You are the one who refuses to cite your facts, even on request, and then CONTINUE TO SAY THEY ARE TRUE. And then, after all this, you have the audacity to say "there is no reasoning with." No reasoning indeed.
Just because GDP changed doesn't say anything. Government spending is included in GDP, regardless of the fact it does not create prosperity. I concede the point that when government dramatically increases spending, changes the price of gold, and price fixes goods, GDP will go up, and when you send millions off to war and into government jobs, unemployment will go down.
He attacked an Arab-American senator, saying that they've never gone on record stating they aren't a terrorist, and never really presented any solid proof they aren't working for Al Quaida, so basically the website is operating under the assumption that if he can give it, he can take it.
Which was highly overrate, if you even bothered to listen to the question and response it made sense. Poorly worded, yes (Beck calling it possibly the worst worded question ever). But the senator knew what Beck was asking and gave a thoughtful answer. It was to the effect of "some people will be worried that there is a Muslim in the government, tell me why that isn't a problem." I don't see what the issue is.
Well, I am not going to speculate on where you learned roman history, making such assumptions seems counter-productive:)
You must have a non-standard definition of profit. Usually when a company reports monetary profit (or, net profit) it works, but only on a large scale, e.g. the company took in more selling than they cost to produce. This doesn't work on an individual scale, otherwise you would be reporting a monetary loss of, say, $250 for a Wii. Profit means you decided it would leave you better off than the alternative. Even though you may not enjoy paying $6/gal for gas, it is better than not getting it, therefore you profit (again, even if you don't enjoy it).
Again, freedom does not guarantee a certain number of choices. Just because you have the freedom to choose what or what you do not get, does not mean that you get to choose between two or more things. Largely this is a good thing, for instance it is counter productive to offer more than one Internet service in the US, while there are other areas that have no coverage. Instead of competing for a few people in one area, you could offer service to people who do not have any service at all, and benefit far more people. In other cases, like groceries, say, competition is profitable, and the public is benefited that way. For some services like air travel a regional monopoly would be inefficient, but thousands of airlines wouldn't have the capital necessary to serve the public efficiently either. Generally the market, when there is no violence (that government threatens) largely satisfies human wants not completely but as efficiently as possible.
You must also have a non-standard definition of choice. Companies have the choice of what to offer you, and you have the choice to take it. But the important thing is that no exchange is made unless you both voluntarily agree.
Perhaps I misspoke, selfishness when there is a threat of violence is typically bad. Selfishness when the only way you can be selfish is in return for something someone else offers you, it benefits both parties. This is by definition, it is called "voluntary exchange."
If I understand your definitions correctly I don't see any disagreement.
I never said we had the guarantee of choice. Do you care to quote me on that? I said we have freedom. No one can force you to buy something, nor can (well, should) they prevent you from buying something. It is your decision.
I entirely agree, the mega-cooperations in bed with government is WRONG. In no way should there be welfare for cooperations. If you cannot turn a profit, you fail and let someone else have their chance to be productive. That is an argument to decrease the power of government, if they had no power to tell companies what to do, they couldn't have bailed them out. You can't say both I am going to tell you how to operate, and then guarantee your success with taxpayer money, it is a financial black hole, not to mention corporate fascism.
You should look at some history from an impartial perspective. Rome fell because (1) they expended their borders and military too quickly (2) established welfare (that's essentially what the Colosseum turned into) and massive government spending in general, (3) they debased and inflated their currency to try and cover for all the expenses... do these things sound familiar? It's what the US is doing right now.
Of course private interests have lives of their own, profit is subjective after all. Sure you can report monetary profits, but profit itself is up to each individual. When I decide to buy $6/gal gas, I do it because I profit (if I don't like it). Likewise, it gets sold to me because the gas station decides they profit. The selfish interests of Apple, Exxon-Mobil, Google has made my life better, and we both profit. You cannot peruse "selfish" interests without violence (or the threat of it, like tax money) or voluntarily cooperation for mutual benefit, like when you go shopping. I don't see how such selfish behavior is harmful.
Stop with the citations of examples of regulations for a second. I never said they were good, I never said they were bad. However, it does not follow that just because government requires public decency regulations (irrespective of if it is a good idea or bad idea), it does not follow that government can also tell broadcasters how to allocate their time. Just because government can search your moving car, does not mean they can search your car in your garage.
You cannot (objectively) comment on scarcity, only shortage. If there is a shortage of, say, toilet paper, it means that the exchange value is too low. Notice how there is a very small mass of diamonds on the earth compared to other minerals, but there are no shortages. You cannot compare the physical amount of diamond to that of gold (both have industrial and aesthetic uses), you can only note their market price per mass and any shortages. Newspaper only has so many trees available to it, and books also want some of those resources. Radio has limited air space available to it, and RC cars and cell phones also want some air space too. You can only subjectively say, to accomplish X task I could get $50 of air space (including equipment), or $20 of newspaper (and another need might be the other way around, because needs and scarcity is subjective).
I explained that like the newspapers, radio has limited resources available to it (and how neither has been exhausted, there are still plenty of trees for sale and radio space to license). I explained how a market allocates limited resources to the most urgently demanded need based on supply. You need to explain why, even though there is plenty of chances for opposing viewpoints to be broadcast, they fail, and why that makes it necessary to use coercive authority to tell the stations otherwise.
You need to explain where the broadcast exemption to the first amendment is in the Constitution - and why the right to seek out opposition equates to the requirement on the side of broadcasters to provide it (you confuse negative liberties with positive rights, just because I have the liberty to eat the food of my choice does not mean I am entitled to get it no matter what). You need to explain why the theory that government needs to regulate what view points are presented (assuming it is even true) applies even when the entire spectrum hasn't been used up. Even if that was the case, you need to explain why the free market is incapable of delivering what listeners want to hear unless there is government regulation.
Absolutely not. It's about providing a balance of opinion. You can say whatever you want, for as long as you want, as long as you provide a balanced view of the controversial issues.
That doesn't "restrict how much speech one side may present" any more than the station ID requirements do, or the fact that the day only has 24 hours in it. Sure, you can't spend all 24 hours railing on one side of the issue, but you're embarrassing yourself if you're equating that to "shutting down dissent". You can fit plenty of "dissent" into 12 hours, even if you have to devote the next 12 to providing a balance of opinions.
That doesn't change the fact it still demands someone be shut down, and it is the government that is making that decision. Government being the one to tell people who may not speak, that is shutting down dissenting views.
You're still not grasping the difference between one station balancing another and one station balancing itself.
If a radio host decides to spend an hour promoting longer copyright terms, where should listeners go to hear the counterargument? Does a group like the EFF have to run its own station dedicated to shorter terms? Should we expect every single issue to have a station running 24x7 just in case someone on another station decides to talk about it? Of course not, it's wasteful and there isn't enough radio bandwidth for it anyway.
Now that is shutting down dissent -- free market style. "Your opinion on this issue isn't important to enough people to support its own radio station, so I guess it doesn't deserve to get heard on the radio at all."
That is what economics is for, to objectively determine how to allocate limited resources based on subjective exchanges. It determines how resources are allocated most effectively. A free market cannot, by definition shut down dissent - because a free market is void of violence or the threat of it (the legitimate purpose of government is to seek just compensation for any violations of these human rights, well described in the Deceleration of Independence). Only individuals make those choices. Liberty concerns (and only concerns) Man's relation to government, not man's relation to man, one person cannot violate another person's liberty by refusing to listen to them. If an individual is to succeed, in utilizing resources that society deems beneficial, then that individual will profit. If they cannot profit, then they fail and those resources are freed for a more productive use. Society determines what a productive use is through profit, not democracy (which largely doesn't vary from individual choices anyways), how can you possibly say the public wants to enforce a rule for the public good, when an overwhelming marketplace says otherwise? There is no justification for it, beyond rationalization that everyone should hold the views that you do. I don't think you should listen to one side, I am careful to read books, competing arguments, and regularly read and comment on blogs of all sides of issues, that I know of. But I also recognize that there is no right to enforce my views that I hold on other people, the best I can do is say this is what I do and it is how I came to my conclusion, and I think it would do you good too.
Cable television and the Internet aren't limited resources in the same way that broadcast TV and radio are.
They are economic goods, they are scarce, by definition that means limited. You cannot make comparisons between two different things saying something is scarcer than another (if that is indeed the case that there are shortages, that means the cost is too low). A market will compete to supply the most amount of consumers with things they want, and if the users do not demand what is in your opinion fair reporting, then how possibly can you say it is for the public good, if the people listening have overwhelmingly declar
How is that "sound" regulation working out? No regulation has put a dent in the business cycle, quality, or cost, or at the very least, the supposed benefits were grossly overestimated.
It's working pretty well in my experience. For example, just a few hours ago I ate some food that wasn't filled with rat droppings or workers' severed digits. I have confidence that the money in my bank account today will still be there tomorrow. I can use third-party car parts without voiding the warranty on my car.
Again, that would be fraud. That is a legitimate purpose of government. What about the hair dryers that have electrocuted so many people, dish washers that have mutilated so many people, or the movies theaters that are spewing explicit content out... oh wait, those aren't regulated by government, or with the coercive authority they carry. They are regulated by the UL and MPAA. (I don't know if you have seen a variety of early electrical appliances, especially "dish washers" to know how much good the UL does for consumer safety.) I am not prepared to dismiss all regulations but we surely don't need the hundreds of thousands of pages we have today, there is absolutely zero evidence the benefits justify the costs for a vast majority of what is on the books.
You're missing the point. "New stations with alternative viewpoints" are a poor substitute for balanced presentation of viewpoints within a single station. Just because no one wants to hear pro-Controversy-XYZ programming 24 hours a day doesn't mean anti-Controversy-XYZ programming should go unopposed.
So it is about shutting down dissent then. It is about restricting how much speech one side may present. It is just veiled under the disguise of "force opposing views to be heard." By the way, last time I checked, no one (well, very few people, no one I know) gets their news all from the radio anymore. I don't see what frequency has to do with it, if people really only listen to what they agree with then they would just end up switching between stations anyways. Unless there is some innovation that would change that around (short of cash rewards for only listening to that one outlet, I can't think of any), what does it matter if one station specializes in one type of opinion, and another station in another, or if opinions are mixed up between the two? Forcing stations to mix it up in a balanced manner would undermine specialization of labor that allows us to make better things at a lower cost. Perhaps, if a station that specializes in one type of talk can't make it, there is a reason behind it?
What "argument to prop up failing radio stations"? The fairness doctrine has nothing to do with that.
Because one side can't get their views to be heard on a medium, that means they have to go after it. Never mind that this already happens on television and the Internet, where entire channels/websites are dedicated or near dedicated to one viewpoint, it just isn't dominated all around. I don't believe you have that reasoning, but some do.
We've already been over this. We both agreed that station owners are not given sole control over the content of their broadcasts.
The public decides what is in the public interest, through their elected representatives. Again, this issue was resolved long ago: broadcasters are already subject to restrictions and requirements that are deemed to serve the public interest.
No, the government has the guns. Just because a group of people decides it would be in their best interest to take money from the rich and give it to themselves, does not mean it is correct, ethical, or constitutional. I suggest you read the Federalist Papers for an explanation of what the Constitution means when it says "general welfare" and "necessary and proper." I think the cornerstone of this argument is around how public interest is satisfied, and that I maint
Yep, laissez-faire lost. That doesn't mean they are right. How is that "sound" regulation working out? No regulation has put a dent in the business cycle, quality, or cost, or at the very least, the supposed benefits were grossly overestimated.
You have not made the case that those limitations are actually causing any problems. I showed that it is entirely possible to start new stations with alternative viewpoints, and many are - they simply don't do well. The problem is always economics - limited resources - and in any case if something fails it means the demand does not offset the costs. What is limited here though is listeners - money, not bandwidth. It comes down to that, and there is no argument to prop up failing ratio stations that could be used better, according to the collective choices of society, doing something else. Even if bandwidth was entirely used up, the economy would allocate them to the people who most urgently demand them - in turn decided by the number of listeners. That is the reality of a free and liberal society.
You can't decide what "serving the public interest" is, it isn't up to you. How time is allocated is up to the owners of the stations, and no one else. If you disagree, go get your own and see how well it works out. You are suggesting the government should decide what is in the public interest? The government decides someone is not serving the public interest? That sounds like an awful violation of the Constitution to me.
And yet we already impose plenty of other restrictions on how the airwaves can be used, from station ID requirements to bans on profanity and nudity (you may recall an incident with Janet Jackson). A broadcasting license has never given the broadcaster absolute control over content.
Regulation doesn't mean it isn't privately owned, businesses are regulated and licensed. Government prohibits employers from paying/employees from accepting wages below a given rate, for instance. That, of course, doesn't mean it is right.
Oh, please. Under that definition, there are no democracies. But you and I both know that "democracy" commonly refers to forms of government in which citizens elect their representatives, and such arrangements are harmed when citizens are uninformed or misinformed -- even if it's due to their own listening preferences.
Correct, while the idea of a constitution had been around for a while, nothing as formal as the US Constitution had ever existed (the articles of confederation carried no coercive authority and was therefore more of a treaty). The constitution became immensely popular after. "Republic" means that we are not entirely a democracy, we have an oligarchic court system, and an oligarchic justice/executive system. Republic means separation of powers, so no one person or group of people (such as voters) has all the power. Only the voters may elect representatives, only the House may propose a tax, only the Senate may ratify a treaty, only the courts may establish justice. That is how the Framers defined a republic, and what they guaranteed to citizens in the constitution.
That constitution happens to say this: "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"
That means that the government may not tell the press what to do, only the press may choose themselves how to allocate air time.
By that logic, laws against libel and false advertising would be unconstitutional (not to mention laws against obscenity, copyright infringement, etc.). A law requiring balance of opinion is no less constitutional than a law requiring truthfulness.
Libel and false advertising would be fraud, not free speech. The Constitution grants the government to protect contracts and exchanges. The Constitution also grants the Federal government the ability to establish copyright, so that is also a non-issue. Obviously we were never supposed to let people have free reign to do whatever they want, but that isn't what the first amendment means. But it does say pretty clearly, again: "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom...of the press"
Nothing? No court rulings? I give you Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, in which the Supreme Court found the fairness doctrine to be constitutional, rejecting a claim that the "equal time" and "response to personal attack" rules violated the First Amendment.
I concede, I should have known better. I knew about that ruling, but there is also Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo that ruled unanimously against a fairness doctrine for newspapers, against a state law which has far more freedom than the federal government does. So the issue appears to be how limited is the broadcast time for that media? Left-wing radio stations have been tried, some have been successful, but largely not so much. So the limited radio spectrum doesn't seem to be a problem, at least now if not ever. There is plenty of bandwidth to broadcast on, what is lacking is not a frequency, but listeners. Maybe NPR is monopolizing that segment (jk, Morning Edition is by far the best news program I listen to).
Government has the guns, private companies do not. That is the entire story, in a manner of speaking.
And newsflash, there is no human right to Internet, or telecommunications, or anything owned by someone else. Private companies have the freedom to offer their services, or not, to anyone they wish, and possible customers have the freedom to accept or reject anyone they wish. You fail to realize the companies are providing a great benefit to most customers, the cost of DIY-Internet would otherwise be gargantuan. You do not have a right to other people's property, yet that is what you are implying, that you have a right to the Internet another company has the ability to provide.
In short, you are not leaving your freedoms in the hands of private peoples and groups, you always retain your freedom (unless, of course, government tells you otherwise), and the people you exchange with always retained their freedom. Those "private people and groups" have voluntarily given you their services in exchange for your services, your money, because both of you think it will leave you better off than the alternative of not making the exchange. You willingly (if not enthusiastically) make exchanges, but you never gave up your freedom, your ability to choose which decisions to make.
No, it's not regulating speech, it's regulating the use of one particular forum (the public airwaves). The First Amendment doesn't entitle you to say whatever you like on the radio any more than it entitles you to say whatever you like on your neighbor's lawn.
Being on your neighbor's lawn has nothing to do with free speech, it has everything to do with private property. What you say is irrelevant to the law.
They paid for the right to broadcast on those frequencies, but their use is subject to certain terms, which they knew when they paid for it.
BTW, radio was still profitable when the fairness doctrine was in effect.
Air space is just as much private property as land is, it can be owned and within a specific area. The FCC was created to defend this private property right, so broadcasters would not interfere with each other, and nothing more.
Yes, profit is a good thing, but in this situation the existence of a profit is not what matters: economics is about value on the margin, the value of the alternative. You can't say how much freedom we lost, or how much profit broadcasters lost, because of it, and that is what matters.
Sometimes people decide they don't want to hear the truth, they just want to sit in an echo chamber. It may be profitable to provide an echo chamber, but unfortunately it isn't very healthy for a democracy. We the people have every right to decide that we don't want our airwaves used in such a way.
How do you determine what is an "echo chamber" and what isn't? That implies all radio is bad and we should outlaw it entirely.If someone doesn't like what they hear they aren't going to listen, period, that is how people work. That means fewer listeners.
By the way, we are a constitutional republic, not a democracy. That means we have a constitution that tells us what to do before a majority can. That constitution happens to say this: "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"
That means that the government may not tell the press what to do, only the press may choose themselves how to allocate air time. Nothing supports any other argument, not the Anti-Federalist papers, not court rulings (no one is in danger here, and even if a lack of regulation did put people in physical harm that wouldn't be permission to have a highly unbiased government bureaucrat allocate air time), nothing.
And as you pointed out, radio isn't the only source of information available.
That's like saying "it isn't healthy to ignore flat-earthers so we need to force you to listen to them!" If customers don't want to listen to left talk-show hosts, you must not force them to. They have been tried, a small few do manage to make it, but the truth is the demand just isn't there.
The Constitution says "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"
or more simply, "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom...of the press"
That means no regulation, period. The media has the freedom to allocate whatever time they like, it's spelled out in the first amendment.
Plus, broadcast time is limited - it is an economic good. You seriously think forcing radio stations to put one side on won't abridge the freedom of people on the other side? The first amendment only says what the government must not do, and it must not tell the media what choices to make. Who gets air time and who doesn't is the decision of the owners, not the government.
Instead of crying out there is no opposition on most radio stations, think, why is there no demand for opposition? Perhaps because there are other outlets? Television and radio are largely substitutable goods (though, of course, not entirely). If there was really such a strong demand for left radio, wouldn't more left radio stations stay in business? I don't know why you think big business is on the side of talk radio, considering nearly all the giant corporations are in favor of government bailouts and some regulations, donating far more to the left too.
I have made the the common sense point, constitutional point, the economical point, and the factual point, I don't know how much clearer this argument can be made.
You realize that when someone DLs your code off the internet for free, that reduces the value of your work. Try to see the big picture:
Software can be copied for free -> Your work product has less value -> YOU have less value -> your salary goes down.
So why the anti-patent, anti-copyright hostility? Its not like you personally have to worry about infringement anyway. That's your legal departments job.
That would be intellectual property protectionism, and it is well established that protectionism doesn't work. It is the same thing as saying we need to outlaw oranges from Florida because they are cheaper and it is hurting the local industry, when in fact the solution is to lower prices or produce a different good, which raises the standard of living for everyone.
You fail to recognize the secondary effects of patents, even though you just listed at least one: the necessity of a legal department. The monopoly of a particular discovery is not a feature, it is a bug: it restricts the utility of produced goods, and raises their cost. It encourages people to embark on expensive projects that might not otherwise be profitable, and overall hurts society (compared to the alternative).
We have property rights partially because there is a limited supply of goods, there is, however, no limit on how many people may know about or apply a discovery, and it makes no sense to try. My application of someone else's discovery, wither I know or not, in no way violates their human rights. You cannot say it reduces the "value" of their work because value is entirely subjective, and has no absolute value associated with it. Indeed, I would say it increases the value, and you can't argue that, because that is my subjective valuation of it.
Except it does add new features, XML namespaces to start. Embedded RDF, SVG, MathML, and endless other possibilities. You can embed XUL in XHTML in Mozilla, for instance, or vice versa. Plain old HTML has none of these. Plus, stricter rendering that doesn't confuse CSS parsers makes debugging stylesheets much easier.
Design an efficient table relating a tree structure.
Huh? Tree structures are best handled by relational databases, as it is far faster then recursion. Give row a unique ID and a parent ID, and in addition, a left hand and right hand number, the root node having a left-hand value of 1 and a right hand value of (number rows * 2), the first child node has a left-hand value of one more than the parent's, the right-hand value is one less then the left-hand of a younger sibling.
Then design queries to answer questions such as: * Find the nodes in the subtree under B.
SELECT * FROM rows WHERE left > [left hand value of B] AND right < [right hand value of B]
* Find all ancesters of G
SELECT * FROM rows WHERE left < [left hand value of G] AND right > [right hand value of G]
* Find the nearest common ancestor of D and H
SELECT * FROM rows WHERE left < [lowest left hand value from D,H] AND right > [highest right hand value from D,H] ORDER BY right LIMIT 1
Trees is a wellknown problem of SQL, but the fact is that SQL can't handle most datastructures and complex relations, only very simple one dimensional ones.
Are you saying trees are easy or hard? And for more complex systems, that is what JOINs are for. SQL is by far the most powerful way and often the fastest way to manipulate data that I know of. The only time I can recall that I had to use a non-SQL solution that was faster then the SQL solution was a matrix operation.
Oh, you meant shortage. Scarcity has a much different meaning (in economics at least, they are otherwise practically synonyms). Shortages, no, I wouldn't expect there to be a shortage of money, people would either make their goods cheaper, or as you pointed out, resort to barter if the asking price doesn't justify what they can in turn buy with that money, though this usually only happens because of wage or price controls, like those during the great depression.
Taking money away from Target doesn't make everything that much more expensive. I can shop there or not. I can shop elsewhere, I can choose to not buy it, Target can choose to reduce costs or profit, etc. Oh, and inflation can happen even if money printing were suspended to keep money levels at the current levels. If a true scarcity of money were to exist it would increase bartering, but it wouldn't eliminate inflation. To add that in indicates to me that you don't know anything about economics, but that you hate the government and read sites that agree with your opinion and parrot their stances.
Taking money away from a store like Target does make everything that much more expensive, if not right away. The store may need to raise prices to stay profitable, or if that isn't possible, discontinue production or switch to something more profitable. In any event, it discourages production and raises prices (law of supply). This is Econ 101 stuff.
Inflation can still happen without price inflation, if there is monetary inflation. (All three are different, I use this definition to illustrate a point). The tendency of prices is to go down as people become more specialized and efficient, so if prices to televisions or food stays the same because government is inflating the money supply, you are still being ripped off none the less, because society is producing more goods but not consuming more. And price inflation does have to stop somewhere, as evidenced by the fact a price, an exchange ratio, cannot go above the current amount of money in existence (almost humorously, because of the fractional reserve system, trying to do so would cause both monetary and price deflation). Any price inflation without monetary inflation represents a true increase in the cost of goods, e.g. more people trying to purchase the same amount of oil/metal/food (though, more money would be allocated for these uses and away from other goods, so it couldn't last for too long). I agree, barter also changes the landscape, though money is so superior to barter that there is little reason to do so, unless laws like price fixing actually prevent you from attaining money.
You claim money isn't scarce? It is an economic good, by definition it is scarce. (Alright, technically fiat money is not truly scarce in the sense it can be created with no factors of production required, but for day to day concerns, I know for sure I can't get an infinite amount of dollars)
Projected by whom? And to "the climate" or our contribution to it? And how is it taxing me when I won't be paying a penny into the government fund?
I cited the slightly broader definition of a tax: government revenue. Even if government isn't taxing a specific entity, for example with inflation, it is still a tax on society. Anything government consumes is something that the rest of society cannot, making things more expensive.
"Cap and trade" is a tax, not on individuals, correct, but that doesn't mean it does not affect individuals. It has far reaching consequences for everyone, especially the lower class since this is about energy.
I heard 1/50 deg (C iirc) decrease on the news this morning, but the highest I can actually find is 1/900 deg C. And that presumes the climate works the way we think it does (the harsh reality is we haven't been able to model even a decade into the future). Can you do better? I almost want to be wrong about this.
If you force the employer to pay an income tax instead of the employee, does that no longer make it a tax? Of course not. The logic is ridiculous. Taxes can be most broadly defined as any government revenue, inflation (money printing) included, because no matter how they get it, it takes resources away from the people and makes living that much more expensive. This "Cap and trade" bill is a tax, plain and simple, on every single person, and it isn't even projected to do much to the climate to add insult to injury.
Oh yes, how ever did we get through the first two centuries of our existence? We can't survive without the IRS! All hail the 16th amendment! Seriously, stop defending bureaucracy and seventy thousand pages of tax code. The IRS, too, is a holdover from the progressive movement.
Forget tax cheats, we have bigger enemies in Congress and the White House. All spending must become taxes on the people somehow. Now think about this massive debt which we are racking up. The DHS and IRS aren't the only things we need to get rid of.
A world without profits is only possible in a static economy, where zero change happens, and even then, only theoretically. Unfortunately the world is always changing, and profits not only occur, but are necessary and good. Exchange cannot happen if both parties do not profit in some way. Is voluntary exchange such an evil in this world, where two parties voluntarily give up something they have to better themselves, without any force or corrosion? (It follows that, since exchange cannot happen without profit, a static economy is impossible.)
A price is selected not because that is how much it costs, but because that is how much someone will buy it for. A price is an exchange ratio, nothing more. The income does break down into those components, fixed costs/variable costs/etc, but not the other way around. If someone decides that, subjectively, they can make a good at a lower cost then someone will buy it for, they will start producing that good for sale. If I make a good, believing I will make a subjective (psychic, monetary, or other) profit, and invest $1000 into it, that doesn't mean that I will never sell it for less then $1000, that just means I will learn my lesson, sell it at a net loss (but still at a profit, if not a net profit, I value $10 more then some weird invention taking up space in my garage), and not produce it again. But if I blindly follow your assertions, I would be lead to believe I must only sell my good for $1000.
Large profits are not at all a bad thing. Profits lead investors to sectors with high demand. They represent karma in a market, companies that turn more profits are given more chances to stay alive if things go sour, as opposed to a company barely breaking even. Profit prioritizes who most urgently needs goods, parties with large profit effectively get first dibs on new technologies that can increase supply and make that good cheaper for everyone. What part of profits exactly are you opposed to again?
There is absolutely nothing unpatriotic about speaking out against tyranny.
Additionally, if consumers don't pay the corporate tax, then who does? Even if it doesn't affect prices and only affects the profit margin, that is still bad because the company is not profiting as much as they would have been, thus an industry cannot satisfy demand as effectively, and consumers end up getting ripped off second hand. Cutting into profits is a very bad thing to do.
Slashdot Mirror
You are the one who refuses to cite your facts, even on request, and then CONTINUE TO SAY THEY ARE TRUE. And then, after all this, you have the audacity to say "there is no reasoning with ." No reasoning indeed.
I can link to highly partisan articles too! http://mises.org/story/3448
Just because GDP changed doesn't say anything. Government spending is included in GDP, regardless of the fact it does not create prosperity. I concede the point that when government dramatically increases spending, changes the price of gold, and price fixes goods, GDP will go up, and when you send millions off to war and into government jobs, unemployment will go down.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BASE
Tell me how this will not lead to hyperinflation. No country since Zimbabwe has done this, and look where they ended up.
How about you listen to the argument first?
He attacked an Arab-American senator, saying that they've never gone on record stating they aren't a terrorist, and never really presented any solid proof they aren't working for Al Quaida, so basically the website is operating under the assumption that if he can give it, he can take it.
Which was highly overrate, if you even bothered to listen to the question and response it made sense. Poorly worded, yes (Beck calling it possibly the worst worded question ever). But the senator knew what Beck was asking and gave a thoughtful answer. It was to the effect of "some people will be worried that there is a Muslim in the government, tell me why that isn't a problem." I don't see what the issue is.
Well, I am not going to speculate on where you learned roman history, making such assumptions seems counter-productive :)
You must have a non-standard definition of profit. Usually when a company reports monetary profit (or, net profit) it works, but only on a large scale, e.g. the company took in more selling than they cost to produce. This doesn't work on an individual scale, otherwise you would be reporting a monetary loss of, say, $250 for a Wii. Profit means you decided it would leave you better off than the alternative. Even though you may not enjoy paying $6/gal for gas, it is better than not getting it, therefore you profit (again, even if you don't enjoy it).
Again, freedom does not guarantee a certain number of choices. Just because you have the freedom to choose what or what you do not get, does not mean that you get to choose between two or more things. Largely this is a good thing, for instance it is counter productive to offer more than one Internet service in the US, while there are other areas that have no coverage. Instead of competing for a few people in one area, you could offer service to people who do not have any service at all, and benefit far more people. In other cases, like groceries, say, competition is profitable, and the public is benefited that way. For some services like air travel a regional monopoly would be inefficient, but thousands of airlines wouldn't have the capital necessary to serve the public efficiently either. Generally the market, when there is no violence (that government threatens) largely satisfies human wants not completely but as efficiently as possible.
You must also have a non-standard definition of choice. Companies have the choice of what to offer you, and you have the choice to take it. But the important thing is that no exchange is made unless you both voluntarily agree.
Perhaps I misspoke, selfishness when there is a threat of violence is typically bad. Selfishness when the only way you can be selfish is in return for something someone else offers you, it benefits both parties. This is by definition, it is called "voluntary exchange."
If I understand your definitions correctly I don't see any disagreement.
I never said we had the guarantee of choice. Do you care to quote me on that? I said we have freedom. No one can force you to buy something, nor can (well, should) they prevent you from buying something. It is your decision.
I entirely agree, the mega-cooperations in bed with government is WRONG. In no way should there be welfare for cooperations. If you cannot turn a profit, you fail and let someone else have their chance to be productive. That is an argument to decrease the power of government, if they had no power to tell companies what to do, they couldn't have bailed them out. You can't say both I am going to tell you how to operate, and then guarantee your success with taxpayer money, it is a financial black hole, not to mention corporate fascism.
You should look at some history from an impartial perspective. Rome fell because (1) they expended their borders and military too quickly (2) established welfare (that's essentially what the Colosseum turned into) and massive government spending in general, (3) they debased and inflated their currency to try and cover for all the expenses... do these things sound familiar? It's what the US is doing right now.
Of course private interests have lives of their own, profit is subjective after all. Sure you can report monetary profits, but profit itself is up to each individual. When I decide to buy $6/gal gas, I do it because I profit (if I don't like it). Likewise, it gets sold to me because the gas station decides they profit. The selfish interests of Apple, Exxon-Mobil, Google has made my life better, and we both profit. You cannot peruse "selfish" interests without violence (or the threat of it, like tax money) or voluntarily cooperation for mutual benefit, like when you go shopping. I don't see how such selfish behavior is harmful.
Stop with the citations of examples of regulations for a second. I never said they were good, I never said they were bad. However, it does not follow that just because government requires public decency regulations (irrespective of if it is a good idea or bad idea), it does not follow that government can also tell broadcasters how to allocate their time. Just because government can search your moving car, does not mean they can search your car in your garage.
You cannot (objectively) comment on scarcity, only shortage. If there is a shortage of, say, toilet paper, it means that the exchange value is too low. Notice how there is a very small mass of diamonds on the earth compared to other minerals, but there are no shortages. You cannot compare the physical amount of diamond to that of gold (both have industrial and aesthetic uses), you can only note their market price per mass and any shortages. Newspaper only has so many trees available to it, and books also want some of those resources. Radio has limited air space available to it, and RC cars and cell phones also want some air space too. You can only subjectively say, to accomplish X task I could get $50 of air space (including equipment), or $20 of newspaper (and another need might be the other way around, because needs and scarcity is subjective).
I explained that like the newspapers, radio has limited resources available to it (and how neither has been exhausted, there are still plenty of trees for sale and radio space to license). I explained how a market allocates limited resources to the most urgently demanded need based on supply. You need to explain why, even though there is plenty of chances for opposing viewpoints to be broadcast, they fail, and why that makes it necessary to use coercive authority to tell the stations otherwise.
You need to explain where the broadcast exemption to the first amendment is in the Constitution - and why the right to seek out opposition equates to the requirement on the side of broadcasters to provide it (you confuse negative liberties with positive rights, just because I have the liberty to eat the food of my choice does not mean I am entitled to get it no matter what). You need to explain why the theory that government needs to regulate what view points are presented (assuming it is even true) applies even when the entire spectrum hasn't been used up. Even if that was the case, you need to explain why the free market is incapable of delivering what listeners want to hear unless there is government regulation.
Absolutely not. It's about providing a balance of opinion. You can say whatever you want, for as long as you want, as long as you provide a balanced view of the controversial issues.
That doesn't "restrict how much speech one side may present" any more than the station ID requirements do, or the fact that the day only has 24 hours in it. Sure, you can't spend all 24 hours railing on one side of the issue, but you're embarrassing yourself if you're equating that to "shutting down dissent". You can fit plenty of "dissent" into 12 hours, even if you have to devote the next 12 to providing a balance of opinions.
That doesn't change the fact it still demands someone be shut down, and it is the government that is making that decision. Government being the one to tell people who may not speak, that is shutting down dissenting views.
You're still not grasping the difference between one station balancing another and one station balancing itself.
If a radio host decides to spend an hour promoting longer copyright terms, where should listeners go to hear the counterargument? Does a group like the EFF have to run its own station dedicated to shorter terms? Should we expect every single issue to have a station running 24x7 just in case someone on another station decides to talk about it? Of course not, it's wasteful and there isn't enough radio bandwidth for it anyway.
Now that is shutting down dissent -- free market style. "Your opinion on this issue isn't important to enough people to support its own radio station, so I guess it doesn't deserve to get heard on the radio at all."
That is what economics is for, to objectively determine how to allocate limited resources based on subjective exchanges. It determines how resources are allocated most effectively. A free market cannot, by definition shut down dissent - because a free market is void of violence or the threat of it (the legitimate purpose of government is to seek just compensation for any violations of these human rights, well described in the Deceleration of Independence). Only individuals make those choices. Liberty concerns (and only concerns) Man's relation to government, not man's relation to man, one person cannot violate another person's liberty by refusing to listen to them. If an individual is to succeed, in utilizing resources that society deems beneficial, then that individual will profit. If they cannot profit, then they fail and those resources are freed for a more productive use. Society determines what a productive use is through profit, not democracy (which largely doesn't vary from individual choices anyways), how can you possibly say the public wants to enforce a rule for the public good, when an overwhelming marketplace says otherwise? There is no justification for it, beyond rationalization that everyone should hold the views that you do. I don't think you should listen to one side, I am careful to read books, competing arguments, and regularly read and comment on blogs of all sides of issues, that I know of. But I also recognize that there is no right to enforce my views that I hold on other people, the best I can do is say this is what I do and it is how I came to my conclusion, and I think it would do you good too.
Cable television and the Internet aren't limited resources in the same way that broadcast TV and radio are.
They are economic goods, they are scarce, by definition that means limited. You cannot make comparisons between two different things saying something is scarcer than another (if that is indeed the case that there are shortages, that means the cost is too low). A market will compete to supply the most amount of consumers with things they want, and if the users do not demand what is in your opinion fair reporting, then how possibly can you say it is for the public good, if the people listening have overwhelmingly declar
How is that "sound" regulation working out? No regulation has put a dent in the business cycle, quality, or cost, or at the very least, the supposed benefits were grossly overestimated.
It's working pretty well in my experience. For example, just a few hours ago I ate some food that wasn't filled with rat droppings or workers' severed digits. I have confidence that the money in my bank account today will still be there tomorrow. I can use third-party car parts without voiding the warranty on my car.
Again, that would be fraud. That is a legitimate purpose of government. What about the hair dryers that have electrocuted so many people, dish washers that have mutilated so many people, or the movies theaters that are spewing explicit content out... oh wait, those aren't regulated by government, or with the coercive authority they carry. They are regulated by the UL and MPAA. (I don't know if you have seen a variety of early electrical appliances, especially "dish washers" to know how much good the UL does for consumer safety.) I am not prepared to dismiss all regulations but we surely don't need the hundreds of thousands of pages we have today, there is absolutely zero evidence the benefits justify the costs for a vast majority of what is on the books.
You're missing the point. "New stations with alternative viewpoints" are a poor substitute for balanced presentation of viewpoints within a single station. Just because no one wants to hear pro-Controversy-XYZ programming 24 hours a day doesn't mean anti-Controversy-XYZ programming should go unopposed.
So it is about shutting down dissent then. It is about restricting how much speech one side may present. It is just veiled under the disguise of "force opposing views to be heard." By the way, last time I checked, no one (well, very few people, no one I know) gets their news all from the radio anymore. I don't see what frequency has to do with it, if people really only listen to what they agree with then they would just end up switching between stations anyways. Unless there is some innovation that would change that around (short of cash rewards for only listening to that one outlet, I can't think of any), what does it matter if one station specializes in one type of opinion, and another station in another, or if opinions are mixed up between the two? Forcing stations to mix it up in a balanced manner would undermine specialization of labor that allows us to make better things at a lower cost. Perhaps, if a station that specializes in one type of talk can't make it, there is a reason behind it?
What "argument to prop up failing radio stations"? The fairness doctrine has nothing to do with that.
Because one side can't get their views to be heard on a medium, that means they have to go after it. Never mind that this already happens on television and the Internet, where entire channels/websites are dedicated or near dedicated to one viewpoint, it just isn't dominated all around. I don't believe you have that reasoning, but some do.
We've already been over this. We both agreed that station owners are not given sole control over the content of their broadcasts.
The public decides what is in the public interest, through their elected representatives. Again, this issue was resolved long ago: broadcasters are already subject to restrictions and requirements that are deemed to serve the public interest.
No, the government has the guns. Just because a group of people decides it would be in their best interest to take money from the rich and give it to themselves, does not mean it is correct, ethical, or constitutional. I suggest you read the Federalist Papers for an explanation of what the Constitution means when it says "general welfare" and "necessary and proper." I think the cornerstone of this argument is around how public interest is satisfied, and that I maint
Yep, laissez-faire lost. That doesn't mean they are right. How is that "sound" regulation working out? No regulation has put a dent in the business cycle, quality, or cost, or at the very least, the supposed benefits were grossly overestimated.
You have not made the case that those limitations are actually causing any problems. I showed that it is entirely possible to start new stations with alternative viewpoints, and many are - they simply don't do well. The problem is always economics - limited resources - and in any case if something fails it means the demand does not offset the costs. What is limited here though is listeners - money, not bandwidth. It comes down to that, and there is no argument to prop up failing ratio stations that could be used better, according to the collective choices of society, doing something else. Even if bandwidth was entirely used up, the economy would allocate them to the people who most urgently demand them - in turn decided by the number of listeners. That is the reality of a free and liberal society.
You can't decide what "serving the public interest" is, it isn't up to you. How time is allocated is up to the owners of the stations, and no one else. If you disagree, go get your own and see how well it works out. You are suggesting the government should decide what is in the public interest? The government decides someone is not serving the public interest? That sounds like an awful violation of the Constitution to me.
And yet we already impose plenty of other restrictions on how the airwaves can be used, from station ID requirements to bans on profanity and nudity (you may recall an incident with Janet Jackson). A broadcasting license has never given the broadcaster absolute control over content.
Regulation doesn't mean it isn't privately owned, businesses are regulated and licensed. Government prohibits employers from paying/employees from accepting wages below a given rate, for instance. That, of course, doesn't mean it is right.
Oh, please. Under that definition, there are no democracies. But you and I both know that "democracy" commonly refers to forms of government in which citizens elect their representatives, and such arrangements are harmed when citizens are uninformed or misinformed -- even if it's due to their own listening preferences.
Correct, while the idea of a constitution had been around for a while, nothing as formal as the US Constitution had ever existed (the articles of confederation carried no coercive authority and was therefore more of a treaty). The constitution became immensely popular after. "Republic" means that we are not entirely a democracy, we have an oligarchic court system, and an oligarchic justice/executive system. Republic means separation of powers, so no one person or group of people (such as voters) has all the power. Only the voters may elect representatives, only the House may propose a tax, only the Senate may ratify a treaty, only the courts may establish justice. That is how the Framers defined a republic, and what they guaranteed to citizens in the constitution.
That constitution happens to say this:
"Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"
That means that the government may not tell the press what to do, only the press may choose themselves how to allocate air time.
By that logic, laws against libel and false advertising would be unconstitutional (not to mention laws against obscenity, copyright infringement, etc.). A law requiring balance of opinion is no less constitutional than a law requiring truthfulness.
Libel and false advertising would be fraud, not free speech. The Constitution grants the government to protect contracts and exchanges. The Constitution also grants the Federal government the ability to establish copyright, so that is also a non-issue. Obviously we were never supposed to let people have free reign to do whatever they want, but that isn't what the first amendment means. But it does say pretty clearly, again: "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom...of the press"
Nothing? No court rulings? I give you Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC , in which the Supreme Court found the fairness doctrine to be constitutional, rejecting a claim that the "equal time" and "response to personal attack" rules violated the First Amendment.
I concede, I should have known better. I knew about that ruling, but there is also Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo that ruled unanimously against a fairness doctrine for newspapers, against a state law which has far more freedom than the federal government does. So the issue appears to be how limited is the broadcast time for that media? Left-wing radio stations have been tried, some have been successful, but largely not so much. So the limited radio spectrum doesn't seem to be a problem, at least now if not ever. There is plenty of bandwidth to broadcast on, what is lacking is not a frequency, but listeners. Maybe NPR is monopolizing that segment (jk, Morning Edition is by far the best news program I listen to).
Government has the guns, private companies do not. That is the entire story, in a manner of speaking.
And newsflash, there is no human right to Internet, or telecommunications, or anything owned by someone else. Private companies have the freedom to offer their services, or not, to anyone they wish, and possible customers have the freedom to accept or reject anyone they wish. You fail to realize the companies are providing a great benefit to most customers, the cost of DIY-Internet would otherwise be gargantuan. You do not have a right to other people's property, yet that is what you are implying, that you have a right to the Internet another company has the ability to provide.
In short, you are not leaving your freedoms in the hands of private peoples and groups, you always retain your freedom (unless, of course, government tells you otherwise), and the people you exchange with always retained their freedom. Those "private people and groups" have voluntarily given you their services in exchange for your services, your money, because both of you think it will leave you better off than the alternative of not making the exchange. You willingly (if not enthusiastically) make exchanges, but you never gave up your freedom, your ability to choose which decisions to make.
No, it's not regulating speech, it's regulating the use of one particular forum (the public airwaves). The First Amendment doesn't entitle you to say whatever you like on the radio any more than it entitles you to say whatever you like on your neighbor's lawn.
Being on your neighbor's lawn has nothing to do with free speech, it has everything to do with private property. What you say is irrelevant to the law.
They paid for the right to broadcast on those frequencies, but their use is subject to certain terms, which they knew when they paid for it.
BTW, radio was still profitable when the fairness doctrine was in effect.
Air space is just as much private property as land is, it can be owned and within a specific area. The FCC was created to defend this private property right, so broadcasters would not interfere with each other, and nothing more.
Yes, profit is a good thing, but in this situation the existence of a profit is not what matters: economics is about value on the margin, the value of the alternative. You can't say how much freedom we lost, or how much profit broadcasters lost, because of it, and that is what matters.
Sometimes people decide they don't want to hear the truth, they just want to sit in an echo chamber. It may be profitable to provide an echo chamber, but unfortunately it isn't very healthy for a democracy. We the people have every right to decide that we don't want our airwaves used in such a way.
How do you determine what is an "echo chamber" and what isn't? That implies all radio is bad and we should outlaw it entirely.If someone doesn't like what they hear they aren't going to listen, period, that is how people work. That means fewer listeners.
By the way, we are a constitutional republic, not a democracy. That means we have a constitution that tells us what to do before a majority can. That constitution happens to say this:
"Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"
That means that the government may not tell the press what to do, only the press may choose themselves how to allocate air time. Nothing supports any other argument, not the Anti-Federalist papers, not court rulings (no one is in danger here, and even if a lack of regulation did put people in physical harm that wouldn't be permission to have a highly unbiased government bureaucrat allocate air time), nothing.
And as you pointed out, radio isn't the only source of information available.
Maybe because they are all examples of, oh, I don't know, SILENCING THE OPPOSITION?
That's like saying "it isn't healthy to ignore flat-earthers so we need to force you to listen to them!" If customers don't want to listen to left talk-show hosts, you must not force them to. They have been tried, a small few do manage to make it, but the truth is the demand just isn't there.
The Constitution says "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"
or more simply, "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom...of the press"
That means no regulation, period. The media has the freedom to allocate whatever time they like, it's spelled out in the first amendment.
Plus, broadcast time is limited - it is an economic good. You seriously think forcing radio stations to put one side on won't abridge the freedom of people on the other side? The first amendment only says what the government must not do, and it must not tell the media what choices to make. Who gets air time and who doesn't is the decision of the owners, not the government.
Instead of crying out there is no opposition on most radio stations, think, why is there no demand for opposition? Perhaps because there are other outlets? Television and radio are largely substitutable goods (though, of course, not entirely). If there was really such a strong demand for left radio, wouldn't more left radio stations stay in business? I don't know why you think big business is on the side of talk radio, considering nearly all the giant corporations are in favor of government bailouts and some regulations, donating far more to the left too.
I have made the the common sense point, constitutional point, the economical point, and the factual point, I don't know how much clearer this argument can be made.
You realize that when someone DLs your code off the internet for free, that reduces the value of your work.
Try to see the big picture:
Software can be copied for free -> Your work product has less value -> YOU have less value -> your salary goes down.
So why the anti-patent, anti-copyright hostility? Its not like you personally have to worry about infringement anyway. That's your legal departments job.
That would be intellectual property protectionism, and it is well established that protectionism doesn't work. It is the same thing as saying we need to outlaw oranges from Florida because they are cheaper and it is hurting the local industry, when in fact the solution is to lower prices or produce a different good, which raises the standard of living for everyone.
You fail to recognize the secondary effects of patents, even though you just listed at least one: the necessity of a legal department. The monopoly of a particular discovery is not a feature, it is a bug: it restricts the utility of produced goods, and raises their cost. It encourages people to embark on expensive projects that might not otherwise be profitable, and overall hurts society (compared to the alternative).
We have property rights partially because there is a limited supply of goods, there is, however, no limit on how many people may know about or apply a discovery, and it makes no sense to try. My application of someone else's discovery, wither I know or not, in no way violates their human rights. You cannot say it reduces the "value" of their work because value is entirely subjective, and has no absolute value associated with it. Indeed, I would say it increases the value, and you can't argue that, because that is my subjective valuation of it.
When did Fox Noise (whatever that is) say this?
Except it does add new features, XML namespaces to start. Embedded RDF, SVG, MathML, and endless other possibilities. You can embed XUL in XHTML in Mozilla, for instance, or vice versa. Plain old HTML has none of these. Plus, stricter rendering that doesn't confuse CSS parsers makes debugging stylesheets much easier.
Design an efficient table relating a tree structure.
Huh? Tree structures are best handled by relational databases, as it is far faster then recursion. Give row a unique ID and a parent ID, and in addition, a left hand and right hand number, the root node having a left-hand value of 1 and a right hand value of (number rows * 2), the first child node has a left-hand value of one more than the parent's, the right-hand value is one less then the left-hand of a younger sibling.
Then design queries to answer questions such as:
* Find the nodes in the subtree under B.
SELECT * FROM rows WHERE left > [left hand value of B] AND right < [right hand value of B]
* Find all ancesters of G
SELECT * FROM rows WHERE left < [left hand value of G] AND right > [right hand value of G]
* Find the nearest common ancestor of D and H
SELECT * FROM rows WHERE left < [lowest left hand value from D,H] AND right > [highest right hand value from D,H] ORDER BY right LIMIT 1
Trees is a wellknown problem of SQL, but the fact is that SQL can't handle most datastructures and complex relations, only very simple one dimensional ones.
Are you saying trees are easy or hard? And for more complex systems, that is what JOINs are for. SQL is by far the most powerful way and often the fastest way to manipulate data that I know of. The only time I can recall that I had to use a non-SQL solution that was faster then the SQL solution was a matrix operation.
Oh, you meant shortage. Scarcity has a much different meaning (in economics at least, they are otherwise practically synonyms). Shortages, no, I wouldn't expect there to be a shortage of money, people would either make their goods cheaper, or as you pointed out, resort to barter if the asking price doesn't justify what they can in turn buy with that money, though this usually only happens because of wage or price controls, like those during the great depression.
Taking money away from Target doesn't make everything that much more expensive. I can shop there or not. I can shop elsewhere, I can choose to not buy it, Target can choose to reduce costs or profit, etc. Oh, and inflation can happen even if money printing were suspended to keep money levels at the current levels. If a true scarcity of money were to exist it would increase bartering, but it wouldn't eliminate inflation. To add that in indicates to me that you don't know anything about economics, but that you hate the government and read sites that agree with your opinion and parrot their stances.
Taking money away from a store like Target does make everything that much more expensive, if not right away. The store may need to raise prices to stay profitable, or if that isn't possible, discontinue production or switch to something more profitable. In any event, it discourages production and raises prices (law of supply). This is Econ 101 stuff.
Inflation can still happen without price inflation, if there is monetary inflation. (All three are different, I use this definition to illustrate a point). The tendency of prices is to go down as people become more specialized and efficient, so if prices to televisions or food stays the same because government is inflating the money supply, you are still being ripped off none the less, because society is producing more goods but not consuming more. And price inflation does have to stop somewhere, as evidenced by the fact a price, an exchange ratio, cannot go above the current amount of money in existence (almost humorously, because of the fractional reserve system, trying to do so would cause both monetary and price deflation). Any price inflation without monetary inflation represents a true increase in the cost of goods, e.g. more people trying to purchase the same amount of oil/metal/food (though, more money would be allocated for these uses and away from other goods, so it couldn't last for too long). I agree, barter also changes the landscape, though money is so superior to barter that there is little reason to do so, unless laws like price fixing actually prevent you from attaining money.
You claim money isn't scarce? It is an economic good, by definition it is scarce. (Alright, technically fiat money is not truly scarce in the sense it can be created with no factors of production required, but for day to day concerns, I know for sure I can't get an infinite amount of dollars)
Projected by whom? And to "the climate" or our contribution to it? And how is it taxing me when I won't be paying a penny into the government fund?
I cited the slightly broader definition of a tax: government revenue. Even if government isn't taxing a specific entity, for example with inflation, it is still a tax on society. Anything government consumes is something that the rest of society cannot, making things more expensive.
"Cap and trade" is a tax, not on individuals, correct, but that doesn't mean it does not affect individuals. It has far reaching consequences for everyone, especially the lower class since this is about energy.
I heard 1/50 deg (C iirc) decrease on the news this morning, but the highest I can actually find is 1/900 deg C. And that presumes the climate works the way we think it does (the harsh reality is we haven't been able to model even a decade into the future). Can you do better? I almost want to be wrong about this.
If you force the employer to pay an income tax instead of the employee, does that no longer make it a tax? Of course not. The logic is ridiculous. Taxes can be most broadly defined as any government revenue, inflation (money printing) included, because no matter how they get it, it takes resources away from the people and makes living that much more expensive. This "Cap and trade" bill is a tax, plain and simple, on every single person, and it isn't even projected to do much to the climate to add insult to injury.
Oh yes, how ever did we get through the first two centuries of our existence? We can't survive without the IRS! All hail the 16th amendment! Seriously, stop defending bureaucracy and seventy thousand pages of tax code. The IRS, too, is a holdover from the progressive movement.
Forget tax cheats, we have bigger enemies in Congress and the White House. All spending must become taxes on the people somehow. Now think about this massive debt which we are racking up. The DHS and IRS aren't the only things we need to get rid of.
A world without profits is only possible in a static economy, where zero change happens, and even then, only theoretically. Unfortunately the world is always changing, and profits not only occur, but are necessary and good. Exchange cannot happen if both parties do not profit in some way. Is voluntary exchange such an evil in this world, where two parties voluntarily give up something they have to better themselves, without any force or corrosion? (It follows that, since exchange cannot happen without profit, a static economy is impossible.)
A price is selected not because that is how much it costs, but because that is how much someone will buy it for. A price is an exchange ratio, nothing more. The income does break down into those components, fixed costs/variable costs/etc, but not the other way around. If someone decides that, subjectively, they can make a good at a lower cost then someone will buy it for, they will start producing that good for sale. If I make a good, believing I will make a subjective (psychic, monetary, or other) profit, and invest $1000 into it, that doesn't mean that I will never sell it for less then $1000, that just means I will learn my lesson, sell it at a net loss (but still at a profit, if not a net profit, I value $10 more then some weird invention taking up space in my garage), and not produce it again. But if I blindly follow your assertions, I would be lead to believe I must only sell my good for $1000.
Large profits are not at all a bad thing. Profits lead investors to sectors with high demand. They represent karma in a market, companies that turn more profits are given more chances to stay alive if things go sour, as opposed to a company barely breaking even. Profit prioritizes who most urgently needs goods, parties with large profit effectively get first dibs on new technologies that can increase supply and make that good cheaper for everyone. What part of profits exactly are you opposed to again?
There is absolutely nothing unpatriotic about speaking out against tyranny.
Additionally, if consumers don't pay the corporate tax, then who does? Even if it doesn't affect prices and only affects the profit margin, that is still bad because the company is not profiting as much as they would have been, thus an industry cannot satisfy demand as effectively, and consumers end up getting ripped off second hand. Cutting into profits is a very bad thing to do.