I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
frist
They are particularly opposed to competition from little businesses. The last three years has seen a crackdown by the shrubbery on the SBA - primarily to avoid any kind of monetary investment which might create competition. A small, but very active form of crony capitalism.
All empires end up being a series of interlocking monopolies and cartels that go to the emperor for favors and benefits. They also don't pay taxes and the imperial families always become "co owners" of these businesses which is why all empires end up bankrupt.
I hate having to compete against companies/people who will work for less than I will.ANd yet isnt that what has made so much possible in this country?Is'nt this the prinicpal darwin worked so hard to investigate?Survival of the fittest is what makes capitolism work.I have to be able to do a job cheaper than the next guy or I go out of business.Why cant corporate america do the same things without government interference?It seems the more money you company makes the more relief you need.What a bassackwards system we have nowadays.
Love ya, but
teamed up to try and stifle competition
should be "teamed up to try to stifle competition". (Don't feel bad, Kevin Drum does it too. Just stop.)
I know iknow. bad habit
Competition is a great excuse -- as in "sending jobs offshore makes us competitive". I suspect that it is innovation which truly scares them -- after all, the oil oligarchs get along just fine as long as they can pretty much fix prices. But let a startup with a better idea come along and they have this innate urge to crush it.
Scorpio
Eccentricity
Best example is Halliburton. As a good article in New Yorker recently pointed out, wasn't the whole point of "privatizing" our military that it would increase competition, cut costs, and generate a "leaner" defense?
Yeah right. In practice it's meant no-bid, sweetheart deals to a handful of Bush's friends. Cost-overuns. Accountability problems.
And whenever someone says, hey, maybe you should open up the bids and introduce COMPETITION, they're like nah, only Halliburton can do the job.
Welcome to crony capitalism. The right has no answer for this crap.
OT
but did anybody bother to refute that DINO zell millers speech from last month
i mean its disgraceful and being used be repubs as email fodder
anyplace i can find that
Another stellar example of "free trade" at work...
US firm banned in conflict row Accountancy firm Ernst & Young, No. 2 in Australia, was scrambling yesterday to assess the impact of another conflict-of-interest scandal involving its US parent.
Ernst & Young in the US was barred from accepting new corporate clients for six months for failing to maintain its independence from a company whose books it audited.
It was the first time the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had sought the suspension of a major accounting firm since 1975. Judge Brenda Murray also fined the firm $US1.7 million ($2.3 million), saying it "has an utter disdain" for SEC regulations.
Meanwhile, just a few weeks ago....
Ernst & Young wins Iraq contract Big Four firm Ernst & Young has won a contract with Iraq's ruling Coalition Provisional Authority to help trace the country's loan contracts and reconcile who is owed money from its estimated $120bn (£66bn) debts.
This runs deeper than corporate protectionism. It goes to the very heart of the safety of our beef stock - which is likely teeming with BSE. Let some upstart company begin testing the herds and pretty soon the cow is out of the bag.
i promise not to use my grammar God power.
the retardicans always speak a good game, but their followthough sucks.
This mad-cow shit is a joke.
The Heart of American folk
Put their trust in the Lord,
'Cause He's always aboard,
The horse of the Holy Cowpoke.
I have to agree with Tater...I would read this as fear that the problem is worse than is known because it has to become VERY bad for the current test program to find it. If you test every cow in a sample as large as that slaughtered by this small company, you will have a much better indication of the incidence of infection!
Hacks, crony capitalists, hacks, child molesters. That accounts for 95% or more of Repubs these days.
Our downer president and his mantra of "admit no wrong" extends to the dinner table!
Who is to protect us from the FDA and the WH's lack of interest in the consumer (besides Dwight Meredith that is)?
A mad cow on every table and an SUV in your rich neighbors garage!
Lime Rickey is a genius.
Actually, given the purported high quality of this operation, I highly doubt those cows are mad, but certainly other herds need to be tested better.
Anyway, I anxiously await the reversal of this decision so that I can start eating beef again.
Accountancy firm Ernst & Young, No. 2 in Australia, was scrambling yesterday to assess the impact of another conflict-of-interest scandal involving its US parent.
Big Four firm Ernst & Young has won a contract with Iraq's ruling Coalition Provisional Authority to help trace the country's loan contracts and reconcile who is owed money from its estimated $120bn (£66bn) debts.
Franken and a reporter from the NYT reminded listeners this week that Ernst & Young in November 2001 advised companies to take the Bermuda route to great wealth and beauty. In light of the potential gains from lower taxes, etc., the issue of patriotism would have to take a backseat, said a partner at E&Y.
I haven't eaten beef since the scare. Because I know the Bush administration wouldn't do anything about it, rather, they would wait for public attention to die down and then it's Big Business as usual. I'm sure they're still slaughtering so-called 'downer cows.'
OT
Big piece in tomorrow's NYT. The 9-11 Commission has gone off the reservation.
Some years past,seven executives of tobacco companies swore to congress,under oath,that their product was not addictive.They were later allowed to apoligise,no arrests or indictments follwed because our elected leaders stayed bribed and corrupted.The Republic is lost.
The author's premise is that the main rationale is anti-competitive. My feeling is that he is partially correct but the main reason is that the Bush Admin has allowed industry; in this case the beef industry, to writes its own rules. In the short sighted view of industry, testing every animal will reduce profits. Of course this may be true in the short run but if we have a major outbreak of mad cow profits will be destroyed anyway. The same industry is fanatically opposed to new labeling requirements, such as for genetically modified foods. Read this little blurb from opensecrets.org regarding current Secretary of Agriculture Ann Venemann:
“Between her tenure at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (under George Bush Sr.) and being named head of California’s Department of Food and Agriculture in 1995, Ann Veneman served on the board of directors for Calgene Inc. In 1994, Calgene became the first company to bring genetically-engineered food, the Flavr Savr tomato, to supermarket shelves. Calgene was bought out by Monsanto, the nation’s leading biotech company, in 1997. Monsanto, in turn, became part of pharmaceutical company Pharmacia in 2000. Monsanto, which donated more than $12,000 to George Bush’s presidential bid, wants two things this year: no mandatory labeling of biotech foods and better access to international markets. Veneman also served on the International Policy Council on Agriculture, Food and Trade, a group funded by Cargill, Nestle, Kraft, and Archer Daniels Midland.”
The last thing that Veneman's friends in industry want to see is small companies labeling their products as certified clean and then have foreign countries approve only these products for import. This would cut out the USDA (as the protector not of our health but of industry profits) and impose effective new rules for industry to meet in order to do business overseas.
Matt - Creekstone sounds like a well run firm - but herds are cross bred, and BSE is passed genetically. That's why testing by even one small slaughterhouse could uncover vast BSE incidence. Billions served.
Food for thought.
OT, but considering all the outrage directed at moveon and george soros over the 'hitler' issue, i wonder what the reaction is to this little gem of a quote from today's wapo article on woodward's book: "Powell felt Cheney and his allies -- his chief aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz; and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith and what Powell called Feith's "Gestapo" office -- had established what amounted to a separate government."
OT: I wonder if increasing the 'terra threat level' just before the election could swing a few percent to Bush. It would be so easy to do: '.. we have seen how terrists might try to disrupt our presidential election so we are raising the threat level...' It would play into the whole 'I'll keep you safe' theme...
I don't think competition is a 100% good thing. It's definitely all-American to think so, but I'd guess it's 55% productive and 45% destructive.
Tater,
By "genetically," you presumably mean that it can be spread from an infected cow to her developing fetus. Do you have a handy reference for this? A quick googling didn't yield any mention.
Actually, your analysis is simplistic. Businesses favor 'pro-competitive' legislation in order to improve their ability to compete- to improve their position on the playing field, not in service of some abstraction. That's true.
It's also just how Alexander Hamilton imagined it would be. We're a VAST, DIVERSE COMMERCIAL REPUBLIC. We are divided amongst ourselves in a million ways. It's intended- it's what is so great about us.
Primer: Even if you exclude everything you're willing to say "I don't care how that works for me" about from your personal list of interests, odds are you have a pretty unique list left over. You may oppose me - and feel you must act - on the Iraq war but you agree with me - and need me to act with you - on gay marriage. It means we spend a lot of time and money on the struggle- but it also (as intended) means we are a stable and striving society.
The same thing is true for our big ugly corporate citizens. They're fighting amongst themselves. To some extent they don't play fair, and we have to watch them all the time. We should watch them all the time. No legislative change or cultural shift could possibly change that. It doesn't mean they're evil. And the fact that it's tough to be a little guy also can't be changed. It's one of the things we have to watch the big guys over all the time, but it can't be fundamentally changed. How can you eliminate the advantages of size, wealth and experience? Would you REALLY want to >eliminate< those things as benefits in our society? Have you THOUGHT about that as a broader question?
So much of the talk here is so short-sighted- you seem proud of your blinders, declaring narrow interests as absolute day after day after day without ever considering the larger picture. It's odd.
rowdios is exactly right ("I don't think competition is a 100% good thing. It's definitely all-American to think so, but I'd guess it's 55% productive and 45% destructive.") that's just about how I'd put it and it sounds pretty @$^@%^ wonderful to me. Consider the alternatives.
rowdios is exactly right ("I don't think competition is a 100% good thing. It's definitely all-American to think so, but I'd guess it's 55% productive and 45% destructive.") that's just about how I'd put it and it sounds pretty @$^@%^ wonderful to me. Consider the alternatives.
Matt - Just googled this:
http://www.second-opinions.co.uk....co.uk/
cjd.html
This story, and lots of others, is convincing me that blogs are taking the place of newspapers in their function as guardians of the public interest.
BTW I took a look around Wampum, and I think it is an excellent blog. I know I'll be reading it.
One of the claims made on the other board made me consider something I hadn't before.
Although it's logical from a safety perspective to be cautious in allowing private companies to set up their own testing absent any oversight, I would suspect the intent of a company to circumvent rules and safety measures meant to protect consumers may be based on desperation in the face of such obvious non-free-market corruption on the part of large companies with influence over government officials which is most likely the scenario in this case.
When the cycle of corruption starts, those companies which might otherwise have not wanted to take that route and remain true to free-market principles, would instead not trust the system enough to stay there if they thought they needed that extra ace in the hole should they see corruption on the part of their competitors.
I have always wanted full and total disclosure of congress' hour by hour contacts whether it was in either their DC and district offices, or outside of the normal working hours.
At any time they should meet with someone who advocates a cause or special interest, that meeting should be recorded for the voting public to see. This would include phone, fax, mail, email, and courier contacts.
And just to keep them from trying to find a loophole, I'd add any contact via smoke signals as well.
Take that you corrupt MF's!
MYOB'
.
I'll believe the 911 Commission has gone apeshit when I see them. I read a book review by John Lehman this morning in the Post. He called Saddam's Iraq a "poster-boy for state-sponsored terror." His arguments were all the ones that no one except Dick Cheney believes anymore. Googling each would have exposed them as vacuous. So, he's still got his head up the GOP machine's ass.
Melanie
Thanks for the link.This is big news.Finally some conclusions are being drawn by the testimony of the commision.Altho it looks to me like the times is trying to pin the blame on the CIA.While this is in part the right thing.It leaves out some of the facts behind what the whithouse was thinking during the summer of '01.The article seems to give Richard Clarke his due,in that everything he said was true and that his book is right on the mark.I would hope that the American people reread his book with that kind of bias because IMO he has all the credibility and the press/government and the pundits have none of the credibility.I wonder how this story will play out in the corporate media this week.Lets hope it reignites the "Clark right or wrong" issue.
"So much of the talk here is so short-sighted- you seem proud of your blinders, declaring narrow interests as absolute day after day after day without ever considering the larger picture. It's odd."
This, from somebody who's pro-Iraq War?
Gah. Too early, too beautiful a Saturday morning for hypocritical trolls.
gottausethepoliscidegreesometi :
Who is the "we" supposed to represent in the context of, "we should/have to watch them,(corporations) - when the institutions of government are so deeply infested with corporate interests to the point where industry now dictates policy?
We is us. Us is the government, but the government is increasingly them.
What was that about the big picture?
My understanding of BSE is that it is not technically genetic in nature. It is caused by a malformed protein. When the malformed protein comes in contact with a normally formed protein some sort of reaction occurs that transforms the normal protein into the malformed one. These malformed protiens bulid up in the brain of the affected animal causing brain damage. If BSE was purely genetic you couldn't get it by eating a infected animal.
whoever wrote this article under the link doesn't understand trade policy. If you give the Japanese 100% tested beef, they will demand all beef gets tested. It's about giving the Japanese reasons to keep beef out. Creating red tape. The 100% testing is good for this company, but not for the industry.
gottausethepoliscidegreesometi:
This story was about a company, in competition with other companies, unilaterally adding an expensive burden to itself in order to provide assurance to its potential customers and then not being permitted to do it by the government.
Of course there will always be advantages to size and experience. No one in this story is trying to create a level playing field. In fact it was made clear that with economies of scale the larger slaughter houses would have a lower cost per animal tested and would therefore maintain their competitive advantage.
My, we certainly don't want 100% testing of beef, now do we? By golly, it's the American Way to take chances with Mad Cow disease.
Apparently, the Japanese have more sense than we do. God, this is another one of those days when I figure I might be better off if I had mad cow already.
Tater,
I don't think that article is the best reference for your case. It says,
To sum up CJD and BSE: These diseases are only passed genetically within families or by feeding or transplanting infected material within the same species: BSE passes from cow to cow; CJD from human to human. There is no evidence that the one causes the other.
What'd you'd want is something that says genetic transmission is the scientific consensus and cross-species infection is too.
I hate having to compete against companies/people who will work for less than I will.ANd yet isnt that what has made so much possible in this country?Is'nt this the prinicpal darwin worked so hard to investigate?
Short answer: sucker!
The U.S. was not settled by "hardy pioneers" seeking "open range."
It was settled by people lured to cheap land, offered them by... the U.S. Government! Security on that land provided by...the U.S. Government!
We think of the "Gold Rush" as settling California and Alaska. Wrong. The guys who managed to make any money in gold went back East to spend it. Or maybe blew it all in San Francisco, but the Spanish were there ahead of us, as they were here in Texas. BTW, people came to Texas becaue either the Spanish King gave them land (title in Texas, especially east Texas, can still be traced back to "Spanish land grants"), or because the Republic set up the best debtor protections in the land (still in the Property Code of Texas.)
Government help/handouts all the way.
Competition? Competition is for suckers! How do you think GE got so rich? Or Ross Perot? Who built the railroads? Private enterprise? Nah, too expensive. It was funded by the Feds, again.
Survival of the fittest is what makes capitolism work. And the fittest are those who know how to get government to help 'em out. See, e.g.: Lockheed; Boeing; General Dynamics; McDonnell-Douglas; EDS (Ross Perot's company; made all his money on gov't contracts). The list extends well beyond defense contractors.
I have to be able to do a job cheaper than the next guy or I go out of business.Why cant corporate america do the same things without government interference?
Because without "government interference," there is no "corporate america." Corporations are entirely creations of the state, legal fictions sustained by gov't laws. The corporations return the favors by buying politicians, who take care of the corporations.
You don't need a lawyer, or a law, to start a business. You need both to start, and maintain, a corporation.
Just as Bill Gates. Even he finally figured that one out.
Dead on. Look at the competition-increasing measures taken against Microsoft by its business competitors (and forced upon it by stupid regulators). The competitors didn't want Microsoft in their respected markets and, of course, sued to protect "competition."
I'll take "So, when when big business is advocating legislation or regulatory changes on the grounds that it will increase competition, they're lying" a step further: So, when anyone is advocating increased regulation and legislation that will "better the lives" of the masses, they're lying.
Reminds me of the small Maine dairy that wanted to put labels on its gallons stating no hormones. Monsanto sued and I think the dairy ended up giving up the fight as the legal costs were bankrupting it.
I toured a dairy a ways back. They are on a 25 hour day - the hormones pump the milk production so they can milk em twice in 25 hours. Yummy.
I think Greg Pallast had a good description in "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy". Sorry, but too lazy to fact check.
Anon,
Just noticed your recent. We're using "genetically" sloppily to mean "passed from mother to child during pregnancy."
Sorry, can't hold myself back any longer. I know it's an old joke, but so what.
Two cows are having a conversation in their paddock.
The first cow says, "Quite a worry, this mad cow disease, isn't it?"
The second cow replies, "Yes, and I'm certainly glad it doesn't affect me."
First cow: "Oh yeah? Why's that?"
Second com: "I'm a squirrel."
The BSE problem isn't some abstract economics free trade issue. It's a serious public health issue. Without testing the extent of the issue is unknown. BSE has no cure and no cure is ever likely to be found.
Hey Ricky Vandal:
Do the Japanese have the right to demand 100% tested beef? If not, why not? I assume that they know that 100% tested beef will cost more. If they are ok with that because they would rather pay the higher price than have a potentially horribly painful disease jump to the human population then what is the problem?
Great Britain tests all cattle since their problems with Mad Cow were discovered. It was either test or perish as an industry so they test.
$18 per head. How much per pound of hamburger or steak is that? I'd pay it in a minute. Industry profits would not even suffer. They will raise their selling price by $18.50 per head and I'll be able to enjoy my burger.
"We is us. Us is the government, but the government is increasingly them."
As for the broader issue- That was the point of the rest of my post. "them" is US. I own stock. I used to work for a small software business that had mostly big financial businesses as its customers. I now attend law school a public university. I am white. I am southern. I am atheist. I am a scofflaw in some ways. I am pretty strict about law and order in others. I like long walks at sunset and white sandy beaches. Am I a slave to any of those interests? no. Do they compete? Yes. We all have interests in common and in opposition. No one wants to crush anyone else- we need each other as buyers, sellers, voters, activists, inventors, protectors, attackers, defenders, &c., &c., ad nauseam...
Specifically, the 'we' I had in mind is government, individuals, activist organizations, competing businesses, and who ever else speaks up. If government is getting too pro-business (it is certainly now FAR from the furthest along that particular line it's been in the past) it will FOR THAT REASON be forced the other way.
I would say that competition is not always 100% good, but when there's actual competition, I would say 95% of the time it's a good thing.
Places where competition seems to not work?
Education:Education competition seems to focus on two places, price and results. Price, of course you never find out if you got your money's worth until after the fact, and results? Well lets just say the LAST thing we want is these schools competing on "results". (In a nutshell, it turn high school into basket weaving)
Essentials:Power, Health Care, etc. It seems like the most essential part of competition, is the option to just walk away. With those sorts of things, the option isn't there, so it's a captive market.
The free market and competition, as conservatives like to market it, has a few major problems. Mainly, it completly ignores any sort of externalized cost that society may endure, but allows one less civicly minded company to get an advantage over another.
The only solution to that, is actually through regulation, fines and lawsuits. Governmental intervention is needed to create a perfect free market.
Ironic huh?
Corps are VERY anti competitive. You have to be. What's worrying is when people support this anti-competitive behaviour. Frankly, it shows your worth as a citizen to be slightly (ok, extremly) lacking.
I disagree somewhat: it's true that a business doesn't want to have to compete: nothing better than having a monopoly on a needed/desired product or service. But businesses LOVE competition among their suppliers.
Welcome to the Lazy Fair.
"Step right up and see the freak show, featuring the largest collection of bona fide delusional idiots lost in their own world but with special powers to harm many people from afar. These are truly the spawn of Satan, enormous appetites for gold, an innate ability to ignore risk or force it on others, contortionists of reality, liberty and logic. For One DOLLAR you can see what strikes fear in men and women the world over, so hideous, their gaze curdles milk fortified with the most powerful hormones.
See with your own eyes, then you will believe that they really exist and are not tales to scare youngsters!
See the Libertarians, Randians, and Harvard MBAs and be Afraid!
For one DOLLAR Only!"
clever?
Robert - Beautiful.
Individual, pioneer effort is a myth. In 1876, the U.S. government forced the mountain Utes of Colorado into the Brunot Treaty, which opened up the western slope to mining. In the early 20th century, the government was persuaded that it was possible to farm without any water, and opened Montana to homesteaders specifically to test that theory. It was wrong, and the people all went bankrupt. But the point is that Manifest Destiny was all government sponsored and enabled.
The only real "pioneers" were the individual trappers who went into the west alone in the early 19th century. Even they ended up working for big fur companies that waged territorial wars with each other until the U.S. stepped in and took the Pacific Northwest from Britain for the big U.S. companies like Hudson's Bay.
Plus ca change, etc.
Except that this issue is one of public health, as far as I'm concerned, and we are rightly worried. When mad cow hit England, hundreds of people got CJS before the government would admit there was a problem. It could happen here easily.
Tena:From what I know about the health care profession in the US, chances are it's already happening, and it's just being kept on the hush and hush...
Sorry, but health care is the one field where I have a HUGE tin-foil hat on, mainly because my wife got sick after a vaccine, and she's still sick. Never went away, 13 or so years later.
The notion of competition as being 100% good has to be weighed against other factors in the equation. This small company has tried to do everything right. They apparently run a very clean operation, which would supposedly make it environmentally acceptable. They pay their workers a living wage, which makes them seem to be socially acceptable. They responded to their main customer's demand for a tested product by bringing in an independent laboratory, which they were willing to pay for, and they asked no favors or subsidies from the federal government. The irony here is that for all of this company's effort, the very branch of government that is supposed to protect the consumer does not want this company to proceed; that is they will not allow them to succeed. A very definite example of cronie capitalism; protecting the big businesses that were saved by government intervention once before. That excellent adventure was the New Deal. Of course the right will never acknowledge that the New Deal saved capitalism.
"Because without "government interference," there is no "corporate america." Corporations are entirely creations of the state, legal fictions sustained by gov't laws. The corporations return the favors by buying politicians, who take care of the corporations."
I find this hilarious, and touchingly naive. What alternative? Presbyteries, soviets, worker's councils? No corps- so it's all individuals- oh yeah individual effort is a myth! Whatever will we do?
gotta:Small-medium sized, and yes, even some large privatly run businesses, with full legal responsibility on the management and private investment.
That's the alternative...and it's a good one.
how is that alternate? we have that. And they're allowed to succeed. Do you enforce size limitations as a share of market, causing some underservice to various markets, or as an arbitrary dollar amount? Why? Don't you think the then-biggest guys on the block would still wield considerable power and influence? What are you proposing?
What a corporation provides is legal protection for the management and investors. Wrong-doings are more often than not, done in the name of the company, so the principles involved are blameless.
This MIGHT be a good thing, or a bad thing. I'm not willing to say. But removing coporate charters, is a legitmate alternative. Companies could still grow to practically any size. There would just be more responsibility for them, that's all.
Maybe it would be better if the power and influence wasn't concentrated into a small number of hands.
Karmakin - I hate to tell you this, but it is already worse than people know. I've told this story before, but it bears repeating.
There is a ranch in the San Luis Valley in Colorado where elk are raised to be butchered for their meat. Three or four years ago, there was an outbreak of mad cow on that ranch. It has since spread to the wild deer and elk in Colorado. I know stores that are still selling frozen elk meat from that ranch, and to this day the ranch is still open. And no one is warning hunters not to eat the deer and elk they kill.
It's already happening.
Furthermore, a young military officer from the Dallas area was dishonorably discharged for strange behavior, and sent home from Afghanistan. Turns out, his behavior was the result of mad cow. No one knows for certain how he got it, or whether it was from local food in Afghanistan or military issue food. The army is ignoring the problem
This administration does indeed love free markets.
No, they love markets that are free of pesky competition for their cronies.
whoever wrote this article under the link doesn't understand trade policy. If you give the Japanese 100% tested beef, they will demand all beef gets tested. It's about giving the Japanese reasons to keep beef out. Creating red tape. The 100% testing is good for this company, but not for the industry.
No, little ricky, you don't understand trade. The japanese love high quality beef and are willing to pay for it. If this small company is willing to pay the costs of testing, and it's customer is willing to pay the higher cost, then why should the gov. get in the way? As for the japanese demanding 100% tested beef, they're already demanding it. This company just wants to meet this demand. No one's making other companies do it. (though I think they should).
As a health issue, I'd pay more to get 100% tested beef. As it is, I only buy organic beef- I think that lowers the risk somewhat, but I'd like to see the risk erased altogether.
Actually, I agree. I think it could be done more expediently/less disruptively- just make corporate officers more broadly liable for the actions of their corporations. I don't know how far I think it should go, but the I do agree that the status quo is probably too protective.
I would also like to be able to sue government officials more easily, I think, for similar reasons. It would be so sweet to sue the idiot school board here in Memphis for malpractice.
Yet obviously either idea could gum up essential works to the point that we were all badly screwed.
I share your desire for more accountability in general, and I wish it was everywhere, especially in those areas listed above where competition is not the best means of enforcement.
BTW, karmakin, competition in education does apply to outcomes- but only in bizarro world would that lead straight to standard lowering. Why not require certain arbitrary standards?!?! I suppose you oppose standards in education in general.. why on EARTH!
gottausethepolidegree - Limitations on size and market share should be enforced by our anti-trust laws. However, those have taken such a beating in the last several years, that it appears that they are all but repealed.
ps - gottause,etc - I am not anti-corporation and have argued a number of times on these boards that all corporations are not inherently evil. However, I do know that free market competition is a myth.
Tena:Yeah, pretty much. Here's my story.
My wife, received her (Polio I believe?) shot. A few days later, she fell ill with an extreme lethargy. Could barely even move. She recovered, but not totally.
Started getting headaches, and going from sleeping 8 hours a night to about 11 hours a night. Went to college, those symptoms just kept on getting worse.
Wife and mother-in-law, wondering what's happening, starts doing a lot of research into it. (MiL is the wrong person you want to have obsessed with something. She pretty much helped sink Ollie North's senate run through letters to the editor, pre-blog days. We would have done what took her months in a few hours. Anyway). Went to doctor, onlything wrong is a WAY elevated CMV count. They start checking her for everything, MS, AIDS, the whole nine yards. Can't find a thing. Finally, they get a diagnosis, that it's fibromialgia, a nervous syndrom, causes lethargy, sleep disorders and general body soreness.
CDC had a few articles up on the website on how CMV seemed to be coming from polio vaccines, and how it was causing increased levels of Fibro and MS..
All pulled.
Most of the doctors she talked to in the US, especially the eastern area, would tip-toe around the topic. Like they knew something, but didn't want to say it.
My feeling is that Fibro, caused by polluted vaccines, is going to be a major problem for my generation.
In any case. That's the story, and why I have VERY little faith in a for-pay health care system, both in prevenitive and medical areas.
BTW, without telling my family doctor here in Canada, she was diagnosed on the initial visit.
Money grubbing #$@#$$...
So Tena, are you and those who share your interests lobbying for reform of antitrust laws? Maybe so, of course. But I'm not aware that it's an issue for either party... yet we seem to have identified it as crucial.
I don't have a position- I can certainly well believe they're broken & need to be fixed.
Notice that 'anti-trust laws need fixing' is not the gist of this thread AT ALL. It's anti-corporate. Interesting, no?
Here is another form of competition: Who is praying harder?
Jesus - 3 (Saddam, Yasin, Rantisi)
Allah - 1 (9/11)
gotta:Because they can't write standards that would satisfy my high expectations.
I actually WANT more accountability. The problem is that whenever it's done, it's in the form of some stupid fact-based bubble test that just forces educators to teach to the test, instead of actually taking the initive to really educate young people in how to think about things.
And in my experience, the teachers I had that actually took the time to do this..(Not just raising the bar by making the tests harder, but raising the bar by making the material more freeform) actually had MUCH more response from the borderline studants, than simply teaching the test..which frankly is just boring these kids.
So in any case, I opposed the typical standards, which frankly just make education more useless and teach kids to turn off the part of them that matters most..their logical system, and just memorize and regurgitate.
Which is the problem that I'm talking about.
So given a standardized test, yes, I personally would give a 10% drop in grades, if there was a 10% increase in critical thinking.
Much more valuable.
I never used to be anti-corporate, but lately with all the merger mania, choice is going away. One a mega corp is the only game in town, consumers are forced to accept their product whether they want to or not (think cable monopolies).
Someone mentioned Microsoft upthread. Microsoft doesn't dominate the market because it's the best system, it dominates because it engaged in hyper preditory practices. Competition should be about who has the best product, the best idea, not who can ruin their competitors businesses. Millions of you suckers just slog through with Windows because it's the only game in town. What leverage do you have if they turn out an OS with security holes and other problems? of course they wouldn't do that. Oh wait- they already did! so sorry.
Glad I'm on a Mac. And I salute you linux guys too.
Mr. Vandal has it right. If USDA allows 100% testing in this case then most,if not all importers will demand it for all US beef. That would probably be a good idea,but the cost and time required would send the big operators into screaming fits.
Science and technology writer Richard Rhodes came out with a fascinating book about BSE/Prion disease a few years back called "Deadly Feast".
Free market competition is real, just not a panacea. Some people may argue that it should serve in places where it shouldn't, but that doesn't mean that the right direction for you to approach problems is in mindless opposition to those people.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, &c., &c...
Health care is a perfect example. We have the starkest possible balance of interests. Everyone knows that the US way of doing things is the reason that US medicine is, at its best, the best in the world. Everyone also knows that it's the reason our worst is much worse than the worst in other "1st world" countries.
How do we serve ourselves best? Do we lower the ceiling for everyone in order to raise the floor? Before you answer, think about medicine 50 years ago. It would have changed MUCH less than it has if it hadn't been so encouraged to break new ground as it has been. Think what medicine COULD be 50 years from now, or think what it will be if we stifle it- much like today- which is pretty good. Heck, it was pretty good 50 years ago.
This is the real choice we face, not some melodramatic "those evil bastards are killing my family" battle cry. They're not evil bastards, they benefit us ALL in REAL WAYS.
We need less drama and more explicit balancing of interests. It's just that nobody wants to admit that's what we're doing, because if they do admit it they'll look bad. A dismal failure of political courage.
Furthermore, a young military officer from the Dallas area was dishonorably discharged for strange behavior, and sent home from Afghanistan. Turns out, his behavior was the result of mad cow. No one knows for certain how he got it, or whether it was from local food in Afghanistan or military issue food. The army is ignoring the problem
Tena
Didn't read all of the thread yet but this jumped out at me. Did you read Jim Hightower's commentary about our government suing to PREVENT a small company from testing 100% of the cows it processes? They're upset that the work will be done by PRIVATE labs! The Bush administration!!!
I found the arguments Alfie Cohn made in "No Contest" to be a pretty good case against competition in most areas of life. His alternatives, particularly those involving cooperative efforts to improve things, are interesting to consider.
All bow to the glorious invisible hand of the free market. The invisible hand sees all! The invisible hand knows all! The maximization of profit is the best way to organize any society.
Phil, curiously, when did profits become more important than human life?
Despite what most corporate philosophies seem to espouse, the goal in life isn't to make everything in the world cheap...
You may call me anti-corporate, but the fact is without regulation, big businesses have proven throughout history to be utterly indifferent to suffering on the part of anyone who isn't part of the businesses shareholders.
They don't even care about their own shareholders unless they have a significant amount of stock.
Broadcasters seek ban on local satellite radio
WASHINGTON, April 16 (Reuters) - U.S. radio broadcasters have asked federal regulators to bar rival satellite radio services from offering content tailored to local markets, according to a petition obtained on Friday.
The National Association of Broadcasters, which represents radio conglomerates like Clear Channel Communications Inc. , filed the request due to concerns the up and coming satellite services are trying to replace local radio outlets.
Now they get to see if a few hundred thou in contributions is worth billions in 'competitive' advantage.
(from Open Secrets)
First number: rank
Name of org/company
Second number: total contribution
First Percentage: to Dems
Second Percentage: to Repubs
1
Clear Channel Communications
$332,251
20%
80%
2
National Assn of Broadcasters
$285,873
37%
63%
3
News Corp
$127,925
36%
64%
4
Hispanic Broadcasting Corp
$109,100
39%
61%
5
Chartwell Partners
$99,000
33%
67%
6
Salem Communications
$80,750
0%
100%
7
Hubbard Broadcasting
$74,750
16%
84%
8
Westwood One
$65,500
94%
6%
9
Spanish Broadcasting System
$64,000
78%
22%
10
SBS Broadcasting
$52,000
4%
96%
11
Beasley Broadcasting
$49,250
5%
95%
12
Sinclair Broadcast Group
$39,950
4%
96%
13
Emmis Communications
$38,750
82%
18%
14
Birach Broadcasting
$27,500
0%
100%
14
College Sports Television
$27,500
100%
0%
16
Paxson Communications
$26,500
19%
81%
17
Radio One
$23,200
100%
0%
18
La Gran Cadena
$21,800
100%
0%
19
Cocola Broadcasting
$21,750
0%
100%
20
Sunbelt Communications
$20,000
60%
40%
Actually I think the free market does work but only up to a certain size of income(?),or something compareable.For instance Small businesses have to rely on supply and demand to survive.When corporations in the mega range intervene we have a drop off of free market ideals and turn henceforth to a molopistic marketplace.I do believe that the current government is pro monoloplistic tendencies.I dont believe that it is a partisan issue either.It is inherent in todays style of government.Dems and repubs all want to get away from supply and dedmand economics and get back to the one size fits economy.I work everyday under tremendous competition and survive,lets see a ge in a smaller size compete and see how badly they fold.
The problem with cooperation v. competition is that it gets less out of the system... it's just plain self-evident that nobody is going to value (things, accomplishments, ethics, responsibilities) that are held in common as highly as those that are held in person.
Cooperation is an excellent way to COMPETE, though.
The question is whether the most realistic base position is 'we expect everyone to cooperate for the broader good and we'll impose rules that require it' or 'we expect everyone to serve themselves as best they can and we'll impose rules that minimize abuses'
Remember, as bad as corporations can be and have been, they are pikers compared to government.
If USDA allows 100% testing in this case then most,if not all importers will demand it for all US beef. That would probably be a good idea,but the cost and time required would send the big operators into screaming fits.
Maybe they need to be sent into screaming fits. Isn't the public health worth it?
You know it occurs to me that the people most at risk of Mad cow are the people who eat the cheaper cuts- like mass produced hamburger. That would be poor people. No wonder they don't give a shit. If someone from the Bush family got BSE I bet we'd see some action.
"Didn't read all of the thread yet but this jumped out at me."
GAWD this bugs me.If you cant read the whole thread then dont bother.
Yes, but as always with these threads, they tend to branch out. And right now I have enough to do without lobbying on anti-trust.
Karmakin - I need your mother in law's help - big time. It's a long story, but suffice it to say that I am being raked over the coals for daring the to tell the truth about a project in the mountains in Colorado to turn a natural lake into a reservoir so that developers can buy more time for themselves on the water issue on the land they are selling, and so that a private resort doesn't have to fork over its own $50,000 to dredge the lake to get their fishing boats launched. I'm the subject of a great deal of public hate mail in the little town's newspaper because one of the town patriarchs called me last summer and lied to me about the lake project, and I dared to say so publicly in a letter.
I could really use some allies, because right now it looks as though if I go back, as I do every summer because I have a little place there, I'll either be burned at the stake or shunned and castigated. I'm pretty miserable about it all right now.
This is OT, I apologize, but since every week I get another issue of the paper with another letter telling me to leave and accusing me of lying instead, I am finding it difficult to think about anything else. Especially since I'm usually so excited about this time of year because I'm getting ready to go back to the mountains. This year all I can do is cry about it.
Sometimes one big business goes after another big business. Software Thugs Get Mugged. That's always fun.
when when big business is advocating legislation or regulatory changes on the grounds that it will increase competition, they're lying.
These guys always talk about Adam Smith's Invisible Hand as though it were some magic wand that makes all things good in the world. They always seem to forget Smith's caveats:
As [merchants and master manufacturers'] thoughts...are commonly exercised rather about the interest of their own particular branch of business, than about that of the society, their judgment, even when given with the greatest candour (which it has not been upon every occasion) is much more to be depended upon with regard to the former of those two objects than with regard to the latter...The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.
tena, sorry you're having trouble. I've been in the position of opposing someone more popular in a contest of credibility before and I got trounced. Do you have ANY sort of evidence? This sounds like a strange suggestion, but you might want to ask a practicing attorney- they are faced with the task of supporting hard-to-support claims all the time, and I'm sure you could pay someone their hourly rate to talk to you about it for an hour or two.
For what it's worth, responding to what I admit is merely implied by the first couple lines of your prev. post, I wasn't trying to say earlier that you can't have an opinion if you're not a lobbyist. I'm not working for anti-trust reform either. I was trying to point out the fallacy of the main thrust of this thread as defined by Atrios in the blurb that leads into it.
gottausethedegree - You know that there are all kinds of laws that not only regulate but shut down competition totally in many areas of business. Patents, trademarks, copyright - these are all blocks to free trade in the purest sense of that phrase.
Whether competition is good or bad is not a matter of opinion. It's a question that we economists have studied for a very long time, and there is lots of literature telling you when competition is good and when it isn't in the interest of the society.
To make a very simple list of things that make competition less likely to be good:
1. lack of information, especially if it is absent more on one side (either buyers or sellers); this is why competition doesn't work very well in health care (patients know very little and are at the mercy of the providers) or education (students know very little and are at the mercy of the teachers); also in both health care and education the 'product' is part of the buyer, so it's really hard to see when the seller was at fault if something goes wrong
2. public goods: these are things which have two characteristics: a) how much I consume doesn't affect how much you can consume and b) it's very expensive or impossible to exclude people who don't pay from consuming.
The traditional example is national defence and lighthouses. But even things which only fail one of the two rules can cause problems in markets.
The reason is that if I can get something without paying for it, I won't pay, and then nobody does. SO we underproduce these goods if markets are used.
3. Externalities. These are things which affect a party other than those in a trade or act of production, either negatively or positively. Negative externalities are things like air pollution. A free market wouldn't care about air pollution as it's not a part of the costs to the firm. It needs to be made into that, so markets need regulating for this purpose.
4. Economies to scale. These are cases where one firm or only a few firms can produce most cheaply, either because there's some natural reason for it or because the firms have been able to artificially put up barriers against the entry of other firms. The problem with economies to scale is that once there are just a handful of firms in the market they can affect prices upwards as there are no alternatives for consumers except not to consume. This is one of the reasons utilities have problems as market-driven systems. Regulation used to be the answer here, too, though now we think we know better.
5. Finally, the whole question of equity/fairness/justice. Free markets are like a poker game, where people are not only dealt different hands of cards from the beginning, but some people are not given any cards at all. Some people can't play very well for many reasons, some not of their own doing, and therefore the outcome of the game is not necessarily going to be what we'd like to see in a fair world.
Of course, that markets perform poorly doesn't mean that governments would do better necessarily, but these examples are worth remembering when we hear this religious approach to market economies.
...right now it looks as though if I go back, as I do every summer because I have a little place there, I'll either be burned at the stake or shunned and castigated.
Honey, just give 'em a great big cup of FUCK YOU!
dave - I've steadily been doing that, but it is a very small place, dave. I'm afraid it's over. But man, thank you. I have been a bit of a wreck for the last 5 or say days over this. Now I know how whistle blowers feel.
Competition is good (usually) and so is government regulation.
Robert Kuttner wrote a book called, "Everything For Sale!" It was about how the Gooper mythology that everything should be "deregulated" and then blessed "private enterprise" will flourish just wasn't true. And he gave numerous case studies.
In fact what the Goopers do is deregulate and give power to enrich the rich monopolies so they drive out other businesses.
WalMart for example.
gottausethepoliscidegreesometi: Get lost. Stop with the bloviating -- you're sniping and making specious arguments. Your attempts to argue that this makes sense are transparently weak.
Echidne - Nice nice post. And on point, which I admit I've not been.
I've steadily been doing that, but it is a very small place...
I grew up in a town like that, so I guess it's just second nature! 
Anyway, you're in Texas, so you should be used to living with morons! Screw 'em all and come out here to California... you can get fairly cheap houses still in the isolated parts of the Sierra (or Fresno)!
"gottausethedegree - You know that there are all kinds of laws that not only regulate but shut down competition totally in many areas of business. Patents, trademarks, copyright - these are all blocks to free trade in the purest sense of that phrase."
Yes I do know that- do you think I disagree? My argument has not been 'COMPETITION GOOD! REGULATION BAD!', far from it. Echidne's provided a good list, also not inconsistent with my position. My point is that competition is a better NORM than top-down regulation, not that it is INVARIABLY the best approach. This is not a particularly subtle distinction, nor have I buried it in my argument.
Show me the utility!
This is just what I was talking about earlier. Some of y'all seem to be arguing against a straw man regardless of what I say. I guess that just feels better.
Blah blah blah, Market Forces Good...
Hey, how's this for an idea? If the Market can't state what it does or does not want, then you've not got any market forces.
And hey! Guess which country was famous for having no consumer input into what was produced or how? Ha ha, that's right, the former Soviet Republics didn't. So Japan saying "We want this kind of beef" is a good thing, and if the US market can't or won't produce it, then it's right that it goes to the wall in the Japanese market. Capitalism, suck it down boy.
gottusethedegree - No I have nothing, and someone wrote into the paper this last time that he was there when the guy called me and he's a witness that I'm not telling the truth. It was a telephone call that the man made to me. I know what was said, and I know what is going on. But I shouldn't have publicly said anything.
I am a lawyer, though I don't practice anymore. My husband is a lawyer, too. The people on the other side of this know that.
Tena;I'll see what I can do. To be honest, frankly, that's exactly what I'm talking about when I talk about conservatism being such a cultural morass..that entire communities can basically all gang up on the thumb that sticks out..
That's actually why my MiL basically retired from all that stuff, and her and my sister in law moved out west. It just got too much to handle.
To be honest, it makes me laugh when people complain about the Feds. It's the locals that scare me. They're the ones that can really hurt you.
Tena, ugh. That sucks. Good luck.
gotta:My whole point, is that in some cases, there needs to be regulation in order for there to be effective competition.
In fact, that's where enviromentalism is heading, to leveling the playing field to allow competition, so to speak. Stopping companies from externalizing costs.
P.S. John Kerry will be on Meet The Press, Sunday - for the full hour and without the help of Dick Cheney.
dave - you are such a sweetheart - thanks. My folks had a trout farm in the Sierras before I was born - out of Chester. Not far from Mt. Lassen. They lived up there and ran the place by themselves until they went broke - and one of the things that put them out of business was when, after the end of the war, the government decided to go into the trout business themselves.
gottausethedegree -- thanks for the commiseration.
I'm sorry to take up this thread with this. It's just been keeping me up nights.
60s:It doesn't get much worse than SCO. The Slashdot people have a word for stuff like this..robbery by lawyerpoint. It's pretty sad.
Patent and copyright law are the two big things shutting down meaningful competition in so many ways. For more positive competition, that's where to start I think.
I would like to know whether or not my perception of the airline industry is correct. It seems to me from the outside looking at it, that airlines started going bankrupt after Reagan de-regulated them. If that isn't the problem, can someone tell me why it looks that way?
We were all supposed to benefit from de-regulating energy companies - the competition was supposed to mean lower energy prices for consumers. All it has meant so far is corrupt manipulation of the energy market, a la Reliant in California and Enron.
OT -- To which swing state would Jesus drive? http://www.drivingvotes.org/
Matt - sorry for the confusion - you're correct the article did not make my point.
BSE is believed by some scientists to be passed both genetically (within a family) and by ingesting infected nervous tissue where it can then cross families and species. Again, this is all the subject of much debate because very little is known about Prions - the infectious agent of BSE and other TSE's. They are a recently discovered pathogen that contain no nucleic acid (no genetic material) Technically this means that BSE can not be transmitted "genetically" because no genes are present. However prions are proteins - the stuff that genes code for - the product of genes. So the pathogen of BSE is actually it's product - it's a chicken-and-egg problem which leads many scientists to believe that there is an as yet undiscovered nucleic acid (gene) is responsible for the creation of prions.....which of course means it might very well be passed genetically.
The idea I was trying to convey is that maintaining high feed standards in one herd and testing at one slaughterhouse, is not in itself a guarantee of BSE free beef, yet the testing of just one herd could lead to the discovery of BSE in other herds.
"gotta:My whole point, is that in some cases, there needs to be regulation in order for there to be effective competition."
Karmakin, it sounds like we agree. Competition is the baseline, modified by regulation where appropriate.
I have made a mistake in this thread- I've been responding generally on the issue and I thought that was obvious. But it's understandable that a lot of people thought I was arguing against this particular instance of regulation, and in balance I think that misunderstanding is mostly my fault.
I apologize to anyone who mistook my arguments, and for assuming that the fault was with the group rather than with me! I was wrong above to say that some of you were arguing against a straw man because it felt good, you were arguing against something that was implied by the context in which I was making my argument and I should have seen that from the start.
Thanks, tena! And stay strong! You have lots of people on your side.
Karmakin:Patent and copyright law are the two big things shutting down meaningful competition in so many ways. For more positive competition, that's where to start I think.
They are a problem, but it's hard to know how to change them. This falls under the "2. public goods" part of my list, or at least falls partially there. The reason is that once something has been invented (like a cure for a disease), it's very costly to keep the solution secret while exploiting the invention for profits.
In fact, information itself is nearly a public good: If I learn something, it won't reduce the amount that you can learn; and it's pretty expensive to keep information secret.
So a market would reproduce the information at a price slightly above the reproduction costs, if left to its own devices. But this is a big problem for the inventors or creators: they are not going to get rewarded for their work. The idea behind patents and copyrights is to give the creators a temporary monopoly, during which time they can charge more to cover their development costs. IF we removed these, lots of people would simply stop working on creating new products.
The problem with patents and copyrights is, though, that a) while the patent/copyright holds, the information is not used as much as it should be, and poorer people can't get to it at all; b) we patent/copyright almost anything, even stupid slight deviations of existing things or, and this makes me furious, the genes of other people or seeds that have always existed, and this cuts back on the amount of trade in the markets in an arbitrary fashion, and c) inventors won't want to research things which don't have a big market promise at the other end (examples are drugs to cure diseases that hit mostly poor people).
Also, the pharmaceutical industry has become a master in manipulating the system to their advantage. And other industries are getting there, too.
Still, it's hard to see what a good alternative would be. The government already funds basic research (or used to, before Bush), and universities do some research on orphan drugs and things. Maybe we should set aside public funds to support research more?
“The work ethic is not a traditional value. It is a Johnny-come-lately idea. In ancient times, work was considered a disgrace inflicted on those who had failed to amass a nest egg through imperial conquest, profitable marriage, or in forms of organized looting”
Barbara Ehrenreich
The work ethic as it is known and practiced in the U.S. is a Calvinist idea that came over with our lovely Calivinist forefathers. The same ones who burned the witches at the stake in Salem.
Happy Anniversary, my friend!
Your blog has certainly grown to become the place where other bloggers hang out, and a reference for all left-of-center blogs.
Congratulations!
Oh, great--just leaving for the grocery store and, damn, if I don't get reminded, again, about our slacker approach to Mad Cow Disease.
And leave in with agida (sp?) aplenty, again, about our lousy (mal)administration.
Hey Ricky, Jenna Bush was just quoted on Fox as saying she wants to meet you in person.
Unfortunately she's in Iraq right now visiting the troops, so you'll have to get together with her there.
She asked that you meet her in Fullajah, and for you to wear a shirt with the American flag on it so she can pick you out of the crowds more easily ok?
Have a nice trip!
MYOB'
.
MYOB - LOL - you so funny. And bad.
the invisible hand
is invisible
because it usually
IS
NOT
THERE
As I recall, back in the mid 90s Microsoft required any PC manufacturer that licensed Windows to buy a license fr every unit shipped, no matter what operating system was on it. That meant that it was economically unfeasible to ship any other OS. That helped to kill OS/2 and effectively killed any competition. Funny how Microsoft didn't want to compete based solely on the quality and reliability of Windows 3.1 and Windows 95.
Did somebody mention Wal-Mart?
Wal-Mart has created a very different model from General Motors, he added, noting that G.M. helped build the world's most affluent middle class by paying wages far above the average and by providing generous health and pension plans. Mr. Lichtenstein said G.M.'s wage pattern spurred other companies to raise compensation levels, while Wal-Mart's relatively low wages and benefits — its workers average less than $18,000 a year — were doing just the opposite.
The company's pay scale and hard-nosed labor practices, said Simon Head, a fellow at the Century Foundation and author of "The New Ruthless Economy: Work and Power in the Digital Age" (Oxford University Press, 2003) mean that "Wal-Mart is certainly a template of 21st-century capitalism, but a capitalism that increasingly resembles a capitalism of 100 years ago." He added, "It combines the extremely dynamic use of technology with a very authoritarian and ruthless managerial culture."
From the NYT.
Interesting proposition. Wal-Mart, the article also notes, charges employess so much for health insurance that almost 1/3 don't have it. But they're employed! So that's good, right?
Anyway, interesting notion buried here. GM paid well because of strong unions. Wal-Mart actively discourages unions, to the point of (in one story I heard) shutting down a butcher dept. in a store that was on the verge of unionizing.
Competition works for the employee, too, when companies have to compete for 'em. Wal-Mart wants to be sure that doesn't happen.....
GAWD this bugs me.If you cant read the whole thread then dont bother.
smalfish
Sorry if I offended you. Now, did you bother to read the rest of it?
Wow...a story on the best blog going about a business in my hometowns rival.
Funny (in a Rod Serling kind of style) that the story highlighting Bush supporters economic theories on competition would be about a high-tech slaughterhouse.
I wonder how the current administration and bureaucracy views the citizenry.
Moo.
The roots of "competition" as a semi-religious mantra of our times is Harvard and other business schools' slow-to-change views on social Darwinianism. The idea that evolution is "good" and that it is driven by competition has been abondoned in its pure form, by evolution theoriests, but business schools are very slow to understand the newer thinking on these subjects. Nowadays it is "survival of the luckiest".
It is also interesting, although perhaps not relevant, that the US military has no competitors but is a well organized and efficient operation.
America Deserves Bush - 2004
For the background on how big companies re-write the rules, read
http://www.oligopolywatch.com/20...2004/02/
03.html
It's about time this topic got some discussion. Republicans are all about cronyism and cartels - period. W is the poster child for well-connected talent-free sub-mediocrity over merit - having finally after dozens of extremely expensive failures been given (on a silver plate) an opportunity to get rich in a socialist scam (Major League Baseball).
I think one reason often overlooked for the fear and loathing Bill Clinton inspired in Repubs was that under his administration the traditional rape the earth and war industries gave way to high tech as the dominant economic force in our culture. W is trying to reverse that trend with a spendathon war. Them high tech dudes think just a little too uh liberally to be allowed to run things.
The idea that evolution is "good" and that it is driven by competition has been abondoned in its pure form, by evolution theoriests
Well, proponents of natural selection have never argued that it is good - or bad. Just a mechanism by which speciation occurs. Nature is not inherently moral in that sense, although I suppose you could argue that in its steady climb into progressively complex arrangements its an "enabler" of morality.
But just as evolution and natural selection are not the same thing, free markets and capitalism are not the same thing. Japan and China (and in fact the United States when it was a developing nation) have shown that capitalism can thrive in closed markets. In the end, however, I think the experience of Victorian England demonstrates the value of free markets (back then it was liberals vs. aristocrats, with the former struggling to repeal the Corn Laws to liberalize the economy - and head off disaster such as the Potato Famine). But I don't thing most Repubs - those with power anyway - like free markets at all. The Bush family has never done well by them. That's why W is a third generation (at least) government functionary.
"The roots of "competition" as a semi-religious mantra of our times is Harvard and other business schools' slow-to-change views on social Darwinianism."
No, the roots of "competition" being good are both theory and practical experience.
The right wing doesn't want competition for itself, that's the problem.
badtequila,
Good point about free markets vs. capitalism. Relatedly, I find it intesting how golden-straightjacket types are always quick to point out the "benefits" of free trade when many economic powerhouses of the modern world developed under protectionist walls. Indeed, if you carefully disect the Ricardo "proof" they always use to show why free trade is theoretically good, you'll note - besides the fact that it only proves free trade makes economies more efficient, e.g. it does NOT show that free trade causes economic growth, in fact it shows how free trade could lead to deflation! - it does not really address issues of technological change driving economic growth and the opportunity costs of trade based on current comparative advantages. In fact, if you look at economies like the US and UK, you note that our "comparative advantage" as that we have very few comparative advantages so we will always choose growth rather than a stagnant, natural resource based economy.
One should, in fact, seriously ponder two things:
(1) if free markets/free trade are so good, why does the IMF/WTO/etc. have to work so hard to force them down people's throughts?
(2) why are so many resource rich countries so poor?
I know there has been many work on these questions, but the work highlights issues of human irrationality and real issues (as opposed to house-of-cards, "neo-liberal" economic theory) of how economies actually function.
I remember reading that Paul Krugman read this blog - maybe he can make an even more concerted effort to teach economics (as opposed to neo-liberal B.S.) to the masses? Will there be more economists soon writing op-ed columns? I am particularly keen to see columns written by the new generation of economists who actually pay attention to experimental studies of human behavior.
Dwayne Andreas, formerly of ADM, and all-around patron saint of the free market, put it this way: "The competitor is our friend. The customer is our enemy." He's also the guy who said "There's not a free market in anything, anywhere in the world. The only place you see a free market is in Fourth of July speeches."
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