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  1. #76
    ISF: monsanto vs small farmers

    Quote Originally Posted by Numbr2intheWorld View Post
    The US had very strong regulations on housing loans. They strongly encouraged banks to make shitty loans in the name of the "American Dream." The housing crash had everything to do with regulation.
    I'll admit it's very possible that I don't understand the housing crash, but if the US had such strong regulations on housing loans, why were american banks allowed to hand out risky 50 year mortgages to bustos? Stricter lending policies could have prevented that.

    Quote Originally Posted by Numbr2intheWorld View Post
    Having strict regulations the other way doesn't help much either. When you have very strict, conservative lending policies you end up fucking the middle class because banks who actually would have take a chance on them are prohibited from giving them a loan. I'm not surprised the housing market was unscathed because your prices we're probably falling well before.

    That being said, if the regulations of Canada matched the normal due diligence a good bank would do before giving a loan, then they would be fine.
    You speak as if we have the option of one extreme or the other, and then seem to cautiously endorse a more moderate approach to regulation which is exactly the approach I support. I'm not suggesting we regulate the market so heavily it can't breathe -- I recognize the problems with that approach but I also believe the other extreme has its share of problems. Balance.
  2. #77
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    Well if you won't see this, you won't see it, I guess

    K I lied, I'm bored, gf is out of town.

    That does happen, and is a problem in some industries. Gambling is a perfect example. Others like software, entertainment, and probably your beer example are good ones too. However, there are two necessary things to apply: 1) what happens with no regulation in either direction? Some industries are not naturally competitive Name one, and so not regulating for some equity will just create the same results as regulating against equity. 2) Some industries are the opposite what works best for an economy when deregulated. Banking and healthcare are big ones I think its the other way around. Regulated health care has increased health care costs in many ways. By restricting the amount of people who can practice medicine, by forcing people to buy health insurance that has protections completely unnecessary for their lives, etc. Banks, same thing. How many people here would love to be able to use own and use a currency other than the US dollar. You can't, because government regulations make it unprofitable. Banks currently have to work under regulations that cost enormous amounts of money, which means they cant give consumers as good of deals . A lot of industries are in the middle where some aspects should be regulated but others should not. Like food and drugs. Both over-regulation and over-deregulation would be disasters Regulation of food and drugs hurts the poor. People who want information about the food they are consuming can pay for that information. Forcing poor people to pay for that information is unfair. Deregulation would cause food and drug providers to pay for the information about the safety of their products, or else no one would buy them.

    Also, regulation is itself a non-separable facet of society. Regulation is just another way of saying words like "rules" and "laws", and will always manifest in some way. Even Peter Schiff once slipped up and said (not verbatim) that it's not so much that he's for or against amount of regulation, but that he's for smarter regulation. Which is right, yet belies the position that all we need is deregulation

    I'm not against regulation I'm just against government regulation, because they consistently don't act in our best interest. CME, a futures exchange, regulates consumer behavior who participate. I'm not against that.

    Regardless, there are a wealth of industries that are fucked up by bribery lobbying government to regulate for benefit of the special interests. But sadly, the times in which we hear about how government is so bad is when the Koch's don't like the EPA and want to be able to dump chemical waste wherever they please, or when Goldman Sachs doesn't like the SEC trying to stop them from their ability to create bubbles then bet against the bubble not bursting, etc

    Honestly, I have no disagreement here. I don't like many business men.

    Corporate personhood has turned government into lobbied whores for those with the money to buy them, and we find over-regulation in areas where that is destructive for the society yet beneficial for the special, and under-regulation in areas where that is destructive for society yet beneficial for the special.

    It's about creating smart laws, not creating absence of laws
    Agree with you about over regulation, again disagree about under regulation. I'm not against the absence of laws and I want smart laws too. I just think most laws that deter the freedom of individuals to make free choices are bad ones, and most laws/regulations you are a proponent of do just that.
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  3. #78
    Quote Originally Posted by d0zer View Post
    ISF: monsanto vs small farmers

    Explain. I'm not familiar with this.

    I'll admit it's very possible that I don't understand the housing crash, but if the US had such strong regulations on housing loans, why were american banks allowed to hand out risky 50 year mortgages to bustos? Stricter lending policies could have prevented that.

    Banks regulate themselves. They will not make bad loans because bad loans means they will lose money. The only way this lead to a good outcome for banks was because the government bailed them out and the banks knew they were going to do so.

    You speak as if we have the option of one extreme or the other, and then seem to cautiously endorse a more moderate approach to regulation which is exactly the approach I support. I'm not suggesting we regulate the market so heavily it can't breathe -- I recognize the problems with that approach but I also believe the other extreme has its share of problems. Balance.
    Max nor I support a "balanced" approach. It's easy to say "Everything needs a balanced approach." But its simply a logical fallacy. I'm not saying you should fuck hookers all the time when your married or not fuck hookers at all, you should take a balanced approach, fuck hookers sometimes. When something is amoral conceptually there's no reason to have a balanced approach.

    I'm not saying you are saying that, as you believe no regulation creates problems. But I challenge you to look markets and ask yourself "Are the problems with this market because it is unregulated or because of regulations?"
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  4. #79
    I think where a lot of people get turned off by a free market argument is that they think this idea means that businessmen are good people with good intentions. Some are, some aren't. Some do very evil things that harm others. I don't like a lot of businessmen, but these businessmen can only harm you when the government gives them the power to.
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  5. #80
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    Fun thread to watch smarter people have a discussion. Posting the following as soon as the brothers entered the discussion was still the best part though.
    Quote Originally Posted by CoccoBill View Post
    Please god no island examples.


    Quote Originally Posted by sauce123
    I don't get why you insist on stacking off with like jack high all the time.
  6. #81
    Isn't the problem that the tomato farmer saved $500K after outsourcing all the farming jobs to India, hired a tomato consultant for $200K, then went under when the new smart phone apps allowed people to grow tomatoes for free?
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  7. #82
    Quote Originally Posted by Galapogos View Post
    Fun thread to watch smarter people have a discussion. Posting the following as soon as the brothers entered the discussion was still the best part though.
    I lol'd at that too
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  8. #83
    Quote Originally Posted by IowaSkinsFan View Post
    Name one,
    The way I put it is probably a crummy way, but ones that monopolize easily or have deep socioeconomic roles. I would say that gambling is an industry that is incredibly competitive and thrives on close to zero rules. This is because regularly cheating the consumers almost never works, and it's very easy for the consumers to change providers, and thus competition must always be at peak. Contrast this to telecommunications, where changing providers is much more difficult, and a handful of companies can basically own everything and thus do whatever they can get away with.

    I think its the other way around. Regulated health care has increased health care costs in many ways. By restricting the amount of people who can practice medicine, by forcing people to buy health insurance that has protections completely unnecessary for their lives, etc.
    But you can't say that because it's not true for all other modern countries with drastically reduced costs to the US and have achieved that through regulation. You could say that US healthcare is stupidly regulated, I wouldn't disagree with that, but you can't say regulation sucks for healthcare since the best real-world examples are that it doesn't

    Banks, same thing. How many people here would love to be able to use own and use a currency other than the US dollar. You can't, because government regulations make it unprofitable. Banks currently have to work under regulations that cost enormous amounts of money, which means they cant give consumers as good of deals
    I think it's more complicated than that. It's not like without government, the banks would just give up and no longer do what they could to impose the Federal Reserve on the populace. I've noticed that libertarians like to claim that corporations only get their way because they buy the established government. But what would happen without the government to buy? Would not the same wealthiest of entities then become the government? The answer is they would, as we've seen throughout all history. Wealth has always been the government of peoples. Until the US Constitution, however, but court rulings claiming money to be speech have put that in the shitter.

    Regulation of food and drugs hurts the poor. People who want information about the food they are consuming can pay for that information. Forcing poor people to pay for that information is unfair. Deregulation would cause food and drug providers to pay for the information about the safety of their products, or else no one would buy them.
    That's simply not true. People buy snake oil all the time, and that's the same kind of principle. We also buy cheap tasty food because its cheap and tasty, not because we fully understand what it's doing to us; same principle. That facts are that before the FDA was around, a lot more people got sick or died from food than today. Deregulation in this industry can cause a ton of havoc just by exploiting natural human behavior. On the flip side, similar things can cause a lot of havoc by catering to emotions too much and making beneficial products illegal. It goes both ways. Smart regulation is what we need, not no regulation

    I'm not against regulation I'm just against government regulation, because they consistently don't act in our best interest. CME, a futures exchange, regulates consumer behavior who participate. I'm not against that.
    Government generally doesn't act in our best interests because corporations are awash with cash and are allowed to bribe with it. And what happens when they bribe the CME? We already see unregulated aspects of industry awash with shilling. What happens when there is no government and the wealthiest among us need to bribe nobody, and just pay their own police/military force to do their bidding. We'd be trading the Senate for the Lannisters (if you don't watch GoT, Lannisters are fictional characters, but representative of the reality that he who has the gold, buys the armies, and makes the rules)

    Banks regulate themselves. They will not make bad loans because bad loans means they will lose money. The only way this lead to a good outcome for banks was because the government bailed them out and the banks knew they were going to do so.
    This is an extremely good point, but I also think it goes deeper and misses the forest for the trees, as it confuses our iteration of corruption with corruption itself.

    Government here is only the middle man. The banks lobbied hard to make it legal for them to cheat, and if there was nobody for them to lobby, it would be because they were the ones on top and thus the ones making up the rules, and we'd have gotten cheated anyways
  9. #84
    Quote Originally Posted by baudib View Post
    Isn't the problem that the tomato farmer saved $500K after outsourcing all the farming jobs to India, hired a tomato consultant for $200K, then went under when the new smart phone apps allowed people to grow tomatoes for free?
    That sort of thing is a problem in some ways, but not other ways. And it's not representative of aggregate. On the macro level, there are more profits than ever before, they just don't return to the middle class like they use to.
  10. #85
    Quote Originally Posted by baudib View Post
    Isn't the problem that the tomato farmer saved $500K after outsourcing all the farming jobs to India, hired a tomato consultant for $200K, then went under when the new smart phone apps allowed people to grow tomatoes for free?
    Explain why any of these things are bad...
  11. #86
    To semi-wade into this, the right wing libertarian argument that all government regulation is bad is bogus. To use the Canadian mortgage and banking sector as an example, Canada suffered far less and rode out/is riding out the recession far, far better than the USA precisely because our mortgage lenders/banks are more tightly regulated. It's a structural difference that prevented our banks from taking the massive risks with other people's money that the US financial sector did, resulting in the US housing bubble and the sub-prime mortgage debacle. And, yes, we still have our AAA credit rating.

    Read some Matt Tiabbi Rolling Stone Politics | Taibblog | Matt Taibbi on Politics and the Economy if you really want to get into the weeds on this.

    Also:

    ‪Quantitative Easing Explained‬‏ - YouTube

    and...

    It's the Economy, Dummkopf! | Business | Vanity Fair
    Last edited by Warpe; 08-10-2011 at 10:21 AM.
  12. #87
    Must watch TV: msnbc.com Video Player
  13. #88
    Quote Originally Posted by Warpe View Post
    To semi-wade into this, the right wing libertarian argument that all government regulation is bad is bogus. To use the Canadian mortgage and banking sector as an example,
    HEY! We were told to lay low. We don't need them invading in order to mine our credit rating.
  14. #89
    Quote Originally Posted by Warpe View Post
    To semi-wade into this, the right wing libertarian argument that all government regulation is bad is bogus. To use the Canadian mortgage and banking sector as an example, Canada suffered far less and rode out/is riding out the recession far, far better than the USA precisely because our mortgage lenders/banks are more tightly regulated. It's a structural difference that prevented our banks from taking the massive risks with other people's money that the US financial sector did, resulting in the US housing bubble and the sub-prime mortgage debacle. And, yes, we still have our AAA credit rating.

    Read some Matt Tiabbi Rolling Stone Politics | Taibblog | Matt Taibbi on Politics and the Economy if you really want to get into the weeds on this.

    Also:

    ‪Quantitative Easing Explained‬‏ - YouTube

    and...

    It's the Economy, Dummkopf! | Business | Vanity Fair

    I believe this point was brought up before. Certainly canandian regulations were better than US regulations. But its just that, the US mortgage regulations led to bad lending. What would be interesting to see is if canandian banks tried to lend as loosely as possible or were actually lending tighter than the regulatory standards. If it was the latter, the regulation did nothing.

    CA regs better than US regs does not mean CA refs better than no regs
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  15. #90
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    Quote Originally Posted by IowaSkinsFan View Post
    What would be interesting to see is if canandian banks tried to lend as loosely as possible or were actually lending tighter than the regulatory standards. If it was the latter, the regulation did nothing.
    If lending tighter (with smaller risk) demonstrably leads to a better outcome, isn't regulation that enforces that behaviour always good? What any individual banks chose to do is circumstantial and may have had nothing to do with regulation.
    Our brains have just one scale, and we resize our experiences to fit.

  16. #91
    Quote Originally Posted by Numbr2intheWorld View Post
    Explain why any of these things are bad...
    I was mostly being facetious because I think the tomato farm analogy is too simplistic but for the bad:

    1. you lose your farm
    2. efficiency increases (theoretically) but fewer people have jobs

    I suppose more people getting cheaper, perhaps better tomatoes is a possible
    (although not certain) result as well
    Last edited by baudib; 08-10-2011 at 02:15 PM.
    Playing big pots at small stakes.
  17. #92
  18. #93
    Quote Originally Posted by baudib View Post

    1. you lose your farm
    Who cares if I lose my farm I'm a greedy asshole.

    2. efficiency increases (theoretically) but fewer people have jobs.
    Efficieny increases yes (I don't get how this is a theory... if I can spend less to do the same thats textbook efficiency increase). If you're saying fewer people have jobs in the tomato industry becuase of this, you would be right. I hope you're not saying that people in the US would have less jobs overall because that's total nonsense.

    I suppose more people getting cheaper, perhaps better tomatoes is a possible
    (although not certain) result as well
    So we should protect my farm so people get shittier, more expensive tomatoes?
    The fact that you think having a free tomato cloning iphone app would be a "problem" shows an incredible lack of understanding of basic economics.
  19. #94
    How do you guys feel about this guy's position on health care reform?
    Health Reform Without a Public Plan: The German Model - NYTimes.com
  20. #95
    CoccoBill's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Numbr2intheWorld View Post
    2. efficiency increases (theoretically) but fewer people have jobs.
    Efficieny increases yes (I don't get how this is a theory... if I can spend less to do the same thats textbook efficiency increase). If you're saying fewer people have jobs in the tomato industry becuase of this, you would be right. I hope you're not saying that people in the US would have less jobs overall because that's total nonsense.
    From where would the extra jobs elsewhere in the US arise to counteract the decrease? The efficiency would run through all industries.
    Our brains have just one scale, and we resize our experiences to fit.

  21. #96
    Quote Originally Posted by eugmac View Post
    How do you guys feel about this guy's position on health care reform?
    Health Reform Without a Public Plan: The German Model - NYTimes.com
    Yeah I hopped off the wagon for the necessity of a public option after I learned Germany doesn't have one, yet their system is as good as any

    Germany may actually be the best nation on the planet to copy. I mean they beat the shit out of everybody in high-end manufacturing and the last time I checked a top-20 best cities in the world list, five or six of them were in Germany
  22. #97
    Quote Originally Posted by Numbr2intheWorld View Post
    The fact that you think having a free tomato cloning iphone app would be a "problem" shows an incredible lack of understanding of basic economics.

    I actually agree with you more than wuf (particularly on gov't regulation) but I really need to be enlightened -- your reasoning makes no sense to me.

    I'm pretty sure if farming tomatoes is your livelihood and you go out of business, that's not a net positive for you.

    Cutting labor and/or production costs doesn't guarantee greater long-term profits if your outsourced farmers no longer produce the world's greatest tomatoes.

    How are no jobs lost in the U.S. if the farming jobs go to India?
    Last edited by baudib; 08-10-2011 at 06:17 PM.
    Playing big pots at small stakes.
  23. #98
    I thought that the reason why we are in this mess is because they deregulated everything and that is why banks were giving crazy loans and bogus AAA ratings? Isn't that what the documentary Inside Job was about? What am I missing?
  24. #99
    Quote Originally Posted by Sprayed View Post
    I thought that the reason why we are in this mess is because they deregulated everything and that is why banks were giving crazy loans and bogus AAA ratings? Isn't that what the documentary Inside Job was about? What am I missing?
    That was the bubble and the bursting of the bubble. I've been referring to the deeper underlying problem representative of why structural unemployment is so high and that the economy is not recovering. If it was all just the bubble, we would be growing rapidly right now like we always did in the past. We're not making any headway in recovery due to a dysfunctional distribution of wealth
  25. #100
    Quote Originally Posted by baudib View Post
    I actually agree with you more than wuf (particularly on gov't regulation) but I really need to be enlightened -- your reasoning makes no sense to me.

    I'm pretty sure if farming tomatoes is your livelihood and you go out of business, that's not a net positive for you.

    It isn't a net positive for me (although if I find another job it won't be that bad). But if we could make free tomatoes that would be a huge net positive for the entire world. In the same way, cheaper tomatoes are also a net positive for society because it allows a) everyone who wants a tomato to have one and b) people to spend the fruits of their time and labor (aka money and wealth) on something else.

    Cutting labor and/or production costs doesn't guarantee greater long-term profits if your outsourced farmers no longer produce the world's greatest tomatoes.

    That's a choice I have to make, should I outsource and make cheaper worse tomatoes or do I think people will demand high quality tomatoes from my US workers. But if I could outsource cheaper labor and have the same Tomato quality the answer seems easy.

    How are no jobs lost in the U.S. if the farming jobs go to India?
    If I'm outsourcing my farming to India, it means Indias labor is cheaper or better. I end up saving money for myself and my customers who end up spending the extra money and "creating" jobs. Furthermore, I am not taking away the ability of anyone to work and create something of value, which means they can still create wealth (Farm something else, build a house, become a computer programmer, etc). If a tomato farmer can not profitably grow tomatoes anymore, does he never work again and die? Of course not. We may be "losing" farming jobs but we aren't losing jobs, we're actually gaining them.
    Think about it, over the last two decades we've "lost" tens of millions of jobs to India and China. Before the housing crash of 2008, our unemployment rate was going down. Why didn't it go skyrocketing? Deh took er jobssss

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._1890-2009.gif
  26. #101
    A good run (bubble) has disguised the longterm losing play

    This started long before Bush, and before Clinton even. The economy has appeared healthy for most of the last couple decades because we've spent most of it in bubbles. Tech crashed, and as we went back to normal, unemployment was skyrocketing, but then we bubbled housing in response, yet that crashed, and the process of merely going back to normal pricing has shown that the economy is structurally high unemployment

    As to the tomato thing, for the most part, increased productivity means decreased jobs. This can be mitigated if there were laws to determine the increase in productivity to be shared. The top earners of the last three decades have made more money than the entire history of the economy combined. The problem is that insane increase in productivity and profits is not being shared with the workers. Ironically, everybody tries to teach their kids the importance of sharing, but when it comes to modern royalty, sharing is just "punishing success"
  27. #102
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    A good run (bubble) has disguised the longterm losing play

    This started long before Bush, and before Clinton even. The economy has appeared healthy for most of the last couple decades because we've spent most of it in bubbles. Tech crashed, and as we went back to normal, unemployment was skyrocketing, but then we bubbled housing in response, yet that crashed, Completely agree. Government tries to prop up the economy but it fails and the process of merely going back to normal pricing has shown that the economy is structurally high unemployment The question is why. The answer is because people aren't providing enough jobs. And why is that? Because government hinders the ability of people to run a profitable business. The more profitable an industry is the more jobs it can provide


    As to the tomato thing, for the most part, increased productivity means decreased jobs. This can be mitigated if there were laws to determine the increase in productivity to be shared. The top earners of the last three decades have made more money than the entire history of the economy combined. The problem is that insane increase in productivity and profits is not being shared with the workers. Ironically, everybody tries to teach their kids the importance of sharing, but when it comes to modern royalty, sharing is just "punishing success"
    If profits are not being shared with workers, start your own business and pay the workers twice as much as the industry standard to attract the best ones. You'll have a huge competitive advantage.

    A lot of the reason workers aren't paid very well is because the supply of jobs is low and the demand is high. Most people are willing to take a low salary because that's their only option. Taxes are a huge reason why job supply is so low.
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  28. #103
    Quote Originally Posted by Sprayed View Post
    I thought that the reason why we are in this mess is because they deregulated everything and that is why banks were giving crazy loans and bogus AAA ratings? Isn't that what the documentary Inside Job was about? What am I missing?

    Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and The CRA amendment of 1995. All these actively encouraged banks to give out risky mortgages. There is a lot of evidence that suggests that the banks were actually trying to intertwine themselves in the economy as much as possible so if they failed they would know the government would bail them out.
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  29. #104
    pantherhound's Avatar
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    So how long does the US actually have to pay back its debt that mathematically can't be paid back?
  30. #105
    Quote Originally Posted by pantherhound View Post
    So how long does the US actually have to pay back its debt that mathematically can't be paid back?
    Around 8000 years. They're hoping Y10K will wipe it all out.
  31. #106
    Yes, I made a joke out of an 11 year old problem. It's not like I keep a staff here.
  32. #107
    I watched 60 minutes tonight and one of their stories made me think of this thread. Basically, it was about how companies have moved their HQs offshore in order to avoid our 35% tax. They're moving to Ireland or Switzerland for like 16% tax. A large portion of top companies are or have moved more than just their HQ and are now manufacturing in other countries. That is why there are no jobs in the US.

    They spoke with Cisco's CEO and he stated that it's just good business. He pretty much said that why would companies stay in the US at 35%? They're not going to stay just because they are good Americans. They can't compete if they did stay. He suggested that the US reduce the tax and then billions and trillions of dollars would come back to the US.
  33. #108
    CoccoBill's Avatar
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  34. #109
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    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    Exemptions and capital gains. I think it's accurate to say that the majority of enormous earnings come in form of capital gains, which are taxed low. Regardless, big earners avoid sooooooooooo much taxation through exemptions. I believe it was Warren Buffet who said he pays a lower rate than his secretary
    BBC News - Warren Buffett demands to pay more tax


    Edit: well played, Coccobill
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  35. #110
    Quote Originally Posted by Sprayed View Post
    I watched 60 minutes tonight and one of their stories made me think of this thread. Basically, it was about how companies have moved their HQs offshore in order to avoid our 35% tax. They're moving to Ireland or Switzerland for like 16% tax. A large portion of top companies are or have moved more than just their HQ and are now manufacturing in other countries. That is why there are no jobs in the US.

    They spoke with Cisco's CEO and he stated that it's just good business. He pretty much said that why would companies stay in the US at 35%? They're not going to stay just because they are good Americans. They can't compete if they did stay. He suggested that the US reduce the tax and then billions and trillions of dollars would come back to the US.
    That's partially a lie since the majority of off-shoring has nothing to do with taxation, but with ability to pay low wages and avoid health and safety regulations

    Multinational corporations do create a lot of jobs. A lot of shitty low-paying jobs in other countries. And the rationale of them needing more money is bollocks simply given history of being successful with less money at the top
  36. #111
    yesss an excuse for me to break out this article

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/op...h.html?_r=3&hp

    by warren buffett
  37. #112
    Lesson in economics:
    Tom and Bob decided to go into the watermelon business. They bought a truck and would drive across the Mexican border and buy watermelons for $1 each and come back across the border and sell them for $1 each. At the end of the year Bob told Tom they weren't making any money. Tom replied, "I know what the problem is. We need to buy a bigger truck."
    "Just cause I'm from the South don't mean I ain't got no book learnin'"

    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    ...we've all learned long ago how to share the truth without actually having the truth.
  38. #113
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    Quote Originally Posted by mbiz View Post
    yesss an excuse for me to be retarded
    fyp
    LOL OPERATIONS
  39. #114
    Quote Originally Posted by Sasquach991 View Post
    Lesson in economics:
    Tom and Bob decided to go into the watermelon business. They bought a truck and would drive across the Mexican border and buy watermelons for $1 each and come back across the border and sell them for $1 each. At the end of the year Bob told Tom they weren't making any money. Tom replied, "I know what the problem is. We need to buy a bigger truck."
    Wat?
  40. #115
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    He's clearly talking about economy of scale. Read a book, idiot.
    LOL OPERATIONS
  41. #116
    Just read Goodnight Moon. Nothing in there about no Mexicans.
  42. #117
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    The moon is a metaphor
    LOL OPERATIONS
  43. #118
    Quote Originally Posted by bigred View Post
    The moon is a metaphor

    for Uranus.
    So you click their picture and then you get their money?
  44. #119
    Quote Originally Posted by bigred View Post
    fyp
    feel free to elaborate. does it make you feel pretty cool being an asshole?
  45. #120
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    Quote Originally Posted by bigred View Post
    He's clearly talking about economy of scale. Read a book, idiot.
    economy of fail!
  46. #121
    Quote Originally Posted by mbiz View Post
    feel free to elaborate. does it make you feel pretty cool being an asshole?
    I don't know how to tell you this, but what you linked to in such a celebratory manner was linked to only two posts above you, which was earlier linked to in the post above THAT ONE, making your entire existence redundant x2.

    Hmmm, I guess I did know how to tell you.
  47. #122
    Quote Originally Posted by BennyLaRue View Post
    I don't know how to tell you this, but what you linked to in such a celebratory manner was linked to only two posts above you, which was earlier linked to in the post above THAT ONE, making your entire existence redundant x2.

    Hmmm, I guess I did know how to tell you.
    Congratulations, you've won your dick's weight in sweets! Decode the message in the above post to find out how to claim your tic-tac
  48. #123
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  49. #124
    Quote Originally Posted by Sprayed View Post
    I watched 60 minutes tonight and one of their stories made me think of this thread. Basically, it was about how companies have moved their HQs offshore in order to avoid our 35% tax. They're moving to Ireland or Switzerland for like 16% tax. A large portion of top companies are or have moved more than just their HQ and are now manufacturing in other countries. That is why there are no jobs in the US.

    They spoke with Cisco's CEO and he stated that it's just good business. He pretty much said that why would companies stay in the US at 35%? They're not going to stay just because they are good Americans. They can't compete if they did stay. He suggested that the US reduce the tax and then billions and trillions of dollars would come back to the US.
    I would like to add that if mega multinational corporations indeed left the US due to tax rate or regulations, it would be a motherfucking godsend. The US economy would boom by merit of small business being able to again compete. Costs would go up only slightly, but that would be nothing compared to the benefits of an actual free market
  50. #125
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    I would like to add that if mega multinational corporations indeed left the US due to tax rate or regulations, it would be a motherfucking godsend. The US economy would boom by merit of small business being able to again compete. Costs would go up only slightly, but that would be nothing compared to the benefits of an actual free market
    That's basically an impossibility at this point. You might relocate your manufacturing and HQ for cost and tax reasons but who would desert selling in such a lucrative market?
  51. #126
    Quote Originally Posted by BennyLaRue View Post
    That's basically an impossibility at this point. You might relocate your manufacturing and HQ for cost and tax reasons but who would desert selling in such a lucrative market?
    There's a lot of doublespeak on the topic, because you're right. The fact is that reasonable taxes and regulations on business do not send them away like the liars say, and if they did it would benefit small entrepreneurs greatly

    In actuality, it would be better policy to go out of the way to send a lot of mega-business away. Doing so protects the hell out of small business, and any problems of tech development are easily fixed by allowing the historically most arguable tech developer in the world (US govt) run tech. Instead, we go the opposite direction. We gut one of the most economically supportive companies ever (NASA) and replace them with either nothing or enormous private contractors that stamp out competition and wage/job growth
  52. #127
    Sure, you're not wrong. It's just an unsustainable utopia, I think.

    Let's say you do create an environment that encourages mega-corps to leave and allows small businesses to prosper. What's next? Have you not just created a vacuum through which current small businesses become tomorrow's mega-corps in short order?
    Last edited by BennyLaRue; 08-18-2011 at 03:04 PM.
  53. #128
    Quote Originally Posted by BennyLaRue View Post
    Sure, you're not wrong. It's just an unsustainable utopia, I think.

    Let's say you do create an environment that encourages mega-corps to leave and allows small businesses to prosper. What's next? Have you not just created a vacuum through which current small businesses become tomorrow's mega-corps in short order?
    Well if that happened it would be extremely good for the economy. Like, much better than anything we've seen in terms of crazy growth.

    Regardless, it's not about scaring off big companies. It's about making them play fair, and in any advanced socioeconomic system, concentrations of wealth and power generally have to let more of that go in order to keep the game fair. US has much lower taxes and more deregulations than we used to, and we did better before; and much lower than other prospering modern nations.
  54. #129
    Wuf, would you say you're a Marxist? I'm honestly not saying this in a demeaning way you just seem to share some basic beliefs of Marx.
  55. #130
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    I would like to add that if mega multinational corporations indeed left the US due to tax rate or regulations, it would be a motherfucking godsend. The US economy would boom by merit of small business being able to again compete. Costs would go up only slightly, but that would be nothing compared to the benefits of an actual free market
    So you don't think big businesses are succeeding because of their competitive advantages?
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  56. #131
    I don't know much about Marxism, but I do like some of the ideas, and one economist I pay attention to identifies as Marxist. When it comes to things of philosophy, it's really hard to apply specific labels because there's so much overlap and different interpretations. For example, libertarianism is about individual liberty, which I don't disagree with in the slightest, but my interpretation of what that means is very different than what contemporaries say.

    It's hard to say what I am because I pull from everything. I try to go with what works best for people first, ideology last. That's why I think things like entertainment industry should have zero state intervention, yet things like food and drugs should have reasonable state intervention. If you see a shitty movie, you're out a night and fifteen bucks, but if you drink some shitty milk, you get sick and die. The negatives of corruption for either industry are vastly different, and I think require different yet appropriate handling. A big problem is that people are generally stupid and greedy, and industries mostly get inappropriate treatment from anything from online gambling being illegal to banks having an oligopoly on financial transactions and leveraging so deeply that when they become unstable there is no choice but to keep them going

    I actually agree with libertarianism to a great degree, I just don't have the same interpretation of how to get to the goals. Both libertarians and I want to eliminate the Federal Reserve. The disconnect is that libertarians think this is good for free-marketeer deregulatory reasons, but I think this is good for simple accounting reasons and that wouldn't be deregulation but re-regulation, as the main change would be that the Treasury laws could be written to favor the populace instead of the banks
  57. #132
    Quote Originally Posted by IowaSkinsFan View Post
    So you don't think big businesses are succeeding because of their competitive advantages?
    They are, but that doesn't mean the competitive advantage is good for the economy. In many ways, it is, but in some, it's not.

    Something as simple as Walmart being slightly more cost-efficient for consumers over the short-term can and has resulted in cascading effects and money and jobs leaving communities.
  58. #133
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    They are, but that doesn't mean the competitive advantage is good for the economy. In many ways, it is, but in some, it's not.

    Something as simple as Walmart being slightly more cost-efficient for consumers over the short-term can and has resulted in cascading effects and money and jobs leaving communities.
    I'd say Wal-mart has been more cost efficient for a long long time. And they've also charged lower prices than competitors for a long time.

    If the only "problems" they are causing is money and jobs leaving a community I would say those aren't problems at all. I don't think you're seeing the big picture. Should we pay someone more money to provide us with a good just because they live in our community? Is it a problem that we can trade with people who live outside our community? If the goal is for all of us to have more wealth, I think the best way to do that is to do the job that we provide the most value doing and buy goods and services from those who provide us the most value.
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  59. #134
    Quote Originally Posted by IowaSkinsFan View Post
    I'd say Wal-mart has been more cost efficient for a long long time. And they've also charged lower prices than competitors for a long time.

    If the only "problems" they are causing is money and jobs leaving a community I would say those aren't problems at all. I don't think you're seeing the big picture. Should we pay someone more money to provide us with a good just because they live in our community? Is it a problem that we can trade with people who live outside our community? If the goal is for all of us to have more wealth, I think the best way to do that is to do the job that we provide the most value doing and buy goods and services from those who provide us the most value.
    The problem is that it changes the flow of wealth, and a lot of people suffer. This isn't a new problem, but one we've been facing for decades now. Productivity advancement increases wealth for the few, but decreases it for more than just a few. If we refuse to increase taxes on that productivity increase, then we have to be okay with a lot more people being jobless and homeless
  60. #135
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  61. #136
  62. #137
    These vids might help. I found then to be pretty good.
    Current Economics
    Palson-Bailout
    Geithner-plan
    Last edited by Sprayed; 08-27-2011 at 09:04 PM.
  63. #138
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  64. #139


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