patrick.net

indigenous says

I'm sure you could...

And once again you indicate that no facts will make you question your religion, and that is why your opinion doesn't count as much as dog shit.

Economic systems are technologies. Capitalism is a Bronzed Age with a few Industrial Age refinements, but it is still a technology. It is always reasonable to seek improvements of technologies as well as replacements that are revolutionarily better. Only religions are stagnant and unquestionable, set in stone, and to question them is blasphemy.

The fact that you are completely closed minded and refuse to even consider the possibility that capitalism is a limited and obsolete technology and there may be better technologies to replace it, is all we need to know to disregard your opinion on this and any other subject.

indigenous says

You are simply regurgitating leftest crap.

The fact that you think anything I've said is leftist demonstrates your misuse and misunderstanding of even basic vocabulary. Calling me a leftist makes even less sense than calling Nixon a leftist as I'm farther away from both the left and the right than he was.

indigenous says

Dan8267 says

Fact. Capitalism has had a century to cure cancer, but treating cancer is much more profitable.

The free market has made a lot of progress too.

Another example of your foolishness. You think the terms "free market" and "capitalism" are synonymous. They are not. They are independent concepts. Free markets are neither intrinsic nor unique to capitalism. Unregulated capitalism almost by definition means elimination of free markets. The fact that you cannot grasp this simple truth shows how ignorant and delusional you are.

indigenous says

Wealth inequality has been the greatest when the government has intervened the most which are now and the late 1920s.

Wealth inequality spurs government intervention. Any society is just three meals away from violent revolution.

Dan8267 says

capitalism is a limited and obsolete technology

It is not a technology. You appear to not know the definition of the word!

Dan8267 says

Wealth inequality spurs government intervention. Any society is just three meals away from violent revolution.

You are saying that inequality is created by by big corporations. That is wrong. Big business goes out of business when it does not serve it's customers. This would have been the case with GM and AIG if not for government meddling.

Inequality is created through the central bank and inflation.

indigenous says

Dan8267 says

capitalism is a limited and obsolete technology

It is not a technology.

And that is why you have the world view of a barbarian.

Dan8267 says

And that is why you have the world view of a barbarian.

You left out the part where I indicate that you do not know the definition of capitalism.

IOW you do not know what you do not know.

You can define a word however you want. That does not change the nature of the thing you refer to with that word.

But hey, prove to me that you really do understand the concept of capitalism better than I do. What is the single most important defining attribute of capitalism as oppose to any other possible economic system?

I'll suck your cock if you get the answer correct. That's how confident I am that you won't. You have one chance, so don't blow it, and you have to answer by midnight EST.

Dan8267 says

That does not change the nature of the thing you refer to with that word.

Say What.... It is imperative to define a word the same way the rest of the world does, otherwise you are talking gibberish.

an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

Dan8267 says

I'll suck your cock if you get the answer correct.

Go fuck yourself.

indigenous says

Go fuck yourself.

No man deserves that much pleasure.

indigenous says

an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

Congratulations, you can Google "capitalism definition" and then copy and paste the Oxford definition. Of course, Oxford is entirely correct, but you failed to answer the actual question posed.

The key word in the definition is owners, not producers of wealth. Additionally, the wealth generated by the productive members of society are also controlled and distributed by the owners. And that is the fundamental flaw of capitalism. Capitalism does not reward wealth production, but rather only bargaining power and it gives all that bargaining power almost exclusively to the owners rather the wealth producer. This does not maximize productivity or effeciency. Nor does it establish a free market as all markets are rigged by owners, especially the labor market. Furthermore, allowing owners unrestricted control over the distribution of wealth they did not create cause corruption and perverse incentives that generate systemic poverty and waste the potential production of vast numbers of people.

An obvious improvement over capitalism is to distribute wealth based on productivity rather than ownership, especially since the ownership model invariably concentrates wealth and thus further ownership in the hands of a few individuals. Not only does this cause most of the population to have to permanently endure a lower quality of life than supported by the technological level of a society, but it also massively decreases productivity and total wealth by disrupting the virtuous cycle of production and consumption.

Of course, all criticism of a religion falls on deaf ears. The brainwashed zealots refuse to accept any evidence or reason that contradicts their dogma.

By the way, the single most important defining attribute of capitalism as oppose to any other possible economic system is those who have wealth use it to gain exclusive control of production and trade and use the profit from these to gain further control of production and trade at the expense of all those who perform the actual production and trade. All economic systems depend on production and trade. The fundamental flaw of capitalism is that it punishes those who produce in order to unjustly and counter-productively reward those who own. This flaw is amplified by the fact that owners, having siphoned off productive people's wealth creation, then use that profit to own more and push out all productive people from being owners. So you have a class of worthless, parasitic fat cats whose opulence slows economic growth, stability, and sustainability. Meanwhile, capitalism discourages being a productive member of society and encourages non-productive zero-sum games.

You will not hear what I'm about to say, which begs the question, why bother. You are the one who conflates religion with economics.

The ONLY time there is a monopoly is with the help of government, fucking period. Standard Oils share of the market at it's height was 88% by the time Roosevelt got around to his bullshit, Standard Oil's share had dropped to 64%.

The ONLY exception yous can come up with is De Beers, and their use of government in their business was definitely dubious.

The market place in a relentless, incessant, unabating task master that keeps the owners of production constantly changing. All to the benefit of the standard of living of the world.

You need to inspect your ideas because they do not add up...

indigenous says

The ONLY time there is a monopoly is with the help of government, fucking period

That's a thinly veiled No True Scotsman argument. All monopolies use their money and power to corrupt government to maintain and expand their monopoly. This is the effect, but not necessarily the cause, of monopolies. The De Beers monopoly was not formed by government, but rather by independent diamond mining companies that realized their "precious and rare" diamonds were at best common semi-precious gems. You are simply wrong.

The Standard Oil Trust was formed by Rockefeller, not government. In fact government fought against the monopoly as was common back then.

The Standard Oil Trust was formed in 1863 by John D. Rockefeller. He built up the company through 1868 to become the largest oil refinery firm in the world. In 1870, the company was renamed Standard Oil Company, after which Rockefeller decided to buy up all the other competition and form them into one large company.

The company faced legal issues in 1890 following passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act. That also brought unwanted attention to the company by Ida M. Tarbell, a McClure's Magazine reporter, who began an investigation. Following publication of her report, the Standard Oil Company was forced to break up into separate state companies — the "Seven Sisters" — each with its own board of directors.

The problem is that Republicans, not government, are responsible for most monopolies today, but those corrupt politicians help monopolies form because of outright bribery from the owner class. Again, the problem stems from capitalism, allowing owners to control the distribution of wealth created by others.

indigenous says

The ONLY exception yous can come up with is De Beers, and their use of government in their business was definitely dubious.

There are plenty of examples. Of course my listing them won't convince you to admit your mistake, but it will demonstrate your hypocrisy.
International Harvester and American Tobacco
Standard Oil
U.S. Steel
Microsoft
Hudson’s Bay Company
Luxottica
Monsanto

And those are just the famous ones. But we should also include oligopolies, which are just as bad and almost all industries are controlled by oligopolies. Remember Tucker?www.youtube.com/embed/0Y_Bqn-6uko

And here's a documentary on Tucker.

www.youtube.com/embed/5i7mNynGLmM

indigenous says

You need to inspect your ideas because they do not add up...

You're just bad at math. Another thing that comes from being religious rather than scientific. Engineers are good at math. Disciples are not.

You are not an engineer... Which may be why your logic is so flawed. Conjecture does not equal a fact.
Once again The ONLY time there is a monopoly is with the help of government, fucking period

indigenous says

Conjecture does not equal a fact.

No shit Sherlock. Thanks for coming around to my point.

indigenous says

Once again The ONLY time there is a monopoly is with the help of government, fucking period

An empirically false statement does not become true no matter how many times you repeat it.

Ironman says

indigenous says

Conjecture does not equal a fact.

In Dan's world, it absolutely does!

A retarded statement does not become intelligent no matter how many village idiots like it.

bgamall4 says

Maybe that is why God, in the Old Testament, determined

If your god is real, let him govern the world. We can stop all taxation, eliminate the military, drop all social services and infrastructure, and stop researching a cure for cancer. Put everything in the hands of god. I'm sure the only reason people live twice as long as they did in the Bronze Age is because god wants it that way, not because of technology and human effort.

Ironman says

Yet, you'll keep repeating the same shit, over and over...

Dan8267 says

An empirically false statement does not become true no matter how many times you repeat it.

There are no examples of a monopoly without government:

International Harvester and American Tobacco

Standard Oil, I already showed that their market share went from 88% to 64% by the time Roosevelt "regulated" them.

U.S. Steel, went from 67% in 1901 to 50% in 1911

Microsoft, went from 95% in 2000 to 20% today

Hudson’s Bay Company, After 1821, a group of independent free traders among the Métis population at the Red River Colony opposed the company's monopoly rights, which had been renewed by Parliament for another 20 years in 1838. Read more at the Wiki

Luxottica they have 29% of the market, not a monopoly

Monsanto, they have about 30% of the market, not a monopoly

NO, Once again The ONLY time there is a monopoly is with the help of government, fucking period

So the only argument you can make in defense of capitalism is that eventually the parasitic monopolies it creates are crushed under their own weight. That's a pretty weak defense and offers no reason to object to developing alternative economic systems.

Why do I bother.

No, GFD. The standard of living of their customers is raised otherwise the customer would NOT shop there, is that so hard to understand???

And when they no longer are competitive they get thrown to the scrap heap.

indigenous says

Standard Oil, I already showed that their market share went from 88% to 64% by the time Roosevelt "regulated" them.

You're wrong, and we've been over this ground in another thread. SCOTUS broke up Standard Oil in 1911, after more than two decades of attempts to trust bust it.
learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/may-15-1911-supreme-court-orders-standard-oil-to-be-broken-up/

Monopolies arise in the unregulated free market - as Standard Oil did in the 19th Century, the golden age of unregulated capitalism so celebrated by Austrians and Glibertarians.

thunderlips11 says

You're wrong

No you are, we have been over this before and you're still wrong. There market share went down because of competition.

thunderlips11 says

indigenous says

Standard Oil, I already showed that their market share went from 88% to 64% by the time Roosevelt "regulated" them.

You're wrong, and we've been over this ground in another thread.

Of course, no facts or evidence will convince an idiot that he's wrong. However, presenting them does convince everyone else that he's an idiot, and that's the point really.

There is no way indigenous is man enough to admit he's wrong. So he just repeats his dogma as if repetition trumps evidence and historical records.

Dan8267 says

Of course, no facts or evidence will convince an idiot that he's wrong. However, presenting them does convince everyone else that he's an idiot, and that's the point really.

There is no way indigenous is man enough to admit he's wrong. So he just repeats his dogma as if repetition trumps evidence and historical records.

I challenge you to overturn any one of the facts that I posted. Of course you are all about conjecture...

indigenous says

I challenge you to overturn any one of the facts that I posted.

www.youtube.com/embed/jiGh4ui7CxI

The ONLY time there is a monopoly is with the help of government, fucking period.

indigenous says

Dan8267 says

Tell that to De Beers.

They had the monopoly through cronyism in the GOVERNMENT

indigenous says

No if you read up on it De Beers built their monopoly by holding a monopoly on the mines through the local governments.

OK, let's go with that false assertion. You claim De Beers was created by government.

From the documentary Crystallization Of Corruption

www.youtube.com/embed/wZFQR4Fyprg

This documentary says the same things as the following sources. I know your too damn lazy to watch the documentary since you have the attention span of a five-year-old, so...

Business Insider: The History of De Beers and Diamonds

The story of De Beers starts with English-born businessman Cecil Rhodes, who broke into the diamond business in South Africa by renting water pumps to miners before buying diamond fields of his own

Rhodes, sensing he had ventured into an untapped market, bought up diamond fields, including one owned by two brothers named "de Beer." In 1880, he bought the claims of fellow entrepreneur and rival Barney Barnato to create the De Beers Mining Company.

The tendency in diamond mining is to combine with smaller groups to form larger ones. Individuals needing common infrastructure form diggers committees, and small claim holders wanting more land merge into large claimholders. Thus, it only took a few years for De Beers to become the owner of virtually all South African diamond mines.

By the time Rhodes died in 1902, De Beers controlled 90% of the world's rough-diamond production and distribution, but it was Ernest Oppenheimer who made the company an empire

Oppenheimer, a rival diamond producer with his own production company (Anglo American Corporation, which will reappear later in the story) essentially bought his way onto the board of directors over the years. By 1927, he was chairman of the board.

Under Oppenheimer, De Beers and its Central Selling Organization established exclusive contracts with suppliers and buyers, making it impossible to deal with diamonds outside of De Beers.

The structure of the business remained the same for much of the 20th century: A De Beers subsidiary would buy the diamonds. De Beers would determine the amount of diamonds they wanted to sell, and at what price, for the whole year. Each producer would then get a cut of the total output, and buyers would take their diamonds to be resold in places like Antwerp and New York.

Monopoly established with ABSOLUTELY NO government intervention.

And these facts are independently confirmed by Resource Investor

In the late 1800s after a massive diamond discovery in South Africa, a diamond rush was born, and businessman Cecil Rhodes bought as many diamond mining claims as he could, including farmland owned by the De Beer family. By the turn of the century, Rhodes had accumulated enough properties that his company accounted for the majority of the world’s supply of rough diamonds. He called his company De Beers Consolidated Mines Limited.

As De Beers maintained a hold on the worlds rough diamond supply through the first quarter of the 20th century, financer Ernest Oppenheimer began accumulating shares of De Beers whenever available, and reached a controlling stake of the company by the mid-1920s. Under Oppenheimer’s control, De Beers further expanded into every facet of the diamond industry, intent on monopolizing distribution. De Beers successfully influenced just about all of the world’s rough suppliers to sell production through the De Beers channel, gaining control of the global supply not produced by De Beers mines. The cartel was born, giving Oppenheimer the power to influence diamond supply and thus diamond prices.

And again confirmed by Greenwood Economics

There are no real legal barriers to directly enter the diamond industry, although many regions require firms to pay tariffs on the resources the extract. De Beers essentially acts as a cartel over the diamond industry, holding stakes in nearly all of the world’s major diamond mines and controlling the price of diamonds in the market.

De Beers has taken control over their essential resource, in this case rough diamonds. They have control over nearly 60% of the world’s rough uncut diamonds. Most diamonds come at one point or another from De beers, either directly or indirectly. The company is so large that it can actually afford to buy up significant portions of other diamonds similar to those of their competitors and flood markets with them. De beers also has deals with many diamond producing nations allowing them to purchase and produce their rough uncut stones. Since the diamond giant is so powerful in the industry it can choose exactly who it sells its product to and how much they must purchase it for. Because of their control over price and quantity De Beers is able to operate a successful monopoly.

Again, no government.

Care to start apologizing for your ignorance and arrogance?

That was one company on the list, come on lazy ass get them all answered and maybe I will exert more effort to school you.

indigenous says

There are no examples of a monopoly without government:

indigenous says

Once again The ONLY time there is a monopoly is with the help of government, fucking period

indigenous says

The ONLY time there is a monopoly is with the help of government

indigenous says

I challenge you to overturn any one of the facts that I posted. Of course you are all about conjecture...

I think Dan just ate your lunch.

You think?, prove it.

indigenous : All reindeers have an iron skeleton.

Bob: No they don't.

indigenous: Prove it.

Bob: Here's a reindeer. [Shoots reindeer. Cuts open reindeer and extracts its skeleton.] Look, the skeleton is made of calcium, not iron.

indigenous: Prove it.

Bob: Magnets stick to iron. See how this magnet is not sticking to the reindeer's skeleton, but it does stick to that iron stove.

indigenous: ALL REINDEERS have an iron skeleton. Of course you are all about conjecture...

Joe: Bob did just prove that at least this reindeer does not have an iron skeleton. And if we repeat the experiment with other reindeers, we get the same result.

indigenous: Prove it.

Bob: [Kills another reindeer and repeats the process. Does this ten times.] OK, we've shown multiple examples of reindeers having calcium skeletons not iron ones. You are wrong.

indigenous: No you are, we have been over this before and you're still wrong. Reindeers have IRON skeletons. Once again The ONLY skeleton reindeer have is IRON, fucking period.

Joe: Bob just proved you wrong just now right in front of everyone.

indigenous: You think?, prove it.

Conclusion: indigenous is a failed attempt at artificial intelligence that cannot correct false information hardwired in its code.

Wow you are really fucked up!

indigenous says

Wow you are really fucked up!

There was nothing you could possibly have posted that would confirm exactly what I just said more than what you just posted.

You think your asinine analogy is the same zip code of the subject is indicative of your psychosis.

indigenous says

[As RAW general manager, I think] You think your asinine analogy is the same zip code of the subject is indicative of your psychosis.

www.youtube.com/embed/OWn0OCs0h-E

Your opinions mean nothing, and you put the ass in assertions.

apparently you identify with the Rock, sad really...

indigenous says

apparently you identify with the Rock, sad really...

Compared to wimp like you, yes. I'm stronger, better looking, and have a lot more money than you. And chicks will always choose to have sex with me over you.

Like I said you are really fucked up

And since you said it, it must be true. No need for evidence. Typical conservative. Everything is about faith, not proof.

We are at post 82, I have yet to see you post anything but conjecture...

That's your fault, no one else's. The evidence is there. You just are willfully ignorant. And that is why you deserve no respect.

Dan8267 says

That's your fault, no one else's. The evidence is there. You just are willfully ignorant. And that is why you deserve no respect.

No your conjecture dumb ass