[extropy-chat] Why I am No Longer a Libertarian Either...

[The Avantguardian]

--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Is a name brand really worth twice
> as
> > much as a generic? 
> 
> Of course it is.

What?!? How does a company investing money into
advertising its fungible commodity give any added
value or utility to the consumer? After a million
years of drinking just plain old water, homo sapiens
discovers Evian . . . Get real.  

> And how did that competing company CEO get his pay?
> You are stuck in
> another chicken-egg paradox here Stuart that is a
> result of your
> ingrained prejudices and not the facts. The market
> always finds proper
> value.

Then explain stock-bubbles, crashes, and other market
anomolies. The market guestimates the proper values of
things, gullible people rush to buy those things at
percieved value, and when those guestimates turn out
to be wrong, people suffer. That's like saying that
just because you know how to use the eraser on the end
of your pencil, you are always right.

> Claims that Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer isn't
> worth what they
> are paid, or Jobs, or any other highly paid CEO are
> based on
> puritanical protestant prejudices against
> ostentatiousness and
> inaccurate memes that claim that one man is worth
> any other.

But the meme that "all men [and women of course] are
created equal" is the foundation of democracy. If the
meme is inaccurate then is democracy legitimate?
Should it be changed to one vote for every dollar or
one vote per acre of land rather than one vote for
every person? 

> Any economist can tell you that no two workers are
> worth the same pay
> for the same job, and there is no market rule
> limiting CEO pay as a
> proportion of avg worker pay. Workers at all levels
> get paid what they
> are worth, with few exceptions (typically when
> government and unions
> enforce non-market pay scales).

So you are saying the worth of a man is the size of
his paycheck? By your logic, the American who makes
shoes for $20.00/hour is worth more than the Chinese
child that makes shoes for 20 cents/hour. So if the
American worker is worth more than the Chinese worker,
then why are these companies exchanging high value
workers for less valuable ones? But if it is not true
and companies are just trying to find the cheapest
labor possible, actual worth of that labor be damned,
then why aren't they hiring Chinese CEO's for $10,000
per year instead of Americans for $1 million/yr? The
dicipline of economics as it is currently conceived
serves mainly to put a veneer of scientific validity
upon naked greed.     

> Says who? Some piece of paper? They stopped
> listening to that a long
> time ago, and only cite it today when it serves
> their own benefit.

That's a ill-conceived stance for them to take because
that scrap of paper is the only thing that gives them
even the barest hint of legitimacy my eyes.  

> Because all those who claim to be defenders of
> liberty either are out
> to defend their own liberty at the expense of
> others, or are too
> chickenshit to recognise that the time for
> revolution has been here for
> a while.

No, not yet. They have been too canny so far. Right
now they are treating the American people like the
proverbial frog in a classic biology experiment. If
you throw a frog into boiling water, the frog
immediately hops out. But if you put the frog into
water at room temperature and then raise the water
temperature slowly, one degree per minute for example,
before long the frog is dead in boiling water and
never realized what was happening. But I may be giving
them too much credit. Sooner or later, I think they
will become too cocky and make a mistake. 
     Something at least as atrocious as the Boston
Massacre needs to occur in order to tear the masses
away from watching Britney Spears shake her ass.
Without something to rally the people around, you will
just be labeled another nut case that went postal or
worse, a terrorist.  
     
> As these five
> justices have given
> us permission to take their homes, we intend to do
> so, just as if
> they'd put their couch on the curb with a "free"
> sign on it.
>

As long as they are willing subject themselves to
their own ruling, I don't see a tremendous problem
with that. I would be curious to see their reaction to
this ploy.
 


The Avantguardian 
is 
Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that they haven't attempted to contact us." 
-Bill Watterson

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