Socialism fails again. Goalposts being moved as we speak.

[Strike For The South]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-03/venezuelan-pride-keeps-cheap-oil-flowing-as-economy-collapses

If only the world bank wasn't run by dirty capitalists. Sad, the people of Venezuela are suffering Becuase of the legacy of a tyrant. A tyrant propped up by idealists in the west who don't have to live in his hellhole.

funny the strongest economy in Latin America is Chile.

[Legs]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-03/venezuelan-pride-keeps-cheap-oil-flowing-as-economy-collapses

If only the world bank wasn't run by dirty capitalists. Sad, the people of Venezuela are suffering Becuase of the legacy of a tyrant. A tyrant propped up by idealists in the west who don't have to live in his hellhole.

funny the strongest economy in Latin America is Chile.
Chile?
What parties have made up the government since that tyrant propped up by idealists in the west who didn't have to live in his fascist police state left power?
Their current president is once again a socialist isn't she?

[lars573]

In case he doesn't want to google, Christian Democrats and Social Democrats. And once the ban was lifted, Socialists. In fact the parliamentary coalition that's in power now has 4 different brands of leftist parties, and Communists.


Thing is the regime in Venezuela is very much in the mold of Castro. IE the populist rebel strong man of socialism. Who runs a highly centralized government. And yes it was kind of a relic of a bygone age when Chavez set it up 10 years ago.

[Pannonian]

In case he doesn't want to google, Christian Democrats and Social Democrats. And once the ban was lifted, Socialists. In fact the parliamentary coalition that's in power now has 4 different brands of leftist parties, and Communists.


Thing is the regime in Venezuela is very much in the mold of Castro. IE the populist rebel strong man of socialism. Who runs a highly centralized government. And yes it was kind of a relic of a bygone age when Chavez set it up 10 years ago.

Ah, Chavez and Castro, the heroes of Britain's own Jeremy Corbyn, who appeals to the UK's own brand of leftists who want a populist rebel strong man. Who also runs a highly centralised shadow government. I bet Chavez wishes he were as rich as Chavez's daughter though. The sworn enemy of big business idolises a man whose embezzlement has left his daughter the richest person in the country. 4.2bn USD.

[Papewaio]

SFTS how many nations that are US allies are social democracies vs corporate republics?

[Brenus]

Yes, as it never happened before:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracazo
400 shot by the National Guard
Failure of Capitalism. Reason why Socialist won elections. From 1999, year when Chavez was elected, 19 elections, each time validated by International bodies. That is dictatorship for you...
And Bangladesh, capitalist country without any workers's right, is a so successful developed country...

[Pannonian]

Yes, as it never happened before:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracazo
400 shot by the National Guard
Failure of Capitalism. Reason why Socialist won elections. From 1999, year when Chavez was elected, 19 elections, each time validated by International bodies. That is dictatorship for you...
And Bangladesh, capitalist country without any workers's right, is a so successful developed country...

I believe in the principles of socialism, but it works best at a lower level. At national level, leftism works better with reforms akin to the Liberal reforms of the early 20th century, which sought to regulate and alleviate the more unpleasant effects of uncontrolled capitalism.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I believe in the principles of socialism, but it works best at a lower level. At national level, leftism works better with reforms akin to the Liberal reforms of the early 20th century, which sought to regulate and alleviate the more unpleasant effects of uncontrolled capitalism.

I take the stance that governmental decisions should be resolved at the lowest possible level. While I don't like most of the socialist approaches, I am very much in favor of communities making decisions for themselves where possible, with a 'higher' level of government superseding only so as to stand as arbiter for the boundaries of each community (on a 'my rights stop at your nose" basis mostly) OR where the more local community is demonstrably inappropriate for making decisions in that context (the Seminole County Florida Board of Commissioners and County Manager would not be the right level for conducting foreign policy for the USA). I acknowledge that some measure of communalism/socialism WILL factor into decisions at the community level.

I also concur that some degree of regulation is required for capitalism to function effectively. Though Smith's 'invisible hand' should still be the prime mover, I do acknowledge that the <1% of truly unethical bastards can do horrific economic damage to others (especially in the elctronic era) absent some form of regulation. While I prefer that regulation be kept to the absolute minimum to discourage and police fraud and to mandate certain minimums for occupational and public safety, some degree of regulation is a must.

[Husar]

I take the stance that governmental decisions should be resolved at the lowest possible level. While I don't like most of the socialist approaches, I am very much in favor of communities making decisions for themselves where possible, with a 'higher' level of government superseding only so as to stand as arbiter for the boundaries of each community (on a 'my rights stop at your nose" basis mostly) OR where the more local community is demonstrably inappropriate for making decisions in that context (the Seminole County Florida Board of Commissioners and County Manager would not be the right level for conducting foreign policy for the USA). I acknowledge that some measure of communalism/socialism WILL factor into decisions at the community level.

I also concur that some degree of regulation is required for capitalism to function effectively. Though Smith's 'invisible hand' should still be the prime mover, I do acknowledge that the <1% of truly unethical bastards can do horrific economic damage to others (especially in the elctronic era) absent some form of regulation. While I prefer that regulation be kept to the absolute minimum to discourage and police fraud and to mandate certain minimums for occupational and public safety, some degree of regulation is a must.

But isn't that more or less how we ended up where we are now?
I'd assume most societies started out with relatively simple laws but due to the world becoming more complex in general and people using and abusing loopholes left and right, the laws had to become more complex as well. Not that I studied the history of law, it just seems like a natural development to me. Simplifying certain things would likely create a lot of loopholes and require more complexity again to fix them. Of course on the other hand, the complexity can at some point be used again to create loopholes in the first place... :shrug:

As for decisions at a lower level, you get the problem of competition, in the extreme example, a corporation such as Monsanto could starve a community if it refuses to relax certain environmental protection standards and so on. Preventing such shenanigans would then again require a sufficiently powerful government (i.e. one that controls a market large enough that it would hurt a corporation to ignore the market) to forbid such shenanigans, which also makes legislation more complex and so on.

In the end I would argue that current laws are still too lax or at least not sufficiently enforced given that there are several corporations that only keep a few small competitors around so they can claim not to have a monopoly while they do in fact have a quasi-monopoly. My favourite example: Intel. The monopoly is already reflected in pricing and other policies, they can pretty much shape the market to their liking because AMD could not really compete in recent years. And when AMD could, they bribed retailers, which was proven in Germany, to not sell their products and thus denied AMD income that might have helped AMD to stay on top of their game. The punishment they received for that was relatively laughable. Which leads me to believe that currently the government is not controlling businesses in a sufficient way, prices that are 20-30% above what they would be on a truly competitive market are not in the interest of the customer and should not be in the interest of the government because they effectively increase wealth inequality, hinder progress, etc.

So I guess in some ways I agree with you that laxer rules would be desirable, I would argue however that the complexity of the modern world and human greed make more complex laws on higher levels of government a natural development.

[Lizardo]

Ride the tiger.

[CrossLOPER]

Do the monkey.

[HopAlongBunny]

I guess it's inevitable that "the invisible hand" should appear in a discussion of regulation.
The beauty of it is, it is without content, Adam Smith appeals to it once in the entire Wealth of Nations: it is a black box which pundits may fill with whatever content they most desire.
Why don't Smith's well defined ideas get the same shout out?
Dissolution of monopolies, oligopolies, professional associations, marketing boards etc.
What exactly are the consequences of Smith's insistence that our "fellow feeling" is what legitimates each seeking their own best result?
Oooops! these ideas have content and might require action (bad)

[a completely inoffensive name]

You people know we have computers now, right? The invisible hand died right around the time people found out they could make millions out of a 10ms difference between competing servers.

[Husar]

You people know we have computers now, right? The invisible hand died right around the time people found out they could make millions out of a 10ms difference between competing servers.

That is correct, some crazy conspiracy theorists even say we use computers to communicate here, but I think they're wrong.

Anyway, I think that is only part of the issue.
A working market also requires that both sides have the required knowledge to make an informed decision about a trade. That one kinda goes down the gutter the moment I read that there is triordium phenobytolphtalamagnate in the one butter and primordial quantophisicine-10 in the other. And that's not just because I just made them both up, but because products have also become so complex that a lot of people can't really make an informed decision about what to buy. Maybe some can do so in one field or for one product group, but then they probably can't do so in another unless they spend their entire lives researching the benefits and downsides of all the products they may want to buy. This gives the suppliers an information advantage that allows them to manipulate the market/buyers.

(Expert) Reviews can and do help a little bit in some areas but I don't think they reduce the complexity enough.
If you want an example, think of bio/organic food, it started from the fear of consumers that they don't know what is in their food anymore and that it may be harmful. Plus some added environmental concerns. By now a lot of it has been turned more or less into a farce because the suppliers can easily confuse buyers with that buzzword and there is too little regulation or review to ensure that the product meets the expectations people have when they see the buzzword.

Organic cotton may be another such thing, even if often well-intentioned, I'd think Hemp is still way better than any kind of cotton. It needs less water, no or very little use of chemicals to allow it to grow and is even superior in terms of durability and comfort. With the right hemp I think you'd also have to smoke several trousers for a buzz, so the whole drug issue should be unproblematic. Somehow we keep using cotton though and the Ural lake keeps disappearing. :shrug:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

But isn't that more or less how we ended up where we are now?
I'd assume most societies started out with relatively simple laws but due to the world becoming more complex in general and people using and abusing loopholes left and right, the laws had to become more complex as well. Not that I studied the history of law, it just seems like a natural development to me. Simplifying certain things would likely create a lot of loopholes and require more complexity again to fix them. Of course on the other hand, the complexity can at some point be used again to create loopholes in the first place... :shrug:

As for decisions at a lower level, you get the problem of competition, in the extreme example, a corporation such as Monsanto could starve a community if it refuses to relax certain environmental protection standards and so on. Preventing such shenanigans would then again require a sufficiently powerful government (i.e. one that controls a market large enough that it would hurt a corporation to ignore the market) to forbid such shenanigans, which also makes legislation more complex and so on.

In the end I would argue that current laws are still too lax or at least not sufficiently enforced given that there are several corporations that only keep a few small competitors around so they can claim not to have a monopoly while they do in fact have a quasi-monopoly. My favourite example: Intel. The monopoly is already reflected in pricing and other policies, they can pretty much shape the market to their liking because AMD could not really compete in recent years. And when AMD could, they bribed retailers, which was proven in Germany, to not sell their products and thus denied AMD income that might have helped AMD to stay on top of their game. The punishment they received for that was relatively laughable. Which leads me to believe that currently the government is not controlling businesses in a sufficient way, prices that are 20-30% above what they would be on a truly competitive market are not in the interest of the customer and should not be in the interest of the government because they effectively increase wealth inequality, hinder progress, etc.

So I guess in some ways I agree with you that laxer rules would be desirable, I would argue however that the complexity of the modern world and human greed make more complex laws on higher levels of government a natural development.

I would argue that simpler laws would have fewer loopholes -- which are the misshappen children of complex legislation. We contributed mightily to the winning of the second world war with a tax code that started at about 500 pages in '39 and finished at 8200 in '45 despite the complexities of a global conflict. We now have more than 75,000 pages of tax code. Has that order of magnitude difference really helped anything?

Yes complexity grows, but unless it is pruned back regularly it grows in counterproductive ways. Again, some regulation is a must. Left without any there are corporations that will poison the environment for generations to turn a higher quarterly profit. I just want the minimum needed to stop fraud and encourage general health.

Your Monsanto example IS in line with what I am saying. There needs to be a government that says: "this is too far, you are defrauding/harming and it must stop."

[Husar]

I would argue that simpler laws would have fewer loopholes -- which are the misshappen children of complex legislation. We contributed mightily to the winning of the second world war with a tax code that started at about 500 pages in '39 and finished at 8200 in '45 despite the complexities of a global conflict. We now have more than 75,000 pages of tax code. Has that order of magnitude difference really helped anything?

Yes complexity grows, but unless it is pruned back regularly it grows in counterproductive ways. Again, some regulation is a must. Left without any there are corporations that will poison the environment for generations to turn a higher quarterly profit. I just want the minimum needed to stop fraud and encourage general health.

Your Monsanto example IS in line with what I am saying. There needs to be a government that says: "this is too far, you are defrauding/harming and it must stop."

I agree with this 100%.

If the complexity is indeed what introduces the loopholes, and I can absolutely see how that can be the case, then a simplification is obviously preferable.

[Gilrandir]

Somehow we keep using cotton though and the Ural lake keeps disappearing. :shrug:

Perhaps it has disappeared since I never heard of it. Or do you mean the Aral Sea?

[Pannonian]

Perhaps it has disappeared since I never heard of it. Or do you mean the Aral Sea?

He means the Urinal Lake in the King's Arms district, whose shores grow and ebb with the coming and going of the Great Cleaner.

[Husar]

Perhaps it has disappeared since I never heard of it. Or do you mean the Aral Sea?

:laugh4: Yes, that one.

[Gilrandir]

He means the Urinal Lake in the King's Arms district, whose shores grow and ebb with the coming and going of the Great Cleaner.

Naahh. The one he mentions is disappearing on its own accord. Can the King's Arms boast of it?