patrick.net

justme says

Extreme Liberatarian and Ayn Rand fanboy runs Sears into the ground

http://www.salon.com/2013/12/10/ayn_rand_loving_ceo_destroys_his_empire_partner/

Being great at playing finance circle-jerk and robbing retirees, doesn't neccessarily translate to running a retail empire. SURPRISE!

gsr says

Someone has to do this job. The government is doing it, and hence no private consumer protection industry has been started yet.

What pray tell would a private consumer protection agency do? Who would fund it? How would it affect industry? One more pie in the sky libertarian concept that would happen some day if we just waited long enough. Long enough defined as if it didn't happen so far some day it might.

So when the cahouga river caught fire because it was so polluted, millions of people were directly threatened by toxic waste dumps, and the cities had smog so bad you couldn't see 50 feet how much longer should we have waited? When exactly were the private consumer protection agencies going to spring up? How much worse would it have to get? What authority would they have had to stop industry once they magically appeared?

I'm sure there is a libratarian platitude coming to explain it all.

I'm no fan of government, but some things are a government functions no matter how much the libertarians whine about it. The real problem is limiting the creep of scope, which is out of control in same agencies. In the totally dysfunctional political system of today no one says hey agency x has gone too far let's reign them in. The repugs say agency x has to be eliminated and the dumbcrats won't say no it just needs cutting back because it would make them look they are agreeing. Hopeless. The republican agenda of making the country ungovernable is pretty much mission accomplished at this point.

Vicente says

Being great at playing finance circle-jerk and robbing retirees, doesn't neccessarily translate to running a retail empire. SURPRISE!

Domo Origato, Randroid Roboto

Great read, Vincente.