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False, it's cheaper for employers to practice "safe work" than not. Even if government did not exist, safety standards would exist, because insurers would demand them by tying business/loss insurance rates to insurance premiums.
As with auto and other forms of insurance, repeat violators or high risks are simply unable to be insured, and that would preclude employers from obtaining and keeping business.
Obviously, you're an outsider and don't understand how businesses operate. For example, I approved/issued/supervised contracts for work performed at nuclear weapons facilities. You're going to show me that you carry an appropriate amount of business/loss/liability insurance in the range of $1 Million to $100 Million -- depending on the actual work to be performed.
Same in the civilian world. If you're going to perform janitorial maintenance services at any one of my facilities, then you're going to prove to me that you carry an appropriate amount of business/loss/liability insurance, and that you are either insured through the State for worker's compensation or insured through a private company.
You might want to update your calendar. It isn't 1907 anymore, it's 2012.
Again, your logic is totally flawed. There are hundreds of ways to finance the construction of airports, farming and professional sports.
There's nothing to prevent a sports team from issuing 30 year bonds for construction that pay 8.75% interest.
You do know what bonds are, don't you? Venture Capital, you know what that is?
Government doesn't need to subsidize farming. The big giant corporate agro-farms are the ones who suck up the subsidies anyway. The small private farms and family farms get practically nothing.
If the sports franchises can afford pay a player $13 Million, they can build their own stadium.
And as far as air traffic controllers, who says they have to be employed by the federal government? The airport can hire its own air traffic controllers. So can the airlines.
Faulty logic again. Government doesn't have to build or maintain those things.
The purpose of government is to facilitate, not provide.
How about the Bridge to Nowhere and the Exit to Nothingness?
The federal government did not build the interstate highway system for you. It built it to move troops around quickly. As it stands, the interstate system is obsolete for troop movements. When that became obvious, the federal government should have bowed out. The federal government should stop collecting the excise tax on gasoline and stop funding roads.
I guess you're going to sing the praises of government for building an highway system and encouraging the use of automobiles, so that you're now trapped in a situation where you're at the mercy of oil and the cost to build mass transit is overwhelming.
Worse than that, you're now using your corn crops for fuel, instead of eating your corn, which is driving up the price of both food and fuel. And then you're totally ignorantly blissful of the fact that you're going to have plow under crops to grow cellulostic fibers to meet EPA ethanol production guidelines.
Do you see how stupid government really is?
If government had kept its ugly face out of it, you might not be so dependent on oil, and you might actually have a cheaper viable alternative in the form of mass transit.
And your food wouldn't cost so much.
Uh, the US Constitution specially charges the federal government with the task of defending the several States, so it would make sense that the federal government could and should hire private sector companies to build equipment for the express purposes of performing their constitutional duties.
However, that is not government interference in the Free Market, rather it is government using the Free Market.
But nice attempt to foist a Straw Man Fallacy on everyone.
The issue conservatives have with government involvement is that there is no Separation of Special Interest & State.
Conservatives see what Liberals cannot see, and that is the fact that there is no government involvement, rather the involvement is corporations, think-tanks, special interest groups, unions, political action committees and lobbyists who use government to write the legislation that interferes with the Free Market.
Your politicians ain't that smart. They can barely write crap like Megan's Law. Every bill introduced is written by a corporation, or a PAC, or a lobbyist, or a think-tank or a union or some other special interest group. And the reason they do that is to better their position by stifling competition and barring new competitors from entering the market to compete. And then of course there are those who have more devious reasons, seeking only to gain power or control.
So you might want to actually look at the arguments, instead of just making things up.
The government that governs least, governs best....
Mircea
You are replying as if America operates in a vacuum. Other countries have no problem with using their government to influence their businesses. Look at what China has accomplished in just a few decades....
How can we compete with China with a limited government? Or we just going to hope and prey our private sector has nationialist interests? Good luck with that.
After reading many different posts in several different forums, I am struck by the number of people that think that getting the government totally out of the way of businesses would make the country and the world a better place. While I agree there are reforms that could be made to make government run more efficiently, getting rid of government involvement altogether would be disastrous because:
1. The government puts into place standards for safety of employees and consumers. Without these protections, employees could be put into dangerous situations and then fired if they get hurt. Consumers would not be protected against tainted food, faulty products, transportation crashes, etc.
Why do you think people are so dumb they do not know the risks involved when they take a job? Conditions risky? Work for the competition. No competition, take off all those rules and regulations that hinder start ups.
Seems like people still get hit with tainted food even though government is there to save us. Why do you need to know a health certificate has been issued to a restaurant? One day out of the year a store passes the inspection, means alot to you? What happened to using common sense? If you see toilets overflowing and servers sticking their hands in the trash and not washing them are you going to feel safe because of that certificate?
We need government to close down childrens lemonaide stands because we can't think for ourselves on the safety issue?
Quote:
Originally Posted by davidv
2. Government subsidizes several important industries including airlines, farming, and professional sports. Government builds airports and provides the industry with air traffic controllers. If this were left to the private sector, airline tickets would be unaffordable, the industry would crash and take the tourism industry with it. Farmers get water subsidies, crop insurance, and more. Pro sports would have to build their own arenas and stadiums. These are just a few industries that rely on the government to stay in business.
Airline tickets not affordable? Look up Jimmy Carter and see what happened to airplane prices when it was deregulated. If the prices get too high the airline looses customers and eventually folds.
Large farms get the subsidies not the small farmer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by davidv
3. The government builds and maintains the infrastructure that makes trade possible. Without the government building and maintaining roads, railroads, and ports, goods could never make it to us for the prices we pay. Plus governments provide the protection and safety for business owners.
We pay for it with our tax money, not government. Let the airlines who want it to pay for it themselves. Your choice. Pay $XX more per flight for added security if that is your wish. Don't force it down my throat. Why am I forced to pay for the TSA when I don't fly? Private plane passengers don't have to go through it
Quote:
Originally Posted by davidv
4. The government uses its money to hire the private sector in many different areas including: the space industry, weapons, infrastructure building, etc.
At inflated prices. They have an endless supply of the peoples money so why bother to cut costs? They don't have that incentive like a private sector business would.
Quote:
Originally Posted by davidv
Can someone explain to me how getting rid of government involvement would make the economy better, the public safer, and the workers better off? Or would we just return to the days of the 1800s?
Yet you want to return to a system older than the 1800's that has always failed in the past. Why?
Why do you think people are so dumb they do not know the risks involved when they take a job? Conditions risky? Work for the competition. No competition, take off all those rules and regulations that hinder start ups.
You do know it was government involvement that ruined the economy when they lowered the lending standards? I don't think you do, since that was the cause of our economic destruction. You want the same ones who ruined it to save it? Why? They don't know much, except to bailout their buddies.
Without government spending for military equipment, supplies and fuel the remaining half of our industrial base would shut down with huge losses in employment, profits and stock values. Replacing our government owned and operated electric power “Authorities†would bring total economic ruin to their service areas as private owners would at least double the price to account for private profit and executive salaries.
Last night, the Democratic convention kicked off. They talked a lot about the choices that Obama made. I thought about those choices. Obama always takes the easy way out, makes the easy choice.
Easy choice: Stimulus to put us far deeper in debt (Salt Water Economics) vs Hard choice: Creating economic incentives for private expansion (Freshwater Economics)
Obama made the easy choice. The stimulus went to his cronies. 99% of it was a waste.
Why do you think people are so dumb they do not know the risks involved when they take a job? Conditions risky? Work for the competition. No competition, take off all those rules and regulations that hinder start ups.
I wish that the world was as black and white and simple that you make it out to be. If I don't like my job, then I should work for the competition?
It is not always the rules and regulations of the government that hinder start ups. The dominant company can resort to many different tactics to make conditions harder for the competition to gain a foothold, including dumping product onto the market to drive competition under, forcing suppliers into exclusivity contracts, buying out competitors, and even keeping prices artificially low to prevent entry into the market. The only recourse the new startup has in most of these cases is.....drumroll please....... intervention by the government. Businesses have convinced people that they want free markets, but they rarely play fair with each other.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Loveshiscountry
Seems like people still get hit with tainted food even though government is there to save us. Why do you need to know a health certificate has been issued to a restaurant? One day out of the year a store passes the inspection, means alot to you? What happened to using common sense? If you see toilets overflowing and servers sticking their hands in the trash and not washing them are you going to feel safe because of that certificate?
We need government to close down childrens lemonaide stands because we can't think for ourselves on the safety issue?
You could be right if the restaurant or supermarket knew when the inspectors were coming. Surprise inspections mean that stores and restaurants must be on their best behavior at all times, lest they be inspected on their worst day. Besides, having these laws in place means that there is legal recourse when they are broken. The lemonade issue is a red herring. Any food sold on the street should meet safety standards whether it is made by children or not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Loveshiscountry
Airline tickets not affordable? Look up Jimmy Carter and see what happened to airplane prices when it was deregulated. If the prices get too high the airline looses customers and eventually folds.
We pay for it with our tax money, not government. Let the airlines who want it to pay for it themselves. Your choice. Pay $XX more per flight for added security if that is your wish. Don't force it down my throat. Why am I forced to pay for the TSA when I don't fly? Private plane passengers don't have to go through it
First you say that if airline prices are too high, the airplane "looses" customers and eventually folds, then you want to make the airlines increase their costs by paying for security and, presumably, for other government-paid services like air traffic controllers. There are very few airlines that have not gone bankrupt since deregulation, many different airlines have folded (where are Pan Am and TWA?) under deregulation.
What's happening is that the number of airlines is steadily decreasing and we are seeing airfares rise under a de facto re-regulation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Loveshiscountry
Large farms get the subsidies not the small farmer.
All farms benefit from the water projects that have enabled the cultivation of crops in areas that were too dry for crops.
The coming water wars will be refereed by the government. It would get ugly otherwise.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Loveshiscountry
At inflated prices. They have an endless supply of the peoples money so why bother to cut costs? They don't have that incentive like a private sector business would.
How do you know prices are inflated? The space industry didn't exist until the government funded it. And instead of building the products themselves, they contracted the work to private companies that became quite successful. The only problem was when the government cut back, the industry contracted because the private sector was unable to pick up the slack. The new products generated by the space race have spawned new private enterprises that could not have been developed were it not for government investment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Loveshiscountry
Yet you want to return to a system older than the 1800's that has always failed in the past. Why?
I never said I wanted to return to the system of the 1800s, I said that we would return to a system similar to that of the 1800s if we cut government out of the economy. By admitting that the old system doesn't work, you have made my argument.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Loveshiscountry
You do know it was government involvement that ruined the economy when they lowered the lending standards? I don't think you do, since that was the cause of our economic destruction. You want the same ones who ruined it to save it? Why? They don't know much, except to bailout their buddies.
Companies lowered lending standard long before the government got involved. They were handing out credit cards like Halloween candy in the late 1980s. And they might have even survived the subprime mortgage crisis had they not gotten greedy and tried to multiply their earnings in the mortgage-backed derivatives and the mortgage-backed security markets.
Free markets are great in theory but businessmen know better. Every time a free market interferes with profit and security the businessmen involved agree to eliminate it. Eventually one of the businesses either destroys or buys out all the others and lives happily as a monopoly or, at most, a duopoly. Besides, free markets are far too risky to attract investment.
I saw gov. waste first-hand every day working for the county. Even though, it was only county, it was still a gov. entity. One incident in particular concerned creosote treated lumber that was destined for a bridge that we were to construct. There were 4 x 12's, 4 x 6's, 12 x 12's, all brand new, and 12- 15 ft. long, enough lumber to construct a 40' bridge and treated with creosote so they would last for years. When the land owner decided not to have us build the bridge, we were instructed to stack all the lumber behind a building, out of sight of the commissioner, since, at the time, we had no more bridges scheduled to be built. About 2 months later, we were told to take chain saws and go and cut it all up, put it in a dump truck, and haul it to the landfill. Some of the employees that lived out in the country asked if we could buy any of it to use around our farms, or maybe on their deer leases, instead of throwing it away. The answer was always no. Better to waste, and buy new....that was the county motto. There were many other incidents such as throwing away tools if they were missing a part, or had a broken handle even though they could be repaired cheaper than buying new tools over the years made us understand that the county yearly budget request in the dept where I worked must never show a surplus of anything, ever. It had to stay the same, year to year, or at best, show a deficit in order to get it's full share of the money. I feel that gov. at any level carries a certain amount of corruption. Seems though, in my opinion the amount of corruption is worse, the bigger the entity.
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