Posted on 11/01/2014 7:53:33 AM PDT by Son House
It is a wonder why Republicans candidates don’t do any better against completely idiotic opponents....the locals here in Minnesota seem to just keep replaying ‘safe’ Republican campaigns...
Not sure what your point is, but there were immense ranches in CA in the early 19th century, but they sold only the hides and to some extent tallow, as there was no way to get meat to a market.
Cattle ranching didn't become profitable in the West until there was a market for beef. Army, miners, or the cities via the railroad. As with CA, there were lots of cattle in TX after the WBTS, but they weren't worth anything till driven to the railhead.
The whole thing is intertwined. But the pioneers needed provable title to the lands they settled. Which means government.
Roads, canals and railroads require eminent domain, or they won't be built.
No business can thrive without some minimal level of law and order and enforcement of contracts, which again means government.
Without government subsidy, the transcontinental railroad would not have been built for decades after it was.
Inventors needed copyright and patent protection to allow them to enjoy the fruits of their creativity. That's government.
Most if not all bridges were paid for by one or another level of government.
You got me with the airplane. Invented by solo operators. But most of the technical advances in airplanes have been funded by government, primarily during wartime.
Don’t you just love it when some moron calls this ditz “smart”? For the past 20 years I must have heard that a thousand times from all kinds of people and I’m still waiting for one single solitary example that shows she is smart. The women can’t even comprehend basic logic 101 not to mention the fact that every job she’s ever held since the early 1970s she’s screwed up on a massive scale which is probably why our first radical Muslim President made her Secretary of state, and what was the result? Surprise, she screwed it up on a massive scale only this time 4 Americans lost their lives. Making this dingbat President would be like nuking the Titanic as it’s sinking.
Classic “Broken Windows Fallacy”.
Look up “Broken Windows Fallacy”. Bastiat should be taught in every college today.
In what way do you find Bastiat relevant to post 22?
Governments create no lasting jobs. They take money from the private sector and redistribute. Governments also have a perverse incentive to spend, in order to get the budget next year. Broken Windows Fallacy says that government confiscation of wealth actually inhibits and prevents true growth. It is only the free market that creates jobs. This is economics 101.
EVERYBODY knows jobs are created by the Federal Job Machine, but mean old Bush hid the keys when he left the White House....
Hillary’s husband created “jobs” for one special White House intern.
A free market also cannot exist without government to provide the matrix within which it functions.
Broken Windows Fallacy says that government confiscation of wealth actually inhibits and prevents true growth.
That's not exactly the BWF, but we'll let that pass.
There is, for any society, a level of government power and influence which provides for optimum economic activity.
Too low, and you have Somalia or any country in the middle of a civil war. This has been the default condition of human society throughout history. Businesses simply cannot function in these conditions.
As governments gain greater power, they create peace and especially, the predictability that is so key to business function.
As governments pass the optimum and continue to gain control, their regulations begin to act as a clog on business activity, and businesses in self-defense start trying to influence govrnment's actions that might impact them.
Think of it as the regulatory version of the Laffer Curve.
BTW, I disagree strongly with the commonly propounded notion that governments do not generate ANY wealth. In the first place, without government no business would in general be able to function, so the government provides the environment in which all wealth is created. But let's set that aside.
A government builds a bridge. It reduces travel time and increases productivity for 100,000 people.
If that bridge had been built by private enterprise, I assume you would agree it generated wealth.
But the bridge is the same and serves the same function even though it was built by a government. It generates the same wealth.
Similar factors apply for most things governments do, with the obvious exception of transfer payments. An obvious example is the military, which in its basic function creates nothing but death and destruction. But without a military to protect the nation, the economic system itself would eventually be destroyed by invasion.
I am perfectly willing to agree that governments usually are an inefficient way to produce stuff. But that makes them inefficient producers, it doesn't make them non-producers.
I will stick with tried and true economists like Bastiat rather than liberal hack reporters like Joe Weisenthal. Do you also believe that inflating the money supply will stimulate the economy?
But I doubt Bastiat ever said anything about governments being only a drain on the economy. He was much too intelligent to say such an idiotic thing.
Let’s look at NYC. In 1994 Giualiani took office and was followed by Bloomberg till a year ago, who largely continued his policies.
In those almost 20 years the city was completely turned around, going from one of the most crime ridden cities in the nation to among its safest.
Let’s just ignore the wealth created by giving people much safer lives to lead.
How much greater do you think the raw financial value of NYC as a whole is now vs. what it would have been had the politices of the former majors held sway for those 20 years? IOW, how much wealth did the two mayors create simply by doing their job well?
We will probably find out, as the present mayor begins disassembling the policies that made New Yorkers safe.
BTW, you don’t refute an argument by calling the author names. You have to show where the argument is wrong, not just let us know you dislike the author.
It is clear that you do not understand economics, Adam Smith, Frederic Bastiat, or free markets. I did not argue for a complete absence of Government, only that Governments do not generate wealth. What part of the western world’s debt problem do you not understand!?! I have no time for tired, worn out, keynesian arguments so troll somewhere else. ;-)
bttt
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