What you do for profit

[ClakarEQ]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29138430/
That IMO is the exact reason why capitalism in it's truest for can never exist. If you could take the lust of money out of capitalism perhaps I could revisit the potential but when I read shit like this, can you even imagine how bad it would be if we really were capitalists. Even our iteration of capitalism is so broken it's ridiculous. Ron Paul is a nut job if he really believes morality and ethics could somehow control greed and corruption in a "real" capitalistic society. What he seems to overlook is if the public sector puts in checks and balances to avoid issues like this peanut problem, you are just asking for more corruption and troubles.

[Naethyn]

The primary duty of government is to protect it's people and it's people's rights. It's the main argument Ron Paul uses for siding with pro life.

Capitalism has nothing to do with this.

[ClakarEQ]

Nate, to my knowledge no society has existed that has been capitalist. Capitalism is something that looks good on paper, but is based on the assumption that morals and ethics outweight greed and profits, hate to say it, but Ron is out of touch with today's society and needs to pull his head out if his ass to realize how screwed up things would be if he got his way.

BTW, your definition of government is a fallacy, the purpose of government is control, not protection. That is just something folks think to be true, when in reality that isn't the case at all.

To prove my point re: that scentence, ask yourself, and make a quick list:
1) "What has the government done to protect you?"
2) "What has the government done to control you?"

List number 2 would be miles compared to the few feet of number 1.

My point on the first post was to show how bad things are "now", and how there is no potential, literally ZERO possibility that it would be remotely better under a self-regulating private sector, aka Capitalism.

[ClakarEQ]

But wait, there's more, just know with the BS regulations and limited GOV oversight already in place we find:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29138583/

Hey look here camera guy, read this and know if you act now, we could implement capitlism and all our problems would, well, get a lot worse LOL.

(did you like my Vince shamwow / Billy Mays hook ROFL).

[Kramer]

capitalism is an ideology similar to democracy... it means many different things and is never "purely" pracitced and even then the "pure" practice would look totally different depending on who worked it

and it is ridiculous to think anything would be regulated by morality and ethics....

[KaiineTN]

I wouldn't say that Government is necessarily there to protect or control us, but rather it exists to protect and preserve our individual liberties. If you truly think the Government's role ought to be "control," then I am saddened by how little you value liberty, which is what the founders gave us.

A person should be able to live his life however he wants, without the government telling him he can't do this or that. A person should be able to start a business and sell a product or service without the government being a barrier of entry. A person should be able to keep the fruits of their labor without ending up being taxed on what they earn, then on what they spend, and even on what they save.

Now, in regards to protecting our liberties, that means everyone is on equal ground. Nobody has a right to do harm to others, steal, etc. (which also applies to the government itself, since the government acting as a whole shouldn't be able to do anything that we as individuals shouldn't do). The federal government's primary responsibilities are providing a common defense and enforcing contracts.

Now, in regards to your link and about the peanuts, what's wrong here? He's obviously being investigated. There are regulations and laws in place that say you can't send out products that have health hazards like that. I'm certainly not fighting to abolish those regulations. He will face the consequences. He's pleading the fifth, which is certainly within his rights. We must prove him guilty. More regulations wont prevent things like this from happening in the future, all it will do is hurt smaller businesses.

I found this especially interesting and somewhat applicable:

Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise “excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence”.

“In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,” Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.”

Sounding more like Barry Goldwater than the former head of the KGB, Putin said, “Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors, and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state.”

[brinstar]

communism looks great on paper too

[ClakarEQ]

It would be crazy to think anything could operate based ethics and morality, I fully agree, however it is terribly unfortunate. Yet those that want to shrink GOV, want the private sector to self regulate, etc would be required to think ethics and morals control the show, for if they do NOT believe this, we would have no chance to survive. What is left without those two things and no GOV to forcefully regulate? We've not seen a drop of corruption compared to the levels we would see with a smaller GOV and a self-regulating private sector.

Kaiine, my link to the peanuts is something that took place even though there are suppose to be checks and balances in place. I'm guessing here but I'd have to think at minimum 10 folks new about this problem going back to '06. Now the buck stop with the man in charge and this guy I hope goes to prison for murder.

However I find it impossible to believe this could get better if Ron got his way. Allowing the private sector to self regulate, to implement capitalism as he's suggested, to reduce the size of GOV, etc. would be a massive failure. It would fail because all it would take is money, to make problems "go away". Since we know there are no companies in our nation that operate on ethics and morality, that the entire purpose of a company is to make money, not even make good products, just make profits. Why is it so hard to see how capitalism would a massive failure. That reducing the size of GOV (to my knowledge has NEVER occurred in anyone's history without near collapse), is a mistake.

For example, Nate's opinion is the GOV is there to protect us, why would we reduce the size of those that protect us, do we want less protection.

IIRC many others on this board want the GOV shrunk because they think the private sector can do a better job. Yet we see time and time again that even with the size of our massive GOV the private sector continually finds holes or downright lies to maximize profits.

Serious questions here:
How can we grow with reducing GOV?
In all of humanity when has a nation grown in power while the GOV shrinks?

[KaiineTN]

Governments don't give up power very often. When they shrink, it's because they were forced to shrink due to the conditions of the country. So yeah, naturally, you would see examples of a country being poorer and worse off when their Government is shrinking, but blaming less Government for it is entirely off base.

Less central government stimulates growth because it makes doing business easier and more profitable. Governments can't allocate resources effectively, or at least, not nearly as good as market forces can. All a government can do is redistribute wealth, which is taking from the productive members of society, and giving to the unproductive. The bigger the government, the more resources go into areas where they are not best used. This hurts the economy.

Why would we want to reduce the size of those that protect us? That's the problem, our government is doing far more than protecting us. For one, we're maintaining a world wide empire, and what protection comes out of that? Even if you argued the case for Afghanistan and such, which I wouldn't buy into regardless, what about our permanent bases in Germany, Vietnam, etc.? How are we being protected by spending billions of dollars there? If we're going to spend it, I would much rather see that money go towards a national healthcare system or something in this country.

Do you know why the private sector finds holes? Because things are too complicated. Tax codes span millions of pages, and we're expected to understand it. Do you really think all of that is necessary? Don't you think that simpler just might be better, for everyone? Well, except lawyers. There shouldn't be a bunch of loopholes that can be exploited, but the answer isn't adding more regulations and laws on top of everything else whenever we find a new one being abused. The answer has to be to rethink the system and simplify it. I would argue for far less, much more efficient regulation, not complete deregulation.

Some of you know I had a lot of interest in the Biodiesel industry for a while. There was a great example of a loophole created by over regulation and subsidizing there that essentially screwed over the industry worldwide. Essentially, you could have an oil tanker ship practically filled with Biodiesel come into port. You could mix very little regular Diesel fuel with it, and suddenly you qualified for subsidy money for the ENTIRE AMOUNT OF BIODIESEL on the ship. Even though it came from another country in the first place, you just come into port, mix Diesel in, ship off to another country, and collect your checks. This actually was able to go on for a long time. I find that just as disturbing as the peanuts. You don't hear about things like this as often though. Why? Because it was the Government's fault, not the business's.

There are some things that the Government does a good job at, better than the private sector could. Things like police and fire departments, for example. Healthcare honestly isn't a bad idea. Hospitals aren't going to deny care to someone who is dying. We as a society aren't going to accept that, and we're right not to, so the taxpayers end up footing the bill regardless, but there is so much spending we can cut in order to afford such a system. We shouldn't just pile it on top of everything else we have already.

[Tikker]

Less central government stimulates growth because it makes doing business easier and more profitable.

so does outsourcing everything to india, or becoming a monopoly and crushing the competition

methinks you really don't know anything about economics other than a 100 level university class, and reading some dude's blog

[KaiineTN]

I certainly don't claim to be particularly knowledgeable when it comes to economics. I just try to take what I know and slap some good old fashioned common sense on it.

I see nothing wrong with outsourcing. I've hired outsourced research assistants for projects with great results. I've looked into potentially outsourcing manufacturing as well.

It's a globally competitive economy, and if we can't compete, the Government can't really help. All it can do is make things more expensive for consumers and businesses than they need to be. How will that help anything? I can only see it causing harm, slowing growth, and putting some out of business. A country's wealth comes from production and exports. Our primary export is the dollar, and that wont last forever.

And yet again I say that no monopoly can exist without the help of Government, whether directly or indirectly.

[Harrison]

I certainly don't claim to be particularly knowledgeable when it comes to economics. I just try to take what I know and slap some good old fashioned common sense on it.

I see nothing wrong with outsourcing. I've hired outsourced research assistants for projects with great results. I've looked into potentially outsourcing manufacturing as well.

It's a globally competitive economy, and if we can't compete, the Government can't really help. All it can do is make things more expensive for consumers and businesses than they need to be. How will that help anything? I can only see it causing harm, slowing growth, and putting some out of business. A country's wealth comes from production and exports. Our primary export is the dollar, and that wont last forever.

And yet again I say that no monopoly can exist without the help of Government, whether directly or indirectly.

You fail this entire debate.

[Tikker]

And yet again I say that no monopoly can exist without the help of Government, whether directly or indirectly.

you're very very wrong

feel free to look throughout history

it's generally government and regulation that keeps monopolies from forming

[KaiineTN]

I argue that it's generally Government and regulations that end up giving monopolies unfair advantages.

[Harrison]

[Arlos]

And yet again I say that no monopoly can exist without the help of Government, whether directly or indirectly.

And I say again this just shows how little you know of history.

Look up Standard Oil.
Look up William Randolph Hearst.
Look up Carnegie Steel.

Then look up the Sherman Anti-Trust act, created to STOP the monopolies because they were so bad for the consumer.

In an unregulated business environment, there will ALWAYS be a trend towards monopoly. For example, do you think it would be POSSIBLE to buy a computer with anything OTHER than Windows as its operating system if not for government intervention? They would have bought out Apple long ago, and could easily have acquired the rights to Unix as well. They could then price their product at whatever price point they liked, since computers are a necessity in today's world, and they could crush any other competitor trying to get started up.

Furthermore, in an unregulated environment, how do you force companies to abide by environmental laws? After all, it is most cost efficient for companies to simply dump their raw filth into streams and open pits, or belch it out into the sky. Do you have any idea what many of this country's rivers and waterways were like before environmental regulations were enacted and started to be enforced? Even now, decades later, some are STILL awful. (Hell, 20 years ago I was visiting Boston, and my friend that lives there was joking about how they called this one guy the Toxic Avenger because he fell into the Charles River briefly, and it's just that polluted).

Hell, have you ever seen what the smog is like in places where there AREN'T regulations, like China? You notice that for the Olympics in order to get the air actually breathable they had to shut down all industry and ban cars WEEKS before the event? Even then it still was awful until they got some rain that washed the remaining particulate matter out of the air? Friend of mine spent 6 months in Chongqing, and said the BEST smog days there were worse than bad smog days in Los Angeles. Long time residents constantly hacked up black phlegm because of coal dust, life expectancy was 20-30 years shorter than here, and lung cancer was several times more prevalent.

You ever heard of Love Canal? That's what happens without environmental registration. Ever hear of Union Carbide and Bhopal, India? That's what happens when there isn't actual government oversight of companies.

And you want to give us all of that back again, after what, 125 years of work at trying to regulate safety and care for the environment?

Fuck no.

-Arlos

[Tossica]

But but but... PROFITS! How will I be able to horde BILLIONS of dollars that I will never use?

[Arlos]

OH yeah, there's no room whatsoever for government oversight of business.... After all, stuff like this is perfectly OK, right?

ReprintPrint E-mail Font Resize Yahoo! Buzz
Records show peanut plant president complained about delays caused by contamination reports

By Lyndsey Layton

Washington Post
Posted: 02/11/2009 06:02:25 PM PST

WASHINGTON — As salmonella illness began spreading across the country in the fall, the owner of a Georgia peanut company that was causing the outbreak railed against the cost and delays that the contamination was causing his businesses, according to internal company documents obtained by Congress.

Stewart Parnell, president of the Peanut Corporation of America, also pressed federal regulators to allow him to continue using peanuts from the tainted plant and shipped products to customers with a homemade certificate that falsely attested to their purity, according to e-mails and memos made public Wednesday at a hearing of the House Commerce and Energy Committee.

Parnell, whose company is at the center of a massive food contamination scandal and federal criminal investigation, was compelled by subpoena to appear but refused to answer questions.

The e-mails and records also showed how Parnell repeatedly tried to get around internal tests that showed contamination by sending the samples to a different lab for new tests. When confronted with a reading for salmonella in October, instead of destroying the product — a standard response — Parnell sent it to a new lab and then complained about the delay.

"The time lapse, besides the cost is costing us huge $$$$$," Parnell wrote in an October e-mail to plant manager Sammy Lightsey. In another e-mail, Lightsey said samples taken Aug. 11 tested positive but had been sent to another lab and received a negative result. "Okay, let's turn them loose then," Parnell wrote.

Federal regulators at the hearing called Parnell's actions "unconscionable"; several lawmakers called them criminal.

Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., held up a large jar filled with some of the 1,900 peanut products that have been recalled so far: "I'm going to ask Mr. Parnell if he'd like to open this and sample some of the products that he thought it was OK for others to eat."

The death toll rose to nine Wednesday as officials linked the death of an Ohio woman to the outbreak that has sickened at least 600 people since September.

For two hours, lawmakers heard from victims. Jeff Almer said his 72-year-old mother, Shirley, survived two bouts with cancer only to die in December after being served peanut butter on toast in a Minnesota nursing home.

"Cancer couldn't claim her but peanut butter did," Almer said.

I mean, read the guy: actually not shipping poisoned food was cutting into their profits! The horrors! Obviously he's a victim of too much government interference in business, amirite?

-Arlos

[Drem]

jesus christ

that's so disappointing, yet, sadly unsurprising

[ClakarEQ]

I assume he said no to the question of wanting to snack on those peanuts.

Serously this guy and anyone in his chain of command from the shop floor dude to the chairperson, that knew they shipped tainted product, 2nd degree murder / manslaughter type charges should be put up on them.

[Naethyn]

The primary duty of government is to protect it's people and it's people's rights. Capitalism has nothing to do with this. Laissez-faire does not equal capitalism. There is a huge difference between government regulation and the government buying out the private sector to keep it afloat.

We are living beyond our means. Spending more money does not correct this situation. We have to cut expenses and bring our budget back into balance. We cannot sustain this mind set of spending more to avoid certainty.

[Tuggan]

I assume he said no to the question of wanting to snack on those peanuts.

Serously this guy and anyone in his chain of command from the shop floor dude to the chairperson, that knew they shipped tainted product, 2nd degree murder / manslaughter type charges should be put up on them.

the thing is, this kinda shit happens all the time. they test the product and if it comes up tainted, they just repeat the test until it comes up clean enough to package and ship. fda lacks the funding to be truly effective, i'm shocked we only see a few big cases like this a year.

[brinstar]

this image:

[Harrison]

Lol did you add that or did you find it somewhere?

[ClakarEQ]

The primary duty of government is to protect it's people and it's people's rights. Capitalism has nothing to do with this. Laissez-faire does not equal capitalism. There is a huge difference between government regulation and the government buying out the private sector to keep it afloat.

We are living beyond our means. Spending more money does not correct this situation. We have to cut expenses and bring our budget back into balance. We cannot sustain this mind set of spending more to avoid certainty.

We all know capitalism has nothing to do this. That had already been said, several times. This entire post is coming from the thankfulness that we are NOT capitalists and how screwed we'd be if we ever attempted to implement a spun version of it.

I'm not sure about what you're saying though Nate, it sounds like you're suggesting we spend less at all costs, including lives /shrug