At 11:52 AM 7/18/01 +0200 Baardwijk, J. van DTO/SLBD/BGM/SVM/SGM wrote:
>Do you have any idea why we'd rather let the government decide on that? It's
>because the government (ideally) goes for the option that benefits society
>most, while the market will go for the option that results in the highest
>profits.
And guess where those profits come from? From benefiting society.
That's beside the point. The point was that when it comes to taking steps to help the
environment, a government is more likely to choose those steps that would benefit
society most, while the market would choose the steps that would maximize their
profits.
Step A is good for the environment, and will generate 1 billion dollars in profits.
Step B is better for the environment than step A, but will generate 0.5 billion
dollars in profits. Guess which step would be taken if we let the market decide on it.
Meanwhile, that "ideally", should be in big letters. This, is, after all
the same government that spends millions upon millions of dollars to make
basic foodstuffs more expensive for poor people. They're really acting in
the general interest there, eh?
Would that be the same government that spends billions of dollars on weapons, while at
the same time lets the poor and the homeless starve to death?
Jeroen
___________________
Oh yes let's hold up that placard. Mean old government is just letting people die
while spending 3k on a toilet seat. I could try and make some lame chase your tail
argument that at least here we are free to choose to starve to death, but I can't.
Can't you see our point at all? I'm not saying a government is socialist or even
communist when I point out the chipping away of freedoms. Try this: In my wonderfull
Commenwealth they passed a law that basically states that you cannot drive in the left
lane of a four lane highway for more then three miles unless the traffic is heavy
enough to justify you staying there. But they have failed, three times now, to adopt a
deposit price for bottles and cans (for those who don't know this means paying .05 or
.10 cents when you buy the can and getting it back when you turn it in). I'm for the
bottle law and against the left lane law. You might suggest that I can vote out my
state representative but he voted the way I wanted. (I bicycle ride with my SR. We all
pepper him with questions asking him WTF is going on.) So what can I do? Move to
another part of the state just so I can cast one vote against someone who voted
opposite of how I did?
I don't have market place fixes for these examples, it just a little slice of a
democratic process that did the completely wrong thing and I have no problems in
extrapolating this example into why I don't want them deciding what kind of car I can
drive, or how often I can see a doctor, or how my electricity I can use.
Kevin Tarr
Trump high, lead low
