those on the left are willing to admit the are things the government shouldn't do and things the government does pretty badly compared to the market, but whenever you argue with a conservative, they somehow refuse to place any blame on the market or especially corporations for anything, especially for being in bed with government.
If I was a small government conservative, I would be aghast at the current union of big business and government, but all I see are people saying CORPORATIONS ARE OUR FRIENDS JOB CREATORS ALL THE GOVERNMENTS FAULT
Yikes, its not always 100% one side. I'm sure there are those actual small governmenters who hate what has happened to the system, but you honestly never see them very much, which really makes no sense to me. We should be united against this.
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The box says "Online Gameplay not rated by ESRB", I should be able to trade my phallic named Wobbufetts to a bunch of 8 year olds. - MarvelousGerbil
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The box says "Online Gameplay not rated by ESRB", I should be able to trade my phallic named Wobbufetts to a bunch of 8 year olds. - MarvelousGerbil
Watching your "political awakening" is like watching somebody go through the 5 stages of grief, except you always have one foot firmly stuck in denial.
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The box says "Online Gameplay not rated by ESRB", I should be able to trade my phallic named Wobbufetts to a bunch of 8 year olds. - MarvelousGerbil
From: AlecTrevelyan006 | #005 Watching your "political awakening" is like watching somebody go through the 5 stages of grief, except you always have one foot firmly stuck in denial.
Best thing I've ever read in an Iamdead political topic.
Nope, I think I can do better than this for an Iamdead7 facts topic
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The box says "Online Gameplay not rated by ESRB", I should be able to trade my phallic named Wobbufetts to a bunch of 8 year olds. - MarvelousGerbil
I lean conservative/libertarian, and I have no problem admitting that large corporations can be a problem. That said, in my experience (what little of it there is), the problems with large corporations generally stem from the government, as government regulations et al do more to benefit large corporations than they do to protect small businesses and consumers.
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Altimadark posted... I lean conservative/libertarian, and I have no problem admitting that large corporations can be a problem. That said, in my experience (what little of it there is), the problems with large corporations generally stem from the government, as government regulations et al do more to benefit large corporations than they do to protect small businesses and consumers.
How so?
Take environmental regulations, for instance.
If you're a small company that builds things in the same place that you sell them, you don't want to pollute; it's not in your best interest to anger your customer-base.
If you're a big multinational corporation, then you don't really care if you fill a local water supply with toxins and everyone has to leave the city a la Erin Brockovitch. You've got stores everywhere; where are they going to go where they wouldn't buy your product, anyway?
And environmental regulations are regulations that don't specifically single out large businesses, as many regulations do. For instance, you usually don't need to worry about discrimination laws if you have 5 or fewer employees; you can hire and fire for any reason.
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And environmental regulations are regulations that don't specifically single out large businesses, as many regulations do. For instance, you usually don't need to worry about discrimination laws if you have 5 or fewer employees; you can hire and fire for any reason.
The Clean Air Act requires gas stations in certain parts of the country to install hydrocarbon vapor recovery devices on gas pumps, costing between $27,000 and $30,000 apiece. Who's going to be better equipped to handle these costs? The local guy who just owns a single gas station, or the multinational corporation with pumps across the country, both in and out of the affected area?
By your own words, environmental regulations don't specifically single out large businesses. The local guy has to have these things installed.
EDIT: Don't misunderstand me. I'm not against regulations, I just don't trust it in the hands of government bureaucrats. Private regulations are fine.
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There never was a post. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and refracted the light from Venus.
Altimadark posted... EDIT: Don't misunderstand me. I'm not against regulations, I just don't trust it in the hands of government bureaucrats. Private regulations are fine.
Private regulations? I...uhh...can you give me an example? I'm not sure how that would work in a way that wasn't awful. Like...let's say the Coca Cola company was given the right to regulate soft drinks in Chicago; the first thing they're going to do is ban Pepsi....
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision
From: neonreaper | #018 how is banning Pepsi "awful"? Pepsi sucks
Because competition is important.
If Pepsi's not around to challenge them, whatever your favorite soft drink company is won't feel the need to price their products as fairly and competitively as they used to. They might even cheap out on the ingredients.
-- [NO BARKLEY NO PEACE] Ace Detective in Sir Charles's Police http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkOj5DAJu2A
The vast majority of regulations are bad. I'd include private regulations in there, because it has the same effect: to increase the barrier to entry and stifle competition. This helps large corporations and hurts consumers.
Private reviews or ratings agencies are good though (like Metacritic and what S&P/Moody's would be if they did their job properly).
To answer the original question: maybe because they don't think the free market is ever a problem? It's perfectly reasonable to believe that the free market is, in fact, always right. Just because it's obvious that the other extreme is wrong doesn't mean all extremes are wrong.
As someone who has studied auditing and is an accountant, I feel pretty confident in saying that the vast majority of companies are cooking the books. A companies first priority is to make money, and often times the best way to make money are illegal and/or harmful.
Big businesses simply will not police themselves, and people (or the free market or whatever) have shown that they won't do it either. Otherwise places like Walmart would be struggling and Enron would have gone out of business the moment they started causing rolling blackouts.
-- (Maniac64 at work) [Browncoat] ~Board 570901~ All the proteins, vitamins, and carbs of your grandma's best turkey dinner, plus 15% alcohol.
Why would Wal-Mart be struggling? They offer lots of products to consumers at cheap prices in the same place. It saves consumers time and money. Why shouldn't consumers choose to shop there?
Big business will not police itself. The free market will do so to the extent that the people want to. And if the people don't want to, why on earth are we forcing it on them?
But the market does not really take that into account
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The box says "Online Gameplay not rated by ESRB", I should be able to trade my phallic named Wobbufetts to a bunch of 8 year olds. - MarvelousGerbil
And if I'm going shopping, how much do I care that Wal-Mart is "evil."? Probably not as much as the time and money I'll save by shopping there. I mean, there are companies I genuinely think are evil and will avoid, even paying a high premium for a competitor. For example, Goldman Sachs. But most people clearly don't think Wal-Mart is that evil, since they continue to shop there. And for Goldman, most of their clientele either don't think they are evil or don't care, too.
red sox 777 posted... Why would Wal-Mart be struggling? They offer lots of products to consumers at cheap prices in the same place. It saves consumers time and money. Why shouldn't consumers choose to shop there?
Big business will not police itself. The free market will do so to the extent that the people want to. And if the people don't want to, why on earth are we forcing it on them?
Because they treat their employees terribly and will do the absolute OSHA minimum and worse if they can get away with it? There are whole websites devoted to what a horrible company Walmart is.
And most people have no idea what is actually going on inside a company to properly guage whether they should be supporting it (see: Enron). Plus many will choose convenience and savings in the short term even if it will hurt them in the long term.
And then there are the accounting regulations, which 90% of consumers could care less about until the company finally goes backrupt due to horrible accounting procedures, or suddenly goes bankrupt despite no warning signs since they have been lying and manipulating their profits to increase stock price.
-- (Maniac64 at work) [Browncoat] ~Board 570901~ All the proteins, vitamins, and carbs of your grandma's best turkey dinner, plus 15% alcohol.
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The box says "Online Gameplay not rated by ESRB", I should be able to trade my phallic named Wobbufetts to a bunch of 8 year olds. - MarvelousGerbil
red sox 777 posted... And if I'm going shopping, how much do I care that Wal-Mart is "evil."? Probably not as much as the time and money I'll save by shopping there.
And that's the problem. The consumer doesn't care and so they continue to cause unnecessary problems and suffering to employees. Someone needs to watch out for the safety and security of employees and neither the consumer or the company are going to do it. Same goes for anti-competitive behavior and behavior harmful to the environment.
-- (Maniac64 at work) [Browncoat] ~Board 570901~ All the proteins, vitamins, and carbs of your grandma's best turkey dinner, plus 15% alcohol.
red sox 777 posted... The vast majority of regulations are bad. I'd include private regulations in there, because it has the same effect: to increase the barrier to entry and stifle competition. This helps large corporations and hurts consumers.
If you want an example of a country with very few regulations, look to modern-day Russia, where, oh look: the country is run mostly by former KGB members and the mafia.
Or look at the recent sub-prime mortgage crisis in America, which was almost directly caused because lending had been systematically deregulated by the government for the past 10 years prior (throughout both the Bush and Clinton presidencies).
Regulations are like anything else; there are good ones, and bad ones; most of the regulations that have stood the test of time are actually pretty positive overall.
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From: Rad Link 5 | #019 Because competition is important.
If Pepsi's not around to challenge them, whatever your favorite soft drink company is won't feel the need to price their products as fairly and competitively as they used to. They might even cheap out on the ingredients.
but Pepsi isn't challenging Coke at all >_>
-- thelefty for analysis crew 2008 imo -tranny I have a third degree burn in flame-o-nomics -Sir Chris
The problem with government regulations is that they refuse to let corporations die. The result it a bunch of broken companies that are just straining the economy. The free market will let these crippled companies die.
foolmor0n posted... The problem with government regulations is that they refuse to let corporations die. The result it a bunch of broken companies that are just straining the economy. The free market will let these crippled companies die.
True, though I'd prefer the government break them up and attempt to not have the economy crash while the market deals with them.
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The box says "Online Gameplay not rated by ESRB", I should be able to trade my phallic named Wobbufetts to a bunch of 8 year olds. - MarvelousGerbil
the country is run mostly by former KGB members and the mafia.
Sounds like a lot of regulation to me! And not really surprising given Russia's longstanding history of a central planned economy going back to 1917.
As for accounting regulations, those aren't regulations so much as saying you can't commit fraud. And you shouldn't be able to commit fraud, a free market system must have laws.
Yeah, I pretty much agree with Iamdead (and am myself left-leaning), but Russia's just a bad example. It's more of a case of too much government than the opposite.
That said, though, economics cannot be summed in one simple sentence. Government can really help the economy along; it can also hurt it a lot. You have to find a middleground between the two extremes - said middleground will depend on the situation and context. As for the "Let people make their own choices, and suffer the consequences" argument, the mortgage crisis already showed that it doesn't work like that in practice.
Mortgage crisis was caused by a bunch of idiots who borrowed without any way of ever repaying it back (my understanding is: they presumed house values would always go up by X%, and when it didn't, they were screwed). Due to them failing on their loans, banks had to raise interest rates for another bunch of slightly wiser people, who would've been fine if not for the interest-rate hike. This hike caused them to default, too. So banks raised the interest rates again, who put a whole other bunch of people in financial jeopardy. And so on and so forth until one or two banks, which were particularly at risk, collapsed. This in turn put a few other banks, which were not really at risk before, in grave danger. And so on and so forth. Had Bush/Obama not stepped in to save a few banks from insolvency, things would've gotten quite messy - and everyone would've been affected.
This just goes to show that in a completely deregulated market, mistakes from a few idiots can put everything in jeopardy. Of course, it's not the same everywhere. Some industries are completely fine with very few regulations; others aren't. Yet simply deregulating everything and saying "Let people make their own choices, and those who err will just face the consequences" is not the right answer. We have to be careful and try to pick a healthy middleground.
-- When you have nothing to say, quote yourself ~ Solfadore
Russia's current problem is that they transitioned the wrong way, they went from full on planned economy to free market very quickly, which meant all of the old government assets went into the hands of those who already had money.
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The box says "Online Gameplay not rated by ESRB", I should be able to trade my phallic named Wobbufetts to a bunch of 8 year olds. - MarvelousGerbil
From: OmarsComin | #041 Yep. Government sucks at everything other than the military. They shouldn't be involved in anything else...especially health care. What a joke.
you should probably let red sox or SmartMuffin argue for your team, you're not doing so hot
Your "nope" post sure was a good argument! You should definitely be your team's captain!
metroid composite posted... Private regulations? I...uhh...can you give me an example? I'm not sure how that would work in a way that wasn't awful. Like...let's say the Coca Cola company was given the right to regulate soft drinks in Chicago; the first thing they're going to do is ban Pepsi....
The only way Coca-Cola could be given exclusive regulatory rights is by government action, so your scenario isn't an example of private regulation at all (if anybody could do it, Pepsi would also be doing it in this scenario). Furthermore, Coke and Pepsi are already regulated by the American Beverage Association, a private regulator.
A private regulator tests goods and services for approval. Companies don't have to go through with it (ie, the don't want to pay for it or simply can't afford it), but those that do will be able to sell it to a wider customer base, as primary consumers (for Coke and Pepsi, this would be mostly supermarkets and restaurants) will buy approved products before unapproved products.
Another great example of this can be found on any electronic product. Check your computer or monitor; if it's a laptop, you can also check the power adapter. Somewhere on the unit should be a block of logos and various bits of text; that's proof that the product has been tested for safety. Primary consumers (Target, Wal Mart, Best Buy, etc) will not buy computers without such testing.
While some of those logos are from government regulators (the FCC comes to mind), most of them are private regulators. The most notable in this category would be Underwriters Laboratories (circle with a UL in it). They've been testing products for well over a century, with a reputation for next to zero corruption, and they're nonprofit. All without government having to spend a single taxpayer dime.
Hope that answers your question, MC.
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Private quality assurance like that is good as long as it's fully optional and not binding on consumers. For example, if Pepsi decided they didn't want to associate with the American Beverage Association anymore, they could still sell their drinks and people would still buy them.
Actually, even this kind of regulation is potentially bad for consumers, because smaller soda companies (say, Jones Soda) would have a much harder time ignoring the regulatory organization. If Pepsi or Coke does it, people won't think there's anything wrong with the soda, but if Jones Soda did it, people would likely be cautious and not buy it. On the other hand, it helps smaller companies to have consumers trust their products in the first place, so it could also be a good thing.
If you're trying to enter the market, you still need to start small to build up your reputation, regardless of how much you pay the regulator. The difference between government and private regulators is that the government forces you to pay, and if you have to pay more than you can afford, you're not going to enter the market.
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There never was a post. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and refracted the light from Venus.