Is there any agency that regulates wasteful transactions?

To Joepistole & Carcano:

No the government has none of those rights nor the wisdom to do them as well as the public - I did not advocate or even suggest that as you seem to think I did.

What the government does have - the obligation to do - is to see ALL have the opportunity to get a very good education. If that is done, then as happens in Scandinavian countries the public will chose of their own free will not to excessively debt burden the coming generations, to care of the needy, not trash their own environment, let all have access to good health care, etc.

In fact, if ALL are well educated, then the government will need to do less regulation.

 

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That is why I said the best method of resource allocation is capitalism CONSTRAINED by a mixture of socialism to keep things competitive and a well-informed and free voter to balance the scales. Unconstrained capitalism leads to uncompetitiveness through monopolization.

Regulation is necessary because consumer information is not perfect nor will it ever be. To say otherwise, as Republicans have and continue to do, is just plain old deception at its best.

 

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The trouble with providing education to ALL is that not ALL can absorb it.

Free education for those who excel however is a wonderful ideal.

There is a percentage of humanity who cannot even benefit from high school.

The US political elite are almost all university educated, and yet they have presided over the worst economic downfall in recent human history...going from the largest creditor nation in the world to the largest debtor, money printer, and food stamp dispenser.

 

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That is why I always say: "good educational OPPORTUNITY." * I was able to tell both my daughters: "Get all the education you want / can stand and you need not pay a dime." Even the Bible says something like: "Seek yea first understanding and all else will be added unto you."

"worst economic downfall in recent human history" - NOT FOR THEM. They have never before gained so much so fast as measured by the recent changes in the US´s Gini index. As I said: The rich like the current system. (They should. Their lawyers and lobbyist made it for their benefit.) Why the tax code is 73,000 pages long and like Ivory soap, 99.44% about benefits for special interest groups.) They also like having cheap servants: - maids, grass cutters, painters, car washers, etc.

A few decades ago, when most got a TV, the US became government "Of the rich, for their corporations and by their lobbyists" who provide Congress Reps with drafts of the laws the rich want, and money for TV ads, posters, newspaper ads, etc. to be sure of the re-elections by ill educated, easily brainwashed, voters of those Congressional Reps that do as they are told.

* But many can and others can when they are motivated to try. E.g. When they grow up in a society that honors good teachers and professors more than basketball players, etc. I told, at end of post 11, a little about Norway´s much better educational system. One important benefit I did not mention, is this "community wide honor" for good teachers at least in the smaller cities:

When in smaller towns a good teacher retires, after having produced more than 200 well educated Norwegians, it is not rare for a public dinner to be held honoring her, a brass plate naming her mounted in the town hall, etc. I married a good Norwegian teacher, taking her away from her second group / class just prior to her students entering forth grade. I think I would not have been any more hated if I had shot and killed a bus driver for no good reason. A few years ago, (don´t know if still true) she still got Christmas cards from about a dozen student she had more than 40th years earlier telling how they were doing. One from a now very rich Norwegian, who more than once ended his with: "If you ever have any financial need, just let me know - you made me the success I am today." US has no way to honor good teachers as no single one is responsible for the child´s education.

It is very important to have a clear knowledge of who is responsible for each child´s eduction - not possible in the US´s "pass the problem child on to the next teacher, then if he has not dropped out of school, graduate him, even if functionally illiterate." educational system.

 

You seem to think that you can pick who will be successful and worthy of an education, that some people are worthy to be participants in our society and others are not. Can you support those notions with evidence and reason? Additionally, just because all of the individuals who masterminded the recent economic crisis were well educated, it does not follow that all well-educated individuals are to blame for the recent economic crisis. Your assertion is a serious breach of logic and reason.

http://www.onlinecollege.org/2010/02/16/50-famously-successful-people-who-failed-at-first/

http://www.businessinsider.com/26-successful-people-who-failed-at-first-2012-7?op=1

Human desires, including avarice, trump education time and time again. Are you suggesting we go back to the Stone Age because from time to time we misuse our knowledge and abilities? Going back to the Stone Age will not excise human desires and make us more responsible denizens.

 

I quickly skimed and liked both your links. I did not notice the guy who made UPS (or DHL if it was first over night parcel delivery service.)

He was a college student and had submitted the concept of cargo only planes coming from all over the US to a sorting center in central US with a considerable details as the course required. Professor rejected it and commented it was silly idea with no chance of economic success. Gave paper an F.

 

We're social animals in an ecosystem that is showing signs of strain from our collective activities. Someone ought to speak about that.

I'm OK with the plywood table.

I don't think lavish homes are good for our planet and ought not to have been built in the first place. Maybe as the ecosystem continues to deteriorate those homes will have to be taken apart and built into smaller, simpler ones.

 

Switching to communism doesnt necessarily usher in a new age of ecological integrity...ask the Chinese who lived through the Maoist era.

 

Groovy, but 99% of humanity is not ok with it...and theres nothing you can do about it without setting up a police state. Btw, plywood is loaded with toxic adhesive chemicals.

Aesthetics, fun and pleasure are not NEEDS but they are nevertheless a huge part of human experience.

Even primitive stone age tribes waste loads of time on things that have no Marxist utilitarian significance.

 

That depends on what they are made of. A 17th century 8-bedroom French Chateau with its natural stone, tile and wood construction is probably better for the environment than one of our modern 2-bedroom vinyl, drywall, acrylic, and chipboard horrors.

 

According to the sacred utterances of Warren Buffet the three most important professional qualities are ETHICS, ENERGY, and INTELLIGENCE.

He does not mention words like...understanding or knowledge or education.

Doesnt observing the highly educated political elite screwing up so badly suggest to you that ethics has little to do with education?

Doug Casey sums it up nicely:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZHTFhrmyHk&feature=g-all-u

 

Carcano,

one thing that the decline of almost every physical thing around me has gotten me to see is that many things like competing for dominance, don't help much, if at all, in the long run. Humanity wastes time competing within itself when cooperation is really why we are where we are as a world. I have no desire to post the exceptions to the points that you are making, my goal here is to explain why humans ought to focus on doing and being more of the noble things that set humans apart from the generally DNA-directed animal world.

Human life ought to be far from a competition where rules which people made set the boundaries of behavior. Since a person with a mindset of competition tries beat the other guy, what we see very often is that competitors, when they can, break rules that they think hurt their chance to win, sometimes causing escalation all the way to physical warfare. The process becomes one of avoiding punishment to maximize gain, where, instead, life ought to be doing the best we can in the best way we can.

 

I doubt that your denigration of knowledge and understanding, which are essential to support civilization, is intended. I also doubt that you are in favor of the law of the jungle and every man for himself that you and Doug Casey, strongly come across as supporting. Also, through your competitive posting style, you come across as intending the misrepresentation of the ideas of the people you are reacting to.

 

Oh but it does help. Competition is basically a filter that eliminates everything that isnt adapted as well as the exceptions.

For example, this what we use to look like...home erectus.

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Do you want to go back to that...eeking out a sustenance with stone tools???

Genetic exceptions came along in the form of mutations that were better adapted to the environment, and thus became dominant through the miracle of competition.

And its very much the same with technological innovation. In the 18th century miners used the Newcombe steam engine to pump water out the mines, but it was extremely inefficient on fuel, most of which was wasted.

James Watt came along and solved the problem with a separate condenser, putting all the existing engine manufacturers out of business.

Yes the process of competition is wasteful..but the ends far outweigh the means.

Even if the government were to hold public competitions to solve problems there would still be vast levels of wasted effort invested in failure.

An example is the development of the first accurate clock for determining longitude at sea.
The British government offered several thousand pounds for the solution, eventually won by John Harrison...but think of the hundreds of clockmakers and the thousands of hours of wasted work on prototypes that failed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_Prize

 

The 'law of the jungle' would mean the absence of a legal system, and I doubt that Casey advocates this...although he certainly wants 'fewer' laws.

That would make him an anarchist, as opposed to a libertarian.

Are you sure it is not YOU that seeks to misrepresent the views of others?

 

I'm not misrepresenting him. His video promotes the idea of doing away with government and going to privatization. I'm ideologically an anarchist (but not for that dumb unruliness we see in Greece) and I know that the people are nowhere close to having enough knowledge and understanding to have a society based on being good without government regulation. If he said in the video government carries out needed functions, let me know and I will accept correction. I didn't hear much other than talk of privatization.

The wierd thing about libertarianism is that it's platform calls for doing away with the Federal government except for the military, but why would you think it would stop there? The next logical step is to do away with the state governments next, especially when they step up their regulation to replace the governance formerly done by the Federal government(, regulations like those protecting us from excessive Formaldehyde in plywood, which BTW probably would not emit an unhealthy amount of it if a table were made from it. Now particle board is another story). The upshot is that this process would go on until the governance ends up being done by the 1% and the corporations--an out and out plutocracy.

BTW, liking the main ethical principle of the Communist Manifesto in no way implies that one wants state control of our lives. That was drawing a conclusion that shouldn't have been drawn from one sentence. If you have issue with the statement, say why you don't like it. I mean, if I say love thy neighbor as thyself, that doesn't mean that I'm threatening to convert someone to Christianity, with application of a penalty if he/she doesn't convert.

I thought it a bit strange you mentioned going backwards, like to the Stone Age. Doing away with government would be going backwards because the result would be back toward feudalism, which would manifest itself these days by rule of the plutocracy.

 

What in the world are you talking about?

 

There are important things about competition that I have to bring up. Mammals rarely compete against their own kind except some people argue in the case of mating and alpha status. It is competition with other humans against against harmful natural things in nature that got humanity where it is today in spite of the greedy kings that began conquering wars, and in spite of the murdering criminals that were rampant during the Middle Ages. Steven Pinker researched and determined that the murder rates were 30 times higher then than now. It's the cooperation of our ancestors that made civilization possible and it's a wonder that competition against hasn't destroyed our ecosystem and ourselves by nuclear holocaust, in the spirit of our especially competition against-fond ancestors.

The competition against that nature carries out in our genes is a different type of thing than social competition against. We strive to at least regulate and arguably outright outlaw the competition against nature tries to impose on us through our genes by means of medicine like gene therapy and disease treatment. Similarly, humanity is striving to do away with competition against other people despite the anti-progressives that want to increase competition against in such things as warring with Iraq, or firing people from their jobs and causing them to go out onto the streets in homelessness because it's their tough luck, laziness, or unskillfulness that caused them to be fired, with no safety net to support them afterward.

Researchers and discoverers like James Watt and John Harrison compete with other humans against harmful or inhibiting things in their society. Harrison cooperated with (competed with) the people in the British government in his Search for Longitude. I saw the Nova episode on that when the TV I had still could receive PBS over the air.

I think our opinions are going to differ on this closing statement. Cooperation is essential for human civilization whereas competition against other people isn't. We are smart enough to eventually eliminate the latter if we try.

 

His interview promotes the idea of having LESS government regulations...not 'doing away" with government.

Doing away with government and a basic legal system is what anarchists promote...and yes, it ALWAYS leads to 'dumb unruliness'.

You seem to want everybody to get on board the love train through knowledge...but knowledge has little to do with ethics.

A true 'civilization' arises when the minority of ethical (civil) people gain dominance over the unethical people.

Yes, its a constant struggle, and the only thing that would end it is an alien invasion...possibly.

 

Yes its true that animals dont make war against their own species...but they do compete within their own groups for mating rights and food.

In an economy there are two kinds of competition...direct and indirect.

In the first type companies attack each other directly through sabotage, litigation, hostile takeovers, price dumping.

One of the roles of government is to regulate this to a bare minimum with legislation like anti-trust laws.

The second type of indirect competition is a healthy process whereby the consumers decide the winners and losers...by voting with their pocketbook.