Chainsaw M Linden Gets The Chop – Philip Linden Steps In
by Pixeleen Mistral on 25/06/10 at 11:26 am
Linden Lab CEO M Linden is stepping down, after axing 30% of the Lab’s staff in recent weeks and pulling a surprise no-show for his speech at the Second Life 7th Birthday celebration. Philip Linden has been named interim CEO in a move that raised the hopes of residents with short memories, but left those who recall the reign of king Philip un-moved — and brought frowns to the faces of those who realize the Lab’s board of directors have signed off on the Lab’s questionable strategies over the last few years. Philip Linden is the chairman of the Linden Lab board.
M Linden land offline permanently?
Funeral arrangements for M Linden’s avatar’s remains are uncertain. The Linden mass grave in Rouge sim would seem to be an obvious choice for a memorial, but when asked for comment sim owner CodeBastard Redgrave was concerned about possible griefing.
Pixeleen Mistral: do you have a headstone for M Linden yet?
CodeBastard Redgrave: lol not yet.. think he deserves one?
Pixeleen Mistral: why not? it will be interesting to see what sort of gifts the residents leave by it
CodeBastard Redgrave: or get my sim griefed lmao
CodeBastard Redgrave: but i’m thinking about it, honestly. he was not such a bad guy, he just had a dirty job to do.
The immediate impact of the return of Philip Linden on the L$ market was neutral, and volumes on the LindenX L$ spacebux currency exchange remain low. After dropping significantly in value against the $USD in the last week, the L$ fictional currency seems unlikely to strengthen in the near term.
Persephone Bolero
Jun 30th, 2010
“Can you name even ONE actual example of a real regulation that makes it harder for small business to exist and easier for large business to take them down? ”
Why do you need one example? Pick one. My arguments apply to all regulations. What difference does it make if I point to a single example?
“I can put it in picture-book form if that’d be more convenient for you, I’ll even let you color the pages.”
I realize you think you can win a debate by filibuster. You have this delusion that if your comments are long enough that quantity equals quality. Trying to fill up your nonsensical rationales of how somehow regulations (which by definition limit choice) will make business easier to perform. But rambling on endlessly does not make up for the fact you’ve never really said anything.
“I didn’t see any compelling arguments in your post”
That feeling is quite mutual.
Emperor Norton hears a who?
Jun 30th, 2010
Persephone @ “I explained this twice now. Regulations create complicated playgrounds for lawyers,. Do mom and pop stores have lawyers and lobbyists?”
You’re still making no sense. Standard Oil, Southern Pacific Rail Road and Carnegie Steel crushed all competition before it long before the EVIL and SELFISH government started regulating the markets. The very fact that these corporations were so successful at crushing the competition gave those corporations the resources to start buying up the politicians needed to write the laws to protect their investors money by protecting these corporations hard WON monopolies . Take the regulations away the good businessmen/big money will still crush Mom and Pop like Wallmart is doing.
Wake up and smell the economy of scale runs under, you commie idealist.
Persephone Bolero
Jun 30th, 2010
@We I realize you’ve never thought beyond what CNN and MSNBC told you to think, and their reporting represents the sum total of your understanding of the world. But if you’d like some examples of how regulations are far more harmful than helpful, here’s a list of articles to help you beyond your limited understanding of the topic:
http://reason.com/topics/regulation
I not it’s not one example. It’s instead hundreds. But you’ll find the thread of my arguments in most of the articles.
Persephone Bolero
Jun 30th, 2010
@Norton “The very fact that these corporations were so successful at crushing the competition gave those corporations the resources to start buying up the politicians needed to write the laws to protect their investors money by protecting these corporations hard WON monopolies .”
If politicians weren’t making regulations, what would be the point to buying them? Companies buy politicians for that specific reason: they want regulations made in their favor.
So, these regulations are designed to stifle competition. And mom and pop stores do not have lobbyists. You guys just keep desperately ignoring this point.
Persephone Bolero
Jun 30th, 2010
@We How much do you know about occupational licensing? It’s one type of regulation that is designed allegedly to protect consumers from under qualified business providing services without the proper training. Instead, lobbyists ensure these laws make it harder for other businesses to compete.
Great article on the topic here: http://reason.com/archives/2010/03/11/the-right-to-work
Here’s a snippet to minimize reading: “The licensing board defends its test, claiming it protects consumers from florists who might sell them unhealthy flowers. I understand the established florists’ wish to protect their profession’s reputation, but in practice such licensing laws mainly serve to limit competition. Making it harder for newcomers to open florist shops lets established florists hog the business.”
Would you like more examples?
Persephone Bolero
Jun 30th, 2010
@We Here’s a whole study on the topic of regulations, focused on San Diego by the Institute of Justice. It should provide you with yet another example to quench your insatiable desire for specifics:
http://www.ij.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2247
In case you don’t want to read the whole thing, which I understand, here’s a digest: “In many ways San Diego is a model of free enterprise. The city encourages and assists myriad small and fledgling businesses and promotes a vigorous pro-business philosophy. But the city’s regulatory reality does not always measure up to its noble aspirations. While the City and County assist start-up enterprises in various ways, it remains difficult for ***people with little experience or capital to navigate the regulatory thicket. ***”(my emphasis)
We
Jun 30th, 2010
@Persephone
“Why do you need one example? Pick one. My arguments apply to all regulations. What difference does it make if I point to a single example?”
Your arguments are invalid if there are no examples of this happening. The fact that you don’t know this basic concept of any kind of debate is interesting. But I’m sure Libertarians are familiar with holding beliefs supported by no actual proof or evidence.
“I realize you think you can win a debate by filibuster. You have this delusion that if your comments are long enough that quantity equals quality. Trying to fill up your nonsensical rationales of how somehow regulations (which by definition limit choice) will make business easier to perform. But rambling on endlessly does not make up for the fact you’ve never really said anything.”
I’ve had one exceptionally long post, because I was filling it with proof and scientific studies. Hardly rambling, but you didn’t read it either, so how would you know? I don’t think winning a debate is possible here. Neither one of us is going to say “Wow, you know, you’re right”, it’s simply going to get filled with more and more personal attacks until one of us gets bored and leaves. I continue it cause I’m a stubborn bastard and this is mildly entertaining.
“That feeling is quite mutual.”
Yes, I would imagine it’s very hard for you to see compelling arguments in my posts when you don’t read them.
“We I realize you’ve never thought beyond what CNN and MSNBC told you to think, and their reporting represents the sum total of your understanding of the world”
I don’t watch CNN or MSNBC, but I’m amused that you a.) are attempting to pidgeon hole me into the stereotype of your libertarian enemies because I disagree, and b.) evidently hold as much respect for people’s ability to think for themselves as much as I do. If you believe that CNN and MSNBC can sway the minds of those who watch it, what makes you think people in a libertarian government would be any different?
Speaking of not being able to see past what you’re told in biased sources of information, you link to TWO Libertarian fueled websites as proof to your points? Hahahaha are you serious? Can you not see the blazing hypocrisy of this?
Persephone Bolero
Jun 30th, 2010
“Speaking of not being able to see past what you’re told in biased sources of information, you link to TWO Libertarian fueled websites as proof to your points?”
I never said anything about bias. I don’t want unbiased sources because they are never unbiased. I want sources that are honest with the biases, like Reason and John Stossel.
How is that hypocritical?
I will say that CNN and MSNBC are really full of shit. Kinda like FOX is.
But you got your hard examples. And that proves it IS happening.
Here’s an example demonstrating that your claim that free markets leads to monopolies is entirely false. Monopolies starve in a free market. The more free, the quicker they starve, because when things are truly free, competitors spring up right and left.
http://reason.com/blog/2010/02/05/the-instability-of-monopolies
Shall I give you more examples?
Emperor Norton hears a who?
Jun 30th, 2010
Persephone Bolero @ “So, these regulations are designed to stifle competition. And mom and pop stores do not have lobbyists. You guys just keep desperately ignoring this point”
You even read that quote I made; what you are calling unfair I am calling the just REWARD for being a good Capitalist. Companies are important to the country. They should have the right to get the government to protect them from people trying to destroy their businesses like any other THIEF.
We
Jun 30th, 2010
@Persephone
“I never said anything about bias. I don’t want unbiased sources because they are never unbiased. I want sources that are honest with the biases, like Reason and John Stossel.”
“being honest about being biased” doesn’t make it a reputable source of information, it in fact makes it a less reputable, because then they won’t even attempt to be unbiased or neutral whatsoever. At least one that is biased but claiming unbias is still making a basic attempt to look unbiased. A site that unabashedly claims bias is looking for an agenda, not facts. Every story, every fact, every writing will be twisted and analyzed based on “How does this support our agenda?”. What’s the difference between your libertarian biased sites and a conservative biased network like Fox News, or a Liberal biased one like CNN?
But hey, I realize you’ve never thought beyond what reason.com and John Stossel told you to think, and their reporting represents the sum total of your understanding of the world.
See what I did there?
“Monopolies starve in a free market. The more free, the quicker they starve, because when things are truly free, competitors spring up right and left.”
And are subsequently crushed. This seems to be the lynchpin idea of Free Market, that somehow John Galt will arrive and save everyone. Unfortunately, it’s not the case, and there are no libertarian superheroes to defy all odds and save your society from dystopia. You’re not really debating this idea, just repeating that Free Market will somehow not have monopolies over and over, much like a person would if they had plugged their fingers in their ears and shouted “LALALALA I’M NOT LISTENING”.
Again we have the water example, your only refute was that “someone would come in and sell bottled water for cheaper” then somehow this would crush the monolith corporation that owns the water distribution in the city. I posed a number of questions to you addressing the irrationality of this idea that a small bottled water company could do anything to stop a monopolized city, and you responded by valiantly ignoring it entirely and then repeatedly avoiding the question.
But no, please don’t give any more “examples” if you’re going to continue linking only to heavily-biased libertarian websites. Otherwise, if you have any actual proof or examples, feel free.
Gaara Sandalwood
Jul 1st, 2010
*Noms pringles*
This is fun.
Persephone Bolero
Jul 1st, 2010
“it in fact makes it a less reputable, because then they won’t even attempt to be unbiased or neutral whatsoever”
This is why you think people are too stupid to be free. You’re dumb enough to believe this, and you worship the agenda-driven media authorities who disguise themselves as “unbiased.” And you actually believe it.
You’re free to choose what media you consume. May your choices serve you well.
We
Jul 1st, 2010
@Persephone
“This is why you think people are too stupid to be free.”
No, I detailed extensively the scientific tests showing people’s tendency to obey authority and conform even when they know it’s wrong. That was in the long post you didn’t read and consider to be filibuster rambling. This has nothing particularly to do with stupidity, and we’re especially not talking about real freedom here, both the current government and the libertarian world view endorse restrictions of freedom for the greater good. Before you debate that a libertarian would never restrict any freedom, think about the freedom to murder, the freedom to fraud, etc. If you truly believe that people are better than I give them credit for, then wouldn’t you not need laws to force people not to do these things? Real freedom is anarchy.
“You’re dumb enough to believe this, and you worship the agenda-driven media authorities who disguise themselves as “unbiased.” And you actually believe it.”
I already said I don’t watch CNN or MSNBC, I don’t even own a TV, I know reading isn’t your strong point but make an effort. Or you can continue to put words in my mouth, like that I “actually believe it” when they say they’re completely unbiased. I know news networks like Fox and MSNBC are biased, but I also know that they’re under scrutiny and criticism because they claim otherwise, the best way to alleviate that scrutiny is to occasionally make attempts at being unbiased. Whereas something like those libertarian websites are guaranteed to be unashamedly biased 100% of the time.
I notice you ignored the questions posed again of how your little bottled water company is going to fight the Mega-Water corp in the dystopian free market future. (Hint: You won’t be able too)
Gundel Gaukelei
Jul 1st, 2010
@Persephone Bolero: Monopolies starve in a free market.
…, causing a global break down of economy, turning your money and stocks into scap paper plus see 1929ff.
So while your statement is true, I heavily doubt you would like the conseqences.
If we would have had a free market in 2009, by now you couldn’t even afford to post here.
Persephone Bolero
Jul 1st, 2010
@We “I detailed extensively the scientific tests showing people’s tendency to obey authority and conform even when they know it’s wrong”
While your two experiments do show a disturbing tendency to transfer responsibility to authority, as I pointed out, authority comes from government. A business cannot force you give it money. It can only provide you with a product or service you’re not willing to give up.
But you cannot choose to give up your government. So, you defer to authority that can only be removed through violence or the complicated and lengthy political process that is ripe with opportunities for corruption on numerous levels. And you still will not explain how putting someone into that kind of power makes them benevolent protectors of the exploited. In fact, you conveniently ignore this question. Why is that?
“I “actually believe it” when they say they’re completely unbiased”
Name a source of news that is completely unbiased. I notice you’re a bit vague on this point.
“I notice you ignored the questions posed again of how your little bottled water company is going to fight the Mega-Water corp in the dystopian free market future.”
By providing water cheaper and more efficiently. I did answer it. You pretended not to notice.
Refrigerators used to be in the homes of the ultra rich, because they were too expensive for the poor. But yet even poor people have refrigerators today. Why didn’t megacorporations keep them from becoming so cheap?
Do I need to list out every product from cars to cell phones to computers that are in more hands today than ever before? Why aren’t megacorporations preventing this?
Persephone Bolero
Jul 1st, 2010
@Gundel “If we would have had a free market in 2009, by now you couldn’t even afford to post here.”
How does a company make money producing products that no one can afford to buy? Please explain this.
Emperor Norton hears a who?
Jul 1st, 2010
Persephone Boler @ “How does a company make money producing products that no one can afford to buy? Please explain this. .”
Henry Ford solved that problem decades ago; credit.
Persephone Bolero
Jul 1st, 2010
@Emporer “Henry Ford solved that problem decades ago; credit.”
Wrong. Ford was driven in a free market to make manufacturing processes more efficient. He didn’t innovate automobile technology. He innovated manufacturing processes, which put car ownership into the realistic financial possibilities of more people, even those who actually made the cars.
While financial products were around then, they were not what they are today. But your comment also demonstrates the complete economic illiteracy that plagues Alphaville readers. Let me explain…
You want to buy a widget from me for $100. You say, “But I don’t have $100.” I say, “Oh, no problem, I’ll give you credit for it.” So you buy the widget on credit, but you can’t actually pay back the $100. So, in the end, I give you a widget for which I’m never paid.
How does lending money to someone that can’t pay it back earn a profit? I have a neighbor who has borrowed $100 off me for her rent. She never paid me back. I’m out $100. How is this profitable?
While it is true, today’s economy is highly credit-oriented, this is not a bad thing. Obviously, credit is in demand, because people want it. Bu credit is in SUPPLY because people pay back more than they default on. And these lines of credit then are services that are provided as part of consenting transactions between adults.
But Henry Ford had little to nothing to do with that.
Emperor Norton hears a who?
Jul 1st, 2010
Persephone Bolero @ “which put car ownership into the realistic financial possibilities of more people, even those who actually made the cars,… ”
,…threw loans.
Ever heard of this?
http://www.fordcredit.com/index.jhtml
Henry Ford started it because people making the equivalent of $20K a year couldn’t just pay the equivalent of $10K in todays money in cash for his “cheep” Model-T.
Persephone Bolero @ “How does lending money to someone that can’t pay it back earn a profit? I have a neighbor who has borrowed $100 off me for her rent. She never paid me back. I’m out $100. How is this profitable? ”
They can make money loaning people more than can afford by collecting 26% interest a month like the credit card companies do.
We
Jul 1st, 2010
@Persephone
“While your two experiments do show a disturbing tendency to transfer responsibility to authority, as I pointed out, authority comes from government.”
In the specific experiment, the authority figure didn’t claim to be governmental at all, it was just someone who claimed to be a scientist. Authority doesn’t suggest government, Authority exists very much in business structures, the large chain of hierarchy from the CEO down, that in itself is an authority. The idea is not that they’re being commanded to do this “or else”, it’s that someone else who seems to know what they’re doing is telling them to do it and claiming responsibility.
“But you cannot choose to give up your government. So, you defer to authority that can only be removed through violence or the complicated and lengthy political process that is ripe with opportunities for corruption on numerous levels.”
Ah, but isn’t the key to Libertarian free market that if you don’t like a company, you just take your dollar elsewhere? Why not take that concept to governments? There’s plenty of other countries out there, why not just leave?
“And you still will not explain how putting someone into that kind of power makes them benevolent protectors of the exploited. In fact, you conveniently ignore this question. Why is that?”
I actually did answer this a while back (You should try actually reading responses before claiming I don’t answer), the answer is I don’t. And neither does Democracy, that’s why there isn’t one person on top who decides it all. There are three branches of power, all set up as checks and balances against each other.
“Name a source of news that is completely unbiased. I notice you’re a bit vague on this point.”
The source of news that is unbiased is actually all news, you read all of the various different takes on the same subject, and you’ll be able to get the best depiction possible. However, I wasn’t claiming that I knew a completely unbiased source, I was saying I’d prefer a source that makes attempts to be unbiased every now and then, over one that has completely given itself to the agenda.
“By providing water cheaper and more efficiently. I did answer it. You pretended not to notice.”
Again, you must actually read my responses if you wish to claim I didn’t answer. I, in fact, addressed a number of questions as to how you intended to sell water cheaper and more efficiently. Namely: How do you plan to cheaply ship the water? What about bottling it? What’s to stop Mega-water from buying you or doing a smear campaign against your water? Mega-water is the water utilities to the town, not just drinking water but water for showers, washing machines, bath tubs, pools, etc. Do you expect people to shower in bottled water and how do you expect to beat them at that market? You seem to believe that your ideas would “just be better” and that the big corps would do almost nothing to prevent their demise.
“Refrigerators used to be in the homes of the ultra rich, because they were too expensive for the poor. But yet even poor people have refrigerators today. Why didn’t megacorporations keep them from becoming so cheap?”
Well first off, refrigerators weren’t only for the super rich, they used to be called Iceboxes, and they were literally just a box with a large chunk of ice in it. They were cheap and easy to make, and pretty common in America, not just the rich. If you mean specific refrigerators as they are today, they didn’t go into mass production until the end of the 40′s which was America’s economic boom due to war-time industry (which incidentally was government founded). Had we existed in a free market society, I’m sure they would still be intensely expensive, thankfully we don’t, and thus competition brought prices down.
“Why aren’t megacorporations preventing this?”
I have no idea where you’re getting this idea from, since we do have government regulations to make sure that corporations CAN’T prevent prices dropping. If we had a free market society, then yes, corporations would have full control over prices and they would make them as high as possible, but thankfully we don’t and corporations are forced to play nice and compete.
“How does a company make money producing products that no one can afford to buy? Please explain this.”
Largely because a free market dystopian monopoly would not pay their workers governmental money. Look at the industrial revolution era companies to get a gist of how a free market monopoly would work. Workers for a corporation weren’t paid in money, they were paid in tokens that were only good at a company owned-store, in which everything sold was at hyper inflated prices. This way, the company paid the workers nothing, they only had to buy supplies for the company stores. The company gets what they need, and the workers get the bare minimum to survive and be productive. The ability for companies to do this was abolished by, you guessed it, a government regulation. Here’s another one that a free market would bring back: child labor. Child labor is illegal because of a government regulation, in a free market, no regulations to stop it, so welcome back to the coal mines little Timmy!
Persephone Bolero
Jul 1st, 2010
@We “Authority exists very much in business structures, the large chain of hierarchy from the CEO down, that in itself is an authority.”
But businesses have no authority over their customers. They have to pander to them to get their business. So, no authority. People have to pander to bureaucracies to get them to do anything.
“Why not take that concept to governments? There’s plenty of other countries out there, why not just leave?”
Because moving to another country is much more difficult than changing phone companies. In most cases it’s next to impossible. But this is one reason why libertarians are so supportive of states rights. If most government exists on a state level, then you end up with 50 incubators of democracy who compete with each other. And when people are dissatisfied, they vote with their feet. So, you’re right that my free market principles could be applied to government. If international immigration were easier, and I wish it were, then we could do the same thing on a global scale. I’m glad you’re finally getting it.
“I wasn’t claiming that I knew a completely unbiased source”
That’s because they don’t exist. I prefer all news sources to be honest in their biases. Then, I can take information from various sources and make decisions myself as to what is and is not truth.
“Well first off, refrigerators weren’t only for the super rich, they used to be called Iceboxes, and they were literally just a box with a large chunk of ice in it. ”
An ice box is not a refrigerator. Refrigerators WERE only affordable for the very rich.
“Had we existed in a free market society, I’m sure they would still be intensely expensive, thankfully we don’t, and thus competition brought prices down.”
Oh, regulations created competition amongst refrigerator manufacturers? Demonstrate the truth of this claim. Can you find a single instance in which an anti-trust suit broke up a refrigerator monopoly? If not, then how can you claim that regulations created the competition? I think you’re just making shit up at this point.
“If we had a free market society, then yes, corporations would have full control over prices and they would make them as high as possible”
But we do have a mostly free market society. Only recently have regulations exploded. And no, none of these scenarios ever arose. So your facts are flat wrong, and you’re just making things up as you go along.
“Workers for a corporation weren’t paid in money, they were paid in tokens that were only good at a company owned-store, in which everything sold was at hyper inflated prices.”
Comparing the modern world with these scenarios is silly. Yes, there was a time when the company owned everything. But free markets bred competition that would make this scenario impossible now. Simple as that.
Persephone Bolero
Jul 1st, 2010
@Emperor
I repeat my question you conveniently ignored. How does one make money lending to people that can’t pay it back? Please answer this question this time. Thank you.
Darien Caldwell
Jul 1st, 2010
“You want to buy a widget from me for $100. You say, “But I don’t have $100.” I say, “Oh, no problem, I’ll give you credit for it.” So you buy the widget on credit, but you can’t actually pay back the $100. So, in the end, I give you a widget for which I’m never paid.”
That’s not how it works. It’s more like this:
“You want to buy a widget from me for $100. You say, “But I don’t have $100.” I say, “Oh, no problem, I’ll give you credit for it.” So you buy the widget on credit, but you can’t actually pay back the $100. You try to pay and end up paying about $40. I send in the Repo men and Take back the Widget. So I get $40, the Widget, and you get nothing.”
That’s pretty profitable.
Darien Caldwell
Jul 1st, 2010
Oh, and you have to consider that the Widget probably only cost $10 to make. that’s really profitable.
Emperor Norton hears a who?
Jul 1st, 2010
Persephone Bolero @”I repeat my question you answered that I conveniently ignored. How does one make money lending to people that can’t pay it back? Please answer this question this time so I can pretend not to read it again because it doesn’t agree with my beliefs. Thank you”
Charge 26% a month interest on the loan like Chase does.
We
Jul 1st, 2010
@Persephone
“But businesses have no authority over their customers. They have to pander to them to get their business. So, no authority. People have to pander to bureaucracies to get them to do anything.”
That’s a whole other psychological argument. What happens when a business plays commercials with a doctor saying how healthy their product is (against actual fact), or in the water example you’ve again ignored: that another person’s product is unhealthy or dangerous?
“Because moving to another country is much more difficult than changing phone companies”
It’s funny you mention phone companies, since AT&T’s stated goal during the early 1900′s was “One Policy, One System, Universal Service”, attempting to actively pursue a monopoly in the US for phone service and was buying up competitors left and right. Thankfully, Anti-trust regulators jumped on it and in 1913 AT&T was forced to make a deal to prevent a monopoly, which it’s been regulated by ever since. Had it been a free market society, if you wanted to change phone companies you would have had to literally leave the country, because it’d be AT&T or no phone service at all.
“If most government exists on a state level, then you end up with 50 incubators of democracy who compete with each other.”
Also the return to feudalism and the separation of America into 50 distinct countries. It’d also make it conveniently easier for the monopoly in each state to bribe and buy the local state government, making each state a locally corporate-run government. You’ve already stated that companies lobby and bribe their way into government regulations, why would this stop in a free market society? They wouldn’t need to do it for any government regulations, but they could buy out the state government and get away with anything. Then they wouldn’t even need to smear campaign any small competitor coming into their market, they could just have them killed.
“And when people are dissatisfied, they vote with their feet”
And with each state being it’s own country, it’d be as hard to “vote with your feet” as it would be to do by leaving the US. Even harder if they brought back company stores, and all your money is only good at one specific company store.
“Then, I can take information from various sources and make decisions myself as to what is and is not truth.”
Various sources? I don’t think multiple libertarian sites counts as “various”.
“Can you find a single instance in which an anti-trust suit broke up a refrigerator monopoly? If not, then how can you claim that regulations created the competition? I think you’re just making shit up at this point.”
Just because it didn’t happen doesn’t mean it wouldn’t ever happen. I can’t think of one for refrigerators, but I can think of two one for computers in Microsoft and one for phone services in AT&T.
“But we do have a mostly free market society. Only recently have regulations exploded. And no, none of these scenarios ever arose. So your facts are flat wrong, and you’re just making things up as you go along.”
Define recently? We’ve never had a completely free market society, closest we’ve had was during the Industrial Revolution. And there’s plenty of examples of price-fixing in the US, where multiple corporations work together to make sure the prices stay as high as possible. It’s anti-competition behavior, and it has absolutely nothing to do with government regulations, it’s something companies organize with each other, and is illegal. In a free market society this would be common and legal.
“Comparing the modern world with these scenarios is silly. Yes, there was a time when the company owned everything. But free markets bred competition that would make this scenario impossible now. Simple as that.”
Why is it silly? They had competition then too. The Industrial Revolution was about as close to a free market society as the US had ever been, and it was a nightmare dark ages, where children were exploited as labor in coal mines, factory workers were maimed and killed by machines regularly, and companies owned everything. What intervened to stop these horrors? Not some magical John Galt figure, but government regulations. Like child labor laws, health and safety laws in the work place, laws against company stores. A free market would eliminate all these laws, why do you think that companies wouldn’t use them again? Why wouldn’t they bring back company stores? Why wouldn’t children be hired again to work dangerous jobs? Why wouldn’t safety regulations in work drop to near nothing? All I see you saying is “they wouldn’t! simple as that!” but no actual proof or even argument otherwise.
Gundel Gaukelei
Jul 2nd, 2010
@Persephone Bolero: How does a company make money producing products that no one can afford to buy? Please explain this.
You could ask some former US house owner how hes been able to buy a house he couldn’t afford.
First its credit. As long as there is growth, thats working, because the growth is compensating for the interest. If the bubble bursts, the goverment will jump in with tax/fresh money. As seen in the financial and economical crisis lately. Go figure.
Persephone Bolero
Jul 2nd, 2010
@Darien Actually, you’re wrong. Repossession is an attempt to minimize losses from an account that has been defaulted on. Since cars depreciate in value rapidly, there’s rarely any profit to be made.
And let me ask you this. If you had loaned me $100 to buy your widget, and I agreed to pay that money back, would you want to repossess it when I failed to repay? Would you consider it unfair if I just got to keep the widget and you got nothing?
Persephone Bolero
Jul 2nd, 2010
@Emperor “Charge 26% a month interest on the loan like Chase does.”
But if I don’t pay back the principle, obviously the interest doesn’t get paid either. You might as well charge 10000000% interest. You still get nada. Nice try, but again, you only showed your economic illiteracy.
Persephone Bolero
Jul 2nd, 2010
@We “What happens when a business plays commercials with a doctor saying how healthy their product is (against actual fact), or in the water example you’ve again ignored: that another person’s product is unhealthy or dangerous?”
And this is that “people are too stupid to think for themselves” argument you love.
So, I ask you. If people are too stupid to think for themselves and too greedy to be given the freedom to live their lives as they choose, HOW can a bureaucracy operated by these evil stupid people protect anyone? How do people become benevolent when given more power over people with less options to sever associations with those in power?
“Had it been a free market society, if you wanted to change phone companies you would have had to literally leave the country, because it’d be AT&T or no phone service at all.”
Wrong. Cell phones would have given people an option to break that monopoly without any government intervention. Nice try, though.
“And with each state being it’s own country, it’d be as hard to “vote with your feet” as it would be to do by leaving the US.”
You really don’t understand the difference between federal and state government, do you? Take a civics class. I don’t have time to explain states rights to you.
“You’ve already stated that companies lobby and bribe their way into government regulations, why would this stop in a free market society? ”
If government power is limited…NOW PAY ATTENTION…LOBBYIST ARE USELESS. How many times do I have to explain this to you? Companies can only buy power from a government that’s in the business of creating the regulations you claim protect people. NOOOOOO, they just give companies the power to shut out competition.
“And there’s plenty of examples of price-fixing in the US, where multiple corporations work together to make sure the prices stay as high as possible”
And there’s plenty of examples of how such practices have been undermined by competition.
“Just because it didn’t happen doesn’t mean it wouldn’t ever happen.”
It didn’t. That’s the point. Centralized planning is unnecessary.
“The Industrial Revolution was about as close to a free market society as the US had ever been, and it was a nightmare dark ages, where children were exploited as labor in coal mines, factory workers were maimed and killed by machines regularly, and companies owned everything. What intervened to stop these horrors?”
Wrong. This is typical in emerging economies. Things suck. Arguably. Americans at one time worked in sweatshops. But due to the free market, people got richer. And then they got better educated, and then they got better working conditions.
India has seen half it’s population rise out of poverty in a relatively short period of time, all due to increased trade initiated by decreased regulations. And we’re seeing the same thing happening there. The newest generation is now starting to ask for better working conditions and higher wages. And as they get more money, they’ll create economic opportunities for us. And the whole world gets wealthier.
Sorry, but your interventionist model fails in direct correlation to the degree to which economic activity is limited by regulations.
Persephone Bolero
Jul 2nd, 2010
@Grundel “You could ask some former US house owner how hes been able to buy a house he couldn’t afford.”
Wrong. Actually, it was government intervention that led mortgage companies to lend to borrowers that couldn’t afford to pay back their loans. Without government intervention the risk would have exceeded profits, and companies wouldn’t have touched most loan applicants.
It’s had wide range of debilitating effects on the housing market, including grossly inflating home values.
Here’s a quote from the link below: “Fannie and Freddie then went on a subprime bender. They made it clear that they wanted to buy all the subprime or Alt-A mortgages that they could find, eventually acquiring around $1 trillion of the paper. The market responded. In 2003 subprime mortgages made up less than 8 percent of all mortgages. By 2006, they were over 20 percent. Banks knew they could sell subprime products to Fannie and Freddie. Investments banks realized that if they laced ever increasing amounts of subprime mortgages into the MBSes, they could juice the returns and so earn bigger fees. The rating agencies, thinking they were simply dealing with traditional mortgages, didn’t look under the hood.”
Educate yourself.
http://reason.com/archives/2008/10/01/the-roots-of-the-crisis
Emperor Norton hears a who?
Jul 2nd, 2010
Persephone Bolero @ “But if I don’t pay back the principle, obviously the interest doesn’t get paid either. You might as well charge 10000000% interest. You still get nada. Nice try, but again, you only showed your economic illiteracy.”
LOL Do you even have a credit card?
Consider this analogy; Gundel makes a widget for $10 in material and $20 in labor. You want the widget, Gundel charges you $100, because Gundel wants to make a profit (you know that whole greed is good thing) You don’t have $100 because your paper rout only pays you $50 a month. Emperor Norton, flush from cash on his South American rice deal, will generously lend you the $100 for the widget for 20 easy payments of $10 a month. See how that goes? Sure you can refuse the Emperor’s generous offer, but hey, the Emperor is the only one lending, don’t look at Gundel, the Emperor lent Gundel the $30 to make the widget in the first place for 5% of the profit. You got the have that widget.
You get the widget, Gundel makes $66.50 in profit and Emperor Norton makes $103.50 in profit. You’re out $200.
Persephone Bolero
Jul 2nd, 2010
@Emperor Ooooh, I see. So you’re coming up with hypothetical situations to explain how you *might* make a profit lending to someone who doesn’t pay the money back.
This is fun. Let me try. How about the situation where magic bars of gold fall from the sky. Yeah, under that scenario, including the money you get from selling the magic bars of gold, you’d also make a profit lending a billion dollars to a homeless guy.
Unfortunately, under the typical scenario where bars of gold don’t fall from the sky, lending money to people that don’t pay it back is never profitable.
Gaara Sandalwood
Jul 2nd, 2010
“Ooooh, I see. So you’re coming up with hypothetical situations to explain how you *might* make a profit lending to someone who doesn’t pay the money back.”
I just woke up, but I at least noticed something worth mentioning:
Just like you used a simple “I’d sell the product cheaper” hypothetical argument towards We? And insisted you were right? And insisted that that same simple idea would still be enough after he brought up loads of variables that could affect the attempt to rise above a large corporation?
I shall use the same type of argument you use here: Straw men, dear. Straw men. lol
Persephone Bolero
Jul 2nd, 2010
@Gaara You’ve never heard of people selling things cheaper? Yeah, that never happens.
Emperor Norton hears a who?
Jul 2nd, 2010
Persephone Bolero @ “Wrong. Actually, it was government intervention that led mortgage companies to lend to borrowers that couldn’t afford to pay back their loans. Without government intervention the risk would have exceeded profits, and companies wouldn’t have touched most loan applicants.”
You are right about that; when Jimmy CARTER and ACORN forced minority mortgage loans down the banks throats in 1976 they sealed the fate of the American Free-Enterprise system. What could the banks done, they only had the most powerful lobby group in Washington, the Federal Reserve and the thirty years of pro-business administrations in the from of Ronald Reagen, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II. This is Jimmy CARTER we are talking about. Nothing could have stopped that. Even Ayn Rands own boyfriend Alan “Bubble” Greenspan stand a chance against that.
Persephone Bolero
Jul 2nd, 2010
What’s really funny in all this is that all you liberals are really trying to defend the claim that you can make a profit loaning to people with high rates of default.
Anyone who knows anything about finance would read this conversation and just laugh. Even if they are liberal, they would laugh.
You’re really trying to make this argument? Well, just to prove my point, would one of you lend me $1,000,000L? Seriously, put your money where your mouth is. Lend me money I can’t pay back, and lets see how profitable that business model is.
And the absurdity of this easily refutable argument shows the absurdity of your entire platform, which is as follows:
1. People are greedy and given the freedom to buy and sell as they please, the world will be ruled by one corporation. Therefore, we must have regulators prevent that situation. How do we allow them to do this? Give them power to limit the financial decisions of adults, and somehow these people who have that power and control will create good, despite the fact that people are greedy. But if people are greedy, why wouldn’t the regulators be greedy as well?
2. People are weak, helpless, and stupid. So, they’re so easy to exploit that they will be mindlessly submit to the authority of an all-powerful monopoly. Therefore, we must limit their freedom to make decisions they believe are in their best interest. Instead, we’ll have these third-party regulators make those decisions for them. That would of course be the regulators who are somehow benevolent when given the power to limit freedom but evil when their power rests on their ability to convince people to spend money voluntarily at their businesses.
And you really think you can make the above make sense? Puh-lease.
Persephone Bolero
Jul 2nd, 2010
@Emperor “the Federal Reserve and the thirty years of pro-business administrations in the from of Ronald Reagen, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II.”
You were right about some things, but in this quote you’re flat wrong. The size of government grew significantly under Reagan, who oversaw a huge increase in the deficit. Bush I did nothing to help that. Clinton actually oversaw a surplus and growth in free trade. Interestingly, he oversaw the strongest economy the country had seen in ages.
Then, there’s Bush II. Yes, I know CNN told you he deregulated everything and that led to the crises we have now. But, no, that’s flat wrong. Bush II oversaw some of the most rapid increase in regulations the country has seen. Yes, he talked a good pro-business game, but like almost all Republicans, he’s full of shit.
Here’s a quote from a fine article linked below so you can check my facts:
“If spending under Bush was a disaster, regulation was even worse. The number of pages in the Federal Registry is a rough proxy for the swollen expanse of the regulatory state. In 2001, some 64,438 pages of regulations were added to it. In 2007, more than 78,000 new pages were added. Worse still, argues the Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy, Bush is the unparalleled master of “economically significant regulations” that cost the economy more than $100 million a year. Since 2001, he jacked that number by more than 70 percent. Since June 2008 alone, he introduced more than 100 economically significant regulations.”
http://reason.com/archives/2009/01/26/bush-was-a-big-government-disa
If regulations are so great, why do they precede economic downturns like the one we have now?
We
Jul 2nd, 2010
@Persephone
“So, I ask you. If people are too stupid to think for themselves and too greedy to be given the freedom to live their lives as they choose, HOW can a bureaucracy operated by these evil stupid people protect anyone? How do people become benevolent when given more power over people with less options to sever associations with those in power?”
This will be the third time I’ve answered this question, let’s see if you read it this time. I don’t trust a bureaucracy to work, that’s why power in government is split into 3 branches, all of which have checks and balances to keep and eye on each other to make sure none takes over, and all have their own oversights, regulations, and rules.
“Wrong. Cell phones would have given people an option to break that monopoly without any government intervention. Nice try, though.”
Are you serious? Why wouldn’t AT&T make cell phone service and take over there? They have cell phone service now, and they had it when it first started. This is another “Someone will do something about it!” argument that you’ve yet to back up, any time I try to really get details on how some small business will break up a monopoly, you avoid the questions. You’re still avoiding the questions regarding how exactly your tiny little company would take down the water utilities giant in the example.
“You really don’t understand the difference between federal and state government, do you? Take a civics class. I don’t have time to explain states rights to you.”
I do, however you’re advocating the breaking down of federal government and the empowering of state governments. The last time that happened was pre-civil war times, and each state really was it’s own country at the time, with their own currency and their own laws.
“If government power is limited…NOW PAY ATTENTION…LOBBYIST ARE USELESS. How many times do I have to explain this to you? Companies can only buy power from a government that’s in the business of creating the regulations you claim protect people. NOOOOOO, they just give companies the power to shut out competition.”
Another case of you not reading fully, I didn’t say they’d buy out the government for the sake of stopping regulations, I said they’d do it so they can get away with anything. In fact, I have a real example of this happening at the bottom of this post, if you can read that far without the ADD kicking it. Unless your libertarian free market society has government so weak that they can’t even enforce basic laws like “don’t murder” and “don’t steal”, in which case you’re correct government power will be useless, and your libertarian ideals are more terrifying than I thought.
Otherwise, why wouldn’t a company be able to bribe and buy out politicians to look the other way when they break the laws that the state has left, like murder, theft, arson, etc.? I assume that in this libertarian free market of yours, there’d still be police to make sure people aren’t killing each other, would a CEO be exempt from those laws then?
“And there’s plenty of examples of how such practices have been undermined by competition.”
Name one. They’re never undermined by competition, they’re secretive, and they’re generally only found out by government oversights. Furthermore, you ignore the crux of this point: corporations are engaging in anti-competition behavior against the law. Not only are they doing it, but they’re doing it with the risk of being caught and prosecuted. Why would they stop this in a free market society, where price fixing would be completely legal?
“It didn’t. That’s the point. Centralized planning is unnecessary.”
And yet it did with phone lines and computers. All it depends on is if they have an aggressive and intelligent enough CEO to nail it.
“Wrong. This is typical in emerging economies. Things suck. Arguably. Americans at one time worked in sweatshops. But due to the free market, people got richer. And then they got better educated, and then they got better working conditions.”
You’ve really re-written history to fit your unrealistic ideals? It’s common in emerging economies because those economies don’t have the laws to stop it. It didn’t stop in America because we “had a free market” (We didn’t) and “people got richer” (They didn’t), it stopped because the government stepped in and stopped it. Company stores? The Truck Act of 1831 limited that and fully ended it by 1887. Child Labor? regulated in a series of acts from 1832 to 1938, limiting hours, raising and enforcing minimum wages, etc. Industrial Revolution also brought about a number of other laws, setting general minimum wage, anti-discrimination, unfair dismissal, contracts of employment, and the right to strike. These are all things that government action brought, and all things the companies actively opposed.
I ask these questions again that you once again ignored: Why wouldn’t they bring back company stores? Why wouldn’t children be hired again to work dangerous jobs? Why wouldn’t safety regulations in work drop to near nothing? These “government regulations” you wish to destroy are things that make the work place safe, keep children out of dangerous jobs, and keep the companies from exploiting the workers. Why would you want to abolish those laws?
“India has seen half it’s population rise out of poverty in a relatively short period of time, all due to increased trade initiated by decreased regulations. And we’re seeing the same thing happening there.”
Define “relatively short period of time”, 1973 was the last time India had most of it’s population in poverty (defined as $1.25 a day) at 56%, since then it has been steadily declining and as of 2005 is estimated at 42% below the international poverty line, still almost half of the population living on a dollar a day. About 14% of people since then escaped from poverty, over the period of 32 years, not exactly what I’d consider a relatively short period of time or half the population rising out of poverty. Additionally, considering “rising out of poverty” is making more than $1.25 a day, it’s not like rising out of it means they get a 3 bedroom house and go golfing every Sunday, it might mean they make $2.00 a day, which is still well below the poverty line in America. Not exactly the dramatic surge of economy that I’m sure your libertarian websites were assuring you was happening, is it?
“And as they get more money, they’ll create economic opportunities for us. And the whole world gets wealthier.”
The problem with economic opportunities, is they tend to come from exploiting someone. In the Industrial age we exploited our own workers, when we got more and more labor laws, companies started out-sourcing. Chances are, you’re wearing something or are around something completely made or partially made from exploited labor in another country. And believe me, corporations have maintained the status quo to make sure that other countries don’t get richer.
In 1951, Guatemala democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, who made agrarian reforms that nationalized unused farm land held by overseas corporate entities and gave them to peasants. At the time the US government was in it’s terrifying McCarthyist phase and this was seen as an action of communism, but mostly it ticked off another powerful entity even more: The United Fruit Company, who was currently exploiting workers in Guatemala, and a democratic leader would spell trouble for them. They lobbied and bribed a bunch of levels of government to push for the US to take down Arbenz and replace him with someone less likely to care about his people’s freedom. The CIA successfully destroyed democracy in Guatemala in 1954 and replaced Arbenz with Col. Carlos Castillo Armas, who immediately took away most of the country’s right to vote and postponed presidential elections. United Fruit Company is now known as “Chiquita Brands International” (Yes, the same one as Chiquita Bananas) and was caught as recently as 2007 for having illegal ties to Columbian paramilitary groups featured in the U.S. State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
Tell me again why this behavior would stop in a free market? Oh, sorry, I shouldn’t say “again”, as you’ve continually avoided the question.
We
Jul 2nd, 2010
@Persephone
I apologize for the long post, but unlike you, I don’t have the luxury of shortening my posts by avoiding most of the questions and not providing any real evidence whatsoever. None the less, I know your ADD will kick in, but please try to read it.
Persephone Bolero
Jul 2nd, 2010
@We “I don’t trust a bureaucracy to work, that’s why power in government is split into 3 branches, all of which have checks and balances to keep and eye on each other to make sure none takes over, and all have their own oversights, regulations, and rules.”
But those branches are all populated by these evil, greedy people. How does it help if you split 3 groups of evil greedy people into checks and balances make them become benevolent?
You fail again to answer that question. Are you going to suggest that these checks and balances have created benevolence?
“The last time that happened was pre-civil war times, and each state really was it’s own country at the time, with their own currency and their own laws.”
The European Union is separate countries. And yet, they have one currency. What does that have to do with anything? We can share the same currency, have A LIMITED federal government, and leave most regulations to the states. I think it’s a perfect way for us all to get what we want. You move to California with it’s massively failing economy under enormous regulations, and I’ll move to Texas with its limited regulations and…gasp!…recession resistant economy.
What do you say?
“It’s common in emerging economies because those economies don’t have the laws to stop it.”
Wrong. Look at India. It was poor precisely because of its enormous regulations. Those have been cut, trade has increased, and that whole continent has seen an enormous increase in wealth.
You keep comparing today’s economy with the dawn of the Industrial Era, trying to make a correlation between regulations and civil rights protections. At that time, the very notion that women and racial minorities should have rights was in places absolute blaspheme. Obviously, the world has changed and grown more accepting of equality for all. The changes had nothing to do with an increase in regulation and everything to do with the evolution of mankind beyond archaic prejudices.
In short, giving people more freedom does not make them evil, dominating racists.
And to answer your other questions, let’s say a company did open its own store. What’s to stop me from shopping somewhere else? Obviously, there are lots of consumer choices today, and a company would be hard pressed to control economic activity to easily.
And all those consumer choices arose because government, for the most part, has let people buy and sell as they please. That is until the last 20 years, which have been a serious decline in economic freedom…and gasp!…we’re no in a recession. Coincidence?
“The problem with economic opportunities, is they tend to come from exploiting someone.”
But government power does not?
“The CIA successfully destroyed democracy in Guatemala in 1954 and replaced Arbenz with Col. Carlos Castillo Armas, who immediately took away most of the country’s right to vote and postponed presidential elections.”
What does this have to do with a free market? You just don’t get it. In a free market, the government can’t do things like this. It’s powerless.
“Tell me again why this behavior would stop in a free market? ”
I just did for the billionth time. Here…let me help….
What does this have to do with a free market? You just don’t get it. In a free market, the government can’t do things like this. It’s powerless.
Shall I copy and paste that for you again?
We
Jul 2nd, 2010
@Persephone
“But those branches are all populated by these evil, greedy people. How does it help if you split 3 groups of evil greedy people into checks and balances make them become benevolent?”
In the same way a police force keeps law, and internal affairs keeps an eye on the police force, if everyone is in threat of being caught breaking a law then people tend to keep order. It’s not perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than anything else so far. I’m not suggesting they create benevolence, I’m suggesting they create a respect for the law.
“The European Union is separate countries. And yet, they have one currency.”
Tell that to England.
“We can share the same currency, have A LIMITED federal government, and leave most regulations to the states. I think it’s a perfect way for us all to get what we want. You move to California with it’s massively failing economy under enormous regulations, and I’ll move to Texas with its limited regulations and…gasp!…recession resistant economy.”
The “United States” is only held together by the Federal government, we came damn near to falling apart once, in the Civil War, and since then federal power has increased to make sure it doesn’t happen. How exactly would this not result in each state becoming it’s own separate country?
“Wrong. Look at India. It was poor precisely because of its enormous regulations. Those have been cut, trade has increased, and that whole continent has seen an enormous increase in wealth.”
You don’t think, oh I don’t know, the over 1 billion people in an area 1/3 of the size of the US might have a little something to do with India’s poverty problems? And sure there’s been a wealth increase, but only for the minority upper-class in India, not the entire country.
“You keep comparing today’s economy with the dawn of the Industrial Era, trying to make a correlation between regulations and civil rights protections. At that time, the very notion that women and racial minorities should have rights was in places absolute blaspheme. Obviously, the world has changed and grown more accepting of equality for all. The changes had nothing to do with an increase in regulation and everything to do with the evolution of mankind beyond archaic prejudices.”
Actually I’ve made no correlations between regulations and civil rights, besides one small mention that the Industrial Revolution brought about anti-discrimination laws in the work place. These injustices by companies against workers were done mostly against white males, which constituted most of the work force at the time. I notice you avoided the question again, with the abolishing of these laws that prevent child labor, promote health and safety, and make company stores illegal, why wouldn’t they come back? If you think racism, prejudice, and exploitation is gone from the world, then you really are delusional.
“In short, giving people more freedom does not make them evil, dominating racists.”
I’ve seen lots of real world proof that when people are given more freedom, they’ll be horrible to each other, I’ve seen no proof to the contrary. If you want to see absolute freedom, look into Somalia. No government regulations there at all, you’d love it I’m sure.
“And to answer your other questions, let’s say a company did open its own store. What’s to stop me from shopping somewhere else? Obviously, there are lots of consumer choices today, and a company would be hard pressed to control economic activity to easily.”
A Company store is for workers only, they’re paid in a currency only good at the company store. Good luck shopping elsewhere when your money is no good anywhere but that one place. The wealth of your ignorance is astonishing.
“That is until the last 20 years, which have been a serious decline in economic freedom…and gasp!…we’re no in a recession. Coincidence?”
I might point out that most of the regulations I’ve noted actual evidence to; happened well before the last 20 years. AT&T was regulated by anti-trust laws since 1913. You keep treating “America had a free market society” like it’s some kind of fact, but we never did. This is why getting all your information from heavily libertarian biased sites is a bad idea.
“What does this have to do with a free market? You just don’t get it. In a free market, the government can’t do things like this. It’s powerless.”
The government can’t invade countries in a free market society? Is there no standing national military at all? What exactly does the government do in your nightmare world?
And again, you missed the crux of the point: It was a corporation who pushed for this to happen, to let a country continue to be exploited so they can keep their profits up. I might point out as well that the more recent example, in 2007, Chiquita brands had ties with Columbian paramilitaries AGAINST the government’s laws, that required no government help or intervention. This is completely related to Free Market society, as it’s a company doing everything it can to maximize it’s profits.
Just for shits and giggles, I’m going to list the points from my last post you’ve avoided answering (again):
-How would an AT&T monopoly be stopped by cellphones, when AT&T has made cell phones and was one of the pioneers of it’s service? What exactly would stop the monopolized free-market AT&T from buying out all the cell phone companies the same way they bought out all the phone lines?
-How would your little bottled water company manage to take down a water utilities giant? Considering it’s not just drinking water people needed, there’s bathing, washing, and all general water usage utilities that need providing, people aren’t going to shower with bottled water.
-Why companies in a free market couldn’t successfully lobby, bribe, and otherwise control the government to let them do what they want, assuming that your libertarian ideal has a government in more than name only, in which case they wouldn’t have to indeed, no one would stop them if they decided to burn down your water business and murder your CEO.
-One real historical example of price fixing being defeated by free market style competition, and why this price fixing wouldn’t happen in a free market.
Gaara Sandalwood
Jul 2nd, 2010
“You’ve never heard of people selling things cheaper? Yeah, that never happens.”
lol, you completely missed the point of my comment. Let me spell it out, if you still don’t get it, I swear I’m gonna headdesk until I bleed.
-> You made the argument towards We that hypothetically you could sell water cheaper than a large corporation and usurp it.
-> We made a counter-argument filled with a lot of good points, asking how you would do it all specifically, including things like advertising and shipping. You ignored that completely.
-> During the continuing argument, We said a few times that you ignored those several questions.
-> You retorted with a quote of your statement that you will just sell it cheaper and that will surely trump the large corporation, a very poor counter-argument and hypothesis.
-> Emperor makes a hypothetical situation to show how something else could be done.
-> You treat it like it’s retarded in your own little manner.
Again: Read. The. Words.
Guh…..you haven’t backed down to anyone who has formed counter-arguments against you, and considering I’m reading most of what you’re posting here, I can easily say it’s not because you’re the most intelligent one here.
Persephone Bolero
Jul 2nd, 2010
@We “In the same way a police force keeps law, and internal affairs keeps an eye on the police force”
Did you just try and make the argument that internal affairs is a functioning system. I’m not even going to waste my time with that one.
http://reason.com/archives/2010/06/29/police-blackout
“How exactly would this not result in each state becoming it’s own separate country?”
Why don’t they all secede now? A limited federal government with strong states rights wouldn’t make succession any more appealing nor create an incentive to do so. The federal government would still exist. Most government would just be left to the states. You don’t understand this concept?
“And sure there’s been a wealth increase, but only for the minority upper-class in India, not the entire country.”
Wrong. Yes, there are impoverished classes. But the standard of living in India has dramatically increased across the board due to deregulation.
“Perhaps the main channel through which trade can improve living standards in poor countries is through economic growth. A recent study provides convincing evidence that countries that have abandoned protectionism in favor of freer trade experienced higher income and higher income growth.” Source: Estevadeordal, A. and A. Taylor, « Is the Washington Consensus Dead? Growth, Openness, and the Great Liberalization, 1970s-2000s », National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 14264, 2008.
So, sorry, you simply do not have your facts straight.
“I’ve seen lots of real world proof that when people are given more freedom, they’ll be horrible to each other, I’ve seen no proof to the contrary.”
Okay, you consider freedom dangerous. But considering your low opinion of mankind, it’s not surprising you would.
But India has seen a growing recognition of the rights of its lowest class along with its growing economic freedom.
http://bit.ly/aIVWHQ
So, yes, growth in economic freedom precedes growth in wealth. In turn, that growth in wealth feeds growing social equality.
“You keep treating “America had a free market society” like it’s some kind of fact, but we never did. This is why getting all your information from heavily libertarian biased sites is a bad idea.”
America has had one of the freest economies in the world. I’m sorry, but it has. If you wish to debate that, please do so with someone else. I really don’t have time to debate something so incontrovertible as that.
“The government can’t invade countries in a free market society?”
The problem with that is that with open and free trade, you’d be invading your own trading partners. Why haven’t we invaded Canada? Because it would be economically detrimental between the two of us. Now what would happen if you had the kind of trade going across all borders of the globe as you do between the US and Canadian border? You’d have a huge incentive to maintain peace.
“It was a corporation who pushed for this to happen,”
Wrong. It was a marriage between government and business. That doesn’t happen in a free market.
“How would an AT&T monopoly be stopped by cellphones, when AT&T has made cell phones and was one of the pioneers of it’s service?”
Does AT&T have a cell phone monopoly? Show me the anti-trust suit that prevented it. If none has happened, then apparently your theory that free markets produce monopolies shows few examples in reality. Yes, it worked with land line telephones because it’s harder to put up telephone poles everywhere. But innovation has led to an escape from these primitive technologies, and that innovation was driven by competition in a free market.
“What exactly would stop the monopolized free-market AT&T from buying out all the cell phone companies the same way they bought out all the phone lines?”
This is explained here: http://reason.com/blog/2010/02/05/the-instability-of-monopolies
It’s funny you’ll complain that I won’t read your desultory ramblings. At the same time, you won’t read my sources because they don’t conform to your biases, which you claim are unbiased. Oh, and I noticed you never were able to point to a publications that was.
“How would your little bottled water company manage to take down a water utilities giant?”
How would your water utilities giant keep people from buying water from cheaper sources?
“no one would stop them if they decided to burn down your water business and murder your CEO.”
This is an ignorant comment that shows you don’t even really understand free market principles. There is a legitimate role for government to play in protecting property. So, in this case, government would step in. I’m not an anarcho-capitalist nor am I arguing that position. If you wish to have that debate, find someone sympathetic to that position.
“One real historical example of price fixing being defeated by free market style competition, and why this price fixing wouldn’t happen in a free market.”
Most products and services are provided by companies that never had an anti-trust suit. So, in fact, price fixing is undermined daily through the free market. The freer it is and the less government regulation, the less mega-corporations we’re going to see.
I also pointed out that Texas, with its greatly unregulated business environment, is doing far better in this recession than most other states, like California, which has a massively regulated business environment. Those real world examples of deregulation creating wealth are sure contradicting your claims that control breeds prosperity.
Persephone Bolero
Jul 2nd, 2010
@Gaara “We made a counter-argument filled with a lot of good points, asking how you would do it all specifically, including things like advertising and shipping. You ignored that completely.”
I have answered that question several times now.
But there are questions I pass on. I’m the sole challenger to the dominant paradigm here. I simply don’t have the inclination to respond to every point. This is why I asked We to keep it short. He called me “ADD” and acted like an ass about it.
But, oh well. I’ll respond to the comments I feel I want to respond to. I’m sorry, I’m not going to sit here all day and debate several people by myself on every point they make.
The points I choose to respond to will illustrate my arguments most effectively.
Gaara Sandalwood
Jul 2nd, 2010
“But there are questions I pass on. I’m the sole challenger to the dominant paradigm here. I simply don’t have the inclination to respond to every point. This is why I asked We to keep it short. He called me “ADD” and acted like an ass about it.
But, oh well. I’ll respond to the comments I feel I want to respond to. I’m sorry, I’m not going to sit here all day and debate several people by myself on every point they make.
The points I choose to respond to will illustrate my arguments most effectively.”
Well then our views are different I suppose. My usual preference is to break down the argument. If an argument can be broken into bits and each bit shattered with a sound counter-argument, basically.
Gaara Sandalwood
Jul 2nd, 2010
Oh, also, you didn’t anwser why you felt your hypothetical situation was good to you but Emperor’s was stupid.
Persephone Bolero
Jul 2nd, 2010
“Well then our views are different I suppose. My usual preference is to break down the argument. If an argument can be broken into bits and each bit shattered with a sound counter-argument, basically.”
I challenge you to come to a libertarian message board with me and present your ideas. Then, I want you to go through and respond to every single response you get in detail. Do you accept my challenge? If not, then your comment above was ridiculous.
Fact is, I’m making a pretty good defense here of my ideas against numerous challenges. Making an issue out of the fact I don’t respond to ever single point is a red herring and demonstrates the weakness of your case.
Persephone Bolero
Jul 2nd, 2010
ABOUT BOTTLED WATER:
Okay, so let me try and illustrate this question about a mega-corporation taking control of the sole water source for a population and how a free market would overcome that.
Well, first off, this is a rather unlikely scenario. It’s possible, but we’d have to assume that this was a city in the middle of the desert. And, of course, once its citizens can’t afford to live there because the price of water is so high, they’d move. That would put the corporation out of business. That’s but one scenario of how this company’s actions would be self-destructive.
But let’s try another scenario like the one above, equally fantastic. There are two cities and a company builds a road between them. And this is 1895, so there are no airplanes. What if the company controlled this only road and charged fees that people could barely afford? You ask me how a competing company would break their monopoly.
Well, I don’t know what innovations will come along, but I’m sure given the freedom to get rich coming up with a solution, that hundreds of minds will have a huge incentive to create a solution to this problem.
So, a couple bicycle shop owners, brothers, create a flying machine. If I lived in this scenario, I cant’ imagine how the problem would be solved. I could only tell you that hundreds of minds, free from impediments to pursuing economic gain, would be working to solve the problem. And without regulations undermining their own self-determination, someone would come up with the solution.
So, in your water scenario, I don’t know what innovations would be created to solve them. I just know that at one time it was pretty wacky idea that people could use a plane to break a road monopoly. But people do fly these days.
And so, maybe someone would create the innovation to ship water far cheaper, or at least cheap enough to compete, in your water scenario. It’s about freeing the human potential.
The problem with We — and many of you for that matter — you don’t believe in human potential. You see people as weak and greedy. So, you seek control over them, which undermines their their own self-determination and limits innovation. Economies stagnate and fall, and you get rid of all that unequal distribution of wealth under capitalistic societies, only to replace it with an equal distribution of poverty.
I hope that answers your question.
We
Jul 2nd, 2010
@Persephone
“Did you just try and make the argument that internal affairs is a functioning system. I’m not even going to waste my time with that one.”
No, I said the purpose of Internal Affairs is to watch the police force for corruption, whether or not your biased website believes it’s doing a good job at it is irrelevant to that fact.
“Why don’t they all secede now? A limited federal government with strong states rights wouldn’t make succession any more appealing nor create an incentive to do so.”
If each state has more power than the federal government, they don’t have to officially secede, it’s already happened by default.
“Wrong. Yes, there are impoverished classes. But the standard of living in India has dramatically increased across the board due to deregulation.”
Is this the same “dramatic increase of half the population rising out of poverty” that you mentioned before that I swiftly proved wrong with that pesky thing known as facts and evidence? Here’s a hint, something saying “studies suggest” from a Libertarian-fueled paper, is not fact.
“America has had one of the freest economies in the world. I’m sorry, but it has. If you wish to debate that, please do so with someone else. I really don’t have time to debate something so incontrovertible as that.”
Freest economies, but not free-market. And we’ve been getting more regulations since the early 1800s, when we had as close to Free Market as America ever got, and we realized as a nation that “oh fuck, corporations are evil.”
“The problem with that is that with open and free trade, you’d be invading your own trading partners. Why haven’t we invaded Canada? Because it would be economically detrimental between the two of us. Now what would happen if you had the kind of trade going across all borders of the globe as you do between the US and Canadian border? You’d have a huge incentive to maintain peace.”
You assume that all countries are viable trading partners, if corporations need exploitable countries to keep costs low, then some country’s form of trade is their oppressed people, like Guatemala in the 1950s. The invasion by the CIA (urged on by United Fruit) allowed that “trade” of an exploitable economy to continue, the dictator’s win, the fruit company wins, the Guatemalan people lose.
“Wrong. It was a marriage between government and business. That doesn’t happen in a free market.”
Well, who really caused this invasion to happen is up for debate, the US had a reason because we were busy being anti-communist fascists, and saw Guatemala as a possible communist threat. But that might not been enough to do anything more than just keep an eye on them. The fruit company however, lobbying and bribing various levels of government, very likely may have been all it took to push the invasion, with the communist thing just as a pretext.
Even so, you ignore again that this kind of thing is something they were doing, without the US government or the US Government’s permission, as recently as 3 years ago, fueling revolution in Columbia to keep it easily exploitable.
And further more, why wouldn’t this happen in a free market? The only way I can see this as not happening, is if your government is so weak that they have no standing military, in which case, yes there would be no marriage between government and business for this. A corporation would simply hire a private military contractor or supply revolutionary forces in the country and do it themselves.
“Does AT&T have a cell phone monopoly? Show me the anti-trust suit that prevented it. If none has happened, then apparently your theory that free markets produce monopolies shows few examples in reality. Yes, it worked with land line telephones because it’s harder to put up telephone poles everywhere. But innovation has led to an escape from these primitive technologies, and that innovation was driven by competition in a free market.”
Uh, do you know how cell phones work? They still need towers to broadcast signals. They don’t just communicate with each other directly. The building of these towers is what generates service for the cell phones. This is why many cell phone services have “dead zones”, where there’s no tower in range and even now cell phone services brag in advertising about their coverage.
The Anti-trust suit that prevented an AT&T phone monopoly, and therefore later on a cell phone monopoly (though if AT&T had achieved a monopoly, then cell phones likely would never have been invented, as there would be no competition to push the new technology) was the Anti-trust regulations in 1913.
“This is explained here: http://reason.com/blog/2010/02/05/the-instability-of-monopolies”
Again you’re quoting biased libertarian websites instead of stating your views, do you not understand your own libertarian beliefs, or are they completely decided by these websites?
“It’s funny you’ll complain that I won’t read your desultory ramblings. At the same time, you won’t read my sources because they don’t conform to your biases, which you claim are unbiased. Oh, and I noticed you never were able to point to a publications that was.”
Because I’m debating with you, not your website. If you want to make your points then make them, if you don’t have an answer then admit you don’t know how to respond to it, or read the website and echo as much as you understand. And I did point out the nature of bias in media, and how to achieve the most unbiased depiction, you chose not to read it apparently.
“How would your water utilities giant keep people from buying water from cheaper sources?”
Buying your company, smearing your company, making their own bottled water, selling for far cheaper than your company can handle, then when it’s bankrupt, going back to the drastically higher prices, though that doesn’t seem necessary at all. If government is as powerless in your free market society as you seem to want, then they can simply kill your CEOs, and burn down any distribution plants.
Further more, the question you failed to answer is, how are you getting cheaper sources? If the water utilities control all water in the city, that means you need to get it from elsewhere, ship it in, bottle it, label it, distribute it. This is a lot more overhead than the Utilities companies that have water lines in all the houses and water sources directly in the city. Your costs will be far higher than theirs, and your overall spending ability far lower.
“This is an ignorant comment that shows you don’t even really understand free market principles. There is a legitimate role for government to play in protecting property. So, in this case, government would step in. I’m not an anarcho-capitalist nor am I arguing that position. If you wish to have that debate, find someone sympathetic to that position.”
And thus we get back to the point I was trying to make that you were shrugging off as unnecessary. If corporations can bribe and lobby government now to break regulations, why couldn’t they then, to an even weaker government, to be able to get the government to look the other way, or even more completely buy the weakened local state government and use it as a puppet government?
Additionally, where is the government getting the money to enforce these laws over superior corporate entities? Libertarians want a reduction or elimination of state and federal taxing, so the government would be either just about bankrupt, or getting all their money from the corporations they’re supposed to be policing. You ignored this question, and I’m legitimately curious since how far the government should be limited differs among libertarians: How much power does the government have in your dystopian society? A standing army? A police force? Where does it get the money from to fund these things?
“Most products and services are provided by companies that never had an anti-trust suit. So, in fact, price fixing is undermined daily through the free market. The freer it is and the less government regulation, the less mega-corporations we’re going to see.”
I don’t think you know what Price Fixing is. Price Fixing is when multiple large companies conspire to keep prices as high as possible. It’s against the law, and multiple companies have been caught doing it, even recently. It generally happens when you only have a few very large businesses that own most of the supply of some resource. It’s happened with the gasoline companies, and the phone companies tried it recently. You still have failed to provide an example of actual price fixing being defeated by competition, despite claiming it happens “many times”. Additionally, you’ve failed to understand the real point behind this again, this is companies engaging in anti-competition behavior, something you seem to believe wouldn’t happen in Free Markets.
If you have 3 oil companies price fixing, and a fourth comes in and sells oil cheaper, what happens if the 3 companies come up and ask if they’d like to join the price fixing? Why wouldn’t the 4th company do it? Selling the oil for much more makes their profit margins higher, and as long as most of the suppliers agree to the price fixing, the market is forced to buy it or nothing. If you disagreed, then you’d have 3 large oil companies all working together to crush you out of the market.
“Those real world examples of deregulation creating wealth are sure contradicting your claims that control breeds prosperity.”
As much as Texas sometimes thinks otherwise, they’re still a part of the United States of America, and thus subject to federal law. Building a company in Texas doesn’t free you from federal government regulations. Have you considered that it’s “recession free” because Texas is one of the largest oil states in America, and thus as long as the oil flows, they always have a steady source of jobs and money?
“But, oh well. I’ll respond to the comments I feel I want to respond to. I’m sorry, I’m not going to sit here all day and debate several people by myself on every point they make.”
Several people? There’s 2 here now. Before it was you and IntLibber in unison against me alone, you didn’t seem to mind then.
The real reason you ignore points isn’t because you’re busy, it’s because you don’t have an answer and you’re hoping everyone will forget about it. It challenges your evangelical libertarian beliefs, instead of re-accessing your beliefs like a logical person, you hold on to the faith that they MUST work, and instead deny the question altogether.
Here’s a few inconvenient points to laws that libertarianism would abolish, and free market would bring back:
-Child Labor
-Slavery (not racial slavery, indentured servitude, look it up)
-Company Stores
-Dangerous work environments
-Animal Abuse
-Environmental Abuse
All of these things are things corporations and companies abused for greater profit, not considering the ethical concerns: they’re all good business practices. Slaves and children are extremely cheap labor, company stores are highly profitable, not having to worry about safety is far cheaper than worrying about it, not worrying about environment concerns is far cheaper than worrying about it, not having to think about how animals are treated in work is a real cost-saver. If a Free-Market society happened, all of the laws stopping these things would be abolished, and therefore become legal again. This means that not only CAN businesses do it, but it’s an economically successful idea TO do it.
In fact, many companies may be forced into it. Let’s take the water example again, your little company is trying to futilely defeat the large company. But let’s say the large company is your libertarian ideal, and is a happy place full of fair workers rights, where everyone gets paid equally, and unicorns dance and giggle in the halls. Your company comes in and tries to compete with them, but is having trouble because of the larger companies resources. But ah! You have an ace up your sleeve: slave labor! Your overhead is low, and your profit margins are high, your slaves are really netting you a profit and you’re starting to fight back against the larger corporation. Let’s say the larger corporation doesn’t do all the obvious things corporations do, like buy you out, smear campaign you, or depending on the flavor of your dystopia: have you killed; and instead decides to fight back purely economically. Each employee they have that is being paid fairly and nicely is now a little anchor to their business compared to your slave labor ran company. What else can they do but lower wages drastically or fire everyone and get slaves themselves?
Slaves are just one example for this, but you can take any low-ethics high profit business practice and substitute it for slaves. Environmentally dangerous practices are more profitable than safe ones, i.e.: dumping nuclear waste. Exploiting foreign countries for cheap oppressed sweatshop labor (like many companies are doing right now) is cheaper than not