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Let's look at some of the counter arguments David.
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Originally Posted by davidv
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.
I live in the Anthracite coal mining area and this is a specific type of coal that requires a specific type of mining. 15 years ago there was hundreds of small operations here often referred to as "bootleg mines" because of their small size. Typically they were run by a few men who were often neighbors or related. These miners would also often be 3rd, 4th and in some cases 5th generation miners. These were some of the safest mines in the country, safety is a personal issue if it's your best friend or brother that is going to be in danger. They all made a great living.
MSHA starting back in about 2000 started coming down hard on these mines enforcing regulations often used in soft coal mines. Many of these regualtions simply didn't make sense and in some cases potentially dangerous. Because of the cost of these regualtions many of these smaller mining companies could not afford it and simply went out of business.
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Consumers would not be protected against tainted food, faulty products, transportation crashes, etc.
They are protected now? We can make a car that is 100% crash survivable but we don't because no one can afford the car. Having said that new cars are slowly becoming less and less affordable. I have even better example, you might remember the lead scare in toys from China? These regualtions will put out of business small hand made toy makers because they can't charge 100's of dollars for a toy that should cost a few bucks. The reason they will cost so much is because the testing cost that much. The larger companies like Mattell that caused the issue to begin with can spread the cost of these tests over tens of thousands of units so it has almost no impact on the cost to the consumer.
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If this were left to the private sector, airline tickets would be unaffordable, the industry would crash and take the tourism industry with it.
Who pays these subsidies to begin with? If I'm left with more money in my pocket I have more money to spend on a ticket where these costs are included. More importantly I have more money in my pocket to spend money on the mode of transportation I choose which lets the market decide who the winners and losers are.
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Farmers get water subsidies, crop insurance, and more.
Where I live the price of milk is set, this has sent many small dairy farmers into bankruptcy.....
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Pro sports would have to build their own arenas and stadiums.
Yes they would. These extravagant billion dollar stadiums would not be built, the players would no longer be able to get bloated salaries and the team owners would have to take a cut in profits.
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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.
Like roads and bridges these should entirely be funded by user fees with every single penny being collected funding what it was intended to fund.
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Or would we just return to the days of the 1800s?
Government is important, for example the Interstate system as we know it would not exist. The problem is the bloat, over regulation, corruption and waste that comes with big government. We don't need to get rid of government, we need to scale it back considerably.
I disagree with reducing the government involvement in some areas. We need a government owned operated and staffed medical industry to eliminate the currently over priced industry that has resulted in unaffordable health insurance and direct costs for most of our population. We can start with eliminating the private sector involvement in the health insurance/payment industry with its excessive executive pay scales and profits.
The place where we can cut government expenses is the military. We do not need to spend 100's of thousands a year hiring a mercenary to drive a truck that can be done buy a soldier for 1/3rd the cost. We do not need multimillion dollar fighter planes when there is no expectation the manned fighters will not soon be replaces by robots. We do not need to build more atomic submarines when we have no need to obliterate an enemy fleet or homeland. We do not need million dollar tanks that are nothing more than large moving targets for the self guided missiles that everybody will soon develop. Same goes for aircraft carriers.
What we need is a military large enough to defend the USA and let he rest of the world go to hell in its own hand basket. We do not need to pick the winners in the Middle East or anywhere else. They can do that for themselves. We do not need to protect American investment anywhere but in the USA. Those plutocrats can take their own risks.
Maybe we should have regulatory agencies that can tell the difference between small anthracite and huge bituminous mines and still provide a safe working environment for both. We need agencies that work for clean air and not for corn industry profits. We need financial regulators that are not owned and ruled by the financiers they supposedly regulate. We need labor/immigration regulators that will fine companies that uses illegal immigrants to enhance their profits at substantial cost to the rest of us.
We need good and effective government not necessarily small government.
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.
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.
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.
4. The government uses its money to hire the private sector in many different areas including: the space industry, weapons, infrastructure building, etc.
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?
very true, but in the same instance, we also do not need a nanny from cradle to grave. no need for epa to even be there screwing up businesses, no need for goverment to steal peoples property in favor of creating a better business atmosphere, and sure as hell no need for goverment to be there setting a minimum wage.
Well, the only reason most posters want to do it is because they are on constant diet of right wing radio and TV. They have no idea how to govern or to run an economy, but still they shout at the people they are supposed to shout at. Kind of sad that people can be so easily manipulated.
Either that or they run a business and are just savvy enough to see how much certain regulations inconvenience them and generalize it to their cohorts as if they're economists.
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We have a mixed economy, and we'll have a mixed economy 100 years from now. All this ranting about the government and deficits is just phony outrage to fire people up and get the GOP back in power. Once they are back in power, like gay marriage, the issue will disappear.
I don't know. The GOP seems to be stocking the tank with True Believers in this kind of stuff recently, as opposed to the old cynics manipulating the votes of the True Believers. We could be in for a rocky ride if the cynics don't get back in soon.
We need a government owned operated and staffed medical industry to eliminate the currently over priced industry that has resulted in unaffordable health insurance and direct costs for most of our population.
Greg, great example, wrong reason/conclusion. With the government restrictions that hinder competition and mandates that the insurance companies cover everything under the sun it's anything but a free market.
I disagree with reducing the government involvement in some areas. We need a government owned operated and staffed medical industry to eliminate the currently over priced industry that has resulted in unaffordable health insurance and direct costs for most of our population. We can start with eliminating the private sector involvement in the health insurance/payment industry with its excessive executive pay scales and profits.
The place where we can cut government expenses is the military. We do not need to spend 100's of thousands a year hiring a mercenary to drive a truck that can be done buy a soldier for 1/3rd the cost. We do not need multimillion dollar fighter planes when there is no expectation the manned fighters will not soon be replaces by robots. We do not need to build more atomic submarines when we have no need to obliterate an enemy fleet or homeland. We do not need million dollar tanks that are nothing more than large moving targets for the self guided missiles that everybody will soon develop. Same goes for aircraft carriers.
What we need is a military large enough to defend the USA and let he rest of the world go to hell in its own hand basket. We do not need to pick the winners in the Middle East or anywhere else. They can do that for themselves. We do not need to protect American investment anywhere but in the USA. Those plutocrats can take their own risks.
Maybe we should have regulatory agencies that can tell the difference between small anthracite and huge bituminous mines and still provide a safe working environment for both. We need agencies that work for clean air and not for corn industry profits. We need financial regulators that are not owned and ruled by the financiers they supposedly regulate. We need labor/immigration regulators that will fine companies that uses illegal immigrants to enhance their profits at substantial cost to the rest of us.
We need good and effective government not necessarily small government.
I dont disagree at all except for 1 thing. Big is seldom efficient or effective. A streamlined efficient system beats the bull in a china shop Government every time. How many Federal law enforcement agencies do we really need? What if we merged FBI,ATF, DEA and secret service into one agency?
There are so many ways we can stream line the fed and not see anything but savings and improved efficiency. i agree we don't need 12 carrier battle groups. At least we wouldn't if our Fed would quit whoring our troops out as world cops. That is a bi partisan issue.
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.
To some extent. Yes. However, that is not to say that a lot of government regulations can go. Especially the ones that are based on bias and fear as opposed to actual evidence. For example, you cannot buy cheese made from unpasteurized milk in a lot of places. Despite the fact that it is virtually as safe to eat (and much better tasting) as cheese made from pasteurized milk. In fact, cheese originated as a safe way to consume milk before pasteurization.
Another example is one that is currently taking place in Australia where I am currently living (Disclaimer: I am not Australian). In Queensland the state government raises regulations on the security industry every single year increasing the qualifications (and fees) to become a security guard. I have a relative who works in the industry and he has to shell out about $2,000 ever year (and growing) just to work as a rent-a-cop and they add new regulations and fees every year.
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.
Yeah, and those farm subsidies mostly go to large-scale agribusiness and to large-scale landowners who have been swallowing up family farms. Oh, and the absurd corn subsidies have kept the price of corn artificially low that High Fructose Corn Syrup is much, much cheaper to use as a sweetener than refined sugar in the United States. Which is kind of funny considering that so many anti-obesity activists are actually blaming HFCS for the majority of obesity in the United States. Does government get to take credit for that? Or is that all just the fault of private business?
I should also mention that Canada, Australia, and New Zealand farms do quite well without large scale farm subsidies (the farm subsidies in those countries are mostly aimed at disaster relief and agricultural research).
Oh, I almost forgot to mention your example of the government subsidizing professional sports leagues as a positive example of government is borderline hilarious. Yeah, an industry that has billionaire owners and players that sometimes sign NINE figure contracts should receive government funds. We all know that bit in the American Constitution and the writings of the various Founding Fathers where it mentioned the legitimate purposes of government are to build roads, raise an army and navy, coin currency, run the courts, protect the citizenry against criminals, and to make sure Cleveland has a team.
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.
All true. Too bad it makes up less than 10% of what the government actually spends money on.
4. The government uses its money to hire the private sector in many different areas including: the space industry, weapons, infrastructure building, etc.
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?
Lower taxes would be one improvement. More money for the private sector to invest and more money for consumers to spend. It would also make starting, owning, and operating a business a lot easier (talk to someone who actually owns a business and ask them about various taxes, fees, and regulations if you think that has no effect on ease of doing business). It would prevent the government from creating problems of its own (which statists so frequently forget).
I should also add that the 1800s was also one of the highest growth periods in American history. It was the beginning of a solid middle class, the start of the US becoming a major economic power, and it was period of innovation unlike any other in previous history.
And you are also creating a false dilemma. The choice isn't between a massive state that regulates the most mundane details of our lives and going back to company stores, the removal of asbestos without proper safety gear, unethical butcher stores that are selling spoiled meat that has been treated with red dye and borax, and children working sulfer mines.
You can just have government that doesn't imprison over a million people for drug "offenses" or runs a massive intelligence gathering operation on its own citizens that would have made the NKVD and Gestapo envious or spending tens of billions of dollars subsidizing industries that the rest of the developed world manages to run just fine or pork barrel programs where the Federal government kicks in a million or so to some peanut festival in rural Georgia or any of the other dumb s--t the government wastes many on.
My text is in bold.
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Originally Posted by Kenneth-Kaunda
you summed it up there with the word 'greed'.
that's what it's all about - well, greed and entitlement.
This is why we need a new form of Marxism for the 21st century.
In other words, we need to replace an imperfect system with one that has killed up to 100,000,000 people in the various countries around the world which it has been implemented and to add insult to injury, many of those people died because they tried to escape Marxist countries to that imperfect system.
And don't give me, "Oh, but real Communism hasn't been tried before." Yes, it has. It is just it is so impractical and prone to abuse that it becomes a tyrannical dictatorship.
Some day maybe people will start learning that neither the government nor Big Business are our protectors. All we do is go back and forth about which faction of the elite we want to be ruled by. It's increasingly 2 different masks on the same face. Is there really a difference between Communism and Fascism? It's dictatorship all the same, and that has been the direction we have been moving in for the last 100 years (at least).
Funny how Americans on the right have been saying this over and over for decades. It's always the "direction we have been moving" but we never really seem to get there. U.S. society/government is hardly communist or fascist (and it's actually the Right that's more in line with fascism).
Let's look at some of the counter arguments David.
I live in the Anthracite coal mining area and this is a specific type of coal that requires a specific type of mining. 15 years ago there was hundreds of small operations here often referred to as "bootleg mines" because of their small size. Typically they were run by a few men who were often neighbors or related. These miners would also often be 3rd, 4th and in some cases 5th generation miners. These were some of the safest mines in the country, safety is a personal issue if it's your best friend or brother that is going to be in danger. They all made a great living.
MSHA starting back in about 2000 started coming down hard on these mines enforcing regulations often used in soft coal mines. Many of these regualtions simply didn't make sense and in some cases potentially dangerous. Because of the cost of these regualtions many of these smaller mining companies could not afford it and simply went out of business.
They are protected now? We can make a car that is 100% crash survivable but we don't because no one can afford the car. Having said that new cars are slowly becoming less and less affordable. I have even better example, you might remember the lead scare in toys from China? These regualtions will put out of business small hand made toy makers because they can't charge 100's of dollars for a toy that should cost a few bucks. The reason they will cost so much is because the testing cost that much. The larger companies like Mattell that caused the issue to begin with can spread the cost of these tests over tens of thousands of units so it has almost no impact on the cost to the consumer.
Who pays these subsidies to begin with? If I'm left with more money in my pocket I have more money to spend on a ticket where these costs are included. More importantly I have more money in my pocket to spend money on the mode of transportation I choose which lets the market decide who the winners and losers are.
Where I live the price of milk is set, this has sent many small dairy farmers into bankruptcy.....
Yes they would. These extravagant billion dollar stadiums would not be built, the players would no longer be able to get bloated salaries and the team owners would have to take a cut in profits.
Like roads and bridges these should entirely be funded by user fees with every single penny being collected funding what it was intended to fund.
Government is important, for example the Interstate system as we know it would not exist. The problem is the bloat, over regulation, corruption and waste that comes with big government. We don't need to get rid of government, we need to scale it back considerably.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
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We all know that bit in the American Constitution and the writings of the various Founding Fathers where it mentioned the legitimate purposes of government are to build roads, raise an army and navy, coin currency, run the courts, protect the citizenry against criminals, and to make sure Cleveland has a team.
