Who wants bigger gov't??? Please help me understand liberals.
- Thread starter kappainf
- Start date
Hydrolicious
Member
You want me to read an entire book, but you wont take the time to post a few comments on the 4-5 pages I've written here?
You are welcome to join the debate if you have something relevant to say...
Looking at the first few pages or so, it looks like that book is a lot of opining...
Repubs talk about lofty ideas liberals have that dont translate to the real world... that consumers are all that is needed to keep avaricious businesses in check...
Well I say that consumers are NOT enough to keep business in check... that Repubs are the ones with the lofty ideas that dont translate to the real world
Can ANYONE refute the REAL-WORLD SPECIFIC EXAMPLES that I've posted in this thread?
Seriously....
Green Cross
Well-Known Member
First you need to get the idea out of your head that FOX news isn't creadible, or that republicans are bad, as an excuse to be a liberal. None of that crap matters
The republicans aren't responsible - nor is FOX - for the failures in the Obama administration.
Obama's big govenment policies have already failed, and to prove it I don't have to attack liberals, or NBC.
Where is the job creation the Obama administration promised, while pursuing their cansian economic plan, and where did the trillion and a half dollars go?
And your 3 point anti-capitalist list, doesn't even address the reasons why you think bigger governemnt is better. Where did you learn your anti-capitalist beliefs?
All you have to do is look at China to see what bigger government looks like. Is this how we all want to live?
And as for blaming the wealthy for your problems; nothing is zero sum, meaning that no matter how much money a wealthy person has, it doesn't keep you from making as many dollars as you like.
What isn't zero sum is power. The more power government has, the less power you will have over your own life.
It's too bad some people are happy not succeeding, but it's unfair to punish those who are succesful, and by limiting the wealth of the upper class, you are only hurting those who rely on them for jobs, and consumptoin.
For every dollar government spends, a dollar is wasted, and that dollar has to come from somewhere else.
Explain how that increases the wealth of the middle and lower class?
Hydrolicious
Member
You know whats funny?
When a Repub president screws everything up (The Bush's), or a Dem president fixes things(Clinton). Its all about how it takes four years for the President's policies to show up in the economy... so it was really the Repub who fixed it or the Dem who screwed it up...
But here is Obama not even a year into his presidency and EVERY REPUBLICAN has come out to bash him for not having fixed everything yet.
So which is it? Instant impact or four year delay?
I'm not anti-capitalist nor anti-business. I'm even a part-time entrepreneur.
What I dont believe in is unregulated economic anarchy
Oh, because that's not being a sensationalist...
No? Then why get upset at the govt for printing money?
I thought money someone else has doesnt reduce the power of your money?
Yes, and money==power;
see my point above
No one is pilfering the bank accounts of the upper class. Only income is subject to tax.
Sounds cliche...
What?
Green Cross
Well-Known Member
There you go again trying to blame bush for Obama's failures.
News flash: BUSH ISNT THE PRESIDENT!
Do you have an original thought, or at least directly debate the points I made - non of which defend former presidents?
Reminder: the topic is big government
Cloud City
New Member
REALITY CHECK: ALL of the shit President Obama is dealing now with is 100% Bush's fault. Ending two wars and rebuilding the economy while trying to help Americans get health coverage is not simple.
Cloud City
New Member
FOX news is not credible at all. I watch it daily and it is no more than Christian Conservative opinions. They should change the name from FOX news to FOX opinion.
Hydrolicious
Member
I know this. Are you going to answer the question? is it instant impact or four year delay?
Also, see edit above
Thats funny. I could say the same thing about your first post, but I didnt want to be rude...
undertheice
Well-Known Member
where is this abuse? where are the forced labor camps? our poor today have a better life than many of the reasonably well off in my grandfather's time. there are myriad types of government assistance private charity is at an all time high, much higher than anywhere else on earth.
so i guess that within your narrow definition of "work" there is no room for risk or investment. i guess you consider it perfectly all right to place astronomical tax rates on anything that your own labor didn't produce. add to that your seeming disgust with the idea of management making more than labor and i guess we should all just receive twenty dollars an hour and be happy with it, regardless of the skills or responsibilities inherent in our chosen tasks. your "tax the shit out of the rich" mentality is certainly nothing new and is no more credible now than it was when forwarded by the malcontents and layabouts of the past. this is the same mindless drivel that i spouted when i was twelve years old. i thought it was revolutionary back then too, but it didn't take long for me to realize it was just laziness and greed.
you advocate the use of force, the inherent violence of governmental action, in order to change society. you claim utilization as abuse and use that redefinition to justify larceny. such childish disingenuousness is all too common and seems to be the product of a rather warped version of what many of us have been working toward for generations. are you sure you don't work for the government?
Notice how every time we have a financal breakdown its always the banks?
It is because of fractional reserve banking and central planning.
The current breakdown was because the FED an agency with virtually no oversight.
Kept interest rates to low for to long.
This caused a speculitive bubble.
This along with the dirivitives market.
Is what broke the system.
If we were using real capitalism we would have hard money.
Hard money is the ultimate regulation.
Banks cannot create credit out of thin air with a hard money system.
Hireing a mass of regulaters will not help.
Because what the banks did was made legal years ago.
We need to look to the past and use history as a guild to what works and what does not.
It is because of fractional reserve banking and central planning.
The current breakdown was because the FED an agency with virtually no oversight.
Kept interest rates to low for to long.
This caused a speculitive bubble.
This along with the dirivitives market.
Is what broke the system.
If we were using real capitalism we would have hard money.
Hard money is the ultimate regulation.
Banks cannot create credit out of thin air with a hard money system.
Hireing a mass of regulaters will not help.
Because what the banks did was made legal years ago.
We need to look to the past and use history as a guild to what works and what does not.
Hydrolicious
Member
The "hard money" system, or "gold standard" is not a sustainable long term system.
Wealth will concentrate with the few until they have practically all of it. Once they have all of it, there is no motive to invest any of it...
Think about it... if you already have 95% of the wealth in the world, why would you put any of it at risk? You could live fat and happy no matter what anyone did...
Inflation is the motivator that puts savings back out into investments- and therefore into circulation. Without inflation, the market would eventually dry up and crash.
There is a REASON things are the way they are... the gold standard was not repealed without cause.
Wealth will concentrate with the few until they have practically all of it. Once they have all of it, there is no motive to invest any of it...
Think about it... if you already have 95% of the wealth in the world, why would you put any of it at risk? You could live fat and happy no matter what anyone did...
Inflation is the motivator that puts savings back out into investments- and therefore into circulation. Without inflation, the market would eventually dry up and crash.
There is a REASON things are the way they are... the gold standard was not repealed without cause.
CrackerJax
New Member
Wow....some economics lessons are needed here....
ViRedd
New Member
Most of those who have become wealthy, have become wealthy because they have helped an enormous amount of people get what THEY want. The money wasn't the end goal and it hardly ever is. Put aside your envy and jealousy for a moment and just think.
Cloud City
New Member
Most all of em were born rich and had everything handed to them. You gotta have money to make money.
ancap
Active Member
Giving this a second sober thought
bigjoint
, I'm actually not sure this is the case with you, so I'm willing to retract this statement. I was getting the feeling in reading through your arguments that you were thinking too much in terms of rich and poor while ignoring the shades of gray. I assume we both understand there are shades of gray. I also think we both recognize a widening gap between the rich and the poor. However, you seem to attribute the creation of wealth to government controlled capitalism, and the increasing poverty levels to the unrestrained free market's tendency towards greed. We are looking at the same crime scene and reasoning to different conclusions.
You seem to be describing the rise of government powers and eventual collapse or overthrow of every government in human history. The free market is simply the free exchange of money for goods and services. When left to its natural process, the outcome is always the creation of wealth. Anytime wealth is created, that territory's government has swollen to capture a portion of that wealth. Its justification for this confiscation (I'm not free style rapping, I promise) is always the "need" to provide essential services to the public and to regulate the free market.
The problem is, once the government starts regulating, irregularities and barriers are added to the mix which creates market failures. Statists (those that consider government essential) look at these failures and blame the market instead of looking at the first cause. The conclusion they come to is that more regulation is needed. This is the catch 22 that eventually leads to socialism or a bloated government's collapse.
The problem in every historical example is force and violence, not the free market. The government is FAR more prone to violence than the free market, which is extremely accountable to the consumer when there are no forced market barriers. Governments are FAR less accountable to its "customers" than Pizza Hut or Walmart. It has taken us 60 plus years to even begin reversing the completely destructive marijuana prohibition laws.
What our founding fathers did was attempt to take the government and religion out of the free exchange of goods and services. The result was a massive explosion in technology and wealth, and a spike in the average quality of life. Unfortunately, they didn't cut the cancer out completely and it grew to become the largest and most powerful empire the world has ever seen.
Besides adding the caveat that not all wealthy people attempt to do this, I completely agree.
Central planning begins when one group of people think they understand what is best for another group of people that they know virtually nothing about. Poverty was in relative decline until the creation of the welfare state. Before the ghetto, while maybe not the prettiest place to live, African American's were living very well in their communities (compared to now). They all knew each other, they attended the same schools and churches, shopped in the same corner stores, and chatted in the barbershop. Was there occasional violence? Absolutely. Was their standard of living lower? Sure, but who are we to assume that everyone wants what we want?
When the government tore the neighborhoods apart and built the projects with the goal of creating affordable subsidized housing in a clean community, and the creation of public parks from confiscated land, they had no idea they were creating the ghetto. These people were literally stacked one on top of each other in government housing complexes.
The subsidized nature of housing cuts out free market competition for lower income people creating a government monopoly on the housing of the lower income class. Whenever a monopoly exists, the consumer gets screwed (as we'd both agree). Properties begin to deteriorate and violence increases. Prohibition of drugs has done nothing to slow the use of drugs, it only relegates the sale to the black market which creates gang violence. As gang violence increases in a community, the police become outnumbered and retreat which fuels more violence. These beautiful public parks that were created on the backs of confiscated land become drug centers and crime scenes.
This was certainly not the government's goal, but I believe the road to hell is built on good intentions.
Tyranny - Your relationship with your boss is only tyrannical when the relationship is not voluntary. In a free market, every relationship is voluntary.
Genocide - The slave trade was a symptom of the evils of the culture at the time. The free market did not create slavery, it was only used to propogate slavery. The government actually sustained slavery at the time. In a culture where the people value the non-aggression principle, there will be no slaves. If however, mostly everyone believes that black people are inferior, nothing will stop the slave trade including governments or free markets.
Wars - I need you to elaborate on this. Please tell me how the free market has waged a war without the involvement of the government in any way.
Gangs - I covered this above.
Bondage - Each year in the US, government agents put 850,000 americans in chains because they were caught with the wrong kind of green vegetation in their pockets. There has been an estimation of thousands of silent deaths as a result of delayed FDA drug approvals. An estimation of over 100,000 civilians have been killed as a result of US action in Iraq. 650,000 Americans have been killed in battle since the first revolution. This is the same government you are defending.
The computer was invented by the free market. Even if the internet was created first by a government entity (because they had the greatest demand for it at the time), you cannot tell me that the inter-operability and connectivity/networking with other computers was a novel idea that would have not come about in the absence of government!
Same with roads... The free market produced cars. Just because the government spearheaded the effort to universalize our highway system, does not mean that in the absence of government, people would not have figured out that a system of highways is more efficient than a series of local roads.
Sorry, what am I not addressing?
Government is a collection of people that claim the moral right to forcefully rule over other people in a given territory. I cannot advocate for a system I find foundationally unethical and practically unsustainable. Government is not good or preferable in any circumstance. Governance is fine (and preferable), but only governance based in voluntarism.
Pick an industry at random, and I'll tell you where regulation has negatively affected society. Where there is positive regulation, it could be done more efficiently in the free market.
Cancer is always bad, even relatively benign cells. The answer is not to address what cancer cells we should improve, but to address how the cancer will be removed completely.
No, its demanding for you to require them to sell you things without first signing the extention contract if that is how they choose to run their business. If you are not happy with their service, you should look for another business that also meets your demands. If there isn't sufficient competition, it can only mean one of two things...
1. The government has unwittingly (or wittingly) created a market oligarchy by raising artificial barriers for a competitor to enter the market.
2. There isn't enough demand for the product or service (this is extremely rare). Typically, if one company is profitable with a product, another company could benefit from taking marketshare.
You should never be able to force other people to sell you things. That would make you a bully in my book, and actually it would make you a very cowardly bully if you have to get other people to do the enforcing.
I agree the insurance companies that exist right now operate and profit very unethically in many situations. This would not happen if other insurance players were allowed to compete, or if the artificial government barriers were stripped away allowing others to profit on the industry.
Insurance is a very real, legitimate business and has a real place in society. Today's insurance construct is wildly out of control though.
This is just my opinion, but if a catastrophe so large came along that it bankrupted all the insurance companies, I think our coverage would be the last thing we would be concerned about.
ancap
Active Member
The gold standard was repealed so your government could steal more money out of your pocket through a hidden taxation called inflation through fiat currency. Doesn't matter why they tell us they did it!
hom36rown
Well-Known Member
Most of the 'super rich' came from middle class families
ancap
Active Member
Burn!Most of the 'super rich' came from middle class families
How many countless wealthy entrepreneurs started out with next to nothing? How many thousands of successful businesses were started on credit cards?
I started making money by selling cheap items on ebay in high school. By my senior year I was making more money than my teachers and leaving class to take phone calls from international bulk buyers. This business grew to become a small distribution company. Later, I used the money from this business to invest in international real estate and to start up a tax business that competes with HR Block for early filers. In our second year, we did over $300,000 in revenue and are expanding to three locations for our third tax season.
I don't say this to brag about my situation, but use it as a first hand experience to illustrate how wealth is created. This template happens over and over again. In fact, maybe only 20% of my entrepreneur friends/associates and partners were born into money or used their parent's money to begin starting businesses. You can almost bet that it's never an entrepreneur who says "it takes money to make money". This paints such a narrow, ignorant picture.