liber8

12 ms·

61.
by liber8 12y ago
Delayed gratification never gets talked about enough. It is the heart of capitalism. It's also, without a doubt, the most important contributor to success. But, I don't think it's fair to say it has to come from inside the
62.
by liber8 13y ago
First, the stock trader bit was an example, and doesn't demonstrate limitations. It demonstrates that people will invest huge sums to generate returns. I will agree that they likely could calculate the returns ahead of time, and the
63.
by liber8 13y ago
This doesn't take away from your point, but from a practical perspective, small businesses pay 0% corporate tax. When you have just a few shareholders, as nearly all small businesses do, all profits get paid out as salary. If small b
64.
by liber8 13y ago
That's an extremely narrow argument though. There's a huge world of funding outside of VCs. Of course, this also overlooks the fact that even VCs fund tons of biotech work, and are funding green energy right this very second.
65.
by liber8 13y ago
The author's hilarious use of the Medici family[1] as an example of government contributing to great advances of civilization aside, one of the things that is often overlooked is not that government has successfully contributed to some
66.
by liber8 13y ago
Honest, non-snarky question for you: How is it that you could not afford a half-dozen trips to your doctor, but you could afford your medical insurance premiums? Are your premiums subsidized or free? Is the doctor terribly expensive? (I&#x
67.
by liber8 13y ago
>> If you're talking about streamlining the process at the cost of higher risk, then that's probably a nonstarter. << I hate to be that guy, but this is the fallacy of false dilemma, and directly ignores the example I
68.
by liber8 13y ago
>> the TSA has never caught an actual terrorist. The FDA has stopped potentially harmful and/or ineffective drugs from coming to market << This is an excellent example of the "seen" vs. the "unseen". Su
69.
by liber8 13y ago
Ah, you raise a few interesting points. >> the concerns of the unemployed and underemployed have tended to be politically ignorable (due to lack of numbers, cultural shaming, the perception that unemployment is always temporary, etc.
70.
by liber8 13y ago
This is an excellent point, though I'm not sure you'll be in agreement with why I feel that way. The issue comes down to how you define "suffering". One of the reasons income inequality is such a silly measurement of ov
71.
by liber8 13y ago
The most accurate way to phrase it would be to say that "natural selection is about less fit individuals having a decreased chance of passing on their genes." Evolution is really about which genes are passed on to the next generat
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by liber8 13y ago
Yes, I provided it in the above comment. Go read about the Kingsbury Commitment, the The Willis-Graham Act, the history of the ICC and the FCC. In sum, the US granted AT&T a monopoly in exchange for being able to set the rates AT&
73.
by liber8 13y ago
...right, see my above comment: >> US Telecom in general is an interesting example because it's one of the few industries that typically do soak consumers, because of what essentially amount to government enforced monopolies. &lt
74.
by liber8 13y ago
I don't follow. In the US, we went from ridiculously expensive per minute plans 10 years ago to unlimited, nationwide calling for a pretty low flat-fee per month. This seems to be the opposite of predatory pricing... US Telecom in ge
75.
by liber8 13y ago
>>Giving away delivery for free is a form of predatory pricing<< This line of reasoning always amused me. Free = predatory? Can someone explain how one arrives at this logic? If the thinking is that "free" leads to &
76.
by liber8 13y ago
This is provably false. If oil couldn't be produced fast enough to meet demand, the price of oil would not be $110 a barrel, it would be $110+x per barrel, where x is the maximum number of dollars people are willing to pay to use the
77.
by liber8 13y ago
This is ludicrously, hilariously, almost unbelievably ironic, coming from Krugman: >> "In general, the thing about Apple is that it reflects the spirit of Steve Jobs, who knew what was good for you — and left you no way to do thi
78.
by liber8 13y ago
Can you provide one example of such a phenomena operating on anything longer than a very short timescale? I'm genuinely curious. Nearly every example I can think of is long-term negative. edit: I'd venture to say anything longer
79.
by liber8 13y ago
It's very easy to say these people were right, in hindsight. There's many from the austrian school who had been calling for the 2008 recession for 10 years. So, they were right, but it's pretty hard to listen to them when things keep chug
80.
by liber8 13y ago
Perhaps this is a stupid question, but your password checker claims "vertex112" would take 3 months to crack, but "vertex1123" only 3 days to crack. Why would adding an additional, non-repeating number make it easier to crack?
81.
by liber8 13y ago
Snark aside, adopting the culture or behavior of those you aren't intimately exposed to is a legitimate concern. However, if we look at just about any period of history we see that just about every group has been able to do it [not includi
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by liber8 13y ago
>>* we strengthen existing patterns of advantage and disadvantage because our friends, neighbors and children's classmates are overwhelmingly likely to share our own racial, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds.*<< It's i
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by liber8 14y ago
I'm curious as to why you think this is unique to capitalism. Politicians in every political system tend to help those who can return the favor. Whether it's communist leaders who award control of industries to their army buddies or socia
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by liber8 14y ago
Right, except the IRS has included perks such as housing, automobiles, even frequent flier miles[1], as "income" for over 60 years. I think the outcry here is that government has much bigger fish to fry than hounding taxpayers over a few th
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by liber8 14y ago
This example always amuses me because Krugman guilelessly puts forth the case for central control while glossing over the results: >> "But eventually the economists prevailed. More coupons were issued, couples became more willing to
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by liber8 14y ago
Speaking strictly for Americans, this simply isn't true. There are very, very, very few benefits to keeping your money offshore. Tax fraud is benefit #1. "Asset protection" (which generally means you're hiding money from your spouse or b
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by liber8 14y ago
This isn't really accurate. Bastiat, even Adam Smith, explored these concepts in fair depth well before 1937. On top of that, trade simply isn't that complicated. We've been doing it for thousands and thousands of years. I think it has
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by liber8 14y ago
"Absolutely no monopolies or cartels, unless, you know, we think its fun or directly benefit from it." - Politicians worldwide It's interesting that people readily recognize the absurdity of this truth when it comes from some places, but in
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by liber8 14y ago
Right, that's what he's saying. He believes that a certain good makes society better off. And yet, the pricing mechanism, the fundamental underpinning of capitalism, shows otherwise. (I'm speaking obliquely about Reader, but more broa
90.
by liber8 14y ago
This is the fundamental problem with modern liberal economic thinking: >> First, it’s a well-understood though not often mentioned point that even in a plain-vanilla market, a monopolist with high fixed costs and limited ability to

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