Paul's stance on corporates?

[Banana]

What are "corporates"? Did you mean corporations?

Doh.... :o

Corporations may a have a lot more power to lobby than do ordinary citizens, but it is the politicians that sell out. We need to restore our government with honest and ethical people.

That is very true.

Corporations are not legal persons. They cannot vote in elections (as far as I know).

Yes, they are legal person, in the sense that they have standing in the court. Zaramax already gave an example about how liability are separated from personal life, and IMO, this is root of problem. You can't hold people accountable when they can blame it all on a fictional strawman.


As for the rest of your post, others already discussed and answered the question.

 

[emilysdad]

I know we are getting off subject but check out this vehicle:

www.loremo.com

-It's a diesel

-It carries 4 people

-Under 1320 lbs.

-Gets about 157 mpg!!!

-Has a range of over 600 miles on one tank

-And is said to be very safe

I am sold too!

BTW, it is really not off topic at all, found this is the FAQ section:

Will the Loremo be available on the US markets?

We are quite surprised to see that the Loremo is being well accepted in the US. Due to the complicated and instable regulations we will not offer the Loremo for US markets upon launch in 2009. Should the success and the future market demand from US markets enable us to offer the Loremo we will certainly do so.

Great thread, very informative, thanks to all.

 

[danberkeley]

If my corporation causes harm to someone, then the worst that can happen is that my corporation will go bankrupt. My personal finances are completely secure. This is just one example of privileges given to corporations... there are many more.

This isn't always true. If you form a corporation to defraud people, not only is the corporation liable but so are you. It's called "piercing the corporate veil". This is why the some of executives at Enron were personally sued in court and lost.

 

[danberkeley]

Yes, they are legal person, in the sense that they have standing in the court.

Sure. But there are also other organization of people that can sue and be sued (i.e. class action suits).

Zaramax already gave an example about how liability are separated from personal life, and IMO, this is root of problem. You can't hold people accountable when they can blame it all on a fictional strawman.

I suppose, but there's always "piercing the corporate veil".

 

[LibertiORDeth]

I am sold too!

BTW, it is really not off topic at all, found this is the FAQ section:

Will the Loremo be available on the US markets?

We are quite surprised to see that the Loremo is being well accepted in the US. Due to the complicated and instable regulations we will not offer the Loremo for US markets upon launch in 2009. Should the success and the future market demand from US markets enable us to offer the Loremo we will certainly do so.

Great thread, very informative, thanks to all.

Can't you import one?

 

[danberkeley]

Now when I think about it, I can see how an existing network serve as a disincentive to build more roads; if a company serves the public well more, competition would have no reason to go in that market and look somewhere else.

The key phrase is "serves the public well more". This implies that the toll price is low enough that a would be competitor has no incentive to enter the market. And we all know that there is nothing wrong with low toll prices. The toll at the bridge for me to enter San Francisco is $4 then it's $30 to park downtown. Or I could take the subway for $6.10.

Now, suppose we totally privatized roads. Does that mean we will have several tollbooths raising up to maintain the roads? Wouldn't it be annoying to pay toll four or more times on your daily commute?

Or or or or or you could pay that money to the government so that they can spend it to build bombs and blow up Iraq.

 

[therealjjj77]

Interesting.

Now when I think about it, I can see how an existing network serve as a disincentive to build more roads; if a company serves the public well more, competition would have no reason to go in that market and look somewhere else. But what about gerrymandering, creating virtual monopoly?

Now, suppose we totally privatized roads. Does that mean we will have several tollbooths raising up to maintain the roads? Wouldn't it be annoying to pay toll four or more times on your daily commute?

Things like I-PASS would become more prevalent and widely used.

Paying a toll is no more annoying then paying 3$/gallon++ at the gas station while half of that goes to road taxes, most of which go to rebuild roads and bridges in Iraq. At least a private company would be way more efficient and far less costly.

 

[Banana]

Didn't have a heart to start another thread, so I figured I'd recycle this thread to bring up semi-related questions which I got the idea from threads re: GMO popping up lately.

Now, people over there don't like the GMO for whatever reasons but that's boring details. What I want to know is that there's the problem of GMO farm infecting the neighboring organic farm with the pollens. Therefore, it would be next to impossible to have a sizable organic farm that's not in proximity to more mainstream farms.

Now, property rights says that whatever spills over into others' property demands a just compensation. But on other hand, the free market seems to favors GMO. Who wins?

Then there's question of who gets to intervene if it shouldn't be the government? Wouldn't a class action lawsuit be essentially the same thing as a government regulation?



And I'm afraid I'm kind of still hung up on the concept of privatizing roads. Could it be argued that the entry barrier for this kind of market is too high to tolerate competition, even between two giant firms? Wouldn't we just end up with same system we have with local phone system; they have monopoly over a certain area but not because of exclusive contract with the government but rather because they own everything in that area for phone service.

therealj777 already mentioned that in free market, such monopoly would want to rent the unused portions in order to make money. I just remembered my old frustrations with DSL ISP. There are several independent DSL ISPs out there but for my area, they ultimately depend on Qwest (my local phone company) providing the line and as a consequence, I'd be paying two bills and more for service when Qwest can provide their own ISP at better price. The difference between Qwest as the ISP and independents are too marginal to be worth it; I already did the math and the best bang per buck would be with Qwest alone, with exception of customer service. It was no surprise that customer service were crappy; after all, Qwest has no incentive to "keep" their customers. Basically, you live in their area, you are their bitch.

Mind, therealjjj777 already pointed out in first page that this can be entirely bypassed by having Clearwire, Cellular services (there are more people who chose to not have a landline at all nowadays), so there's a way out for the telecommunication. But can this be said of electricity, roads and railroads? Didn't we have that problem with railroad company price gouging in 19th century? So, if entry barrier are too high, wouldn't there a risk that the people will suffer under a free-market utility monopoly?

 

[JosephTheLibertarian]

I wonder if anyone have idea where Paul stands WRT corporates?

Personally, I perceive big corporates as scourges on liberties and the root of all bad kind of lobbying (mind, I'm not saying lobbying itself is bad, but it's corporates that gives lobbying the bad name).

I imagine Ron Paul is all for laissez-faire market, and would want to remove subsidies, welfare (he has written so in articles on official websites). That's great, but what about monopolies? What about accountability (or lack thereof)?

Should corporate be re-defined so it's not a legal person? The trouble with such concept is that it's essentially without morals and because it's a group of people, the blame is diffused. Underlings doesn't blow whistles because they're obeying orders. Stakeholders are inclined to look the other way when they're raking in money. Board of Directors has no idea what's going on. CEO says he's doing the bidding of stakeholders. So on and so on.

So... thoughts?

You sound like a socialist. Prove to me that monopolies occur in a free market setting. Look at web hosting. No regulation, no monopolies. No one ever asked RP about corporate identities, but I believe that we should end the sanctioning of corporate entities, start recognizing them as individuals.

 

[Banana]

You sound like a socialist.

That's quite great way to make a point.

Prove to me that monopolies occur in a free market setting. Look at web hosting. No regulation, no monopolies. No one ever asked RP about corporate identities, but I believe that we should end the sanctioning of corporate entities, start recognizing them as individuals.

I take it you have not read the whole thread and just decided that I am a pinko commie. If you had, you would have seen that I have no problem with no regulations knowing that if a monopoly occurred, it would be only because there was no need; but as soon the monopolizing company get a bit too greedy, competition will enter.

My misgivings were focused on specific markets, namely roads and utilities, where I *think* high entry barrier would create monopolies that would take advantage anyway and I cited examples. You probably didn't notice that those were questions... something you use to learn more about a topic rather than an assertions.

But hey, it's more fun calling someone a socialist than to read the thread and consider the arguments to the date, no?

 

[SimpleName]

No, the root of all bad kinds of lobbying is that government is allowed in areas it doesn't belong. There's no point in lobbying for legislation if that legislation just isn't allowed to exist. Without regulatory advantages corporations have to compete in the open market and don't do nearly as well as they do now.

Corporations are the player, not the game.

Basically, yes. If we do not allow Congress to make laws regulating the free market (therefore making it NOT free), corporations do not have the insane leverage they have now.