NY Times Story on Pilot Population Decline

Larry Dighera wrote:


I'm not fixated on Halliburton. I've just used Halliburton's fleeing
to an Arab country to escape paying US income taxes as an example of
how _unrestrained_ competition causes both buyers and sellers to
become victims.


The fact that a company large or small would leave the US to reduce the
amount of taxes they have to pay ought to show you that taxes are too high
in this country.

As it is, the producer who is able to offer a product at the lowest
prices in the marketplace, regardless of the consequences to society
and the environment as a result of the methods used to achieve that
price reduction, effectively dictates the quality and ethics for ALL
producers of that product if they want to remain solvent.

No, that is not true. It assumes people make choices based on price
alone. This is clearly false. People make choices based on many
things, including quality, "Made in the USA", foreign cachet, marketing
and image, ecological impact, and many other things. People =do= pay
more for what they want.

However, they don't want to pay more for what =you= want.

Pure capitalism does have problems; this is why libertarianism is so
naive. Some careful tweaks are warranted. However, it does seem to be
the least bad system there is, so tweaking it needs to be done very gently.

I would like to find a way to reward those producers who
want to produce quality, responsibly produced goods made with US
labor, so that impact of their reduced market share is mitigated.

Permitting people to buy them is sufficient.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Remember the prepends?

But it isn't humane to just
let them freeze to death in the streets.

Then give =your= money to them. Don't take =my= money from me for
=your= social programs. I have social programs of my own that I want my
money for, and that you are not contributing to.

I don't think it is our _responsibility_,

Then don't make it a law.

but I do think caring for the unemployable and/or
cripples is desirable if not beneficial to
society by reducing crime....

A feeding trough is an "attractive nuisance". It causes people to
depend on it. This makes our country weaker. If you can figure out how
to care for the truly needy without creating more needy, I'm listening.
I don't think it can be done by government.

How can you
argue that they can not find work when ILLEGALS who can't even speak
english risk their lives to cross a border to come here work?
If they are crazy, would you employ them?

How do you figure they are crazy?

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Groupings? Are you referring to the report about living organisms'
innate discrimination against members of groups other than their own?

Yes.

I would assume that there is a difference in labor pay rates between
those that prevail in California and Korea, as well as a difference in
working conditions and benefits.

This is likely true between California and Nevada too (though admittedly
to a smaller extent). But you know what? Outsourcing works to even
this all out.

There is likely a difference in the
environmental standards between the US and second or third world
countries also.

This is true. It raises the question of whether we should protect =our=
environment, or the =world= environment, and what is the best way to do
so. But this is really the same problem as we have here, the problem
for which we've created environmental laws. Absent these laws, what
prevents company A from dumping sludge into the river (that runs into
Nevada) instead of treating it first? This is one of the basic flaws of
unrestrained capitalism - shifting costs invisibly. Got a good solution
that doesn't kill the patient?

It is this desperate drive to the bottom that unrestrained capitalism
imposes to which I object. Fair completion based on innovation and
creativity is far preferable to exploitation, and it is that which
should be rewarded instead of rewarding the exporting US jobs to
foreign countries, IMO.

You are confusing "exporting jobs to foreign countries" with
"exploitation and unfair competition". While they can be related, using
one phrase as a stand-in for the other will induce the wrong solutions.

No. I'd pay more for higher quality (where quality matters).

And I believe your attitude is representative of the majority of
consumers. But things are changing, and hopefully a future, more
patriotic, humane, and environmentally conscience class of consumers
can find products on the market that meet their expectations in other
areas beside price.

You are hoping that people will change from buying based on quality to
buying based on "made in the USA"?

Higher quality is often foreign.
It depends on the product. Who is currently making a
better product than Boeing?

Yes. Who makes a better car than Chevrolet? (answer: everybody) Ok,
I'm being snarky, but only a little bit. It does depend on the product.
And I should be permitted to buy quality. If the US doesn't make
quality, and loses market share, then that serves as an incentive for
the US to compete. Absent an incentive, the US =will= =not= compete.
It will market instead.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Bush wasn't wrong; he was deceitful.

He was wrong =and= deceitful. But he was elected to office. Twice.
After four years of study, half of America still couldn't answer a one
question true-false test.

FDR had his detractors too. You seem to worship him. Maybe he was
good, but I do not believe that anything he said was golden - that he
was incapable of being wrong.

It is possible that SSI morphed into something FDR did not envision.
(remember, the original SSI was that everybody's children would pay for
a tiny number of elderly retirees, in exchange for a promise). However,
in that case he was wrong for not envisioning the disaster it could
easily turn out to be.

FDR is certainly capable of being wrong.

Any of us are capable (with fifty years of hindsight FDR didn't have) of
seeing that.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Jose wrote:

FDR is certainly capable of being wrong.

Any of us are capable (with fifty years of hindsight FDR didn't have) of
seeing that.

There are many who feel his caving in to the soviets by allowing
Stalin to take control of so much of Europe was a bad decision.
That resulted in 50 years of oppression of eastern Europe (hundreds
of thousands got sent to the gulag) and we spent billions defending
western Eurpoe and fighting a cold war at home.

Gig 601XL Builder wrote:

The fact that a company large or small would leave the US to reduce the
amount of taxes they have to pay ought to show you that taxes are too high
in this country.



Exactly. When a company wants to build a new plant somewhere (or
relocate an existing one) they typically go where they costs are
lowests so that they can remain competative. Different states are
willing to advertize their low tax rates and even offer special
packages to attract the businesses to their state. This is good
competition and if forces the states to be competetive and be
efficient in spending money.

Businesses have a fiduciary responsibility to the stockholders
to make decisions that result in the company being profitable.

"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in message
...
Larry Dighera wrote:

I'm not fixated on Halliburton. I've just used Halliburton's fleeing
to an Arab country to escape paying US income taxes as an example of
how _unrestrained_ competition causes both buyers and sellers to
become victims.


The fact that a company large or small would leave the US to reduce the
amount of taxes they have to pay ought to show you that taxes are too high
in this country.

Unless the purchasers of the company aren't domestic in the first place.


-c

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...

The federal government is the only entity that is not subject to
Enronization of workers retirement funds. Or do you know of others?


The federal government is just as subject to "Enronization" of workers
retirement funds as Enron.

gatt wrote:
"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in message
...
Larry Dighera wrote:

I'm not fixated on Halliburton. I've just used Halliburton's
fleeing to an Arab country to escape paying US income taxes as an
example of how _unrestrained_ competition causes both buyers and
sellers to become victims.


The fact that a company large or small would leave the US to reduce
the amount of taxes they have to pay ought to show you that taxes
are too high in this country.

Unless the purchasers of the company aren't domestic in the first
place.


Purchasers of what? The company's stock? Their product or service?