Karl

Is that a return trip because I wouldn't want to taxi down the runway just to go straight back to the terminal from which I had just embarked. Is the climate nice in Alone ? Are the women pretty, the men handsome, the wine strong, the music loud and the food delicious ?

Aww look at that kitty :-) That second picture is it a modern depiction of the last supper with Jesus now moved far right ?

Separation is another equivocation. Things have separate identity regardless of their common cause. While the owl sits on the tree, it is dependent on the tree being there in the first place, but the tree and owl are not the same, they have independent identity. The universe of things has identity but it doesn't have a cause because it is the universe of things-totality. I don't know about demons, monsters, touching the sky suggests a lack of scientific understanding, roaring could be an earthquake. Anyway, it's a nice story, but beyond that, well, Buddah was a man and all men are fallible and mortal.

It's private property rights and the proper application of law. Remove the state does not mean removal of law or the right to defence. At present the state happily supports businesses riding roughshod over property owners and will cite something equivalent as 'for the common good' (which sounds very familiar). If your interested in this stuff it's worth reading Rothbards-for a new Liberty the libertarian manifesto to cover all the usual angles (policing, law, defence, roads etc ). Links to free copy: https://mises.org/sites/default/files/For%20a%20New%20Liberty%20The%20Libertarian%20Manifesto_3.pdf Sent from my iPad

The reason they can do that is because the state has privileged business over property rights. The result is a law which defends that kind of behaviour over the rights of others. Your problem is with the Government and the state who should have been protecting the property rights of the people. I'm well aware of the problem. Luckily you seem to have a decent LEO, but there are plenty of stories of lemonade stalls being shut down by over zealous police.

That's somewhat of a positive outcome :-) Though I expect the state bullies to be along shortly to shut down illegal, underage lemonade salesman with no licenses and trading permits. Probably not even submitting tax records. Capitalist swine.

Everyone wants to improve the lives of everyone unless the are psychopathic maniacs. However, there is a pay off to any action, for many it's just a good feeling, declining crime, less bums on the street- but for others it's for power, prestige and privilege. There is no, one reason, why anyone makes a transaction, but there are always pay offs for doing so. How do you make everyone have generally increasing standards of living- by free market capitalism with equal opportunity to succeed or fail. That's why even the poorest today have more than the poorest of 100 years ago. However, it must be accepted there will always be those who are poorer than others, relative poverty will not go away. It's completely natural as long as opportunity exists in a non interventionist culture, then those who provide the most value will be the wealthiest and the opportunity will always exist for anyone to be in that position. The disparity between rich and poor reduces in a non interventionist culture as competition reduces profit automatically. Of course you won't agree with that, but then, few do.

Before you posted I was about to say that the war on poverty has been going on for at least 50 years and, except for the natural tendency for capitalism to increase overall wealth, the war on poverty has been an abject failure. Of course that was entirely predictable anyway. Another similar misguided ideology was to make homes affordable for all. The result of that is that prices of median homes to median incomes are now 10 times higher than when the state started interfering. Then there is the war on terror-more of it, ever more costly to contain, ever less freedom for the population. Then the war on drugs-same. No child left behind-more than ever. The list of costly failures that consume ever more production for an ever declining condition is staggering. Will anyone ever stand up and say the King is naked.

Well I think we are pretty lost now if your suggesting Nickel and dimed as a work of any significance. It's this patronising treatment of individuals that I find sickening. It isn't empathy, it's zoological interest that sell books, articles, interviews and makes champagne socialists wealthy. Those people who get rich by feeding the poor and their actions are responsible for keeping individuals from getting up off their knees in the first place. Then they use the poor to sell the poisonous ideology of collectivism from their comfortable little empires. They are nought but vampires that suck the blood of the poor and keep them helpless and dependent. I have a very strong reaction having been one of those working poor. It's not minimum wages and handouts that are needed but a healthy economy with job/entrepreneurial opportunities.

Sadly, there is no point.

Watch Walter Williams. He gives the numbers. I'm not sure why you say it's nonsense. You disagree with thousands of years of economic law ? Or you disagree at the reports that Walmart are shedding staff ? If you knew you were hurting people by supporting this law would you stop supporting it ? Or wouod your intention just to push blindly on regardless?

It's simply supply and demand on the price curve. Minimum wages is price fixing of the labour rate. A) if it is below the curve it will have no effect. if it is on the curve it will have no effect. C) beyond the curve it will cause unemployment. The higher it is beyond the curve the greater will be the damage to employment. It effectively hikes up the ladder and condemns the most needy to state dependence. As these form the vast majority then tax will be taken from the productive to the idle who have been condemned to that state. Currently Wallmart have raised their minimum wages in one state and now are preparing to fire 1000 workers. The company cannot raise the cost of its produce because many of the shoppers are in that low wage earning group as well. The axe falls on the least productive. However there is another unintended consequence. The higher paid workers are now demanding Walmart raise their wages as well. Some are walking out and finding alternative employment as they feel they are undervalued. This is what happens when you mess with market fundamentals. http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2015/jul/29/firm-preps-staff-for-wal-mart-layoffs-2/ The mistake you are making is to equate wages with productivity. The more people who are unproductive, then the greater the drag on the rest of the economy. Then there is the social cost of broken homes, crime, addiction, mental health.

Yes, simple 'trade' would be even better.

I don't really like the phrase 'pure capitalism'. It has this slight reek of Marxian ideology. Can we settle on calling it free market capitalism ? You are seeing the economy as a fixed pie. What we want is more stuff, for less effort. We aren't wanting to create more jobs, that's backwards. The current state system monopolises production. The corporate crony is intent on producing fewer things and therefore less at higher profit. We, as consumers, want the complete opposite. We want an ever expanding base of goods and services at lower costs and higher quality as that makes us all wealthier. So automation is an exile to thing as it frees productive labour (which is a scarce resource) from the drudgery of less important production and makes it available for better uses. It does not matter if he buys up the lake. You are falling for the 'exploited' labour ideology of Marx. What matters is production. If it is increasing then things are getting better, if it decreases then things are getting worse. The fisherman has to own the lake first, but there are many lakes, seas and rivers. If there isn't fish, then game, animals will be farmed. If the fisherman employs workers, then they are free to move to any productive area they see fit. No monopoly exists. I simply showed the example to explain how two producers of totally different capacity, can, between them, produce significantly more than individually. Yes, we need laws and particularly that of private property protection. That, is really the only law on the planet. The others are derived from that one simple law. So, please don't think free market means no laws, it means the opposite, very strong and simple laws. The problem we have now is regulation and legalise designed to prevent competition. I see the creeping ideology of the church in the word 'sin'. I cannot disavow you of that. It's a corruption, but if you are stuck with it then it can't be helped and you will see things from that perspective. I don't find people to be 'pretty shitty' until they are forced to be, when they have no other option but to be that way. When they have a better option they take that. Easy is better than harder, peace is better than conflict and so discussion is born-that's why we can communicate here and aren't resorting to pistols at dawn to resolve our differences. We prefer rational argument to irrational violence-at least I do :-)

Businesses simply provide employment opportunities. Employees are selling their labour to the highest bidder. There are no limits on the number of job opportunities except in our centrally managed economy where companies and individuals can use the force of government to prevent the expansion of competition. We are standing in a bucket and trying to lift it at the same time. Job opportunities are only limited because of this and for no other reason. If you allow the foxes to govern the chicken coup then you can be sure there will be fewer chickens than there otherwise would be. The same thing applies to 'the working poor'. Why does it now cost 10 times median pay to buy a home than it did in 1950? Why are the poor paying the cost of carbon taxes, subsidies for farmers to grow corn for gasoline, regulations that make cars expensive to buy and require debt. Where did all the good jobs go ? Why does state education suck ? Why are black people now many times more likely to be the product of one parent/ no parent families ? The list is endless. We have state/corporate repression of the population. The answer is the same answer that China and Russia decided upon. They got the state partly out of the way and look what happened. The more the state gets out the way the greater the expansion of wealth. It's quite simple. The living wage is a huge mistake. It is effectively forced unemployment. The higher it is, the greater the numbers who will become idle, the fewer companies who will set up to provide low wage jobs. There will be less and less for those at the bottom and ever more for those at the top. This is well known. It's not even worthy of an argument. Supply and demand is accepted as a real law. If the price point is moved above that which is productive, then all those who's production isn't valued at that level will be thrown on the scrap heap. Capitalism isn't communism, that was a clever Marxian bate and switch. Capital is just the time deferred preference for consumption. This is the mechanism by which we save a portion of our productive effort in order that it is available for other productive uses. Without it we would not survive. The free market isn't an ideology, it's two people producing and trading on a voluntary basis. It's completely natural. It is the prevention of this trade which is unnatural. There exists such a thing as rational selfishness. Man is a rational creature even if he strays from time to time. It is religion and states that have founded the ideology of sacrifice, that man is a dirty, unworthy creature in need of correction. That selfishness is bad and one should submit to a higher authority-and we know just who they have in mind to be that higher authority.

There were also governments and the political motive pre 1900. I've got many stories about these people, but they were all politically connected. Just because you judge a product as bad because it's full of sugar does not mean it isn't desired. Business provides what people want, if they don't want then they don't have to buy and the company ceases to trade. If a company treats its employees like crap, then they aren't forced to stay with the company. The company develops a reputation for poor treatment and then only gets poor quality workers or none at all. If the company harms workers then the law takes care of that.

Simply in a state controlled system the worst actors climb to to top. Those least suited to take power become the immoral custodians of everybody else. Therefore this simplifies into a free market ( that, by the way does not mean everyone doing whatever the hell they like just in case, as this is the typical way it is portrayed) which does not have a bunch of immoral, scheming, elite who control all laws, regulations and violence. Employers generally pay what they can get away with, but in a free market they are competing with other businesses for the labour pool, just as they have to compete with others for land, space, power, materials etc. that means an employee is free to leave and find a better employer. That said, not all employers pay the market rate, some prefer to pay a bit more, some, a lot more as the recent business crackup of the guy who paid $70k minimum. Henry Ford did a similar thing, but for the good of his business and not the employees benefit.

Did that 'popping out of the body' thing when I was a teenager. An early life reading Carlos Castaneda books got me to try that one. Apparently you need to anchor by putting a foot or hand in a bowl of water-which like any teenager I ignored. Result was a frantic few minutes trying to get back into my body and feeling like I was dying. Was it real ? No, but it certainly felt like it. Then another time a few years ago experiencing an energy surge beginning at my feet and travelling up my body. It was like drowning and I was rigid with fear. A voice in my head said 'let go, let it happen' at which point I relaxed enough for the surge to pass up and over my head. I had been so tense that my muscles ached for several days. Again, It wasn't real, but real enough to have been soaked in sweat from head to toe. Never happened again.

The market takes care of itself. There will always be cheats, but they don't have the monopoly on force that the state has which can use laws and regulations to benefit one group over another in return for votes. Bad actors can't stay in the market without state blessing. Today's financial institutions are state cronies and without looking much further it's clear the damage that is done by that relationship. Bail outs, bail ins, artificial low interest rates etc. Most of us just want to get along and serve each other, we like to be appreciated as good actors in the market. By being a good actor we build a reputation and keep business flowing to our doors, bad actors tend to collapse without state largesse. The word 'greed' is a very emotive one. After many years in business, as a customer and as an employer and employee I've never met a greedy person. One or two who have operated sharp practices, but they are few and far between. I'm always surprised at the length some businesses will go to pay employees during down turns or go the extra mile for their customers. Take a look at EBay to see how much star ratings matter to sellers.

That's the danger of having a state and government. If you present an easy way for some to get wealthier on the back of the rest, then that's what will happen. The Government itself shows the way of how to get paid for producing nothing, so with that kind of lead, others will naturally follow. Each vested interest will then measure their privileges against everybody else. Best remove privileges completely.

Marooned here: wasn't the original OP about providing service for people in terms of healing etc ? and isn't providing service a two way street ? I provide service to you and you also provide service to me. Two humans engaged in mutual spiritual gain. That seems very non political. Anyway, as I have my own slot. A nice little video from the wonderful Walter Williams showing how spiritual necessity is met through economic freedom.

German really was the hot bed of enlightenment. I was told recently (not verified it so it might not be true) that all degrees were issued from German universities and every subsequent university was run by someone who had obtained their degree at a German university. That might only be US I didn't bother to fact check it, but interesting if true.

Love this.

Good article here which gives a balanced view of the use of statistics on both sides of the guns for and against arguments. When you pluck statistics to support an argument things get confused. The gun lobby argument goes 'more guns, less crime' and cites the violent crime rate in the UK as indicative of that conclusion-incorrectly. The same can be said on the anti gun lobby which fails to mention US falling gun ownership and that only 47% of the population own guns. Neither does it mention that violent crime in the UK was already falling steadily in 1990 a full 7 years before harsher gun laws were introduced. Anyway worth reading even if it has nothing to do with free markets. http://blog.skepticallibertarian.com/2013/01/12/fact-checking-ben-swann-is-the-uk-really-5-times-more-violent-than-the-us/ Sent from my iPad

There isn't an argument there against the free market there , but plenty against the need of a central state and coercive Government. Those school murders were not the result of guns, those were just the tools used-we had a recent multiple murder using a transit van home made pipe bombs and passenger aircraft. None of which involved the use of guns. How many people die every year from government agent gun killings on your home soil ? How many die on government roads ? Why are children stuffed full of FDA drugs ? Why are there black ghettoes full of crime and single parents/no parents families ? Gun crimes are a good excuse for Government failure, but guns aren't the cause, it's the social problems that exist behind those that use the weapons.