When you're complaining about not producing enough, you're advocating for increased efficiencies and productivity. Sure, producing enough to cover every possible "rainy day" is not in the cards, regardless of economic system; producing as much as we can is the best we can do. If you're advocating trading production for some other goal, you're going to produce less, not more.

By employing that idled portion of the labor force, you would increase supply; but, you'd also increase demand. Profit would grow as efficiencies of scale take hold.

"Idle", as in un- or under-employed. Whether or not your example fits into this definition depends upon who is doing the valuing, I suppose; the laborer or the employer.

A laborer working at his peak 100% of the time may be perfectly efficient from the employer's perspective. But a more balanced, lower stress approach may provide more value to the laborer (and, in the long run, the employer) than such robotic efficiency.

In what way is idling a large portion of the labor force--wasting all those hours of potentially productive labor--efficient? That's like burning crops as they stand in their fields, or throwing coal into the sea. That's not efficiency; that's a waste.

They keep failing because their incentive structure is all messed up.

I'm not sure why you think those two goals are mutually incompatible. Idle labor is pretty inefficient.

They have no say... except for the vote.

It's a shame everyone else is too stupid or too lazy to devote that kind of effort to learning the truth, huh?

My condolences. It's too bad you spent so much time coming up with exactly the wrong conclusions.

You think people are too stupid to implement a system where they aren't treated like children. But, you are smart enough to see through this. I got it.

Somehow you were able to obtain more information, right? So, the rest of the people are simply too stupid to figure out what you have, right?

I get it. You don't have to try to justify yourself.

You think the people are stupid and ignorant, have been lied to and are too dumb to see it, and should be treated like children.

But you, on the other hand, are wise enough to have seen through these lies, and are the one to tell other people what to think and how to act, by virtue of your superior intellect.

Somehow, you manage to believe these things and still maintain that you respect the "will of the people"; the people too dumb to think or act for themselves.

All that, and you don't understand what the word "volunteer" means.

Yes, I understand that you believe the people are too stupid to see through the "lies". You, on the other hand, are so much smarter and more perceptive than them.

Your condescension oozes from every post.

Not only are the people too stupid to see they are being lied to; they are ignorant too. Is there any insult you won't heap upon the people whose will you respect?

Yet another example of something the people were too ignorant and stupid to see, huh? It's a good thing you are so much wiser, and can tell them what to do.

I know, it takes someone as smart and wise as yourself to see through it. The rest of the stupid, ignorant masses need your help to run their lives. I get it.

Or the people. I get it.

Not only are the people stupid and ignorant; they're comparable to rape victims? Could you possibly think any less of them?

But somehow you do, right? It's too bad everyone other than you is so ignorant and stupid.

Yeah! The "will of the people" is that advertisers exist, so it must be bad.

You've never volunteered for anything before? Did you starve to death?

Do you understand the concept of "volunteering"?

Vote counts. Poll results. Consumer habits. etc.

And if people didn't like that behavior, they wouldn't shop there.

And why was Wal-Mart able to exercise such control... Because everyone shops there.

Ignorance the people are too stupid or lazy to overcome, right? It's still contempt for something you profess to respect.

Don't blame me. Blame the people patronizing those businesses. They're the ones responsible.

And those ignorant people are too stupid to see they're being lied to, right?

And there you go. You finally admit that you know what the people want, better than they do themselves.

You should tell that to the tens of thousands of volunteers that make up the overwhelming majority of both major parties' campaigns. They would probably be troubled to learn that they have starved to death.

You mean Double Butter Burgers aren't healthy? Next thing you'll tell me is that the fried cheese curds and custard aren't healthy either.

I guess I'll have to switch to the onion rings; they're a vegetable.

Shit, now I've got to go to Culver's (best thing to come out of WI since Leinenkugel's).

Please stop pretending you care about the "will of the people", when that will does not mirror your own.

Evidently. I don't think anyone ever made people shop at Wal-Mart at gunpoint.

And, before you start with the whole, "Wal-Mart drove all the mom-and-pop shops out of business" angle... The consumers drove those mom-and-pops out of business by not shopping there.

Once again you demonstrate the sheer contempt you hold for the intelligence of the people, whose will you claim to respect.

They didn't hide it very well if you know about it.

Again, it's the people who buy those imported goods which create the market. If no one bought them, they wouldn't be sold.

Why do you ignore half of the equation?

The reason it's not as lucrative: People want cheap crap. If they didn't, it wouldn't sell. Why are you so mad a businesses for meeting the demand?

It doesn't cost any money. You just need some volunteers collecting signatures. You don't think they pay all the people that get the Republicans and Democrats on the ballot, do you?

Until you decide that the people are informed enough, of course, you don't want them making their own decisions. I see.

Here's a shocker: Wal-Mart was responding to consumer demand. If the people agreed with you, the backlash to this off-shoring would have been signal enough to Wal-Mart and Vlassic. That this backlash didn't happen is compelling evidence of the "will of the people".

You don't think Wal-Mart would make a decision which would hurt their profitability, do you?

Wow, that's not even wrong. If there was such pent up demand for domestically manufactured products--as you assert must be the case--retailers, investors, and manufacturers would be tripping over themselves to provide it.

Do you really think they would leave such a lucrative market untapped?

You are aware that in the US, there is no such thing as a "national ballot", right? Statewide ballots are the biggest there is.

Do you even know what you're talking about?

Um... Because people don't vote for the third party candidates in large enough numbers to win.

Why? Don't you have third party candidates on your ballots?

Oh, you do. I guess you really didn't have any kind of point there, did you?

So, the answer is "yes", you do think people are too stupid to make their own decisions. That raises the question as to why you go on so much about the "will of the people".

Nope. Domestically produced products were only "removed" from the market when no one was buying them.

If you really believe that the people want domestically made products, why don't you make some? If you're correct, you should have no shortage of customers, right?

Yes, I understand: You believe people are too stupid to see the consequences of their actions without you to tell them, right?

Nope, sorry. All you need are signatures. You could probably collect them in a couple of weekends yourself to get on any sub-statewide ballot. All you need is a couple bucks for copies.

Do you even know how you get signatures for ballot access? Your answers here seem to indicate that you don't. Maybe you should do some research and discover just how easy it is.

Oh, who paid you for your vote last election?

We agree upon the problem. It's your "solution" I disagree with.

If you want people to start treating stock less as a commodity to be traded, and more as a fraction of a corporation, we need to reform corporate governance in our country. Right now, people treat stock as very loosely connected to the underlying corporation, because it is loosely connected. Stockholders have very little power, relative to the management or board of directors.

If we restructure the way corporations are run, giving stockholders more power and control, you'll see people begin to treat stock itself as an instrument of such.

Your "solution" only addresses the symptoms, not the underlying problem.

You want to ban trading of stocks outside of specified windows, and would be willing to resort to excessive punishments for those who violate your rules.

Let's see: Ban something that people want to do? Check. Implement draconian punishments for those caught violating the ban? Check. How is this not the same strategy used in the current prohibition on drugs?

Your solution would make criminals out of normal, law-abiding, middle-class people who need to liquidate their stock quickly. You would force them to turn to some sort of organized crime. You would lock them up for years if you caught them selling their stock early, even if they were just doing it to pay grandma's nursing home bills.

See, I agree. But, your proposal is too onerous a regulation. Like I said earlier, if you regulate something to such an extent that it is more profitable to go underground, that's what will happen. You'll lose all control. This proposal is that kind of regulation.

Yes. But, remember my Oxycontin example. There's a drug that is not banned, but is regulated. Still, there is a sizable black market for it. That's a sign that the regulations upon it are too restrictive; you've lost control. I'm saying that this type of stock regulation is also too restrictive.

You underestimate people's willingness to risk punishment to make money. Just look at all the drug dealers doing 20+ years in prison today.

Bingo. That's because our current regulation of alcohol is not so restrictive as to create such a black market.

The biggest losers would be individual investors who don't know anyone in the newly-created underground stock market.

Like I said, I agree with the goal, just not the method. If you want people to treat stock as something with some intrinsic value, we should give stocks some intrinsic value (by increasing stockholder power over corporate governance). Your proposal simply doesn't do that.

Oh, so the people are too stupid to protect themselves?

Let me get this straight, to make sure I'm understanding you correctly. The people--not the corporations, not the government, just the people--decided to purchase cheap imports. Why do you not respect their decision?

You realize that it doesn't matter what kind of free-trade policies our government pursues, or how much outsourcing corporations do, if the American people decided to shun imports, there wouldn't be any, right?

Again I ask, why are you so quick to overturn the "will of the people" when they reach a conclusion you disagree with?

Do you know what it takes to get on the ballot? Just the support of a certain number of the people. You just need to get signatures. If they're not on the ballot, it's because the people didn't want them there.

Again, why do you only selectively value the "will of the people"?