re: corporate welfare vs socialism

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If that is the case, maintaining the highest corporate tax rate in the world is treason, correct?

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Not sure about treason, but definitely unconstitutional. It should be eliminated.

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The idiots on this board are so brainwashed by their media outlets that they somehow believe bailing out banks, cutting taxes on big business,prop1 etc are good but disabled people getting a stipend are bad. This is done by gaslighting the issue into creation of jobs vs lazy people.

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Some of us disagree with both forms of welfare.

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Holy shite, you don't know what you're saying.

The People have voted American jobs overseas with their dollars. We've had the choice to buy American or cheap imports, we chose cheap imports. No amount of tax breaks is going to compensate for the cheap labor overseas.

What you're advocating will lead to runaway inflation. It'll be inflationary, because suddenly we'll have to either pay the cost of the tariff, or pay the cost of the more expensive American labor. Once inflation hits, the Fed will look at the debt and say, "We can't afford to raise interest rates - besides, devaluing our money with inflation is the only way to pay off the debt."

In any case, inflation is coming.

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Again...so November 7th, 2016...Inflation be damned....free trade is dead and good riddance to bad rubbish....American labor has been looking for protectionism since the mid 80's and they found it in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania on November 8th, 2016. If inflation gets out of hand w'ell just use the power of the state to enforce cost controls or we'll just call the reserve and tell 'em to run off a couple of trillion more in 20's....its a brave new world my friend, no need to get skeered right at the beginning with fears of inflation and reprisals....

"and I think you are living in the 70s-80s."

You say that as if it is a bad thing....we are in the process of making America great AGAIN...again meaning in the past...the future is way over rated....it is the past that is glorious...and we gotta go through the 80's and the 70's to get to where we were great again and working folks were able to earn a living and put a kid or two through college working as a bathroom attendant....

If no property is being damaged then we are wasting time talking about it. When it comes to externalities, which is what you were describing in your hypothetical, the issue is in fact property damage. Damaged crops, polluted river killing fish etc...

when the state owns that property, which is in fact a regulation of its use, then these issues become problematic, because its regulation of said property is not exhaustive and its regulations are based on a guilty before proven innocent basis. Regulation is notoriously slow to develop, and even slower to adapt to new information and circumstances. Private property owners are not. They can document their losses in a non-arbitrary manner, using common monetary figures. Any damage to the river owner or the downstream land owner can be taken to court in order to resolve the issue.

State regulations always have unintended consequences that either negate the stated purpose of the regulation or create new environmental issues. If one were to make a regulation prohibiting the dumping of a certain concentration of fluoride into a river system, they haven't incentivized a solution to fluoride in the river system, they have only incentivized the marginal level of compliance with such regulations. They don't necessarily make the river water safer (though sometimes they do), they regulate the amount of fluoride in the water. There is a huge difference between the two concepts. Property damage is still possible for downstream entities, and in fact, the upstream entities are often protected from damage liability assuming they are in compliance with the arbitrary standards for fluoride concentration. This is completely wrong and backwards. It kills the incentive for private entities to police themselves and it incentivizes marginal performance. There is literally no regulation that can protect businesses from damage from other businesses. There is only regulation that punishes those who do so in a particular fashion. That is hugely important to understand. Knowing that this is the case, one would have to be enormously arrogant or pitiably foolish to think they could anticipate with any degree of certainty all of the possible causes of damage before the fact. It is impossible. In our current circumstances, businesses are perfectly content to lean on regulators like the EPA for protection vice being proactive in limiting their liabilities. That is what government regulation gives us.

EPA regulations are also a very powerful tool of wannabe monopolists. For instance, if the safe levels of fluoride in the water are 1ppm, but the EPA regulation states that the concentration must .5ppm, then that simple and arbitrary change in standards might exclude all but on manufacturer from producing this product, as they could potentially be the only players with the capability of meeting said standard. Virtually all government regulatory agencies were founded by the leaders of the industries they regulate. There is a reason that this is true, and It has nothing to do with protecting the environment. This is why private property advocates believe that "regulation" should be a private affair, even in rivers, because damage claims are non-arbitrary and the potential for needlessly strict regulations that form monopolies is eliminated. If you damage property, you pay for it. If you don't, then enjoy your day.

The EPA has done some good things for the US. Nobody ever said that there need not be a body that functions as the EPA was intended to function. There are, however, critical weaknesses in the concept of the state operated EPA. The EPA does not operate on a profit basis, meaning that decisions and regulations that they enact are not motivated by a desire to reduce damage liabilities. They are made for political and completely arbitrary reasons. If people "feel good" about a particular regulation or the result of a regulation, this satisfies the EPA. Even if that means serious and significant issues arise from the regulation. Unfortunately, those issues are frequently ignored until the political winds change.

We don't need the EPA and we don't need these state imposed regulations. There is nothing about this process that is unique to the state, but the ability to destroy wealth and monopolize industry is certainly unique to the state. Given a sane property rights policy and privatization of these problem areas, it will be up to the actual owners of the land, and not some fictional "public goods" holder as to what regulation is appropriate for their property.

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If no property is being damaged then we are wasting time talking about it. When it comes to externalities, which is what you were describing in your hypothetical, the issue is in fact property damage. Damaged crops, polluted river killing fish etc...

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The regulations define damage. Should the upstream plant divert all water to their process, leaving none for downstream uses, nothing is damaged. You claim ownership of the water in your hypothetical, yet you don't actually mean owning the water, you mean owning access to freely flowing water. That's quite different. In order to maintain your right to freely flowing water, the flow of the water must be regulated.

You stated:

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any time businesses are taxed and regulated less that is a good thing

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And I replied:

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That's just wrong.

I know it's fun to be trite, but it very rarely ever accurate.

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But then you contradict yourself here by setting up a hypothetical pre-condition:

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If everything is privately owned then I think it's fairly obvious that no particular regulation is necessary...

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That's what I called dishonest. Everything is NOT privately owned.

If you want to set up hypothetical pre-conditions to support your position, may I suggest a slightly more tautological one, such as:

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If I can imagine a universe where there are no good regulations, then there are no good regulations in that universe.

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THAT would be unassailable.

The problem with your hypothetical pre-condition 'if everything is privately owned', is that it's about as likely as the socialist position of, 'if everything were publically owned'. They are both unlikely as they represent extreme hypothetical positions.

And generally, when I encounter absolute statements such as, "any time businesses are taxed and regulated less that is a good thing" my first response is to call bullshite. Absolutes are rarely (never? ) accurate.

You accused me of not even having apposition, when my position, if not clearly stated before, is that in our current state, with no unlikely, hypothetical, pre-conditions, there are some good regulations.

Your problem seems to lie more in the existing condition of publically held resources. Fair enough.

I'm not going to go too far into your lengthy response, as I do have actual work to accomplish before the weekend, but I think we have another irreconcilable disagreement:

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when the state owns that property

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I don't see the State as being separate from the People from whom the power to govern derives. WE are the State. So, in effect, it is not the State which owns anything, but the People who have ownership, and use the State to manage the resources held in common.

I also don't quite understand you here:

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For instance, if the safe levels of fluoride in the water are 1ppm, but the EPA regulation states that the concentration must .5ppm, then that simple and arbitrary change in standards might exclude all but on manufacturer from producing this product, as they could potentially be the only players with the capability of meeting said standard.

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First of all, it doesn't really make sense to me. If the product to be made is .5 ppm of flouride water, and a producer can make 1 ppm fluoride water, all they have to do is dilute the solution to achieve .5 ppm. Your example seems to be not one of discharging pollutants, but actually manufacturing a product. Secondly, standards are not arbitrary, they are based on scientific research. If you're talking about a process by-product, or some other waste product, such as polychlorinated biphenyls, it's not a factor of whether or not someone can produce PCBs in a low enough concentration, it's a matter of they're not being allowed to discharge it into the public commons. If PCBs are a by-product of your process, you simply must find an alternate way to dispose of them besides discharging into public waters, as they have been scientifically proven to be a hazard to human health.


But ultimately, you're right, I was wrong to call your statement trite, you've put far too much thought into it. However, since I believe your statement to be based on an unlikely, hypothetical ideal, I would call it idealistic, not trite.

But what you were wrong about was:

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I don't want to go down some hypothetical...

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Not only did you go down the hypothetical path, you even set up your own hypothetical condition.

But I'll admit to having picked up a live wire by taking your bait.