The Politics Thread (PLAY NICELY!)

Specialistic markets have near-complete monopolies, that are maintained simply because the big ones buy up the competition. Glasses for example is 70%-ish one company. There are also plenty of markets with high knowledge barriers (e.g. semiconductors) or image barriers (try marketing a completely new car or a new soft drink) which in the end all translate to high money barriers.

Besides, in most cases a cartel is vastly preferable, as a bunch of companies can get rich by not competing.

Also, we've already seen what unregulated markets do, it was called the Industrial era and it was hell for the working class.

And it will stay global. The internet has changed the world, and it won't change back (and if it does, you'd worry about the thing that changed it back, e.g global disaster).

The glass industry isn't a monopoly - the biggest company doesn't own all of the shares and it wouldn't exist if they didn't offer reasonable prices to their customers. Not an example for a monopoly. Natural barriers to entry are irrelevant, because they cannot stop new competition from entering the scene. They simply stop the idiots from entering the market.

A cartel is simply another form of monopoly and thus can't be maintained in a free market system. New competition would absolutely wreck them.

The industrial era wasn't hell for the working class. It was a period of transition from poor living conditions to better ones. It was also a time before such innovations as mass production and production lines, so companies needed large amounts of human capital to compete. The laws made around that time, including unionization, were incredibly unnecessary. Given time, the market would have eradicated sweatshops (not profitable) and child labor (rising per capita wages) all on its own. No government intervention necessary. Unregulated markets are a beautiful clock that needs no central planing. They foster smaller businesses and higher wages then crony capitalism or collectivism (communism and socialism).

The natural barrier to entry is a feature of the market and is not a problem, especially when compared to government. They are far outweighed by government imposed barriers to entry or subsidies that artificially inflate the market of certain products.

Germany and the rest of Europe are a pile of leeches trying to suck the world dry with their collectivist bullshit. There's a damn good reason you guys haven't accomplished wonders. Collectivism is a poison. Capitalism celebrates the individual. It is not evil. It does not destroy the common man - it empowers him. There is no evidence to the contrary. You will not be able to find ANY. I dare you to try.

You just don't want to see it.

I recommend you look up some history books about the period.

How the **** do you arrive at this ridiculous conclusion. Can you show me one SINGLE example of that "beautiful clock" actually working as intended? Like a place where it worked well enough, so that no large amounts of abused factory workers rebelled against it until they achieved laws that ensured humane working conditions? I'd expect a "beautiful clock" to work without those things and I just don't see an example for it at all.

The graphs you just so randomly now ignore, as they no longer fit your worldview, show quite some cool things. Like for example what I said earlier about the health systems. Let's compare the free market wonderland USA with the socialist leech of Germany.

The USA are paying substantially more of their money into the health system:


and get less doctors:


and less hospital places for it:




Not to mention in Germany and the UK everyone gets the treatment they need, while in the USA if you're poor you may end up sick with no treatment.

I wonder if there is a Graph that shows the profit margins of the health industry. I am sure the US one is winning.

Ok Gorbles- you win... whatever it is you are arguing with me about?

Those are some interesting stats- what's confusing me is how the UK have lost so many beds per head- is that due to a large rise in our population (I always thought the UK head count was relatively stable) or down to closures I wonder?

Those statistics are meaningless. All countries are showing a decline in Hospital beds due to an increase in the health of our societies. Why the hell does it matter how many doctors we have? What's the difference? Does it affect the quality? The affordability? I'll say it again: MEANINGLESS. The point is not that they are doing better - the point is that, in the long term, European socialism has driven more of its people into a dependence state. That means they are not being productive to society and are simply taking from it, draining the resources of those who can obviously spend it better (because they are actually working for profit).

Read the history books? ARE YOU DAFT? Colin, this isn't something you can take for granted. Do some research and come back with an actual argument. I don't want to drop a text wall of history stuff we can all look up on our own.

Hong Kong.

*Drops mic*

The freest economy in the world.
Looks like someone is clinging to their belief system instead of doing the RESEARCH into differing perspectives. Do not even attempt this **** with me, Colin. You are acting like a petulant child.

Oh look. More childish outbursts. How mature. Wanna come back with an argument? I can't disprove you point by point if all I get is bullshit. Might as well rant at Congress for all the good it will do.

You'll have to explain what is so great about Hong Kong, the statistics, that you now call meaningless even though you pointed me at the, show that it is behind China like everybody else.
For some reason it's GDP growth is pretty spicky. Dunno why. src

But I see it was foolish to engage in a discussion with you again. Might as well start an argument with Trump, he has a very similar strategy that makes any exchange of arguments pointless.


And yeah by your strategy this is the part were you claim victory. hf

"everything that puts my point in doubt is meaningless" -mered

I suddenly remember why i stopped coming here.

My views on this have changed/softened and become more structured since. It was a mistake for me to overlook your desire for such a system as not being representative of your inherent voluntary choice. That is the world you wish to live in and I have no right to prevent you from forming or associating with a government or social insurance program of your choice.

But likewise, I still don't think one has the right to impose government on the unwilling.

Don't get me wrong, if I could wave a magic wand and destroy all needless human suffering I would do so. But for me the problem is more structural in nature. Doesn't matter how good the program or intention is, virtue only comes about by choice. It seems to boil down to the classic "means justify the ends" discussion - whether one should initiate violence (taxation on threat of repercussion) to achieve a believed greater good.

I love this quote from Saruman

I was reading LOTR again the other day and it struck me how much Tolkien used it to explore his views on this. How the use of power e.g. government to force the world according to one's wisdom leads to bad outcomes. Kind of like how Isildur and Boromir wanted to use the ring of power for the glory of Gondor, just as much as Sauron started with good intentions. Whereas Gandalf recognised how it would corrupt him by making him a slave to power just as much as he gained it.

Gandalf, when Frodo offers him the ring

A thought that has given me a lot to think about since is one by John Milton on the fundamental nature of evil as "a force that believes that it's knowledge is complete". Forcing people to do something they disagree with instead of convincing them strikes me as stemming from this central point of hubris. The 'wise' envision a certain order, and anything that strays from it is eliminated or forced to comply.

Anyway, peace out. Didn't think i would get tagged to this thread again lol.

Your views may by beyond my comprehension sometimes, but at least one can reasonably talk with you

I called your statistics meaningless for specific reasons. I mentioned those reasons, and you chose to ignore them. Bravo. Are we going to actually discuss something or are you going to continue dismissing me because my views disagree with yours?

Hong Kong has a higher per capita GDP growth and higher per capita income than the major European nations of Germany, UK, and France. It is about even with the USA, and I would call it stronger than the USA due to past history.

Foolish? Lol.
Central planning doesn't work.
Collectivism doesn't work.
The socialist agendas of the European bloc and the United States liberals have been propped up by the capitalists for years. Imagine if there had been no New Deal, no Social Security, no Medicaid, no Obamacare, and no backroom bank deals. The economy wouldn't be in a weak recovery - hell, the Great Depression would have lasted three or four years, and the Great Recession would have never occurred at all. Set a capitalist loose, and everyone prospers.

I dare you to provide specific examples where a socialist or communist principle has worked in real life and not in fairy tales.

I'll gladly show you how it doesn't work, why it never will work.

Elodea and I share similar views. I'm just done with the bullshit coming from the collectivists in Europe and the East. It doesn't work. It never has. It never will. It erodes economies and destroys families.I'm simply done with the ignorance and the elitism. I have no time for incompetence.

I think this paragraph is why we can never take you seriously. Especially the bolded sentence.

GDP per capita isn't a useful statistic by itself because it ignores distribution. The only thing GDP per capita says is how much business is being done relative to the size of the country.

It doesn't say anything about the conditions of the working class, its size, or poverty rate. I'm not finding anything to suggest Hong Kong has a healthy wealth distribution. I'm having trouble finding articles newer than 2014 though.

If you believe the statement to be false you must present reasoning to disprove it, not pull this elitist garbage.

Which is exactly the point I wanted to make. Hong Kong is a denser, smaller market than that of the EU and USA, but performs arguably better. They are also more consistent in economic downturns.

I'll come back to your mention of wealth distribution in a second. I want to immediately say that it is irrelevant for the health of an economy, but I need to research where I read that and understand why that is so before I present it here.

Alright! I'm back from my quick dive into income inequality.
So, here's the deal:

Income inequality is not a meaningful metric in any country because we cannot distinguish that which is created by political entrepreneurs or the free market's economic entrepreneurs. That inequality created by the politics and machinations of government is absolutely a problem, and should be addressed by deregulating markets, cutting corporate taxes, removing subsidies for emerging markets, etc. The inequality in income created by market forces is of no concern and is a natural feature of the market system. Some will succeed in a market based on freedom, some will fail. Some will use their money wisely, and some will be fools and squander it. No amount of income redistribution will change that.

At the end of the day, the poor here in America are much, much better off then they were in the 1950s. So are the wealthy. The wealthy, in fact, have grown in both number and in size since that time.

Let me ask you this, all of you: If you could improve the lot of the poor while also increasing that of the rich, would you do so? Think carefully about your answer. It will reveal the nature of your character.

As to your mention of working conditions: A free market system where people voluntarily perform a job for wages will always have satisfactory working conditions, with the notable exception of the occasional accident. The only times where poor working conditions can be seen in our world today are in systems imposed by government oversight and collectivism.

And I just know one of you is going to scream "BUT MERED THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IT WAS SO BAD."
Surprise. It wasn't. Read your history books. Don't read the bullshit they gave you in high school and college, go look this stuff up yourself. Coal mines had adequate safety precautions for their time - otherwise the miners would have left to go find a job that wouldn't kill them in weeks. Meat processing plants had safe working conditions with few mishaps. Sweatshops and child labor were outmoded as living conditions improved and per capita wages rose, so that only parents had to work to secure a living for their family. Some of this was cut short by unnecessary government regulation that hurts the poor and disenfranchised among us, even today.

Parents wouldn't send their beloved children to go work in a sweatshop or a factory for weeks on end if there were plentiful examples of poor and unsafe working conditions. Just like today, parents care about what happens to their kids.

Your idealism falls over at the first hurdle.

Namely, the hurdle of economic pressure forcing parents to make work choices for their children in order to survive.

You know, the whole existence of "poor people" that you keep sidestepping to talk about how how people are wealthier than in 1950 (adjusted for inflation? Relative to living costs of the time? Factoring in the post-war economic situation? Who knows, you haven't said).

And to think you regularly bash "liberals" for dreaming about unrealistic economic theories

See, this doesn't really reassure me that you're speaking in good faith, here.

You were saying "let's wait and see" about Trump. The counter-argument is that we don't need to wait and see. You then said "when harmful policies appear, then I will talk about them" (paraphrased). The counter-argument is that harmful policies already exist.

Do you disagree?

I heard Henry Ford actually voluntarily created the "5 day work week" to increase productivity in workers who seem hardly ever focused on their work.

On that note, not everyone will do what Henry Ford did, cadavers are replaceable with other people quick enough. There should be sensible regulation. The problem isn't how much or how little regulation, at least in America, the problem is the "wrong kind of regulation", I.E. this drug is an absolute necessary for some people to avoid dying, so instead of charging $45, we're charging $1100 each. True, in a fully unregulated market, a competitor would sell it for less, unless the market isn't fully regulated and any attempt to do so is deemed unsafe by the FDA or deemed infringement of copyright despite being developed with tax dollars. THAT's the problem.

Lastly, Gorbles, what harmful policies already exist? Harmful policies already existed with the democrats, schedule 1 marijuana, obamacare, and we told you we aren't voting asshat non-social liberal corporate democrats for that very reason, and people didn't take it seriously, and now, democrats lost a lot of political footing in literally all 3 branches. They did not heed the call of the voter. With that being said, what harmful policies are Trump proposing? A not-very-threatening tax bracket setup, to uphold marriage equality, to scale back federal prosecution of marijuana so states can feel free to legalize it themselves?

Or is it the border wall and muslim registry that got put on the back burner anyway? How do you know he didn't propose those for dumb-voter manipulation and smart-voter distraction, an immoral strategy but effective, to have people fight the legality of his bullshit policies while he passes **** people would normally fight for no reason against, like legalizing marijuana or repealing obamacare. Honestly, most voters couldn't give a **** about border walls and muslim registries, I personally wish both fail, but there can be some good policies that come out of this. Why would it be more worthwhile to elect 3-branches of democrats, and what would you expect democrats to pass and accomplish?

I think there's a better chance of overall national improvement, by electing Libertarians. Get rid of bad nanny-state laws and build a budget again, while liberals get their **** together, and when they reform and step back into political positions again, they'll have a budget surplus to form social works with. Because they can't do ****, with a severely negative budget.

A: I don't really know what you mean by 'speaking in good faith', if you are asking if I'm being honest, yes. That doesn't preclude the possibility that I may contradict myself at times, or that I might change my opinion on something over time. Heck I could even be pain wrong about something, I'm not infallible.

B: my position on Trump is that the way he got elected and many facets about the man make me uneasy. As for policies, he isn't in office yet and we already know he will say almost anything. I personally don't view something as policy until it's actually put forward as a proposal by the party in power- until then it's just Sabre rattling and hot air, something Trump is good at. Once he is in office, and actually *does* something- then we'll get a better idea about the reality of all this. I do think though that even if he is as crazy as he portrays himself the wider political system in the states will prevent him doing anything truly terrible. President is a figure head, rather than someone who has absolute power.

Perfect reasoning for the rich to justify abusing the poor. I hope for you that you are at least one of the rich and not one of the poor who have been brainwashed into showing a stockholm syndrome towards their oppressors.

That question makes no sense, obviously if you just get to improve the life of everyone at no cost you do it. But in reality everything has downsides...

Inequality has never been the problem, poverty is. Inequality is collectivists' weapon to make up enemies to declare "war" to and gain power in the process.
You can't wake up one morning and redistribute all the wealth of a group of people without asking where did it come from. USSR proved that next morning there will be nothing to distribute.

In a globalized world someone's idea or product can benefict many millons of people and so generate a huge wealth, isn't it reasonable that that guy gets a good chunk of that wealth and so becomes immensely rich?
Do you prefer the old days when any subject's invention was property of the lord for him to decide how to use or sell it?

It is not the rich who abuse others, it is the powerful. The governments have the power nowadays and their power have virtually no boundaries (at least in my country) as long as they maintain a good marketing campaing. This 'almightyness' allows them to rule in favor of their (rich) friends. That's why I don't think bigger government is the solution.