Reasons Why Dr. Ron Paul Should Not Be President

The overall point is that in the free market, the most skilled and competent (as well as fortunate, to some extent) would be the most productive, and the most productive would thrive the best, materially.

I'm talking about people with heart problems or diabetes that are mentally competent, who wouldn't afford their blood pressure lowering medication or insulin without medicare etc., because they wouldn't have the skills and/or experience to get a good enough private sector job in the free market.

Whether this is a good thing or not is irrelevant.

You provide a very good point, and I agree, but some people are actually just flat out dumbasses and would behave the same way in a free market society, and HOPEFULLY get weeded out in some way, either by starving/freezing to death, or being killed whilst trying to plunder someone.

You mean, that the workforce (humans) literally evolve (through social selection weeding out the less able) to the adapting market place.

There's that too.

They wouldn't tend to thrive as well, and men for example, wouldn't make as much money and not be able to get as attractive good gene-containing wives, as their more market-competent counterpart men. And thus produce genetically inferior children for the most part.

That already happens today, actually. These rich guys get hot wives and have hot daughters and (generally) good looking sons. Poor people tend to be chubby and not so attractive.

What? I never said I was politically "correct". Just accurate.

 

Wow. You don't see how simplistic, juvenile and unrealistic the above statement is? If it was so easy, why didn't we just keep the same monetary and economic systems we had in 1900?

Don't give me some conspiracy theory about Rothschilds and big bankers either. There were real policy reasons why we overhauled our economic and monetary systems and it had nothing to do with giving "rich bankers and elite industrialists" more power.

I have the ultimate faith that the free markets will self correct, but that the correction would be so horrible in its social consequences that the vast bulk of American society would reject it out of hand as too cruel to undertake.

The Greeks for instance know that their markets need to correct, but the people themselves are not willing to undertake the suffering necessary to allow it to happen. They'd rather bring down their Government and confiscate personal property(communism) than allow it.

 

I am going to have to agree that this is possible, but not certain (these negative consequences you mention here). Whether or not we should care about these social consequences, is another issue.

As unfortunate as it is, I agree with this also. I also have to say:

"Learn from your own mistakes only as a last resort; better to learn from the mistakes of others in the past".

 

No, the "free market" is one that is compatible with the Constitution.

Hey man, I didn't come up with the term. I'm using it in the context that it is used by Austrian and Chicago economists.

I agree that anarcho-capitalism would be social darwinism. I disagree that a Constitutional free market is social darwinism, because it provides opportunity for the most amount of people to acquire the highest standard of living.

I don't think that's the reason people didn't live as long...I think the main reason people didn't live as long was because medical technology was not what it is today. But that's why Dr. Paul and I support transitioning medicare and SS to the states before it violently collapses at the Federal level.

This is also not true. The entire banking system is a dead short across the productive capacity of our society. It transfers wealth from consumers and taxpayers to the banking system through inflation. In fact, there is another thread around here about how the Fed created $16 trillion out of thin air to bail out international banks and corporations all over the world. US Taxpayers and consumers will have to pick up that tab. The elite using government and the Fed to transfer wealth to themselves is a much larger problem in this country than any neo-cons complaining about the poor "mooching" off welfare. $16 trillion is more than the entire American Labor force produces in one year.

That's just not going to happen, your fears are ungrounded. Low skilled individuals will not "die". People do not literally starve in this country. The economy would not function if there is a 35% unemployment rate, because nobody would be buying the products that are being produced by robots. The law of supply and demand will push the cost of education for higher skilled jobs down (assuming a free market). And on, and on...it's your misunderstanding of how the free market works that is driving your unnecessary fear of technological improvement.

I dislike anarcho-capitalism, and my opinion of social darwinism is irrelevent because it is a natural product of nature. However, I do believe that welfare safety nets should exist at the state level. NOT at the federal level.

Yes, you can't have a free market (by the Austrian and Chicago definition) without government, becuase government must be there to enforce private property laws and to ensure that the currency is sound and not fraudulent.

 

I was just considering the implications of what it would mean to be an individualistic free market.

But the most productive would be rewarded and thus thrive the most, right? That's still social selection at least.

This is a whole other beast to deal with, but it costs a lot of resources to keep people alive whom are retired, and this has a negative effect on everyone else. But how much welfare old/injured etc. people should get (as opposed to voluntary charity), is the main issue I think.

Well of course the people who own, by forceful monopoly, the medium of economic exchange, will have the world be their oyster

Who is saying that I feared (i.e. didn't like the idea of) that happening? Other than to people I care about, of course.

They would simply die off and thus not use up resources, and the people who actually had jobs would become materially wealthier as a result.

Again, who said I was afraid of technological improvement? I'm saying that the free market often makes jobs obsolete, people get laid off, and suffer for a while, and eventually, certain people with too low of skill, will die or rely on charity. I never claimed this to be a bad thing, however.

A lot of people are in support of profit-motivated private security organizations over a government.

Unfortunately, the current police state that is the U.S. government (executive branch of law), is itself motivated by profit, and they make their profits forcefully.

 

I disagree. I think that our current corporate fascist/socialist system is more about social darwinism than free market capitalism would be. I don't think that being the most productive amounts to social selection. Our current system, it is the most intelligent (bankers, politicians, the elite) who thrive the most, because they are born into the higher class elite, and thus are able to use the government and banking system to exploit the poor and working class. So in a free market system, having the most productive thrive is a far better situation than any socialist system that artificially elevates the unproductive elite above the productive poor and middle class.

I really think it's immoral to force the workforce to pay into such a system to begin with. I think that once it is transitioned to the state level, it should be made optional. Workers who choose not to invest in this state-level SS and medicare can choose to invest their money elsewhere, possibly reaping larger returns than what the government could offer them...but should not expect to receive entitlements when they retire.

Sadly, this is the case. But it is not a consequence of free market capitalism...unless you say that free market capitalism eventually leads itself to its own destruction by intelligent businessmen getting their cronies in high positions of government. In this way, it is up to the people to keep their government in check to ensure that they don't elect panderers who sell themselves out to special interests. Our ancestors failed miserably when they allowed the Fed to be established, and we (as ancestors) are failing future generations by piling on an endless amount of debt to sustain our unsustainable welfare state and empire.

Well, ok. I meant that your worrying is unnecessary.

Think about it this way. The businesses who are employing the technology to replace low-skilled jobs aren't going to make as much money if 50% of the country is unemployed and not buying their products. There will also be a very high demand for low-skilled jobs. Businessmen in free markets tend to meet the demands of the market, and so low-skilled jobs will be created to satisfy the demand. Because of this, there is a certain asymptotic result that will be acheived that will naturally limit the unemployment rate due to technological improvements laying off low-skilled labor jobs.

Also, it's not just the businessmen who were employing the technology that will begin hiring low-skilled labor again...it's other low-skilled laborers who will begin to create their own businesses and employing other low-skilled laborers. For example, farming. These individuals would begin growing their own food and actually begin competing with big farming companies that use machines instead of humans. They wouldn't starve or die.

The free market has a phenomenol way of correcting itself to meet the law of supply and demand. The only thing that I fear in the future is socialism - government intervention, ie. government subsidizing large corporations (farmer) to run these small competing farmers out of business. At that point, you cannot compete with anybody who has the government on their side. Then people really will be starving.

This is a good argument for anarcho-capitalism, however I cannot bring myself to advocate abolishing the state. I think the people need to educate themselves and keep an eye on their government. Way too many people trust the government.

 

Time to get him the win: http://www.politicalforum.com/elect...-yes-he-can-ron-paul-can-win.html#post4720138

Supporters should join: http://ronpaulsocialnetwork.com/

 

So basically, your guys "got it wrong" and F'd the whole thing up, requiring tens of trillion$ to save it, which is still very much uncertain.

your acclaimed monetary system caused the problem, and has failed to fix it.

I can't help it if you read commentaries written by retards.

no, because libertarian economics will not be pursued, and your little socialist world will be ushered in by the elite globalist bankers who's butts you prefer to lick. ........And you will still be blaming it on progressives and libertarians

 

"just look at the Cellphone industry. Its doing very well. They always come out with a new phone. If the government ran it, the phones would be overpriced, and probably not even work"

Dr. Paul

 

Logical conclusions based on the known facts.

 

Which known facts and what logic?

 

Facts?, thats funny, you mean outright propaganda. Here is both US and Israeli sources saying Iran is no threat.

Check out this article, followed up with actual Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, of course you're not going to like it, but its the actual report.

Yeah, those stupid facts again....lol

In other words, you being afraid inside your own country has little to do with Iran, and everything to do with you personally. The links to these NIE's are there, check them out for yourself.

Again, Ron Paul was right, he reads THIS information, he doesnt buy the media like you do.

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/07-11-2011/119540-america_arrogance-0/

 

Ron Paul reads Pravda?

 

Obviously not, otherwise I wouldn't have made the statement.

I guess I was under the misapprehension that markets work better than central planning. Silly me.

I don't see the relevance of this line of questioning.

You've already discounted the possibility that powerful special interests could have influenced and directed the process, so what is the point of even debating?

Are you making an intellectual argument of some sort? I honestly cannot tell.

 

You dodged my question.

What if paying for these people's medical care bankrupts our country? Is that an acceptable outcome?

I don't agree that some people are just "flat out dumbasses".

Either a person is mentally competent or not.

Mentally competent individuals should not have their volitional stupidity subsidized, period. If they die, they die. It was their choice.

No, that is not what I mean. The workforce evolves, but that evolution does not necessarily imply that workers are being "weeded out", whatever that means.

I'm not sure I see your point.

 

Bankers, politicians etc. are not the most intelligent, they are simply (some of the) most crooked. Being the best most effective and most powerful and dominating criminal requires some extent of intelligence, but I think being the most genuinely productive in a free-market economy, would require more intelligence than that.

Sounds ok to me.

There would be no government in true free market capitalism.

People don't usually learn from the mistakes of past societies, all things considered.

If they were actually jobless, they'd be unproductive, which means they'd be deadweights. If I were one of those businessmen, I'd rather see those 50% die off that way their assets could be liquidated, go back into the economy and into the hands of people like myself, eventually. And unless this were carried out by force and unless these assets were sold by a government or mafia etc., this would be the free market.

Not that there's anything wrong with the above scenario.

Not unless..there were high demand for low-skilled jobs. The only reason why the demand for low-skilled jobs would be high, is if there were enough people who wanted things that could be produced by low-skill labor.

Jobs are not created to satisfy the demand for jobs. Products are created to satisfy the demand for products (be they tangible or intangible products). A capitalist would want to create as few jobs as possible and pay each employee as little as possible, of course; in free market capitalism, the way to succeed, is to own as much resources as possible, especially, the means of production. Otherwise, you are at the mercy of..those who own the means of production. And unless said owners are realllllyyyyy sympathetic, they aren't going to be very merciful.

The way to sidestep this problem, is to BECOME one of these owners of the means of production, or otherwise, some demanded resource(s), and be competent enough to retain said position. This all requires a variety of intellectual and other skills and expertise. It is a form of social darwinism.

They wouldn't be able to compete well unless those machines weren't very efficient; not efficient enough to cost less than human labor. And if that were true, they wouldn't be using those machines in the first place. Consider the previous posts..automation takes away demand for human labor if it's efficient enough, jobs become obsolete, and if people can't develop the skills and outcompete other people for non-obsolete jobs, they die or rely on charity.

Not that this is a bad thing.

I agree.

If it were true socialism, poor people would have partial ownership over these means of production, and thus owed some of the profit. But that probably wouldn't be very productive because people would be given resources for not being productive.

It's all up to individuals. No one can truly trust anyone, other than (perhaps) themselves. No economic or justice system would "work" unless the people with the power at the time, agreed to follow it.

If people have more power than others, they will use that power over these others, if they have a big enough disagreement-such as what policies of justice that human beings should follow.

 

Usually these donations are to the church; my grandparents give 10% of their income to the church so that the church can "help people", when they're actually a crooked organization relying on charity to support themselves.

Even with all this charity, people care about themselves and certain close others first, and everyone else second (if at all). That, combined with the fact that the owners of the most (and best) resources would thrive the best in free market capitalism, in addition to the fact that competing for these resources requires certain advantages in cognitive, social etc. skills, means that it would be social darwinism, which has been going on (with or without any kind of organized capitalism) for eons in the hominid evolutionary lineage.

No, but remember, we're going back to social darwinism vs. mandatory social justice, as always.

There are different aspects of "intelligence" and varying degrees so it is complicated, but considering the above, it's social darwinism.

People with obsolete skills, which in turn is usually largely the result of low innate social and certain cognitive and motor skills, would thrive poorly, if not die out. Social darwinism.

In the days of ancient, the men who reproduced the most were the tribal leaders. They became tribal leaders for several reasons depending on what criteria that tribe used to determine who should be the leader-signs of bravery, intelligence, etc. (unless it were simple monarchy). As well as obviously, the men with the most fertile sperm. The women who reproduced the most were the most fertile, and probably..the most attractive.

Does this not essentially mirror what would happen in free market capitalism? C'mon