Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Werral wrote:

AxeMental wrote:
Another thing to consider is that I think your govt. is made up of more highly educated and "normal" individuals then ours. In our govt. (all levels) we often get applicants that either don't want to work (who have heard what a cake job it is) or those that feel like they can't cut it in the private secter (not always, but often this occurs). Also, it tends to promote the worst elements (don't ask me why), and traditionally people are hired based on race rather then ability (affirmative action), salary is based on time spent rather then quality (I don't know if you do that) and its literally next to impossible to be fired from a govt. job, so the USAs govt. is probably not comparable to yours (the laws that apply to private business simply don't exist in the govt. realm).

Surely this has nothing to do with freemarket/vs State, it's simply a matter of expertise. For example a large company could be run by a bunch of incompetents. Sure, eventually it would go bust or get swallowed by a larger company, but with a big enough company many years could pass with things looking hunkey-dory before the whole thing imploded.

I'm not following you? If your saying if the government is broken it should self implode and be liquidated (as a business miss-managed by morons eventually would). Yes and no. A government that is corrupt can keep raising taxes indefinitely to cover up its crapfastic policies that go horribly wrong (a business can't do this, they don't print money or have taxes). If the press is either run by the state (as it is in say Cuba or China) or aligned with the govt. (as it is in the USA) the truth can be hidden for a long time. It requires muck raking to discover and expose whats going on, and thats hardly done when its against your own political party.

That said, you could say the Soviet government system did infact implode (thanks to Ronald Reagan and Thatcher). In many of its former republics we see new governments and economic systems (way more free-market oriented) driving up prosperity (such as in Poland, Czech Republic etc.), yes...flowers rising from blistering desert land when given a little water (freedom) .

Axe Mental wrote:P&P wrote: " I took it as read that someone who feels the public are disempowered by having access to a source of information is an idiot. Do I need to explain why that is?"

It is difficult to understand his writing style. I took it to mean that he feels most believe the media outlets are objective when they are not (and I think he was suggesting BBC's much larger market has more impact in this regard. This is a legit point (after all the people who run BBC probably overwhelmingly vote the equiv. to our liberal

Well, I suspect a US hawk would see all the political parties in the UK as "the equiv. to our liberal". We're a politically centrist country, and I think most of us are mistrustful of extremist right-wingers like Bush.

We're also mistrustful of extremist left-wingers such as most recent French administrations. Labelling old and established British institutions like free healthcare for all as "socialist" would strike most Brits as bizarre. Because we live a few hundred miles from some really socialist countries, which I think means we have a clearer perception of the difference between capitalism and socialism.

I doubt if the BBC leadership votes overwhelmingly for parties of the left. They rely for funding on a charter that tells them to be neutral -- the key point being that they have to be neutral by British standards which are intermediary between European and American ones.

To the French, the BBC probably sound like right-wingers.

Axe Mental wrote:His other two points I think are these: That 1. BBC supports the idea of a big government under the notion that a lot of clever people can run peoples lives better then they themselves can (because they are smarter, more educated etc.)

Sure, but that's what a representative democracy is. It's a defining characteristic of our system of government.

Great Britain is the world's oldest unbroken democracy, and we've had plenty of time to get comfortable with it. If that guy doesn't like Britain then I'd tend to suggest he should fuck off to the US where he'll find more sympathy with his ideas.

Axe Mental wrote:and 2. that BBC's news reports favor big government regulating the free market.

Well, yeah, I think that's true. Didn't you agree that the free market needs regulating, earlier in this thread? Government does have a role to play in regulating the free market, but the free market needs to have latitude to operate effectively within those regulatory boundaries. I think most people who're reasonably well-informed about politics would agree on that.

Axe Mental wrote:Too often people agree with others opinions because they are a famous celebrity, or a trusted anchor person from their childhood, or hell to feel like they belong to a group (self identifide environmentalists for example often vote in lock step even on issues that have nothing to do with the environment).

Everyone likes to complain about how other people vote. Particularly if the party they favour isn't in power!

Axe Mental wrote:As for the points you bring up about capitalism and free market economics, I can say only this. More people prosper under a free market system than in any other system ever devised by man. Why? because it creates jobs, reduces waste, increases choice and innovation. WIthout it we'd live in a world very similar to what the Soviets had (long lines for generic bread, and a thriving black market). Capitalism is the oldest form of economic activity in sedentary people that are not heavily controlled. When it comes down to it, nobody will risk or work hard without the possibility of reward. Its part of being members of the Wild Kingdom (you can blame the apes).

I don't think we're disagreeing on any of this. We both think the free market is essential, but it needs to be regulated and controlled. The BBC understands that as well, and it does promote that viewpoint.

Axe Mental wrote:Oh, and risking other peoples money is the hallmark of capitalism (check out Edison) it is the engine that makes the train go, it always has been since the beginning of time.

And since the beginning of capitalism, black people and arabs and asians and women have been subservient to white males. We can still see the vestiges of that; the UK's never had a Prime Minister who wasn't white, and the US has never had a president who wasn't male. And under that system, more people have prospered than in any other system ever devised by man.

But that doesn't make it right and it doesn't mean it can't be improved by intelligent and thinking people. We've just got to come up with the right intervention. It's true that most equalities-type law is heavy-handed and ineffectual, but that's because it hasn't been intelligently-written. A smarter government could make it work.

Werel, I know the Jewish American population is left of center in the USA. I have no idea why this is (why most are registered Democrats) though I'm sure its explained someplace.


P&P wrote: "and I think most of us are mistrustful of extremist right-wingers like Bush. "

Bush isn't right wing! He grew the freak'n government at a greater rate then Clinton (besides lowering taxes he hasn't done much economically). And he signed off on a whole bunch of crap Reagan would have nuked.

Bush was/is a rhino (despite lowering taxes), and was a disaster for the Republicans as they now appear to be Bush rather then Reagan (ie big govt. rather then small). Thanks to Bush the republican party is split and at war with itself. At the same time the Democratic party is strongly united under the Liberal branch and crushing us like scattering ants.

Also (and I assume you know this) there are three conservative legs of the republican party (and the Dems as well). The Religious conservatives (what Bush was and I am not), the Economic Conservatives(what Bush is not and what I am (ie. a super small govt. that stays out of the private sector), and the foreign policy Conservatives (what I am but Bush is all over the board on. This is difficult to pin down as some seem to be isolationists and others open to world events. I would be in the second catagory, I think we need to keep an eye on the world and the growth of freedom). There is also within each leg those who desire a stronger or weaker federal government.

I too am mistrustful of all extremists. Extremists don't tend to slow down and reflect or study much, they are too busy hyperventalating and their ego's won't allow them to admit when they might be wrong about something. That said, I don't consider someone who totaly believes in a complete free market system or someone who strongly believes in communism as extremists, if they've given careful thought to what they believe.

OK so we actually both are in agreement about 1. supporting the free market, 2. creating a system that makes private companies transparant and legal, and also providing a safety net and 3. ending discrimination.

It seems our differences are in how much govt. control should exist and when.

AxeMental wrote: most working condition issues have long long ago been taken care of. Now its about pensions, insurance and salary.

Thats all part of working conditon. It is in the UK at any rate.

AxeMental wrote:The average union worker in the auto industry for instance makes about $73 an hour (including benefits). So work 8 hours a day that’s $600 x 5= $3000 a week and if you work 50 weeks a year (and I'm not sure how many they work) that’s $150,000 (in pay and benefits). That’s more then most professions (even some medical doctors make less). What is their advanced education that they have received or special skill? Nothing, they just happen to belong to a government backed union. I STRONGLY suspect the same thing is going on in the UK (though I've never researched it so I don't know).

The problem here is that your medical staff are being paid too little...perhaps they need to follow the UK line and get themselves a union

Automotive workers in the UK have high salaries, but the industry itself makes high profit. They work rotating shift paterns than (usually night, back, early) in a factory environment that has potential hazards. As for saying they are unskilled or suggesting uneducated is an uneducated observation in itself. No-one can just walk off the street and make cars...it takes training...which develops a vocational skill..

The highest paid workers that you would class as having "no skills or education" work in the refinery, due to thier union they enjoy a good pay and benefits package in line with the profits turned over by this industry.

I worked for years in the Whisky industry which as well as distillers, lab staff/tasters (what I did) etc, employed packaging staff ie fillers, bottlers etc. Without union intrevention these packaging workers would have been paid a pittance, working all shift paterns, no benefits scheme, in some instances with unsafe conditions, and on more than one occasion changes to contracts with a take it or leave option.... This from a company that turns over billions in profits.

Our two countries have very very different outlooks on things. Union is not a bad word over here and is not seen a the equivalent of being a communist/socialist. Indded many industries and professions here have unions... goverment workers, doctors, nurses, policemen, journalists, shipyard workers etc

AxeMental wrote:
That said, you could say the Soviet government system did infact implode (thanks to Ronald Reagan and Thatcher).

Just a pity thatcher made a complete mess of this country

AxeMental wrote: In many of its former republics we see new governments and economic systems (way more free-market oriented) driving up prosperity (such as in Poland, Czech Republic etc.), yes...flowers rising from blistering desert land when given a little water (freedom) .

I dont think "freedom" was on anyone's minds here, it was the opportunity to make more profit from the countries involved...some have prospered others did not.

If freedom from oppression is the goal being touted then why has little been done in places like Palestine over the years and nothing being done in Zimbabwe

Ice Maiden: " As for saying they are unskilled or suggesting uneducated is an uneducated observation in itself. No-one can just walk off the street and make cars...it takes training...which develops a vocational skill.."

My point is they make more (much more) then they would if the entire population could compete for those jobs.

AxeMental wrote: My point is they make more (much more) then they would if the entire population could compete for those jobs.

In the UK anyone can apply for a position...the union has no say in who gets hired. Once you are in that position you have the choice to join the union if indeed your industry has one.

The practice you are speaking of sounds like what we called "closed shop". We have legislation against that here, although it used to happen in some industries in the past.

Thats fine then (if people want to form unions that is up to them). What I don't like however, is the tactics often used to get people to join (often intimidation here, the mob used to run most) and the combative nastyness the union bosses create (pitting the worker vs. the employer as if the employer is a bad guy out to take advantage of the worker). I've seen it happen and its very very bad news. Compare the happyness level of southern Auto workers at Honda or Toyota to those working in Detroit, its a WORLD of difference. Those up North act misserable. Class envy is something easily exploited and deadly to the free market system (as feeling exploited makes you automatically work less and produce a poorer quality product). Also, unions get political parties to create laws that favor their existance. For instance, Obama will be doing away with the secret ballot for unions (so now if you vote against what the bosses (and mob rule) want, you might as well go find a new job (unles you like death threats, getting beat up, tires slashed, and generaly being treated as if you have the plauge). Take a look at this: http://www.newsmax.com/politics/worker_ ... 55127.html

I don't like the arguement "they make X amount so we should make Y amount." It should be, there are x number of job openings and y number of people with the skill to fill them, that should be the only thing that determines a persons wage. If there is a shortage of programers for instance, then the companies offer higher saleries and better perks. The idea is, as you move toward full employment, even the lower skilled positions will pay higher then they would in an alternate system (say communism or socialism). And infact that has been the case (at least in the USA). I just got done doing disaster inspections in some of the poorest areas of S. Texas. Even the most poor had at least one car that worked and I'd say 1/3 sported one or more 40+ inch plasma TVs (sitting in their shanty or trailor). I have no idea where that money comes from, I don't have a 40 inch plasma.

P&P---were you kidding when you said Bush was a far right conservative?

Bush is a RINO liberal. He is big government, open-borders to anyone, and his latest trick is helping to nationalize various American banks and insurance companies.

He is an interventionsit (American conservatives only beleive the US should get invovled in military action overseas when our national interest is at stake.) as demonstrated in the Iraq invasion.

AxeMental wrote: It should be, there are x number of job openings and y number of people with the skill to fill them, that should be the only thing that determines a persons wage.

Interestingly the UK at present has a glut of graduates and not enough skilled labour. However I think factors such as, hours of work (ie shifts), type of work (is it repetative heavy manual, handling dangerous substances etc) what skills are required etc.. are better indicators of what rate a job should pay.

This is probably another area where the two countries differ... we find it abhorent if a company is turning over multi million pound profits but their workers have poor pay and conditions. Those profits are only possible due everyone working together and that includes those on the "shop-floor" so to speak.

Thats not to say that companies over here pay well, many do not and some have questionable conditions, but we find the practice distasteful.

You mention that your unions are "mob" run...that would indicate a failure to crack down on organised crime....we have no such issues within our unions.

Ska wrote:P&P---were you kidding when you said Bush was a far right conservative?

Bush is a RINO liberal. He is big government, open-borders to anyone, and his latest trick is helping to nationalize various American banks and insurance companies.
.

Believe us...Bush by UK standards is way far right on the scale. I dont think Ive ever seen a recent elected US President that could be described as "left of centre" or "socialist" by UK/European standards.

You would have seen one in Clinton had he not had to contend with a Republican dominated Congress in the 1990s.

Ice Maiden:
"Interestingly the UK at present has a glut of graduates and not enough skilled labour. However I think factors such as, hours of work (ie shifts), type of work (is it repetative heavy manual, handling dangerous substances etc) what skills are required etc.. are better indicators of what rate a job should pay."

Agreed, India I believe has the same problem (the last I read they had PHDs answering phones for Dell and other companies because they could make more money).

In your example, if you have 1 person willing to do that dangerous job (say delivering explosives) for x amount of pay and you have 30 positions to fill the employer simply has to up the pay your offering for the other 29 positions. There is no need for a union, unless their is colusion between the companies capping what they will offer (which is something that should be outlawed, and I believe it is) and questionable safety issues. When the free market is free to work it self regulates (good workers are kept, bad workers fired).

Q: "This is probably another area where the two countries differ... we find it abhorent if a company is turning over multi million pound profits but their workers have poor pay and conditions. Those profits are only possible due everyone working together and that includes those on the "shop-floor" so to speak."

We find it abhorent to make it impossible for businesses to turn a profit because of inflated wages, disharmony and constant strikes. We used to have a major airline called Eastern (our largest at the time) that was litteraly run out of business by its union. We may see the same exact thing happen with the American Auto industry. With Eastern, the union bosses found their 18,000 Union members without a job in a single day. As I remember, most of the union members wanted to go back to work and were willing to work for less pay. But why should the union bosses care, they have their $$$ already nest egged away. And playing tough guy just makes them look that more dangerous when they go work for the next union.

Anyhow, the increased cost of labor is either passed on to the customer (causing inflation eventually so the increased pay is washed) or the business goes out of existance (and new ones don't take their place as its deemed to expensive to mess with). Your basically penalizing the business owner for being profitable (kinda like the socialists). Thats just going to keep people from risking and working to start a business, afterall why risk everything and work 16+ hour days if theres not even a potential for reward if you are lucky enough to "make it").

If you follow the logic its very simple (natural really).

Ska wrote:P&P---were you kidding when you said Bush was a far right conservative?

I said he was "far right" and "extremist", but I didn't describe him as "conservative".

To me, "conservative" means someone who stands for small governments and reduced taxation and a moderate right-wing stance with an emphasis on individual responsibility and civil liberties. I agree Bush doesn't remotely fit that model.

Bush advocates intrusive state monitoring of private citizens, erosion of civil liberties, massive buildup of military power, military intervention in foreign countries for economic gain and detention of political prisoners without charge or trial. These strike me as extremist right-wing policies.

Without wanting to Godwin the thread, I honestly believe that Guantanamo Bay is to all practical intents and purposes a concentration camp. And extraordinary rendition is what fascists used to do to jews.

AxeMental wrote:P&P wrote: "P&P: "I think Keynes is Einstein to Adam Smith's Newton."

Yeah... what I meant is:

Newton's laws of motion are easy to understand and easy to compute, and 99% of the time they work absolutely fine. When they put a man on the moon, they used Newton's physics to do it.

I think that's analagous Adam Smith.

Einstein's laws are non-intuitive and sometimes hard to follow, and they're only really more useful than Newton's in conditions we don't normally encounter in real life.

I think that's analagous to Keynes.

Most physicists agree Einstein and Newton were both wrong, and the real truth is even more complicated. I think that's true of Smith and Keynes as well.

AxeMental wrote:P&P exactly what did Thatcher do to remove oversite.

Well, she implemented the Financial Services Act 1986, which was an enormously long and comprehensive piece of legislation that it's hard to summarise in a short post.

Among rather a lot of other changes, she permitted mutual building societies to convert to banks and raise funds wholesale on the world's money markets rather than having to take them from investors.

Building societies that did this include the Northern Rock, which was the first major UK bank to fail and has been completely nationalised, the Halifax which is now part of the Halifax Bank of Scotland group that's been propped up by taxpayer funds, and the Bradford and Bingley which was the second major UK bank to fail and has been almost completely nationalised.

She also eliminated the foreign exchange controls and removed restrictions on the ownership and membership of the stock exchange, thereby permitting a massive influx of foreign capital and foreign ownership into the UK and a massive outflux of British money abroad. This fuelled the present credit crisis by pulling in massive sums of money from the far east in new debt owed by British citizens.

Some of the Financial Services Act 1986 provisions were a good idea, and some of them were necessary; the investor's compensation scheme provisions, and the improved transparency, are laudable. But she went much too far in removing controls.

Shortly thereafter, Thatcher's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Geoffrey Howe, produced the massively inflationary, direct-tax-cutting and indirect-tax-raising budget of 1988. (Howe's budgets were immortalised by the phrase "Howe it hurts".) The 1988 budget with its elimination of double-MIRAS was, along with the Exchange Rate Mechanism, a direct contributor to Black Wednesday when a man called George Soros "broke the Bank of England" and interest rates briefly touched 15.4% per annum.

You see, Thatcher's government had the idea that it was right and proper for the government to directly set interest rates and the exchange rate of sterling, by Act of Parliament rather than letting market forces take their course. Thatcher basically did this because she thought she could control inflation using statutory and legislative powers as well as monetary and fiscal ones.

She was, in short, a financial interventionist.

Of course, it all came unstuck and the free market won in the end. However, the distortions the Thatcher government introduced were very painful to correct. We reached five million unemployed (though the government only admitted to three million because it changed the counting rules), negative equity, a housing market collapse and a nasty recession.

By this point, Howe had had to resign and Thatcher had a new Chancellor whose name was Norman Lamont. When asked about the financial fiasco he'd presided over, Lamont famously replied, "Je ne regrette rien" (French for "I regret nothing"). I'm amazed he wasn't assassinated.

Thatcher followed this by producing the massively unpopular Poll Tax, which was a means of funding local governments by charging people for membership of the electoral register. (Basically, you paid a tax for your right to vote.)

Naturally, there was rioting in the streets, but Thatcher ignored the rioters and pressed ahead with her plans. She literally drove past a rally of 200,000 protesters in central London on her way to the Houses of Parliament, not understanding what the problem was.

The Poll Tax wasn't so much an Act of Parliament as a political suicide note. Her popularity bottomed out and she had to resign a couple of years later.

AxeMental wrote:
I'm not following you? If your saying if the government is broken it should self implode and be liquidated (as a business miss-managed by morons eventually would). Yes and no. A government that is corrupt can keep raising taxes indefinitely to cover up its crapfastic policies that go horribly wrong (a business can't do this, they don't print money or have taxes). If the press is either run by the state (as it is in say Cuba or China) or aligned with the govt. (as it is in the USA) the truth can be hidden for a long time. It requires muck raking to discover and expose whats going on, and thats hardly done when its against your own political party.

Theretically in a democracy that's pretty much what should happen with an election if the old regime wasn't working. Popper's definition of a democracy is a nation where you can have regime change without violence (in a dictatorship you have to kill the bastard).

AxeMental wrote:
That said, you could say the Soviet government system did infact implode (thanks to Ronald Reagan and Thatcher). .

Not to mention Bin Laden and John Paul II.

AxeMental wrote: In many of its former republics we see new governments and economic systems (way more free-market oriented) driving up prosperity (such as in Poland, Czech Republic etc.), yes...flowers rising from blistering desert land when given a little water (freedom)

Yes and no. One of the freedoms most exercised in the former communist countries seems to be the freedom to leave the country. Lots of East Europeans working in more prosperous countries and sending money back home is probably a lot to do with economic resurgence.

But what I'm saying is not going to an extreme (as in the Communist block). I'm really saying is that rather than thinking of them as dogmas, market forces and state intervention should be seen as part of a tool box we use to create what we need (rather than always using a hammer for everything, or always using a drill).

Unions give workers more power.

Power can be used wisely, or it can be abused. In my mind forming unions is a form of proactive improvement in many cases - for example lots of US VFX artists who worked on Journey to the Center of the Earth and as far as I'm aware, still haven't been paid: http://www.fxguide.com/modules.php?name ... le&sid=488

Freelancers in the US often rely on their Unions for Medicare (I know because lots of freelancers have told me this).

The way you guys describe a "conservative" sounds kind of like Thoreau -"The best form of Government is no government at all" - Thoreau was also vigorously opposed to the Mexican War and would have certainly been against the Iraq invasion.

But someone like Bush is really a stain on your country to be frank - after 9/11 even hostile regimes were offering their sympathy and help to the US, now Anti-Americanism is rife even in allied nations. He's right-wing as in "fascist", not right-wing as in "conservative".

I think a lot of suspicion about the "freemarket" is that the same rules are not applied across the board. World Bank and IMF rules do not allow developing countries to prove agricultural subsidies, but both the EU and the US do.