Fight over Capitalism... I'm so pissed right now...

[LandonCook]

I'm about to explode right now im so pissed.... Me and a friend have arguing over free trade and capitalism.

I talked about NAFTA being managed trade... that we don't have FREE trade... If we did I could sell products to anywhere in the world without having to go through NAFTA, CAFTA, GAT, or the future NAU... If we had free trade, and a strong currency, my money wouldn't be tied to the petrol Dollar... Ect...

But it just got real ugly...

This was his last Reply to my support of free trade and capitalism.


"Here, lets move to the West Africa and work in a Gold Mine, I promise we'll benefit from it.

The regulation of business is why you didn't work in a Slaughter house when you were 10 years old, unlike those of the "third world" you ignorant piece of shit.

Please, for the sake of my sanity, at very least look up the stages of population transition so when you groan on from your privileged perspective you aren't at least using racially biased categorizations of development.

You should take your own advice.
It seams like your the kind of guy who bases their political ideals off youtube videos... NAU? You worthless piece of shit...

You're right we don't have free trade, but if we did you could count on Exxon becoming Standard Oil, Bell would reform, GE and Microsoft would further monopolize, who knows maybe Viacom could become what MGM was...

Free trade isn't some kind of fantasy playground where anyone can become king, it's an anarchistic jungle of corporatism and unchecked patron-clientism.
If you want to sell shit to then open up an Ebay account.
As far as your "petrol dollar" goes you couldn't find a better case of unchecked business interests determining politics. At the end of WWII Roosevelt made the strategic point of buddying up with Saudi Arabia before the British could after seeing SoCal's success in becoming Armico. Find me a more cost efficient fuel and I'll give you a Strong Currency, but until then "There Will Be Blood.""

I'm so pissed right now I can't even think stright. Im leaving to go workout.... Post what you think of this lowly peice of shit.

[Edu]

Workout, punching bag, good idea.

Sounds like he's jealous of something. He's got money and doesn't want you to move up to his "level" or vice versa, there's some sort of chip on his shoulder.

Or maybe I fell asleep at about the part where Exxon will take over the world if we didn't have NAFTA or was it a world government / police force?

[Lord Xar]

.. he calls you a piece of shit? Not much of a friend.

He also transitions in a way to mention "racial". why? He is either a non-white person OR has "white man's guilt".
This person also says your perspective is invalidated because your are from a 'well to do' family, thus you are not 'real' and you
are seeing things from a perspective that the 'poor' hold precedence over. I get the sense that this person thinks all persons
are victims of the terrible capitalistic scheme and should be wards of the state.

Tell us about this person, so we can get a better view on where he/she is coming from.

I don't think you are gonna change anyone's mind because this persons does NOT want to know an alternative.

There are a TON of articles showing why we don't really have free trade and how free trade is really the economics of choice etc..

Just give this a few hours into tomorrow, some of the more eloquent posters will have ripped your "friends" diatribe apart. Looking forward to it.

[hyoomen]

First and foremost, I don't really think either of you reverting to ad hominem attacks is particularly beneficial to winning the other over.

Second, it is crucial to review the "evolution of population transition" in the context of governmental interference. A primary reason people were forced into corporate serfdom prior to regulatory control / labor laws was because of a lack of cheap housing, adequate food supply, etc. This does not speak to the fact that many children ended up in such jobs because there were more jobs than there were people with the advent of the industrial 'revolution'. For more about child labor laws, definitely check out the mises.org article I post below. Also of interest might be a work of fiction such as Daniel Quinn's Ishmael series, which delves into the use of institutional education (public schools) to keep children out of the workforce.

Bell was only a monopoly because of federal regulations that guaranteed its development. See 'de jure monopoly' or Corporatism cannot exist without governmental support of the corporations (especially with the rights of a 'Person'). Microsoft's monopoly similarly exists in part because of government mandates and support for MS based operating systems. In the Wiki entry below you'll also find a reference to his Saudi Aramco / SoCal example. None of his examples stem from free markets.

He seems fairly confused about what capitalism/free market economies have to offer.

Additional references to look over:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0044-0094(197304)82%3A5%3C871%3AERVCUS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-X
http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cjv14n2-6.html (with a great bibliography)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-granted_monopoly
The Trouble With Child Labor Laws - mises.org (http://www.mises.org/story/2858)

[rfbz]

I think what a lot of people fail to realize is that a company can only make money if a customer feels he is getting a benefit from that company enough to make it worth doing business with them. People get so frightened about this idea of evil companies controlling everything. When companies do get too greedy, they are eventually kept in check by competition. The only problem is when there are monopolies that can't easy be kept in check because barriers to entry are high.

[humanic]

Also of interest might be a work of fiction such as Daniel Quinn's Ishmael series, which delves into the use of institutional education (public schools) to keep children out of the workforce.

Good suggestion. I believe it is in the book My Ishmael that he explicitly addresses this issue. That is the third book in the series (comes after Ishmael and The Story of B), but it is not necessary to read the first two before reading that one.

Still, I highly recommend all of them because they are some of the most important, eye-opening books you'll ever read.

[libertythor]

Standard Oil and Bell were government-created monopolies via special privileges, and their breakup helped get rid of that effect.

Child labor laws are okay to avoid undue exploitation of ignorance. Legally a person becomes a full physical economic entity with full rights (other than to purchase alcohol) at 18 years old.

So ask him what do those 2 concepts have to do with being able to freely cross clothing to Mexico without paying tariffs and going through some special permit process? It would seem that managed trade would lead to certain customs brokers privileges that would lead to imbalances similar to that caused with Standard Oil and Bell.

And yes......the vulgar attacks aren't cool from either side.

[Mitt Romneys sideburns]

"Here, lets move to the West Africa and work in a Gold Mine, I promise we'll benefit from it.

Socialism became popular in Africa after the 1960s. Imperial powers ruling Africa where all capitalists. Socialism swept the area because Africans saw it as being consistent with their strong tradition of family and community. The new ruling regimes where usually either inept, or completely corrupt. Take Zimbabwe for example. For a while it had high economic growth. Then Mugabe came along and seized all white farms and redistributed them among the black population. This killed off 60% of the wildlife, raised the unemployment to 60%, and created an inflation rate of 66,212.3%. That is fucking HUGE.

Now lets look at Diamond mining in Botswana. 1/3 of Botswana's GDP comes from Diamond mining. Botswana was once one of the poorest countries in the world, it is now a "middle income" nation. It currently has the highest economic growth rate in the world. How has this happened? Botswana is a very free market country. There is little government regulation.



The regulation of business is why you didn't work in a Slaughter house when you were 10 years old, unlike those of the "third world" you ignorant piece of shit.

First off, child labor laws where introduced not out of humanitarian compassion, but because children would work for lower pay and were therefore taking all the jobs from adults. Why pay a grown man to slaughter a cow if a 10 year old will do it for a fraction of the price? Its similar to the illegal immigration stuff that is going on today.

Second, is there really anything inherently bad about a 10 year old working in a slaughter house? Not to knock on slaughter house workers, but you really are not going to find many people with an education level above that of a 10 year old working in a chicken factory.


You're right we don't have free trade, but if we did you could count on Exxon becoming Standard Oil, Bell would reform, GE and Microsoft would further monopolize, who knows maybe Viacom could become what MGM was...

Its really all about competition. As you correctly pointed out, we do not have free trade. What we have is "corporatism". Government in collusion with corporations. These super monopolies dont fall from the sky. They are created with the help of government through the use of lobbying for regulations and laws to promote the company while keeping out the competition.


Free trade isn't some kind of fantasy playground where anyone can become king, it's an anarchistic jungle of corporatism and unchecked patron-clientism.

"anarchist corporatism"? Is that anything like a "Constitutional Anarchy" form of government? The terms contradict each other, showing that you dont have a clue what they mean. As I said, "corporatism" is when the corporations are in collusion with the government. How does one arrive at this system? It happens when you have a system of government with too much power.

You have to understand this relationship between the corporations and the more socialist style governments. The people in power are not angels. What type of person becomes a politician? The most ambitious and egocentric among us. The type of person who becomes a senator is the same type of person who becomes a CEO. And these people are in bed with each other all the time.

You must also understand that politicans DO NOT write the legislation. Drafting a Bill is a very complex thing, and I doubt more than a hand full of congress even knows where to begin. So who writes these bills? They have staff members who are trained just to do this. But most of the time, bills are written by special interest groups, PACs, or corporate lobbyists.

Take Net Neutrality for instance. Who do you think will be writing the Net Neutrality legislation? Most likely, a corporate lawyer from Comcast.


business interests determining politics.

And there you are arguing my point exactly. Business interests determining politics. A symbiotic relationship between the government and the corporations. Are you seriously arguing that the solution is more government power? More government power only means more corporate power. The government doesnt write the laws, the corporations do. This is not speculation, or hyperbole, this is fact. The solution therefore must be to reduce the scope of government power, therefore reducing the scope of corporate power.


Damn, I should write a book.

[aravoth]

I'm about to explode right now im so pissed.... Me and a friend have arguing over free trade and capitalism.

I talked about NAFTA being managed trade... that we don't have FREE trade... If we did I could sell products to anywhere in the world without having to go through NAFTA, CAFTA, GAT, or the future NAU... If we had free trade, and a strong currency, my money wouldn't be tied to the petrol Dollar... Ect...

But it just got real ugly...

This was his last Reply to my support of free trade and capitalism.


"Here, lets move to the West Africa and work in a Gold Mine, I promise we'll benefit from it.

The regulation of business is why you didn't work in a Slaughter house when you were 10 years old, unlike those of the "third world" you ignorant piece of shit.

Please, for the sake of my sanity, at very least look up the stages of population transition so when you groan on from your privileged perspective you aren't at least using racially biased categorizations of development.

You should take your own advice.
It seams like your the kind of guy who bases their political ideals off youtube videos... NAU? You worthless piece of shit...

You're right we don't have free trade, but if we did you could count on Exxon becoming Standard Oil, Bell would reform, GE and Microsoft would further monopolize, who knows maybe Viacom could become what MGM was...

Free trade isn't some kind of fantasy playground where anyone can become king, it's an anarchistic jungle of corporatism and unchecked patron-clientism.
If you want to sell shit to then open up an Ebay account.
As far as your "petrol dollar" goes you couldn't find a better case of unchecked business interests determining politics. At the end of WWII Roosevelt made the strategic point of buddying up with Saudi Arabia before the British could after seeing SoCal's success in becoming Armico. Find me a more cost efficient fuel and I'll give you a Strong Currency, but until then "There Will Be Blood.""

I'm so pissed right now I can't even think stright. Im leaving to go workout.... Post what you think of this lowly peice of shit.

I actually did work in a slaughter house when I was ten years old.

Your friend needs the corporations to stay employed, yet he doesn't want them to profit from it. Basically he thinks that the "evil" people that create little things like, oh I don't know, the entire communication system world wide, shouldn't be allowed to profit from it.

Guys like him use their cell phone and think it works because he dialed the number, but doesn't stop to think about the network, the phones lines, the satellite, and how all of it combines. He would not ever know how to run a system like that, not ever. Because he thinks he his entitled to all the benefits of it, and yet he hates the very people that created it.

He is a fool. There is no free trade, there wasn't free trade back in the era's he is referring too. If there was a non regulated free market then we would have had alternate fuels by now. But because of the very bullshit he is espousing, those "alternate" companies were stamped out like a fly on a wall.

Maybe you could ask your idiot friend why a third world country, like Mexico has more billionaires than any other nation on earth, and yet, the poor are completely fucked. I'll give him a quick hint, it sure as shit isn't because they have free trade.

Doesn't matter, his economic ideology has been shattered all throughout history, and it is being shattered right now. People like this guy regurgitate whatever any professor crams down thier ignorant throats.

He doesn't even fucking know what corporatism is. And he thinks the petrol dollar is a result of free market mischief. Holy ****ing shit no wonder our students are absolutely retarded now. Look at the shit this guy spews! I'm done, I can't explain to a person with a masters degree in dumbass how to properly define things he could easily look up in a dictionary.

Although, he is a great example of how incredibly dumbed down and rediculously entitled our society has become.

[apc3161]

Here is the best series of videos I can ever show you

http://www.ideachannel.tv/

I would recommend, in this order.

The Tyranny of Control
Who protects the consumer?
Who protects the worker?

I guarantee you can't find a better series of videos on the subject. Well worth the time.

[berrybunches]

Good suggestion. I believe it is in the book My Ishmael that he explicitly addresses this issue. That is the third book in the series (comes after Ishmael and The Story of B), but it is not necessary to read the first two before reading that one.

Still, I highly recommend all of them because they are some of the most important, eye-opening books you'll ever read.

I recommend those books too by Daniel Quinn. I am surprised no one talks about them here.
They explain tribal anarchy perfectly and how the world went to hell with the dawn of civilized controlled societies. Very cool read for anyone any age, some high schools and younger read them actually.

[LandonCook]

I added everyone's stuff with mine and this was my reply:

"Here, lets move to the West Africa and work in a Gold Mine, I promise we'll benefit from it.”

First, moving from America to a 3ed world country to work in a Gold Mine relates nothing to capitalist opportunity, But since you brought the subject up. Socialism became popular in Africa after the 1960s. Imperial powers ruling Africa where all capitalists. Socialism swept the area because Africans saw it as being consistent with their strong tradition of family and community. The new ruling regimes where usually either inept, or completely corrupt. Take Zimbabwe for example. For a while it had high economic growth. Then Mugabe came along and seized all white farms and redistributed them among the black population. This killed off 60% of the wildlife, raised the unemployment to 60%, and created an inflation rate of 66,212.3%. (For those who don’t understand… That is fucking HUGE.)

Now lets look at Diamond mining in Botswana. 1/3 of Botswana's GDP comes from Diamond mining. Botswana was once one of the poorest countries in the world, it is now a "middle income" nation. It currently has the highest economic growth rate in the world. How has this happened? Botswana is a very free market country. There is little government regulation.



”The regulation of business is why you didn't work in a Slaughter house when you were 10 years old, unlike those of the "third world"

”Please, for the sake of my sanity, at very least look up the stages of population transition so when you groan on from your privileged perspective you aren't at least using racially biased categorizations of development. “


Child labor laws where introduced not out of humanitarian compassion, but because children would work for lower pay and were therefore taking all the jobs from adults. Why pay a grown man to slaughter a cow if a 10 year old will do it for a fraction of the price? Its similar to the illegal immigration stuff that is going on today.

Second, it is crucial to review the "evolution of population transition" in the context of governmental interference. A primary reason people were forced into corporate serfdom prior to regulatory control / labor laws was because of a lack of cheap housing, adequate food supply, etc Not business exploitation. This does not speak to the fact that many children ended up in such jobs because there were more jobs than there were people with the advent of the industrial 'revolution'.

Given the same rights as every other human being, and with parental supervision, is there really anything inherently bad about a 10 year old working in a slaughter house? Not to knock on slaughter house workers, but you really are not going to find many people with an education level above that of a 10 year old working in a chicken factory. I worked on a farm at the age of 10. God forbid the average American kid do something besides get off his lazy video game playing ass…
Kids as young as 10 can surely contribute their labors in some tasks in ways that would help them come to grips with the relationship between work and reward. Of course not every 10 year old lives on a farm. But I’ve been 10, and I wasn’t helpless.

“you ignorant piece of shit.”

You really think your going to convince anyone by spewing worthless ad hominem attacks? Well let me introduce you to the world of actually DEBATE.


”You should take your own advice.
It seams like your the kind of guy who bases their political ideals off youtube videos... NAU? You worthless piece of shit...”

No, I’m the guy who reads books, quite a few of them. I have also written them before. In fact I’m writing one on war Economics, ill show you later. But If you think im just some close minded capitalist, think again. I Read, studied, and believed, Marx and Lenin at the age of 15. I’ve since become wiser. And once again, the only thing worthless are your ad hominem attacks. And yes, NAU… You want to tell me it isn’t being made? I’ve got a copy of the legislation!


”You're right we don't have free trade, but if we did you could count on Exxon becoming Standard Oil, Bell would reform, GE and Microsoft would further monopolize, who knows maybe Viacom could become what MGM was...”

Bell was only a monopoly because of federal regulations that guaranteed its development. See 'de jure monopoly' or Corporatism cannot exist without governmental support of the corporations (especially with the rights of a 'Person'). Microsoft's monopoly similarly exists in part because of government mandates and support for MS based operating systems.
Its really all about competition. As you correctly pointed out, we do not have free trade. What we have is "corporatism". Government in collusion with corporations. These super monopolies don’t fall from the sky. They are created with the help of government through the use of lobbying for regulations and laws to promote the company while keeping out the competition.

So what do those concepts have to do with being able to freely cross clothing to Mexico without paying tariffs and going through some special permit process? It would seem that managed trade would lead to certain customs brokers privileges that would lead to imbalances similar to that caused with Standard Oil and Bell.

”Free trade isn't some kind of fantasy playground where anyone can become king, it's an anarchistic jungle of corporatism and unchecked patron-clientism.”

"anarchist corporatism"? Is that anything like a "Constitutional Anarchy" form of government? The terms contradict each other, showing that you dont have a clue what they mean. As I said, "corporatism" is when the corporations are in collusion with the government. How does one arrive at this system? It happens when you have a system of government with too much power.

You have to understand this relationship between the corporations and the more socialist style governments. The people in power are not angels. What type of person becomes a politician? The most ambitious and egocentric among us. The type of person who becomes a senator is the same type of person who becomes a CEO. And these people are in bed with each other all the time.

You must also understand that politicans DO NOT write the legislation. Drafting a Bill is a very complex thing, and I doubt more than a hand full of congress even knows where to begin. So who writes these bills? They have staff members who are trained just to do this. But most of the time, bills are written by special interest groups, PACs, or corporate lobbyists.

Take Net Neutrality for instance. Who do you think will be writing the Net Neutrality legislation? Most likely, a corporate lawyer from Comcast.


”If you want to sell shit to then open up an Ebay account.”

Is this a joke? Try opening a Ebay account to sell… Seriously, where in the world do you think everything you have comes from? Do you use your cell phone and think it works because you dialed the number? Ever think stop and think about the network, the phones lines, the satellite, and how all of it combines? Do you think you’re entitled to all the benefits of a system that sparked every new-world advancement? Yet you hate the very people that created it.


"As far as your "petrol dollar" goes you couldn't find a better case of unchecked business interests determining politics.
At the end of WWII Roosevelt made the strategic point of buddying up with Saudi Arabia before the British could after seeing SoCal's success in becoming Armico. Find me a more cost efficient fuel and I'll give you a Strong Currency, but until then "There Will Be Blood.""

Once again… You are using my argument. But it goes deeper than that. If think we are in the Middle East solely because of oil then you are sadly mistaken.
Although it probably does have an influence it isn’t the main demand. The unique thing about oil is the demand for oil is inelastic which means when the price of oil goes up, the demand doesn’t fall much, mostly due to the fact that everyone drives and no one is really going to give up driving. The gross revenue oil producers receive is Quantity x Price. So if the oil producer pumps out 6million barrels of oil the price of oil will be $50 a barrel and thus he has made 300 million dollars. BUT! If he cuts production to 4million barrels the price will rise to $90 dollars a barrel, earning him 360 million. Therefore oil producer makes more when he produces less. That is if he is alone, but the problem is he has competition. And no oil producing country is big enough to be price makers, they are all price takers. And if you are a price taker the best thing you can do is produce and much oil as possible because you have no control over the price. But if oil companies all get together and agree to limit production they can jack up the price of oil and make more money. Why? Because the demand for oil is inelastic. That is what Opec is, a cartel to get oil-producing counties to limit production thus raising prices. So Bush invaded Iraq to limit production and raise oil prices to line the pockets of his oil buddies?

Maybe an extra bonus. But is just another example of government intervention in markets. The main reason we are in the Middle East is that the fate of the dollar is tied to oil. Now everyone knows that the U.S runs two big deficits… A trade deficit and a budget deficit. Normally trade deficits work themselves out, when a country like the US runs a trade deficit, it pays for it with inflation. Our currency falls. Another country sees the good exchange rate and buys a bunch of American goods. Thus canceling out the deficit and restoring the dollar. And we are back to square one.

But… that’s not happening. And the reason it is not happening is because everyone still wants dollars, and the reason is oil. That is because the big oil producing nations only trade in dollars. So if a country wants oil… Which can be shortened to “If a country”. Then you had to or have to have plenty of dollars around. This means that despite two huge deficits the U.S is running, the dollar is still prized for its ability to get oil. (Believe it or not but this is the short explanation)

Budget deficit also add to inflation because budget deficits have the same effect as printing money. Because when a government runs a deficit it issues a bond. And this bond pays back more than what the bondholder put in. That payback comes from taxes or just printing money(IE lowering the interest rates) But when the bond expires there will be more money floating around than there were before. Causing more inflation. The main reasons for the budget deficits are the 3 main welfare programs.

Medicare/caid - $673 Billion
Social Secutiy - $586 Billion
Income Security(Welfare checks) - $367 Billion

Defense - $ 527 Billion

Everything else - $661 Billion


As Ron Paul has said… We are living beyond our means.

Now… Right before the Iraq invasion, Iraq switched from selling oil in dollars to selling oil in euro. If oil producing countries follow that trend then the effect would destroy the dollar’s special traits and put it on an level playing field with other currencies. Once this happens the true value would be shown. This will completely destroy the dollar and we will see the kind of hyperinflation the Germans had after WW1. So at this moment, the life of the petrol dollar is the life of the States. How do we fix this? Well we can’t stay in Iraq forever because even that is adding to the deficit now. So we have to drastically cut spending. And when I say cut spending, I mean drastically cut government. If you still are putting up a fight after this I will explain why.

Good luck.

Maybe you should have one of your socialist teachers at that community collage of yours help you out with your rebuttal.



Edit:

Speaking of Opec... http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/feb/20/oil.globaleconomy?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

[Highstreet]

.. he calls you a piece of shit? Not much of a friend.

I get the sense that this person thinks all persons
are victims of the terrible capitalistic scheme and should be wards of the state.

Tell us about this person, so we can get a better view on where he/she is coming from.

I don't think you are gonna change anyone's mind because this persons does NOT want to know an alternative.

There are a TON of articles showing why we don't really have free trade and how free trade is really the economics of choice etc..

Just give this a few hours into tomorrow, some of the more eloquent posters will have ripped your "friends" diatribe apart. Looking forward to it.

Exactly.

It's not a black or white issue. Capitalism isn't totally evil, and Regulation isn't totally good as this person is trying to paint it.

Having a good regulation that says you can't work in a slaughterhouse when you are 10 years old, is much different than having Nafta and Cafta which help the Multinationals soak resources off our neighbors and ship jobs over seas. Tell him to go ask 10 farmers if Nafta or Cafta has helped or hurt.

Speak his language. These "free trade" agreements are Orwellian names for Corporate Welfare based Favoritism Trade for Walmart and Chiquita and Oil and Gas companies.

Put it this way. Wanting to reduce the regulations that prohibit small companies from starting up, or reduce the "favoritism trade" rules for multinationals would help us create jobs. Having a 40 hour work week before overtime kicks in is one thing. Inhibiting small family owned companies, non-profits, ngo and others from competing in the market is exactly why these multinationals are so strong. They don't have any competition because the FedGov listens to their lobbyists and makes rules that keep the competition out.

Don't talk about the NAU unless you live in Texas. It is only real for those people who are going to lose their farms. If you start to show him the light on some of the other issues he will eventually ask you about the Nafta superhighway and the NAU.

[brandon]

Everything has already been responded to well except this one last thing.



The regulation of business is why you didn't work in a Slaughter house when you were 10 years old, unlike those of the "third world" you ignorant piece of shit.

Please, for the sake of my sanity, at very least look up the stages of population transition so when you groan on from your privileged perspective you aren't at least using racially biased categorizations of development.

Do you realize what he is even saying here? You have to be deeply versed in the fine art of politically correct bullshit to understand his point. The term "third world" is now deemed to be offensive, so they call it "the developing nations."

What a fucking goon. I bet this is the kind of guy who gets really upset and offended if you call a black person black.

[robert4rp08]

Here is the best series of videos I can ever show you

http://www.ideachannel.tv/

I would recommend, in this order.

The Tyranny of Control
Who protects the consumer?
Who protects the worker?

I guarantee you can't find a better series of videos on the subject. Well worth the time.

Cool, thanks.... but why is Aaaaaarnold in the intro? haha

[slamhead]

Here is the best series of videos I can ever show you

http://www.ideachannel.tv/

I would recommend, in this order.

The Tyranny of Control
Who protects the consumer?
Who protects the worker?

I guarantee you can't find a better series of videos on the subject. Well worth the time.

Uhgggg....the first video has Arnold Schwartzenneger....he is a big government socialist.

[Andrew76]

"Here, lets move to the West Africa and work in a Gold Mine, I promise we'll benefit from it.

The regulation of business is why you didn't work in a Slaughter house when you were 10 years old, unlike those of the "third world" you ignorant piece of shit.

Please, for the sake of my sanity, at very least look up the stages of population transition so when you groan on from your privileged perspective you aren't at least using racially biased categorizations of development.

You should take your own advice.
It seams like your the kind of guy who bases their political ideals off youtube videos... NAU? You worthless piece of shit...

You're right we don't have free trade, but if we did you could count on Exxon becoming Standard Oil, Bell would reform, GE and Microsoft would further monopolize, who knows maybe Viacom could become what MGM was...

Free trade isn't some kind of fantasy playground where anyone can become king, it's an anarchistic jungle of corporatism and unchecked patron-clientism.
If you want to sell shit to then open up an Ebay account.
As far as your "petrol dollar" goes you couldn't find a better case of unchecked business interests determining politics. At the end of WWII Roosevelt made the strategic point of buddying up with Saudi Arabia before the British could after seeing SoCal's success in becoming Armico. Find me a more cost efficient fuel and I'll give you a Strong Currency, but until then "There Will Be Blood.""[/I]


There's so much wrong with this... it could take hours to unwind. Ughh......
First and most obvious, you said this was your "friend." Find a new one, man. My friends and I disagree over politics, but we don't refer to each other as "worthless pieces of shit." If anything points to the fact that someone's both a) an asshole, and b) got it all wrong,.... it's bullying your supposed friends and calling them "pieces of shit."

Second, in regards to the "Africa" comment, his argument is: look at how shitty those jobs are, working in a gold mine! That's why they need regulatory groups coming and making sure these workers are not taken advantage of! ...You peice of shit!

Why that's wrong: He's the one arguing from a perspective of privilege. For many of those people working in a mine - sure it's a shitty job, but what else is there for those workers to do? Before, they were starving and had NO job. Are they being forced to work in a gold mine against their will? No? Well then no law is being broken. Are their wages being taken away by force? No? Then again, no law is being broken. Fraud is punishable, murder is punishable, theft is punishable - provided you have a reasonable government who will do what they're supposed to. For these workers, it's either work in a mine and make some money, or make no money at all. What is more humane? They live in third world conditions, so they can't exactly quit and get a job at Starbucks. Their reality is entirely different. Same thing goes for child labor in the U.S. Times were different. Children didn't stop working because laws were passed prohibiting it, they stopped working because it became unnecessary for the vast majority of people after the values of the free market became apparent and availiable to all. Children would work because if they didn't help out, their family would starve. What,.. do you think those kids were working so their parent's could get rich? Get real. Times have changed, kids don't need to work anymore - for the most part. I'd argue that there are some kids who probably want to work, want to help their poor families put food on the table, but the benevolent busy bodies of the world, "looking out for their best interests," deny themn the right to work if they so choose. The result? Their family will have to make do with less. Again, which is more humane?

Second, he argues that free market capitalism is akin to "corporate anarchy." This is one of the most common logical fallacies against free markets, and the most easy to rebuke. Free market capitalism - in it's truest form, ie: the way it was designed to work before "do-gooders" start messing with it - is the only economic system that protects individual rights and holds them as the highest value, as well as protects property rights as the highest value. Free market capitalism requires a government, albeit a government much smaller than the one we have now. The government's job in the free market is NOT "hands off/corporations do whatever they want" as your buddy seems to think. Trade is reigned in by the rule of law, or a truer way to explain it - corruption is reigned out. The government protects individual rights to life, liberty, property and pursuit of happiness. Being forced to work against your will is not capitalism. Government agents doing favors for big business is not capitalism, but cronyism. No capitalist is advocating, "no governments at all." The rule of law is not tossed out under a capitalist system - it depends on it.
The bigger the government gets, the more these ideals become dilluted, and the more cronyism, corporatism and mercantilism comes into the fold, unchecked.

This dude needs to understand the monopolies occur almost ENTIRELY because of government support. Without the power of government on their side, passing laws in their favor, restricting trade, limiting competition - all these big businesses would have to rely on themselves and their own business sense to succeed. Fraud would be punished, theft would be punished, individual rights would be protected, property rights would be upheld to their fullest extent. What we have now with this mixed economy are things like "eminent domain," where a big box retail store can jump in bed with a local municipal government, declare a neighborhood "blighted," raze their houses down and build a giant strip mall. That my friend is not capitalism, but cronyism and mercantilism. Under a true capitalist system where property rights are protected, you could not force someone from their home, provided they own it.

God, I could go on and on with this idiot. Feel free to copy/paste, and send this all to your "peice of sh*t" friend.

Then give him, "Economics In One Lesson," by Henry Hazlitt. "Free To Choose," by Milton Friedman, "Atlas Shrugged," by Ayn Rand, and the entire "Sparrowhawk" series by Edward Cline. It'd be a start toward clearing the muck from your friend's head.

[acptulsa]

As far as your "petrol dollar" goes you couldn't find a better case of unchecked business interests determining politics. At the end of WWII Roosevelt made the strategic point of buddying up with Saudi Arabia before the British could after seeing SoCal's success in becoming Armico.

What the hell is this guy talking about? Firstly, maybe I'm ignorant but what is this SoCal/Armico business? Secondly, does he have no clue that Britain's imperial interests in the region date well back into the nineteenth century and that, far from beating them to any punches, we basically took over while they tried to recover from WWII? Thirdly, how the hell did Roosevelt do anything after the war when he didn't even survive it?

[homah]

with friends like this...

[Onethreezer0]

Maybe you should have one of your socialist teachers at that community collage of yours help you out with your rebuttal.

I didn't realize how many socialists teach high school and college until this election. I had so much fun debating my old high school economics teacher :)

[aravoth]

What the hell is this guy talking about? Firstly, maybe I'm ignorant but what is this SoCal/Armico business? Secondly, does he have no clue that Britain's imperial interests in the region date well back into the nineteenth century and that, far from beating them to any punches, we basically took over while they tried to recover from WWII? Thirdly, how the hell did Roosevelt do anything after the war when he didn't even survive it?

Pretty awsome isn't it?

[affa]

Now, the original email that pissed off the OP was way off based, filled with attacks, etc.

My question to you guys, though - while I realize that many of you state that a truly free market without gov't interference and regulation would somehow prevent large corporations while also preventing labor abuse (including child labor)... well, let's just assume that to be true for the sake of this question: How do you implement this when large corporations already exist? Would you need to break them up by force? Or do you think they'd break up naturally?

[JordanQ72]

You can't prove him wrong because he isn't. Your friend is more informed than 99+% of the people browsing this forum.

[LandonCook]

I didn't realize how many socialists teach high school and college until this election. I had so much fun debating my old high school economics teacher :)

lol, most all of them are socialists...


Everything has already been responded to well except this one last thing.

Do you realize what he is even saying here? You have to be deeply versed in the fine art of politically correct bullshit to understand his point. The term "third world" is now deemed to be offensive, so they call it "the developing nations."

What a fucking goon. I bet this is the kind of guy who gets really upset and offended if you call a black person black.


ROFL....


You can't prove him wrong because he isn't. Your friend is more informed than 99+% of the people browsing this forum.

You sure your in the right forum? I think you made a right when you shoulda made a left....

[acptulsa]

Now, the original email that pissed off the OP was way off based, filled with attacks, etc.

My question to you guys, though - while I realize that many of you state that a truly free market without gov't interference and regulation would somehow prevent large corporations while also preventing labor abuse (including child labor)... well, let's just assume that to be true for the sake of this question: How do you implement this when large corporations already exist? Would you need to break them up by force? Or do you think they'd break up naturally?

Libertarianism isn't about a complete lack of regulation. The purpose here is for government to provide a level playing field where the power of the corporations doesn't translate into a corrupt regulatory environment where small business is actually discriminated against. Big business has its economies, but it has its inefficiencies, too. Ever read Dilbert?

A megacorp can only do so much to compete with a lean small business in many areas--if the rules of the game don't favor one over the other. That's a key component of the American Dream.

[aravoth]

You can't prove him wrong because he isn't. Your friend is more informed than 99+% of the people browsing this forum.

:rolleyes: another one

[Kade]

I'm about to explode right now im so pissed.... Me and a friend have arguing over free trade and capitalism.

I talked about NAFTA being managed trade... that we don't have FREE trade... If we did I could sell products to anywhere in the world without having to go through NAFTA, CAFTA, GAT, or the future NAU... If we had free trade, and a strong currency, my money wouldn't be tied to the petrol Dollar... Ect...

But it just got real ugly...

This was his last Reply to my support of free trade and capitalism.


"Here, lets move to the West Africa and work in a Gold Mine, I promise we'll benefit from it.

The regulation of business is why you didn't work in a Slaughter house when you were 10 years old, unlike those of the "third world" you ignorant piece of shit.

Please, for the sake of my sanity, at very least look up the stages of population transition so when you groan on from your privileged perspective you aren't at least using racially biased categorizations of development.

You should take your own advice.
It seams like your the kind of guy who bases their political ideals off youtube videos... NAU? You worthless piece of shit...

You're right we don't have free trade, but if we did you could count on Exxon becoming Standard Oil, Bell would reform, GE and Microsoft would further monopolize, who knows maybe Viacom could become what MGM was...

Free trade isn't some kind of fantasy playground where anyone can become king, it's an anarchistic jungle of corporatism and unchecked patron-clientism.
If you want to sell shit to then open up an Ebay account.
As far as your "petrol dollar" goes you couldn't find a better case of unchecked business interests determining politics. At the end of WWII Roosevelt made the strategic point of buddying up with Saudi Arabia before the British could after seeing SoCal's success in becoming Armico. Find me a more cost efficient fuel and I'll give you a Strong Currency, but until then "There Will Be Blood.""

I'm so pissed right now I can't even think stright. Im leaving to go workout.... Post what you think of this lowly peice of shit.

If you are looking for sympathy you will not find it with me. I acknowledge people who have cohesive arguments, and insults aside, his argument is rather respectful.

To be really honest, I think your friend is correct, albeit a bit mean to you.


...and just a side note, you spelled two words wrong "stright" and "peice"... your buddy didn't make a single error in his response... just pointing that out. Sometimes, the intelligent respect some sort of mastery of the English language.

[affa]

Libertarianism isn't about a complete lack of regulation. The purpose here is for government to provide a level playing field where the power of the corporations doesn't translate into a corrupt regulatory environment where small business is actually discriminated against. Big business has its economies, but it has its inefficiencies, too. Ever read Dilbert?

A megacorp can only do so much to compete with a lean small business in many areas--if the rules of the game don't favor one over the other. That's a key component of the American Dream.

This doesn't quite answer my question though. For example, let's talk health food - I'm picking that because a lot of those companies were founded on high ideals. Lots of home grown companies sprouted up during the health food craze of the past decade - but I'd say about 95% of the companies were bought out by corporate interests as soon as they succeeded or seemed like they might succeed. Certainly, any health food now available at a 'mainstream' super market has long been corporate. Silk Soy Milk (now Dean Foods ->White Wave -> Silk), Dagoba chocolate bars (now owned by Hershey), and I could go on and on.

Essentially, my point is, now that there are huge corporations with deep pockets that prefer a near monopolistic (or at least, oligopolistic) playing field and will buy up (or simply undercut into extinction) smaller competitors how is that dealt with?

I understand, even if I don't completely agree with, the standard free market explanation of why corporations only grew to power due to gov't interference. I don't completely buy this, but for the purposes of this discussion I'm willing to accept it. But I don't quite understand how, at this late stage in the game, one can create a truly 'free market' without dismantling the large corporations.

And yes, I've read Dilbert. And yes, I understand that corporations are masters of waste and theoretically should die a quick death at the hands of a feisty, lean, mean competitor. But... well, there's a lot of other things at work here that muddy the picture. For example - there's been a local coffeeshop near me for a long time. Established customer base, low prices, great people. Starbucks moved in down the street (a practice that Starbucks and Walmart both perfected, for those paying attention).

Now, on any given day, the local coffeeshop was full. The Starbucks was pretty much empty - only pulling in the occasional non-locals that stopped for some quick coffee. But even reducing clientèle by a small % was enough to hurt the local shop. But still they stayed in business.

But - and here's the point - Starbuck's strategy in doing this is that it has huge coffers. It can afford to allow a specific shop to lose money hand over fist for years until it finally puts the lean/mean competitor out of business. And then, it claims the profitable district.

Unfortunately, after about 3-4 years, that happened to the local shop. However, in this case it was due to another strategy that Starbuck's has often resorted to - the lease was bought out from under them. They were forced to close.

Now, this is NOT meant to be an anti-Starbucks thread. My point is, and always has been, how do you even begin to have a free market, and fair competition, in an industry that's already been corporatized? How do you level the playing field?

What I'm trying to understand is how laying a free market over a non-free market solves the problem without some sort of additional shaking up of the playing field. I certainly have my doubts about a free market, but even if I'm willing to ignore those (for I realize we're talking theory here), I don't see how deregulating to a free market hurts *already established* megacorps, and in fact, I think it would help them.

[aravoth]

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor--your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?

"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions--and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made--before it can be looted or mooched--made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.'

"To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss--the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery--that you must offer them values, not wounds--that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade--with reason, not force, as their final arbiter--it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability--and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?

"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality--the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth--the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money--and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.

"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

"But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich--will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt--and of his life, as he deserves.

"Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard--the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money--the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law--men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims--then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you--when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice--you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that is does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, 'Account overdrawn.'

"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world? You are.

"You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood--money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves--slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer, Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers--as industrialists.

"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money--and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being--the self-made man--the American industrialist.

"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.

"Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide-- as, I think, he will.

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out."

[brandon]

Now, the original email that pissed off the OP was way off based, filled with attacks, etc.

My question to you guys, though - while I realize that many of you state that a truly free market without gov't interference and regulation would somehow prevent large corporations while also preventing labor abuse (including child labor)... well, let's just assume that to be true for the sake of this question: How do you implement this when large corporations already exist? Would you need to break them up by force? Or do you think they'd break up naturally?

A free market wont prevent large corporations. You have to ask yourself some important questions though.

How does a large corporation get large in a free market?
A. By providing the best valued product or service.

What is wrong with a corporation being large in a free market?
A. Nothing

What is the biggest monopoly?
A. The government.

What is the only monopoly allowed to use coercion?
A. The government

A large corporation in a free market vs a large corporation in our current system are very different. Currently, a corporation could monopolize an industry, take advantage of it's power (rip people off) and remain a monopoly. This is because the government subsidizes them and installs regulations that prevent competition.

In a free market, a large corporation cannot abuse thier power. If they try to rip people off, the market will put them out of business real quick.

[apc3161]

Uhgggg....the first video has Arnold Schwartzenneger....he is a big government socialist.

Watch the videos. They are a from a video series put out by Milton Friedman. Arnold is actually a very non-socialist person. But he does have to give way of course on all issues in order to get stuff done as governor. That is just reality. In any case, those videos are all incredible.