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Journal Marxist Hacker 42's Journal: Returning consumer confidence in the marketplace 22

Here's what it would take to restore MY consumer confidence- and I think it's radical enough to restore ALL consumer confidence:
 
1. Universal health care for the entire planet. Not just the United States, not just rich countries, but the entire planet. Globalist free trade is just too risky NOT to have some form of entire-planet contagious disease prevention system. This should be paid for by a $1/container/mile shipping tax on all commerce, both international and domestic, since it is the shipping of goods and people that is the major risk factor. (just for my first respondent below, a little math: This is basically a 100% tax on shipping right now, yes, but just a few short years ago shipping costs were so high that tariffs were dwarfed by them, so no, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask people who ship potentially dangerous consumer goods (to make international trade 100% safe with respect to contagious disease would require EVERY container to be fully decontaminated- find a way to do that for less than $24,000/container, and maybe you'd find a cheaper way than this tax) to pay for the cost of their negligence.
 
2. A five year holding rule on stocks, bonds, and loans. No trades or sales of any money contract within the first 5 years of the contract.
 
3. An international *reasonable* limit on wealth and income. Say about a million times the lowest paid worker on the planet. But a soft limit- anybody earning above it will be automatically suspected of fraud and their contracts and personal finances will become public information, open for evidence discovery.
 
4. Anybody convicted of fraud or any other financial crime will have their family sold into indentured slavery to pay back the FULL amount taken, and will themselves be beheaded and their head put on a spike and displayed prominently on the trading floor of the market they defrauded as a warning to future people writing contracts to be extremely careful in their wording, use only the 2500 words every first grader knows, and make sure all signatories know *EVERYTHING* before signing.
 
5. A worldwide manhunt and extermination of the Quants (especially the Chinese spy, David Li, who invented the CDO).
 
Like I said, I'm WAY out there, this is the extreme case of what it would take to restore my confidence in capitalism. Note that aside from the universal planet wide health care plan, there's nothing here that is socialist. And note that this also goes against my preferred economic system of distributism, and accepts globalism instead as a fait accompli. It's against my religion, in that it requires revenge and the use of the Death Penalty for revenge. It is a bit authoritarian- but it's authoritarian in the one place that even the Austrian School thinks needs to be eliminated from the market, in the arena of fraud. David Li and his fellow mathematicians are the cause of this meltdown; they need to pay the ultimate price for their crime.

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Returning consumer confidence in the marketplace

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  • This should be paid for by a $1/container/mile shipping tax on all commerce, both international and domestic, since it is the shipping of goods and people that is the major risk factor.

    I'm sure no one will balk at the extra $94,000,000 it would cost to transport a ship full of goods from Beijing to LA.

    • I'm sure no one will balk at the extra $94,000,000 it would cost to transport a ship full of goods from Beijing to LA.
       
      They didn't balk at it back when it was all going into the pocket of the shipper a few years back, so why would they balk at it when it actually goes to the people harmed by international shipping?

      • [...] so why would they balk at it when it actually goes to the people harmed by international shipping?

        I don't think you can show $94 million worth of damage for every container ship to cross the Pacific.

        • I don't think you can show $94 million worth of damage for every container ship to cross the Pacific

          All it takes is one container with an infectious disease to wipe out 1/3rd of the United States population (which has actually happened before in World History due to international trade- see the Bubonic Plague and ship rats), and you'll have a hell of a lot more damage than that. Surely you can't claim that you expect the population of the United States to assume the risk that should be borne by in

          • Surely you can't claim that you expect the population of the United States to assume the risk that should be borne by investors.

            Of course not. I'm just asking you to quantify the risk. If you can't estimate the probability of a nationwide pandemic resulting from international shipping, you can't compute the size of the negative externalities.

            For much less than $94 million per ship, you could irradiate all the cargo. It's probably much cheaper to be proactive, rather than reactive.

            Oh yeah, and that $94 million is NOTHING in comparison to the $1 Trillion it would have cost to ship the same amount of goods just 40 years ago.

            A $1000 computer tax is NOTHING in comparison to the $10 million it would have cost to purchase a comparably powerful computer just 40 years ago.

            It doesn't

            • Of course not. I'm just asking you to quantify the risk. If you can't estimate the probability of a nationwide pandemic resulting from international shipping, you can't compute the size of the negative externalities

              Externalizing the risk is completely unacceptable.

              For much less than $94 million per ship, you could irradiate all the cargo. It's probably much cheaper to be proactive, rather than reactive.

              Irradiating the cargo isn't enough anymore, we've found some interesting

              • Externalizing the risk is completely unacceptable.

                Yes, that's why we're talking about a tax. I'm not disputing the need for this tax to pay for the effects of the negative externalities.

                I am just disputing the $1/container/mile number. You haven't shown what the risk of a pandemic really is. You have to know that number before you can levy a rational tax.

                In fact, I can think of no method that would eliminate 100% of the risk for *all* cargo types, at least, not without destroying the cargo as well.

                There probably isn't a way to eliminate 100% of the risk. It's all about weighing the costs versus the benefits.

                And yet people still purchased computers 40 years ago.

                Sure, the government and large corporations might have. But there was no way for a individual

                • I am just disputing the $1/container/mile number. You haven't shown what the risk of a pandemic really is. You have to know that number before you can levy a rational tax.

                  That makes more sense. Hmm, I'll look into it, I need more study. Of course, if you eliminate shipping completely, you also eliminate the entire risk of a pandemic.

                  There probably isn't a way to eliminate 100% of the risk. It's all about weighing the costs versus the benefits.

                  True. I may not be the right

                  • As in, one human life to me is worth *any* amount of extra cost.

                    I see where you're coming from. But, you have to realize that those extra costs probably result in deaths too. The $94 million per ship was going to be money in someone else's pocket. It would have been profit for the shipper, wages for the factory worker, or money saved by the end consumer. Most of those people are able to bear that extra cost. But, for some on the margin, where that extra dollar would have gone for needed food, they will die.

                    There's a trade off. Any choice you make will result in someone

                    • I see where you're coming from. But, you have to realize that those extra costs probably result in deaths too. The $94 million per ship was going to be money in someone else's pocket. It would have been profit for the shipper, wages for the factory worker, or money saved by the end consumer. Most of those people are able to bear that extra cost. But, for some on the margin, where that extra dollar would have gone for needed food, they will die.

                      Which is another good reason for subisdarity over mere

                    • Which is another good reason for subisdarity over mere efficiency.

                      No, it's not. Every time you sacrifice efficiency for some other goal, someone pays the price. On the margins, someone ends up dead. The more efficient production is, the fewer people die.

                      The nice thing about subidarity is that you don't have those shipping costs to begin with [...]

                      No, you get rid of the shipping costs; but the increase in the cost of production is more than enough to offset it.

                      Different, yes, but not necessarily lower paying- for they will now have to produce all those goods we would have imported.

                      Those jobs will definitely be lower paying. If they would be higher or equal paying, they wouldn't have been off-shored in the first place.

                      No, just the cost of the now domestic goods will need to increase. But the consumer will be more willing to pay that increase, because that increase means that Cousin Vinney has a job (as opposed to some poor slob in a country nobody can pronounce the name of having that job).

                      Yes, prices will increase. But the consumer will not be able to pay a

                    • No, it's not. Every time you sacrifice efficiency for some other goal, someone pays the price.

                      And more people you KNOW pay the price whenever you sacrifice subsidarity for efficiency.

                      On the margins, someone ends up dead. The more efficient production is, the fewer people die.

                      Not true- the more efficient production is, the fewer people have jobs to go to, so more people die of starvation.

                      No, you get rid of the shipping costs; but the increase in the cost of p

                    • And more people you KNOW pay the price whenever you sacrifice subsidarity for efficiency.

                      No, a reduction in efficiency hurts everyone involved in the economy. Someone has to pay for the increased costs. If some good, or class of goods, costs more to produce locally than to import, something has to be sacrificed to pay for that cost.

                      Not true- the more efficient production is, the fewer people have jobs to go to, so more people die of starvation.

                      Wow, then there must have been tens of millions of Americans who have starved to death since 1940, because there has been a ten-fold increase in efficiency. There hasn't? Oh... Then your assumptions are flawed.

                      Your conclusion is only valid if people don't have unlimi

                    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                      No, a reduction in efficiency hurts everyone involved in the economy. Someone has to pay for the increased costs. If some good, or class of goods, costs more to produce locally than to import, something has to be sacrificed to pay for that cost.

                      Yes. But that cost is better for the local economy than the loss of a job. Everything's simpler if you make firm boundaries at 2 degrees of friendship.

                      Wow, then there must have been tens of millions of Americans who have starved to death si

                    • But that cost is better for the local economy than the loss of a job.

                      No, it's not. It's cheaper for the local economy to support those unemployed through some form of welfare, than it is to waste resources having them engaged in unproductive labor.

                      Everything's simpler if you make firm boundaries at 2 degrees of friendship.

                      It might be simpler. But, it definitely doesn't maximize the amount of goods and services created by the economy.

                      According to the World Health Organization, approximately 6 million Americans a year die of malnutrition.

                      Well, since only 2.4 million [cdc.gov] people died in the year ending June 2008, I have to dispute your statistic. And, I'm pretty sure all of them didn't die from malnutrition.

                      There aren't unlimited numbers of people, therefore of course there isn't unlimited demand.

                      Even one person has an unlimited demand for goods and

                    • by chill ( 34294 )

                      According to the WHO, 7,400 Americans -- people who die in the United States of America -- die from nutritional issues. Where the hell do you get 6 million? The U.S. only has a death rate of around 2.4 million per year, total for all causes! I don't think you could get 6 million total deaths in the U.S. from malnutrition/starvation since the founding of Jamestown!

                      http://www.who.int/research/en/ [who.int]

                      Scroll down, under Mortality And Health Status you'll see a spreadsheet with "Causes of Death".

                      And business risk

                    • You're right- my statistic was several years old. Though I'd point out that every American who dies of a heart attack from eating off of McDonald's $1 menu has technically died of a "nutritional issue"- which pumps up the statistic quite a bit.

                    • by chill ( 34294 )

                      Yeah, and it doesn't stop there. Diabetes and hypoglycemia are big ones and entirely preventable. The average American's intake of sugar -- frequently in carbonated, liquid form -- is just as bad as McDeath. The death and disease rates in the U.S. could be brought WAY down simply by serious restriction of sugary drinks and foods, along with serious restriction of saturated fats. Add in a little moderate exercise on a regular basis and the doctors wouldn't know what to do with all their free time.

                    • At least the exercise is free- I still hold that a large portion of the American diet comes from a combination of an agricultural/high labor culture combined with economies of scale making processed fat, wheat, and sugar the three cheapest ingredients in the western world.

  • $10T stimulus
    Let's say highly paid 10,000 bank execs
    10^13 / 10^4 = $10B

    New gov stimulus package
    no direct cost to taxpayer
    every $10B you spend
    we shoot a banker*


    * while stocks last
    • It's at least a start....though it might well result in what some have been calling for anyway, a single, consolidated, government owned "bank of bad debt".

  • ...I think I'd like to see the punishments for crimes reflect the kinds of numbers of people that were hurt by the crime, independent of whether they be white or blue collar crimes. A rough example: Say my total sum of friends and family, i.e. the number of people that would be hurt if I were murdered, plus then myself, was 50 people. Now say someone defrauds 30 people out of their life savings, and on average each such person has a spouse and 1.5 children that then are directly affected by the financial ha

"I shall expect a chemical cure for psychopathic behavior by 10 A.M. tomorrow, or I'll have your guts for spaghetti." -- a comic panel by Cotham

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