Dave wrote in
:

Problem with that analysis is that in a perfect market all competitors'
prices will be the same and at a price equal to the marginal cost of the
highest cost producer (counting as cost a minimum return on invested
capital). In a monopoly all competitors' prices will also be the same.



I'll play another round of this thinking.....

So, why do countries where this benevolent government bureaucracy that
controls prices pay $6/gallon when I'm paying $1.93/gallon in the "almost
free market" economy? If the socialism were on the side of the citizens,
they'd be paying below wholesale. NOT!

Of course, gas prices in socialist countries is what pays for the "free
medical service", which isn't free and grossly mismanaged to boot. The $6
is mostly socialist taxes...

--
Larry

You know you've had a rough night when you wake up and your outlined in
chalk.

"Don White" wrotenb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
Terry Spragg wrote:
The problem is political decisions made at the behest of business ...
Party politics is to blame. Once elected, politicians should be
required to serve their constituents, not toe the party line.

I agree. Hang the top 20 executives ....

Each political party is designed to be run from the bottom "grass root"
level. Every county, town or urban neighborhood has precinct meetings.
People at these grass roots meetings elect one or more of their fellows to
represent them at the next higher level - county, state and national. Your
reps at each level nominate who the party will run at that level right up to
the president and VP. You did take part in this process didn't you? You
did attend precinct meetings and offer yourself as a candidate for state and
national conventions, didn't you? And you did raise money for your party's
candidates at each level, right? Oh! YOU weren't there so they nominated
somebody who owed his soul to "business" instead of his constituants? Which
constituants - the business execs who did attend party meetings and raise
money, or folks who show up for 5 minutes every other year to vote? Who
would you listen too if you were a congressman, the people who nominated you
and funded your election or the voters who's vote that money bought?

The Communist party was set up the same way but when nobody showed for
precinct meetings Stalin ended up running the show.

Terry Spragg wrote:
The problem is political decisions made at the behest of business ...

We've gotten around that problem by having business lobbyists author the
legislation. Cuts out the middleman!


Vito wrote:
Each political party is designed to be run from the bottom "grass root"
level.

??? Maybe 100 years ago that was true.

.... You did take part in this process didn't you?

No, all I did was vote. That *should* be enough... this (the U.S.) is a
democratic republic, right?

... You
did attend precinct meetings and offer yourself as a candidate for state and
national conventions, didn't you? And you did raise money for your party's
candidates at each level, right?

Aha! Now we get to the root of the matter... money. Politicians feel
beholden to those who give them money... big surprise. But does money
put them in office? No, the voters do. So what do they do with the
money? Buy expensive campaign ads, and hire top-salaried consultants to
tell them what to say about the issues.

Voters have been complicit in this process by electing the people who
spent the most money, for the most part, in the past 50 years. For a
while there in the late 1980s and mid 1990s, it looked like this trend
was going to reverse. But ever larger infusions of under-the-table cash
straightened it out again, and now we are happily on the road to
totalitarian plutocracy.

A novelty was the politically slanted entrtainment program. Every single
item was given a "spin" and hammered relentlessly into the listeners.
Surprisingly, some of these shows turned out to be popular. Now we have
whole networks devoted to nothing but political campaigning, with a
large segment of the population so hypnotized that when the most utter
nonsense is ballyhoo'd, they all shout in chorus 'Yes, that's right,
hooray for our side and let's kill those other guys.' Kind of scary...
it also makes you wonder why the current administration bothered to
spend hundreds of millions of Federal dollars filming & distributing
slanted fake news for political purposes.


The Communist party was set up the same way but when nobody showed for
precinct meetings Stalin ended up running the show.


Nah, he just set about killing the people who disagreed with him. AFAIK
he's got the all-time heavyweight world record, too.

DSK

A novelty was the politically slanted entrtainment program.


Dave wrote:
Nonsense. Entertainment programs, as well as news programs, have been
politically slanted since television's earliest days.

A tip of the hat for not using the stock phrase "liberal biased media."

I would agree that many programs on TV, and before that radio, and
before that plays & operas, had a degree of political slant.

The novelty is the program intended to entertain which is *nothing but*
political slant & spin... no plot, no story, no music, no attempt at
journalism, just ranting & raving.


Interestingly, some 35 years ago when cable was just emerging I was assigned
a paper on the First Amendment implications FCC regulation of networks when
going from 3 networks to a vast multiplicity of channels. Have to give a pat
on the back to the prof. who thought that one up.

And what were your conclusions?

DSK

"DSK" wrote in message
...
Nah, he just set about killing the people who disagreed with him. AFAIK
he's got the all-time heavyweight world record, too.

DSK

For the time being, anyways.

John Cairns

Dave wrote:
I give these kinds of programs mixed reviews. Programs of talking heads
sometimes provoke thought.

That can be true, when there is some fact or some relevant observation
involved. Most often, it seems that the people on these shows are either
just confabulating, or trying to get the audience to agree with their
views by repeating them often & vehemently.

But it bothers me the way that this kind of loud-mouth-ism has crept
into popular acceptance... it's now common for "news anchor" persons to
cast insults at political figures or anybody... the other day, in a
major metro area I was listening to what purported to be news on the
radio and was flabbergasted to hear the announcer relate details of a
personal tragedy, then say "He must be a liberal, they're the only ones
that are so dumb."

... Programs of what my wife calls "shouting heads"
generally turn me off. One of the programs I give fairly high marks to is
George Stephanopoulos's Sunday morning program.

Never seen it, I don't watch much TV.

Good grief, people even get all worked up talking politics in SAILING
forums!

DSK

"DSK" wrote
Vito wrote:
Each political party is designed to be run from the bottom "grass root"
level.

??? Maybe 100 years ago that was true.

The handles and knobs are still there but nobody uses them.

.... You did take part in this process didn't you?

No, all I did was vote. That *should* be enough... this (the U.S.) is a
democratic republic, right?

Ummm - wrong. That's why we were forced to choose between village idiots,
one from New England and one from Texas.

Aha! Now we get to the root of the matter... money. Politicians feel
beholden to those who give them money... big surprise. But does money
put them in office? No, the voters do. So what do they do with the
money? Buy expensive campaign ads, and hire top-salaried consultants to
tell them what to say about the issues.

Yes! Money does put them in office. All candidates are *trained* to find out
what you (voters) want to hear and say it as loudly and often as possible -
even if they plan to do the opposite! The one who can find out what you
want to hear most and say it the loudest will inevatibly get your vote.
That's the guy who can afford the best pollsters and campaign ads. Sad fact
of life and politics.

Voters have been complicit in this process by electing the people who
spent the most money,....

If the only time a voter pays any attention is in the weeks before election
all he is going to hear is what pollsters tell the candidates he wants to
hear. He listens then votes for the one who says it the loudest. Then the
winner does whatever the folks who paid for the polls and advertising tell
him to do. Any similarity between this and his promises is coincidental.

Again, take the last presidential campaign. We had to choose between a
draft-dodger who'd needlessly suckered us into another quagmire and a slave
to old money. But the draft dodger's pollsters found that many believed war
protesters like Kerry had lost us the war. Then he spent so much $$$ telling
us that that somehow Kerry's combat service in 'nam became less honorable
than Bush's drunken parties - and enough good christian voters believed it
to re-elect him. But the sorry thing is that these two loosers were our
choices.

I apologize for the recent off-topic political posts. This will be the
last one, this kind of stuff has a place elsewhere. But it is a fairly
serious issue.

... But does money
put them in office? No, the voters do. So what do they do with the
money? Buy expensive campaign ads, and hire top-salaried consultants to
tell them what to say about the issues.


Vito wrote:
Yes! Money does put them in office.

No it doesn't, the ignorance & the apathy of the voters (hence their
propensity to believe TV ads) is what puts them in office.

American voters have forgotten how to hold a grudge... a very useful
skill in the real world. When somebody rips you off, you don't give them
a chance to do it again.

DSK