2. I’ve never argued about inventors getting what the market offers. On the other hand, paying people who aren’t worth 300-400 times an average is not acceptable, regardless of your market-bearing argument. It is this false belief that is causing the resentment I mentioned. As a result, employees who actually move the company forward through hard work don’t feel like they should care, do less, do worse and eventually return less in productivity. CEOs do not provide the return they are expected to for the money they earn. Ayn Rand has been read and it’s not Ten Commandment material.

3. Your example is unsuccessful in proving anything. Providing for a decent living wage should be mandatory in this era … it shouldn’t be difficult to pay someone $8/hour when the CEO is making $2500/hour. Morality was never in argument here. I do have a right to tell you what is right or wrong … there are societal rules you must follow … and, be sure, if you hurt me in any way, I’ll hurt you worse. Your pursuit of happiness better not cost me or you’ll pay in the end.

4. Again, “if there existed an ideal form of government with ideal controls we wouldn’t be having this discussion”. Regardless, government is necessary. And in the end, government, as effective or ineffective as it is, only reflects the state of society at any given point in time. It’s the Bernie Madoffs and Kenneth Lays of the world that prove effective regulation is necessary to reign in unbridled greed. Human nature NEEDS to be controlled … why would we provide guidance and limits to our children and not to us?

5. You can have your prosperity as long as it stays within the rules of the game. Those rules include living with others and paying your share of taxes to support the system … nobody has asked you to work for free … just realize you are part of a planet of people, no better than anyone else, where you could disappear in a second if you crossed someone the wrong way.

Please read, if you haven’t, The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith.

2. Why shouldn’t the inventor of something be able to make whatever the market will pay the inventor? Why shouldn’t the person running the company be allowed to make what the market will sustain? What jobs would exist for the workers if not for the incentive of wealth??? None. Read yer Ayn Rand.

3. You cannot impose a fair society. If you make sure everyone has at least $100,000 then the new level of poverty is $100,001. You cannot legislate morality. Nor do you have a right to tell me what is right or wrong. The founders were clear. You have the right to PURSUE happiness. There is no guarantee of attaining it. It is the pursuit that is the fun part anyway.

4. Hiroshima? Nagasaki? Darfur? The Shoah??? All of these are man-made events that resulted from the meddling of government. From the rise of totalitarian regimes to government designed solutions for dealing with them. Society exists for one reason. Protection from the state of nature. That is the only legitimate government interest. Read your Hobbes (and no, not “Calvin and . . .”).

5. Peace broseph. We’ll get along just fine. Just let me live my life as I see fit and hands off my prosperity. Keep pushing me and I will simply stop prospering. I’ll gladly shoot myself in the foot rather than work for free.

Don’t put the cart before the horse … the markets should never have gone to such an extreme to have to NEED to be corrected “freely”. My point all along has been to lessen the extremes, partly due to speculation and mostly due to greed. If there existed an ideal form of government with ideal controls we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Then again, if unbridled greed wasn’t wildly running about maybe there wouldn’t be a need for controls and government.

The Asian rise had more to do with the domestics producing SHIAT. Sure, unfair trade rules exist and NEED to be addressed and that IS the government’s fault … but there’s no reason to build garbage for many, many years and then cry about losing market share.

To stealing from Ron Paul, the housing market should never have risen so high … partly speculation, partly too-low interest rates. Add to that the derivatives gambling and suckers buying up worthless paper, and you have a banking crisis that wouldn’t have existed if this paper was controlled or disallowed.

To saving jobs, if you don’t feel that having a more balanced society in terms of income and wealth, and having the rich pay their share then that is where we differ in opinion. Too many rich AND too many poor isn’t a healthy environment for prosperity as it only breeds resentment … why does a CEO in America make an average of 300-400 times the average employee? That is absurd. There is NO justifiable excuse for that disparity … NONE. I’m not saying setting a standard minimum wage across the country is ideal but it starts addressing the issue of poverty. A nation of peasants NOW will be what in 50 years when China rules the world?

To equilibrium and nature, did all those innocent people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki have to die? Did the Jews have to be killed? Why is Darfur what it is? It’s easy for you to provide your perspective on this thread from where you stand in life … I wonder how you’d respond being in someone else’s shoes.

To being a scoundrel, I wonder what the world would be like if we were all like you. Would we all try and be lawyers? Would we all try and screw the other? Would we all not understand that controls are NECESSARY?

What’s wrong with letting the markets self-correct? Most analysts of any credibility are saying that it was government programs and meddling in the 1980s (at the behest of the Detroit 3 no less) that led to the rise of the Asian manufacturers in the U.S. Quite literally, the government’s plans to help out the D3 by relaxing some standards ended with our markets further opening to non-reciprocal trade deals. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but can you honestly say that us free market guys are wrong? It puzzles me when I hear folks complaining about the need for more regulations as a result of the “failure” of the free markets, which implies we had free markets to begin with. We all know that’s not true. We know that the S.E.C. had plenty of power to investigate Madoff and that they did so at least three times. Human failure will always occur. Lets just accept it.

Heck, lets take a simple example that I’ll steal from Ron Paul. In a truly free market, housing prices tumble. When the prices reach a justifiable level then folks will start buying again. Some decry this as an abomination. How can we let people lose their homes??? We MUST help people have homes!!! Except that half the people who weren’t in homes during the good times weren’t in them because of the ridiculously inflated prices. More poor folks could afford a home in California if we weren’t asking $800,000 for a 2 bedroom 1.5 bath house.

You want to save jobs? Guess what, you can’t do it unless you abolish things like the minimum wage (at a bare minimum, you can’t have a national minimum wage because 7 and change in Montana is a lot different than it would be in NY New York). I don’t care what government programs you throw at saving jobs. Other people around the world WILL work for less and EVENTUALLY you will bleed the middle-class dry and the rich will have jumped ship with what remains of their wealth. But how will the people live!? We’ll return to the robber baron days!!! Perhaps, but which is worse: Working and scraping by, or not working and wondering where your next meal is coming from?

If a wage is unfair then no one will work for the robber barons. But scabs will! No, there is no such thing as our notion of scabs. A scab is someone who values a job differently than the former employee. That scab is making due with the pay he is receiving. But employers pay scabs more because they know it is for just a short period! If the former workers simply quit then the managers would have to maintain those scab’s wages and the free market has dictated a fair wage. Maybe I’m just a lil’ too taoist, but equilibrium tends to occur in nature. Entropy, after-all, is the most stable state is it not? It is only when we attempt to impose order where none should exist that instability occurs.

p.s. To all of ya’ll who want more regulation, lemme just give ya lil’ warnin’ about scoundrels like me. As a libertarian, I HATE regulations, but I’m in law school. As a law student, I LOVE all the new laws we’re bandying about. The more laws ya’ll make, the more loopholes you create for folks like me to screw ya’ll over. Why? Because only lawyers and other similarly inclined folks have any chance in heck of making sense of all the nonsense regulations we have. You can’t blame folks for taking advantage of perfectly legal situations that are created by the mind-numbing desire of most citizens to be taken care of cradle-grave. Don’t believe my arguments? Read Bleak House.

As for “chimps”, it’s not a racial epithet … it’s in reference to the intelligence of those who post stupidity.

‘strongbad’, good to see you’re wising up. The argument that this program pulls sales from the future is baseless in that it can’t be proven statistically in this economic environment … it COULD pull a sale one month, or six months, or three years from now for those with the ability to buy AND who fit this small group within the restrictions … but what about those who cannot buy even with a $4500 discount … they won’t be pulled in.

The government MAY have kept its cards to its chest by waiting to see how this program, as limited as it is, goes and MAY later add a larger majority of the population with CARS, not just trucks, with higher fuel economy limits. If things get worse economically and sales fall flat for any significant period of time then they may offer a new round for the rest who didn’t qualify the first time … and this would be further stimulus to keep people employed and the economy moving. Now, I may be giving them far too much credit and they may not offer anything more for anyone else.

I believe it’s to stimulate the economy, first … and they’ve structured it to look like an environmental and fuel saving initiative.

Instead, my 12.7 mpg truck will continue to rumble down the road for the next few years.

If the object was to get old cars off the road permanently, then its good. But if it was just to sell a lot of more fuel efficient cars, then I am still confused as to why it couldn’t apply to any model year car (which would NOT be crushed). No one is touting how great it is to get rid of these old beasts, the media is saying how good it is that dealers are selling a lot of cars. Why can’t I get a $4500 subsidy to get me out of my 2005 truck and into a hybrid or smaller more fuel efficient truck? We’d still sell a car and people keep their jobs, right?

So is the point to get rid of old fuel hungry cars, or to keep people employed?

That’s exactly my point. After the CARS program ends, new car sales for the rest of 2009 will be absolutely dismal and we’ll have a 3 billion dollar hole burning in our collective pockets. In my opinion the net result of new car sales in 2009 would have been the same with or without the program. Now you can argue that 3 billion is a drop in the bucket compared to other bailouts and government waste programs (yeah sure stick the war in Iraq/Afghanistan in that category if you want…spending is spending!), but that’s not a true validation. And in terms of environmental gains, well we will have to wait and see…but by the rumblings I have heard seem to imply the government is keeping the numbers tight-lipped b/c the results aren’t all that impressive. Anyway, I never lost sleep over the amount of C02 my neighbor produced when he drove his old rusting F-150 since as his second vehicle it was mostly parked in the driveway and not out on the road. Now he’s got a shiny new F-150…and has driven it every day this week. Now obviously not everyone is trading in their second (rarely driven) cars, but I thought it was an interesting observation none-the-less.

And what’s with the whole “chimps” thing? Is everyone who disagrees with you a chimp? I’ve heard it used as a racial slur before, but I can assure you that I am not black. So come up with a more creative way to insult people. (That way I can at least be entertained)

’05Z88′, I’ve never argued that sales wouldn’t drop after the program’s deadline … and your point is? What, that you’re back to where you started before the program? Fine. But take into account that taking some sort of action to stimulate the industry provided jobs to many for some period of time, which would not have occurred, has removed some junk, albeit a limited amount due to low, upper-limit, mileage restrictions, off the roads, and still provided some level of return for the government in tax revenues from this turnover in money. Maybe you should stop thinking like the typical, ignorant American that you are and learn some basic economic theories before spouting off nonsense.

Look, doing nothing in this economic environment is worse than doing something … sure, government spending is never perfect but one way or another you’d be paying for this malaise … better a little stimulus through tax dollars than prolonged and deepened suffering.

‘strongbad’, are you really borrowing much and from how far in the future? This program is limited to a low-mileage limit trade-in which for all intents and purposes includes mostly trucks … if some of those who traded in could keep driving their “clunker” without this program in existence, a number nobody can state, how can anyone pin down a future trade-in date in this economic environment without this program?

‘Sector’, the chimp went off foolishly so I stepped in with FACTS to set him straight … that’s right, FACTS.

I’d rather wait on a Focus than drive of today in a corolla, too.

BTW, you can’t Clunker that 1976 Monza

where did h82w8 talk about the war? Its all the same bull that runs rampant of accusing sides of what they think they know. Atleast I have read a good chuck of the current Health Care bill so when I bitch, i know what Im bitching about…. I suggest everyone do the same to some extent: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/text

Back on topic

I feel that while some people NEED a large truck (farming, load hauling, trailer, business), most trucks are bought by people who just want a truck to look cool. (take the H3) I guess it is their choice, but dont bitch when gas goes up. This was your chance to get a smaller car…..

Jim

Yes, better to keep the unwashed masses wondering what the goal of this boondoggle of a program was really all about.

So much for that whole change, hope and transparency thing. That was all so 2008.