461–470 of 691 posts
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If it carries the "machine gun" ability with it, it's like ... The Enchanted Seer of Automatic Firing. It turns a 'plain gun' into a machine gun, and there are almost no other ways to do that. So it seems like calling it "a machine gun" is reasonable from linguistic perspective. #wittgenstein
I don't think the "almost no other ways to do that" part holds up.
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Why is a law needed to address this? Isn't the market supposed to adjust for companies like this?
We have hundreds of years of examples of the blessed free market failing to do exactly that. If the free market had it's way we'd still be under the yoke of Standard Oil and Ma Bell. One key element of a free market is the "well informed consumer". How is the consumer supposed to be informed about what new cutting edge chemicals are toxic, for instance?
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and service fees at restaurants. The price on the menu in Seattle or SF is ~25% lower than what the product actually costs.
Minnesota banned these this year! It goes into effect Jan 1st. https://minnesotareformer.com/2024/05/20/governor-signs-junk...
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Let's be honest here. The people that claim to support "free markets" really just mean they support corporations being free to do whatever the hell they want.
Many people are confused. A free market needs regulation to maintain competition. Companies dislike competition because it lowers profits, and will do what they can to avoid competing on a level playing field. Like adding hidden fees.
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That's because it's not actually intended to make the regulations better. It's intended to make it impossible for regulatory agencies to do their jobs effectively, without outright legislating them out of existence, because the people backing it believe that without effective regulation they and their allies will be more easily able to enrich themselves at the public's expense.
It's because that is the constraints that the U.S. Constitution places on our form of Federal government. The Congress passes laws (and controls the money), the Executive implements the law, and the Courts interpret the law. My lay understanding is that Chevron shifted too much power from the Congress and the Courts to the administrative agencies in the Executive branch. It seemed like a "good idea" at the time but o…
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> now They always have?
Much less.
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You shouldn't assume others are acting in bad faith when the much more likely explanation is you're just not paying attention. Three major developments from the courts in this direction have been: - The overturning of Chevron gave courts the power to interpret portions of laws written by subject matter experts, instead of those experts themselves. - The big questions doctrine has allowed the courts to decide when the…
The Romanian supreme court just decided to block the presidential elections. They might have had reasons, but they definitely didn't have the mandate, yet they decided it nevertheless and because they are supreme nobody can challenge them. I'm sure the US supreme court (and more) is warming up to this concept.
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> That people will get more angry at congress for doing nothing is icing on the cake. I want to be optimistic about this. In practice it seems that the strategy created by McConnel to block any legislation at all has been doing/tricking the voter really well. As he predicted, credit for anything good goes to the current admin while anything bad also gets blamed on the current admin. I can see a likely scenario where…
I agree with you: frustrated by a Congress that can’t pass any legislation, the one thing it doesn’t seem like anyone is willing to try is to consider compromises. Everyone seems fully convinced that if only the 50% (or more) of the voters who disagree with them would just drop dead, we could fix everything. And as a result, voters punish lawmakers, who horse trade and negotiate. Even though that’s the only way thing…
"Let's meet in the middle" says the unjust man.
You take a step towards him. He takes a step back.
"Let's meet in the middle" says the unjust man.
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Aside from silly "sales-tax-holidays" I've never heard of the sales tax rates changing so frequently. I'm curious to know where this is happening "multiple times per year". Here in MA it's been the same rate for 15 years. And for the sales-tax-holiday situation can't a shop just say something like "everything will have x% taken off at the register" just like they would during a typical "10% off all items" type of sal…
If MA has a single rate across the entire state that hasn't changed in 15 users, they are very different from how most other states operate.
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Let's be honest here. The people that claim to support "free markets" really just mean they support corporations being free to do whatever the hell they want.
Many people are confused. A free market needs regulation to maintain competition. Companies dislike competition because it lowers profits, and will do what they can to avoid competing on a level playing field. Like adding hidden fees.
The first is what you're arguing, a version that includes "free of monopolies" in the definition. A market full of competition. A market that has no choice but to serve their customers to the best they can because otherwise a competitor will take their customers.
The second are the anarcho-capitalists. They have the naive belief that corporations that do bad things will be punished by the market, making regulations unnecessary and stifling. To them, if one business is winning due to deceit, then the blame lies in the customer for being deceived. They think the decision that leads to the most profit is the best, side-effects be damned. They're insufferable and would gladly destroy the planet for an extra 5% profit on their quarterly reports.