That's the scam. It's not about making ethanol, it's about pork dollars for the corn lobby. There is no switchgrass lobby.
But there are sugarcane lobbies and sugarcane is better than corn for making alcohol. Actually there's rumors the reason US administrations have opposed opening up trade with Cuba is because of the sugarcane lobbies. If Cuba were allowed to export it to the US a lot of growers in Florida, Hawaii, and Louisiana as well as sugar beet farmers up north would have to lower their prices in order to compeat.
I was opposed to bailing out Wall Street, Banks and AIG.
As was I. I also oppose the bailout of Detroit. Chrysler and GM should go to court and declare bankruptcy, and it looks like GM is.
I mean these CEOs of the banks were making billions of dollars and banks were turning TRILLIONS in record profits every year. Where did all that profit go?
The profits banks made, unlike their CEOs, were only on paper. Worthless paper it turned out. Banks are now reporting profits again. Citi Group reported 6.30% net profit margin for Q1. Bank of America reported 11.88% and Wells Fargo & Company 14.70%.
GM and Chrysler are a bit less responsible for their predicament than those previously discussed.
Chrysler and GM are victims of the recession but they have to share some of the blame too. Their market shares dropped as those of Honda, Mazda, Nissan, and Toyota increased. The Japanese companies built what people wanted. This goes back to the 1970s and the oil crisises. Back then Detroit didn't build fuel efficient vehicles but the Japanese did so they ate Detroit's breakfast. In the 1980s Ronald Reagan bailed out Chrysler because of it. In the '90s GM came out with the EV1 but killed it. First GM only leased them, it didn't sell them. And they were only leased in CA, AZ, and Atlanta, GA. Chris Paine made the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car". The thing is too is that electric cars predate internal combustion engine cars.
If I had the money I WOULD NOT pay a red cent on a vehicle that was not electric knowing that in a year or two they will have either full blown electric cars or 'plug-in hybrids' which I'd probably prefer since they only have electric motors but have a small ICE generator to convert gas to electricity for extended range.
I wouldn't want to waste my money either and like you would rather buy a plug-in hybrid. The Chevrolet Volt is one. Sales are supposed to start in November 2010, about a year and a half away. However it only has a 40 mile range when using only the battery. As an option though there's a planned solar roof panel.
How is there not a free market with operating systems?
I said "There is no freemarket", meaning in general, not "there not a free market with operating systems". I can't buy the power to run my laptop from anyone I want. I only have one choice, Excel. I don't have a choice for my cable, all I have is ComCast. If I wanted landline phone service I could only get it through Qwest. Luckily I can choose among a number of cellphones and services instead.
Falcon
Re:We already tried the libertarian style economic
on
The Great Ethanol Scam
·
· Score: 1
When was this?
Gilded Age. Google it. I'm also curious to see how you would think a total laziezze faire market would have improved the S&L crisis or the credit swap market implosion.
The Gilded Age was neither libertarian nor laissez faire economics. For instance some of those robber barons made their money from the railroads. And guess what? The railroads were given land by the government. That is neither libertarian nor laissez faire economics.
Crack open history books and read about my red herring
I see. Since you want to make things up and not have a rational debate I see no reason to continue.
All land is not created equal - it's not like you can raise sugarcane in Iowa. It requires a fairly warm climate, if I understand correctly.
However if not for the sugarcane lobby it could be imported. Brazil would love to export sugarcane to the US. And 90 miles off the coast of Florida there's another country that'd love to export sugarcane to the US, Cuba. Now whether that would be fuel efficient I don't know.
Net zero gas tax sounds great. They propose to reduce income taxes with tax credits at the bottom, right?:-)
The proposal itself has less money being taken from employees' pay, so they end up with more money when they get paid. Then the total income tax is lower when filing.
An atrocious decision by SCOTUS and an abuse of eminent domain.
I agree, it was a bad decision. However some good came out of it. A number of states and local governments changed their laws on eminent domain.
It would have been nice if the Constitution had the word "directly" in a couple places, as in "directly for public use" and regulating actions that "directly affect inter-state commerce".
The Constitution of the USA itself says nothing about eminent domain. The only place there is a reference, and only indirectly, is the 5th amendment's no taking clause.
The same people who say congress is bad but their own politicians are ok? Most of the tyme people reelect their senators and representatives. But ask them about congress and they have a low opinion of congress.
Is there really such a big difference between "I will have nothing to do with company X and buy from company Y instead" and "I will have nothing to do with party X and will vote for party Y instead"?
When you have only 2 companies to choose from no, there's not much competition there. But when you have a bunch of them you do have competition. Look at cell phones and the service plans for them. A number of companies make and sell cellphones and a number of companies sell services. There's little to no competition for landline phone services but there is for cellphones. Because of this many people don't have landline service, instead they only use cellphones. When I moved a few years ago I went with a cellphone service plan, and I pay less than I would with a landline. Not only that but a big chuck of the tyme I use my phone it's long distance which is included in the service plan.
Government did create Microsoft's monopoly. It did when it gave MS a copyright monopoly.
MSDOS and Windows weren't special when they first came out.
When government allowed MS to get away with requiring MSDOS instead of allowing DRDOS to install Windows it reinforced the monopoly. And you're right Windows wasn't special. Apple had already released Macs, I used Macs back in 1984 as well as DOS, Commodore sold Amigas, and X Windows was available for Unix systems. As late as the early 1990s I preferred Amigas and SGIs.
It was the years after where Microsoft took their operating system dominance to beat down other markets where MS really took off.
Mostly because of government, if government hadn't granted MS a monopoly MS may not have come to dominate OSs. Not that MS couldn't have anyway but without them they would have had to sell competitive products at competitive prices..
USA economy is probably closer, technically, to a fascist economic system.
I'm pretty sure that word doesn't mean what you think it means.
fascism:
"noun: a political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchical government (as opposed to democracy or liberalism)"
While still free, relative to the rest of the world, the US economy is partially controlled by the government with the higher you go the more government controls the economy.
Spoken like a man who's never been seriously ill. Or poor.
I come from a low income family and yes I've been both seriously ill and poor. I am poor now, currently the only income I have is disability. See as a college student, I worked part tyme, had no insurance, and didn't get financial assistance. I was hit after classes one day while riding my bike. According to the docs it's a miracle I lived. So now I am disabled and will soon be getting help buying food and paying rent. If it weren't for the fact that my sister owns the apartment building I live in I would have been evicted months ago.
And yes, she grew up poor too but now has her Masters, runs her own business, and owns rental property.
You only have to go to a third-world company where oil is extracted to see how these companies act with the lack of government regulations to control them (or a government that can stand up to the companies).
Hell, you don't have to find a third world oil company for an example of this. Unocal, Union Oil Company of California, has been accused of using the military to force Burmese to relocate and work in Burma. In Nigeria Shell Oil "supplied the Nigerian military government with weapons. These weapons were used to put down, with deadly force, opposition to Shell drilling on Ogoni land." Ken Saro-Wiwa, who opposed Shell drilling, was hanged by the military because of his opposition. Some groups in other nations have used the Alien Tort Claim Act of 1789, ATCA, to sue US businesses in US courts for their support of such things. And as president Bush tried to gut the ATCA.
The free market, with the companies always seeking lowest costs and better numbers this quarter, actually encourages these behaviors.
That is not a free market. A free market is one in which there is a voluntary exchange.
And like it or not, Somalia is exactly what we get with the "libertarian paradise". They might claim that they don't actually mean lack of government, but what good is a government that doesn't enforce laws and regulations?
If you're poisoned by some company you can sue them, you don't need byzantine regulations. Actually do you know who the biggest polluter in the US is? The United States Government. It's the biggest polluter and it gets away with it.
No I didn't miss it, you said "and Russia excepting, are much smaller in geographic size." To me that looks like you're comparing the size of Russia, other European nations, and the US not the ethnic makeup of them.
Otherwise I agree with your post I replied to, because the US is more diverse it makes a comparison in health care with Europe hard.
Falcon
We already tried the libertarian style economics.
on
The Great Ethanol Scam
·
· Score: 1
When was this?
Crack open a history book and read about why government started regulating things.
Crack open history books and read about how government gave corporations power. About 200 years ago Thomas Jefferson warned about them, "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
"Free markets must convince you to voluntarily consume their products instead of a competitor's."
When all the meat-producers practice unclean methods, they don't have to convince you of jack.
True but they don't get business from me or others either. There are still some of us who know how to hunt and fish if we want meat. And for those who don't even large grocery store chains are starting to sell free range meat and organic food. No body's forcing people to pay more for them yet a lot of people do. Whole Foods seems to be doing better than many thought. Personally I'd rather hunt for my meat, when I have it, otherwise I prefer growing my food. I don't have much space but I'm growing Thai basil, blueberries, carrots, lettuce, mustard, onions, 3 different peppers, radishes, rhubarb, strawberries, and 3 different tomatoes. I'd grow more if I spent more tyme and had more space.
Government (who's sole motive isn't greed for money, but rather fear of being elected out of office)
BS! While most people say congress is bad, when asked many say their own reps and senators are okay.
Free-market economics have had failures throughout history.
You mean like AIG, Wall Street, all these stupid banks involved in subprime mortgage scams, GM and Chrysler... Oh wait they didnt fail they got a bail out.
The fact they were bailed out shows there wasn't a freemarket. Under a free market the government would have let all of them fail and declare bankrupty. Many of those who support a free market opposed them. Here's some articles from the freemarket think-tank CATO. Here's more articles from the Libertarian Party, with more from the magazine "Reason". All of them support freemarkets.
Cap and spend is just another scheme to fleece the taxpayer.
Not if it's coupled with a plan like the net zero gas tax. In this plan fuel taxes would be raised but income taxes would be cut Going with cap and trade the income from selling emission credits can be be used to offset cuts in income tax. If you pay $20 more for energy you get $20 cut from your income tax.
And notice how the net zero gas tax is proposed not by so called liberals or socialists but by a writer for the conservative magazine "Weekly Standard".
Free market purists always seem to portray Europe as some sort of example of the failure of limited socialism and mixed markets, but frankly I've never understood this.
Try this. My sister's a CPA, Certified Public Accountant who along with friends started her own accounting business several years ago. Back then I was chatting with someone in Germany and mentioned that. He told me that if an accountant wanted to start an accounting business there they would have to have a lawyer start it. My sister didn't need one. Employment laws there also make it hard to fire an employee whether they're bad employees or not. If my sister hires a bad employee she can easily fire him or her too. Years ago when the government in France debated on whether to make it easier for employers to fire people youth rioted. The idea was supposed to be so employers would take more risks in hiring the young. If employers can't easily fire employees they won't hire then.
What we have now, however, is not this thing, and I'm glad of it. The primary sellers are huge corporations that pursue every legal avenue available to maximize profits, including patents, licenses and copyrights. When the laws do not favor them, they lobby to get the laws changed. To them it has nothing to do with fairness; it is entirely a cost-effectiveness equation.
> The problem with your reasoning is that when a free-market entity produces an inferior product, service, or solution, it will eventually fail.
Ok, when's Microsoft going to die?
There is no freemarket. If there were Microsoft would either be out of business or would produce better products. Having said that MS is improving, not as fast as some would like but they are getting better.
How about American Airlines?
When do I get to celebrate the passing of GM?
In a freemarket American Airlines would not have been rescued by the government. Neither would Detroit.
I'm a Canadian, and while our government has loads of problems, they are of the "the free market doesn't always work perfectly" kind, not the "everything the government touches turns to shit" kind.
Is the freemarket the reason Canadians have the come to the US for surgeries? Yea, in the US if you can pay you can have the surgery without waiting a long tyme whereas if you depend on National Health Care in Canada you do wait. A Liberal MP, Belinda Stronach went to California for surgery for her breast cancer, not because of the cost or waiting period but because "the U.S. hospital was the best place to have it done due to the type of surgery required."
And it's not just those who can afford it in the US who get good care, those who can't afford it can get good care too. I am an excellent example. As a college student without health insurance I was riding my bike one day after classes when I was hit by a moving van. At the accident scene I was picked up by a helicopter and flown to the best hospital for my type of injury in the area. I spent about a month in the hospital then lived in a rehabilitation house where I lived another 1 1/2 months. After leaving there I was in therapy about 3 months. My medical bills, which because I did not have insurance I could not afford, came to more than $120,000. I couldn't even afford to pay $1,200 never mind that much but I still got medical treatment.
The free market does a piss-poor job of dealing with external costs (those not paid by the consumer), and the government is the appropriate mechanism for connecting the costs back to the people who create them.
True enough but it's government who's given businesses the power they enjoy. For instance the city of New London, Connecticut used their power of eminent domain to take away people's homes so a business could redevelop the land.
A better approach would simply be to impose a GHG tax -- taxes on the various gasses, for the various industries that produce them.
If you haven't heard of it perhaps you'd be interested in a proposed net zero gas tax. The idea is to raise fuel tax but cut income tax. Then the better your mileage or the less you drive the more in your pocket. If you get a Prius and only drive 100 miles a week, you'll pay less tax. And those who drive their SUVs 200 miles a week will pay more. I was surprised to read this proposal by Charles Krauthammer in the conservative "Weekly Standard"
Just because the government makes mistakes does not mean the free market doesn't, there's plenty of mistakes both of them make and I wish the anti-government types would realize just how many free market failurs there out out there.
When the freemarket, which we do not have, or businesses make mistakes they should be held accountable. But who holds government accountable?
Slashdot Mirror
That's the scam. It's not about making ethanol, it's about pork dollars for the corn lobby. There is no switchgrass lobby.
But there are sugarcane lobbies and sugarcane is better than corn for making alcohol. Actually there's rumors the reason US administrations have opposed opening up trade with Cuba is because of the sugarcane lobbies. If Cuba were allowed to export it to the US a lot of growers in Florida, Hawaii, and Louisiana as well as sugar beet farmers up north would have to lower their prices in order to compeat.
Falcon
I was opposed to bailing out Wall Street, Banks and AIG.
As was I. I also oppose the bailout of Detroit. Chrysler and GM should go to court and declare bankruptcy, and it looks like GM is.
I mean these CEOs of the banks were making billions of dollars and banks were turning TRILLIONS in record profits every year. Where did all that profit go?
The profits banks made, unlike their CEOs, were only on paper. Worthless paper it turned out. Banks are now reporting profits again. Citi Group reported 6.30% net profit margin for Q1. Bank of America reported 11.88% and Wells Fargo & Company 14.70%.
GM and Chrysler are a bit less responsible for their predicament than those previously discussed.
Chrysler and GM are victims of the recession but they have to share some of the blame too. Their market shares dropped as those of Honda, Mazda, Nissan, and Toyota increased. The Japanese companies built what people wanted. This goes back to the 1970s and the oil crisises. Back then Detroit didn't build fuel efficient vehicles but the Japanese did so they ate Detroit's breakfast. In the 1980s Ronald Reagan bailed out Chrysler because of it. In the '90s GM came out with the EV1 but killed it. First GM only leased them, it didn't sell them. And they were only leased in CA, AZ, and Atlanta, GA. Chris Paine made the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car". The thing is too is that electric cars predate internal combustion engine cars.
If I had the money I WOULD NOT pay a red cent on a vehicle that was not electric knowing that in a year or two they will have either full blown electric cars or 'plug-in hybrids' which I'd probably prefer since they only have electric motors but have a small ICE generator to convert gas to electricity for extended range.
I wouldn't want to waste my money either and like you would rather buy a plug-in hybrid. The Chevrolet Volt is one. Sales are supposed to start in November 2010, about a year and a half away. However it only has a 40 mile range when using only the battery. As an option though there's a planned solar roof panel.
Falcon
How is there not a free market with operating systems?
I said "There is no freemarket", meaning in general, not "there not a free market with operating systems". I can't buy the power to run my laptop from anyone I want. I only have one choice, Excel. I don't have a choice for my cable, all I have is ComCast. If I wanted landline phone service I could only get it through Qwest. Luckily I can choose among a number of cellphones and services instead.
Falcon
When was this?
Gilded Age. Google it. I'm also curious to see how you would think a total laziezze faire market would have improved the S&L crisis or the credit swap market implosion.
The Gilded Age was neither libertarian nor laissez faire economics. For instance some of those robber barons made their money from the railroads. And guess what? The railroads were given land by the government. That is neither libertarian nor laissez faire economics.
Crack open history books and read about my red herring
I see. Since you want to make things up and not have a rational debate I see no reason to continue.
Falcon
All land is not created equal - it's not like you can raise sugarcane in Iowa. It requires a fairly warm climate, if I understand correctly.
However if not for the sugarcane lobby it could be imported. Brazil would love to export sugarcane to the US. And 90 miles off the coast of Florida there's another country that'd love to export sugarcane to the US, Cuba. Now whether that would be fuel efficient I don't know.
Falcon
Net zero gas tax sounds great. They propose to reduce income taxes with tax credits at the bottom, right? :-)
The proposal itself has less money being taken from employees' pay, so they end up with more money when they get paid. Then the total income tax is lower when filing.
Falcon
An atrocious decision by SCOTUS and an abuse of eminent domain.
I agree, it was a bad decision. However some good came out of it. A number of states and local governments changed their laws on eminent domain.
It would have been nice if the Constitution had the word "directly" in a couple places, as in "directly for public use" and regulating actions that "directly affect inter-state commerce".
The Constitution of the USA itself says nothing about eminent domain. The only place there is a reference, and only indirectly, is the 5th amendment's no taking clause.
Falcon
The people.
The same people who say congress is bad but their own politicians are ok? Most of the tyme people reelect their senators and representatives. But ask them about congress and they have a low opinion of congress.
Falcon
Is there really such a big difference between "I will have nothing to do with company X and buy from company Y instead" and "I will have nothing to do with party X and will vote for party Y instead"?
When you have only 2 companies to choose from no, there's not much competition there. But when you have a bunch of them you do have competition. Look at cell phones and the service plans for them. A number of companies make and sell cellphones and a number of companies sell services. There's little to no competition for landline phone services but there is for cellphones. Because of this many people don't have landline service, instead they only use cellphones. When I moved a few years ago I went with a cellphone service plan, and I pay less than I would with a landline. Not only that but a big chuck of the tyme I use my phone it's long distance which is included in the service plan.
Falcon
The government didn't create the MS monopoly.
Government did create Microsoft's monopoly. It did when it gave MS a copyright monopoly.
MSDOS and Windows weren't special when they first came out.
When government allowed MS to get away with requiring MSDOS instead of allowing DRDOS to install Windows it reinforced the monopoly. And you're right Windows wasn't special. Apple had already released Macs, I used Macs back in 1984 as well as DOS, Commodore sold Amigas, and X Windows was available for Unix systems. As late as the early 1990s I preferred Amigas and SGIs.
It was the years after where Microsoft took their operating system dominance to beat down other markets where MS really took off.
Mostly because of government, if government hadn't granted MS a monopoly MS may not have come to dominate OSs. Not that MS couldn't have anyway but without them they would have had to sell competitive products at competitive prices..
Falcon
USA economy is probably closer, technically, to a fascist economic system.
I'm pretty sure that word doesn't mean what you think it means.
fascism:
"noun: a political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchical government (as opposed to democracy or liberalism)"
While still free, relative to the rest of the world, the US economy is partially controlled by the government with the higher you go the more government controls the economy.
Falcon
Spoken like a man who's never been seriously ill. Or poor.
I come from a low income family and yes I've been both seriously ill and poor. I am poor now, currently the only income I have is disability. See as a college student, I worked part tyme, had no insurance, and didn't get financial assistance. I was hit after classes one day while riding my bike. According to the docs it's a miracle I lived. So now I am disabled and will soon be getting help buying food and paying rent. If it weren't for the fact that my sister owns the apartment building I live in I would have been evicted months ago.
And yes, she grew up poor too but now has her Masters, runs her own business, and owns rental property.
Falcon
You only have to go to a third-world company where oil is extracted to see how these companies act with the lack of government regulations to control them (or a government that can stand up to the companies).
Hell, you don't have to find a third world oil company for an example of this. Unocal, Union Oil Company of California, has been accused of using the military to force Burmese to relocate and work in Burma. In Nigeria Shell Oil "supplied the Nigerian military government with weapons. These weapons were used to put down, with deadly force, opposition to Shell drilling on Ogoni land." Ken Saro-Wiwa, who opposed Shell drilling, was hanged by the military because of his opposition. Some groups in other nations have used the Alien Tort Claim Act of 1789, ATCA, to sue US businesses in US courts for their support of such things. And as president Bush tried to gut the ATCA.
The free market, with the companies always seeking lowest costs and better numbers this quarter, actually encourages these behaviors.
That is not a free market. A free market is one in which there is a voluntary exchange.
And like it or not, Somalia is exactly what we get with the "libertarian paradise". They might claim that they don't actually mean lack of government, but what good is a government that doesn't enforce laws and regulations?
If you're poisoned by some company you can sue them, you don't need byzantine regulations. Actually do you know who the biggest polluter in the US is? The United States Government. It's the biggest polluter and it gets away with it.
Falcon
and Russia excepting
No I didn't miss it, you said "and Russia excepting, are much smaller in geographic size." To me that looks like you're comparing the size of Russia, other European nations, and the US not the ethnic makeup of them.
Otherwise I agree with your post I replied to, because the US is more diverse it makes a comparison in health care with Europe hard.
Falcon
When was this?
Crack open a history book and read about why government started regulating things.
Crack open history books and read about how government gave corporations power. About 200 years ago Thomas Jefferson warned about them, "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
"Free markets must convince you to voluntarily consume their products instead of a competitor's."
When all the meat-producers practice unclean methods, they don't have to convince you of jack.
True but they don't get business from me or others either. There are still some of us who know how to hunt and fish if we want meat. And for those who don't even large grocery store chains are starting to sell free range meat and organic food. No body's forcing people to pay more for them yet a lot of people do. Whole Foods seems to be doing better than many thought. Personally I'd rather hunt for my meat, when I have it, otherwise I prefer growing my food. I don't have much space but I'm growing Thai basil, blueberries, carrots, lettuce, mustard, onions, 3 different peppers, radishes, rhubarb, strawberries, and 3 different tomatoes. I'd grow more if I spent more tyme and had more space.
Government (who's sole motive isn't greed for money, but rather fear of being elected out of office)
BS! While most people say congress is bad, when asked many say their own reps and senators are okay.
Free-market economics have had failures throughout history.
Name one tyme a free market failed.
Falcon
You mean like AIG, Wall Street, all these stupid banks involved in subprime mortgage scams, GM and Chrysler... Oh wait they didnt fail they got a bail out.
The fact they were bailed out shows there wasn't a freemarket. Under a free market the government would have let all of them fail and declare bankrupty. Many of those who support a free market opposed them. Here's some articles from the freemarket think-tank CATO. Here's more articles from the Libertarian Party, with more from the magazine "Reason". All of them support freemarkets.
Falcon
Cap and spend is just another scheme to fleece the taxpayer.
Not if it's coupled with a plan like the net zero gas tax. In this plan fuel taxes would be raised but income taxes would be cut Going with cap and trade the income from selling emission credits can be be used to offset cuts in income tax. If you pay $20 more for energy you get $20 cut from your income tax.
And notice how the net zero gas tax is proposed not by so called liberals or socialists but by a writer for the conservative magazine "Weekly Standard".
Falcon
European nations are much more culturally and racially homogeneous than the US
Actually Russia is about as ethnically diverse as the US. Like the US Russia has many ethnic groups.
Falcon
Free market purists always seem to portray Europe as some sort of example of the failure of limited socialism and mixed markets, but frankly I've never understood this.
Try this. My sister's a CPA, Certified Public Accountant who along with friends started her own accounting business several years ago. Back then I was chatting with someone in Germany and mentioned that. He told me that if an accountant wanted to start an accounting business there they would have to have a lawyer start it. My sister didn't need one. Employment laws there also make it hard to fire an employee whether they're bad employees or not. If my sister hires a bad employee she can easily fire him or her too. Years ago when the government in France debated on whether to make it easier for employers to fire people youth rioted. The idea was supposed to be so employers would take more risks in hiring the young. If employers can't easily fire employees they won't hire then.
Falcon
What we have now, however, is not this thing, and I'm glad of it. The primary sellers are huge corporations that pursue every legal avenue available to maximize profits, including patents, licenses and copyrights. When the laws do not favor them, they lobby to get the laws changed. To them it has nothing to do with fairness; it is entirely a cost-effectiveness equation.
Ah, as you say, we have no freemarket.
Falcon
> The problem with your reasoning is that when a free-market entity produces an inferior product, service, or solution, it will eventually fail.
Ok, when's Microsoft going to die?
There is no freemarket. If there were Microsoft would either be out of business or would produce better products. Having said that MS is improving, not as fast as some would like but they are getting better.
How about American Airlines?
When do I get to celebrate the passing of GM?
In a freemarket American Airlines would not have been rescued by the government. Neither would Detroit.
Falcon
I'm a Canadian, and while our government has loads of problems, they are of the "the free market doesn't always work perfectly" kind, not the "everything the government touches turns to shit" kind.
Is the freemarket the reason Canadians have the come to the US for surgeries? Yea, in the US if you can pay you can have the surgery without waiting a long tyme whereas if you depend on National Health Care in Canada you do wait. A Liberal MP, Belinda Stronach went to California for surgery for her breast cancer, not because of the cost or waiting period but because "the U.S. hospital was the best place to have it done due to the type of surgery required."
And it's not just those who can afford it in the US who get good care, those who can't afford it can get good care too. I am an excellent example. As a college student without health insurance I was riding my bike one day after classes when I was hit by a moving van. At the accident scene I was picked up by a helicopter and flown to the best hospital for my type of injury in the area. I spent about a month in the hospital then lived in a rehabilitation house where I lived another 1 1/2 months. After leaving there I was in therapy about 3 months. My medical bills, which because I did not have insurance I could not afford, came to more than $120,000. I couldn't even afford to pay $1,200 never mind that much but I still got medical treatment.
Falcon
The free market does a piss-poor job of dealing with external costs (those not paid by the consumer), and the government is the appropriate mechanism for connecting the costs back to the people who create them.
True enough but it's government who's given businesses the power they enjoy. For instance the city of New London, Connecticut used their power of eminent domain to take away people's homes so a business could redevelop the land.
A better approach would simply be to impose a GHG tax -- taxes on the various gasses, for the various industries that produce them.
If you haven't heard of it perhaps you'd be interested in a proposed net zero gas tax. The idea is to raise fuel tax but cut income tax. Then the better your mileage or the less you drive the more in your pocket. If you get a Prius and only drive 100 miles a week, you'll pay less tax. And those who drive their SUVs 200 miles a week will pay more. I was surprised to read this proposal by Charles Krauthammer in the conservative "Weekly Standard"
Falcon
if Microsoft were left alone with no government interference they would have solidified their monopoly
It was because of government that Microsoft got it's monopoly. So if the government had not interfered MS would not have been a monopoly.
If there was no government interference there apparently would be no corn farmers in the US anymore.
How so?
Falcon
Just because the government makes mistakes does not mean the free market doesn't, there's plenty of mistakes both of them make and I wish the anti-government types would realize just how many free market failurs there out out there.
When the freemarket, which we do not have, or businesses make mistakes they should be held accountable. But who holds government accountable?
Falcon