Legitamate Market Force?

[Nono]

Quote by: Domino Given that any entity is corruptible, private entities are far less accountable. Unlike corporations, a government cannot simply change its name and start over with a clean slate.

Yes. You basically have a (realistic) choice between having things regulated by the Federal Government (in the case of the US) or by Proctor&Gamble-cum-Microsoft. I'd take the former any day.

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Nono Yes. You basically have a (realistic) choice between having things regulated by the Federal Government (in the case of the US) or by Proctor&Gamble-cum-Microsoft. I'd take the former any day.

Perhaps you live where government is accountable. Perhaps it's just a genuine difference of opinion, but you know I'm certainly not on your side here. I'll take the other option, thank you very much.

[MplsBison]

Quote by: lsbskins1 you would never make shoes if people did not need shoes. The business would not be if it did not fill a need. That is why it exists.

OK, I agree with that.



But you can appreciate that if a business can not sell the shoes that they make for more money than the amount of money it took to create those shoes, it will go out of business, right?


A business must make profit or it will cease to exist, regardless if it is filling a need.

[MplsBison]

Quote by: Nono Agreed LOL. The whole question involves the definition of "needed".

It comes down to the definition of human necessity.



I would like to think that as the most advanced country in the world we can allow our definition of human necessity to provide for a relatively high quality of life.


Just making sure people have 4 walls, a floor, a ceiling and the minimum food/water needed to survive does not cut it for a nation as great as ours.

[lsbskins1]

Quote by: Milton Bradley History. This is one of those times when our side asks for a single example of the government getting something right, and then the thread dies, or the point is ignored.

Just one? Ok, Interstate Highway System. Good for defense, good for commerce. I'm sure you will attempt to nit-pick it, but over-all, a very successful project. Will it ever be perfect? Nope, but nothing ever is.

Quote by: Milton Bradley Regulation could occur through a private entity, but for some reason that scenario is always unacceptable to those of the Left side of this issue.

To quote you, history. Regulation "could" occur through a private entity, but it does not. That is why it is unacceptable to those on the left. We tend to reject answers that time and experience have taught us do not work.

Quote by: Milton Bradley Quite simply, the government bureaucracy is the poison pill. It has always been so. There is no accountability in current government, and granting them more powers is an exercise in futility. Whenever anything bad ( take public schools for example ) occurs, the solution is always to cede more power to government, take more of the same medicine that complicated matters in the first place. The answer is always throw money at the problem. That's you answer in a nutshell, but then, I remember explaining all of this to you before, so I expect that this was not really the answer you fishing for.

The big, bad bureaucracy bugaboo. Yes, any form of administration can tend to create log jams and "red tape". Ever work for a big company? I once worked for one that actually plan-o-gramed where to put your tape on your desk, sent out flyers to all offices. They (big private interprise) are just as subject to this kind of crap as government. Claiming that government is the cause of this issue is disingenuous. The causes of the problem exist in any human endeavor. We can't outlaw lawyers, nor can we eradicate those who search for loopholes, those who down-right cheat, lie and steal or those who are just plain stupid. This causes a need for a constant hashing and rehashing, codifying and re-establishing. You also have interagency/departmental rivalries. All these problems exist in the private sector to as great a degree as they do in government. Blaming government for this problem is like blaming sin on religion.

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: lsbskins1 Just one? Ok, Interstate Highway System. Good for defense, good for commerce. I'm sure you will attempt to nit-pick it, but over-all, a very successful project. Will it ever be perfect? Nope, but nothing ever is.

Heh, you finally came up with what you think is a good example. Unfortunately, in the long term, they are proving to be too costly, and there is talk of privatization.

Quote by: lsbskins1 To quote you, history. Regulation "could" occur through a private entity, but it does not. That is why it is unacceptable to those on the left. We tend to reject answers that time and experience have taught us do not work.

What example/examples are you referring to?

Quote by: lsbskins1 The big, bad bureaucracy bugaboo. Yes, any form of administration can tend to create log jams and "red tape". Ever work for a big company? I once worked for one that actually plan-o-gramed where to put your tape on your desk, sent out flyers to all offices. They (big private interprise) are just as subject to this kind of crap as government. Claiming that government is the cause of this issue is disingenuous. The causes of the problem exist in any human endeavor. We can't outlaw lawyers, nor can we eradicate those who search for loopholes, those who down-right cheat, lie and steal or those who are just plain stupid. This causes a need for a constant hashing and rehashing, codifying and re-establishing. You also have interagency/departmental rivalries. All these problems exist in the private sector to as great a degree as they do in government. Blaming government for this problem is like blaming sin on religion.

Yes, but you cite the exceptions, and not the rule. Of course we can always find bad examples of either philosophy, but show me a government operation that can be compared to the Better Business Bureau. They manage to operate in the Black every year.


And I hope you note the irony of me throwing a "bureau" in your face as an example.

[lsbskins1]

Quote by: Milton Bradley Heh, you finally came up with what you think is a good example. Unfortunately, in the long term, they are proving to be too costly, and there is talk of privatization.

There is also "talk" about overthrowing our current government because they are really part of the "One World Government" conspiracy. There is also "talk" about ending public schooling. All that "talk" is coming from pretty much the same place. Want to show me some statistics that establish that the highway system has not been a net gain for the country?

Quote by: Milton Bradley What example/examples are you referring to?

Read "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. Study the civil war and how our troops were sold rancid meat and cardboard bottomed boots. We regulate because private industry proves over and over again that they need regulating.

Quote by: Milton Bradley Yes, but you cite the exceptions, and not the rule. Of course we can always find bad examples of either philosophy, but show me a government operation that can be compared to the Better Business Bureau. They manage to operate in the Black every year. And I hope you note the irony of me throwing a "bureau" in your face as an example.

The government is not a "for profit" entity. Most of the services the government provides are prone to being "in the red" opperations. You can't put an Army in the field and make money on the enterprise. The benefits are not directly monetary. In the long term, big picture they mostly are, but not on a year to year speadsheet basis. It costs real money to buy school books. You do not get direct return. What you get is a literate populace that creates greater productivity for private enterprise. The government almost always "looses", but society gains. Private enterprise looks at those year to year speadsheets and tries to limit those costs, ignoring the long term gains. You need to get out of the "what does it cost me NOW" blinders and start thinking of things in long term, indirect gains.

[grandpa]

Quote by: lsbskins1 There is also "talk" about overthrowing our current government because they are really part of the "One World Government" conspiracy. There is also "talk" about ending public schooling.

I don't know about the "One World Government," Freemason and UFO conspiracy business, but I do know government is made up of conspiracies; some tied together, some conflicting. You mention public schooling. Well, plenty of Christian organizations are out trying to inject religion into it, and patriotic groups try to regulate what can and cannot go into textbooks. So plots certainly exist to influence public opinion in a profound way.

Grandpa h.

[lsbskins1]

Quote by: grandpa I don't know about the "One World Government," Freemason and UFO conspiracy business, but I do know government is made up of conspiracies; some tied together, some conflicting. You mention public schooling. Well, plenty of Christian organizations are out trying to inject religion into it, and patriotic groups try to regulate what can and cannot go into textbooks. So plots certainly exist to influence public opinion in a profound way. Grandpa h.

Marriage is made up of conspiracies, Sunday church service is made up of conspiracies, high school cheerleading squads are made up of conspiracies. There is a difference between people banding together for mutual gain and keeping secrets in the process and criminal conspiracies. What are we talking about?

[grandpa]

Quote by: lsbskins1 Marriage is made up of conspiracies, Sunday church service is made up of conspiracies, high school cheerleading squads are made up of conspiracies. There is a difference between people banding together for mutual gain and keeping secrets in the process and criminal conspiracies.

Here you assume conspiracies must be illegal to be noteworthy.
Plenty of negative conspiracies are part of the process of law.

Grandpa h.

[lsbskins1]

Quote by: grandpa Here you assume conspiracies must be illegal to be noteworthy. Plenty of negative conspiracies are part of the process of law. Grandpa h.

My point is not that they are not troublesome. My point is not that they are to be encouraged. My point is that lots of people are naturally duplicitous, and this infects all walks of life. You would not dream that you could ever educate or socialize people out of lying, why do you think you need to chase all these unavoidable "conspiracies" around as if they were nuclear waste? Why waste energy fighting battles you can never win on any level. I am all for doing everything you can to lessen these problems, but in the end, you need to accept the fact that we will never reach a "perfect" place, where no one wants what others have and where we all cooperate in perfect anarchistic bliss. It ain't ever going to happen. It's like you believe that if we outlaw playgrounds, there will be no more pedophiles. Playgrounds don't create people who prey on children, they simply attract them. If you outlaw playgrounds, there will just be more of them in churches and schools. Getting rid of government will not end greed or violence or power. It will just mean those things will bubble up in other places.

But this is pretty off topic.

[Nono]

Quote by: Mpls It comes down to the definition of human necessity. I would like to think that as the most advanced country in the world we can allow our definition of human necessity to provide for a relatively high quality of life. Just making sure people have 4 walls, a floor, a ceiling and the minimum food/water needed to survive does not cut it for a nation as great as ours.

Well, M, not everybody thinks it's so great. Oh, I forgot, God blesses it, don't He?

The countries with the most of what I would consider makes a society "great" (widely shared prosperity, peace, social services, etc.) are generally countries with more regulation (by democratically elected government, of course). Draw your own conclusions.

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: lsbskins1 The government is not a "for profit" entity. Most of the services the government provides are prone to being "in the red" opperations.

But the vast bureaucracy favored by the Statists offers nothing but negative side effects.


Theft, power usurpation, criminal conduct, unaccountability, all the things you say are rampant in the private sector have never been worse than they are now, under government control.


This is why welfare state problems should be handled through charities, and philanthropic ventures rather than government.

Quote by: lsbskins1 You can't put an Army in the field and make money on the enterprise.

Hmmm, isn't that a bad example on your part, as that exaclty what you Liberals claim Bush is doing?

Quote by: lsbskins1 The benefits are not directly monetary. In the long term, big picture they mostly are, but not on a year to year speadsheet basis. It costs real money to buy school books. You do not get direct return. What you get is a literate populace that creates greater productivity for private enterprise. The government almost always "looses", but society gains. Private enterprise looks at those year to year speadsheets and tries to limit those costs, ignoring the long term gains. You need to get out of the "what does it cost me NOW" blinders and start thinking of things in long term, indirect gains.

I know you can always come up with reasons to coerce my money from me, but how about actually supporting some of those contentions for once.


The governments been involded in this since FDR, and the problems just keep getting worse.


As far as my knowledge of history goes, the Welfare State is a proven failure. Why do you continue to believe otherwise? ( I know it's really just your Liberal agenda, but I'm hoping you plan on actually supporting some of your contentions. )

[grandpa]

Quote by: Milton Bradley But the vast bureaucracy favored by the Statists offers nothing but negative side effects. Theft, power usurpation, criminal conduct, unaccountability, all the things you say are rampant in the private sector have never been worse than they are now, under government control.

I agree. Of course, one can always argue these bureaucracies aren't absolutely
counter to everyone's survival and should therefore be kept around. It's a typical authoritarian line of argument and, ultimately, one side effect of government control. Expansionism breeds expansionism. Just ask the interim Iraqi government.

Grandpa h.

[lsbskins1]

Quote by: Milton Bradley But the vast bureaucracy favored by the Statists offers nothing but negative side effects.

All systems offer negitive side effects. The question is really which offers the least negetive side effects. And it is not just a question of quantity, it is a question of overall effect. So, if my system offers the negitive side effects of say, a group of people who are a constant drain on the welfare system because they do not want to work, and your system offers the negitive side effect that all those people who would have not worked are now not working AND breaking into our houses and stealing our VCR's, the question becomes which system costs you more in the end. You don't lose the tax dollars to welfare, you lose the tax dollars to the prison system (where you have to pay for their food and the costs of the guards to watch them) and you also lose your VCR. I think my system offers a net gain to the populace. There is a great book on this very subject. It is called "From Poor Law to Welfare State", you should pick it up and give it a read.

Quote by: Milton Bradley Theft, power usurpation, criminal conduct, unaccountability, all the things you say are rampant in the private sector have never been worse than they are now, under government control.

Yes they have. Read about what went on when they were building the railroads. Read about the Teapot Dome Scandal. I realize we had government then, but it was a government much more to your liking. Cheaters, thiefs and lying bastards will always be a problem. They will always find ways to cheat, steal and lie.

Quote by: Milton Bradley This is why welfare state problems should be handled through charities, and philanthropic ventures rather than government.

As above, read "From Poorlaw..,", we have the system that we have because private charity and philanthropic ventures never generate enough to handle the problem. Government took over entirely because of that.

Quote by: Milton Bradley Hmmm, isn't that a bad example on your part, as that exaclty what you Liberals claim Bush is doing?

The government isn't making money, oil companies and Halaburton are. Don't look so hard for the smartass comeback that you forget to be accurate.

Quote by: Milton Bradley I know you can always come up with reasons to coerce my money from me, but how about actually supporting some of those contentions for once.

Okey-Doke. I contend that as we move further away from FDR's system and closer to the ideal you support, the rich are getting way richer and the poor are in a rut. Here is some support for that contention. Image:United States Income Distribution 1967-2003.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I contend that welfare reform is not a net gain for society. Start at pg 21 of this report for an overview of what the "crackdown" on the non-working poor might be and is doing. http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/D454.pdf

I contend that education increases the the per capita productivity of a nation. Check out this, Countries with the lowest rates of literacy, and this, FRB: Bernanke, Education and Economic Competitiveness, and this,The Economic Impact of Higher Education. Want more? I can find it easily.

Quote by: Milton Bradley The governments been involded in this since FDR, and the problems just keep getting worse.

Really? According to this, Historical Poverty Tables, poverty levels dropped year to year during the heyday of "The Welfare State" and *bing*, started going up again after welfare reform. I think that supports my contention that "The Welfare State" did not and does not increase the problem of poverty.

Quote by: Milton Bradley As far as my knowledge of history goes, the Welfare State is a proven failure. Why do you continue to believe otherwise? ( I know it's really just your Liberal agenda, but I'm hoping you plan on actually supporting some of your contentions. )

Wrong, wrong, wrong. And I have SUPPORTED MY CONTENTIONS! Don't you just hate me now?

[Charlatan]

The government taking over? Well things would run smoother, supposing that everyone works for the state and not privately, they should be more willing to cooperate with each other. The problem is that the more people work together, the more they could scam from the people. How about the state seeing what would be most profitable for it and banning the rest, the consumer would suffer from a more restriced market, meaning prices could go up for said goods, seeing as how the choices aren't there so they must buy the goods that are, and that will cost more, because of the options available to them. With the government planning what the prices will be, sort of price fixing, they could make a lot from asking for money from the people to be allowed to sell goods there, like selling the rights to trade. With the state, or a few people in the loop, they could rob the country blind.

[grandpa]

Quote by: Charlatan The government taking over? Well things would run smoother, supposing that everyone works for the state and not privately, they should be more willing to cooperate with each other.

Of course, private interests are increasingly taking over the federal government, so it's questionable how much good could be accompolished.

Furthermore, let's not pretend the state is defined as "cooperating with each other." It is about compulsion, pure and simple. And so is the so-called "private" realm, which is also propped up by legal coercion. To admit this would at least be intellectually honest.

Grandpa h.

[lsbskins1]

Quote by: grandpa Of course, private interests are increasingly taking over the federal government, so it's questionable how much good could be accomplished. Furthermore, let's not pretend the state is defined as "cooperating with each other." It is about compulsion, pure and simple. And so is the so-called "private" realm, which is also propped up by legal coercion. To admit this would at least be intellectually honest. Grandpa h.

The state is not "about compulsion, pure and simple". It becomes tiresome, you know. I do not vote for my representatives based on who is going to make me do the most against my will or make someone else do the most against their will. I vote for them based on who promotes the policies I believe will serve the greater good.You prattle on about the evils of compulsion in the state as if the state serves no other purpose. To me, you sound like a teenager, bitching - "Dad grounded me. He is so stupid. Dad made me clean my room. He is such a jerk. Dad made me do my homework. He is nothing but a dictator." It is really quite simple. Some people need coercing. Some people will drive 120 miles an hour past a school. Some people will shoot you for your leather jacket. Some people will drive past your house and bust your mailbox with a baseball bat because it amuses them. Some people will live under the freedom the state secures for them and never pay a penny in taxes to support the army. Pretending that if you took the power of the state to coerce away, that those people would then settle down and behave is fantasy. Pretending that the existence of the state causes those people to exist is fantasy. No state is perfect. No state will ever be perfect. But doing away with state power because it is subject to corruption is pure madness. You may as well just go ahead and kill all people, because people are subject to corruption. Bad government is the cause of great harm, to be sure but people will lie, cheat and steal in the name and under the auspices of any damn thing you can think of. Some doctors preform unnecessary surgery to make more money. Do you suggest we do away with doctors? Some mechanics will charge you for unnecessary repairs. Shall we do away with mechanics now? Some postal workers will go nuts and shoot all their co-workers. No more mail deliverers?

Let me ask you this, if someone shot the person you most care about in this world and a policeman came to your house to ask you questions to try to put them on the trail of the killer, would you tell the nasty bastard to go away and quit trying to enforce those evil laws that shouldn't exist to begin with? Do you go buy blacktop and fill in every pot hole on the road on your way to work so that the evil, coercive tax system can be done away with? Do you give 20 bucks a week to the soldiers living in your neigborhood to pay them for what they do for you? To admit that you do not and would not would at least be intellectually honest.

[grandpa]

Quote by: lsbskins1 The state is not "about compulsion, pure and simple". It becomes tiresome, you know.

Yes it is. It uses coercion even in its simplest, most benign functions.

Grandpa h.

[Milton Bradley]

Look lsbskins, illustrating education makes leads to a better standard of living is all welll, and good, but what about "governement education", like you are contending?


Your links don't support your contention.