All you have to do is look at what has actually happened with WalMart.
Ok let's look at what's happening with Walmart. Walmart is the world's biggest retailer, and is one of China's biggest. The Chinese seem able to afford to shop there. Or take Brazil and Mexico. Walmart has been a success in both countries. In Brazil Walmart is closing in on Brazil's largest retailer, the French company Carrefour.
they're raking in billions of $ while Medicaide or other programs pay their workers health care costs
As in other areas I'd prefer a free market in health care. I don't believe in employer provided health insurance. In the US this is a vestige from World War II. Then the US had wage control laws that prevented employers from paying employees more, instead to allow businesses to attract employees employers were allowed to offer health insurance to employees. This alone distorted the market for health care and insurance. Even today laws and regulations favor employers who provide health insurance instead of paying them more so they can buy the type of insurance they want. However as you point out with Walmart some employers don't offer insurance for employees. Because health costs are skyrocketing employers are either requiring employees to pay more or are dropping coverage. That has been a sticking point with US auto manufacturers and United Auto Workers. The companies want workers to pay more but the union won't go along. What needs to be done is to let employers pay employees more without either having to pay more taxes then allow employees to buy insurance.
In any case you sound like you've swallowed the whole 'there is an evil liberal agenda to have all powerful government'.
On whether or not there's any agenda or not doesn't matter to me, but if there is one it's not liberal. Liberals, real ones not fakes, want liberty and small government.
It is crap. It is Corporatist propaganda.
Looks like you've missed where I've railed against corporation. A number of tymes I've stated corporations should have their Corporate Charter revoked if t hey no longer served to public good. The very first corporation, the Dutch East India Company, was granted a corporate charter for this very reason in 1602. Two years later the Honourable East India Company was granted a charter for the same reason, to serve the public good. If corporations today were treated the same it wouldn't be a problem. Thomas Jefferson said "I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of their country."
while the Republicans have given loads of lip service to shrinking government, they've failed utterly to live up to their word.
Republicans have never done anything to shrink government. Two of past 3 Republican presidents increased the size of government. What's ironic is that the republican president that warned of the military industrial complex, Dwight D. Eisenhower, actually made it stronger. Many Americans believe it was Kennedy who first sent US troops to Viet Nam, but it was actually Ike who sent Colonel Edward Lansdale to undermine a vote on whether North and South Viet Nam would re
And a sudden nation wide demand for solar power would do nothing to the price of silicone?
As it is now there's research into using materials other than silicon for PVs. With higher demand for silicon this will allow more money to be put into research on others.
Even if the price on solar units stayed relatively stable, you're still looking at probably $6k for an integrated roof system
Seeing as how CA has one of the highest cost for electricity $6K isn't much. Late last year one/.er said he pays $300 a month for electricity, one year's electrical bills would cover that. However state and national incentives will cover part of the cost of the system. DSIRE, Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency, lists the incentives for California. For instance California Solar Initiative - Photovoltaics Incentives aims "to provide more than $3 billion in incentives for solar-energy projects with the objective of providing 3,000 MW of solar capacity by 2017." For residential systems below 100kw it provides $2.50 per watt. Of course $6000 may not be enough to pay for a system that produces all of it's own power. Besides the PVs a stand alone system will require batteries for energy storage while it's not sunny.
Only an idiot can't see that you are proposing to force your views on us. This country is the property of US citizens. You libertarians want to tell us what rules to play by on our own property.
Oh, and you're not forcing your views on us?
Tell you what, you want to live in a country where you pay no taxes and everything is free market, how about you go make your own country
Too late, you already stole our country. It was called the United States of America.
I believe every person should have the right to access the means of their own support and livelihood. This conflicts with absolute property ownership.
You do have the right, all you have to do is buy your own property. What you do not have the right to do is to force others to give you their property.
Oh, is it that you want communism? Haven't you learned it doesn't work?
This is why I say, libertarians aren't about liberty at all. They are about their own personal freedom to do as they please, and everyone else can go to hell.
Boy are you dead wrong. Libertarians are about making sure everyone has liberty. Anyone should be able to do whatever they want so long as they don't harm anyone else. And if they do harm another then they get their day in court, where the accuser has to prove they caused harm.
You are free to leave our property if you don't like our rules, but you can't just demand that we change them because you don't like them.
You're doing the exact same thing you're accusing us of doing. This, the United States of America, used to be the Land of the Free, but now it's the land of the Nanny state.
would you like it if I came and lived in your house without paying you, and followed my own rules (including, say, peeing in the sink) while there? No? But I never agreed to follow your rules!
Wow, that exactly what happened to the USA, it used to be the land of the free, now people have to suffer the Tyranny of the Masses. The one saving grace is that it hasn't gotten as bad as the Reign of Terror yet.
If libertarians want to live in a different style of society than the rest of us, I suggest they form their own nation or state and make their own society instead of trying to co-opt one that the vast majority of Americans prefer.
We used to have our own country, it was called the United States of America.
You are all free to leave
Yea, instead of you leaving to form your own utopia you want us to leave.
You present a strong argument for a core tenet of Republican beliefs, namely, a smaller Federal government. That is actually one belief I share with Republicans
Small government hasn't been a tenet of the Republican Party in a long tyme. The current admin, Bush Jr's, is creating an intelligence state. And Reagan built up the police state Nixon started. Of course Democrats aren't for small government either. They want big social services programs. The only political party in the US that has Small Government as it's platform is the Libertarian Party.
So far, you libertarian types have not stepped up to the plate. You can't seem to make a go of it on your own, so you want to steal our country and our infrastructure for your little experiment.
Who's stealing, has stole, the country? Those who don't want things to change from how things are now or those who want it to be like it was when Thomas Jefferson was around? Those who can't make it on their own are the socialists, instead they want to sponge off others.
Do you know how much it costs, per foot, to run an over head powerline? The enterance cost of power distribution is huge! A company would have to spend billions of dollars to develop and install a 2nd set of copper to run power to all the same places that the exiting power company's lines run to.
There's no need to run powerlines all over at once. If electrical cost get too much then a person can install an alternative electrical source. Say someone in sunny California see their next power bill and it says $5000 when the previous month it was $250, and KW usage didn't go up that much. So they call Solar Installer X to install a solar system. Their neighbors learn about this and install their own solar system, and from there it spreads. The power company can either lower prices to keep customers or they will lose many of them. They'd have to look at their business and decide whether it's more profitable to charge 10,000 customers $250 or 10 $5000. Or maybe X will agree to wire a bunch of neighbors with solar and charge each one $500 per month.
By the way: in my opinion, a true libertarian must be against the limitation of liability that shareholders enjoy. The libertarian ideal of "free-market capitalism" only works when our freedom is counterbalanced by we having absolute responsibility for our actions. And you only get that, at the speculative market, once purchasing shares of a company links you, your well-being, your future, your destiny, to those of that company. At the prospect of you going on jail if the company commits a crime, even if you only own a single share. Do this, and you'll notice corporations becoming very good neighbors from day to night.
How is it that the Federal government is bad when the state government is good? That is illogical.
Under federal control you have one lab, whereas with the states in control you have 50 labs. Each state can try something. And if it works then other states can try it. Or if it doesn't work the state can try something that works for another state.
I was in a discussion with folks recently who do certified organic farming. The guy from the USDA comes in, looks at their farm, checks their papers, and drives off.
I've heard of some organic farmer who since the federal government took over the organic label have decided to give up on organic certification. This is because the costs of the certification has gone up a lot for them while their income hasn't increased. So what some do is continue operating as they did when certified organic but they won't pay for certification. I heard this is popular in California.
Yeah, in the same way that the 'Northern' states alliance was different than the 'Southern' states alliance. That worked out beautifully last time we tried it, didn't it?
Or you could have an alliance of northeastern states and California. Isn't that already happening, I means aren't some northeastern states already supporting CA's waiver request to tighten auto emissions?
And for those that might want to know my personal opinions on the subject, I think Bill Clinton said it best. Abortions should be legal, safe, and above all else rare.
That says it best alright. I am both pro-choice and pro-life.
I was thinking along the lines of physical, yes. But still, under the 'severe pain or suffering' clause, I still don't see how water-boarding is torture.
If you think you're going to be drowned then mental pain is being, well may be, applied when you are water-boarded.
I don't know about the Laffer Curve, not much at least, but I've read how there's some controversies about it.
Only way to find out is to adjust the tax rates, then leave them alone for a while and check REVENUE, not DEFICIT. Deficit can go up or down in ways unrelated to tax revenues
The problem I think is is you can't really know if adjusting tax rates will affect revenue. For instance what if tax rates are adjusted either up or down while at the same tyme there's a slowdown in the economy. Or say an adjustment is made when a new technology comes along that improves output.
Having said this, I don't want you to think I support high, or low, income taxes. I don't, I don't support personal income tax at the federal level. The only income tax I believe in is a tax on the profits a corporation makes, ie the dividends a corporation pays out. If someone wants the limited liability of a corporation then they can pay for it. At the state level, if the people there are ok with a state income tax then they can have one. But I'd rather not.
I started out as a Democrat. In 1980 I voted for Carter, then in 1984 for the Democrat candidate though I don't recall the person's name. Things changed in 1988, that year I was deputized to register people to vote. As part of it we were given a list of political parties recognized by the state, and later the names of the candidates on the ballot. I saw Ron Paul running as the Libertarian candidate and not knowing anything about him or the party I did some research. Thereafter I've considered myself a small "l" libertarian.
How can someone running for the Republican party possibly be a Libertarian?
Ron Paul first ran for president in 1988 as a Libertarian. The Libertarian Party got it's start in the 1970s when some Republicans became disillusioned with Nixon.
C) Torture? What, this water-boarding stuff? Duress, I agree. But torture? Show me the wounds and the scars left by water-boarding, and I might grant you torture.
Torture doesn't need to leave physical scars, torture is "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental" is inflicted intentionally. Or is it that you think if a scar isn't visible it isn't torture?
Paul's appeal - which is minimal if votes are the metric
While Ron Paul does't get as many votes as others, I wonder what effect the media has on it, I bet those who get more media coverage also get more votes, even before the first vote was cast in a primary.
primarily among libertarians, most of whom choose to overlook his von Mises
Perhaps you didn't know it but some Libertarians love Von Mises' economics while others don't. Some like Murray N. Rothbard and others Milton Friedman.
Slashdot Mirror
All you have to do is look at what has actually happened with WalMart.
Ok let's look at what's happening with Walmart. Walmart is the world's biggest retailer, and is one of China's biggest. The Chinese seem able to afford to shop there. Or take Brazil and Mexico. Walmart has been a success in both countries. In Brazil Walmart is closing in on Brazil's largest retailer, the French company Carrefour.
they're raking in billions of $ while Medicaide or other programs pay their workers health care costs
As in other areas I'd prefer a free market in health care. I don't believe in employer provided health insurance. In the US this is a vestige from World War II. Then the US had wage control laws that prevented employers from paying employees more, instead to allow businesses to attract employees employers were allowed to offer health insurance to employees. This alone distorted the market for health care and insurance. Even today laws and regulations favor employers who provide health insurance instead of paying them more so they can buy the type of insurance they want. However as you point out with Walmart some employers don't offer insurance for employees. Because health costs are skyrocketing employers are either requiring employees to pay more or are dropping coverage. That has been a sticking point with US auto manufacturers and United Auto Workers. The companies want workers to pay more but the union won't go along. What needs to be done is to let employers pay employees more without either having to pay more taxes then allow employees to buy insurance.
In any case you sound like you've swallowed the whole 'there is an evil liberal agenda to have all powerful government'.
On whether or not there's any agenda or not doesn't matter to me, but if there is one it's not liberal. Liberals, real ones not fakes, want liberty and small government.
It is crap. It is Corporatist propaganda.
Looks like you've missed where I've railed against corporation. A number of tymes I've stated corporations should have their Corporate Charter revoked if t hey no longer served to public good. The very first corporation, the Dutch East India Company, was granted a corporate charter for this very reason in 1602. Two years later the Honourable East India Company was granted a charter for the same reason, to serve the public good. If corporations today were treated the same it wouldn't be a problem. Thomas Jefferson said "I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of their country."
while the Republicans have given loads of lip service to shrinking government, they've failed utterly to live up to their word.
Republicans have never done anything to shrink government. Two of past 3 Republican presidents increased the size of government. What's ironic is that the republican president that warned of the military industrial complex, Dwight D. Eisenhower, actually made it stronger. Many Americans believe it was Kennedy who first sent US troops to Viet Nam, but it was actually Ike who sent Colonel Edward Lansdale to undermine a vote on whether North and South Viet Nam would re
And a sudden nation wide demand for solar power would do nothing to the price of silicone?
As it is now there's research into using materials other than silicon for PVs. With higher demand for silicon this will allow more money to be put into research on others.
Even if the price on solar units stayed relatively stable, you're still looking at probably $6k for an integrated roof system
Seeing as how CA has one of the highest cost for electricity $6K isn't much. Late last year one /.er said he pays $300 a month for electricity, one year's electrical bills would cover that. However state and national incentives will cover part of the cost of the system. DSIRE, Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency, lists the incentives for California. For instance California Solar Initiative - Photovoltaics Incentives aims "to provide more than $3 billion in incentives for solar-energy projects with the objective of providing 3,000 MW of solar capacity by 2017." For residential systems below 100kw it provides $2.50 per watt. Of course $6000 may not be enough to pay for a system that produces all of it's own power. Besides the PVs a stand alone system will require batteries for energy storage while it's not sunny.
FalconYeah, but they said they're on track for a balanced budget in 2012. So there's no problem.
Do you have reference for that?
FalconOnly an idiot can't see that you are proposing to force your views on us. This country is the property of US citizens. You libertarians want to tell us what rules to play by on our own property.
Oh, and you're not forcing your views on us?
Tell you what, you want to live in a country where you pay no taxes and everything is free market, how about you go make your own country
Too late, you already stole our country. It was called the United States of America.
FalconI believe every person should have the right to access the means of their own support and livelihood. This conflicts with absolute property ownership.
You do have the right, all you have to do is buy your own property. What you do not have the right to do is to force others to give you their property.
Oh, is it that you want communism? Haven't you learned it doesn't work?
This is why I say, libertarians aren't about liberty at all. They are about their own personal freedom to do as they please, and everyone else can go to hell.
Boy are you dead wrong. Libertarians are about making sure everyone has liberty. Anyone should be able to do whatever they want so long as they don't harm anyone else. And if they do harm another then they get their day in court, where the accuser has to prove they caused harm.
FalconYou are free to leave our property if you don't like our rules, but you can't just demand that we change them because you don't like them.
You're doing the exact same thing you're accusing us of doing. This, the United States of America, used to be the Land of the Free, but now it's the land of the Nanny state.
Falconwould you like it if I came and lived in your house without paying you, and followed my own rules (including, say, peeing in the sink) while there? No? But I never agreed to follow your rules!
Wow, that exactly what happened to the USA, it used to be the land of the free, now people have to suffer the Tyranny of the Masses. The one saving grace is that it hasn't gotten as bad as the Reign of Terror yet.
If libertarians want to live in a different style of society than the rest of us, I suggest they form their own nation or state and make their own society instead of trying to co-opt one that the vast majority of Americans prefer.
We used to have our own country, it was called the United States of America.
You are all free to leave
Yea, instead of you leaving to form your own utopia you want us to leave.
FalconYou present a strong argument for a core tenet of Republican beliefs, namely, a smaller Federal government. That is actually one belief I share with Republicans
Small government hasn't been a tenet of the Republican Party in a long tyme. The current admin, Bush Jr's, is creating an intelligence state. And Reagan built up the police state Nixon started. Of course Democrats aren't for small government either. They want big social services programs. The only political party in the US that has Small Government as it's platform is the Libertarian Party.
FalconSo far, you libertarian types have not stepped up to the plate. You can't seem to make a go of it on your own, so you want to steal our country and our infrastructure for your little experiment.
Who's stealing, has stole, the country? Those who don't want things to change from how things are now or those who want it to be like it was when Thomas Jefferson was around? Those who can't make it on their own are the socialists, instead they want to sponge off others.
FalconDo you know how much it costs, per foot, to run an over head powerline? The enterance cost of power distribution is huge! A company would have to spend billions of dollars to develop and install a 2nd set of copper to run power to all the same places that the exiting power company's lines run to.
There's no need to run powerlines all over at once. If electrical cost get too much then a person can install an alternative electrical source. Say someone in sunny California see their next power bill and it says $5000 when the previous month it was $250, and KW usage didn't go up that much. So they call Solar Installer X to install a solar system. Their neighbors learn about this and install their own solar system, and from there it spreads. The power company can either lower prices to keep customers or they will lose many of them. They'd have to look at their business and decide whether it's more profitable to charge 10,000 customers $250 or 10 $5000. Or maybe X will agree to wire a bunch of neighbors with solar and charge each one $500 per month.
FalconBy the way: in my opinion, a true libertarian must be against the limitation of liability that shareholders enjoy. The libertarian ideal of "free-market capitalism" only works when our freedom is counterbalanced by we having absolute responsibility for our actions. And you only get that, at the speculative market, once purchasing shares of a company links you, your well-being, your future, your destiny, to those of that company. At the prospect of you going on jail if the company commits a crime, even if you only own a single share. Do this, and you'll notice corporations becoming very good neighbors from day to night.
What you could do is revoke the Corporate Charter of corporations.
FalconAs I said: Secede from the union.
Either combine properly or get out. And yes, that's precisely the issue Europe is struggling with at the moment.
It doesn't need to be one or the other. Each state can try it's own thing without bothering other states.
FalconHow is it that the Federal government is bad when the state government is good? That is illogical.
Under federal control you have one lab, whereas with the states in control you have 50 labs. Each state can try something. And if it works then other states can try it. Or if it doesn't work the state can try something that works for another state.
FalconI was in a discussion with folks recently who do certified organic farming. The guy from the USDA comes in, looks at their farm, checks their papers, and drives off.
I've heard of some organic farmer who since the federal government took over the organic label have decided to give up on organic certification. This is because the costs of the certification has gone up a lot for them while their income hasn't increased. So what some do is continue operating as they did when certified organic but they won't pay for certification. I heard this is popular in California.
FalconTwo consenting adults should be allowed to trade with each other at whatever terms they voluntarily agree upon.
There are limits to that. Because as you have just phrased it, debtor armies and slave labor would be entirely acceptable.
I don't know that the person being enslaved would think it's voluntary.
FalconYeah, in the same way that the 'Northern' states alliance was different than the 'Southern' states alliance. That worked out beautifully last time we tried it, didn't it?
Or you could have an alliance of northeastern states and California. Isn't that already happening, I means aren't some northeastern states already supporting CA's waiver request to tighten auto emissions?
FalconAnd for those that might want to know my personal opinions on the subject, I think Bill Clinton said it best. Abortions should be legal, safe, and above all else rare.
That says it best alright. I am both pro-choice and pro-life.
FalconI was thinking along the lines of physical, yes. But still, under the 'severe pain or suffering' clause, I still don't see how water-boarding is torture.
If you think you're going to be drowned then mental pain is being, well may be, applied when you are water-boarded.
FalconI don't know about the Laffer Curve, not much at least, but I've read how there's some controversies about it.
Only way to find out is to adjust the tax rates, then leave them alone for a while and check REVENUE, not DEFICIT. Deficit can go up or down in ways unrelated to tax revenues
The problem I think is is you can't really know if adjusting tax rates will affect revenue. For instance what if tax rates are adjusted either up or down while at the same tyme there's a slowdown in the economy. Or say an adjustment is made when a new technology comes along that improves output.
Having said this, I don't want you to think I support high, or low, income taxes. I don't, I don't support personal income tax at the federal level. The only income tax I believe in is a tax on the profits a corporation makes, ie the dividends a corporation pays out. If someone wants the limited liability of a corporation then they can pay for it. At the state level, if the people there are ok with a state income tax then they can have one. But I'd rather not.
FalconI've always been a Libertarian.
I started out as a Democrat. In 1980 I voted for Carter, then in 1984 for the Democrat candidate though I don't recall the person's name. Things changed in 1988, that year I was deputized to register people to vote. As part of it we were given a list of political parties recognized by the state, and later the names of the candidates on the ballot. I saw Ron Paul running as the Libertarian candidate and not knowing anything about him or the party I did some research. Thereafter I've considered myself a small "l" libertarian.
FalconHow can someone running for the Republican party possibly be a Libertarian?
Ron Paul first ran for president in 1988 as a Libertarian. The Libertarian Party got it's start in the 1970s when some Republicans became disillusioned with Nixon.
FaclonC) Torture? What, this water-boarding stuff? Duress, I agree. But torture? Show me the wounds and the scars left by water-boarding, and I might grant you torture.
Torture doesn't need to leave physical scars, torture is "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental" is inflicted intentionally. Or is it that you think if a scar isn't visible it isn't torture?
FalconPaul's appeal - which is minimal if votes are the metric
While Ron Paul does't get as many votes as others, I wonder what effect the media has on it, I bet those who get more media coverage also get more votes, even before the first vote was cast in a primary.
primarily among libertarians, most of whom choose to overlook his von Mises
Perhaps you didn't know it but some Libertarians love Von Mises' economics while others don't. Some like Murray N. Rothbard and others Milton Friedman.
FalconWhat private ventures are these that are putting sciecne satellites in orbit and sending probes to other planets?
And what are these enterprises supposed to do, compeat with the government when the government makes all the rules?
And his racism
Yea, like releasing all nonviolent drug offenders, most of whom are not "white", is racist. "Ron Paul associates the Drug War with racism, and wants to put an end to both."
FalconOK, so you didn't read my post before answering
I read it, here it is: " contradicting answer #2".
If you find his post you can argue your point with him.
Unless you didn't properly attribute what he said, then you said the above.
Falcon