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Reply With QuoteThat's been my experience over the last couple of years.Originally Posted by Eagle88
I don't know what all the bitching is about.
Oh well...
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Vice President
Of course it's a bit broad. Any general statement of public policy is necessarily broad. But what is your justification for those limits? Why is fraud and consumer safety more important than environmental damage and worker safety? Why is it more important than preventing market manipulation by a few huge players to the detriment of everyone else? After all, that kind of behavior can destroy the entire market as we know from recent history. And what about market regulations that enhance national security? Granted that we live in a world market now, nations are still justified in trying to ensure their own integrity even at the cost of market limits.
BTW It's funny you bring up fraud when you consider the slap on the wrist Citigroup recently received in satisfaction of their fraud. Obviously we're not even doing the minimum you think is acceptable.
"You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream."
Frank Zappa
Secretary of Defense
That's been my experience over the last couple of years.
I don't know what all the bitching is about.
Oh well...
haters.jpg
I ♣ Ideologues!
Vice President
Actually Vedder and Gallaway show an improvement of about 15% between Mar 1933 and 1937. Liebergott and Darby in separate studies got an improvement of 10%. That's double the 5%.
Bush's unemployment rate was fed by Clinton's disaster of exporting manufacturing to China ... the trade deficit / housing boom. Both Bush and Frank were soooooo proud of housing starts that would eventually become the credit driven bubble.
“If we open up our borders … we could suppress wages of middle class jobs” – Alan GreenspanWe need to suppress the wage levels of the skilled. We need to suppress wages in comparison to the “lesser skilled ” - Alan Greenspan
Secretary of State
Of course they can exist without regulation. People like you just don't want it to because you're afraid of it.
A is A
Vice President
This is becoming a waste of time. I'm done with this topic until one of you geniuses cites an example of an unregulated market economy. Until that happens you're all just dreaming of unicorns coming to our rescue.
"You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream."
Frank Zappa
Joint Chiefs of Staff Member
To play somewhat of a devil's advocate, I can cite an example that the others are probably too uncomfortable with to cite.
Late 1800's America. Business had pretty much free reign to do whatever it wanted without interference and you could sell almost any product or service you wanted to with near zero interference.
Of course that gave us things like child labor, The Jungle, horrifying working conditions, no consumer protection laws, no worker or workplace safety laws, etc etc.
Take your hands off, the car crashes.
When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why they are poor, they called me a Communist.
-Bishop Hélder Câmara
"I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization"
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Secretary of Defense
There's no such thing as an unregulated market economy. That's because we can't eliminate liberals. It's pretty funny how you're like "show me a free market!! You can't!!" Uh, yeah ...we can't because of you. That's the most circular argument ever.
Secretary of Defense
That's actually quite incorrect. What gave you child labor was a glut of unskilled workers that moved abruptly into cities from farms and could do nothing but labor and also parents who were quite willing to put their children in those work conditions. It is always portrayed as if business leaders in their starched shirts went out slave driving and rounding up children with whips and brands as their parents sobbed and begged. But the reality is that parents deliberately decided to put their children to work. And they did that routinely all the time on the farm, too, but nobody acts like "oooh, those dastardly farmers, f**k them, those a**holes." No, then it's portrayed as "ahhh, you get to frolic with the pigs and sheep, tending to the animals and playing through the day!!!" It's quite disingenuous how liberals like to portray the 1800s. Either that or they're just ignorant of facts, which is also quite possible. After all, liberals are very ignorant.
President
Victors get to write the history and liberals were the victors up until 1980. Since then, the right has gotten to write history.
Now the child labor thing, yeah, it's more complicated than liberals portray it. But to them, business is always the villain of every story. And they attacked Bush for seeing the world in black and white, with no nuance.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Member
Private interests usually are the villain or at least have a hand in villainy. They've fought, tooth and nail, virtually every milestone of the labor movement that has made American jobs so worth having. They have done their utmost to drive down wages and make everything into a "McJob" so employees can be fired without worrying about finding someone skilled to replace them. The corporate structure has almost no accountability, zero transparency, it relies on the people with the most power being honest, and it only has one goal; to make money, and that goal is legally required of it above any other consideration.
I think almost everyone understands that there are shades of grey and many businesses that just do what they do and dont hurt anyone. But that does not absolve the sins of the system they are part of, where greed and corruption are systemic, rampant, and encouraged.
How on earth ARE people supposed to look at business?
When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why they are poor, they called me a Communist.
-Bishop Hélder Câmara
"I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization"
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Secretary of Defense
It depends on how stupid those people are, I guess.
I mean, let's say you're completely and 100% right. Then you'd still have no point. Who said you must work for a corporation? That is, you liberals have known since time began that corporations are "bad," right? And yet you still decided to stop working your little eco-farms in pilgrim times and all went to the city. Even though you hate overpopulation and pollution. I mean, look at New York City and San Francisco, which are totally in tune with nature. Right? LOL. You guys are pathetic. What you want is for corporations to make stuff for you and then give it to you for free and also pay you an artificially high wage and then support you when you're retired. It's the same old same old. You guys are basically completely unqualified to deal with life, so your entire goal is to make sure someone else will protect you. In jail, you guys would be the women, getting passed around.
Vice President
I have never considered business to be a villian. Corporations do exactly what they are created to do. They provide maximum ROI and protection from liability to shareholders and executives. No more and no less. It's up to the people to decide what they are allowed to due in pursuit of those goals.
"You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream."
Frank Zappa
Vice President
I don't think that qualifies as an unregulated market. At that time "government interference" was in force that allowed for the formation of corporations. The federal government directly funded railroad construction as well as giving gifts of the common wealth in the form of right of ways to railroad corporations. Federal troops killed strikers during the railroad strike in the late 1870s. And there were laws on the books back then that made strikers liable to prison for impeding trade. And don't forget the tariffs. By the end of the 19th century I believe tariffs averaged over 50%. It wasn't a free or unregulated market so much as it was a market where only those regulations which benefited the largest corporations and the very richest americans were allowed. And that's really what so called free market advocates are after now. They don't want a free market. They want one where all the regs which increase or protect profit are kept and only those which benefit workers or consumers or the environment are eliminated.
"You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream."
Frank Zappa
Joint Chiefs of Staff Member
I meant unregulated in the sense that there were few, if any, barriers to stop businesses doing what they wanted to do.
When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why they are poor, they called me a Communist.
-Bishop Hélder Câmara
"I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization"
Oliver Wendell Holmes
President
there's never truly an unregulated market, even the drug trade is regulated, it's just regulated by consensus among drug lords about who gets what territory.
But Hoplite's point stands as a generalization, even if imperfect. The market of the 1800s were only regulated to the extent that it allowed business to operate with little interference, although there was one huge exception: if prices got too low, the government would actually step in and restrict production! It's as if no one was fighting for consumers or workers back then.
One of the most famous cases was when Oklahoma felt there was too much ice. So they required a licensing regime for all new icemakers, while current icemakers were of course exempt. This practice is actually pretty popular still in most states. Licensing laws are almost always for the benefit of incumbent businesses and professionals to keep out new competition, while they lie to the public that it's for consumer safety.
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