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Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
Then the argument failed on the grounds of coherence.
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An argument against free markets is that a free markets lack regulatory control and oversight from a centralized source. However, when we look at what you called "mixed" markets as in the case of the US oil industry which is heavily regulated and controlled an event like the BP oil spill occurs. Centralized regulation and control can not prevent disasters from occurring. What then follows are the consequences or how a free market would respond compared to a "mixed" market. In the case of BP and the US government a settlement was arrived at that was politically based rather than a settlement based on real costs and real consequences. In the end the settlement with the government benefited government and BP, in my view disproportionately, at the expense of tax payers and those most damaged.
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Canada has been running a deficit throughout the recession. The minority Conservative government has been using stimulus spending to weather the storm and arguably they've been doing a good job (some would argue we would have been okay either way).
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The reason I included a reference to the Canadian birth rate is because over time it will be increasingly difficult for fewer and fewer people to sustain the weight of social spending. Something is going to have to change. Either spending cuts, or significant gains in wealth creation. Canada is fortunate as it currently sits on a vast amount of untapped wealth. The thought that Canada could simply tax more to address social spending is not realistic. You must have wealth creation or spending cuts. The same condition is true in the US. The US can not tax its way out of the train wreck that is going to occur unless we act. Conservatives in Canada and in the US are prepared to do what needs to be done. The real extreme position is held by those who think we can tax our way into solving problems with spending.
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Now I want you to watch Canadian economic policy and watch closely. Canadians have just elected a majority Conservative government, which means that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is easily the most powerful politician domestically than anybody in North America. This guy is Chicago School. You'd like him. But let's rewind: since the '90s, we've reduced our debt by nearly 1/6th. We even legislated rules regarding balanced budgets. This recent deficit spending will not be nearly as bad over the next few years because we're heading out of the recession. We're likely to move back to a surplus if the majority Conservatives don't fuck it up. Balanced budgets aren't serendipity in Canada; they're expected.
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Hence the value of Canada's untapped resources. Social programs will be cut unless Canada monetizes the value of those resource at a pace that exceeds increasing costs in social programs.
In the US we have to deal with silliness from environmentalist. We have resources that can be monetized, but they fight it. i doubt they realize what is at risk.
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This will happen despite oil prices. It has happened in the past, before the oil boom. The boom is less than 10 years in the making.
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No it wont. There is a price where developing oil sands is worth while or profitable and there is a price where that is not true. Over time with improvements in technology that price has come down, but there is still the magic price point. If supplier A has a cost of production of $10 per barrel, supplier B $20, and oil sand is $40. If A and B can satisfy demand, oil sands won't be developed-unless tax payers are willing to subsidize the difference - but there are consequences to that.
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You aren't listening. I'm not devaluing labour; I'm suggesting a free market would actively do that.
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That is only half of the view. When supply of labor exceeds demand, the price or wage drops. But when demand exceeds supply the price goes up. Labor has to be active in the market and adjust to changes. If the demand for auto workers drops, but the demand for computer programmers is increasing labor has to respond. However, when the market is controlled by government you end up with high numbers of unemployed and unemployable auto workers waiting for jobs that will never return - encouraged by government policy. Labor would respond faster to changing market conditions if not for government. Government policy is often the root of the problem.
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Just as capital would be used to exploit land and ideas, it would exploit labour: maximum output, minimum cost. It would strip balanced approaches to how labour would be treated, just as it would strip balanced approaches to using land and ideas (wanton environmental degradation and no such thing as "stealing" ideas, i.e. no copyright, no patents, etc.).
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Your view seems to assume that certain parties would be uninformed. If market participants are passive and unwilling to do their homework, so to speak, they will be exploited. But even that condition is self correcting in a free market. Different employers would compete for labor at below market costs and in time bid up the price of labor.