patrick.net

Strategist says

Hey Dan, Jazz I booked you two on a one way flight to Venezuela. Its for May 1, 2017.

Why should Jazz an I leave America? You are the one fucking it up. We're trying to improve America. Those who prevent improvement of a society should be forced to leave it. America is about freedom, not about having an owner royalty class. That shit went out when the Middle Ages ended. Perhaps you should move to Medieval Europe. You seem to love that model. Just don't come crawling back when you are assigned the status of peasant instead of lord.

YesYNot says

There's a middle ground between Venezuela and corporations raining shit down on their neighbors.

Not only middle ground, there's plenty of ground orthogonal to the two. I'm tired of false dichotomies.

Dan8267 says

Strategist says

Hey Dan, Jazz I booked you two on a one way flight to Venezuela. Its for May 1, 2017.

Why should Jazz an I leave America?

I couldn't handle seeing you two in pain anymore. I had to do something.
You can write software out there, and Jazz can write poetry about the horrors of life in America.
I know you will love it there. Send us a postcard, and make us jealous.

Dan8267 says

We're trying to improve America. Those who prevent improvement of a society should be forced to leave it.

Exactly whyI got you one way tickets.

Dan8267 says

Perhaps you should move to Medieval Europe. You seem to love that model. Just don't come crawling back when you are assigned the status of peasant instead of lord.

What? I'm a fucking atheist. They will burn me on the stake the moment I tell them the world is round.

People like Strategist are the reason America needs to be split up into several separate countries. Clearly Americans can't live with each other. So let's see whose economic and social model works best.

Here's a preliminary proposal...

Strategist says

They will burn me on the stake the moment I tell them the world is round.

This is always the risk when you embrace any kind of irrationality. You can live in a world of science or a world of superstitious dogma. In the former, everything is a science, even economics, and is answerable to experimental results.

Dan8267 says

We can and do live peacefully with each other. America is a melting pot, and the people who come here from all over the world live here more peacefully than in their countries of origin.

Strategist says

We can and do live peacefully with each other.

Then demonstrate that principle instead of telling people with different ideas than yours to leave the country. Hypocrisy much?

YesYNot says

The middle ground involves one of two options (1) settle things by making the corporate farmers compensate their neighbors bigly and use environmental controls to mitigate the damage or (2) give the neighbors guns and let them protect their own rights without fear of punishment from the government who will not protect them.

You forgot option #3, which is to shut down the farm, and others just like it to "save the environment". The pork previously produced by these farms would then be imported from filthy third world countries that have absolutely no pollution controls or labor laws.

Dan8267 says

Strategist says

We can and do live peacefully with each other.

Then demonstrate that principle instead of telling people with different ideas than yours to leave the country. Hypocrisy much?

All your ideas have a socialist base, which history has proven never to work. We don't want to go backwards, we want to go forward.
If your ideas are that good do the failed countries like Venezuela a favor and help them out.

Strategist says

All your ideas have a socialist base

Actually, not they don't. You just treat economics like a religion and your dogma is that capitalism and communism, which you confuse with socialism, are the only two choices. They are not. I believe that those who create the wealth should keep their wealth, as oppose to capitalism which states that those who own the infrastructure because their ancestors bribed politicians get to keep the wealth they did not create. So don't misrepresent my arguments. If you aren't smart enough to understand those ideas, that's your problem.

Booger says

The pork previously produced by these farms would then be imported from filthy third world countries that have absolutely no pollution controls or labor laws.

Or give up pork.

Dan8267 says

Strategist says

All your ideas have a socialist base

Actually, not they don't. You just treat economics like a religion and your dogma is that capitalism and communism, which you confuse with socialism, are the only two choices. They are not.

There is communism on one end, and pure capitalism on the other end. All others are somewhere in between. If you have a third alternative, lets hear it.

Dan8267 says

I believe that those who create the wealth should keep their wealth

I'm glad you see the importance of incentives. Humans are basically selfish and greedy, and its not gonna change until evolution dictates it must change.

Dan8267 says

capitalism which states that those who own the infrastructure because their ancestors bribed politicians get to keep the wealth they did not create.

Thats not capitalism, and no one thinks that should be the case.

Strategist says

Dan8267 says

capitalism which states that those who own the infrastructure because their ancestors bribed politicians get to keep the wealth they did not create.

Thats not capitalism, and no one thinks that should be the case.

That's exactly what capitalism is. Someone with political connection obtained the mineral rights to some land for a tiny fraction of their value. Miners extract the minerals for a tiny percentage of their wealth creation. Meanwhile the owner gets rich doing no work.

Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production by a few individual and mass numbers of workers who do not own the fruits of their labor. The owners get to distribute the wealth created by the workers however they see fit, and they always see fit to give the actual wealth producers as little as they can get away with. The owners cut the pie and then decides who gets what piece, while the workers till the land, harvest the crops, and bake the pie. It's a stupid system and it's not efficient.

Strategist says

There is communism on one end, and pure capitalism on the other end. All others are somewhere in between. If you have a third alternative, lets hear it.

The fact that you think all of economics can be reduced to a single dimension demonstrates grave misunderstanding and lack of thought on the subject. There are literally an infinite number of ways economic systems can be built. One alternative is to take away the power of owners to decide pay. A person's total income, both wage and benefits if any, should be determined by one and only one factor: how much that person has produced. By definition, this is not capitalism because the power to decide who gets how much of the wealth is no longer being made by the owners.

The fact is that free markets cannot exist under capitalism because a few of the owners, largely by random selection, will become more powerful and will eliminate competition using that power. This can be done by bribing the government (lobbying), writing legislation and handing it to senators to sign, using laws that only the big and rich can take advantage of, manipulating markets, threatening other businesses that use competitor's products (like Microsoft did), dis-empowering labor through laws, immigration policy, and outsourcing. Put simply, the owners don't like free markets because rigged markets are far more profitable.

You are pretending that capitalism is everything it's not: commerce, private ownership of personal goods, banking, trade, and free markets. Capitalism is a very specific economic mechanism that hands over all power to a small minority called owners who then use that power to ensure that they never have to do any real work while they get the lion's share of other people's economic productivity. A better economic system would reward wealth creation, not wealth ownership. The very root of the word capitalism is "capital" as in money, not productivity. If you are going to defend an economic system, you should at least know what it is.

On simple idea could eliminate the majority of economic problems our country endorse. Simply tie wealth acquisition to wealth creation, not exploitation. Capitalism rewards one and only one thing, bargaining power. My economic system rewards wealth creation. If you need it to have a name, let's call it Americanism.

Dan8267 says

That's exactly what capitalism is. Someone with political connection obtained the mineral rights to some land for a tiny fraction of their value. Miners extract the minerals for a tiny percentage of their wealth creation. Meanwhile the owner gets rich doing no work.

Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production by a few individual and mass numbers of workers who do not own the fruits of their labor. The owners get to distribute the wealth created by the workers however they see fit, and they always see fit to give the actual wealth producers as little as they can get away with. The owners cut the pie and then decides who gets what piece, while the workers till the land, harvest the crops, and bake the pie. It's a stupid system and it's not efficient.

That's communist logic. What land does Google and Apple have?
As for those workers who till the land and work in mines, do you think it matters what the company makes as long as the workers get their fair wages? American workers are among the highest paid in the world.
You are such a phony.

Dan8267 says

The fact that you think all of economics can be reduced to a single dimension demonstrates grave misunderstanding and lack of thought on the subject. There are literally an infinite number of ways economic systems can be built. One alternative is to take away the power of owners to decide pay. A person's total income, both wage and benefits if any, should be determined by one and only one factor: how much that person has produced. By definition, this is not capitalism because the power to decide who gets how much of the wealth is no longer being made by the owners.

ROFL. The owners don't decide the wages. Free markets do. That's Capitalism.
Now tell me why the poor downtrodden exploited American worker makes so much more than the worker in Venezuela where the oil companies are owned by the government.

Strategist, do you think that I have the right to emit unlimited pollution regardless of the effect that I have on my neighbors?

Booger says

You forgot option #3, which is to shut down the farm, and others just like it to "save the environment". The pork previously produced by these farms would then be imported from filthy third world countries that have absolutely no pollution controls or labor laws.

Not likely. The polluter in question is already owned by a Chinese company. They bought Smithfield to insure a pork supply for China.

The solution is to make the farms compensate their neighbors using market based mechanisms to value the damage. Economists have already looked at this in several ways.

YesYNot says

Strategist, do you think that I have the right to emit unlimited pollution regardless of the effect that I have on my neighbors?

You do not have that right. That is why we have laws that says you can't, and if you do, you are likely to get sued.

Don't like Capitalism because of your misguided views, than move in with Kim Un in North Korea and enjoy your communism Dan.

Strategist says

You do not have that right.

What about hog farmers? Is there a limit to how much they should get to pollute?

Strategist says

Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production by a few individual and mass numbers of workers who do not own the fruits of their labor. The owners get to distribute the wealth created by the workers however they see fit, and they always see fit to give the actual wealth producers as little as they can get away with. The owners cut the pie and then decides who gets what piece, while the workers till the land, harvest the crops, and bake the pie. It's a stupid system and it's not efficient.

The dumb "owners" in America decided to pay their workers more than anyone else in the world. LOL.
This garbage is straight out of Karl Marx. Dan, you are a Marxist, plain and simple.

FortWayne says

Don't like Capitalism because of your misguided views, than move in with Kim Un in North Korea and enjoy your communism Dan.

And take Jazz with you.

YesYNot says

Strategist says

You do not have that right.

What about hog farmers? Is there a limit to how much they should get to pollute?

I don't know how much hog farmers pollute. It's a business that stinks. What stinks even more are the oil companies. We extract 90 million barrels of oil out of the earth's crust every single day. It pollutes when we extract it, it pollutes when we transport it, and it pollutes when we use it. And to add insult to injury, the oil money ends up financing terrorism, and the world has to spend $trillions fighting it. It's stupidity beyond belief.

Strategist says

It's stupidity beyond belief.

We agree on that. Hog farming also has lots of externalized costs. Other people pay those costs. Pollution controls would raise the price of pork a bit. That wouldn't be such a bad thing. It's cheap as fuck, and people eat plenty of meat.

FortWayne says

Don't like Capitalism because of your misguided views, than move in with Kim Un in North Korea and enjoy your communism Dan.

Only dumb asses think that communism and capitalism are the only choices. That is literally one-dimensional thinking.

Accepting capitalism is stating that people should not be rewarded for wealth production but rather for bargaining power. It's clearly a stupid mechanism. You are literally stating that people should not get to keep the fruits of their own labor, and that parasites who produce nothing should get that fruit instead.

jazz music says

You became a damn librul!

Can we keep it between us? I have a reputation to maintain.