I am MOST upset that President Obama bowed to the Republican pressure and extended the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. It is just wrong. But, I'm going to save my comments on this topic for a while as we see how this plays out.
What I do want to comment on is the commenters - those folks who are likely working for a political action group that spend all their time bashing President Obama and his policies by commenting on news stories online. These folks work under multiple anonymous screen names turning every story from kittens to cars into a bash on Obama. I want people to take notice - today - on how transparent these folks are. They got their way - the tax cuts are likely being extended. But you won't find a positive comment on any story about it in the online news. We saw this before when President Obama agreed to off-shore oil drilling just days before the devastating spill in the Gulf. Then and now there should have been overwhelming praise for the President from the GOP that he did something that they demanded. You won't find it. That doesn't suit their plan to bash bash bash. It really is a shame that these people use a medium that should be a great tool for productive conversation and turn it into a slanted political podium.
So - now that we can clearly see what these folks do - we can view their rants as political BS and continue to ignore them. In addition - we can ignore their demands, and hatred and stop trying to compromise with them. They won't be satisfied no matter what we do so if you can't ever please them then lets never appease them.
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67 comments:
"we can...continue to ignore them".
Continue to ignore them?
When did you START ignoring them?
"They got their way..."
Dude, it sounds like part of your brain is still on vacation in Key West.
This was a compromise agreement. Neither side got "their way"...rather both sides got some of what they wanted and both sides gave away some of what they wanted.
The Pundits have been going back and forth all day about who got the better of the deal. The majority opinion seems to be that the Republicans won the most, but some very heavy hitter commentators on the Right disagree.
One of my favorites, the brilliant Charles Krauthammer, whose opinion I respect immensely, said this today:
"For a President who just got "shellacked" in an election just last month, he did well. In return for one thing; he gave away a two year extension of the upper level income cuts...a temporary thing...he gets extension of Unemployment for a year, which is really a lot...and he gets an extension of all those breaks and credits and tax cuts that he offered in the Stimulus, his Stimulus, which would have expired this year, and he gets a 2% reduction in the payroll tax. This is a huge amount of money shoved into the economy, which is sort of a stimulus that will help him in 2011...The big winner is Candidate Obama in 2012. He has just negotiated a huge fiscal stimulus in 2011 that is going to pump the economy in 2012 and he is going to need it"
Not too shabby.
Of course, the far Leftists in the Senate (most likely Bernie Sanders)could still pull the rug out from under him with a Filibuster.
This is not a compromise. This is not bipartisan. This is terrorism. The GOP is holding jobless Americans hostage with a huge ransom demand. We should not negotiate with terrorists.
Andre - I made a New Years Resolution several years ago not to read comments on USA Today because they were so slanted and frustrating. This year I decided to resume reading them with interest in the election year. Bad idea. There is no discussion in the comments - just bashing.
word
A Gallup poll released today shows that fully two thirds of Americans support extending the Bush tax cuts at ALL income levels.
The Democrats have large majorities in both chambers of Congress (at least for this Lame Duck session), and could easily pass any legislation that they wanted without needing a single Republican vote.
It sounds to me like the will of the people has been heard loud and clear on this issue.
I understand that you may find these facts frustrating, but to characterizing it as "terrorism" is just juvenile; it makes no positive contribution to the level of political discourse in this country and it just further lowers the intellectual credibility of your position.
Ideas and well thought out arguments win debates, not absurd hyper-partisan rhetoric and childish name calling.
USA Today?
Never heard of it.
Just kidding. It's a newspaper, right? (I can honestly say that I have never read it).
If you are looking for thoughtful political conversation that combines "erudition and graciousness", check out:
ricochet.com
There has never been a clearer case of political terrorism in my opinion. Give us the money or you will lose your possessions and starve to death. I stand by my statement - the GOP are terrorists.
Why can't these bills be voted on separately?
Perhaps you don't know the difference between compromise and terrorism. Compromise would be bargaining on just the tax issue with no other critical bills held hostage. Something like the GOP asking for 90% of their tax breaks and the Dems countering with 50% - each side bargaining until they can reach a deal. Meanwhile the unemployment bill would also be negotiated separately.
President Obama had little choice but to break the piggy banks of our children and grandchildren and use their money to pay off the terrorists so that people could continue to buy food, clothing and shelter.
I received a devastating blow yesterday. I was up for a Management Analyst position with the Department of Transportation, had an outstanding interview and was told off to the side I was favored to get the job. Now it seems the position has been frozen indefinitely as the new governor takes office.
I've just received my 2nd unemployment check. Since October 29th I've had an income of $750. Because my place of residence is outside the city limits, most interviews are at least 45 miles away. With gas now at $3 a gallon, I can barely afford to even drive to an interview. Thank God i'm in a situation where I don't have to pay rent for the time being, otherwise I would be homeless.
I have no idea how I would support a family in this situation and have a new found respect for those that do. It can't be much of a life for those individuals.
Without an unemployment check I would starve. Simple as that.
Hey Andre, can you or your party spare a dime?
lol
Good one.
You had me going at first with that whole unhinged crazed Leftie routine, like something from a Rush Limbaugh caricature.
It took me a minute to realize that you were just yanking my chain. (I can see you and Thohea sitting around at a bar with your ipad: "No,no,no...double down on the terrorist thing, that will really get him to blow a gasket!")
Very funny.
That last post was in response to Den's last. I hadn't seen Thohea's yet.
(Didn't want you to think that I was laughing at your misfortunes.)
More later....
Andre - just because it isn't happening to you doesn't mean it isn't real. I know thohea's situation is real and so are many more Americans who want to work but can't find a job. You think it's funny that the GOP is holding them hostage.
To those who are losing their homes cars and food - it isn't such a laugh riot.
Thohea,
"Without an unemployment check I would starve. Simple as that."
Ridiculous.
Unemployment Insurance has existed in this country since the mid-thirties, which means that every single day since then many recipients have had their alloted benefit come to an end. Where are these masses of starving people?
Do you think that you are the first person in American history to be unemployed?
I've gone through periods without a job when I didn't even qualify for Unemployment benefits and I didn't starve.
No one starves in this country.
That's just more over the top, emotional rhetoric.
I'm sorry that you are having a tough time right now, but that is just more reason why you should be supporting pro-growth, pro-job creating policies.
I would argue that, on balance, those policies are more championed by the Republicans than the Democrats. You might disagree. That's fine, that's a debate we can have. But the fact that you are currently unemployed, while of great personal relevance to you, has no direct relevance on the facts of that debate.
Oh, and by the way, you asked if I could spare a dime? Well, as a tax payer, I can say that you get more than that from me every time you cash your unemployment check, and I don't begrudge you it, I just wish we were paying for it now with offsetting spending guts rather than financing it through more debt).
"No one starves in this country."
Really? No one in this country suffers from malnutrition?
Andre, with this statement I can absolutely no longer take you seriously. The view from your ivory tower must be so beautiful.
http://frac.org/reports-and-resources/hunger-data/
What an asinine thing to say. Truly!
Totally agree on that one Thohea.
It's funny how when you can't refute something I say, you put words in my mouth to make it look like I said something that I didn't.
How dishonest and sad is that?
I realize that you guys like to play fast and loose with facts, and even with the definitions of words, changing their meanings to suit your purposes from moment to moment (that seems to be an inherent characteristic of the Left).
I try to avoid such intellectual sloppiness. Words have meanings, and I try to make at least an effort to use them appropriately. You said that you would "starve" without your Unemployment Check, I pointed out how that was an exaggeration, and rather than provide evidence to show that I was wrong, you change the word to "malnutrition".
I'm sure that there are people who are malnourished in this country...given my atrocious eating habits over the years, I was probably one of them at times. But that has nothing at all to do with people starving. You might as well have pointed out that people in this country get toothaches, for all the relevance it had to the previous discussion.
Come on guys; you need to step up your game here. I realize that the meltdown of the whole Obama project has probably got you really bummed, (plus Thohea has the added stress of being out of work), but come on...that's not an excuse you go all brain dead on me.
You can do better.
Seriously though Thohea, all joking and sarcasm aside...I'm sorry about what happened yesterday with that job. I know what a drag it is to be beating the pavement looking for work and what a devastating effect those type of experiences can have on your self-esteem.
I've been there, done that (very recently too).
I had a really rough patch a couple of years ago in the wake of an extremely painful divorce where I was close to giving up...I just didn't care anymore (almost)....I was dead broke (sleeping in my van) and on more than one occasion I had only the good Franciscan Brothers and volunteers at St. Anthony's Dinning Room in the Tenderloin to thank for my meals.
Hang in there, things always get better. One way or another this economy will fire up again, and boom times will return.
It's all part of a big cycle, boom and bust, up and down, both with the economy and in our own individual lives.
The hardest part is just staying positive and optimistic...if you can manage that, the rest comes easy. Maybe not that easy, but it comes...
That's my big pep speech. Not much, but it's all I got (well, not all...I should tell you that the single best thing you could do is to offer your sufferings up to God and ask for his help, but we''ve all had enough controversy for one night).
You'll be fine.
"Why can't these bills be voted on separately? "
Now you are agreeing with Michele Bachman?
See, I told you that you were secretly a Tea Party guy:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/12/10/rep_bachmann_wants_clean_up-or-down_vote_on_tax_rates.html
"No one starves in this country"
Who's putting words in your mouth and playing fast and loose with word definitions Andre?
Starve -
1. To suffer or die from extreme or prolonged lack of food.
2. Informal To be hungry.
3. To suffer from deprivation.
Semantics seems to be a game you (and republicans?) play, not me.
I'm certain there are people suffering from a lack of food in this country and provided you a link for statistical infomation. Are there people DYING from hunger is this country? Since the CDC doesn't recognize "starvation" as a cause of death I can't provide you with an all important link to that factoid you seem to need to believe this problem exists.
But you see Andre, people don't actually die of hunger. What happens in reality is that people become increasingly malnourished and then succumb to some other cause of death related to their malnutrition... septicemia, dehydration, pneumonia.
Please excuse an intellectual sloppiness associated with this post. I've been accused before of being sloppy but never an intellectual.
And I appreciate your attempt at a pep talk. If I look close enough I can almost detect some warmth.
I didn't see any warmth in Andre's response. I saw cold-hearted sarcasm.
Nice...real classy.
Thohea,
So what you are telling me is that if you didn't have an unemployment check, you would probably die of septicemia, dehydration, pneumonia?
Seriously?
What an idiot
And Andre, just so you're not confused with that definition...
IDIOT -
1. A foolish or stupid person
2. Usually offensive : a person affected with extreme mental retardation.
I apply definition #1 to your situation.
Now, please excuse me while I try to deal with this bout of strep throat I'm coming down with, which I have no health insurance to help pay for a doctor or medication. I'd hate for it to lead to pneumonia.
Thohea - your health, job and other problems are only happening to you. Andre doesn't have strep throat so - logically in his mind - nobody does. And even if they did have strep throat he has insurance so - logically in his mind - so does everyone else. This is how Republicans think. If it isn't happening to them - right now - then it isn't happening.
Living in denial makes it easy to legislate against the human condition.
Thohea,
I take no offense at your bad manners; I am sure that your current discomfort has made you irritable.
I am undoubtedly a foolish person, and I am sure I have said many stupid things in my life...and even if I have no memory of ever having said something as foolish as "Without an unemployment check I would starve. Simple as that.", I am sure that I have said many things equally as foolish.
I shall pass on expressing any concern for your ill health, if only because my previous condolences to you have been so ungraciously rebuffed. It has been my observation that there is a certain kind of Liberal, to whom basic civility requires a great expenditure of effort and will, and I would prefer that you devote all your energy towards the full recovery of your health.
If I may offer one small piece of advice though...and I presume to do this only because the possibility occurs to me that you may actually believe all that leftist claptrap about the oh-so-desperate Dickensian plight of the uninsured in this heartless cruel country of ours, and I would hate to see you suffer needlessly out of some self imposed ignorance,or even some form of twisted idealogical spite.
If you truly suspect that you may have strep throat, then you really should seek some treatment. Go into any hospital emergency room and explain that you have no insurance and you will be treated (they may send you a bill, but you can just send them $10/month until it is paid off or your circumstances improve to the point that you are able to pay it in full). You may have to wait awhile at the Emergency Room so bring a book, or an ipod, etc.
And gargle every 20 minutes with warm, salty water.
Denbec,
Your last post is too ignorant to warrant any reply.
PS: If you have a car, take your friend somewhere to have his throat looked at...if you don't have a car, borrow one.
I am very thankful to have a job, and a car, and insurance, and enough food to eat, and good health. However, I am capable of knowing that people like thohea may not have one or all of these things. And I feel like we should help them through a difficult time. That's what makes me a Democrat - compassion for those less fortunate. Thankfully it's not happening to me - right now - but I know it is still real.
Thohea lives 600 miles from me - but thankfully he has his own car that he will likely get to keep now that his unemployment benefits have been extended. He can use it to go to interviews and the emergency room if needed. He might even be able to pay $10 a month for that ER visit although I'm not sure how you figure he could have done that before.
I am also capable of knowing what it might be like to be wealthy and have to pay more in taxes. If I were, I would gladly do so as I would still have compassion for those less fortunate. I would still be a Democrat.
I'm sorry, I'm just deeply suspicious of anyone who constantly brags about how "compassionate" they are. Talk is cheap, and usually those who do the most for others, talk about it the least, and conversely those who publicly praise themselves the loudest, usually do little else...that's just a general bias I have, based on half a lifetimes' observation and study
(it's not directed at you personally). So the more you talk about how compassionate the Democrats are the more my internal bullshit detector starts to go off, and, fairly or unfairly, the less credibility you have.
People like St. Francis and Mother Theresa didn't spend their days bragging about how great their compassion was...they were too busy living it.
Rather than have people, or politicians, tell me how "compassionate" they are, I would rather know what they are actually doing or planning to do..
Thohea doesn't need charity, he needs a job. The Party that is most likely to grow the economy and create jobs is the party that I'm going to support, no matter how much the other party praises itself for it's alleged compassion.
I'm not flaunting the compassion of the Dems so much as chastising the total lack of it in the GOP. Total lack of compassion to those less fortunate. Look at your policies and read the comments the Republican PAC members are leaving on news stories. It's glaringly obvious.
Tax breaks for the rich and to heck with the sick, poor, and hungry. St. Francis and Mother Theresa would likely not be Republicans.
"Tax breaks for the rich and to heck with the sick, poor, and hungry."
Again, that's your liberal fantasy world cartoon distortion of reality.
No one is saying to heck with the sick,poor,and hungry. That is a particularly ironic statement to make, given that public aid in this country is financed almost exclusively by the "rich" (the top 10% of earners in this country currently account for almost 70% of all the taxes paid).
On the contrary, the evidence of history proves that is free market capitalism that most raises the material living standards of the sick, poor, and hungry, and that everywhere that the socialist model is fully implemented everyone only gets sicker, poorer, and hungrier.
It's a strange form of "compassion" that aligns itself, against all the available evidence, with those very policies which have been shown to merely extenuate and prolong those social ills that they propose to ameliorate, while simultaneously bad mouthing those policies which over the long run have proven to do the most for the poor).
To align yourself with those policies is merely to be wrong, but to then incessantly cloak them in a false, self righteous, and self-congratulatory moral supremacy is the height of hubris and an arrogant self-delusion.
You are absolutely correct that St. Francis and Mother Theresa would likely not be Republicans (which I never claimed).
Apart from the fact that they would be above any such temporal divisions, and although they would probably find much to criticize about the Republicans, the abortion issue alone (and yes, "gay marraige") would lead them to completely repudiate the possibility of ever supporting the Democrats.
While they would likely describe many Republican positions as flawed, they would certainly describe many of the Democratic positions as nothing less than evil.
I agree. Free market capitalism is the best way to ensure everyone has a fair chance to succeed. However, we do not have free market capitalism in this country. Instead we have giant corporate dynasties controlling the market while small businesses are forced to close daily. Those former successful small business owners are now poor sick and hungry.
The cure to this is simple - and a subject of another article I wrote. Don't allow businesses to buy other businesses. This will force companies to compete with each other rather than eliminate the competition. It will also force more controlled growth.
It's a very simple formula and it would cure most of our economic ills very easily.
Interesting.
Very provocative (in the good sense): a bunch of questions immediately pop into into my mind, but I want to think about it for awhile before responding.
Good post.
Will you send me the link to your earlier article that you mentioned? I would like to read it.
I wrote several articles on this subject because I think it is very important. Here is one:
http://denbec.blogspot.com/2009/12/market-of-monsters.html
And a good reason to enforce it:
http://denbec.blogspot.com/2010/04/prostitution-is-illegal.html
II.
"There really is no downside to this concept..."
Are you sure? I know that there have been many cases of companies which were on the ropes and were about to implode, whether through poor management or changing market conditions, which were only saved by another,better managed company, buying it and turning it around and saving it (and in the process saving many of those jobs which otherwise would have been lost). Your proposal would have made that impossible and thus resulted in the complete dismantling of many of those companies and the loss of all the jobs associated with it. That sure sounds like a "downside".
III.
"we have giant corporate dynasties controlling the market while small businesses are forced to close daily. Those former successful small business owners are now poor sick and hungry."
I don't think it's as simple as that.
You may be forced out of a particular market because you are unable to compete successfully enough against the "giant corporate dynasties" but that in no way means that you have to accept being "poor, sick and hungry".
We, thankfully, live in a much more dynamic and creative economy than that. You would still have many options:
1. If you can't beat them, join them. Even if the giant widget dynasty cleans your clock, you could take all the skills and experience you have gathered running your own little widget factory and parley them into a decent job at the giant widget factory.
2. Who says that you can't beat them? Find a niche that the big guys are ignoring (or not even seeing), and fill it. IBM dominated the business machine marketplace, but didn't have the vision to even imagine that there was any market for a "personal computer", until two hippies in a garage in Menlo Park created Apple Computer, and you know the rest of that story.
I would bet that most successful people in this economy have many failures in their past, but they persisted, adapted, and eventually found their niche. Look at Limbaugh, he's fabulously successful and stinking rich now, but he often talks about how many jobs he was fired from in the past,or how many positions he sought but didn't get, how he was often close to penniless...but he never gave up.
Not to mention, that if you already had a "successful" small business and were bought out by a bigger company, then you are probably not "poor sick and hungry", you're probably wealthy, healthy, and slightly overweight and spending most of your afternoons out on the golf course!
Dang! My first response didn't post for some reason...I probably hit the wrong button and then just dived into II without checking to see if the first one went up.
What did I say?
I can't remember exactly...
Something about how I wasn't without some natural sympathy towards your proposal but didn't we already regulate enough to avoid monopolies?
And is it really that big of a problem? Or rather, is it really such a major component of our economic problems?
I gave the example of Wal-Mart: they didn't become successful by buying up all the mom & pop business's they were competing against...they just did the same things that those companies did, but did it better. So a prohibition against business's buying other business's wouldn't have had any relevance to those types of situations.
What effect would such a prohibition have against the fact that third world labor is so much cheaper for manufacturers than here in the USA? Isn't that a bigger cause of job losses here?
Still, I'm pleased that you agree that "Free market capitalism is the best way to ensure everyone has a fair chance to succeed."
Wouldn't the logical next step be, given that belief, to support policies that open up freer markets?
Lower taxes?
Less debt spending?
Less government regulation?
Resist government attempts to control and manipulate the marketplace?
Come on, man! Admit it: you are a Tea Partier!
You should start your own Gay Tea Party Caucus.
Well - you worked really hard to try and justify all that. Stop and think about it for a while and you will see what I propose is true. I'm only going to counter on one of your rants - and certainly not the Linbough one. It's actually the one that didn't get posted for some reason - but I got emailed on. Here was your post:
-------------
Yeah, OK, while I certainly have some natural sympathies towards this general idea...I think that we can both agree that free competition is vital and that monopolies are bad...but don't we already have legal protections in place against the forming of monopolies? I assume that you would say that they do not go far enough and/or are not enforced aggressively enough?
You may be right, I don't really know enough about it to comment knowledgeably about it, so let me just ask a few questions.
When you say that businesses should not be able to buy other businesses do you really mean to apply this to ALL businesses? Or just those above a certain size? (If I'm in the business of buying and managing apartment buildings, wouldn't that mean I could never own more than one apartment building?) I assume that what you are referring to is when one business gobbles up enough of it's competitors that it effectively can then control the whole market? But again, don't we already regulate that?
"..it would cure most of our economic ills.." Really? I think you exaggerate the economic effects of this behavior. For example, Wal-Mart didn't succeed by buying up all the competing Mom & Pop business's...it just succeeded by doing exactly what those other business's do, but doing it better.
It may be true that many small businesses are forced to close because they can't compete against giant corporations...but that's not because the giant corporations are buying them, it's because they are out-competing them...so how would the ban on business's buying other business's have any effect on those situations?
---------------
Now my only comment is that if you are in the business of buying and managing apartment buildings then you can buy and manage as many as you want. But your competitor who has more assets won't be allowed to buy your whole business - thereby eliminating the competition - they would have to conduct business (ah! there it is!) with you or your clients to acquire your units by bargaining, providing a better service, etc.
In this concept there will still be very large corporations like Walmart but WAY fewer and with much slower growth.
By the way - this slower and controlled growth I speak of would also have the affect of allowing more people to get into the business of buying and selling apartment buildings. This would cause a more even distribution of wealth with more people able to get a piece of the pie.
"By the way - this slower and controlled growth I speak of would also have the affect of allowing more people to get into the business of buying and selling apartment buildings. This would cause a more even distribution of wealth with more people able to get a piece of the pie."
How is that? How would slower economic growth, where by definition people have less investable income rather than more, allow more people to get into any business, let alone such a capital intensive business as real estate?
You're going to have to unpack that a bit for me, because on the surface, at least, it doesn't seem to make any sense.
I thought I asked some rather obvious, and reasonable, questions.
Why do you characterize them as "rants"?
That's not very nice.
How about just attempting to answer them?
"This would cause a more even distribution of wealth with more people able to get a piece of the pie."
This seems to go against the conventional Liberal wisdom that in slow economic times the rich get richer and the poor get screwed.
I'd have to check the actual statistics on this, but it is my impression that on this at least the Liberal wisdom is correct; in slow economic times people with money still manage to get wealthier, while the lower income levels stagnate. In strong economic times everyone does better ( "A rising tide lifts all boats").
Which is it?
Take your time.
Andre - I called your questions and comments "rants" because you are not allowing yourself to think about this outside of your current mind-frame. All of your questions and comments boil down to "but that would change how business is done". And that is exactly the point.
I used the building management example because it is the one you provided - not because I felt it was perfect for this concept of businesses not being allowed to buy other businesses - but it works for every business.
Continuing that example - and answering your question, if business growth is slowed because a business can't buy another business, that doesn't mean that someone else can't come in and start the same business at the same time. In our current system - the emperor with the big money buys up all the competition, becomes super huge very quickly and is then able to control the prices and allow service levels to drop and still stay in business. In a slower growth concept - where you have to acquire your customers by providing a better service and / or price, more people will have the opportunity to come in and start a similar business.
Maybe it would help your thinking if you realize I'm not talking about a good economy or a bad economy. The concept would work in both. It is a remarkably simple concept - yet so powerful at controlling out of control business practices that lead up to monster business.
Think about AT&T. They were judged to be a monopoly so they were broken up into smaller businesses. Then they just bought up all those smaller businesses and they are right back where they were before when it comes to landline phone service. It could have been prevented both times with this simple concept.
I just finished reading this really interesting book called "The Genius of the Beast; A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism" by Howard Bloom, and I came upon this nugget that is somewhat relevant to this discussion(?).
It's long, so I'll have to break it into parts, but it's really interesting ( at least I think it is....Geek Alert!).
The context is the switch from whale oil lamps to petroleum based lighting in the second half of the 19th Century (sounds like a thrilling start, right? hang in there , it gets better):
"Lamps became more powerful - they went up in candle power. And kerosene...soon demonstrated that it could do as well as sperm oil at a fraction of the price. Oil products promised to light the night for the middle classes and for the poor.
...hundreds of wildcatters, barrel makers, drillers, and drill makers vied for a place in the rapidly blossoming oil industry. The result was a mess. Oil prices rocketed, oil producers got rich, then the market slumped so deeply that tycoons became paupers overnight. The public couldn't predict the price it would pay for kerosene from day to day. It couldn't depend upon a steady supply. And it couldn't depend upon consistent quality.
Shifts in the quality of your kerosene could have unpleasant consequences...your lamp could easily blow up in your face."
"Rockefeller set out to "standardize" the oil business - to give the public a steady supply at a low price with a consistent high quality that you could rely on. To do it, he bullied, twisted arms, and cajoled others to sell him their companies.
Rockefeller ruthlessly drove down costs. When a firm refused to cave into him, he squeezed it out of business, often sickening his victim with stress in the process.
The result for the average consumer? Remember the price of sperm oil? It sold for eighty cents a gallon in 1842. But by 1895, kerosene would sell for less than a tenth that price. Six point nine cents a gallon, to be precise.
...He made a fortune. Then he satisfied his Baptist sense of stewardship and obligation by founding charities to tackle new social goals and by giving much of what he made away.
For all his evils - his ruthless treatment of his competitors, his monopolistic practices, and the allegation by his critics that he "never played fair" - J.D. Rockefeller was a messianic capitalist. As an ad for an oil burner company in 1919 put it, Rockefeller was "the great genius" who "delivered light." He gave the poor from Peoria to Peking five extra hours in their lives each day - hours formerly swallowed by night.
In fact, if you do the math, you realize that John David Rockefeller gave the average human being roughly 58,400 extra waking hours in her life - more than 6.5 extra years. That's a staggering figure. It;s on par with the medical miracles of the nineteenth century - pasteurization, inoculation, antiseptics, and anesthesia.
What's the moral of the story? All of us dream of being part of something greater than ourselves. All of us want to make a contribution. The greatest contribution you make isn't in the money you give to charities. It isn't in the nonprofit foundations you establish. And it isn't in the work you do as a volunteer. Your greatest contribution to something greater, to the lives of others, comes from what you do from nine to five."
hehe hehe hehe hehe
He said "sperm oil". heheheheheheheh
Thanks for the (Long) article that proved my point that allowing businesses to be bought and sold makes one (1) man rich and many men poor. The market would have stabilized over time and the wealth would have been spread out more evenly.
heeheehehee...I had that same thought...I almost made the same joke too.
Great minds...
"...proved my point that allowing businesses to be bought and sold makes one (1) man rich and many men poor."
How did it prove that at all?
If anything it proved the opposite: One man got very rich by immensly improving the quality of life of countless millions of others!
The only losers , were the handful of other capitalists that he out-competed, and even they would have benefited from from the general social and economic improvements that developed out of this situation ("A rising tide lifts all boats").
The lesson that I draw from this isn't that monopolies are good (on balance, they are almost certainly not), but that a free and unfettered marketplace favors the development of the maximum possible economic efficiency, and thus the highest possible creation and distribution of wealth to all.
Good arguments may be made at times, and in particular circumstances, for minimul levels of market regulation, but we should walk down that road very cautiosly and humbly, because the whole reason that free markets perform so well in the first place, is that they are able to naturally process the enormous levels of information involved, in ways that no individual, or group of individuals, could possibly do.
One need only look at the recent housing bubble and corruption on Wall Street to see first hand how unregulated businesses failed this country.
Your faith in the free market is based on the unrealistic idea that people will do business honestly and with the general good of society in mind.
It just isn't so. The reality is GREED.
"Your faith in the free market is based on the unrealistic idea that people will do business honestly and with the general good of society in mind."
Um, no...that is actually the opposite of what Free-Market Conservatives believe.
Neither the restaurant owner, or the cook, or the waiter who provided my dinner to me in Chinatown last night were motivated by any undue concern over the rumbings in my tummy.
They were all there, engaged in their respective activities, for the one primary purpose of putting money in thier own pockets.
Their "greed for profit" was a boon to me because it made it possible for me to enjoy an excellent meal which I had neither the time, skill, equipment, nor desire to cook for myself that night (and at a fantastically affordable price; I couldn't have gathered all the ingredients, sundries, and equipment needed to duplicate such a meal for anywhere near the measly $8 (not including tip) that I spent at their fine establishment.
Your comment is just another piece of evidence that you don't even truly understand the arguments that you claim to oppose.
Read Adam Smith or Milton Freidman if you have any real desire to understand what Free Market ideas are all about.
So these ponzi schemes, international child labor, mortgages where no-one is even sure who owns the deed etc. - these are just good business practices? No - you are wrong.
Granted - most small to mid sized businesses are legitimate, honest free market enterprises. But greed exists and is rampant among larger companies. That's where the government needs to step in and protect the consumer.
You're all over the place...tighten it up.
Our government MUST protect the consumer from corporate greed / fraud. Tight enough for you?
From the little bit that I have read,almost everyone who knows him, even his detractors, all agree that he is a brilliant man and a phenomenally effective CEO.
That leads me to suspect that he probably did know about the over-billings...and, at least, tacitly approved of them.
13 years ago is not "very recent" in the life and career of a high powered CEO (it's an eternity for a politician), or really for anyone else for that matter. A person can change a lot in 13 years.
Has he? I have no way of knowing. A majority of Florida voters seem willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Let's see what he does with it.
But who protects us from Government greed/fraud and outright stupidity?
Look at the recent housing bubble. You had the Federal government putting pressure on banks to make mortgage loans to people who really couldn't afford to be home owners yet, while simultaneously guaranteeing theses same banks against any losses from those loans.
In other words you had the Government interfering in the free market by removing any economic incentive for the bankers to withhold loans from under-qualified customers, with the obvious and completely predictable disastrous results.
But this is off the point. I was simply trying to point out that your idea about not letting business's buy other business's, is actually an incredibly short sighted and myopic idea, which could severely retard economic progress, especially the development of those new technologies which are most beneficial to the lower income levels.
In support of that contention, I offered the example of Rockefeller dramatically lowering the price and reliability of lamp oil (which benefited the poor the most; the rich already could afford lamp oil). He did this in part by buying other business's.
Another example is the consolidation of the railroads by J.P.Morgan in the second half of th e19th century. Prior to Morgan, none of the hundreds of small railroads were interconnected or coordinated. He gathered them together and made them practical, reliable, and most importantly, affordable. The economic boon this brought to individuals and the nation as a whole was incalculable.
But none of that immense economic progress would have been possible if your idea of banning business's from purchasing other business's had been in place.
Dig this - just after that last post above, I returned to a book I am reading (The Rational Optimist; How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley) and came upon this:
"Empires, indeed governments generally, tend to be good things at first and bad things the longer they last. First they improve society's ability to flourish by providing central services and removing impediments to trade and specialization;thus,even Genghis Kahn's Pax Mongolica lubricated Asia's overland trade by exterminating brigands along the Silk Road, thus lowering the cost of oriental goods in European parlours. But then...governments gradually employ more and more ambitious elites who capture a greater and greater share of society's income by interfering more and more in people's lives as they give themselves more and more rules to enforce, until they kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. There is a lesson for today. Economists are quick to speak of "market failure" and rightly so, but a greater threat comes from "government failure". Because it is a monopoly, government brings inefficiency and stagnation to most things it runs; government agencies pursue the inflation of their budgets rather than the service of their customers; pressure groups form an unholy alliance with agencies to extract more money from taxpayers for their members. Yet despite all this, most clever people still call for government to run more things and assume that if it did so, it would somehow be more perfect, more selfless, next time." p.182
Ridley, who is English (hence some of the spelling) seems to be speaking from a more Euro-centric experience when he refers to "most clever people still call for government to run more things". It's different in the USA (at least since the November election) where most clever people (Republicans and Independents) are now calling for government to run less things.
Andre - it seems you have not faith in the free market system at all. Your version of a successful society seems to require monopolistic practices - the very opposite of a healthy free market system. And, those run-away monopolies are the very reason government intervention is necessary at times. I'd dare say even your Tea Party friends would disagree with this approach.
"Your version of a successful society seems to require monopolistic practices..."
No, I don't "require" them at all, I merely pointed out a few historical examples where they had been fantastically beneficial to the working class.
I also said: "The lesson that I draw from this isn't that monopolies are good (on balance, they are almost certainly not)".
However, I think part of the problem here has to do with definitions. I get the impression that when you speak of "monopoly" you are not using it in the technical, historic sense, but are merely using it as a euphemism for any really large business that you don't like.
Do you consider Wal-Mart a "run away" monopoly?
Amazon?
Microsoft?
Facebook?
Your idea of banning business's from buying other business's just strikes me as a rather off the cuff, slightly hysterical over -reaction to what is possibly a non-existent problem.
If I may use a clumsy analogy, I find it a little like treating a small splinter in one of your fingers by cutting off your hand.
If you don't think there is anything wrong with America's free market system - then you are indeed a Republican.
Oh, but I DO believe their is something wrong with America's free-market system, and that is that there is way too much Government interference, manipulation, and thus distortion of the marketplace.
We are paying the price for that interference right now:
http://www.american.com/archive/2010/december/how-government-failure-caused-the-great-recession
As far as being a "Republican", well, while it is true that I am registered as a Republican, that is only so I can vote in the primaries for the more free-market Conservative leaning candidate.
A few years ago I would have (I did)just called myself a Libertarian, but I have been going through a period of intense study, reflection, and discernment since then.
Many of my views have been evolving quite rapidly in the last few years.
If I had to label myself economically,it would be something like "Free-Market Conservative" (what is technically known as a "Classical-Liberal").
More a Libertarian-Conservative than a Conservative-Libertarian, in that I believe, with Thomas Jefferson, that "the government that governs least governs best.."
However, since the rest of that quote is "... because the people discipline themselves." I am also, philosophically and socially, a Conservative Christian (Traditional Catholic).
I think.
Here is a really interesting video discussions about these very economic issues:
part I:
http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=OWNmMDkyNzc2OTgyMmE3NmVlNzkzMDE1ZDZiMjM2ZTk=
PartII:
http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=MTQ1MzhjZmFhMzNjNjY1YWQyZjk1NDA4ZWNkNTNjNGM=
Part III:
http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=ZDAyMzQ2ZDZhMzc3MjE4MzIzYzcyNDdmZjRiMTc4N2Y=
Part IV:
http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=NzA5NmEyOTU5YzBlYjdjNWJhODM0OWU4OTEwNjY1ZGI=
Part V:
http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=MzVmMjk0NzEzMDc3ZTIwYTcxOTE0MDljN2YyNjNkNDM=
wow...watching that discussion linked above, really makes me realize how little I really know about all the details of our Macro-Economic structure.
I don't mind admitting that a lot of what they talked about went right over my head ( I think the host, Peter Robinson, felt the same way at times).
I would like to really understand it, inside out, forward and backwards....but looking at the pile of books on my desk waiting to be read, mostly philosophy, theology,and histories of both, I don't know if I want to add another pile of economics books...maybe just one or two.
My head hurts....
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