I see a lot of posts mentioning the free market, and yet, I'm so confused as to how any of this current debt/interest based monetary system would be considered as a FREE MARKET? Let's pretend for a second that we didn't have the power to vote for the president of the US, would you still consider yourself free? And how does that relate to Art 1 Sect 8 "Congress: has the power to coin money" and the invalidation of The Federal Reserve Board? If I can not hold responsible and accountable in a regularly scheduled election a member of The Federal Reserve Board, how does this make the current credit/monetary system a free market to begin with? Freedom begins at the very heart of a monetary system and taxation, as to the prime reasons we had a Revolutionary War... our current tax is represented in interest, inflation, and debt built upon the current credit system... built upon the most profitable, from the most loans, from the most interest, of the primary monetary stature... regardless of social equality, civilized infrastructure, or needed public services. The pattern is clear, oil industries thrive and hit record profits per year... it is a consumable, nonrenewable source of profit. Renewable energy is not profitable by the nature of it being renewable. Monsanto producing a wide range of industry ready seeds... unable to reproduce and yield the following year... nonrenewable source of profit. DuPont stamped out hemp and big pharm continues to push against progressive marijuana legislation. And then there is the profits of prolonged wars... and the backing of war time contractors... And what about the "buried books"... the audit on the Federal Reserve that would show the American people who their backing and where their money is going... why wouldn't I want to have the power of the vote to insure that our real power is being used to better our society? A free market is one that is free from the "whims of a few powerful men"... I contend that this is far from a free market.
Here's a definition: " a free market is neither achievable or desirable but it can be successfully used to manipulate right wing suckers"
I cannot retort that... "social equality, civilized infrastructure, or needed public services"... but whose head should I be feeding, The Federal Reserve Bank/China or my Congressman's?
It is an ideal we work towards. The closer a nation gets, the more prosperous it becomes the world over.
There is big money in renewable things. Paper sales, fish etc.. First lefties complain that Monsanto seeds are changing other commercial strains and making it impossible to get non Monsanto products, now you are complaining that Monsanto products cannot spread? Please make up your mind. - - - Updated - - - Yes and perfect information too... But policy should move towards an ideal goal, not state control.
Seed spreading is basically just spreading a seed that is "round up ready" ...usually these seeds will not produce seeds that produce another year's yield. However, when spread does happen by chance of wind, bird droppings or some other random chance, the field in which they settle becomes property of the company that holds the genetic rights to that seed. This results in organic and heirloom farmers loosing an entire seasons of crops. There is no need to make up one's mind, this is the reality of GMF's.
Compare markets that are relatively free, and those that are heavily controlled. Which have more innovation? Lower prices? What has driven that innovation and low prices? Regulation, or competition?
What debt free, interest free, federally controlled monetary system do I have to compare it to? ...as perpetuation seems to be key in profits. I surmise that we should have already been space bound, leaving behind a highly advanced society of infrastructure, education, and health, as we should have already settled the Moon and Mars... what could we not do when money is no object?
Based it on what you can buy, based on what you earn, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, and today. What wonderful things to pick - how involved has "central management" in space travel, infrastructure, education and healthcare? You want to travel to space, trust Virgin air and Burt Rutan to get you there not the government.
Let's base it on the value of a dollar from 1913 to today... Yet, not one of them has landed on Moon... over a dozen times. Not one of them has a private rover on Mars... or four of them... none of them brought us satellite communications, or helped us produce the internet, cell phone technology, ...none of them had launched a space probe that is now exiting the solar system... none of them put a massive telescope into space to bring us images of the beginning of time... none of them has a joint venture orbiting laboratory ...this was NASA, when it was properly funded... now virtually whisked away in a plethora of cutbacks... due to spending... due to borrowing... due to a glory hole of a centralized banking scheme...
You won't like the results. See, for example, the difference in R&D rates between US and Europe. Source? The heavily regulated military sector. Indeed, the US government went as far as telling firms where to merge in order to achieve economies of scale.
Why won't I like the results? United States $405.3B 2.70% Denmark $5.1B 2.40% Germany $69.5B 2.30% France $42.2B 1.90% United Kingdom $38.4B 1.70% Italy $19B 1.10% Spain $17.2B 1.30% Sweden $11.9B 3.30% Netherlands $10.8B 1.60% Austria $8.3B 2.50% Switzerland $7.5B 2.30% Finland $6.3B 3.10% Norway $4.2B 1.60% Portugal $2.8B 1.20% Ireland $2.6B 1.40% Luxembourg $0.67B 1.62% Iceland $0.3B 2.30% Total R&D spending of $246.47B 1.84% China $296.8B 1.97% Japan $160.3B 3.67% South Korea $55.8B 3.74% India $36.1B 0.90% Taiwan $19B 2.30% Total R&D spending of $568B 2.20% It would be interesting to see if the countries with higher R&D percentages receive tax breaks or public funds. In addition, many companies don't charge product innovation to R&D, it is just product development. For example, with all its innovation, Apple only spends 3% on R&D.
That isn't how it works at all. One plant doesn't change a crop's ownership. Seeds that cannot reproduce do not take over organic fields.
In it's definitive decision on "Legal Tender" (Juilliard v Greenman) the US Supreme Court ruled that "legal tender currency" was not "money" but instead was a promissory note under the legislative authority of Article I Section 8 Clause 1 to "borrow on the credit of the United States." The word "note" in "Federal Reserve note" establishes that it is a financial promissory note under contract law. USC Title 12 Chapter 3 Subchapter XII § 411 establishes that Federal Reserve notes are a promissory note and establishes the criteria for redemption. "Lawful money" is not a promissory note which would be "currency" although both lawful currency and lawful money are both "legal tender" in the United States. The current "lawful money" in the United States today is gold, silver, and platinum coins authorized under the Gold Bullion Coin Act of 1985. While many state that the United States is not on the "gold standard" this is disputed by both the laws of the United States, which require redemption of Federal Reserve notes in "lawful money" which is American Eagle coins and the fact that to take the US off of the "gold standard" would violate the US Supreme Court decision in Juilliard v Greenman. The problem is that the US government is not enforcing the law and the Supreme Court decision with respect to the Federal Reserve issuing Federal Reserve notes. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/110/421
In my company, R&D is a dedicated effort, usually to develop environmentally friendly plastics, that gets used in all products. This is a line in the budget, and has dedicated funding. Almost all of our innovation is funded by a customers request to build a product. My job is to define products that solve problems before customers even realize they have them - I'm in Sales, not R&D. Our innovation is not inherently linked to our R&D. I can assure you that Apple, a company with many innovations, has the same business model, otherwise the R&D budget would be far higher than 3%.
A rather tenuous linkage. R&D can lead to innovation but innovation is not dependent upon R&D and most innovation is unrelated to R&D.
I'm not even sure what point you are trying to make. Or at least, nothing you said follows a clear thought line. Freedom: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action. Now, unfortunately, everyone has necessity. We require water, food, and generally shelter to survive. So to some extent, no one at any time, will ever be entirely free from necessity. But short of that, we have tons of freedom. And if they denied the right to vote, yes I would still be free. The government can't make me work. Can't make me go someplace I don't want to go. No one can coerce me into doing anything. So yes, I would still be free. Now likely that could change, because without the right to vote, there is no check on government power, and the laws could be changed. But just the lack of voting wouldn't make me a slave. Free Market: a market structure in which the distribution and costs of goods and services, along with the structure and hierarchy between capital and consumer goods, are coordinated by supply and demand unhindered by external regulation or control by government or monopolies. You seem to be making a sweeping statement, while talking about an extremely specific point. First, it's based on a false premise to begin with. You are implying that the only factor in defining freedom, is having a vote. Japanese Americans in world war 2, had a vote too... does that mean when we placed them in internment camps, that they were free? Similarly, Tutsis in Rwanda had a voice in their government, and that didn't stop the majority of Hutus from wiping them out. Does that mean while they were being slaughtered they had freedom? So you need to re-examine your suppositions on that. However, from that point, making the claim we don't have a free market because of the Federal Reserve board, is a bit extreme. I have a friend who started up a business, and he's doing ok. Apparently having a Federal Reserve board, didn't hinder him from being free to provide a service, free to start a business, and free to make money. That's part of the fundamentals of a free-market. Lastly, if you mean specifically a free market of interest rates, and so on, then yes you are right. Obviously the Federal Reserve is not a free-market system, and no one ever claimed it was. (at least no one I know). Obviously if the Federal Reserve did not exist, interest rates at the bank level, would never reach 0%, which is where they are at, if for no other reason that a person who could only lend money at 0% would simply not lend it. That market reasoning, is removed by a government run entity. But how you translate that to elsewhere in the market, is just not logic. So I'm not sure what the point was. By what logic? Taxation, yes. Obviously every bit of taxation is a direct limitation of our Freedom. If you take all my money at gun point, I'm not free obviously. Changing the gun, to a government agency, doesn't change anything. But the method of economic exchange, whether it is the dollar, or Peso, or Yaun, doesn't make me a slave. The Federal Reserve has nothing to do with taxation though. So I'm not sure what the tie-in there was supposed to be. No, that a ridiculously ignorant statement. Whether the energy supply is renewable or not, is completely irrelevant to it's profitability. If I could make a solar panel for $20 each, that produced 10 KiloWatts of power, that would be insanely profitable. The problem is, those are not the numbers in reality. Instead, to make a solar panel system that creates ONE kilowatt of power, costs nearly $3,000 dollars, which is horribly unprofitable for the most part. This is why, without direct government funding of 'renewable energy' grants and subsidies, there would simply be no solar panels, or wind mills, or many others. The only profitable renewable energy sources are Geothermal, and Hydro. Both of which, even while being profitable produce a tiny fraction of power that we need. They simply don't scale up like a coal, gas, or nuclear power plant can. The rest of what you are talking about, seems to be more about people acting the way people do. If you worked for a company, which provided medical drugs, and someone was trying to legalize pot, and you knew that you would be out of job, and looking for work.... what would you do? You'd be against that. So the people at pharm companies are against legalizing pot, and this is shocking why? Further, war never creates wealth. By definition, if you blow up something that had value, and now it does not have value, you are destroying wealth. Government contractors fill a need. Why are you upset about that? Government by it's very nature is wasteful and corrupt. By it's nature. That is how it is. This is how it has always been since the first groups of human beings, created a ruling class. Even in the least corrupt, least wasteful government, there is still some level of this. If anyone here is shocked or surprised when they hear that some government agency wasted money, then they are either completely uninformed, or amazingly naive. And truly, there is no completely free-market. Government will always exert some control somewhere, if for no other reason, than to say they did something. I agree we should minimize this control, but if you are holding out for a free-market utopia, it's not coming. Again, I'm not sure what the whole point of this post was. It bounced around from topic to topic, without really seeming to make a clear point. What is it you are trying to advocate?
And today, most R&D results in junk. It's just a R&D grants are nothing more than cash cows for institutions. I recently read that now professors spend 40% of their time, writing grant proposals. That's a ton of money wasted on trying to get more money, rather than real R&D. It's no wonder that the majority of research papers, end up not being replicable.
Nope, a crucial link.This also of course helps explain why perfect competition, even if it was achievable, would not be desirable. Small firms can use their tacit knowledge to find new opportunity. However, they lack the resources needed for R&D (high fixed costs associated with achieving technological and product spin-offs)
