Good to know this argument is still live. Somewhat. It seems that our little birdy has fled, though. Nevertheless, it's incumbant upon me to answer his points.
Falcon wrote:Wyrm wrote:If the costs of climate change does not figure into the cost model of businesses at present, and currently they do not (they didn't with environmental damage, either—that too had to be externally imposed), then the government has to impose them.
There are no costs though, its all supposition on future costs. If there were real costs then they'd be figured in without any government actions.
Insurance, buzzard! Costs from accidents are not actually accrued until you're in one. Supposedly, they don't exist. Yet we still pay insurance, so YES, you
can put a price on potential future losses, and for certain types of losses, it makes sense to start paying before you suffer the actual loss.
You know
fuck-all about the mechanisms of the free market, yet you hold it up like some something you should kneel in front of and "worship". You deserve your title, bitch.
Falcon wrote:That's such a retarded mischaracterization of what I was saying its stunning. Costs and benefits do not come from "outside" the free market, those things are an integral part of the free market. Outside influence are relegated to, for our purposes here, government imposed costs or mandates that have nothing to do with the actual marketable cost and benefit of some act.
Congradulations! You have failed Economics 101!
In the free market, value is the dynamic potential that drives the movemet of goods. I value a Capt'n Crunch Secret Decoder Ring more than I value the $12 it takes to purchase it, so I make the purchase. At the bottom of everything, that's how things work in a free market.
But these values
do not originate within the free market. What made me buy the Capt'n Crunch Secret Decoder Ring for $12 retail is that I place more value on the ring than on the $12. These values come from outside the free market, because when I leave the free market and go to any one of the communistic countries still exant, what I value still guides my decisions, as much as they are able. So when I get back into a free market, I carry that value system with me as I enter, and therefore, this value system is
external to the free market within which I am participating.
So tell me why governmental-imposed externalities are verboten, whereas mine are permitted.
Falcon wrote:When the government comes in and imposes an arbitrary cost based on some theory of what might happen in a hundred years then that is most definately an outside influence that ought not be permitted.
Why ought it not be permitted? Why is the change in the cost/benefit landscape permitted when it comes from consumers, while it's forbidden if it comes from a government?
Something more substantial than "it comes from the government," please.
Falcon wrote:The key phase there is "in retrospect." You're diluding yourself into thinking that you can peer ahead into the future with the 20\20 vision of the past and then use the government to compel what you assume to be the best outcome.
You fail spelling
and the argument! DOUBLE PLAY! At least the government has the benefit of people actually looking forward, you molting emu. When you're riding the mythical almighty, unguided free market, you're flying blind.
So far, I've shown much more foresight than the companies. It's
obvious that we are going to run out of fossil fuels, and that fuel prices were going to rise long before they actually rose. Yet the supposedly foresightful free market pushed SUVs as the new big wave. It's
obvious that the amount of carbon in fossil fuels, released as CO2 into the atmosphere, will greatly disrupt climate (the average temperature of the Earth when these fossil fuels were forming was quite a bit higher than it is now, and that was in the past when the sun was cooler, and the climate was much different back then), and therefore severely disrupt human civilization. Yet I see an
increase in the rate carbon is going into the atmosphere due to the free market wankage.
I find it ironic that you screech about your silly freedoms, yet being willing to enslave yourself to the free market — that which should be
our servant, not the other way around.
Falcon wrote:The free market is a necessary consequence of individual liberty, not an inherent component of democracy. You can't have liberty unless the right to property is held above all other rights and accordingly you can't have a right to free property unless you can buy, sell, trade, destroy, etc, your property freely in an uncoerced market.
Yes, and by this logic you have the liberty to build a doomsday weapon that will destroy all life on Earth if you have the resources. Do you see why making doomsday devices is a bad idea?
Falcon wrote:Of course this is getting far afield from your original and apparently abandoned statement equating individuals in the government making decisions with individuals collectively in the market.
Who's abandoned it? Individuals aren't
in the market, either... unless we're talking about slavery. Individuals
participate in the free market, importing and imposing onto the market their own values (which makes the market go). The government can participate, too. That your bird-like brain is too small to understand this is not my fault.
Falcon wrote:I realize that when you artifically decrease the supply or increase the cost of energy you create cost increases across the board.
Do you really believe that the cost in dollars for a pound of coal is
actually equal to its
true cost, which would include things like environmental costs? If anything, the price of fossil fuels is artificially
low. It doesn't take into account the environmental damage it causes (in the form of atmospheric CO2) when it's burned, a cost you have yet to disprove in other parts of the debate.
Prices that are too low
also create problems, you blue-footed boobie.
Falcon wrote:Then where are they? I haven't seen a single dime's worth of expense from global warming? Most of the costs I see attributed to global warming, like hurricane damage, is the result of government bailouts taking away the economic disincentive to build your house in the path of routine natural disasters.
You're either blind, stupid, or lying. What about the lost revenue of
my state's (Vermont) first snowless November on record? Skiing is big business up here; businesses literally live or die by the snow. But for the first time, snow was sporatic during the very time of year when before, we could essentially bet your bottom dollar on there being plenty of snow from November 'til January. Not only that, good maple syrup depends on a good freeze the winter before, and it almost didn't happen except for the Valentine blizard. So don't tell
me global warming hasn't cost anyone a dime.
As for the government bailouts in Katrinaland, I'm in partial agreement with you. I'd make the bailouts contingent on
not rebuilding in hurricane paths.
Falcon wrote:Its funny you should mention iceberg because it used to be global cooling, not global warming, that got everyone in such a twist.
Global cooling has been discredited since the 1970's, and it came about in the first place because we thought ice ages came more frequently than they did. It was never a serious contender in scientific circles anyway. Of course, your camp was hoping that global cooling would
counterbalance global warming. Way to go!
Falcon wrote:This is just alarmist propaganda for the sheep so that the wolves in power can seize more control for themselves.
*applause* BRAVO!! Nice performance! I bet you practiced for
days to deliver that line without breaking into a grin... oh, you were
serious.
Grow up, birdbrain. All the propagandizing came from
your camp. My camp only gave warnings of what it honestly saw as oncoming problems in the future, and if anything we severely
underestimated the problem.
Falcon wrote:All the screeching you and your ilk are doing now is just an attempt to absolve yourselves of guilt. "Oh, we shouldn't be regulated! The Free Market™ will save us all!" Fuck you. We gave you and the free market ample chance to self-regulate. You blew it. Now someone else has to kick you in the right direction.
That's it, get all the terror out of your system. Go to your happy place.
Fail. I like how you've deluded yourself into believing that global warming actually gives me
comfort. 
If business would self-regulate, I would have no problem with just letting them be. But they don't. They keep screwing up. If the consequences of businesses not self-regulating affected only businesses, I would have no problem simply letting them self-destruct. But the consequences affect
every living thing on Earth. They keep screwing everyone over. I'm tired of that. Any sane person would be tired of that, and want regulation of industry.
But then, you're not a sane person, are you. You're doing the same things and expecting different results.
Falcon wrote:If you need to work so bad that you'll work in awful conditions it is just as fair as the other side of the coin where you don't need to work badly so the employer has to bribe you with generous benefits.
Again, you betray your complete disregard for human life by bleating about free markets. I find it amazing that you would think that anybody could be in such dire straights that he couldn't expect reasonable safety in his job, and not be compensated with hazard pay for the job falling short of that.
And here I thought America was supposed to be
egalitarian. Silly me!
Falcon wrote:What really hurts people and the economy is when the government imposes regulations such that people who want to work, and employers who want to hire, are forbidden from entering into those mutually acceptable agreements as a result of the government act.
Bullshit. The worst economic disasters in history came from government not doing enough. The Great Depression wasn't ignited by government "oppression" of the economy; it was percipitated when the bottom fell out of the agriculture market in the middle of a vulnerable time in the economy caused by free market forces.
Falcon wrote:As long as all parties have the relevant information who cares? If the public knows that there is an increase in risk by using a product and continue to use it, however unwisely, that's their own business. The company is just fulfilling a demand.
That's just it: the customers DIDN'T have all the information because the companies were keeping it quiet. Who would accept such a side effect for routine pain relief? If the FDA hadn't been immasculated, these drugs would have never been approved without this side effect coming to light, and doctors able to take it into account when they write prescriptions — namely, keeping tabs on the patient's cardiovascular health at the
very least.
Falcon wrote:You haven't noticed all the companies fleeing offshores and incurring shipping expenses, local instabilities, and the like just to access cheaper labor?
You mean, in the past decade
in spite of the fact that no new real regulatory moves have been implemented? These moves were only possible because the international infastructure enabled any job done completely over the phone, say tech support, to be located anywhere on earth. It would have happened regardless of regulation.
Falcon wrote:You haven't noticed all the people who lose their job everytime the minimum wage goes up?
Falcon's article wrote:David Neumark, an economist at the University of California, Irvine, has found that increasing the minimum wage does not reduce poverty. Rather, for every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage, he estimates that the poverty rate increases by 3 percent to 4 percent.
Of course I haven't noticed. You guys made that fairytale up.
A raise in the minimum wage, the argument goes, means that employers have to fire workers to make up for the wage increase. Therefore minimum wage causes unemployment.
Sounds like a sound argument, doesn't it. But it's wrong:
Economic Policy Institute wrote:There is no evidence of job loss from the last minimum wage increase.
- A 1998 EPI study failed to find any systematic, significant job loss associated with the 1996-97 minimum wage increase. In fact, following the most recent increase in the minimum wage in 1996-97, the low-wage labor market performed better than it had in decades (e.g., lower unemployment rates, increased average hourly wages, increased family income, decreased poverty rates).
- Studies of the 1990-91 federal minimum wage increase, as well as studies by David Card and Alan Krueger of several state minimum wage increases, also found no measurable negative impact on employment.
- New economic models that look specifically at low-wage labor markets help explain why there is little evidence of job loss associated with minimum wage increases. These models recognize that employers may be able to absorb some of the costs of a wage increase through higher productivity, lower recruiting and training costs, decreased absenteeism, and increased worker morale.
- A recent Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI) study of state minimum wages found no evidence of negative employment effects on small businesses.
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/issuegui ... nwagefacts
Real evidence trumps liberitarian logic.
Falcon wrote:Who do you think corporations are if not people? They're just people who have entered into a legal construct for economic protections.
Corporations are
artificial entities, fucknut. The legal construct real people enter into when they become a corporation is recognized as a separate legal entity from its members
for their protection. That's the point of entering into one.
I'm not surprised you don't know what that implies, having gotten an F in basic economics. The government gives corporations certain rights, privilages and liabilities, but those rights, privilages and liabilities are not necessarily the same as those of a real person. Indeed, they are demonstratably so.
For one thing, imprisoning a corporation is pointless. Also, the individuals in the corporation (the "parents") can dissolve the corporation (the "child") at any time ("killing" it); doing the equavalent to a real individual is called "murder". A company exec that drives a corporation under (again, "killing" it) through gross incompetence is not arressted for negligent homicide (he may open himself to lawsuit, but that's a civil matter).
For all you screeching about the sanctity of "corporation rights and liberties", we obviously don't treat them the same as a living person. That's as it should be; corporations are our
servants, not our masters.
Falcon wrote:It isn't a slippery slope argument to raise concerns about giving government power it can abuse. No one is saying such abuse in evitable, merely too risky.
You have no idea what a slipery slope argument is, have you? The rights of a corporation is not commesurate with that of a living individual. They exist only so far as they serve our needs.
Falcon wrote:The market itself is a function of costs and benefits, it doesn't need the government adding arbitrary costs as a result of speculations. The regulations needed are those that ensure free flow of accurate information and the prevention of coercion.
A market is simply a way of distributing goods. A free market is a particular strategy for doing it, based on cost/benefits of consumers. However, cost/benefits are defined by a bunch of externalities, and one of them is the laws of physics themselves.
Falcon wrote:Which only serves to illustrate my point that the government shouldn't have the power to intervene on anyone's side in such a situation, neither for business nor labor. Companies shouldn't be allowed to use force either (mercinaries), that's a violation of the free market.
No it isn't, moron. Mercinaries in this scenario were
fairly hired to protect the company's interests. And they would, just like the government did with the strikebreakers through the companies' bought influence.
The free market is capable of some
very nasty shit. It's demonstrated this too often. That's why it needs to be regulated.
Falcon wrote:Industry chips in a lot more than you do though. I haven't seen any evidence that industry pays disproportionately less than anyone else. Plus, you are the reason that industry uses the roads (to transport goods to you, the consumer) so you're going to bear the ultimate cost as the end user no matter what.
If I'm the one bearing the cost in any case, then industry isn't bearing it. Concession accepted, twit.
Falcon wrote:If any resource were a corporation that could charge us for its use then that use would alter.
PRECISELY! If the environment could levy surcharges for damage to its properties (which is what pollution is), then companies would change their behavior. That's what happened when government regulations on sulfur pollution were imposed (essentially the equivalent of the environment slapping a factory with a surcharge). Now you no longer hear about acid rain. The costs of climate change is currently externalized, so the free market cannot respond to very real costs mounting in the future.
Concession accepted.
Falcon wrote:You haven't done what you think you've done. The free market isn't inherently short sighted either, especially on big capital projects, but even on the individual level. People can choose to be short sighted, sure, as is their right, but they can also take a very far reaching look at where they want to go in life as they make decisions. The free market has one thing going for it that government doesn't and that's results. Innovation, efficiency, dependability, etc, are all superior, on average, when the free market is in charge rather than the government.
There's only one thing wrong with that argument. It's wrong.
Let's bring back your regulation argument, that if people want a product that outperforms regulation, then government has done nothing. Not true. Without regulations in other areas, a product that outperforms a compeditor in one area, may be extremely deficient in another to make up for the cost of being really good in that area, perhaps past any fully reasoned consideration (and remember, comsumers are not entirely reasonable). But enforcing a minimum standard, performance in that one area is kept down to keep compliance with other regulations...
until that company comes up with an innovation, or an increase in efficiency, that allows the product to achieve the higher performance in that one area, without sacrificing performance in another and without too much additional cost.
So, contrary to your argument, the government regulation actually
stimulates innovation, efficiency, dependability, and what have you, by acting as a selection pressure.
Falcon wrote:You've shifted the argument. First premise: the market demands goods at a level higher than government regulation. Government has affected nothing.
You pretend that the quality of goods has a single dimension. It doesn't. With cars, for instance, there are cars with good acceleration but bad milage, and cars with bad acceleration and good milage, cars with good handling but have a high maitainance requirement, and cars wit any combination of all these dimensions. A car's manufacturer may sacrifice quality on one dimension to improve quality on another to keep price down (and therefore maximize salability). Government regulations keeps important considerations, such as safety, from slipping too low in order to satisfy outperformance of those regulations elsewhere. You fail the argument, because that was the point of my original comment.
Falcon wrote:Second premise: the market demands goods both at and above government regulation. Government has still affected nothing.
I reject this premise, for the reasons sited above. Your definition of "quality" is one dimensional and fails to capture the true picture in any satisfactory detail.
Falcon wrote:Third premise: the market demands goods below the government regulation. Government has interfered with free choice and has now likely denied some individuals (the poor) the ability to purchase said product (since government regulation usually increases costs). Who are you to tell someone that they can't get a product at a certain level of quality if they knowingly want to purchase that product?
Said like a true liberatarian. Can such a person afford or have the intelligence to do the footwork to make sure that the product they are buying really matches the product they want in terms of safety, maintainability, performance in all its various dimensions, convenience, compliance with standards (NTSC/PAL), options, and all that? History has shown otherwise.
Regulations actually make product choice
easier for the consumer. The consumer is assured a minimum standard of the product (which is for most cases perfectly reasonable), and can then concentrate on the features he has the patience to research.
Falcon wrote:That's why the government should prevent fraud or force, but not interfere with free choice.
Again, spoken as if "free choice" is some magical garlic-y charm that will ward off all evils. Free choice is not all its cracked up to be.
Falcon wrote:As long as everyone was uncoerced by fraud or force then they have a right to risk their lives. It isn't for us to stand in judgment over someone else's situation and deny them their ability to choose.
So you think those coffins in the ground are there because people understood the risks they were getting into? What about the infants? They had no choice abot whether they wanted to risk their continued existence for a trip to the mall like their parents (if the parents did make that choice).
You believe that people have a good handle of the risks they take every day. This is patent nonsense. People are more scared of flying, and feel perfectly safe driving, yet per mile (even after 9/11) airplanes are the safest form of travel, and driving the most dangerous. People buy guns without any training, even though a gun in the home is more likely to kill one of the occupants of that home than defending any one of them. People wail about nuclear power irradiating them, yet nuclear power spews much less radioactivity into the air per MW than burning coal.
People don't know how to evaluate risk. The kind of wholly consumer-side evaluation of a product you give head to only works in a hunter-gatherer society with neolithic goods, where the risks can be evaulated with the untrained brain. In case you haven't noticed, we've moved a bit beyond that.
Falcon wrote:article wrote:A Freedom of Information request to the Highways Agency in October 2005 showed that the cost of constructing a mile of motorway had risen from £23 million to £28 million in just 6 months [5].
The rising cost of the roads programme has not gone unnoticed by both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives [6]. Both parties have pointed out that the roads programme is now £1.5 billion over budget.
http://www.roadblock.org.uk/press_relea ... -03-23.htm
And?
At least
try to tie this into your argument, dumbfuck. Prove that a private company would be able to do it for the budget projected, rather than simply asking for £1.5 billion over the stated budget, or without going back to the government to plead for more budget. Furthermore, prove that this £1.5 billion over budget for a public works project
didn't involve private companies.
Falcon wrote:If private companies go overbudget they lose profits or go out of business.
Companies can and do renegotiate their contracts, idiot. Especially if they can convince the government that they are going to go out of business unless they get more green. Regardless of whether they actually need it.
Falcon wrote:Also, are you willing to put up with inefficiency when safety is a concern? When property?
Safety is my own concern, I'm not willing to give up liberty for safety.
Be free of gravity then! Jump off a building!
Still here? Then you're still willing to be bound by gravity for your safety. So much for your not willing to give up liberty for safety claptrap.
Falcon wrote:The right to own property is fundamental to liberty, but there is no right to have your property protected from environmental damage by the government (such as insurance or bailout schemes like those on the coasts).
What about by companies? If you're done harm by a company, should they not pay for the damage?
Falcon wrote:I wouldn't complement you on your values either, but who cares?
I'm not the one who would sacrifice
human civilization itself for some
fake people's rights, boyo.
Falcon wrote:Linux is a lot more like the free market (individual control) and microsoft is a lot more like government (monopoly).
Even though Microsoft was created
entirely through the free market forces, and Linux was created entirely because someone wanted a good kernel and without consideration for profit.
You don't get to pass of Microsoft as some government Frankenstein's monster; that monster was entirely the free market's baby.
Falcon wrote:Not everyone judges things in the same way. People are familiar with Microsoft and so even if they are aware of its problems they still continue to use it. I use it, despite all the griefs I have with it, because it would be too troublesome to use linux in my current situation and I don't like apple (or any of the other alternatives). As long as I have all the information it should be up to me, even if you think my decision unwise.
Do you think everyone has the brainpower or the training to take a complex subject like operating system design, apply decision theory, and then come up with a course of action that is theoretically sound? Do you know what a loss function is? Do you know what a decision rule is? Do you understand why closed interface standards are bad, and how much damage they actually cause the ultimate user? No? Then you and the public
cannot make a decision that is in your best interests without resorting to some kind of regulation, even if you had all the information.
Falcon wrote:No, it doesn't fall on the government. The government has no business substituting its will (or the will of the majority over the minority) for that of the people.
Prove it, shitstain! Why doesn't the government have any business implementing policy decisions for the public good?
Falcon wrote:Name an industry that was taxed into oblivion, shitstain.
It should be common sense; if a company is taxed then it either passes those costs on or else it fails if it cannot. When taxes go up it isn't like the businesses all say "oops, we can't pay these taxes," because the cost is hidden. Instead it looks like a simple failure to provide goods at a price the market demands. [/quote]
I say again,
name a company that fails because it cannot pay its taxes. Here, I'll make things easier by outlining a proper proof of your claim: find a correlation between increased taxes and increased companies going out of business, find a mechanism that links increased taxes with increased business shutdowns, and then
name a business that suffered such a shutdown.
Get to it, twerp!
Falcon wrote:<snip comedy writing itself>
No further comment there.
Falcon wrote:I didn't say it would be "better" just that there was no reason to claim that the market is undemocratic because there are people who have the option to inform themselves and choose not to.
You're argument is that free markets should be free and unfettered. For me to buy that, you have to show that pure free markets consistently produce better results than regulated free markets. I do not see any reasoning from you that demonstrates this.
Falcon wrote:If they want to trade lifespan for junkfood and smoking then that's their value judgment.
No it isn't, you millet-headed birdbrain. It's millions of years of now-maladaptive traits and straightforward nicotine addiction. Humans aren't just collections of values, you fuck. They're also billions of years of evolutionary baggage.
Falcon wrote:If they don't want to believe the shaky inconsistant bleating of agenda driven individuals then that's their value judgment too.
See above, and prove that my "agenda" is "shaky inconsistent bleating."
Falcon wrote:You're upset because you can't convince people on the merits, or even with doomsaying, so now its time to get out the gun and compel them by force.
If you were being dragged by a mob of blind, deaf men marching toward a precipice, wouldn't
you pull out the guns and "compel them by force"?
Yes. Yes, you would.
The science says the coming global crisis is
real, that science says our civilization is unsustainable in its current form. This is the scientific community, the human institution that has done the most good for us, ever, telling us these things. Yet idiots like you keep walking this path towards the precipice.
If it wasn't for the fact that you are dragging me with you off the edge, I would happily let you self-destruct and leave the remains to the smarter generation. Sadly, I have to save you bozos to save myself.
Falcon wrote:And yet they do it. Even in this supposedly over-regulated era.
That's what the legal system is for, to punish the offenders who try to use fraud and force.
How is withholding information "fraud"? How is it "force"? Prove your shit, dumbfuck.
Falcon wrote:So you admit that companies sometimes make the wrong choices.
Companies make the profitable choice. If left to their own devices they'll attempt to make the right choice.
Wrong. They still make the
profitable choice. The choice they make will
not be the
right choice
unless it also happens to be the profitable choice. I repeat, "So you admit that companies sometimes make the wrong choices."
Falcon wrote:It isn't the free market when its not mutual agreement between all parties in question.
Yes there is, moron. All the parties I named do it by mutual concent/quid pro quo.
Falcon wrote:That money isn't given to the government by choice. The wealthy, a minority, are taxed for the bulk of the federal budget. The voters who make up the majority that demands pork are largely outside this taxed group. Thus the majority is using government power to coerce the majority into wealth redistribution. That's prime example of why the government shouldn't have such power and its as far away from a free market as one can get.
Even if I believed your evidence was accurate, it's still spurious reasoning. These costs are
externalized to the senate as a whole, and to the constituency senator A represents. Just like the costs of climate change are externalized to companies that burn fossil fuels. These are serious consequences, affecting us all, and I certainly never gave these companies any leave to change the globe's climate for their selfish, short-term gain.
Git it, bitch? These problems are caused by
externalized costs, not by government. Free market theory doesn't know shit about the government, yet it's able to predict this outcome.
"
When did I make that argument, Tweety! I've looked back at my posts and couldn't figure out where I'd even mentioned China.