LOL, the question is do you know what evidence is and the answer is apparently no. What you posted were your beliefs. Your beliefs are not evidence of your assertion. As I have repeatedly pointed out to you over the years your beliefs are not rooted in reality and that is why never have any evidence. All you have Michael are your beliefs.
Oh, then why did the moderators comment on it, and where is your big bright blue and bolded link? http://www.sciforums.com/threads/end-of-empire.145763/page-3#post-3294201
Joe, you're the one who is making the claim monopolies cause prices to increase in the long run. YOU have to provide evidence of this happening. I've provided evidence of a number of companies who were targeted by, and run into bankruptcy, by the government. I've also provided evidence where near monopolies correlate with huge price drop (see Standard oil and kerosene). I've provided evidence of companies that the US government claimed had a monopoly and because the lawsuits ran so long we can see that the government was wrong as these companies were never broken up AND today do not have market monopolies. Examples include GM and Microsoft. I've also provided evidence where the State attempted to break up the only true monopoly (1937) because the company was 'too efficient'.
LOL, seriously Michael! Well you would have a point if we were discussing you post number 52, but we are not. Is you memory that bad? The discussion wasn't about Microsoft. The discussion was about Alcoa..."dem" minor details again. In my last post, I provided a direct link to your post which is the subject of this discussion. So I can only conclude you are being dishonest. If your beliefs had some degree of validity you wouldn't have to be dishonest Michael.
I have already done that many times over the course of the years for you edification and will do so again as soon as you provide the evidence to support your beliefs. I'm still waiting. And if you are really serious about finding credible evidence of the market inefficiencies created by monopolies, you can do some googling and research on your own. It really isn't that difficult to find. You can obviously google, you manage to find the wacko libertarian sites. Now if you could only mange to find the credible websites, you would be in business. Except, you haven't. You have made false claims. You have cited specious sources to back up your erroneous assertions. You have cited your beliefs as evidence of your beliefs. That is what you have done Michael. And you have made contradictory assertions. You claimed there had only been one "true" monopoly and that was Alcoa. And you asserted Alcoa lowered prices and when it was no longer a monopoly, prices went up. I pointed out, you forgot to mention that there were a few unusual circumstances at work like WWII and government price controls or that initially aluminum was a new product without much demand when it first became commercially available. And you have no evidence, to support your claims that antitrust enforcement has resulted in bankruptcy of any company. If you haven't noticed, Alcoa, IBM and Microsoft are still in business and have never been bankrupt...oops. It's that damn reality that keeps creeping back into your libertarian world. Contrary to your assertions, Pan American went under because of deregulation. You may recall Reagan deregulated the airline business back in the 80's. Early on in my career it was my job to examine the financial statements of companies and determine their credit worthiness. I personally killed a deal with Pan American because I deemed it not credit worthy. Most airlines went bankrupt. It wasn't just Pan American. Deregulation was tough on the airlines, and that is why airlines in general have been a poor investment until recently. If you haven't noticed, there has been significant consolidation within the airline industry over the course of the last several years and airlines have reaped the benefits. Reagan's deregulation of the airline industry was great for travelers, but not so great for airline profitability as airlines had to compete with each other. What you have done Michael is dump a big pile of shit in desperate hope that no one will notice all the many errors of fact contained within in the turd dump. And as I have said repeatedly during this discussion, it is rather odd to see libertarians extol the virtues of monopolism as you have done while preaching the dogma of free markets when monopolies are the antithesis of free markets. If that isn't a contradiction, I don't know what is. But it is one of the many inconsistencies you libertarians need in order to justify your many irrational beliefs. If your beliefs had merit, you wouldn't need to cherry pick your way through history as you have repeatedly done Michael.
Joe, you live in la la land. (a) Provide evidence that Alcoa's monopoly resulted in a long-term increase in the price of aluminum. (b) You may wonder HOW it came to be that Alcoa grabed such market share? Well, if you looked past Wiki, you'd also find that other than being efficient, Alcoa used the State to limited competition as it became a "privileged producer" no different than when the King of England would grant special trading rights to companies like the British East India Company. It was the United State's government that sold Alcoa it's monopolistic position through exclusive rights enforcement. Within the geopolitical land mass called the USA, "American" companies that did not own the rights to use dams or electric power to create aluminum where at a market disadvantage. But guess who could Joe? Anyone who didn't have the misfortune of living inside the geopolitical land mass delineated as the 'USA'. The Germans, Japanese, English - they could and did produce aluminium. ** In Anglo-Saxon law, an exclusive right is a de facto, non-tangible prerogative existing in law (that is, the power or, in a wider sense, right) to perform an action or acquire a benefit and to permit or deny others the right to perform the same action or to acquire the same benefit. A "prerogative" is in effect an exclusive right. The term is restricted for use for official state or sovereign (i.e., constitutional) powers. Exclusive rights are a form of monopoly. That said, Alcoa produced aluminium cheap and efficiently - you have yet to provide evidence of long term price increases due to their monopoly position. In a free market anyone in the USA who has no legal agreement with Alcoa could work with others to build a damn and start producing aluminium using electricity. Because the USA is not a free market - that didn't happen. In true free markets the ONLY way for Alcoa to maintain a monopoly is to undercut all competition by working more efficiently at the lowest price. This is exactly what the Chinese are doing - and they're becoming quite rich while doing so. So, again, your brain is filled with so much STATIST normalization you can't see two inches in front of your own nose. Meanwhile the State you've normalized to bails out the richest 0.01% get bailed out by the bottom 99.99% through the Public central bank, diverts trillions and trillions of resources into crony never ending Public wars it loses, creates violent Public welfare ghettos that make half of the USA look like a 4th world cesspool and it's Public Government schools graduate functional illiterates at a rate of 1 in 5. America was a fluke happenstance that occurs at best maybe once every 1000 years. Time to revert to the historically more stable norm: the rich and powerful rule over the ignorant mediocrity who wave their flags and gush when their owners: Queens, Kings, POTUS, Senators, etc... fart in their direction.
In short, the US Government granted special rights to some people to build dams and generate electricity. Alcoa then purchased those rights which were backed by force of the US Government. Alcoa then set about producing extremely cheap aluminium. This is NOT an example of a free market. In a free market other people who own land would also be allowed to build dams and generate electricity and produce aluminium. The 'problem' has it's root cause in government special privilege - as usual (see: everything from liquor licences to who can practice medicine or cut hair).
Oh, that is such a good argument, especially coming from a guy who subscribes to an unconventional ideology and never has any evidence to support his assertions. What do you mean by long term? What don’t you understand about government price controls? I already explained Alcoa’s pricing. If you don’t get it, reread it. It really isn’t that difficult. But this is a problem with you Michael, you just ignore inconvenient facts. How many times have I explained the inefficiencies of monopolies? You attack some oligopolies (physicians) for being monopolists while extoling monopolies in general (e.g. Alcoa). You don’t see the hypocrisy in your beliefs? Alcoa grabbed market share because its founders invented the aluminum smelting process, theHall-Héroult electrolysis process which make the production of aluminum commercially feasible. They had no competitors, because they invented the process for commercial production of the metal. That had nothing to do with using the state. It had everything to do with experimentation and innovation. Did you not forget the state challenged Alcoa’s market dominance under the antitrust statutes? It’s called a patent Michael and it is not unique to the United States. Virtually, every country in the world issues patents. Patents are issued to reward inventors and encourage invention. But patents do have expiration dates. And similar rights are afforded to writers and musicians. Yes the Chinese are stealing intellectual property rights. You may have noticed China isn’t a very creative place either. LOL, well normalization meaning I don’t subscribe to fringe notions for which there is no evidence to support, well then I plead guilty. Your brain is filled with a bunch of frequently contradictory and inconsistent notions which have no basis in reality. You have no evidence. You have to selectively cherry pick your way through history and redefine the English language in order to make some sort of sense of your beliefs. That is indeed your libertarian utopia. Just let the Kochs (funders of your ideology) rule the world. Let them steal oil and pollute the land and all will be well – NOT.
What don't you get Joe? YOU made the claim therefor YOU must provide the evidence for it. I've just posted evidence that Alcoa bought government-granted special privilege buy purchasing exclusive rights that were granted BY THE STATE off everyone who owned a dam and produced electricity. That's NOT a free-market Joe. In a free-market private people own dams and negotiate with property owners through contract or purchase the land affected by the dam to ensure there's a legal voluntary agreement to create electricity. This is a lot LESS efficient than sticking a gun in someone's face, but hey, that's the price paid for living in a voluntarism society based on social agreement. It means that when some holdout says no, everyone else must put social pressure through refusal of voluntary trade until the person changes their mind. Or there'd possibly be a legal dispute as to what is private property. Whatever the case may be, people would be engaged in voluntarism to come up with a solution instead of opting for government force. In a free society, say in the mid-1800s, the government had little role in most people's lives. The most contact people had with the government was the USPO. That was it. So, it was easy to allow for government creep - who in the 1800s with only minimal contact with the USGOV would have imagined their great grandchildren would be paying in a labor tax, or asking it for permission to build a house or cut hair or sell food. Their freedom led to the second industrial revolution. Where our loss of those civil freedoms will lead is anybodies guess (problem of induction). However, by definition it will be less prosperous (civil freedom + leisure time) and less prosperous societies are generally not nice places to live in.
If a person gains a monopoly in a free-market by providing efficiently produced goods and services that people voluntarily want to purchase with sound money and within the law - then that monopolist is a providing a virtue to society, by definition. Physicians have been turned into rent-seekers because the State determines who can practice (regulatory capture). It's two completely different scenarios. One person makes a living in a free market and the other is a rent seeker. Anyone can become a monopolist. If you happen to have an extremely specialist skill or good or service that people want and you're the ONLY person who can provide that good, then you're a monopolist. Brad Pitt is a monopolist. Only he can sell the brand "Brad Pitt". If you want "Brad Pitt" you're going to pay millions and millions of dollars - even just for a couple of weeks. The important thing is people WANT to pay and are happy to voluntarily pay. That's a hell of a lot different than if Brad Pitt were one of only a handful of State licensed actors legally allowed to act in movies. Then he'd be a rent-seeker and he'd be making money via regulatory capture. And here's the part you don't get. Under the second scenario, no one knows his value. Because value is subjective. This is why 20 years ago 90,000 people died of medical error and today 500,000+ die of medical error ANNUALLY. Without sound money and free markets no one can know the true value of anything. Which is why communism doesn't work. And why Central Banking with income tax (force) doesn't work either. And why a supercomputer or central bank or any form of centralized planning will NEVER WORK. Until the day comes when you can read someone's subjective consciousness in real time, it will never be efficient. Ever. Don't worry Joe, these are lessons societies appear to need to learn every millennium or so. Cheap oil was able to keep reality at bay because it provided nearly endless food and energy, but the planet has it's limited and reality will reassert itself. And when a pissed off functionally illiterate upper lower class is looking for someone to blame, those rich oligarchs are going to point them right at anyone with anything worth stealing. Once that is done they'll burn the rest off in war. It's a story as old as time itself.
Unfortunately for you Michael, that dog don't hunt. I have, you just don't like my answers so you stick your head in the sand as you always do and pretend nothing happened. You have proven absolutely nothing. A statement of belief based upon beliefs isn't evidence Michael. As I explained, Alcoa had a patent. It's founder invented the process which made aluminum production commercially viable. If your beliefs made sense Michael, you wouldn't have to cherry pick you way through history, ignore evidence and redefine the language. Except as usual, that is sort of cherry picked. There was this thing called the Civil War during that time frame. You may have heard of it. But it touched virtually every American in one way or another. Do you not recall that is when income taxes were first implemented?
Lets start at the beginning: What is a 'right' Joe? Where do they come from. Try not using 'we' in your answer.
Strawman. The only one using the word utopia around here is you. What are we three now? Which fallacy is this? Appeal To Dr Evil? The crazy thing is, I actually think you believe this gobbledygook. "The Kochs" / Dr's Evil donate money to PBS to create NOVA and to teach evolution in government schools. The Koch's are outspoken opponents to the phony Wars. The Koch's favor gay marriage rights and legalizing drugs and ending the Drug Wars and releasing the millions and millions of innocent people out of State cages. The Koch's favor removing barriers to market entry that HARM THEIR OWN BUSINESS INTERESTS. You live in La La land where Dr Evil lives in a lair under a volcano on some island shaped like a skull from a 1970s Jame's Bond drama. Do yourself a favor and take a hammer and put it through your talking stories-box in the living room. I'd be curious to see how long you could last without Mr best friend / TV to hangout with. Sorry Joe, but that would violate property rights and would be illegal. That's also another strawman.
LOL, that isn't a straw man Michael. That is nonsense. The crazy thing is you think the 99% of the world which doesn't subscribe to your beliefs, you know, the portion which relies on evidence and reason, is crazy. The Kochs are your ideological financial sponsors. They hold secret meetings with high ranking government officials (e.g. Supreme Court Justice Thomas & Scalia). They are one of the richest men in the world. And they have been found guilty of stealing oil from Indians and polluting the land and waters. Those are some of the reasons they want the deregulation you ideology advocates. They are also rent seekers, using their power and influence to get legislative bodies to enact legislation which harms their competitors. One of the Koch brothers, David, and remember there are four brothers, has said he supports gay marriage and doesn't want US troops in the Middle East, but outspoken? I don't call a few ad hoc comments to a couple of reporters "out spoken" by any means. David is the lesser Koch brother and lives in New York City. David doesn't control the money. David doesn't control the Koch company. His brother Charles lives in Kansas and is the CEO of Koch industries. Charles Koch is the man who controls the money, the business and the political efforts. And he does not share his brother views, and he certainly isn't outspoken. He eschews the media. He hasn't supported gay rights and he hasn't supported the withdrawal of US troops from the Middle East. Kansas passed the gay discrimination law which has been popular in Republican circles last year, and nothing passes the Kansas legislature without Koch's approval. So you have no evidence that Charles Koch, CEO of Koch Industries supports gay rights. In fact the evidence says otherwise. The Kochs spend a lot of money pushing their political agendas. Koch has yet to spend a single dollar on ads promoting gay rights. Well, I'm the guy supporting conventional wisdom and thought, you know, the 99%. So it is rather strange that you think that you are the one living in the "real world" and everyone else lives in "la la land". You know mental hospitals are loaded with people who share your beliefs. They are sane, the rest of the world is insane.
The dirty little secret no one wants to admit about Baltimore Yes, the dirty little secret that no one wants to admit is that Baltimore, and so many other urban areas and inner city communities in America are a reflection of the abject failure of liberal progressive socialist policies as advanced by the Democrat party. -- Allen West on April 29, 2015
And you think that is newsworthy? A Republican makes false allegations, that isn't news. It's just another attempt by Republicans to slander Democrats.
Well this is interesting - so you admit that the only way for a billionaire to violate property rights is by using the State to do so? The fact is Charles would be in prison if he personally went out and shot someone. But he can pay to have a law slipped into congress that may result in the exact same thing happening (see: Drug War and War on Terror and the millions of dead and/or incarcerated humans as the end result). Charles can crap on all day long about how he doesn't like gay marriage (and I personally don't know or care what he thinks) but he can not make gay marriage illegal. ONLY the State can. So, if you don't like Oligarchs having the legal ability to violate the property rights of other people in society, like the poor, then you'd be in favor of LESS government! If you want to see "The Kochs" earn their keep - then you'd be in favor of sound money and property rights so that they cannot use the State to steal from those around them (ex: crony capitalists spending income tax - which is really just a means to divert real world resources). The fact is, in a free society Oligarchs serve people by providing goods and services - which is virtuous. In a State dominated society they instead use regulatory capture to become rent-seekers. As a matter of fact, in a State/government dominated 'socialist' society you HAVE to! Legally you're left with no recourse other than to become a rent-seeker.
It's just another example, in a long line of examples, of End of Empire. As empires collapse (and they do so very slowly) these sorts of events become commonplace. So to does the police state that follows them. Detroit was run into the ground after 50 years of Democrat "Progressive" socialism and so has many other cities - including Baltimore after half a century of Democrat demagoguery. Baltimore is ruled from top to bottom by Democrats.
LOL, that is funny coming from you Michael. Demagoguery is pretty much all you do. And you are not alone, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, et al. You don't think globalization was responsible for Detroit's demise? Cheaper foreign labor and the ability to pollute made the auto industry uncompetitive. And Detroit was very dependent on the auto industry. Here is one of the problems for you, heavily socialistic countries like Norway, Sweden, Germany, Canada, et al have done just fine.
