Especially considering his "solution" to the meltdown is more of what brought it on in the first place.

And they make slightly less money.

And then they shoot us.

See the difference?

By the way, when you said we could stop buying products from a company "because of their abuse of us", what did you mean? By "abuse", did you mean something like "refusing to sell us their products at the prices we think they're worth" or "refusing to sell us products or services on the terms we would prefer"? Or, on the other hand, did you mean something like "lobbying the government to get higher regulations placed on their competitors" or "bribing legislators to make their services mandatory"?

The two are very different. They are polar opposites. On the one hand, an owner of a good chooses to keep that good rather than let it go on terms unacceptable to him. You may think your $100 is worth more than the company's product, or the businessman may think his product isn't worth letting go for a mere $75.99. Since it's his property in the first place, such a decision is eminently justified.

It is far different to use government power to get what we want. Is there any action of government which does not depend on, or equate to, holding a gun to the head of an innocent person? A company, non-profit organization, or person which uses government force to enlarge its business or accomplish its goals has stepped out of the realm of controlling the disposition of its own property and into the realm of thuggery.

Actually, the vast majority of people side with the government, including most of those who also side with corporations and also including most people who claim to oppose the government. The very few people who don't side with the government also don't side with corporations as they exist today, because for the most part those corporations are entangled with government in one way or another.

You're right, I side with God. In reality, noone else can "outright control everything we've created". There is no "the people". The fact that you're here arguing your point today proves that "the people" are not some unified group with shared interests, but rather they include people with extremely diverse interests which are not mutually compatible.

Now getting people to oppose the government... that's a worthy cause, and if everyone were rational, that would be a shared interest. But people like you who just want to "use the government" and let it "work for us" are just trying to exercise power over others.

And is there a reason that taxpayers should honor a contract between a failed company and its employees?

Unlike unions?

Of course, if people are willing to work for nothing, there are certainly businesses willing to pay them nothing. Now re-read that sentence and look for the key phrase.

Sounds like a problem with government.

So-called free-market extremists don't permit the sorts of abuses you've described anyway.

Certainly not permitted by free market extremists!

When the "officials" are governments, i.e. users of force, no "free market extremist" would permit that.

Those property-rights supporting extremists don't support that stuff either!

Again, damaging of others' property, which we free-market extremists have no tolerance for.

So you too are a free market extremist!

I see. Even at best, your situation is a very specific one and the advice you gave is not at all generally wise and beneficial for everyone in general, even though your original post suggested that you thought it was.

That's my point.

If company A moves out, it's because the people running the company have calculated that the company can make more money if it moves somewhere else. Thus, while the increase in taxation adds to the cost of running the business, moving elsewhere actually decreases the cost of doing business, which decreases economic instability. If all states had the same tax level, that level would be higher than the average state's tax level when the levels are different. The cost of doing business would be higher everywhere. Thus lower overall economic productivity and stability.

When you say "[if] all states were on the same tax level then company would not move ... outside the USA", I assume by state you mean government, not just US state. Clearly you can see that if all US states had high tax levels and other countries had lower taxes, there would be an incentive to leave the US.

Europe is a powerful example of this. Look at all the countries like France and Germany complaining about "tax havens" like Monaco, Liechtenstein, and Andorra. They're not complaining because Monaco etc. are "unstable". They're complaining because they want to have extremely high taxes and countries like Monaco and Andorra provide a competitive reason for people to move there and conduct business there. They want high taxes world-wide and world-governmental powers strong enough to enforce them, and that is the logical conclusion of your arguments. If you consider yourself a "freedom loving american", you'd better re-consider how you look at this issue.

Have you ever considered that maybe it's impossible to do things in a way that benefits everyone? Even aside from a practical perspective, maybe certain groups of people actually genuinely hold positions that are antithetical to the best interests of others? That perhaps the nature of government itself is defined by such a position?

Not everyone has the same time preferences. There are plenty of people who will prefer to take a lower short-term profit (or even a short-term loss) if they are convinced that it means greater long-term profit.

BTW, Microsoft seems to think it's entitled to a 100% sales tax exemption.

In fact, it is. So are you.

Yes, you did. To quote you:

More like "either help us steal from 40% of people to help you pay for %20 of people or you can't do business in California".

Great start, but you should have stopped after the first paragraph.

Your post includes too many fallacies to fully address in a short reply, but I'll mention a few of them.

Individuals can move. "Easily" is a red-herring. Economics and their individual situation determines how easy the move will be and whether a move will be worth it to them (kind of like with big companies). But believe me, moving a family across the country is a whole lot easier than moving a large company. Obviously they can't move to tax-free states, because, (due to arrogant people like you who think the world owes you something just because you were born), there are no tax-free states.

By the way, giving up rights will never gain you order and safety. The word 'safety' only has relevance in relation the thing which is to be kept safe. In has no meaning whatsoever considered apart from rights.

Copyright was not the main point of GGP, which I would guess is the reason GP did not spend more than a brief pair of sentences on it (into which you somehow read a degree of ignorance not shown by GP). I'm reasonably confident based on GP's comments that he is in fact aware of the facts you refer to. But how is this relevant? Are we supposed to support copyright out of selfishness, simply because we ourselves can partake of it, too? Nonsense. Some people, yourself apparently excluded, believe in absolute morals and contend that individual integrity is of the utmost importance in our relations with the world. If copyright is immoral (and it is), then it does not matter how much I benefit from it. Even if it made me a hundred billion dollars, I would still be a rotten, wicked, selfish bastard of a thief for violating the rights of individuals to use their real property as they would choose.

Someone who is confident that the aircraft will work.

Yeah, unsolicited advertisements for anti-government positions transferred over the Internet.