I am very confused about where libertarians stand on a lot of issues, mostly thanks to the mainstream media. Can anyone answer my questions?
-Isn't a nationalized currency like the dollar necessary to maintain order? Wouldn't competing currencies in the same markets really cause a lot of chaos?
-Why should Walmart be allowed to sell imported products in the USA that were made from forced labor? Doesn't that violate personal liberty? Also, why should Walmart be allowed to drive prices so low that they end up destroying almost all other small business competition?
-I agree that there should be no income tax; however, while we are stuck with it for now, shouldn't we be making people like Mitt Romney and Warren Buffett pay their fair share since they only make money of off capital gains taxes?
-Doesn't stimulus spending create jobs to a certain point? If an economic stimulus is the government putting money back into the private sector, how is that bad? That's just like a tax break.
-If GM and the big banks would have been allowed to go bankrupt, wouldn't we have slipped into another depression based on how heavily the economy relied on them? I always hear from anarcho-capitalists that they would have been replaced, but by who? And when? -If it weren't for anti-trust laws, wouldn't all big corporations conspire together to drive up the costs of all products so consumers would be forced to buy them at high prices, thus driving up their profits?
-Hasn't global warming already been proven due to the greenhouse effect? CO2 clogs up the atmosphere and blankets the Earth. As a result of that, more heat gets trapped inside causing global temperatures to rise. Doesn't this mean we should tax businesses based on how much carbon dioxide they output on the Earth?
-Shouldn't people be forced to purchase health insurance? If they don't, when they get in a major accident, they will end up being taken to a hospital (which receives taxpayer dollars) anyways and being taken care of on the taxpayer dime. Otherwise, wouldn't they just die in the streets? Wouldn't being forced to buy health insurance solve many economic problems the government faces? What would be your solution?
-Last but not least, wouldn't people die without welfare? What would happen if a successful person loses his job because his company went bankrupt or moved jobs overseas? He would have no money to cover his back until he found his next job, which would be God-knows how long.
Please don't laugh if I sound stupid. I just want to learn more because it's hard to get answers since people are always claiming that they're right.
"Isn't a nationalized currency like the dollar necessary to maintain order? Wouldn't competing currencies in the same markets really cause a lot of chaos?"
Theoretically possible but probably not. People pick certain currencies because they are stable. If it's not stable then people won't use it at all.
"-Why should Walmart be allowed to sell imported products in the USA that were made from forced labor? Doesn't that violate personal liberty? Also, why should Walmart be allowed to drive prices so low that they end up destroying almost all other small business competition?"
As for the first then you're right that they shouldn't be allowed to, or rather they shouldn't be allowed to own or produce such materials in the first place. As for the second question, if walmart is more efficient at producing things than anyone else then why shouldn't they be allowed to? The point of business is to satisfy consumers. The highest quality product at the lowest cost. We have the amazing standard of living because more efficient companies working at a higher economy of scale (an important concept) were allowed to flourish and give us a huge number of products.
"-I agree that there should be no income tax; however, while we are stuck with it for now, shouldn't we be making people like Mitt Romney and Warren Buffett pay their fair share since they only make money of off capital gains taxes?"
What do you mean that they only make money off of capital gains taxes? As for taxes, if they must exist then let them be graduated income taxes IMO. With that said investments are literally triple taxed in our current economy.
"-Doesn't stimulus spending create jobs to a certain point? If an economic stimulus is the government putting money back into the private sector, how is that bad? That's just like a tax break."
Stimulus prolongs recession. There isn't room here to explain why, but just know that there's a recesison why reasons happen.
"-If it weren't for anti-trust laws, wouldn't all big corporations conspire together to drive up the costs of all products so consumers would be forced to buy them at high prices, thus driving up their profits?"
Competition, both between the existing corporations and new ones which arrive. Even if possible, you're perfectly right that this would drive up profits, which continually increases the reward for firms entering the market.
"-Hasn't global warming already been proven due to the greenhouse effect? CO2 clogs up the atmosphere and blankets the Earth. As a result of that, more heat gets trapped inside causing global temperatures to rise. Doesn't this mean we should tax businesses based on how much carbon dioxide they output on the Earth?"
This is another issue, and the best existing argument for government intervention. With this said, the existence of anthropomorphic global warming and its extent has by no means been definitively proven.
"-Shouldn't people be forced to purchase health insurance? If they don't, when they get in a major accident, they will end up being taken to a hospital (which receives taxpayer dollars) anyways and being taken care of on the taxpayer dime. Otherwise, wouldn't they just die in the streets? Wouldn't being forced to buy health insurance solve many economic problems the government faces? What would be your solution?"
The government is the reason for high health costs. Most markets in the economy are well run with high quality and low prices no? Then why is it that healthcare, the industry which the federal government and states have been heavily intervening in for a century, costs are spiraling out of control?
The Libertarian reasoning and solution
"Last but not least, wouldn't people die without welfare? What would happen if a successful person loses his job because his company went bankrupt or moved jobs overseas? He would have no money to cover his back until he found his next job, which would be God-knows how long."
We live in a democracy, which means that in theory at least 51 percent of the people support what the government does. If over half the population is willing to give the government a blank check to take care of the poor, why would they not voluntarily give up some portion of their own money to give people this themselves? The citizens of the United States give hundreds of billions of dollars to charity voluntarily. So what's the problem?
JJ will be here in .5 seconds to give you about a million links, but if you ever want a one on one conversation feel free to PM me, I'm more than happy to help out newbies.
"Please don't laugh if I sound stupid. I just want to learn more because it's hard to get answers since people are always claiming that they're right."
We don't laugh at people who are trying to discover things and learn, we only laugh at those who don't know what they're talking about and are still vindictive towards others. You're on the right track and your questions are admirable. Keep it up :)
Re:environmental issues specifically, I definitely think the market takes care of this exactly to the extent that the buying public cares about it, and the government isn't going to be able to make legislation in advance of the buying public's demand for that kind of change. In other words, private people demanding products that are demonstrably better for the environment, drive the companies to provide those products. Eventually, those which don't, lose so much of the market that they either go out of business or get on board. Again, I cite the car manufacturers. These guys invest a LOT into market research, and they make exactly what they think people want to buy. They can make these changes to their products long before the government gets around to forcing them to do so.
Welcome to the forum. You raise a lot of good questions.
I first want to make you aware of the Ultimate Beginner Meta Thread. There you'll find many links to resources on virtually any topic you can think of.
Vis4Vendetta:-Isn't a nationalized currency like the dollar necessary to maintain order? Wouldn't competing currencies in the same markets really cause a lot of chaos?
Absolutely not, on both counts. In fact, you get more "chaos" with the legal tender laws and fiat money system we have currently.
See:
Gold standard
Fiat money advocates, aka "Greenbackers"
Federal Reserve
Vis4Vendetta:Why should Walmart be allowed to sell imported products in the USA that were made from forced labor? Doesn't that violate personal liberty?
You say "allowed"...How do you propose preventing them from engaging in the act of importing goods? Do you have some method that doesn't that violate personal liberty?
Vis4Vendetta:Also, why should Walmart be allowed to drive prices so low that they end up destroying almost all other small business competition?
Why shouldn't they?
Also, do you have some method of preventing them from doing so that doesn't that violate personal liberty?
See also: Monopoly & Predatory pricing (aka "commodity hoarding") (Antitrust; the Microsoft case)
Vis4Vendetta:I agree that there should be no income tax; however, while we are stuck with it for now, shouldn't we be making people like Mitt Romney and Warren Buffett pay their fair share since they only make money of off capital gains taxes?
You would first have to define "fair share". The top 20 percent is already paying 70% of ALL federal taxes, and almost 90% of all federal income taxes.
What exactly would their "fair share" be? 95%? 99%?
Vis4Vendetta:Doesn't stimulus spending create jobs to a certain point?
There's a difference between creating jobs and creating work. The government can always create work for people to do...because it has the monopoly on legal force. The government can always put a gun to your head, take your money, and pay someone else to do...well, anything.
The government could take your money through taxation, then take your property through eminent domain and pay you a "fair" price for it (with your own money it just took from you), and then pay other people to raze your house to the ground. (There's some jobs!) Then it could take more of your money and pay other people to remove all the rubble. (More jobs!) Then it could take even more money and pay still other people to dig a hole where your house was. (Holy crap jobs!) And finally, they could hire even more people to fill the hole back in again. (Dammit why hasn't anyone thought of this before!)
But the reality is, for one thing, those are not actual long term jobs producing anything the market values. At best they're temporary projects that might pay a few people for a few weeks. (Look at the stimulus figures, and you'll see this to be the case. Not only do the jobs not last, but you're looking at projects that spend anywhere from $50k-$1 million+ per job "created".)
Second, it's tough to really consider these actual "jobs". They're more just "make-work" projects...stuff people are paid to do just so the government can justify paying them.
This does not improve efficiency. This does not increase production of anything the market desires. This does not benefit the economy...
If an economic stimulus is the government putting money back into the private sector, how is that bad? That's just like a tax break.
Where did the government get the money in the first place? How does bucketing a bunch of water from one end of a pool and dumping it in the other end of the pool improve anything?
See: Why Doesn't Stimulus Work?, The Multiplier Effect
Vis4Vendetta:If GM and the big banks would have been allowed to go bankrupt, wouldn't we have slipped into another depression based on how heavily the economy relied on them? I always hear from anarcho-capitalists that they would have been replaced, but by who? And when?
If the economy "relied" on them so much, why were they bankrupt? Is not the whole test of whether a business is providing value to the economy in a free market the profitability of the firm?
As for who would replace them...whoever bought up the assets in the bankruptcy sale. All those plants and all that equipment and all those workers wouldn't just disappear. Other people would come in to buy up all that valuable capital and they would likely manage it in a way that actually turned a profit...instead of pumping out shitty cars that no one wanted to buy.
See Peter Schiff:
Vis4Vendetta:If it weren't for anti-trust laws, wouldn't all big corporations conspire together to drive up the costs of all products so consumers would be forced to buy them at high prices, thus driving up their profits?
No. Not possible.
See: Predatory pricing (aka "commodity hoarding")
Playlist: Monopoly & Anti-trust
Also: Antitrust: The Case for Repeal
Vis4Vendetta:Hasn't global warming already been proven due to the greenhouse effect?
No. Not unless you call this bullshit actual science. And of course, the emails don't exactly reflect well on academic integrity.
Vis4Vendetta:CO2 clogs up the atmosphere and blankets the Earth. As a result of that, more heat gets trapped inside causing global temperatures to rise.
Then how come on Al Gore's own CO2/tempurature timeline, the CO2 increase virtually always occurs after the temperature increase?
If A causes B, doesn't A have to occur before B??
Vis4Vendetta:Doesn't this mean we should tax businesses based on how much carbon dioxide they output on the Earth?
Even if it were true (which the evidence points to the exact opposite), but even if it were the way the global alarmists say, this still does not justify aggressing upon others.
Vis4Vendetta:Shouldn't people be forced to purchase health insurance? If they don't, when they get in a major accident, they will end up being taken to a hospital (which receives taxpayer dollars) anyways and being taken care of on the taxpayer dime.
What if they cannot afford insurance? Are you not suggesting they would be subsidized anyway? So how exactly does forcing everything through a government bureaucracy improve things?
And this is to say nothing of the morality and ethics (or lack thereof), let alone the sheer absurdity of declaring it legal for a government or even a majority of the people to literally force the minority to buy something.
Studies show people who go to church tend to be happier and live longer and healthier. Doesn't this mean we should mandate that everyone attend a church service at least 1 hour per week (or some other arbitrary schedule)? Oh but we have "freedom of religion", you say? Okay fine. It doesn't matter what kind of service, so long as it's religious. If you don't go, you'll probably get sick more often, and you're more likely to become depressed...and this will impose a cost on the rest of society. So you should be forced to go to church because it's good for you.
And hey, we put it up to a vote and 51% say you should be forced to go. Democracy is the best. Majority rules. So go to church or we'll put you in a cage. (Where you'll be taken care of on taxpayer dime...I guess we're right back where we started, eh?)
See also: Health care
Vis4Vendetta:Otherwise, wouldn't they just die in the streets?
Why would people be left to die in the streets? You're suggesting that people don't care enough about their fellow man to render care for him unless they are sure they will get compensated for their service...so we have to forcibly take money from everyone to ensure that anyone who helps a sick or injured person in the streets will be paid...because everyone is just so selfish that if that guarantee of payment wasn't there, everyone would just be left to die in the streets.
For one thing, that's a pretty shitty view of humanity. For another, it doesn't make logical sense. If you plan on enforcing this mandate through democratic vote, that would by definition mean that a majority of the people were in favor of helping others in the first place, right? So if enough people who think others should be helped exist to vote such a thing in in the first place, what makes you think people wouldn't get taken care of without the gun being put to their head?
And for yet another, it doesn't hold up to history...
Dr. Ron Paul, MD:
"I practiced medicine before Medicaid [...] we never turned anybody away from the hospital...and we've given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves, assume responsibility for ourselves — our friends, our neighbors, our churches would do it. This whole idea — that's the reason the cost is so high: we dump it on the government, it becomes a bureaucracy — it becomes special interest, it cowtows to the insurance companies, and the drug companies."
Vis4Vendetta:Wouldn't being forced to buy health insurance solve many economic problems the government faces? What would be your solution?
Absolutely not. Our solution: freedom.
(in particular, How to Fix Health Care Without Spending a Dime — Part 1, Part 2)
Vis4Vendetta:Last but not least, wouldn't people die without welfare?
We didn't really see government welfare programs until about the 1960s. Are you suggesting everyone died before 1960? Or that 1960 is when the world began? Or that people don't die now, when we have welfare?
I'm not sure what you're getting at.
Vis4Vendetta:What would happen if a successful person loses his job because his company went bankrupt or moved jobs overseas? He would have no money to cover his back until he found his next job, which would be God-knows how long.
First off, you're assuming this successful person has absolutely zero savings. I'm not sure how "successful" such a person could be. Even in todays United States, with all the welfare and unemployment benefits and food stamps and work programs, etc...people still put money away for "rainy days" and "emergencies". Hell, it's a rule of thumb to maintain a savings of at least 6 months worth of minimum expenses. Why the hell is that as common as it is? Because not everyone (not yet anyway) has developed this entitlement mindset that no matter what, someone is going to take care of them...no matter what someone is going to put a gun to someone else's head and take their money so that it can be given to you if you lose your job.
There still exist a lot of people who don't believe in that. There still exist people who believe in taking care of themselves.
Second, you're assuming this man has absolutely zero friends or family to help him out. This is a stretch, to say the least.
Third, you're assuming there exist absolutely zero charities and churches who would provide this man with some kind of aid...a place to stay, food to eat, personal necessities...even a job. This is not just a stretch, it's virtual nonsense.
See: Freeloaders with John Stossel
You ask a lot of good questions. I think if you're truly interested in finding answers, you'll find some very compelling ones in these resources I've provided for you here. I highly encourage you to check them out, especially the meta-thread. In fact, my single most important suggestion, if you do nothing else, view the five videos listed at the bottom of that post.
You won't look at the world the same way again.
Welcome.
A simple way to think about competing currencies (and to address your concerns) is:
1. Understand that money is merely a commodity that is traded. You might trade your labor or time for money. You might trade money for bread. It is only different in that, currently, with the Federal Reserve system and legal tender laws, banks (specifically the FED) have a monopoly on the creation of money that must be accepted as payment in trades or for debts.
2. Realizing it is just a commodity, ask yourself if multiple varieties of similar commodities are bad, or if they create chaos. Is there chaos onthe markets because there are hundreds of types and brands of bread? Is there rampant chaos because we have hundreds of different cell phones we can choose between? Of course not; the best examples are used and traded for/with most often. Money would be no different so long as we abolish central banking and legal tender laws.
Glad you came to ask questions. Stick around to ask more and discuss any and everything with us. Don't be afraid to ask anything. (;
Also, as far as the rich paying their "fair share," what is their "fair share?"
http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42870
In 2007, the top 1% earned 19.4% of all income earned and paid 28.1% of the income taxes collected. The top 20% earned 55.9% while paying 68.9% of the taxes. And Neo is right on capital gains being taxed multiple times.
The only one worth following is the one who leads... not the one who pulls; for it is not the direction that condemns the puller, it is the rope that he holds.