The discrepancy between exit polls and the official results is significantly outside the standard statistical margin of error. The sample size on the U.S. 2005 presidential election exit polls was quite large, much larger than normal poll sizes. Take a look at http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/epdiscrep.htm if you want a good examination of the statistics.
We have every reason to believe the polls are accurate -- except that they do not match the official results. The probability of statistical error is much less than that of you dying this year in a flood, than that of you dying this year in an earthquake - if you live in California - or tornado - if you live in the Midwest. And less than the probability of President Bush being struck by lightning.
It is so improbable as to be miraculous, that the polls could so uniformly be in error, and all the error towards the Kerry side. When the probabilities suggest a miracle, it's common sense to look for another explanation. There are two, really:
1) The poll methodology was wrong. Very unlikely, it's down to a science and has in the past been much, much more accurate. We have no reason to believe that it was inaccurate this time, except that it doesn't match the final count.
2) Widespread fraud. We already have evidence of some, and very vulnerable Diebold electronic voting systems in place in the disputed states.
A couple of elections with severe enough vote fraud to change the results. Lightning striking George W. Bush is more statistically likely than the shift we saw in the last election from exit poll results to official vote tally.
Is it still a republic when the elections are rigged? In name only... in name only.
Probably because there's no such thing as an "anarchist government"...
Erm, incorrecto.
The Spanish government fighting Franco in the Spanish Civil War was a coalition government of Socialists Communists and Anarchists. Yes Anarchists. Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" is my favorite introduction to the Spanish Anarchists, well worth reading both to understand them and Orwell himself.
If you look at how Marx himself behaved, he was pretty intolerant of dissent and disagreement. That totalitarian attitude infects communism, and IMO is an integral part of the ideology. The Soviet Union didn't follow Marx's pattern for communism, so some claim it wasn't 'true' communism, but it did (IMO) embody the key parts of Marx's approach, including his authoritarianism.
A 'democratic' communism wouldn't be communism, it would be more like syndicalist anarchy, something Marx disdained. It's not a "Utopian concept" that can never exist -- it was strong in Spain before Franco. There are still pockets of it (syndicalist anarchy) around, including some in U.S. college towns (and I don't mean the bomb-throwers in Eugene, OR -- that's a different branch of the Anarchist tree).
The anarchists were part of the government opposing Franco in the war, but were betrayed by the communists. Read George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" for his view of it (and also to understand how he, a communist, came to write "Animal Farm" and "1984").
The proper term is not "intellectual rights", it's "temporary government-granted intellectual monopoly". That's all patents and copyrights are, they aren't 'property' any more than any other government-granted monopolies (for example, the past and present ones on telephone service).
While Kerry might be able to pull out an Electoral College win, he clearly can't win a majority vote, even after all the provisional ballots in Ohio and elsewhere are counted. He's doing the graceful thing, and conceding the electoral vote when it's clear he lost the popular vote. I'm a bit disappointed, but think that it's best for the Republic in the long run. Now if Bush will only have the sense to try and heal the wounds made by 4 years of partisan fighting....
The real problem is not that Americans on the losing side are frustrated, it's that the U.S. is so bitterly divided now. The radicals on each side have been vilifying the other, so much that it's gotten difficult to have a civilized discussion. Most of the people on either side love their country, but we have trouble remembering that in the midst of all the vitriol. Loving your country includes loving the half of the citizens who disagree with you, after all. Or at least recognizing that they're just as much part of the country as you are.
As a nation, we need to start accepting the other side, and try to figure out a way to live together with people whose views and lifestyles we don't especially like (and even abhor). Not a meeting-in-the-middle kind of compromise (which neither side will accept), but some kind of cohabitation agreement where we come to some arrangement that keeps us out of each others' faces. I honestly don't see either side changing their minds about what they don't like in the other, so we need to move beyond the battle for hearts and minds (and laws), and try to accommodate each side.
As for leaving the country, it's not at that point yet. The checks and balances in the system were designed expressly to avoid the evils of majority rule, and it's up to those on the 'blue' side to make sure their senators and reps use those checks to the fullest. The checks and balances have already reined in the worst excesses of the Bush administration, like the attempted end-run around the court system.
I have always seen the U.S. as basically the 'good guys', no matter how deeply our political elites were reeking of 'realpolitik'. The broad public generally has its heart in the right place, and our leaders can't really stray too far. Most all our wars were fought in self-defense, and the U.S. people have not knowingly embraced evil practices (never mind that our leaders have sometimes done ill, especially in Latin America, while most of the U.S. people remained ignorant).
In Iraq, we shot first. We invaded on a pretext, not for a real, solid threat; that is the bottom line of all those many hearings, investigations, and reports. The sanctions were working, for the time being, and Saddaam and Iraq had nothing to do with al-Quaeda. Our invasion was an alarming departure from the requirement of an "act of war" before going to war. At best, it was a grave mistake, at worst it was the kind of action you see from dictators, not from solid democracies.
Lucas (and all of us) know that the good guys don't shoot first -- that's the characteristic of corrupt sheriffs and other baddies. Lucas edited Star Wars to clean up Han's character. Wish we could do that to us in real life! But the best we can do, as U.S. voters, is to repudiate Bush and his gang.
To Bush and his gang, the invasion was not a mistake, not in the least. They revel in having shot first, in being 'tough'. The U.S's reputation in the world is terrible, because of Bush's policies and -- more important -- his aggressive actions. We are rightly seen as a threat to other nations; we're like the sheriff who goes and shoots the guys he knows are bad, without trial, evidence, or due process. There's a reason for having a 'cause for war' - it's clear evidence. Something we did not have, and our leaders knew, should have known, or at least should know now.
Sophisticated people know that there's a difference between the U.S. people and the government, and make allowances for individual Americans. But how can they possibly do so if we re-elect Bush? We will have clearly embraced the black hat.
Samuleson makes the point that the "rising tide" of international trade does not "lift all boats", and might be to our national disadvantage. A further point which he does NOT elaborate on is that the benefits do not spread to everyone in the economy.
Generally, the benefits go to the 'factors of production' that are in short supply. In the U.S., these are skilled labor, and unskilled labor. The U.S. has (compared to China and India) a lot of capital and land. With greater free trade (all other things being equal), the benefits should flow mainly to those controlling capital and land, rather than skilled and unskilled labor.
What will really happen is anyones' guess. It may be that there will be a temporary blip downwards (and upwards in India/China) for skilled labor wages, until the supply in India/China becomes as tight as it is in the U.S. If the Indian and Chinese skilled labor markets are truly vast, then it will be more permanent (I would guess), and the wealthy (owners of capital and land) in the U.S will gain a permanent significant gain.
Re:Greenpeace did this here in the Netherlands
on
Guerrilla Drive-Ins
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That they did says a lot about Greenpeace, doesn't it? (I personally am unsurprised.)
The Environmentalist left has an unfortunately large segment of its membership that is ignorant of scientific methods and facts (as does the See-No-environmental Evil right). Our science education is seriously lacking; these types can only thrive in a sea of ignorance.
Um, VCs invest in new companies. That's all they do, it's the definition of a Venture Capitalist.
There are various ways businesses can create a monopoly (or oligopoly) without any government help: predatory pricing, contract clauses with vendors that restrict competition, cartel agreements to name a few. All of these are illegal (that pesky government interference again!) of course.
On the contrary, corporations have pretty much squeezed the sole entrepreneur to death. Where are your entrepreneurs? Your "Mom and Pop" grocery stores, clothing stores, shoemakers, farmers, your small local banks? Driven out of business by very effective competition from corporations like Walmart.
In this corporate world, there is very little economic 'freedom' of the sort that the U.S. founding fathers worked so hard to provide. They were aware of the effect corporations could have on those freedoms; corporate formation was severely limited. The era of the self-employed businessman is pretty much over. It's not that we have lost the 'will for freedom' - ask the many mom-and-pop grocers that the corps have put out of business - it's that small, entrepreneurial businesses simply can't survive the competition with corporations. Walmart alone has devastated the American heartland, crushing many, many formerly prosperous small-town main streets. All the 'will to freedom' in the world can't fight significantly lower prices from a corporate organization.
"The only enitity that could 'force' milk to 5$ a gallon would be government. No one else can force dairy companies to charge anything other than what the market and their costs dictates. Of course government subsidies raise supply and therefore lower prices artificially but it is still the hand of government doing it."
You've missed the point. If there were a dairy monopoly (private, capitalist), it too could force the price of milk to $5 per gallon. Such monopolies have existed, and they reap huge profits from exploiting their position. That's why monopolies are considered bad, and are illegal except in certain cases: where the monopoly is 'natural', in countries where business controls the government, and in countries (generally developing nations) without adequate laws that protect the citizens from business malfeasance. It is possible to create and maintain a monopoly in a 'free' market, there are many historical examples (railroads being the most commonly known)
This too is basic economics, though sometimes not taught in the first-year courses. Monopoly and oligopoly effects are pretty well understood, and they are a strong exception to preventing government interference with business. When they exist, they can move the economic results significantly away from the 'optimum' ideal that a free market (in theory) provides.
I saw an interesting presentation a few years ago, comparing profitability (ROI) and profitability per person of top firms in the software industry. As you might expect, monopolist Microsoft showed much better profit and profit per person numbers than any of the other firms. We have been paying for that '$5 a gallon milk'. The 'free market' is not working here; in spite of those high profits VCs will generally no longer fund new businesses that might compete with Microsoft.
Long ago, monarchs granted monopolies (called 'letters patent' ) on the production of goods. The people holding these monopolies would make a killing, anyone else infringing on the monopoly would get shut down. Nations which didn't restrict production prospered, those with monopolies fell behind. When the U.S. Constitution was written, such powers to grant monopolies were considered and rejected as harmful to prosperous commerce; the framers were familiar with British experience. The British parliament severely restricted the ability of the British Crown to issue such monopolies in the Statute of Monopolies of 1624. Eliminating the Royal monopolies gave England the commercial foundation for its prosperous industries and later, the industrial revolution.
Copyright is just a relic monopoly from that bygone era, and should be abolished, just as the old industrial monopoly privileges have been. A copyright isn't 'property', it's a government-granted monopoly, that is choking off progress. You can call it property all you like, but the fact remains that it's only a grant of monopoly by the government; the many areas of fair use were put in to prevent abuses of that monopoly privilege. It's not all that different from a monopoly on the production of bread, porcelain, or trade in tea.
It is equally clear to others of us that nurture plays a much larger role than Sociobiologists believe. What sociobiologists try to explain as a result of evolution, or hardwired, is nothing of the kind.
In Why Men Won't Ask for Directions , Richard Francis exposes the hollowness of much sociobiological science with a detailed analysis based on work in developmental biology. He shows that much of what is pointed to as evidence by sociobiologists as the action of evolution is actually explained by the underlying biochemistry; in many cases, the behaviours are an artifact of developmental biology -- like nipples on men -- rather than the result of evolutionary pressure.
The book is fun, you will never see sex and gender the same way. He leads you through the lives of some bizarre vertebrates, while elaborating his vivid argument against both the 'science' and the underlying philosophical approach of the sociobiologists. It's an eye-opener for all who have only heard the sociobiologists and their non-scientific opponents.
However, if you're stuck with no alternatives because you have to get everything in one bundle from SBC, they can screw you as much as the government lets them get away with. I'd happily trade having to deal with fingerpointing in order to have the option to switch DSL and/or local phone service and not have to rely on government regulation to protect me.
As the jobs "churn", do the individuals' wages go up and down? One Economist article making this argument used the example of Walmart to show the job creation that offsets offshoring job loss (guess the author didn't know much about Walmart wage rates).
Of course there is going to be job creation to offset the job losses -- that's how a market economy functions -- but they don't necessarily have to pay better that the lost jobs. And that is what we are all worried about. Especially those of us who have actually studied trade and economic development more than casually.
Under free trade, there are winners and losers, but the worldwide productivity is higher overall. There is nothing that prevents all the benefits of free trade going to one partner, though it is unlikely. As the parent says, some "individuals" will be hurt in the process. Who are they likely to be?
The economic theory of comparative advantage says that the direct benefits will go to those "factors of production" which are relatively abundant. Comparing China and India to the U.S., those abundant factors in the U.S. are 1) capital and 2) land. The factors in short supply --those "individuals" that will be hurt-- are 1) educated workers and 2) unskilled workers.
But, but... won't the gains from improved productivity/lower prices and corporate profits outweigh the losses for those people? There's no guarantee that the gains from lower prices will be enough to offset the Wallmartization of your job, but maybe. It's pretty certain that the benefits from increased corporate profits will go mainly to the 5% who hold most of the wealth, though -- especially since the vast bulk of middle-class wealth is tied up in their home. Pretty unlikely to see an increase in productivity of that capital.
A vote for Nader is a vote for America's Robespierre -- another rigidly uncompromising, righteous man, known for his uncorruptibility and simple living. Such people are far worst than those who are willing to compromise with their opponents.
So let's look at the actual economics and what it means:
The U.S. has a "comparative advantage" in capital-intensive industries, because we have (compared to China and India) a lot of capital. Likewise, a "comparative advantage" in land-intensive industries such as agriculture. (You don't know what "comparative advantage" is? It is the economics term for the idea that countries should produce products that they have a relative -rather than absolute- advantage at producing. Then overall production of goods is maximized.
Comparative Advantage ).
The U.S. should have an advantage in industries that require educated workers since we have many of them, but in fact educated workers are relatively scarce in the U.S., and have been for many years. Unskilled workers have been more plentiful -- their wages per person have been dropping in real terms, and their share of GNP has been dropping. Both educated and uneducated labor are scarce relative to capital and land, when compared to India and China.
Economists will, if pressed, admit that free trade does have some losers in each country -- those who are in relatively short supply -- but maintain that the overall worldwide gains in productivity are worth it even though a few will be worse off. Now look at the U.S. case: capital and land are plentiful, educated and uneducated workers are in short supply. Educated *and* uneducated workers are the ones most likely to suffer under free trade. Yes, the whole world will be better off, but is the average American likely to see any benefit from those gains? The only benefit they will see will come from a drop in the cost of goods where educated or unskilled labor is a relatively important factor, which may or may not be enough to offset the loss of wages they will suffer. It is entirely possible that most of the gains will go to workers in India and China, and to those who own farmland and capital in the U.S.
It's that the rules of governance should apply to all of us fairly, and that money should not corrupt the process. The slide from republic into tyranny happens when the citizens do not fight those things, and the elites use them to increase their power. What's so hard to understand about that?
It isn't about hating corporations, it *is* about the danger of graft and corruption, and that those with money can unfairly change the rules our democracy lives by in order to gain power and more money.
That kind of thing can (and has) lead to tyranny and the end of a republic when it is allowed to spread unchecked. Don't belive me? Read Rubicon by Tom Holland for a "case study".
That was meant to be informative -- the common 4-letter 'swear' words have been in ordinary use since before Shakespeare, and yet are *still* considered slang. That says a lot about dictionaries and their function as a prescriptive definers of proper language rather than describers of actual language.
Unfortunately, that's not the way language works. Much as pedants and teachers (and perhaps parents) would like language to be prescriptive, it isn't.
So, like, language evolves. You got a problem with that? And like, words migrate from slang to the dictionary, NOT from the dictionary into usage.
Dictionary definitions are subject to social fiddling anyway. You have any idea how many good old Saxon words have been ruled illegitimate even with centuries of usage? If you check into some of the "vulgar slang" rude words, you'll find they've been in use since time immemorial. Presence in or absence from the dictionary is no measure of whether or not a word is a 'real' word.
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We have every reason to believe the polls are accurate -- except that they do not match the official results. The probability of statistical error is much less than that of you dying this year in a flood, than that of you dying this year in an earthquake - if you live in California - or tornado - if you live in the Midwest. And less than the probability of President Bush being struck by lightning.
It is so improbable as to be miraculous, that the polls could so uniformly be in error, and all the error towards the Kerry side. When the probabilities suggest a miracle, it's common sense to look for another explanation. There are two, really: 1) The poll methodology was wrong. Very unlikely, it's down to a science and has in the past been much, much more accurate. We have no reason to believe that it was inaccurate this time, except that it doesn't match the final count. 2) Widespread fraud. We already have evidence of some, and very vulnerable Diebold electronic voting systems in place in the disputed states.
If it stops being a republic, it's failing (as a republic). Simple function of definition, no dictatorship can be a successful republic.
Is it still a republic when the elections are rigged? In name only... in name only.
Erm, incorrecto. The Spanish government fighting Franco in the Spanish Civil War was a coalition government of Socialists Communists and Anarchists. Yes Anarchists. Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" is my favorite introduction to the Spanish Anarchists, well worth reading both to understand them and Orwell himself.
It's still a republic, just a corrupted one, and still salvageable.
A 'democratic' communism wouldn't be communism, it would be more like syndicalist anarchy, something Marx disdained. It's not a "Utopian concept" that can never exist -- it was strong in Spain before Franco. There are still pockets of it (syndicalist anarchy) around, including some in U.S. college towns (and I don't mean the bomb-throwers in Eugene, OR -- that's a different branch of the Anarchist tree).
The anarchists were part of the government opposing Franco in the war, but were betrayed by the communists. Read George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" for his view of it (and also to understand how he, a communist, came to write "Animal Farm" and "1984").
The proper term is not "intellectual rights", it's "temporary government-granted intellectual monopoly". That's all patents and copyrights are, they aren't 'property' any more than any other government-granted monopolies (for example, the past and present ones on telephone service).
While Kerry might be able to pull out an Electoral College win, he clearly can't win a majority vote, even after all the provisional ballots in Ohio and elsewhere are counted. He's doing the graceful thing, and conceding the electoral vote when it's clear he lost the popular vote. I'm a bit disappointed, but think that it's best for the Republic in the long run. Now if Bush will only have the sense to try and heal the wounds made by 4 years of partisan fighting....
The real problem is not that Americans on the losing side are frustrated, it's that the U.S. is so bitterly divided now. The radicals on each side have been vilifying the other, so much that it's gotten difficult to have a civilized discussion. Most of the people on either side love their country, but we have trouble remembering that in the midst of all the vitriol. Loving your country includes loving the half of the citizens who disagree with you, after all. Or at least recognizing that they're just as much part of the country as you are.
As a nation, we need to start accepting the other side, and try to figure out a way to live together with people whose views and lifestyles we don't especially like (and even abhor). Not a meeting-in-the-middle kind of compromise (which neither side will accept), but some kind of cohabitation agreement where we come to some arrangement that keeps us out of each others' faces. I honestly don't see either side changing their minds about what they don't like in the other, so we need to move beyond the battle for hearts and minds (and laws), and try to accommodate each side.
As for leaving the country, it's not at that point yet. The checks and balances in the system were designed expressly to avoid the evils of majority rule, and it's up to those on the 'blue' side to make sure their senators and reps use those checks to the fullest. The checks and balances have already reined in the worst excesses of the Bush administration, like the attempted end-run around the court system.
In Iraq, we shot first. We invaded on a pretext, not for a real, solid threat; that is the bottom line of all those many hearings, investigations, and reports. The sanctions were working, for the time being, and Saddaam and Iraq had nothing to do with al-Quaeda. Our invasion was an alarming departure from the requirement of an "act of war" before going to war. At best, it was a grave mistake, at worst it was the kind of action you see from dictators, not from solid democracies.
Lucas (and all of us) know that the good guys don't shoot first -- that's the characteristic of corrupt sheriffs and other baddies. Lucas edited Star Wars to clean up Han's character. Wish we could do that to us in real life! But the best we can do, as U.S. voters, is to repudiate Bush and his gang.
To Bush and his gang, the invasion was not a mistake, not in the least. They revel in having shot first, in being 'tough'. The U.S's reputation in the world is terrible, because of Bush's policies and -- more important -- his aggressive actions. We are rightly seen as a threat to other nations; we're like the sheriff who goes and shoots the guys he knows are bad, without trial, evidence, or due process. There's a reason for having a 'cause for war' - it's clear evidence. Something we did not have, and our leaders knew, should have known, or at least should know now.
Sophisticated people know that there's a difference between the U.S. people and the government, and make allowances for individual Americans. But how can they possibly do so if we re-elect Bush? We will have clearly embraced the black hat.
Generally, the benefits go to the 'factors of production' that are in short supply. In the U.S., these are skilled labor, and unskilled labor. The U.S. has (compared to China and India) a lot of capital and land. With greater free trade (all other things being equal), the benefits should flow mainly to those controlling capital and land, rather than skilled and unskilled labor. What will really happen is anyones' guess. It may be that there will be a temporary blip downwards (and upwards in India/China) for skilled labor wages, until the supply in India/China becomes as tight as it is in the U.S. If the Indian and Chinese skilled labor markets are truly vast, then it will be more permanent (I would guess), and the wealthy (owners of capital and land) in the U.S will gain a permanent significant gain.
That they did says a lot about Greenpeace, doesn't it? (I personally am unsurprised.) The Environmentalist left has an unfortunately large segment of its membership that is ignorant of scientific methods and facts (as does the See-No-environmental Evil right). Our science education is seriously lacking; these types can only thrive in a sea of ignorance.
Um, VCs invest in new companies. That's all they do, it's the definition of a Venture Capitalist. There are various ways businesses can create a monopoly (or oligopoly) without any government help: predatory pricing, contract clauses with vendors that restrict competition, cartel agreements to name a few. All of these are illegal (that pesky government interference again!) of course.
In this corporate world, there is very little economic 'freedom' of the sort that the U.S. founding fathers worked so hard to provide. They were aware of the effect corporations could have on those freedoms; corporate formation was severely limited. The era of the self-employed businessman is pretty much over. It's not that we have lost the 'will for freedom' - ask the many mom-and-pop grocers that the corps have put out of business - it's that small, entrepreneurial businesses simply can't survive the competition with corporations. Walmart alone has devastated the American heartland, crushing many, many formerly prosperous small-town main streets. All the 'will to freedom' in the world can't fight significantly lower prices from a corporate organization.
You've missed the point. If there were a dairy monopoly (private, capitalist), it too could force the price of milk to $5 per gallon. Such monopolies have existed, and they reap huge profits from exploiting their position. That's why monopolies are considered bad, and are illegal except in certain cases: where the monopoly is 'natural', in countries where business controls the government, and in countries (generally developing nations) without adequate laws that protect the citizens from business malfeasance. It is possible to create and maintain a monopoly in a 'free' market, there are many historical examples (railroads being the most commonly known)
This too is basic economics, though sometimes not taught in the first-year courses. Monopoly and oligopoly effects are pretty well understood, and they are a strong exception to preventing government interference with business. When they exist, they can move the economic results significantly away from the 'optimum' ideal that a free market (in theory) provides.
I saw an interesting presentation a few years ago, comparing profitability (ROI) and profitability per person of top firms in the software industry. As you might expect, monopolist Microsoft showed much better profit and profit per person numbers than any of the other firms. We have been paying for that '$5 a gallon milk'. The 'free market' is not working here; in spite of those high profits VCs will generally no longer fund new businesses that might compete with Microsoft.
Copyright is just a relic monopoly from that bygone era, and should be abolished, just as the old industrial monopoly privileges have been. A copyright isn't 'property', it's a government-granted monopoly, that is choking off progress. You can call it property all you like, but the fact remains that it's only a grant of monopoly by the government; the many areas of fair use were put in to prevent abuses of that monopoly privilege. It's not all that different from a monopoly on the production of bread, porcelain, or trade in tea.
In Why Men Won't Ask for Directions , Richard Francis exposes the hollowness of much sociobiological science with a detailed analysis based on work in developmental biology. He shows that much of what is pointed to as evidence by sociobiologists as the action of evolution is actually explained by the underlying biochemistry; in many cases, the behaviours are an artifact of developmental biology -- like nipples on men -- rather than the result of evolutionary pressure.
The book is fun, you will never see sex and gender the same way. He leads you through the lives of some bizarre vertebrates, while elaborating his vivid argument against both the 'science' and the underlying philosophical approach of the sociobiologists. It's an eye-opener for all who have only heard the sociobiologists and their non-scientific opponents.
However, if you're stuck with no alternatives because you have to get everything in one bundle from SBC, they can screw you as much as the government lets them get away with. I'd happily trade having to deal with fingerpointing in order to have the option to switch DSL and/or local phone service and not have to rely on government regulation to protect me.
Under free trade, there are winners and losers, but the worldwide productivity is higher overall. There is nothing that prevents all the benefits of free trade going to one partner, though it is unlikely. As the parent says, some "individuals" will be hurt in the process. Who are they likely to be?
The economic theory of comparative advantage says that the direct benefits will go to those "factors of production" which are relatively abundant. Comparing China and India to the U.S., those abundant factors in the U.S. are 1) capital and 2) land. The factors in short supply --those "individuals" that will be hurt-- are 1) educated workers and 2) unskilled workers.
But, but ... won't the gains from improved productivity/lower prices and corporate profits outweigh the losses for those people? There's no guarantee that the gains from lower prices will be enough to offset the Wallmartization of your job, but maybe. It's pretty certain that the benefits from increased corporate profits will go mainly to the 5% who hold most of the wealth, though -- especially since the vast bulk of middle-class wealth is tied up in their home. Pretty unlikely to see an increase in productivity of that capital.
A vote for Nader is a vote for America's Robespierre -- another rigidly uncompromising, righteous man, known for his uncorruptibility and simple living. Such people are far worst than those who are willing to compromise with their opponents.
The U.S. has a "comparative advantage" in capital-intensive industries, because we have (compared to China and India) a lot of capital. Likewise, a "comparative advantage" in land-intensive industries such as agriculture. (You don't know what "comparative advantage" is? It is the economics term for the idea that countries should produce products that they have a relative -rather than absolute- advantage at producing. Then overall production of goods is maximized. Comparative Advantage ).
The U.S. should have an advantage in industries that require educated workers since we have many of them, but in fact educated workers are relatively scarce in the U.S., and have been for many years. Unskilled workers have been more plentiful -- their wages per person have been dropping in real terms, and their share of GNP has been dropping. Both educated and uneducated labor are scarce relative to capital and land, when compared to India and China.
Economists will, if pressed, admit that free trade does have some losers in each country -- those who are in relatively short supply -- but maintain that the overall worldwide gains in productivity are worth it even though a few will be worse off. Now look at the U.S. case: capital and land are plentiful, educated and uneducated workers are in short supply. Educated *and* uneducated workers are the ones most likely to suffer under free trade. Yes, the whole world will be better off, but is the average American likely to see any benefit from those gains? The only benefit they will see will come from a drop in the cost of goods where educated or unskilled labor is a relatively important factor, which may or may not be enough to offset the loss of wages they will suffer. It is entirely possible that most of the gains will go to workers in India and China, and to those who own farmland and capital in the U.S.
It's that the rules of governance should apply to all of us fairly, and that money should not corrupt the process. The slide from republic into tyranny happens when the citizens do not fight those things, and the elites use them to increase their power. What's so hard to understand about that?
That kind of thing can (and has) lead to tyranny and the end of a republic when it is allowed to spread unchecked. Don't belive me? Read Rubicon by Tom Holland for a "case study".
That was meant to be informative -- the common 4-letter 'swear' words have been in ordinary use since before Shakespeare, and yet are *still* considered slang. That says a lot about dictionaries and their function as a prescriptive definers of proper language rather than describers of actual language.
So, like, language evolves. You got a problem with that? And like, words migrate from slang to the dictionary, NOT from the dictionary into usage.
Dictionary definitions are subject to social fiddling anyway. You have any idea how many good old Saxon words have been ruled illegitimate even with centuries of usage? If you check into some of the "vulgar slang" rude words, you'll find they've been in use since time immemorial. Presence in or absence from the dictionary is no measure of whether or not a word is a 'real' word.