The Dangerous State of Bitcoin (.com)

[I.Goldstein]

You'd be amazed how wrong you are when it's something everyone needs and there's only one supplier and they're charging a 500% mark-up for no obvious reason other than "more money for us; fuck you".

1) How do you know they are making 500% markup?
2) If you know they have 500% markup why don't you buy stock
3) It would not be possible to sustain 500% markup without the ACTIVE SUPPORT of the government (i.e. the govt creating and enforcing a prohibition on competitors).

Likely this 500% markup is something in your mind only.

You're wasting your time. Energy companies receive countless government subsidies. The argument is now bunk. If he can't accept our contentions after this fact, it's hopeless.

The subsidies are to keep them from marking up the prices more, you clueless fuck

Exactly right.  I pay a very reasonable rate for my power, and the linemen, management, commissioners and everyone else involved in getting that power to me make a good living wage largely because there is not a parasitic 'private investor' class to leach off of us users.

As soon as thing were privatized in CA where I lived at the time, Enron gouged the shit out of us customers for natural gas claiming 'market conditions'.  And when the transmission lines were privatized in the mid-west, we had the biggest power outage ever IIRC because the 'investors' were pocketing the money which should have gone into maintenance.

Some wise person who's name I've forgotten once made the statement "When you hear the word 'privatization', you better put your hand on your wallet.'

People seem to forget that most investors don't care about company reputation or anything and are only investing for the quickest, biggest buck, and are completely willing to let rolling brownouts happen all over the southern US if it means they get to sneak away with another single dollar.

Investors won't be getting long-term returns that way. The company would have to be a failure from its inception to have a board of shareholders that conniving. It sounds a lot like Solyndra.

Of course investors aren't going to give a damn about what happens with a government-provisioned company or utility. They'll get paid fucking anyway.

Investors have never given a single fuck about long-term investments in this country - everything is about next quarter; and yes, it generally does lead to company failure, but not before all the "important people" get their cut of money before the company tanks

Only because the government will happily bail them out in the end. That's the only thing that incentivizes the failure in the first place. Otherwise, investors going around and failing companies would find themselves collapse in reputation and funding. A world where investors only want companies to fail is a fantasy.

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[evoorhees]

We should nationalize the fuck out of a lot of critical industries - look what private, laissez-faire finance sectors got us

The very supply and price of money itself is centrally planned in America. Were you not aware of that? 

[JeffK]

We should nationalize the fuck out of a lot of critical industries - look what private, laissez-faire finance sectors got us

The very supply and price of money itself is centrally planned in America. Were you not aware of that? 

Supply and price isn't the problem.

Distribution that is very disproportionate to value added to system however, is.

[I.Goldstein]

We should nationalize the fuck out of a lot of critical industries - look what private, laissez-faire finance sectors got us

The very supply and price of money itself is centrally planned in America. Were you not aware of that? 

Supply and price isn't the problem.

Distribution that is very disproportionate to value added to system however, is.

Life isn't a zero-sum game. People will only purchase things if they get something of greater value in return. It's economics 101. Value distribution is inherently fine in a system without monopolies on force intervening and giving favors to certain entities and individuals.

[I.Goldstein]

I mean, you've played Deus Ex. You know the overpriced Neuropozyne supply was only caused by a government-enforced patent, giving VersaLife a monopoly on the life-sustaining drug? Others could of easily produced the drug on a massive scale for cheaper prices if the patent wasn't in place.

[JeffK]

I mean, you've played Deus Ex. You know the overpriced Neuropozyne supply was only caused by a government-enforced patent, giving VersaLife a monopoly on the life-sustaining drug? Others could of easily produced the drug on a massive scale for cheaper prices if the patent wasn't in place.

Silly me, I forgot about the intense thought-provoking criticisms of the state in a video game where a shadowy branch of government in the form of FEMA is on the payroll of the Illuminati, who use a quantum computer built from the brains of young women to control large machinery and send mind controlling signals into the brain implants of the citizens.

My bad.

[JoelKatz]

Only because the government will happily bail them out in the end. That's the only thing that incentivizes the failure in the first place. Otherwise, investors going around and failing companies would find themselves collapse in reputation and funding. A world where investors only want companies to fail is a fantasy.

That's actually not the only reason. Part of it is that there is no competition for varying corporate structures. Pretty much the only way you can form a company is with complete financial immunity for stakeholders and decisionmakers and wherein the decisions are made by investors who can dump the stock any time they feel like it. This is likely not anywhere close to the best corporate structure.

The reason we reject the idea that the workers should own the means of production is that they are free to buy them if they wish. But it would be the unusual coincidence where the best investment most workers could find would be the very same tools they needed to work with. Different investments have different risk/reward profiles and a worker's outlook would match his financial needs only by total coincidence. Yet we have compelled precisely the same flaw in our corporate structures. Votes represent both shares in the profits and shares in the decision making. Shares are dumpable at a moment's notice By law, we have inexorably tied them together.

[JeffK]

Only because the government will happily bail them out in the end. That's the only thing that incentivizes the failure in the first place. Otherwise, investors going around and failing companies would find themselves collapse in reputation and funding. A world where investors only want companies to fail is a fantasy.

That's actually not the only reason. Part of it is that there is no competition for varying corporate structures. Pretty much the only way you can form a company is with complete financial immunity for stakeholders and decisionmakers and wherein the decisions are made by investors who can dump the stock any time they feel like it. This is likely not anywhere close to the best corporate structure.

The reason we reject the idea that the workers should own the means of production is that they are free to buy them if they wish. But it would be the unusual coincidence where the best investment most workers could find would be the very same tools they needed to work with. Different investments have different risk/reward profiles and a worker's outlook would match his financial needs only by total coincidence. Yet we have compelled precisely the same flaw in our corporate structures. Votes represent both shares in the profits and shares in the decision making. Shares are dumpable at a moment's notice By law, we have inexorably tied them together.

** Read this post Immanuel, because this is how things work in America, and I doubt investors would demand any less than easy to buy/sell shares and complete financial immunity in a "free market" as well - why would they want to accept anything less?

[I.Goldstein]

Only because the government will happily bail them out in the end. That's the only thing that incentivizes the failure in the first place. Otherwise, investors going around and failing companies would find themselves collapse in reputation and funding. A world where investors only want companies to fail is a fantasy.

That's actually not the only reason. Part of it is that there is no competition for varying corporate structures. Pretty much the only way you can form a company is with complete financial immunity for stakeholders and decisionmakers and wherein the decisions are made by investors who can dump the stock any time they feel like it. This is likely not anywhere close to the best corporate structure.

The reason we reject the idea that the workers should own the means of production is that they are free to buy them if they wish. But it would be the unusual coincidence where the best investment most workers could find would be the very same tools they needed to work with. Different investments have different risk/reward profiles and a worker's outlook would match his financial needs only by total coincidence. Yet we have compelled precisely the same flaw in our corporate structures. Votes represent both shares in the profits and shares in the decision making. Shares are dumpable at a moment's notice By law, we have inexorably tied them together.

** Read this post Immanuel, because this is how things work in America, and I doubt investors would demand any less than easy to buy/sell shares and complete financial immunity in a "free market" as well - why would they want to accept anything less?

I did and enjoyed it. These legal provisions and immunities are not of a free market. In a fair and moral market, liability can be covered by insurance at some level of the chain.

[evoorhees]

We should nationalize the fuck out of a lot of critical industries - look what private, laissez-faire finance sectors got us

The very supply and price of money itself is centrally planned in America. Were you not aware of that? 

Supply and price isn't the problem.

Perhaps you didn't understand what I meant. You claimed America existed in some sort of "private, laissez-faire finance" situation. I am proving you wrong simply by reminding you that the money itself - the very core of finance and trade - is centrally planned and controlled in America. This is not only incompatible with an operable laissez-faire market, but is in fact the complete opposite. The United States is nowhere near, nor has it ever been in at least a hundred years, even close to a "private, laissez-faire" system. If you want to criticize the American system, go for it, but such critiques are not upon laissez-faire to any intellectually or empirically honest degree.

Distribution that is very disproportionate to value added to system however, is.

1) How does one decide what is "legitimate value added to the system?" Who makes that call? Who's arbiter of such metrics?
2) Again regarding the finance sector, it receives free money inflated into existence by the Federal Reserve. So I assume you're opposed to that, right? Also, all companies which receive government subsidies, like oil, pharma, green energy, agriculture, manufacturing, finance, education, etc. are receiving "distribution" that is very disproportionate to value added, are they not? So do you then agree such subsidies to be immoral?

[JeffK]

Only because the government will happily bail them out in the end. That's the only thing that incentivizes the failure in the first place. Otherwise, investors going around and failing companies would find themselves collapse in reputation and funding. A world where investors only want companies to fail is a fantasy.

That's actually not the only reason. Part of it is that there is no competition for varying corporate structures. Pretty much the only way you can form a company is with complete financial immunity for stakeholders and decisionmakers and wherein the decisions are made by investors who can dump the stock any time they feel like it. This is likely not anywhere close to the best corporate structure.

The reason we reject the idea that the workers should own the means of production is that they are free to buy them if they wish. But it would be the unusual coincidence where the best investment most workers could find would be the very same tools they needed to work with. Different investments have different risk/reward profiles and a worker's outlook would match his financial needs only by total coincidence. Yet we have compelled precisely the same flaw in our corporate structures. Votes represent both shares in the profits and shares in the decision making. Shares are dumpable at a moment's notice By law, we have inexorably tied them together.

** Read this post Immanuel, because this is how things work in America, and I doubt investors would demand any less than easy to buy/sell shares and complete financial immunity in a "free market" as well - why would they want to accept anything less?

I did and enjoyed it. These legal provisions and immunities are not of a free market. In a fair and moral market, liability can be covered by insurance at some level of the chain.

In a free market persons/companies could definitely offer financial and legal immunity to investors in a way exactly identical to what we have now.

[I.Goldstein]

Only because the government will happily bail them out in the end. That's the only thing that incentivizes the failure in the first place. Otherwise, investors going around and failing companies would find themselves collapse in reputation and funding. A world where investors only want companies to fail is a fantasy.

That's actually not the only reason. Part of it is that there is no competition for varying corporate structures. Pretty much the only way you can form a company is with complete financial immunity for stakeholders and decisionmakers and wherein the decisions are made by investors who can dump the stock any time they feel like it. This is likely not anywhere close to the best corporate structure.

The reason we reject the idea that the workers should own the means of production is that they are free to buy them if they wish. But it would be the unusual coincidence where the best investment most workers could find would be the very same tools they needed to work with. Different investments have different risk/reward profiles and a worker's outlook would match his financial needs only by total coincidence. Yet we have compelled precisely the same flaw in our corporate structures. Votes represent both shares in the profits and shares in the decision making. Shares are dumpable at a moment's notice By law, we have inexorably tied them together.

** Read this post Immanuel, because this is how things work in America, and I doubt investors would demand any less than easy to buy/sell shares and complete financial immunity in a "free market" as well - why would they want to accept anything less?

I did and enjoyed it. These legal provisions and immunities are not of a free market. In a fair and moral market, liability can be covered by insurance at some level of the chain.

In a free market persons/companies could definitely offer financial and legal immunity to investors in a way exactly identical to what we have now.

Only through violence and force. I don't advocate such means no matter the name they be under. A market that can succumb to such means is not free.

[JeffK]

We should nationalize the fuck out of a lot of critical industries - look what private, laissez-faire finance sectors got us

The very supply and price of money itself is centrally planned in America. Were you not aware of that? 

Supply and price isn't the problem.

Perhaps you didn't understand what I meant. You claimed America existed in some sort of "private, laissez-faire finance" situation. I am proving you wrong simply by reminding you that the money itself - the very core of finance and trade - is centrally planned and controlled in America. This is not only incompatible with an operable laissez-faire market, but is in fact the complete opposite. The United States is nowhere near, nor has it ever been in at least a hundred years, even close to a "private, laissez-faire" system. If you want to criticize the American system, go for it, but such critiques are not upon laissez-faire to any intellectually or empirically honest degree.

Distribution that is very disproportionate to value added to system however, is.

1) How does one decide what is "legitimate value added to the system?" Who makes that call? Who's arbiter of such metrics?
2) Again regarding the finance sector, it receives free money inflated into existence by the Federal Reserve. So I assume you're opposed to that, right? Also, all companies which receive government subsidies, like oil, pharma, green energy, agriculture, manufacturing, finance, education, etc. are receiving "distribution" that is very disproportionate to value added, are they not? So do you then agree such subsidies to be immoral?

Regulation on the FIRE sector is close to nil and any regulations left are being pulled every day.

If our market wasn't laissez-faire and was actually controlled and regulated, companies like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan couldn't have gotten away with all their securities "tricks" (I can't call them fraud, because the sector has been deregulated to the point to where nothing they did got them a criminal conviction) that allowed them to sell off shitty loans as highly-rated securities claimed to be the same rating as US bonds, letting them make money with zero risk at all to themselves and large amounts of risk that were disguised as "safe investments" to investors.

[I.Goldstein]

We should nationalize the fuck out of a lot of critical industries - look what private, laissez-faire finance sectors got us

The very supply and price of money itself is centrally planned in America. Were you not aware of that? 

Supply and price isn't the problem.

Perhaps you didn't understand what I meant. You claimed America existed in some sort of "private, laissez-faire finance" situation. I am proving you wrong simply by reminding you that the money itself - the very core of finance and trade - is centrally planned and controlled in America. This is not only incompatible with an operable laissez-faire market, but is in fact the complete opposite. The United States is nowhere near, nor has it ever been in at least a hundred years, even close to a "private, laissez-faire" system. If you want to criticize the American system, go for it, but such critiques are not upon laissez-faire to any intellectually or empirically honest degree.

Distribution that is very disproportionate to value added to system however, is.

1) How does one decide what is "legitimate value added to the system?" Who makes that call? Who's arbiter of such metrics?
2) Again regarding the finance sector, it receives free money inflated into existence by the Federal Reserve. So I assume you're opposed to that, right? Also, all companies which receive government subsidies, like oil, pharma, green energy, agriculture, manufacturing, finance, education, etc. are receiving "distribution" that is very disproportionate to value added, are they not? So do you then agree such subsidies to be immoral?

Regulation on the FIRE sector is close to nil and any regulations left are being pulled every day.

If our market wasn't laissez-faire and was actually controlled and regulated, companies like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan couldn't have gotten away with all their securities "tricks" (I can't call them fraud, because the sector has been deregulated to the point to where nothing they did got them a criminal conviction) that allowed them to sell off shitty loans as highly-rated securities claimed to be the same rating as US bonds, letting them make money with zero risk at all to themselves and large amounts of risk that were disguised as "safe investments" to investors.

I don't understand how a government granting immunity to certain companies is considered "freeing the market". None of us "free-marketers" advocate this. This isn't our definition of laissez-faire. We want to hold such crimes accountable.

[JeffK]

We should nationalize the fuck out of a lot of critical industries - look what private, laissez-faire finance sectors got us

The very supply and price of money itself is centrally planned in America. Were you not aware of that? 

Supply and price isn't the problem.

Perhaps you didn't understand what I meant. You claimed America existed in some sort of "private, laissez-faire finance" situation. I am proving you wrong simply by reminding you that the money itself - the very core of finance and trade - is centrally planned and controlled in America. This is not only incompatible with an operable laissez-faire market, but is in fact the complete opposite. The United States is nowhere near, nor has it ever been in at least a hundred years, even close to a "private, laissez-faire" system. If you want to criticize the American system, go for it, but such critiques are not upon laissez-faire to any intellectually or empirically honest degree.

Distribution that is very disproportionate to value added to system however, is.

1) How does one decide what is "legitimate value added to the system?" Who makes that call? Who's arbiter of such metrics?
2) Again regarding the finance sector, it receives free money inflated into existence by the Federal Reserve. So I assume you're opposed to that, right? Also, all companies which receive government subsidies, like oil, pharma, green energy, agriculture, manufacturing, finance, education, etc. are receiving "distribution" that is very disproportionate to value added, are they not? So do you then agree such subsidies to be immoral?

Regulation on the FIRE sector is close to nil and any regulations left are being pulled every day.

If our market wasn't laissez-faire and was actually controlled and regulated, companies like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan couldn't have gotten away with all their securities "tricks" (I can't call them fraud, because the sector has been deregulated to the point to where nothing they did got them a criminal conviction) that allowed them to sell off shitty loans as highly-rated securities claimed to be the same rating as US bonds, letting them make money with zero risk at all to themselves and large amounts of risk that were disguised as "safe investments" to investors.

I don't understand how a government granting immunity to certain companies is considered "freeing the market". None of us "free-marketers" advocate this. This isn't our definition of laissez-faire. We want to hold such crimes accountable.

Would they not have these immunities in a truly free market? It isn't a crime not. How would the laissez-faire government create laws and enforce them on ideas like credit default swaps or any new financial vehicles they would create?

Or is the solution simply "investors will know better and take whatever is left of their capital to a competitor next time, who may or may not repeat the process for a quick buck, and may even be a company formed from members of the original scamming organization?

[JeffK]

I am actually curious here too: how would a country without regulation on sectors like finance punish them when they steal money using new grifts or "financial vehicles", assuming the (limited) government can't create ex post facto laws?

So much handwaving about the market dealing out justice goes on here, I am generally curious how it would work

[phillipsjk]

I suspect a "free market" can't work without government intervention.

Sure in a stateless free market, you could hire muscle to enforce your will, but then it is not about the voluntary exchange or goods and services anymore.

People could get together and agree on a set of laws, but that would be... a government!

[makomk]

2) If you know they have 500% markup why don't you buy stock

It would appear that the shares of Standard Oil were owned by a handful of really wealthy families that weren't selling.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Well standard and oil didn't have a 500% markup.
Still it was the claim that his power was supplied at 500% markup.

I am still waiting (likely forever) for the name of the company.

[onesalt]

Standard Oil was notorious for unethical business practices. If you're going to go "ABLOO BLOO BLOO THE MARKUP THEY RIPPED CUSTOMERS OFF WITH BECAUSE THEY DESTROYED ALL OPPOSITION AND MAINTAINED A MONOPOLY OVER THE ENTIRITY OF AMERICA BY OWNING AND UTILISING RAILROAD, PIPELINE AND PORT FEES TO MAKE COMPETITION UNPROFITABLE AS WELL AS OUTRIGHT BUYING THEIR OPPOSITION WASN'T EXACTLY 500% YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID" while ranting some complete bullshit that this was apparently all because the government had something to do with it (a claim you idiots keep making with no evidence or proof, considering that government subsidies for industries weren't even issued before about 1940 (and even then only in an attempt to end the great depression and help build and provide infrastructure for the war effort).

Either provide some evidence for your retarded claims or shut the fuck up. however considering you all seem to be libertarian idiots your idea of an argument seems to consist of blaming the government and ranting about it louder than anyone else.