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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 21, 2014 23:35:36 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2014 13:40:31 GMT -5
So, if FEMA was more efficient you'd go for it. Okay, that sounds fine. Of course you're evading the question as you do 90% of the time.
Free trade? Like foreign countries do with each other? That's it? Just that between the states? Sounds like you'd like each state to be totally independent of each other, in spite of your, again, evasion of the question.
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 22, 2014 13:54:10 GMT -5
So, if FEMA was more efficient you'd go for it. Okay, that sounds fine. Of course you're evading the question as you do 90% of the time. And you're using Ad Hominems, as you do 90% of the time. One of the purposes of government is to step in when there are major emergencies, such as a natural disaster. Why? Because that is part of the legitimate government function of keeping order and protecting the public safety. Natural disasters can lead to lawlessness and it is legitimate for government to step in then. Yes. Independent of each other. We have that already, don't we? Bob
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2014 14:12:31 GMT -5
When you don't have a good answer, you call it an ad hominem. And I said "totally" independent. you conveniently glossed over that. Again, evading the issue. Don't bother to respond. I won't be wasting my time reading it.
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Post by teri on Feb 22, 2014 14:51:19 GMT -5
if libertarianism is so ideal, why is there NOT ONE NATION that has successfully governed under libertarian ideals?? Teri, we've been over this before. As nations move closer to free markets, they become more prosperous. We have two huge examples in the last 40 years, India and China. Neither one of them moved completely towards a free market, but they made partial moves. 100 million people in India and 300 million in China were raised out of poverty since then, and China now has the second largest economy in the world. Bob libertarians taking credit for china's economic rise is a joke, right? even the heritage foundation ranks China ranked the 137th in its Index of Economic Freedom (that's the "mostly unfree" catagory). china rose because it went from agricultural to industrial...lots of government investment in infrastructure, foriegn investment, and technology were what moved it out of feudal times....
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 22, 2014 19:50:36 GMT -5
Teri, we've been over this before. As nations move closer to free markets, they become more prosperous. We have two huge examples in the last 40 years, India and China. Neither one of them moved completely towards a free market, but they made partial moves. 100 million people in India and 300 million in China were raised out of poverty since then, and China now has the second largest economy in the world. Bob libertarians taking credit for china's economic rise is a joke, right? even the heritage foundation ranks China ranked the 137th in its Index of Economic Freedom (that's the "mostly unfree" catagory). china rose because it went from agricultural to industrial...lots of government investment in infrastructure, foriegn investment, and technology were what moved it out of feudal times.... No joke. Communist China had complete control over the entire economy until the new policy. Then they permitted some free market reforms. As for going "from agricultural to industrial, they tried to do that since 1949 when Mao took over and they failed...until they permitted some free market reforms. I never said that China was libertarian. What I did say was that the free market reforms were responsible for the sudden rise in their economy. Here's what the BBC says: And here's what Time magazine says: Of course now the Chinese government is trying to move away from these free market policies and the result will be a economic disaster. But that still doesn't diminish the miracle they accomplished in such a short time. And why do you think there was such a sudden increase in foreign investment? The free market reforms did that. Bob
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 22, 2014 19:53:11 GMT -5
When you don't have a good answer, you call it an ad hominem. And I said "totally" independent. you conveniently glossed over that. Again, evading the issue. Don't bother to respond. I won't be wasting my time reading it. Have a nice day Lily. Bob
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2014 4:02:58 GMT -5
And I'm saying that they refused to help because of anti-catholic and anti Irish bias. Remember that Scotland also had a blight at the same time and the British government did provide aid there. Bob Maybe. But that's not how they were argueing their case. They claimed that the free market would fix the situation, and that the government should not interfere.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2014 4:15:18 GMT -5
There is no such thing as no government interference. That is flat out impossible if you want to have any government at all. Governments need infrastructure and staff... And that infrastructure can be greatly reduced. For example, do you really think the USA needs a Department of Commerce, which only exists to hand out corporate welfare? Come on McAnswer, do you really believe the U.S. military needs to be so big? A Libertarian government would give up the American Empire and bring the troops home. A military limited to defense would be much smaller. Well, most of its operations were in defense of American business interests. Since libertarians explicitly believe that it is theright of a businessman to have their interests protected by military and police, the American Empire is perfectly defensible as a libertarian project. Did you know that the original plan for the occupation of Iraq called for the privatization of all Iraqi state industries? That's exactly how a libertarian government would operate. How else are you going to enforce regulations? Sure there is. Because what is "force and fraud" depends on how you define the terms in law, and if there is good money to be made from defining the terms in a particular way, you can be certain that this is what's being lobbied into the law.
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 23, 2014 11:57:39 GMT -5
And I'm saying that they refused to help because of anti-catholic and anti Irish bias. Remember that Scotland also had a blight at the same time and the British government did provide aid there. Bob Maybe. But that's not how they were argueing their case. They claimed that the free market would fix the situation, and that the government should not interfere. LOL! What did you expect? Did you think they would give their true motivation, that they refused to help because they wanted to kill off Irish Catholics? And then there is the problem of Scotland. For some strange reason, the English did help the Scots avoid the disaster that hit Ireland. But that was interference in the market, wasn't it? Bob
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 23, 2014 12:15:22 GMT -5
And that infrastructure can be greatly reduced. For example, do you really think the USA needs a Department of Commerce, which only exists to hand out corporate welfare? Come on McAnswer, do you really believe the U.S. military needs to be so big? A Libertarian government would give up the American Empire and bring the troops home. A military limited to defense would be much smaller. Well, most of its operations were in defense of American business interests. Since libertarians explicitly believe that it is theright of a businessman to have their interests protected by military and police, the American Empire is perfectly defensible as a libertarian project. No McAnswer, that is just another form of corporate welfare. And the Libertarian Party is explicitly against it. No. See the above links. A Libertarian government would never have invaded to begin with. That's too funny. Exactly how much "enforcement" do you think is taking place? You are hiring the fox to protect the hen-house. Yes. Eventually corrupt interests will try to stretch the definitions to fit their interests. Like Jefferson said, the price of Liberty is eternal vigilance. But at least we will have a head start. Future generations will have to fight their own battles. Really McAnswer, do you believe there really is a need for a Department of Commerce? Are you happy that the USA maintains such a massive military force in peacetime? Do you really think these particular forms of government activity are justified? Is that your ideal? Bob
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2014 18:30:16 GMT -5
Well, most of its operations were in defense of American business interests. Since libertarians explicitly believe that it is theright of a businessman to have their interests protected by military and police, the American Empire is perfectly defensible as a libertarian project. No McAnswer, that is just another form of corporate welfare. And the Libertarian Party is explicitly against it. No. See the above links. A Libertarian government would never have invaded to begin with. That's too funny. Exactly how much "enforcement" do you think is taking place? You are hiring the fox to protect the hen-house. What's your solution? Yes. Eventually corrupt interests will try to stretch the definitions to fit their interests. No, not eventually. They will be keen to write those definitions specifically so it serves their interest. Really McAnswer, do you believe there really is a need for a Department of Commerce? Are you happy that the USA maintains such a massive military force in peacetime? Do you really think these particular forms of government activity are justified? Is that your ideal? Bob No. But I don't believe that government is a shadowy conspiracy only there to deny people their true self. There are reason why certain institutions exist in the way they do. The problem does not lie with those institutions, they fill a need and have a purpose. If you get rid of them, all you will find is that something else will take their place to fill those needs and that purpose. Governance and business are not so closely connected because the people in power have the incorrect set of beliefs, but because there are real and tangible benefits to that connection for a significant number of people, and because these people have real needs and desires that are met by that particular way of interacting between governments and businesses. This will be true regardless of whether these people believe themselves to be libertarian, left-wing liberal, or conservative, and regardless of whether these people loudly proclaim to be against corruption, inefficiency, and bureaucracy (what I like to call "bad things that sound bad" ). What you suggest is the equivalent of changing your curtains because you don't like the view out of your window.
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 23, 2014 19:18:00 GMT -5
Really McAnswer, do you believe there really is a need for a Department of Commerce? Are you happy that the USA maintains such a massive military force in peacetime? Do you really think these particular forms of government activity are justified? Is that your ideal? Bob No. But I don't believe that government is a shadowy conspiracy only there to deny people their true self. There are reason why certain institutions exist in the way they do. The problem does not lie with those institutions, they fill a need and have a purpose. Yes. The purpose is to make it look like the politicians are doing something. This is a good cover for funneling money to the people and groups that have backed them. Needs? Oh yes, the needs of a corrupt power structure to funnel wealth to itself. You seem to think that the present system is stable. It's not. The system is already in crisis. What you say here could just as easily be used as a justification for a slave society or for Fascism. What you overlook here is that there are bad things that are really bad and that the world is already in crisis. It would take remarkably little to set it off. A sudden rise in interest rates would be enough to do it. I guess when we got rid of the Nazis, all we were doing was changing the curtains too. Is that what you are saying? Bob
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2014 3:10:33 GMT -5
What you say here could just as easily be used as a justification for a slave society or for Fascism. Let me ask you a question Bob: Do you believe that slavery ever benefitted the slaveholders? Or did the slaveholders just have false beliefs that needed to be corrected? Also, I find it hilarious that you equate social benefits for poor people with slavery, while you don't seem to find anything wrong with a for profit prison system i.e. actual slavery.
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 24, 2014 10:29:32 GMT -5
What you say here could just as easily be used as a justification for a slave society or for Fascism. Let me ask you a question Bob: Do you believe that slavery ever benefitted the slaveholders? Or did the slaveholders just have false beliefs that needed to be corrected? Not the point. Slavery was wrong. Do you maintain otherwise? It is slavery for the people who work and then have their money forcibly taken in order to provide these benefits. As for prisoners, they are convicted criminals, not slaves. Bob
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2014 20:44:37 GMT -5
Let me ask you a question Bob: Do you believe that slavery ever benefitted the slaveholders? Or did the slaveholders just have false beliefs that needed to be corrected? Not the point. Very much the point. Slavery didn't go away because the slaveholders came to change their errant ways, but because the people who came into power were not slaveholders and had no use for slavery, and neither did their support base. Corporate influence will go away once corporations have no use for governments - no sooner. So being forced to work for other people's profits is not slavery, but one's own profits being taxed is slavery? Bob, you are making less and less sense.
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 24, 2014 21:36:55 GMT -5
Very much the point. Slavery didn't go away because the slaveholders came to change their errant ways, but because the people who came into power were not slaveholders and had no use for slavery, and neither did their support base. Corporate influence will go away once corporations have no use for governments - no sooner. Yes. Corporate influence will never go away. But with a smaller government, there will be much less to influence. LOL! You just described the welfare system. Worker's taxes are welfare recipients profits, aren't they? Of course that includes corporate welfare as well Unnecessary ad hominem. Unworthy of you. Bob
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2014 9:12:33 GMT -5
Corporate influence will never go away. But with a smaller government, there will be much less to influence. Societies do not begin and end with their governments and ruling elites, though. There is plenty to influence outside the purview of government in the strict sense. Just take a look at the Koch brothers to get an impression of how far you can stretch political influence even outside governments proper.
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Post by rmarks1 on Mar 5, 2014 11:26:04 GMT -5
Corporate influence will never go away. But with a smaller government, there will be much less to influence. Societies do not begin and end with their governments and ruling elites, though. There is plenty to influence outside the purview of government in the strict sense. Just take a look at the Koch brothers to get an impression of how far you can stretch political influence even outside governments proper. "Political" influence? The Koch brothers are running commercials against Obamacare. All these commercials do is present their case to the public. People are not forced to believe these commercials or even to watch them. On the other side, George Soros does the same thing for his causes. None of this involves bribing or otherwise directly influencing politicians public officials, and that is the big problem with a big government. Bob
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2014 13:22:23 GMT -5
So you are saying the best way to get rid of government corruption is to privatize it?
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Post by rmarks1 on Mar 5, 2014 14:07:20 GMT -5
So you are saying the best way to get rid of government corruption is to privatize it? Obviously not. The best way to reduce government corruption is to reduce the size and scope of government. If you cut the number of government projects by half, then you have also cut the possibilities for corruption in half. The same holds true for cutting the number of bureaucrats. But we've drifted away from the original topic of this thread so let me ask the question again. What the hell is wrong with income inequality? Bob
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2014 14:32:29 GMT -5
But we've drifted away from the original topic of this thread so let me ask the question again. What the hell is wrong with income inequality? Bob What isn't wrong with income inequality? It's a method to reward positions of social prestige and social power, so that people in these positions can accumulate ever more of what they already have in abundance. And it serves to increase and aggravate existing inequalities over generations, even centuries. What reason do you have to support income inequality?
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Post by rmarks1 on Mar 5, 2014 18:16:53 GMT -5
But we've drifted away from the original topic of this thread so let me ask the question again. What the hell is wrong with income inequality? Bob What isn't wrong with income inequality? It's a method to reward positions of social prestige and social power, so that people in these positions can accumulate ever more of what they already have in abundance. And it serves to increase and aggravate existing inequalities over generations, even centuries. What reason do you have to support income inequality? Not in a free market. Free markets reward people who produce. Steve Jobs started Apple in a garage. Mike Dell started making computers in his dorm room. Compare them with the late Huntington Hartford, heir to the A&P fortune. He went through the entire fortune and died nearly broke. What you seem to be objecting to is Crony Capitalism where some people make money from deals with their government contacts. There would be less of a chance of that happening if government size and power were reduced. Income inequality by itself is not bad. In fact, in a free market, it provides incentive to produce more. That provides more jobs for people at the bottom and their lives improve as well. It is part of Marxist mythology that the poor will keep getting poorer as the rich get richer. That didn't happen. Bob
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2014 13:39:57 GMT -5
Not in a free market. Free markets reward people who produce. Markets don't "reward" anything. They are a mechanism of distributing resources, not supernatural authorities who grant you boons for acting virtuous. And the overwhelming share of wealth is distributed to people who do not produce physical things with their own hands. The best way to become wealthy in a free market society is to be born wealthy. Last time I checked, Steve Jobs wasn't exactly a millionaire during the time when he was making computers in his own garage. He became a millionaire when he and his buddies outsourced the physical production and concentrated on producing blueprints and image campaigns. The accumulation of wealth by the wealthy precedes the existence of public welfare measures (i.e. what you falsely call "crony capitalism") measures by several centuries. There is zero evidence that free market capitalism did anything to mitigate existing inequality of wealth and status in our society, and plenty of evidence that it supported or possibly accelerated the process. A free market operates by the law of supply and demand, not the law of always produce more. What provides an incentive to produce more is large popular demand, but that is the result of anti-inequality measures like unemployment subsidies, social welfare, and progressive taxation (all of which redistribute wealth from the upper to the lower range, effectively increasing the poor majority's ability to pay for goods and services). The last decades of economic growth have not benefitted the majority of the population. It doesn't matter what ideological scarecrow you build up to explain that away, it remains fact.
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Post by teri on Mar 6, 2014 13:46:58 GMT -5
Generally speaking, those who hold pro-market/ individualist worldviews do not endorse pro- environmental values and behaviours....INCOME INEQUALITY has negative impact on the environment.by inducing lower expenditure on environmental protection, increasing consumerism or reducing collective action, economic inequality affects nations’ environment performance. inequality heightens consumerism. Income inequality has been extensively correlated with health and social problems: life expectancy, obesity, mental health, drug use, educational performance, teenage births and violence to name a few (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2010). Environmental degradation appears to be another side effect of economic inequality and analyses show there is a negative correlation between income inequality and environmental sustainability (Andrich et al., 2010; Baland et al., 2007; Butler, 2002; Dorling, 2010a, 2010b; Holland et al., 2009; Mikkelson et al., 2007): the higher the income inequality the worse the environmental indicators such as waste production, meat and water consumption, biodiversity loss and environmental composite indices (e.g. ecological footprint). www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/hauptInequality.html#_ENREF_28
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Post by rmarks1 on Mar 6, 2014 16:56:36 GMT -5
Not in a free market. Free markets reward people who produce. Markets don't "reward" anything. They are a mechanism of distributing resources, not supernatural authorities who grant you boons for acting virtuous. Yes. And that rewards people who produce. Steve Jobs didn't produce anything with his own hands either. Are you saying that he wasn't highly productive? Yes. And you are saying that this is wrong because...? Wrong. I never said that the welfare state was crony capitalism. Yes. And we are all much better off for it! The free market didn't just make the rich richer. It made the poor richer too. Throughout most of history, the poor were the vast majority of the population. Today they are a minority. During the Great Depression, President Roosevelt announced that one third of the nation was ill housed, ill clothed, and ill fed. In other words, during the greatest economic depression in history, the poor were already a minority! THAT is the result of free market capitalism.
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Post by rmarks1 on Mar 6, 2014 17:10:57 GMT -5
Generally speaking, those who hold pro-market/ individualist worldviews do not endorse pro- environmental values and behaviours.... And your evidence for this is...? Teri, the worst polluter of the 20th century was the Soviet Union. Their government ran all their industry and their income inequality was low. Wilkinson and Pickett are a couple of frauds. We had a debate on this a couple of years ago. They cherrypicked their data and left out data from countries that gave contrary results. Their results have not been replicated, and with good reason. Once again Teri, did they compare their results with the Soviet Union? That one example refutes all of these studies. 60 years ago, the left wing claimed that the Soviet Union would outproduce the capitalist West. That didn't happen. Now capitalism is attacked because it causes pollution. The left will always find some reason to condemn capitalism, while all the while using the gadgets, cars, computers, televisions, internet, and all the other technological marvels that the capitalist free market made possible. Think of it Teri. Without the free market, there wouldn't even be an internet for you to post your ideas. Bob
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Post by teri on Mar 6, 2014 20:22:10 GMT -5
bob you are such an absolutist. to you it is either total free market or total socialism. not the only choices. steady state economy makes most sense to me..... economic growth has its limits. we exist in an ecosystem that is not infinite. continuous growth and sustainability are incompatible, growth cannot be relied upon to alleviate poverty, as has been done (ineffectively) in the past. the pie isn’t getting any bigger, we need to cut and distribute the pieces in a fair way. In addition, poor people who have trouble meeting basic needs tend not to care about sustainability, and excessively rich people tend to consume unsustainable quantities of resources. Fair distribution of wealth, therefore, is a critical part of sustainability....
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Post by rmarks1 on Mar 6, 2014 22:34:09 GMT -5
bob you are such an absolutist. to you it is either total free market or total socialism. not the only choices. But they are. Once the principle of "The Government should do something" is established, there is no end. The "iron law of bureaucracy" tells us that government agencies will keep expanding their reach and their power. As proof, just look how government and government agencies have grown in the past 60 years. I agree totally. The surface of the Earth is not infinite so it's obvious that there cannot be infinite growth. "Ineffectively"? Before the Capitalist system, over 90% of the world's population was poor. Today in the USA it's about 17%. And "poor" today doesn't mean what it did in past centuries. Back then, it meant starving and wearing rags. Today even "poor" people have cars, TV's, and cell phones. But the pie is still getting bigger. And I actually agree with you about the distribution! But not in the way you think. Government policy has made it easier for companies to "make" money by manipulating paperwork instead of actually producing goods. This is how they do it. They issue junk bonds. Then they take the money from the bond sale and use it to buy back their stock. The stock price goes up. They exercise their options and sell their stock at an enormous profit. When the stock price eventually declines, they just do it again. It's called "Extend and Pretend." They roll over the debt by issuing new bonds and they pretend that the bonds will be paid off eventually. All it will take to bring the whole thing crashing is either a sharp downturn or a spike in interest rates. Rich people? You mean like Al Gore who goes from city to city in a private jet and gets paid a lot of money for talking about the environment? Now as far as "fair" distribution, what is "fair" and who is going to decide it? Bob
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2014 2:52:41 GMT -5
bob you are such an absolutist. to you it is either total free market or total socialism. not the only choices. But they are. Once the principle of "The Government should do something" is established, there is no end. The "iron law of bureaucracy" tells us that government agencies will keep expanding their reach and their power. As proof, just look how government and government agencies have grown in the past 60 years. So you're an anarchist now?
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