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I think you still operate under the king of England....
The people who went to explore the west did not wait for the government to build roads and infrastructure. They did not wait for the government backing. They just took off. Wild West did not have a government.
Our history as a nations starts with rejection of the government imposed by the King Of England.
Not that I actually think you'll read or comprehend what is being presented, I just want people reading this to know how ignorant you are and not to be fooled by your ramblings.
Homestead Act of 1862: subsidized land to colonize the west. Also, of note is the Homestead Act of 1841.
Do you think the pioneers just went guns a blazing into Indian territory our did our government send our military to take care of the issue? Please go read a book sometime.
You wouldn't be able to see the sunset if not for air quality regulations, or have birds and fish to enjoy without the clean water act. The very freedoms you enjoy are the direct result of the protections afforded by the state. Every time you come online to post your drivel, that's a direct result of government funded research. The President may not be holding your hand, but federal, state, and local entities are involved in just about everything you do. It is as inescapable as the very air you breathe, and to deny that a ruling power exists over you is to deny the very existence of reality.
Cognizance of the grand human ecosystem in which we inhabit, to understand that we are ants in the colony, is tremendous. I know you think you're just a special little ant, carrying that sugar back to the mound, but a hundred ants were there before you, laying the groundwork for you to grab the sugar, and another hundred ants will come after, to do the same and more.
You're not special. I'm not special. Business owners are not special. You don't get special privileges for thinking you're a mogul--and if you need to be brought down a peg because your actions threaten the colony, than such will be done, and the scheme of hoarding wealth and telling the rest to **** off because you're too ignorant to realize you have that wealth because of the people you're pissing on, will only result of greater punishment.
We still have an argument to have in the Gun-Control thread, DV. I'm not agreeing with you just yet.
Thanks for making so crystal clear exactly what you are and how you think. I prosper by being of service to others, who voluntarily pay me for perceived value in excess of my cost. Every transaction has two winners. Every person with whom I deal is special, I'm just a guy trying to be of value to others. Don't know where you come off with your assumption of arrogance.
I deeply value and appreciate the giants whose shoulders we stand on, and fully understand our history. I love the progress we have made in cleaning the air and water--I just don't think we should go on and on to further extremes so that we end up broke, freezing and starving in the dark. I think it is particularly stupid to push uneconomic "green" stuff that will be unstoppable anyway, once it becomes economic.
I also have a deep understanding for where your extreme collectivist philosophy will take us. No thanks. And by the way, lest you mistake things, this is not an argument against roads, bridges, garbage collection or the need to pay for them.
At least business owners give employment to people. At least they create something.
I guess all the business owners would have come together to fight ze germans and the japs. Oh, and all those other wars. Oh yes, we owe everything to our corporate overlords.
Thanks for making so crystal clear exactly what you are and how you think. I prosper by being of service to others, who voluntarily pay me for perceived value in excess of my cost. Every transaction has two winners. Every person with whom I deal is special, I'm just a guy trying to be of value to others. Don't know where you come off with your assumption of arrogance.
I deeply value and appreciate the giants whose shoulders we stand on, and fully understand our history. I love the progress we have made in cleaning the air and water--I just don't think we should go on and on to further extremes so that we end up broke, freezing and starving in the dark. I think it is particularly stupid to push uneconomic "green" stuff that will be unstoppable anyway, once it becomes economic.
I also have a deep understanding for where your extreme collectivist philosophy will take us. No thanks.
LOLz. This "extreme collectivist philosophy" is what made America, America. You just can't see the forests through the trees and instantly had to make this a partisan issue. You have no one but yourself to blame if you can't see how America came to be.
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And by the way, lest you mistake things, this is not an argument against roads, bridges, garbage collection or the need to pay for them.
You better tell your buddies that, they can't get past chapter one.
Thanks for making so crystal clear exactly what you are and how you think. I prosper by being of service to others, who voluntarily pay me for perceived value in excess of my cost. Every transaction has two winners. Every person with whom I deal is special, I'm just a guy trying to be of value to others. Don't know where you come off with your assumption of arrogance.
I deeply value and appreciate the giants whose shoulders we stand on, and fully understand our history. I love the progress we have made in cleaning the air and water--I just don't think we should go on and on to further extremes so that we end up broke, freezing and starving in the dark. I think it is particularly stupid to push uneconomic "green" stuff that will be unstoppable anyway, once it becomes economic.
I also have a deep understanding for where your extreme collectivist philosophy will take us. No thanks. And by the way, lest you mistake things, this is not an argument against roads, bridges, garbage collection or the need to pay for them.
Without federal funding for numerous green projects, the private sector would never pick them up because they have no immediate marketable value. If it wasn't for government spending, we wouldn't have lasers, which are innumerable objects today and our world would be very different without them. The entire concept was nearly discarded because nobody saw a profitable use for them.
You seem to forget that business are in the business for one reason--money. If something can't make money, you don't invest in it. No businessman has ever taken a real risk in the past fifty years.
I guess all the business owners would have come together to fight ze germans and the japs. Oh, and all those other wars. Oh yes, we owe everything to our corporate overlords.
Somebody had to build the ships that transported soldiers overseas, and fought battles in the oceans. And the uniforms, and the weapons. Sure, the government may have purchased them, but it did so with funds from war bonds which were purchased by citizens.
So yeah, business owners did come together to fight ze germans and the japs. And the other wars. Not as a government function, but each participating company as a more effective contract bidder. Like, you know... can you say Halliburton ? And using those roads and facilities that had already been built as a result of consumer demands. Like, you know... can you say Road to nowhere ?
A road built by consumer demand usually has a purpose.
A road to nowhere is usually a result of government waste.
Without federal funding for numerous green projects, the private sector would never pick them up because they have no immediate marketable value. If it wasn't for government spending, we wouldn't have lasers, which are innumerable objects today and our world would be very different without them. The entire concept was nearly discarded because nobody saw a profitable use for them.
You seem to forget that business are in the business for one reason--money. If something can't make money, you don't invest in it. No businessman has ever taken a real risk in the past fifty years.
You might want to plug into reality every once in a while. No businessman has ever taken a real risk in the past fifty years? Are you familiar with the failure rate of businesses? Do you know that the typical small business failure wipes out the owner's personal finances, often costing him or her their home, their savings, and retirement accounts? Most businesses are undertaken with huge risks to the owners.
What fraction of the economy did governments at all levels soak up in 1820, 1850, 1880, 1920? How could it have been responnsible for everything the country had during that period of unimaginable progress?
What exactly did the government do in bringing us the internet of today? Are you aware of the key early work by researchers at Xerox? Did you know government played a somewaht tangental role, and private enterprise did 99% of the work to get it to where it is today? Do you know that Intel spends more on research and development every year than its next largest competitor is worth in total? Do you know that most of this money is spent on things that have no immediate marketable value, but of potentially vast potential and vast benefit to society many years down the road?
Government funding for basic research is of extreme importance. Government money spent trying to commercialize things that are not economically viable is a total waste, and a net loss to society. Government had a small role in the early stages of what became the internet--but it did not subsidize Amazon or Ebay or E-trade, or bribe users with tax money to try it. Basic research into solar power? Hell yes. Loan money to Solyndra? Yeah, maybe as a corrupt political payoff to a supporter, but certainly not because it made any sense.
You might try reading more history. The American story since 1776 is not exactly a tale of an all-powerful government commanding all resources for the betterment of all citizens. You ascribe so much power and importance to government that your vision of citizenship sounds a lot like enslavement.
Please keep on posting. Most people would not believe in the existence of a Konraden without the evidence you provide, and you give us a fabulous picture of the world we will end up with if Obama is re-elected and succeeds in keeping this country on the path toward his (and your) vision.
You seem to forget that business are in the business for one reason--money. If something can't make money, you don't invest in it.
Exactly! Free people, voting with their wallets, choose which products and services are of more value to them than their price. If I want to make more money, I have to find a way to become more valuable to others. This is a system that requires us to be of value to the rest of society, a moral ethic that no other economic system has. The grocer helps me feed my family; if he wants to make more money, he has to figure out how to help more people feed their families. And he must do it in a way that will attract people on a voluntary basis, by providing more value than his competitors.
If something can't make any money, there is a clue hidden in there: nobody wants it, because there are better uses for their money. It takes a government with too much power to command us to use uneconomic products (see ethanol, windmills, solar power). Basic research in these areas by government? Sure. Jamming them down our throats and causing our electricity bills to "necessarily skyrocket" (words of Barack Obama)? Totally wasteful and destructive.
You might want to plug into reality every once in a while. No businessman has ever taken a real risk in the past fifty years? Are you familiar with the failure rate of businesses? Do you know that the typical small business failure wipes out the owner's personal finances, often costing him or her their home, their savings, and retirement accounts? Most businesses are undertaken with huge risks to the owners.
Ask your local homeless how many of them are on the streets because they couldn't make a business work. I get the feeling your number will be in the range of zero.
Those "huge risks" are written off with bankruptcy. Most busness that fail as such are because of mismanagement, and that's not a risk--that's poor planning and management.
A risk is taken against chance. If you do everything right, make a risk, and chance fails you, you've taken a risk. If you do everything wrong, and you fail, that's not a risk. If you're gambling your house and personal finances on a business, and you get put out on the street do to a risk, you've taken a real risk. If all you had to do was sign off some bankruptcy forums--you haven't taken a risk. Nothing was ever truly at stake.
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What fraction of the economy did governments at all levels soak up in 1820, 1850, 1880, 1920? How could it have been responnsible for everything the country had during that period of unimaginable progress?
The U.S. copyright protected the works of individuals and their inventions of the time. The infamous intercontinental railroad bridged the East and West of our growing nation. It was Jefferson that sent out Lewis and Clark. That same government and individual helped pen the Constitution which protects your very freedoms.
More recently, you have the internet, which wouldn't exist without the design and protocols created by ARPA and its ARPANET protocol, all federally funded.
You can't escape the grasp of government in any nation which has one, regardless of type, because it represents the codified laws of the society that harbors it.
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What exactly did the government do in bringing us the internet of today? Are you aware of the key early work by researchers at Xerox? Did you know government played a somewaht tangental role, and private enterprise did 99% of the work to get it to where it is today?
You wouldn't have it with the ARPANET protocol, which underpins the entire history of the internet. The "basic" research you talk about? It's the nonmarketable theoretical research you often seen done by the groups like DARPA and NASA--both federally funded.
And then you have "private" enterprises which soak up federal research grants left and right because they alone can't pay for the expense of research.
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Do you know that Intel spends more on research and development every year than its next largest competitor is worth in total?
Can you name Intel's competitors without looking it up, or even cite the R&D budget for Intel, AMD, or ARM?
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Do you know that most of this money is spent on things that have no immediate marketable value, but of potentially vast potential and vast benefit to society many years down the road?
Cite it. Last I checked, Intel is in the business of making fat loads of cash, and they do that through inventions of microprocessor manufacturing--all of which is marketable.
Nobody saw a use for lasers back in the fifties, which is why nobody but the British government wanted to fund the research departments responsible. Intel can easily see a use for quantum computing, which is why they have been competing with IBM to develop chips.
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Government funding for basic research
ITS NOT BASIC RESEARCH. That undermines the entirety of what both federal government programs, and federal funding have done. Novel research has been done, not just this insulting basic research you are so nebulous about.
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is of extreme importance. Government money spent trying to commercialize things that are not economically viable is a total waste, and a net loss to society.
That's a role of government, genius. Our government spends billions on items that are not directly economically viable. Not everything can, will, or is supposed to make money. Your infrastructure isn't supposed to make money. It's an expense. Your see the ROI by providing power to more people.
But to sit there and expect those EHV lines to generate money is asinine. Research falls into that category regularly because not everything we discover is marketable. What's the marketability of learning the smell of space?
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Government had a small role in the early stages of what became the internet--but it did not subsidize Amazon or Ebay or E-trade, or bribe users with tax money to try it. Basic research into solar power? Hell yes. Loan money to Solyndra? Yeah, maybe as a corrupt political payoff to a supporter, but certainly not because it made any sense.
How many of those companies used federal loans and grants to start their businesses? Would you like to guess? Or perhaps the tax-deductions they get for being a certain type of business?
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You might try reading more history. The American story since 1776 is not exactly a tale of an all-powerful government commanding all resources for the betterment of all citizens.
I didn't say it was, but don't let that stop you from setting up the strawman.
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You ascribe so much power and importance to government that your vision of citizenship sounds a lot like enslavement.
Please keep on posting. Most people would not believe in the existence of a Konraden without the evidence you provide, and you give us a fabulous picture of the world we will end up with if Obama is re-elected and succeeds in keeping this country on the path toward his (and your) vision.
George Will is about as useful as a bucket of broken *******s, but I'm utterly perplexed you read this story and took it at face value. Upon reading about an indictment for material false witness, something smelled fishy.
But considering the case is still ongoing, and neither party is at liberty to fully disclose the case, we'll hae to do what we always do--wait.
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Originally Posted by marcopolo
Exactly! Free people, voting with their wallets, choose which products and services are of more value to them than their price. If I want to make more money, I have to find a way to become more valuable to others. This is a system that requires us to be of value to the rest of society, a moral ethic that no other economic system has. The grocer helps me feed my family; if he wants to make more money, he has to figure out how to help more people feed their families. And he must do it in a way that will attract people on a voluntary basis, by providing more value than his competitors.
Money has no ethics, why do you entertain the idea that people who are looking to hoard money would have any ethics to go with it?
The grocer has to con as much money as possible from every passerby. If part of that con is convincing the passerby that he "cares," so be it. But there is no ethics in raw business. It's an oxymoron.
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If something can't make any money, there is a clue hidden in there: nobody wants it, because there are better uses for their money.
sigh.
Literally everything you enjoy is in one way or another tied to the government. You cannot escape it.
The government funds billions in research every year. The government helps develop and maintain the infrastrucutre that nobody profits from.
I guess we don't want power to our homes, or new technology in which to better our lives.
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It takes a government with too much power to command us to use uneconomic products (see ethanol, windmills, solar power).
If you're so short sighted to see the power of alternative renewable energy sources, I can't help you. I'm going to go down a water slide instead, that'll win me this argument.
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