Topic: Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion - page 28879. (Read 26610084 times)

let's move this away from generalities, which are all well-hashed arguments on both sides, and focus on the specifics that we see in the global market today.

for instance, how is the poverty trap created by Walmart-esque wage suppression coupled with high unemployment rates attributable to governments? how is the large environmental externality of shipping and manufacturing attributable to governments?

the short answer is: they're not. but i'm sure you'll give me a longer answer

in other words, i don't care about your lofty Randian free market ideals. while capitalism may be "the best solution we can aspire to", and that would be hard to disagree with, it is also clear that our present form of global capitalism is suffering from a huge amount of inefficiencies, many of which cannot be attributed to meddling governments. how can we reconcile these two things? i have no clue, but we've first got to get our heads out of our asses and stop worshipping the sacred cow long enough to think critically about why the apparatus is failing at efficiently distributing resources.

And yes, that's very much what I did mean:  A rationally self-interested sort and degree of egalitarianism which anyone with adaptive cognitive traits adequate to survival can find some way to rationalize within their ideology.   Certainly equalizers which involve lifting all boats are much more in the vein of win-win than are equalizers which involve sinking all boats.

I might even go further personally, although I won't ask anyone else to do so:   I too try to give my daughter every reasonable advantage which will not corrupt her or rob someone else.  One of those advantages is the advantage of an example of -- dare I say it?  will the spectre of ayn rand come and suck all the green ink from my veins? -- altruistic behaviour, and its rewards in life.  By altruistic behaviour I do not mean pathological monomania. 

I honestly and truly believe that almost all the inefficiencies can be attributed to meddling governments and political entrepreneurship of anti-competitive companies. I recognize this is a minority view, but I am prepared to argue it.

A question for you kind sir:

What happens when a rich guy comes in and lowers his prices enough to squeeze out competitors until he's a monopolist again, at which point he may jack the prices up?

re: "natural monopolies"

examples include public utilities such as water services and electricity

o rly? So  the power company doesn't have to compete with solar, wind, gas and oil heat, etc?
The water company doesn't have to compete with private wells, water trucks, desalinization plants, and the f@#!ing rain?

Competition includes potential competitors and the providers of equivalent products. In the free market, any dominant company would soon face competition if they attempted to extract excessive rent (profits over and above normal profits) due to their dominant position. OR they would face reduced consumption of their product or service that would negate their dominant market position advantage.

http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae9_2_3.pdf

We could start by understanding the differences between capitalism and corporatism.

Here's my quick and facile go at it:  Stagflation was the direct and immediate result.  The mechanism for that should be obvious.  The consequences to the livelihoods of the proles likewise.

can you demonstrate how the Bretton Woods System would have the aforementioned effect on productivity and wages? cum hoc ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy.

I meant the first part, about the lovable guy who will kill you as necessary to survive.  I resemble that remark.

The other part I just write off as rhetoric.

Not really. Market, by definition, is based on voluntary exchange. If you broad it's definition to include involuntary exchanges, it will include all human activity and therefore will lose any useful meaning. What you can say about "thing" if everything is a "thing"?

can you demonstrate how the Bretton Woods System would have the aforementioned effect on productivity and wages? cum hoc ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy.

unfortunately, the data has shown that this is not true anymore, and hasn't been for more than 4 decades.

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there is very much so such a thing as a natural monopoly and if you disagree you are at odds with basic economics. you also conveniently forgot to address every other item on that list. there is no "free market" ideal, there is only the apparatus that exists, and the present apparatus rewards huge negative externalities and is perpetuating and accelerating wealth inequality, both things which render it unsustainable in the long term. high rates of unemployment coupled with wage suppression creates poverty traps worse than the welfare state. we're not talking about "Capitalism" or "The Free Market", we're talking about global capitalism as it exists today, and the global market. the ills are most certainly not the sole fault of governments, and scapegoating them in this way is a dangerous misdirection away from the real issues endemic in the apparatus that are contributing to the suffering of millions...

in other words, i don't care about your lofty Randian free market ideals. while capitalism may be "the best solution we can aspire to", and that would be hard to disagree with, it is also clear that our present form of global capitalism is suffering from a huge amount of inefficiencies, many of which cannot be attributed to meddling governments. how can we reconcile these two things? i have no clue, but we've first got to get our heads out of our asses and stop worshipping the sacred cow long enough to think critically about why the apparatus is failing at efficiently distributing resources.

--arepo

of coarse Nelson Mandela was anti capitalistic, look how it ruined the country. 'The roads of the british empire are paved with the gold from Africa.'

"all the productive people" includes only rich white boys such as myself. I cant say that I was nearly as productive as those people on the street who have to break any number of laws and endure terrible fighting to gather those natural resources. they wouldn't call it capitalism them selves.

The reason why SA is very unproductive is because when the capitalists in America (that own most of the mining shares) hear complaints about wages in the coal and gold mines, they dont mind if the workers get shot when they protest. and that is the biggest export of SA.

those miners earn something like $1 per hour, and the mining debree is killing them.