Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He makes it with
a machine he could not possibly have made himself. He does not know
where it was made, or how it works, and may not care. He does not know
the people that planted, cultivated, harvested, dried, roasted,
packaged, freighted, warehoused, distributed, marketed, or retailed
his coffee, and may not care. The company that insures the
manufacturer of the coffee machine required that it meet certain
safety guidelines, as established by the private insurance-company-
funded Underwriters Laboratory. Joe has seen the UL mark, but is not
really sure what it's for or how it protects him. He doesn't clearly
understand why greedy businessmen might be interested in a safe
product. All of this was made possible by libertarians who fought for
and won the legal right to free trade.

He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water which he bought
from Ozarka, because the local government monopoly of water supply
bears the comforting designation of "accepted" and also tastes funny.

He thinks back to going to church on Sunday. He is happy to have a
community where he can participate with other like-minded people in
ceremony. This was made possible by the long struggle to disentangle
church and state, and his church enjoys the absence of taxation. He
wishes other aspects of his life could be so free.

He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee, and
then he takes a long drag on a cigarette. He bought his medication
while on a trip to Mexico, where, thanks to less regulation and looser
enforcement of IP laws, they were much cheaper. His medications are
safe to take because he bought them from a reputable dealer. He can
still afford cigarettes and can still legally purchase them, because
of those who continue to fight for his rights, even if his exercise of
those rights might harm him or his family.

Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; it is
fragranced with some sort of exotic flower and there are strange
chemicals in it - god knows what - and he bought it, well, because he
liked the picture of the kangaroo on the bottle. He luxuriates in his
bourgeois moment in the shower, a luxury unavailable to even the most
wealthy of only 200 years ago. He is able to have many of such
seemingly simple luxuries because some greedy businessmen sought
enormous profits in the only way they could: satisfying consumer
demand.

Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay,
medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because the
accumulation of capital over centuries has now brought the discounted
marginal value product of a schmuck like Joe to unimaginable heights.
Joe doesn't know anything about economics because he doesn't have to.
He is no smarter than his forbears, and he works less. Nonetheless,
because he participates in a world-embracing division of labor where
his specialized work on a growing capital base is greatly valued, he
is richer.

Joe's employer pays these standards because if they don't, his
employer's competitors will.

It's noon time, Joe doesn't need to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay
some bills - he uses online banking and direct deposit. He has no idea
how these systems work, or what a banking clearinghouse is, but he is
able to use these services at the lowest cost practicable because
banks compete for his business. Notwithstanding the massive
interventions to the business of banking, such as the creation of
central banking and the Federal Reserve system and the repudiation of
the gold standard, he is able to weather the government-induced
business cycles and inflation by investing in mutual funds, annuities,
stocks, bonds, REITs, real estate, and other investment vehicles. He
is able to do this because of greedy entrepreneurs and libertarians
who fought against usury laws.

The online banking leaves him free to take a moment to browse
amazon.com for his favorite books, movies, and music.

Joe is home from work, he plans to visit his father this evening at
his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to
dads; his car is not among the safest in the world because he chose
not to buy a Volvo. His brother has a Volvo, but he has a gas-guzzling
muscle car. He has this choice because nationalization of the auto
industry was prevented.

He arrives at his rural boyhood home. The house didn't have any good
programming choices until DirecTV offered an array of programming and
high-speed internet, too. His dad uses a VCR, which only became
affordable to him after lots of rich people bought the early,
expensive versions and the manufacturers improved the designs and cut
costs. In fact, his dad has a cell phone, TiVo, refrigerator,
microwave oven, and a CD player - all of which became affordable to
him because they were first the toys of the super-rich, and the
crackpot schemes financed by the wealthy entrepreneurs willing and
able to risk their money in such endeavors.

He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on a
reverse mortgage - a recent market innovation. After his visit with
dad he gets back in his car for the ride home. He turns on a radio
talk show. The host keeps saying that libertarians are kooks and
anarchists and thank God for continual market intervention and
government protection. Government intervention and taxation improves
and will continue to improve the standards of living of Americans. (He
doesn't tell Joe that his beloved Democrats/Republicans have fought to
destroy every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day.)

Joe agrees, and puts his support behind protectionism, taxation,
monopolies, interventionism, and war: these are obviously the things
upon which civilization is built.

Sam Bostaph's version:

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with bottled water
because he knows that the municipal water system supplies water that
occasionally has e coli and other natural organisms that will make him
ill--after all his mother died from drinking water that was polluted
by sewage after a heavy rain. Joe tried to sue, but was told that the
city had sovereign immunity from such suits as a result of state law.
If the water he pours from the bottle he bought at Safeway is
polluted, he knows he can sue the manufacturer and collect big, so he
feels pretty sure that it's clean.

Joe grinds his coffee beans carefully because they're very expensive
as a result of the U.S. government-enforced international coffee
cartel that exists to protect the jobs of coffee importers--heavy
campaign contributers to Congress. He's also careful about how much
sugar he puts in his coffee because it costs seven times the world
price of sugar as a result of the U.S. government imposed import
restrictions on sugar to protect the domestic sugar beet and sugar
cane industry.

Some mornings he drinks a coke instead, although it hasn't tasted as
good since the manufacturer substituted corn syrup for sugar as a
sweetener, since sugar is so expensive.

With his first swallow of coffee Joe takes his daily medication for
his liver cancer. His doctor assures him that it is the best
medication available in the U.S., although more effective medicines
are used in Europe. Joe has a life expectancy of only two more years,
but it will be a decade or so until the FDA tests on those other
medicines are complete and they are allowed to be sold in the U.S. Joe
feels protected anyway; after all, he might lose his hair or suffer
some dizziness from the new medicines.. The FDA will protect him from
that eventuality. Besides, the medicines he takes are paid for by
money that his employer would have otherwise paid him in his regular
salary. Since he never sees that money, he doesn't realize that his
medicine isn't really subsidized by his employer after all.

And so on....

On Aug 13, 9:09*pm, Jack wrote:
Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He makes it with
a machine he could not possibly have made himself. He does not know
where it was made, or how it works, and may not care.

it was made in china because the company he was laid off from sent
his job overseas so the owner could make another buck.

He does not know
the people that planted, cultivated, harvested, dried, roasted,
packaged, freighted, warehoused, distributed, marketed, or retailed
his coffee, and may not care

the people that planted the coffee were central americans working for
slave labor wages because their govts, supported by far right
americans, ensured they had no protection at all


.. The company that insures the
manufacturer of the coffee machine required that it meet certain
safety guidelines, as established by the private insurance-company-
funded Underwriters Laboratory. Joe has seen the UL mark, but is not
really sure what it's for or how it protects him.

conservatives opposed having companies put UL on their products,
fearing that people would get too much knowledge, just like they
opposed legislation forcing chemical companies to publish MSDS's
detailing chemical safety

He doesn't clearly
understand why greedy businessmen might be interested in a safe
product. All of this was made possible by libertarians who fought for
and won the legal right to free trade.

with, of course, no protection at all for the safety of working
people.



Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay,
medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because the
accumulation of capital over centuries has now brought the discounted
marginal value product of a schmuck like Joe to unimaginable heights

ROFLMAO!! what jack doesn't tell you is that UNIONS won medical
benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacations, NOT the company
owners. if it wasn't for unions, joe would still be working 7 days a
week, 12 hours a day for slave labor wages, being beaten by pinkerton
guards if he disobeyed company rules



Joe's employer pays these standards because if they don't, his
employer's competitors will.

and, of course, company heads have colluded with each other to set
prices and wages so they maximize their own profits while minimizing
worker safety and wages. joe doesn't realize his real salary, after
inflation, is less today than it was in reagan's time 30 years ago


It's noon time, Joe doesn't need to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay
some bills - he uses online banking and direct deposit. He has no idea
how these systems work, or what a banking clearinghouse is, but he is
able to use these services at the lowest cost practicable because
banks compete for his business.

and the banks convince people they compete, but they dont in reality,
knowing that if they make bad loans, conservatives will raid the
federal treasury, and the retirement plans of middle class workers to
ensure bank owners still get their $40 million dollar bonuses, just
like wall street is doing this year with our TARP money


Notwithstanding the massive
interventions to the business of banking, such as the creation of
central banking and the Federal Reserve system and the repudiation of
the gold standard, he is able to weather the government-induced
business cycles and inflation by investing in mutual funds, annuities,
stocks, bonds, REITs, real estate, and other investment vehicles.

all of which have plummeted in value, destroying joe's retirement,
while the owners of these instrument ran to the federal govt saying
they were 'too big to fail', ensuring the bank owners would receive
their handsome salaries while joe has to work until he's 75.




Joe is home from work, he plans to visit his father this evening at
his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to
dads; his car is not among the safest in the world because he chose
not to buy a Volvo. His brother has a Volvo, but he has a gas-guzzling
muscle car. He has this choice because nationalization of the auto
industry was prevented.

and since it's in private hands it went bankrupt, and needed a govt
bailout, courtesy of middle class taxpayers, to ensure the rich owners
would stay rich



He arrives at his rural boyhood home. The house didn't have any good
programming choices until DirecTV offered an array of programming and
high-speed internet, too. His dad uses a VCR, which only became
affordable to him after lots of rich people bought the early,
expensive versions and the manufacturers improved the designs and cut
costs. In fact, his dad has a cell phone, TiVo, refrigerator,
microwave oven, and a CD player - all of which became affordable to
him because they were first the toys of the super-rich, and the
crackpot schemes financed by the wealthy entrepreneurs willing and
able to risk their money in such endeavors.

and all of these products, along with the computer chips that drive
them, are made in china because the rich company owners decided they'd
rather pay slave labor wages in china to a dictatorship rather than
give joe a living wage...after all he's going to work until he's 75.
he's got plenty of time to find a job when he's 67.


He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on a
reverse mortgage - a recent market innovation.

along with collateralized debt obligations which mushroomed from $920
billion in 1997 to sixty two TRILLION in 2007 and caused the collapse
of the US economy

and so the libertarians spin their fairy tales of market efficiencies,
evil unions and other fables that enable them to sleep at night, like
children, unafraid of monsters under the bed

Jack wrote:
On Aug 14, 9:59 am, NotNow wrote:

Typical. Lump everybody in one small narrow slot.


I failed to note your outrage over the "Day in the life of a
Republican" post that preceeded this one.

Typical.

I was just providing some balance. :-)

I didn't see it. I have some idiots killfiled.

On Fri, 14 Aug 2009 09:55:54 -0700 (PDT), Jack
wrote:

On Aug 14, 9:59*am, NotNow wrote:


Typical. Lump everybody in one small narrow slot.


I failed to note your outrage over the "Day in the life of a
Republican" post that preceeded this one.

Typical.

I was just providing some balance. :-)

As a totally neutral observer, I have to agree with your post.
--
John H

All decisions, even those made by liberals, are the result of binary thinking.