RIP Fidel Castro

Imaginos1892 wrote:Should we not have fought World War 2? Would the world be a better place if Kim Jong Nutjob Jr. ruled all of Korea, instead of just the north? Should we have sat idle while the communists invaded and conquered Afghanistan?

You mean the "communists" that the legal government in Afghanistan REQUESTED to come help them against the insurgents CIA set up to overthrow the government?

Because, oh dear, it had a slight leftist bent to it, we can´t have that, oh noes, so lets prop up a bunch of religious fanatics with the help of the Saudis and Pakistani religious fringe to get rid of them.
Oh, we made Pakistan halfway into a theocracy at the same time, oops.
Aw shucks, them nutjobs made a full turn and became our enemies, oops.

What'a mistake'a to make'a... Noone could EVER have predicted that, obviously.
Except the ones that did, of course.


Ah yes, BTW, how many here understands that once upon a time, before CIA intervened in Afghanistan, it was becoming a progressive nation?

Like Iran once upon a time, except without the facism bent of the US-supported Shah that "got rid" of all his opposition, except the religious fanatics. With US assistance, the democratic Iranians were "removed".

Seems to be a standard doesn´t it, the US support to the South Vietnamese rich kids did pretty much the same except there, the only ones that managed to stay alive was the communists, everyone else pretty much emerged with a sad case of being dead.

And right now? Real smart, support Turkey in getting ISIS up to keep up the work on regime change. Except of course that Turkey wants them around to smack down the Kurds in Iraq, can´t have those nasties get too powerful now can we?



*sigh*

Get off your high horses at least until you´re not in the top 5 list for killing the most civillians in history.

Tenshinai wrote:snip

Ah yes, BTW, how many here understands that once upon a time, before CIA intervened in Afghanistan, it was becoming a progressive nation? snip

Interesting. FWIR once, slavery in the US was decreasing, and the civil war was fought to stop secession, not to end slavery.

Of course, socialist theory assumes that at least the price-setting bureaucrats won't make errors. oops

I suspect that if all gov't price setting ended with the phrase "plus or minus 10%," such errors would be corrected more quickly.

Germany, the US twice, Venezuela and Zimbabwe were damaged by hyper-inflation. What other cases do you know where a government's control produced shortages, surpluses, or hyper inflation? Can you think of any at all where centralized control produced deflation, AKA lower prices

Of course, socialist theory assumes that at least the price-setting bureaucrats won't make errors. oops

While capitalist theory assumes that in a free market, the price is always right.
Which is just pure bullshit.

A functional bureaucracy can at least set a price that is realistic, ie production+delivery cost. Emphasis on "functional", historical examples have mostly been nowhere near functional, usually because of meddling.
Which amazingly strongly resembles political or financial meddling that you see in capitalist markets, sometimes even for the exact same reasons.

Like when USA subsidised its steel industry, almost causing a tradewar with the EU, keeping US steelmills that were pisspoor at their business, in business anyway, while the ones that had actually gone with the ages and upgraded their production along with the rest of the world were suddenly making ridiculous profits...


Both systems work just as poorly when interfered with incorrectly or for a bad reason.
However, if you take the basic system as MEANT to work, when NOT messed with, which one would you prefer?

Germany, the US twice, Venezuela and Zimbabwe were damaged by hyper-inflation. What other cases do you know where a government's control produced shortages, surpluses, or hyper inflation? Can you think of any at all where centralized control produced deflation, AKA lower prices

Dunno why you ask, and i can think of several "sort of", but considering how almost everywhere have been highly mixed systems and there´s been a lot of direct or indirect interference involved in most cases, it´s hard to say if you want "hard facts" kind of answers.

Tenshinai wrote:Like when USA subsidised its steel industry, almost causing a tradewar with the EU, keeping US steelmills that were pisspoor at their business, in business anyway, while the ones that had actually gone with the ages and upgraded their production along with the rest of the world were suddenly making ridiculous profits...

So you're saying that if the government had left the steel mills alone, competition would have forced them to upgrade and modernize, and the ones that didn't would go broke when their customers and workers went to the ones that did.

We call that capitalism, and a free market.
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If a business tries something and it doesn't work, they either stop doing it or they will go broke. If the government tries something that doesn't work, they just keep shoveling our money into it forever.

Imaginos1892 wrote:So you're saying that if the government had left the steel mills alone, competition would have forced them to upgrade and modernize, and the ones that didn't would go broke when their customers and workers went to the ones that did.

We call that capitalism, and a free market.

Force them? Hardly, most of them had spent 3-5 decades just trying to get the most profit out while putting minimum resources back in, they would simply have gone bankrupt, as they had no way of borrowing, and the people that had taken the earlier profits had absolutely no interest in actually running the business seriously.

Anywhere between 60 and 80% of the US steelmills would simply have shut down and been abandoned, as they had minimal value beyond scrap metal and the land the buildings are on.

About 10% would have done great(the mills that kept up with the rest of the world ), but been totally unable to handle contracts.

5-20% would have been bought up(and mostly cut up, parts might survive to some degree) and the last 10-15% who had owners that are not just robber barons would try to keep up.
The ones that didn´t stay in the 50s and 60s, but also didn´t keep up.


Capitalism?

FREE market?

USA has never been much about free markets, corruption is what makes big contracts in USA.

Imaginos1892 wrote:If a business tries something and it doesn't work, they either stop doing it or they will go broke. If the government tries something that doesn't work, they just keep shoveling our money into it forever.

You should know that that is a lie by now, guess you don´t learn very quickly. Or at all.

And in case you missed it, your OPINION about what works does not determine whether something actually works.

Also, lets take one of the worlds largest companies as the obvious counter to your first claim shall we?
Microsoft. How much crap have they produced? And yet instead of going what works WELL or what people want and request, they go on and make things worse.
They´ve spent 30 years mixing stupid innovation with actual innovation, and instead of stopping, they´re going more and more with the stupid.

Some of the steel mills would have modernized. They can't all have been run by short-sighted idiots.

Tenshinai wrote:

Imaginos1892 wrote:If a business tries something and it doesn't work, they either stop doing it or they will go broke. If the government tries something that doesn't work, they just keep shoveling our money into it forever.

Also, lets take one of the worlds largest companies as the obvious counter to your first claim shall we?
Microsoft. How much crap have they produced? And yet instead of going what works WELL or what people want and request, they go on and make things worse.
They´ve spent 30 years mixing stupid innovation with actual innovation, and instead of stopping, they´re going more and more with the stupid.

Except that it did work, and is still working. Painful as it is, I have to admit that they are successful as a business. People buy their shitty products in droves, because they don't know any better.

And I notice that you didn't try to argue with the second part.

Imaginos1892 wrote:Some of the steel mills would have modernized. They can't all have been run by short-sighted idiots.

Nope, not all. About a tenth or a little less were well run, and another fifth were at least not mishandled, but the US steel industry would pretty much have collapsed, and resulted in a bump in unemployment once the secondary effects hit.

Imaginos1892 wrote:Except that it did work, and is still working. Painful as it is, I have to admit that they are successful as a business. People buy their shitty products in droves, because they don't know any better.

Yup, a lovely monument to how extremely poorly capitalism and a free market works, isn´t it...

Imaginos1892 wrote:And I notice that you didn't try to argue with the second part.

I could have, and i already HAVE several times, but you don´t believe in reality anyway so why bother?

What you don´t seem to want to understand is that there´s absolutely no difference between private or government owned/operated when it comes to efficiency or success, it´s a matter of who is responsible and under what conditions he or she is operating.

Tenshinai wrote:

Imaginos1892 wrote:Except that it did work, and is still working. Painful as it is, I have to admit that they are successful as a business. People buy their shitty products in droves, because they don't know any better.

Yup, a lovely monument to how extremely poorly capitalism and a free market works, isn´t it...

That has nothing to do with free markets, and everything to do with clueless computer users. Government control wouldn't make them any less clueless.

You should really look at how "successful" recent government-run computer projects have been before blaming free markets.

Remember Ada? The government-designed 'ultimate computer language'? Who uses it today, outside of some of those disastrous government computer projects?

Tenshinai wrote:What you don´t seem to want to understand is that there´s absolutely no difference between private or government owned/operated when it comes to efficiency or success, it´s a matter of who is responsible and under what conditions he or she is operating.

There are two critical differences between private business and government that you either do not understand, or refuse to acknowledge:

First, in government, there are no consequences for bad decisions to those making the decisions. Waste tax money? Take more! Rack up outrageous debt? Borrow even more! Do a shitty job? Get paid to do it again, maybe a little less shitty this time. And so on.

Second, businesses have to stay in business. They are dependent on the good-will of their customers, and on working effectively. They have to provide products and services their customers want, at prices they are willing to pay. If they fail to do so, if another business does it better, or if they waste money and pile up intolerable debt, they go bankrupt.

The government can force you to accept its 'services' at gunpoint, whether you want them or not. It forces you to pay at gunpoint, whether you want to or not.

It always seems that when the government has a choice between right, wrong, and stuck-on-stupid, they go with stupid.
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Why do so many idiots believe that the way to solve our problems is to go on electing the same shitheads that caused them?

First, in government, there are no consequences for bad decisions to those making the decisions. Waste tax money? Take more! Rack up outrageous debt? Borrow even more! Do a shitty job? Get paid to do it again, maybe a little less shitty this time. And so on.

Right, i forgot you´re not living in a democracy.

Tenshinai wrote:

First, in government, there are no consequences for bad decisions to those making the decisions. Waste tax money? Take more! Rack up outrageous debt? Borrow even more! Do a shitty job? Get paid to do it again, maybe a little less shitty this time. And so on.

Right, i forgot you´re not living in a democracy.

Last poll I saw, 86% of the people said Congress is doing a shitty job. Last election, all but 10 incumbent senators were re-elected, and 5 of those retired. 97% of the House got re-elected. No consequences.

And most of those making bad decisions are unelected bureaucrats. They have spent over a century putting rules in place that make it almost impossible to penalize them for their bad decisions.

Of course their notional bosses, the politicians, don't give a rat's ass. As long as they keep getting re-elected, they never will.
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If a business tries something and it doesn't work, they either stop doing it or they go broke. If the government tries something that doesn't work they just keep shoveling our tax money into it forever.