patrick.net

Transportation: you don't get the alternative of a decent train system like other countries do, because GM bribes Congressment to keep Amtrack underfunded, and CSX and other rail companies bribe Congress to stop any new passenger competitors from using the tracks, which were originally built partly using taxpayer money.

Very true, although Palo Alto/Menlo Park NIMBYs have been a great impediment to California High Speed Rail thus far, the freight companies also have obnoxious requirements that don't make sense, except for rent-seeking.

mbodell says

Hmm:

1. The private sector is always the most efficient way to run anything.
2. You can't let the gov't try to compete with us in [health insurance|health care|education|post office|research|startup funding] because they'll put us out of business!

Anyone see a contradiction?

Yes, I've brought this up to many libertarian types, and their usually weak argument at that point is that something about the government having unlimited funds for subsidies. The problem is that politics prevent government from having unlimited funds in almost every case (education? healthcare? R&D?), and likely result in government having more limited funds than private enterprise.

If private entities are always more efficient, they should be able to overcome and have more cash to plow into the business. The reality is that there is a balance between the two, and we can argue where the line should be drawn, but it's not generally at either extreme.

HeadSet says

Unfortunately, niether your way or mine addresses the issue of "news." That is, TV, Radio, and Newspaper owners could run disguised campaign ads for their favorites under the banner of reporting current events.

Agreed. The "one side said, and the other side said" news cycle without analysis gets tiring. It's an attempt to be "balanced" that falls entirely flat and is basically the death of real journalism.

No, it's very common. It's called being homeless.

I would not say it is common to be homeless. I would not call homeless people as being self sufficient. If someone was a farmer and could grow all the food he/she would need and made their own tools then I would say yes. As a community I would argue the Amish are like that to a point.

I'm saying that when corporations bribe Congress to eliminate competition, you are stuck with involuntary higher payments. That's a tax, only it flows from you to corporations rather than from you to government.

Lobbying as a concept I wouldn't call a bribe because in order to bribe people and get results you would have to get a majority to get their way. More importantly since most lobbying firms have opposition (simple Hegelian dialectic) they would compete technically to who could give the most. It is doubtful that people would give money back even though their side might have "lost". I doubt that peace advocates solicited Ron Paul or Bernie Sanders for their money back after the Iraq war started.

Any group has their interests. All groups are basically special interests. It is only natural to petition government with yea or nay on given issues. The government does have the power to make things legal/illegal, regulate, deregulate etc. This goes on the federal, state and even local level. It is not just big companies on a national scale that do this.

Vermont has a program called choices for care that enables people to take care of a elderly friend or relative and the state compensates that person $10/hr. This program provides a choice instead of a nursing home. It actually saves the state money because nursing homes aren't really nurses (I know there's part of the site targeted towards this subject). Naturally nursing home companies try to lobby to somehow say that they do "better" care but the cost structure probably scares the heck out of them.

In Mass you cannot do plumbing work in walls, ceilings or floors. If it is exposed you can put in whatever you want (toilet, sink, water basin etc). Plumbers unions lobby to keep that law in place because they fear the loss of potential revenue.

Lobbying if we like it or not can create change. Would we have had Civil Rights pass if it wasn't for the NAACP? Would abortion be legal if it wasn't for the ACLU and NARAL? Would the ability to legally have a gun be the same if it wasn't for the NRA?

It is natural to petition government and as a individual a voice is not heard which explains why people form groups around their interests.

Sometimes people within government might not have the expertise in a given subject so that is why they are lobbied. For example the ADA..how many representatives use wheelchairs or know what it is like to depend on one to use? heck right now the postal workers union is lobbying for itself to prevent cuts. Actually most governmental unions do that every day.

We might not like political parties or lobbying but at least it makes some actions predictable. In Brazil the party structure is so weak that it is meaningless. Someone new as president..ok so what does that mean? No one really knows. Predictability (right or left) can create a better environment for expectations and thus potentially stability. Granted I would say we have more gridlock now than in the 1990's..I wish Obama would take a page from Clinton.

monkframe says

"The real problem is a 2006 Congressional mandate that requires USPS to pre fund the cost of retiree health benefits."

Bingo!
Honest Abe hits upon a major reason that the USPS is sinking. Cities, states and counties also are sinking in part because of similar federal mandates. These rules have shown the unsustainability of pensions promised to public workers. Whether Congress did this as a political move or through genuine concern about this growing problem I don't know.

I don't know about USPS but the only federal mandate for cities, states, and counties was an accounting rule change that says the future cost of obligations must be shown. Not funded, just accounted for. Cities, states, and counties are sinking because decades of unfunded pension and medical obligations are now coming due.

mdovell says

if we took money spent on health care and promoted more people to become doctors, nurses and nurse practioners then health care can potentially go down in price.

I doctor I once worked with explained to me that the main function of the AMA is to lobby Congress to make sure that never happens for doctors. They bribe Congress to keep the supply of doctors artificially limited, so that you have to pay more. Same story as all the other bribes.

Interesting. There have been at least 6-8 posts on patrick.net saying that this simply isn't true, I've done at least 2. Yet Patrick either doesn't recall them or is so focused on his ideological arguments that he is ignoring them.

For the record neither the AMA and congress have any control over the supply of doctors. Doctors are limited by the number of slots in state funded medical schools, and residency programs (funded by the states and medicare). There are a few private medical schools, but at 60-90k+ a year for tuition alone most prospective doctors are limited to state schools.

Foreign doctors are limited by the ability to get a visa, a really big deal post 9/11, ability to pass the USMLE exams (USMLE is administered by an independent body called the Federation of State Medical Boards that is not affiliated with the AMA in any way), the number of residency slots (again), and state licensing boards.

bob2356 says

For the record neither the AMA and congress have any control over the supply of doctors.

Wrong.

In his classic book Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman describes the American Medical Association (AMA) as the “strongest trade union in the United States” and documents the ways in which the AMA vigorously restricts competition. The Council on Medical Education and Hospitals of the AMA approves both medical schools and hospitals. By restricting the number of approved medical schools and the number of applicants to those schools, the AMA limits the supply of physicians.

from http://wallstreetpit.com/5769-the-medical-cartel-why-are-md-salaries-so-high

Friedman is a right-wing economist who is trying to defend the free market. This is an issue that both left and right should be able to agree on.

And to belabor the point without pity: the big problem is that campaign contributions are a legalized form of bribery. They are given with the expectation of influencing laws to extract extra taxes (OK, rents) from the defenseless public by law.

The solution is publicly funded campaigns and a ban on private campaign contributions, like Dylan Ratigan proposed recently.

Right now, they sell us out, ruin our economy, raise our bills, and it's all legal.

without a huge scale down of this government there isn't much that can be done. IMO Only way this will get resolved if the government shrinks and we have more Democracy.

FortWayne says

there isn't much that can be done

There IS something that can be done: publicly funded elections and a ban on private campaign money.

When we have less money in politics, will we have more democracy.

The debate is at a pretty wide scope: Publically funded elections, "single payer" healthcare contributions, etc. I'm interested in the main topic: The post office and campaign contributions.

Since the numbers from mafia, er, union contributions and fedex/ups are so close, it's not really too much of an issue in changing politicians minds. I also don't think campaign contributions are where the real money is at. Think of all those "speeches" Bill Clinton gave for a million dollars each or how his relatives get those high paid comfy jobs. That's where all the cronyism is. The public contributions are chicken feed compared to all of that.

Now regarding the USPS versus UPS/Fedex: Keep in mind the PO is more efficient because they make daily deliveries and aggregate mail. So if they were taken out of the picture, the private companies would work similar to cable companies which are sometimes competing with each other to lower prices. Think Cox is charging you too much? Call them and say you're switching to FIOS.

In addition, nothing like competition to help curb those huge union pension demands.

So I would guess that if Fedex and UPS were making more trips to different neighborhoods, that their overhead would shrink. In addition, they can do what the USPS has suggested: Go on different delivery days. Indeed... imagine this: UPS delivers on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and Fedex on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Don't like the price of one? Go to the other!

FortWayne says

a huge scale down of this government

There IS something that can be done: publicly funded elections and a ban on private campaign money.

WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE TO GET THESE IDEAS OFF THE GROUND ?

The presenting issue is the pre-payment of retiree health benefits by the USPS mandated in the 2006 law, requiring the payment of roughly $5.5 billion each year for 10 years. It will fulfill prepayment of these benefits for 75 years. That’s right; 75 years! Indeed, they are prepaying benefits for postal workers who aren’t even born yet. And payment is demanded in only 10 years. The payment is due September 30 and (surprise) the postal service doesn’t have the money.

The USPS obviously generates a lot of cash flow. It would be a huge boon to UPS and FedEx to have the USPS out of the way in the package delivery market. First class mail service – an authorized monopoly – would probably look pretty good, too.

Politically, the largest unions in the USA could be wrecked, a plum for the ideologues intent on destroying all forms of organized labor and collective bargaining. Yes, Koch Industries has provided nice campaign donations to both Issa and Ross.

Issa and Ross (and the Kochs) salivate at the thought of the USPS “defaulting” and then being able to take over and dictate terms, particularly the elimination of recently concluded labor contracts.

The problem is the pension monster. Federal pensions exceed social security. Pensions are the ponzi scheme... all but the most haplessly naive liberals (patrick?) believe that a social security "trust fund" exists with real assets. You can't have a scheme when nobody is fooled. Federal pensions are the real scheme.

Postal service workers are unionized with bloated pensions. That means that barring cuts, where they have to get paid on private sector lines (and I mean real private sector, as in $15/hour with minimal benefits), not seven figure pensions including their health care, postal service is preposterously inefficient. Hiring and firing should be normal, as a in a normal business. This means abolishing the postal unions.

Of course, you can assume that manichean politicians are bought off in such a crass way, but more likely union scale wages are simply asinine in a world with 20% real employment.

Don't mind the interruption of reality... things like the Eu blowing up because of 7 figure pension of government workers showing up two days a week in Greece...go back to your fantasy world of paranoid corporate conspiracies.

Another Contrived Crisis for Profit: Exploiting the US Postal Service and Its Workers

http://www.dailymarion.com/2011/09/21/another-contrived-crisis-for-profit-exploiting-the-us-postal-service-and-its-workers/

Although the postal service must technically exist as per the constitution it does not mean that it has to be as large as what it is. If there isn't enough to validate a office then it can close.

In Mass under our state constitution every child is legally entitled to a public education. If they want a private one that's fine but this is enshrined. Of course it doesn't say how to pay for it or that it doesn't specifically have to be in a given town. In Providence town Mass they had to close the high school.

http://www.wbur.org/2010/06/11/provincetown-high-school

"But much has changed since that senior’s parents were in school here. In a building that housed hundreds just a generation ago, there are now just 56 students in grades seven through 12. That makes for an intimate school, where students say their classmates can feel more like family. But that small student body is also what’s closing the school down. The Provincetown school committee has decided there aren’t enough kids to keep the doors open."

Under theory they could simply jack up the taxes (property taxes I'm assuming..maybe excise or meals tax) and save the school. But to have just 56 students spread over six grades is pretty small. There is a economy of scale to make sure that a government program is sustainable. If you take a town and create some new housing (that isn't 55+) you can generally assume there will be more children and thus more demand for education.

But when populations shrink it runs counter to this assumption. We've been so used to creating and building more but if no one uses it then the costs can go up.

The problem with the post office is they aren't the monopoly that they once were. Once you have competition you have to compete. If you cannot compete then you end up closing. Post offices used to be centers of town but not so much anymore. Back before the internet, before the box stores, before the malls and before the highway systems there was Sears. Sears was catalog based for quite some time and made a fortune. Now Sears itself is much smaller and cannot do nearly as much (I predict it will collapse in a few years).

Then again at one point AM radio was huge..still exists but not nearly as much. FM sounds better (yes I know about AM stereo) and one can say sirius/xm has more content and of course there are also podcasts and streaming radio stations now.

It seems like our problems have just begun.

bob2356 says

For the record neither the AMA and congress have any control over the supply of doctors.

Wrong.

In his classic book Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman describes the American Medical Association (AMA) as the “strongest trade union in the United States” and documents the ways in which the AMA vigorously restricts competition. The Council on Medical Education and Hospitals of the AMA approves both medical schools and hospitals. By restricting the number of approved medical schools and the number of applicants to those schools, the AMA limits the supply of physicians.

from http://wallstreetpit.com/5769-the-medical-cartel-why-are-md-salaries-so-high

Friedman is a right-wing economist who is trying to defend the free market. This is an issue that both left and right should be able to agree on.

And to belabor the point without pity: the big problem is that campaign contributions are a legalized form of bribery. They are given with the expectation of influencing laws to extract extra taxes (OK, rents) from the defenseless public by law.

Even more interesting. Here is the relevant section from Friedman's the book, which was published in 1962 and has had no revisions by the way . http://www.fff.org/freedom/0194e.asp He doesn't document anything despite what wallstreetpit says. He only makes assertions without any kind of documentation or references at all except exactly one anecdotal story from the 1930's.

The Council on medical education hasn't even existed since the 1940's coinciding with Friedman's publishing date. Medical school accreditation is currently done by the LCME (Liaison Committee on Medical Education). Here is an overview http://www.lcme.org/overview.htm . If you actually read this I would like some type of explanation how campaign contributions enter into the picture. They are simply an accrediting commission. There is no, zero, none, interface with congress.

Yes to some degree accreditation could be considered restrictive, but that fails to explain why all the state medical schools (which are almost all of the 159 medical schools, I notice wallstreetpit said the number was 130. So much for their credibility. They also fail to mention there have been something like 6 new medical schools opened in the last 8 years and there are 18 new medical schools currently in the process of being accredited. Don't let pesky facts interfere with a good ideological rant) that are already accredited and operating don't simply expand their programs. How do congressional campaign contributions prevent state legislatures from simply expanding medical school budgets and allowing the programs to grow? State universities set the size of the programs by the needs of the state and the budgets allocated to them, not by congressional decree.

You are creating a circular argument. You are saying that the number of doctors is low because of government interference. Yet the vast majority of doctors go to state medical schools, which are subsidized by government (aka taxpayers). If all doctors had to go to highly expensive private medical schools the number of doctors would plummet.

I would agree that you could accept friedman's assertion that no one should be licensed or accredited for anything. That would certainly increase the numbers. That was the exact situation in the US 100 years ago that wallstreetpit seems to believe is such a desirable state of affairs. That option actually still exists now. You are free to seek treatment in a variety of countries that don't actually license much of anything. Try it out next time you have a serious medical problem, let everyone know how it turns out. I will continue to go to people with MD after their names.

Bellingham Bob says

No it didn't.

1990 12.4
1991 13.1
1992 13.4
1993 13.7
1994 13.6
1995 13.7
1996 13.7
1997 13.6
1998 13.6
1999 13.6
2000 13.7

It went from 13.7 to 13.6..that is a decrease. It might not be that significant but that is a decrease.Bellingham Bob says

Subjective.

We've reached the point where per-capita health costs are just too damn high.

Unlike here, the system there, being a responsive government program, is improving.

Do you think US medical care will ever get less expensive on its own?

If it is subjective then it is subjective given the actions of the Supreme Court of Canada as that's what was considered in the Quebec case. We can disagree with court actions but generally we have to accept them.

Not everything is covered by the health care system in canada nearly a third buy supplemental insurance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada

This part is a bit interesting as capacity can appear to be an issue sometimes.

"In 2007, it was reported that Canada sent scores of pregnant women to the US to give birth.[76] In 2007 a woman from Calgary who was pregnant with quadruplets was sent to Great Falls, Montana to give birth. An article on this incident states there were no Canadian hospitals with enough neo-natal intensive beds to accommodate the extremely rare quadruple birth.[77]
A January 19, 2008, article in The Globe and Mail states, "More than 150 critically ill Canadians – many with life-threatening cerebral hemorrhages – have been rushed to the United States since the spring of 2006 because they could not obtain intensive-care beds here. Before patients with bleeding in or outside the brain have been whisked through U.S. operating-room doors, some have languished for as long as eight hours in Canadian emergency wards while health-care workers scrambled to locate care." [78]
In 2010, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams traveled to the US for heart surgery."

Even Michael Moore implied that people will be willing to wait but will they really? That can be the key question here. I don't see the USA really being a patient society. Microwaves, high speed internet, on demand cable and of course fast food. I've been to France and the idea of someone taking 90-120 minutes at a cafe to eat and watch people just doesn't sell in the USA.

Another question can be if immediate access simply allows hypochondriacs to absorb more of the system. How much is actually just psychosomatic in nature?

Canada certainly has an odd set of laws where technically you can kinda run a private practice but only if you accept government funds at government rates (how is that private ?) If you accept non governmental patients in excess you get shut down (sounds like Wickard vs Filburn again)

Bob makes a good point as well. Doctors (and vets for that matter) gravitate towards what is more lucrative. Specialty care naturally can charge more for general care. Maybe a license should be more contingent on practice. What if a specialist had to carry a general patient amount for a few years...say 50/50 and it shrinks with time.

Patrick,

If you truly believe that a piece of 1st class mail can be delivered for 50 cents, then you should be cheering the removal of USPS monopoly privilege on 1st class mail . . . so that you can organize your own deliver service.

There is no need to shutdown USPS. Just let other companies, any and all companies, to deliver 1st class mail if they wish, instead of retaining the USPS monopoly . . . and if USPS loses money, the workers are welcome to work for free or no pay so long as the rent on the buildings are paid, no dragooning of taxpayers into paying for subsidizing junk mailers.

As for banning private campaign donations and allowing only "public campaign funding," isn't that what North Korea has? "The Dear Leader" always gets 99% of all votes (the "1%" is magically cooked up to make the result presentable even though nobody there is ever caught to have cast a vote for another candidate, because there is no other candidate!)

There is no such animal as "public"; there are only homo sapien individuals in human society. Some individuals bad together to monopolize violent coercive force and call themselves "government"; some individuals band together and form "corporations" under limited liability laws created by the aforementioned "government" as a tax-farming scheme.

"As for banning private campaign donations and allowing only "public campaign funding," isn't that what North Korea has?"

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html#middle

Bellingham Bob says

technically it's a rent I think.

Yes. Historically this is what they were referred to though they're generally associated with feudal gov. systems...

Bellingham Bob says

"As for banning private campaign donations and allowing only "public campaign funding," isn't that what North Korea has?"

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html#middle

“Nessuna soluzione . . . nessun problema!„

What is your idea of "Middle" in the binary choice between banning vs. not banning?

Banning all private political campaign contribution and making government funding the only source of money for political expression literally is banning all political speech except for pronouncements by those already running the government! It takes money to buy even a megaphone; all pamphlets printing take money, so does internet hosting and even an office to run a political campaign. Should all political expression be at the mercy of government official magnanimity?

FortWayne says

without a huge scale down of this government there isn't much that can be done. IMO Only way this will get resolved if the government shrinks and we have more Democracy.

A weak scaled down government is even more ineffective at resisting the efforts of the monied interests than a strong corrupt one. This is one of the major reasons the US's first government failed and other weak governments have failed throughout history. They simply don't work. You might as well argue to live in a utopia.

All that power has to go somewhere if the government doesn't or can't use it after all and others will use it to their purposes.

We don't necessarily need a weak small gov. What we need are ethical and competent representatives and presidents who are willing to enforce the laws for everyone and to write good laws.

PolishKnight says

Now regarding the USPS versus UPS/Fedex: Keep in mind the PO is more efficient because they make daily deliveries and aggregate mail. So if they were taken out of the picture, the private companies would work similar to cable companies which are sometimes competing with each other to lower prices. Think Cox is charging you too much? Call them and say you're switching to FIOS.

In addition, nothing like competition to help curb those huge union pension demands.

So I would guess that if Fedex and UPS were making more trips to different neighborhoods, that their overhead would shrink. In addition, they can do what the USPS has suggested: Go on different delivery days. Indeed... imagine this: UPS delivers on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and Fedex on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Don't like the price of one? Go to the other!

This is all wrong. All of it. It smacks of ideological nonsense, ridiculously far right "private enterprise is always more efficient and can do no wrong" BS. Anyone who has dealt with the cable companies knows they enforce local monopolies and make it difficult to impossible to switch and UPS and FedEx would do the same.

Anyone with passing familiarity with the issue of funding the USPS knows that UPS and FedEx rely on the USPS to make lots of deliveries and to some extent vice versa since the private delivery companies just won't service many areas. If the USPS is eliminated then FedEx and UPS will drive their prices through the roof and their service quality will still be worse since anyways.

But then the whole funding crisis is manufactured to begin with. USPS's retirement fund is already paid up 30 or 40 years into the future but congress wanted them to full pre fund it. If that law hadn't been passed, which was heavily lobbied for by both UPS and FedEx, then there wouldn't be a funding issue for the USPS at all.

tts says

A weak scaled down government is even more ineffective at resisting the efforts of the monied interests than a strong corrupt one. This is one of the major reasons the US's first government failed and other weak governments have failed throughout history. They simply don't work. You might as well argue to live in a utopia.

The first US government did not fail due to inability to defend itself. The Shayes Rebellion did not even seek to overthrow it. They were simply going after a few corrupt judges. The erroneous report agitated the politicians into acting and putting together a "stronger" government while men like Jefferson happened to be overseas on ambassadorial assignments. That's why there had to be the Bill of Rights (the first 10 Amendaments) shortly after the counter-revolutionary original Constitution without the 10 Amendaments was put together.

All that power has to go somewhere if the government doesn't or can't use it after all and others will use it to their purposes.

What power would that be? Government is the device through which the people are enslaved. Without government fugitive return laws (and its modern day equivalent, immigration control laws arresting people without papers), it would be prohibitively expensive for employers/slavers to track down slaves and keep them as slaves except for on-board an isolated ship on the high sea.

We don't necessarily need a weak small gov. What we need are ethical and competent representatives and presidents who are willing to enforce the laws for everyone and to write good laws.

Haha, you still believe in keeping the Ring to Rule All Rings for good. The real answer is not utopian hopes for those wielding absolute power. Power corrupts therefore power has to be limited and checked . . . i.e. a weak small government that can barely defend itself against more virulent versions of itself.

Reality says

Should all political expression be at the mercy of government official magnanimity?

If the choice is between being ruled by corporate overlords via campaign donations or government officials via the same method then I'll take the government any time.

Of course this is a false dichotomy. Depending on how government sponsored campaigns are set up this need not be an issue. You wouldn't have an official picking and choosing the winners and losers. You just have a series of funding thresholds that kick in based on what office is being ran for. You run for office "x" you and everyone else running for that office gets funding "y" to run and that is it. A level playing field for the most part.

tts says

If the USPS is eliminated then FedEx and UPS will drive their prices through the roof and their service quality will still be worse since anyways.

What's to prevent another company entering the field? Ever heard of DHL? If any one of them charge too much and don't deliver, the consumers have the right to refuse to do business with them . . . ergo it's out of business. USPS however gets money robbed from taxpayers regardless what they do or not do.

tts says

If the choice is between being ruled by corporate overlords via campaign donations or government officials via the same method then I'll take the government any time.

Then you deserve to live under a totalitarian regime. The difference between corporation vs. government is that you at least have some choice the next time you open your wallet when dealing with corporations; even more choices if the corporation does not enjoy government-granted monopoly. Government is where you don't get choice at all (or at least not until the next election year if you are lucky).

Of course this is a false dichotomy. Depending on how government sponsored campaigns are set up this need not be an issue. You wouldn't have an official picking and choosing the winners and losers. You just have a series of funding thresholds that kick in based on what office is being ran for. You run for office "x" you and everyone else running for that office gets funding "y" to run and that is it. A level playing field for the most part.

Are people really so short-sighted that they can't see beyond their own noses? If you have a system like you are proposing, what's to prevent 100,000 people from announcing their candidacy to be the mayor in a single city? It's the cost of election campaign that keep many egotistical individuals from running. If running for an office automatically means you get money to hand out to yourself, your family and your friends, why wouldn't almost everyone run for office? How long do you think the election commission and "public funds" would last in that case before people demanding government officials "pre-qualifying"? i.e. government officials deciding who gets to run who doesn't. Since all private funding is banned in the proposal, there is no early performance to speak of before public funding allocation.

Reality says

The first US government did not fail due to inability to defend itself.

Shayes rebellion had nothing to do with the failure of the Confederation. It was simply one more problem amongst many. Almost nothing worked at all since all the states competed so vigorously and viciously against eachother.

Reality says

What power would that be?

Any powers normally given to a strong government, which in this case is litterally most anything. The right to sell food in a given store, the right to use the street without paying a tax, etc. Anything and everything.

Reality says

Government is the device through which the people are enslaved.

If you want to take this route then fine but you're effectively arguing for anarchy since by this view point any and all governments enslave their people. If you want anarchy or as close to it as you can get it go live in Somalia or something.

Reality says

The real answer is not utopian hopes for those wielding absolute power. Power corrupts therefore power has to be limited and checked

All power corrupts eventually but then that is why we have a system in place to make it possible to replace our representatives. And up until the last 20 years or so it worked pretty well for the most part. If more people would vote and educate themselves about who and what to vote for and if necessary do large determined protests a la the Arab Spring here then we would see some real change. If people don't do this then yes we're fucked for the next few decades, but then would be our fault as a people for not standing up for our rights.

Reality says

What's to prevent another company entering the field?

Lobbying and the typical dirty tricks that all corporations use to curb competition. Nationwide delivery is a big business that needs huge amounts of capital to get set up, you're not going to see Mom n' Pop delivery services competing on the national or even much less state or city level. Maaaaaaybe in city delivery but that is nothing, small potatoes.

Reality says

The difference between corporation vs. government is that you at least have some choice the next time you open your wallet when dealing with corporations

No. Corporations strive for monopoly. Realistically you might have a oligopoly so choice would be restricted between 1 or 2 or even perhaps 3 of the same people/goods/services every time who would all essentially make the same choices and act the same way to maintain the status quo. Which BTW is not so far away from what we have now with our 2 party FPTP voting system which makes it nearly impossible for a 3rd party to become viable. This is made possible via careful control over campaign contributions and other dirty tricks like gerrymandering.

Reality says

If you have a system like you are proposing, what's to prevent 100,000 people from announcing their candidacy to be the mayor in a single city?

You have a petition signing req. (ie. 100 people say they would vote for such and such) and you restrict for age (ie. 20 and over) and limit the number of reps that could be voted on total (ie. no more than 30) and you document the spending and limit and regulate what the money can be spent on. None of this is all that contentious or hard to imagine. To some extent most of these rules already exist if you want to run for office and take donations.

tts says

Shayes rebellion had nothing to do with the failure of the Confederation. It was simply one more problem amongst many. Almost nothing worked at all since all the states competed so vigorously and viciously against eachother.

Where did you learn your history? At Hamilton's Wall Street Empire School? The debtors' rebellion was the official reason for convening the constitutional convention. As for "nothing worked at all," that would be quite some news for people who lived under the Confederation for over a decade. What's wrong with vigorous competition? You are showing your truly color as a monopolist.

If you want to take this route then fine but you're effectively arguing for anarchy since by this view point any and all governments enslave their people.

Ever heard of the expression "necessary evil"? As in the core belief among the founders of this Republic? In other words, all governments are indeed "evil." Some are just necessary to keep out even worse ones.

If you want anarchy or as close to it as you can get it go live in Somalia or something.

Not sure why the advocates of imperialism keep citing the one place on earth that worked better under a brief period of anarchy in the 1990's than under any of the "governments" before or since.

All power corrupts eventually but then that is why we have a system in place to make it possible to replace our representatives. And up until the last 20 years or so it worked pretty well for the most part. If more people would vote and educate themselves about who and what to vote for and if necessary do large determined protests a la the Arab Spring here then we would see some real change. If people don't do this then yes we're fucked for the next few decades, but then would be our fault as a people for not standing up for our rights.

I applaud you for turning around 180 degrees. It should be quite obvious that any "Arab Spring" style revolution would be quite self-defeating if they replace the previous concentration of power with a new and more forceful concentration of power (a la Russian October Revolution). True salvation is through individual rights, not collectivist coercion.

tts says

Lobbying and the typical dirty tricks that all corporations use to curb competition. Nationwide delivery is a big business that needs huge amounts of capital to get set up, you're not going to see Mom n' Pop delivery services competing on the national or even much less state or city level. Maaaaaaybe in city delivery but that is nothing, small potatoes.

The very emergence of FedEX, UPS, DHL, and numerous grocery delivery services prove you wrong. The idea that all parts of the country, regardless how remote, has to have the same level of delivery service, is utterly non-sensical . . . and can only be borne of the the terminally bureaucratical mind. Infrastructures are of course more developed in more developed area. People taking to rural areas take their own chances and figure out their own means of transportation. What's next, should there be taxpayer funded sidewalks all along Ted Turner's millions acres ranch too?

tts says

No. Corporations strive for monopoly.

Somehow the government doesn't? Being a monopoly is the very definition of government. Corporations can archive monopoly status most often via government endorsement.

Realistically you might have a oligopoly so choice would be restricted between 1 or 2 or even perhaps 3 of the same people/goods/services every time who would all essentially make the same choices and act the same way to maintain the status quo.

Only if you have a very static view of how the economy works. Yes, if the economy stagnates and nothing new is ever developed (i.e. in a socialist/communist utopia/distopia), consolidation would take over greater and greater part of the economy, with more and more jobs lost. However, in a real economy less hampered by government intervention, new ways of doing things more efficiently are constantly discovered, and making big wannabe monopolists obsolete before they ever achieve monopoly.

Which BTW is not so far away from what we have now with our 2 party FPTP voting system which makes it nearly impossible for a 3rd party to become viable. This is made possible via careful control over campaign contributions and other dirty tricks like gerrymandering.

And the very first-past-poll system. That's the nature of political process: concentrating more power into those already have an edge via top-down management. That's exactly the opposite of the natural market competitive process driven by consumer choice from bottom up. That's why the big-government imperialists want to subvert the market economy and replace market competition with government political management instead: in order to enrich themselves at the expense of the masses. That's why wealth polarization has been dramatically increased after decades of big-government policies under both political parties.

tts says

You have a petition signing req. (ie. 100 people say they would vote for such and such) and you restrict for age (ie. 20 and over) and limit the number of reps that could be voted on total (ie. no more than 30) and you document the spending and limit and regulate what the money can be spent on. None of this is all that contentious or hard to imagine. To some extent most of these rules already exist if you want to run for office and take donations.

How would you even have the funds to conduct signature drives for major offices (say one that requires 50,000+ signatures to be on the ballot) without allowing private campaign funding? You are not seriously suggesting people running for the President of the US only requires 500 signatures to be on the ballot and get $100,000,000 "public money," are you? What's to prevent 500, or even 5000 friends banding together and get the money to pay each other salaries watching porn all day? Before you suggest having more regulators to prevent that, getting paid salaries to watch porn all day is already what quite a few regulators do!

Reality says

The debtors' rebellion was the official reason for convening the constitutional convention.

It was the straw that broke the camel's back. There were ongoing problems with the Confederation since it was set up, mostly involving interstate trade and the economy in general. All of that was tied to the "strong state/weak federation" mindset of the Confederation. The Confederation would've been dissolved irregardless of the Rebellion at some point.

Reality says

Ever heard of the expression "necessary evil"? As in the core belief among the founders of this Republic? In other words, all governments are indeed "evil." Some are just necessary to keep out even worse ones.

OK so if gov. are all evil and enslave their people just some slightly less so then others then what is the point of even trying to pick one or another? I mean you're enslaved already, being under the power of a government, and that institution is evil and the one that would follow it would be evil and enslave you too. So there is no point trying to reason with the system or change it at all.

Reality says

Not sure why the advocates of imperialism keep citing the one place on earth that worked better under a brief period of anarchy in the 1990's than under any of the "governments" before or since.

Any quick and dirty googles on the history of Somalia show that to be wrong. You have litterally just made stuff up.

Reality says

True salvation is through individual rights, not collectivist coercion.

False dichotomy again. You need a strong political entity to enforce individual rights for everyone, individuals can't do that.

Reality says

If any one of them charge too much and don't deliver, the consumers have the right to refuse to do business with them . . . ergo it's out of business.

In theory yes, in reality NO!

http://www.theonion.com/articles/well-i-guess-ill-just-take-my-business-to-another,21357/

"Well, I Guess I'll Just Take My Business To Another Soulless Multinational Corporation"

The whole point of this thread is that the THE FREE MARKET IS DYING because you just have to bribe Congress and they will happily kill your competition and limit the customer's choices.

If you really love the free market, you should be absolutely for publicly financed campaigns and a ban on private campaign contributions.

If you're not for those, can you think of a better fix?

Reality says

You are not seriously suggesting people running for the President of the US only requires 500 signatures to be on the ballot and get $100,000,000 "public money," are you?

Why not? I already mentioned limiting the number of possible candidates too BTW. As well as limiting and regulating what the money can be spent on. You don't need some vast new office to do this. The CBO or IRS would work just fine. Abuses like spending the money on cars for the family and watching porn would result in prison time and the rest of the cash revoked.

Reality says

The very emergence of FedEX, UPS, DHL, and numerous grocery delivery services prove you wrong.

So 3 major corp. delivery companies and some small potatoes grocery delivery services prove me wrong how? How is a oligopoly of private enterprises working for profit supposed to meet or beat the service and value of the USPS which provides at cost service?

Sure, if you limit the field to the 10 candidates with the most verified signatures, then that's $1B to run a presidential election.

That's actually about what gets spent now anyway:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2006/dec/20/20061220-121843-2600r/

And it's a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things, for a vastly more honest election.

tts says

Why not? I already mentioned limiting the number of possible candidates too

How would you do that? By lottery? Remember, you are proposing all private campaign funding being banned, so nobody can do much to distinguish themselves from the rest of the population.

BTW. As well as limiting and regulating what the money can be spent on. You don't need some vast new office to do this. The CBO or IRS would work just fine. Abuses like spending the money on cars for the family and watching porn would result in prison time and the rest of the cash revoked.

The regulators already watch porn during office hours themselves! Prison time? Don't make me laugh. The prison wardens watch porn too, if not making them. Buying a car for the family is unnecessary when the family member is hired as a campaign manager with car paid for by the campaign. Hundreds of thousands of, if not millions of, Social workers already use "public" credit card for all sorts of personal purchases and free lunches . . . how many of them are in jail? The socialist mind simply fails to grasp how the normal human mind works when spending someone else' money.

Sure, if you limit the field to the 10 candidates with the most verified signatures, then that's $1B to run a presidential election.

The party last night must have been great. Many are still suffering from hangovers on Sunday afternoon. In order to be one of the top 10 in terms of signature count in this country of about 200,000,000 eligible voters, one presumably would have to gather tens of millions of signatures. How would the person do that without private funding paying workers to gather signatures to begin with? That's what you are proposing to ban.