A transaction is a voluntary exchange of goods or services. It occurs when both parties value the other party’s good or service more than they value their own. The medium of exchange doesn’t matter, exchanging cash for fuel or fuel for cash amount to the exact same thing. Don’t forget that cash is a commodity too. Such transactions are free and equal, and the cornerstone of free-market capitalism.
Your view of what a transaction is, is plainly quite different. Buying something is a birthright, and the government can force people to sell against their will. Selling something is a mere life choice, and you’re on your own, even against the exact same social forces, such as racial bigotry.
Your pleas for equality are anything but; you merely support a different form of inequality.
“exchanging cash for fuel or fuel for cash amount to the exact same thing”
Unless you are selling rare outdated money, money is hardly the same exact thing as a gallon of gas when you are driving from Arkansas to Georgia, and some racist ahole owns a gas station and won’t sell it to you because you are black.
Have you ever seen in your entire life someone setting up a buisness based upon selling fresh $100 dollar bills for $104 or some other mark up just because they have possession of them. Did they call up the US Treasury and order up $10,000 worth of one hundred dollar bills with a 10% discount so they can put them up for sale and make a quick grand?
Now I have seen lots of business folks buy a gallon of gas for $3.00 and sell itpublically for $3.50 which includes probably $0.45 for taxes.
Now I have gone to my bank and given the teller five old worn out twenties for a crisp brand new hundred dollar bill so I could give it to my daughter for her birthday.
There was no profit made on that transaction that I know of.
Does the government have a right to intervene in your 'voluntary exchange of goods or services" against one side if it develops or accumulates a monopolistic advantage over the potential purchasers of their respective goods or services?
Only you could read “exchanging cash for fuel or fuel for cash amount to the exact same thing” and come away with “cash and fuel are identical substances” or “people go around exchanging money for money, or fuel for fuel”.
You exchange that $3.50 for the gallon of milk because it’s worth more to you than your $3.50 is. The grocer exchanges the gallon of milk for your $3.50 because it’s worth more to him than the gallon of milk is.
U.S. currency is a commodity just like gasoline is.
There is the matter of profit which I mentioned which is the fundamental difference between using money as a means of exchange as a buyer and using a gallon of gasoline as a means to making a profit. That is what I was pointing to.
Have you ever in your life seen someone put up a store to sell money for profit?
Other than as a rare and collectable. I am talking about the money that millions of people use every day in billions of transactions.
The act of “exchanging cash for fuel or fuel for cash amount to the exact same thing” is not the same exact same thing because the seller is making a profit and is doing so because the seller is in business to make money on the transaction. The buyers is not making a profit when he buys the gasoline. He buys it because he needs it.
The black buyer has as much a right to that gallon of gas as the white buyer at the same price depending upon the availability of supply from his supplier that has been made publically available by the seller for sale at the price he is charging.
The white seller has no more right to the black buyers’ money than he does to the white buyers’ money just because he has gotten himself into the business of selling gasoline to the public. The white seller has to attract customers exactly the same way that a black seller does if he hopes to make a profit and a living by selling gasoline to the general public wherein many of them are engaged in interstate travel. Thus the Feds involvment is justified.
That is why, “exchanging cash for fuel or fuel for cash amount to the exact same thing” is not true and is definitely not the ‘same thing’ at all. Only one side is ‘profiting in a business sense’ on that specific transaction.
IF a chicken farmer was exchanging 18 live chickens to the Gas Station Owner for ten gallons of gas then I guess the transaction would be the same thing.
I have to use money to buy gasoline because I work in construction building water and waste water treatment plants for municipalities and communities. It would be difficult to exchange a pc of the waste water plant for a gallon of gas.
So I buy gasoline with no expectation of making a profit on the transaction. It is an expense so I can get to work to make more money so I can buy other things.
I can discriminate against BP because they polluted the Gulf of Mexico. I am not obligated in any way shape or form to by from a Black BP station owner just because he is black.
I can drive right by the BP station not knowing or not caring the race of the owner of that particualr station.
Now if I run out of gas at 3 AM and the only station for twenty miles is a BP station I do have a decision to make don’t I?
When a seller disrcriminates against a black family that runs out of gas or is low the family does not have a choice do they. They are harmed if the station is open and they have gas available and the only reason the seller won’t sell is because of the color of their skin?
Oh yes, the stranded black family has cash and are not expection to make a profit off it … they just want transaction equal and same as a white family could have in the same situation.
Setting that aside, though, you don’t generally see people open a store to sell gasoline for gasoline, or rice for rice. People sell money for goods, or goods for money, or goods for other goods (or services).
ETA: Selling money for money is exactly what lending is, also. I have seen one or two banks in my life, yes.
You never took Econ 101, did you? The buyer’s profit is whatever marginal value the gasoline has for him that the money does not.
Re: (b) Do you think the Feds should prosecute banks if they deny loans solely based upon the race of the applicant?
Re: (c) So a buyer’s profit is different than a seller’s profit since a buyer’s profit is neither taxable income to be reported on their local, state and Federal taxes and it is not a means of sustaining a livelihood.
A buyer’s profit is not the same as a seller’s profit according to your Econ 101. So what is your case that it is the same?
Re: (a) The common word used in language that I am familiar with when a buyer hands cash to a seller is ‘spending’ money not ‘selling’ money, but perhaps in Libertaria, that is the common usage.
This is getting absurdly far-reaching and meandering…
Based on the principles I’ve already advocated, you should know the answer to this: no, it’s their money and their loan portfolio.
Our tax code taxes the buyer’s money at the point it is received as salary, wage, dividend, etc. That’s just an accounting choice; it’s the easiest way.
The buyer’s profit absolutely can be part of sustaining a livelihood, not that that distinction matters much: if the gas you’re buying is for your taxi fleet, it’s pretty darn essential to your livelihood.
In economic terms, it is the same.
Spending money and selling money are the same thing. You’re exchanging it for something else that you value more.
This has nothing to do with libertarianism, this is just freshman-level economics.
I’m going to go ahead and guess that you believe it’s wrong for an employer to discriminate against an employee based on race.
So if the racist/white gas station owner needs some help, the government should require him to hire the most qualified applicant, regardless of race, perhaps the strapping young African American who recently bought gas.
In terms of economics, an employee is selling his service to the employer in exchange for cash (or some other commodity useful to the employee, perhaps day we say even gas).
What we have here is the government forcing one person to buy something from another person–to exchange cash for a service.
In this discussion US Currency is unique and is a unique medium of exchange for billions of public and private transactions. Gasoline is limited when compared to US currency in its purpose.
What institution in the world makes the U.S. Dollar recognized as valuable when the white racist gas station owner sells ten gallons of his publically traded prime commodity to a white person, but turns away the next customer who happens to be black although the black person is willing to use the same currency as a means of exchange as the white people just did and the white racist has a supply of his privately produced but publically transported commodity?
So we appear to have a difference in the ‘items’ being traded between a buyer and a seller. One is privately produced and the other is commonly referred to as money which is produced the last time I heard by the US Federal Government Department of the Treasury and is a universal medium of exchange.
But Human Action insists that “U.S. currency is a commodity just like gasoline is.”
Gasoline is not a US Government backed universal medium of exchange to simplify the transaction process for people selling unique commodities like gasoline and food to Americans who are traveling about the United States of America and have a right and expectation that their money be accepted in any establishment that is open for business and has unique commodities for sale that they made need in their travels.
The reverse is not the same when black folks don’t spend their money in a white owned establishment. The black folks money is a medium of exchange not put out on display for public sale and for this purpose it is not a commodity that that a seller is entitled to recieve just because he has a unique commodity for sale.
Black sellers of gasoline have no expectaion or claims to a right that white people must spend their money at their businesses.
It not the same thing no matter how much Human Action needs it to be.
The government did not force the Racist/white Gas staion owner to buy something from another person. What is the rut-ro.
The white racist gas station owner decided he needed to buy something from another person if you want to call hiring an employee that.
Only if there are no white qualified applicants would the racist hire the black competant young man unless he decided to wait until a white kid came along and wanted the job.
Now if the white racist business owner is recieving Federal or State money as part of his business and employs many people he is required to have hiring practices that reflect the racial make up of the community in which he does business.
But that is the racists decision to accept Federal or State funding so there is reciprocity there and he knows it when he signed up for the project.
You have no point that applies to the current discussion.
Your contortions above look painful. ‘Money is a commodity, but it’s a special commodity that the government owns.’ This is actually another level of government control over private property; they pseudo-own your business and your money.
You’re just inventing new exceptions and more special pleading, because the basic principle (that “right” I’ve quoted a half-dozen times) is so shaky. Note that the basic principle that I advocate requires none of this.
Bad news: Title II of the CRA never mentions currency or even money. The sort of discrimination it outlaws is illegal whether the payment is barter, money, or anything else; even if there’s no payment. If an innkeeper offered free rooms as part of a cross-promotion, he’d still be barred from discrimination under the CRA.
'Money is a commodity, but it’s a special commodity that the government owns."
The government does not ‘own’ the money it produces. I never said it did. You are resorting to strawman arguments. My wife and I own our money.. and you own yours.
We are greatful that the Government produces money for all manners of public and private transactions and we have ended up with some of it to suit our needs.
The Government protects money by disrupting and prosecuting counterfeiters and by keeping government institutions up and running.
The government does not produce gasoline to be publically used as a universal medium of exchange.
It is common sense and common knowledge why ‘money is uniquely different than gasoline’ and I don’t mean in a physical or chemical sense. It has a different and higher function than all the commodities and services that are bought and sold with it. It is unique and functionally different from all the commodities you can dream of.
And the Federal Government belongs to all of us, including Americans who happen to be in a racial minority.
IF an innkeeper advertised to the general public that his rooms are free to any anonymous person who would like to use it, then he/she has just made his/her private property public. He was not forced to put his property up for public consumption by the government.
There is no problem with his private property rights being violated based on his choice.
And unless he can prove that no Federal dollars went into building the roads and bridges and highway system that brings potential customers into the Let’s Hate Inn, then je needs to quit yapping about his private property rights being trampled by the US Government when he gets told he cannot discriminate on customers becaue of race.
Why do you insist on complaining aboutand defending trampled rights when this law has been in effect for going on fifty years and not found by any court to be unconstitutional.
How many people think like you that banks should not be barred by the Feds from discriminatory lending practices?
Where will that ever get you politically or as a matter of principle or get something done to benefit humanity as a whole?
You wrote about how money is a special commodity, and thus the government has an interest in regulating the “money” (buyer’s) side of a transaction, but not the good/service (seller’s) side. This all hinged on the fact that currency is printed by the government. If that doesn’t mean the government can control it after the fact, then why does it matter where a commodity originates? What oil well the gasoline came from makes no nevermind to a gas station owner exchanging it for a customer’s currency.
See, I don’t what all this is supposed to mean, other than “money is special and the government can control trade in it”. What else can the above mean?
So even when no money changes hands, your “right” applies only to one side of a transaction. What was the point of all the money-is-special-as-a-medium-of-exchange-printed-by-government talk, then, when it doesn’t even factor into your argument? This is exhausting.
“Quit yapping about his rights being trampled”. Jesus. Again, I’d bet top dollar that you’d reject this exact same reasoning being applied to any other right. “Of course you can’t screen that anti-government film in your theater, there’s a highway nearby!” “Of course we can search your bar without a warrant, didn’t you see that bridge outside?”
Fifth Amendment rights are no less real than First or Fourth ones.
Ummm…you brought up the CRA back in post 34, as part of your anti-Rand Paul campaign. I hadn’t thought about it at length in years.
I don’t know. Do you? Does it matter?
Politically? Don’t care, not a politician.
As a matter of principle? It’d lead to stronger civil liberties.
As something to benefit humanity as a whole? Stronger civil liberties. All our rights must be vigorously defended, or they will disappear.
You and Emacknight have a serious flaw in your entire attempt an an argument based upon the idea that there is inconsistency that the government does not regulate the ‘money’ on the seller’s side.
That is because there is no way to prove there has been discrimination by the public on the sellers’ side because the commodity is not ‘unique’ like ‘MONEY’ is.
If I were a black man in 1963 and drove my '58 Studebaker past a JPAULGETTY owned gas station that was owned and operated by a WHITE MAN to buy my gas from Moses Malone who is black who sold “PURE” Gasoline a half mile down the road:
A} The Getty seller would not know why I drove past. and
B) He would not know if I were discriminating because of the deficiencies in the commodity that he was selling or if I just didn’t like John Paul Getty himself because he treated his kids badly and that was in the news.
On the other hand If I pulled my Studebaker into the Getty Station and tried to fill up and the Owner comes out and yells NO N***ERS served here and I have what you call the ‘Commodity’ that is the same exact COMMODITY that white peope pay for his gasoline, then I know GD well why that racist mofo is not selling me his gas.
That is why the government can and should regulate the transaction as they are not regulatiing ‘use of the sellers private property’ they are regulating the use of MINE on my behalf.
the Feds have NO INTEREST in protecting Getty Oil and would have no way of proving that any discrimination was based upon race.
And furhtermore since very few blacks in the south owned gas stations in the Sixties this argument is narrow and full of holes on that point as well.
Correcting a typo… in Post 217 by NotfooledbyW 04-27-2013 06:56 AM
“That is because there is no way to prove there has been discrimination by the public on the sellers’ side because the commodity is not ‘unique’ like ‘MONEY’ is.”
I meant to write" buyers’ " side.
So now your reasoning is that if you can’t prove discrimination than it’s okay?
You started all this nonsense based on the premise that harm was done to the a black man when discriminated against. Proof never entered into the equation. Either harm is done or it isn’t.
So now it’s about numbers? If there aren’t enough black gas station owners no one cares about their rights?
Is it nosnsense that harm is not done to black Americans whey they are denied the purchase of gallen of gas.
You obviously never suffered the indignity of such treatment.
I have never said discrimination on race in ok. Why insert that falsehood into this discussion?
They could not prove OJ killed to people… that does not make it ok when in fact it is fairly certain that he did it.
I am saying the difference in Money and Gasoline is that money is an equal and same universal means of exchange and gasoline is not.
When one’s money is refused as part of the transaction of buying and selling gasoline it has to be some other reason that the customer is not served. The commody the buyer is ‘selling’ as HA puts it is identical to the commodity that white people usel.
Gasoline is not the same because it is produced by several corporate producers and it is not a universal means of exchange as money is.
Customers have a right to discriminate against any given commodity or service at any time an in any place.
Sellers do not have a right to refuse a black families money just because they happen to be black.
Money is money and it is the same money that white folks use.
That is the point and that is why you are wrong.
So try and refute my point instead of making something up about what my point is.