On 2 Jun 2009 at 17:23, John Carl wrote:
[Platt]
> > So long as the activity is voluntary no problem. The question I raised
> > was about the quality of the end result.
[John]
> Well that is the sticking point, eh? To my mind, there is no telling what
> kind of crop you are going to reap when you prepare the soil and plant the
> seed. It depends on a lot of factors coming together just right.
>
> And admittedly, to belabor an already tedious analogy, there are a lot of
> weeds out there ready to choke any excellence to death. I get more cynical
> with age.
[Platt]
> > Keeping people stupid is the goal of government education as the
> > results plainly show. In a free market, profit assures quality because
> > customers know the difference between what is quality and what isn't.
[John]
> Oh yeah? How do you explain the Mustang II? or the Camaro, for that
> matter. Not to mention my own personal experience in the construction
> trades, where faux show trumps underlying quality every time with the fast
> buck developer getting way ahead of the caring craftsman.
[Platt]
Quality in the marketplace is about choice because we all have different
tastes and the means to satisfy them. The art in the Metropolitan
Museum is of much higher quality (by and large) than the art I can afford
to put in my house. Nevertheless I value the reproductions I have.
Likewise, houses built in the late 1800's were for the most part highly
crafted compared to track house being built today. But mass production
by "fast buck developers" has made decent housing a choice for many
people where none existed before. Everybody knows what quality is, but
will disagree on the form it takes.
[Platt]
> > ChiComs bigger fans of capitalism than me? You got to be kidding.
[John]
> Well the party leaders sure are. Look at all the opportunity for kickbacks,
> graft and corruption when you unleash the western industrial model upon the
> eastern ways. I don't think communism OR capitalism has done the chinese
> people any lasting favors. Time will tell.
{Platt}
I see your point. Capitalism combined with government intrusion and
regulation invariably leads to corruption.
[Platt]
> > As
> > for the debt, you just asked the $6 trillion question. More important,
> > what's going to happen to you and me when Obozo's big deficit
> > spending makes the dollar worthless?
{John]
> Well personally, I got no dollars to speak of so I ain't worried.
[Platt]
> > > A crisis overblown to provide an excuse for the growth of big
> > > > government with resultant loss of individual liberty.
[John}
> > > What loss? Can you show me one example of a Govt bailout program
> > depriving
> > > me of any liberty? I don't see how it makes much difference one way or
> > > another what unka sam does for GM.
[Platt]
> > Every new government regulation represents a loss of individual liberty.
> > It may not
> > affect you directly, but ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for
> > thee.
[John]
> I'm still unclear how. I wasn't planning on building my own car any time
> soon. And most of the bank bailouts had to happen or your whole financial
> system crumbles. I wouldn't mind but I'd sure call it something besides "a
> triumph of free markets."
{Platt]
The so-called financial crisis was a direct result of government
interference in the free market -- easy money by the Fed fed a housing
bubble, forced mortgage loans to deadbeats collapsed credit.
> > > > "It's about time to return to the rebuilding of this American resource
> > --
> > > > individual worth." (ZMM)
[John]
> > > Agree; time for one step further: It's time to start harnessing this
> > > American Resource of individual worth through the creation of a total
> > > networking infrastructure and deregulation committed to this task.
{Platt]
> > We got the networking infrastructure, created as a result of the absence
> > of regulation. Also, note how Horse, the moderator of this site,
> > encourages individual liberty by not interfering except in rare instances.
> > He doesn't even impose a tax although he would be justified to do so for
> > his time and trouble.
> >
> > So John, in the end we seem to agree. Keep the bloody do-gooders in
> > government off our backs. Let freedom ring.
[John}
> I won't argue that we agree; even tho I do think there is a place for
> government in building roads and maintaining them and I'd argue a national
> broadband infrastructure would also be a good place for govt do-gooding.
[Platt]
What would be a "national broadband infrastructure?"
Thanks,
Platt
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