Economics

[Adam Strange]

You can buy all of those things you've listed sir. Like I said we very rarely interefere, think of how many products there are. Very few of them have regulations. You need to look at the big picture.

All the food you buy that doesn't come directly from a farmer is regulated in some way, whether it is required to have a list of ingredients or to have been inspected by the FDA to be free of harmful components or to have been produced by an approved country that has paid tariffs to get the food into the country.
All the electrical equipment you buy has to have a UL rating to ensure it is "safe".
The water you drink has to have met government requirements for purity. Its sale is regulated.
Cars are regulated to ensure that they meet certain government-mandated safety standards.
Insurance companies are regulated by the government.
Taxi licenses are regulated by the government.
The price of corn in this country is not set to what it would be in a free market. The world price of sugar, particularly from the Phillipines, is much lower than the price of corn-syrup, but tariffs imposed on imported sugar by corn producers has meant that the market for sugar, and therefore corn, is not freely set by market conditions. The market is managed for the advantage of big farmers.

I could go on, but it would be easier if you would just list a market for goods or services which is not regulated, and is therefore "free".

Maybe deals struck between individuals, but even in those you usually have legal recourse, and they are therefore not strictly "free" and unregulated.

[Birdie]

All the food you buy that doesn't come directly from a farmer is regulated in some way, whether it is required to have a list of ingredients or to have been inspected by the FDA to be free of harmful components or to have been produced by an approved country that has paid tariffs to get the food into the country.
All the electrical equipment you buy has to have a UL rating to ensure it is "safe".
The water you drink has to have met government requirements for purity. Its sale is regulated.
Cars are regulated to ensure that they meet certain government-mandated safety standards.
Insurance companies are regulated by the government.
Taxi licenses are regulated by the government.
The price of corn in this country is not set to what it would be in a free market. The world price of sugar, particularly from the Phillipines, is much lower than the price of corn-syrup, but tariffs imposed on imported sugar by corn producers has meant that the market for sugar, and therefore corn, is not freely set by market conditions. The market is managed for the advantage of big farmers.

I could go on, but it would be easier if you would just list a market for goods or services which is not regulated, and is therefore "free".

Maybe deals struck between individuals, but even in those you usually have legal recourse, and they are therefore not strictly "free" and unregulated.

You are right. However would you rather live where those things aren't regulated?

[Adam Strange]

You are right. However would you rather live where those things aren't regulated?

No, for the most part, I like regulations and rigged markets, especially when they benefit me.

However, they don't always benefit me, and that's when I object to them. Probably everyone is like this.

What bothers me is the use of the term "free markets" in the press, which is usually used when someone is trying to limit other people's rights or choices. For example, telling a person that state-controlled health care interferes with the free market act of being able to choose your doctor is the worst kind of lie, because
1.) it implies that any person opposed to this is against personal freedom,
2.) it makes the listener think that the bad outcome (for them) is some kind inevitable result of natural law, when it is really the result of a managed (by others) legal process, and
3.) it completely changes the game in the sense that a person often doesn't even realize what choices they really have. This would be like me asking you, "Do you want to drink the poison or give me all your money?" Those aren't your only choices. When Thather said "There is no alternative" to policies which transferred wealth from the poor to the rich, she was engaging in this same kind of lying.

So, I am opposed to regulations which have an overall benefit to a minority of wealthy people.
This includes a lot more regulations than you might think.

Take a look at this chart, which shows how productivity (and GDP wealth) has diverged from worker's wages:

gdp wealth-vs-wage-graph.jpg

How does a small segment of the population get to have all of the benefits of worker's increasing productivity? Do they themselves work longer or harder? No. They pass regulations which transfer money from the average worker to those making the rules and then tell you that it's a free market.

You might have been sold on charter schools because you were told you can have a choice of for-profit schools to send your kid to. But how can a private school do the same job of educating a kid as a public school, plus pay off the shareholders with a profit? The teachers are not unionized, and therefore charter schools can be seen as a way to break the public teacher's unions while providing profits to the wealthy shareholders. Thus, what was once a building and institution which was built and owned by the citizens has been transferred into private hands. Money goes to from the poor to the rich through rigging the game.

[Birdie]

No, for the most part, I like regulations and rigged markets, especially when they benefit me.

However, they don't always benefit me, and that's when I object to them. Probably everyone is like this.

What bothers me is the use of the term "free markets" in the press, which is usually used when someone is trying to limit other people's rights or choices. For example, telling a person that state-controlled health care interferes with the free market act of being able to choose your doctor is the worst kind of lie, because
1.) it implies that any person opposed to this is against personal freedom,
2.) it makes the listener think that the bad outcome (for them) is some kind inevitable result of natural law, when it is really the result of a managed (by others) legal process, and
3.) it completely changes the game in the sense that a person often doesn't even realize what choices they really have. This would be like me asking you, "Do you want to drink the poison or give me all your money?" Those aren't your only choices. When Thather said "There is no alternative" to policies which transferred wealth from the poor to the rich, she was engaging in this same kind of lying.

So, I am opposed to regulations which have an overall benefit to a minority of wealthy people.
This includes a lot more regulations than you might think.

I agree with you on all of this. Also, it was very well put.