Sustainable Capitalism

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
41

[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
orion wrote:Well, way true.

Insert two paragraphs of wishful thinking here.

I could explain why way true , but if you had a basic grasp of economics you´d already know why and willful ignorance is a powerful force.

But I can give you the cliff notes:

People already spend their money exactly the way they want. That is, given a certain distribution of money, the utility maximizing outcome.

Once government interferes, the outcome is less then optimal, the system is less efficient, money is wasted.

Did you know that economics is not something you just have an opinion on, but that whole academic degrees exist in that subject?

What exactly are you arguing here?

[/quote]

That you automatically waste wealth when you try to steer the market toward “green” energy?

It is also pure BS to start now, because solar panels are already getting competitive in Mediterranean countries, without any subsidies whatsoever.

Pass the laws that you can put them on your roof in California and Florida and get the hell out of the way.

When those technologies become competitive, people will use them. To make them use them before is idiotic.

42

[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
psst. Hey guys, wake up. 19th century, robber barons. That’s free capitalism. It didn’t work. Mind boggling there are so many people who claim to want to return to that.[/quote]

Dumb. America basically boomed from 1789 until 1929. Then the gov’t stepped in (it).

43

[quote]pookie wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
We have never had free market capitalism in this country

You’ll never have a free market that will last anywhere in the world.

If a company can manage attain monopoly status, it will. No more market.

[/quote]

Monopoly can only last when government intervenes. When large companies are allowed to capture the government (a mixed economy), you get today. Only LF Capitalism with strict rules preventing any capitalist from capturing the gov’t can be sustainable.

44

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Please tell me how a monopoly is possible in a free society without coercion?[/quote]

  • Buy off your smaller competitors
  • If you can afford it, sell below their cost until they go out of business
  • Work out exclusivity deals with critical suppliers
  • Leverage another successful business to muscle in on a market (Microsoft giving IE away free with Windows effectively killed Netscape and gave MS 90%+ of the market for years… with an inferior product to boot.)
  • If you happen to be the de facto standard in your domain, charge exorbitant license fees.
  • If you own patents critical to your domain, sue everyone else out of business.

Basically, use all means necessary to make it, if not impossible, at least very difficult for anyone to compete with you.

Oligopolies work pretty much the same way, only they require collusion between companies to form the 800-pound gorilla.

45

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Monopoly can only last when government intervenes.
[/quote]

In your Bizarro world, no doubt.