On energy, I would say that the reliance on the government to devise a policy is a fallacy. I would advocate that the free market take care of that. The government shouldn’t be directing research and development because they are bound and determined to always misdirect money to political cronies. The government ends up subsidizing things like the corn industry to develop ethanol and it turns out that it’s not economically feasible. So, my answer to energy is to let the market work. Let supply and demand make the decision. Let prices make the decision. That is completely different than the bureaucratic and cronyism approach.

On environment, governments don’t have a good reputation for doing a good job protecting the environment. If you look at the extreme of socialism or communism, they were very poor environmentalists. Private property owners have a much better record of taking care of the environment. If you look at the common ownership of the lands in the West, they’re much more poorly treated than those that are privately owned. In a free-market system, nobody is permitted to pollute their neighbor’s private property — water, air, or land. It is very strict.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/11/29/grist_qa/index.html

Blind faith in the Invisible Hand is, in reality, a willingness to turn over all power to people with lots of money who desire yet more money. Common folks have very control over the Invisible Hand. Much less now than ever before. They need to wake up to this fact before the middle class is entirely eviscerated. The terrifying numbers are everywhere. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/2/162947/5397

This is a much more serious threat than most Americans realize. Not only are U.S. dollars flooding into China, giving the Chinese ever-increasing buying power in America, but the value of the U.S. dollar relative to the Chinese yuan has been dropping fast (see http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?from=USD&to=CNY&amt=1&t=5y). A falling dollar means that when the Chinese do come to buy U.S. companies, those companies will be selling at sale prices.

This reflects one big difference between China and America: China takes a very long view — on the order of decades to centuries — while America takes a very short view — on the order of one or two fiscal quarters. In the long run, America might just find its beloved capitalism losing to Chinese communism. Given that America has existed for two centuries and China has existed for more than twenty, I hope Americans appreciate this danger sooner rather than later.

Given America’s tendency to not see such dangers coming, I urge any American with children to enroll their kids in Chinese (Mandarin) language classes, instead of any of the European foreign languages. Twenty years from now, Chinese will be a much more important international language than it is today — probably not as important as English is today, but almost certainly more important than any alternative.

Here are some additional notes I took based on Bogel’s interview:

Americans believe that we are the worlds great values creator, but we excel at bread and circuses. Social security is in a great crisis. We are bankrupting ourselves to fight the Iraq war, which is a war over oil. One imperative need: to create a political system that is not driven by money.

Further, China owns 25% of our federal debt. What will we do when they start buying up America’s corporation?

“I salute capitalism, but we’ve taken it too far . . . we’ve got the wrong bottom line . . . This is unsustainable.” We need a federal standard for fiduciary duty that mutual funds are operated for the long term benefit of those who own the securities. We are engaged in the “folly of short term speculation.” We have moved from “manager’s capitalism” [CEO's] instead of “owner’s capitalism.”

Bogel argues that we need a society that treasures deeper lasting values such as poetry and art more than chasing dollars in the form of financial papers.  Bogel concludes his interview by quote a sign that hung in Einstein’s office:  “There are some things that count that can’t be counted.  And there are some things that can be counted that don’t count.”

For more on Bogel, see here.

Another case in point. A relative of mine is convinced that the “free market” will simply solve all of our country’s future challenges. Just close down the government and we’ll somehow have no energy worries at all. The market will supposedly take care of everything. I find this position untenable in light of the abuses by big oil. It’s happening all over, where huge corporations have taken over Congress to the extent that they are no longer regulated. Big banks, Pharma, the Insurance industry. These industries have taken control of Congress, yet they clearly don’t have the interests of Americans at heart. They care only about their stockholders.

As though the “Free Market” is going to cause these all-too-powerful industries to become altruistic.  Here’s what I would ask the Invisible Hand Pollyannas:  On what do you base your fantasies?

For instance, it’s not government regulation that has essentially emptied the Atlantic Ocean of edible fish. It’s the LACK of regulation that allowed huge areas to be overfished.  Uncurtailed private decisions to buy and sell fish emptied the North Atlantic.  It’s the classic problem of Tragedy of the Commons.

Yes, the free market brings efficiencies, but it is amoral and present-oriented. Trusting in the “free market” is proving to be a recipe for disaster. I wish people would quit being so naive as to argue that blind faith in the Invisible Hand will provide us with all of our needs.

If you think that regulation is the problem, just consider the mega-slums that exist in many countries. See here or here and here. These mega slums in cities like Nairobi, Lagos, Mumbai and Dhaka should be utopias, according to your theory because there is virtually no government regulation. The power of government doesn’t penetrate to the millions of people in these areas. There are totally free markets. So what is life really in these places that don’t suffer the choking effect of all of those cursed government regulations?

In Manila less than 10% of homes are connected to sewerage systems. In India only 17 of 3700 cities and large towns have any kind of primary sewage disposal. It is estimated that most Indians and Africans defecate in the open. Men often defecate into plastic bags which they then throw away. It is easier for men to urinate, but for women more conscious of propriety especially in Muslim culture, the situation is appalling. “To urinate or defecate, women and girls – in countries which shelter women from the public gaze – have to wait until dark.”

Then there is the problem of water borne disease in the world’s new mega-slums. Digestive-tract diseases arising from poor sanitation and the pollution of drinking water – including diarrhea, enteritis, colitis, typhoid and cholera – are the leading cause of infant and child death in the world. UNICEF estimates that up to 80% of deaths from preventable diseases (apart from HIV/AIDS) arise from poor sanitation.

Mexico City residents (population 22 million) inhale shit: fecal dust blowing off Lake Texcoco during the hot, dry season causes typhoid and hepatitis. In Rangoon, where the military regime has brutally moved hundreds of thousands of inner-city residents…they cook and defecate in the mud directly in front of tiny plastic sheets under which they sleep, ravaged by cholera, dysentry, dengue and malaria. In Baghdad’s giant slum of Sadr City, American bombing has resulted in raw sewage seeping everywhere.

Now THAT’s how truly free markets turn out. Perhaps you’ll argue that it’s always government to blame whenever things turn shitty. I would argue the opposite. Too bad there is not a strong enough government to step in and help clean up these catastrophes.

If you’d think about it, you’d realize that many things that keep life bearable are not handed over to the free market, lest they be exploited and destroyed.  Therefore, we let government step in and regulate water, electical, sewage and other utility services, in addition to police, fire-fighting, roads and bridges, courts of law and libraries.  

If it’s totally free market you want, you’ll end up with isolated gated communities located amidst mega slums, huge areas of dog eat dog.

Most of the points made in this article are really also caused by the government.

1) “Is it really beneficial to divert so many of this country’s resources to the Iraq occupation? We could really use that money at home.”

Nothing free market about this issue, this is a government issue.

2) “Under the Hand’s reign, we have seen our forests, soil and air contaminated. ”

The number one polluter in the U.S. is the Federal Government. (http://www.adti.net/environment/congressRecord_pryan102800.html)

Also, the ‘public’ ownership of forests has resulted in the Federal Government selling off our ‘public forests’ logging rights to logging companies. These companies don’t own the land, and have no financial incentive to care for the land because they don’t own it. In a free market, there would be no public land. Private land owners take better care of their land. Private, managed forests have a reputation for being less fire prone, and for being better cared for, because the owner wants to maintain their investment.

Air and water contamination can be handled in the free market under common law. If you can show that someones pollution is damaging you or your property (I.e. they’re leaching poison into the creek that you use to drink water from on your property), then you can sue them for damages and they have to make reperations. The government is to blame for this problem, as they have changed the rules on liability of polluters.

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Government cannot create wealth, it can only create restrictions on people and reduce wealth. If you want to form a happy commune with rules on how you do business, that’s fine, but don’t try to force it on everyone.

Government is force. It is nothing without force. It can only govern at the point of a gun. The free market can’t make everything perfect, but it will always beat being told what to do at the point of a gun.

ROFL
It’s not a free market because one person undersells the rest?

Seriously, you folks need to go back to high school and relearn economics, or at least use the captcha I am seeing and open a book.