Ask a Tea Party Conservative Anything

The only distinction is that natural monopolies are ones that occur in the free market, and regular monopolies result from government intervention (NOTE: no time in history has there ever been a natural monopoly in a totally unhampered market economy.)

You have to realize, the cause of monopolies are barriers to entry. If regular monopolies don't exist in the utility markets where there are greater barriers to entry, it is impossible for a natural monopoly to exist, in the same market where there are less barriers to entry.

Umm, there is no unhampered free market, so there cannot be natural monopolies.

The governments are the cause of the monopolies. Look into economic history, read about what a monpoly is and how it is caused.

Here is something small to help: http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=full_quote.php?quote=138&Itemid=275

Here is something more elaborate: http://mises.org/daily/5266/

 

As I already said, that was one instance in one state. There were multiple attempts like this and numerous tea partiers were arrested for vote fraud after doing this exact same thing. You are also missing the point entirely. There is a difference between being able to register to vote and actually voting. Show me proof that millions of people are voting illegally. I know you aren't going to be able to because there isn't any because it isn't happening.

The purpose of gerrymandering is to make it so that your enemy has 99% of the vote in one district and 48% in another. Instead of letting politicians control the process we should allow independent groups do it so that there is no political motive.

Did I ever use the term racist? No. Do not put words in my mouth. It is a plot by the Republicans to disenfranchise voters that are predominantly Democrats. These groups are HISPANICS (Mexico is a country and hispanics are from many countries) and blacks which because of their socioeconomic status have a more difficult time acquiring a valid ID. Many simply do not have one and do not need one so they are given an extra hurdle to jump through to vote. Yes it affects everyone but it doesn't effect everyone equally.

I am disregarding that article because it is clearly a sensationalist piece that does not have any regard for the facts. How do you know how many legal voters are in an area? How do you know how many people are eligible to vote? What if in that state people could vote at any location if they met certain critiera? What about same day registrations messing up where the newspaper got its numbers? There are plenty of ways that could have happened. Oh it could have been a miscount. Find me a scientific study that shows that there is enough fraud to be effecting the outcomes of elections instead of a right wing news piece that says it just to get readership.

About Florida: Please read about it more. It wasn't that there was 180k illegals registered. It was that they were going to go through a list of 180k and see if any of them were illegal. Around 2700 were suspects of being illegal but nearly all of them turned out to be false positives. One county checked 500 of the numbers and 40 of them turned out to be illegal. 40/180000. That's hardly anything.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...rge-explained/2012/06/18/gJQAhvcNlV_blog.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/u...istakenly-purged-from-rolls-to-vote.html?_r=0

1) I'm not even sure what you are saying. Yes I only have one option for power. I only have one option for phone (unless I go with VOIP). You have to define what market you are talking about. If you are talking worldwide, there is plenty of choice for power. But when you limit yourself to a geographic area, there is rarely any choice at all.

2) I'm not sure what an electric light company is. But regardless, you are talking about the beginning of new technology being rolled out. Many companies of course will be formed and many of them will fail and be bought by the others. And again it all depends on the geographic area that they serve. If they serve separate halves of the city, they are not competing and are monopolies. Even if they weren't monopolies, in a real market they would just collude on prices so you would pay a higher price and there would again be no competition.

3) That first study seems flawed in that it does not make profits the primary driver. I didn't look at the other two. Now a days most things can be reverse engineered. I will say that historically this has not always been the case. The lack of patents also drives people towards secrecy. Do we really want to take drugs without knowing what is actually in them? No. Well, in a free market we would be forced to and lots of people would die from people selling fake pills and pills that simple do not work.

Patents may not be the best solution to encourage innovation but at this point they are what we have. Yes they are government created monopolies but as long as there is a good system behind it, the damage can be limited.

4) I never said everyone had that attitude. The amount of money needed for charity if the government stopped helping at all is staggering. I doubt people would be willing to spend a large enough chunk of their increase in money on charity to offset the removal of the government. If they were, the government would have never gotten into the business in the first place.

Please stop saying this. It is wrong.

 

That is a broad overgeneralization. Try being hired by Google or Microsoft without a degree: Unless you are ridiculously smart and have done something EPIC, it won't happen. If you are a software developer, they are not going to train you to be a software developer. You need to have that skill set when you are hired. As you move up through the company, you will be getting much better at what you do and making more money. The initial skills needed become a massive wall that is hard to get over.

On to the video: It does not seem he is taking anything into account with his numbers. I doubt anyone would argue that the poor would be making less money in 91 then they were in 71 just due to inflation. He also does not show how many of the poor moved into the rich sector. If you are poor but get into working class, that's not much of a boost. You also have to take into account cost of living and quality of life. If the poor are moving up but are working 80 hour weeks to do it, is that good? Should someone be forced to work two full time jobs for most of his or her life to move up to the point that their children's children might be able to go to college? It's a more complex issue that simply "Oh everyone has more money than they did 20 years ago" because that's just obviously true.

 

In Australia, there is some choice for phone providers, but not much for the other utilities. This is primarily due to government intervention. In a free market, there would be an abundance of utility providers, as there has been in the past. In the free market there would be no artificial barriers to entry such as taxation. With this, the cost of everything will be SIGNIFICANTLY CHEAPER. Production costs, and indeed the initial costs for running a utility business would be cheaper, and thus would result in relatively cheaper prices to the consumer.

In the free market, if there is a profit to be made, then an entrepreneur would recognize this and start a business to make that profit. If a profit cannot be made, then the costs to the consumers would be the cheapest they could be (any cheaper and companies would make a lost). So, even IF a monopoly did occur (which has never happened), it would make NO difference as the quality of service would be high (otherwise a profit could be made by providing good quality service), the costs would be low (otherwise profit could be made), and so on.

They would not collude for higher prices. If let's say a duopoly did this, an entrepreneur would recognize high profits to be made, and would set up a business and undercut the duopoly, destroying the collusion.

Ask yourself. Can a profit be made?

Would you as a consumer take drugs without knowing what is in then? Some consumers may, some consumers may not. I would contest that most consumers would not. Thus, there is a demand for products to detail what is in them. There would then be demand for a business that would ensure what was advertised was indeed true. Contracts would prevent them telling others how to make the product, or whatever issues of similar effect that may arise. Remember, everything is voluntary here. If you want to take a tablet, and not know what's in it, that's your folly.

Of course innovation would be encouraged without patents. If everyone could create the same thing, then profits would be pretty low, so in order for a business to have a competitive edge, it must separate itself from the rest of the competition. This can be done be done through research, advertising and so on. Additionally, the positive economic side of this is that costs to the consumer would be very low. If something is patented, say a vaccine, then grave diggers will be in high demand.

In a free market it's not easy to make a profit. It's not supposed to be easy. You need to seize the opportunities to make profits as an entrepreneur, or work for an entrepreneur who can.

You have to remember, in a free market, costs of living would be very low, so there would be comparatively less need for charities. Additionally, government isn't very efficient when it comes to charity anyway. http://mises.org/journals/jls/21_2/21_2_1.pdf

I will restate your views. You do not think that people will voluntarily give enough to charity in a free market society if we do not coerce them to. Thus, you think because people will not voluntarily give them enough, we must coerce them to. These are your views. Think about it.

Additionally, government is a chief cause of poverty. By subsidizing poverty, the government is in itself promoting poverty (the subsidization of any activity does this). Minimum wage also prevents employers from hiring people for jobs where productivity would be below minimum wage rates (gas attendants for example are slowly become less and less). There would be no artificial barriers to entries in markets, so people who were once workers can now start their own businesses, freeing up more employment opportunities for the unemployed, thus assisting in lifting people out of poverty.

So, we have less people in poverty by virtue of more jobs, more incentive to work, and lower cost of living. We have more people giving money to charities which are FAR more efficient than government charities. There would be a rise in mutual aid societies again, which was fundamental to private organisations tackling the demand for charity before government intervention. You see what would disappear if government intervention did not exist, but what you do not see is what government intervention replaced. Are you really sure that the charities won't do an adequate job? It's not as if the government is doing a wondrous job anyway, whenever I go to the city it would be unusual not to see a homeless person.

Ok, where's the evidence.

 

As much as I do support the free market I do not think its impossible for a natural monopoly to exist in a free market it just has never happened and it is impossible for for natural monopoly to stay a monopoly I think natural monopolies can spring up however the free market will see them having a monopoly and will invest into the high start-up costs so the monopoly will be short lived.

So exist : yes
Sustain : no

 

Wouldn't Google be considered a natural monopoly? They put out things that others can't compete with and with the money they make from all of that they come up with revolutionary ideas and others spend millions getting their technology up to par to create the same things, but then people already have that item and continue to buy the next hottest thing they put out? Such as google owning adroid, while they rake in those profits they put their money into things like renewable energy and cars that drive themselves.

They dominate a lot of industry.

 

Google isn't a natural monopoly. You say that their market conquests and technologies are a monopoly because of their financial advantage, but a decade ago, google was not a powerhouse. They started beating their competition from day one, customers had many options for search engines.

 

I Wasn't directing it towards what Google actually started as. It's like the Utilities scenario. They're into a business where you need a large sum of starting money to get up and running, not to mention all of the money to sustain it, to get it up and running before you make money. And even after you start to make money Google is far ahead of everything they can just put out a new product and take any business you have gained. I've seen on the News multiple times of them being accused because they are the only ones in the business. The reason the say they're not is because some one could come along and start a rival business, but people typically don't have the cash to shell out for it.

Some articles about it (I've seen things on FOX and Kare11 about it before):

http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/07/technology/yang_google.fortune/
http://video.foxnews.com/v/928678358001/is-google-a-monopoly/

Taken from both sides of the political spectrum.

 

They make the best product its not a monopoly people prefer their product if I start a pizza place next to another pizza place and my pizza is better I get the customers he improves his pizza I improve mine I do not have a monopoly people just enjoy my products.

What specifically do you think google has a monopoly on?

Search engines? Phones? Browser? What they do a lot they are just a big company not a monopoly.


Microsoft was sued in the past for "killing Netscape" and again recently in Europe for same reason and people claimed IE was a monopoly because it came bundled on windows they offered their product free so people got hooked on it. You are still free to install other OS they lost in Europe and were forced to release Windows 7 in Europe without IE installed and you get a popup telling you that you can install IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Chrome or others. This is completely bullshit Microsoft did nothing wrong they didn't have a monopoly on Browsers.

People hate big corporations.

 

You're right, this is technically correct. As you've highlighted, even if a monopoly happened to spring up, if it tried to raise prices too high, someone would see a chance to profit and compete. If they gave poor quality service, someone would see a chance to profit and compete. So yes, the long term sustainability of these monopolies is poor.

 

1. SuF mentioned the utility markets, I mentioned telecoms. Read the whole thread.
2. Again, I suggest if you want to criticize anything I have said, you read the ENTIRE thread from the start to the end, not just a single post.
3. I don't know if you just tried to pick a part little bits of my argument by taking the rest out, as the rest of it gave the structure and depth to back it up.

Yes there are unhampered free markets, but realistically the government has the power to intervene here, plus how many situations are there where this market form exists? Theoretically they can exist, as can perfect competition, but realistically it does not occur.

If you actually bothered to read the other posts instead of jumping to conclusions that I don't know what I'm talking about and explaining it in a patronizing manner:

A further point, just because something hasn't happened it the past doesn't make it impossible to happen in the future. It's what economics is all about, predicting and providing in the future, making efficient use of scarce resources.

One final point this topic is going down the economics path and not sticking to the political side of it. Sure some of the policies will be to do with the economics, but we are getting nowhere here. Some wise words to finish off.

"If all economists were laid end to end, they still would not reach a conclusion" – George Bernard Shaw

 

I'll deal with a post of yours I missed at the bottom.

Taxation hampers the market. So, unless you can list a market where there is no taxation, which is impossible, all the markets, utility markets, telecoms market, and so on are hampered (they are also hampered by laws, etc).

Yes, the government has the power, and does. This intervention distorts the market.

None in modern history. Some markets are less hampered then others, but all are hampered to certain extent.

Perhaps, but never for a sustained period of time.

You have only been taught mainstream economics. I do not doubt that you are well versed in that. Unfortunately, mainstream economics does not always conform to reality, and thus it can offer few efficacious solutions to economic problems.

That is true, but it can make it improbably, depending on the strength of the induction.

Indeed.

True, but a fundamental aspect of the tea party conservatives is their economic views.

Clearly something is wrong with mainstream economic theories.

------------------

Disagree.

So, you believe the free market cannot provide for transport provisions such as railroads? I disagree. For a more praxaeological analysis. Entrepreneurs want to make a profit. They would see that there is demand for transport provisions and enter the market. This demand gives room for a profit to be made. So, with a profit to be made, entrepreneurs would enter the market and supply transport provisions.

Remember if the market was not hampered, there would be no taxation, means cost of production is cheaper for the goods and services utilized in the creation of these railroad provisions. More revenue can be retained as profit, which would decrease the cost of the services for consumers. Thus, this will dramatically reduce the start-up costs required. Start up costs are a barrier to entry, and would probably be the largest barrier to entry in this scenario. This massive reduction in an unhampered market economy would result in a relatively smaller barrier to entry than would have otherwise exists in a hampered market where government intervened.

You probably will still say cost too high, no one will want to enter the market to make the profit... Just think about if. If the demand for something is so intense, then consumers will be willing to pay large prices for its supply. It's not that the railroads won't come into existence, it's just a question of cost. Things in the free market are usually cheapest, competition sees to that. Now, you probably won't accept a praxaeological analysis, so let's look to history.

Google the Great Northern Railways. This was an entirely privately funded endeavor, in a hampered market economy. If such a thing can come into existence in a hampered market economy, it can surely come into existence in an unhampered market economy.

Most of this is a corollary of the contention above, so is redundant.

Some examples?

 

Sorry for the gravedig, but I wanted to re-respond to this. :l

Herman Cain was going to win the Republican ticket. I can agree that he is probably the least party-affiliated person who has probably ever ran (Reagan is maybe also up there; both have similar non-political backgrounds), but nonetheless he ran for the Republican ticket.

I know that in this past election, Herman Cain was a TP favorite, but so were Bachmann and Santorum. The whole Chigaco politics aside (e.g., the "sexual harrassment" against Cain, the "Romney laid off my wife right when she got cancer" bullshit, etc.), I don't think that any Republican, conservative or not, would have really gained much traction past the debates. Why? First of all, people pay about 10% as much attention to races as we think. The huge amounts of viewers for the Republican debates likely tunes in for a few minutes before they got bored and flipped the channel. Most people can't name their own representative in their state legislature. Furthermore, the media has demonized the conservative views on most issues to be either a bunch of half-drunk hicks or a bunch of multi-trillionaires scheming to take the last penny from each and every one of us. My point is, the tea party is fighting a losing battle, and by running in the Republican races, I think the situation is even more swampy. I agree with most conservatives that a third-party would be very foolish, but do you think there are any real good options aside from that?

I don't like to talk political ideology, because in the end of the day it doesn't matter what Bob thinks and that Susie thinks differently. I'm really interested in the real-world instances of these things, and as a fellow conservative I'm wondering what your view on the mess is.

 

He was a strong Tea party candidate he was a conservative but not a republican.

Lets be honest 90% of voters don't know policies they vote based on what they like they see Mitt they think oh a rich business man I don't like rich people.

They see Obama they think oh he is black I am a racist if I don't vote for him.

They see someone like Bush they think I would like to have a beer with him.


They don't care about policies they have in their head who they like. No one cares how lavish the Obama's live or ow much Mitt donates to charity they care about appearance that the media shows them media wont show Mitt donating his 40% to charity. They won't talk about how Obama is literally the worst president in USA history (he makes Lincoln, nixon & hoover look like saints)

 

My question about all of that is--what does the conservative movement do? You're right, a lot of voters (doubtfully 90%; maybe 60-70%) vote based on nothing more than a shallow impression that has been crafted by the media and the person's own visage. That being said, conservatism in general has an snowball's chance in hell of gaining much traction if things stay the same.

So, my question is: What is to be done about the mess? Again, I want to talk real-world and not manipulative political strategy...

 

Conservatives have a disadvantage because its in the best interest for public schools to stop free market they are a monopoly (all government organizations are monopolies) public schools are biased agaisnt free markets and competition because they don't need to work for the students they get paid by the government not based on efficiency older people start to realize this but the problem is young voters & immigrants vote for those who will give them more (liberals) not for whats best for society we need to educate our children on politics & economics and we need more media covering problems with economy.

Telling a teenager we are cutting taxes on middle class families means nothing. Telling him you grantee him a student loan does (which increases cost of college for everyone and creates artificial demand but no increase in supply.)

 

I am having a hard time understanding your run on sentence but I'll give it a shot. Public schools are in the best interest of society. If there was not publicly funded schools, most kids would not go to school. Most people simply wouldn't be able to afford it. This would make it so that lower income families have kids that will stay lower income because it is extremely difficult to break out of a cycle of poverty without any outside assistance. Eleven percent of children (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_percentage_of_students_attend_private_schools_in_the_US) go to private school. If money to pay for them was not a problem a lot more would attend private schools. The No Child Left Behind Act as well as a lot of state laws in numerous states tie a lot of teacher evaluations to test scores and such. They also tie money going to the schools to the performance of the schools so they have an incentive to improve (or cheat). It's obviously not a perfect system but neither is the private school industry. Just look at college. The price is going through the roof because people are willing to take on massive loans to pay for it. If there were no public schools, the same thing would most likely happen with very high tuition.

Telling a teenage (me) that you are cutting taxes on the middle class mean something. I however can not support it because tax rates are already extremely low and we have fought two unfunded wars. We can't slash taxes and pay for it with debt. And student loans are not guaranteed as far as I know. They are however immune from bankruptcy court and thus will never go away until you pay them off.

 

11% pay for private because there is public schooling which they think is free if the public schools were gone we would see an increase in demand and also an increase in supply they would get cheaper as they have to compete and we would have better schools educating our children.

Some say well I still don't like that. Well then ok how about this you get a federal voucher saying this pays for this much for my childs education you take this to a private school they honor it and they will have to keep you happy they will need to keep good test scores they will need to compete if they want the money they will not be a failure like our current socialist indoctrination camps (public schools)

College tuition go through the roof because its so easy to get student loans & they are guaranteed by the federal government its the same thing causing the bank collapse you create incentives to cheat.

In private sector cheating isn't possible there are consequences but in monopolies like the government no one is there to oversee cheating. In public schools it is impossible to fire a teacher who has tenure so when they molest children they get sent to a rubber room where they get paid (more money per hour then top scientists even btw) to sit on their laptops and talk about the students they molested with each other. Public sector is terrible at everything its just a corrupt mess in capitalism corruption cannot exist because there is no gain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rubber_Room



America has the highest taxes in the developed world anyone who tells you we have low tax rates is an idiot basing it off false information yes we have low tax rates but then you gotta add on the extra taxes on top of them that are not included in our tax rates we pay more taxes then socialist nations.

Everything we buy also has taxes on it example Gov taxing each gallon of gas then oil companies make profit per gallon. Even higher taxes on ethanol yes many things are taxes worldwide but everything has a tax on it here we also have double taxation on our corporations making them pay huge amounts.

The "unfunded wars" that people blame bush cost less then Obama's stimulus under both presidents after Obama extended them cost us nearly 1.5T over 10 years (Obama spent more in middle east then Bush by a large portion) this is nothing compared to our total deficit which is nearly 2t per year under Obama.

ObamaCare will cost over 2.7t in direct taxes. It will increase cost of medical care by large amounts it will also create more inflation and cripple economy but it sounds nice making affordable health care but what it really does is make it impossible for middle class to get healthcare (cost increase + tax hikes) while giving it to free to people on welfare & illegal immigrants & their anchor babies.

we cannot pay our debt because we have too high spending we can cut taxes and increase revenue its a proven fact when taxes are too high you cripple economy and hurt job growth then end up getting less in tax revenues.

If we cut these 100%

Military
Education
Science & technology research
And every other non entitlement program we still spend more money then we take in we have entitlement programs over 100% of our entire tax revenue.

When we are going broke paying for others don't you think its time we drop this welfare state. Capitalism is proven to work economy works great under less restrictions.


Look what happens when dem's run the house with their collectivist idea's


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Public_Debt_Ceiling_1981-2010.png

Colours are by who runs the house not who was president.

 

Hows it feel to part of one of the ideologies that is splitting the Republican party apart so, by consequence, making it easier for Democrats to win.

 

I'm tired of debating you when you are wrong about 90% of the time.

1) Our public schools are not failing. Please provide evidence if you think otherwise. They are not perfect, but they are still working.

2) Student loans ARE NOT GUARANTEED BY THE GOVERNMENT. They are however guaranteed to not go away under a bankruptcy filing.

3) It is not impossible to fire a teacher. In the private sector cheating is very possible and happens all the time.

4) No we do not pay more taxes than "socialized nations". We have very low tax rates compared to Europe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP

5) Gas taxes? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fuel_tax_in_OECD_countries,_2010..png Ours are very low.

6) In theory there is double taxation but not in practice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_tax_in_the_United_States

"However, the effective corporate tax rate in 2011 fell to 12.1%, its lowest level since before World War I."

Capital gains tax is 15% (and I think 20% over a million or something like that).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Total_Effective_Tax_Rates_2011.jpg

Once you throw in deductions, its still lower than normal tax rates (most people who have capital gains are wealthy).

7) Obama's deficits have never been over 2 trillion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Total_Effective_Tax_Rates_2011.jpg

I would also like to point out, most of those were from the economic crash and loss of tax revenue than new spending.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Revenue_and_Expense_to_GDP_Chart_1993_-_2008.png

8) I do not know the actual cost of ObamaCare. I dispute that it will dramatically raise health prices. Care to explain why (with some sources)?

9) Reagan tried cutting taxes. It lead to massive deficits. It doesn't work. It isn't some proven fact. It's a lie Republicans tell in order to "starve the beast". Cut taxes so that we have less money to spend and then demand more tax cuts and spending reductions to boost the economy and cut the deficit.

There is a percentage that will bring in the most tax revenue that balances growth and revenue. It isn't lower than it is right now because the government spends the money it gets in productive ways.

10) Cut defense and discretionary 100% and you're are making a surplus in our still bad economy. Or we could go back to before the Bush tax cuts when we were extremely close to a surplus under Clinton. With some targeted cuts, some new revenue and some time, we will have a budget surplus. It will require changed to entitlements and cuts to defense. Social Security also needs some reform but it isn't a part of the budget (since it funds itself) so we can leave that out.

11) The debt ceiling means very little. Deficits mean more.