No fair! you said it better.

> Question wrote:

> u lie!!!

> Han wrote:

>The lies are in here

believe the lie!

(hmz, oh wait, arg, never mind )

> DPS wrote:

No, they're not.  Believe me I wish they were but they're not.

No great intellectual achievement which is why the "average" person earns my contempt.

There is no altruism in business and no company is going to sacrifice their wealth for the "greater good".  Government on the other hand is mandated to act in the best interests of it's people (at least mine is) so they are the only entity with the ability and drive to START one of the massive public works projects I suggested.

The average person is perfectly capable of getting through school having a job and living their life while making their own decisions and this will usually never require a tenth of their intellect. We don't need lawyers telling us what kind of food to eat or whether or not we should use ipods in a crosswalk. But they make laws about this on the assumption that the average person is too dumb and needs guidance from the state on everyday personal decisions. They do it in the name of health or safety or whatever but really its just some jerkoff lawyers who think they are so much better than everyone else and should tell everyone how to live.

Businesses and entrepreneurs put their own money at risk everyday meaning they could lose it all to build things like factories that make products people need whether it is altruistic or not doesn't matter. The point is they are risking their own money so if the business doesn't have customers than they lose money giving them plenty of incentive to put their money into things that can be made efficiently enough to be profitable and that people are going to use. Public works on the other hand use taxpayer money and whether or not there is actually demand for what they are making is only of passing interest to the politician who spends the money. All he has to do is sell the idea to his constituents who probably don't know anything about what is going to be built (and who are according to you mostly made up of ignorant dolts anyways) unlike the entrepreneur who is spending his own money and therefore has a vested interest in becoming knowledgeable about the industry and market he is trying to enter.

>>whether or not there is actually demand for what they are making is only of passing interest to the politician who spends the money.<<

If it is of interest at all. They are motivated to be inefficient -- they're NEVER under budget because they realize they'll be funded less in the future; given less power. They always go over budget no matter that they could do more with less and they always request more. An inefficient waste of a whole nation's quality of life is born.

> DPS wrote:

>>The average person will stand outside a door that clearly swings out and be surprised when somene opens it and hits them.  The average person will stand in front of the aisle marked computers at Best Buy and say, "Where are the computers?"  I'm not talking about health or safety issues, that's general self destructive behaviour and par for the course.  I'm talking about blatant stupidity.

So I take it you have never tried to push a door marked pull or locked your keys in your car or done some other stupid thing? And these observations of yours are justification for the government trashing our liberties and coming in to make decisions for us because we are essentially animals in the eyes of politicians?

>>1 businesses don't provide products and services because people need them they provide them because they can make money off it.

Right but the customers are looking out for there own interests as well so they will buy things they need. I hope you don't suggest the state should decide for me what I need.

>> 2 It does matter because if, as I believe, they don't care about the people buying their product beyond the fact that they are buying it then a business can always move to greener pastures if a nations economy fails.  They may have a vested interest in the economy doing well but if it looks on the brink of collapse they're not gonna risk breaking themselves to save it.

Free markets have their ups and downs but they are self correcting. If we left the economy alone right now prices would come down to a point where investors would be attracted again assuming we don't raise taxes or over regulate or do something else to scare them off like we did in the great depression. I think any reasonable person would rather live in the USA on its worst days than under the Soviet or Chinese systems on their best. Also what gives you the idea that planned economies don't have collapses?

>>True, public works are always net zero if not negative investments, that's part of why private business would never invest in one.  The point of the public works projects I mentioned wasn't to make money, it was to stimulate the economy by creating work for businesses and people.

Money and prices are just a way of rationing resources if something doesn't pay for itself than it was also a waste of resources. If you build something and it wouldn't be able to make a return in the marketplace you didn't just waste something intangible like money you probably wasted resources, human, natural or otherwise too.

"And these observations of yours are justification for the government trashing our liberties and coming in to make decisions for us because we are essentially animals in the eyes of politicians?"

Did I ever say they were justifications for that?  All I said in my original comment is that the average person doesn't understand the real issues in a protest or election, you disagreed, I offered those observations to clarify I was not speaking of people doing things that are unsafe or unhealthy, which isn't overly intelligent in and of itself, but people just a general lack of sense and intelligence.

"Also what gives you the idea that planned economies don't have collapses?"

What gave you the impression I said any such thing.  I simply said that if businesses are not altruistic then rather than sacrificing resources to save a collapsing economy they'll take there business elsewhere.

a socialist government would try to prop up failing companies which it thinks supports the socialist government...

You know, like the French not completing a railroad through Paris...

Or supporting AIG but not say oh the right of Wells Fargo to pay it's stimulus funds back.

Only retards buy into this rhetoric that government spending creates wealth.

It's that simple. You either agree with the statement, are aware that you do not understand basic economics and cannot judge its truth value, or you're mentally challenged.

I love the new TV ads saying that there's no debate, "strong" environmental legislation creates jobs (a preemtive strike on reality preceeding the huge new "carbon" taxes coming). You couldn't offer a more ignorant and misleading ad for public consumption.

> DPS wrote:
>>Ah you've mixed up cause and effect.  I'm not saying they're stupid because they don't get it I'm saying they don't get it because they're stupid.  As I said I came to the conclusion the average person is stupid primarily through observing and interacting with people.<<

Plenty of people think they know just what the banks or car companies or whoever needs to do right now. But those industry are so complicated it takes years of education and experience in it to understand it. Because the general public doesn't have a clue about it doesn't mean they are stupid people it just means they shouldn't be offering opinions on it or insisting their elected officials implement solutions that they don't fully understand.

It's like should the passengers on an airliner be voting to decide what the pilot does even if they are all rocket scientist but have no piloting experience? Of course not.

>>I suppose you could read that.  I was simply trying to illustrate that while businesses do have a vested interest in the economy doing well their assistance is unreliable.  Since industry is not altruistic if the economy starts to collapse businesses that can will jump ship and set up elsewhere rather than try and save it.  Government doesn't have that option so they have a vested interest in the economy doing well and no way out if it.  In theory anyway.<<

Obama and the democrats have done a fantastic job scaring investors away from this country. Capital can just as easily go to China or India these days.

"Capital can just as easily go to China or India these days."

Exactly my point.  I'm not saying you should just rely on government to solve the problem but you also can't just rely on corporations and industry.  If you rely solely on corporations then if things go wrong they'll bail and you're screwed.  That's what I was getting at by pointing out that business isn't altruistic.

Now I think you've all gotten a misunderstanding of my position.  I do not think the government on it's own can save the economy, my earlier reference to Nazi Germany's public works projects was to counter the point made that you can't stimulate yourself out of a recession/depression; they did.  However I'm not going to rely solely on businesses to solve the problem either.