Would you care to demonstrate that this is so, or are you simply going to disgorge these chunks of semi-Marxist malarkey and leave them there like the cat does his hairballs?
Gonna have to disagree with you there - teaching evolution in science class doesn’t seem to violate the establishment clause at all.
Could you give a few examples of how those nasty rich folks have prevented you from posting, say, to the SDMB? Or is that not speech?
Regards,
Shodan
You limit mergers which is how they grow. They swallow up the competition. Mergers are anathema to a free capitalism system. Even under taxpayer largess the financial companies were buying up solvent banks. We allowed that. we always do.
That might work.
However, are there not economies of scale to be had as these things grow thus benefiting consumers?
Further, unless they are limited globally, don’t you have an issue where similar companies in other countries that are allowed to grow gaining a competitive advantage over the smaller US companies?
I do not like the too big to fail thing, just unsure of the cure.
Right. Time to put Ocean Annie and Whack-a-Mole into the Der Trihs and Voyager filter.
P1. Economic policy? What economic policy? Why does there need to be any ‘economic policy’ at all? Why does an ‘economic policy’ need to be created, managed or legislated at all? What do you think that will accomplish?
You are proving my point, without even realizing it. You scoff at the notion of a supreme being creating the Earth and Man, but you insist that an ‘economic policy’ be created by enlightened beings in D.C. to direct and manage the personal choices of 300+ million people. Why? Why is that even necessary? Don’t you see the ridiculous self-contradiction there? That was the point of my original post.
P2. What power does any rich billionaire have over you? Name 10 things. Right now. Name 10 things that a rich billionaire can do to control your life through his power. I’ll even flesh out a blank spreadsheet for you fill in.
Have at it. Fill it in. I anxiously await your reply.
You think I am a semi-Marxist? Not that I find Marx to be the specter of evil he is portrayed to be.
You don’t accept that economic power translates into political power?
Economic income is the distribution of political power. Politician’s reward large donors with a vote on a bill or a policy position, money’s influence is obvious by observing the amount spent on lobbying. Lobbying is a protected form of speech. Since lobbying requires money, money equates to political access and suppresses the speech of those without money. Private wealth will serve its own interests, so the level of concentrated wealth observed today can only be expected to access power for its own personal gain.
To put it another way comrade, senators and congresspeople respond to dollars. If you don’t have any dollars, you’re shit out of luck.
You can’t seriously equate individual free speech to the free speech of the press or lobbying. The former doesn’t have the same influence or power.
The filter of people who call you out on your rambling posts equating economic regulations with constitutionally protected rights and evolution?
I can see why you’d be bugged.
BTW: Please answer my post #98.
Gee, what a great way to elicit a discussion of ideas. I guess you want to stay within your comfort zone and solely commiserate with like minded people.
Economic policy is crucial to a democracy. If you don’t understand this basic premise, read the great philosophers. Start with Aristotle and work your way through history.
First, I scoffed at nothing, not even creationism. I honestly don’t understand the contradiction with a desire for laws to protect civil rights and a desire for specific economic policy. You are creating an argument that doesn’t exist.
See my response to Shodon.
See, this is another major contradiction. You know what really translates into political power? Actually being a politician. And yet, even though you just said that politicians are bought and paid for, you still advocate giving them much more power. Could you please reconcile that?
If you want to eliminate the pernicious effects of political power, here’s a radical thought: Take away the power from the politicians, and give it back to the people.
About a hundred thousand bloggers would disagree with you. Their power, on both the right and left, is growing like mad, while the traditional media is fading in influence fast.
And why do we have to equate different expressions of speech? How about just protecting ALL of it?
I am asking you to prove that protecting concentrated wealth threatens democracy and leads to tyranny. That’s what you claimed, after all.
Again, you made the claim that concentration of wealth controls and suppresses all other speech. As Sam Stone mentions, Internet speech is common and influential. Please demonstrate how concentration of wealth has controlled and suppressed that speech.
Like I said, you make these huge and unsupported statements, and then when you are challenged on them, simply repeat them. Please provide some actual, concrete examples of how concentrated wealth has suppressed your speech and your freedom.
Regards,
Shodan
One uses the state to protect an individual’s freedom, and protect a citizen from threat of force and coercion.
The second uses the power of the state to invoke threats of force and coercion, and to prevent voluntary transactions from occurring between two parties. Such as a Board of Directors deciding what to pay a CEO.
It’s about as fundamental an argument as there is.
Perhaps. We’re not quite there yet.
Don’t you see you are on the Road to Serfdom? You hand-wave through the freight train of bigger government and higher taxation, but then grab on to the caboose at the last second, and even push it along further by calling for things like CEO pay restrictions. Sorry to mix metaphors. That’s not really a Road to Serfdom. More like a RailRoad to Serfdom.
In the first sense, you sound (maybe?) exasperated at the size and intrusion of government. Or maybe not. It’s hard to tell. But then, practically in the same breath, you want them to get MORE involved, by restricting pay of CEOs. To solve the problems of their initial involvement.
Why is that?
Glad to see you emailed your CongressCritters about the bailout.
I’ll also assume you didn’t do anything foolish like support Obama for President. It’s good to see a fellow libertarian on the Board. Accept my apologies for the earlier jibe. I was tired and irritable.
I absolutely, positively, unequivocally, 100% agree with you. Well put.
So why, in the name of God…in the name of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Karl Marx, Mao Tse-Tung, Neville Chamberlain and Albert Schweitzer would you want to give government any MORE power to abuse in this manner?
You should be advocating for taking as much power as possible AWAY from government. So that the money from the large donors, attempting to buy influence, is worthless. It will be wasted. It can’t buy anything. Because government doesn’t have the power to do anything with that money.
Yes? No? Does that not make sense?
Columbia Journalism Review Here you go. This is the media conglomerats. Just scroll down and they will show you how much of the so called competition is actually the same owners.1 thru 10 just isn’t enough. You may relax now.
“Road to Serfdom?” How is that?
I do not want to live in a society where anarchy rules. I expect and demand a society where the rule of law prevails. That entails all sorts of restrictions and taxes and such. Why do you think I am opposed to all regulations? I have pointed out earlier that lack of regulation sees us get in the messes.
Of course we need to be careful of those regulations that they are not needlessly onerous. Again it is akin to the rules in a NFL football game. We could remove all rules and make it a game of “smear-the-queer” (that is not pejorative in that usage) or you could make the rules so restrictive nothing really happens. A middle-ground must be found.
As Mtgman said above more eloquently than I did we have a choice here. We can seek to regulate every financial instrument (each one differently as each one has its own issues) and seek to plug every loop hole people inevitably look for to get an edge and build colossal regulatory agencies to try and police all this.
OR
We can seek regulations that will make it so it behooves people to NOT make short term bad decisions. Make it so it is not in their best interests to even try. Make it so long term health is the rewarded option and the reverse sees them suffer the consequences of their choices. Thus make a regulation focused on the very (relative) few executives who are steering these companies to make it in their interests to do things that benefit their companies and by extension the economy as a whole.
Of the two which do you find the more intrusive?
No it’s not, IdahoMauleMan. Comparing laws to protect civil rights to laws that protect a CEOs right to a 15% tax rate or billion dollar stock options is a weak analogy. It’s like comparing abortion to the Holocaust.
I understand it makes sense to you, but thirty years of neoliberal policy hasn’t lessened the power of the government. The size of the federal government has grown with each president since Reagen.
The U.S. Constitution created a government with a source of revenue and authority to act but with power derived from the consent of the governed. The government is meant to work for the benefit of the people, not as a power onto itself. The founding fathers used the concepts of society, justice and peace to guide them, not individual riches. They were themselves wealthy men. The U.S. is a society not a group of individuals living lives inconsequential to each other. Everyone is free to get rich but it is incidental, not the purpose of our system of government.
*…in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…
*
American society today --the level of concentrated wealth – looks more like Brazil and Russia, not places I think many Americans want to live. Even Adam Smith said: *What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconvenience to the whole. *
I am not advocating giving the government more power. I am advocating giving the people more power nor am I suggesting confiscating property or taking from people’s wealth. A highly progressive tax policy is the best solution. Unfortunately, progressive taxing seems to be considered wealth confiscation by libertarians.
Oh, please. Show me where I just repeat statements without supporting them? You choose to ignore what is said. I will admit to a slippery slope in a few of my comments.
To be honest, I don’t have much fuel tonight, so I will hopefully respond to both you and Sam with more thought tomorrow.
I think it would also be considered wealth confiscation by Noah Webster.
Honestly, I give up. Do you realize how much you contradict yourself, and how many times you bend over into pretzels of contortionary logic in just in a few sentences?
You want to give the people more power by having government confiscate more wealth from its citizens via progressive taxation. But you’re not suggesting nor advocating confiscating property or taking from people’s wealth. We need to stop the influence of government by concentrated wealth. But we need the government to take that money, instead.
Right. So GE owns a bunch of NBC affiliates. That’s real news to me. I had no idea.
So…how is a rich, powerful person exercising control over you? I thought that was the question at hand.
The question includes a discussion about the impact of mergers and acquisitions on competition.