I wonder if the number of cars per capita is the same. I bet that would make a difference, wouldn’t it?
Clearly, if you can find a case where regulations were broken by a criminal accepting bribes, it means that the whole system does not work, and should be thrown out, and replaced with a system that trusts that businesses (the ones who gave the bribes) will just “do the right thing”. After a few dozen kids get food poisoning, the parents of the surviving kids will choose another business to care for their children. Win-win!
You have convinced me.
In India, it’s quite common for people involves in road accidents to flee, because curious onlookers (and there are always curious onlookers in India) very quickly becomes a vigilante mob. Especially if you are an obviously affluent uninjured man and the other parties to the accident are women or children, the mob is likely to exact street justice. It’s quite common for someone to bs severely beaten and occasionally killed on the spot. To at least some extent, this due to extreme income disparity as well as a perception that the givernment, the police, and the justice system will be ineffective in apportioning blame and adequately compensating the injured party.
An interesting side note is that emacknight and I would be likely to agree on some specifics about regulation. I’ve posted in other threads about regulations that seem silly or ineffectively administered, and could give plenty more examples. If a thread were started to Pit some unnecessary regulation or corrupt law administration, emacknight and I would be likely to be on the same side.
Yet we draw wholly opposite conclusions. If I have a child or servant who’s not functioning effectively, I want to provide love, respect, and guidance for him, and to foster his well-being. emacknight, on the other hand, would starve the already undernourished servant, kick him in the ribs and head, and then ridicule him when, now crippled, he functions worse than ever.
Let’s see if emacknight dares to answer the following question, which savvy Libertarians are careful to duck:
Was the 2007-2008 credit crisis caused by too little regulation of financial markets, or too much?
Well, obviously. You can get another servant that will perform better for the same money. Really, though, the smarter thing would be for you to put them both in a room and get them to bid against each other to see who would do it for the least money.
-Joe
There was one Libertarian at SDMB who seemed to have at least a vague grasp of economics (though he delights in false or misleading statistics, fallacies and strawmen) but then I saw this:
I called attention to this in another thread, but was then promptly insulted by one of the stupider Libertarians. I thought I should call attention to it here, so we can all laugh at Mr. Stone.
I’m sure rationalists grasp the inanity of Mr. Stone’s comment at once, but I’ll extend the “reasoning” so it will be clear to any Libertarians who visit the thread.
Libertarian: Speed limits are bad. Let the free market and individual choices determine car speeds.
Rationalist: Perhaps a ceiling of 70 or 80 mph would be good.
Libertarian Stone: Hey, and why not make it 15 mph? Or better 0 mph, then there’d be no accidents at all.
Rationalist: The requirement that banks retain 10% of deposited money seems like a good regulation.
Libertarian Stone: Hey, and why not make it 100%? Then you’re guaranteed the banks aren’t making any loans, bad or otherwise.
We could go on with more parodies of Stone’s “thinking”, but what’s the point? Stone won’t admit how inane his comment was; if he shows up at all it will be to announce that he won’t debate with us until we watch the 12-hour video by Lord Milton. :rolleyes:
I rise to remind that the man has his moments. A pity they are but moments, but he has them, nonetheless.
He has moments because he’s not stupid. He’s delusional. His intelligence only works to come up with ass-backward rationalizations for his fictional take on economics.
Sad, really.
The dude’s damn near infallible in music threads. And technologically rational, where this doesn’t intersect with politics.
Damn shame about that chronic libertarianism. It’s a cruel condition.