Your little thesis is a bit wrong. For one, there are no true natural monopolies. Diamonds? They are only worth something because people think they are. Oil isn't a monopoly because there are plenty of alternatives. The only true monopolies are the ones granted by the government where they prohibit competition.
As far as pollution, you are way off base. In the early 19th century, the US Gov't upheld peoples property rights. So if someone polluted onto your property you could sue them and had a high chance of winning. So manufactures had a good reason to adopt cleaner coal and cleaner manufacturing processes. We had people adopting these because it costed less than paying out for lawsuits. But, later in the 19th century the gov't took the side of business and we saw a shift where they didn't hold up property rights for owners. So you could pollute on someones property and not worry about being sued. Then we saw polluters moving towards less environmentally friendly technology because it wasn't necessary anymore. So thanks to the government not protecting property rights, we had worse pollution.
please make a list of any company that can kill people who don't buy their products. i can provide you a list of governments that will kill you at an instant for any reason they wish.
see, you think government can actually do things correctly, when they can't. this hurricane is proof enough the government lacks th ability to properly calcuate the response to a disaster. it is the socialist calculation problem at its best.
would private industry do better? probably, but not necessarily. for one, new orleans would never have been built because it is a horrible place to build a city (or rebuilt from the last flood). no insurer is going to allow that.
could it have provided a means to protect the city? possibly, but relying on the fact that insurance would have been through the roof to insure the city, it wouldn't have been worth it. (this ignores the fact gov't bails out insurance in disaster areas).
the public market was to take care of the levee system, not the free market. it is people like you who are quick to blame it as a failure of the private market, when it is a public market failure to the core.
if it were the private market, for one, there would be no new orleans because it would be STUPID to build a city under sea level. it would do this because of the PROFIT motive, for no other reason.
What makes children creative is getting outside and building forts out of anything they can find. It is playing cops and robbers, cowboys and indians. It is riding a bike, playing in woods, meeting friends in real life. It is reading the book and figuring out in your head what the characters look like, what hte landscape looks like. It isn't watching a movie or watching a slideshow on the internet.
The internet is fun, don't get me wrong. But it isn't helping people become more interactive and creative. it is a tool to do work, it is a tool to communicate. it isn't a new friend.
You put all your groceries in the cart, you push the cart into a machine, you are checked out instantly. No longer do you have to have the person scan every single item. Grocery shopping will be 1000x better:o
Before children were forced into schools, litercy rates were ~100%, now, they are no where near that leve. MA for on example, prior to forcing all children into school after the civil war had a rate of 99%, since it has never been above 91%.
I don't disagree privatization doesn't work, at all. Mainly it benefits the friends of those in power, neglecting those who could do the job better. It has always been that way and will continue to be so as long as the gov't has as much power.
As far as the pension system, many would argue that they are bunk to begin with. we should be teaching people how to save and how to save wisely. it isn't that hard to retire rich, people don't understand the basics. putting all your eggs in one basket is the worst thing you can do for your fiscal future.
Airlines, i won't comment because i don't know what you are referring to
Charter schools, bad idea to begin with. but look at private schools or homeschooling, they seem to work quite well. read John Taylor Gatto's works on public schooling if you find that subject interesting. it iterates how everyone should find them the worst aspect of soceity.
Too bad in each of those examples, government intervention has created most of the problems.
good job.
Pensions: Unions wrecked this system, it was a horrible idea to begin with South America: Free what? nothing is free there Airlines, public schools? All these are institutions the fed HEAVILY regulates
good for the consumer, it will force apple to stay on the cutting edge because their competition can easily copy their interface. competition = innovation = win for consumers
this century will be the most oppressed ever as we have means never before to track and trace people.
The dictators of the 20th century had nothing on the technology to pillage and murder that we are developing now.
The only *true* monopoly is the one *granted* by the gov't where the gov't prohibits others from entering the market and competing.
There is no such case in the OS world. There are plenty of competing firms. It just so happens, Windows takes the largest share because it does what people need. Yes, it isn't perfect and i would rather be using OSX myself, but for the majority of people out there, ti is fine. Even then, you could probably get people to use something else without much effort, most people are sheeps.
I don't think MS is all that great, but, i don't think they are the evil they are painted by the/. community.
And i don't trust some gov't bureaucrat in DC over what i want to purchase either. the only reason things are the way they are is becuase the big companies buy special privledges from those people, screwing over the public.
but not really, commenting as you go has always worked best for me, going off an uncommented API is evil when it is complex, i loathe working on some projects because there is absolutly no documentation
But even myself, I am looking towards getting a PhD in economics compared to furthering my career in computers. i know the skills to get work done, it simply doesn't interest me anymore.
is all the major companies sit down and design a new email system. the current email system is like a sinking boat they are trying to patch and prevent it from reaching the bottom. now, everyone is going their own seperate way (MS, Yahoo), where there will be no standard. the whole system needs to be scraped and rebuilt from the ground up taking into consideration spam, which was never present when the system was designed.
all studies are biased and show exactly what the person who is doing them want. much like stats, you can make anything prove anything through working the #'s and asking the right questions
Slashdot Mirror
It is nice to see another Austrian Economics fan on Slashdot. It is like fighting a flood of ignorance!
Your little thesis is a bit wrong. For one, there are no true natural monopolies. Diamonds? They are only worth something because people think they are. Oil isn't a monopoly because there are plenty of alternatives. The only true monopolies are the ones granted by the government where they prohibit competition.
As far as pollution, you are way off base. In the early 19th century, the US Gov't upheld peoples property rights. So if someone polluted onto your property you could sue them and had a high chance of winning. So manufactures had a good reason to adopt cleaner coal and cleaner manufacturing processes. We had people adopting these because it costed less than paying out for lawsuits. But, later in the 19th century the gov't took the side of business and we saw a shift where they didn't hold up property rights for owners. So you could pollute on someones property and not worry about being sued. Then we saw polluters moving towards less environmentally friendly technology because it wasn't necessary anymore. So thanks to the government not protecting property rights, we had worse pollution.
please make a list of any company that can kill people who don't buy their products. i can provide you a list of governments that will kill you at an instant for any reason they wish.
see, you think government can actually do things correctly, when they can't. this hurricane is proof enough the government lacks th ability to properly calcuate the response to a disaster. it is the socialist calculation problem at its best.
would private industry do better? probably, but not necessarily. for one, new orleans would never have been built because it is a horrible place to build a city (or rebuilt from the last flood). no insurer is going to allow that.
could it have provided a means to protect the city? possibly, but relying on the fact that insurance would have been through the roof to insure the city, it wouldn't have been worth it. (this ignores the fact gov't bails out insurance in disaster areas).
i love how the most obivious and well thought out respose is "flamebait" on the great socialist slashdot.
you have no clue what you are talking about.
the public market was to take care of the levee system, not the free market. it is people like you who are quick to blame it as a failure of the private market, when it is a public market failure to the core.
if it were the private market, for one, there would be no new orleans because it would be STUPID to build a city under sea level. it would do this because of the PROFIT motive, for no other reason.
educate yourself before you make a stupid post.
What makes children creative is getting outside and building forts out of anything they can find. It is playing cops and robbers, cowboys and indians. It is riding a bike, playing in woods, meeting friends in real life. It is reading the book and figuring out in your head what the characters look like, what hte landscape looks like. It isn't watching a movie or watching a slideshow on the internet.
The internet is fun, don't get me wrong. But it isn't helping people become more interactive and creative. it is a tool to do work, it is a tool to communicate. it isn't a new friend.
The ones that think we are harming the earth and the ones that think we aren't
neither side have any idea what is going on with the earth.
the earth will be fine, now and long after humans are wiped from the planet. are we speeding up that process? maybe, maybe not.
You put all your groceries in the cart, you push the cart into a machine, you are checked out instantly. No longer do you have to have the person scan every single item. Grocery shopping will be 1000x better :o
Before children were forced into schools, litercy rates were ~100%, now, they are no where near that leve. MA for on example, prior to forcing all children into school after the civil war had a rate of 99%, since it has never been above 91%.
That is pathetic.
Reconciliation - Economics And The Environment
and as it is turning out, we had all the tools necessary before 9/11 to stop all the terrorists before the events happened
I don't disagree privatization doesn't work, at all. Mainly it benefits the friends of those in power, neglecting those who could do the job better. It has always been that way and will continue to be so as long as the gov't has as much power.
As far as the pension system, many would argue that they are bunk to begin with. we should be teaching people how to save and how to save wisely. it isn't that hard to retire rich, people don't understand the basics. putting all your eggs in one basket is the worst thing you can do for your fiscal future.
Airlines, i won't comment because i don't know what you are referring to
Charter schools, bad idea to begin with. but look at private schools or homeschooling, they seem to work quite well. read John Taylor Gatto's works on public schooling if you find that subject interesting. it iterates how everyone should find them the worst aspect of soceity.
Too bad in each of those examples, government intervention has created most of the problems.
good job.
Pensions: Unions wrecked this system, it was a horrible idea to begin with
South America: Free what? nothing is free there
Airlines, public schools? All these are institutions the fed HEAVILY regulates
good for the consumer, it will force apple to stay on the cutting edge because their competition can easily copy their interface. competition = innovation = win for consumers
this century will be the most oppressed ever as we have means never before to track and trace people. The dictators of the 20th century had nothing on the technology to pillage and murder that we are developing now.
The only *true* monopoly is the one *granted* by the gov't where the gov't prohibits others from entering the market and competing.
/. community.
There is no such case in the OS world. There are plenty of competing firms. It just so happens, Windows takes the largest share because it does what people need. Yes, it isn't perfect and i would rather be using OSX myself, but for the majority of people out there, ti is fine. Even then, you could probably get people to use something else without much effort, most people are sheeps.
I don't think MS is all that great, but, i don't think they are the evil they are painted by the
And i don't trust some gov't bureaucrat in DC over what i want to purchase either. the only reason things are the way they are is becuase the big companies buy special privledges from those people, screwing over the public.
it should be hard to read!
but not really, commenting as you go has always worked best for me, going off an uncommented API is evil when it is complex, i loathe working on some projects because there is absolutly no documentation
He has finished his first year of law school for IP law, $55K+ and they are paying for the rest of his college
not a bad deal if you have an engineering/science background
I think you need to take a course in economics beyond 101.
Apple IS a monopoly, a monopoly of apple computers. No one else can build apple computers with the Apple OS, that is a monopoly of the apple product.
Please tell me where i can get an Apple not made by Apple, you can't. They are a monopoly, like it or not.
40GB x 100 = 3500 hrs of recording 24hrs day * 30 days = 720 hours you can record for a straight month 4.8 channels non-stop
Supply goes down.
But even myself, I am looking towards getting a PhD in economics compared to furthering my career in computers. i know the skills to get work done, it simply doesn't interest me anymore.
meh
is all the major companies sit down and design a new email system. the current email system is like a sinking boat they are trying to patch and prevent it from reaching the bottom. now, everyone is going their own seperate way (MS, Yahoo), where there will be no standard. the whole system needs to be scraped and rebuilt from the ground up taking into consideration spam, which was never present when the system was designed.
i never said they aren't useful. the fact is, they are easily manipulated. such as studies can be.
all studies are biased and show exactly what the person who is doing them want. much like stats, you can make anything prove anything through working the #'s and asking the right questions