On January 23 2012 20:32 bOneSeven wrote: Seriously America what the hell ? Either the voting is a complete fraud are the people are beyond.....
As a republican, let me explain why republicans are drawn to Newt. As a result of George W Bush years, we republicans have developed a bit of an inferiority complex regarding our politicians -- specifically their inability to cleanly articulate conservative principles and ideals. In other words, we're tired of our politicians looking like idiots. We know that conservative values, when properly articulated, are incredibly powerful and popular. We've seen it before (Reagan), and we know there are people today who can articulate it very well (Rush Limbaugh is particularly good at this).
Of the candidates, Gingrich articulates conservative values better than anyone (when he chooses to). I've remarked multiple times in this thread that Gingrich is the smartest guy on the stage at any of the debates, and I can't imagine how anyone can still doubt this after the last debate. Republicans look at Gingrich and see a guy who actually can talk the talk. Hell, Gingrich even knows that this is why people are drawn to him. Why do you think he keeps mentioning that he's the guy to debate Obama and is always mentioning the Lincoln/Douglas debates? He's playing on the desire of republican voters to have a smart-sounding candidate.
If you compare Newt to any of other candidates, none of them can hold a candle to his eloquence. Romney is passionless and equivocating. Paul is just a little too crazy. Santorum is an asshole. We'll see how this plays out, but republicans clearly like Newt's style.
Wow. You just hit the nail on the head. Great post.
Then they can get another job at another industry. Its not like you only can work at one kind of industry. So yeh I kinda think your confusing the problem with monopolies. Most people kinda think its a price of product problem. Low wages isn't really a problem with monopolies.
Depends. If they aren't very qualified, their options are limited to a specific few set of areas, and as it happens those areas are where a huge portion of monopolies take place. And no, I don't think it's one or the other, I think it's both. A big corporation can sustain incredibly low prices by basically paying their workers next to nothing.
No, there are shitton of jobs for people with no qualificans (clean stuff up, the garden, easy administration work etc., or perhaps take an eduction combined with a loan. The problem with minimum wage is actualyl that it creates unemployment, since employees wont give them a job if they require 20$, yet is only worth 10$ for the employee. However if they are worth, 10$ then they can get that job. Unemployment in a free market is voluntary. If you think your too good or if your demands are too high, then you might be unemploymed. But if your willing to accept what the company thinks your worht you will get the job.
L
Except theres also such as "You need X amount of money to survive", which is pretty much around the level of minimum wage for 40 hours a week, etc. Obviously that is not a specific or guranteed number, but it is accurate.
I understand what you're saying, but I think you're also overrating just how many oppurtunities there are for some people. Some people do not have cars, some people have to take care of kids. They have specific limitations on what to exactly they can do, or what jobs they can take.
For example, my summer job is assisting kids that take summer school basically (it actually pays 3 bucks over minimum wage and I'm only 17, holyyyyyyyyyyy shit), and plenty of them have told me "My mom has to take me and my brother to different programs at X, Y during the day, well maintaining Z, and thus only has period P to work. And during period P there are very very few oppurtunties in regards to jobs, and all of the them are minimum wage level, so she has to take them, and just barely gets by."
I'm not sure exactly how much you know about US standard of living, but we have a FUCK ton of people who barely scrape by as it is, and removing minimum wage would destroy and hope they have.
Removing minimum wage wouldn't destroy them. They would be paid what they are worth. As US minmum wage is relatively low (compared to danish) the current minimum wage most likely doesn't change anything for 99.9% of all people, as the minimum wage is probably close to the value the "brain-dead" workers are worth. Removal of minimum wage however would make it possible for the upper "unqualified" people to get a job (which they couldn't before).
I think the current minimum wage in US is mostly a pshycological thing. It doesn't really change anything if its removed or not. But I guess that you can see the problem with us danes. When your 18 year old, you get fired from your job, as your employee dont want to pay you 20$.
Except the concept of "brain dead" work, or how much it is worth is completely alterable by larger corporations if they have enough power, which is why the government put minimum wage in place, and continually increases it as we go forward.
I dont think you have been reading what I wrote. Governement minimum wages doesn't change anything for the better: It gives those people who are valuable the same wage, and lets people who are not valuable be unemployed. But I guess i cant convince you over night. Just reflect about it, and eventually you might change your mind if your open minded.
And I don't think you're reading what I'm posting. Lets say X job is woth 10 bucks an hour and Y job is worth 5 bucks an hour (this being the general opinion, not just the deeming of a specific individual like ourselves), and the minimum wage is 5 bucks an hour. Obviously anyone working the X job doesn't really care about minimum wage, but someone working the Y job has to because...
If we remove minimum wage, than a corporation can suddenly say the Y job is only worth 2 dollars an hour. (Obviously we don't know exactly what a job is worth, but lets assume here that most people would agree it's worth 5)
Your arguement is that if they did this someone else would just come along and say "Hey F that business, I'll still pay 5 bucks for job Y" and then all the people getting paid 2 bucks would run over to that new business.
My arguement is that, if the business who is installing Y=2 dollars is powerful enough, they can basically block any of their competition whatsoever. (They can do this by refusing the manufacturers if they sell to the other business, or slashing their prices so far that business number two can't keep up) So business number two, that is offering the job at 5 dollars an hour becomes unable to support itself, and thus has to drop down to Y=2 if they want to keep themselves afloat. (And realistically, they'd actually have to drop even lower)
And thus, with Y=2, people are much worse off, and it's very possible they won't even be able to support themselves to the point of living, and then they have to sell their homes/cars/etc.
No your still not understandign me. BEcause you keep assuming that these kind of workers only can work at that specific company and have no other choice. And as I have previosuly said, that is an absurd asumption. Even today non eduacated people can work in a shitton of industries, or do a shitton of work that requires no skill (just time).
But let me play the game, assuming your absurd assumption is true: Every non educated guy only can get a job at one company (lol). Then they would still have the option to take an education. And assming that people are soemwhat weahlthy in average in that country, having an education is going to pay off big time.
It might help if i put up a few numbers:
Amount of people in country: 100,000 Amount of people working in monopoly: 10,000
Monopoly paying you: 10$/hour. Average income with an av. education = 100. Average education costs is unknown.
Amount of houurs you expect to work after having finished education till you die (300*30*10) = 90,000. That pays you: 90,000 *100 = 9,000,000$.
Assume the present value of the future income is 4.000,000$ Nominal value of monopoly job: 10*90.000 = 900,000$. Present value = 400,000$.
Differenence = 3,6000,000$.
This means that the present value cost of an educaiton actually could be as high as 3.600.000$ for the education to be worth it.
To be fair though my example ignored the fact that you could work for the monopoly in more years, since you aren't using time taking an education.
The above illustrates that if there is a huge difference between being non educated and educated it pays of big time to take a loan and get an education.
So even giving your absurd assumption this isn't even a problem, as long as you are willing to workd hard and take an education.
Absurd assumption? It's true for millions of freaking Americans. I would know, BECAUSE I WORK AND GO TO SCHOOL WITH SOME OF THEM.
I'm done arguing with you. Just try to remember this. Not every country is like Denmark, and this thread isn't about candidates from there that are trying to deal with the problems there.
Every planet is both full of water and has the building blocks for life. I would know because I live on a planet that's full of water!
You go to work with some of them.......and think you can apply their situations to a million people. You are inducing a bit too much.
As a republican, let me explain why republicans are drawn to Newt. As a result of George W Bush years, we republicans have developed a bit of an inferiority complex regarding our politicians -- specifically their inability to cleanly articulate conservative principles and ideals. In other words, we're tired of our politicians looking like idiots. We know that conservative values, when properly articulated, are incredibly powerful and popular. We've seen it before (Reagan), and we know there are people today who can articulate it very well (Rush Limbaugh is particularly good at this).
Of the candidates, Gingrich articulates conservative values better than anyone (when he chooses to). I've remarked multiple times in this thread that Gingrich is the smartest guy on the stage at any of the debates, and I can't imagine how anyone can still doubt this after the last debate. Republicans look at Gingrich and see a guy who actually can talk the talk. Hell, Gingrich even knows that this is why people are drawn to him. Why do you think he keeps mentioning that he's the guy to debate Obama and is always mentioning the Lincoln/Douglas debates? He's playing on the desire of republican voters to have a smart-sounding candidate.
If you compare Newt to any of other candidates, none of them can hold a candle to his eloquence. Romney is passionless and equivocating. Paul is just a little too crazy. Santorum is an asshole. We'll see how this plays out, but republicans clearly like Newt's style.
Wow. You just hit the nail on the head. Great post.
Yeah, it's just too bad Gingrich is a subhuman scumbag who doesn't deserve the time of day from any person. You don't get to preach conservative family values after cheating on your wife who's battling cancer for survival.
Everyone remember that potential candidate everyone wanted to run, you know, Chris Christie? Yeah, he despises Gingrich:
That's right folks, for those of you who have forgotten or just never knew, Gingrich was fined for Ethics violations while he was in congress and was asked to step down as Speaker of the House.
Gingrich's only defense to any comment regarding all the shit he's done wrong in the past is "How dare you bring that up" or "What about the shit you've done wrong?".
"After extensive investigation and negotiation by the House Ethics Committee, Gingrich was reprimanded and penalized $300,000 by a 395–28 House vote. It was the first time in the history of the House that a speaker was disciplined for an ethics violation.[66]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich#Ethics_charges.2C_reprimand_and_fine
Yeah, a 395-28 House vote is kind of overwhelming.
What was his actual crime? Abusing and cheating tax laws: "a charge of claiming tax-exempt status for a college course run for political purposes. In addition, the House Ethics Committee concluded that inaccurate information supplied to investigators represented "intentional or ... reckless" disregard of House rules.[68]"
And people want this rich snob who thinks the law is beneath him to be president? And how dare he lambaste Romney for being wealthy and successful, he's no better. At least Romney (as much as I dislike him, I'm from Massachusetts) has never (as far as we know at any rate,) been convicted of an ethics violation.
Read the wikipedia page if you're interested (especially check the sources at the bottom for their integrity, never trust wikipedia blindly), it's pretty damning.
Let's see, Gingrich supposedly surprised his first wife in the hospital with a divorce request while she was recovering from surgery. He denied it, as did his daughter, and claimed his wife requested the divorce. Problem is, court documents were found that proved he was full of shit. According to Gingrich's own campaign treasurer, he said this of his first wife: "She's not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the President. And besides, she has cancer." Whether it's true or not I don't know, it's just what's been claimed (although with his character, it wouldn't surprise me). Then he cheated on his second wife, who in an interview later, said she declined an open marriage with Gingrich (Hey honey, you mind if I cheat on you?!). Some family values.
I don't know about the rest of you, but when you've got a repeated history of being a shady character and doing really nasty things on a regular basis, you don't get to say "I'm sorry, I'm a changed man, vote me president."
As a republican, let me explain why republicans are drawn to Newt. As a result of George W Bush years, we republicans have developed a bit of an inferiority complex regarding our politicians -- specifically their inability to cleanly articulate conservative principles and ideals. In other words, we're tired of our politicians looking like idiots. We know that conservative values, when properly articulated, are incredibly powerful and popular. We've seen it before (Reagan), and we know there are people today who can articulate it very well (Rush Limbaugh is particularly good at this).
Of the candidates, Gingrich articulates conservative values better than anyone (when he chooses to). I've remarked multiple times in this thread that Gingrich is the smartest guy on the stage at any of the debates, and I can't imagine how anyone can still doubt this after the last debate. Republicans look at Gingrich and see a guy who actually can talk the talk. Hell, Gingrich even knows that this is why people are drawn to him. Why do you think he keeps mentioning that he's the guy to debate Obama and is always mentioning the Lincoln/Douglas debates? He's playing on the desire of republican voters to have a smart-sounding candidate.
If you compare Newt to any of other candidates, none of them can hold a candle to his eloquence. Romney is passionless and equivocating. Paul is just a little too crazy. Santorum is an asshole. We'll see how this plays out, but republicans clearly like Newt's style.
Wow. You just hit the nail on the head. Great post.
Your post makes sense as a whole and I agree with most of it, but don´t you have conservatives that are NOT borderline crazy from time to time that you have to refer to Rush Limbaugh?
How? Sure a new company can say hey I'll pay my employees X+5 dollars per hour compared to WalMcPetroleum over there, but there is no way he can afford to. A monopoly can afford to literally have it's prices so freaking low (because they control nearly all of the product) that no other company will be able to sell at the same level and thus they won't have the ability to outpay the wages of WalMcPetroleum.
If wages are too low why do you wanna work there if you feel you are more qualified.
Now if you are more qualified a new competitors could open up and give you better wages. Obv. this would interest everyone who works at lower wages and is more qualified. Obv. WAl mart will (given no binding contracts) will have to increase their own wages..... And you know the rest of the story. (btw actually this wal mart examples of oyurs assumes that the employee can only work for that company. And its really really care that employees are that specialized. Anyone working at wal mart could probably get another job at another industry).
Obv. the above is no new stuff. The typical argument argainst private monopolies is that some times it requires a lot of capital to upon a new competitors to the monopoly. This is true, and this will allow monopolies to charge up high prices on products as competition isn't low. Now again assuming that their employees are very specialized and cant change industry they will be able to give out relatively low wages. And hence shareholders will be making an insane profit.
Now assuming you could identify this scenario and be 100% sure of it (with you working as a regulator) you could with the use of minimum wages shift the wealth from the shareholders to the employees.
However how can the above be the case? In what industry cant the employee get another job with their current qualifications. Assuming they are highly specialized, then its most likely that took a long education and probably has a lot of knowledge that lof of other people dont have. And they always have the option of taking a "brain-dead" (which just requires discipline) so their wages will most likely be pretty high.
Most likely specialized people receives high wages, but faces a pretty high unemployment risk.
I'm not arguing based on a qualified person. I'm arguing based on someone who can barely scrape by, someone who hasn't been to college, who needs any job they can get. These guys aren't going to be getting Financial Advisor positions at JP Morgan or something, instead they're the forty year olds that are still working the bagging lines in grocery stores.
And if grocery store/group of grocery stores gets a monopoly on the food selling business, they can literally afford to reduce their wages to next to nothing. That's why we need minimum wage, it keeps massive corporations in line so they can't completely fuck over the lower class.
A qualified person isn't going to be working at a job that pays minimum wage anyways. (Atleast I hope not, but this economy is changing that considerably.)
We have a huge poverty problem in America, which is why minimum wage is necessary for us. In a country where the overal wealth of a person is more balanced, then I don't think minimum wage would be as important.
Then they can get another job at another industry. Its not like you only can work at one kind of industry. So yeh I kinda think your confusing the problem with monopolies. Most people kinda think its a price of product problem. Low wages isn't really a problem with monopolies.
Depends. If they aren't very qualified, their options are limited to a specific few set of areas, and as it happens those areas are where a huge portion of monopolies take place. And no, I don't think it's one or the other, I think it's both. A big corporation can sustain incredibly low prices by basically paying their workers next to nothing.
No, there are shitton of jobs for people with no qualificans (clean stuff up, the garden, easy administration work etc., or perhaps take an eduction combined with a loan. The problem with minimum wage is actualyl that it creates unemployment, since employees wont give them a job if they require 20$, yet is only worth 10$ for the employee. However if they are worth, 10$ then they can get that job. Unemployment in a free market is voluntary. If you think your too good or if your demands are too high, then you might be unemploymed. But if your willing to accept what the company thinks your worht you will get the job.
L
That's just semantics. Being employed without being paid sufficiently is not an acceptable alternative, let alone the inevitable consequence of many current $20 jobs becoming $10 or $5 jobs with minimum wage removed.
The point of being employed is earning enough money to make a living worthy of a human being. Without that, employment means nothing. At least having high unemployment actually puts some stress on the government to deal with the problem and fix it.
Ok lets imagine a scenario: You own a company. You sell food to customers. You produce the food your self. It cost you 2$ to produce 1 food. You can sell 1 food for 5$. Since you want at least 1$ for your self for each food sold you and you cant sell the food your self (your busy running the company) you need to hire someone to sell the food for you. You are willing to pay him 2$ for each food sold. Based on his qualifications you estimate that he is able to sell 5 food an hour, and hence you are willing to pay him on an hourly basis of 10$. He thinks he isn't paid sufficiently. So he tries to get another job. But he doesn't have any other kind of skill. And every other company in the world is in similar situation to yours, and they dont value him any higher than what you do.
Then why should he receive a higher wage? 2$ is (given your estimations are correct) what he is worth. THis is the correct wage. If minimum wage =4$, this guy will be unemployed for the rest of his life.
Is he needs to buy food and have a place to live, then he gotta work his butt of. THen maybe 8 hours/day isn't enough. He gotta work 14-15 hours a day. Or perhaps he should take an educaiton with a positive expected value.
But he should not be paid more than what he is worth.
What if every company refuses to pay the man 2$? What if there is a monopoly or more realistically an unfair competitive environment influenced by a country that utilizes child slave labor and traps and controls it's population far more rigorously than your own free loving libertarian nation. How does the man compete at 30cents an hour?
What if the world isn't ideal and your libertarian ideology does not properly reflect the real world (no matter how hard it tries to explain societies present problems)?
What if active governments provide unfair monopolistic advantages that make it impossible for a libertarian society to compete? For example, what if the United States suffers a shortage of energy and wealth but Canada decides to sell their energy to China because China is offering a better price (by subsidizing it's national interests with tax money) with the intention of hindering US interests and ultimately leading to the collapse of the worlds first truely free governement?
What if what is actually needed to prevent global disaster, by lets say... global warming or nuclear war, is an inefficient by highly aggressive plan that takes money from those who have it, in order to save those who can't afford massive biodomes or secret underground bunkers?
What if social security and welfare programs are the ideal way to prevent unskilled labourers from rising up against the elite and taking what they believe is rightfully theirs?
What if corrupt corporations take hundreds of years before competition finally beats them out? What if corrupt corporations are actually the ideal corporation in a truely free-market society?
What if racism isn't magically solved by competitive forces? And irrational behaviour actually provides economic incentives?
What if poorly regulated corporations actually BENEFIT from boom/bust cycles that the rich can use to consolidate their power (since those with wealth are best suited to survive boom/bust scenarios)
What if money isn't the end all be all motivator, and that once people have a few million bucks in the bank they no longer act rationally in the market?
What if current life-spans support short term investments over long term investments and an unregulated free-market society has no way of compensating for this approach?
What if the will of the people actually overrides the priviledge of wealth, and the first free society, without reasonable government intervention, crumbles as a result of riots and rebellion or simply the absolute domination of a NEW form of government ruled by corporatism?
What if a centralized universal healthcare system is actually the most efficient and effective form of healthcare (you would posit this would develop naturally in a freemarket system, but how is that guaranteed? and why should we sit and wait while hundreds of thousands of citizens go bankrupt or die largely from bad luck when it is easily within our means to prevent this from happening?)
Most imporantly: Why do you insist that your ideology is blatantly correct when you refuse to use empirical evidence, but also make all of your arguments rely on a magical chain of non-empirical truths which you can't reasonably cannot provide? It makes your arguments appear more like religious evangelism rather than ideological truths. Even if your arguments are true, you cannot convince anyone unless you provide some chain of evidence or support for your ideas, of which a few opinions and a few youtube videos aren't really substantial. After a certain point, with the amount that you've been spamming the forums (100+ posts in a week), you just begin derailing thread topics and hinder all rational discussion with nothing more than ideological dribble based loosely on a 1st year philosophy course and the adorable belief that humans are inherently rational and that that rationally can reasonably be predicted.
1) I have previously dealt with the monopoly issue (not actually relevant for wages, more for prices of product, unless you make extreme assumptions).
2) Libertarians dont assume anything about the world. We only want humans to do what they want to do, e.g. maximising their freedom, as long as they dont take away other peoples freedom.
3) If governments are making prices of some companies (from other countries) prices unnaturally low. Thats actualyl fantastic from the libertarian nation, as this effecively mean that the foreign government is giving money to the libertarian country. Its true that noone in the libertarian world is gonna get a job in that sector. However there is always a shitton of other jobs. Since the foreign government is giving wealth to the libertarian country, this means that they are able to afford more stuff, and hence other jobs. Now you may say: What if all other government is doing this, and then there are actually no industries where the libertarian nation has an competitive edge. But this is assuming that the value of the currencies dont change. Of course they do, the currency will make it so that export = import (assuming equal leverage).
4) I dont want to deal with enviromental issues, as this is too off topic. But private property right genereally do a much better job dealing with these issues than government.
5) Dont understand your question.
6) Makes no sense from an economical perspective. I could just as well ask you this: What if US military decided to torture every man on eath. Its just nonsense, because at least this example isn't even a concern. Right now it seems you are making this kind of assumption about free market: What if people wanted to buy expensive bad products instread of cheap ones? Well so what? Its their choice. Its only a mnopoly because the consumer like it that way, and because its optimal from a financial perspective.
7) Racism isn't solved. I dont want to make it illegal for private companies or citizens to be racist, and again this debate is compltely off topic from the financial debate.
8) Poorly run companies go bankrupt. Well run companies dont. There isn't really gonna be any boom/bust btw anymore if markets are deciding interest rates and not central banks.
9) I never assumed anything about people acting financial rationale in the real world. I made a few examples however showing what would happen if people acted financial rationale. But if some people want to waste their money doing stupid shit, thats their problem. Not mine. This is actually a problem in welfare states, as people doing stupid shit affects other peoples financially.
10) The time value of money is decided by interest rates, which again is decided by the saving rate. Again this is a problem today since FED is manipulating interest rates, and hence they are artifially low which make people do to much "short-term" stuff, which they cant actually afford. If they have the savings for these kind of actions, its not gonna be a problem. If eveyrone decided (in a free market) that they would want to spend a shitton of money today, demand for money would increase forcing interest rate up, and hence making it more costly for people to act short-termish.
11) Im not going into a anarcho-capitalistic debate.
12) What if communism actually actually is the system from a financial persepctive, and if everyone in Sovjet in 1970 was richer than Bill gates is today?
Well short answer is that government cant estimate demand, customer needs, optimal production, prices, whatever. THey have no incenteive of being creative, working hard and hence creatign wealth. Private companies are just much better at creating wealth than government.
1) You didn't "deal" with monopolies, you merely stated your opinion based entire on optimisitic idealism.
2) All ideologies explain why the world is what it is, and provide a prescription for making it better, libertarianism is no different. It's also based on the assumption that the individual knows best.
3) Why do you assume there is always a shitton of jobs? Where do you get this idea? Do you not see that unemployment rises and falls? Also you actually didn't respond to my question which was basically "What does a libertarian society do to compete with countries that maliciously abuse it's own population in order to gain a very real advantage over the libertarian society?"
4) Private property does fine when dealing with it's individual property, however when dealing with communal resources (like air or water) a tragedy of the commons occurs where all individuals have the incentive to take advantage where they can so they don't fall behind. Perhaps one of the biggest issues with lack of regulation is the spiralling effects of the tragedy of the commons.
5) Sometimes the rich giving to the poor (in our case via taxes) is actually in the interest of the rich, as it provides security they otherwise wouldn't have, and insures no rebellion. You know those riots across the world? The powerful will always cater to the masses eventually.
6) The real world doesn't make sense from an economical perspective, thats the point. Bad products and bad ideas can all be legitimized through corruption and misinformation. By encouraging complete freedom to individuals and corporations, you actually give them more opportunity to infringe on the freedom of others even though your ideology demands that you don't infringe on others freedoms. Another great flaw with libertarian society is it assumes individuals gain more freedom with less intervention. When in reality freedom is relative, and in a capitalist based society, those with the most capital not only have the most freedom, but also the most power over others (limiting others freedom)
7) Programs that protect people from racists work, leaving racists alone does not work. The biggest issue however, is allowing people to specialize in racism. Companies and individuals can actually BENEFIT from racism and segregation, which then provides the opportunity to spread it or at least the side-effect of it being irrationally legitimized.
8) Hopeful optimism at best. It would depend on whether interest rates are the only thing that create boom/bust cycles.
9) That stupid shit has an impact on you regardless of a welfare state or not. But it's largely a moot point.
10) This assumes that individual banks react fast enough and have decent information, likely very hard without strict transparency regulation and a reasonably unified network of communication.
11) It's relevant, the wealthy attain a monopoly of capital over the poor and the poor rationally rise up against the wealthy. All revolutions occur due to power disparity. The monopoly of force that government provides will generally hold back revolution, more terrifying fear would be companies deciding they themselves need a monopoly of force to ensure their safety. Do not forget that people vote not only with their dollar, but also with their voice and lastly their fist (it's why the americans have the right to bare arms).
12) As you said, private companies are better at creating wealth, not at caring for patients. But the real issue is that competitive markets are not always in the best interest of the people. The reality is that Universal Healthcare has proven highly effective and efficient as well as good for society as a whole. In Canada it's also one of the few things most taxpayers are willing to agree upon is worth their money. Universal healthcare also provides a competitive advantage over other countries, as it raises the standard of living and provides that lovely unfair economic playing field that governments are very good at providing.
Don't get me wrong, i'm not a socialist, I generally believe the more open the market the better, I largely take issue with your approach to the argument. You state things as non-empirical truth claims with no backing or support. Even true claims need to be predicated on previous logical analysis. And since you refuse to argue with or against empirical facts (even though in your textbook both truth claims and empirical facts have a role in the world) you deny rational discussion. So now the only possible recourse is to pose the question "What if you're wrong?" and since your entire argument is predicated on you being right in the first place (pretty much a logical fallacy), well.... you see how pointless your statements become. It is very literally religious evangelizing (and frankly comes off as trolling).
As a republican, let me explain why republicans are drawn to Newt. As a result of George W Bush years, we republicans have developed a bit of an inferiority complex regarding our politicians -- specifically their inability to cleanly articulate conservative principles and ideals. In other words, we're tired of our politicians looking like idiots. We know that conservative values, when properly articulated, are incredibly powerful and popular. We've seen it before (Reagan), and we know there are people today who can articulate it very well (Rush Limbaugh is particularly good at this).
Of the candidates, Gingrich articulates conservative values better than anyone (when he chooses to). I've remarked multiple times in this thread that Gingrich is the smartest guy on the stage at any of the debates, and I can't imagine how anyone can still doubt this after the last debate. Republicans look at Gingrich and see a guy who actually can talk the talk. Hell, Gingrich even knows that this is why people are drawn to him. Why do you think he keeps mentioning that he's the guy to debate Obama and is always mentioning the Lincoln/Douglas debates? He's playing on the desire of republican voters to have a smart-sounding candidate.
If you compare Newt to any of other candidates, none of them can hold a candle to his eloquence. Romney is passionless and equivocating. Paul is just a little too crazy. Santorum is an asshole. We'll see how this plays out, but republicans clearly like Newt's style.
Wow. You just hit the nail on the head. Great post.
I've always been wondering, since conservatives can never pin it down to precise things, but what exactly are conservative values? And secondly why are they so powerful and popular?
As a republican, let me explain why republicans are drawn to Newt. As a result of George W Bush years, we republicans have developed a bit of an inferiority complex regarding our politicians -- specifically their inability to cleanly articulate conservative principles and ideals. In other words, we're tired of our politicians looking like idiots. We know that conservative values, when properly articulated, are incredibly powerful and popular. We've seen it before (Reagan), and we know there are people today who can articulate it very well (Rush Limbaugh is particularly good at this).
Of the candidates, Gingrich articulates conservative values better than anyone (when he chooses to). I've remarked multiple times in this thread that Gingrich is the smartest guy on the stage at any of the debates, and I can't imagine how anyone can still doubt this after the last debate. Republicans look at Gingrich and see a guy who actually can talk the talk. Hell, Gingrich even knows that this is why people are drawn to him. Why do you think he keeps mentioning that he's the guy to debate Obama and is always mentioning the Lincoln/Douglas debates? He's playing on the desire of republican voters to have a smart-sounding candidate.
If you compare Newt to any of other candidates, none of them can hold a candle to his eloquence. Romney is passionless and equivocating. Paul is just a little too crazy. Santorum is an asshole. We'll see how this plays out, but republicans clearly like Newt's style.
So you're supporting a smooth speaker that's completely unethical? Personally and financially. Who hires is friends and cronies instead of experts. Ok, then.
I'm sure someone who thinks he's smart will reply "just like Obama!" except Obama has not been charged with 84 ethics violations. Gingrich resigned in disgrace because of them. It's like saying Nixon should run again for president in '80 because he's got the most experience on the job!
Depends. If they aren't very qualified, their options are limited to a specific few set of areas, and as it happens those areas are where a huge portion of monopolies take place. And no, I don't think it's one or the other, I think it's both. A big corporation can sustain incredibly low prices by basically paying their workers next to nothing.
No, there are shitton of jobs for people with no qualificans (clean stuff up, the garden, easy administration work etc., or perhaps take an eduction combined with a loan. The problem with minimum wage is actualyl that it creates unemployment, since employees wont give them a job if they require 20$, yet is only worth 10$ for the employee. However if they are worth, 10$ then they can get that job. Unemployment in a free market is voluntary. If you think your too good or if your demands are too high, then you might be unemploymed. But if your willing to accept what the company thinks your worht you will get the job.
L
Except theres also such as "You need X amount of money to survive", which is pretty much around the level of minimum wage for 40 hours a week, etc. Obviously that is not a specific or guranteed number, but it is accurate.
I understand what you're saying, but I think you're also overrating just how many oppurtunities there are for some people. Some people do not have cars, some people have to take care of kids. They have specific limitations on what to exactly they can do, or what jobs they can take.
For example, my summer job is assisting kids that take summer school basically (it actually pays 3 bucks over minimum wage and I'm only 17, holyyyyyyyyyyy shit), and plenty of them have told me "My mom has to take me and my brother to different programs at X, Y during the day, well maintaining Z, and thus only has period P to work. And during period P there are very very few oppurtunties in regards to jobs, and all of the them are minimum wage level, so she has to take them, and just barely gets by."
I'm not sure exactly how much you know about US standard of living, but we have a FUCK ton of people who barely scrape by as it is, and removing minimum wage would destroy and hope they have.
Removing minimum wage wouldn't destroy them. They would be paid what they are worth. As US minmum wage is relatively low (compared to danish) the current minimum wage most likely doesn't change anything for 99.9% of all people, as the minimum wage is probably close to the value the "brain-dead" workers are worth. Removal of minimum wage however would make it possible for the upper "unqualified" people to get a job (which they couldn't before).
I think the current minimum wage in US is mostly a pshycological thing. It doesn't really change anything if its removed or not. But I guess that you can see the problem with us danes. When your 18 year old, you get fired from your job, as your employee dont want to pay you 20$.
Except the concept of "brain dead" work, or how much it is worth is completely alterable by larger corporations if they have enough power, which is why the government put minimum wage in place, and continually increases it as we go forward.
I dont think you have been reading what I wrote. Governement minimum wages doesn't change anything for the better: It gives those people who are valuable the same wage, and lets people who are not valuable be unemployed. But I guess i cant convince you over night. Just reflect about it, and eventually you might change your mind if your open minded.
And I don't think you're reading what I'm posting. Lets say X job is woth 10 bucks an hour and Y job is worth 5 bucks an hour (this being the general opinion, not just the deeming of a specific individual like ourselves), and the minimum wage is 5 bucks an hour. Obviously anyone working the X job doesn't really care about minimum wage, but someone working the Y job has to because...
If we remove minimum wage, than a corporation can suddenly say the Y job is only worth 2 dollars an hour. (Obviously we don't know exactly what a job is worth, but lets assume here that most people would agree it's worth 5)
Your arguement is that if they did this someone else would just come along and say "Hey F that business, I'll still pay 5 bucks for job Y" and then all the people getting paid 2 bucks would run over to that new business.
My arguement is that, if the business who is installing Y=2 dollars is powerful enough, they can basically block any of their competition whatsoever. (They can do this by refusing the manufacturers if they sell to the other business, or slashing their prices so far that business number two can't keep up) So business number two, that is offering the job at 5 dollars an hour becomes unable to support itself, and thus has to drop down to Y=2 if they want to keep themselves afloat. (And realistically, they'd actually have to drop even lower)
And thus, with Y=2, people are much worse off, and it's very possible they won't even be able to support themselves to the point of living, and then they have to sell their homes/cars/etc.
No your still not understandign me. BEcause you keep assuming that these kind of workers only can work at that specific company and have no other choice. And as I have previosuly said, that is an absurd asumption. Even today non eduacated people can work in a shitton of industries, or do a shitton of work that requires no skill (just time).
But let me play the game, assuming your absurd assumption is true: Every non educated guy only can get a job at one company (lol). Then they would still have the option to take an education. And assming that people are soemwhat weahlthy in average in that country, having an education is going to pay off big time.
It might help if i put up a few numbers:
Amount of people in country: 100,000 Amount of people working in monopoly: 10,000
Monopoly paying you: 10$/hour. Average income with an av. education = 100. Average education costs is unknown.
Amount of houurs you expect to work after having finished education till you die (300*30*10) = 90,000. That pays you: 90,000 *100 = 9,000,000$.
Assume the present value of the future income is 4.000,000$ Nominal value of monopoly job: 10*90.000 = 900,000$. Present value = 400,000$.
Differenence = 3,6000,000$.
This means that the present value cost of an educaiton actually could be as high as 3.600.000$ for the education to be worth it.
To be fair though my example ignored the fact that you could work for the monopoly in more years, since you aren't using time taking an education.
The above illustrates that if there is a huge difference between being non educated and educated it pays of big time to take a loan and get an education.
So even giving your absurd assumption this isn't even a problem, as long as you are willing to workd hard and take an education.
Absurd assumption? It's true for millions of freaking Americans. I would know, BECAUSE I WORK AND GO TO SCHOOL WITH SOME OF THEM.
I'm done arguing with you. Just try to remember this. Not every country is like Denmark, and this thread isn't about candidates from there that are trying to deal with the problems there.
Every planet is both full of water and has the building blocks for life. I would know because I live on a planet that's full of water!
You go to work with some of them.......and think you can apply there situations to a million people. You are inducing a bit too much.
Going off your ridiculous comparison, in this case we aren't talking about any planet but this one planet.
And yes I can apply the situation. There are millions of people below the poverty line in America, and well their situations obviously aren't 100% the same, they are similar.
He's completely ignoring outside variables in his argument and just assuming every single person in the situation is the same
As a republican, let me explain why republicans are drawn to Newt. As a result of George W Bush years, we republicans have developed a bit of an inferiority complex regarding our politicians -- specifically their inability to cleanly articulate conservative principles and ideals. In other words, we're tired of our politicians looking like idiots. We know that conservative values, when properly articulated, are incredibly powerful and popular. We've seen it before (Reagan), and we know there are people today who can articulate it very well (Rush Limbaugh is particularly good at this).
Of the candidates, Gingrich articulates conservative values better than anyone (when he chooses to). I've remarked multiple times in this thread that Gingrich is the smartest guy on the stage at any of the debates, and I can't imagine how anyone can still doubt this after the last debate. Republicans look at Gingrich and see a guy who actually can talk the talk. Hell, Gingrich even knows that this is why people are drawn to him. Why do you think he keeps mentioning that he's the guy to debate Obama and is always mentioning the Lincoln/Douglas debates? He's playing on the desire of republican voters to have a smart-sounding candidate.
If you compare Newt to any of other candidates, none of them can hold a candle to his eloquence. Romney is passionless and equivocating. Paul is just a little too crazy. Santorum is an asshole. We'll see how this plays out, but republicans clearly like Newt's style.
So you're supporting a smooth speaker that's completely unethical? Personally and financially. Who hires is friends and cronies instead of experts. Ok, then.
I didn't say that I support Newt. I was just explaining why republicans are drawn to him.
As for me, I haven't really made up my mind. All of the candidates are flawed.
Speaking of the devil..opps, I mean Rush Limbaugh :
By the way, I would bet my life that Newt would be one of those guys who totally support internet censorship and such ( and by that, I mean a model close to China's --- about only the internet thing, not the anonymity thing, but rather what would travel on the net ).
The man proposed a law that would made herbal users get killed . The man promoted a law that would make peaceful law abiding ( the reasonable law of course ) students ( most marijuana smokers are white students ) be sent to death . Does everything else matter ?
What the hell is this republican thing ? Isn't the idea : stay the fuck out of my life and I'll stay out of your life ? "Kill them." ? It's harder and harder to see a future where human kind...at least this society evolves in a peaceful kind of a world state .. Then again my biology isn't set up to have sentimentality towards what happens to the other side of the world...perhaps that's why I feel like this..
As a republican, let me explain why republicans are drawn to Newt. As a result of George W Bush years, we republicans have developed a bit of an inferiority complex regarding our politicians -- specifically their inability to cleanly articulate conservative principles and ideals. In other words, we're tired of our politicians looking like idiots. We know that conservative values, when properly articulated, are incredibly powerful and popular. We've seen it before (Reagan), and we know there are people today who can articulate it very well (Rush Limbaugh is particularly good at this).
Of the candidates, Gingrich articulates conservative values better than anyone (when he chooses to). I've remarked multiple times in this thread that Gingrich is the smartest guy on the stage at any of the debates, and I can't imagine how anyone can still doubt this after the last debate. Republicans look at Gingrich and see a guy who actually can talk the talk. Hell, Gingrich even knows that this is why people are drawn to him. Why do you think he keeps mentioning that he's the guy to debate Obama and is always mentioning the Lincoln/Douglas debates? He's playing on the desire of republican voters to have a smart-sounding candidate.
If you compare Newt to any of other candidates, none of them can hold a candle to his eloquence. Romney is passionless and equivocating. Paul is just a little too crazy. Santorum is an asshole. We'll see how this plays out, but republicans clearly like Newt's style.
Wow. You just hit the nail on the head. Great post.
Your post makes sense as a whole and I agree with most of it, but don´t you have conservatives that are NOT borderline crazy from time to time that you have to refer to Rush Limbaugh?
I chose Rush Limbaugh because there is no politician or media figure who articulates conservative principles as well and as consistently as he does. I know that Limbaugh gets a bad rap in the media as being an extremist and part of the fringe that is talk radio, but the guy is brilliant and wields tremendous influence for a reason. I am familiar with all of the major conservative media outlets and figures, and none are nearly as good as Limbaugh is at explaining what being a conservative actually is. It's really a shame too, because conservatism is so misunderstood on many levels.
If wages are too low why do you wanna work there if you feel you are more qualified.
Now if you are more qualified a new competitors could open up and give you better wages. Obv. this would interest everyone who works at lower wages and is more qualified. Obv. WAl mart will (given no binding contracts) will have to increase their own wages..... And you know the rest of the story. (btw actually this wal mart examples of oyurs assumes that the employee can only work for that company. And its really really care that employees are that specialized. Anyone working at wal mart could probably get another job at another industry).
Obv. the above is no new stuff. The typical argument argainst private monopolies is that some times it requires a lot of capital to upon a new competitors to the monopoly. This is true, and this will allow monopolies to charge up high prices on products as competition isn't low. Now again assuming that their employees are very specialized and cant change industry they will be able to give out relatively low wages. And hence shareholders will be making an insane profit.
Now assuming you could identify this scenario and be 100% sure of it (with you working as a regulator) you could with the use of minimum wages shift the wealth from the shareholders to the employees.
However how can the above be the case? In what industry cant the employee get another job with their current qualifications. Assuming they are highly specialized, then its most likely that took a long education and probably has a lot of knowledge that lof of other people dont have. And they always have the option of taking a "brain-dead" (which just requires discipline) so their wages will most likely be pretty high.
Most likely specialized people receives high wages, but faces a pretty high unemployment risk.
I'm not arguing based on a qualified person. I'm arguing based on someone who can barely scrape by, someone who hasn't been to college, who needs any job they can get. These guys aren't going to be getting Financial Advisor positions at JP Morgan or something, instead they're the forty year olds that are still working the bagging lines in grocery stores.
And if grocery store/group of grocery stores gets a monopoly on the food selling business, they can literally afford to reduce their wages to next to nothing. That's why we need minimum wage, it keeps massive corporations in line so they can't completely fuck over the lower class.
A qualified person isn't going to be working at a job that pays minimum wage anyways. (Atleast I hope not, but this economy is changing that considerably.)
We have a huge poverty problem in America, which is why minimum wage is necessary for us. In a country where the overal wealth of a person is more balanced, then I don't think minimum wage would be as important.
Then they can get another job at another industry. Its not like you only can work at one kind of industry. So yeh I kinda think your confusing the problem with monopolies. Most people kinda think its a price of product problem. Low wages isn't really a problem with monopolies.
Depends. If they aren't very qualified, their options are limited to a specific few set of areas, and as it happens those areas are where a huge portion of monopolies take place. And no, I don't think it's one or the other, I think it's both. A big corporation can sustain incredibly low prices by basically paying their workers next to nothing.
No, there are shitton of jobs for people with no qualificans (clean stuff up, the garden, easy administration work etc., or perhaps take an eduction combined with a loan. The problem with minimum wage is actualyl that it creates unemployment, since employees wont give them a job if they require 20$, yet is only worth 10$ for the employee. However if they are worth, 10$ then they can get that job. Unemployment in a free market is voluntary. If you think your too good or if your demands are too high, then you might be unemploymed. But if your willing to accept what the company thinks your worht you will get the job.
L
That's just semantics. Being employed without being paid sufficiently is not an acceptable alternative, let alone the inevitable consequence of many current $20 jobs becoming $10 or $5 jobs with minimum wage removed.
The point of being employed is earning enough money to make a living worthy of a human being. Without that, employment means nothing. At least having high unemployment actually puts some stress on the government to deal with the problem and fix it.
Ok lets imagine a scenario: You own a company. You sell food to customers. You produce the food your self. It cost you 2$ to produce 1 food. You can sell 1 food for 5$. Since you want at least 1$ for your self for each food sold you and you cant sell the food your self (your busy running the company) you need to hire someone to sell the food for you. You are willing to pay him 2$ for each food sold. Based on his qualifications you estimate that he is able to sell 5 food an hour, and hence you are willing to pay him on an hourly basis of 10$. He thinks he isn't paid sufficiently. So he tries to get another job. But he doesn't have any other kind of skill. And every other company in the world is in similar situation to yours, and they dont value him any higher than what you do.
Then why should he receive a higher wage? 2$ is (given your estimations are correct) what he is worth. THis is the correct wage. If minimum wage =4$, this guy will be unemployed for the rest of his life.
Is he needs to buy food and have a place to live, then he gotta work his butt of. THen maybe 8 hours/day isn't enough. He gotta work 14-15 hours a day. Or perhaps he should take an educaiton with a positive expected value.
But he should not be paid more than what he is worth.
What if every company refuses to pay the man 2$? What if there is a monopoly or more realistically an unfair competitive environment influenced by a country that utilizes child slave labor and traps and controls it's population far more rigorously than your own free loving libertarian nation. How does the man compete at 30cents an hour?
What if the world isn't ideal and your libertarian ideology does not properly reflect the real world (no matter how hard it tries to explain societies present problems)?
What if active governments provide unfair monopolistic advantages that make it impossible for a libertarian society to compete? For example, what if the United States suffers a shortage of energy and wealth but Canada decides to sell their energy to China because China is offering a better price (by subsidizing it's national interests with tax money) with the intention of hindering US interests and ultimately leading to the collapse of the worlds first truely free governement?
What if what is actually needed to prevent global disaster, by lets say... global warming or nuclear war, is an inefficient by highly aggressive plan that takes money from those who have it, in order to save those who can't afford massive biodomes or secret underground bunkers?
What if social security and welfare programs are the ideal way to prevent unskilled labourers from rising up against the elite and taking what they believe is rightfully theirs?
What if corrupt corporations take hundreds of years before competition finally beats them out? What if corrupt corporations are actually the ideal corporation in a truely free-market society?
What if racism isn't magically solved by competitive forces? And irrational behaviour actually provides economic incentives?
What if poorly regulated corporations actually BENEFIT from boom/bust cycles that the rich can use to consolidate their power (since those with wealth are best suited to survive boom/bust scenarios)
What if money isn't the end all be all motivator, and that once people have a few million bucks in the bank they no longer act rationally in the market?
What if current life-spans support short term investments over long term investments and an unregulated free-market society has no way of compensating for this approach?
What if the will of the people actually overrides the priviledge of wealth, and the first free society, without reasonable government intervention, crumbles as a result of riots and rebellion or simply the absolute domination of a NEW form of government ruled by corporatism?
What if a centralized universal healthcare system is actually the most efficient and effective form of healthcare (you would posit this would develop naturally in a freemarket system, but how is that guaranteed? and why should we sit and wait while hundreds of thousands of citizens go bankrupt or die largely from bad luck when it is easily within our means to prevent this from happening?)
Most imporantly: Why do you insist that your ideology is blatantly correct when you refuse to use empirical evidence, but also make all of your arguments rely on a magical chain of non-empirical truths which you can't reasonably cannot provide? It makes your arguments appear more like religious evangelism rather than ideological truths. Even if your arguments are true, you cannot convince anyone unless you provide some chain of evidence or support for your ideas, of which a few opinions and a few youtube videos aren't really substantial. After a certain point, with the amount that you've been spamming the forums (100+ posts in a week), you just begin derailing thread topics and hinder all rational discussion with nothing more than ideological dribble based loosely on a 1st year philosophy course and the adorable belief that humans are inherently rational and that that rationally can reasonably be predicted.
1) I have previously dealt with the monopoly issue (not actually relevant for wages, more for prices of product, unless you make extreme assumptions).
2) Libertarians dont assume anything about the world. We only want humans to do what they want to do, e.g. maximising their freedom, as long as they dont take away other peoples freedom.
3) If governments are making prices of some companies (from other countries) prices unnaturally low. Thats actualyl fantastic from the libertarian nation, as this effecively mean that the foreign government is giving money to the libertarian country. Its true that noone in the libertarian world is gonna get a job in that sector. However there is always a shitton of other jobs. Since the foreign government is giving wealth to the libertarian country, this means that they are able to afford more stuff, and hence other jobs. Now you may say: What if all other government is doing this, and then there are actually no industries where the libertarian nation has an competitive edge. But this is assuming that the value of the currencies dont change. Of course they do, the currency will make it so that export = import (assuming equal leverage).
4) I dont want to deal with enviromental issues, as this is too off topic. But private property right genereally do a much better job dealing with these issues than government.
5) Dont understand your question.
6) Makes no sense from an economical perspective. I could just as well ask you this: What if US military decided to torture every man on eath. Its just nonsense, because at least this example isn't even a concern. Right now it seems you are making this kind of assumption about free market: What if people wanted to buy expensive bad products instread of cheap ones? Well so what? Its their choice. Its only a mnopoly because the consumer like it that way, and because its optimal from a financial perspective.
7) Racism isn't solved. I dont want to make it illegal for private companies or citizens to be racist, and again this debate is compltely off topic from the financial debate.
8) Poorly run companies go bankrupt. Well run companies dont. There isn't really gonna be any boom/bust btw anymore if markets are deciding interest rates and not central banks.
9) I never assumed anything about people acting financial rationale in the real world. I made a few examples however showing what would happen if people acted financial rationale. But if some people want to waste their money doing stupid shit, thats their problem. Not mine. This is actually a problem in welfare states, as people doing stupid shit affects other peoples financially.
10) The time value of money is decided by interest rates, which again is decided by the saving rate. Again this is a problem today since FED is manipulating interest rates, and hence they are artifially low which make people do to much "short-term" stuff, which they cant actually afford. If they have the savings for these kind of actions, its not gonna be a problem. If eveyrone decided (in a free market) that they would want to spend a shitton of money today, demand for money would increase forcing interest rate up, and hence making it more costly for people to act short-termish.
11) Im not going into a anarcho-capitalistic debate.
12) What if communism actually actually is the system from a financial persepctive, and if everyone in Sovjet in 1970 was richer than Bill gates is today?
Well short answer is that government cant estimate demand, customer needs, optimal production, prices, whatever. THey have no incenteive of being creative, working hard and hence creatign wealth. Private companies are just much better at creating wealth than government.
1) You didn't "deal" with monopolies, you merely stated your opinion based entire on optimisitic idealism.
2) All ideologies explain why the world is what it is, and provide a prescription for making it better, libertarianism is no different. It's also based on the assumption that the individual knows best.
3) Why do you assume there is always a shitton of jobs? Where do you get this idea? Do you not see that unemployment rises and falls? Also you actually didn't respond to my question which was basically "What does a libertarian society do to compete with countries that maliciously abuse it's own population in order to gain a very real advantage over the libertarian society?"
4) Private property does fine when dealing with it's individual property, however when dealing with communal resources (like air or water) a tragedy of the commons occurs where all individuals have the incentive to take advantage where they can so they don't fall behind. Perhaps one of the biggest issues with lack of regulation is the spiralling effects of the tragedy of the commons.
5) Sometimes the rich giving to the poor (in our case via taxes) is actually in the interest of the rich, as it provides security they otherwise wouldn't have, and insures no rebellion. You know those riots across the world? The powerful will always cater to the masses eventually.
6) The real world doesn't make sense from an economical perspective, thats the point. Bad products and bad ideas can all be legitimized through corruption and misinformation. By encouraging complete freedom to individuals and corporations, you actually give them more opportunity to infringe on the freedom of others even though your ideology demands that you don't infringe on others freedoms. Another great flaw with libertarian society is it assumes individuals gain more freedom with less intervention. When in reality freedom is relative, and in a capitalist based society, those with the most capital not only have the most freedom, but also the most power over others (limiting others freedom)
7) Programs that protect people from racists work, leaving racists alone does not work. The biggest issue however, is allowing people to specialize in racism. Companies and individuals can actually BENEFIT from racism and segregation, which then provides the opportunity to spread it or at least the side-effect of it being irrationally legitimized.
8) Hopeful optimism at best. It would depend on whether interest rates are the only thing that create boom/bust cycles.
9) That stupid shit has an impact on you regardless of a welfare state or not. But it's largely a moot point.
10) This assumes that individual banks react fast enough and have decent information, likely very hard without strict transparency regulation and a reasonably unified network of communication.
11) It's relevant, the wealthy attain a monopoly of capital over the poor and the poor rationally rise up against the wealthy. All revolutions occur due to power disparity. The monopoly of force that government provides will generally hold back revolution, more terrifying fear would be companies deciding they themselves need a monopoly of force to ensure their safety. Do not forget that people vote not only with their dollar, but also with their voice and lastly their fist (it's why the americans have the right to bare arms).
12) As you said, private companies are better at creating wealth, not at caring for patients. But the real issue is that competitive markets are not always in the best interest of the people. The reality is that Universal Healthcare has proven highly effective and efficient as well as good for society as a whole. In Canada it's also one of the few things most taxpayers are willing to agree upon is worth their money. Universal healthcare also provides a competitive advantage over other countries, as it raises the standard of living and provides that lovely unfair economic playing field that governments are very good at providing.
Don't get me wrong, i'm not a socialist, I generally believe the more open the market the better, I largely take issue with your approach to the argument. You state things as non-empirical truth claims with no backing or support. Even true claims need to be predicated on previous logical analysis. And since you refuse to argue with or against empirical facts (even though in your textbook both truth claims and empirical facts have a role in the world) you deny rational discussion. So now the only possible recourse is to pose the question "What if you're wrong?" and since your entire argument is predicated on you being right in the first place (pretty much a logical fallacy), well.... you see how pointless your statements become. It is very literally religious evangelizing (and frankly comes off as trolling).
Just spent a shitton of time writing and somehow I wasn't logged on. TT. Not gonna write the same thing, except the following:
It seems like you have some kind of subjective values on what good and bad products. And that some kind because of irrationel consumer behaviour bad products do well. I guess a bad computer game like Modern Warfare 3 isn't supposed to sell welll, according to your logic?
But thats just purely wrong. Good and bad products get defined by the demand from the consumers. Not by the politicans subjective values.
And btw yeh, I did deal with monopolies. Go back and read my arguments. It wasn't just claims.
Problem with dealing with empirics, is that results can be manipulated and interpreted differently. Empirical methodoly assumes that you are able to come up with a mathematical formula for how people act. You cant, they are people. Not brick from a board game.
As a republican, let me explain why republicans are drawn to Newt. As a result of George W Bush years, we republicans have developed a bit of an inferiority complex regarding our politicians -- specifically their inability to cleanly articulate conservative principles and ideals. In other words, we're tired of our politicians looking like idiots. We know that conservative values, when properly articulated, are incredibly powerful and popular. We've seen it before (Reagan), and we know there are people today who can articulate it very well (Rush Limbaugh is particularly good at this).
Of the candidates, Gingrich articulates conservative values better than anyone (when he chooses to). I've remarked multiple times in this thread that Gingrich is the smartest guy on the stage at any of the debates, and I can't imagine how anyone can still doubt this after the last debate. Republicans look at Gingrich and see a guy who actually can talk the talk. Hell, Gingrich even knows that this is why people are drawn to him. Why do you think he keeps mentioning that he's the guy to debate Obama and is always mentioning the Lincoln/Douglas debates? He's playing on the desire of republican voters to have a smart-sounding candidate.
If you compare Newt to any of other candidates, none of them can hold a candle to his eloquence. Romney is passionless and equivocating. Paul is just a little too crazy. Santorum is an asshole. We'll see how this plays out, but republicans clearly like Newt's style.
Wow. You just hit the nail on the head. Great post.
I've always been wondering, since conservatives can never pin it down to precise things, but what exactly are conservative values? And secondly why are they so powerful and popular?
Because of all of the different elements involved, it's hard to really synthesize conservative values down to one sentence (or even one TL post). However, I believe that the core unifying principle of conservatism is "the empowerment of the individual to act and succeed in absence of the state." This is a deceivingly complex idea with wide-ranging ramifications. As an example, think about Newt's answer to Juan William's question about children working in schools at last week's FoxNews debate. There's a reason why that answer received a standing ovation.
As a republican, let me explain why republicans are drawn to Newt. As a result of George W Bush years, we republicans have developed a bit of an inferiority complex regarding our politicians -- specifically their inability to cleanly articulate conservative principles and ideals. In other words, we're tired of our politicians looking like idiots. We know that conservative values, when properly articulated, are incredibly powerful and popular. We've seen it before (Reagan), and we know there are people today who can articulate it very well (Rush Limbaugh is particularly good at this).
Of the candidates, Gingrich articulates conservative values better than anyone (when he chooses to). I've remarked multiple times in this thread that Gingrich is the smartest guy on the stage at any of the debates, and I can't imagine how anyone can still doubt this after the last debate. Republicans look at Gingrich and see a guy who actually can talk the talk. Hell, Gingrich even knows that this is why people are drawn to him. Why do you think he keeps mentioning that he's the guy to debate Obama and is always mentioning the Lincoln/Douglas debates? He's playing on the desire of republican voters to have a smart-sounding candidate.
If you compare Newt to any of other candidates, none of them can hold a candle to his eloquence. Romney is passionless and equivocating. Paul is just a little too crazy. Santorum is an asshole. We'll see how this plays out, but republicans clearly like Newt's style.
So you're supporting a smooth speaker that's completely unethical? Personally and financially. Who hires is friends and cronies instead of experts. Ok, then.
I'm sure someone who thinks he's smart will reply "just like Obama!" except Obama has not been charged with 84 ethics violations. Gingrich resigned in disgrace because of them. It's like saying Nixon should run again for president in '80 because he's got the most experience on the job!
Not quite. He was charged with 84 ethics violations, 83 were dropped and he was convicted of 1 by congress, and charged $300,000 in fines for his crime. He was then asked to leave his position as speaker of the house by some of the heads of the Republican party at the time, he refused and would not leave. He eventually resigned in disgrace after the Clinton incident when he became worried that no republicans would get elected again if he stayed.
He didn't leave because of the ethics charges, he stayed to spite them.
Reagan was divorced, Clinton cheated on his wife with Gennifer Flowers, George W. Bush had a DWI. All those guys got elected for two terms. Their character issues were ultimately ignored because they were charismatic people. The public wants someone they can relate to and who can inspire them with their rhetoric.
If this bothers you, then perhaps democracy just isn't your kind of system.
If Newt was the perfect candidate, he would've wrapped up the nomination a long time ago. He's a FAR more talented politician than Romney. But the public has had to work out whether they can get over those character issues and trust him to be steady. It appears that they are now coming around.
As a republican, let me explain why republicans are drawn to Newt. As a result of George W Bush years, we republicans have developed a bit of an inferiority complex regarding our politicians -- specifically their inability to cleanly articulate conservative principles and ideals. In other words, we're tired of our politicians looking like idiots. We know that conservative values, when properly articulated, are incredibly powerful and popular. We've seen it before (Reagan), and we know there are people today who can articulate it very well (Rush Limbaugh is particularly good at this).
Of the candidates, Gingrich articulates conservative values better than anyone (when he chooses to). I've remarked multiple times in this thread that Gingrich is the smartest guy on the stage at any of the debates, and I can't imagine how anyone can still doubt this after the last debate. Republicans look at Gingrich and see a guy who actually can talk the talk. Hell, Gingrich even knows that this is why people are drawn to him. Why do you think he keeps mentioning that he's the guy to debate Obama and is always mentioning the Lincoln/Douglas debates? He's playing on the desire of republican voters to have a smart-sounding candidate.
If you compare Newt to any of other candidates, none of them can hold a candle to his eloquence. Romney is passionless and equivocating. Paul is just a little too crazy. Santorum is an asshole. We'll see how this plays out, but republicans clearly like Newt's style.
Wow. You just hit the nail on the head. Great post.
I've always been wondering, since conservatives can never pin it down to precise things, but what exactly are conservative values? And secondly why are they so powerful and popular?
Yeah, like the Republican above me said, American conservatives are broadly in favor of the individual being able to act freely with a reduced state that provides bare essential services (national defense, some modicum of regulation, etc.). Political conservatives, such as the GOP, are in favor of lower taxes, fewer regulations, opposition to unions, a strong military, gun possession rights, smaller or no assistance provided to the poor/elderly, much lower government spending, and are pro-business to a sometimes remarkable degree.
Social conservatives, also by and large Republicans but not across the board as some states have pretty socially conservative Democrats, regard the state of modern society as being as important as the economy and national defense if not more so. As a result, they are in favor of outlawing gay marriage, making abortion the equivalent of murder, making sure creationism gets as much if not more time in the classroom than evolution, and other traditional social values. Religious conservatives, such as evangelical Republicans or even Mormon Republicans, are much the same as social conservatives with an often explicit pro-religion agenda in things like schools and local life.
Riding the momentum of his South Carolina win on Saturday, Newt Gingrich said Sunday he planned a week of big speeches offering “big solutions for a big country.”
“I’ll be at the space coast in Florida this week giving a speech — a visionary speech — on the United States going back into space in the John F. Kennedy tradition,” the former House Speaker said on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal.”
EPT
