So will you be driving to Apple headquarters in Cupertino, CA to purchase your iPad or flying to the Foxconn factory in Longhua, Shenzhen to pick it up from the manufacturer?
So what are your solutions?
I disagree. We live in times in which dreaming is scorned; you and folks here are examples.
My proposals are quite moderate, and the movements for them already exist. But too many people aren’t supporting them because of cynicism and lack of confidence in them, due to such claims as “this is a center-right country” and “Obama has over-reached” and other such nonsense. So, support the goals; “action” consists of voting out the folks who refuse to implement them, and debunking the false ideologies that deceive people into thinking the solutions can’t be implemented.
What would YOu suggest? Demonstrate your willingness and ability to “take action” that you claim I’m not doing. How do we bring these goals to fruition?
They are not discreet at all; that’s an important point.
Strategy: convince and persuade people to get out and vote out the people who are blocking the agenda, and then pressure the people you vote in to implement it.
That’s all that’s needed, since the solutions are (mostly) already clear. It is the solutions that have been obvious for 30 years.
Good, I’ll be waiting, and if I get more ideas too I’ll report back too. 
Thanks, I accept.
I’m talking about commodity speculators, silly; not retailers.
and by the way, my point was that the free market policies are causing these high prices. If we can’t eliminate the speculators, we sure as hell can and ought to regulate them when they force us all to pay prices that are way out of line.
And we ought to regulate the car and energy companies too so they have to switch to electric and other alternatives, instead of giving a free ride to subsidized oil companies and car companies that refuse to switch.
ETA: Ok, you are talking about commodity speculators. You are still wrong though.
-XT
So will driving to the Refinery in Valdez, Alaska to fill your tank before you go buy that iPod?
The oil company already has oil tankers and pipelines to bring it to the refinery, from which they can truck it to gas stations, who can pay for it and set the price. No commodity speculator needed.
I can drive to Cupertino; it’s close by
[QUOTE=Eric the Green]
I’m talking about commodity speculators, silly; not retailers.
[/QUOTE]
What do you think commodity speculators do, exactly?
Why do you think this? What prices do you think are ‘high’ because of the ‘free market’? I assume you mean that the price is being distorted BY the ‘free market’ and driving them up artificially.
Um…why would you WANT to eliminate speculators? Again, what do you suppose their role is? Do you understand what commodity traders do?
How would you regulate them exactly and what effect do you suppose this would have? Again, what do you think they do, and how would regulation change this or make it ‘better’? What regulation, specifically, do you think is needed or lacking in the current system, and what effect would it have on, say, prices for various commodities or goods? I assume you are talking about oil and the price at the pump for refined fuels such as gasoline, and you are asserting something along the lines that ‘speculators’ are the reason why gas costs you so much at the pump, but if not put it in whatever context you want. Assuming you want to discuss this at all…it might be a hijack, in which case apologies.
How would you regulate the car companies to force them to switch to electrical or other alternatives? And what do you suppose the costs of that would be?
-XT
Here’s the problem with your entire line of thinking. While much of what you suggest is fine in theory because it sounds all nice and touchey feeling and all. The reality is that much of it is simplistic, contradictory or based on an incomplete or inadequate understanding of the underlying principles.
If it were so easy to resolve all those problems, we’d just do it.
No it’s not. The underlying principles stated have been from the dismal science of economics. There are no principles there at all; only established habits.
What I stated in the OP are general statements of goals. By the way, if people think this thread is a waste of time, I have to say most of the others seem a lot more boring to me and don’t get to the real issues.
What makes it hard is lack of political will, due to delusion and deception put out by the powers-that-be, who would lose money and status if these solutions were enacted. That is no news or mystery either. The reason solutions are not adopted, is because they threaten someone’s power.
They bid on commodities and set prices.
Sounds about right. And free market policies are assumptions that the market can’t be interfered with, when what is needed is to interfere with it.
The speculators can charge anything they want now. There should be some limits on how much they can raise prices at a given time, and they should have to justify the increases, just as public utilities do. That is not a mysterious concept at all; it’s established practice in many industries that offer basic things we need.
That’s already been discussed ad nauseum by press, pundits, activists, etc. It’s already happening. Obama already made a start, and CA Gov. Brown has gone further. Make fuel efficiency standards so high that only electric cars (or at first, hybrids) can meet them. The car companies can pay to make the switch; they develop new products all the time.
If there were a tidy profit to be made, we already would have.
[QUOTE=Eric the Green]
They bid on commodities and set prices.
[/QUOTE]
No…they don’t set prices.
Sez who? Your idea of a ‘free market’ doesn’t exist in this reality. There IS no ‘free market’ that exists or has ever existed without interference of one kind or another. Certainly not today.
No, they can’t. You have many fundamental misunderstandings of basic concepts or roles that you should really fill in with knowledge before attempting to assert such things. Speculators don’t set prices, and they can’t charge anything they want for any good or service, and even a moments thought should make it obvious to you why this is a ridiculous statement. Consider…why don’t speculators simply set the price of oil per barrel at one billioncagillionsccillionshoobydofentillon…yen? Answer…because if they did no one would buy it at that price and the entire commodity market in oil would collapse.
There are limits, of course. And if you actually looked at the underlying reasons for why the price at the pump is what it is and all the vectors and factors for why and how that price is arrived at (in just this one limited commodity) then you would better understand why your assertions are so silly…and it would also give you better insight into the point of this thread and how REAL change could be effected, and what changes would actually make sense…and what changes would be harmful, counterproductive, or have the opposite effect to the one you are attempting to push through. Seriously…if you want to be taken seriously, then at least learn the basics of this stuff or folks will just dismiss you AND your politics out of hand.
Such as? Can you give some examples?
Let me put it a different way. Why has Japan not switched over to all electric (or other non-oil based alternative) vehicles? They have even less oil resources, it’s more difficult for them to import oil (being an island and all), they have poured literally hundreds of billions into alternative fuels, actually have population densities that favor such things (i.e. they are concentrated into small areas, by and large). IOW, they have a vested interest in doing exactly what you are advocating. Why haven’t they? Why hasn’t Europe? Or China…why haven’t they mandated by fiat electric or alternative vehicles, since they have only recently begun growing in personal transport? Why haven’t they instituted your seemingly obvious solutions and leaped ahead of the US?
-XT
Who decides who’s a “major candidate” and is thus allowed to get money, if nobody is allowed to fundraise on their own in the first place? Who decides who gets broadcasting time?
What you’re proposing here, essentially, is a system where the government decides who’s allowed to run for office.
Well as indicated in that cite in my post, MOST AMERICANS AGREE WITH MANY PROGRESSIVE IDEAS. The numbers of progressives should not be trivial, they should be MASSIVE. The weak performance of the present progressive movements, and of the Democratic Party progressives, indicates that a new approach is needed.
Then you were right to advocate such a course for the OP. If the current movement isn’t making his or her bunny jump, then action is clearly needed to revitalize or create a new progressive movement. I AGREE with you on this point.
-XT
Well sure they would … at first! But I remind you of a famous quote from that political epic “Conan the Barbarian”: “At first, we thought they were just another snake cult.”
That’s not the element of your post I was disagreeing with. Your post seemed to think that splitting up the ‘trivial’ progressive movement might be a bad idea politically. That was the part I was disagreeing with … it should not be a trivial movement.
Well, I was mainly going with tongue in cheek there…i.e. I was going for laughs, even if I’m the only one who is laughing. 
But here’s the thing…whether it ‘should’ be more than a fringe group or not, it clearly IS, right now. Which was the point of the joke…even the loss of a few members to form a new Progressive Party would be non-trivial in the current climate. However, that shouldn’t deter anyone…if a political party or movement isn’t doing it for someone then they can and should look elsewhere, or even start a new one themselves if they feel that strongly about it and really don’t think that the one they are in is accomplishing whatever goals they think are important. Clearly the current Progressive Party and movement isn’t doing it for the OP, so he or she should take steps accordingly. IMHO, that would be to start at the grass roots and build popular support, if a lot of Americans really feel compatible with progressive ideals.
-XT
I didn’t ask if there was a good side - I asked if you had considered the potential negative outcomes that will ensue.
If you cut subsidies, they won’t stop making obscene profits, they’ll just hike their margins to compensate - the cost of everything that depends on energy (which is everything) will rise - so you’ll be paying the petroleum companies that way instead.
It’s like you’ve never heard of cause and effect. If the petroleum companies go out of business any other way than very gradually, it would likely be enormously disruptive pretty much everything in our modern lives is dependent upon fossil fuels - of course, that’s not sustainable, but it’s not at all simple to fix either.
“Loss” is not necessary. A person can belong to some progressive party and be active in it, and still vote Democratic most of the time – or, for that matter, can still be active in the Democratic Party as well, and a member of the County Democratic Executive Committee or something.