Not surprised at all.
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Bob_Robertson Aug 03, 2007 1:22 PM EDT |
I lived in Massachusetts for several years. There is no depth of corruption that would surprise me. Keep in mind how quickly Peter Quinn had to quit his job after it was discovered he had made a decision that was actually beneficial to people, and didn't involve kickbacks or graft. |
| vainrveenr Aug 05, 2007 11:07 AM EDT |
Quoting:I lived in Massachusetts for several years. There is no depth of corruption that would surprise meTalk about corruption; Boston's infamous Big Dig http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig_(Boston,_Massachusetts) says it all!!! And those in the USA are currently shocked over the Minneapolis/St. Paul bridge collapse! Less aware (outside of those in LXer) are some of the hardball tactics Microsoft continues to use to stack its deck in order to overthrow any considered uptake of ODF. Instead of solely appealing to reason and inclusive debate, it and its OOXML petitioners at state governments around the country engage in veritable swarming. Massachusetts is just one example of this. At the slightest chance that a state government considers ODF over its own proprietary OOXML, a swarm of Microsof advocates descend upon that state government and besiege politicians -- some of this even behind-the-scenes -- in order to successfully bury even any possible _consideration_ of ODF uptake. Just compare those states succumbing to MS OOXML fiat versus those states still undergoing a futile fight to compare OOXML and ODF based upon merit alone. Really, pro-ODF swarming should go the other way as well. Its too bad that MS's advocacy groups are so successful with their currently greater resources and power tactics :( |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 05, 2007 4:05 PM EDT |
> are currently shocked over the Minneapolis/St. Paul bridge collapse! Not even surprised. It's not like we have any competitor to the government built/maintained roads to take our business to. Another mandated monopoly with shoddy standards and crappy service. |
| dinotrac Aug 05, 2007 6:14 PM EDT |
>Another mandated monopoly with shoddy standards and crappy service. Was the bridge built by the Army Corps of Engineers? >It's not like we have any competitor to the government built/maintained roads to take our business to Though not quite true -- for example, in Chicago the Wendella water taxi services quite a few downtown commuters when the weather is amenable, it's close enough to true. Trouble about roads is that they tend to be natural monopolies. They're expensive to build and have little value if they don't hook up and/or go where you want to go. They also require tremendous amounts of land. Prior to the roads, we had the railroads, which were not a government monopoly. Instead, they were dominated by private monopolists. You may prefer that. I don't see any advantage. |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 05, 2007 6:59 PM EDT |
> Prior to the roads, we had the railroads... Demonstrably untrue. Before railroads, we had many _private_ roads. Please go look up the term "Turnpike". These private for-profit roads did quite a good business, before being expropriated by governments. > ...railroads, which were not a government monopoly. Instead, they were dominated by private monopolists. Again, demonstrably untrue. The railroads which took government subsidies all went bankrupt at one time or another because of their inherent inefficiency. They were constantly being threatened by other, more efficient rail lines which did not take subsidies, such as the Great Northern. A bunch of those same subsidized and inefficient companies collaborated with the Federal government to create the Railroad Commission, for the specific reason of regulating the railroad industry in order to _prevent_ competition by using government force to create those very monopolies you seem to believe came about through private efforts. A monopoly requires government to enforce it. Otherwise, someone with a better idea will come along and undercut the inefficient/unsatisfactory "monopoly" provider, and take their business. It's becoming clear that economics is not your forte'. Here are a couple more titles for you: _How Capitalism Saved America_, Thomas DiLorenzo _The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History_, Thomas Woods _The Voluntary City_, Beito, Gordon, Tabarrok I realize you've already told me you don't have time to read up on the subjects we've previously discussed, but I figure if you're interested enough to post on a subject you might be interested enough to learn something about it. |
| dinotrac Aug 06, 2007 2:57 AM EDT |
>It's becoming clear that economics is not your forte Well, only my undergraduate degree was economics, although I did take some graduate economics courses for my Masters and JD. I don't claim to be an economist, especially on other planets. On this planet, however, I know a couple of things to be true: 1. "Doing good business" is not a counter-argument to the presence of a monopolist. This may shock you, Bob, but monopolies tend to do good business. The term "monopoly profits" is not a reference to a company's hard times. If you doubt me, you can do a little reading on your own, maybe study up on the oil trusts around the turn of the 20th century, or even find out about this little company called Microsoft. 2. Roads really do tend to be a natural monopoly. Not absolute, but natural. You don't even have to read to see that. Go watch the movie "Cars", which centers around the fate of towns along the old Route 66. I'm pretty sure you can follow the story, but your eyes have to be open to get the point. |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 06, 2007 6:52 AM EDT |
> ...for my Masters and JD. Ah! Do you work as a lawyer? If so, then your attitude at last makes a great deal of sense. As an intersted party, whose livelyhood is directly related to the complexity and pervasiveness of government regulation, it's no wonder you defend it. It would be like me reflexively defending electricity, or Steve Balmer defending Windows. Thank you. Until now your attitude just didn't add up. > If you doubt me, you can do a little reading on your own, maybe study up on the oil trusts around the turn of the 20th century Dino, you should do a little reading yourself. Ah, but then you've said you have no interest in doing so. Here, let me help: The average price of kerosene during the "robber barron" period prior to the Progressive's trust busting idiocy dropped by more than 90%. That doesn't say that some companies weren't able to create monopoly profits from time to time, just as Microsoft and Sony try to do now, but since there was no success at restricting output in order to keep prices up those monopoly efforts _failed_. > or even find out about this little company called Microsoft. In every software field in which Microsoft has released products, the average price of the products in that field has dropped. You would call this "monopoly prices"? As much as Microsoft would like people to have to use their product, no leverage Microsoft has tried as prevented people from using other products. Hardly the common use of "monopoly" to mean where people have no choice. The fact that in order to buy a Ford car I have to buy a Ford engine does not make Ford a monopoly. If I do not want a Microsoft product, I do not buy a Microsoft product. Until or unless Microsoft makes that choice for me, they are no monopoly. Ford occasionally changes the threads on their oil-filters to block cheaper 3rd-party add-ons. Again, this does not make Ford a monopoly even though it might piss off Fram. Yet Netscape agitated for prosecution of Microsoft for doing the same thing. You might wish to assert that because the government prosecuted them they are a "monopoly", but the government also defined making ketchup available to (government) school kids as "a serving of vegetables". When government is the most perfect example of abusive monopoly, I'm hardly ready to use their self-serving definitions when trying to argue the abuses of monopolies, except as bad examples. > Go watch the movie "Cars", which centers around the fate of towns along the old Route 66. You are going to hold up an example of _government_ designed and built roads on land taken by eminent domain to try to prove that private roads tend to be monopolies? It doesn't bother me all that much that you don't want to read citation after citation that disprove your prior assertions, but really. Could you please try not to directly contradict yourself? > but your eyes have to be open to get the point. Indeed, it was a cute movie. But as you try to tell me that you're focusing on this planet and not some other fantasy one, I wish you would do the same. Here is some reading directly related in case you have some free time: "The Wrong Lessons of the Bridge Collapse" http://www.mises.org/story/2668 "Chapter 10, Monopoly and Competition" http://www.mises.org/rothbard/mes/chap10a.asp "Robber Barons" http://www.mises.org/story/2317 ...and one of my favorites, which I have recommended many times and maybe even to you prior to this, "But Wouldn't The Warlords Take Over?" http://www.mises.org/story/1855 There is also Vin Suprynowicz's excellent essay, "Why does it always come down to roads?" which, sadly, does not seem to be online. If I run across it somewhere, I'll see about getting you a copy. |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 06, 2007 7:12 AM EDT |
Looking around for a Microsoft piece, I found this cute little ditty that sums up the silliness of it all. http://www.lewrockwell.com/dieteman/dieteman87.html "The point: the anti-trust laws are tools of politicians, and should be repealed. Charge more than your competitors? Price gouging. Charge the same? Collusion. Charge less? Predatory pricing. It is actually illegal to charge: more, the same, or less. "Bundle" your products? Unfair. Who gets sued for what depends on which way the political winds are blowing. Time to repeal anti-trust." |
| dinotrac Aug 06, 2007 7:18 AM EDT |
>Ah! Do you work as a lawyer? I do not. My attitude makes sense because my attitude makes sense, not because I have some vested interest. |
| jdixon Aug 06, 2007 9:09 AM EDT |
Bob: I believe Dino has training as a lawyer, but he is not currently employed as one. Dino is correct that a road is a natural monopoly for one simple reason. You only need one. You usually don't need, and in fact in most places cannot physically have, 6 different roads leading to a location. One is all that is needed. The same thing is true of water lines, gas lines, electric lines, cable tv lines, etc. For that reason, all of these are natural monopolies. It's not that they can't be provided by more than one entity, but only one such service is required, and it's usually extremely difficult to switch providers due to hight cost of providing the infrastructure required. For this reason, the most efficient way to provide such services is probably to have the government put in the infrastructure/distribution system, but allow any provider which meets the government's published specifications provide the actual service (please note, I said most efficient, not best). As an example, under such a system; the government would put in the power lines, but you could buy your electricity from any provider you wished. |
| dinotrac Aug 06, 2007 9:53 AM EDT |
>You only need one. You usually don't need, and in fact in most places cannot physically have, 6 different roads leading to a location. In fact, anything that is tightly tied to land has monopolistic potential. In the law, contracts for land are viewed differently from most other contracts. There is a concept called "specific performance" that is disfavored in most cases. When you seek specific performance you ask the court not to award money damages, but to force the other party to actually do what they contracted to do. Each piece of land is, in some way, unique. An acre in Manhatten ain't the same as an acre Give Up All Hope, Idaho. People tend to gravitate to the shortest, fastest, smoothest, most convenient route to their destination. There generally aren't too many o those. |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 06, 2007 10:02 AM EDT |
> The same thing is true of water lines, gas lines, electric lines, cable tv lines, etc. While there may be only room for one road, no such limitations exist for the rest of the list. In those areas where there is no locally mandated monopoly on cable TV service, for instance, prices are much lower even when there is only one provider. > the most efficient way to provide such services is probably to have... Please see the book noted above, _The Voluntary City_. Please. It's not like there is any "probably" at all left. It's all been done, thrashed out over and over. "Public" provision of services always leads to more expensive and less responsive results. Always. It is _not_ "most efficient", not even "more". The "Tragedy of the Commons" problem, which comes up constantly in reality, is a problem of a lack of private property. It is exactly the same perverse incentives that make all bureaucracy inefficient. Would anyone care if I listed a few titles on that subject too? The "logic" behind looking at a problem and seeing how it can be done by a government ignores one fundamental element: More than one answer. When a government "puts in the infrastructure", you are stuck with that infrastructure. If it is inefficient, too bad, taxes cover the cost and the government monopoly shields it from competition. It may "logically" seem like a truism, it may seem perfectly reasonable that a road is itself a "monopoly". It may even seem very inefficient for two roads to run between the same two places. But as long as it is illegal for an alternative to exist, as long as it is government that is providing the service, we cannot know for sure. I am happy to see your intellectual honesty in using the word "probably". > My attitude makes sense because my attitude makes sense, not because I have some vested interest. I'm just glad you've stopped denying it. |
| dinotrac Aug 06, 2007 10:24 AM EDT |
>I'm just glad you've stopped denying it. And I'm glad you've stopped beating your wife. |
| jdixon Aug 06, 2007 10:47 AM EDT |
> While there may be only room for one road, no such limitations exist for the rest of the list. The only limitation I listed lacking on the others is the physical space. All the other limitations still exist. > It's not like there is any "probably" at all left. I don't think the case has been proven at all. I'm willing to grant that I may be wrong, which is why I stated probably. The cable tv example you gave above is almost certainly a city, with a high population density and comparatively low costs of providing service. The same conditions do not apply for smaller towns and rural areas. Which does not mean I support cable tv monopolies, just that I realize that they may be inevitable under certain conditions. In some circumstances, the costs of entering a market may make it not worth the effort of unseating an incumbent provider or even two companies entering the market in the first place. That said, I carefully pointed out that I said most efficient, not best. Efficiency is not the be all and end all of existence, and there are sometimes very good reasons for choosing a less efficient solution. Preventing a monopoly, even a government one, may be one of those. > But as long as it is illegal for an alternative to exist, as long as it is government that is providing the service, we cannot know for sure. I will agree with you on that. > I am happy to see your intellectual honesty in using the word "probably". I try, Bob. As with everything else, I'm sometimes less successful than I would wish. |
| dinotrac Aug 06, 2007 11:36 AM EDT |
Hmmm.... I just saw a report that three floors have collapsed at the Fountainbleau casino construction site. If I am to understand Bob correctly, the government must actually be the ones building that sucker as private companies would not do shoddy and substandard work. |
| jdixon Aug 06, 2007 11:44 AM EDT |
> If I am to understand Bob correctly, the government must actually be the ones building that sucker as private companies would not do shoddy and substandard work. Dino you should know as well as I do that what Bob means is that private companies will be held accountable for such incidents, but that government almost never is. |
| azerthoth Aug 06, 2007 11:47 AM EDT |
Then again the interesting point is that the ones holding the companies accountable just happens to be the government. |
| jdixon Aug 06, 2007 11:49 AM EDT |
> Then again the interesting point is that the ones holding the companies accountable just happens to be the government. No. The government is the means for holding the companies accountable (via the court system), but not the ones doing it. That's usually handled by lawyers. Unless the law was broken somewhere along the line, in which case the government may step in. |
| azerthoth Aug 06, 2007 11:54 AM EDT |
wow, hear that dino, you dont need courts to hold someone accountable, you need only be a lawyer. */sarcasm* And the lawyers operate inside the court room, the court room being an extension of ...? |
| dinotrac Aug 06, 2007 12:29 PM EDT |
>wow, hear that dino, you dont need courts to hold someone accountable, you need only be a lawyer. And, it would appear, you don't need laws or any of that other good stuff. Bob was making a big deal out of CRIMINAL prosecution as opposed to civil, but, as it turns out. criminal prosecution depends on statutory law -- a creation of government. WRT to civil prosecution, you can sue both private companies and governments. The difference is that you can't sue government officials for performing their official duties, no matter how much you may dislike what they do. One classic example, btw, of why this makes sense is the case of firefighting. Sometimes, you have to let the fire take a building or an area of land because it is too dangerous (or certain to be futile) to fight. Sometimes, you actually start a burn to rob the main fire of fuel. At any rate, people have to be free to make those decisions -- even when they make a mistake. OTOH, a fire captain who chooses to let the house of his wife's lover burn would not be free from prosecution -- if credible evidence could be presented that the reason for letting it burn had nothing to do with proper exercise of his official duties. |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 06, 2007 12:39 PM EDT |
> All the other limitations still exist. What limitation? Electric distribution has no reason why several different power lines couldn't be run in around the same place, although one company might have to rent space on someone else's power poles, but then they will have to pay me rent to run their lines through to my neighbor anyway, so there's no difference. Only the government created "right of way" creates the artificial environment of a monopoly-owned physical space limitation. > I carefully pointed out that I said most efficient, not best. I could also assert that it is most efficient for everyone to use the same microcomputer operating system, since that way everyone can exchange files. But since "we" all decry the monopoly abuses of microcomputer OS compan[y,ies], that is taken as a non-working answer. I submit that the only reason that "utilities" seem so obviously to be things better done by some kind of government interference, is because we are _accustomed_ to having it done that way. I live in a state with state-owned and operated liqueur stores. To someone who does not live in such a state, it would seem inefficient to have such a limitation. And indeed, having to go far out of the way to buy liqueur is not just inefficient, it's inconvenient. It also means that if someone wants to sell a particular beverage in this state, they have to go through a single bureaucracy who gets to decide what people want, instead of being able to convince a store owner to try it to see if the customers _actually_ want it. If the government were providing shoes, there would be people decrying how private shoe makers could never keep up with demand, provide the right number of shoes to so many different customers over such a huge geographical area, etc etc etc. Yet it _does_ work, even if some folks (I think it's the same folks who would be crying about how private industry couldn't do the job) complain that having multiple running shoe companies is "inefficient". One of the logical explanations used by Mussolini for his "fascism" plan in Italy was how it would eliminate "wasteful redundancies". The same argument for having one water provider, one gas provider, one electric provider, and so on. It does look good on paper. It does have benefits in theory, but in practice monopolies of all kinds create inefficiencies and make the services provided worse than they otherwise would be. Like I said, this is not something new. |
| hkwint Aug 06, 2007 3:26 PM EDT |
Quoting:I submit that the only reason that "utilities" seem so obviously to be things better done by some kind of government interference, is because we are _accustomed_ to having it done that way. A false assumption. In my country, we were for example accustomed to having the railways, the post and the accompanying of the for work disabled people done by government. Today we are accustomed to have those tasks done by companies. Sometimes this works, other times it doesn't, sometimes it just plain sucks. No complaints about the post. It works the same way it did for about the same price, except that all our red post-boxes will have to be painted TNT-orange (and who's gonna pay for that). Tons of complaints about the railways. The material is sometimes not save, trains don't run on time anymore and get broke more often, and it's been quite chaotic. 'Customer services' and 'infrastructural works' are two different companies now, but the people cannot choose the infrastructural works of which company (rails) they want to ride on top, since the customer services decides from them. Since more companies started customer services, those companies had to buy old trains, repaint them, and guess who pays for that. Railprivatization sucks. Look at England: Tons of (sometimes deadly) accidents happen over there because the state doesn't handle it anymore, but companies do. Also, it is far more difficult to shift the personnel riding on the trains (statistic distribution problems): If 1000 persons work for one company and 100 become ill, and 100 other are available, there's no problem. When those 1000 persons are divided over six companies, chances are big the available persons work at another company as the ill personnel does. Tons of complaints about the offices accompanying people who are disabled to work back to the 'labour-market' (I can't help that's how they call it in my country): They don't do what's best for their customers, only what's best for their wallets. Most of the time, those disabled people have enough problems of their own, and don't have time nor energy to complaint or find out which company is the best. Those offices know that, and can come away with anything. Also, some people think companies are better then governments, because of 'supply and demand'. Well, they're worse sometimes: Mobile phone companies also suck: You can't compare the prices where I live, because the operators make the prices as complex as they can. This is were market fails. Also, who's gonna stop roaming rates? If there is no government, than who's going to stop monopolies like Microsoft, and the abusive things they do? Everybody knows the customers usually don't. If there was no government, universities would only supply money to project from which they expect a benefit in the future, this is happening in my country right now. Nobody would have funded a 'hobby project to make a free kernel on which UNIX programs could run (won't be big)'. Especially, educational privatization sucks, because supply and demand are asynchronous; spread over several years. If there are too less teachers, salaries for teachers rise, and everyone wants to become a teacher. Since there's demand to become a teacher, that's where the supply will be, and there will be less supply for - for example - technical education. Therefore, teacher education will become cheaper, technical education becomes more expensive, and guess what the parents want their children to study. Then, after four to five years, there are tons of teachers, salaries for teacher descend, a lot of teachers become unemployed, and there isn't any personnel left to deploy in the technical companies. So salaries for technical employment raises, and the whole thing starts over again. On an ethical aspect, companies suck, because they attach prices to human lives. Is it cheaper to make safer cars, or is it cheaper to pay for a number of funerals and don't make the cars saver? I heard this actually happened at Ford. Also, in my country, a recent issue is for the electricity companies: What is cheaper, making good electrical distribution networks, or doing it a bit cheaper, and paying a fine to the people who end up having now power regularly because we made a cheap distribution system? What's cheaper: Building a save nuclear energy plant, or a .01% less save nuclear energy plant, and insuring the risk of a meltdown syndrome? Who's gonna stop trade in organs without a government? Don't understand me wrong: The free market made the Dutch super-markets almost the cheapest of Europe and I like it that way (duh!) But there are many things not suited for privatization. |
| jrm Aug 06, 2007 4:26 PM EDT |
Bob, I think we need to make a distinction between a natural monopoly and a run-of-the-mill monopoly. Producing kerosene is not a natural monopoly. And generating electricity is not the same as making shoes. It's been forever since I got my degree, but it goes something like this... Your power company is a good example of a natural monopoly. Their fixed costs are really high, but their marginal costs are really low. It's really expensive for them to serve that first customer, but really cheap for them to add another customer once they're in business. (Marginal costs are decreasing.) It's not theoretical... if you get me a copy of your power company's books, we can compute their per unit costs. The high fixed costs and the low marginal costs are the barrier to entry. That's what makes it a "natural" monopoly. It's a real dilemma. In a natural monopoly, a single company has lower per unit costs, but without competition they will charge high prices. That's the theory for allowing one company to have a monopoly, but then regulating them as to price. hkwint, with postal services in your country, I assume that they are highly regulated. For example, you couldn't just decide to open up your own post office. So the government is really just subcontracting out the work? |
| dinotrac Aug 06, 2007 4:40 PM EDT |
>But there are many things not suited for privatization. I don't know how many things there are, but I believe that some things are. Specifically, things that for some non-economic reason are determined to be essential -- for lack of a better word -- rights. I prefer non-monopoly models. For example, in the US, private carriers compete with the US Postal Service (a strange beast: essentially a government corporation), but the postal service retains a monopoly on first-class mail. It works better than one would think, given the monopoly, especially in this era of e-mail. Lots of stuff that might have been first-class mail suddenly isn't (not by government rule so much as by private resourcefulness) and mail still flows to places where it doesn't turn a profit. Compare that to airline service, which is government regulated, but thoroughly private. Lots of smaller cities no longer have service and huge pieces of the air-service map have become those infernal hub and spoke arrangements. OTOH, Boeing's 787 big selling pitch is the ability to make more routes cost-effective to fly directly -- a boon to anyone who's changed one too many planes. Both the bad and the good effects are the result of private competition. If you really want to see the value of private competition, the airline industry again provides a shining example. Bureaucracies tend to be mired in what is. Even if they want to do things better, they want to improve what is, not change the paradigm in some fundamental way. Try to imagine a government committee doing what Herb Kelleher did when he founded Southwest Airlines. Rather than look at other airlines as the competition, he focused on the family car. Southwest was designed to get people out of their cars, not off of other airplanes. Of course, it's done a lot of both. All while Amtrak struggles to keep its losses down to merely horrendous by providing a rail service that few people want. |
| azerthoth Aug 06, 2007 5:05 PM EDT |
One correction dino, the airlines in the US were deregulated in the early 80's. Only the routes between one place and another are controlled by the government. |
| dinotrac Aug 06, 2007 5:21 PM EDT |
>One correction dino, the airlines in the US were deregulated in the early 80's. Only the routes between one place and another are controlled by the government. The airlines were private but regulated. As the regulations went away, so did service to a lot of smaller destinations. |
| hkwint Aug 07, 2007 5:09 PM EDT |
Quoting:the postal service retains a monopoly on first-class mail. Ah, that US postal example also is the answer to the question jrm asked about how they managed it in my country: Only letters / packages above 20 grams are to be handled by private companies (like UPS, DHL and so on). However, that might change in the near future. Quoting:mail still flows to places where it doesn't turn a profit. That's the problem with privatization of the busses: They did go to places where it doesn't turn a profit, and on days / times it doesn't, but not anymore. If you're in a rural area, that means only a few buses a day (that's really a little in a country where the average distance covered by bus per person is about 8km/5mi) or no buses at all, and the same goes for mobile phone coverage, supermarkets, post offices and bank offices in the area, and more things like that. Quoting:which is government regulated, but thoroughly private. Lots of smaller cities no longer have service and huge pieces of the air-service map have become those infernal hub and spoke arrangements. So, as a result, the number of flights decreased I assume, which is astonishing! I didn't know the US government cares about the environment that much? |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 07, 2007 5:23 PM EDT |
> That's the theory for allowing one company to have a monopoly, but then regulating them as to price. I do understand the motivation and "logic" behind granting monopolies, the logic fails if given greater than cursory examination. It all depends on the regulators having _perfect_ knowledge. Yes, starting up an electric company has huge costs, but the fact is that by insulating an established provider from competition you prevent innovation that would otherwise reduce those start-up costs. The threat of competition keeps prices low, far lower than the regulators do, because those prices are able to fluxuate with changes in costs. Regulators are handed information (by those regulated) concerning worst-case situations and other such things because regulated prices are substantially fixed rather than mobile. As HK points out, private efforts do not automatically solve every problem. There will always be room for someone to make a profit by better serving customers. It's not those who argue for freedom that promise to magically solve every problem, that is the perview of the Utopians, the planners, those who promise to be good rulers. ...But they mean to _rule_. |
| dinotrac Aug 07, 2007 6:13 PM EDT |
> the number of flights decreased I assume I don't think so. I think we actually got more flights to fewer destinations. |
| jrm Aug 07, 2007 6:38 PM EDT |
> I do understand the motivation and "logic" behind granting monopolies I'm not convinced that you do. Most of your arguments wouldn't apply to a natural monopoly, if that's still what we're talking about. I'm all for free markets. And I'm all for limited government. But sometimes you have to have a bit of regulation in order to keep the markets free. And without a government, you'd be left with anarchy. ;-) |
| jdixon Aug 07, 2007 7:51 PM EDT |
> ...wow, hear that dino, you dont need courts to hold someone accountable, you need only be a lawyer. You know, it might help you quite a bit in life if you understood the difference between mechanism and motivation. > And the lawyers operate inside the court room, the court room being an extension of ...? Lawyers operate out of the courtroom all of the time. The courtroom is only the final step if all else fails. It's expensive for both parties, so negotiated settlements are the norm. And there's no need for the courtroom to be provided by the government. Any impartial third party recognized by both sides in a disagreement will work. > And, it would appear, you don't need laws or any of that other good stuff. Nope. You don't. An eye for an eye predates all of that stuff by quite a bit. And still applies, as demonstrated quite well by Timothy McVeigh. > What limitation? Cost of installation and connection to the infrastructure, primarily, though I could come up with others. jrm's writeup wrt electric utilities seems pretty accurate. However, this conversation is degenerating rapidly, so I'm going to drop out. I'm short on time this week anyway. |
| dinotrac Aug 08, 2007 1:46 AM EDT |
>Lawyers operate out of the courtroom all of the time. The courtroom is only the final step if all else fails. Lawyers may physically operate outside of the courtroom, but the mechanisms of the state permeate nearly everything they do. For example, contracts gain their power by the availability of governmental mechanisms to enforce them. Ditto wills. In fact, wills are among the few documents that most states require to be witnessed and notarized. Real estate transactions are recorded by state offices. Etc, etc, etc. |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 08, 2007 5:50 AM EDT |
> Most of your arguments wouldn't apply to a natural monopoly, if that's still what we're talking about. A "natural monopoly" is a logical construct, not a reality. Where a "natural monopoly" can be argued to exist, it does so only because no one has thought of an alternative. There are two problems with regulation that cannot be overcome: Regulators cannot know everything; Regulations prevent the very innovations which eliminate "natural monopolies". On "limited government", what a nice theory. It really is too bad that there is no such thing. If government ever remained limited, I would have so little to argue about. > contracts gain their power by the availability of governmental mechanisms to enforce them. No. Not "government mechanisms", just "mechanisms". It's called "arbitration", and whether done by government agents or private, it is still just arbitration. Many of the contracts I've entered into in the last 20 years have explicitly stated that they would be dealt with by private arbitration rather than by government. Where you are understating government power is that government is the only entity which can unilaterally change the terms of a contract and then hold everyone else liable for the changes. It doesn't take but a few moments though to come up with minimum wage laws, the various prohibitions on plant extracts, the fact that I cannot hire FedEx to carry a piece of first-class mail for me, and other peaceful contracts that I may not enter into. Tax rates, minimum wage rates, the abrogation of all private gold contracts since 1932, inflation of the government fiat money supply, eminent domain, all create an environment of uncertainty over and above the "market" forces dealt with every day. So no. Contracts are not ensured by government, they are violated by government. The fact that government offices provides a few services that people use has never been in dispute. Only their efficiency and necessity is disputed. |
| dinotrac Aug 08, 2007 6:12 AM EDT |
>Where a "natural monopoly" can be argued to exist, it does so only because no one has thought of an alternative. Yes. Railways give way to automobiles and airplanes, etc. Sort of... Two problems with that: 1. Potential severe problems while alternatives are developed 2. Network effects that tend to lock in a monopoly Number 1 isn't actually all that common. Very few things in our world lack reasonable alternatives and monopolists actually do have limits to their power -- they don't want to make otherwise unreasonable alternatives become reasonable. One could argue that oil acts a lot like a monopoly product because a fairly small number of companies control refineries, OPEC tries to regulate prices, etc. A shortage of oil certainly would be very disruptive, as it was back inthe 1970s during the Arab oil embargo. OTOH, there is an active market in oil (and oil futures), and the appearance of some competition. Remember the huge nose-dive in American gasoline prices back in the fall? A real monopoly would never have let that happen. Number 2 is real and lives on 90% of the personal computers used today. The Microsoft desktop monopoly doesn't continue because there are no choices. It continues because so many people are so heavily invested in it. Even my wife, who uses Linux/KDE on her personal desktop, had to break down and get an XP notebook so that she could run the software needed to do her job. Windows can be one really nasty piece of crap and still get a lot of business because so many things that people need to use run only on Windows, and so many places that people turn to for help understand only Windows. |
| jsusanka Aug 08, 2007 7:49 AM EDT |
"Even my wife, who uses Linux/KDE on her personal desktop, had to break down and get an XP notebook so that she could run the software needed to do her job. Windows can be one really nasty piece of crap and still get a lot of business because so many things that people need to use run only on Windows, and so many places that people turn to for help understand only Windows." yup - you hit the nail on the head - it is the ugly truth - my work will not budge on me putting linux on my laptop and I am a unix admin and it would related to my job and would make perfect sense me for to have linux on my laptop because I don't really need windows to do my work in fact it hinders my work - they hide behind lawyers and push the legal reasons. I have more of a feeling that it has to do with the licensing agreement they have with microsoft - but I can only guess and don't really care. and it is true windows is one nasty piece of crap. |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 08, 2007 8:50 AM EDT |
> 1. Potential severe problems while alternatives are developed
> 2. Network effects that tend to lock in a monopoly "Potential." That's it? That's a justification for immeasurable wealth and human lives sacrificed on the alter of the Almighty Government? The "waste" which occurs while alternatives are fleshed out is incomparable to the "waste" in treasure and lives that has been lost to regulation. "No, we will not spend a penny of taxpayer money on this wasteful, redundant radio thing, not now that we've invested so much in the undersea cable system. Anyone caught trying to develop radio in illegal competition with the cable monopoly will be fined and imprisoned." Thank the gods that those were private efforts in competition, or we'd still be beating drums to talk over distances. > 90% ... Windows. So what? Are you going to use government power to force people to all use the same OS, just one which you agree with? Are you going to use government power to force _some_ people to use a different OS, yet another arbitrary racist (OSist?) quota system? Are you going to use government power to violate private contracts between OS publishers and hardware sellers that would otherwise have put one OS on that maker's hardware, a contract the both believe to be mutually beneficial? Ooops, there's Robertson Computing! They don't offer Windows as an option. Prosecution time, for illegal Linux bundling. So long as there is no coercion, I will not object to anyone running anything they want. I also don't object to people wearing straw hats after labor day, or white to a funeral, both of which offends someone. |
| jrm Aug 08, 2007 9:00 AM EDT |
> A "natural monopoly" is a logical construct, not a reality. So is "pure competition". Bob, on the continuum from "Central Planning" to "No Regulation", you and I aren't standing that far apart. I have a feeling neither of us are going to budge. I can only hope that everyone sees the humor in this... but this thread is starting to remind me of something: "Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh... now you tell me what you know." -Groucho Marx |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 08, 2007 9:10 AM EDT |
> So is "pure competition". Hahahaha, I couldn't agree more. Platonic Competition http://www.mises.org/story/1988 Unfortunately, the natural variations are seen, from the outside, as the very reasons used by regulators to step in and cause destruction by trying to regulate their idea of what "perfect competition" should be. I'm curious, you seemed to use the term "perfect competition" as if it were something I might believe in. How did I give you that impression? |
| jrm Aug 08, 2007 9:59 AM EDT |
> I'm curious, you seemed to use the term "perfect competition" as if it were something I might believe in. No, but we use "perfect competition" as a model even though it doesn't actually exist. If you pick examples from the ends of the spectrum, you can eliminate (or minimize) a lot of the variables. You can use models for comparison and to discover trends. Economics uses a scientific approach. You can count things and measure them. It's not all theory. The obvious example is that if everything else stays the same, then as supply goes up, price will come down. Where you run into trouble is when you have lots of unknown variables and assumptions. Take dinotrac's example. We might use an oligopoly model to predict the oil producers' behavior. Except that these are countries instead of companies, and the product isn't branded. And the next thing you know, all we have is cranberries and rhubarb... no oil at all. (And if any of that sounds like I think I know what I'm talking about, I apologize. I have no idea what we're even supposed to be talking about.) |
| dinotrac Aug 08, 2007 10:24 AM EDT |
>That's it? That's a justification for immeasurable wealth and human lives sacrificed on the alter of the Almighty Government? Excuse me? You must be reading something else somewhere else. I thought the topic was natural monopoly, not government structures. However, should a monopoly arise that poses a significant threat to the welfare of the nation, yes, I would not object to government interference. Better to avoid sacrificing human lives on the altar of immeasurable wealth. |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 08, 2007 10:48 AM EDT |
> I thought the topic was natural monopoly, ...a logical construct... > not government structures. Which are tangable, destructive realities. > However, should a monopoly arise that poses a significant threat to the welfare of the nation... Then you would have no need for coercive actions against non-interested individuals. The very "majority" which is required in a representative system in order to grant government the power to "do" something, is what renders that government power already moot. Such a number of people will already be acting to counter the threat without having to enslave the minority who disagree to their will through taxation and regulation. I submit as an example the fact that, even with a peak of what, 95% of the "desktop" computing, Microsoft never had an actual monopoly. There were always alternatives, and their development was active even when Windows was on the "up-take". |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 08, 2007 10:55 AM EDT |
Ah! Inspiration strikes. One might think that subways are a good example of a "natural monopoly", best regulated/run by government... The Disastrous World of the New York Subway, Part 1 http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0602e.asp |
| mvermeer Aug 08, 2007 12:17 PM EDT |
> Ah! Inspiration strikes. Ah! Now you got me scared... Edit: isn't the Washington DC metro publicly owned too? Worked just fine, clean and efficient, the several times I rode it. |
| dinotrac Aug 08, 2007 12:53 PM EDT |
>Then you would have no need for coercive actions against non-interested individuals. Does that phrase actually mean anything, Bob? You huff and you puff so much, it's hard to tell when there is actual content. |
| jrm Aug 08, 2007 4:05 PM EDT |
> that US postal example also is the answer to the question jrm asked about how they managed it in my country Here's why I asked. If you structure the bidding process correctly, it's possible to have some of the advantages of price competition, the efficiency of private enterprise, and still keep the benefits of monopoly. It's not ideal, but what I've been trying to get at is that there is no ideal way to solve this in a less than ideal world. So I'm gonna give up on this. Slackware 12 has been out for a while, and I still haven't finished customizing an install disk... |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 09, 2007 6:57 AM EDT |
> Does that phrase actually mean anything, Bob? Yes. Think about it: Coercive means used against non-interested individuals. Taxes, used to pay for things that the people taxed do not want and would otherwise not pay for. This is in contrast to interested individuals coming together for shared goals, such as building the NYC subway/elevated railways (just in case you didn't have time to read the article), building the QE2, SpaceShip1, Norman Borlaug, the Boulder Dam, Turnpikes, etc. Putting a gun to someone's head and telling them what to do is just so much easier. No persuasion required, and by spreading out the cost of a project over lots of people who otherwise wouldn't pay for them, the costs to the interested individuals is reduced or eliminated even if the project fails miserably. That's why "special interests" lobby for government favors. They get more than they put in. However, since different special interests do the same, the costs are raised for everyone far beyond what they would be if those same things were paid for by interested individuals. > You huff and you puff so much, it's hard to tell when there is actual content. Everything is actual content, Dino. You just prefer using force, so you ignore what you don't like. > isn't the Washington DC metro publicly owned too? I believe so. It would be interesting to see what the costs are. Where I've lived, the "public" transportation systems never earn back in ticket sales what they cost to run. The light-rail system in San Jose, California, for instance, earned about 14% of its operating (not building or debt service cost, just daily operating) expenses through ticket sales. It's an incentives problem. Had the system been built by people trying to make a profit, the light-rail would at _least_ have run between the airport, amusement park and train station. Sadly, the bureaucrats who had it built didn't think of that. But then, it's _not_their_money_. |
| dinotrac Aug 09, 2007 9:00 AM EDT |
>Yes. Think about it: Coercive means used against non-interested individuals. Taxes, used to pay for things that the people taxed do not want and would otherwise not pay for. So, is that to say that you would oppose taxes to support an army? A police force? Fire departments? |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 09, 2007 12:20 PM EDT |
> So, is that to say that you would oppose taxes to support an army? A police force? Fire departments? I oppose taxes. The ends do not justify the means. “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” --H. L. Mencken If you wish to present a hand-picked list of things which I, you, and others believe are important, and by doing so try to insinuate that those same things would not exist without taxes, you can only do so by pretending that the Minute Men and Militia, the Posse and Bounty Hunter, and the private, company and volunteer fire departments did not and do not exist. The problem with presenting such a list is that you have to pick popular things that people generally support in order to try and make your point. That same popularity means that there is no need to fund them at gunpoint. |
| azerthoth Aug 09, 2007 12:53 PM EDT |
How then do you propose that they should be funded? Schools, Public Safety, etc if not by a tax base. |
| dinotrac Aug 09, 2007 1:08 PM EDT |
>That same popularity means that there is no need to fund them at gunpoint. It's safe to say that, in the absence of army and police, the only things that will be funded at gunpoint will be those desired by invaders and criminals. Seriously, Bob, you must not look around you much. Some people already refuse to pay taxes to support an "immoral war", I have no doubt that many would decide that an army is ok, but, gee, things are tight right now and I'm sure Bob down the street will give plenty to help keep them up. Some things cost what they cost, regardless of how much people are willing to pay. Free markets are great, but they don't work for everything. Competing armies, for example, are called war. |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 09, 2007 1:38 PM EDT |
> How then do you propose that they should be funded? Schools, Public Safety, etc if not by a tax base. Interested individuals coming together to solve problems. The same way everything is done _outside_ of coercive government. Schools is the easiest of all, since it costs very little to actually educate. The "one room schoolhouse" worked very well, but required virtually no "administrative overhead" which is why the unions and bureaucrats destroyed them. Homeschooling is very effective, and there is no reason why the retired aircraft engineer down the street isn't tutoring in higher math a couple hours a week for a little extra cash. I would have thought the spectacular results of the Sylvan Learning Centers would have put the last nail in the coffin of coerced "public" school, but there are none so blind as those who will not see. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfRUMmTs0ZA While John Stossel comes out sadly in favor of "vouchers", the problems illustrated in this episode of 20/20 are well worth the time to watch it. It doesn't take lots of money to educate a child, it takes attention. Since this is something both you and I believe is important, you and I both will donate time/money to efforts to educate those without the money to send their kids to school. Churches and other voluntary civil organizations will do what lots of the churches around my area are doing, setting up their own schools. And who is to say that sitting down in a room with only kids your own age is all that good a way to learn anyway? Without the establishment setting the tone of all things "educational", the floodgates are open to every kind of human ingenuity in creating new and different curricula to teach different kids. Those kids (like me) who learned to read early can educate ourselves if given a list of materials and clear goals. It wasn't until I experienced the "Graduate Level Seminar" that I found an education style that I really "clicked" with. It's too bad such a style is limited only to the elite. That's why I enjoy the materials available on Mises.org so much, they're generally put together that way and make it very easy for me to enjoy learning something as usually dry and tedious as economics. Oh, and BTW, they offer a complete college economics course for $300. The number of students which remain, that require strict structure and a task-master in order to learn, is very small, which means that the most expensive teaching method can be made available to the minority that need it for a minute fraction of the vast wealth we're spending trying to make every kid learn that way. What is "Public Safety"? Eliminate the prohibitions that make drug-running profitable and the prohibitions against private self defense, that eliminates the vast majority of crimes and criminals very quickly. Private crime investigation has always been more efficient than tax-funded, which is why private investigators and private security guards exist even with the tax money to pay for the (redundant) government police already taken. If you mean disaster preparidness, private insurance and the profit motive work very well, if allowed to work. Private insurers do not want to pay, so they require various minimum safety elements to be in place, as well as giving discounts for people who put forth extra effort. So-called "profiteers" make sure that sorely needed supplies will arrive for people who are hit with disasters. Keep in mind that they cannot make a profit if no one will buy their product, so they ensure that both their prices and the products they offer will meet the needs and demands of the people they wish to help. The program within FEMA to give away mobile homes to "needy" people after Katrina was only discontinued within the last couple of weeks, because the level of waste and abuse became so bad that they couldn't ignore it any longer. Private charity knows no such ability to waste, but with FEMA _it's_not_their_money_. The usual objection to all this is what is knows as the "free rider" problem. In fact, the only two objections I've ever heard to voluntary cooperation are "free rider" and "people don't know what is good for them, but I do". I think I posted the talk about "objections to anarchy" above somewhere, but the talk touches on the "free rider" issue so it's relevant here too: http://www.mises.org/mp3/MU2004/Long2.mp3 As far as, "people don't know what's good for them but I do", such insightful individuals would do the world far more good to put their intuition into practice and make a fortune helping people. |
| dinotrac Aug 09, 2007 1:51 PM EDT |
>It doesn't take lots of money to educate a child, it takes attention. Yes. I have been amazed at the ability of parents without teaching credentials to educate their children -- and in far less time than public schools demand their little butts be affixed to classroom seats. Similarly, I've seen shoestring budget private schools outperform public schools that, by comparison, have an embarrassment of riches at their disposal. I am, however, absolutely convinced that publicly available education -- by whatever means and in whatever form it is best delivered -- is the sacred obligation of a free society. That is not the same as saying everyone should be sitting in public schools. It is the same as saying that no child should be unable to get a decent education. |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 09, 2007 1:51 PM EDT |
> Seriously, Bob, you must not look around you much. Some people already refuse to pay taxes to support an "immoral war"... As I said already, it's so much easier to rob people at gunpoint to pay for these escapades than it is to convince them to support the efforts by proving to them how much good they are. Golly, some folks might say "no". > Some things cost what they cost, regardless of how much people are willing to pay. "Free Rider" problem again, often and well answered if you had the time to read or listen to the links I've provided. > Free markets are great, but they don't work for everything. Yes, they do. Well, not everything, since "immoral war" would have few voluntary donations. Good thing, too. > Competing armies, for example, are called war. No, competing _STATES_ are called "war". I've already pointed you to this article, but I will do so again: "But, wouldn't the warlords take over?" http://www.mises.org/story/1855 What you fail to recognize is that war is _inefficient_ in the extreme, and can only be sustained by governments because _it's_not_their_money_. |
| dinotrac Aug 09, 2007 2:00 PM EDT |
>What you fail to recognize is that war is _inefficient_ in the extreme, and can only be sustained by governments because _it's_not_their_money_. Your notion was pretty thoroughly tested between May 10 and June 22, 1940. Efficient, inefficient, pretty, ugly, polite or rude, It didn't do so well. |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 09, 2007 2:10 PM EDT |
> between May 10 and June 22, 1940. Ah, I'd forgotten the period when no taxes went to support the military. Thank you for the reminder. Unless, somehow, that's not what you meant. Woe be it for me to put words in your mouth. > I am, however, absolutely convinced that publicly available education -- by whatever means and in whatever form it is best delivered -- is the sacred obligation of a free society. Then you, and I, will be donating to some of the same efforts, if/when that wealth is not taken at gunpoint. Glad to hear it. Demonstrating, once again, that coercive funding/attendance methods are not needed. |
| dinotrac Aug 09, 2007 2:13 PM EDT |
>Unless, somehow, that's not what you meant. Woe be it for me to put words in your mouth. Don't actually know how the French army was funded, but it would seem that the Nazis would not have turned back on being apprised that there were more efficient ways to enjoy a nice view of the Seine. |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 09, 2007 2:17 PM EDT |
> the Nazis would not have turned back on being apprised that there were more efficient ways to enjoy a nice view of the Seine. Ah, of course. Those voluntarily funded Nazis and their all-volunteer army? Or rather, the aggressive imperial force wielded by a government to invade their neighbors at the cost of their citizens lives and fortunes taken at gunpoint. While only annoying, one should note that the French resistance was a _volunteer_ force, a militia of local, interested individuals. No, they didn't hold back the Germans in WW2, but they weren't _called_upon_ to do so either. The French _government_ capitulated, and the citizens had to go along with German occupation. No matter how much governments may say they fight "for" their people, governments wield armies only to fight for the government itself. Edit: Oooo! Here's one for ya, Why Germans Supported Hitler, Part 1 http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0703a.asp |
| tuxchick Aug 09, 2007 2:49 PM EDT |
er.... this is going over the line, fellas. Want to take it outside? |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 09, 2007 3:08 PM EDT |
> Want to take it outside? What? I have no wish to use coercion against anyone. Let the "might makes right" guy take it outside. :^) Ok, point taken. If I may make one last statement on the subject: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. |
| tuxchick Aug 09, 2007 3:30 PM EDT |
Hey, just be glad I don't make you two hug and sing a brotherhood song. |
| dinotrac Aug 09, 2007 3:47 PM EDT |
>Hey, just be glad I don't make you two hug and sing a brotherhood song. EEEEEEEWWWWW! Now I've got to go take a bath in Vichy water. |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 09, 2007 3:52 PM EDT |
> and sing a brotherhood song. sudden flashback to _The Addams Family_ movie |
Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]
Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!