Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

+2

Sure, I don't see a problem with nightshift in the asbestos mines. As long as I'm not forcing anyone to do anything they don't want to. Same with voluntary sale of organs.

Would you sell one of your kidneys to feed your family ?
Would you sell both ?

I don't believe child prostitution would be voluntary. I oppose any form of coercion.

Really? When I was a kid I watched Pretty Woman, and thought that's the job for me!

I am really really just joking! I am sure that everyone here agrees that child prostitution is the basest of evils.

Would you sell one of your kidneys to feed your family ?
Would you sell both ?
Would you work day and night shift in an asbestos mine to feed your family ?

I would donate a kidney to save a family member. But there are other things that could be done to feed one's family. Like build an aquaponic system. Wait, I have done that!

Easy to say if you are a rich person...
I don't think it would be an easy job to explain to the poor Indian why the "regulations" for better conditions at the asbestos factory caused it to close down and deprive him and his family of his only source of income.

What makes me "Rich?" The regulations on labor keep me out of poverty. I have worked in a factory. It was well run, and followed regulations, and they were some of the worst three days of my life. I have payed my bills, and kept my debt low, which allowed me to but a townhome. The reality is that it costs less than renting costed me. If not for the housing bubble burst, I would have never been able to afford to buy. Granted, my current employer pays me good enough wages to keep me there. But what I do is retail, so there is not a tremendous ammount of money to make. Now in Africa you will find people that are willing to work... At first. Consistency is the biggest hurdle to employment in Africa. That and disease. Now I'm not saying that it is not worth building a factory there and paying competitive wages. And by competitive I mean a buck a day. But many have tried, and failed. Perhaps you would be lucky. Perhaps you will hire nothing but healthy willing people that are grateful for the dollar they get. Perhaps your factory will survive the regime changes that are a daily occurrence. Perhaps you will have an accident free workplace that won't draw attention to the fact that people are working exhaustive hours. Perhaps you will be lenient enough to keep an injured worker on so their family won't starve. Perhaps you won't have a company store that keeps then indebted to you so they have no choice to work for you. Perhaps when the workers do organize you won't let the government mow down the protesters with machine guns like Shell Oil allowed. (sorry, my Amnesty International days came out there) I have personally wanted to build factories in poorer parts of the world so I too could give a hand up not a hand out. But I wouldn't build a tshirt factory. There are already enough tshirts in this world.

Poor Indians, I'm sure there is a help desk they could find work on.

You live in America, in the top 10 richest nations by GDP per capita and the richest by nominal GDP. You also have a job and you have a TV and aquaponics and you bought a townhouse. Your are very rich by world standards.

No they don't. Without the regulations you would be even richer. You wouldn't have the behemoth of the US govt spending 1/3 to 1/2 of your wage PLUS theft by inflation on the inefficiencies of bureaucracy the thousands of ridiculous govt agencies and organisations and murdering millions of people around the world that did you no harm in the name of "democracy".

Your beloved regulations are the reason there are so many unemployed people in the US right now. Minimum wage laws prevent business from picking themselves up out of the dust of a depression and starting again. Wage regulations might sound good but they don't take into consideration REAL wages. Do you know what I mean by real income ?

As a result of artificially low interest rates which among other even stupider things, caused the housing bubble in the first place.
The housing bubble occurred because of the decisions made by your government. Like every other economic boom. If your (and ours etc) government stopped pretending they can manage the economy (or went back to post constitution days) there would be no housing bubbles and economic crises.
Your constitution is very specific about limiting the federal governments power, including the coining of money to prevent inflation. I take it you don't believe/understand your own constitution ??


Did you say government ? That is reinforcing my point, that it's the governments that are to blame, not the market

And still this goes round and round...

In the words of Darryl Kerrigan, "Tell him he's dreaming.."

Cherry picking bits the whole time, the arguments are all about "what ifs" yet you try to make them sound like facts, what you state as facts are NOT, they are theories. These theories have only ever really been tested once and they were shown to FAIL almost entirely across the board... You conveniently choose to ignore the only facts that there are, while trying to string together this utopian ideal...

You know what the funniest thing is? That while your still arguing that free market economies are the way of the future, that government controls stifle industry and stop growth. China one of the few countries left under communist rule, totally dominated by controls and regulations will be slipping passed the US in the next few years and becoming the largest economy in the world.

Greatest delusion is believing economics is a science and not just astrology for maths nerds.

What bits EB? Let me know so I can get back to them.

By using hypothetical extreme cases you can evaluate the soundness of ideas.
What specifically have I stated as fact which is NOT ??

Are you referring to the Chile example, which was a very poor example of your point, and actually reinforced mine, if you read my post.

That is funny you mentioned that because it is as a result of a semblance of capitalism that china has allowed many companies to start up and manufacture goods for the rest of the world.



It is the very relaxing of these controls and regulations that has allowed China to do this.
Most of the people however are still very poor, and most of the rich in china are government officials and "friends" of government officials who own much of the big business.

China is loosely state-capitalist in certain special economic regions but with a very socialistic flavour overall, as not only does the government direct key industries, it outright owns over 1/3 of the entire economy.

So inspite of the state control that exists millions are lifted out of poverty every year. The middle class continues to grow rapidly. There are already over 100 million people that earn over $20,000/year in china.

This is due to china heading towards capitalism. Again you reinforced my point EB.

Economics is a social science. More specifically economics is the study of human behaviour.

I understand why you feel this way though, common government economics (Keynesian) is basically full of technical mumbo jumbo just to confuse ordinary people and to make people believe printing money for govt benefit is actually a good idea.

I am not going back through my posts to point out what you are cherry picking... You conveniently ignore things that don't stack up your way and then expect people to point out what you are ignoring..

Yes the Chile example... explain exactly how it reinforces your point? I stated facts and figures about the socvial and economic outcomes after 17 years of trying libertarian style, you gloss over it saying, you "think they were being too negative." Now you say that it reinforces your point????

But this is a communist country, you will claim everything as a win for capitalism... The facts are: the biggest capitalist country in the world USA heading nowhere at the moment. Biggest communist country in the world, advancing at a great rate, about to surpass the US..

You twist that into "see that's because of capitalism, and socialism is bad, it's only the capitalist bits of China that make it work, socialism and communism are bad.." And then it's the socialist sides of the US that are causing it to fail, if it was totally free market it would all be ok... You have to look at everything as a whole, you can't cherry pick, because everything interrelates.