Ron Paul - on the rise?

TJandGENESIS · Nov 9, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(steve-o @ Nov 9 2007, 08:03 AM) [snapback]537216[/snapback]</div>

Oh, it was on the news? Well shoot, in that case it must be true...
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Geesh, what a positive retort. Makes me want to follow your POV even more so. Tell you what: Since your view seems to be, 'if it's on the news, it must not be true' (your sarcasm, not mine), then any thing I hear about Ron Paul on the news, even if it's positive, must be false.

Thanks. That clears that up for me.

daniel · Nov 9, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Nov 7 2007, 11:52 PM) [snapback]536643[/snapback]</div>

I can't speak to Ron Paul, but doubt there are many libertarians in favor of a "corporate run state". They are in favor of a state with limited powers, but that as a number one priority, protects the liberty of the individual.

They also believe in limited government interference in free market activities -- while this helps the corporate entity that desires to operate in an unfettered regulatory environment, it hurts the "corporate run state" scenario, which depends on a strong payback system between government and corporate entities.

I think you've been watching a little too much Bill Moyers or something...
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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(mojo @ Nov 7 2007, 11:58 PM) [snapback]536644[/snapback]</div>

No they arent in favor of a corporate run state ,but they dont have the intelligence to realize that eliminating all regulations will make that outcome inevitable.
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Without taking a position on their intelligence, the libertarian model imagines the frontiersman who goes it alone, is self-sufficient, and just wants to be left alone.

Unfortunately, money is power. Real power. And today, that money and that power are in the hands of trans-national corporations who know how to use their money to exercise power, and thereby extract more money from the citizenry.

The libertarian wants to be left alone, and sees government as the problem, "stealing" his money through taxation and using it to benefit others than himself. He feels no obligation or sympathy towards his fellow humans, most of whom he views as lazy good-for-nothings. He thinks that if government services were eliminated, and replaced with private ones (private trash collection, fire fighting, street repair, etc.) that it would cost him less. And yet, paradoxically, he wants the government to keep immigrants out of the country, and he wants the military to "protect" him from all those hoards of potential foreign invaders.

What the libertarian does not understand (and this may be the critical difference between libertarians and liberals, and the principal similarity between libertarians and conservatives) is that his own well-being depends upon the controls that government puts on corporations. Without controls, corporations would be dumping their raw pollution into his water supply, selling cars that kill you in a ten-mph collision, and using their collective power to drive wages so low that the libertarian would not have a spare dollar to buy bullets for his beloved firearm.

The libertarian does not want to give power to the corporations, and therefore he is not a corporatist. But his small-government ideology and his wish to be left totally alone and his objections to taxes will result in the corporations taking even more power than they already have, and lead to a pure corporatist state in the end. How closely this resembles fascism will depend on whether the corporate leaders feel they need to repress dissent with violence in order to maintain their power. If they can maintain their power through propaganda and their monopoly on the media, they may not need much of a secret police. In which case, the libertarian, by then too poor to go it alone, will be able to argue it's not really fascism. But of course at that point he'll recognize that the corporations merely constitute a new kind of government, far worse than the one he left behind.

Some libertarians also rant about the monetary system and demand a return to the gold standard. I do not know if Ron Paul is one of those. (He complains about monetary policy, but I do not know what solution he advocates.) The problem with this naive view of money is that there is not enough gold in the world to mediate commerce in an economy the size of ours. The present system may be flawed, but gold is not a viable solution.

EDIT: The Wikipedia article cited above says Ron Paul favors "hard money," which I assume means a gold or gold-and-silver standard. This is pie in the sky, as I note above. It's also worth noting that the value of gold often fluctuates wildly. I believe we were on the gold standard during the Great Depression.

TimBikes · Nov 9, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 9 2007, 08:38 AM) [snapback]537273[/snapback]</div>

.. the libertarian model imagines the frontiersman ....He feels no obligation or sympathy towards his fellow humans, most of whom he views as lazy good-for-nothings.

What the libertarian does not understand (and this may be the critical difference between libertarians and liberals, and the principal similarity between libertarians and conservatives) is that his own well-being depends upon the controls that government puts on corporations.

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I'm not Libertarian and not at all in favor of no government regulation, and while I agree with some of your comments I think the comments in bold above are a bit sweeping.

Furthermore, one could take your comments and argue that what the liberal "does not understand is that his own well-being depends upon" the productive output of corporations.

Without the corporation, there is little to no employment or national income with which to feed the very government bureaucracy that liberals embrace. Of course, if one argues against the prosperity that corporations and business help create, there is little need for regulation. <_<

Steve-o · Nov 9, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TJandGENESIS @ Nov 9 2007, 11:37 AM) [snapback]537271[/snapback]</div>

Geesh, what a positive retort. Makes me want to follow your POV even more so. Tell you what: Since your view seems to be, 'if it's on the news, it must not be true' (your sarcasm, not mine), then any thing I hear about Ron Paul on the news, even if it's positive, must be false.

Thanks. That clears that up for me.
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Fine. Point taken and I apologize for the sarcasm, but as a Prius owner, you must agree that you can't believe everything you hear on the news. I'm sure we are all fully aware of the bias that is spread throughout the media. To perpetuate something like that is no better than creating it in the first place. Does credit card fraud happen? Of course it does. Could this woman really have been a victim of it? Absolutely. But to embellish upon a story like that is a prime example of what every single person on this forum has grown to find distasteful about the mass media as a whole. And that is when they are talking about their car, not a person of whom (I believe) could possibly be the next president.

I am a little 'in your face' about most of the things that I truly believe in. This is not always seen as a good thing by some people, believe it or not I am not asking for your vote, but rather just the opportunity to be heard. Take some time and learn about Ron Paul. I am sure you will come to the same conclusion as a lot of people have already. You may not agree with everything he has to say, but you simply can not deny his character.

burritos · Nov 9, 2007

http://bullnotbull.com/bull/node/58?ref=patrick.net

Ron Paul schools poor Ben Bernake about our fiat monetary system. Too bad the vast majority of the american public does not understand that we just print money.

tripp · Nov 9, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 9 2007, 09:38 AM) [snapback]537273[/snapback]</div>

Some libertarians also rant about the monetary system and demand a return to the gold standard. I do not know if Ron Paul is one of those. (He complains about monetary policy, but I do not know what solution he advocates.) The problem with this naive view of money is that there is not enough gold in the world to mediate commerce in an economy the size of ours. The present system may be flawed, but gold is not a viable solution.

EDIT: The Wikipedia article cited above says Ron Paul favors "hard money," which I assume means a gold or gold-and-silver standard. This is pie in the sky, as I note above. It's also worth noting that the value of gold often fluctuates wildly. I believe we were on the gold standard during the Great Depression.
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The gold standard was abandoned in 1933 (in the US). The UK abandoned it during WWI to pay for the war. They later returned to it (1925) and then abandoned it again (1931). You can't pay for modern wars if you can't inflate away the debt. We've developed a taste for that sort of thing so I doubt we'd go back to something like that.

The depression (in the US) was largely the result of import tariffs, not the devaluation of gold (at least that's what I've heard).

alanh · Nov 9, 2007

I will admit that Paul is the only true "less government" Republican candidate, unlike the rest of those fakers. They talk about penny-ante stuff like Amtrak, but the bulk of the budget is Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, and the military. Paul would totally eliminate the first two and most of the third. (There's also interest payments, but I don't know if he'd favor defaulting on them.)

Ok, so he's lost the Florida vote. Anyway, I'd recommend Critiques of Libertarianism. This covers a lot of the flaws in the philosophy.

I particularly like this point (on why not move to a pure libertarian country):

There are roughly 200 nations to which you could emigrate. They are the product of an anarcho-capitalist free market: there is no over-government dictating to those sovereign nations. Indeed, the only difference between the anarchy of nations and libertopia is that anarcho-capitalists are wishing for a smaller granularity. These nations have found that it is most cost-efficient to defend themselves territorially.

If any other market provided 200 choices, libertarians would declare that the sacred workings of the market blessed whatever choices were offered. The point is that choices do exist: it's up to libertarians to show that there is something wrong with the market of nations in a way they would accept being applied to markets within nations.

Libertaria is a combination of values that just doesn't exist: the government equivalent of a really posh residence for very little money. You can find nations which have much lower taxes, etc.: just don't expect them to be first class.

And the reason these combinations don't exist is probably simple: the free market of government services essentially guarantees that there is no such thing as the free lunch libertarians want. It's not competitive.[/b]
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Paul used to have the 16th Amendment conspiracy stuff on his House page, but that appears to be gone now. Maybe he figured out that invalidating it wouldn't do any good. Arguing for eliminating the income tax because it's bad policy is a valid argument; arguing for eliminating it by saying the the Congress doesn't have the authority to lay and collect taxes is nutty.

daniel · Nov 9, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Nov 9 2007, 09:10 AM) [snapback]537305[/snapback]</div>

... Furthermore, one could take your comments and argue that what the liberal "does not understand is that his own well-being depends upon" the productive output of corporations. ...
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Liberals are not trying to do away with corporations. Merely trying to prevent some of their worst abuses.

I am not a liberal. I am a socialist. I do not want to do away with corporations either. I simply want to transfer ownership and control of them from the investor to the worker.

But we'll still need laws to prevent abuses, because whether owned by investors or by workers, corporations are trying to make money, and they have no compunctions about destroying the environment or damaging their customers' health if they see a profit in it.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Nov 9 2007, 10:46 AM) [snapback]537363[/snapback]</div>

http://bullnotbull.com/bull/node/58?ref=patrick.net

Ron Paul schools poor Ben Bernake about our fiat monetary system. Too bad the vast majority of the american public does not understand that we just print money.
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We do not "just" print money. The amount of money in circulation, its cost (the interest rate), and the rate of change in its value (inflation/deflation) are fine-tuned in a sometimes unsuccessful attempt to meet certain national goals.

But the point is that there is no commodity (gold, for example) of which we have enough to serve as the money supply. In addition, a complex capitalist economy such as ours cannot operate smoothly if the metals market determines the value of the money. For example, if the value of money rises (deflation) investment stops, because people can profit just by putting their money in the mattress. This will happen some of the time with a gold standard, unless the government intervenes (as it did when we we were on the gold standard) to keep the value of gold constant, by buying and selling it as necessary.

burritos · Nov 9, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 9 2007, 06:31 PM) [snapback]537472[/snapback]</div>

Liberals are not trying to do away with corporations. Merely trying to prevent some of their worst abuses.

I am not a liberal. I am a socialist. I do not want to do away with corporations either. I simply want to transfer ownership and control of them from the investor to the worker.

But we'll still need laws to prevent abuses, because whether owned by investors or by workers, corporations are trying to make money, and they have no compunctions about destroying the environment or damaging their customers' health if they see a profit in it.
We do not "just" print money. The amount of money in circulation, its cost (the interest rate), and the rate of change in its value (inflation/deflation) are fine-tuned in a sometimes unsuccessful attempt to meet certain national goals.

But the point is that there is no commodity (gold, for example) of which we have enough to serve as the money supply. In addition, a complex capitalist economy such as ours cannot operate smoothly if the metals market determines the value of the money. For example, if the value of money rises (deflation) investment stops, because people can profit just by putting their money in the mattress. This will happen some of the time with a gold standard, unless the government intervenes (as it did when we we were on the gold standard) to keep the value of gold constant, by buying and selling it as necessary.
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Our dollar is fixed to oil. The petrodollar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar_warfare

An Iranian oil Bourse would be more dangerous to the US than a nuclear bomb.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Oil_Bourse

fshagan · Nov 9, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(steve-o @ Nov 8 2007, 07:12 AM) [snapback]536688[/snapback]</div>

Really? Is that all you got? That one has already been used and is old news. Pretty much impossible to find anything negative about the man so (predictably) it gets made up. Good one.
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Because of his views, Ron Paul is heavily supported by neo-nazis and the conspiracy buffs like the 9-11 Truthers. I don't know if he buys into their rhetoric, but they are actively promoting their followers to boost his on-line poll numbers (Google "Ron Paul and Stormfront White Nationalist Community").

His articles also appear with regular frequency in the American Free Press, who's owner, Willis Carto, is a prominent Holocaust denier. In an open letter to the candidate, conservative movie reviewer Michael Medved explained:

More specifically, your columns have been featured for several years in the American Free Press â€“a publication of the nationâ€™s leading Holocaust Denier and anti-Semitic agitator, Willis Carto. His book club even recommends works that glorify the Nazi SS, and glowingly describe the â€œcomforts and amenitiesâ€ provided for inmates of Auschwitz.
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Medved has the 5th highest radio audience in talk radio, and Paul has yet to answer his open letter, or agree to come on his show to answer questions.

Fringe candidates are on the fringe for a reason. Libertarians, a party with views I respect and often share, attract their fair share of nutjobs. Perhaps its more obvious with them because they are a very small political party, smaller than the Green Party, and even just a few of the nutjobs really stand out. (Paul was their Presidential candidate in years past, but is a Republican congressman today).

n8kwx · Nov 9, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 9 2007, 10:38 AM) [snapback]537273[/snapback]</div>

The libertarian wants to be left alone, and sees government as the problem, "stealing" his money through taxation and using it to benefit others than himself. He feels no obligation or sympathy towards his fellow humans, most of whom he views as lazy good-for-nothings. [/b]
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Daniel, Libertarians are hardly unsympathetic.

A check in the mail keeps you from starving, nothing more. People need to help people on an individual basis (Families, Churches, civic organizations). A government program cannot provide the human touch that a person in need requires.

How many people walk past a homeless person and say to themselves "I'm glad the governments taking care of him, so I don't have to".

And yet, paradoxically, he wants the government to keep immigrants out of the country, and he wants the military to "protect" him from all those hoards of potential foreign invaders.
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Immigrants are what built this country. "Free trade" isn't without free immigration.

Libertarians are for a "right-sized" military. Enough to protect our borders, not forcing our views on others.

Without controls, corporations would be... ...selling cars that kill you in a ten-mph collision,[/b]
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Why does the Zebra EV "car" have three (not four wheels)?

It's using a classification loophole (3 wheelers are "motorcycles"). That way it doesn't have to meet any of the crash safety regulations that all cars have to.

daniel · Nov 10, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(n8kwx @ Nov 9 2007, 08:38 PM) [snapback]537590[/snapback]</div>

Daniel, Libertarians are hardly unsympathetic.
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The libertarians I have known have all had contempt for any effort to help the less fortunate. They have taken the attitude that anyone with initiative and the willingness to work can succeed. They share this view with conservatives.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(n8kwx @ Nov 9 2007, 08:38 PM) [snapback]537590[/snapback]</div>

A check in the mail keeps you from starving, nothing more. People need to help people on an individual basis (Families, Churches, civic organizations). A government program cannot provide the human touch that a person in need requires.
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Individual help and the personal touch are best for both the person helping and the person being helped. But government aid is better than starvation.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(n8kwx @ Nov 9 2007, 08:38 PM) [snapback]537590[/snapback]</div>

Immigrants are what built this country. "Free trade" isn't without free immigration.
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In this you and I agree. Ron Paul wants to close the borders. Libertarians I have known have not expressed this sort of xenophobia to me, so I don't know how common it is in libertarian circles, or whether Ron Paul departs from libertarianism on this question. Maybe he's trying to appeal to the neo-nazis that fshagan mentions above.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(n8kwx @ Nov 9 2007, 08:38 PM) [snapback]537590[/snapback]</div>

Why does the Zebra EV "car" have three (not four wheels)?

It's using a classification loophole (3 wheelers are "motorcycles"). That way it doesn't have to meet any of the crash safety regulations that all cars have to.
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You are correct. The only reason it's safe is that it only goes 40 mph, and here in Spokane the surface roads are almost all 35-mph limit. I will trade up as soon as I can get a proper electric car. But I don't know what this has to do with the subject of this thread.

Steve-o · Nov 10, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Nov 9 2007, 11:18 PM) [snapback]537581[/snapback]</div>

Paul was their Presidential candidate in years past, but is a Republican congressman today
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Ron Paul spent one year in the Libertarian party. It was in 1988 when he ran for president. All 10 terms he's spent in Congress has been as a Republican.

n8kwx · Nov 10, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 9 2007, 11:13 PM) [snapback]537601[/snapback]</div>

In this you and I agree. Ron Paul wants to close the borders. Libertarians I have known have not expressed this sort of xenophobia to me, so I don't know how common it is in libertarian circles, or whether Ron Paul departs from libertarianism on this question. Maybe he's trying to appeal to the neo-nazis that fshagan mentions above.[/b]
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I don't agree 100% with Ron Paul. But he a breath of fresh air for the Republicans.

He does seem to want to enforce current immigration laws, but I have also heard him call the fences on the Mexican border "Un-American".

You are correct. The only reason it's safe is that it only goes 40 mph, and here in Spokane the surface roads are almost all 35-mph limit. I will trade up as soon as I can get a proper electric car. But I don't know what this has to do with the subject of this thread.
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Current government regulations mandate 35 MPH frontal crashes. A motorcycle won't meet this, and a Zebra won't either.

The ironic thing about these stringent regulations is that the only huge corporations can afford the design and testing involved in creating a car. Small innovative companies like Zebra can't compete.

With a Zebra a customer has chosen to "take their chances" just like a motorcycle rider does.

I'm simply pointing out that regulations are not always the best way to solve problems. They always have many unintended consequences.

That's why I disagree that Libertarians will lead to corporate takeovers of everything. We already live in that world. Reducing regulations will give us more choices and allow small companies to compete with the big guys.

TimBikes · Nov 10, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 9 2007, 03:31 PM) [snapback]537472[/snapback]</div>

I am not a liberal. I am a socialist. I do not want to do away with corporations either. I simply want to transfer ownership and control of them from the investor to the worker.
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By what right? What is the fundamental reason why a company that has been built from the ground up by the investment, blood, sweat and tears of an entrepreneur should all of a sudden belong to its workers?

Employees are compensated for their labor with a paycheck (which is certain). Entrepreneurs and investors are compensated with a return on investment (which by the way, is uncertain). What right does the government have to confiscate a lifetime of work from an entrepreneur and give it to "the workers"?

If workers want to own a company, there is nothing from preventing them from starting their own, buying out their employers, or becoming owners through investment in the company they work for.

Lastly - and forgive me if I am misinterpreting your comments - transferring ownership to the workers in a socialist context implies to me nationalization. The history of success in nationalizing corporate interests is laughable.

While I'm not libertarian, you can bet I'd vote for Ron Paul before I'd vote for a candidate committed to nationalizing corporate interests.

mojo · Nov 10, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(n8kwx @ Nov 10 2007, 01:34 AM) [snapback]537623[/snapback]</div>

I'm simply pointing out that regulations are not always the best way to solve problems. They always have many unintended consequences.

That's why I disagree that Libertarians will lead to corporate takeovers of everything. We already live in that world. Reducing regulations will give us more choices and allow small companies to compete with the big guys.
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Do you understand why there are laws against monopoly?
Apparently not.

IsrAmeriPrius · Nov 10, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 9 2007, 03:31 PM) [snapback]537472[/snapback]</div>

I am not a liberal. I am a socialist. I do not want to do away with corporations either. I simply want to transfer ownership and control of them from the investor to the worker.[/b]
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I apologize in advance if I am wrong and please correct me if I am.

In the past, did you not compare the merits of various investments and at the least implied that you live off investment income? If so, what prevents you from donating your shares to the employees of the corporations in which you are invested?

daniel · Nov 10, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Nov 9 2007, 11:03 PM) [snapback]537632[/snapback]</div>

By what right? What is the fundamental reason why a company that has been built from the ground up by the investment, blood, sweat and tears of an entrepreneur should all of a sudden belong to its workers?
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By what right does a man pay his workers only a part of the wealth that their labor produces? A society creates its own rights. An individual may agree or disagree, and a society may change its notion of rights.

By and large, entrepreneurs have put no blood or sweat into building corporations. Workers sweat and bleed to run the machinery that built America into what it is today.

The American ethic puts property rights above human rights. I argue for a different paradigm, which puts human rights above property rights. Unless you wish to assert that there is a god who is the absolute law-giver, and claim that you know the mind of that god, the only basis for placing property rights above human rights is the purely subjective one of your personal preference. In this, you are in the majority. But I disagree with the majority. And I believe that if Americans were not so thoroughly brainwashed from birth into believing the capitalist myth, that my position would be the majority.

Anyway, by what right would ownership be transfered to the workers? By the right of society to establish the form of its economic system.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Nov 9 2007, 11:03 PM) [snapback]537632[/snapback]</div>

Lastly - and forgive me if I am misinterpreting your comments - transferring ownership to the workers in a socialist context implies to me nationalization.
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You are entirely misinterpreting my comments, but that is understandable, given the history of the cold war and the propaganda from both sides that accompanied it.

The USSR nationalized industry and pretended that this was done in the name of the workers.

What I advocate is that business remain private, and government continue to regulate what businesses can do, but that the stock in a company be transfered from investors to workers, and then made non-negotiable: Every worker owns an equal share of the company (or a share proportional to his weekly hours of work) and that he cannot sell his share, but he loses it if he ceases to work for the company. This is not nationalization, because the nation does not own the company. Capital would be raised through loans, rather than by selling equity in the company, and those loans would be free-market transactions.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(IsrAmeriPrius @ Nov 10 2007, 08:15 AM) [snapback]537676[/snapback]</div>

I apologize in advance if I am wrong and please correct me if I am.

In the past, did you not compare the merits of various investments and at the least implied that you live off investment income? If so, what prevents you from donating your shares to the employees of the corporations in which you are invested?
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I do donate money to charitable and social-change organizations and I give money to individuals. But nobody gives away all they have (other than a very few saintly people). I am not a saint. I advocate a change in the economic structure of society, which would give workers the ownership of their means of production, but would also provide health care for everyone as well as eliminate homelessness and hunger. If I give away all I have now, I move into destitution poverty. If I can convince the country to adopt a humanistic economic system, I lose my special privilege but I retain a dignified standard of life. (Not that I ever expect to convince anyone of anything. But I advocate a system in which I and everyone else can be assured of the necessities of life. I am not willing to give up the necessities of life.) In this I am a moderate socialist, not a radical one.

TimBikes · Nov 10, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 10 2007, 08:48 AM) [snapback]537688[/snapback]</div>

1) By and large, entrepreneurs have put no blood or sweat into building corporations. Workers sweat and bleed to run the machinery that built America into what it is today.

2) What I advocate is that business remain private, and government continue to regulate what businesses can do, but that the stock in a company be transfered from investors to workers, and then made non-negotiable: Every worker owns an equal share of the company (or a share proportional to his weekly hours of work) and that he cannot sell his share, but he loses it if he ceases to work for the company. This is not nationalization, because the nation does not own the company. Capital would be raised through loans, rather than by selling equity in the company, and those loans would be free-market transactions.
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1) While I fully appreciate the value of the worker, I cannot disagree more strongly about your views of entrepreneurs (who are among the hardest workers of all).

I work for an entrepreneur who has risked everything he has owned and worked his a$$ off for 10 years to build a company. He works all the time - not a life I or any of his workers would want to live - but it suits him. He now provides employment to dozens of people who earn a fair wage -- a wage that if they don't like, they are free to either re-negotiate with him or seek elsewhere. To somehow suggest that these workers are entitled to own his company is ludicrous.

2) It would be naive view indeed to suggest ridding the markets of equity -- it plays a critical role in efficiently functioning capital markets and is one of the primary reasons the U.S. is arguably the largest, strongest, and most efficiently functioning economy in the world. And there are distinct advantages to equity financing vs. debt:
* Unlike equity, debt must at some point be repaid.
* Interest is a fixed cost which raises the company's break-even point. High interest costs during difficult financial periods can increase the risk of insolvency. Companies that are too highly leveraged (that have large amounts of debt as compared to equity) often find it difficult to grow because of the high cost of servicing the debt.
* Cash flow is required for both principal and interest payments and must be budgeted for. Most loans are not repayable in varying amounts over time based on the business cycles of the company.
* Debt instruments often contain restrictions on the company's activities, preventing management from pursuing alternative financing options and non-core business opportunities.
* The larger a company's debt-equity ratio, the more risky the company is considered by lenders and investors. Accordingly, a business is limited as to the amount of debt it can carry.
* The company is usually required to pledge assets of the company to the lender as collateral, and owners of the company are in some cases required to personally guarantee repayment of the loan.

Both debt and equity financing are critical for a efficiently functioning economy. If you turned off all equity financing tomorrow, the economy would collapse.

burritos · Nov 11, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 10 2007, 11:48 AM) [snapback]537688[/snapback]</div>

By what right does a man pay his workers only a part of the wealth that their labor produces? A society creates its own rights. An individual may agree or disagree, and a society may change its notion of rights.

By and large, entrepreneurs have put no blood or sweat into building corporations. Workers sweat and bleed to run the machinery that built America into what it is today.

The American ethic puts property rights above human rights. I argue for a different paradigm, which puts human rights above property rights. Unless you wish to assert that there is a god who is the absolute law-giver, and claim that you know the mind of that god, the only basis for placing property rights above human rights is the purely subjective one of your personal preference. In this, you are in the majority. But I disagree with the majority. And I believe that if Americans were not so thoroughly brainwashed from birth into believing the capitalist myth, that my position would be the majority.

Anyway, by what right would ownership be transfered to the workers? By the right of society to establish the form of its economic system.
You are entirely misinterpreting my comments, but that is understandable, given the history of the cold war and the propaganda from both sides that accompanied it.

The USSR nationalized industry and pretended that this was done in the name of the workers.

What I advocate is that business remain private, and government continue to regulate what businesses can do, but that the stock in a company be transfered from investors to workers, and then made non-negotiable: Every worker owns an equal share of the company (or a share proportional to his weekly hours of work) and that he cannot sell his share, but he loses it if he ceases to work for the company. This is not nationalization, because the nation does not own the company. Capital would be raised through loans, rather than by selling equity in the company, and those loans would be free-market transactions.
I do donate money to charitable and social-change organizations and I give money to individuals. But nobody gives away all they have (other than a very few saintly people). I am not a saint. I advocate a change in the economic structure of society, which would give workers the ownership of their means of production, but would also provide health care for everyone as well as eliminate homelessness and hunger. If I give away all I have now, I move into destitution poverty. If I can convince the country to adopt a humanistic economic system, I lose my special privilege but I retain a dignified standard of life. (Not that I ever expect to convince anyone of anything. But I advocate a system in which I and everyone else can be assured of the necessities of life. I am not willing to give up the necessities of life.) In this I am a moderate socialist, not a radical one.
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Can't workers just live below their means and buy stock in the company they work in? That would be easier than a full scale revolution.

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Ron Paul - on the rise?

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