I'm sorry. Any award for peace that goes to Yassir Arafat and Barack Obama is a farce. Even if I was an Obama supporter, there's no way I could not laugh at him receiving that award. He won it on hope. Hope he would close Guantanamo. Hope he would pull the US out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Well, Guantanamo's still running. Not only are we still in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we've also sent troops to Libya and now Uganda. Saying you saw it coming doesn't invalidate the argument. The Nobel Prize is a farce. Period.

I wouldn't have said anything, except Zilla added "Nobel Prize winning" before Krugman, apparently to add credibility. Well, if he wants to add that in there, I'm going to shoot it down. Now, you may all proceed with your discussion.

Ham

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Do you believe yet?

You hang around with a better class of hacks than I do, Ham. Krugman has taught at Yale, MIT, the London School of Economics, Stanford, and is currently at Princeton. I don't disagree with you about the Nobel Peace prize (I would add Henry Kissinger to the list of unworthies), but the awards for economics aren't exactly T-ball participation trophies.

However, I don't know enough about Krugman's New Trade Theory (the reason they awarded him the Nobel) to know whether he is full of shit or not. I just liked the article about Wall Street financiers.

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th' only knower of th' cosmic mysteries alive at this time

I may have to read the article. I'm going on an economics kick (seems appropriate at the moment, neh?) dowloading free ebooks, borrowing ebooks from the library, and requesting various hard books from the library I cannot get electronically.

But I had been thinking lately. Squanto had opined that the problem wasn't government manipulating capitalism, but the other way around. I took that to mean that he felt that corporations and business were too involved and too powerful when it comes to the operation of the government. If I am wrong in my insinuating, please correct me.

So here's what occured to me. As government gets more and more involved in the private sector, through legislation and regulations, it becomes more an more imperative for businesses to try and influence how those laws and regulations get written and which get passed. If you consider a scenario where there is little to no regulation and interference in the private sector, what motivation would businesses and corporations have to involve themselves in government? There wouldn't be any. So the very fact that the government gets more entrenched in the private sector drives business involvement in the government process.

Ergo, if you want business out of government, get government out of business. Now, admittedly, this strikes me as a very conservative suggestion, deregulation and all that. But to be honest, I haven't heard anyone from any camp make this connection before. Now, I'm not calling for a complete abandonment of laws and regulations dealing with the private sector, but certainly a major scaling back of degree.

Just my recent train of thought. You people who hate lobbying should be on board. I highly doubt you'll find a way to get businesses out of lobbying while the government continues to issue thousands of new regulations year in and year out.

Ham

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Do you believe yet?

I hear a lot of talk about deregulation, but I dont hear any specifics, exactly what regulations need to be removed for business to flourish, unburdened?

As soon as I get through reading the 163,333 pages of the Code of Federal Regulations, I'll send along my recommendations.

Seriously, I don't have the time or expertise to make my own recommendations. I'm sure you're saying you're not hearing it from candidates, etc. That may be true. But I have to believe there are people out there in the field who can find countless unneccesary "regulatory taxes".

And if there aren't, then we have a serious problem with the way our federal government operates. Like when Representative John Conyers mocked people saying "Read the bill" in regards to Obamacare. If we can't pare back the regulations because nobody has the time to become an expert on the hundreds of thousands of pages of regulations, then perhaps we just have way too many.

Ham

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Do you believe yet?

So, you're for blindly de-regulating industry. Not ALL regulations, but drastically reducing the reach of these regulations, the content of which you're completely ignorant of. And you trust WHO to do this deregulating?

Also, if there are so many regulations keeping business down that they just couldnt stand under the weight, dont you think the republican spin machine would have come up with SOME clear examples by now? I mean, if they are SO numerous, then it should be easy to come up with a really silly one, and parade it around in front of everyone like they LOVE to do with anything they're capable of, so, where is it? Where is the 'Joe the plumber' of deregulation?

No, the Republican party is complicit in the expansion of federal reach and power, just as they are complicit in the never-ending growth of spending and subsequently the skyrocketing debt.

As to blindy deregulating, absolutely not. I expect, when someone has proposals for eliminating regulations, they will have an argument as to why. Then I can go to places like the Heritage Foundation to get some expert commentary. These are the policy guys, get it? It's not for me to wade through the regulations. But when someone has a suggestion, then I can educate myself on that particular issue.

As to examples, how about this one. You may have heard some people calling for the repeal of Obamacare. That specific enough for you? Or maybe you just weren't paying attention.

Ham

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Do you believe yet?

No reason to get snippy ham, you did advocate the deregulation of rules you admitted you were completely unfamiliar with, that seemed odd for someone as thorough as you appear to be.

As for "Obamacare"...the right was complaining about regulations before that came along, it's not a great example, and it doesnt do much to explain what the mass of regulations are which are not pertaining to healthcare.

This is such skewed logic. Of course business wouldn't interfere with government if government did everything in its power to facilitate business. There wouldn't be any forest fires anymore if we just cut down all the trees too.

Ham and all you deregulation folks, let's get down to the core of the issue here. Answer me two questions:

1. Are governments necessary?
2. Why?

And I'm talking Hobbes state of nature stuff here, government at its most-stripped, basic form. What need does any group of humans at any time in history have for government?

That's great.

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th' only knower of th' cosmic mysteries alive at this time

Anybody? Do we really want to get to the nitty-gritty here or what? Tell me in your opinion if you think groups of people need governments and why. That's all I ask.

1. Are governments necessary?
Yes
2. Why?
Because our government tells us we need it.

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Be honest. What do you think? And imagine the world without governments. Why would people prefer governments to total freedom? Or would you prefer total freedom?

I think they're necessary, sure. They help avoid conflict. People are going to band together, because survival as a group is easier than survival as a single entity. Those groups would be at each others throats, and things would often turn to violence, as that's a pretty easy way to end disputes. Governments are what separate the current face of the globe from the Mongol empire, Nazi regimes, and dictatorships (though the cowardice of man could also be blamed for those).

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I agree. Without governments, the strong would take what they wanted and victimize the weak. At base, governments are there to provide some measure of security to their people. Well, same thing can happen with wealth as with physical power and violence. If there are no rules, the strong will take what they can from the weak. Human nature.

Yet, the standard GOP answer to most economic questions: get government out of business. Stop killing jobs. More freedom is the answer. I don't buy it and I'm sick of them talking in absolutes, when if you really stop to think about it, it's obvious that getting rid of rules favors the rich and the strong. If absolute freedom leads to the type of violent anarchy we're talking about, why hold up the idea of total freedom as if it's a paradise?

Why does the whole issue have to be that dramatic? Slippery slope arguments are based on "ifs" instead of reality. Businesses have and are choosing to operate overseas, which takes jobs away and hurts our economy. Find out why (taxes, regulations that hurt profit) and cut back to the point of a fair balance that brings business back. That doesn't mean giving free reign to any/every business and corporation, and no conservative actually calls for ZERO regulation as you suggest. Currently the balance favors overseas operation, so change the balance. It's not that deep of a concept.

People bitch about the current job market and the above is spot on. Government regulation and corporate tax increases have netted no increase in jobs. Somehow the common consensus seems to be regulate more and increase taxes on whatever companies have decided to endure thus far.

It's not just taxes and regulations, it's wages, too. Wages are typically the highest expense on the income statement and Americans demand a healthy wage. A company can get away with paying people in third world countries far less and pad its bottom line.

I'm not saying it's right, but there's more to it.

True, and that doesn't mean businesses should be allowed to pay dirt to american workers. American workers should also not expect to make $10+ with full benefits for operating on a line. It all depends on the work, but I think those things figure themsleves out if businesses are willing to or given an incentive to operate here.