mikem170

64 ms·

571.
by mikem170 5y ago
Companies are given a charter to operate and limited liability by the government, in return for performing a public good. At least that was how the idea of corporations came into being. Capitalism is an economic system, not a system of gove
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by mikem170 5y ago
Whole heartily agree! From this medium post [0]: > In the United States the statement is often heard, that “corporations are private businesses, so they can do whatever they want.” This assertion is particularly false when referring to e
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by mikem170 5y ago
Maybe you're not making enough a distinction between the federal government and state/local governments. I think a lot of people are aggravated with the federal government usurping state voters.
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by mikem170 5y ago
> The federal government has broad emergency powers to prevent the spread of infectious diseases The supreme court said the CDC exceeded their statutory authority [0]: > As he often does, Kavanaugh wrote to explain why he voted to all
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by mikem170 5y ago
I understand the impact a problem on a credit report can have for most people. Over the years I've been trying to minimize my dependence on credit reports. It's been frozen for most of a couple decades, and I'd like to keep i
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by mikem170 5y ago
The submitted postimg.cc screenshot had the following cdc.gov link [0], which appears to be flagged as false information. The following text was on that cdc page: > After December 31, 2021, CDC will withdraw the request to the U.S. Food
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by mikem170 5y ago
I didn't mean to sidetrack into democracy vs. representative government (separate discussion!). I may have used the term democracy in my above post a bit loosely, to mean the people's control of the government. It would be more ac
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by mikem170 5y ago
The PCR tests are too sensitive [0], experts are saying that it looks like 90% of positive people may not infected or infectious and should not be counted as positive. They are running too many cycles for these tests, making them something
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by mikem170 5y ago
You mentioned the burden of proof being on the victim of identity theft. Is that applicable to anything besides ones credit report? If creditors want to get a judgement to garnish wages or seize assets they have to go to court. I wonder if
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by mikem170 5y ago
> There is an argument that can be made (whether good or not, not sure) that politicians represent the interest of people including whether they want Toyota to flourish or not, and represent the employee of Toyota, etc. We supposedly liv
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by mikem170 5y ago
> Toyota has stepped up lobbying to preserve its investments in hybrids, hydrogen Am I the only one who thinks it is 100% wrong that companies can give politicians hundreds of millions of dollars? Politicians are supposed to represent pe
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by mikem170 5y ago
That's a neat way to compare! I've spend a couple of months in countries in that 25k GDP range. I could tell the difference in some ways, but there's so much more I don't know. However, that gave me the idea to see what
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by mikem170 5y ago
Ah, I wasn't thinking about any of that stuff. I was thinking of whether small economies could exist without economic coercion backed by violence, where this thread started. The Yanamamo were mentioned as a group that doesn't do t
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by mikem170 5y ago
That's interesting to hear! I guess it matters how many people are struggling whether they might allow such things. (The group protects itself more than it protects low-status individuals in the group?)
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by mikem170 5y ago
Point taken on what-about-ism. I find that I do that perhaps too often. But these connections keep jumping into my mind. I wonder if people get mad about one thing, but not the other. I wonder what the commonalities are, what the difference
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by mikem170 5y ago
Agreed. I never said that no-money would work at the scale our modern society is used to working at. I brought up the idea that smaller scale societies have functioned without money, though. My thinking is that lack of money wouldn't s
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by mikem170 5y ago
I guess I had a different reaction to his no-money thing, kind of putting it into the context of my own recent experiences, feeling drowned in the rat race sometimes, and seeing that happening to other people I know. Have we made things bet
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by mikem170 5y ago
Like I said, the original post I replied to seemed to say they couldn't imagine the dishes getting done without money: "He wants everyone to suddenly stop using money. If that happened, who would wash the dishes?" I'm fa
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by mikem170 5y ago
> This "gift economy" sounds someone trying to put a nobel spin on a debt based economy. I saw that same connection myself. Gifts, aka favors, aka "you owe me one", aka debts. > This gift based economy just sounds
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by mikem170 5y ago
I'd buy that. I just didn't know that it was relevant or comparable to modern state backing of the rentier rich. wasn't sure how to judge such a comparison. I know that modern governemnts will send uniformed guys with guns i
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by mikem170 5y ago
> Tangential, but I tend to feel this way about a segment of van life philosophy Ah, I know what you mean. I've thought about this myself. One of those "it wouldn't work if everyone did it" kind of things. You could d
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by mikem170 5y ago
I assume so. I was curious how modern society deals with quakers and the amish in this regard, and found this: > The Amish are subject to sales and property taxes. As they seldom own motor vehicles, they rarely have occasion to pay motor
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by mikem170 5y ago
Are you sure he's asking for any of your tax money? I didn't notice in the article any mention of him collecting benefits. He dumpster dives for food if nothing else. People give him some things, of their own free will. And don&#x
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by mikem170 5y ago
> He's just a parasite. He's less of a parasite than many rich people! I'm thinking of those who are nothing better than rentiers and/or running cartels, commandeering common resources for their own profits, accumulat
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by mikem170 5y ago
> I don't see how taking from everyone and giving very little in return is moral. Taking? It seemed pretty clear that he doesn't ask anyone for anything. People give him things of their own free will. > This is basically the
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by mikem170 5y ago
> I don’t think these people really want to return to the days of hunter gatherer lifestyles or even the days of homesteading. Some people do, but we pretty much made it illegal.
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by mikem170 5y ago
Reality being land owners backed by the state who don't allow people to wander off and grow their own food?
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by mikem170 5y ago
Modern society has problems with violence and sex crimes against women, too.
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by mikem170 5y ago
I wondered about that, also. I'm pretty sure that some societies and communes are democratic, where the people make choices as a group, not having specific leaders that they are obligated to follow. I think that Quakers would be an exa
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by mikem170 5y ago
> Very few people will voluntarily perform shitty, low-status jobs unless you motivate them Is that a bad thing? One might wonder if our society is all about motivating people to do things they don't want. How many of our modern con

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