Silk Road forums
Discussion => Shipping => Topic started by: CaptainJohnny on September 07, 2011, 02:46 am
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http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/now-u-postal-belly-153600714.html
Accident?
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meh, this was in the making a loooooong time.
If you google something to the effect of "USPS profitability" you'll find that economists have been predicting this for at least 20 years. USPS has always been a black hole because of the tremendous amount of pension liabilities it generates. Along came the internet and e-mail, plus the private sector lowering their prices but the damn postal worker union not giving a shit and KAPLOW, you got yourself a money sink.
It's why so many european countries had their postal services privatized over the last two decades.
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Yeah when you're running 80% labour and entitlement costs versus Fedex's <30%.... This should tell you all you need to know about state-funded anything...
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Point being, there goes the safety net of a Search Warrant being required...
ID required for shipping...
What happens to SR when the USPS dies?
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... it won't. Restructured maybe, some whatever bullshit plan.
The USPS is the eponymous bulwark of big huge fat government not admitting they're not getting it right. Letting it fail would be too "emblematic"...
I wouldn't sweat it. Too many big gov guys that were totally useless elsewhere got "transferred" to the USPS, they're not gonna let their country club go down the drain.
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I understand your point Mr Wholesome. But, one cannot live in denial of reality. Not even Government can defy reality. Voters may think they can get Politicians to Legislate new Laws of Physics, but everything that bleeds must succumb to reality.
Whether 'they' want to keep it going may not matter. 'They' are not gods, no matter how much the entitled masses believe that they are.
I hope you're right. I see darker things than lack of a Post Office in my Crystal Ball...
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You're making a fair point there Captain. However, I do believe (and that's only based on opinion of course) that even if they were to do massive cuts and size reductions, they'd keep the letter business. Maybe they'd venture to privatize packages like Germany did with DHL, but I'm pretty sure at least letters will stay with the USPS.
Well....................I hope at least......................
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Or they could just raise prices dramatically. Would any of us stop sending a "letter" if it was $1.00 instead of $0.44? Or even a Priority Mail flat rate envelope if it was $9.95 instead of $4.95? I think not...I think most of us would just buy more stamps and keep on truckin' 8)
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It's time for BitDrop anyway. really hope we can manage such a thing one day.
Much love.
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Or they could just raise prices dramatically. Would any of us stop sending a "letter" if it was $1.00 instead of $0.44? Or even a Priority Mail flat rate envelope if it was $9.95 instead of $4.95? I think not...I think most of us would just buy more stamps and keep on truckin' 8)
I agree. Look how much FedEx costs... People still use them. I'd be happy to send a bubble mailer full of boner pills for $10. :-p
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I hope USPS stays, and I'm for raising prices to keep it. Protecting our letters by requiring warrant is good. IMO, good for the letter carriers for getting union benefits and protection while providing this service, and yeah, FedEx workers should also organize themselves to keep more of what they earn and less for the parasites at the top.
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I understand your point Mr Wholesome. But, one cannot live in denial of reality. Not even Government can defy reality. Voters may think they can get Politicians to Legislate new Laws of Physics, but everything that bleeds must succumb to reality.
Whether 'they' want to keep it going may not matter. 'They' are not gods, no matter how much the entitled masses believe that they are.
I hope you're right. I see darker things than lack of a Post Office in my Crystal Ball...
The government defies reality every single day they spend another dollar they don't have. And not everything that bleeds must succumb to reality, Amtrak has NEVER posted a profit in its entire existence. It lives off of the government who just prints more and more money. The post office will not fail it will just get money from the government just like car companies and banks.
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Tokin':
You must learn more of economics before you speak good of people using state voilence to coerce people using non-violent means of exchange (dollars for labour)........ Parasites at the top, really now. If they were state employees, absolutely - every single dollar they get comes at the point of a gun. but to accuse someone running a company of being a parasite, when the money they make is based on voluntary exchange, and the employees who work for them aren't being rounded up in the morning by armed guards to go slave away..... it's a bit much, to say the least.
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Anarcho47, if you look at labor history in North America, you'll see that the state violence comes down allied with the side of private capital, against working people (especially anarchists) who banded together, every time. I agree with a lot of the ancaps' positions regarding the state, but I think they are too forgiving of private corporations, who are just as bad if not worse (at least with a democracy there's still some semblance of control by the common people, even though it's just an illusion currently).
My fault for getting off-topic here with my "parasites at the top" comment (which I meant to apply to politicians, union bosses, fatcat CEO's and corporate bureaucrats all the same), and there are more appropriate forums for this kind of discussion (one of my favorites: Center for Stateless Society / c4ss.org). In any case, I have a lot of respect for you as a hardworking vendor with great customer service and as someone who live by their word. Anarchists of all stripes are good people in my book.
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Fair enough. Agree to disagree.
But if I ever own a factory and a bunch of my workers decide to "band together" and demand X wages or I am shutdown, don't send the men with guns when they are all fired for trying to use violence against me (by threatening to send the men with guns and put me out of business if I don't agree to their terms).
That's not capitalism, brother. That's fascism. being able to hire/fire/contract whoever or whatever you want is capitalism.
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That's not capitalism, brother. That's fascism. being able to hire/fire/contract whoever or whatever you want is capitalism.
Brother, we need a free market, not capitalism :)
www.mutualist.org - Free-market Anti-Capitalism
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I think the core definition of the word capitalism has been changed, diluted, and made negative.
What you are talking about is Anarcho-Syndicalism/Communism. Extremely dangerous stuff. The whole "communitarian" idea has been tried before, and it leaves millions dead and more imporverished and scrambling through the dirt. The Killing Fields, for example.
Imposing communal "ownership" of production, negating property rights by making non-utilized capital the property of anyone who would utilize it... very very bad ideas. First of all this places ALL of the power of the market into the hands of the producer, whereby anarcho-capitalism places all of the power in the hands of the customer. I know which society I would rather live in.....
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Worker-controlled large enterprises would be one component of the mutualist free-market economy, as well as self-employed artisans and farmers, producers' cooperatives, and consumers' cooperatives. From the www.mutualist.org's intro:
"Mutualists belong to a non-collectivist segment of anarchists. Although we favor democratic control when collective action is required by the nature of production and other cooperative endeavors, we do not favor collectivism as an ideal in itself. We are not opposed to money or exchange. We believe in private property, so long as it is based on personal occupancy and use. We favor a society in which all relationships and transactions are non-coercive, and based on voluntary cooperation, free exchange, or mutual aid."
That, I believe, is closer to the SR ideal and pretty far away from the Killing Fields example, and also away from the corporate capitalism world where the market is rigged to favor capitalists (in our case, Big Pharma), backed by the very state violence you so rightly denounce.
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dun really matter what flavor is your choice. Centralized power is the culprit. Whether that is power centralized by government via force, or power centralized by the prevailing party having the economical means to doesn't make a difference really.
Supply and demand is overrated as all self-regulating and fair market force, for the fact is, markets thrive due to competition. However, competition implies there will always be a "winner", this winner will have more means to tilt subsequent competition to his favor. Until in the end, hypothetically at least, only few remain who will then again be in the position to directly and immediately influence supply and demand to their choosing.
I dun care if you call it Senate, Kremlin or Fortune 500, the concept is the same, few rule over many. Whilst I strongly lean towards some anarchistic ideals, I am at this point of my life not really convinced that pure market forces at work would indeed automatically create fair and free societies. Whilst I will 100% agree that today's governments get it all wrong, I'm not yet willing to give up on the idea that many people need some sort of regulatory central institution.
Don't understand me wrong, I could read Noahm Chomsky forever and enjoy it, but then all I have to do is look out the window and the jackass people I see, and I ask myself, if, in an anarcho-capitalistic society this jackass over there would have by means of inheritance gained more means than those around him, how would he use those means?
It doesn't matter if you are being oppressed by a corrupt government, or if your choices are severely limited by the fact that a few jackasses around you already occupy the "sweet spots", therefore leaving you with picking up whatever limited and scrummy opportunity is left to you.
Just some random musings...
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You are proving my point. The market in its current form could not exist without state violence, this also shifts the power in the equation to the producer and not the consumer. Look where that has us now. You want full-fledged.
This societal structure would devolve to absolute destitute within a decade. SR is not about "artisans" or "farmers". If had a mass production facility that grew marijuana and I could afford to sell it for 5 bucks a gram and make a decent profit I would - SR would not limit me from selling in the least. The state limits this sort of thing, and as such you have to be a small producer or small cooperative because to grow to big means you invite violence.
The market, capitalism, is not some esoteric thing out there in the ether. It is you and me talking right now, every decision you make. You want to strip the ability of someone to OWN their own property unless it is constantly being used - so, what, if I'm a factory owner my workers murder me and take over the factory? Even though I'm not standing at every machine, loading every truck? Property rights are ingrained in human nature - it's how the natives solved over-hunting problems 400 years ago and how the majority of our environmental and living standards problems would be solved today, in one fell swoop.
Again, you are referring to fascism. Capitalism has become a dirty word when all it really means is Voluntaryism - no coercion, just property rights and contracts - mutual cooperation. Again you are still talking about fascism when you talk about big pharma - the free market would not put a gun to someone's head and say "you need $800 million in resources to bring a new product to market". That's called an artificial barrier to entry. That is Pharma writing legislation for the FDA and its guns to enforce. That is the merger of corporation and state. That is fascism.
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Oh dun get me wrong brutha, we're mostly on the same page. I mean no one has to be a rocket scientist to realize that the revolving government/big corp door is the root of all evil.
I'm just playing scenarios in my head now, say, 200 years down the line. 200 years of a few "smart" producers gaining more and more market leverage that will be passed on via inheritance, and hence the economical ability to tilt markets their way. I mean the real question is, what would be the collateral damage. I'm neither a sociologist nor an economist (but frankly, was there ever anything those two professions have predicted right over the last 100, 150 years?).
I agree, government is the supreme force of violence, but so is the human lust to grow their possessions. I mean just look back in American history. The oil boom. It wasn't really like you found an oil well and became rich. You found an oil well and one of the few rich prospectors would "kindly offer you to be bought out"
I believe anarcho-capitalism to be one of the most beautiful and appealing theories out there, unfortunately I do not have enough confidence in man to properly use it.
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You can't "tilt markets" your way without serving the customer better than anybody else. it's impossible to do otherwise, unless you can use the state to create barriers to competition, subsidize you so you can undercut artificially, or just plain shut down your competition - all of these things obviously contrary to the best interests of the customer.
I think that anarcho-capitalism is one of the few schools of thought that acknowledges man's flaws and, instead of trying to rewrite human nature it attempts to mitigate the negative points while trying to maximize the positive aspects. In the example of the oil-property owner, you have to look at the big picture - the property owner could try to get loans to bring in the capital required to extract and sell the oil. But there's a big risk there - what if you can't find the customers? What if there isn't as much oil as previously thought, or getting it out is a lot harder than originally planned?
The prospector is an expert in the field of oil-extraction. He would assume all of the risks (and therefore potential benefits) of extracting and selling the raw oil. The property owner would have to learn this stuff or hire people who know this stuff and put out a tremendous amount of capital in order to do the same thing. If it was a community endeavour then you would have a large layer of bureaucracy to vote every step of the way. the process would be slowed.
Did the prospector who up with mercenaries and tell the property-owner "give me this land. I will pay you this much. If you refuse we will either drive you from it or you can fight to the death"? No. He offered a price - if the landowner accepted voluntarily, the details of the transaction are irrelevant. Morally, this was a good thing and everyone involved in the transaction was wealthier for it, else the transaction would never have occurred in the first place.
John D. Rockefeller is a good example of capitalist progress. His family today (now that we have a state) are awful. But the original rockefeller was so competitive, so driven to bring oil to American customers, he drove the cost of oil down by 85% single-handedly by increasing supply at a rate we haven't seen since then. People could stay up after dark because they could afford lamp oil (they literally used to go to bed with the sun before this). In fact, his drive for productive progress and PROFIT drove prices down and put out the competing product in the market - whale oil! Environmentalists should love Rockefeller because he literally "saved the wales".
If you want accurate economic predictions you just have to look up the Austrian school - they are essentially anarcho-capitalists (laissez-faire capitalism, in the old "left-liberal" french tradition). Ludwig v. Mises, Murray Rothbard, Freidrich Heyek are the main guys, but if you want some deep stuff on anarcho-behavior look up Walter Block. Hans Hermann Hoppe's works on "private law" are awesome. Hayek's work on free market currencies is great (especially if you are interested in something like bitcoin). One of my favorite books of Walter Block's is called "Defending the Undefendable". Just a straight-out slap in the face to moralists and legalists everywhere, and brilliantly written in such a down-to-earth way. He's done a few interviews on environmentalism and capitalism/property rights you can check out too.
Best thing about the Austrian School? they don't believe in IP law (copyright/state violence). You can get anything and everything for free from them in digital form. including Human Action, probably the greatest economic treatise in human history to date.
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Anarcho and john, I know this isn't really the proper forum, but I've actually enjoyed the back and forth. And you know what I think we all may actually be closer to an agreement than we thought we were. Anarcho and I may be mixing the terms/definitions somewhat. Anarcho think market and capitalism is the same thing, while I insist a market will be freer without corporate capitalists and their profit-maximizing, sector-consolidating, monopoly-inducing tendencies as institutions.
He lost me at equating my free market anti-capitalist statements with fascism, though. Anarcho's earlier post saying the state always sided with the workers/against the private business owners "at the point of a gun" is also the opposite of what has historically happened. If Anarcho's hypothetical factory is screwing its workers and polluting the lands around it, it's a sure bet that the owner(s) would be the first one to run to the state for help and beg for nanny's "men with guns" to come when strikes by the workers or factory occupations by the locals break out. History bears this out every single time: real fascists in real history hated trade unions, banned and violently suppressed the hell out of them.
Further, Anarcho's concept of ownership does not acknowledge the history of how our current economic rulers stole most of the land, practically enslaved the all the common people, and polluted the earth - all with the backing of the state - to be in the position of "owners" of the means of production. He is forgetting what Kevin Carson calls "the subsidy of history" (1), or the extent to which present-day concentrations of wealth and corporate power are the legacy of past injustice (e.g, those native people you spoke about had their land and rights stolen by people who we now call "rightful owners"; reparation, anyone?).
I think we both share the same concern in how power is distributed, centralization, and hierarchy. Self-rule and mutual aid are what anarchism is all about, and for me as someone who subsist through selling my labor (a worker bee), the best way to go is for me and others like me to voluntarily self-organize and fight for our self-rule through mutual aid (aka "solidarity").That's why I support the unions against the governments and corporations, while at the same time support the rank and file members against the union bureaucrats at the top.
To bring this back around, other than the currently practical and SR-specific "warrant required" benefits of keeping the public postal service, above reasons are why I go with the letter carriers getting the most they can from their managers the government bureaucrats, as much as I will be in solidarity with FedEx workers when they decide to fight their bosses the corporate bureaucrats. Not out of some altruistic ideal, but out of my own self-interest and recognition that in our highly-strafied economy, they are fellow wage slaves and their loss will be my loss while their gain will be mine also, and that we are stronger when we unite.
*** TL;DR: A free-market anti-capitalist position supports public and private sector workers in their labor struggles against our state and corporate overlords
PS: John, I hope you are only kidding when you say you could read Chomsky and enjoy it. I love the man and his ideas, but his writing put me to sleep faster than any opioid-benzo combo available here. If you have extra time in your musings, though, you should check out the URL's I have included in this thread. They may not be the usual an-cap fare, but they are not quite an-soc/syn nor an-green/primitivist writings, either.
1) http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/the-subsidy-of-history/ (the author is an anarchist, the site itself is more libertarian/minarchist type)
2) More free-market anti-capitalism articles at the mutualism blog www.Mutualist.org and the Center for Stateless Studies www.c4ss.org
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We should all take up arms and repress violence. Where ever it may rear it's ugly head. I know that I am going to look into a weapons purchase on SR for protection. Help stop the violence.
I would also like to help end women's suffrage and get a quality education for all. Who's with me? Come on. Who's coming with me.
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There is no such thing as a "wage slave". Even a "worker bee" is an entrepreneur who decides to exchange his labour/time for a set amount of money. You can go out on your own any time you want. I have friends who went from workers to private contracters and make about 40%-100% more than they used to, doing the same job, just managing the risk themselves and the liability themselves. The factory workers in the "slave shops" in southeast asia make over double what they would make doing run-of-the-mill agricultural work - their living standards are increasing.
I own a "legitimate" business outside of this stuff. I do not have any "employees", I only use private contracters. The government has made hiring an employee at least as much a liability as an asset these days, and I have good people who work for/with me who are willing to take a higher wage in lieu of some of the "benefits" of being considered an employee as the state defines it. This is one of the reasons unemployment is so high right now, and every regulation imposed on companies will only exacerbate the problem. Along with minimum wage laws, which keeps more skilled employees locked into earnings tiers and doesn't let new workers enter the field versus someone with experience who will be paid the same amount.
I pay based on productivity. My employees love it, since they can finish their day when the job is done, and I love it because I can feed a few families without having to worry about me entire life being ruined by some entitled bastard using the state's violence against me for some minor regulatory breach.
Chomsky does not understand economics. His recommendations are dangerous to the point of destitude in short order.
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shit.... i'll just do what kevin costner did in the movie "postman"?
i'll make sure all the packages get delivered, even if it kills my horse! lol
anyway, IMO the postal system will just shrink, not disappear.
peace to all.
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There is no such thing as a "wage slave."
I have to disagree with you on this one. Wage Slaves most certainly do exist. I'm one of them. I'm far more educated and experienced than most Employers, in my field. Yet, I am considered unemployable due to social mores and the fact that I was not so outlandishly dumb that I would need an 'education' spoon fed to me. The ability to think for myself and teach myself are such rare traits, that the average who do not possess this ability consider me dumb by default. "He is not as dumb as I am, so he must be dumber than I am. I bought a Degree, I know everything." I have no chance. SR is my only hope for not starving to death. Or, the Nanny State...
Documented Stupidity is the new Nepotism. If you graduated high-school while having an Internet available, yet still you were so clueless and stupid that you needed even more school... "Education" is a joke. I'm more educated and my mind is freer, for not being part of that indoctrination scheme. It's is nothing more than a 'get a decent job' club membership held by people who aren't intelligent enough to learn any other way. It's the lowest of the low, and it's in charge.
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"SR is my only hope for not starving to death, or the nanny state".
Start a fricken business. there is ALWAYS money to be made if you have brains and balls. I started my own businesses while I was still in high school and made it through post-secondary without taking a dime in loans while all my friends were paying theirs off for 10 years after. That sentence you wrote is such a cop-out from life it's insane. Use this mind-power you find so incredible and make something happen - if you are smarter than your employers than compete with them and beat their entire business into oblivion by out-competing and out-innovating them.
Otherwise it just comes down to being scared of a little blood, sweat, and tears. Hard work sucks, I know, but it pays off if you keep at it and find even a partially-"right" thing.
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"SR is my only hope for not starving to death, or the nanny state".
Well, here I am. Runnin' Guns on SR. The long-standing business i've been doing that subsidised all that useless, unpaid hard work I've done for so many years...
The Rich don't work, ever notice that? They just never pay the invoices sent to them by the people who do work. If I never paid anyone for anything, I'd be rich too...
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Anarcho, thanks for the comprehensive reading list, I be sure to stock up on those! Always nice to have a good read like that.
While I agree with you to a large extend, I personally perceive there are some "unsolved equations" in the whole theorem. Firstly, to go back to the "oil prospector" example. Actually, violence was exactly what happened. Many a farm owner would receive a "kind offer" followed by miraculously being denied services in town or unable to hire farm hands. The deal was pretty much give up your land at the pittance we give for it or starve on it. These guys didn't fuck around, you sold, or you were fucked.
As for the Rockefeller example, yes he did lower oil prices, A LOT. But the question is, what was the motivation? Did they do it out of benevolence? Out of a "responsibility for the greater good?" No, they did it to eliminate competition. This means that while undoubtedly this competition brought benefits to many in the short term, these benefits were merely a calculated business expense in order to dominate the market later on and be in a position to circumvent these very market dynamics.
I just don't believe that every short-term benefit to many should be welcomed if they are infact only a step on a ladder to centralization. As I mentioned, I don't have one single defined ideology I subscribe to. See to me it makes no difference if Castro says "what do you want? we gave you healthcare for all!" or if a AT&T or Verizon CEO tell me "What do you want? We gave you highspeed internet!" if that means that every other provider on the market has been displaced by sheer economic overpowering, or in Castro's case, government violence. The end-result for me as consumer is really the same. Power corrupts. It doesn't matter if that power came by appointment via a corrupt democracy or if it came by inherited economic power. It's still power. I don't claim to be smart enough to even offer up anything remotely resembling a solution. I believe in freedom, I strongly believe in property rights. Ionno how to address this conundrum that all markets that are driven by competition will eventually end up being centralized, I really don't, but at least I am aware of that, at least with my layman logic.
The other thing is this. As you, I am self-employed. And not in some uhm....out of the basement operation, I'm actually quite good at what I do and run an established business. No employees though, who can afford that this day n age?
To this effect, and particularly out of this position, I think it is really important that we do not make the mistake to believe it worked for us equals a formula to the effect that it could work for everyone if only they put their energy in it. This day and age where you end up in life is basically the sum of an endless number of "causality strings" sprinkled with a lil bit "right place, right time". Particularly in the US we have developed what I call a "screen out market", cheap labor is abundant, it's actually the source of our wealth if you compare us with other countries. So I always think twice before making a blanket statement to the effect of the money is out there you just have to get it. Might have worked for you, works for me to some extend, but that dun mean that it can be replicated by anyone if only they do the same sequence of steps leading up to it.
Maybe the Cappn has really only one option left to make money, that being doing it here. All it takes these days (in the US) is the have one single indicator that suggests you dun fit the cookie cutter and you're out. We haven't been the country of opportunity in a long long time, and that's because old and inherited power doesn't want new blood in the club. So yes, wage slavery is real.
Anyways though, thank you all for this very enjoyable thread. Great to meet people to discuss these thoughts with in a civilized manner. Y'all are a great bunch!. Once again thanks for the reading list, I'll start tonight!
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Maybe the Cappn has really only one option left to make money, that being doing it here. All it takes these days (in the US) is the have one single indicator that suggests you dun fit the cookie cutter and you're out. We haven't been the country of opportunity in a long long time, and that's because old and inherited power doesn't want new blood in the club. So yes, wage slavery is real.
I can't even see the Cookie Cutter from where I am. ;-)
If I had Escrow IRL, I'd be alright. I charge a pittance for my services compared to my competition. Of course, this means they can pay off advertising mediums to refuse me, and I can't beat the price they paid. Word of mouth between people who never pay their bills? Oh, I really need that...
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I just want to address the non-belevolent motivation, as well as the "outing competition" idea.
First of all, my point is that you can never expect a human being to do something out of benevolence. In fact, if you leave everything to altruism, you end up with a lot less as far as living standards go. The beauty of anarcho-capitalism is that someone can be the biggest asshole on the face of the earth, yet still be my benefactor (or not, if I voluntarily choose to deal with someone else). It's up to me, the customer. Sure Rockefeller was motivated by greed, pride, ego, etc. But in the end it brought something to the world that we have never had in our history, and that alone FAR outweighs any negative aspects of him personally.
Andrew Carnegie is another example. He dropped the price of steel rails down by about 80% from his HOME PRODUCTION facility. The guy was just nuts about cornering the steel market. This resulted in the ability for goods to move far more freely across the country, dropping the price of virtually everything that could be shipped - again, the customers win, no matter if the guy is a royal ass or not.
Now, about beating out competition, cornering markets, etc. I would suggest you watch a video by Thomas E. Woods called "free market myths". He tackles a lot of the common myths about the market like price-collusion, price-gouging, etc. Very common sense and down to earth and also quite humorous.
I guess you have to understand the broad scope position of the Austrian school in order to understand why beating out competition is good, why the million or so carriage drivers put out of work by Ford's automobile were a good thing. Everything that cannot be replicated is a scarce resource - this is a core tenet of the Austrian school. Trees, steel, oil, paper, and your labour are all "scarce goods". Only one person can own them at one time. A recipe, a sequence of notes or words, these are non-scarce goods - they can be replicated ad infinitum with virtually no effort and at virtually no cost.
So, when the market inovates and creates something new that renders previously used scarce goods non-essential, it is a GOOD thing that these are allowed to be freed up and put to work somewhere more efficiently. people making typewriters in the 1970's were put out of business in the 80's and 90's by computer manufacturers - the market found a more efficient way to do something. Instead of subsidizing the delay in progress or bailing out the companies now losing money to the better product, they have to fail in order to free up all of the scarce resources being deployed to make typewriters. The market (you and me and everyone else) has determined that those resources should not be used in that way, simply becuase the company is no longer making money. That includes the labour.
Switching to a robotic line versus a manual-installation line in manufacturing is a good thing. It allows the products to be made at a cheaper per-unit costs, which means I as a customer pay less money. Therefore less scarce resources (including capital) as a % of the whole are being devoted to one thing - my living standard increases because I am able to retain more of my money for other things. The people that were originally making the cars might be damaged in the short term by the layoffs, but their labour is now available to be put to a task that the market deems necessary. In the meantime, less labour is required to run a robotic line, but the people that are specialized in working with robotics and software are paid far higher than those who were assembling the cars - the innovation created an entirely new job (robotics, maintainence, programming, etc.) where someone's labour is more specialized and contributes more value per unit manufactured, ergo they are paid a higher wage.
Another example is a backhoe. You could hire 20 guys to dig out a hole in the ground to pour a foundation. But one guy with a backhoe can do the same amount of work in a day. He is specialized compared to the fellows with the shovel. Therefore, he automatically gets paid more for his specialized labour (resulting in higher productivity) than the general-labour shovellers.
I think that the thing that contributes to "wage-slavery" a lot more than simply overlord greed is the state. Aside from the regulations, the mandates, etc. you have the monetary distortions that come with a monopoly on legal tender AND no natural market restraint on its issue (metal-backed, fixed monetary supply, etc). This creates wage slavery since the new money created is first passed off to the political class to be spent before it is assimilated into the general economy and dilutes the value of all existing money. By the time it gets to you it's already discounted. The only thing keeping the wage-slaves alive (and by alive I mean that even people under the "poverty line" in the US have higher living standards than most upper-middle-class merchants in the early 1800's) is the fact that competition and increases in production keep dropping real prices of goods and services - computers down 90% since 1980, blue jeans down 55% since 1970, food down 25% since 1970, etc. (this does not apply to any offered government "services", such as municipal water, road upkeep, health care, etc. They have all actually outpaced inflation in their price increases since there is no natural market forces to force innovation. Ever wonder why we still pick up our trash the EXACT SAME WAY as we did in the damned 1920's when municipal governments took the business over?)
Sorry for the long post - I thought it was going to be a paragraph or so lol. Oops.
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Tokin':
You must learn more of economics before you speak good of people using state voilence to coerce people using non-violent means of exchange (dollars for labour)........ Parasites at the top, really now. If they were state employees, absolutely - every single dollar they get comes at the point of a gun. but to accuse someone running a company of being a parasite, when the money they make is based on voluntary exchange, and the employees who work for them aren't being rounded up in the morning by armed guards to go slave away..... it's a bit much, to say the least.
You're making a false presumption, if I may suggest it to you.
Few businesses partake of voluntary exchange. Their behavior is extortive. One does not need to use violence to impose the threat of death, simply buy-out and withhold the things needed for life.
Housing is a great example. We could build vastly superior homes out of dirt, with out own hands, for a minor fraction of the cost of the conventional home. Literally. But it's illegal. It doesn't grease palms to be self-sufficient, so this is not allowed. The expense of the supply chain out-paces the pay rate of working for the supply chain.
All of these are examples on their own, but they also interact to make it even worse.
Is anyone innocent of being part of the problem? Probably not. But there are those who praise it without thinking it through, and those who would strike the root and tear it down. Failure to observe the consequences does not mean they are imaginary to those who suffer them. Most profit comes from denying responsibility, and shackling others with it.
Ever read a Disclaimer? Denying responsibility, still taking the money.
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All of your examples require a state to take man's flawed aspects and extrapolate them out, putting the force of violence against people who would attempt to do what the benevolent demigods with guns and their "benefactors" impose on them.
Disclaimers and every other bit of legalese you see is the result of mind-boggling amounts of regulation imposed on businesses. I deal with this all the time. I can't even put "satisfaction guaranteed" on my signs - the government says that even if I did a hundred thousdand dollars of work for a customer and they subjectively have some issue with what I did, I don't have to be paid, which means neither do my people.
You don't understand how insanely companies bend over backwards for their customers. If you are pissed off at almost any product made by a major producer you can call them up and they will send you a damned refund check in the mail. That isn't because of legislation either, that's becuase they want you to be happy.
So what you are saying is that if you sold guns legitimately you wouldn't have customers sign a disclaimer? Or if you sold drugs legitimately you wouldn't have them sign a disclaimer of some sort?
I'm not making any assumptions in that sentence, because I'm taking a rational, logical cause-effect view of the world. Companies are not rounding up employees with guns. employees go to work because they want to (or have to because they a) don't/can't/won't start a business or b) want to make enough money to maintain the lifestyle they have voluntariliy chosen for themselves). You might hate your boss to shit, but the fact of the matter is you would be pretty choked if he fired you. companies need good employees too, this isn't a "take" game. If I have an excavating company, I need good heavy equipment operators. If I don't have they I can't make money, AND untrained operators might cause more damage than the job is worth in the first place.
I think the two major flaws in your thinking are that a) everyone is out to exploit everyone (this is sometimes the case, but most of the time human beings co-operate to attain their own self interests), and b) you don't realize just how systemic the state's stranglehold on the economy is, how intrinsic to most business decisions it must be nowadays to survive the men with guns and the will to exercise their power as often as possible. You are poking at symptoms at best (or things that aren't morally wrong according to the NAP).
I don't think it's possible to be a true anarchist and see the entire world as a bunch of extortionists waiting for their chance to sink in the fangs. I think if that's your perspective on voluntary exchange then the state is probably your better option because they at least use the GUISE of "helping" and "looking out for the little guy" to attain their ends.
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All of your examples require a state to take man's flawed aspects and extrapolate them out, putting the force of violence against people who would attempt to do what the benevolent demigods with guns and their "benefactors" impose on them.
Disclaimers and every other bit of legalese you see is the result of mind-boggling amounts of regulation imposed on businesses. I deal with this all the time. I can't even put "satisfaction guaranteed" on my signs - the government says that even if I did a hundred thousdand dollars of work for a customer and they subjectively have some issue with what I did, I don't have to be paid, which means neither do my people.
You don't understand how insanely companies bend over backwards for their customers. If you are pissed off at almost any product made by a major producer you can call them up and they will send you a damned refund check in the mail. That isn't because of legislation either, that's becuase they want you to be happy.
So what you are saying is that if you sold guns legitimately you wouldn't have customers sign a disclaimer? Or if you sold drugs legitimately you wouldn't have them sign a disclaimer of some sort?
I'm not making any assumptions in that sentence, because I'm taking a rational, logical cause-effect view of the world. Companies are not rounding up employees with guns. employees go to work because they want to (or have to because they a) don't/can't/won't start a business or b) want to make enough money to maintain the lifestyle they have voluntariliy chosen for themselves). You might hate your boss to shit, but the fact of the matter is you would be pretty choked if he fired you. companies need good employees too, this isn't a "take" game. If I have an excavating company, I need good heavy equipment operators. If I don't have they I can't make money, AND untrained operators might cause more damage than the job is worth in the first place.
I think the two major flaws in your thinking are that a) everyone is out to exploit everyone (this is sometimes the case, but most of the time human beings co-operate to attain their own self interests), and b) you don't realize just how systemic the state's stranglehold on the economy is, how intrinsic to most business decisions it must be nowadays to survive the men with guns and the will to exercise their power as often as possible. You are poking at symptoms at best (or things that aren't morally wrong according to the NAP).
I don't think it's possible to be a true anarchist and see the entire world as a bunch of extortionists waiting for their chance to sink in the fangs. I think if that's your perspective on voluntary exchange then the state is probably your better option because they at least use the GUISE of "helping" and "looking out for the little guy" to attain their ends.
My point is that the Companies ARE the State.
There is no voluntary exchange. "Standard of living" does not need to be reduced to cut housing costs to less than 5% of what they currently are. But, that doesn't extort funds... Government makes the laws forcing you to buy from a specified supply chain of themselves and their buddies. the Governemtn and the Suppliers are the same entity.
Pretending there is a difference between Companies and Government is using self-delusion as a foundation for your position. I know that is a strong statement and I'm not attempting to insult you with it. But look around man!? Are your eyes open? Can you really, honestly tell me that there is any division between the Companies and the State? Dig a little deeper. Look at the end result. The outcome is the same as Communism.
This pseudo capitalism we have ensures that one must always do more harm than good to exist. Eventually, that bill comes due. No matter what number you start with, if all you ever do is subtract, you get to 0. The mechanism behind it may be more convoluted, but the result is the same.
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Communism leaves you with a decreasing standard of living. Every society that has attempted it or some derivative of it ends up in abject poverty. This is a fact, historically validated numerous times.
I absolutely disagree that you need to do more harm than good to exist. I dont' "harm" anybody in my daily business dealings. And if you're talking about the environment you can just stop right there, because most of the science behind environmentalism is NOT voluntarily funded (i.e. over 90% state-funded), so if you are going to argue against fascism that is a fantastic place to start.
What we have is nothing like communism. A large chunk of the economy is fascist. But what about the "Dark economy" - the cash economy, the black market, and the grey market? They account for about 20% of the total GDP in north america (and god bless them).
I'm not sure where you are going with housing costs. That is purely state/fascism at work - the state puts a gun to banks heads (Read the fed report from Kansas Fed released in 2002 - right on their website - threatening class action lawsuits if they didn't drop lending standards like a rock and start lending to minorities and the poor so they could buy real estate), banks complied but knew the risks were immense and shoveled the product off on a plethora of investor groups, all at the behest of the ratings agencies.
In the end, housing prices don't fall because you regulate them lower (this creates shortages), they fall because you let the market provide the best housing possible. Whether it be a stick-house, an earthship, a snap-on (they have these in Japan now - pretty cool and really cheap), etc. But that is a natural process, you have to let it play out. You have to let the early entrants taking the most risk earn a buttload of profits to attract competition and capital from less-profitable ventures, which eventually increases supply closer to market equilibrium, and innovation decreases the costs further. The Great Depression, in constant-dollars, saw a massive drop in home-building prices because of innovations in producing building materials. No government, no communitarianism involved.
Businesses are not the state. Most of the time they are saddled and hampered from doing what they would like to do, or they exploit loopholes and create special circumstances for themselves. All require a state for this to happen. I do not think you can argue for syndicalism and call yourself an anarchist, because you wipe out property rights essentially, and it would require a MASSIVE force to administrate and enfore. Essentially you would end up with a bunch of hyper-tyrranical regions. Not to mention constant conflict over who gets what, why they get what, etc. IF I have to constantly deploy my capital to retain ownership, you are talking about wasting MASSIVE resources just to retain something. That is insanity.
You can't rewire human beings. They are who they are. Culture can shift and influence, but our nature remains constant. This idea is just an attempt to literally rewrite the way mankind functions day to day (by force), and thank god is completely unattainable.
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Communism leaves you with a decreasing standard of living. Every society that has attempted it or some derivative of it ends up in abject poverty. This is a fact, historically validated numerous times.
I absolutely disagree that you need to do more harm than good to exist. I dont' "harm" anybody in my daily business dealings. And if you're talking about the environment you can just stop right there, because most of the science behind environmentalism is NOT voluntarily funded (i.e. over 90% state-funded), so if you are going to argue against fascism that is a fantastic place to start.
What we have is nothing like communism. A large chunk of the economy is fascist. But what about the "Dark economy" - the cash economy, the black market, and the grey market? They account for about 20% of the total GDP in north america (and god bless them).
I'm not sure where you are going with housing costs. That is purely state/fascism at work - the state puts a gun to banks heads (Read the fed report from Kansas Fed released in 2002 - right on their website - threatening class action lawsuits if they didn't drop lending standards like a rock and start lending to minorities and the poor so they could buy real estate), banks complied but knew the risks were immense and shoveled the product off on a plethora of investor groups, all at the behest of the ratings agencies.
In the end, housing prices don't fall because you regulate them lower (this creates shortages), they fall because you let the market provide the best housing possible. Whether it be a stick-house, an earthship, a snap-on (they have these in Japan now - pretty cool and really cheap), etc. But that is a natural process, you have to let it play out. You have to let the early entrants taking the most risk earn a buttload of profits to attract competition and capital from less-profitable ventures, which eventually increases supply closer to market equilibrium, and innovation decreases the costs further. The Great Depression, in constant-dollars, saw a massive drop in home-building prices because of innovations in producing building materials. No government, no communitarianism involved.
Businesses are not the state. Most of the time they are saddled and hampered from doing what they would like to do, or they exploit loopholes and create special circumstances for themselves. All require a state for this to happen. I do not think you can argue for syndicalism and call yourself an anarchist, because you wipe out property rights essentially, and it would require a MASSIVE force to administrate and enfore. Essentially you would end up with a bunch of hyper-tyrranical regions. Not to mention constant conflict over who gets what, why they get what, etc. IF I have to constantly deploy my capital to retain ownership, you are talking about wasting MASSIVE resources just to retain something. That is insanity.
You can't rewire human beings. They are who they are. Culture can shift and influence, but our nature remains constant. This idea is just an attempt to literally rewrite the way mankind functions day to day (by force), and thank god is completely unattainable.
I can see that most of your ideas/views are politically implanted, not gleanded from reality. Again, it's hard not to sound like I'm insulting you... But I'm really not intending to. There is no way to sugar-coat it...
I could build my own superior home for under $5000. But the regulation is what made it increase, not decrease. Any rational building method is flat out illegal. There are virtually no market forces involved in housing costs.
the further one gets from common-sense, the more expensive it is to maintain that distance. Virtually all business revolves around the cost of distancing one's self from common-sense, math, and science. More often than not, we are forced to maintain this distance because common-sense, math, and science are illegal. We even begin to accept it as a norm because these bans are so complete, no example of rational behavior or lifestyle is available for observation. Generation after generation, one departure from sanity becomes the basis for the next. Layer upon layer of stuck-on-stupid appearing as normalcy because all else is illegal. It's very profitable... For those who make the laws, and those who 'supply' the 'needs' of a society that is so far distanced from sanity that it works 60 hour weeks just to pay it off. I don't care how much you get paid, that is slavery. Forcing me to work to pay off drastically inflated expenses while those who made the laws resulting in this do nothing. Why can't I work for something rational? It's illegal... I have to pay $160,000 to my masters for something I could have easily done for myself (and had a vastly superior end product) for under $5000. Where is all that money going? why do {b]I[/b] have to work for it when I don't have any legitimate reason to be forced into spending it?
I'm sure you cannot believe that I could build a $5000 home that is better than a $160,000 home. That's the point. You can't believe it. So any layers of stupid ideas that you believe must be so. There are no examples allowed to exist, so you believe there is only one way. A man's limits are in his mind. If you're as convinced as 'they' want you to be, game over. I could and would do it, but it's illegal.
Your point on the Black Market is taken. From my studies, it's the only legitimate business in any human society. It's the reason I'm here.
It isn't environmental, it's social. Money does not grow on trees. You cannot become wealthy without pushing others into poverty. Money comes from other people. The Broken Home is the foundation of every faux-capitalist economy. As with physics, as with economics. For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. This is factual because money doesn't fall from the sky. For every gain to one person, there is a loss for another. You get money from only one method, taking it from others. Forcing them to give you their money if they dare want to live another day.
The only loophole is Weed (and other things that grow (and are processed from growing things) which are illegal). It does grow on trees. It is 100% voluntary. It's price is regulated expressly by risk, supply, and demand. The Black Market is the only legitimate market.
There are only 2 unlimited resources on this planet. Human stupidity, and sunlight. It's not about the environment, it's about math. Take any positive integer and perpetually subtract from it, eventually you get 0.
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Your understanding of an economic transaction is ass-backwards from reality. When you take your money and trade it to someone else for what they are offering, you are demonstrating by your actions that you value the thing you are buying more than the money the businessman is asking for it. The businessman offers the product for the price because he values that much money more than what he has. BOTH sides of a transaction, as long as there is no violence or coercion involved, must increase the wealth by at least some modicum for BOTH parties, or else such a transaction would not exist.
Again, you can't argue economics if you have no understanding of the thing. I am an anarcho-capitalist. That means that as long as my inalienable rights arent' being violated, you can do whatever in the hell you want. That includes building a $5,000 home, or spending a million dollars on a mansion and burning it to the ground. I don't care. The state is the only thing impeding you from doing this. Not voluntary private society. Of COURSE money cannot fall from the sky- money is not wealth, except by what it can buy. Wealth is capital, wealth is something useful, wealth is resources put into some utilitarian form that someone else WANTS and will voluntarily pay for.
Your world view is very dangerous. I would argue that the black market, while legitimate in meeting demand of peaceful people, is no less legitimate than any other market. The costs of everything are skyrocketed due to artificial risks and restrictions imposed via violence and coercion on its participants. If everyone is out to exploit everyone than what is the point of even trying to survive. If I do work for a customer, it is becuase they want and need it, and they are OFFERING me their money in exchange for my product and services.
You're talking garbled nonsense towards the end. I really hope you didn't just spend 5 years in a sociology program or some nonsense and you are using your "higher learning" and this twisted view of the world that you have. A small portion of society are violent, psycopathic, sociopathic, deranged, etc. An entity which allows the monopoly on violence (the state) attracts these types of people to it. This is the root of the problem. The reason you are on a computer right now typing this nonsense is because some entrepreneur at sometime decided that if he made one you might be willing to pay for it. He had to entice you to buy it, he didn't send PC Goons to your house to mug you and trade a computer for the cash they stole, you went out a bought one completely of your own volition. A computer is not essential to human survival, it is not food or shelter or water or clothing. it's an option to add to one's life, and you CHOSE to do it without any coercion at all.
How can you possibly harp on a system in which you participate every single day without a gun to the back of your head? Your views are misguided at best, dangerous at worst, and your energies are completely misdirected. The state and the state alone deserves your ire.
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You believe in a division that does not exist. Yes, I hate the shit out of The State. But it's bestest buddy is Large Business. They work hand in hand. The illusion of separation is what keeps the unwashed masses docile, believing in a lie. Were it openly combined, we would reject it.
I'm a long-standing anarcho-capitalist, too. So?
You describe how it should be, and I agree with you.
I'm describing how it is. I don't like it and I know it is a model that will fail. I know it's twisted and fucked up. I know it doesn't work. But that's how it is. I don't know what utopia you're living in, but where I am the wealthy kill for fun and money is their weapon. They don't pay for anything, and being tied to The State is how they get away with what they do in their so-called 'business.' It isn't so much about regulation, as selective regulation. I reject all regulation. But there it is... Being imposed on some and not on the good ol' boys...
I guess it may be easier to deny how bad it is when you're the one holding the weapon, but I don't know you and I won't presume you're that guy to start a flame war. Your perspective is idealistic and I'm not arguing with it, we're on the same page. I'm the same idealist. But, that's not how it is. That's how it should be. And socially, we pay the price for trying to defy nature.
This Faux Capitalism we have pits people against each other in a game of who can do the most damage to the other. Profit is secondary. It's like Christians vs Lions for entertainment of the onlookers. We have to destroy each other to live ourselves. It's not voluntary. Refusal to participate results in passive execution for all parties.
He who stoops the lowest, wins. What we have, and what should be, are not the same thing.
You cannot regulate anything, only create the illusion of it, and suffering is the consequence. The illusion of Capitalism cast over Imperialism does the job for most who can't figure out the ruse, or choose not to because they are sick enough to enjoy torturing their fellow man. The latter is referred to as 'being a normal person.'
No one 'educated' me on this matter. I opened my eyes and looked around. I applied Science, Math, and Common-Sense. I realised that what I was told and what was happening were not the same thing. I realised that my participation in this dementia made me part of the problem. So I stopped. And here I am...
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Your understanding of an economic transaction is ass-backwards from reality. When you take your money and trade it to someone else for what they are offering, you are demonstrating by your actions that you value the thing you are buying more than the money the businessman is asking for it. The businessman offers the product for the price because he values that much money more than what he has. BOTH sides of a transaction, as long as there is no violence or coercion involved, must increase the wealth by at least some modicum for BOTH parties, or else such a transaction would not exist.
Again, you can't argue economics if you have no understanding of the thing. I am an anarcho-capitalist. That means that as long as my inalienable rights arent' being violated, you can do whatever in the hell you want. That includes building a $5,000 home, or spending a million dollars on a mansion and burning it to the ground. I don't care. The state is the only thing impeding you from doing this. Not voluntary private society. Of COURSE money cannot fall from the sky- money is not wealth, except by what it can buy. Wealth is capital, wealth is something useful, wealth is resources put into some utilitarian form that someone else WANTS and will voluntarily pay for.
Your world view is very dangerous. I would argue that the black market, while legitimate in meeting demand of peaceful people, is no less legitimate than any other market. The costs of everything are skyrocketed due to artificial risks and restrictions imposed via violence and coercion on its participants. If everyone is out to exploit everyone than what is the point of even trying to survive. If I do work for a customer, it is becuase they want and need it, and they are OFFERING me their money in exchange for my product and services.
You're talking garbled nonsense towards the end. I really hope you didn't just spend 5 years in a sociology program or some nonsense and you are using your "higher learning" and this twisted view of the world that you have. A small portion of society are violent, psycopathic, sociopathic, deranged, etc. An entity which allows the monopoly on violence (the state) attracts these types of people to it. This is the root of the problem. The reason you are on a computer right now typing this nonsense is because some entrepreneur at sometime decided that if he made one you might be willing to pay for it. He had to entice you to buy it, he didn't send PC Goons to your house to mug you and trade a computer for the cash they stole, you went out a bought one completely of your own volition. A computer is not essential to human survival, it is not food or shelter or water or clothing. it's an option to add to one's life, and you CHOSE to do it without any coercion at all.
How can you possibly harp on a system in which you participate every single day without a gun to the back of your head? Your views are misguided at best, dangerous at worst, and your energies are completely misdirected. The state and the state alone deserves your ire.
+1
CJ, while I respect your views too - they're a bit dangerous.
Please don't get into this shit with Anarcho. He is way too knowledgeable to even question.
He has a VERY clear understanding of socio-economics, capitalism, facism, communism, anarcho-capitalism, and everything else relevant to this topic.
Don't bicker with him you will get nowhere.
L75
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Don't bicker with him you will get nowhere.
It's not my intention to bicker. I've lived a life of extorted transactions, not voluntary. I'm living proof that his model doesn't really exist. Not everywhere. His argument suggests that my life never happened, yet here I am...
It's a great dream, but for me, that's all it is.
He is correct in saying my 'ire' should be directed at the State. I loathe The State. I also loath The State's buddies in economic sabotage.
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He is correct in saying my 'ire' should be directed at the State. I loathe The State. I also loath The State's buddies in economic sabotage.
Hey Captain, are you aware that people are saying you smell like a scammer / Fed pig?
http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=3217.0
Are you an anarcho-statist? :)
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I just read through that whole forum post and... well, fuck me.
Lasagna, thanks for the ups but what am I supposed to say to that? lol. Come at me, bro!
Actually better yet... buy my weed. I have pictures now too! :)
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I'm fine with that. I've already decided to take my business back to the old way of doing things. SR is set up for the scammers to take advantage of the sellers with no recourse. I did fine without it, and I'll do fine without it again.
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I just read through that whole forum post and... well, fuck me.
Lasagna, thanks for the ups but what am I supposed to say to that? lol. Come at me, bro!
Actually better yet... buy my weed. I have pictures now too! :)
LOL ;D
L
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Again you are still talking about fascism when you talk about big pharma - the free market would not put a gun to someone's head and say "you need $800 million in resources to bring a new product to market". That's called an artificial barrier to entry. That is Pharma writing legislation for the FDA and its guns to enforce.
Anarcho, it's worse than you think. Take a look at what's happened to the drug pipelines in the industry over the last decade. Even big pharma can't afford the FDA's protection racket anymore.
You think the entire industry is fighting over the same few over-saturated market segments cause they enjoy competition? Trying to turn out the next Lipitor or Viagra blockbuster drug is the pharma equivalent of going to Vegas and betting everything on red. It's desperation. But when you need to come up with the money or get whacked by Guido, what have ya got to lose?
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I'm not arguing with that - the state is the monster that only stays on your side for a while.
Look at public workers. Now that austerity is necessary in every Western country, the state, their benefactor for decades, is the new Satan.
But the structure was still put in place by the pharma companies. It now takes over 800 MILLION to bring one new drug from scratch equation to mass production. That is insanity, but those regulations were almost entirely written by big pharma lobbyists and passed by future-lobbyists. The pendulum has just kept swinging and now frankenstein's monster is coming for his own.
I'm optimistic though, since it just means a systemic collapse of the state and fascist croneys in the end. There will be violence, but at least most productive people will actually be able to get along with their lives and move on.
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Big Pharma uses the lobbying for legislation and FDA rules reform to keep a stranglehold on their market dominance so no little guys can afford to R&D, let alone perform clinical trials, manufacturing, and distribution.
Additionally, they are lobbying to get nutritional supplements and natural health and nutrition outlawed so that everyone gets sick, stays sick, relies on Big Pharma for all their "needs", and worst of all, kills you faster to assist in the world population problem.
Hell, its even illegal to state that any type of natural or alternative medicine can help with or cure any health issues when we all know that nutrition is THE primary preventative ways and means for a healthy life.
I wont even go into Monsanto's Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (BST/BGH/rBST/rBgH), Searle's Aspartame, Codex Alimentarius, FAO, and the WHO, but you certainly should go look them up.