Do free marketeers realize that they're arguing against a straw man? Only the most uneducated people will try to promote the idea that a free market results in monopolies; even Karl Marx conceded that this isn't true.
competing at this point is damn near impossible, if i built an OS today not only would i be bogged down by patent trolling but also i do not even have close to the software available so people are forced to use Microsoft Windows, it has OEMs (there customers) by the balls
but for the most part i agree with you corporatism is NOT the problem its government involvement which hiders the free market and our freedoms
@shady4tv Patents aren't a part of the free market.
Also, Windows is a terrible example. It has almost literally no barriers to entry. If Microsoft started charging $1000 per copy, people could easily shift away.
android is not a viable alternative to a full blown desktop operating system, and Linux well at 1.3% percent market share its not to much of a viable asset aside from the fact its a great server OS, all Microsoft has to do is keep Linux out of the public eye, now lets say Microsoft moved to the UK and started charging import tax, you think the cost of things are bad now, that's monopolistic powers
@shady4tv "android is not a viable alternative ...'
Oh wise, exalted one. How great must thine knowledge be. You can determine that everybody NEEDS a desktop. That no one would ever say "Microsoft wants how much? No thanks, the smart phone does enough".
And blessed be your wisdom ( which somehow fails to include Macs ) that reveals how little a market share is needed to keep Microsoft in check.
For your love and compassion protecting all those too stupid to switch if MS raised prices.
ok first thing quit talking to me like an idiot honestly wtf is all this oh wise exalted one bullshit
and for the second thing you are right android could replace computers up to the size of idk a netbook but honestly some people need the ability to do more power things than what smartphones offer. Comparing smartphones to desktop is like comparing apples to oranges they are 2 different things that are familiar in some ways but not at all the same thing
the world does agree with me? what? when did i ever say the world agrees with me? and about what? wtf that was the dumbest thing ive read in a while
>ive brought nothing but arrogant nonsense
sounds like i said a point that you cant argue, you ignorant fuck quit being a little bitch i state a point you replied somehow i was under the impression we were having a conversation not a name calling match. This is your reply, really its time to grow up
@jeffiek i know you said DOESNT but when did i ever say it did or that i gave a shit what the rest of the world thinks
and what im doing is making an educated opinion based on facts and please elaborate what makes you think my productions are self centered?
saying im wrong is like saying the weather man is wrong. Yes, it does happen but, its based on facts so the information I'm giving you is more than likely relevant
"Microsoft is much more powerful than its competitors"
those are total self centered opinions
and why do you keep bringing the worlds opinion in to this
oh wait! you know what the world thinks and everyone agrees with you, even though you have not brought one relevant fact to the table and just been repeating the word arrogant.
Honestly stop, you're making a complete ass out of yourself.
@jeffiek also on the note of the Macs lets look at the software libraries for Mac and Windows hmm ever wonder why when Vista turned out to be a piece of shit everyone started using XP again people opted out of using a more modern and secure OS for XP, thats because of all the power Microsoft had over its consumers, hell if Microsoft released 7 for $200 more people would still pay it because it would cost the companies a lot less than rewriting all there software for Macs
So your argument is, regardless that Linux and Apple existing and being available (even for free in Linux's case), since they aren't as popular as Microsoft, Microsoft has a monopoly because they have a more popular product at a reasonable price?
If people believed Microsoft was charging too much money, they would get the free Linux and learn to use it. Basically, inconvenience of OS over price.
I am tired of stupid arguments claiming a popular brand name is a monopoly when there are multiple alternatives. A monopoly doesn't mean that because people are willing to buy iPhones, that is an automatic monopoly.
If microsoft got a monopoly back in the day, Linux still would have come about, and if microsoft raised prices, larger percentages of consumers would have learned to use Linux. Tons of small businesses use Linux for cost reasons as we speak.
@brendanmcwilliams ok, for the first thing thank you for replying in a mature way, name calling just pisses me off.
As for the topic on hand, i stand corrected Microsoft ISN'T an 100% full market monopoly yes, there is a limit to how far their power can stretch, but they are too comfortable in their current position, do have any idea how much it would cost corporations to rewrite all there software for a new OS? some smaller businesses would go bankrupt i they had to jump ship
@brendanmcwilliams as we all know Microsoft in the past has made terrible products and still people had to deal with it, this power over your consumers is monopolistic, look at Vista for instance it ended up forcing a lot of people to get new hardware since it would only run on certain motherboards yet Linux supported all of the hardware and didn't gain much of a market share
so all in all what im trying to say is Microsoft has way to much power and honestly just keep burying there competition.
Can I stop you at 1:02? I grew up loving Capitalism, it had an answer to everything, but let me tell you, consumer choice doesn't work! I WISH IT DID! In Appalachia the people have very little work, and are paid very little. With only a little bit of money, and no ability to do research without a computer, they only buy soda. Because it's cheaper, the taste doesn't matter, the environmental impact, and government corruption doesn't matter to them, they don't have the ability to worry about it.
Interesting lesson on the free market... by the way, you should have also added that the diamond industry has competition in spite of having a "monopoly" on diamond mines. Synthetic diamonds can be made and sold cheaply, and are reaching a point where it's hard enough to tell the difference between natural and lab diamonds, that the diamond industry has to laser engrave tiny signatures on their diamonds!
Besides, on the note of Environmental and Efficiency concerns, Free market fails to accomplish this goal as well because, in order for a Business to remain profitable, it has to minimize cost at every stage of production. Business must also rely on cyclical consumption where a product has a certain lifespan so that there can be recurring sales.
@EasternMerchant It can only shirk environmental responsibilities if no one is allowed to oppose them. People were able to freely and easily sue a business which was responsible for polluting their person or land.
This was slowly stopped in the 1800's in favor of laws that were more "business friendly". And it's been further eroded since with the EPA, who if they give a pass to a business you can't sue the comp, you have to sue the EPA (nearly impossible).
FREE Market creates an environment for an individual human to attain great wealth which can then create banks, corporations, influence governments resulting in laws that are enforced by police and militaries. The only way FREE can remain safe is to rule out the possibility of buying someone's labor. If we go back to John Lock's Doctrine that talks about private property, any man that puts their labors into something OWNS IT. This is the foundation for a truly ethical free market.
or what if free market cooperations use their financial power to command politicians to pass legislation that creates a state run monopoly endorsed by the free market. you know like our free market insurance system or the free market drug industry lol im kidding its not free its been totally raped by cooperate money to create artificial monopolies on new drugs and prevent competition from global competitors keeping drugs and health care overly expensive. All endorsed by the free market.
@jordanselko1 Most of the time people on the left will argue that you just need to make more regulation to stop that, without realizing that government power leads to bribes in order to influence the government power. They bigger government gets, the more susceptable to corruption it becomes. The less power it has, the less ability it has to take bribes, since ultimately what corporations pay for is the power politicians wield.
When government practices intervention in business, it becomes a matter of necessity for businessmen to intervene in government. The honest businessmen who focus on product development and consumer satisfaction are weeded out, because there's no way they can compete against their less honorable peers who rely on fiat and intervention to get their way. You may try to prevent it, to keep the control one-way, but you'll be constantly working against the harmonious -
- self-interests of the politicos and bureaucrats along every step of the way.
That's why all those things suck right now. There is no more competition in insurance, healthcare or most medicines. It's all been regulated away, so that new startups are by and large prohibitively expensive. Patents prevent imitation and competition, The teachers' association keep close tab on how doctors can be educated, so that it can cost upwards of a quarter of a million dollars to -
- educate a single doctor. Credit manipulation schemes, inflation and the massively regulated banking sector makes startups and investments extremely sketchy in general.
Hell, the defining characteristic of a corporation is that it receives special privileges from the government, such as subsidies, anticompetitive tailored regulation or protection against liability.
Just look up the term Corporatism, and compare that to the Misesian conception of the free market.
same reason we don't have 'HIGH SPEED RAIL. Because if we needed them, they would be provided. Just like airports. We have thousands of airports in this country of only 305 MIL, China has only a few hundred airports for 4 BILLION. Private airline industry vs. Central planning and government social engineering.
>>what about every other failed government regulation
Do you have clean water? Breathable air? Are your nearby rivers on fire? How are the roads you use? Thank government for that.
Right now our oil dependency is precisely an example of the market forcing us into choices we would not rationally make, except there are no viable alternatives. We are killing our own species, but continue onward because of an unchecked oligarchy.
Oh also, "consumer choice" is precisely the means that monopolies use to enforce themselves. It is used in the opposite manner, that is to say, monopolies exist because they are GOOD AT ELIMINATING consumer choice. That's the point.
Put another way, why in America can't I buy a pure ethanol/solar power hybrid car? Answer: because consumer choice has been limited such that I cannot reasonably expect to afford or even find such a vehicle. That is the market's doing, an oil-controlled market.
The reason you cannot afford/find pure ethanol/solar powered cars is because it is expensive and inefficient. You don't get nearly as much energy per-gallon of ethanol as per-gallon of gas. Same goes for solar power, it just isn't efficient enough. As of yet, oil is the most efficient source of energy we have, whether you like it or not. If it was profitable to do it (IE: if a lot of consumers actually wanted to buy it), this "oil-controlled market" would've switched to ethanol already
>>The reason you cannot afford/find pure ethanol/solar powered cars is because it is expensive and inefficient
So were computers. So were aircraft. Technology develops more efficient ways of doing things. Unfortunately ethanol and solar power are major rivals of oil. Because of that, they are going to be fought against. You can power cars on solar power and ethanol, and they would be much cleaner for our environment, but they aren't profitable to oil.
>>You don't get nearly as much energy per-gallon of ethanol as per-gallon of gas.
The point of using ethanol is in the emissions and the cleaner processing of the fuel. Ethanol will never have the major ecological disasters like the frequent oil spills and BP gulf leak. So why hasn't the market solved this ecological problem and provided us with ethanol cars? You know there are bacterial strains which directly convert cellulose to ethanol, much more efficient.
The reason nobody wants to invest in it is because it isn't profitable (Again, because people don't buy them). Despite all of the subsidies government gives out for ethanol, it's still way more expensive than gasoline. Also, the major market for this fuel is poor/middle-class people, which can't afford to pay more for less miles traveled. Also, oil spills like BP are very rare (the govt. also put a cap on how much they have to pay if they do any damage, which is why they acted risky).
>>The reason nobody wants to invest in it is because it isn't profitable
It isn't profitable because oil has the market cornered. Everything in our nation uses oil in some way. If you look at Brazil, they made it work. They were able to slowly direct their nation towards heavy ethanol usage.
>>Also, oil spills like BP are very rare
ONE is more than enough. Do you not care about the world in which you live? But it isn't limited to one. Dozens of oil spills happened.
@kDest what's the point if you need 2.5 gallons of gas to make 1 gallon of ethanol. what about cash for clunkers? what about every other failed government regulation, industry protection, tariff, policy, subsidized program, contract, law, code, price fix, tax, and resource allocation? What about every bankrupt program? What about the destroyed fiscal and monetary policies they impose? BP wanted to drill closer to the shore to PREVENT a spill that was manageable, but nooo...
>>what's the point if you need 2.5 gallons of gas to make 1 gallon of ethanol
In an oil-dominated economy, that is precisely the problem. It doesn't HAVE to be that way, but the oligarchy is so all-encompassing that you accept it as normal, what must be.
>>BP wanted to drill closer to the shore
What kind of mental gymnastics do you need to justify a clear violation of trust? BP ignored warnings and took shortcuts. They would have done this anywhere.
>>As of yet, oil is the most efficient source of energy we have
That is actually wrong. It is the MOST INVESTED and MOST DEVELOPED resource we use. Brazil for example heavily invested in ethanol. We have all sorts of efficient technologies that could be used, but oil is heavily controlled and is very profitable. We cannot choose anything else in our economy.
This is hysterical. If you get your history outside of the echo chamber of libertarian media, then you know from even a facile understanding of the industrial revolution that "free markets" do not abolish or prevent monopolies. You can see quite clearly that the 19th century was marked by monopolies popping up, and being dismantled through new legislation. Not the other way around. Oh also, bonus points because the industrial revolution is widely known as the least regulated time in our history.
Socialists are too stupid to sell anything. That's why they have to force you to buy their shit products. You see it all the time in everything they do
@USTreasuryBond People can do whatever they want to, but no one is going to convince me of consumer choice being a rational argument while people still purchase products that have no benefits. Or shop at corporations that export the majority of their labor and import the majority of their product ect.
I would also like to point out that no one has a right to a product or a right to a product a certain price. If Rockefeller or Gates or any of the other so called monopolists want to sell their products for whatever they want, that is their business. If I make a widget, that I put time and money into making, it is mine and I can charge whatever I want for it. Even if monopolies did cause harm it still would not be grounds for government intervention, because it is THEIR DAMN PRODUCT.
Ok what if it cost 100$ to produce a TV. Then BigBadCompany sells it for 90$, thus attempting to price out their competition. The SmallCompany then buys the TV from the BigBadCompany for 90$ and attemps to resell it for say 95$. Who would buy the TV for 95$ when everyone can get it for 90$?
Natural monopolies can and do form in a free market, absent government intervention. I highly recommend reading "Debunking Economics" by Steve Keen, wherein he lays out the reasoning behind it.
@mojorhythm It is no secret that the telecommunications industry petitions state and local governments for permits to be the sole* provider in a particular region. This is not at all an example of a natural monopoly.
@EmpperorIng Actually, there are incentives, at times, for monopolies to form, rather than perfectly competitive markets. I don't want to give the impression that I am being evasive, but it is way too expansive a topic to address in YouTube comments. Here is the video that convinced me: /watch?v=jiJMzDtGOlE
@mojorhythm The incentive for businesses to become monopolies is omnipresent. This was never in doubt, but the result is always that businesses competing with each other for market share invariably produce better goods and services at lower prices. The only real way for a business to become a monopoly is if consumers want them to be one. In this case, if a business can continually put out a vastly superior good or service at a very low but profitable price, they will be rewarded by the market
@EmpperorIng That's not always true. Sometimes the quality of goods lower when you have many competing firms. Case in point: when Ma Bell got broken up by Congress into several competing firms, long-distance communications became way more complicated than it had been, and many engineers say that it decreased technical standards. By relative benchmarks (say, compared with Finland), the US's telecommunications industry is fairly sub-par. I recommend that lecture.
@mojorhythm Even assuming that correlation = causation, which it often does not...My goodness, that's an argument for why congress shouldn't break up companies. Now I won't pretend to know Ma Bell's case, but I am ASSUMING it is similar to what happened to Microsoft. That is, Ma Bell produced their service in such a way that the market rewarded them with massive market share.
@EmpperorIng I'm not saying that monopolies are ALWAYS good, just in some very limited circumstances. Microsoft is an example of patent-enforced monopoly, not a natural market one.
@formless777 In any given country, the government has powers that no other entity has. Including waging war, welfare, coercively confiscating wealth from the people...in the US, the government is the world's largest lender, debtor, consumer, spender, landlord, tenant, landowner, car manufacturer, bank, mortgage provider, healthcare provider...and it goes on and on. Not to mention the US government has many of the powers of gov't that private entities do not have. A MASSIVE monopoly.
So you don't like your government ? So what ? That doesn't make your government a monopoly, it just makes you un-patriotic.
By any reasonable definition governments provide essential services on behalf of the nation and cultures whose interests they represent. Governments SHOULD act within the economy, because the free market fails to provide many things, especially accountability. Governments compete with governments. They aren't monopolies at all.
@formless777 Don't put words in my mouth. I would love my government if it maintained its constitutional limits. But that's a discusion for another time.
"Essential" is a meaningless word that is very subjective. As for gov't economic activity, the government historically has created economic dislocation and wealth mismanagement that has always resulted in economic damage. As for accountability, I would say that corporations are far more accountable to the people than governments can ever be.
Your first "point"...interesting...interesting that you consider yourself a superior constitutional lawyer to the Supreme Court of the USA. What gall ! What arrogance ! Where do you get off ?
As to your second point, I am referring to matters such as law enforcement, the military, emergency response, and where applicable, penal, health services, road maintenance, education, and utilities. All areas that history attests the free market routinely does monstrous things to.
@formless777 Stop putting words in my mouth, dumbass.
And history, for very few of your examples, have any evidence stating that they were ever market-controlled in the first place. Besides, the longer the gov't has a monopoly on any good or service, the harder it is for people to see the prosperity voluntary alternatives would create. In regards to healthcare, problems only started to arise in the industry when gov't decided that it was too important to leave to voluntary economic transactions
Putting words in your mouth ? It is you who implied that you know more about the enforcement of the US constitution than the Supreme Court... you claimed the US Government is exceeding it'sconstitutional limits... don't you think the Supreme Court might have noticed if that was the case ? Oh no, you clearly know more about constitutional law than the men and women who have dedicated their whole lives to understanding and upholding it's principles. You arrogant douche.
@formless777 So instead of arguing against what is my main point, you're taking what I said out of context, and arguing against your own misinterpretation. I think that's called a Straw Man argument. And the reason it's a logical fallacy is because nobody, NOBODY is going to be convinced that voluntary behavior should be restricted and individual's money should be coercively taken from them, basically nobody, gonna be convinced to accept statism in general, because I am an arrogant douche.
Your main point is worthless. I'll get to that after we have addressed this arrogant assertion you have made that the Supreme Court is mis-administering the Constitution. I want you to defend the notion you have that you somehow know more about US Constitutional Law than the Supreme Court Judges who administer it. I haven't heard you deny or correct that central point so clearly you really believe that you do.
@formless777 I don't know why i have to defend it, you're the one that keeps saying that I know better than the supreme court justices. Now maybe you know me, and are from the future, where I am president of the United States or something. But since the odds of that are pretty much non-existient, all I see is a punk unable to defend his own flawed positions, and must resort to character assassination, as if somehow that'll convince me. So how am I more knowledgable than the supreme court judges?
"I would love my government if it maintained its constitutional limits."
Well, that means that you believe that the Supreme Court is not doing its job in policing the powers of Government. And that in turn means ineluctably that you think you know better than they what the Constitution means. Or do you retract that statement ?
@formless777 I can give you examples of Supreme Court justices saying they don't care what the constitution says, but I digress. The power of judicial review is what i'm sure you're referring to, and is in fact a power that isn't listed in the constitution, but one the supreme court gave to itself after Marbery vs Madison.
Besides, if you can't come to your own conclusions that the bureaucratic branch of gov't, social security, obamacare, glass-steagall, etc are unconstitutional, you're a moron
Okay, so basically by your first statement you DO think you understand the constitution better than the full bench of the US Supreme Court. You present these cases of government projects with an unsupported assumption that they are self evidently "bad" somehow. All I see is a society protecting itself from a feral capitalism.
Basically you don't accept the validity of any of the USA's institutions except for corporations. Your god is Mammon.
@formless777 You know, I REALLY wish you would stop making assumptions based on your taking my statements out of context. Here's the thing: Social Security is a ponzi scheme that is in more debt than the planet Earth's economy. Obamacare is a 2 trillion dollar trojan horse that will destroy our healthcare system, glass-steagall is useless. ALL of them have NO authorization in the United States Constitution, and I challenge you to point to me where the Constitution authorizes these...things.
So now you think that helping people avoid starvation and homelessness is somehow a form of fraud ? I doubt that. What sort of rat scum wants to see his countrymen starve in the streets ? Your feral wall street capos rape the economy then blame the victims ? Or better yet, blame the only things that are protecting people from death by exposure and illness. I hope you lose your source of income and see the world your economic "ideas" have made more clearly.
@formless777 That's a terrible thing to wish on anyone, why would you hope that?! D:
In response to what you said, i'm not gonna argue against your straw men arguments. Either be substantive, be open to discussion, or we have nothing to say.
I have not mis-represented your position. There is no straw man here. You don't respect the law. You are against social security which keeps people alive in tough times. You support corrupt corporations and their drive for deregulation that has already beggared the US economy. You don't want people to have adequate health care, you want the Nixonian disaster back. Yes. I think that you need to get a taste of the reality you hope to inflict upon everyone up close & personal.
@formless777 You are a sick, twisted, demented child.
But I digress. What i'm against is forcing seniors to become dependent on a gov't program that EVERYBODY knows is unsustainable. I'm against forcing everyone into a corrupt, inefficient, and overall lower quality healthcare system. I'm FOR individuals deciding for themselves and making individual decisions. I'm FOR lessening the burden of economic dislocation. I'm FOR voluntarism and individualism. What are you for? Slavery to the State?
You say you support seniors. You are only supporting RICH seniors. These programs ARE sustainable, lets cut the military, or better yet, make the military accountable for the stupid misuse of funds it tolerates. You say healthcare is now corrupt ? I call bullshit. What the insurance companies were doing to people was unspeakable pre-Obamacare. The state isn't slavery, the poverty of the individual without support is slavery. No government & no regulation = Somalia.
they are 113 trillion dollars bankrupt. that is more than the gdp of every nation in the world (including our own). If the whole entire world tried to pay that off with every dollar they had, it couldn't be done
@formless777 Somalia is recovering from totalitarianism. While I would not wish it forced on anyone like it was in there, Somalia's anarchous state is seeing a fantastic rate of economic growth.
And here's the thing. Social Security owes more than the entire economy of Planet Earth. Medicare/Medicaid owe as much as the economy of Planet Earth. All 3 are unsustainable. Not my words, the Actuarys' words. Pre-Obamacare, we had the BEST HEALTHCARE SYSTEM in the world. But you wouldn't know.
Somalia has been recovering from totalitarianism for a very long time. How long will it take them ? It has already taken decades of anarchy. If you love Somalia so much, go live there. I'm sure it will be a land of opportunity for you in a way that the over-regulated USA apparently no longer is. Seriously, migrate to Somalia and enjoy the benefits of the true and unfettered benefits of a free market without state interference.
@formless777 Now you're arguing against straw men again. Now since this unfettered lassiez-faire free market is making you nuts, I know a magical land where there are no corporations to "exploit" the working class, everyone is equal, and the government is strong, consolidated, centralized, and has only your best interests at heart. Best part is that there are no dissenters!
Go to North Korea.
Since unlike you, I love my country. I just hate what your filth have done with it. So you will lose.
I like dissent. Dissent is good. I am not a Stalinist I am a Social Democrat. I prefer places like Sweden, Finland and Norway. I may well move there. They are certainly better and more civilized countries than the USA with it's feral capitalism. No other country would tolerate the richest 1% of the population paying no tax.
Of course you would see that as a good thing, wouldn't you ?
@formless777 The richest 1% pay over 30% of federal income tax revenues. You're a damn liar.
Besides, it's good you want to live in a place like Scandanavia. A place where even though their politicians call themselves socialist, they're to the RIGHT of American Liberals, who want to continually centralize more power and political/social/economic decision making into the biggest monopoly in the world.
No ! Once you get a team of accountants to factor all the deductions in, the top 1% normally wind up with the government giving them money in excess of their taxes. That's not a lie, that's the facts, I've seen it happening when I worked at KPMG back in 2005 as a consultant.
As to living in Scandinavia being right wing, that is very much a matter of perspective. Currently they don't like Muslim immigrants, true, but Muslim social values are fascist, what's to like ?
Also, there is no point having the "best" healthcare system in the world if even 5% of the population are locked out of it by way of it being too expensive. As it stands, a lot more than 5% of the US population were locked out of the US health system pre-Obamacare. Worse still, you could have paid 100% health insurance and still get completely shafted by the insurance companies because you once had an unreported childhood illness you forgot about.
@formless777 Ah, pre-existing conditions. only 8000 people in the US have "pre-exisiting conditions," whatever those even are. It's an overhyped talking point that is not based on fact. If you're so worried about insurance being too expensive, you should OPPOSE Obamacare, because since it's passage, premiums have gone up 30%, and everyone will be REQUIRED to buy it very soon, which will PREDICTABLY lead to higher costs and lower quality. Prehaps you should actually learn some facts.
No, I am not specifically talking about pre-existing conditions, they're only a symptom. I'm talking about insurance companies routinely performing fraud on vulnerable recipients of health care in the pre-Obamacare days. Having paid their health insurance, these people then had their payments denied by the insurers for spurious reasons to save the insurers paying up. What's the point of having quality healthcare if people can't be sure they have access to it ?
@formless777 I'll answer that question: The point is that IT DOESN'T HAPPEN. There's a cap at which insurance companies are required to pay for you. After that you are on your own. This cap is contractual, and is thus enforced legally. If a company breaks the contract, they might end up paying legal fees exceeding what they would've had to pay their customer in the first place. Besides, if ins cos did that, the customers they'd lose would go buy insurance somewhere else. Hardly a business model.
Crap it doesn't happen. It happened to my Aunt Rosemary in L.A. when she got breast cancer back in 2004. If we, her family, hadn't all pitched in with money her insurer would have bankrupted her. As it is we have an ongoing law suit that we have won twice but keeps getting appealed. Your charming free market tried to rob and kill my blood relative "within the law". That's exploitation.
Yes, but don't you think this argument about us not having a free market is a hollow one ? It sounds apologist to me. In fact I have heard a parrallel argument made when I have argued against Marxists. You say there has never been a truly free market. They say there has never been a pure Communism. I think a wise man eschews extremism and we should be thankful that ideologues (whether right or left leaning) don't get their way.
@formless777 The difference is that one system works, the other doesn't. At best, your compromise is a system that half-works. History is filled with examples of the closer we leaned towards the Right, towards smaller government and more individual freedom, the better off we all were. Conversely, when the Left has had their way towards the tyranny of statism, everyone save the ruling elite has been worse off. I can give examples of this if you want.
Au contraire, neither a pure free market nor a pure communism works. The former is too unstable, the latter is too stultifying. Every economy is a mixed economy regardless of it's pretensions either left or right. You say the free market approach is better... I as better for whom ? It always benefits the rich to divide and marginalze the poor, and that is what the free market means for most of its victims. The converse is similarly ugly but in different ways.
@formless777 The divisions between rich and poor is a meaningless statistic that should be eschewed from economic discussions. Someone being rich doesn't make you poor. And in many examples where the rich are extremely rich, the living standards of the "marginalized" are heightened as well. Furthermore without the rich, who's going to pay the poor? I've never been employed by a poor person.
Also, "rich" should be eschewed from rhetoric as well. It's a meaningless word that is very subjective.
And that is why you need to lose your job. Divisions between rich and poor are very meaningful if you are getting the bad end of the deal. I think such discussions need to be placed at the forefront of any economic discussion. The "trickle-down" theory has been totally discredited. Wealth disparity is the source of most of the world's problems and represents the slide from democracy and merit to oligarchy, aristocracy and nepotism. The latter produce horrible societies.
@formless777 Trickle-down is a straw man. Revenues - Expenses = Profit, and workers are an expense. Besides, there is no credible economic theory in existence that can explain how one group of people having a massive amount of money means you have less money. And there's no credible economic or even moral theory that tells us we can raise the weak by lowering the strong. Your position is very bigoted if I may say.
Thank God for the rich! Who hires workers? Who runs small and large businesses?
@mecher3k The vast majority of the "millionares and billionares" you guys love to hate are small business owners who earn over 250k a year. Maybe even more. And they are hurting because people like you think that whenever a government restricts a business from doing voluntary activity, it's noble. And whenever a big business risks its money by opening a chain store, it's evil. The only harm Wall Street has EVER done to you has a direct cause from big government. Every. Single. Time.
When you say that "the living standards of the heightened as well" that is the trickle down fallacy. These are your words and you paraphrased the trickle down effect. Admit that it is no straw man.
Next, having rich people can very well detract from the wealth of others. They will use their economic clout to establish laws only they like and remove competition, and then everyone is poorer. It happens a lot, especially in the 3rd world, but in the USA too.
Next, the rich are basically redundant when we consider that government is the largest employer in nearly every economy on the planet. And unlike a large corrupt corporation, I can vote my government out without investing huge quantities of money to do so.
As to your "moral" argument, I think Jesus would probably take extreme exception to that notion, which is funny given I think I remember hearing you pretending to be a Christian.
I have no issue with businesses, but I do expect them to reimburse the public purse for the externalities such as infrastructure that government provides (and that they would not). I also expect them to abide by laws just like everyone else, especially laws that stop them abusing the influence of their wealth. Wealth is great, but corruption is one of it's byproducts, and that leads to a collapse of social trust and ultimately to civil war.
@formless777 If you want them to stop abusing their wealth and influence, you stop that which incentivizes them to do so in the first place. You DEregulate them and LOWER their taxes. And they do abide by the law, it's just that they have to obey one, significantly larger set of laws in addition to the ones you and I have to follow. Also, why wouldn't a business invest in infrastructure with its own money?
Also, there has never been a point in history where civil war was triggered by business.
Come on, as if that's going to work. Delinquents require discipline, not open cheque books and no structure. Yours is a recipe for "spoiled brat capitalism". Anyone can abide by the law when there aren't any. Having no laws however means companies are going to act like they do in the 3rd world, where they routinely kill people in various nasty ways. And yes, businesses should pay tax for infrastructure. Contributing to society justifies a company's existence.
@formless777 So a company providing technological innovations at the lowest price to consumers is not contributing to society? No, you only contribute if it's involuntary. That, and your correlation = causation argument doesn't exactly do much for your credibility.
Both these claims of validity are highly open to question. Not every company is a technical innovator. Not every company provides lowest prices. In fact most companies only begrudgingly hand money out to R&D and will raise prices to whatever the market will bear.
Following your "involuntary" argument, how about removing involuntary laws like those regarding theft then ?
Society requires laws, and enforcing laws requires tax.
@formless777 Yes, enforcing laws requires tax. I don't know why you need to say that.
But as for you other non-points, if a company wants to continue making a profit, it will spend money for R&D. They don't have to have the lowest price if their product is higher quality and thus more expensive, but all companies are incentivized to have the lowest profitable price, unless they want to be outbid by someone who IS willing to put out the lowest price.
I need to remind you that tax exists for a reason, and that there can NEVER be a free market. Government is necessary, and so is it's coercive force. You are wrong about R&D. Most companies never spend on R&D, they just buy new equipment periodically.
Finally, companies are more likely to spend on reducing the price of production than on lowering price. Mostly they will collude to raise prices. You assume there is no fake demand created by advertising and rational consumers.
@formless777 Advertising isn't mind control. I'm a man, and i'm not about to buy tampons because I saw an ad on TV. Individuals have the final say in how they want to spend their money. Even if one consumer is totally irrational, it doesn't matter.
And companies not lowering their prices? They certainly can do so, but only if they're okay with losing to a competitor that DOES lower their prices.
Also, where do you think that new equipment comes from? Companies with R&D budgets. Idiot.
Advertising isn't mind control... tell that to the parent of a child who has been screaming for 8 hours solid that they want to go to McDonalds. It isn't always mind control, but I know enough apple freaks to think that it can be. As to consumer irrationality, the point is that no consumer is either wholly rational nor wholly irrational, yes they will spend their money but seldom truly in their own best interests.
Now to the R&D point. Investing in new capital is not an investment in R&D, except by proxy for the percentage that goes to the company that is doing the R&D. There are plenty of companies (in primary production for example) that rarely need to buy new equipment, and when they do, actually buy old and second hand, because things were better before programmed obsolescence (another corrupt free market practice).
As to companies lowering their prices, frankly I cannot recall a time when any manufacturing company I'm aware of actively cut their prices to the consumer. That is something retailers do at "sales".
A sufficiently large company with a large advertising budget can dominate a market almost completely, and easily squeeze out smaller firms you would consider more competitive. In fact, the larger firms often simply buy out the smaller firms to reduce competition.
@formless777 Yes, they can buy out smaller firms, but this is a massive windfall to the owners of the smaller firm, and a voluntary transaction. The smaller firm can simply choose NOT to be bought out.
As for ads, you're overestimating their effect. Do they have an effect? Yes. Is it mind control? Hell no. Consumers still have a final say, and if they don't like the product the ad advertises, they aren't going to buy it.
If you want examples of snowballing lower prices, try free antibiotics?
It is more typical to drive the smaller firm to the wall with unfair competition first, then buy them out. No windfall there. Without a government to protect them, the smaller firms are always going to be destroyed by larger ones.
Second point, you don't have kids do you ?
Third point, what free antibiotics ? Aren't cheap antibiotics actually destroying the effectiveness of the whole suite of antibiotics anyway ? That's a bad thing.
@formless777 The ways at which an intrepid monopolist can drive competition out are very limited, and there are MANY ways for the company being driven out to counter this, making it backfire on the intrepid monopolist.
And kids? No. But they aren't mind control either. I mean, you can...just say no.
And pretty much every major grocery store in America's pharmacy gives away free antibiotics. At least mine do. Look it up when you get the chance.
Please tell me you at least need a prescription to get these free antibiotics ? I have no problem with giving people free medication, but to do so without a reliable medical recommendation is irresponsible, not to mention the degradation of the antibiotic defense legacy.
As to kids and saying no. When is anything in life ever that simple ?
Also without government control, monopolism is the logical fruit of the free market; eventually someone wins the competition.
@formless777 To be honest I don't know what the procedure is. But all indications tell me that prices snowballed to the point where one of the most effective disease-fighters are available free of charge.
And yes, you can say no. I don't know if you have kids, but you CAN just say no. If they have an allowance, it's their responsibility.
And monopolies will only exist if consumers want them to. Watch the video we're commenting in. It explains this very thoroughly.
People can say no to their children, but McDonald's target demographic seems to be those who can't. The food is proven to be bad for you, the advertising is aimed at kids, and the parents know better but wind up going there anyhow... in their millions. Is this rational consumer behavior ? I don't think so. Kids exert a lot of nag power and nagging has proven to be the most effective human strategy for getting what you want ever devised; there have been studies on it.
@formless777 ...and? I really don't see the relevence. That's not an argument for regulation either, that's just saying consumers can be irrational. Which very few people are denying.
So what you are saying is... that one of the largest companies in the world (McDonalds) is based on the fact that most consumers are continuously irrational... in fact one of the greatest industrial sectors in the free market (Fast Food) is based on the fact that most consumers are continuously irrational...
I think this business model contradicts a lot of what you say about the free market.
@formless777 I'm not saying it, you are. don't put words in my mouth.
Rationality is a personal responsibility, and it is up to us as individuals to decide what is best for ourselves. It is NOT the responsibility of politicians and bureaucrats to set up one-size-fits-all solutions to perceived problems. Besides, someone else being irrational doesn't pick my pocket or break my leg to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson. If McDonalds is so EEEVIIILLL then don't buy from them.
So rationality is an individual's responsibility ? And yet individuals are pretty well unable to behave rationally according to all measures of such in psychological tests, and indeed in the economy, as the McDonalds example proves. Did I say McDonalds is evil ? No, but they have utterly turned everything you say about the free market on it's head. They make a worse product at a higher price, trade on the power of kids nagging parents, and win every time. Plz explain...
@formless777 I have no doubt you're lying about these "psychological tests." If you're not, there's no problem citing them, right? Besides, this begs the question. What is the standard for "rationality?" And how come politicians who win popularity contests somehow transcend human irrationality to create unquestionably perfect one-size-fits-all solutions? Furthermore, why do humans have to either be perfectly rational or perfectly irrational?
Clearly you haven't heard about behavioral economics' critiques of rational choice theory. Go do a search, I'm not your research assistant you knuckle-dragging ignoramus.
I also agree that selection of politicians is often irrational, but it is not more or less irrational than our economic behavior.
I am also pleased that you admit that you are too stupid to understand my McDonalds argument. The other people who read the threat will not be. I enjoy highlighting your idiocy.
You seem quite prepared to indulge in both insults and condescension, so I suggest you heed your own advice, for I am well past listening to your ill-considered opinions.
@formless777 Here's the thing: I can condescend to you, because I know you are an irrational, uninformed human physically incapable of making the decisions for yourself, so you need someome you don't know, never met, probably don't like, and may not have even voted for to make those decisions FOR you. And how do I know all of this? Because you've pretty much told me yourself, unless you're arguing that everyone except you needs to have decisions made for them, but we all agree that's absurd.
And I condescend to you because you're an arrogant spoiled brat who fails to understand that his simplistic ideological grasp of capitalism fails to grasp any of the downsides to the system he's such a Pollyanna cheerleader for.
Let me say again, the free market is inherrently unstable and produces gross injustices and socially unacceptable outcomes if left unregulated. Without government support there is no free market, and markets need regulation to stabilize them.
"Without government support there is no free market."
"the free market is inherently unstable and produces gross injustices and socially unacceptable outcomes"
Oh, I see. Your definition of a free market is a semblance of a market that is run almost exclusively by the government. Well in that sense, you are correct.
No, that is not my definition of a free market. My definition of a true free market is a place where humans are traded as commodities, and where wages never exceed subsistence as that is unprofitable. It is a place of haves and have nots written to extremes. It is a place where monopolies flourish backed by private armies, taking the role of defacto states. It is an inhuman place of untennable contradictions, where ordinary people have no hope save revolution.
Any system if taken to its ideological extremes will produce gross injustice. Communism was one extreme. You support the polar opposite, but the results will prove similarly horrible. With no government regulation slavery could be reintroduced to handle issues of debt recovery; why not ? Slavery can be quite profitable, and only profit would matter. The lack of a military will see the free market solution of mercenaries owing sole allegiance to their paymasters.
@formless777 What you describe is Statism yet you attribute it to Capitalism. The fact of the matter is, like any liberal, you deal in extremes, and argue against straw men. I am NOT arguing for anarchy. NOBODY (except maybe Ron Paul) is. The fact of the matter is that you can have a Laissez-Faire capitalist economy AND have a government, they aren't mutually exclusive.
And Totalitarianism is the extreme left. If there is an extreme right, its Anarchy.
If a single company becomes large enough and powerful enough it will become a state.
You may THINK you aren't arguing for anarchy, but extensive deregulation leads to anarchy.
And in fact a "pure" Free Market is one that exists without any government to regulate it. Of course such markets don't exist because they can't.
As to what is left and right on this issue, Totalitarianism can be either Stalinist or Fascist, and Anarchy can be either Communitarian or Libertarian.
As to civil wars generated by business... You obviously don't know much about modern African history. Consider De Beers' financing of the civil war in Angola and Namibia. Consider Shell's involvement in the civil wars in Congo and Nigeria. Consider the role played by Chinese companies in Zimbabwe and the conflicts in the Horn of Africa atm. All cases of corporate funded mercenaries making the world worse for ordinary people.
Yes, social security keeps people alive in tough times. Your response is just ad hominem bullshit; it is not a refutation of my position. Evidence or STFU.
Next, deregulation doesn't automatically mean there will be more competitors; normally it means corporations drive for defacto monopolies. As for lost subsidies, just more evidence that corporations are hypocrites.
Amen. Its ALWAYS the government who create monopolies. That's the problem in healthcare in the U. S. We have essentially created ogopolies with all of our regulations. Ron Paul 2012!
Do free marketeers realize that they're arguing against a straw man? Only the most uneducated people will try to promote the idea that a free market results in monopolies; even Karl Marx conceded that this isn't true.
CapitalistOverlord 4 days ago
@CapitalistOverlord Someone is telling me that monopolies form in free markets in another video so it's obviously not a strawman.
666or999 4 days ago
what if what if what if
ibtarnine 3 weeks ago
I see Keynesians are out in force.
Us3rNam3FunTim3s 4 weeks ago
This is why i laugh at free market fundamentalists.
AdamDLDixon 1 month ago
i just have too say Microsoft Windows
competing at this point is damn near impossible, if i built an OS today not only would i be bogged down by patent trolling but also i do not even have close to the software available so people are forced to use Microsoft Windows, it has OEMs (there customers) by the balls
but for the most part i agree with you corporatism is NOT the problem its government involvement which hiders the free market and our freedoms
shady4tv 1 month ago
@shady4tv Patents aren't a part of the free market.
Also, Windows is a terrible example. It has almost literally no barriers to entry. If Microsoft started charging $1000 per copy, people could easily shift away.
ReasonAndLiberty 1 month ago
@shady4tv *rolls eyes*
LINUX, ANDROID
I'm on UBUNTU RIGHT NOW. Has Firefox. Tons of stuff.
You're right about the patent nonsense, it's a bitch. It's also a government created problem.
jeffiek 2 weeks ago
@jeffiek
android is not a viable alternative to a full blown desktop operating system, and Linux well at 1.3% percent market share its not to much of a viable asset aside from the fact its a great server OS, all Microsoft has to do is keep Linux out of the public eye, now lets say Microsoft moved to the UK and started charging import tax, you think the cost of things are bad now, that's monopolistic powers
shady4tv 2 weeks ago
@shady4tv "android is not a viable alternative ...'
Oh wise, exalted one. How great must thine knowledge be. You can determine that everybody NEEDS a desktop. That no one would ever say "Microsoft wants how much? No thanks, the smart phone does enough".
And blessed be your wisdom ( which somehow fails to include Macs ) that reveals how little a market share is needed to keep Microsoft in check.
For your love and compassion protecting all those too stupid to switch if MS raised prices.
jeffiek 2 weeks ago
@jeffiek
ok first thing quit talking to me like an idiot honestly wtf is all this oh wise exalted one bullshit
and for the second thing you are right android could replace computers up to the size of idk a netbook but honestly some people need the ability to do more power things than what smartphones offer. Comparing smartphones to desktop is like comparing apples to oranges they are 2 different things that are familiar in some ways but not at all the same thing
shady4tv 2 weeks ago
@shady4tv "quit talking to me like an idiot"
Then stop acting like one.
You have presented nothing more than arrogant nonsense.
The world doesn't agree with you? Awwww... Want some cheese with that whine?
jeffiek 2 weeks ago
@jeffiek
the world does agree with me? what? when did i ever say the world agrees with me? and about what? wtf that was the dumbest thing ive read in a while
>ive brought nothing but arrogant nonsense
sounds like i said a point that you cant argue, you ignorant fuck quit being a little bitch i state a point you replied somehow i was under the impression we were having a conversation not a name calling match. This is your reply, really its time to grow up
shady4tv 2 weeks ago
@shady4tv The world DOESN'T agree with you. Read it again.
"now lets say Microsoft moved to the UK and started charging import tax, you think the cost of things are bad now, that's monopolistic powers "
Yup, arrogant nonsense. You can predict the future and the economics of the whole planet.
jeffiek 2 weeks ago
@jeffiek i know you said DOESNT but when did i ever say it did or that i gave a shit what the rest of the world thinks
and what im doing is making an educated opinion based on facts and please elaborate what makes you think my productions are self centered?
saying im wrong is like saying the weather man is wrong. Yes, it does happen but, its based on facts so the information I'm giving you is more than likely relevant
shady4tv 1 week ago
@shady4tv "educated opinion based on facts"
What facts?
"my productions are self centered"
They all center on YOUR opinion of one particular product. An opinion that, based on EVIDENCE, the world does not share.
jeffiek 1 week ago
@jeffiek
yup you're right
"Windows has more software than Mac"
"Microsoft is much more powerful than its competitors"
those are total self centered opinions
and why do you keep bringing the worlds opinion in to this
oh wait! you know what the world thinks and everyone agrees with you, even though you have not brought one relevant fact to the table and just been repeating the word arrogant.
Honestly stop, you're making a complete ass out of yourself.
shady4tv 1 week ago
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@shady4tv FACTS RELEVANT TO MONOPOLIES
"you know what the world thinks"
In a sense, I do. I know that they buy more MS than MAC. This is their expression of what they think.
What I think of MS has nothing to do with it.
jeffiek 1 week ago
@jeffiek also on the note of the Macs lets look at the software libraries for Mac and Windows hmm ever wonder why when Vista turned out to be a piece of shit everyone started using XP again people opted out of using a more modern and secure OS for XP, thats because of all the power Microsoft had over its consumers, hell if Microsoft released 7 for $200 more people would still pay it because it would cost the companies a lot less than rewriting all there software for Macs
shady4tv 2 weeks ago
@shady4tv
So your argument is, regardless that Linux and Apple existing and being available (even for free in Linux's case), since they aren't as popular as Microsoft, Microsoft has a monopoly because they have a more popular product at a reasonable price?
If people believed Microsoft was charging too much money, they would get the free Linux and learn to use it. Basically, inconvenience of OS over price.
brendanmcwilliams 5 days ago
@shady4tv
I am tired of stupid arguments claiming a popular brand name is a monopoly when there are multiple alternatives. A monopoly doesn't mean that because people are willing to buy iPhones, that is an automatic monopoly.
If microsoft got a monopoly back in the day, Linux still would have come about, and if microsoft raised prices, larger percentages of consumers would have learned to use Linux. Tons of small businesses use Linux for cost reasons as we speak.
brendanmcwilliams 5 days ago
@brendanmcwilliams ok, for the first thing thank you for replying in a mature way, name calling just pisses me off.
As for the topic on hand, i stand corrected Microsoft ISN'T an 100% full market monopoly yes, there is a limit to how far their power can stretch, but they are too comfortable in their current position, do have any idea how much it would cost corporations to rewrite all there software for a new OS? some smaller businesses would go bankrupt i they had to jump ship
shady4tv 5 days ago
@brendanmcwilliams as we all know Microsoft in the past has made terrible products and still people had to deal with it, this power over your consumers is monopolistic, look at Vista for instance it ended up forcing a lot of people to get new hardware since it would only run on certain motherboards yet Linux supported all of the hardware and didn't gain much of a market share
so all in all what im trying to say is Microsoft has way to much power and honestly just keep burying there competition.
shady4tv 5 days ago
Can I stop you at 1:02? I grew up loving Capitalism, it had an answer to everything, but let me tell you, consumer choice doesn't work! I WISH IT DID! In Appalachia the people have very little work, and are paid very little. With only a little bit of money, and no ability to do research without a computer, they only buy soda. Because it's cheaper, the taste doesn't matter, the environmental impact, and government corruption doesn't matter to them, they don't have the ability to worry about it.
Kidarias01 1 month ago
Interesting lesson on the free market... by the way, you should have also added that the diamond industry has competition in spite of having a "monopoly" on diamond mines. Synthetic diamonds can be made and sold cheaply, and are reaching a point where it's hard enough to tell the difference between natural and lab diamonds, that the diamond industry has to laser engrave tiny signatures on their diamonds!
Innovation: 1
Monopoly: 0
ebaumsdidit 1 month ago
Besides, on the note of Environmental and Efficiency concerns, Free market fails to accomplish this goal as well because, in order for a Business to remain profitable, it has to minimize cost at every stage of production. Business must also rely on cyclical consumption where a product has a certain lifespan so that there can be recurring sales.
EasternMerchant 2 months ago
@EasternMerchant It can only shirk environmental responsibilities if no one is allowed to oppose them. People were able to freely and easily sue a business which was responsible for polluting their person or land.
This was slowly stopped in the 1800's in favor of laws that were more "business friendly". And it's been further eroded since with the EPA, who if they give a pass to a business you can't sue the comp, you have to sue the EPA (nearly impossible).
i.e. It's gov laws as well.
sirellyn 1 month ago
@sirellyn yeah they're both working in cohoots with each other.
EasternMerchant 1 month ago
@sirellyn "People were able to freely and easily sue a business which was responsible for polluting their person or land."
I'd love to believe this. Do you have links?
ReasonAndLiberty 1 month ago
@ReasonAndLiberty I don't know if the book is online but you are welcome to references:
Horwitz, Morton J.: 1977, The Transformation of
American Law: 1780–1860 (Harvard University
Press, Cambridge).
sirellyn 1 month ago
FREE Market creates an environment for an individual human to attain great wealth which can then create banks, corporations, influence governments resulting in laws that are enforced by police and militaries. The only way FREE can remain safe is to rule out the possibility of buying someone's labor. If we go back to John Lock's Doctrine that talks about private property, any man that puts their labors into something OWNS IT. This is the foundation for a truly ethical free market.
EasternMerchant 2 months ago
The likes monopolized the dislikes. OCCUPY!
sam11182 2 months ago in playlist Favorite videos
or what if free market cooperations use their financial power to command politicians to pass legislation that creates a state run monopoly endorsed by the free market. you know like our free market insurance system or the free market drug industry lol im kidding its not free its been totally raped by cooperate money to create artificial monopolies on new drugs and prevent competition from global competitors keeping drugs and health care overly expensive. All endorsed by the free market.
jordanselko1 2 months ago
@jordanselko1 Most of the time people on the left will argue that you just need to make more regulation to stop that, without realizing that government power leads to bribes in order to influence the government power. They bigger government gets, the more susceptable to corruption it becomes. The less power it has, the less ability it has to take bribes, since ultimately what corporations pay for is the power politicians wield.
13lackLight 2 months ago
@jordanselko1
When government practices intervention in business, it becomes a matter of necessity for businessmen to intervene in government. The honest businessmen who focus on product development and consumer satisfaction are weeded out, because there's no way they can compete against their less honorable peers who rely on fiat and intervention to get their way. You may try to prevent it, to keep the control one-way, but you'll be constantly working against the harmonious -
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PanzerDivisionBOM 1 month ago
-
- self-interests of the politicos and bureaucrats along every step of the way.
That's why all those things suck right now. There is no more competition in insurance, healthcare or most medicines. It's all been regulated away, so that new startups are by and large prohibitively expensive. Patents prevent imitation and competition, The teachers' association keep close tab on how doctors can be educated, so that it can cost upwards of a quarter of a million dollars to -
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PanzerDivisionBOM 1 month ago
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- educate a single doctor. Credit manipulation schemes, inflation and the massively regulated banking sector makes startups and investments extremely sketchy in general.
Hell, the defining characteristic of a corporation is that it receives special privileges from the government, such as subsidies, anticompetitive tailored regulation or protection against liability.
Just look up the term Corporatism, and compare that to the Misesian conception of the free market.
PanzerDivisionBOM 1 month ago
...... And Steve Jobs turned in his grave.
sam11182 2 months ago
This is like the best video of all time...
june372 2 months ago
same reason we don't have 'HIGH SPEED RAIL. Because if we needed them, they would be provided. Just like airports. We have thousands of airports in this country of only 305 MIL, China has only a few hundred airports for 4 BILLION. Private airline industry vs. Central planning and government social engineering.
USTreasuryBond 2 months ago
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@USTreasuryBond
>>what about every other failed government regulation
Do you have clean water? Breathable air? Are your nearby rivers on fire? How are the roads you use? Thank government for that.
Right now our oil dependency is precisely an example of the market forcing us into choices we would not rationally make, except there are no viable alternatives. We are killing our own species, but continue onward because of an unchecked oligarchy.
kDest 2 months ago
Oh also, "consumer choice" is precisely the means that monopolies use to enforce themselves. It is used in the opposite manner, that is to say, monopolies exist because they are GOOD AT ELIMINATING consumer choice. That's the point.
Put another way, why in America can't I buy a pure ethanol/solar power hybrid car? Answer: because consumer choice has been limited such that I cannot reasonably expect to afford or even find such a vehicle. That is the market's doing, an oil-controlled market.
kDest 2 months ago
@kDest
The reason you cannot afford/find pure ethanol/solar powered cars is because it is expensive and inefficient. You don't get nearly as much energy per-gallon of ethanol as per-gallon of gas. Same goes for solar power, it just isn't efficient enough. As of yet, oil is the most efficient source of energy we have, whether you like it or not. If it was profitable to do it (IE: if a lot of consumers actually wanted to buy it), this "oil-controlled market" would've switched to ethanol already
EliteKiller07 2 months ago in playlist More videos from JacobSpinney
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@EliteKiller07
>>The reason you cannot afford/find pure ethanol/solar powered cars is because it is expensive and inefficient
So were computers. So were aircraft. Technology develops more efficient ways of doing things. Unfortunately ethanol and solar power are major rivals of oil. Because of that, they are going to be fought against. You can power cars on solar power and ethanol, and they would be much cleaner for our environment, but they aren't profitable to oil.
kDest 2 months ago
@EliteKiller07
>>You don't get nearly as much energy per-gallon of ethanol as per-gallon of gas.
The point of using ethanol is in the emissions and the cleaner processing of the fuel. Ethanol will never have the major ecological disasters like the frequent oil spills and BP gulf leak. So why hasn't the market solved this ecological problem and provided us with ethanol cars? You know there are bacterial strains which directly convert cellulose to ethanol, much more efficient.
kDest 2 months ago
@kDest
The reason nobody wants to invest in it is because it isn't profitable (Again, because people don't buy them). Despite all of the subsidies government gives out for ethanol, it's still way more expensive than gasoline. Also, the major market for this fuel is poor/middle-class people, which can't afford to pay more for less miles traveled. Also, oil spills like BP are very rare (the govt. also put a cap on how much they have to pay if they do any damage, which is why they acted risky).
EliteKiller07 2 months ago
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@EliteKiller07
>>The reason nobody wants to invest in it is because it isn't profitable
It isn't profitable because oil has the market cornered. Everything in our nation uses oil in some way. If you look at Brazil, they made it work. They were able to slowly direct their nation towards heavy ethanol usage.
>>Also, oil spills like BP are very rare
ONE is more than enough. Do you not care about the world in which you live? But it isn't limited to one. Dozens of oil spills happened.
kDest 2 months ago
@kDest what's the point if you need 2.5 gallons of gas to make 1 gallon of ethanol. what about cash for clunkers? what about every other failed government regulation, industry protection, tariff, policy, subsidized program, contract, law, code, price fix, tax, and resource allocation? What about every bankrupt program? What about the destroyed fiscal and monetary policies they impose? BP wanted to drill closer to the shore to PREVENT a spill that was manageable, but nooo...
USTreasuryBond 2 months ago
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@USTreasuryBond
>>what's the point if you need 2.5 gallons of gas to make 1 gallon of ethanol
In an oil-dominated economy, that is precisely the problem. It doesn't HAVE to be that way, but the oligarchy is so all-encompassing that you accept it as normal, what must be.
>>BP wanted to drill closer to the shore
What kind of mental gymnastics do you need to justify a clear violation of trust? BP ignored warnings and took shortcuts. They would have done this anywhere.
kDest 2 months ago
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@EliteKiller07
>>As of yet, oil is the most efficient source of energy we have
That is actually wrong. It is the MOST INVESTED and MOST DEVELOPED resource we use. Brazil for example heavily invested in ethanol. We have all sorts of efficient technologies that could be used, but oil is heavily controlled and is very profitable. We cannot choose anything else in our economy.
>>this "oil-controlled market" would've switched
No one WANTS to use oil. They have no choice.
kDest 2 months ago
This is hysterical. If you get your history outside of the echo chamber of libertarian media, then you know from even a facile understanding of the industrial revolution that "free markets" do not abolish or prevent monopolies. You can see quite clearly that the 19th century was marked by monopolies popping up, and being dismantled through new legislation. Not the other way around. Oh also, bonus points because the industrial revolution is widely known as the least regulated time in our history.
kDest 2 months ago
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Google Ron Paul.
petereberle 3 months ago
Socialists are too stupid to sell anything. That's why they have to force you to buy their shit products. You see it all the time in everything they do
QuartuvLarry 3 months ago
As long as people keep smoking cigarettes any arguments about consumer choice are invalid.
Portlandhardstylers 3 months ago
@Portlandhardstylers yea, people shouldn't be allowed to smoke cigarettes, unless people like you say its okay.
USTreasuryBond 2 months ago
@USTreasuryBond People can do whatever they want to, but no one is going to convince me of consumer choice being a rational argument while people still purchase products that have no benefits. Or shop at corporations that export the majority of their labor and import the majority of their product ect.
Portlandhardstylers 2 months ago
JACOB ??? IT FIGURES !
v
v
v
CAPITALISM = JEW
redskull39 3 months ago
Teddy Roosevelt was a tyrant!
UltraConservative298 3 months ago
I would also like to point out that no one has a right to a product or a right to a product a certain price. If Rockefeller or Gates or any of the other so called monopolists want to sell their products for whatever they want, that is their business. If I make a widget, that I put time and money into making, it is mine and I can charge whatever I want for it. Even if monopolies did cause harm it still would not be grounds for government intervention, because it is THEIR DAMN PRODUCT.
jerryvalez 3 months ago
Evil Monopolies Are Fairy Tales In Free Markets.....Teddy Roosevelt would disagree
noliesundead 3 months ago
@noliesundead Teddy Roosevelt was severely wrong.
TheSWTORMMO 3 months ago
@TheSWTORMMO and why is that? and remember history is easily checked.
noliesundead 3 months ago
Ok what if it cost 100$ to produce a TV. Then BigBadCompany sells it for 90$, thus attempting to price out their competition. The SmallCompany then buys the TV from the BigBadCompany for 90$ and attemps to resell it for say 95$. Who would buy the TV for 95$ when everyone can get it for 90$?
shazmodan 4 months ago
Natural monopolies can and do form in a free market, absent government intervention. I highly recommend reading "Debunking Economics" by Steve Keen, wherein he lays out the reasoning behind it.
mojorhythm 4 months ago
@mojorhythm I can't find a single example in any free market of a natural monopoly forming, save when a company invents a whole new industry.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng The telecommunications industry.
tutor2u dot net / economics/content/topics/monopoly/natural_monopoly.htm
mojorhythm 4 months ago
@mojorhythm It is no secret that the telecommunications industry petitions state and local governments for permits to be the sole* provider in a particular region. This is not at all an example of a natural monopoly.
*in many places, it's a duopoly.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng Actually, there are incentives, at times, for monopolies to form, rather than perfectly competitive markets. I don't want to give the impression that I am being evasive, but it is way too expansive a topic to address in YouTube comments. Here is the video that convinced me: /watch?v=jiJMzDtGOlE
mojorhythm 4 months ago
@mojorhythm The incentive for businesses to become monopolies is omnipresent. This was never in doubt, but the result is always that businesses competing with each other for market share invariably produce better goods and services at lower prices. The only real way for a business to become a monopoly is if consumers want them to be one. In this case, if a business can continually put out a vastly superior good or service at a very low but profitable price, they will be rewarded by the market
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng That's not always true. Sometimes the quality of goods lower when you have many competing firms. Case in point: when Ma Bell got broken up by Congress into several competing firms, long-distance communications became way more complicated than it had been, and many engineers say that it decreased technical standards. By relative benchmarks (say, compared with Finland), the US's telecommunications industry is fairly sub-par. I recommend that lecture.
mojorhythm 4 months ago
@mojorhythm Even assuming that correlation = causation, which it often does not...My goodness, that's an argument for why congress shouldn't break up companies. Now I won't pretend to know Ma Bell's case, but I am ASSUMING it is similar to what happened to Microsoft. That is, Ma Bell produced their service in such a way that the market rewarded them with massive market share.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng I'm not saying that monopolies are ALWAYS good, just in some very limited circumstances. Microsoft is an example of patent-enforced monopoly, not a natural market one.
mojorhythm 4 months ago
Great video Spinney.
liOVERLOADil 4 months ago
This was very very very good and it would be great if someone showed this to all the 99%'ers occupying wall street.
ASherbuck84 4 months ago
This doesn't explain the behavior of Goldman Sachs. Isn't owning a government a form of monopoly ?
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 Government IS a monopoly.
notadirector 4 months ago
@notadirector
Bullshit ! Government is not a monopoly. There are hundreds of Governments in the world, and they are all competing !
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 In any given country, the government has powers that no other entity has. Including waging war, welfare, coercively confiscating wealth from the people...in the US, the government is the world's largest lender, debtor, consumer, spender, landlord, tenant, landowner, car manufacturer, bank, mortgage provider, healthcare provider...and it goes on and on. Not to mention the US government has many of the powers of gov't that private entities do not have. A MASSIVE monopoly.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
So you don't like your government ? So what ? That doesn't make your government a monopoly, it just makes you un-patriotic.
By any reasonable definition governments provide essential services on behalf of the nation and cultures whose interests they represent. Governments SHOULD act within the economy, because the free market fails to provide many things, especially accountability. Governments compete with governments. They aren't monopolies at all.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 Don't put words in my mouth. I would love my government if it maintained its constitutional limits. But that's a discusion for another time.
"Essential" is a meaningless word that is very subjective. As for gov't economic activity, the government historically has created economic dislocation and wealth mismanagement that has always resulted in economic damage. As for accountability, I would say that corporations are far more accountable to the people than governments can ever be.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
Your first "point"...interesting...interesting that you consider yourself a superior constitutional lawyer to the Supreme Court of the USA. What gall ! What arrogance ! Where do you get off ?
As to your second point, I am referring to matters such as law enforcement, the military, emergency response, and where applicable, penal, health services, road maintenance, education, and utilities. All areas that history attests the free market routinely does monstrous things to.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 Stop putting words in my mouth, dumbass.
And history, for very few of your examples, have any evidence stating that they were ever market-controlled in the first place. Besides, the longer the gov't has a monopoly on any good or service, the harder it is for people to see the prosperity voluntary alternatives would create. In regards to healthcare, problems only started to arise in the industry when gov't decided that it was too important to leave to voluntary economic transactions
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
Putting words in your mouth ? It is you who implied that you know more about the enforcement of the US constitution than the Supreme Court... you claimed the US Government is exceeding it'sconstitutional limits... don't you think the Supreme Court might have noticed if that was the case ? Oh no, you clearly know more about constitutional law than the men and women who have dedicated their whole lives to understanding and upholding it's principles. You arrogant douche.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 So instead of arguing against what is my main point, you're taking what I said out of context, and arguing against your own misinterpretation. I think that's called a Straw Man argument. And the reason it's a logical fallacy is because nobody, NOBODY is going to be convinced that voluntary behavior should be restricted and individual's money should be coercively taken from them, basically nobody, gonna be convinced to accept statism in general, because I am an arrogant douche.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
Your main point is worthless. I'll get to that after we have addressed this arrogant assertion you have made that the Supreme Court is mis-administering the Constitution. I want you to defend the notion you have that you somehow know more about US Constitutional Law than the Supreme Court Judges who administer it. I haven't heard you deny or correct that central point so clearly you really believe that you do.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 I don't know why i have to defend it, you're the one that keeps saying that I know better than the supreme court justices. Now maybe you know me, and are from the future, where I am president of the United States or something. But since the odds of that are pretty much non-existient, all I see is a punk unable to defend his own flawed positions, and must resort to character assassination, as if somehow that'll convince me. So how am I more knowledgable than the supreme court judges?
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
But your specific statement was:
"I would love my government if it maintained its constitutional limits."
Well, that means that you believe that the Supreme Court is not doing its job in policing the powers of Government. And that in turn means ineluctably that you think you know better than they what the Constitution means. Or do you retract that statement ?
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 I can give you examples of Supreme Court justices saying they don't care what the constitution says, but I digress. The power of judicial review is what i'm sure you're referring to, and is in fact a power that isn't listed in the constitution, but one the supreme court gave to itself after Marbery vs Madison.
Besides, if you can't come to your own conclusions that the bureaucratic branch of gov't, social security, obamacare, glass-steagall, etc are unconstitutional, you're a moron
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
Okay, so basically by your first statement you DO think you understand the constitution better than the full bench of the US Supreme Court. You present these cases of government projects with an unsupported assumption that they are self evidently "bad" somehow. All I see is a society protecting itself from a feral capitalism.
Basically you don't accept the validity of any of the USA's institutions except for corporations. Your god is Mammon.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 You know, I REALLY wish you would stop making assumptions based on your taking my statements out of context. Here's the thing: Social Security is a ponzi scheme that is in more debt than the planet Earth's economy. Obamacare is a 2 trillion dollar trojan horse that will destroy our healthcare system, glass-steagall is useless. ALL of them have NO authorization in the United States Constitution, and I challenge you to point to me where the Constitution authorizes these...things.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
So now you think that helping people avoid starvation and homelessness is somehow a form of fraud ? I doubt that. What sort of rat scum wants to see his countrymen starve in the streets ? Your feral wall street capos rape the economy then blame the victims ? Or better yet, blame the only things that are protecting people from death by exposure and illness. I hope you lose your source of income and see the world your economic "ideas" have made more clearly.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 That's a terrible thing to wish on anyone, why would you hope that?! D:
In response to what you said, i'm not gonna argue against your straw men arguments. Either be substantive, be open to discussion, or we have nothing to say.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
I have not mis-represented your position. There is no straw man here. You don't respect the law. You are against social security which keeps people alive in tough times. You support corrupt corporations and their drive for deregulation that has already beggared the US economy. You don't want people to have adequate health care, you want the Nixonian disaster back. Yes. I think that you need to get a taste of the reality you hope to inflict upon everyone up close & personal.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 You are a sick, twisted, demented child.
But I digress. What i'm against is forcing seniors to become dependent on a gov't program that EVERYBODY knows is unsustainable. I'm against forcing everyone into a corrupt, inefficient, and overall lower quality healthcare system. I'm FOR individuals deciding for themselves and making individual decisions. I'm FOR lessening the burden of economic dislocation. I'm FOR voluntarism and individualism. What are you for? Slavery to the State?
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
You say you support seniors. You are only supporting RICH seniors. These programs ARE sustainable, lets cut the military, or better yet, make the military accountable for the stupid misuse of funds it tolerates. You say healthcare is now corrupt ? I call bullshit. What the insurance companies were doing to people was unspeakable pre-Obamacare. The state isn't slavery, the poverty of the individual without support is slavery. No government & no regulation = Somalia.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 "These programs ARE sustainable"
they are 113 trillion dollars bankrupt. that is more than the gdp of every nation in the world (including our own). If the whole entire world tried to pay that off with every dollar they had, it couldn't be done
AroundSun 4 months ago
@formless777 Somalia is recovering from totalitarianism. While I would not wish it forced on anyone like it was in there, Somalia's anarchous state is seeing a fantastic rate of economic growth.
And here's the thing. Social Security owes more than the entire economy of Planet Earth. Medicare/Medicaid owe as much as the economy of Planet Earth. All 3 are unsustainable. Not my words, the Actuarys' words. Pre-Obamacare, we had the BEST HEALTHCARE SYSTEM in the world. But you wouldn't know.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
Somalia has been recovering from totalitarianism for a very long time. How long will it take them ? It has already taken decades of anarchy. If you love Somalia so much, go live there. I'm sure it will be a land of opportunity for you in a way that the over-regulated USA apparently no longer is. Seriously, migrate to Somalia and enjoy the benefits of the true and unfettered benefits of a free market without state interference.
You are free to go and enjoy a better future.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 Now you're arguing against straw men again. Now since this unfettered lassiez-faire free market is making you nuts, I know a magical land where there are no corporations to "exploit" the working class, everyone is equal, and the government is strong, consolidated, centralized, and has only your best interests at heart. Best part is that there are no dissenters!
Go to North Korea.
Since unlike you, I love my country. I just hate what your filth have done with it. So you will lose.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
I like dissent. Dissent is good. I am not a Stalinist I am a Social Democrat. I prefer places like Sweden, Finland and Norway. I may well move there. They are certainly better and more civilized countries than the USA with it's feral capitalism. No other country would tolerate the richest 1% of the population paying no tax.
Of course you would see that as a good thing, wouldn't you ?
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 The richest 1% pay over 30% of federal income tax revenues. You're a damn liar.
Besides, it's good you want to live in a place like Scandanavia. A place where even though their politicians call themselves socialist, they're to the RIGHT of American Liberals, who want to continually centralize more power and political/social/economic decision making into the biggest monopoly in the world.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
No ! Once you get a team of accountants to factor all the deductions in, the top 1% normally wind up with the government giving them money in excess of their taxes. That's not a lie, that's the facts, I've seen it happening when I worked at KPMG back in 2005 as a consultant.
As to living in Scandinavia being right wing, that is very much a matter of perspective. Currently they don't like Muslim immigrants, true, but Muslim social values are fascist, what's to like ?
formless777 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
Also, there is no point having the "best" healthcare system in the world if even 5% of the population are locked out of it by way of it being too expensive. As it stands, a lot more than 5% of the US population were locked out of the US health system pre-Obamacare. Worse still, you could have paid 100% health insurance and still get completely shafted by the insurance companies because you once had an unreported childhood illness you forgot about.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 Ah, pre-existing conditions. only 8000 people in the US have "pre-exisiting conditions," whatever those even are. It's an overhyped talking point that is not based on fact. If you're so worried about insurance being too expensive, you should OPPOSE Obamacare, because since it's passage, premiums have gone up 30%, and everyone will be REQUIRED to buy it very soon, which will PREDICTABLY lead to higher costs and lower quality. Prehaps you should actually learn some facts.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
No, I am not specifically talking about pre-existing conditions, they're only a symptom. I'm talking about insurance companies routinely performing fraud on vulnerable recipients of health care in the pre-Obamacare days. Having paid their health insurance, these people then had their payments denied by the insurers for spurious reasons to save the insurers paying up. What's the point of having quality healthcare if people can't be sure they have access to it ?
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 I'll answer that question: The point is that IT DOESN'T HAPPEN. There's a cap at which insurance companies are required to pay for you. After that you are on your own. This cap is contractual, and is thus enforced legally. If a company breaks the contract, they might end up paying legal fees exceeding what they would've had to pay their customer in the first place. Besides, if ins cos did that, the customers they'd lose would go buy insurance somewhere else. Hardly a business model.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
Crap it doesn't happen. It happened to my Aunt Rosemary in L.A. when she got breast cancer back in 2004. If we, her family, hadn't all pitched in with money her insurer would have bankrupted her. As it is we have an ongoing law suit that we have won twice but keeps getting appealed. Your charming free market tried to rob and kill my blood relative "within the law". That's exploitation.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 You make the assumption we've ever had a free market to begin with. Not in our lifetimes, COMBINED, my friend.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng LOL. That's what I've been saying...
ouluvme2 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
Yes, but don't you think this argument about us not having a free market is a hollow one ? It sounds apologist to me. In fact I have heard a parrallel argument made when I have argued against Marxists. You say there has never been a truly free market. They say there has never been a pure Communism. I think a wise man eschews extremism and we should be thankful that ideologues (whether right or left leaning) don't get their way.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 The difference is that one system works, the other doesn't. At best, your compromise is a system that half-works. History is filled with examples of the closer we leaned towards the Right, towards smaller government and more individual freedom, the better off we all were. Conversely, when the Left has had their way towards the tyranny of statism, everyone save the ruling elite has been worse off. I can give examples of this if you want.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
Au contraire, neither a pure free market nor a pure communism works. The former is too unstable, the latter is too stultifying. Every economy is a mixed economy regardless of it's pretensions either left or right. You say the free market approach is better... I as better for whom ? It always benefits the rich to divide and marginalze the poor, and that is what the free market means for most of its victims. The converse is similarly ugly but in different ways.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 The divisions between rich and poor is a meaningless statistic that should be eschewed from economic discussions. Someone being rich doesn't make you poor. And in many examples where the rich are extremely rich, the living standards of the "marginalized" are heightened as well. Furthermore without the rich, who's going to pay the poor? I've never been employed by a poor person.
Also, "rich" should be eschewed from rhetoric as well. It's a meaningless word that is very subjective.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
And that is why you need to lose your job. Divisions between rich and poor are very meaningful if you are getting the bad end of the deal. I think such discussions need to be placed at the forefront of any economic discussion. The "trickle-down" theory has been totally discredited. Wealth disparity is the source of most of the world's problems and represents the slide from democracy and merit to oligarchy, aristocracy and nepotism. The latter produce horrible societies.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 Trickle-down is a straw man. Revenues - Expenses = Profit, and workers are an expense. Besides, there is no credible economic theory in existence that can explain how one group of people having a massive amount of money means you have less money. And there's no credible economic or even moral theory that tells us we can raise the weak by lowering the strong. Your position is very bigoted if I may say.
Thank God for the rich! Who hires workers? Who runs small and large businesses?
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng How can trickle-down be defined as a straw-man? Would probably be more accurate to say its a confusion of cause and effect.
liOVERLOADil 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
"Who runs small and large businesses? "
I bet if you look you will find many of them are not rich thanks to Wall Street.
mecher3k 4 months ago
@mecher3k The vast majority of the "millionares and billionares" you guys love to hate are small business owners who earn over 250k a year. Maybe even more. And they are hurting because people like you think that whenever a government restricts a business from doing voluntary activity, it's noble. And whenever a big business risks its money by opening a chain store, it's evil. The only harm Wall Street has EVER done to you has a direct cause from big government. Every. Single. Time.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
When you say that "the living standards of the heightened as well" that is the trickle down fallacy. These are your words and you paraphrased the trickle down effect. Admit that it is no straw man.
Next, having rich people can very well detract from the wealth of others. They will use their economic clout to establish laws only they like and remove competition, and then everyone is poorer. It happens a lot, especially in the 3rd world, but in the USA too.
formless777 4 months ago
Next, the rich are basically redundant when we consider that government is the largest employer in nearly every economy on the planet. And unlike a large corrupt corporation, I can vote my government out without investing huge quantities of money to do so.
As to your "moral" argument, I think Jesus would probably take extreme exception to that notion, which is funny given I think I remember hearing you pretending to be a Christian.
formless777 4 months ago
I have no issue with businesses, but I do expect them to reimburse the public purse for the externalities such as infrastructure that government provides (and that they would not). I also expect them to abide by laws just like everyone else, especially laws that stop them abusing the influence of their wealth. Wealth is great, but corruption is one of it's byproducts, and that leads to a collapse of social trust and ultimately to civil war.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 If you want them to stop abusing their wealth and influence, you stop that which incentivizes them to do so in the first place. You DEregulate them and LOWER their taxes. And they do abide by the law, it's just that they have to obey one, significantly larger set of laws in addition to the ones you and I have to follow. Also, why wouldn't a business invest in infrastructure with its own money?
Also, there has never been a point in history where civil war was triggered by business.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
Come on, as if that's going to work. Delinquents require discipline, not open cheque books and no structure. Yours is a recipe for "spoiled brat capitalism". Anyone can abide by the law when there aren't any. Having no laws however means companies are going to act like they do in the 3rd world, where they routinely kill people in various nasty ways. And yes, businesses should pay tax for infrastructure. Contributing to society justifies a company's existence.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 So a company providing technological innovations at the lowest price to consumers is not contributing to society? No, you only contribute if it's involuntary. That, and your correlation = causation argument doesn't exactly do much for your credibility.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
Both these claims of validity are highly open to question. Not every company is a technical innovator. Not every company provides lowest prices. In fact most companies only begrudgingly hand money out to R&D and will raise prices to whatever the market will bear.
Following your "involuntary" argument, how about removing involuntary laws like those regarding theft then ?
Society requires laws, and enforcing laws requires tax.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 Yes, enforcing laws requires tax. I don't know why you need to say that.
But as for you other non-points, if a company wants to continue making a profit, it will spend money for R&D. They don't have to have the lowest price if their product is higher quality and thus more expensive, but all companies are incentivized to have the lowest profitable price, unless they want to be outbid by someone who IS willing to put out the lowest price.
Also, your theft example is very poor.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
I need to remind you that tax exists for a reason, and that there can NEVER be a free market. Government is necessary, and so is it's coercive force. You are wrong about R&D. Most companies never spend on R&D, they just buy new equipment periodically.
Finally, companies are more likely to spend on reducing the price of production than on lowering price. Mostly they will collude to raise prices. You assume there is no fake demand created by advertising and rational consumers.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 Advertising isn't mind control. I'm a man, and i'm not about to buy tampons because I saw an ad on TV. Individuals have the final say in how they want to spend their money. Even if one consumer is totally irrational, it doesn't matter.
And companies not lowering their prices? They certainly can do so, but only if they're okay with losing to a competitor that DOES lower their prices.
Also, where do you think that new equipment comes from? Companies with R&D budgets. Idiot.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
Advertising isn't mind control... tell that to the parent of a child who has been screaming for 8 hours solid that they want to go to McDonalds. It isn't always mind control, but I know enough apple freaks to think that it can be. As to consumer irrationality, the point is that no consumer is either wholly rational nor wholly irrational, yes they will spend their money but seldom truly in their own best interests.
formless777 4 months ago
Now to the R&D point. Investing in new capital is not an investment in R&D, except by proxy for the percentage that goes to the company that is doing the R&D. There are plenty of companies (in primary production for example) that rarely need to buy new equipment, and when they do, actually buy old and second hand, because things were better before programmed obsolescence (another corrupt free market practice).
formless777 4 months ago
As to companies lowering their prices, frankly I cannot recall a time when any manufacturing company I'm aware of actively cut their prices to the consumer. That is something retailers do at "sales".
A sufficiently large company with a large advertising budget can dominate a market almost completely, and easily squeeze out smaller firms you would consider more competitive. In fact, the larger firms often simply buy out the smaller firms to reduce competition.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 Yes, they can buy out smaller firms, but this is a massive windfall to the owners of the smaller firm, and a voluntary transaction. The smaller firm can simply choose NOT to be bought out.
As for ads, you're overestimating their effect. Do they have an effect? Yes. Is it mind control? Hell no. Consumers still have a final say, and if they don't like the product the ad advertises, they aren't going to buy it.
If you want examples of snowballing lower prices, try free antibiotics?
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
It is more typical to drive the smaller firm to the wall with unfair competition first, then buy them out. No windfall there. Without a government to protect them, the smaller firms are always going to be destroyed by larger ones.
Second point, you don't have kids do you ?
Third point, what free antibiotics ? Aren't cheap antibiotics actually destroying the effectiveness of the whole suite of antibiotics anyway ? That's a bad thing.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 The ways at which an intrepid monopolist can drive competition out are very limited, and there are MANY ways for the company being driven out to counter this, making it backfire on the intrepid monopolist.
And kids? No. But they aren't mind control either. I mean, you can...just say no.
And pretty much every major grocery store in America's pharmacy gives away free antibiotics. At least mine do. Look it up when you get the chance.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
Please tell me you at least need a prescription to get these free antibiotics ? I have no problem with giving people free medication, but to do so without a reliable medical recommendation is irresponsible, not to mention the degradation of the antibiotic defense legacy.
As to kids and saying no. When is anything in life ever that simple ?
Also without government control, monopolism is the logical fruit of the free market; eventually someone wins the competition.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 To be honest I don't know what the procedure is. But all indications tell me that prices snowballed to the point where one of the most effective disease-fighters are available free of charge.
And yes, you can say no. I don't know if you have kids, but you CAN just say no. If they have an allowance, it's their responsibility.
And monopolies will only exist if consumers want them to. Watch the video we're commenting in. It explains this very thoroughly.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
People can say no to their children, but McDonald's target demographic seems to be those who can't. The food is proven to be bad for you, the advertising is aimed at kids, and the parents know better but wind up going there anyhow... in their millions. Is this rational consumer behavior ? I don't think so. Kids exert a lot of nag power and nagging has proven to be the most effective human strategy for getting what you want ever devised; there have been studies on it.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 ...and? I really don't see the relevence. That's not an argument for regulation either, that's just saying consumers can be irrational. Which very few people are denying.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
So what you are saying is... that one of the largest companies in the world (McDonalds) is based on the fact that most consumers are continuously irrational... in fact one of the greatest industrial sectors in the free market (Fast Food) is based on the fact that most consumers are continuously irrational...
I think this business model contradicts a lot of what you say about the free market.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 I'm not saying it, you are. don't put words in my mouth.
Rationality is a personal responsibility, and it is up to us as individuals to decide what is best for ourselves. It is NOT the responsibility of politicians and bureaucrats to set up one-size-fits-all solutions to perceived problems. Besides, someone else being irrational doesn't pick my pocket or break my leg to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson. If McDonalds is so EEEVIIILLL then don't buy from them.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
So rationality is an individual's responsibility ? And yet individuals are pretty well unable to behave rationally according to all measures of such in psychological tests, and indeed in the economy, as the McDonalds example proves. Did I say McDonalds is evil ? No, but they have utterly turned everything you say about the free market on it's head. They make a worse product at a higher price, trade on the power of kids nagging parents, and win every time. Plz explain...
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 I have no doubt you're lying about these "psychological tests." If you're not, there's no problem citing them, right? Besides, this begs the question. What is the standard for "rationality?" And how come politicians who win popularity contests somehow transcend human irrationality to create unquestionably perfect one-size-fits-all solutions? Furthermore, why do humans have to either be perfectly rational or perfectly irrational?
And your point about McDonalds is incoherent.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
Clearly you haven't heard about behavioral economics' critiques of rational choice theory. Go do a search, I'm not your research assistant you knuckle-dragging ignoramus.
I also agree that selection of politicians is often irrational, but it is not more or less irrational than our economic behavior.
I am also pleased that you admit that you are too stupid to understand my McDonalds argument. The other people who read the threat will not be. I enjoy highlighting your idiocy.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 You do realize insults and being condescending does not help your credibility?
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
You seem quite prepared to indulge in both insults and condescension, so I suggest you heed your own advice, for I am well past listening to your ill-considered opinions.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 Here's the thing: I can condescend to you, because I know you are an irrational, uninformed human physically incapable of making the decisions for yourself, so you need someome you don't know, never met, probably don't like, and may not have even voted for to make those decisions FOR you. And how do I know all of this? Because you've pretty much told me yourself, unless you're arguing that everyone except you needs to have decisions made for them, but we all agree that's absurd.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
And I condescend to you because you're an arrogant spoiled brat who fails to understand that his simplistic ideological grasp of capitalism fails to grasp any of the downsides to the system he's such a Pollyanna cheerleader for.
Let me say again, the free market is inherrently unstable and produces gross injustices and socially unacceptable outcomes if left unregulated. Without government support there is no free market, and markets need regulation to stabilize them.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777
"Without government support there is no free market."
"the free market is inherently unstable and produces gross injustices and socially unacceptable outcomes"
Oh, I see. Your definition of a free market is a semblance of a market that is run almost exclusively by the government. Well in that sense, you are correct.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
No, that is not my definition of a free market. My definition of a true free market is a place where humans are traded as commodities, and where wages never exceed subsistence as that is unprofitable. It is a place of haves and have nots written to extremes. It is a place where monopolies flourish backed by private armies, taking the role of defacto states. It is an inhuman place of untennable contradictions, where ordinary people have no hope save revolution.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 You realize what you just described is the government that doesn't recognize the limits of its own power?
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
Any system if taken to its ideological extremes will produce gross injustice. Communism was one extreme. You support the polar opposite, but the results will prove similarly horrible. With no government regulation slavery could be reintroduced to handle issues of debt recovery; why not ? Slavery can be quite profitable, and only profit would matter. The lack of a military will see the free market solution of mercenaries owing sole allegiance to their paymasters.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 What you describe is Statism yet you attribute it to Capitalism. The fact of the matter is, like any liberal, you deal in extremes, and argue against straw men. I am NOT arguing for anarchy. NOBODY (except maybe Ron Paul) is. The fact of the matter is that you can have a Laissez-Faire capitalist economy AND have a government, they aren't mutually exclusive.
And Totalitarianism is the extreme left. If there is an extreme right, its Anarchy.
EmpperorIng 4 months ago
@EmpperorIng
If a single company becomes large enough and powerful enough it will become a state.
You may THINK you aren't arguing for anarchy, but extensive deregulation leads to anarchy.
And in fact a "pure" Free Market is one that exists without any government to regulate it. Of course such markets don't exist because they can't.
As to what is left and right on this issue, Totalitarianism can be either Stalinist or Fascist, and Anarchy can be either Communitarian or Libertarian.
formless777 3 months ago
@EmpperorIng Ron Paul is arguing for laisse-faire capitalism and limited government, not anarchy. Murray Rothbard argued for anarcho-capitalism.
UltraConservative298 3 months ago
@EmpperorIng
As to civil wars generated by business... You obviously don't know much about modern African history. Consider De Beers' financing of the civil war in Angola and Namibia. Consider Shell's involvement in the civil wars in Congo and Nigeria. Consider the role played by Chinese companies in Zimbabwe and the conflicts in the Horn of Africa atm. All cases of corporate funded mercenaries making the world worse for ordinary people.
formless777 4 months ago
@formless777 "social security which keeps people alive in tough times"
typical liberal economic illiterate mental patient you are huh
"You support corrupt corporations and their drive for deregulation"
yes, because there is nothing more that a company wants than to increase competitors and lose subsidies.......
AroundSun 4 months ago
@AroundSun
Yes, social security keeps people alive in tough times. Your response is just ad hominem bullshit; it is not a refutation of my position. Evidence or STFU.
Next, deregulation doesn't automatically mean there will be more competitors; normally it means corporations drive for defacto monopolies. As for lost subsidies, just more evidence that corporations are hypocrites.
formless777 4 months ago
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Amen. Its ALWAYS the government who create monopolies. That's the problem in healthcare in the U. S. We have essentially created ogopolies with all of our regulations. Ron Paul 2012!
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