Almost a billion for a 110MW plant, that won't provide power if there's cloud cover.
You get an almost gigawatt state of the art, passive safe with all bells and whistles nuclear reactor for that money.
And almost EVERYONE HERE, applauding like a bunch of Stockholm-afflicted fools. Ayn Rand's exasperatingly long novel was never as current, I gotta say.
That would all be well and good if I was trying to make my point as a skeptic one. But I am actually indulging in the quite diametrically opposed position of my bias towards politicians.
It is my personal belief that politicians are naturally selected as the biggest liars, so, to make it to president, you gotta be a professional whopper delivery guy.:-)
And which seemed to have the desired effect, by the way, because Standard Oil has significantly reduced its visible anti-competitive practices (most notably, underpricing) after the law came in place - which contributed to the decline in their market share following that.
In any case, the problem with monopolies is not their market share, but their negative effect on competitiveness. A company may well have only 60% of the market, but still command enough power to successfully apply anti-competitive practices - and that is still monopoly abuse. In case of Standard Oil vs US, there were very specific practices that were pointed out by the government as anti-competitive. There's plenty of details on Wikipedia so I won't bother repeating them here.
LOL, the desired effect of the Sherman Act was to prevent collusion to artificially RAISE prices. And then you come along and praise the act for protecting other companies from the LOWERING of prices.
You almost make the argument for me that government intervention in business is passed in disguise as means of protecting the consumer from HIGHER prices while actually keeping them from getting too low and harming corporate profits. Thank you.
My advice to you, pick up D.T. Armentano's 'Antitrust: The Case for Repeal'. Then you can take a well researched scholar's arguments and attack THOSE with your objections. Honestly, Wikipedia?
Yeah, because there are only two kinds of people in the world, free market believers and Marxists. What are you, a fan of Pinochet? (see, I can do "black & white" smear attacks, too).
That was not an attempt at smearing anything. The idea that under capitalism eventually the economy is dominated by monopolies IS a Marxist concept along with other discredited 'theories' such as that under capitalism wages will tend to be driven to subsistance levels.
As Lord Keynes famously said: “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”
This is only true as long as the investment to compete in the market isn't prohibitively high in neither time nor money. And as long as you have enough money that the existing company can't bleed you dry simply by being bigger and either outright buy you or lower their prices until you can't compete, and then raise them again once you're gone.
That was the fad during the late 1800s and early 1900s. It just didn't work then and it doesn't work without the government's help.
It's not that big business don't WANT to collude and screw people over, its just that other businessmen want to screw each other even harder. Rockefeller tried and tried, and he couldn't get Standard Oil's market share above 70%.
No, in a free market the number of competitors will always converge towards 1. Companies fight, and one will win, and one will lose. After this, there is one company less. The bigger fish has an advantage, and will use it unless prevented from doing so.
This is exactly what you see here in the US, where competition is nearly non-existent, and prices high and quality low as a result. This buyout is just another nail in the coffin, driven in by the American irrational belief that governments are out to screw you, but big business isn't.
Well, that is an extraordinary claim, and it requires extraordinary evidence. You must provide an example of the number of companies converging to one during the period in US history that most closely approached the ideal laissez-faire that is a free market. I'd put good money that you can't.
Any free market-oriented economist would argue with you that today's America's huge regulations, taxes and bigger government intervention in the economy is the reason that companies actually got to be this huge and protected from competition from newcomers in the first place.
This claim is further strengthened by the fact that where government's hand is the least visible is where you get the most innovation. See the advent of Google, Silicon Valley startups, the computer industry and so forth.
While technically true, the primary reason why the permanent monopoly has never happened is that governments have stepped in to break up the monopoly. For instance, Standard Oil was at 88% market share and climbing when antitrust suits started heading its way.
That is - for lack of a better word - FALSE. Standard Oil's market share DECLINED for the decades before it was broken up in 1911 - it was at 67% in 1907.
What prevents a big company from either buying a smaller one, or using its greater resources to artificially lower prices until the competition is gone?
A company that does that will incur a loss, which will lower its price per share, which will leave it vulnerable to an agressive takeover.
It just doesn't work like that in the real world. The same as a company that has 'cornered a market' can't just set the price it wants, high prices are in a ( relatively ) free market are to investment like blood in the water is to sharks, new competitors will enter the market.
I've already addressed this Standard-Oil-as-a-monopoly myth here on Slashdot over a dozen times.
The company had a market share of just of 64% in 1907, hardly a monopoly. It was broken up, in 1911, for POLITICAL reasons, nothing to do with 'protecting the consumer'.
It just doesn't seem to stick, though. Marxism is a particularly tough ideology is a hard parasite to weed out.
Maybe we would believe that the earth was flat, or that it revolved around the Sun if we lived in the middle ages and the renaissance, it was completely well known, and it was still utter bullshit. See how that's not an argument?
You should Google it up instead of calling me names or trying to argue from a place of authority, which is what you are trying to accomplish with saying my assertion is the extraordinary one.
Not that I agree that the GPL is legitimate, since personally I don't believe in ANY intellectual property, BUT, we do have copyright law which permits the existence of proprietary software, which is something I disapprove of.
In that light I see the GPL as an attempt to use that same law to create this 'microcosm' where software is freely distributed, with the added little perk of NOT ALLOWING proprietary code to free ride on in, unlike licenses like BSD who just don't give a fuck.
I call it competition between a hypotetical world with IP and one without.
I love free software and all the good things it brought us, but I see this happening in lots of projects. It seems like stability and having this 'pure and perfect core' - the thing about the most recent OpenGL and its dependence on extensions for new features comes to mind - is so important that real breakneck-speed, risk-taking innovation doesn't seem to get its turn in open source development, but is rather kept at a distance.
I guess that has its place, and maybe is the reason that in the server world Linux is so big.
Slashdot Mirror
Ya, keep telling yourself that, death-worshipper.
Almost a billion for a 110MW plant, that won't provide power if there's cloud cover.
You get an almost gigawatt state of the art, passive safe with all bells and whistles nuclear reactor for that money.
And almost EVERYONE HERE, applauding like a bunch of Stockholm-afflicted fools. Ayn Rand's exasperatingly long novel was never as current, I gotta say.
But an unelected US government bureaucracy doesn't have jurisdiction outside the planet. Sorry.
That would all be well and good if I was trying to make my point as a skeptic one. But I am actually indulging in the quite diametrically opposed position of my bias towards politicians.
It is my personal belief that politicians are naturally selected as the biggest liars, so, to make it to president, you gotta be a professional whopper delivery guy. :-)
There, I fixed your typo, teabagger. 'Conservative thought' has almost become indistinguishable from trolling.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
President Obama said "no Americans were injured" so I would assume it was only a minor hit.
Given his occupation, you should assume President Obama was lying.
And which seemed to have the desired effect, by the way, because Standard Oil has significantly reduced its visible anti-competitive practices (most notably, underpricing) after the law came in place - which contributed to the decline in their market share following that. In any case, the problem with monopolies is not their market share, but their negative effect on competitiveness. A company may well have only 60% of the market, but still command enough power to successfully apply anti-competitive practices - and that is still monopoly abuse. In case of Standard Oil vs US, there were very specific practices that were pointed out by the government as anti-competitive. There's plenty of details on Wikipedia so I won't bother repeating them here.
LOL, the desired effect of the Sherman Act was to prevent collusion to artificially RAISE prices. And then you come along and praise the act for protecting other companies from the LOWERING of prices.
You almost make the argument for me that government intervention in business is passed in disguise as means of protecting the consumer from HIGHER prices while actually keeping them from getting too low and harming corporate profits. Thank you.
My advice to you, pick up D.T. Armentano's 'Antitrust: The Case for Repeal'. Then you can take a well researched scholar's arguments and attack THOSE with your objections. Honestly, Wikipedia?
Yeah, because there are only two kinds of people in the world, free market believers and Marxists. What are you, a fan of Pinochet? (see, I can do "black & white" smear attacks, too).
That was not an attempt at smearing anything. The idea that under capitalism eventually the economy is dominated by monopolies IS a Marxist concept along with other discredited 'theories' such as that under capitalism wages will tend to be driven to subsistance levels.
As Lord Keynes famously said: “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”
This is only true as long as the investment to compete in the market isn't prohibitively high in neither time nor money. And as long as you have enough money that the existing company can't bleed you dry simply by being bigger and either outright buy you or lower their prices until you can't compete, and then raise them again once you're gone.
That was the fad during the late 1800s and early 1900s. It just didn't work then and it doesn't work without the government's help.
It's not that big business don't WANT to collude and screw people over, its just that other businessmen want to screw each other even harder. Rockefeller tried and tried, and he couldn't get Standard Oil's market share above 70%.
No, in a free market the number of competitors will always converge towards 1. Companies fight, and one will win, and one will lose. After this, there is one company less. The bigger fish has an advantage, and will use it unless prevented from doing so. This is exactly what you see here in the US, where competition is nearly non-existent, and prices high and quality low as a result. This buyout is just another nail in the coffin, driven in by the American irrational belief that governments are out to screw you, but big business isn't.
Well, that is an extraordinary claim, and it requires extraordinary evidence. You must provide an example of the number of companies converging to one during the period in US history that most closely approached the ideal laissez-faire that is a free market. I'd put good money that you can't.
Any free market-oriented economist would argue with you that today's America's huge regulations, taxes and bigger government intervention in the economy is the reason that companies actually got to be this huge and protected from competition from newcomers in the first place.
This claim is further strengthened by the fact that where government's hand is the least visible is where you get the most innovation. See the advent of Google, Silicon Valley startups, the computer industry and so forth.
While technically true, the primary reason why the permanent monopoly has never happened is that governments have stepped in to break up the monopoly. For instance, Standard Oil was at 88% market share and climbing when antitrust suits started heading its way.
That is - for lack of a better word - FALSE. Standard Oil's market share DECLINED for the decades before it was broken up in 1911 - it was at 67% in 1907.
What prevents a big company from either buying a smaller one, or using its greater resources to artificially lower prices until the competition is gone?
A company that does that will incur a loss, which will lower its price per share, which will leave it vulnerable to an agressive takeover.
It just doesn't work like that in the real world. The same as a company that has 'cornered a market' can't just set the price it wants, high prices are in a ( relatively ) free market are to investment like blood in the water is to sharks, new competitors will enter the market.
I've already addressed this Standard-Oil-as-a-monopoly myth here on Slashdot over a dozen times.
The company had a market share of just of 64% in 1907, hardly a monopoly. It was broken up, in 1911, for POLITICAL reasons, nothing to do with 'protecting the consumer'.
It just doesn't seem to stick, though. Marxism is a particularly tough ideology is a hard parasite to weed out.
u mad bro?
Yes, it was easy to get the sense that I compared the plot. But no, what I mean is the gung-ho 'we're US marines, lets do it, roarrr!!!' thing.
The book has politics, it's a smart read. The film is pure diluted space opera where bugs rip people's arms and marines empty clips at them.
Wow, Heinein's book just trumps that ridiculous 'Saving Private Ryan' in space.
But Babylon 5 really was beyond saving. And to my shame I followed it with a passion... kids. :-)
Maybe we would believe that the earth was flat, or that it revolved around the Sun if we lived in the middle ages and the renaissance, it was completely well known, and it was still utter bullshit. See how that's not an argument?
You should Google it up instead of calling me names or trying to argue from a place of authority, which is what you are trying to accomplish with saying my assertion is the extraordinary one.
Not that I agree that the GPL is legitimate, since personally I don't believe in ANY intellectual property, BUT, we do have copyright law which permits the existence of proprietary software, which is something I disapprove of.
In that light I see the GPL as an attempt to use that same law to create this 'microcosm' where software is freely distributed, with the added little perk of NOT ALLOWING proprietary code to free ride on in, unlike licenses like BSD who just don't give a fuck.
I call it competition between a hypotetical world with IP and one without.
As soon as you utter that phrase, whatever it is you're talking about ceases to be free.
Yes you are free to do whatever you want, but if you want to murder someone then no, you can't do that.
Your freedom ends where your neighbor's property begins.
Why don't you show your evidence of 'jump starting the economy out of recession' so we can all have a good laugh. :-)
Almost two decades of depression as 'jump starting an economy out of recession' is the most difficult example to disagree with?
I'm impressed.
You have no idea how an economy works. Here's a tip: it does not run on paper.
because nobody has the power to jump-start the economy out of a recession by unilateral stimulus spending.
And when has 'unilateral stimulus spending' ever 'jump-started any economy out of a recession'?
I suppose the NFB's going rate is lower than your average anti-trust congressman's office.
Great savings for Microsoft. ;-)
I guess it's still effective in doing its job.
I love free software and all the good things it brought us, but I see this happening in lots of projects. It seems like stability and having this 'pure and perfect core' - the thing about the most recent OpenGL and its dependence on extensions for new features comes to mind - is so important that real breakneck-speed, risk-taking innovation doesn't seem to get its turn in open source development, but is rather kept at a distance.
I guess that has its place, and maybe is the reason that in the server world Linux is so big.
Forever alone
I'm arguing that Standard Oil was not a monopoly. Period.
There cannot be a monopoly in a free market and there has never been a monopoly anywhere in the real world with a good measure of laissez-faire.