On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 12:48 AM, Jarold McWilliams <[email protected]>wrote:
> The problem with all of that is the ones who work the least are the ones > with the most money. > It's only a problem to you. > Do you think Buffet really worked a million times harder than the average > person? > No, but he has a very rare talent. What Buffet does is find companies with a good business plan and good management, and he buys their stock. In the aggregate, over the course of Buffet's life, he has funneled more money into companies that use it productively, than others would have done with this money, without him. We have no idea how this may have helped improve technology, or the economy, or how it helped to bring new innovations to market. It is an unmeasurable benefit. > Socialism does not mean equality, but I really don't think Buffet deserves > to make a million times more just because he can shuffle stocks around. > And here you're injecting your opinion into the issue. > Socialism just means government ownership of business which is a lot of > times more efficient than private ownership. > Socialism can never be more efficient than private business because there is no accountability for the money spent. When people spend money that is taken from others by force and threats of violence, they then use it to pursue their own values in deference to the values of those from whom they took the money. They may be making themselves more efficient at pursuing their own values, but are necessarily depriving others of the ability to pursue the values held by those others, because they took the money of those others. For example, when the government creates Amtrak and subsidizes passenger rail, they do this by taking money from people by threats of violence. This deprives those people from whom they took the money of the ability to pursue their values to some degree. Now the government runs a railroad, and for those who are hired by Amtrak, their lives may be better off. If those people sought jobs from Amtrak because they love railroads then they are then able to pursue careers in a field of their choice, but only at the expense of those who were deprived of their money through force, to run Amtrak. Some customers might be better off using rail in an era when rail can't survive in the market on its own, but Amtrak was created because most people would rather fly when they travel, and those customers who'd rather fly, are simply being deprived of their money in this whole process. There is no improvement in efficiency. > Engineers and scientists should get paid more while lawyers and doctors > should get paid less because they are more important for society. > There's no way to know who's important to society and who isn't. Importance is a value judgement. To the person saved from a terminal disease by the latest advancement in technology, that doctor might be far more important to them than the engineer who invented the eCat. > Here's a question for this professor. If the majority of people are > stupid enough to vote for Obama, do you think they could manage their own > finances or run their own businesses? > Political preference is not a determining factor in intelligence. > If you had a smart person like me as leader of the country back in 1989, > we'd already have LENR as our main energy source if it is real. There are > not many private businesses willing to touch cold fusion, but the > government can invest in it if they were smart. > Again, you're interjecting your personal values into the issue. YOU may believe that LENR is a good risk for YOUR money, but here you are suggesting that you take money from others by force and threats of violence, and use it to pursue those things that match YOUR values. This has nothing to do with being smart. It has everything to do with how the lives and property of others could be expropriated by you. > And if LENR is not real(which I don't think is the case)? Well, both > private businesses and the government have wasted trillions on a lot of > stupider things. > But when businesses waste money, they waste their own money and invest it in pursuit of their own values. Government does nothing but waste money because the money it uses is taken from others by force and threats of violence. If those people from whom government took the money had their choice, they would keep their money and use it to further their own values. The point is that you can't take money from others with threats of violence and expect it to somehow 'benefit everyone', because values are personal, and the pursuit of those values can only be accomplished by the individuals that hold those values. So nothing you do with my money, taken from me by force, can benefit me, or I would freely have given you the money. > I am not in favor of welfare, but government ownership of business and > investments is much more efficient than private ownership. The problem is > not government itself. It's the CURRENT government made up of incompetent > people, picked by incompetent people. > The problem IS government because government is the only institution authorized to use violence and threats of violence to achieve its goals. Craig
