[CDB]

Originally Posted by Brooklyn

Welfare? Just dropping millions of poor people on their asses with no increase in jobs or wages will have a positive effect on this country?

The alternative is to keep subsidizing them with more and more money. There is no transition plan for phasing welfare out that would cause less economic damage than simpy ending it. Same with the Fed. The best approach is to end it right then, right there, as you would any other destructive force.

business' chance of survival. The more businesses that can thrive, the more employed this country is and the fewer poor people who need government subsidies, right?

Wrong. Businesses that need government subsidization to survive are a drain on the economy. If they were using their resources wisely and efficiently they would survive without intervention. The government often hampers their ability to do that, but offerring subsidees as a cure for this is like breaking someone's leg to cure their headache.

Nice to say you're ending bureaucracies but what will be left in their place?

To quote Mises, "When you put out a fire, what do you replace it with?" There will be nothing left. That's the point.

Part of reducing threats from foreign governments is making agreements with said governments.

Grant this is true, "give us money or we'll attack you" seems to be the other countries' approach then. We're better off destroying their militaries and annexing them at that point. Otherwise, if Kellog's can figure out how many boxes of Raisin Bran to sell at each Wal Mart in the US, I think they and other businesses can accomplish the same thing in foreign countries without government intervention. There is no need to have any kind of ties with any country any where. Unless of course our goal is to engage in constant quid pro quo with other countries to try and loot as much of the world to the benefit of our politicians and their friends' wallets.

Isolationism is nice if you want to blind your eyes to anything not directly in front of you.

Isolationism does not equal noninterventionism.

Huh? It's bad enough that education levels are so low in this country, let's leave education standards to.. who, the states?

No, private industry. I like it, the government completely screws up our educational system, and we should keep it and pour more money into it. Makes sense. The government is the reason our educational system is so screwed up. Get them out of it period. I would actually favor a constitutional ammendment to ban the use of government funds for any and all education, similar to the ammendments many states passed against using tax dollars to build roads after they experienced the massive **** up government road building was early in our country's history.

They do enough of failing at that. The parents? If they were educated under the current poor education standards, who are they to decide what is a good education?

They are the children's parents, enough said. To that extent the market would decide what constitutes a good education. As with every other product the market delivers, you could expect quantity, quality and variety to go up and costs to go down.

Unions as opposed to the private corporate community in charge? We've seen what happens when corporations run wild.

No, we haven't... But, grant that you're correct, exactly what makes you think corporations running wild is the only alternative to our current mixed pseudosocialist state? The answer is because you have a typical liberal mindset, you can't imagine the government not doing something about anything. So, the government either sits on coroporations or helps them rape people, or at least turns a blind eye to such practices. It's never possible the liberal mindset to see the possibility of a government that simply enforces property rights. Mostly this because the concept is a foreign one to most people living today.

I'll take regulated unionization over the Wal-Mart-ization of this country anyday.

Hope you like unemployment. One of the worst effects of unions is to drive wages of unionized workers up. In a free economy when wages of say electricians go up it's a signal of increasing demand for those workers. People who go for those jobs are then rewarded, the wages (prices) equalize as supply rises to meet the demand. When unions get involved they force the wages of workers higher than the market price. This causes people to flock to the trade/union and try to get in, however fewer people will end up employed than otherwise would have at that price. You end up with an artificially increased pool of unemployed skilled workers chasing nonunion jobs, which gives employers more power and lowers general wages. Glad you're happy with that situation. The only unions that are successful without government intervention are those whose workers have an inflexible demand for their labor.

Ok, so who decides what environmental regulations are "too misguided"? The head of Greenpeace or the president of Dow Corning?

How about neither? Is it possible in your world for someone to live and make their own decisions and not have them made for them? If something can be shown to be harmful a tax can be laid on it's emmission relative to the amount emitted. This internalizes the cost and gives the company an incentive to seek alternative, clean methods. It also allows companies that are releasing negligible amounts of the material to not have to change to accomodate some ridiculous law which should not apply to them. The command and control method now used forces everyone to reduce emissions of x, even those companies that release unharmful traces. However, the command and control method gives more power to beauracrats so it's currently the more favored method.

Also applicable are private property rights. In the end it doesn't matter if something is harmful or not, it's up to land owners to say whether or not they want it in their water/land/air. However, our government claims sovereign immunity for polluting other people's land and rents out as much public land as possible for private industry to pollute. Since no one technically owns the areas being pollutted no one can really do anything about it. Or, as is often the case the government will recognize and then disregard property rights.

So how about this as an alternative, if someone wants to release something into the air or onto your land or in your water, they have to pay for the right to do so? With the exception of the few substances that are outright harmful in any amount, this would mean the optimal mevel of pollution would be reached fairly quickly because it would have a market price attached to it.

No income tax at this point means that sales tax goes up to 30 or 40 percent. I hope you have a hell of a P.R. plan in mind for that strategy.

Yup, it's called getting rid of well over 90% of the cost of government by simply stopping it from doing almost everything it's doing.

A nice idea, and I'm sure someone like our friends the Saudis could do a great job of implementing it, in their country.

Despite my generally freedom based views, I would gladly flay to death anyone who actively supports the war on drugs.

So the government will now not print any money? Our currency will cease to exist. Sorry, anarchy is not a feasible economic system.

Anarchy or your limited vision of the subject? Private money was fairly common and actually still is in some places. As the governments gain control over the currency of a nation they tend to **** it up beyond belief. The government's power to inflate and otherwise manipulate the money supply is their most destructive power.

Easier said than done... and with the foreign policy of "Go away, Leave us alone" I'm sure it would work great.

Look up isolationism and then look up noninterventionism. The two are not the same policy. Once more, military entanglements are not necessary to have economic relations with a country, nor are mercantilist/industrialist treaties necessary. It's a concept called free trade, and despite the fact that it's meaning has been perverted and the monicker adopted by its very enemies, it's still the best way to do things.

The people who have no say in your foreign, social or economic policies who will suddenly be left in poverty, anarchy and total social disorder will certainly appreciate having the "power" the states allow them. Personally I don't know how a currency-less, unemployed, corporate-run and globally ignorant nation would be much of a world power anymore but maybe I'm missing something.

You are, quite a bit in fact. A few books that might help explain:

Human Action
Man, Economy and State
The History of Economic Thought
Socialism

Well if we take a literal interpretation of your suggestions we won't have to worry about our government for long, since it will likely be taken over shortly by a strong militaristic and nondemocratic power.

I'm no fan of democracy, so I probably wouldn't mind. The idea that if 50%+1 of the people think something is a good idea, that makes it a good idea, is unbelievably naive and dangerous. I'd suggest you look up a short lecture by Hans Herman Hoppe in which he compared pre social democracy crime rates, tax loads, economic growth, government employments, et al, with post social democracy numbers. Generally speaking the more democratized a country gets the worse it gets. PRice indexes go flying upward. Inflation runs out of control. Government grows at an astounding rate. Military intervention increases at an astounding rate, etc.

[The Experiment]

Economy

The solution to welfare in my opinion is job training. The government could work with several corporations (I'm sure the government will subsidize the corporations for this) and train the poor to work. In the meantime, the government can give them welfare money. Once they are fully trained, they get hired at their job and thats it. If they fall out of work, tough luck. Only exception is mental defect. Use the money the government spends on welfare to good use. It creates another level of bureaucracy, yes, but it can help get people working. Nobody wants to be on welfare. Its a mark of shame to almost all.

The government should not subsidize corporations unless its a dire situation. Executives and other management will have to be forced to take a major salary reduction if they want the company to move forward. The government should not give a $5 billion bailout because CEOs can't afford to pay themselves $3.5 million a year. If it was reduced to say $150,000, then the government can subsidize.

The government should also heavily penalize corporations for shipping jobs overseas unless the savings are passed onto the consumer. Rarely are they and the savings are just spread throughout the executives. Stockholders can learn to adjust. Its not fair that people should be worried about losing their job because someone can do it in India for $8,000 as opposed to $40,000 here. Especially when the company can more than afford the $40,000 per head salary.

Education

I think the education system is ****ed. Mostly because the education system is at mercy of frivolous lawsuits that have basically turned it into a PC factory (Political Correctness) where schools aren't about education but about acceptance and tolerance. That sounds good and all but the point is to educate the students. America's education system is so piss poor because the schools are too afraid to give bad marks to bad students in fear of lawsuits. So instead, its a joke.

I do not think it should be erradicated; I disagree with CDB. It should be overhauled. I'd say the amount of money spent on education should double, maybe triple. Including powerful lawyers who can fight tooth and nail against frivolous lawsuits, which can discourage them. I think they should do away with books. The future is computers. It would cut into the textbook industry but well, **** them. That way students can be homeschooled if they want to. A teacher could just e-mail them the assignments, the family can just get the CD-ROMs or online downloads. This would keep the education quality consistent. Poor schools would have the same materials.

Athletics would become mandatory and carry as much weight as English classes (in my HS, they were the most important subject) Schools would do away with grades entirely and go with percentages. Students who do poorly can receive outside assistance, free of charge to salvage their grades. If not, well, they're on their own. Make academic options available but leave it in the students' hands.

This all costs more money but we put the fate of education into the students. No more excuses. Collegiate education should not have more money put into it but the loan program should continue...since you're just paying the money back anyway.

Military

Pull all troops out and have them on the border. Significantly reduces illegal immigrants. The world can handle itself now, thanks to nukes. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate peacemakers because no country dare **** with a nation with nukes. The US keeps helping out the world and gets **** on, at the expense of our tax dollars, and lives of our soldiers. Keep military research funding going but not at the extreme amounts it was going for...even in the 90s. We still need to be a nation to be feared and therefore, untouchable.

[PVSkyHigh]

DEFINATELY not!

[brogers]

CDB, are you a libertarian? We share very similar views on government.

As Ronald Reagan said,

"Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?"

[Brooklyn]

CDB, I will say that your theories are extremely... optimistic... which is why I disagree with much of them, not because of any "liberal" disposition. Extremely optimistic is a synonym to unrealistic. I also disagree because what you suggest is not advantageous to people in general. The only people to benefit from your plans would once again be already wealthy land/property owners. The goal I have in thinking of economic system design is how to provide opportunities to make many more people into wealthy landowners rather than starving slaves to minimum wage.

Originally Posted by CDB

The alternative is to keep subsidizing them with more and more money. There is no transition plan for phasing welfare out that would cause less economic damage than simpy ending it. Same with the Fed. The best approach is to end it right then, right there, as you would any other destructive force.

Smart men make smart plans. "Workfare"... isn't that what the Republicans called it? Teach people, give them the necessary skills to succeed and help them become proud, well-paid workers. Stop passively encouraging families to have more kids so they can receive a bigger monthly balance. Persons who have more children after enrolling in a public assistance program should be penalized for choosing to continue to procreate without the money to support themselves. "Families First" is a joke. As if being single and not popping out 5 babies makes you a second class citizen. If anything, those that place less of a burden on the state should be treated better. Again, just "ending" all social assistance programs would leave thousands dead of starvation and cause mass rioting. You're thinking in the viewpoint of the rich man in the ivory tower. Try switching to that of the beggar in the street or the family man struggling to feed his family. You'd change tunes real quick.

Originally Posted by CDB

To quote Mises, "When you put out a fire, what do you replace it with?" There will be nothing left. That's the point.

But it wouldn't work that way in real life. In real life when you eliminate the people in charge of state affairs, treasury, agriculture, commerce, health and human services, housing and urban development, transportation, energy, education, homeland security... you end up with a lot of problems with no "here" for the buck to stop at. Nothing left is what you'd have to govern the U.S..

Originally Posted by CDB

Grant this is true, "give us money or we'll attack you" seems to be the other countries' approach then. We're better off destroying their militaries and annexing them at that point. Otherwise, if Kellog's can figure out how many boxes of Raisin Bran to sell at each Wal Mart in the US, I think they and other businesses can accomplish the same thing in foreign countries without government intervention. There is no need to have any kind of ties with any country any where. Unless of course our goal is to engage in constant quid pro quo with other countries to try and loot as much of the world to the benefit of our politicians and their friends' wallets.

I'm not talking about giving everyone money not to attack us. I'm talking about peace agreements. Now I'm sorry, but in today's world it's somewhat unrealistic when you are the most powerful country in the world to expect that you can just pursue what you call a "non-interventionist" policy and be looked upon as anything other than selfish and socially irresponsible on a global level. Realistically America can try not to intervene all it wants, sooner or later it's going to happen. The question is, will we have strong allies and world opinion on our side or will we go it alone as in this silly war against Iraq? I prefer to think realistically and not in highly theoretical and excessively optimistic views. Weren't those the kind of opinions that got us into the war in Iraq anyway? "It'll be over in 3 weeks," and "The people there are crying out for freedom." Guess what, it wasn't. Guess what, they weren't.

Originally Posted by CDB

No, private industry.

Wait. Let me stop laughing at that statement a minute.

Ok.

Originally Posted by CDB

I like it, the government completely screws up our educational system, and we should keep it and pour more money into it. Makes sense. The government is the reason our educational system is so screwed up. Get them out of it period. I would actually favor a constitutional ammendment to ban the use of government funds for any and all education, similar to the ammendments many states passed against using tax dollars to build roads after they experienced the massive **** up government road building was early in our country's history.

The problem isn't that the government devises educational plans, it's that the wrong people are put in charge of these plans. The ideal democratic republic government is a halfway mixture of the "pride and responsibility" aspects of Nazi socialism and the "free trade" and more importantly, free speech of a capitalist society. The ideal environment in which to ceate a better country with a lower crime rate is to make them proud and happy. Proud of themselves, proud of their achievements, proud of their town, proud to be American. Dubya had this opportunity to unite Americans after 9/11 and he blew it by bending to capitalism above patriotism. America needed strong leadership and all it got was "go back to your shopping, that'll show 'em". That's why, for all that is said that is bad about John Kerry I really appreciated his ideas on instilling the youth with a sense of community service and pride, and encouraging public service. What your plans lack is balance. A government run as you suggest would be at the mercy of trade and capital even as you talk of private currency. Private industry does everything "on the cheap" just as in the case of the railways inspecting brakes only on failure. You talk of insurance companies catching on but with the relative rarity of major catastrophic failure of brakes the railway takes a calculated risk and would likely fudge the facts to make it appear that they had done nothing wrong in the ensuing investigation. This is what happens when you leave corporations without oversight. They will not oversee themselves in matters of public and social responsibility. This has been proven. Enron didn't. Tyco didn't. WorldCom didn't. Etc., etc. Money and market dominance are the motivating factors of capitalism. Money and control, the motivating factors of government. This is why most economies today are mixed between the two. What matters most in determining how successful that mixture is is who is at the top of the pyramid, not the bottom. I'll post more later.

[CDB]

Originally Posted by Brooklyn

CDB, I will say that your theories are extremely... optimistic... which is why I disagree with much of them, not because of any "liberal" disposition.

My theories are not optimistic, nor are they mine per se, as they've been developed in much greater depth by people a lot smarter than me. My opinion, backed up by reality in my view, is that the less government, the better. That is not to say problems wouldn't exist, just that they would be smaller, have less impact and be less troublesome under such a system.

The only people to benefit from your plans would once again be already wealthy land/property owners.

That statement alone suggests a severe misunderstanding of basic economics.

The goal I have in thinking of economic system design is how to provide opportunities to make many more people into wealthy landowners rather than starving slaves to minimum wage.

Not ideologically slanted at all...

Smart men make smart plans. "Workfare"... isn't that what the Republicans called it? Teach people, give them the necessary skills to succeed and help them become proud, well-paid workers.

Bad idea. One, it sucks money out of the private sector which could have been used much more efficiently there. Two, the government does not have some crystal ball as to what the economy needs. No one does. As a result they're as likely to train people in useless skills as useful.

As if being single and not popping out 5 babies makes you a second class citizen. If anything, those that place less of a burden on the state should be treated better. Again, just "ending" all social assistance programs would leave thousands dead of starvation and cause mass rioting. You're thinking in the viewpoint of the rich man in the ivory tower. Try switching to that of the beggar in the street or the family man struggling to feed his family. You'd change tunes real quick.

I've been there and done that. Thinking like the beggar in the street is an insanely wrong way to approach the problem: he's a beggar in the street, obviously for whatever reason does not have his act together. His wants and needs aren't relevant to a basic discussion of how they're met in the least destructive way. The least destructive way would be for him to get off his ass and work for himself. If he's incapable, he's got my charity dollar. If in the end that still wasn't enough, then perhaps government support.

But, no matter how you approach the subsidization of poverty, as long as you subsidize it there will be ever increasing amounts of it. There is no way to avoid that.

But it wouldn't work that way in real life. In real life when you eliminate the people in charge of state affairs, treasury, agriculture, commerce, health and human services, housing and urban development, transportation, energy, education, homeland security... you end up with a lot of problems with no "here" for the buck to stop at. Nothing left is what you'd have to govern the U.S..

Implicit in this statement is that there is absolutely no other way to accomodate these demands of society than through government. Sounds like a very limited view of the world to me.

Now I'm sorry, but in today's world it's somewhat unrealistic when you are the most powerful country in the world to expect that you can just pursue what you call a "non-interventionist" policy and be looked upon as anything other than selfish and socially irresponsible on a global level.

Sounds like you've bought the party line hook, line and sinker.

Realistically America can try not to intervene all it wants, sooner or later it's going to happen. The question is, will we have strong allies and world opinion on our side or will we go it alone as in this silly war against Iraq?

That is your limit of view on this issue? Interventionism is what's made us so many enemies the world over. Having strong allies? Making friends with someone else's enemy is a good way to get enemies yourself. I'd suggest a review of works by the old scholastics who were the first to develop international law concepts, more specifically laws that were in large part guiding principles to protect the rights of neutrals. You're stuck in the 20th century ideology of war or nothing, Brooklyn. There was a time, not too long before Woodrow Wilson, where noninterventionism was considered honorable and correct, and it worked. Wars still existed, but they were limited and largely practical in nature. Hans Herman Hoppe has a good lecture and a good many articles out on the differences between pre and post WWI foreign policy, good reads that I'd recommend.

Since Wilson, with the cop on the corner analogy for foreign policy, we've managed to make so many enemies and get involved in so many wars that it's hard to count them now. Instead of listening the ideology espoused by republicrats why don't you just take a look at the results of their policies.

I prefer to think realistically and not in highly theoretical and excessively optimistic views.

So do I, which I guess makes this a useless reply. It's ever been the call of people engaging in poor practices for everyone just to "be practical" or "be realistic." 'Practicality' and 'realism' have been the excuses for a great number of boondoggles and outright evil acts in history.

Weren't those the kind of opinions that got us into the war in Iraq anyway? "It'll be over in 3 weeks," and "The people there are crying out for freedom." Guess what, it wasn't. Guess what, they weren't.

I don't support the war in Iraq, so what's the point here?

The problem isn't that the government devises educational plans, it's that the wrong people are put in charge of these plans.

That's what they kept saying about the Soviet Union. Socialism would work if we could just get the right people in charge. Just like FEMA is supposed to work now Brown is gone. It's not the people, it's the system. It. Can't. Work. Like it or not, there are economic laws that don't simply change based on who is in power. You could take Jesus Christ himself and put him in charge of our government and he'd have ****ed it up completely in a few years. It simply can't work.

Private industry does everything "on the cheap" just as in the case of the railways inspecting brakes only on failure. You talk of insurance companies catching on but with the relative rarity of major catastrophic failure of brakes the railway takes a calculated risk and would likely fudge the facts to make it appear that they had done nothing wrong in the ensuing investigation. This is what happens when you leave corporations without oversight.

Nor is anybody suggesting they will. However the government is not the only group capable of making such oversight possible. It is the only group that does so involuntarily and forces everyone to a single standard no matter what their risk reward trade off might be. Plus, by doing so it greatly reduces the viability of alternatives, making people dependent on it for such services. Go back to the schools, we pour twice as much money per student into them than private schools get, and even after any special circumstances are taken into account they quite simply can't get kids educated to the same standard. And don't doubt for a second that some of the most well educated and well meaning people in our country are involved in those schools and the higher administration. The system will not work because there is no incentive for it to work, period. There is no accountability, screw ups bring in more money not less.

They will not oversee themselves in matters of public and social responsibility. This has been proven. Enron didn't. Tyco didn't. WorldCom didn't. Etc., etc. Money and market dominance are the motivating factors of capitalism.

The companies you pointed out were working within the frameworks the government gave them to work with. Government makes laws with looholes and vagueries, corporations use them to their advantage, as does every single tax payer in the nation, and when the **** hits the fan we blame... the corporations. Brilliant.

Money and control, the motivating factors of government. This is why most economies today are mixed between the two. What matters most in determining how successful that mixture is is who is at the top of the pyramid, not the bottom. I'll post more later.

Once more, this statement shows a deep misunderstanding of history, how government works, how economies work, and how the world in general works. It doesn't matter who is in charge. The system itself, full of perverse incentives and no accountability, is the problem. The market at least has accountability. You don't like someone's products, you don't buy them. You don't like someone's trains, you don't ride them. The key aspect of choice is what makes the market superior to other means because no one is forced to live by anyone else's standards. If you want a certain level of safety that's higher than most, it will be available at a premium higher than the average. If you're willing to take risks and aren't endangering anyone else, you'd have that choice too.

And through all of this, every socialist on this board has yet to answer the key question: exactly how do these evil, subversive, destructive, horrible, blood thirsty, mudering corporations "run wild" over people without government help? Only the government can force you to do something. Only the government can kill you with no consequences for not complying with their dictates. Only the government can throw you in prison for not doing things their way. Only the government can take your land away without just compensation. Only the government can **** you against your will for arbitrary reasons. Only the government can force you to buy their services to the exclusion of all others. And it is only with the help of the government that corporations can do such things. In that light, that's why I see the government as the operative evil factor. Without the government corporations are powerless organizations. What's a corporation to do if it wants your land to build on? In a free market they have to buy it at a price at which you're willing to sell. They can't force you off your land without the government's help in either seizing the property or ignoring their aggression towards you if that's the route they chose.

Money only buys power if the government puts it up for sale. And, put simply, the more government the more salesmen.

Every critique you offer of capitalism is off base for a variety of reasons. One, aesthetic critiques don't matter. You may disagree with the law of gravity because you want to fly, but it will not change because you don't like it. Similarly there are laws in economics that won't change regardless of whether or not people choose to acknowledge them. That they are qualitative and not quantitative makes no difference. Two, you for some reason completely ignore the government's role in creating the problems you supposedly want government to solve. Every other good and service the market handles with little or no regulation by the government manages to reach an general equlibrium and a market clearing price.

Take education. There's no reason, absolutely no reason education is different from any other service that could be offerred to anyone. There is no free rider problem, there is nothing special or magical about education, books or teachers that makes the market incapable of delivering these goods and services. In fact, in the face of massive regulation the market still manages to deliver them to a smaller audience at a much lower price than public schools who not only cost more in total, but more on a per student basis even after any special considerations are taken into account. After literally almost a century of progressively increasing government regulation over schools at all levels they have done nothing but decline in quality no matter who was in charge of the system. This might clue you in, but for some reason it doesn't. In an endless effort to "get it right" with new people in charge everyone still manages to screw it up. That's because the system is not set up to be self improving and it can't be set up that way and still be in the public sector. If the kids aren't getting educated in private schools those schools go out of business. Simple self correction. The schools that do the best job at the best price get the most business. When kids in public education don't get educated the system, after proving its ineffectiveness and inefficiency, gets more money and resources poured into it. That's the basic nature of all government programs. The bigger the failure, the more money they are guaranteed to get. It's completely the opposite of the way it should be by nature, not by choice. No matter who is in charge the system will fail by nature. The most you can hope for is a slow fall to mediocrity.

Three, the costs of all these approaches you advocate are often unseen. One grat example of this is antitrust law. For years in the middle of last century GM had a policy to never let their market share go above 47% or some similar number because they feared an antitrust lawsuit. How much more competitive would they have been otherwise? How much cheaper would cars have been for customers? How much better would the US auto industry have been if, instead of shitting their pants in anticipation of a lawsuit, car companies could have competed to their full ability? There's no way of knowing, but that doesn't mean a cost hasn't been incurred. Unions push up the market price of their labor and end up creating a pool of unemployment around that trade, which the market has to adjust to accomodate. The increased competition for the remaining jobs means the market clearing price for labor will go lower. How much higher would wages in general have been? There's no way of knowing, but that doesn't mean a cost hasn't been incurred. The government decides it needs to regulate and build all the roads in our nation, despite a fairly booming private road construction business early in our history (see work by economist Robert Klein), because the politically connected don't always find it as easy as they'd like to get a road in their area. Now we have a scarce resource, roads, being used by everyone including every drunk and nitwit in the country who proved they could drive around the block and parallel park. How many people a year die on these roads? There's no way of knowing how many wouldn't have died had another approach been used, but that doesn't mean a cost hasn't been incurred. And when privatization comes up everyone screams there will toll booths everywhere, showing their general ignorance and political bias by taking a government solution to road scarcity and assuming that's the only way to deal with the issue.

Bottom line is, I've been down your road of thought Brooklyn. For a long time and further than you and I know where it leads. We've seen where it leads, seen it in North Korea, in East Germany, and in the shining example of the USSR. Going down that route when it's been proven to be such a dismal failure time and time again is insane. And there is no appropriate mix of government and business. The government should do one thing and one thing only as its primary focus: protect individual's property rights, in terms of them owning their own bodies and their own land. When it comes to foreign policy allow trade unhindered across borders. If someone agresses against us wipe them out, otherwise stay out of other country's affairs. If two tribes are slaughtering each other in Africa that's terrible, but it's not an appropriate use of tax money to go over get our military involved, not in the least because there's no clear good guy or bad guy to fight against, and even if there were sending our army over turns us into the Humanitarian with a Guillotine, which Isabel Patterson correctly pointed out is a terrorist in action.

[Brooklyn]

Originally Posted by CDB

My theories are not optimistic, nor are they mine per se, as they've been developed in much greater depth by people a lot smarter than me. My opinion, backed up by reality in my view, is that the less government, the better. That is not to say problems wouldn't exist, just that they would be smaller, have less impact and be less troublesome under such a system.

I'm all for a smaller government, as in a government with less personal restrictions and less overhead. This is not the same as eliminating government regulation entirely which is essentially what you're proposing. Government is there to do just that- to govern. To establish laws and a viable economic system under which its people can prosper. In the case of the U.S., ideally with the least restrictions necessary to ensure fair practices and a continuously improving financial situation for all.

Originally Posted by CDB

That statement alone suggests a severe misunderstanding of basic economics.

Not from what I see you suggesting. The rich would, having no government challenges to corporate gain, become richer. The poor, who you claim would work in a "free market" which would "motivate them to gain" is like Reagan's trickle-down theory. It doesn't work. Reaganomics destroyed the middle class and pushed people into upper and lower classes more than ever before. CEOs and high ranking executives now have exponentially higher salaries. Minimum wage hasn't risen much though. In fact most Republicans would like to lower it. Wal Mart is a perfect example of a "free market" corporation. They do everything possible to avoid regulation and take advantage of every break they can get. They import goods created by workers in foreign countries making 20 cents an hour working 12+ hour days. They flout labor laws, immigration work laws, wage laws, trade policies and traditional good practice. To avoid insuring their employees they pass off the cost of health care to state Medicaid and assistance programs and create a financial burden on the proleteriat. They are able to do this because their average employee makes so little that they meet income level requirements for poverty assistance. Yet Wal Mart is among the largest and most profitable corporations in the world. This is the consequence of a free market. You create a country ruled by corporations. The market has accountability? Only to profit. Companies like this are as "interventionist" as the U.S. in foreign affairs. What makes it any different? Everything, whether a Federal government or a corporate board is a governing entity. What incentive does a corporation have to provide safe, effective products to consumers if there is no threat of penalties? Profit? Companies have proven time and again that the can manufacture garbage and make tons of money off it. Slick marketing sells best, not quality or effectiveness. Ask MuscleTech about that.

Originally Posted by CDB

Bad idea. One, it sucks money out of the private sector which could have been used much more efficiently there. Two, the government does not have some crystal ball as to what the economy needs. No one does. As a result they're as likely to train people in useless skills as useful.

So you hire independent, well paid commerce experts to plan the trends and chart the country's needs. What does a successful corporation do to determine the needs of its consumers? It's not impossible to achieve. For instance, the country has a statistically verifiable shortage of, say, pharmacists (another example of the effect of slick marketing on other industries). So one job training course might focus on introductory medical jobs, with meaningful job counseling in the right direction. The idea of "workfare" and job training is to give a hand up, not a handout. You're looking at government as a big mess and I'm looking at it as a bloated corporation which needs to reorganize in order to be successful and profitable. Consider the U.S. government a corporation in which its citizens are its minority shareholders. The better off they are, the better off the corporation will be as well.

Originally Posted by CDB

I've been there and done that. Thinking like the beggar in the street is an insanely wrong way to approach the problem: he's a beggar in the street, obviously for whatever reason does not have his act together. His wants and needs aren't relevant to a basic discussion of how they're met in the least destructive way. The least destructive way would be for him to get off his ass and work for himself. If he's incapable, he's got my charity dollar. If in the end that still wasn't enough, then perhaps government support.

But, no matter how you approach the subsidization of poverty, as long as you subsidize it there will be ever increasing amounts of it. There is no way to avoid that.

All you're saying is that poor people don't want to work. They don't want to be successful. They are unmotivated and that is their cause for failure. I'm sorry but I don't believe that. Yes, some poor people are lazy, through ignorance or the lack of hope or belief in themselves that they can achieve better. These circumstances are caused by a cycle of problems. One is lack of jobs. In some places, the best job you can hope for is at McDonalds or Popeye's. If you can't afford a higher education and the lower educational system has failed to provide you with the necessary skills to gain a good-paying job then what are you, an ignorant poor person in a ghetto, supposed to do? Walk out and hope that some Fortune 500 company is dumb enough to hire you with no experience and no education? Many of the poor people in this country just need hope. It's a recurring theme in urban films from Boyz n the Hood to Hustle and Flow. Why does much of our young enlisted military come from poor neighborhoods? Because the military gives poor people hope. A steady paycheck. The promise of funds for education. A way to learn skills and earn honor and respect. It's not much but it is hope. That's what this country needs more of and I don't mean by a bigger military. I mean by giving people real goals and real assistance- the kind that helps them to overcome their situation and teaches them to help others up when they get there. Eliminating the government's role in, well, governing doesn't achieve that. In fact it achieves quite the opposite. Selfish greed and squandering, criminal activity and addictive drug use in poor communities are all by-products of hopelessness. If a young man's career choices lay between Burger King and drug dealing, which do you think he is more likely to gravitate toward? Remember, hand up, not handout. Increasing subsidization wouldn't happen if more people were learning skills, getting good jobs and making more money, would it? No, because those people would be well above the poverty line and no longer need or be eligible for support.

In regard to subsidization continually increasing, that is actually and somewhat ironically the real-world result of Wal-Mart-ization. A company such as Wal Mart comes into a poor community providing a large variety of goods at a lower price in one place. They pay low wages and have few benefits. By undercutting their competition through sheer mass purchase power they cause many local and established businesesses to close. The lack of local businesses forces more people to work at Wal Mart. It also causes wages and benefits to decrease at those competitors that survive in order to stay afloat. Now the community, having lost jobs and generally having less income is forced to shop at Wal Mart since it is now the only place the people can afford to shop at. Thus you have created a cyclical system in which poverty increases relative to a "free market" without restriction or a sense of corporate social responsibility. The real problem is that other, often directly unrelated businesses in other communities and other industries watch and play follow the leader with the way they handle business as well. Follow this road to its logical conclusion. Thus you begin to experience the dire consequences of irresponsible capitalism. This is why there are unions and government regulations, not to make some mafia boss or lazy workers happy.

[CDB]

Originally Posted by Brooklyn

I'm all for a smaller government, as in a government with less personal restrictions and less overhead. This is not the same as eliminating government regulation entirely which is essentially what you're proposing. Government is there to do just that- to govern. To establish laws and a viable economic system under which its people can prosper. In the case of the U.S., ideally with the least restrictions necessary to ensure fair practices and a continuously improving financial situation for all.

The government can no more "establish a viable economic system" than they can establish a viable physics system. Once again, a deep misunderstanding of how economics works. It is a bottom up order, not top down. It comes into being spontaneously, not by government decree, as a response to scarcity. There is also no way for the government to provide a continuously improving financial situation for all. For one, the removal of risk removes the possiblity for profit. Stopping the momentary financial misfortune of some has to be done at the expense of others and by interfering with the normal market function of resource reallocation for another. This takes the already existing market function and makes it less efficient. "Fair practices" beyond the protection of private property rights are ambiguous and subjective at best for another. A lot of people consider in unfair that they have to pay for anything. A general consensus is meaningless, any such consensus will result in property rights violations, lead to market uncertainty and general market disfunction to varying degrees. That would in fact be how I would characterize government as its best and most accurate description: the mechanism through which some seek to, and often to succeed at screwing others for their own personal benefit.

Not from what I see you suggesting. The rich would, having no government challenges to corporate gain, become richer. The poor, who you claim would work in a "free market" which would "motivate them to gain" is like Reagan's trickle-down theory. It doesn't work. Reaganomics destroyed the middle class and pushed people into upper and lower classes more than ever before. CEOs and high ranking executives now have exponentially higher salaries. Minimum wage hasn't risen much though. In fact most Republicans would like to lower it.