Hello one and all,
My name is Julio and on most forums I go by the moniker of juliofromny. As the name suggests, I'm originally from NY (Manhattan to be exact) and am currently living in CT living paycheck to paycheck. On top of surfing the web, watching TV and listening to tons of podcasts (really not much time for reading anymore) I also do a semiweekly podcast of my own called, you guessed it, The Julio From NY Show. I'm definitely disenfranchised with the current political system and am seeking answers. I've heard of Free Talk Live about a year ago and finally decided to give it a listen. I'm starting to turn around to the idea of Libertarianism but of course I still have tons of questions and hope to get some answers here and other sources.
Welcome.
Hey Julio,
Welcome. I would say call in with your questions. There are lots of other people right were you are, holding onto some of the same objections. Letting Mark and Ian address them is a great way to learn. Plus debating with Ian will improve your broadcast skills, trust me. 
Glad to have you on the forum.
SamIam
Thanks, yeah I might have to do that… I've like just about everything i've heard the past few shows and may even sign up for the $3/month amp membership before the deadline that fellow new yorker made to match new members. My biggest questions really are regarding the free-market vs regulations on corporations on a number of areas from monopolies preventions, to safety codes, to treatment of employees etc… is there a good book that's considered the "libertarian manifesto" for all free-staters??
[quote author=juliofromny link=topic=177.msg1229#msg1229 date=1224167355]
Thanks, yeah I might have to do that… I've like just about everything i've heard the past few shows and may even sign up for the $3/month amp membership before the deadline that fellow new yorker made to match new members. My biggest questions really are regarding the free-market vs regulations on corporations on a number of areas from monopolies preventions, to safety codes, to treatment of employees etc… is there a good book that's considered the "libertarian manifesto" for all free-staters??
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Healing Our World is brilliant. Read it free here:
http://ruwart.com/Healing/
Monopolies are made possible by government interference. Government statutes are shaped by the huge wealthy companies and some huge organizations, and tailored to give them a competitive edge over their competitors, particularly small business. Unions do some of this too, but that's really just about making their employees benefit from the monopolies. They don't want to break up monopolies. They just want a piece of the (violent) action. The unions don't benefit from small businesses that typically don't hire union employees.
Welcome to the forum and to the ideas of liberty.
[quote author=juliofromny link=topic=177.msg1229#msg1229 date=1224167355]
is there a good book that's considered the "libertarian manifesto" for all free-staters??
[/quote]
Another good book is The Market For Liberty.
[quote author=FTL_Ian link=topic=177.msg1230#msg1230 date=1224167489]
Healing Our World is brilliant. Read it free here:
http://ruwart.com/Healing/
[/quote]
Thanks for the link. As soon as I heard this book I searched it on Amazon and there were two versions of Healing Our World so I wasn't sure which was the one to start with first. I'm glad "The Other Piece of the Puzzle" is the one I ended up with on my wish list as it is the earlier one
[quote author=Mike Barskey link=topic=177.msg1237#msg1237 date=1224170069]
Welcome to the forum and to the ideas of liberty.
Another good book is The Market For Liberty.
[/quote]
Thanks for this option. Oh wow it's also a free download. Will definitely be adding this to my iPod for listening pleasure. Thanks for all the responses
[quote author=juliofromny link=topic=177.msg1243#msg1243 date=1224182344]
[quote author=FTL_Ian link=topic=177.msg1230#msg1230 date=1224167489]
Healing Our World is brilliant. Read it free here:
http://ruwart.com/Healing/
[/quote]
Thanks for the link. As soon as I heard this book I searched it on Amazon and there were two versions of Healing Our World so I wasn't sure which was the one to start with first. I'm glad "The Other Piece of the Puzzle" is the one I ended up with on my wish list as it is the earlier one
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If you're going to buy it, buy the 2001 edition, not the 90s edition. It's more to-date. The 90s edition is free at the above link.
To put forth more about Government vs Free Market. My favorite one is the idea that we need police.
Let us assume that their motto, 'protect and serve' is true. When was the last time you were robbed, your house or car was broken into, or in general any real crime happened. Did the police actually protect you from this event? If you're like me, most likely it was the police who committed the crime against you, in fining you for failure to follow the rules. Now remember you are paying them to not protect you and paying them even more to hassle you.
Further, this service concept, is the same thing. They claim to service you, if this were so then why is it whenever you interact with them, you feel as if you just got done murdering someone? When was the last time you went to McDonald's and felt that way?
In both cases their is no actual protection or service given to you by police.
If it were a private protection service, they wouldn't assume their customer's were guilty and make them feel that way. They would be polite, respectful, and not nickle and dime you to death. They'd actually protect you from crime, or at the very least pay you for your loss while they figure out how to get the actual criminal who caused the loss. In all this, the private protection service has a motivation to provide both protection and service, if they fail, you will give your money to someone else and they will eventually lose their business.
I bought Healing Our World In An Age Of Aggression (the 2001 version) and it's awesome in my hands. The side quotations are a bit to get used to but the book is much better than the website. There's great charts and illustrations as well as up to date information.
I bought that, a few Harry Browne books, The Market For Liberty (to give to an almost-entirely-stranger) and Hazlett's one recently from http://amazon.freetalklive.com/
[quote author=cyberdoo78 link=topic=177.msg1250#msg1250 date=1224191310]
To put forth more about Government vs Free Market. My favorite one is the idea that we need police.
Let us assume that their motto, 'protect and serve' is true. When was the last time you were robbed, your house or car was broken into, or in general any real crime happened. Did the police actually protect you from this event? If you're like me, most likely it was the police who committed the crime against you, in fining you for failure to follow the rules. Now remember you are paying them to not protect you and paying them even more to hassle you.
Further, this service concept, is the same thing. They claim to service you, if this were so then why is it whenever you interact with them, you feel as if you just got done murdering someone? When was the last time you went to McDonald's and felt that way?
In both cases their is no actual protection or service given to you by police.
If it were a private protection service, they wouldn't assume their customer's were guilty and make them feel that way. They would be polite, respectful, and not nickle and dime you to death. They'd actually protect you from crime, or at the very least pay you for your loss while they figure out how to get the actual criminal who caused the loss. In all this, the private protection service has a motivation to provide both protection and service, if they fail, you will give your money to someone else and they will eventually lose their business.
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wow a lot of good stuff here… I'm really appreciating it. As for the whole police thing. I guess being hispanic in what wasn't really the best neighborhood in the world (Chelsea, Manhattan) and seeing how cops treated minorities and especially helpless homeless people I never was crazy about or bought into the idea that cops were the only solution. There used to be a group called The Guardian Angels in NYC and for a time they actually did a pretty decent job of protecting the neighborhood and then they did eventually get corrupt and were bullying minorities more for no real reason other than to stay up on their baton swinging skills.
No my biggest issue as I stated earlier is regulating corporations. And more than anything I go by my personal experiences. AT&T used to have a monopoly in the 80's, Con Edison used to dump all their toxic wastes into the Hudson River (It's still a mess today) and then of course my 5 yr stint in the sub-prime market where I would see bad loans get approved regardless of what was good for the applicant for bonuses and quotas. In my eyes those things need regulation and I only see those injustices being further perpetuated if there is nothing to keep unfeeling corporations in line. However, based on what someone mentioned earlier, monopolies were actually perpetuated by government aid (I never claimed to be an expert on this topic LOL) and I'm always willing be better informed on this subject and see if whether or not I'm buying into the "government" kool-aid after all.
Governments ARE corporations. Regulations only serve to protect big companies from competition. "Healing" addresses this well.
[quote author=FTL_Ian link=topic=177.msg1271#msg1271 date=1224207057]
Governments ARE corporations. Regulations only serve to protect big companies from competition. "Healing" addresses this well.
[/quote]
Yeah I heard the episode where you go into the incorporation of your city. That idea is still blowing my mind and yet it makes so much sense. I kept wondering about how those private jails were making money by keeping people locked up and now I see (b/c that's how the regular prison system does it as well). Just the idea of a bond on the prison sentence of an inmate like any old bond you buy just boggles my mind. I look forward to that audio book and my pring copy of "Healing"
[quote author=Kevin Dean link=topic=177.msg1252#msg1252 date=1224191729]
I bought Healing Our World In An Age Of Aggression (the 2001 version) and it's awesome in my hands. The side quotations are a bit to get used to but the book is much better than the website. There's great charts and illustrations as well as up to date information.
I bought that, a few Harry Browne books, The Market For Liberty (to give to an almost-entirely-stranger) and Hazlett's one recently from http://amazon.freetalklive.com/
[/quote]
;D Those side quotations are my favorite part. I strongly endorse the book.
Oh, I love them as well! It's just that the actual formatting of the page is odd, the proportions are all whacked out and sometimes I feel as if I'm reading the "wrong way'. 
Yeah, you've drunk the kool-aid all right. Of course Government is going to tell you its the best one to handle these issues. If you were make a butt load of money on things and liked controlling people then what you would you tell people, "you're the bad one"? Of course not.
Kidding aside. Yes, governments are corporations, yes, government monopolies only exist where regulation exists. AT&T has always had some type of monopoly because they exist because government exists. Without government who is AT&T going to appeal to get the regulation they need to subsidize their business? AT&T isn't going to go around to people's homes and point guns at them saying, 'we are going to install phone lines into your house and you can't do a damn thing about it.' No, instead they have government pass rules and regulations making it 'illegal' for you and I to decide tomorrow to go door to door offering to provide people phone service unless we ask for permission from the government, get licences, permits, meet guidelines designed by AT&T for AT&T passed by government.
As for ConEd, without government they wouldn't have exclusive rights to power lines/phone lines in NYC, they would have to compete with every other phone/power company for business. If they were found dumping waste into any river people could be free to switch to their competition and they would be out of business.
Again government is the evil entity that allows ConEd to continue to dump, because if there were no 'public land' and it was all private, including sections of the rivers polluters would be sued out of business, again without government to protect them, the owners of the company would also face liability and possible prison sentences.
If people were made responsible for their actions, knowing there was no government to bail them out, or take over the loan and they would be held fully liable for any commercial transaction that they would enter into, they might be less likely to seek loans that they can't afford. Further they wouldn't have teaser rates they would be rated based on their credit worthiness, and most of these people would be driven out of the loan market by the high rates that they selves have rightfully earned.
Corporations are unfeeling because they lack the ability to feel, for they are nothing more then a piece of paper with some words on it. The actions that are taken in the companies name are by people who are protected from full liability and like most people when they aren't liable for their actions they make bad decisions which have the appearance of being 'unfeeling'. Without government, and without regulation these people are subject to market forces that tend to stop them from doing that which harms others, makes them more concerned for their customers, and over all people you want to actually associate with.
[quote author=cyberdoo78 link=topic=177.msg1297#msg1297 date=1224222757]
Corporations are unfeeling because they lack the ability to feel, for they are nothing more then a piece of paper with some words on it. The actions that are taken in the companies name are by people who are protected from full liability and like most people when they aren't liable for their actions they make bad decisions which have the appearance of being 'unfeeling'. Without government, and without regulation these people are subject to market forces that tend to stop them from doing that which harms others, makes them more concerned for their customers, and over all people you want to actually associate with.
[/quote]
But of course for that to work you need to be a proactive and informed consumer and there are so few of those :) You make some strong points that I never considered before. Like I said, I'm still reeling about the idea that government is like any other company and penalties are just products. Still I could just imagine, with your argument, how television would be in a completely free-market. Would it be a lot more propoganda or a lot more grassroots journalism? And how would a consumer stay on top of that much information on anything and everything?
Julio, next time you see some new regulation that's supposed to keep big business in line, follow the money. See who's supporting it and see where the money is coming from. I guarantee you'll find some company and with a little research you'll find how it gives them an edge over their competitor. Most likely it has a greater impact on the competitor than the supporting company. This is especially true of something incurs some kind of expense that's pretty small-scale to the big leaguers. If I'm Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime and you're a slim petite athlete, and we're competing in a series of Olympic-style events. He'd probably win some events, but you'd probably win at least a few. You could probably beat me in a foot race, right? This would be kind of like a big, wealthy company with a lot of financial resources, but not very maneuverable due to the bureaucracy, trying to compete with some small start up that can rapidly adjust for market needs in order to start growing and competing.
OK, so now imagine that Arnold has been in the competitions for a while, has won a lot of them, and has been inviting the people who run the event to his big house parties and schmoozing them and so forth. He's contributed to their campaigns so they can keep their jobs on the board. Now imagine that the rules changed so that during the races, every competitor has to carry a 75 lb weight. That's fair, right? I mean, it's a rule that applies to everyone equally!
Wal-mart was a big supporter of minimum wage. Does that seem odd to you? Not a single Wal-mart employee makes minimum wage. Even if they did, it wouldn't be very many of them. But guess what the single largest expense of the vast majority of companies is? Employee wages. Now, consider that 80% of companies fail. Why do they fail? They just don't make enough money to operate. What do you think raising minimum wage is going to do to potential new competition (and the new jobs they would create and the new choices they would add to products) for the big companies? Ever wonder why 80% of new companies fail? I'm sure there's some bad business decisions in there, but it's clearly not the only reason.
Imagine new regulations on a company that involve some extra paperwork on each paycheck. Something like this is the 75lb weight for Arnold. The big companies have entire departments to handle such things already. Some small store (biggest expense is employment, remember) might be struggling to have enough people to work the night shift. Now add a new expense to employing people that means possibly having to hire yet another employee that you might not otherwise have needed that once again adds to expense without raising productivity. It's like hiring someone to move rocks back and forth. Now you raise prices to keep from going out of business, but Wal-mart's prices are cheaper so you go out of business anyway!
Repeat after me. "We do not have a free market in the U.S. We do not have a free market in the U.S." And frankly, without all the bureaucracy baggage cleaned out (the moving rocks back and forth) we can't even begin to conceive of the economic benefits to regular people in terms of job opportunities, cost of products, potential for self-employment or entrepreneurship, etc.