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2022-10-30 -Short Attention Span Theater-
What made America great? Unfettered capitalism
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Posted by Besoeker 2022-10-30 02:11|| || Front Page|| [11130 views ]  Top

#1 You allow monopolies to be established which happens under 'unfettered capitalism', you pay the price the monopoly sets. You get what the monopoly has to offer. There is no perfect. It's all trade offs. There are those old enough to remember the state sanctioned telephone monopoly when the 'greatest' innovation was the Princess phone.
Posted by Procopius2k 2022-10-30 06:58||   2022-10-30 06:58|| Front Page Top

#2 The Talosian master in Star Trek TOS "The Cage." "We offer him the chance to live out his days unfettered by his physical body..."
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 07:30||   2022-10-30 07:30|| Front Page Top

#3 I'll take Capitalism over the alternatives. That telephone monopoly you are foaming about actually worked. What has come along since was built on what that monopoly built.

I'm not saying monopolies are good or necessary, but saying they are all bad is a simplistic outlook.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 07:33||   2022-10-30 07:33|| Front Page Top

#4 Say the US got a "monopoly" on never fail missile defense. Would that be a bad thing?
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 07:34||   2022-10-30 07:34|| Front Page Top

#5 Your government is a monopoly. It's bloated, inefficient, duplicative, self interested, insular, and certainly not 'customer' oriented. Happens in the market place as well. What you want is unfettered open competitive market while protecting the players from unscrupulous and non-competitive behaviors of others.
Posted by Procopius2k 2022-10-30 08:12||   2022-10-30 08:12|| Front Page Top

#6 /\ ...unfettered.

Hopefully we can keep it that way.
Posted by Besoeker 2022-10-30 08:15||   2022-10-30 08:15|| Front Page Top

#7 Government is not a consumer good. Free people do not "consume" gummint, they govern themselves. It's cute to make the specious argument, but in the end, it has to be a thing unto itself, or you just have cafeteria anarchy. Saying the current gummint is a "monopoly" is like saying Capitalism does not work because the distorted and mis-regulated thing we have right now is capitalism. You are blaming a good idea for the current bad implementation. Please try harder.

See: Parliamentarian gummint.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 08:19||   2022-10-30 08:19|| Front Page Top

#8 Now. For the linsux fanbois: UNIX was created by Ken Thompson at Bell Labs (a monopoly) along with his fellow beneficiaries of monopolist capitalism Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernigan. Then, a professor named Andrew Tenanbaum working at a gummint monopoly university wrote a book around an idea called "MINIX" which was based on the eeeeeevil monopolist UNIX. Then a kid named Linus Torvalds started monopolistically tinkering on a project at home based on the results of all the aforementioned monopolistic detritus. Evil, evil, evil.

But at least, today, people who really don't like themselves much have an alternative to the Eeeeeevil monopoly (95+% of the market) called Windows.

Oh, yeah. MacOS is based on Mach, a flavor of UNIX made at another gummint monopoly university, CMU, in Pissburgh.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 08:28||   2022-10-30 08:28|| Front Page Top

#9 I grew up on UNIX and have a great love for it. I run FreeBSD and SuSe Linux as processes on my Windows 11 machine. I love that Dave Cutler (father of Windows NT, with an excellent team behind him) did not like UNIX and decided to go in a different direction.

Yes, monopolism has crushed all the life out of human endeavors.

Thank God there aren't 200 different kinds of incompatible light bulbs and you never know what the wall outlet is delivering.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 08:38||   2022-10-30 08:38|| Front Page Top

#10 Government is not a consumer good.

It's a service, another form of market. Business and government both are composed of people, thus have the same foibles and corrupt nature that all people are susceptible to.
Posted by Procopius2k 2022-10-30 09:21||   2022-10-30 09:21|| Front Page Top

#11 All one has to read is Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt.

Posted by DooDahMan 2022-10-30 09:24||   2022-10-30 09:24|| Front Page Top

#12 No. Wrong. It's in a class all its own. Gummint "services" are a thing that came along later. Gummint originally was supposed to deliver the mail and mediate the people's relationships with other countries. Nothing. Else.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 09:24||   2022-10-30 09:24|| Front Page Top

#13 Governing ourselves is only a service in the sense that we will be worse off if we don't do it or let someone else do it (not for us, but to us). Any elaboration upon that is nonsense.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 09:26||   2022-10-30 09:26|| Front Page Top

#14 Even if we agree to call government a "service", it is not subject to market forces (e.g., USPS, Amtrak, Veterans Administration). How's the FBI been treating folks lately?
Posted by DooDahMan 2022-10-30 09:28||   2022-10-30 09:28|| Front Page Top

#15 Gummint originally was supposed to deliver the mail and mediate the people's relationships with other countries

Huh? first record of government is Egypt. Those weren't the pressing issues.
Posted by Procopius2k 2022-10-30 09:30||   2022-10-30 09:30|| Front Page Top

#16 Toilet paper is a product. Is wiping your a$$ a "service" because the gummint makes toilet paper manufacturing possible?
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 09:31||   2022-10-30 09:31|| Front Page Top

#17 I'm speaking about US Constitutional gummint, #15.

Nice but lame effort a deflection, though.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 09:32||   2022-10-30 09:32|| Front Page Top

#18 "We should base our gummint on ancient Egyptian standards." Sort of like "The Founders didn't envision M-16s!"

Junk, nay, crap argument.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 09:34||   2022-10-30 09:34|| Front Page Top

#19 Guys, most of you are confusing the difference between natural monopolies (which are manageable) and man-made monopolies. Natural ones are things like currency (it's better for all to have one currency within a country than a currency for each State (think pre-civil war in 1860) ).

Also natural is to have one navy (rather than one for each State). Also one set of laws. Man-made monopolies such as just one on-line marketer (e.g: Amazon) are not better for all of us. Competition is what makes capitalism great, but there is zero justification for competition in natural monopolies. Now.... for the kicker concept here..... Government should ONLY be involved in managing Natural monopolies!

Man-made monopolies are best left to the wild market forces of competition. That is what made the USA great in its early 2 centuries. The growth in wealth of individuals was 95% in areas where each person grew in value. The Government didn't grow in size or its budget in the first 200 years BECAUSE it was geographically distant from others. ONLY by 1914 did it have to come into direct contact with Europe (WWI). And only then did its show its net ability to overwhelm the established productive wealth of Europe.

By 1914 US's production of just steel was far greater than all of Europe's steel. WWI was won based on production capability. This played out yet again in WWII. Think of "Liberty ships" rolling down into the harbor waters.....


Not a yuge issue. Adhoc paras added on the fly. Just hit the space bar.
Posted by OspasDhahran 2022-10-30 09:38||   2022-10-30 09:38|| Front Page Top

#20 Blah, blah, blah with no paragraph breaks.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 09:40||   2022-10-30 09:40|| Front Page Top

#21 Don't cherrypick examples. Stand back and look at the big picture.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Monopolies seem to be the rule, not the exception, barring gummint involvement.

And. Gummints endorse monopolies all the time. No paradox there...
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 09:43||   2022-10-30 09:43|| Front Page Top

#22 See: Rule of three.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 09:44||   2022-10-30 09:44|| Front Page Top

#23 You are making inferences where there is none.
The Egyptians organized because of a perceived need to do something that could not be effectively done by singular individuals. Our Constitution is based upon that same principle. The institution of the national government was to provide the enunciated functions, aka services.
Posted by Procopius2k 2022-10-30 09:45||   2022-10-30 09:45|| Front Page Top

#24 Government should not be involved in: Interstate commerce. That is NOT a Natural monopoly . A Natural monopoly is a market interaction that is MOST EFFICIENT when there is just ONE player. It should not be involved in electricity generation. NOT involved in regulating education. NOT involved in helping poor individuals ( called Welfare). It should be Charity, where individuals give to individuals. Each gift is a decision based upon merit. NOT be involved in information such as broadcasting, NPR, deciding what is mis, mal, or dis-information. NOT involved in energy. NOT involved in job creation.
Posted by OspasDhahran 2022-10-30 09:47||   2022-10-30 09:47|| Front Page Top

#25 Government manage monopolies? LOL, like they manage USPS, Amtrak, the VA, and I'll just throw in the withdrawal from Afghanistan, just to pile on.

You also have a United States Patent Office (USPO) that is arguably a restraint of trade. You want free market capitalism, dump patents and intellectual property (IP) nonsense.
Posted by DooDahMan 2022-10-30 09:49||   2022-10-30 09:49|| Front Page Top

#26 M. Murcek, if an expressed idea becomes less relevant because there is no paragraphs, then the problem lies with you. I don't know how to insert paragraphs into this comments section. Does this make my idea worthless. According to you post, it does. That is silly. Please focus on the idea and not the method of transmission. Thanks.
Posted by OspasDhahran 2022-10-30 09:50||   2022-10-30 09:50|| Front Page Top

#27 Patents are NOT a restraint of trade. Exactly how does a patent restrict trade. IT re-direct where the profit flows. It doesn't change the number of objects bought or sold. Patents change who collects the profit margin from each object created and sold.
Posted by OspasDhahran 2022-10-30 09:52||   2022-10-30 09:52|| Front Page Top

#28 Of course patents are restraints of trade. I'm not even going to elaborate.
Posted by DooDahMan 2022-10-30 09:55||   2022-10-30 09:55|| Front Page Top

#29 Without Patents other Countries can produce your idea without you in the States receiving compensation for having invested the profitable idea. Patents force competitor to acknowledge where the profitable idea originated from....and for a limited period of time. 17 years is common. Patents are not a monopoly concept here. Its a distraction form the idea between natural monopolies and man-made monopolies.
Posted by OspasDhahran 2022-10-30 09:56||   2022-10-30 09:56|| Front Page Top

#30 Big Pharma are the pros at that.
Posted by DooDahMan 2022-10-30 09:56||   2022-10-30 09:56|| Front Page Top

#31 I have six patents in the oil industry. How many patents do yo have? And most importantly for how many years?
Posted by OspasDhahran 2022-10-30 09:57||   2022-10-30 09:57|| Front Page Top

#32 I don't know how to insert paragraphs into this comments section.

** cough ** cough **
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 10:01||   2022-10-30 10:01|| Front Page Top

#33 Patents make you real. You heard it argued here first.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 10:03||   2022-10-30 10:03|| Front Page Top

#34 Early RANTBURG oilfield pump jack. It was invented some time ago, by an early poster between rants.
Posted by Besoeker 2022-10-30 10:04||   2022-10-30 10:04|| Front Page Top

#35 I did not patent being a wisea$$, but I play one in Rantburg comments...
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 10:05||   2022-10-30 10:05|| Front Page Top

#36 Thanks to the person who inserted paragraphs into my above long post. So I just press the space bar? Really. Doesn't appear to work.... I'll keep trying....
Posted by OspasDhahran 2022-10-30 10:06||   2022-10-30 10:06|| Front Page Top

#37 What platform are you using? Is sending your comment rather than being treated as a character within the comment? It's an issue on phone platforms.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 10:08||   2022-10-30 10:08|| Front Page Top

#38 Is "ENTER" sending your comment rather than being treated as a character within the comment?
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 10:10||   2022-10-30 10:10|| Front Page Top

#39 M. Murcek, There is a time and place for childish comments. The key is to know when to insert them into a conversation. Some comments here attempt to move ideas ahead for all. When comments are viewed as being simply wiseass, (when it's clear to all reading it here that the comments were not) then saying they were wiseass becomes simply frustration at not being able to add anything to the adult segment of the conversation. There is a time and place for child like comments. Knowing WHEN to insert them is the difference between a child's mentality and an adult's.
Posted by OspasDhahran 2022-10-30 10:15||   2022-10-30 10:15|| Front Page Top

#40 M. Murcek, pressing enter sends my comment. How can one determine before hand that it will not send my comment?
Posted by OspasDhahran 2022-10-30 10:16||   2022-10-30 10:16|| Front Page Top

#41 As I said, pressing enter seems to be a send command on phones. As other commenters here have said, some platforms treat a double spacebar hit as a paragraph break (I've never seen that.) You can go to ATL+013 to get a paragraph break but that also is not absolute.

Lots of variations out there.

BTW. Not belittling your patents. I don't have any. Glad you have ones that probably make my life better.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-10-30 10:22||   2022-10-30 10:22|| Front Page Top

#42 I was in Saudi for 38 years. I'd rather not state too many facts about me as that allows identification too easily For those who know energy. Think..... OSPAS, 7th floor issues back in the States, Ain Dar, Peak oil, Yergin, MSC, 911, PDB and so on......
Posted by OspasDhahran 2022-10-30 10:24||   2022-10-30 10:24|| Front Page Top

#43 Thank you Murcek..... Its appreciated. I'm using a laptop. Phone's are not a great way to post. It lack the ability to review beforehand. Golden rule of posting..... Don't use a phone, and never drink while posting. Wait !.... hold my beer, while I just......
Posted by OspasDhahran 2022-10-30 10:28||   2022-10-30 10:28|| Front Page Top

#44 Bye for now
Posted by OspasDhahran 2022-10-30 10:31||   2022-10-30 10:31|| Front Page Top

#45 
My my! Such spirited ado over nothing. The government is what the mandarins of the day wish it to be, gentlemen.

But all this fondling of the yuge elephant by y'all does leave me better educated, so thanks 🙃. About trade, patents, and Unix. Those uppity apple bastitches! MacOS is really Unix?! I'll show my fag neighbour now! Thanks, Murcek.
Posted by Dron66046 2022-10-30 10:39||   2022-10-30 10:39|| Front Page Top

#46 Don't be a stranger OspasDhahran.
Posted by Besoeker 2022-10-30 11:49||   2022-10-30 11:49|| Front Page Top

#47 Is that you, Bob?
Posted by Groluck Whomose4370 2022-10-30 12:48||   2022-10-30 12:48|| Front Page Top

#48 No. Bear was primarily a desk man, but not entirely, but "Shiny pants" is the term used when one has sat so long at the desk your khaki bottoms turns "shiny". Sorry but to earn his keep he would have to have been a NOC. He wasn't. The first page of "Sleeping with the Devil" is about Abqaiq and him learning how it was so vital. Years later the opposing side also became aware of this. May I point out, there are plenty of folks who are able to differentiate between those who did, from those who discuss what was done. Eisenhower barracks produced many of those who did....and still do. Granddad is buried on the The Plain.
Posted by OspasDhahran 2022-10-30 13:09||   2022-10-30 13:09|| Front Page Top

#49 You are correct, at least in my view, regarding NOC vs the Official Cover embassy party goers.
Posted by Besoeker 2022-10-30 13:17||   2022-10-30 13:17|| Front Page Top

#50 Correct. I presume you have good memories of those frequent Consulate parties situated around the pool. Local businessman love to parade their trophy wives. Makes for good gossip and with many libations. Connections are made and business begins....
Posted by OspasDhahran 2022-10-30 13:32||   2022-10-30 13:32|| Front Page Top

#51 
A lifetime of hard nocs,
living in trees, under rocks.
Doing, not talking,
screwing, while walking (!)
and ne'er deterred by locks.

Posted by Dron66046 2022-10-30 13:39||   2022-10-30 13:39|| Front Page Top

#52 What?.... Me worry? Recall that page of the MAD mag where you'd fold the page into thirds and a different picture would be revealed. I was young.... you were too. Small pleasures. Spy vs Spy. was a slightly more creative than most of today's mind numbing dribble.
Posted by OspasDhahran 2022-10-30 14:00||   2022-10-30 14:00|| Front Page Top

#53 Ref #50: You may recall Valerie Plame "blown cover" fiasco. Married to a diplomat, black passport, in-and-out of the embassy. Movies, books, talk shows.

Such "blown cover" bullshi*, start to finish. Made my head hurt, I can feel it coming on right now in fact. You go in-and-out of any embassy (ours, theirs, anybody's) you are assumed to be in the business of collection. HTF could it be otherwise.

Posted by Besoeker 2022-10-30 14:04||   2022-10-30 14:04|| Front Page Top

#54 Besoeker: "Brewster Jennings"
Posted by OspasDhahran 2022-10-30 14:27||   2022-10-30 14:27|| Front Page Top

#55 50 Years of MAD Fold-Ins
Posted by Al Jaffee 2022-10-30 14:38||   2022-10-30 14:38|| Front Page Top

#56 MAD TV: Spy vs Spy, Season 1
Posted by  Noc Noc Whos There 2022-10-30 14:44||   2022-10-30 14:44|| Front Page Top

#57 
MAD! It was more than a cartoony magazine. It was an education in cynicism which we only later realised was all true! The smartest ones dud, really.

The fold-ins by Al Jaffee. Sergio Aragones, Don Martin's One Fine Evening , Spy vs Spy, the 'four degrees of separation between', and the spoofs! Who can forget the ludicrous, stomachache inducing spoofs? As OspasDhahran said, it's all pretty much gone now. It's all politically loaded püssyfooting, black pawah and liberal faggotry now. No great humor or satire will be written that's not loaded or leftist/rightist anymore.

Posted by Dron66046 2022-10-30 15:18||   2022-10-30 15:18|| Front Page Top

#58 *smartest ones did
Posted by Dron66046 2022-10-30 15:19||   2022-10-30 15:19|| Front Page Top

#59 Thanks for the Spy vs Spy video. I never knew these were out there. They were surely made later.
Posted by Dron66046 2022-10-30 15:21||   2022-10-30 15:21|| Front Page Top

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