Big business laws

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Post by 71-1085092892 »

Posted by: GORDON on Aug. 28 2001,12:22

On the one hand, government intervention in business artificially manipulates the basic economic theories of supply and demand. On the other hand, I think monopolies are bad.
Discuss. laissez-faire, or not?


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Posted by: Cakedaddy on Aug. 28 2001,12:48

Sometimes monopolies are good. Sometimes they are bad.

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Posted by: thibodeaux on Aug. 28 2001,13:47

Monopolies only exist when government interferes in the marketplace. The idea that laissez-faire would lead to one huge monopoly is a myth.
Unfortunately, this cannot be proved either way, since we have no laissez-faire test bed economy. I therefore propose that America II be established as such. If monopolies emerge, we simply move on to America III: Attack of the Clones.


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Posted by: GORDON on Aug. 28 2001,14:03



---------------------QUOTE-------------------
Quote: from thibodeaux on 11:47 am on Aug. 28, 2001
laissez-faire
---------------------QUOTE-------------------


!!!!!!!

My way didn't look right to me at all, but 10 minutes searching didn't produce the correct spelling.

And I have to concur with the "Let the businesses be" concept, initially. We'll amend as needs be....or, there are other options.


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Posted by: thibodeaux on Aug. 28 2001,14:09

< http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?laisse02.wav=laissez-faire >
Fear my elite spelling skills.


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Posted by: GORDON on Aug. 28 2001,14:11

My spelling was so far off, the AI routine on dictionary.com had no idea what I was trying to say.
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Posted by: Vince66 on Aug. 29 2001,10:27

I'm with Thibodeaux on this one. Plus, he can spell good.
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Post by TheCatt »

laissez-faire, if only to see how it really works.

On the other hand, what about drugs, etc that end up killing people since they weren't tested and such? People can just sue back, but what if the company goes bankrupt first?
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Post by TPRJones »

That's easy enough to fix. Make it so that any company that is in trouble, the stockholders become responsible. If company X goes bankrupt, then stockholders have to pay the balance per share. If company X violates laws that lead to a jail sentence being required, then that time is split up amoung the shareholders, too (with a set minimum of time below which a certain shareholder is ignored - no point in jailing someone for 10 minutes, after all). All CEO's, boardmembers and the like who hold less than 5% of the company's shares are liable as if they held 5% of the company's shares.

Now, when people invest they will look for morally upstanding companies, and CEOs and boardmembers will do the right thing more often than not because they will be liable for a portion of the damages if they screw it up. Companies that regularly polute the environment, or produce crappy products, or a myriad of other problems will all dry up and blow away from lack of investors willing to take that risk.

The idea needs to be tweaked, of course.
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Post by TheCatt »

I like it, make the owners (shareholders) really be the owners and responsible ones.

Oh, I REALLY like that idea.
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Post by TPRJones »

The whole idea of the corporation limiting the liability of the owners was created by the wealthy folks of Europe (back before there was a US) specifically so they could do things they shouldn't and not get in trouble for it. It's become a basic part of our economic systems, but I seriously doubt those that came up with the idea ever envisioned anything like the massive corporations we've got today.

I think it's time to make people take responsibility for their actions (and the actions of those they support) again. It's been long enough.
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Post by DictionaryDave »

TPRJones wrote:The whole idea of the corporation limiting the liability of the owners was created by the wealthy folks of Europe (back before there was a US) specifically so they could do things they shouldn't and not get in trouble for it. It's become a basic part of our economic systems, but I seriously doubt those that came up with the idea ever envisioned anything like the massive corporations we've got today.

I think it's time to make people take responsibility for their actions (and the actions of those they support) again. It's been long enough.
I agree with you

You need some type of regulation. If not we would have a return to the Robber barons of the late 19th and early 20th century.
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Post by TPRJones »

DictionaryDave wrote:You need some type of regulation. If not we would have a return to the Robber barons of the late 19th and early 20th century.
My point, though, is just the opposite. We need to deregulate almost completely, and part of that is the dropping of this bogus LLC crap and all those laws. Treat a company not as an individual entity that is self-responsible, but as a conglomerate of employees and directors and shareholders that are all responsible for the actions of the whole.

It's the improper use of regulations that leads to stuff like Robberbarrons. In a truely free marketplace, where criminal charges brought against a company hit the owners instead of a liability shield, that sort of thing couldn't happen. Well not more than once anyway, as opposed to how it is now where the company just folds and the evil businessman just sets up another one to replace it, no harm no foul.
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Post by 71-1085092892 »

Wouldn't this keep peeps from investing, and put a sever damper on the economy? I know I wouldn't invest if when they cooked the books I'd go to jail. Isn't it punishment enough that I lose my investment if they crash and burn?
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Post by TPRJones »

GORDON wrote:Wouldn't this keep peeps from investing, and put a sever damper on the economy? I know I wouldn't invest if when they cooked the books I'd go to jail. Isn't it punishment enough that I lose my investment if they crash and burn?
I don't think it would. I think people would still invest just as much as ever, because companies would vie for that investment dollars by finding ways to prove that they are not a risk. We'd have comapanies doing everything they could to be above-board and do the right thing, so that they could keep investors.

Oh, some people would drop out of the market, most the hard-core cynics, but in exchange some others who currently don't trust "big business" would decide to invest in these "good companies" and take up the slack. I'd bet on an overall net change of zero.
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71-1085092892

Post by 71-1085092892 »

Hmmm. I shall ponder.
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Post by TPRJones »

I should note that I'm a huge fan of capitalism. Given the right set of conditions, it can solve every problem our society faces.

The key is to set it up so that you will strongly incentivize "good" behaviours while using a very minimal set of rules. If you instead try to make complex rules to punish "bad" behaviours while not strongly incentivizing the "good", then you'll just end up with people trying to find loopholes. Give it a basis in morality, keep it simple, and have a way to alter it without constantly adding new rules on top of old rules, and it will work.
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