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weso1
Joined: 26 Aug 2010
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 Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2011 2:08 am Post subject: |
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| visitorq wrote: |
| weso1 wrote: |
| visitorq wrote: |
| weso1 wrote: |
| You Republicans are clueless. |
Wow. Yet another comprehensive, thought-provoking contribution from weso1 aka "the dude". Even dotted your 'i's and crossed your 't's I see; didn't even break a sweat...
Good thing I'm not a Republican... |
You're totally Republican. Every opinion you have has already been voiced by Rick Perry. It's like you were separated at birth. |
Oh I see. So you're a mind reader now?... What, did you hack into my computer and find proof of my affiliation with the GOP? 
Buzz off, troll. Responding to you is a waste of time. |
You prove it everyday. You want no regulations - so does Rick Perry. You want to eliminate the income tax - so does Rick Perry. You think liberals are socialists - so does Rick Perry. You hate the federal reserve -so does Rick Perry. You want a small federal government - so does Rick Perry.
You're exactly what the GOP loves. You vote Republican consistently, but you still call yourself independent. You give them the vote and then they can say they're winning independents.
So, if it comes downs to Obama vs. Perry, who are you going to vote for? And remember, if you don't vote, you can't complain. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2011 2:26 am Post subject: |
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| weso1 wrote: |
| You prove it everyday. You want no regulations - so does Rick Perry. |
Rick Perry is all about regulations. He even forced girls to get Gardasil vaccines. You are just talking absolute garbage.
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| You want to eliminate the income tax - so does Rick Perry. |
No he doesn't. Unless you're a complete idiot and believe the empty rhetoric of politicians. Rick Perry would never, ever, ever abolish the income tax.
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| You think liberals are socialists - so does Rick Perry. |
Rick Perry is a complete socialist. He was Al Gore's campaign manager. He praised Hillary Care when it was being proposed. Etc. Etc.
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| You hate the federal reserve -so does Rick Perry. |
Rick Perry loves the Federal Reserve.
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| You want a small federal government - so does Rick Perry. |
Ahahaha - you actually believe this? Rick Perry is a Bilderberg member.
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| You're exactly what the GOP loves. You vote Republican consistently, but you still call yourself independent. You give them the vote and then they can say they're winning independents. |
I've never voted Republican in my life.
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| So, if it comes downs to Obama vs. Perry, who are you going to vote for? |
Neither. They are both absolute trash. Though if you stuck a gun to my head and forced me at pain of death to choose, I might just go with Obama...
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| And remember, if you don't vote, you can't complain. |
Yes I can. It's a free country (or at least it was the last time I checked). |
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weso1
Joined: 26 Aug 2010
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| Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2011 3:00 am Post subject: |
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You want to eliminate the income tax - so does Rick Perry.
No he doesn't. Unless you're a complete idiot and believe the empty rhetoric of politicians. Rick Perry would never, ever, ever abolish the income tax. |
Wait... so even though Rick Perry says he wants to eliminate taxes, you want me to believe you just because you say so?
Well, you claim to be libertarian, but only a complete idiot would believe that. You're just another big government loving Republican.
There, now my arguments are the same as yours. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2011 6:59 am Post subject: |
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| Privateer wrote: |
| What that article says is that unionized public sector workers are getting on average better pay and benefits, are harder to fire on a whim, and have a better negotiating position than the rest of us. The lesson some of you seem to draw is that this somehow makes the rest of us worse off. You don't care if the poor are poorer, so long as the gap between public and private sector workers is smaller. |
You don't get it. Teacher's unions protect underperforming teachers from getting fired. This does make students worse off. It also makes the large corps of motivated education major graduates worse off, because the union jobs are protected.
I don't care if the people who make my car or build my house are unionized. I do care if the people who educate my kids and serve as police and firefighters are unionized. |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2011 9:26 am Post subject: |
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International free market capitalism in Haiti, Haiti bending to the wishes of agri-business interests from overseas. The invisible hand turns into skeletal hands:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/29/food.internationalaidanddevelopment
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Domestic agriculture is a disaster. The slashing and burning of forests for farming and charcoal has degraded the soil and chronic under-investment has rendered rural infrastructure at best rickety, at worst non-existent.
The woes were compounded by a decision in the 1980s to lift tariffs, when international prices were lower, and flood the country with cheap imported rice and vegetables. Consumers gained and the IMF applauded but domestic farmers went bankrupt and the Artibonite valley, the country's breadbasket, atrophied.
Now that imports are rocketing in price the government has vowed to rebuild the withered agriculture but that is a herculean task given scant resources, degraded soil and land ownership disputes. |
International free market capitalism at work in Indonesia. Capitalism at its rawest, clearing people off the land so they can extract its wealth:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/30/indonesia-killings-west-papua-western-press
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In 1969, under the "act of free choice", 1,026 West Papuans were ordered at gunpoint to vote for integration with Indonesia. This contravened international law, and was a travesty of democracy. "The process of consultation did not allow a genuinely free choice to be made," said a British Foreign and Commonwealth Office briefing that year. The American embassy in Jakarta in June 1969 knew what was in store for the Papuans: the act of free choice, according to the embassy, "is unfolding like a Greek tragedy, the conclusion pre-ordained".
The reasons for this collusion become clear if you rewind to 1967, when president Suharto's men struck a deal to hand over West Papua's wealth of natural resources to international companies, including a mountain of copper and gold � now the world's most valuable mine, Freeport McMoRan.
In return, Indonesia received billions of corporate dollars plus, crucially, international connivance in covering up human rights abuses. |
And on the economic effects of unions, from a 2011 study of the USA:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/03/unions-and-state-economies-dont-believe-the-hype/72282/
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Unionized states are better-off economically than non-unionized states. While it's probably not surprising that unionization levels are correlated with higher hourly wages (.48 ), they are also correlated with higher incomes across the board--and the correlation between union membership and median income is substantial (.45). To put it baldly, unions are associated with the country's economic winners, not its losers. And it's not that unionized states work more--unionization is negatively correlated with hours worked (-.36). States with higher levels of union membership work less hours per week but make more money--higher levels of union memberships are positively correlated with wage per hour (.48 ).
That said, unionization does not appear to mitigate the effects of inequality or to protect against unemployment, according to our analysis. There is no correlation whatsoever between union membership and income inequality. Union membership is not correlated with unemployment, either. |
| Kuros wrote: |
| Privateer wrote: |
| What that article says is that unionized public sector workers are getting on average better pay and benefits, are harder to fire on a whim, and have a better negotiating position than the rest of us. The lesson some of you seem to draw is that this somehow makes the rest of us worse off. You don't care if the poor are poorer, so long as the gap between public and private sector workers is smaller. |
You don't get it. Teacher's unions protect underperforming teachers from getting fired. This does make students worse off. It also makes the large corps of motivated education major graduates worse off, because the union jobs are protected.
I don't care if the people who make my car or build my house are unionized. I do care if the people who educate my kids and serve as police and firefighters are unionized. |
Oh, I get it. I just don't care about it, because when politicians wave bad teachers in front of our faces I can't take it seriously. They've been attacking and blaming teachers (while simultaneously cutting funding for education and shifting costs onto parents) my entire life. Why? Because they want to cut funding, shift the blame for the consequences elsewhere, and also because they hate unions. If they genuinely wanted to improve education, a procedure for firing teachers of demonstrable ineptness would just be one small clause among many in a long list of proposals, instead of a stick used in the fight against the public sector unions they want to get rid of so badly.
And I'm not saying unions can't be corrupt or can't impede reform. It happens, but it's not the big issue it's consistently portrayed as. In fact, studies generally show, as does the one above, that union presence correlates with not just better conditions for its members but a healthier economy generally, and a more democratic society - as witness the influence of unions in the democracy movement in Egypt. That unionized public sector employees are better off on average than the non-unionized private sector is a fact, supported by statistics. As for whether the rest of us would be better off if they were worse off, we'll probably find out soon enough. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2011 10:04 am Post subject: |
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| weso1 wrote: |
| Quote: |
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You want to eliminate the income tax - so does Rick Perry.
No he doesn't. Unless you're a complete idiot and believe the empty rhetoric of politicians. Rick Perry would never, ever, ever abolish the income tax. |
Wait... so even though Rick Perry says he wants to eliminate taxes, you want me to believe you just because you say so? |
Because Rick Perry is politician. He has no credibility, but he has every reason to lie. What, you didn't know that politicians lie to get elected?
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| Well, you claim to be libertarian, but only a complete idiot would believe that. You're just another big government loving Republican. |
I have no reason to lie. I'm not running for office, nor am I on anybody's payroll.
Try again, troll.
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| There, now my arguments are the same as yours. |
Your arguments are non-existent. |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2011 11:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Privateer wrote: |
International free market capitalism in Haiti, Haiti bending to the wishes of agri-business interests from overseas. The invisible hand turns into skeletal hands:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/29/food.internationalaidanddevelopment
| Quote: |
Domestic agriculture is a disaster. The slashing and burning of forests for farming and charcoal has degraded the soil and chronic under-investment has rendered rural infrastructure at best rickety, at worst non-existent.
The woes were compounded by a decision in the 1980s to lift tariffs, when international prices were lower, and flood the country with cheap imported rice and vegetables. Consumers gained and the IMF applauded but domestic farmers went bankrupt and the Artibonite valley, the country's breadbasket, atrophied.
Now that imports are rocketing in price the government has vowed to rebuild the withered agriculture but that is a herculean task given scant resources, degraded soil and land ownership disputes. |
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Tim Worstall debunks: http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/international/myth-making-about-haiti/
That's the spirit, Privateer. Nothing screams capitalism quite like "army genocide".
http://edition.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/popups/exporting.america/content.html |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:20 am Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
That's the spirit, Privateer. Nothing screams capitalism quite like "army genocide". |
I was having this debate with a friend, alleging that capitalism is better than communism (controversial, I know!). And he wanted to put the Spanish Empire's slaughter of Native Americans under the sins of capitalism.
It is so bizarre. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2011 9:08 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
That's the spirit, Privateer. Nothing screams capitalism quite like "army genocide". |
I was having this debate with a friend, alleging that capitalism is better than communism (controversial, I know!). And he wanted to put the Spanish Empire's slaughter of Native Americans under the sins of capitalism.
It is so bizarre. |
Yes it is very strange. Leftists nearly always bunch "capitalism" together with imperialism as if they were one in the same. Even when you qualify it as "the free market" (as opposed to the central banking / warfare model controlled by the state), they are incapable of getting around the CAPITALISM = BAD indoctrination that was stamped onto their brains during their years in the public school system. Many of them even watched that Michael Moore movie once, so they know it's bad.
It's all just so ridiculous. Hell, if you want to get technical, Stalin's genocide of Ukrainian peasants could probably be blamed on "capitalism" too. |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2011 3:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| Haiti and Indonesia are respectivly the 133rd and 116th freest economies. |
Interesting. I'm not sure how much those scales they use really tell you about the concrete situation on the ground without researching it, but, either way, the point still stands that both these countries - and the majority of countries in the world - are capitalist. And returns on investment are generally higher, perhaps not safer, in the Third World. |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2011 4:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| Privateer wrote: |
International free market capitalism in Haiti, Haiti bending to the wishes of agri-business interests from overseas. The invisible hand turns into skeletal hands:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/29/food.internationalaidanddevelopment
| Quote: |
Domestic agriculture is a disaster. The slashing and burning of forests for farming and charcoal has degraded the soil and chronic under-investment has rendered rural infrastructure at best rickety, at worst non-existent.
The woes were compounded by a decision in the 1980s to lift tariffs, when international prices were lower, and flood the country with cheap imported rice and vegetables. Consumers gained and the IMF applauded but domestic farmers went bankrupt and the Artibonite valley, the country's breadbasket, atrophied.
Now that imports are rocketing in price the government has vowed to rebuild the withered agriculture but that is a herculean task given scant resources, degraded soil and land ownership disputes. |
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Tim Worstall debunks: http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/international/myth-making-about-haiti/ |
This patronising debunk is pretty much bunk. If 'encouragement' from the US government (in Bill Clinton's words) led to a reduction in tariffs less than a year before the IMF got to work, the result is still the same, and the interests at stake are still the same, i.e. U.S. agribusiness. The U.S. government and the IMF both represent largely the same interests.
They also say:
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| If Haitian rice was low cost and inexpensive then tariff or no tariff people would preferentially purchase that low cost, inexpensive, Haitian rice. Who would purchase more expensive American rice? |
U.S. agriculture is heavily subsidized to the point that it's impossible for small farmers in any country to compete, however efficient they are. And look what's happening now: unable to compete, Haitian agriculture faded away, prices then went up, and people are now eating dirt. Literally.
Moreover, this is a pattern we see repeated in Third World countries over and over again. Protective tariffs are dismantled, local agriculture gives way to cash crops and/or to food imports, and in both cases international price fluctuations sooner or later leave them unable to sustain themselves - but profits for capitalists are high.
This lowering of tariffs in other countries is referred to in the rhetoric as 'free trade' and it's in that sense that I refer to 'international free trade capitalism'. Naturally, the existence of heavy subsidies to US agriculture means it's not what libertarians mean by 'free trade' but the reality is simple: the powerful pursue their interests, which, in capitalism, means profit without regard to externalities such as whether people starve - and it's naive to think otherwise. They are actively creating wealth through actively creating poverty.
| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
That's the spirit, Privateer. Nothing screams capitalism quite like "army genocide". |
Army genocide for a reason. For profit. Certain companies in collusion with the Indonesian government instigated this genocide and benefited from it.
Interesting link, and it strongly supports my point that capitalism thrives in the Third World. It's precisely because employees have such relatively high pay over here that the employers are looking to the Third World where pay and conditions are so much worse and, correspondingly, profits so much higher. Unions have played no small role over the 2 centuries of hard struggle leading to our current working conditions - and still have a beneficial effect, as the study I referred to showed: hence unions are targeted in the drive to roll back popular gains. In the Third World we see capitalism unchecked, and, if capitalism is unchecked here, we will start to see the Third World here too.
But 'the economy', meaning the rich, will be doing very well, and that seems to be your main concern.  |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2011 4:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
That's the spirit, Privateer. Nothing screams capitalism quite like "army genocide". |
I was having this debate with a friend, alleging that capitalism is better than communism (controversial, I know!). And he wanted to put the Spanish Empire's slaughter of Native Americans under the sins of capitalism.
It is so bizarre. |
This thread has gone in all kinds of directions already so let's not get into whether there is or isn't a relationship between imperialism and capitalism. Suffice to say that I didn't mention imperialism, let alone early colonial Spanish imperialism, even though the modern Indonesian army's actions in some of its provinces do look pretty similar.
| visitorq wrote: |
| Hell, if you want to get technical, Stalin's genocide of Ukrainian peasants could probably be blamed on "capitalism" too. |
How so? |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2011 9:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Privateer wrote: |
| either way, the point still stands that both these countries - and the majority of countries in the world - are capitalist. |
| Privateer wrote: |
| visitorq wrote: |
| Hell, if you want to get technical, Stalin's genocide of Ukrainian peasants could probably be blamed on "capitalism" too. |
How so? |
Because all those communist (and fascist) countries had state-capitalism. They had a government controlled central bank, just like Western countries. They imposed it at the barrel of a gun, just like the West.
Basically any country that has a monetary system (ie. every country on earth) can be called "capitalist" - capitalism is a neutral term in and of itself. To then blame all the evils of any of these countries on free market capitalism is absurd. It's actually a sort of mind trick that people buy into - and it makes no sense.
At the end of the day, far from ever hurting anyone the free market has brought immense prosperity and empowerment to people. Governments, on the other hand, have killed countless millions in the last century alone, and starved, oppressed, and robbed even more. |
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Unposter
Joined: 04 Jun 2006
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| Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2011 9:26 pm Post subject: |
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The closest we have ever come to a free market is hunting and gathering. So, what free markets are you talking about that have brought prosperity?
Go ahead - try to create the absence of "government."
As my friend used to say, "The problem with anarchy is there is nothing to enforce it."
How do you enforce free markets? |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2011 9:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Unposter wrote: |
| The closest we have ever come to a free market is hunting and gathering. |
Nonsense. The closest we came was during laissez-faire capitalism of the 19th century. The time when growth and innovation exploded like never before in history. Of course it was still not perfect, since the government was lying, trampling on peoples' rights, waging wars of aggression, and engaging in corruption even back then.
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| Go ahead - try to create the absence of "government." |
Go ahead, try to create the absence of mafia.
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| As my friend used to say, "The problem with anarchy is there is nothing to enforce it." |
Nobody is advocating anarchy. At least not in the libertarian camp.
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| How do you enforce free markets? |
With the rule of law, of course. There is no contradiction there. Freedom does not entail trampling on the liberties of others (as the government does). This is very easy to understand. |
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