The Politics Thread (PLAY NICELY!)

Tatsu, what? Have you read your history books? The exact argument slave owners used to justify their practice (aside from the flawed religious one) was that the economy would collapse without the slave trade. In the short term they were right, of course, but the economic growth experienced by countries that outlawed slavery was incredible.

You did it for a hundred years and ended up with an oligarchal socialist democracy.
The US did it for a few hundred years and got a heavily regulated free market democracy.

We aren't asking you to have faith in some magical power. We are asking that every man and woman be given the liberty to shape the world how they see fit with the voluntary cooperation of anyone they wish. In every instance where the collective good of the public has been placed ahead of individual liberty, the system has failed. The Great Depression is a fantastic example of this. The New Deal crippled small business owners and created a stagnant temp workforce dependent on the government for jobs. While the President was making speeches about sacrificing for the greater good of the American Dream, he was literally forcing profitable businesses to hand over their profits and burning them in job creation projects that only benefited those involved.

You can't point to a single example where Socialism has worked, because it enslaves the minds of those involved and bends their will to those in power. I guarantee that any example you bring forward, myself or another of my free market friends here will be able to point to its fallacies and flaws.

You really don't understand this issue and it would be great if you would stop parading your ignorance around. Do some research or keep your mouth shut.

Socialism? German social democracy. Right now. Absurdly enough the result of US intervention.
And sure there are flaws, but nothing is flawless.
Not even free unregulated markets

A good idea, best implemented by a strong social democracy, giving everyone a reliable basis to build their life on.

You point at real problems and claim somehow they will be solved, but don't explain how. That's what I call magic.

Says the person who thinks Net Neutrality will fall from the sky by itself when the monopolistic companies are let to their own devices.
So please answer the question: How will net neutrality be saved by the free market in the US if the FCC lets the monopolists alone?
Yes you can't tell me what the future will exactly bring, but to have any strong believe into all this free market stuff you should have a model of it that explains how the free market solves a situations like this in a positive way?
For now we're still at the "it will work, because it will work"-magic level and telling me I don't understand it doesn't change that.

that's not was wormeur was saying/implying/talking about thus not what I was responding to thus I feel you're derailing and if you want to go back to wormeur's and me's topic you can but I'm not validating your derailment by responding to it.

Free unregulated markets are flawless. You cannot point to a single flaw.

Social democracies are a lie. They are the product of a misguided, bloated bureaucracy that only limits the liberties of its citizens.

I don't claim they will be solved by magic.
I claim that if the government stopped pretending it was in control, we would witness the greatest economic growth period in the history of humanity. I claim that the only reason you cling to your sad belief in the competence of a centralized government body is due to your fear that you will lose control. I claim that the mind of the individual is more valuable than the mythical public good.

Net neutrality is already ensured by the previous rules and regulations enforced by the FCC. Each time the telecom companies have stepped over the line, the government has stepped in and curtailed their behaviors with heavy fines and other punishments. There is no reason for the new Title II classification, except to encourage further government overreach by the FCC committee and other regulatory bodies, such as the US Congress or the President himself.

The free market would never have allowed such large telecom companies to evolve in the first place. Local competition and the high demand for faster service would keep the playing field level, and government intervention concerning predatory practices (such as cutting competitor cables, as an extreme example) would resolve other issues outside the law.

gun debate is back on the table since the people of Florida are being encouraged to "fight the hurricane by shooting at it" and are totally buying into it (at least 70000)

Only in america ...and it really is an issue :

That's .... absurd. Just from a very fundamental level. Absurd.

Accepting that everything has downsides would be the first step in a serious discussion of what solution is the most acceptable one. There are always downsides. To everything.

Going "there is this one solution that has no flaws, we just need to buy into it 100%" is what I call radical.

The bread you ate this morning is as much of a lie as the social democracy I experience around me.

Lose control? For me to have that fear I'd have to feel like I am in control of something.
I don't. Well I guess I am in control enough to get myself a Pizza now, but that's about it.

But beyond that? No way in hell am I in control of anything. I am just one human in millions in one small place of a very large world.

Public good = The set of all minds of all individuals together.
The good of the public is the good of us all.

No it is not:

src

That article also has a list of lots of bad things of how the ISPs want to **** with their customers, if Title II is not used against them on page 2 onward. Don't forget your ISP may be spying on your browsing history to make money of you... Quite dystopian.
Also explains issues Google fiber had with ISPs stalling their access to cable poles needed to build their fiber network in a quite "that's why an unregulated free market will fall apart"-way.

Trying to enforce net neutrality without Title II has yielded ISPs fighting back in courts with an argumentation of "that net neutrality stuff is only possible under Title II, we are not under Title II" and they won. Basically asking for Title II to be made a thing. Which it was in 2015.

Maybe Title II goes too far in some ways and the thing with "the FCC may apply some of the title II rules on the ISPs as it sees fit" sure does sound scary for ISP monopolists, but the old rules do not do anything at all to enforce net neutrality and the ISPs basically forced the FCCs hand to start using Title II. They tried without and were told by the ISPs lawyer teams "no, you can't do that".

So the TLDR is: The regulations before Title II did not protect net neutrality, as argued by the lawyers of the ISPs of all people.

Buying up the competitions. You need them to stop from buying up the competition or you end up with one big player. That's the flaw (or one of them) of totally unregulated free markets btw:

This is a wild assumption. There is a power balance that needs to hold and just free market forces do not keep it stable forever. In fact the destabilize it as soon as one of the competitors grows too powerful.

Are you sure that isn't satire?

google it :
https://www.google.com/search?safe=...215rWAhWGVhoKHabRA3wQBQgkKAA&biw=1920&bih=927

Well it was suggested out of "stress and boredom". I can understand that.
Although I'd guess even the gun nuts in this thread would agree that randomly shooting a gun into the general "direction" of a storm is a dangerous and stupid thing to do. If you want to play with your gun at least do it at a gun range...

Are these the history books that taught you the USA dropped a nuke on the Nazis?

I wouldn't recommend those

centrists be like :

There is no downside to a free market. This is a fact. If you would like to prove me wrong, please feel free to try. Attempting to use platitudes and axioms will not prove a point. You need logic, you need facts.

The bread doesn't lie to itself about being bread. Social democracies lie to their citizens every day about the nature of their government. They claim to have the people's interests at heart but their actions prove otherwise.

Which is why a centralized government attempting to control the actions and reactions of millions of people is an absurd notion. You can't even control your pizza, how can you expect to control someone else's livelihood? Your entire city's livelihood? Your nation's?

The public good is a term used by anyone to describe almost anything. It is indefinable, intangible, and illogical. The mind and actions of the individual, however, is definable, tangible, and logical.
What is good for you may not be good for me - and the term public good cannot be used to describe any of it, because it is meaningless.

No, what you just stated is that the regulations up to the 2014 ruling worked just fine. After, they realized there was a need for further regulation to preserve net neutrality. Essentially, Verizon called the FCCs bluff. It's a risky proposition at best but it definitely backfired after the Title II rules were implemented in 2015. I did not see this in my research, I will have to do more before understanding where I went wrong and what I missed.

SIDENOTE: You did research. Thank you for doing this very basic thing that you SHOULD HAVE DONE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

In the late 1800s, a new oil company rose in the American marketplace. It was called Standard Oil. The man in charge was John D Rockefeller. In less than thirty years, this oil company went from handling 4% of all oil sales to 90% in 1899. He bought out competitors, he gave consumers lower prices, and he gave them better service. In his own words:

'I ascribe the success of the Standard to its consistent policy to make the volume of its business large through the merits and cheapness of its products." -J.D. Rockefeller, Dec 30, 1899.

He did not engage in predatory price gouging. His business was more efficient, and thus more profitable. He bought out his competitors at market price, and he hired the best in the industry. He also paid the best wages to get these men to work for him. He respected their talents. This is a famous example of free market capitalism. In fact, it is such a good example, that I'd also like to point out that the price of oil dropped from 26 to 8 cents per gallon between 1870 and 1885. In 1897, the price was 5.91 cents per gallon.

What I am describing, Colin, is in economic terms an efficiency monopoly. I do not like this term personally, because it does not describe a proper monopoly (market domination with zero competition). However, it is the one used in most economic circles, so I will use it here. Here's an excerpt from Excuse me, Professor, which is by Lawrence Reed:

"Essentially, an efficiency monopoly is a company or individual that has earned a high share of the market because it does the best job. It receives no special favors from the law. Others are free to compete and, if consumers so will it, to grow as big as a coercive monopoly. Indeed, an efficiency monopoly is not much of a monopoly at all in the traditional sense. It doesn't restrict output, raise prices, and stifle innovation. It actually sells more and more by pleasing customers and attracting new ones while improving both product and service.
An efficiency monopoly has no legal power to compel people to deal with it or to protect itself from the consequences of its unethical practices. An efficiency monopoly that turns its back on the very performance which produced its success would be, in effect, posting a sign that reads, "COMPETITORS WANTED.""

J.D. Rockefeller created an efficiency monopoly by outperforming and buying out competitors at market price in a free market.
Multiple corporations in the present day (telecom industry *COUGH*) have created coercive monopolies by enlisting the government to create regulations that stifle competition and buying out the competition at market price.

I'd like for you to notice the difference in those two statements. The problem is not with the idea of buying out competition within the market - that is present in both situations, and logically cannot be the problem. The problem, then, is with government regulation.

You won't accept this (nor will Stuart or Gorbles), but I must try. You see, I have a little hope left for those of you living in Europe, that you might realize your mistakes before the collapse. So maybe you will listen. Most likely, you will not. You will claim that I lack compassion, that I lack the logical faculty to continue this discussion. But you cannot claim that I am wrong in this. You have no rationale, no proof. It is logical, it is ethical, it is natural - it is free market capitalism.

"The government shall not impose on the economic practices of its citizens with any law or regulation or amendment to this Constitution."

There are only two options for society. The aristocracy of money, or the aristocracy of influence. You cannot have both.

Yeah, that never happens without government intervention and regulation into the marketplace. In every instance of destabilization, you will find a government lackey using the power granted to him making it worse under the guise of the 'public good'.

"I am making a statement. It is a fact. I provide no evidence for this, but I demand anybody with a contrary opinion provides evidence."

Yep.

That's fair.

Sigh. We will never agree on this. From my standpoint it is you poor Americans who are headed for a cliff in your "we need more free market" illusion, which in reality is just a smoke screen by the rich elite controlling you.

Yeah you could say that until 2014 it was sort of okay, but then the ISPs pushed for more than they should have.
Well, no matter how it is phrased we seem to now agree that something has to change. Title II may not be a great answer, but as it stands it is the only useble answer. Mainly thanks to the very argumentation Verizon used.

You're favorite example of them all again
I don't agree on this big differentiation between different types of monopolies. You ignore how easy or hard it is to start a competing company in the first place.
Often it is hard and if the leading company in the field sees you start out as a competition with good ideas, better prices or what not they, by merit of being incredibly big and rich, can take steps to stop you.
Like buying you out. Or offering more money to the people who work for you. Or many other things. I am no expert in oil monopolies, but I am sure there are many ways to make the life of your competitors really damn hard.
The price dropped you say? Well maybe with less monopolistic behaviors the price would've dropped even more?

I think the same about the US.

Well hopefully we are both wrong and there will not be a collapse anywhere

Logic, reason, and historical facts support my claim. You are saying your opinion is better than these? Seriously?

There's nothing to agree with. They are two different words with two different definitions that lead to two very different outcomes. One is a traditional monopoly, the other is a successful business. There's a massive difference!

That's part of the openness of the market. Of course there is an investment requirement - that's how business always works.

Sure. That's why it's called a competition. If they want to buy you out at market price, great! All the better for the market. And besides, it's voluntary - you don't have to sell out to them. Predatory price gouging to put you out of business doesn't work, it just loses the larger company a crapload of money for little gain. Buying off your employees also loses them money. Anything else would be illegal. So what's your point? That it's hard? Congrats Colin! Making and maintaining a business in a free market is HARD. Otherwise, everyone would do it.

Are you serious? How? Standard Oil built the most efficient oil company on the continent and dominated the market without doing anything illegal or coercive. That IS the lowest price you can get. Adding more companies into the mix would not have changed a damn thing. Standard Oil would still have been just as efficient and trend-setting.

You cannot continue to spend more than you make without disastrous consequences down the line. The USA also has this problem, but it will catch up the EU long before it catches up to us.

Still haven't met a single person who can prove me wrong, so.....

Because your prove is "This is true, qed". There is nothing to disprove expect going "wtf".
If you don't read the prove why you're wrong and just continue dreaming of the fabulous Standard Oil ofc you're not gonna see the problems.

I don't know. But to prove something cannot ever go better you have to prove there is no way it can ever go better. So instead of going "ha you can't provide an example of it going better", you have to go "here is why it is impossible to provide an example of why it is going better".
Applying your reasoning here to the P unequal NP problem I could simply go "how would anybody ever implement SAT in polynomial time?, I can't see a way so NP != P" and it would all be solved.
But it's not. Really I wish that way of reasoning would work I could use those million dollar price money.

Germany is running a surplus. A 21.6 billion dollar surplus created by a social market economy. I know you're gonna have a hard time to believe that is possible. All those social services, all those laws that force employers to give me at least 20 days of paid vacation each year, all those laws that force me on paid leave if I am sick, the free money I get from the state because I am studying, the cheap to nearly free universities, etc pp. All that and we're still running on an overall plus somewhere.

Yeah there are all sorts of complicated reasons and interactions with the EU and whatnot, but still:
We're not the ones constantly having to rewrite our laws to make it legal for the state to spend even more money.

so just interrupting this enlightening exchange only for a sec.

Jon Oliver's latest episode just came out and i is right on the money. I'm watching the whole thing but here's the publicly available version with bits missing (the beginning and the end) anyways :


You may resume.
and on that note the latest Rick & morty episode is just as amazing and just as on-topic

It's very easy to say that with your fingers in your metaphorical ears ignoring the validity of anyone elses' written arguments while simultaneously refusing to do any basic research of your own in the slightest.

You be yourself, it's cool.

Blame racism. Lets talk about 20th US history that doesnt revolve around blasting commies.

The HOLA and FHA provided housing loans during the 1950s. White people received the loans and flocked to the suburbs while everyone else stays in the city.

This is one of the main reasons why nearly every city in the United States is in shambles; or, taken over by some global corporation; Seattle and Amazon anyone? (The suburbs are nice though....)

The issue I feel with a social market economy is that it only works with a more uniform population that can be dependable. With a population of ~3x10^8, doing anything to scale is difficult to achieve. Often, the USA tends to abuse said policies almost every time leading to skepticism within the government. Even HOLA did this by categorizing black communities as poor investments of every major city; redlining was merely a manifestation of these studies.

Was it racism? Yes, I believe it was mostly because of racism that black people couldnt receive the government incentives that they should have been entitled to. However, from a business standpoint, I could also understand that giving a poor, uneducated population a loan wouldnt be the most successful company. White people were poor and uneducated, but they werent poor people that were previously enslaved and didnt have similar opportunities to employment and such; they were more probable of panning out?

Moving forward to the present...Lets brush aside the global warming issue one moment and talk about hurricanes in general.

Many people in the USA are openly willing to donate to disaster relief, but alot are also criticizing the government. As you may have known, most cities are built near water, and alot of them are practically built on a flood plain. Why should the government insure these people for building a HOUSE on a flood plain? A house, argubly one of the most important assets a person can own, is put into jeopardy every year because people are constantly building there and then expect assistance.

Ultimately, this all revolves around insurance and government. A social market economy essentially acts like an insurance policy on its citizens. Every paycheck, people pay into the system and the idea is, with a large enough pool, that there will be a safety net for everyone to use if they need it. A population of 3x10^8 cant even create a safety net like the one discussed in other countries with out a large enough stable population. During the later half of the 20th century, the "White people" demographic fell into this category (the suburbs). Today, with globalization, "white people" are no longer considered a stable demographic....

I am talking in terms of black and white because its really is all Black and White.

We all want to stick it to the insurance guy, but they exist for a reason.

Tax the rich and greedy corporations? There isnt enough money to go around. Its sad to say that the best way to build a stable population so we can even consider doing the moral thing of building a social market economy is by letting the people do what is needed to "survive". For young people, its living with their parents,or friends, until they have enough money to make a 40-50% down payment on a new or used home and not having children.

US policy that doesnt approach a similar conclusion is bound to fail. It terrible, but its the only method left.