It does lead to an interesting debate regarding what we (the net) consider to be right and acceptable.
Here we have a story of someone seeing someone else doing something and basically saying, "I can do that." Do we get upset when a new pizza restaurant opens up? Or perhaps another excavation company? What makes this worse than some company saying "Hey, I can do that cheaper."
I realize there are issues with respect to intellectual property, but this IS an important point of discussion. When is the line crossed?
I don't see people complaining when the "I can do that cheaper" turns into lower prices for those pizzas, or cars, or processors, or RAM, etc... I thought people liked having AMD to keep Intel's prices in check.
Do drug companies put profits ahead of patients? Undoubtedly. It's what happens when the ownership of a company is no longer the person who's name is on the sign, but equity owners who see their ownership in the company as a simple investment, and don't care at all about what the company does or how it does it, as long as the stock price rises. The desire for profit becomes a much stronger force than the desire to do the right thing, because corporations are not people, and will never care about the "right thing". This is the disconnect that gives the lie to any "free market" benefit to society.
The failure and disconnect you speak of is strictly the lack of competition, not the "greed and doing the right thing" many people seem to shout. The greed incentive needs to be there for an incentive to offer more competition. More competition leads to lower prices and more produced. This is the idea of a "free market"
I've never gotten paid for anything I've written. I give it all away. The reward is called "Pride" As a society we simply need to find a way to make sure people like Pranav Mistry have gainful employment while they devlop things like this. As long as I have a decent job that pays my bills and afords me the time to work on software, I will continue to do so. But when employment barely pays my rent and my managers expect me to come in early and work late to the point that I have no time to do anything rewarding at all, everyone suffers because I can not continue to work on things that may or may not be profitable in the end. In my opinion the biggest obstacle in the way of innovation is profit.
I think you misunderstand the idea of what profit is. Re-read what you wrote,
"to the point that I have no time to do anything rewarding at all"
How are you profiting there?
"As long as I have a decent job that pays my bills and afords me the time to work on software"
You are profiting here. But by your logic, if profit stands in the way of innovation, your having a job would stand in the way of your working on this software.
"As a society we simply need to find a way to make sure people like Pranav Mistry have gainful employment while they develop things like this."
Not everyone values this as much as you may. If what he develops is truly valued by others, they will actually pay for it. You will give up some of your money - which came from time and effort on your part - to compensate him for his time and effort. Otherwise, its just talk. It would be as if I say I want a better environment, but I wouldn't want to pay for recycling. This stuff doesn't just come for free - its not some boon society has received - just as your time and effort probably don't come for free. Its fine if you want to work for free, but then the cost is all on you. Most people expect to be paid for their work. If someone wants to come get my recycling without me paying for it, I'm fine with that. But don't come to me later claiming you cannot afford your own bills and "barely pay your rent." That's how you know if I value it or not.
I know plenty of people may disagree, but then you are free to hire him for yourself to keep me quiet.
Keynes' theories have been so widely refuted it's not even funny anymore.
What what point did I mention Keynes or Von Mises? I simply pointed to the fact inflation can occur even with a constant money supply.
You want something that is relatively stable. What do energy prices have to do with currency ? No one would use oil as a currency precisely because of it's volatility.
No shit! The previous post suggested it. Thank you for validating my point.
I refute your claim that the Fed tries to keep inflation at bay.
So when the Fed raises interest rates and reduces the money supply, they are actually trying to sneak one past the public, right? My claim was they try to help manage inflation and unemployment, but the two are opposing goals.
Inflation is a way for the governments to finance projects that are unattractive to the tax-payer.
Everything is a conspiracy theory, isn't it? The government controls EVERY aspect of your life and the guys secretly behind the Fed funnel your money from your pocket to theirs, correct? You have NO choice but to blindly be their servant?
and the most inflation happens during recessions and war time when the government is financing massive spending projects
What about Venezuela and the other oil producing countries that are seeing a great deal of inflation due to higher energy prices lately? Are they getting ready to attack someone?
Austrian economics IS economics. It starts at the individual and builds an economic theory based on human reasoning and action. Read "Human Action" by Mises for a treatise. The Austrian people were the only ones able to predict the current crisis before it occurred. Yet no one even bothers to listen to them. Why ? Because while Keynes gave politicians an excuse to expand their power the Austrians actually put forward economics theories and laws that cannot be broken and keep popping up over and over again like little inconvenient cold-sores.
If everything ANYONE else says besides the Von Mises institute is bullshit, then why aren't the top economists in the field not doing an about-face and holding it on high and claiming Keynes was the biggest dumbass ever? Go ask Harvard's Mankiw, or Princeton's Krugman (this year's Nobel prize winner, and for anyone else reading this, space us the argument that its not one of the "true" Nobel prizes... its still the highest award in the field). These guys still write books and teach Principles of Econ and have far more to say than the ramblings of a few idiots posting on Slashdot.
In fact, perhaps more correctly, hardware stores that sell knives help commit knife crimes but haven't been prosecuted for it.
Those knives actually have other purposes. What other purposes do torrents of copyrighted materials have?
Inflation is a tax... It just isn't a stable one that you know will be a certain value ahead of time or one that you have to fill out a form in order to see what you owe every year.
Taxes actually pay for other goods and services, what goods and services does inflation pay for? I think a better example is inflation is a transfer payment (like welfare - take from one person and give to another). Inflation really just shifts purchasing power in an economy from buyers to sellers.
It exists because we print more money than the market requires. Well that and it isn't tied to anything of value like energy or gold or anything else that has value to it.
Inflation exists for other reasons beyond increases in the money supply (regardless what the value of the currency is tied to). Please see some other short-run causes. I think some people listen to Ron Paul too much regarding the elimination of the Fed.
Over the long term, inflation is balanced by deflation in a hard currency.
Then why did the value of the dollar still fluctuate when the dollar WAS on the gold standard? (Source: www.bls.gov series ID: CUUR0000SA0 from 1913 to 1946 - roughly until USD started to be removed from the gold standard back to as long as they have kept records).
The only question is what to tie a currency note to... Something useful like energy or Carbon Dioxide in the case that our economy starts synthesizing raw materials from Carbon Dioxide like biology does.
What happens when the value of that commodity fluctuates as well? What if someone found a new undiscovered source of this commodity? Energy prices? You've seen what happened to energy prices lately, correct? What then happens to the value of the currency?
stabilize the currency and destroy the long term effect of this hidden tax
The Federal Reserve can just as easily reduce the money supply as it can increase it. If inflation is the root cause of all economic evil, why don't they pursue these courses of action and keep prices stable? The answer is the associated unemployment that would accompany it. Please see the following. There is also legislation in place by our elected officials that charges the Federal Reserve with price stability and growth in the economy. These are essentially two opposing goals and often the Fed attempts to find a balance between the two.
Stellar rays prove fibbing never pays. Embezzlement is another matter.
