Stereotypes associated with Libertarianism and Ron Paul

Oh come on do you have ANY idea how costly these thigns are? we'r already going through a period of great Recession We can not AFFORD to save everyone without going bankrupt ourselves.

We must survive, all of us. The blood of a human for me, a cooked bird for you. Where is the difference?

Wanting to save people from dying is equally foolish to hating taxes?

What you're describing doesn't sound like the United State's system of public welfare. The government doesn't need to give people "everything." People should not be given everything, but they should be given food if they can't afford it. Do you think it's okay to just let poor people die? Would a good government just let its people suffer and die?

edited 8th Mar '11 6:51:11 PM by Grain

Anime geemu wo shinasai!

I don't like the idea of people starving any more then anyone else I'm just saying the Wellfare state is damaging to productivity. I should at this point address one issue that may be up to question I am not by any means wealthy I am a lower-middle class high school graduate struggling with getting my part-time job back. My mother is currently dealing with poverty and employment issues. I know what thisislike I just don't think our current path is the right one to take. I worked as a Janitor for several weaks before my Workman's comp expired and i'll be damned if anyone is totell me I don't have aright tot he fruits of my labor.

We must survive, all of us. The blood of a human for me, a cooked bird for you. Where is the difference?

And that productivity is more important than making sure people have food and fire hydrants? Are there plausible alternatives that don't involve mass suffering?

edited 8th Mar '11 6:59:31 PM by Grain

Anime geemu wo shinasai!

Nobody's asking for welfare, or to be "saved". You make it sound like we're asking for a lot, here.

Just repair the economy in a way that generates job growth, not cut well-paying jobs and replacing them with Wal-Mart vests. We wouldn't need unemployment benefits and food stamps if real wages weren't in the toilet.

Recognize that a "flat tax" is a sham when rich people take advantage of loopholes so that they practically pay no taxes at all.

The alternative is that everybody will be reduced to serfs, minus a slim margin.

Capital's concern is to slow down inflation, since the dollar's already down. By generating jobs, that increases inflation, thus decreasing the value of employers' money. So in a sense, they have no real incentive to replace the jobs we've lost, and our current unemployment will become structualized. ..That's if we're lucky.

If we keep toeing this hypercaptalist line just because there's a recession, we're just going to cut our own throat in the long run.

edited 8th Mar '11 6:59:13 PM by johnnyfog

I'm a skeptical squirrel

but we'r not primarily Capitolist we'r primaroly corpretist.

We must survive, all of us. The blood of a human for me, a cooked bird for you. Where is the difference?

I agree. Businesses and folks who don't use loopholes get seriously stiffed. Somebody was claiming one company paid $0.30 per dollar income while another paid $0.03! What about a flat tax with no loopholes? (I agree that could be... difficult to pass)

As far as I've heard, even the extremists aren't calling for that. The extremists want to privatize the fire department and welfare (via charities). The moderates want to leave the fire hydrants to local government and reform welfare so it's not a viable alternative to employment, it's just a safety net.

I do not believe there is any solution anymore without substantial, painful sacrifice. But I do think there is probably a path out of most of the Unites States's current messes that doesn't involve mass starvation or hyper-regulation.

I actually prefer capitolism to corporateism, but rather than hypercapitolism, venture capitlism: creating an environment that allows small, highly innovative, thinking outside the box businesses to thrive and create jobs, and encourages investment in such ventures. Admittedly, a tall order in this economy.

thank you Frodo again you put what I wanted to say andsaidit better then I ever could. I agree with the wellfare as a saftey net sort of thing and that these sorts of things be handled by independent charities really mostly i'm placing way tioo much faith in humanity.

We must survive, all of us. The blood of a human for me, a cooked bird for you. Where is the difference?

But the thing is that welfare is already not a viable alternative to employment in the US (it may be different in Europe). So there's no problem there.

And you still haven't explained why you think there's too much regulation.

edited 8th Mar '11 8:11:40 PM by storyyeller

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

Regulations are killing venture capitolism. Small businesses with revolutionary ideas get hit with a mess of regulations designed for big companies that make it all but impossible to start a small company in some industries when the economy stinks.

• In the drug / food suppliment industry, if you're peddling something new, the regulations are skewed in favor of big companies that can spend more on research.
• In the oil industry, we've made it easy for foreign companies to drill offshore where if they screw up, it's a nightmare to cap the leak, while environmental regulations make it impossible for people who want to drill in shallow water or Anwar, where you can just send somebody to LOOK for the leaks and cap them by hand.
• In the auto and passenger airline industries, there hasn't been a new major startup in years.
• A number of business leaders have been interviewed saying, if I had to start over again, I couldn't build a company like mine in the current environment.

edited 8th Mar '11 8:24:51 PM by FrodoGoofballCoTV

let's see. Many of the regulations that the FDA enforce regulations such as prohibiting use of substances they "think" are dangerous often actuall7y woprking with big corperationsin the industry to even go so far as to ban natural cures and prohibit independent research on things that could be revolutionary. Part of the reason healthcare is so expensive is because A. these government supported corperations are barely accountable and B. because of many absurd regulations on the industry stifling progress.

We must survive, all of us. The blood of a human for me, a cooked bird for you. Where is the difference?

The argument about the social safety net is double-edged, and I get where opponents are coming from. The "protestant conscience", you know; helping people to help themselves. 'Welfare' began, more or less, as a payoff to disenfranchised minorities as a trade for limiting their rights. And it's true that once you're on welfare it's no simple task to financially wean off.

But to blame a metaphysical 'welfare state' for the recession is missing the forest for the trees.

edited 8th Mar '11 8:25:54 PM by johnnyfog

I'm a skeptical squirrel

oh no I don't blame the wellfare state for the recession per se I blame the federal reserve for printign so much money.

We must survive, all of us. The blood of a human for me, a cooked bird for you. Where is the difference?

I suspect modern libertarians would say "Well that was stupid." At the time, I imagine it was viewed as a necessary compromise.

I don't blame the welfare state either. I blame stupidity. The root cause was an attitude that financial sustainability is a secondary priority.

edited 8th Mar '11 8:36:56 PM by FrodoGoofballCoTV

The air craft thing is pretty much inevitable because it's a fairly niche market and once a couple of businesses grow into it, no one new is likely to get in due to capital requirements. The same is true of cars.

Fight smart, not fair.

If prejudice is a private matter, and all public systems should be privatized, does that mean it's okay if the entire country becomes institutionally prejudiced against a certain minority? Is it okay for prejudiced schools, prejudiced banks, prejudiced police, prejudiced markets, and prejudiced transportation companies to oppress minorities?

Anime geemu wo shinasai!

If you say More versus Left, then we can just say "Well, we're at less now than we've been since the early 1900s, and every time we've reduced regulation, things got worse-PAY !@#$ING ATTENTION!"

I mean, if someone says "No, food quality didn't get better when we introduced the FDA-" that'd be an interesting argument, but demonstrably false.

We don't need less regulation, we need better regulation. Now, maybe with better regulation we can do the same stuff WITH less regulation, but that's not less regulation-that's more efficient regulation.

That presumes that business will always be prejudiced. Extremist libertarians argue that competition, market forces, and niche marketing will drive the worst offenders out of business. For example, if a taxi company refuses to carry blacks, another will start up to only carry blacks, and a third will carry anyone. Eventually the third one will win out.

Moderate libertarians don't think this will happen because they believe we could cut government by more than half and still prevent the vast majority of the corporate misbehavior we do now.

I don't think people will argue that, because it would be impossible to prove. Extremist libertarians would argue that was because at the time the FDA was established, there was not a private replacement available (like Consumer Reports), because consumers weren't demanding it.

I don't want to kill the FDA, I just want them to stop proping up monopolies.

Let's look at laser eye surgery. It's quite possibly the least regulated surgical procedure in the world. Costs have gone down, success rates have gone up. I suspect part of the reason is that the industry is self regulating because they know if failures start increasing, there'll be an outcry to regulate it. Meanwhile, regulated surgeries may have improved, but the costs have become so high many people regard medical costs as a greater threat to the economic future of humanity than budget deficits, and medical lawsuits have increased dramatically - but not for laser eye surgery. How about the electronics industry? Sure there's been a lot of stupid products, but the industry as a whole continued to improve the technologies even when things weren't going perfectly. So not everything only improves with regulation.

OK, there we do have a disagreement over definition. To me, replacing 2,000 pages of bad regulations with 1,000 pages of better regulations that does the same thing is being more efficient, but it's also reducing regulation.

In extreme cases, the sheer bulk of regulation can become oppressive. Congress doesn't even bother to read many of the bills they pass anymore. There was a story that immigration services was asked whether a procedure was illegal or not, and a week later, they still couldn't figure it out. Inefficiency begets more inefficiency trying to sort through the chaos, all at taxpayer expense.

If one taxi company refuses to carry blacks, another company will come along to ONLY carry blacks. Then, because they're not competing with each other, they can have higher prices overall.

Of course, in a perfect competition scenario, a third company would come along and have lower prices, but economies of scale kicks in and they just can't compete. As an Economist I can tell you that economic theories on how markets function are oversimplifications. You do not have a "Free Market" as in "The government doesn't do anything." In theory-and I don't actually agree with this, but it's the most reasonable libertarian position-you have the government to do things to correct market failure, and to do nothing else. The government exists to compensate for a lack of perfect competition, to prevent market power, and to make sure that the populace has free information so as to be able to make informed choices.

Now, what laws fall under this umbrella is of course up for debate.

^^ Sorry, what I was arguing is that less regulation in general isn't necessarily a good thing. I do agree that regulations could be better designed though.

Anyway, I'd say the real problem with medical costs is a humongous market failure in the industry. And eye surgery lawsuits aren't unheard of either.

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

Medical costs are a combination of factors, with everything ranging from "Fucking balls that's a lot of old people" to "Pharmaceutical Companies and Patent Trolls" to "High quality of living makes life pretty damned valuable-healthcare = life, ergo, Health Care = valuable, ergo, Health Care = expensive."

And don't get me STARTED on how Private Insurance is the worst idea in the universe...

You left out the monster administrative costs of HMOs. That's the bulk of it.

edited 9th Mar '11 10:06:41 AM by johnnyfog

I'm a skeptical squirrel

Man, I haven't heard people bitching about HMOs in ages.

edited 9th Mar '11 10:23:26 AM by TheyCallMeTomu

Oh? ..well, that settles that, then. I guess. (?)

I'm a skeptical squirrel

If HM Os have a mammoth gross income and tiny relative profits (I think they were pulling a 2%-5% profit, it's because their administrative costs are a BEHEMOTH.

edited 9th Mar '11 10:33:35 AM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.