If I gently toss it at your head with an underhand pitch, it’s not.
If I fling it overhand at your head it’s fast food.
I use a similar gauge for which movies to watch. If I think it looks completely stupid and a specific friend of mine is either going to watch it or thought it was good, I make sure to stay very far away.
The one time I didn’t adhere to this was with The Simpsons Movie and boy did I pay the price! :smack:
Sure, no problem. There are many, so I’ll just hit the highlights and let others elaborate or add more later.
I think that lots of money going in plus lots of money coming out gives the government lots of opportunity to finagle and arrange and withhold the money on both ends in ways that benefits favored individuals and groups. And I think that’s bad. People should have equal opportunity and stand on their own two feet, not get better stuff simply because they campaigned for the guy who won or are a member of a favored group.
Markets work better than governments at determining who needs how much of what and when or where they need it.
Government cannot really even act as a market participant effectively because it carries the power of violence with essentially no targeted recourse, a power not held by other market participants.
Ooh, look, the Rand Rover show is on!
Pulls up chair, eats popcorn
He finally found a post he had a canned answer ready for. The others were just too challenging, so he passed the time by stuffing his fingers in his ears and humming loudly.
Boo. Hoo.
Rand Rover, I’d just like to say that your unhappiness is gift enough for me. Thank you!
As far as I understand, the argument goes that government programs are inefficient and wasteful, compared to private companies that do the same stuff. If you had a business that made cuckoo clocks, and a subsidized program making cuckoo clocks, good ol’ capitalism will force the private business to be efficient and functional, or go bankrupt. The goverment program would be under less of a pressure, and they would be less fiscally responsible, and more likely to pour good money after bad.
That’s what the small goverment people say, anyway. YMMV
That is not a definition of fast food. That is a definition of junk food. Related, but not the same.
I can go to many fast food restaurants and get a moderate-calorie, nutritious meal. One of my favorites: Wendy’s grilled chicken sandwich and a side salad with low-fat dressing. Even so, eating junk food occasionally isn’t going to make a person fat or unhealthy, and a person can get fat and be unhealthy while eating “healthy” food. Also, in terms of calories and micronutrients, how is a Wendy’s hamburger different from a hamburger I might make at home? It’s not. True, I could use organic, hand-fed beef from cows that were allowed to create macrame designs in their spare time when not frolicking in verdant meadows, and the bun could be 100% whole grain, made from wheat I grew myself on my windowsill. Still a 1/4 pound hamburger on a bun is a 1/4 pound hamburger on a bun, regardless of its source.
Smoking, on the other hand, has ZERO health value at any time and is ALWAYS a potential health hazard. In addition, it ALWAYS has the potential of causing innocent bystanders harm through second-hand smoke.
Your analogy does not stick.
Yeah, because no executive ever has an insanely unproportional salary…
Oo, oo, can I have a penguin?
No, wait, can I have TWO penguins?
Nevermind. I think I’d like a fully-functioning nervous system instead, so I can go back to work. Or, you know, sit upright for more than a couple hours a day.
Please N thank you, Rand Rover.
You can have some of my pony poop. I’m not greedy (unlike some people.)
Actually, firefighting was a business in the 1800s … people bought plaques from fire companies to assure that the company would actually put the fire out instead of waiting and ‘salvaging’ from the burn building. These companies started out as volunteers, and evolved into essentially insurance companies and finally became public utilities staffed by a combination of employees and volunteers.
Placques mounted on buildings My mom actually has one that came off one of the family factories, the building dated to the 1870s, the plaque dates to construction.
If you remember seeing The Gangs of New York, they placed a great scene of competing fire companies preventing each other from fighting the fire, and claiming that the Plug Uglies were a NY gang … they actually werent, but the scene is fairly accurate, people looting a burning building, and chaos all around.
This happens in business too
For some things yes, some things no. Unless you think golf courses in Arizona is a good use of increasingly scarce water.
Were there no government, every market participant would have the power of violence. I’m not even sure why you are asking the government to be a market participant, as many things it does wouldn’t work in a market model - if your country is being invaded, what happens if you decide to buy military protection but your neighbor doesn’t? Are roads so close to mandatory that we might as well make it a tax?
As a self-made, rich rugged individualist, should your douchebag OP be a little bit less of a whining little bitch?
-Joe
I’m on disability you see. So you taxpayers give me
Medicare
Medicaid
Supplimental Social Security payments
Social Security Disability payments
Food Stamps
And more!
Through secondary programs largely funded by the government, I get such goodies as
a free transpass for the local transit every month.
$100 for rent every month (which helps because SSI+SSD<Monthly Rent + Utilities)
$75 a month in vouchers for Shop N Bag (very useful because food stamps often run short and only cover food anyway. Things like toilet paper and shampoo are not covered)
I’ll take the love of a good woman please. And world peace. But definitely the love of a good woman.
Singapore? Where something as harmless as chewing gum is illegal? I can’t imagine Rand Rover being happy in such a law-ridden place.
I suggest Somalia. There he can enjoy the fruits of a truly free society.
Oh, THANK YOU! That is so thoughtful!. And my compost heaps thank you. And my vegetables thank you. And my pretty flowers.
You, sir, are a master of subtlety and nuance. I guess every time you get a haircut you worry that the stylist may shave you completely bald. I mean, if you want some of your hair removed, you must want it all removed, right?