For my Libertarian friends

I agree with that. I would seem to make sense to offer an emergency rate for services at a price much higher than their regular fee. 

Edited by Equality 7-2521 - October 06 2010 at 08:51

Trademark wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: Seems like a stupid idea to purchase fire protection from a company which refuses to contract for road usage.  No, no that wasn't the problem at all.  When the homeowner signed up the private fire chief had a private contract in place with the owner of the private road.  Then the private fire chief had an affair with the private road owner's wife and the private road owner cancelled the private fire department's contract out of private spite.  The private fire chief couldn't afford to lose any private business because he had payments to make on new private fire engines so he never told anyone about the private problem.   After he found out what happened the homeowner sued the private fire chief in a private court, but the private judge and the private fire chief are private golfing buddies so the homeowner is out of private luck since there is no private oversight to anything private and the only thing that matters anyway is profit and having the freedom to privately screw whomever you want for whatever private reason you may harbor. Equality 7-2521 wrote: I think the important thing to note about the story is that the public fire department was nowhere to be found. And anyway, why would there even be a public fire department in "Liber-Topia?"

Yes, because there's so much oversight in the Federal Government and people never give special treatment to their friends and relatives or do things out of spite.

Trademark wrote: No, no that wasn't the problem at all.  When the homeowner signed up the private fire chief had a private contract in place with the owner of the private road.  Then the private fire chief had an affair with the private road owner's wife and the private road owner cancelled the private fire department's contract out of private spite.  The private fire chief couldn't afford to lose any private business because he had payments to make on new private fire engines so he never told anyone about the private problem.   After he found out what happened the homeowner sued the private fire chief in a private court, but the private judge and the private fire chief are private golfing buddies so the homeowner is out of private luck since there is no private oversight to anything private and the only thing that matters anyway is profit and having the freedom to privately screw whomever you want for whatever private reason you may harbor.

You guys really have a hard time with this "for profit" concept. First you insist that the only thing that matters is money, and in the same breath you suggest a pattern of behaviour that would systemically harm profits. Who's going to take their case to a private judge with a reputation for unfairness? Who's going to contract with a fire department that won't stop your house from burning down? I'll say it once more: the goal of private enterprise is to make money. Screwing over your customers is not a good way to make money.

Trademark wrote: Taking good care of their students must also be why the community college across town from me hasn't given its faculty a raise in 11 years.  Faculty with masters degrees at that school now make less than kindergarten teachers in the public school system, but its their own fault for staying, right?  It has nothing to do with the greed of the administration and unfair labor practices.  The administrators got an average raise of $17,000/year each this year alone.

If they can make more money teaching in public schools, why don't they go work for public schools? The public schools won't hire them , you say? Then I guess they can't make more money working for public schools after all. I don't know what you mean be "unfair" labor practices. If you can hire workers of the quality you want for $20 an hour, and then discover that you can hire equally qualified workers for $10 an hour, you'd be a fool to pay the higher wage. The result would be tuition prices rising, fewer customers and less money with which to pay your employees. That helps no one. If administrators get raises it is because they will leave if they don't get them. The teachers will not leave. You act like having low costs as a company is a bad thing, but it lowers prices, increases output and makes consumers better off.
Teachers are not "owed" raises. If they don't like the pay they are getting, they can change professions. That's what I'm doing.


Edited by thellama73 - October 06 2010 at 11:01

The T wrote: Business people in the Liber-topia, to borrow Trademark's term, would have to be very very intelligent to understand that long-term gains are more important than short-term, quick gains that oftentimes come as a result of abusive practices.... Yeah right... So much paranoia against the government and so much blind faith in the common sense of profit-seekers... That's what it's hard to understand.

They would be very intelligent, because the unintelligent ones would have long sense been put out of business as a result of their bad practices, without any government bailouts or subsidies to save them.

thellama73 wrote: The T wrote: Business people in the Liber-topia, to borrow Trademark's term, would have to be very very intelligent to understand that long-term gains are more important than short-term, quick gains that oftentimes come as a result of abusive practices.... Yeah right... So much paranoia against the government and so much blind faith in the common sense of profit-seekers... That's what it's hard to understand.  They would be very intelligent, because the unintelligent ones would have long sense been put out of business as a result of their bad practices, without any government bailouts or subsidies to save them.

Henry Plainview wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: Slartibartfast wrote: Hey did you hear about the one where the fire department stood by and let a family's home burn to the ground because they didn't pay the yearly fee?   I did. Good for them.  If you don't pay for flood insurance, should the company pay for your damages when your house floods? That's not the same thing. What they should have done was put out the fire anyway and charge them whatever it costs to come out there. I assume that would be a fair amount of money, so it would still deter people from not paying the fee and they wouldn't be nationally scorned.

That's a terrible business model. Why would people sign up and pay monthly fees if the company will just charge you however much extinguishing a fire costs when your house catches on fire? How would the company pay for its normal upkeep and the cost of keeping its employees ready to respond to a call?

It actually is the same thing pretty much. I don't see how they differ.

thellama73 wrote: The T wrote: thellama73 wrote: The T wrote: Business people in the Liber-topia, to borrow Trademark's term, would have to be very very intelligent to understand that long-term gains are more important than short-term, quick gains that oftentimes come as a result of abusive practices.... Yeah right... So much paranoia against the government and so much blind faith in the common sense of profit-seekers... That's what it's hard to understand.  They would be very intelligent, because the unintelligent ones would have long sense been put out of business as a result of their bad practices, without any government bailouts or subsidies to save them. Kind of market-darwinism? Exactly.

That's what the free market is. That's how goods and services improve and get cheaper over time. That's why government tends to be incredibly less efficient.

Trademark wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: Seems like a stupid idea to purchase fire protection from a company which refuses to contract for road usage.  No, no that wasn't the problem at all.  When the homeowner signed up the private fire chief had a private contract in place with the owner of the private road.  Then the private fire chief had an affair with the private road owner's wife and the private road owner cancelled the private fire department's contract out of private spite.  The private fire chief couldn't afford to lose any private business because he had payments to make on new private fire engines so he never told anyone about the private problem.   After he found out what happened the homeowner sued the private fire chief in a private court, but the private judge and the private fire chief are private golfing buddies so the homeowner is out of private luck since there is no private oversight to anything private and the only thing that matters anyway is profit and having the freedom to privately screw whomever you want for whatever private reason you may harbor. Equality 7-2521 wrote: I think the important thing to note about the story is that the public fire department was nowhere to be found. And anyway, why would there even be a public fire department in "Liber-Topia?"

Again, why would he buy the services of a fire department which could not use the road he lived on?

And no there would not be, but since the example happened in real life American, I didn't know I was bound to Liber-Topia

The other two examples I mentioned were conveniently ignored.