Quote: (09-14-2015 05:59 AM)Samseau Wrote:
I support competition WITHIN a nation's borders and not from without, and I cited the numerous social benefits to justify this practice.
The problem with Austrian economics is that it's bluepill. It doesn't understand that men need jobs at home or there will be no families. It doesn't matter if they are the "best" at something or not. Competition should be encouraged amongst members of the same country to promote fitness but not from abroad.
Coming from a more centrist perspective than many folks here (it might be my Massachusetts Puritan heritage), my own issue with free-market libertarian ideology is it seems to assume as a given that a free market of competition is what corporations actually want; meanwhile right now I'm dealing with a laptop which won't charge because I'm using a non-OEM wall adapter which didn't transmit the correct code to the onboard lockout chip over its superfluous third wire data connection.
A captive audience is one that pays up. Why would corporate America really want a smaller government, and fewer regulations? It's my impression that they've been pitching for the same team for a while now. If by some miracle a small government that kept its hands off trade issues were magically created, it would simply have money thrown at it until it was once again on the payroll.
You could argue that the reason the Clintons are a bunch of crooks is because that's what the market demanded of them. And I feel that globalism is finally not a left or right issue, but simply an unavoidable consequence of progressing technology. Wal-Mart didn't destroy the economies of small towns, at least not directly, it was advancing technology that allowed something like Wal-Mart to exist. A niche opened up for it, and in it came, as surely as night follows day.
To adapt a phrase: even if you reject the globalism, the globalism will surely come to you. The great struggle of the Trump administration will be attempting to turn the clock back with a clock that I'm not sure it's possible to move the hands in that direction on, at least not without paying an enormous cost, which given that even "Real America" tends to like its Netflix, hamburgers, shiny trucks, retirement funds, and relatively inexpensive consumer goods, we might finally not be willing to pay out for.
Oh, and fuck us hard if they make that silly Rapture-bunny binny Sarah Palin Secretary of the Interior. I'm remembering this early 1990s made for TV movie called "By Dawn's Early Light" where most of the cabinet is killed by an accidental nuclear strike, and the Secretary of the Interior becomes acting president with all the launch codes. I'm picturing Palin sitting up there in the war room on the "Looking Glass" 747 trying to puzzle out What Would Jesus Do in this situation. Shit!