Blow off al your regular customers for a one time buy? NOT good business. Not a good move. Have you ever owned or run a business?
Blow off all your regular customers for a greater total income from one customer? If that's such bad business, why did the NFL just do exactly that with EA over video game production? Or did the government make them do it?
Quit trying to come up with fantasy cases that could never happen to try to justify even more regulation now.
As opposed to your fantasy case of what would happen with no regulation whatsoever? Or is there some real-world example of this you can name? Not to mention that I am not now, nor have I ever been, in favor of "more regulation now." In fact, I've stated any number of times that we currently exist in an over-regulated system. I choose not to say that because some regulation is bad, all regulation is bad. Since you seem to have ignored or not understood me previously, let me state this again.
I THINK WE ARE CURRENTLY OVER-REGULATED. I DO NOT BELIEVE WE NEED MORE REGULATIONS. THINGS ARE TOO REGULATED AS IT IS (third time's the charm).
This belief is not inconsistent with believing that not
all regulation is the work of the Devil.
The monopolies that led to the anti-trust laws could never have formed without the collusion of corrupt politicians - the same bunch you want to trust now. "Teapot Dome", anyone?
And the politicians would never have led to monopolies without the collusion of corrupt businesses. Explain to me why you trust business so much more than government, again?
Government intervention should be a limited, last-resort, temporary response if used at all
Watch out, you're slipping - that's dangerously close to admitting that it's possible that under extreme circumstances, government interevention is an appropriate response. Which, of course, is what I've been saying this whole time, no matter how many accusations of communism, statism, and command economism you've slung at me.
Could we talk about THE REAL WORLD? Plus if there are no competitors, time to form a start-up!
You're the one talking about some mythical place where there's zero regulation of anything by anyone. My claims regarding monopolization as a result of capitalism are historically demonstrable. Yours about the glorious utopia of no restraints on business are not. Plus, your claim about a start-up is highly disingenuous. Entrenched monopolies are difficult to dislodge. The odds of you having enough capital to start viable competition capable of defending yourself against predatory pricing are slim.
And even if it were so, we can alwasy impose regulation THEN, NOT a priori
Again, be careful, you're dangerously close to changing positions, here. You're pretty close to granting that if, in principle, a 19th-century style robber baron were to monopolize a critical resource, it might be legitimate for a governmental entity to step in and regulate. Which, again, is all I've been saying: that if such a thing happened, the government should regulate.
I disagree, plus those arren't the only two choices, now are they?
Why do you disagree? How is government control of the entire oil supply worse than Standard Oil's control of the entire oil supple? And of course they'e nore the only two choices. One might hypothesize some sort of "middle ground," wherein government prevents any one business from controlling the entire effective supply of some critical good, while business works to keep government from over-regulating it. In fact, this is the sort of "middle ground" I've been talking about this whole time.
Its called EXPERIENCE and HISTORY. The REAL history, not that mush they indoctrinated you with in school.
I love this argument. "Everything you know about history is wrong! I won't explain what actually happened, but take my word for it, your understanding is wrong!" Which is a bold claim to make when you have no idea where my knowledge of history has come from. For all you know, I could have dropped out of high school before US History, or I could have a Ph.D. in it. So, which EXPERIENCE and HISTORY is it that demonstrates that, if allowed, capitalism will not tend towards monopoly?
I'd think that, since capitalism rewards efficiency (which is its big selling point), and since economies of scale alway enhance efficiency, it would tend towards maximization of economies of scale. Or, to put it another way, monopoly. Please explain to me how I'm wrong. Feel free to cite EXPERIENCE and HISTORY. I'll keep eating my mush.
Nice theory, but much like Marxism, doesn't work in practice. What REALLY happens is government usurps power and authority, and the elected officials thereof extort bribes from business in the form of campaign contributions to either 1. minimize the effect of the ill-gotten power on their business, or 2. actually use the government's power to harm or prevent competition - either foreign or domestic. The only real solution is to reign in the governments ill-gotten power - then they have nothing to sell. More regulation just gives the politicos more to "sell".
Yep, government sure does. That's why I don't trust it. Of course, you avoid explaining why, exactly, I should trust the faceless corporation any more than I trust the government. You keep acting like I'm saying that government is great, and BigCo is evil, and we should place our faith in the government, which I'm not saying, nor have I ever said it. Let's give this another shot:
I DO NOT THINK THE GOVERNMENT IS GREAT. I DON'T LIKE THE GOVERNMENT. THE GOVERNMENT USURPS POWER AND ABUSES AUTHORITY.
This belief is not inconsistent with believing that absolute trust in the good will of Carnegie Steel is also a bad idea.
And this would differ from rationing gasoline HOW?
It doesn't. And who cares? How is this relevant? What are you talking about? When did I propose rationing gasoline? The fed.gov has no authority to regulate your purchases at the pump. You may have noticed my comment on this in my last post...you know, the bit that said "[t]he feds clearly have no authority to regulate how much gas you buy at the pump." Your arguments in rebuttal of mine would be more effective if you read my arguments first. Just because you
want to argue against gasoline rationing doesn't mean that I'm arguing for gasoline rationing.
And in a true democracy, with REAL respect for privacy, how is CA. going to even KNOW who is selling to MT, in order to inderdict it?
They don't have to know anything, they just have to buy enough to drive the price beyond what MT can afford. Or enter into agreements with WA and OR to not allow oil to pass through their states to get to MT, because they want to pressure MT into tougher gun control laws. Is this ridiculous? Not to the founders, since this is precisely the sort of thing they had in mind when granting the fed.gov authority to regulate commerce between the states.
You have failed to do anything other than conjure up fantasies that could never occur to prop up your unsupportale position. Should such an extreme case ever come to pass, government regulation could be tried asa a last resort - but things will never get to that stage, as the free market has a number of mechanisms to correct a misallocation of resources long before it would ever reach such a stage - PROVIDED the gov kept out.
Of course, if I cite real examples, you counter by explaining that it's only because of the mush they taught me in school that I believe capitalism had anything to do with it. While at the same time explaining that if I use hypotheticals, they're not real world enough. While at the
same time claiming that your system, which does not exist and never has, will solve all the problems, and exempting yourself from the burden of proof you are imposing upon me. This is an excellent tactic, insofar as it means you can't lose.
You don't OWN the water table - you own the water that you have "captured" from it by pumping it out. Pollution of ground water, either deliberate or accidental, is already a basis for civil action in the courts.
Now we're back to the question of who does own the water table. And if no one does, we're all the way back to your explanation that the problem with the tragedy of the commons is someone should have owned the common area, and charged for its use. So do you want there to be a common resource, or not? In either case, how do you apportion use and protect the resource from purposeless damage? That it's already a basis for civil action in the courts isn't exactly a real good argument, since it's appealing to government to resolve the issue. Which, you know, is the reason for regulation.
ALL regulation is implimented "crappily" because ALL regulation can do is make something scarce
ALL for-profit commerce is implemented "crappily" because ALL for-profit commerce can do is raise the price of something beyond its cost. If making something scarce is inherently bad, then you ought to be in
favor of banning all oil consumption, 'cause it's surely making oil scarcer. You'll argue that that's ok, because it's being made scarcer for a good reason - but once you've opened to door to increasing scarcity for good cause, it's a real short step to claiming that the government can increase scarcity for another good cause.
Who are free to seek employment elsewhere, yes?
Yep. Just like you're free to move to a different country if you don't like this one's regulations. Oh, wait, no other country is better? Of course, the exact same problem couldn't possibly occur with employers. You're guaranteed to find livable working conditions somewhere else.
I'm sure that was very comforting to factory workers at the height of the industrial revolution. Go get a job somewhere else. And it better be in a different town, 'cause we're blackballing you here. Oh, wait, you can't go to a different town, because all your income has been in company scrip worth nothing outside the company store? Whoops. Better take up farming. Oh, wait, can't take up farming because you can't afford land? What a shame. Maybe you should form a union, so the Pinkertons can identify the real troublemakers and, er...take care of them.
Of course, this is more of that mush I've been taught. And it's not relevant today. But it's not irrelevant because of regulation, it's irrelevant for other reasons entirely.
What company is big enought to hurt "the economy as a whole"? Only Greenspan and the legislature have that kind of power.
Enron? GM (which has the 18th-largest GDP in the world)? The Savings & Loans that had to get bailed out, lest they bring the economy down?
A position you try to defend by conjuring up bogeymen stories chock full of those absolutes you don't accept....
Well, when I use real-world examples, you claim they're not relevant. When I use hypothetical examples, you claim they're bogeymen.
And, finally:
The intent was pre-emptive - to keep Viginia from taxing, say cotton, "imported" from Alabama. You also are dodging the fact that the 10th Ammendmant MODIFIES the commerce clause, by denying the government the power to act unless such power has been SPECIFICALLY DELEgATED to the fed - hence the 18th ammendmant to ban alcohol.
So you're saying that the interstate commerce clause gives Congress the power to amend the Constitution in order to regulate interstate commerce? Did they really need an interstate commerce clause to grant them the power to fundamentally change what the Constitution says? That's as bogus an argument as the 2nd granting the government the authority to raise a militia. The clear and obvious meaning of the interstate commerce clause is that the Congress has the legal authority to enact laws in regulation of commerce between the states. Just like every other clause in the Constitution granting the Congress authority to do things. I love the 10th amendment, but for Heaven's sake, intepreting it to mean that Congress can only do the things the Consitution says it can do by
amending the Constitution just might be the stupidest thing I've ever heard.