with not having a liveable minimum wage... everyone lives in fear of losing their paycheck.
Are you trying to say that you believe someone else (perhaps everyone else?) owes you a "living wage"? On what basis do you come to that conclusion?
All that minimum wages do is eliminate the marginal jobs, increasing unemployment. Some people do benefit -- those who were already productive to a greater extent than the new minimum wage, or who possess the skills and motivation to become more productive. The rest, no longer cost-effective to employ, will simply be laid off. Since productivity is often correlated with education, and education with wealth, minimum wages tend to eliminate the low-tech and unskilled positions generally held by the very people you're trying to benefit.
Don't let that stop you, though. Why not raise the minimum? While you're at it, why not just set the minimum at a real living wage -- like $75,000 or $100,000/yr.? Wouldn't that make everyone better off? (Obviously not, but I'll leave you to contemplate why this is, and how it applies to the problem of minimum wages in general.)
Also, if you aren't logged in but fill in the username and password on the "Post Comment" page (as was apparently the case for the GGP) you don't have to complete the CAPTCHA.
1) Create and enforce real liability for loss of personal data. . ..
2) Create and enforce real responsibility of credit providers and credit bureaus. . ..
Alternately, we could simply require secure proof of identity when entering into a contract, such as a loan agreement, credit card application, or electronic fund transfer. Logically, if the other party cannot prove that you agreed to the terms in the first place -- as is the current case, with rampant identity fraud and nonexistant authentication -- then it should not be able to enforce those terms against you, or be permitted to claim that you violated the agreement.
To be secure, such an authorization scheme would have to be based on a challenge-response protocol, ensuring that the electronic "signature" cannot be duplicated for later fraudulent use by the recipient. It's not really all that hard; we've been doing exactly this in software for some time now. The authentication systems currently in use in the financial world are akin to RLOGIN -- they're only secure if you trust both the communications channel the entity you're authenticating with. This is unacceptable; we need something more akin to SSH with RSA private keys. The primary (and perhaps the only) obstacle is simply that humans don't do secure challenge-response very well without assistance; some kind of simplified PDA would probably be necessary to manage keychains and to handle the cryptographic details.
One additional advantage of this approach would be that it could be employed for online retailers just as easily and securely as for brick-and-mortar stores.
I have a Xilinx FPGA experimentation/evaluation board. The total cost involved in getting started: $100. I ordered the board itself off of Xilinx's web site, and they offer the synthesis and simulation software (native Linux version included!) as a free download (it's also included in the box). The board comes with a manual, and features a "200,000-gate" FPGA, two serial interfaces (one RS-232 port and a bare connector), a 3-bit VGA interface (I've managed 800x600 so far), a PS/2 port (keyboard or mouse), a number of on-board switches and LEDs, four 7.1-segment displays, and three 40-pin external interfaces. The FPGA can handle internal clock rates in excess of 200 MHz, driven by an external 50MHz crystal oscillator. There's a socket for user-installed crystals as well.
I can't seem to find the original board I ordered, but you can find a much better one (64MB DDR SDRAM! Includes a CPLD on-board! I kind-of wish I'd waited a bit...) for $150 + shipping in their online store. The software can be downloaded free from their website (free registration required).
I wasn't trying to imply that either extreme could be implemented in practice, only that one must either eliminate differences in status altogether (communism) or exercise absolute control over individual activity (fascism) to completely eliminate the advantages that a student derives from the social status and wealth of its parents.
And just for the record, not all libertarians have that utopian view of human nature you (and I) so despise. You don't have to believe that human beings are inherently good to think that concentrating "authoritative" coercive power in the hands of a few individuals is a bad idea -- whether self-appointed or elected, it makes little difference in the end. I particularly liked this quote: "Libertarians are especially bad because they get a lot of things right, but can't put it all together into a workable philosophy of governance." Perhaps the reason for this is that one of the basic principles of libertarianism (and voluntaryism/anarcho-capitalism) is that society should not be governed in the first place? Or more precisely, that no form of coercion can be considered legitimate, including coercion applied by an entity calling itself a government?
I believe this kid-tracking service was previously (c. 2000) marketed to parents in Europe, then subsequently the ability to turn it off was marketed to the kids.
War is good for business. Selling to both sides, doubly so.
Labor creates all wealth, not the other way around[.]
Actually, investment creates wealth. Labor is a resource which cannot be stored; it is always used up immediately. The result of labor can either be durable (an investment, creates wealth) or non-durable (instant gratification, does not create wealth). Subsistance living, for example, is quite labor-intensive, but results in little long-term wealth due to the near-total absense of investment. Without his investment in his small business those jobs would not exist in the first place. Further Information is available about the nature and importance of capital investments in the creation of wealth.
[I]t does, requires reading more at that link
[quote snipped]
Actually, that quote doesn't specify the actual standards at all -- just the names of two certification agencies, and the fact that such agencies are approved by the USDA. However, after a bit of searching on the USDA NOP website, I found a reference to the actual standards (over 500 pages in the PDF version!), which should put this argument to rest in your favor.
But in the end, whether they work hard or not (I personally have known teachers that do not fit the workaholic description you give above), the market determines their pay.
[The parent is] under some sort of delusion about what "the market" is if [it] think[s] that government paid jobs whose raises are up the whim of the state legislature or governor are subject to the whims of "the market." [It] must have some very strange definition of "market" that includes politics as a deciding factor. Unlike a normal free-market driven job, the quality / quantity of labor does not affect profits, since there is no profit in teaching -- a necessity to keep education universal. The same forces are not at work as in a regular free market job.
For the most part I agree that teachers are not employed in a free market -- because of taxation. Unless the states have begun drafting teachers against their will, you can't say that the wages and benefits the state is offering are somehow "too low"; the teachers chose their professions (for whatever reasons) knowing what they were likely to receive in compensation. If anything, the ability of the state to tax its citizens to fund otherwise unprofitable enterprises could only server to increase the wages paid to teachers and other government employees, since the state is under no economic pressure to control costs. (There is political pressure to do so, but this is generally less effective, as the penalty for failing to control costs is unpopularity and possibly a change in leadership, not bankruptcy.)
Furthermore, why must there be no profit in teaching? There must certainly be some profit in the work of teaching itself, or few would choose teaching as a profession to begin with. Why should the school itself not be rewarded for the useful service of selecting competent teachers, or providing quality teaching environments?
Universal access to education (for those who could not otherwise afford it) is a matter of charity, whether provided forcibly by the state (through taxes) or voluntarily by its citizens. True, not all students will receive equal qualities of education; some parents have access to more extensive resources, some may be willing to sacrifice more, some may choose to live in areas with better schools, etc. Short of implementing either absolute communism or absolute fascism, you cannot eliminate the variances in quality of education resulting from these differences. I would personally say that it would be wrong to attempt to do so, as I do not see anything wrong in principle with passing one's own investments on to one's children (or grandchildren, as the case may be).
Of course not, [the parent] apparently think[s] that the reward of acting for the benefit for others and the reward of indulging in selfish pleasures are equivalent and should be equally unpaid. It's just a shame that people like teachers are dependent on uninformed or uncaring voters like [the parent] for their salaries.
Choosing to do something knowing that it will result in little or no compensation beyond the feeling that you're "benefiting others" in no way compels others to reciprocate. If any teacher feels that it's being taken advantage of by the current system, it's free to choose another line of work.
They would, except that the ones you cited don't address the meaning of the "organic" certification itself, but rather the labelling of products that include certified "organic" ingredients. Unless they actually bother to define the conditions required to receive "organic" certification, the labelling is still essentially meaningless.
That's very unlikely, assuming that these capacitors can reach the power densities that current NiMh cells can.
The current needed to charge them so fast is tremendous, the cells would explode.
For example, for a AA cell of 2000 mAh, you would need 720 Amperes to charge in 10 seconds, or 1.44 KA to charge in 5 seconds.
OK, so it would take eight (8) minutes to charge your 2000 mAh capacitor from a standard household 15 amp circuit; less if you use a dedicated high-current circuit (which could be 50+ amps). That's still a major improvement over even rapid battery chargers, which generally require an hour or more to fully charge a battery with similar capacity.
This could be a serious blow to the F35 which only has a reduced frontal RCS as a result of cost saving measures. The F22 and B2 should still do alright, especially if they can get lost in ground clutter.
It's ironic that the ingenuity of (mostly) US developers will help degrade the effectiveness of something that the US taxpayer has spent 50 years supporting the development of.
I, for one, would rather look forward to the potential improvements in defensive technologies (such as improved missile defense systems and better radar detection of threatening aircraft) than lament the reduced effectiveness of our stealth technology, particularly as stealth abilities appear to be primarily offensive in nature (at least when used against the ground-based radar systems of foreign countries). Can anyone name a good defensive use of radar stealth technology, for that matter? I don't know of any myself.
I think that if we put even half the effort into improving our defensive technologies as we put into subduing every potential attacker, we would (for all practical purposes) be able to simply ignore them by now. Consider that the only countries that can attack the U.S. by land are Mexico and Canada; everyone else has to attack either by air (planes and missiles), or by sea. Either way, the primary obstacle to prevention is accurate and reliable detection of the attack, which this passive radar SDR system would help to eliminate. Missiles would still be an issue, since they're hard to take down even with good radar tracking, but I'm optimistic that we could find ways to do it effectively given enough time.
Handling interference issues would appear to me to be fairly straightforward: just use a few of these SDR systems to track all the transmitters operating in the area. If one person's transmitter interferes with something important (like an emergency-band transmission), make the operator of the interfering equiptment liable for the consequences. The same principle could be applied to personal and commercial use, with the first user of a range of spectrum granted priority use within the receiving area and corresponding civil protection from interfering transmissions.
Markets fail when scarcity is involved. They cease to be efficient, the very definition of failure, so your statement that you cannot have a market until there is scarcity is just plain wrong.
This is precisely backwards. A lack of scarcity would mean that the resource was in infinite supply and non-differentiable (any given unit of the good is equivalent to any other). A good example of such a resource is air: the supply is (effectively) infinite, and (ignoring pollution in some areas) one liter of air is the same as any other for the purpose of breathing. Non-scarce resources aren't marketable -- who would trade for something that is in infinite supply? Anything that isn't effectively infinite in supply, or which is differentiable, is by definition scarce. Markets not only function properly in the presence of scarce goods, they can only exist for such goods. The allocation of scarce goods is the one and only reason for trade, and thus markets in general. The more scarce something is, the more important it is that the principles of free trade (private ownership and non-coercion) are observed.
Under the current system the best parts of the spectrum go to those with the most money not necessarily those with the best ideas.
Not that I disagree, but in general isn't it true that those who can't get the funding to purchase access to a suitable part of the radio spectrum don't have the best ideas? Or at least were evidently incapable of convincing the VCs that their ideas were feasable?
As a scarce resource, I would agree that portions of the radio spectrum should be privately ownable (for a specific geographical area) in the same way as land or other forms of scare resources. As such, any dispute regarding interference should grant priority to the first user of the spectrum within the area, or said user's contractual successor, with the loser paying any reasonable damages to the winner. This system allows immediate use of presently-unused parts of the spectrum, protects against intentional and unintentional interference, and applies market principles to spectrum ownership in a way that ensures the eventual allocation of spectrum to the most desired uses. It also eliminates the barrier-to-entry that results from a flat ban on non-interfering "pirate" transmissions, which should result in increased experimentation and a wider range of choices in communications.
Seems to me you're neglecting the cost/benefit ratio. If it costs X to fix a problem experienced by everyone, and it only costs Y to compensate the N number of people who actually suffer, and X is greater than Y, then why fix it? Cheaper to simply live with it and pay 'em off.
If, on the other hand, each of those N people can hit you for a significant sum, then you have an incentive to actually spend those dollars up front.
This is entirely true. However, assuming that the negligent individuals are forced to compensate the victims for full damages (medical costs, opportunities lost, "pain & suffering", etc.[1]), if the cost of fixing the problem is greater than the overall damage avoided by doing so, then all involved would actually better off with the original problem than the supposed "solution"!
[1] This assumes that all damages can be covered by financial compensation, of course. Most of the time this is so, but there are some kinds of damage (like a wrongful death, or pain & suffering) that cannot be so compensated. I am not opposed to the imposition of arbitrary punitive compensation for such non-financial forms of damage. Such punitive compensation would most likely increase exponentially with multiple occurrances so as to make them a more effective preventative measure.
Slashdot Mirror
Better: jail terms for shareholders. Why should the owners of the corporation (who choose the directors) be held to a lesser moral standard than other individuals?
Actually, compulsory public education systems have pretty much always been implemented for the purpose of encouraging blind obedience to those in power (either the State or the Church), not for any particular economic advantage. Voluntary education programs are generally forced to remain politically and religiously neutral to maintain attendance; compulsory attendance was introduced mainly to get around that limitation on State power. A good reference on the history of compulsory public education programs can be found in Education: Free and Compulsory, by economist, historian and political theorist Murray N. Rothbard. It's quite an interesting read.
This is not to say that there aren't benefits to having an educated workforce, much less that education isn't beneficial on an individual level; both are generally true. Modern public schools, however, tend to do very little educating, in favor of "progressive" programs designed to eliminate all traces of individuality and creativity. Just look at the typical "curriculum" in most of our schools; it's clear that their function is to squeeze as many children as possible into a perfect conformist mould. What little education does occur is little more than an excuse to justify the continuation of the system to the (now relatively uneducated) taxpayers.
</end-rant> You may now return to your regularly scheduled life. Don't forget to stop by the clinic for your monthly mind purge -- if you let those yucky cynical thoughts build up you might just end up becoming a libertarian! You wouldn't want that to happen, would you? :-)
That's correct.
I agree that it's better than nothing, and better than the current system. I'd rather have the LP in control than either of the two major parties, and I hope that they do manage to "make a difference." I just hope that they don't confuse their means with their destination, or lead others to do so. People have a tendency to look at the LP and see their proposals as authoritative, as if the term "libertarian" was defined by the LP and not visa-versa, which inevitably leads to confusion when those proposals (such as the ones discussed previously) are only liberal by comparison to the current policies. (This is a particularly acute issue when those proposals advocate the creation of new taxes and regulations, since both are very much against the underlying principles the LP was founded on.)
I concur. There are also a fair number of people unwilling to join or vote for the LP simply because they're a third party, and thus (historically) unlikely to achieve a majority vote (this is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy, BTW). There are others (particularly libertarians) who are opposed to voting in the first place, because it can be seen as giving support to the majority-rule system, and thus subtly subverting libertarian principles. Lastly, there are many individuals (a.k.a. "busybodies" or "politicians") who are fundamentally opposed to the exercise of liberty by others, and who instead favor a system that gives control over legalize coercion to them instead -- the "freedom means 'free to do as your told'" and "it's for your own good" crowds. I don't think that this last group is in the majority, but they do tend to be more vocal than the rest; I doubt this group could every be entirely content in a liberal society (i.e. a society built on liberty for all).
While I agree with the principle here, don't forget that with legalized banking fraud ("fractional reserve banking") they don't have to actually print more money to increase the effective amount of currency; they can simply lower the mandantory reserve ratio. Should the LBF system ever fail, the FDIC will be forced to step in and print massive amounts of paper currency to back all those accounts.
Conversely, credit contraction (higher interest rate & reserve ratio) has a deflationary effect equivalent to that of taking paper currency out of circulation. While I do believe that the long-term trend is toward inflation, indications are that we may be approaching a credit contraction phase, and thus short-term deflation. It may or may not manage to balance out the overall inflationary trend, but it's something to watch for none the less.
I don't really consider the telcos to be "owned" by the government, but I do consider their regulations to be part of the anti-trust laws (albiet a part that only applies to telcos).
I believe that we are in agreement on the fact that incumbent monopolies have advantages not generally available to startups. I don't consider this to be a problem by itself; often these advantage work to the consumer's favor. For example, advertising is definitely cheaper when you don't have to out-market your competition. Cheaper advertising lowers the cost of selling the product, and may reduce prices as well (with an increased supply), depending on the specifics of the market. The transaction costs of dealing with a monopoly are often lower due to economies of scale. The point is: not all monopolies are bad for consumers; artificially creating competition where none naturally exists may make things worse rather than better.
The point about dumping is true, but irrelevant. The practice of dumping is beneficial to consumers in the short term, and cannot harm long-term competition; the competitors, with their lower (and perhaps non-existant) costs, can wait out the incumbent for as long as it takes. Finally, I believe that I specifically stated that government-created artificial monopolies do have the properties you described. While the practice may not be illegal, that would include inefficient companies bailed out by the government. If a company chooses to accept the government's (i.e. the taxpayer's) funding, then it should be prepared to deal with the consequences (anti-trust regulations). Unsubsidized companies, however, should not be subject to the same constraints. (Incidently, why would the government declare something it wanted to do "illegal" in the first place?)
I agree with the first three sentences. I disagree on the point that monopolies can continue to exercise active anti-competitive influences indefinitely. Even if they can manage to retain their cash reserves, doing so will reduce their flexibility and raise their costs, making their target market even more attractive to (potential) competitors and increasing the costs of maintaining the monopoly -- a self-defeating cycle. I also find it ironic that you would have the government -- the ultimate monopoly power -- step in to eliminate its economic competition and take control of the market. Even assuming that this is not contradictory, I would still conclude that application of antitrust law to unsubsidized private organizations is both unjust and unjustified.
Laws are passed so that justice will be preserved; living better is onl
It certainly can be worth more; the chair may perform its intended function, while the theory may be completely nonsensical (or, more likely after 30 years, obsolete). The time spent working is not an accurate measure of the resulting value, except perhaps for the value to the producer itself. Effort is only worth anything if the result of that effort has value to someone.
On the other hand, I do agree that people can and do value immaterial things. I am opposed to arbitrary, coercive monopolies on data and/or algorithms (a.k.a. "IP") for entirely different reasons.
You do realize that this policy would justify every existing form of regulation and taxation? Income, after all, is nothing more than a straight trade, currency for labor. Even inheritance taxes would be justified, since inheritance is a gift from one person to another, and gifts are merely a subset of trades in which "goodwill" is traded for tangible property. What, then, would you consider a "forced" tax, since you have apparently chosen to define all taxes and regulations as "voluntary"?
More generally, any claim by a third party for a portion of the goods exchanged in any trade against the will of both the buyer and the seller must be considered theft from a libertarian point of view. That includes all taxes, which -- by definition -- differ from trades only in that they are coerced, i.e. non-voluntary. That has always been the libertarian position, despite the claims of the so-called Libertarian Party to the contrary. The LP has been sacrificing libertarian principles for political power for some time now; their present goals, while more liberal than the two major parties, are hardly "libertarian" in nature.
Here's one who disagrees (after a fair amount formal and informal of study). The only justifiable use of anti-trust laws is to regulate government-created monopolies (the telcos, for example). They created that mess, it's only right that they should clean it up. For private, unsubsidized organizations, however, even potential competition is sufficient to avoid "market failure" over the long term. Sure, a few billion dollars in cash reserves can hold real competition off for a fair amount of time, even without the government's assistance, but those reserves must eventually be exhausted. In the meantime consumers benefit from the below-cost pricing and other marketing incentives. Besides bribing the government for increased regulation (raising the long-term legal and financial barriers to entry for the market), all of the efforts of the incumbent organization to hold off competition can only serve to gradually undermine the incumbent's position.
Take, for example, the practice of "dumping" a product on the market (selling it below cost to make competition unprofitable). This requires existing cash reserves, and it loses the company money over time (and is thus unsustainably over the long term). Additionally, a smart startup would use the opportunity to buy its competitor's products below cost, selling them at a profit once the incumbent's reserves are expended. Far from destroying the competition, the "monopoly's" efforts can serve only to ultimately strengthen their opponents position -- trading short-term monopoly gains for a long-term loss of market share. Similar principles apply to such "undesirable" monopoly practices as bundling, price-fixing, and horizontal and vertical market integration; none of these methods can save an inefficient company from competition in the end, and they can all be used by efficient producers (even monopolies) to the benefit of the consumers.
First let me say that I believe that the whole "forced to hold 2-3 jobs and work 60-80 hour work weeks" thing is both overstated, and (to the extent that it is not overstated) due to poor and "policy-biased" education. The government wants meek, obedient consumers to solidify its own power and to "stimulate the economy", and thus schools teach exactly that, churning out perfect little subjects for our New Democratic Empire (note the sarcasm). (It is interesting to note that before the advent of mandantory public schools, most individuals owned their own businesses. The school system has clearly reshaped the population in that regard. That, however, is a topic for another debate.)
People with no real, marketable skills leave school thinking that they have a "need" for, or a "right" to, a level of consumption that their productivity cannot accomodate, and thus the multiple jobs and overwork. It shouldn't be difficult (in the USA) to find adequate food and shelter for a family with a single job; it may require a bit of looking around, and possibly moving to a less costly area, or to one with better job opportunities. Some individuals or families may choose not to do so, depending on their own priorities, but that doesn't mean that the opportunity doesn't exist, provided their expectations are reasonable.
Going back to the situation at hand, the minimum-wage workers are clearly not opposed to their own choice of job, which would include the level of pay they were offered; in most cases the alternative was probably unemployment, since there are no (legal) lower-paying jobs. They could have attempted to negotiate for a higher wage, but in all likelihood there were many others presently unemployed who would have "jumped at the chance" to land an unskilled job at the original, minimal wage, and thus there is no reason for the employer to pay more than the minimum, reducing his own profits and those of the business (which would later be reinvested in expanding the business, creating more jobs and improving the general standard of living). As far as I can see, no rights have been violated here; it would, in fact, appear to be the best possible outcome under the circumstances. Why then all the opposition?
I seriously doubt that most minimum-wage workers have a productivity four times their annual pay rate. You can't just count take-home pay here, or even "gross income" before taxes -- it costs the company quite a bit extra per employee for training, mandantory services and procedures, matching payroll taxes, etc., and these costs (excepting payroll taxes) do not scale with the employee's income, so minimum-wage workers tend to cost employers more in indirect expenses. There is a profit margin there, but it isn't as much as you appear to assume. If that margin did not exist, then the company (and the jobs) wouldn't exist either.
Prices are set so as to maximize revenues -- this is basic Econ 101 here. Changing the prices, in either direction, would reduce revenues. As I have argued above, companies do not have the kinds of margins that you're claiming they have; a reduction in revenue will result in cuttings costs, including both customer service and marginal employees. Also, "making a profit", no matter how small, isn't enough reason to run a business; the amount of profit matters as well. If an invester (or business owner) can make a greater profit in another line of work, then the company will close, eliminating numerous jobs.
The "goal" (as you put it) is nothing more or less than to carry out the will of the corporation's shareholders -- a "profit", yes, but not necessarily in a monetary sense. If you think that offering these laborers what you consider to be a "livable wage" is more important than making a profit, then why don't you offer them something better? (Hint: you won't be able to offer them much at all if you don't manage to make a profit first.) The "executive : laborer pay ratios" are a non-sequitor in this context; the executives are appointed, not be magic, but by the shareholders, as their representives and managers of the company. If anyone ought to be upset about excessive executive pay rate, it would be the shareholders (the owners of the corporation and all its assets, including all profits). Since they generally don't seem to mind, I must conclude that the skills necessary to manage a company of that magnitude are probably quite rare, and/or the risks of being such a manager are quite high. Certainly very few of the workers you're siding with would be qualified for the job. Finally, the only justification that they need for continuing to pay their workers their current wages is that their workers agree to it. Their competition (real or potential) hasn't found a way to pay any better, or they would be forced to adapt.
Are you trying to say that you believe someone else (perhaps everyone else?) owes you a "living wage"? On what basis do you come to that conclusion?
All that minimum wages do is eliminate the marginal jobs, increasing unemployment. Some people do benefit -- those who were already productive to a greater extent than the new minimum wage, or who possess the skills and motivation to become more productive. The rest, no longer cost-effective to employ, will simply be laid off. Since productivity is often correlated with education, and education with wealth, minimum wages tend to eliminate the low-tech and unskilled positions generally held by the very people you're trying to benefit.
Don't let that stop you, though. Why not raise the minimum? While you're at it, why not just set the minimum at a real living wage -- like $75,000 or $100,000/yr.? Wouldn't that make everyone better off? (Obviously not, but I'll leave you to contemplate why this is, and how it applies to the problem of minimum wages in general.)
Also, if you aren't logged in but fill in the username and password on the "Post Comment" page (as was apparently the case for the GGP) you don't have to complete the CAPTCHA.
Alternately, we could simply require secure proof of identity when entering into a contract, such as a loan agreement, credit card application, or electronic fund transfer. Logically, if the other party cannot prove that you agreed to the terms in the first place -- as is the current case, with rampant identity fraud and nonexistant authentication -- then it should not be able to enforce those terms against you, or be permitted to claim that you violated the agreement.
To be secure, such an authorization scheme would have to be based on a challenge-response protocol, ensuring that the electronic "signature" cannot be duplicated for later fraudulent use by the recipient. It's not really all that hard; we've been doing exactly this in software for some time now. The authentication systems currently in use in the financial world are akin to RLOGIN -- they're only secure if you trust both the communications channel the entity you're authenticating with. This is unacceptable; we need something more akin to SSH with RSA private keys. The primary (and perhaps the only) obstacle is simply that humans don't do secure challenge-response very well without assistance; some kind of simplified PDA would probably be necessary to manage keychains and to handle the cryptographic details.
One additional advantage of this approach would be that it could be employed for online retailers just as easily and securely as for brick-and-mortar stores.
I have a Xilinx FPGA experimentation/evaluation board. The total cost involved in getting started: $100. I ordered the board itself off of Xilinx's web site, and they offer the synthesis and simulation software (native Linux version included!) as a free download (it's also included in the box). The board comes with a manual, and features a "200,000-gate" FPGA, two serial interfaces (one RS-232 port and a bare connector), a 3-bit VGA interface (I've managed 800x600 so far), a PS/2 port (keyboard or mouse), a number of on-board switches and LEDs, four 7.1-segment displays, and three 40-pin external interfaces. The FPGA can handle internal clock rates in excess of 200 MHz, driven by an external 50MHz crystal oscillator. There's a socket for user-installed crystals as well.
I can't seem to find the original board I ordered, but you can find a much better one (64MB DDR SDRAM! Includes a CPLD on-board! I kind-of wish I'd waited a bit...) for $150 + shipping in their online store. The software can be downloaded free from their website (free registration required).
I wasn't trying to imply that either extreme could be implemented in practice, only that one must either eliminate differences in status altogether (communism) or exercise absolute control over individual activity (fascism) to completely eliminate the advantages that a student derives from the social status and wealth of its parents.
And just for the record, not all libertarians have that utopian view of human nature you (and I) so despise. You don't have to believe that human beings are inherently good to think that concentrating "authoritative" coercive power in the hands of a few individuals is a bad idea -- whether self-appointed or elected, it makes little difference in the end. I particularly liked this quote: "Libertarians are especially bad because they get a lot of things right, but can't put it all together into a workable philosophy of governance." Perhaps the reason for this is that one of the basic principles of libertarianism (and voluntaryism/anarcho-capitalism) is that society should not be governed in the first place? Or more precisely, that no form of coercion can be considered legitimate, including coercion applied by an entity calling itself a government?
War is good for business. Selling to both sides, doubly so.
Actually, investment creates wealth. Labor is a resource which cannot be stored; it is always used up immediately. The result of labor can either be durable (an investment, creates wealth) or non-durable (instant gratification, does not create wealth). Subsistance living, for example, is quite labor-intensive, but results in little long-term wealth due to the near-total absense of investment. Without his investment in his small business those jobs would not exist in the first place. Further Information is available about the nature and importance of capital investments in the creation of wealth.
Actually, that quote doesn't specify the actual standards at all -- just the names of two certification agencies, and the fact that such agencies are approved by the USDA. However, after a bit of searching on the USDA NOP website, I found a reference to the actual standards (over 500 pages in the PDF version!), which should put this argument to rest in your favor.
For the most part I agree that teachers are not employed in a free market -- because of taxation. Unless the states have begun drafting teachers against their will, you can't say that the wages and benefits the state is offering are somehow "too low"; the teachers chose their professions (for whatever reasons) knowing what they were likely to receive in compensation. If anything, the ability of the state to tax its citizens to fund otherwise unprofitable enterprises could only server to increase the wages paid to teachers and other government employees, since the state is under no economic pressure to control costs. (There is political pressure to do so, but this is generally less effective, as the penalty for failing to control costs is unpopularity and possibly a change in leadership, not bankruptcy.)
Furthermore, why must there be no profit in teaching? There must certainly be some profit in the work of teaching itself, or few would choose teaching as a profession to begin with. Why should the school itself not be rewarded for the useful service of selecting competent teachers, or providing quality teaching environments?
Universal access to education (for those who could not otherwise afford it) is a matter of charity, whether provided forcibly by the state (through taxes) or voluntarily by its citizens. True, not all students will receive equal qualities of education; some parents have access to more extensive resources, some may be willing to sacrifice more, some may choose to live in areas with better schools, etc. Short of implementing either absolute communism or absolute fascism, you cannot eliminate the variances in quality of education resulting from these differences. I would personally say that it would be wrong to attempt to do so, as I do not see anything wrong in principle with passing one's own investments on to one's children (or grandchildren, as the case may be).
Choosing to do something knowing that it will result in little or no compensation beyond the feeling that you're "benefiting others" in no way compels others to reciprocate. If any teacher feels that it's being taken advantage of by the current system, it's free to choose another line of work.
They would, except that the ones you cited don't address the meaning of the "organic" certification itself, but rather the labelling of products that include certified "organic" ingredients. Unless they actually bother to define the conditions required to receive "organic" certification, the labelling is still essentially meaningless.
OK, so it would take eight (8) minutes to charge your 2000 mAh capacitor from a standard household 15 amp circuit; less if you use a dedicated high-current circuit (which could be 50+ amps). That's still a major improvement over even rapid battery chargers, which generally require an hour or more to fully charge a battery with similar capacity.
I, for one, would rather look forward to the potential improvements in defensive technologies (such as improved missile defense systems and better radar detection of threatening aircraft) than lament the reduced effectiveness of our stealth technology, particularly as stealth abilities appear to be primarily offensive in nature (at least when used against the ground-based radar systems of foreign countries). Can anyone name a good defensive use of radar stealth technology, for that matter? I don't know of any myself.
I think that if we put even half the effort into improving our defensive technologies as we put into subduing every potential attacker, we would (for all practical purposes) be able to simply ignore them by now. Consider that the only countries that can attack the U.S. by land are Mexico and Canada; everyone else has to attack either by air (planes and missiles), or by sea. Either way, the primary obstacle to prevention is accurate and reliable detection of the attack, which this passive radar SDR system would help to eliminate. Missiles would still be an issue, since they're hard to take down even with good radar tracking, but I'm optimistic that we could find ways to do it effectively given enough time.
Handling interference issues would appear to me to be fairly straightforward: just use a few of these SDR systems to track all the transmitters operating in the area. If one person's transmitter interferes with something important (like an emergency-band transmission), make the operator of the interfering equiptment liable for the consequences. The same principle could be applied to personal and commercial use, with the first user of a range of spectrum granted priority use within the receiving area and corresponding civil protection from interfering transmissions.
This is precisely backwards. A lack of scarcity would mean that the resource was in infinite supply and non-differentiable (any given unit of the good is equivalent to any other). A good example of such a resource is air: the supply is (effectively) infinite, and (ignoring pollution in some areas) one liter of air is the same as any other for the purpose of breathing. Non-scarce resources aren't marketable -- who would trade for something that is in infinite supply? Anything that isn't effectively infinite in supply, or which is differentiable, is by definition scarce. Markets not only function properly in the presence of scarce goods, they can only exist for such goods. The allocation of scarce goods is the one and only reason for trade, and thus markets in general. The more scarce something is, the more important it is that the principles of free trade (private ownership and non-coercion) are observed.
Not that I disagree, but in general isn't it true that those who can't get the funding to purchase access to a suitable part of the radio spectrum don't have the best ideas? Or at least were evidently incapable of convincing the VCs that their ideas were feasable?
As a scarce resource, I would agree that portions of the radio spectrum should be privately ownable (for a specific geographical area) in the same way as land or other forms of scare resources. As such, any dispute regarding interference should grant priority to the first user of the spectrum within the area, or said user's contractual successor, with the loser paying any reasonable damages to the winner. This system allows immediate use of presently-unused parts of the spectrum, protects against intentional and unintentional interference, and applies market principles to spectrum ownership in a way that ensures the eventual allocation of spectrum to the most desired uses. It also eliminates the barrier-to-entry that results from a flat ban on non-interfering "pirate" transmissions, which should result in increased experimentation and a wider range of choices in communications.
This is entirely true. However, assuming that the negligent individuals are forced to compensate the victims for full damages (medical costs, opportunities lost, "pain & suffering", etc.[1]), if the cost of fixing the problem is greater than the overall damage avoided by doing so, then all involved would actually better off with the original problem than the supposed "solution"!
[1] This assumes that all damages can be covered by financial compensation, of course. Most of the time this is so, but there are some kinds of damage (like a wrongful death, or pain & suffering) that cannot be so compensated. I am not opposed to the imposition of arbitrary punitive compensation for such non-financial forms of damage. Such punitive compensation would most likely increase exponentially with multiple occurrances so as to make them a more effective preventative measure.