On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 16:13:42 GMT, Jonathan Ball
wrote:

Robert Sturgeon wrote:

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 02:23:58 GMT,
(George Cleveland) wrote:

(snips)


If that was so, the corporations would not have allowed the
imposition of social security taxes, collective bargaining,
the SEC, high income taxes, fair housing laws, OSHA, EPA,
the ADA, minimum wage laws, all the rest of the post-1933
nanny/security state. But all those - and more - WERE
enacted, because the corporations did lose their power.

Jeez, I couldn't have made a better case for strict regulation of
corporations. Virtually every one of those "nanny" state regulations has
made the lives of working people tolerable under capitalism. Without them
the existence of capitalism itself would be in doubt. Revolution, *Red
revolution* was on the agenda in the U.S. in the 1930s. Laissez-faire
capitalism had failed. Roosevelt was able to deflect the demands for
radical change by making humane reforms to an inherently inhumane system.

Perhaps you don't realize it, but above you have made my
case that the corporations did lose their power.
"Laissez-faire capitalism had failed." Indeed it had.

Except that it hadn't. First of all, there never was a
period of "laissez-faire" capitalism.

No, of course not. I was using his term. I took it to mean
something along the lines of, "those who favor laissez faire
capitalism," i.e., industrial capitalists. They did fail.
Their stock market failed to preserve the capital invested
in it during the late 20s. Then they failed to stop the New
Deal's security state from displacing them at the top of
political power. People had lost faith in industrial
capitalism as the basis for their economic well being. They
turned instead to the New Deal.

That's a myth
perpetuated by leftwing teachers' unions in high school
"history" classes for over 60 years. Secondly, the
depression was NOT brought on by any "failure" in the
market. The depression occurred because the Federal
Reserve cut the money supply by some 30%. I don't mean
they cut the growth rate of the money supply; they cut
the absolute amount of money in circulation by 30%,
leading to a massive and uncontrollable deflation.
Milton Friedman basically won his Nobel prize in
economics for showing this.

The reduction of the money supply (made necessary by the
previous inflation caused by fractional reserve banking)
could have been accommodated in the economy if costs had
been allowed to decline. But instead the FDR administration
put in place even more costs such as higher income taxes, SS
taxes, collective bargaining, a disruption in the capital
market by the imposition of the SEC, institutionalizing
inflexible wage rates, etc. They made the depression worse
and much longer than it needed to be. We did need a market
correction to wash out the inflation and bubble market
speculation which occurred during the 20s. We did not need
the Great Depression.

FDR didn't save us from the depression. He made it worse.

(rest snipped)

--
Robert Sturgeon,
proud member of the vast right wing conspiracy
and the evil gun culture.

Robert Sturgeon wrote:

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 16:13:42 GMT, Jonathan Ball
wrote:


Robert Sturgeon wrote:


On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 02:23:58 GMT,
(George Cleveland) wrote:

(snips)



If that was so, the corporations would not have allowed the
imposition of social security taxes, collective bargaining,
the SEC, high income taxes, fair housing laws, OSHA, EPA,
the ADA, minimum wage laws, all the rest of the post-1933
nanny/security state. But all those - and more - WERE
enacted, because the corporations did lose their power.

Jeez, I couldn't have made a better case for strict regulation of
corporations. Virtually every one of those "nanny" state regulations has
made the lives of working people tolerable under capitalism. Without them
the existence of capitalism itself would be in doubt. Revolution, *Red
revolution* was on the agenda in the U.S. in the 1930s. Laissez-faire
capitalism had failed. Roosevelt was able to deflect the demands for
radical change by making humane reforms to an inherently inhumane system.

Perhaps you don't realize it, but above you have made my
case that the corporations did lose their power.
"Laissez-faire capitalism had failed." Indeed it had.

Except that it hadn't. First of all, there never was a
period of "laissez-faire" capitalism.


No, of course not. I was using his term. I took it to mean
something along the lines of, "those who favor laissez faire
capitalism," i.e., industrial capitalists. They did fail.
Their stock market failed to preserve the capital invested
in it during the late 20s. Then they failed to stop the New
Deal's security state from displacing them at the top of
political power. People had lost faith in industrial
capitalism as the basis for their economic well being. They
turned instead to the New Deal.


That's a myth
perpetuated by leftwing teachers' unions in high school
"history" classes for over 60 years. Secondly, the
depression was NOT brought on by any "failure" in the
market. The depression occurred because the Federal
Reserve cut the money supply by some 30%. I don't mean
they cut the growth rate of the money supply; they cut
the absolute amount of money in circulation by 30%,
leading to a massive and uncontrollable deflation.
Milton Friedman basically won his Nobel prize in
economics for showing this.


The reduction of the money supply (made necessary by the
previous inflation caused by fractional reserve banking)

Fractional reserve banking does not by itself cause
inflation. We still have fractional reserve banking today.

could have been accommodated in the economy if costs had
been allowed to decline.

Costs DID decline: that's what deflation is, and we
experience a horrific deflation.

But instead the FDR administration
put in place even more costs such as higher income taxes, SS
taxes, collective bargaining, a disruption in the capital
market by the imposition of the SEC, institutionalizing
inflexible wage rates, etc.

The depression was well under way long before Roosevelt
was inaugurated in 1933.

They made the depression worse
and much longer than it needed to be.

The "making worse" didn't happen until 1937, when the
administration cut spending in pursuit of a balanced
budget.

We did need a market
correction to wash out the inflation and bubble market
speculation which occurred during the 20s. We did not need
the Great Depression.

FDR didn't save us from the depression. He made it worse.

(rest snipped)

--
Robert Sturgeon,
proud member of the vast right wing conspiracy
and the evil gun culture.

"Jonathan Ball" wrote in message
ink.net...
Don wrote:

"Jonathan Ball" wrote

Not all leftists are "vegan", but all "vegans" are
leftists. Get it, now?


Be careful where you paint with that wide brush, you may paint yourself
in a
corner.

Nope. One very articulate and obviously intelligent
poster in alt.food.vegan thought he had disproved my
contention, because he is a reflexive defender of
Republican and conservative orthodoxy, and he said he
was "vegan". However, once I induced him to look in on
talk.politics.animals and
alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian, he realized, and freely
admitted, that he had erroneously conflated following a
"vegan" diet with BEING a "vegan". He no longer calls
himself a "vegan", because he eschews animal products
in his diet entirely for health reasons.

BTW: Your ASSumption isn't even close.

It's spot on.

Bring on your *30 political issues*, I double dog dare ya. LOL

I don't have a 30 point test, but the following 10
point quiz worked well enough two other times. When I
posted this in alt.food.vegan, twice about a year
apart, the self-styled "vegans" gave consistently
leftwing answers 85% of the time or higher. One of the
problems with this particular quiz is, it's possible to
disagree with the statement from either leftwing or
rightwing perspective. It's important, therefore, to
add a few *honest* explanatory words in addtion to your
yes/no or agree/disagree answer.

State whether or not you're "vegan" or tend to agree
with the tenets of "veganism", then answer yes or no,
or agree or disagree, along with a short explanation of
your answer.

1. Military service should be voluntary. (No draft)

There should be no gov't forced military.

2. Government should not control radio, TV, the press
or the Internet.

Gov't should control nothing.

3. Repeal regulations on sex for consenting adults.

No regulations on anything, that is for the free market, and free people to
decide.

4. Drug laws do more harm than good. Repeal them.

No laws, period. Laws do not change behavior, they only assign a penalty.

5. People should be free to come and go across borders;
to live and work where they choose.

But of course.

6. Businesses and farms should operate without govt.
subsidies.

Subsidies = theft
Theft is a no no.

7. People are better off with free trade than with tariffs.

Tarrif = theft.
see above

8. Minimum wage laws cause unemployment. Repeal them.

Employers should pay what they wish.

9. End taxes. Pay for services with user fees.

Just like the free market.

10. All foreign aid should be privately funded.

All people should control their lives, completely and be responsible for
their behavior, completely.

Now, which side of the aisle do I stand on?
(I'm painting you into a corner with a very narrow brush)

"paghat" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wrote
"Jonathan Ball" wrote

9. End taxes. Pay for services with user fees.
sounds lika a good idea, but it won't work. how would you pay for
schools,
public health programs, etc?

Why should YOU pay to school MY kids?
Once YOU approve of paying for MY needs, YOU will be broke in short order.

In article , "Don"
wrote:

"paghat" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wrote

Paghat wrote nothing quoted by Don.

9. End taxes. Pay for services with user fees.
sounds lika a good idea, but it won't work. how would you pay for
schools,
public health programs, etc?

Why should YOU pay to school MY kids?
Once YOU approve of paying for MY needs, YOU will be broke in short order.

A certain cretinish moron with a mandrill's blue ass forged comments in my
name which I never made & you apparently fell for it. I did address this
issue in an actual post of my own, but didn't use the school system as an
example. I asked, instead, how it would serve citizens if the fire
department put out fires only for people who could afford to pay ten
thousand dollars (minimum) for the service, or if the police department
only answered phone calls for paid-up subscribers.

Unfortunately the Libertarian form of conservatism you seem to be
advocating is vastly too utopian & idealistic, which alas has no more
practical applicability than any random Jesus freaks belief that if we'd
all love Jesus it would be a perfect world. I am by & large a civil
libertarian AND progressive, but the broader conservative libertarian
claptrap is simply no more likely to function than ever was the idealised
theory of communism or even of pure anarchy -- all such systems have at
their heart a beauty & perfection that makes sense only when divorced from
humanity's actual nature. There is no chance of it working because people
do not abide by the theory & never care so much about the world as about
their own country, never as much for their country as for their immediate
community, nor as much about their immediate community than their
immediate family, nor as much about their family as about their own
personal SHORT TERM gain, since for the majority immediate always takes
precidence over future outcomes. I want to **** NOW; i want to eat NOW; i
want to sit where you're sitting NOW; I will not help put out your burning
house because mine doesn't need putting out NOW. Everything but Self is up
for grabs without legal systems of penalty & rewards, & taxation to
enforce at least a moderate level of sharing of resources for roads & fire
departments & suchlike, no such sharing would occur, & a caste system
would soon fill the void where law & taxation vanished, with anyone
stepping outside the caste system (outcastes) utterly banished if not
sumarily slaughtered.

When its tested, it fails. We already have pay-as-you-go medicine in
America that permits the poor to drop dead with inadequate care. And even
people who have shitloads of money -- if they have a RARE disease there
won't be treatment advances because there's no profit in medicine for
dozens as there is in medicine for the common ailments of thousands. So
despite having the best theoretical medicine of any country in the world,
Americans do not rank on top for such things as infant mortality. Or
despite that advances in treatment of tropical diseases could save
millions of lives, there is no research into it because in our
pay-as-you-go system, it isn't profitable to treat people who have no way
to indebt themselves to the nth degree.

The Libertarian concept of a self-restrained society which keeps its own
long-term wellbeing uppermost in mind, of a pay-as-you-go society without
taxes or environmental protection laws & whatnot, would lead
instantaneously to a sinister pecking order of the most deadly kind. But
it's fun to play Imaginary Land in which libertarian self-interest of the
One leads logically to a defacto kindly protection of the All, with no
excesses of behavior to use up all resources in a trice & never have
access to them ever again, since everyone knows that'd be stupid in the
long run & simple self-preservation dictates that we all be careful about
such things. The reality is there is no "in the long run" without societal
restraints, because the needs of society as a whole DO NOT match up with
the needs of the individual who never really thinks long-term. For each of
us as individuals there's NOW and MINE, at any cost to the whole.

It's equally fun to have playtime in which communism results in equal
sharing of combined resources out of the goodness of everyone's heart &
everyone's a song-filled Musketeer with blissful tankards of one for all &
all for one. Fat chance that'd ever happen outside of a group of ten with
blood ties or a specialized shared goal, & even one of that jolly ten
would in tme kill one of the nine others over one extra blueberry or a
mating priority. It's also great fun to quote Ann Frank's opinon of
humanity's inherent goodness & try to believe THAT for a while, at the
same time trying to sort out her ashes from those of millions of others.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

"paghat" wrote
"Don" wrote:
Unfortunately the Libertarian form of conservatism you seem to be
advocating is vastly too utopian & idealistic,

I have advocated nothing of the such and you might consider being less
presumptuous.
And you still haven't answered the question of, *Why should you pay for my
childrens education?*

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 18:08:51 GMT, Jonathan Ball
wrote:


But instead the FDR administration
put in place even more costs such as higher income taxes, SS
taxes, collective bargaining, a disruption in the capital
market by the imposition of the SEC, institutionalizing
inflexible wage rates, etc.

The depression was well under way long before Roosevelt
was inaugurated in 1933.

Gentlemen...below is the #1 reason the Depression was far more than a
market readjustment

http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=66

Read it and then discuss it in this thread, alone with its
permutations and history of what it later wrought, even though itself
only lasted for 2 yrs.

Gunner

" ..The world has gone crazy. Guess I'm showing my age...
I think it dates from when we started looking at virtues
as funny. It's embarrassing to speak of honor, integrity,
bravery, patriotism, 'doing the right thing', charity,
fairness. You have Seinfeld making cowardice an acceptable
choice; our politicians changing positions of honor with
every poll; we laugh at servicemen and patriotic fervor; we
accept corruption in our police and bias in our judges; we
kill our children, and wonder why they have no respect for
Life. We deny children their childhood and innocence- and
then we denigrate being a Man, as opposed to a 'person'. We
*assume* that anyone with a weapon will use it against his
fellowman- if only he has the chance. Nah; in our agitation
to keep the State out of the church business, we've
destroyed our value system and replaced it with *nothing*.
Turns my stomach- " Chas , rec.knives

"Don" wrote in message
...
"paghat" wrote
"Don" wrote:
Unfortunately the Libertarian form of conservatism you seem to be
advocating is vastly too utopian & idealistic,

I have advocated nothing of the such and you might consider being less
presumptuous.
And you still haven't answered the question of, *Why should you pay for my
childrens education?*


Or your health care?

Or pay someone not to work?

etc.

Its very difficult to make a rational argument for a lot of things our
various layers of government do.

Jonathan Ball wrote:

Look: less is more.

Right is Wrong.
War is Peace.

And slavery is freedom...

It figures, in your pig-headedness and stupidity, that

How observant of you to mention Pigs... Yes, all Pigs are created
equal, but some Pigs are more equal than others...

Pity you've never heard of Pascal or Montaigne.

It's a pity that you didn't recognize the quotes above...

But you said it yourself:

You really are a stupid ****.

Chuckle...

--
Charles Scripter * Use this address to reply: cescript at progworks dot net
When encryption is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir rapelcgvba.
Note: my responses may be slow due to ISP/newsgroup issues

Charles Scripter wrote:

Jonathan Ball wrote:


Look: less is more.

Right is Wrong.
War is Peace.


And slavery is freedom...

You still don't get it. I am not offering anything
that is remotely comparable to the examples of turning
truth on its head in '1984'.

I could explain the difference to you, but because you
are a pig-headed fool, you still wouldn't get it.



It figures, in your pig-headedness and stupidity, that


How observant of you to mention Pigs... Yes, all Pigs are created
equal, but some Pigs are more equal than others...


Pity you've never heard of Pascal or Montaigne.


It's a pity that you didn't recognize the quotes above...

I did recognize them, you stupid ****. They are not
applicable to what I said. "Less is more" is not the
same thing, not the same thing at all, as the quotes
from '1984'. You are a fool.

Charles Scripter wrote:

Jonathan Ball wrote:


Look: less is more.

Right is Wrong.
War is Peace.


And slavery is freedom...

You still don't get it. I am not offering anything
that is remotely comparable to the examples of turning
truth on its head in '1984'.

I could explain the difference to you, but because you
are a pig-headed fool, you still wouldn't get it.



It figures, in your pig-headedness and stupidity, that


How observant of you to mention Pigs... Yes, all Pigs are created
equal, but some Pigs are more equal than others...


Pity you've never heard of Pascal or Montaigne.


It's a pity that you didn't recognize the quotes above...

I did recognize them, you stupid ****. They are not
applicable to what I said. "Less is more" is not the
same thing, not the same thing at all, as the quotes
from '1984'. You are a fool.

Mike Warren wrote:

"Volker Hetzer" writes:

(Before you start to argue: I happily eat meat but I'm willing to
reduce that if someone convince me that it really helps. Right now
it just means that the meat price goes down and someone else in my
city eats more meat.)

From a carbon-emission standpoint, eating less meat is good. For
example, the Canadian government claims not eating meat every other
day saves around a quarter ton of carbon-emissions annually; not sure
if that counts methane with its carbon-equivalence or not...

But, since the United States is a net Carbon SINK of US CO2 emissions,
it just doesn't matter to us Yanks (i.e. our forests eat more CO2 than
our production creates).

This all assumes that global warming is indeed _caused_ by CO2, and
not the other way around. Correlation does not imply causation -- wet
pavement does not cause rain.

It also assumes that the sources of CO2 are primarily due to man (as
opposed to natural source, such as the exposure of carbonate rocks,
sea bottom, to the atmosphere).

And then there's the whole issue of how these "temperature measurents"
are being made... (Yes, I have some familiarity with the contents of
the NOAA/NCDC databases, and the problems with trying to extrapolate
meaningful conclusions from the data contained within).

Unfortuantely, I've momentarily mislaid one of my favorite NCDC
documents, describing a large number of items that result in "local
temperature increases" (i.e. "global warming"), these include changes
in instrumentation, changes in personnel, changes in time of day for
measurement, and heat island effects. By and large, these have not
been corrected nor controlled for...

And then there are the issues of solar output (which most certainly
changes), adapative aperature hypotheses, and others -- which are
never addressed by the alarmists.

But my favorite issue has to be that the global warming alarmists
always compare temperatures to 1850, the END the "Little Ice Age".

That behavior is much like looking at a thermometer in June, and then
comparing it to January, and claiming "Look! Global Warming!".

And then the real bottom line is: even IF (anomalous) global warming
is really occurring, and even IF it is man made, and it is
preventable, if it is does not result in deleterious effects, it still
doesn't matter.

Now don't go cite all the problems that the newspapers claim "global
warming" will cause, as it's the exact same list that they predicted
back in the 1970s, when they claimed it was "global cooling".

--
Charles Scripter * Use this address to reply: cescript at progworks dot net
When encryption is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir rapelcgvba.
Note: my responses may be slow due to ISP/newsgroup issues

Mike Warren wrote:

"Volker Hetzer" writes:

(Before you start to argue: I happily eat meat but I'm willing to
reduce that if someone convince me that it really helps. Right now
it just means that the meat price goes down and someone else in my
city eats more meat.)

From a carbon-emission standpoint, eating less meat is good. For
example, the Canadian government claims not eating meat every other
day saves around a quarter ton of carbon-emissions annually; not sure
if that counts methane with its carbon-equivalence or not...

But, since the United States is a net Carbon SINK of US CO2 emissions,
it just doesn't matter to us Yanks (i.e. our forests eat more CO2 than
our production creates).

This all assumes that global warming is indeed _caused_ by CO2, and
not the other way around. Correlation does not imply causation -- wet
pavement does not cause rain.

It also assumes that the sources of CO2 are primarily due to man (as
opposed to natural source, such as the exposure of carbonate rocks,
sea bottom, to the atmosphere).

And then there's the whole issue of how these "temperature measurents"
are being made... (Yes, I have some familiarity with the contents of
the NOAA/NCDC databases, and the problems with trying to extrapolate
meaningful conclusions from the data contained within).

Unfortuantely, I've momentarily mislaid one of my favorite NCDC
documents, describing a large number of items that result in "local
temperature increases" (i.e. "global warming"), these include changes
in instrumentation, changes in personnel, changes in time of day for
measurement, and heat island effects. By and large, these have not
been corrected nor controlled for...

And then there are the issues of solar output (which most certainly
changes), adapative aperature hypotheses, and others -- which are
never addressed by the alarmists.

But my favorite issue has to be that the global warming alarmists
always compare temperatures to 1850, the END the "Little Ice Age".

That behavior is much like looking at a thermometer in June, and then
comparing it to January, and claiming "Look! Global Warming!".

And then the real bottom line is: even IF (anomalous) global warming
is really occurring, and even IF it is man made, and it is
preventable, if it is does not result in deleterious effects, it still
doesn't matter.

Now don't go cite all the problems that the newspapers claim "global
warming" will cause, as it's the exact same list that they predicted
back in the 1970s, when they claimed it was "global cooling".

--
Charles Scripter * Use this address to reply: cescript at progworks dot net
When encryption is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir rapelcgvba.
Note: my responses may be slow due to ISP/newsgroup issues

Economics is a subset of psychology - psychology applied to
matters of money, assets, liabilities, production, buying
and selling, that sort of thing.

That's not even in the ball park! Have you ever read an economics
text?

The closest economics comes to being "psychological" (and it's about
as "close " as the North Pole is to the South Pole) is in making the
assumption that people always behave "rationally." I.e., that
entrepreneurs maximize profit by equating marginal cost with marginal
revenue and that consumers "equate at the margin" so that the last
penny spent on every good and service provides the same amount of
"utility" (want-satisfaction).

What could be further form the truth than that?

vince norris

On Sat, 20 Dec 2003 05:47:03 GMT, "Don"
wrote:

"paghat" wrote
"Don" wrote:
Unfortunately the Libertarian form of conservatism you seem to be
advocating is vastly too utopian & idealistic,

I have advocated nothing of the such and you might consider being less
presumptuous.
And you still haven't answered the question of, *Why should you pay for my
childrens education?*


How about because an uneducated populace would lead to many problems
throughout society? Assuming I live a nice, long life, your kids are
going to be helping to bail me out of the problems caused by mistakes
made by our parents and ourselves. I'm willing to pay so that they
have enough information to do a good job of it.

k
For more info about the International Society of Arboriculture, please visit http://www.isa-arbor.com/home.asp.
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