Total mad props. Sorry I don't have mod points. Hundreds of/. dorks spilling thousands and thousands of words, and yours is the first to point out something I noticed immediately -- this is all based on a SINGLE USENET POST.
Whoops! Let me take this opportunity to point out that, though I knew the Republicans did not control both houses, I forgot the Republicans did hold a slim majority in the Senate during the first six years of the Reagan era. It therefore is not accurate to refer to it as a "Democratic" Congress, as I did in my first post.
It doesn't change the substance of my post, of course, but I thought I should set the record straight.
This made me laugh. Wow -- you are one angry young man!
WRT the 1981 vs 1982 thing -- hey, you got me. I was a year off. Guilty as charged.
Of course, my point was that the IIPA was passed in a year when not only the Senate but also the House were Democrat-dominated.
It passed "*against* majority Democratic opposition"? Really? Impressive! Normally, under those conditions, supporters would find it almost impossible to even bring the bill to the floor, much less pass it.
Hmm, let's see [pulls out napkin and pencil]... 100 members of the Senate... Democratic majority, so at least 51 Democrats... and (according to you) a majority of Democrats opposed it... so that means at least 26 Democrats voted against it...
Except obviously I've made some grievous mathematical error, since the Senate vote was 81-4.
OK, well you must have meant combined House and Senate. Let's see: House = 435 members... Dems = at least 218... Majority of Dems = at least 109...
Interesting, Mr. Value. Tell me more about the planet you live on, where the Republicans held a majority in Congress in 1981. And where an "argument" is a simple pointing out of facts.
Re-read my original post. As I pointed out in plain English, the Democratic Congress that laid out the rules did not WANT the CIA to be able to decide who would get prosecuted for (courageous whistleblowing on covert shenanigans / traitorous betrayal of critical top secret information). That's why we're talking about the US Code and not internal CIA rules. Whether the CIA thinks Plame was covert is not relevant *for legal purposes*, which happen to be the purposes we're discussing at the moment.
If there's one single core undebatable thing I would hope that all Americans have learned since 2001, it's what a complete and utter clownshow the CIA is.
1. "The CIA revealed in May of this year that Plame most certainly DID qualify as covert under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. "
So, out of curiosity, did you actually read my "very wrong" post? Perhaps you skimmed it, and missed the part where I pointed out that it is not relevant what the CIA thinks.
2. "The portion of the act grabbed onto by many right-wing radio talk show hosts in the past few years has been the extra-US service portion. It states that in order to qualify as covert, an agent has to have served outside the US in the 5 years previous to the outing... Well, news flash, Plame did serve overseas in the 5 years prior to her outing. She traveled overseas at the specific behest of the CIA many, many times during the 5 years prior to her outing. Sometimes she even traveled under an assumed name. "
So, because that portion was "the" portion grabbed onto by "many" radio hosts, that's the one we should use to determine whether Plame was covert? You are aware that there are *more than one* criteria, right?
Believe it or not, I'm not arguing that Plame wasn't covert. I don't even care. My point was a very narrow one -- the grandparent poster was wrong (as are you) that the case is open-and-shut, yes-she-was-covert. It's not. Fitzgerald would have some good arguments, but so would Libby's defense team, and ultimately a judge would have had to make a judgment call. And the CIA wouldn't get a vote.
Brace yourself, Jolly Reaper. You're about to have your biases challenged.
You're trying to obfuscate the truth of the matter.
My post was purely factual. Are you saying I'm trying to obscure the truth with relevant facts?
Plame was non-official cover
I'm not sure what relevance this has. (Incidentally, if you've been following the minutiae of the case, you know that the term is meaningless, since the CIA itself uses the term and others like it ("covert," etc.) inconsistently.)
she was working on counter-proliferation
No one disputes that
And she got burned to send a lesson to her husband. This is all established fact.
This actually made me laugh. It is indeed "established fact," if by "established" you mean "widely repeated," and by "fact" you mean "opinion." It was indeed the charge leveled at the Bush administration, from day one, by all the geniuses at DailyKos, RawStory and MyDD. It may therefore surprise you to learn that (a) it has certainly not been established as fact, and furthermore (b) it's highly unlikely. As many saner voices have pointed out, starting on about day two of the whole affair, the charge doesn't even make any sense, for a number of reasons which I'm too tired of pointing out to go into here.
What would you be saying if Clinton did it?
That Clinton should be impeached for perjury, of course. And if you read through my comments, I've never said that Libby shouldn't be convicted.
First, much of what you call the right-wing press does NOT portray Libby as an innocent victim. Some do, but I think you'll find that many take the stance that perjury and obstruction are serious and punishable offenses.
Second, you base the fact that "I don't think there'd be much chance the defense would get anywhere on that tack" on the basis of "Fitzgerald and the CIA both agreed she was covert." As I already explained, even though it seems counter-intuitive, in this case the CIA's opinion is not relevant; and as for Fitzgerald, well, he's the *prosecutor*. I could just as well say Libby is innocent, because the defense team says so.
Finally, you cut right to the heart of the matter when you say "the whole case doesn't magically go away just because there was a chance she wouldn't be ruled covert." This is in fact what many say is exactly what should have happened (minus the magic, of course). In this scenario, Fitz would have acknowledged the fact that it would have been EXTREMELY difficult, if not impossible, to prove a crime was committed (i.e., prove Plame was covert, prove that Libby knew it, prove that the CIA was taking positive steps to conceal her identity, etc). He then would have gone to the President and DoJ, and said "because I cannot prove that a crime was even committed, there is no point to continuing this investigation."
Anyway, not trying to be snotty. I don't even actually care much about the outcome -- I just find it an interesting case.
A. My post was directly on point, unless by "all this" you mean the entire thread. You're welcome to that opinion. But then why did you respond to my post instead of replying to the originator?
B. Bush effectively said, "Yeah, he's guilty and Dick doesn't give a rats ass". Sure, if by "effectively" you mean "I'll interpret their actions in a way the confirms my own biases." Bush's position was (a) outside lying to investigators, there was no actual crime being investigated and therefore (b) the sentence imposed was unduly harsh.
Jeesh, my purely factual post gets modded "overrated" and this piece of opinion journalism gets modded "informative"? Nice work, moderators.
"And I find it extremely difficult to believe that a bunch of posters on Slashdot would have an argument about whether or not Valerie Plame's identity was covert based upon a rather obscure part of the US Code unless someone (say a popular "conservative" blogger) were feeding them lines."
1. Posters on SlashDot will argue about anything 2. I don't know any bloggers, much less conservative ones. Oh wait, full disclosure -- my mother in law started a blog as part of a library project, but she's a liberal. And she hasn't fed me any lines. Yet. 3. Most relevantly, the "part of the US Code" in question here may be "obscure," but it's exactly the part of the code applicable to the case we're all talking about.
Concise, straightforward and to-the-point. Also, wrong.
The author of the Washington Post article doesn't fully grasp the legal nuances of the case. She says, basically, that yes, the CIA has spoken, and "confirmed" that Plame was covert.
The problem with this is that, *for legal purposes*, what the CIA thinks is not relevant. The question is whether Plame would qualify as covert *as defined by the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.* When revising this bill in the 1970s, the (Democratic) Congress defined "covert" VERY narrowly, and for good reason: They didn't WANT the CIA to be given the last word over whether or not government whistleblowers should be prosecuted.
Partisans on both sides like to pretend this is a black-and-white issue. It's not. Ultimately, a judge would have to decide whether Plame fit the IIPA definition. And Libby's defense would have a lot of powerful arguments to use against that -- showing, for example, how easy it was for anyone interested in finding Plame's occupation to do so. Not that they would prevail -- I'm just saying, it's more than "right-wing spin."
About 10 years ago I dimly remember reading in one of the Mac magazines -- Macworld or Macuser, I think -- their take on the perfect PDA/Phone. They had photos of a mockup, though I can't remember if it was real or photoshopery. I seem to remember that Frog Design was involved.
Does anyone else recall this? I'd like to read the article again -- I bet it would be pretty interesting.
Yes! Exactly! Americans idea of freedom is carpet bombing a country (what -- only one!?) with napalm, chemical and nuclear weapons. Very insightful! Good job, moderators!
The extension SmartSearch was made for people like you. It basically ties together your contextual menu with the Quick Searches you've already defined.
Let's say, from the above example, you've defined "d" as a keyword to search Dictionary.com. With SmartSearch, you'd right-click on the word, and choose [Search for 'turnip' on...] --> [Dictionary.com]
This feedback loop, and the greenhouse gas/temperature feedback loop, make me wonder something: How does such a self-perpetuating mechanism ever get canceled/reversed?
This is kind of a simpler way of asking: We (evidently) know how and why the Earth heats up; so, what makes it cool down?
So far as wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age) can tell me, the answer is, as far as I can tell, "We have no idea." Is that an accurate summary?
"We give them a choice between starvation or industrial-revolution-era working conditions paying subsistence wages"
We do no such thing. "We" offer them an alternative to the conditions that naturally pre-exist there.
Look, I know this sounds heartless to someone arguing from emotion. And grinding poverty is tragic -- I certainly wouldn't want to live in those conditions. But the fact is that grinding poverty has been the status of 95% of mankind throughout history. Development offers the chance to climb out of that status. *But it doesn't happen overnight*. The low-paying factory jobs we're talking about are a step, a phase that must be experienced to advance. Hong Kong did it, Taiwan did it, South Korea did it.
Here is another way to look at it. Do the exploited residents of Indonesia or wherever want these factories to leave? Pack up shop and pull out? No, they don't. And why not? Because their choice isn't between crappy jobs and good jobs; it's between crappy jobs and NO jobs.
"it becomes obvious that the corporations could easily afford to pay living wages to their sweatshop serfs and still save a bundle"
Which corporations? Corporations do declare bankruptcy, you know. This suggests that not all of them are in a position to "easily afford" anything.
"Serfs in present day sweatshops (who typically earn less than $2/day) cannot afford to purchase the products they manufacture"
This has zero relevance. Guess what: The flunkies who work at Nordstrom can't afford the clothes they sell. The factory guys who make MRI machines can't afford to have one installed in their home. So what? They can still participate in a free market. "Participation" doesn't imply that one can afford everything in that market.
I'm not opposed to helping the people of the third world. In fact, I'm all for it. The best way we can help them is with trade. As I illustrated in an earlier post, trade makes *both* parties richer. Failing trade, there is foreign aid. Trying to somehow regulate or force companies in their business dealings is often one of the worst options. Remember, all that really is is a transfer of wealth from them to us. If we're going to do that, it would be much more efficient to simply hand them the money.
No offense, but you don't know that much about economics, do you? Complete information is helpful to a free market, but not totally necessary. This is simple to demonstrate -- the world has plenty of markets that don't magically share complete information, yet function just fine. Ever hear of Vernon Smith? He won the Nobel prize a couple of years back for his work showing that, essentially, complete information is overrated, and that markets *as a whole* function pretty well even when the individual players each only have a small piece of the overall picture.
It's a common misunderstanding that the "key" to capitalism, if there is one, is the accumulation of wealth. It's not. The key is, as I alluded to in my earlier comment, the *creation* of wealth. Trade creates wealth. When I give you $2, and you give me a loaf of bread, we've both profited -- ie., we've created wealth. That's this concept of "growth" you hear people talking about. It's a fallacy to treat the market like it's some kind of zero-sum game.
"until we can find someone else who can be exploited even more."
I don't understand how offering someone a voluntary job is "exploitation." If the workers in question had better alternatives, wouldn't they be taking them? Isn't that just another way of saying that the company in question is offering the workers a better alternative than any other?
"Of course, we are getting screwed too - those over-priced sneakers are now manufactured for a fraction of what they used to cost, but we still pay roughly the same price at retail."
Again, I don't get it. If I voluntarily (i.e., the "free" in "free market") pay $125 dollars for a pair of sneakers, how am I getting "screwed"? I had $125. You had a pair of sneakers. I would rather have the sneakers than the $125. You would rather have the $125 than the sneakers. We exchange, and -- this is the very key to capitalism and the free market -- we have *both* profited. How much you paid to have the sneakers manufactured is irrelevant. The question is how much you and I, respectively, value the sneakers vs. the $125.
"If we found ourselves working in the sweatshops for less than a buck a day, I wonder if we would be grateful..."
1. I didn't say Friedman won the Nobel Prize for promoting school choice.
2. I made a statement of fact: "Friedman is one of the founders of the school-choice movement." If you disagree with that, you haven't read *much* Friedman.
3. Friedman's ideas about education flow directly from his ideas about free-market economics. He said so explicitly -- oh, I don't have an exact count; I'm guessing it's probably less than a million times, but not much less. Further, it was not "out of his element" -- it was his passion.
4. Yes, regarding the food subsidy I mentioned, we do subsidize both consumers and producers. But for different reasons (as you helpfully point out), and more important, we don't subsidize *distribution*. The government doesn't pay farmers to give local area residents their crops for free.
5. If you go back and read your own post, you will see that you assert that "his example is totally flawed." You will not find any argument to support this assertion.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd check out Uranus.
- Alaska Jack
PS One thing I can guarantee about the next billion years: That joke will still be funny.
Total mad props. Sorry I don't have mod points. Hundreds of /. dorks spilling thousands and thousands of words, and yours is the first to point out something I noticed immediately -- this is all based on a SINGLE USENET POST.
Again, props.
Whoops! Let me take this opportunity to point out that, though I knew the Republicans did not control both houses, I forgot the Republicans did hold a slim majority in the Senate during the first six years of the Reagan era. It therefore is not accurate to refer to it as a "Democratic" Congress, as I did in my first post.
It doesn't change the substance of my post, of course, but I thought I should set the record straight.
- AJ
This made me laugh. Wow -- you are one angry young man!
... 100 members of the Senate ... Democratic majority, so at least 51 Democrats ... and (according to you) a majority of Democrats opposed it ... so that means at least 26 Democrats voted against it ...
... Dems = at least 218 ... Majority of Dems = at least 109 ...
WRT the 1981 vs 1982 thing -- hey, you got me. I was a year off. Guilty as charged.
Of course, my point was that the IIPA was passed in a year when not only the Senate but also the House were Democrat-dominated.
It passed "*against* majority Democratic opposition"? Really? Impressive! Normally, under those conditions, supporters would find it almost impossible to even bring the bill to the floor, much less pass it.
Hmm, let's see [pulls out napkin and pencil]
Except obviously I've made some grievous mathematical error, since the Senate vote was 81-4.
OK, well you must have meant combined House and Senate. Let's see: House = 435 members
well, I trust you can see where this is going.
Respectfully,
- Mr. Asshat Jack
Interesting, Mr. Value. Tell me more about the planet you live on, where the Republicans held a majority in Congress in 1981. And where an "argument" is a simple pointing out of facts.
- AJ
Re-read my original post. As I pointed out in plain English, the Democratic Congress that laid out the rules did not WANT the CIA to be able to decide who would get prosecuted for (courageous whistleblowing on covert shenanigans / traitorous betrayal of critical top secret information). That's why we're talking about the US Code and not internal CIA rules. Whether the CIA thinks Plame was covert is not relevant *for legal purposes*, which happen to be the purposes we're discussing at the moment.
I'm sorry I can't explain it any more clearly.
- Alaska Jack
Wow, an actual sane person in this thread.
If there's one single core undebatable thing I would hope that all Americans have learned since 2001, it's what a complete and utter clownshow the CIA is.
Sorry I have no mod points.
- Alaska Jack
Oh for Pete's sake. Mods, stop smoking crack.
... Well, news flash, Plame did serve overseas in the 5 years prior to her outing. She traveled overseas at the specific behest of the CIA many, many times during the 5 years prior to her outing. Sometimes she even traveled under an assumed name. "
As for you, Mr. Reynolds -
1. "The CIA revealed in May of this year that Plame most certainly DID qualify as covert under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. "
So, out of curiosity, did you actually read my "very wrong" post? Perhaps you skimmed it, and missed the part where I pointed out that it is not relevant what the CIA thinks.
2. "The portion of the act grabbed onto by many right-wing radio talk show hosts in the past few years has been the extra-US service portion. It states that in order to qualify as covert, an agent has to have served outside the US in the 5 years previous to the outing
So, because that portion was "the" portion grabbed onto by "many" radio hosts, that's the one we should use to determine whether Plame was covert? You are aware that there are *more than one* criteria, right?
Believe it or not, I'm not arguing that Plame wasn't covert. I don't even care. My point was a very narrow one -- the grandparent poster was wrong (as are you) that the case is open-and-shut, yes-she-was-covert. It's not. Fitzgerald would have some good arguments, but so would Libby's defense team, and ultimately a judge would have had to make a judgment call. And the CIA wouldn't get a vote.
- Alaska Jack
Brace yourself, Jolly Reaper. You're about to have your biases challenged.
You're trying to obfuscate the truth of the matter.
My post was purely factual. Are you saying I'm trying to obscure the truth with relevant facts?
Plame was non-official cover
I'm not sure what relevance this has. (Incidentally, if you've been following the minutiae of the case, you know that the term is meaningless, since the CIA itself uses the term and others like it ("covert," etc.) inconsistently.)
she was working on counter-proliferation
No one disputes that
And she got burned to send a lesson to her husband. This is all established fact.
This actually made me laugh. It is indeed "established fact," if by "established" you mean "widely repeated," and by "fact" you mean "opinion." It was indeed the charge leveled at the Bush administration, from day one, by all the geniuses at DailyKos, RawStory and MyDD. It may therefore surprise you to learn that (a) it has certainly not been established as fact, and furthermore (b) it's highly unlikely. As many saner voices have pointed out, starting on about day two of the whole affair, the charge doesn't even make any sense, for a number of reasons which I'm too tired of pointing out to go into here.
What would you be saying if Clinton did it?
That Clinton should be impeached for perjury, of course. And if you read through my comments, I've never said that Libby shouldn't be convicted.
Cheers,
- Alaska Jack
I have to respectfully disagree.
First, much of what you call the right-wing press does NOT portray Libby as an innocent victim. Some do, but I think you'll find that many take the stance that perjury and obstruction are serious and punishable offenses.
Second, you base the fact that "I don't think there'd be much chance the defense would get anywhere on that tack" on the basis of "Fitzgerald and the CIA both agreed she was covert." As I already explained, even though it seems counter-intuitive, in this case the CIA's opinion is not relevant; and as for Fitzgerald, well, he's the *prosecutor*. I could just as well say Libby is innocent, because the defense team says so.
Finally, you cut right to the heart of the matter when you say "the whole case doesn't magically go away just because there was a chance she wouldn't be ruled covert." This is in fact what many say is exactly what should have happened (minus the magic, of course). In this scenario, Fitz would have acknowledged the fact that it would have been EXTREMELY difficult, if not impossible, to prove a crime was committed (i.e., prove Plame was covert, prove that Libby knew it, prove that the CIA was taking positive steps to conceal her identity, etc). He then would have gone to the President and DoJ, and said "because I cannot prove that a crime was even committed, there is no point to continuing this investigation."
Anyway, not trying to be snotty. I don't even actually care much about the outcome -- I just find it an interesting case.
- Alaska Jack
A. My post was directly on point, unless by "all this" you mean the entire thread. You're welcome to that opinion. But then why did you respond to my post instead of replying to the originator?
B. Bush effectively said, "Yeah, he's guilty and Dick doesn't give a rats ass". Sure, if by "effectively" you mean "I'll interpret their actions in a way the confirms my own biases." Bush's position was (a) outside lying to investigators, there was no actual crime being investigated and therefore (b) the sentence imposed was unduly harsh.
Jeesh, my purely factual post gets modded "overrated" and this piece of opinion journalism gets modded "informative"? Nice work, moderators.
- AJ
"And I find it extremely difficult to believe that a bunch of posters on Slashdot would have an argument about whether or not Valerie Plame's identity was covert based upon a rather obscure part of the US Code unless someone (say a popular "conservative" blogger) were feeding them lines."
1. Posters on SlashDot will argue about anything
2. I don't know any bloggers, much less conservative ones. Oh wait, full disclosure -- my mother in law started a blog as part of a library project, but she's a liberal. And she hasn't fed me any lines. Yet.
3. Most relevantly, the "part of the US Code" in question here may be "obscure," but it's exactly the part of the code applicable to the case we're all talking about.
Cheers,
- Alaska Jack
Concise, straightforward and to-the-point. Also, wrong.
The author of the Washington Post article doesn't fully grasp the legal nuances of the case. She says, basically, that yes, the CIA has spoken, and "confirmed" that Plame was covert.
The problem with this is that, *for legal purposes*, what the CIA thinks is not relevant. The question is whether Plame would qualify as covert *as defined by the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.* When revising this bill in the 1970s, the (Democratic) Congress defined "covert" VERY narrowly, and for good reason: They didn't WANT the CIA to be given the last word over whether or not government whistleblowers should be prosecuted.
Partisans on both sides like to pretend this is a black-and-white issue. It's not. Ultimately, a judge would have to decide whether Plame fit the IIPA definition. And Libby's defense would have a lot of powerful arguments to use against that -- showing, for example, how easy it was for anyone interested in finding Plame's occupation to do so. Not that they would prevail -- I'm just saying, it's more than "right-wing spin."
- Alaska Jack
About 10 years ago I dimly remember reading in one of the Mac magazines -- Macworld or Macuser, I think -- their take on the perfect PDA/Phone. They had photos of a mockup, though I can't remember if it was real or photoshopery. I seem to remember that Frog Design was involved.
Does anyone else recall this? I'd like to read the article again -- I bet it would be pretty interesting.
- AJ
Seriously, whoever moderated this a "troll" should be ashamed of themselves.
- AJ
Yes! Exactly! Americans idea of freedom is carpet bombing a country (what -- only one!?) with napalm, chemical and nuclear weapons. Very insightful! Good job, moderators!
- Alaska Jack
The extension SmartSearch was made for people like you. It basically ties together your contextual menu with the Quick Searches you've already defined.
Let's say, from the above example, you've defined "d" as a keyword to search Dictionary.com. With SmartSearch, you'd right-click on the word, and choose
[Search for 'turnip' on...] --> [Dictionary.com]
Best extension ever. You'll use it all the time.
- Alaska Jack
Five hours? I used the guide available here: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/iBook-G4-12-Inch/H ard-Drive-Replacement/83/14
It took me about 45 minutes. I'd never taken apart a laptop in my life.
Good news everyone! No asshattery necessary. It never occurred to me that you might not catch the reference!
- AJ
Cram it, Wade! Cram it wherever your species traditionally crams things!
- AJ
This feedback loop, and the greenhouse gas/temperature feedback loop, make me wonder something: How does such a self-perpetuating mechanism ever get canceled/reversed?
This is kind of a simpler way of asking: We (evidently) know how and why the Earth heats up; so, what makes it cool down?
So far as wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age) can tell me, the answer is, as far as I can tell, "We have no idea." Is that an accurate summary?
- Alaska Jack
"We give them a choice between starvation or industrial-revolution-era working conditions paying subsistence wages"
We do no such thing. "We" offer them an alternative to the conditions that naturally pre-exist there.
Look, I know this sounds heartless to someone arguing from emotion. And grinding poverty is tragic -- I certainly wouldn't want to live in those conditions. But the fact is that grinding poverty has been the status of 95% of mankind throughout history. Development offers the chance to climb out of that status. *But it doesn't happen overnight*. The low-paying factory jobs we're talking about are a step, a phase that must be experienced to advance. Hong Kong did it, Taiwan did it, South Korea did it.
Here is another way to look at it. Do the exploited residents of Indonesia or wherever want these factories to leave? Pack up shop and pull out? No, they don't. And why not? Because their choice isn't between crappy jobs and good jobs; it's between crappy jobs and NO jobs.
"it becomes obvious that the corporations could easily afford to pay living wages to their sweatshop serfs and still save a bundle"
Which corporations? Corporations do declare bankruptcy, you know. This suggests that not all of them are in a position to "easily afford" anything.
"Serfs in present day sweatshops (who typically earn less than $2/day) cannot afford to purchase the products they manufacture"
This has zero relevance. Guess what: The flunkies who work at Nordstrom can't afford the clothes they sell. The factory guys who make MRI machines can't afford to have one installed in their home. So what? They can still participate in a free market. "Participation" doesn't imply that one can afford everything in that market.
I'm not opposed to helping the people of the third world. In fact, I'm all for it. The best way we can help them is with trade. As I illustrated in an earlier post, trade makes *both* parties richer. Failing trade, there is foreign aid. Trying to somehow regulate or force companies in their business dealings is often one of the worst options. Remember, all that really is is a transfer of wealth from them to us. If we're going to do that, it would be much more efficient to simply hand them the money.
- Alaska Jack
No offense, but you don't know that much about economics, do you? Complete information is helpful to a free market, but not totally necessary. This is simple to demonstrate -- the world has plenty of markets that don't magically share complete information, yet function just fine. Ever hear of Vernon Smith? He won the Nobel prize a couple of years back for his work showing that, essentially, complete information is overrated, and that markets *as a whole* function pretty well even when the individual players each only have a small piece of the overall picture.
It's a common misunderstanding that the "key" to capitalism, if there is one, is the accumulation of wealth. It's not. The key is, as I alluded to in my earlier comment, the *creation* of wealth. Trade creates wealth. When I give you $2, and you give me a loaf of bread, we've both profited -- ie., we've created wealth. That's this concept of "growth" you hear people talking about. It's a fallacy to treat the market like it's some kind of zero-sum game.
Alaska Jack
"until we can find someone else who can be exploited even more."
I don't understand how offering someone a voluntary job is "exploitation." If the workers in question had better alternatives, wouldn't they be taking them? Isn't that just another way of saying that the company in question is offering the workers a better alternative than any other?
"Of course, we are getting screwed too - those over-priced sneakers are now manufactured for a fraction of what they used to cost, but we still pay roughly the same price at retail."
Again, I don't get it. If I voluntarily (i.e., the "free" in "free market") pay $125 dollars for a pair of sneakers, how am I getting "screwed"? I had $125. You had a pair of sneakers. I would rather have the sneakers than the $125. You would rather have the $125 than the sneakers. We exchange, and -- this is the very key to capitalism and the free market -- we have *both* profited. How much you paid to have the sneakers manufactured is irrelevant. The question is how much you and I, respectively, value the sneakers vs. the $125.
"If we found ourselves working in the sweatshops for less than a buck a day, I wonder if we would be grateful..."
We would if the alternative was starving.
- Alaska Jack
Breathe deeply into a paper bag.
7 3813979186&q=milton+friedman+charlie+rose
1. I didn't say Friedman won the Nobel Prize for promoting school choice.
2. I made a statement of fact: "Friedman is one of the founders of the school-choice movement." If you disagree with that, you haven't read *much* Friedman.
3. Friedman's ideas about education flow directly from his ideas about free-market economics. He said so explicitly -- oh, I don't have an exact count; I'm guessing it's probably less than a million times, but not much less. Further, it was not "out of his element" -- it was his passion.
4. Yes, regarding the food subsidy I mentioned, we do subsidize both consumers and producers. But for different reasons (as you helpfully point out), and more important, we don't subsidize *distribution*. The government doesn't pay farmers to give local area residents their crops for free.
5. If you go back and read your own post, you will see that you assert that "his example is totally flawed." You will not find any argument to support this assertion.
But don't take my word for it: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-29638376
- Alaska Jack