WiFi Petition

[Lord_of_War]

Confirmed communist.

[Robben_DuMarsch]

Confirmed communist.

I see a purpose in government. That does not make me a communist.

[Lord_of_War]

Confirmed communist.

I see a purpose in government. That does not make me a communist.

Do you prefer socialist? I see the government doing far too much and ruining the country. It is people like you that make me want to leave it.

[borka]

Too bad there is no colony on Mars yet

[Lord_of_War]

I have a much better idea.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech ... 099175.cms

[Jackard]

lol, internet petitions

[dagrimreefah]

If nothing were subsidized, and everyone acted in their best interest, farmers would only grow cash crops.

Everyones' best interest would be profit (as always), which can only be sustained by reasonably meeting the consumer's needs. If a more necessary crop was needed, the price would rise, therefore providing a profit incentive for the farmer to grow it. History also proves this wrong (forgive me for not wanting to indulge you in a history or economics lesson.)

Infrastructure would be slow to develop in areas ripe to prosper, resulting in slower economic growth and a less efficient a response to population shifts.

Utter nonsense. Only in a free market, unfettered by government regulation, will you see the most efficient use of resources and infrastructure development. This is true because resource allocation is regulated by PRICES alone, and prices are regulated by the market. Rather than having this virtually impossible, extremely daunting, unhuman task (setting prices in order to allocate resources efficiently) being undertaken by one/a few entities, which is just foolish. I recall an example of the Communist Chinese having to secretly order American Sear's catalogs in order to get a guideline of how they should set prices for various resources...

There would be less mass transit, which provides an overall more economical alternative to individual transportation.

Private industry handles transportation in my town, and its dirt cheap and efficient. They also give discounts to seniors/disabled. Maybe because its good for business?

. A "free market" operates under the fallacy that individual greed drives only to create the most efficient system. This isn't true, as is evidenced by monopolies, pre-subsidized agriculture, ponzi-schemes.

You just don't know your history. Sounds like you've been filled to the brim with these textbooks/TV programming/your professors. Look at what industrial age America gave the world. Look at what communist Russia gave the world. Go ahead, compare.

As for monopolies? Are you serious? Government BREEDS monopoly. Government subsidies create incentives for industries to seek-out even more subsidies. Same with regulations. Corporations will seek subsidies/seek regulations solely to compete with their rivals. Eventually a corporation will discover that they MUST seek government subsidies in order to survive in the market. They will also discover it becomes more and more impossible to run a business because of the ever mounting and increasing amounts of regulations that have to be complied with. Soon, only the largest monopolies, capable of affording such extravagant regulations, survive. This is how your giant special interest lobbies are born. This is what keeps old dinosaur monopolies like AT&T, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, etc. around forever, despite how bloated and inefficient they are economically. Once these giant house-of-cards fall, they get one giant multi trillion dollar subsidy. They get "bailed out". They fucked up severely and should disappear, but here they are. Bailed out. But hey, its ok, because subsidies are good, right?

But what about that monopoly thing? I didn't see any small businesses, any "Mom and Pop" stores, getting bailed out. They all went out of business.

And as for the ponzi scheme thing.. Here in the USA, Social Security itself is a ponzi-scheme. Its the very defenition of a Ponzi scheme. The government opened a "trust", said its growing over time, and you'll be able to draw on it when you're retired. Over the years, the "trust" disappeared, and Social Security is now funded directly by taxes. Furthermore, the taxes disproportionally hurt the youngest and poorest. Where do you think that "trust" went? It sure as hell didn't go to Social Security recipients...

Unless you argue that creation of regulation by the Government is actually a function of the free market, then I agree.

Yes I agree, a lot of regulations by government are functions of the "free market" (I prefer simply "market") as it was. The only resolution to this problem is to get the government out of the markets.

[Lord_of_War]

I actually agree with dag. However companies should not be allowed to create monopolies.

[Robben_DuMarsch]

If nothing were subsidized, and everyone acted in their best interest, farmers would only grow cash crops.

Everyones' best interest would be profit (as always), which can only be sustained by reasonably meeting the consumer's needs. If a more necessary crop was needed, the price would rise, therefore providing a profit incentive for the farmer to grow it. History also proves this wrong (forgive me for not wanting to indulge you in a history or economics lesson.)

Everyone's best interest in a free market is not in maximizing profit. It is in maximizing their own profit, even at the expense of the overall profit. This is the important distinction.

Food commodities fluctuate in price, depending on their availability in a given year due to crop conditions. The free market "lags" behind the agricultural sector. Without subsidies to cover "bad years" for corn, wheat, and rice farmers (and everything else), you couldn't have more dedicated production, you would need to diversify to remain profitable. Therefore, farmers operating under a "free market" system are required to predict what supply and demand will be the next year, to generate the greatest (or often, in the case of farmers, just sufficient) profit. In having to run farms that can handle several kinds of crop, they put more work into less production.

Ergo

Subsidized crops = more efficient even when considering subsidization expense, and less risk.
Non-Subsidized crops = less efficient, more risk.

As for your other arguments which you wonderfully summed up as:

You just don't know your history.

I suggest that it isn't history that I am unaware of. It is *your* specific brand of skewed, partial, and inaccurate history that I do not know.

Government BREEDS monopoly.

Social Security itself is a ponzi-scheme.

The only resolution to this problem is to get the government out of the markets.

It looks like you have taken a lot of things you don't understand, provided them a label, and blindly hold faith that they are true. Quite like Religion. If your argument is the the superiority of an unrestrained market over a market that operates with Government intervention when appropriate, please make that argument. Don't preach a bunch of conclusions with no supporting evidence or theory.

[Lord_of_War]

Why don't the farmers make a union then? In a free market and as long as there is competition. They could help eachother without the goverments involvement. The responsibility should not be on the government as they tend to muck things up. The government is never the answer you commie.