From: jfh@beach.cis.ufl.edu (James F. Hranicky)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,comp.org.eff.talk,alt.amateur-comp,soc.culture.usa,alt.activism
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Date: 12 Jan 93 23:59:20 GMT
Followup-To: alt.politics.libertarian
Organization: Univ. of Florida CIS Dept.

In article <C0Ly3D.2G5@newcastle.ac.uk> Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt) writes:
>
>>Quite so.  And this is where your hard won knowledge of supply
>>and demand can be put to profitable use.  When the government
>>subsidizes any particular category of goods, the price of those
>>goods is artificially inflated by the stimulated demand for them.
>
>This looks like pseudo-economics.  The government is generally
>involved in the production of such goods, as well as their
>consumption.

Hey hey! So much for the law of supply and demand, eh? Well, obviously,
government spending can simply evade the law of supply and demand!
Hey Great!!!!

Let's subsidize everything, so everyone will have everything!!! Let's
give the great god State the power to give everyone something for 
nothing FOREVER.

Alas, now one must ask the question, "What is the function of price?"

Price balances supply and demand, to prevent greater consumption than
production. With the competition in the free market, eventually the price
of the more universally desired goods will hover around the cost of
production. Why? Because high prices in a given area of the economy send
a signal to the "lousy rich greedy bastards" of the world that they can
invest in this area and make a great big nasty *profit* (no!) from this
area. Now, production will be stimulated in this area with the new
investments, gradually increasing the supply, and gradually causing the
price of this good to fall, making it more available to everyone. Three
curses to capitalism for bringing prosperity to man at less than an
infinite speed!!!!

 The price of a good represents is *scarcity* in relation to
demand. The price of a good relates that only X amount of the good is
being produced over a given amount of time. What government subsidies do
is distort this relationship, by creating higher demand, and then the price
goes up, as now more is being consumed than can be produced. This once
again prices certain people out of the market either paritally or entirely.
So now that prices have risen, the great god State increases the subsidies,
and it keeps on going. If the subsidies stopped at a certain point, then
the businesses have time to expand to produce more of the good, but every
year there is increased demand. They are not able to keep up with it, and
the prices keep going up.

The government's tactics of throwing money mindlessly at a given problem
do not suddenly produce prosperity for all, and no matter how it 
does it, through taxation, deficit spending, or inflation, the government
cannot evade reality. If this works, why are all the socialist countries
doing so badly?

>>The deleterious effects of such a policy can easily be seen, for
>>example, in the soaring costs of medical care.
>
>And this is where it goes completely mad.  The US has more
>expensive and less comprehensive medical care than countries
>with greater governmental involvement.

It seems that with such a system one must balance technology (quality) and
availability, unfortunately.

>>> As to the point of this thread, whether education should be subsidized, I
>>> pose the following question: If the poor cannot afford an education, how
>>> do you expect they can ever pull themselves out of poverty?
>
>>Through hard work, thrift, and more hard work.  The same way
>>that all worthwhile goals are attained.
>
>Please, get in touch with reality.  A rich person has to expend
>far less effort to get richer than a poor person must to get past
>basic living requirements.  You may consider it just that the
>latter has to work 60 hours a week to save very little, while the
>former has to work maybe 20 hours a week to more than keep up
>with inflation.  And you may consider it just that in times of
>unemployment, a poor person loses all their savings to stay
>alive, while a rich person probably doesn't lose their job at
>all.  But putting on a starry-eyed, Horatio Alger look and
>appealing to the virtues of hard work aren't convincing.  It
>can be done, by a few; but it is not just.
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk      Computing Lab, U of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Some ideas are frost giants: pouring cold water on them helps them to grow.

Hey, who is generating the inflation?????? The same omnipotent government
you idolize.

Hey, who causes most forms of unemployment? The same omnipotent government
you idolize.

How do you think the wealth of the rich was generated in the first place,
by the masses of humanity sitting on their ass until, amazingly enough,
sometime in the 18th century, all this wealth came from nowhere? In 
100 years, will history be re-written Orwellian-style showing that
*government intervention* created all the wealth, and *capitalism* (spit!)
destroyed it all? Probably!!

What you fail to understand is that the government subsidizing of these 
areas is the *cause* of the skyrocketing prices. Is it a mere coincidence
that medical care prices took off in this country just after Medicare and
Medicaid were introduced? Is it a mere coincidence that we had a Great
Depression 10 years after the make-the-business-cycle-gentler Federal
Reserve was installed? And what gets the blame but *greed* and *capitalism*
(blah blah blah)!

I can't stand it. It merely shows a lack of understanding the good ol'
law of supply and demand--guess what! greed has almost nothing to do 
with the prices of goods!!! Did you hear that! Do you believe it? I doubt
it.

Say, I'm a greedy bastard...Hey, I think I'll sell bread for $100 a loaf!
What an exploiter I am!!! Hey, no one is buying my bread!!! Can you believe
that????

Price, except in a very few cases, merely shows the availability of 
a good in relation to demand. Any method of price control is
self-defeating.

The worst thing about capitalism is that it takes time, but you just 
can't do anything about it, and neither can a bloated, mind-numbing,
capital consuming government, either.

Jim Hranicky (jfh@reef.cis.ufl.edu)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian