Only in socialist newfoundland

Everywhere I look all over the place whether it's in newspapers online television and everywhere else I see advertising from Newfoundland power saying stop using so much energy. That's right they are actually telling their customers to stop using their products so much. Most of the time they are badgering us to purchase more insulation and to use programmable thermostats to maximize efficiency. Well this is what always happens when you introduce socialism into any sphere of life. No other company on the planet whatever tell you to stop using their products so much. But whenever you have socialism you have shortages and high prices. Then that leads to rationing. We can't have nice things because of this.

I just finished reading an article about a similar situation with hot water and water flow. The municipal and provincial governments regulate the amount of water you can have flowing through a tap or shower faucet also with toilets. That's why half the time when you flush the toilet the stuff doesn't even go down fully it just stays there or you have to use a plunger for the toilet brush to clean up afterwards. This never used to be the case in fact toilets were continuing to get better over the years but then of course the government comes into play and there are again shortages and lack of what you need. The same goes with water temperature. That's why people used to be able to put things in the dishwasher and when they came out they would be sparkling clean. No longer now you put things in the dishwasher perhaps for an hour and when they come out there's tons of food still left on them. That's what everybody always says you have to rinse off the plates and cups before you even put them in the dishwasher. So because the government is in charge of water there is obviously a shortage and a lack of quality and will have to pay for it by having dirty dishes and spending much more time doing your dishes that we normally would have to. This also affects our clothing which comes out of the washer. Instead of being sparkling clean the clothes are just barely passable and not really that clean. Detergent companies even had to go out of their way to develop cold water detergent which clearly doesn't really clean anything.

It's just so typical of the government to just try to ruin our lives at every turn in the name of progress but really it's not progress at all but a regress and regress into a worse and worse quality of life each and every day.

Simplistic Arguments from Non-Libertarians.

Here's one of the problems: While libertarians are asked to provide a start-to-finsih explanation of how their system based on freedom will work, and be able to answer any and all objections, non-libertarians simply have to state "the government will fix it" and that's considered sufficient.

I often engage in such discussions with people. Their thought process is as follows:

1. Problem identification
2. Government needs to spend money to solve this problem
3. Problem solved.

This isn't just people who don't know much about the system who talk like this. I listen to open line shows sometimes and you'll get high-paid executives from various industries or agencies who will use the exact same logic, never going any deeper in their analysis.

They are very good at talking about why their issue is of utmost important, but there is absolutely no creativity in solving it.

Now, #2: Government needs to spend money to solve this problem is often replaced with "government needs to regulate this more". It's always one of the two. Either more regulation or more money. That's it. You present me any problem and I can use this logic to solve it.

Problem: Roads are insufficient
Solution: more gov. money on roads

Problem: Not enough day cares
Solution: More government day cares

Problem: workers don't get enough money
Solution: Legislate higher wages.

Wow, what an easy job. The crazy part is that most people don't believe other solutions even exist. If I were to ask these advocates what the next best solution would be, they would draw a total blank.

And the other thing is people who don't advocate government involvement seem to be required to explain, in detail, how everything will work perfectly.

Oh, and to top it off, they aren't judged against the real world results the government is currently getting. They are judged against utopia. So we must perfectly explain, in detail, how we will achieve utopia, while the statists get away with simple rewording the problem as a solution.

The failures of government are forgiven but any failure in the private sector is harshly condemned. Usually the reasoning is something like "well, yes the government program failed, but they tried their best." but "yes the private sector failed, because they are greedy and only care about profit."

So that's what we're up against.

The Government is the most discriminatory of all

People say we need government to combat discrimination. But in the end, government creates far more discrimination than it eliminates. There are thousands of examples. I will just name a few off the top of my head.

Examples:

• When government takes tax money and uses it to subsidize only certain vocational fields, such as certain trades. This is discriminatory against people not in those trades who have to pay for their own education.
• Tax money that supports only females in certain fields. This is discriminatory against men. Especially when the gov pays 90% of their salary.
• When government automatically gives custody of children to women.
• When there are programs designed to sponsor people of a certain age only. This is ageist.
• Government programs to help visible minorities, even ones that outpace whites overall.
• Preference to bilingual people even when the job interacts very little in the other official language.

This is just briefly off the top of my head. I'm sure if this is open to the public, they could find dozens of specific examples. So one great step in eliminating discrimination would be eliminating government involvement in the economy.

CBC is Such a Joke - Especially their "Business News"

Where I work, I only have access to certain websites. No Facebook, no YouTube, not even Google. One of the sites they allow me to see is CBC. It’s where I get a lot of my news. But I have to make sure my BS detector is turned on every time I see it.

 

One of their stupidest areas is their so-called business section. It’s not even business-related for the most part. It’s more of a leftist Marxist-theory dumping ground which vilifies the activities of businesses. They have no concept of trade-offs or the power of the market. In fact, they see the market as a dangerous and scary place which should barely be legal.

 

One of the main activities of the business section is to warn customers about scary business practices. This goes hand-in-hand with their television coverage in which Bob McKeown waits outside in parking lots for the person in question to be almost in the car, and then start firing machine-gun questions at him as he’s getting in and trying to drive away. The person probably thinks they are under attack by some street person, but Bob McKeown portrays this as proof-positive that he caught them red-handed.

 

Some of the scary business practices include smaller packages of food, 100% juice (although it is indeed 100% juice, it doesn’t necessarily involve people hand-squeezing oranges directly into the boxes *gasp*), commercials appealing to people’s desire to be safe, commercials making big claims about their products.

 

Of course, most sane people already know companies go over the top in promoting their products. Nobody literally thinks the Cool Aid Man will burst through your wall whenever you consume his product. No one actually believes using Mr. Clean will bring the Mr. Clean genie himself into your house to clean everything. But CBC is so smug about “exposing” these evil businesses.

 

John Stossel, who was also a consumer reporter (and a much more interesting one than the people at CBC) and is now a libertarian, said he realized that after years of work that consumer reporting was basically useless. First of all, competition was much more effective in weeding out bad companies than any consumer reporter is. Word of mouth spread much faster than his reports. Good businesses essentially stayed in business and bad ones went bankrupt. I think he needs to talk to CBC.

 

I would say the CBC’s impact is essentially nil, but their goal is to appear to be Canada’s consumer watchdog, a trusted name people can turn to as a way to create a better society. Yet most of the issues they tackle just show how stupid and useless they are. And there’s always a degree of smugness associated with these reports that they produce. They act so proud that they are exposing evil businesses. But consider this: people voluntarily give money to businesses. If a business provides bad service, it’s not long before they go out of business in favor of competitors. But CBC doesn’t operate on this basis. Instead, we are forced at the end of a gun to fork over our hard-earned money to pay for CBC against our will. If they produce a product we don’t like, what is our recourse? While they literally steal our money, they complain that Tropicana is not hand-squeezed. Very hypocritical.

 

And what really gets me is they have one single, solitary response to every problem. The solution, according to the CBC, for every possible problem is *drum-roll please* REGULATION! That’s it, that’s all. I mean they could literally have a show where they just list one perceived problem after another and give their one word solution: regulation! So simple. What a great and simple world they live in. Easy problems, easy solutions. Who cares about actual real-world economics, about real trade-off, etc? We just need regulation! Phone bill too high? Regulation! Water not up to some arbitrary standard? Regulation! Dentist charging too much? Regulation! Wow, look at me solving all the world’s problems! I deserve the Nobel Prize! We pay over $1 billion per year for this (that’s how much the CBC costs)?

 

 

Typical...

How about actually being a business person??

 

Thought of the Day

Scenario 1: After spending several years as a volunteer in very poor areas of former Soviet countries, a dentist is struck at how many do not have access to toothpaste because it is too expensive and because people are not aware of its benefits. Out of compassion, he starts a company to produce and sell toothpaste for a low price. Because of this, there is a huge decrease in the incidence of cavities in these countries. He also advertises his product often to promote the use of toothpaste and almost everyone becomes a customer.

Scenario 2: A very greedy, evil man decides he wants to become rich. He sees an opportunity in the market. In the former Soviet Union, he sees very few people using toothpaste. He decides to manufacture and sell toothpaste, but because there is some competition, he offers the lowest price to maximize market share and sales. He often thinks to himself how much he hates the people in the country in general. To get the seal of approval from the Dentistry association, he meets all the safety standards.

In both scenarios, the price of the toothpaste, the number of customers, and the advertisements are identical. In effect, both produce the same results. The population is just as well off in both cases. This is why capitalism is a good system. It does not depend on the morality or goodness of the people involved. In scenario 2, if the entrepreneur produced low-quality toothpaste or harmful toothpaste, he would not get the seal of approval. If the price was too high, he wouldn’t get customers. Capitalism means all people must provide for others. Unfortunately most people do not see this. They say to have good economics, people must be morally good. This is only true of authoritarian regimes. Another common criticism of businesspeople is they are “greedy”. But again, as the example above shows, this is irrelevant. That’s why capitalism is superior to other systems.

Sometimes I wish I was a Liberal!

As a libertarian, we have to give tough answers to tough questions. You realize that 99% of the people you talk to are not on the same wavelength and will summarily dismiss your ideas. Explanations cannot be given in quick sound bites, and even a well thought-out response is routinely accused of being heartless or unworkable. You are accepted by neither conservatives nor liberals. It’s a true uphill battle.

On the other hand, liberals have easy answers. The solution to any given problem lies in simply restating a question as an answer. It’s like a child talking to Santa Claus. He can just ask for whatever he wants. Any questions as to how it happens is answered with “magic”. The kid is satisfied. Asking a libertarian is more like a child asking a parent for something. The parent reminds the child of trade-offs, expenses, limits. The child might be asked to sacrifice, and sometimes after some calculation the child decides the sacrifice is too much.

The “magic” for liberals is the government. The government in the liberal mind is similar to Santa. There are no trade-offs, no expenses, nothing to consider except for the fact that you want something. For example:

Problem: People want education, education is too expensive.

Solution: Government should provide free education because education is a right.

Problem: Healthcare is really terrible. Wait times are extremely long, there are too few doctors, drugs are too expensive, etc.

Solution: Hire more doctors, spend more money.

Problem: Parents find daycare expensive

Solution: Government will pay for it instead!

Problem: I have a pet project that no one wants to pay for.

Solution: We’ll tax people and give you some of the money!

Problem: We want 35 hour workweeks, 5 weeks vacation, a living wage, and plenty of other perks!

Solution: Government will make those all mandatory!

The list goes on and on and you can surely imagine thousands of similar circumstances. It’s an easy Problem-Solution way of thinking. The problem with this thinking is it’s not real. It assumes an omnipotent government that creates laws of the universe, rather than seeing the government as simply one factor in an overall set of factors which can have either positive or negative influences. Trade-offs are rarely considered, and several fallacies are employed, especially the seen vs. the unseen fallacy.

Liberals have solutions which can be spray-painted on placards and chanted at a rally. A libertarian enjoys no such luxury. Going back to the Santa Claus analogy, liberals sit on Santa’s lap and ask for all the stuff they want and Santa, a god-like figure, simply grants them. The libertarian attempts to explain to these children that although what they want *sounds*good, there are other factors they must consider. A person asks for a puppy and the liberal simply says “Sure!” A person asks a libertarian and the response is more like “Well, you must walk the dog every day, you must feed him, clean him, take care of him. You can’t always go on vacation, and you must pay all the expenses. Is it still worth it?” Which one do you think fits on a placard.

Liberals have bought into the idea that far from being a necessary evil, the government is the main actor in an economy. Businesses are pesky toys of the rich, but serve little utility. All good emanates from the government. All action of consequence is a government action. In Newfoundland, this is the dominate view. On open line radio shows, almost invariably the caller will present a problem with the inevitable solution that the government must do something. The absolute dependence on the government is sometimes so shocking it borders on comical, if not sad.

One person wrote into a newspaper about her brother who recently took his own life. After admitting that she thought about contacting him to see how he was, she decided against it. But who did she end up blaming? The government of course. It was the government’s fault there weren’t more people looking after veterans.

This attitude is extremely common. For instance, instead of bemoaning how bad of a son or daughter they are for not providing for their elderly parent, people will get all up in arms about how the government doesn’t have enough retirement homes. Instead of working harder to make more money so one spouse can stay at home, citizens complain there are not enough daycares or daycare employees. This whole attitude removes personal responsibility and thrusts it upon a nameless, faceless entity and is very damaging to society.

I know libertarianism is right, but sometimes it would just be simpler to have easy answers like liberals.