Free Market Capitalism; the Great Equalizer

[amicus]

Just watched again, a ‘documentary’ or info commercial perhaps, I didn’t note the channel, about McDonald’s in China; 800 hundred restaurants prior to 2008, along with 1900 Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants in Mainland China.

Watching the cultural differences was informative and even entertaining as the young Chinese boys and girls, same kind that man the McDonald’s here, tried to teach their customers how to use the new ‘drive-thru‘ feature. It seems people would drive through, purchase the food, park in the parking lot and go inside the restaurant to eat.

As mentioned, I had seen it before and really didn’t think of writing anything, but…switching around, I saw a Dr. Pepper advertisement directed at the Black Community, with all the Rap and Jive Talk. Then I remembered a Coca Cola advertisement directed at the Hispanic Community, which gave rise to these comments.

The market place is driven by the profit motive and does not take into consideration the ethnic or racial nature of its’ customers except insofar as to supply those needs with a cultural accommodation.

It is one of the ethical and moral resultants of an open, free market system based only on the profit motive. No do-gooder civil rights groups, no ‘affirmative action’ legislation or taxation, no forced integration, and it accomplishes wonders out here in the real world.

Wake up Beltway Drones! The future is at hand~!

Amicus Veritas

 

[TE999]

With the proliferation of target marketed magazines, tv channels and websites, commercials are designed to appeal to the same markets. There can be as many as six McDonalds commercials, all with different persons portrayed in them and in different languages running at a given time.

Capitalisim may be an anethema to some because it isn't 'fair', but it's the axles the wheels of commerce run on. China, for example, has embraced Capitalisim and is prospering. Eliminate the profit motive and you have backlogs, scarcity, apathetic workers, shoddy workmanship and no incentive to improve products.

Socialisim and Communisim are the roads to ruin. History tells us so.

 

[amicus]

The 'road to ruin' keyed a thought, 'Road to Serfdom', I think....hmmm, gonna pause and see if I can retain this and do a search...I think it was Hayek...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Serfdom

Nice when memory serves accurately..one of those texts worth reading for a better understanding of free market mechanics and the truly tragic failure of socialism that cost so much suffering and loss of life.

Thanks yet again...T

Ami

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Lord knows the capitalist system is far and away the best way to improve the material life of a people.

That being said, it's not a perfect system. There are instances where the free market isn't the best or most efficient way to get to a goal. The case of vaccines comes to mind, where drug makers can make more money off selling cures to diseases than they can selling preventatives. Or situations such as the depletion of fishing grounds that's occurring now from overfishing--the tragedy of the commons. Or the existence of monopolies and the rise of a plutocracy.

You have to decide whether you want markets to rule the world, or people. If the latter, then there must be some institution in place that has more power than mere money, and that's where governments come in.

Without governements keeping peace, do you have any doubt that within a few years, employees of KFC would be having running gun battles in the street with the employees of McDonald's?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

But government doesnt limit its involvement to peace-keeping. The factions bribe and inflience the government to work for them. The system is corrupt from top to bottom.

 

[Liar]

Without governements keeping peace, do you have any doubt that within a few years, employees of KFC would be having running gun battles in the street with the employees of McDonald's?

If you give the McDonalds employees I know guns, they're more likely to shoot their own bosses.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

But government doesnt limit its involvement to peace-keeping. The factions bribe and inflience the government to work for them. The system is corrupt from top to bottom.

That would be the faction with the most money, i.e. the capitalists.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

That would be the faction with the most money, i.e. the capitalists.

You construe and limit capitalists to the major corporations.

 

[JamesSD]

Lord knows the capitalist system is far and away the best way to improve the material life of a people.

That being said, it's not a perfect system. There are instances where the free market isn't the best or most efficient way to get to a goal. The case of vaccines comes to mind, where drug makers can make more money off selling cures to diseases than they can selling preventatives. Or situations such as the depletion of fishing grounds that's occurring now from overfishing--the tragedy of the commons. Or the existence of monopolies and the rise of a plutocracy.

You have to decide whether you want markets to rule the world, or people. If the latter, then there must be some institution in place that has more power than mere money, and that's where governments come in.

Brilliant.

There's a difference between Capitalism and Laissez-faire Capitalism. The latter leads to monopolies, oppressed poor, and a number of other social ills. I support Capitalism, but at the same time realize that the markets are very often wrong and irrational, especially in the short term, and require strong regulation.

A friend of mine actually recently made a great point that in the modern era capitalism has a hard time moving forward without government help and spending. Thinking of the major innovations that have increased productivity in the past 20 years, almost all came on the backs of initial government investment. The internet? The initial investment all came from military, public universities, and some private university contribution. High speed internet? Again, the government has done a lot to create the infrastructure and wires to actually connect us all. Even most pharma research is built on protein structures and pathways discovered and characterized by public research. In the early days of biotech there were tons of leads out there from decades of unexploited public research; biotech is actually reaching the point in many fields where it needs to wait for public research to make breakthroughs before it can move forward.

Once people let go of the myth that market forces are perfect and shaped by individuals always acting in their own best interest, it's possible to move forward with sane policy decisions. I'm glad that we're returning to Keynsian economic thought, as classical economics does a very poor job of describing anything with real world application.

 

[amicus]

Lord knows the capitalist system is far and away the best way to improve the material life of a people.

That being said, it's not a perfect system. There are instances where the free market isn't the best or most efficient way to get to a goal. The case of vaccines comes to mind, where drug makers can make more money off selling cures to diseases than they can selling preventatives. Or situations such as the depletion of fishing grounds that's occurring now from overfishing--the tragedy of the commons. Or the existence of monopolies and the rise of a plutocracy.

You have to decide whether you want markets to rule the world, or people. If the latter, then there must be some institution in place that has more power than mere money, and that's where governments come in.

Without governements keeping peace, do you have any doubt that within a few years, employees of KFC would be having running gun battles in the street with the employees of McDonald's?[/

QUOTE]

~~~

I suppose Mabeuse is as good a place to begin a rebuttal and a refutation as any; which is the position an advocate of human freedom expressed by the free market is required to occupy.

First off, not for a moment do I accept or believe Mabeuse or any other detractors of the marketplace, offer a grudging respect for Capitalism, they don't. They instead, pander to the very concept of a free market in hopes of lulling into quiescence those who know that any tampering with the free market leads to a reduction in the quantity and quality of goods and services and gives birth the the bureaucracy of a larger government to engage in Pigouvian Legislation to alter the behavior of the citizenry.

Mabeuse singles out vaccines, drug companies, commercial fishing, monopolies and Plutocracies, government run by the wealthy. All red herrings, all typical arguments from closet socialists.

At the Dollar Store, you can purchase 250 tablets, 325 milligrams each of aspirin, for one dollar. At your pharmacy or local supermarket you can get Bayer Aspirin at about five times the cost.

Whether it is prescription medications or immunizations, the free market produces, in the United States, the products the public and the medical community demand and they do so under laws that protect both the individual customer and the company from fraudulent claims and over dangerous side effects from the medications. Those laws are generic in nature intended to provide a broad umbrella of protection to both the producers and the consumers.

No individual wants to suffer the effects of bad medicine and no company or corporation, no matter how large, wishes to be hauled into court to defend against claims, legitimate or not, over usage of their product.

Human nature is to err and no amount of regulation, restricting, control or management can prevent those errors, or, what was once called, Acts of God, in terms of catastrophic natural events or fate.

To think that one can wave the magic wand of Keynesian 'tickering' with the market place and create a Nirvana in the market place, is fantasy at best.

'Depletion of fishing grounds', or hunting, harvesting any natural finite renewable resource at any level, is a matter of practice and common sense.

Managing a sustained harvest, although you may wish otherwise, is a function of the particular industry involved. When the resource diminishes or declines, it no longer becomes profitable to exploit that resource and that particular industry moves elsewhere to locate and harvest that which is needed, demanded and then supplied by, in the case of fish, fishermen and the fishing industry.

When governments enter the picture and Soviet fishing, not depending on a profit, wantonly harvest a resource until is it completely exhausted, it is an indictment of government, not the free market place.

It is a simple matter of definition to recognize that a 'monopoly' cannot exist in a free market society. Only government can engender a monopoly in an area of enterprise by forbidding and banning competition within that sphere.

Likewise a plutocratic society cannot exist without government picking and choosing those whom to support and those whom to deny. A free market place is the great leveller of income and wealth distribution by the inherent open competition in the market place. IBM with all the wealth in the world; was the ideal corporation to 'cash in' on the PC market, failed to capitalize on the public demand for personal computers and others rushed in to fill the void.

Not only is Mabeuse, et al, totally unaware of the mechanics of a free market place, the moral and ethical results of open competition under protective laws and courts, but, one and all disregard the primary objection to any degree of a 'command economy' they wish to impose; that of individual human freedom.

This nation, under our fundamental laws protecting life, liberty and property, which were extended into and throughout all local, County and State branches of government and guided the legislation of each by judging them against the spirit, intent and letter of the Constitution, are sufficient to protect those rights if properly enforced and adjudicated.

There is always, it seems, a certain portion of any society, that wishes to gain power and control over their fellow citizens by imposing laws and rules, restrictions and regulations over their behavior and always, 'for the greater good'.

Mabeuse's last paragraph at least has humor. There have been franchise 'wars' before, when competing gas stations conducted a 'gas war', reducing prices to attract more customers. That is how it works in a free society. Only in a closed society, and only government can and will come with guns to enforce their edicts.

For all of you who continue to think that you are smarter than everyone else and if only we would turn our private affairs over to you, everything would be just, 'hunky dory', think again and realize that sooner or later you are going to be met at the doorstep with a 12 guage.

Amicus



One should run from those who lust for power because they really mean what they say.

 

[Handley_Page]

Dr_Mabeuse:
The case of vaccines comes to mind, where drug makers can make more money off selling cures to diseases than they can selling preventatives.


/OFF-TOPIC
There's a good example that comes to mind. Paracetamol is a widely-used pain-killer. Taken in large dosed, it screws up the liver. A UK scientist discovered a compound which prevents this liver damage, but apparently, the majority of the makers decline to use it because of the cost.
Less than a penny per pill.
/RESUME

 

[Goldie Munro]

Coke Macdonalds KFC Pizza Hut Hedge Funds Crumbling Banks - serfdom is relative

 

[dr_mabeuse]

QUOTE]

~~~




For all of you who continue to think that you are smarter than everyone else and if only we would turn our private affairs over to you, everything would be just, 'hunky dory', think again and realize that sooner or later you are going to be met at the doorstep with a 12 guage.

Amicus

I always knew you were an asshole. I didn't know until now that you aspiring to be a dangerous asshole.

Is that a threat, Amicus?

And just who is it who thinks he's smarter than everyone else?

 

[Huckleman2000]

Here's another perspective

Pepsi To Cease Advertising
'We Know It's Good, And That's Enough' Says CEO

September 28, 2009 | Issue 45•40

PURCHASE, NY—PepsiCo sent shockwaves through the carbonated beverage industry Monday when the multibillion dollar corporation announced that it would cease all advertising of its popular soda product, effective immediately.

"We know it's good, and everyone's pretty happy with the overall taste, so why spend all our time worrying about what other people think?" PepsiCo CEO Indra K. Nooyi told reporters during a press conference at the company's corporate headquarters. "Frankly, it just feels sort of weird and desperate to put all this energy into telling people what to drink. If they don't like it, then they don't like it."

Added Nooyi, "That's not really any of our business anyway."

According to Nooyi, top PepsiCo brass held a series of meetings over the past several months before unanimously agreeing Monday that they all enjoyed Pepsi, and that the company's century-old history of massive, high-budget ad campaigns, cross-promotional tie-ins, merchandising, and Super Bowl halftime extravaganzas had been "a big mistake."

Executives then released a statement to shareholders declaring that PepsiCo is now "what it should have been all along: a company that just makes soda, and doesn't get caught up in trying to make everyone like it."

Actually drinking Pepsi, not seeing expensive billboards, will tell people whether or not they like the product.

In response to a question about whether the elimination of Pepsi's marketing and advertising divisions would hurt the company's ability to compete with rival soda manufacturer Coca-Cola, Nooyi expressed no concern.

"Vying for the greatest market share shouldn't be a soft drink company's be-all and end-all," said Nooyi, who added that if she's happy at the end of the day, that's what really matters. "After all, it's not like this is some kind of Cola War or anything."

"Look, Coca-Cola is a terrific product," Nooyi continued. "Millions of people choose it over Pepsi every day. Are those people wrong? Of course not. Concepts like 'right' and 'wrong' shouldn't even apply. It's a soft drink."

Nooyi told reporters the company's $1.3 billion annual advertising budget would be put into Pepsi's savings account, spread among various charitable organizations, and divvied up into generous bonuses for the company's minimum-wage factory employees.

Claiming that "taste is subjective," Nooyi further stated that those who hadn't already heard of Pepsi were unlikely to begin drinking it now, and that the company was perfectly content to rely on word of mouth to sell its product.

"You can't taste an ad, anyway," Nooyi said. "People are going to make up their own minds regardless of whether we spend millions trying to inform them that Taylor Swift drinks Pepsi. I mean, seriously, does it really matter if Taylor Swift drinks Pepsi? She's just a human being like everybody else."

Concluding the press conference, Nooyi stated that she wasn't even sure why she was talking about any of this in the first place, asked the assembled reporters whether they didn't have better uses for their time, and suggested that everybody just go home, hug their loving spouses, and play—really, truly play—with their children before life passes them by.

"Hey, there's a slogan for you," Nooyi said. "Spend more time with your families."

 

[amicus]

Ah, from The Onion, another Shrek fan I suppose...

Dropping advertising, eliminating the advertising budget is harbinger of a corporation on the verge of bankruptcy and trying to save money.

If there is only one brand of anything for the consumer to buy, like the Russian Slobnik automobile, then it is true, advertising is not essential.

But in a free society, a competitive market, where anyone can come up with a 'new and better mousetrap', or a Pepsi Lite, to not advertise is to admit defeat and an announcement that they can no longer compete.

So long Pepsi Cola, I never like ye anyway...

Amicus, the dangerous man with a gun....

 

[amicus]

I always knew you were an asshole. I didn't know until now that you aspiring to be a dangerous asshole.

Is that a threat, Amicus?

And just who is it who thinks he's smarter than everyone else?[/QUOTE]

~~~

I thought to pass by the obscenities of Mabeuse, who, unable to respond to a total refutation of his earlier post, strikes out with foul language and a feminine snarl.

However...I decided to take the opportunity presented by, 'dangerous', to make a point. You're goddamned right that is a threat, Mabeuse, and one need not be, 'smart' to value one's own freedom, the raw Militia in the Colonies demonstrated that.

We are not the population of Revolutionist Russia where the Marxist/Leninists parleyed their way to power through a collapse of the Czars. Nor are we the beaten down Germans following World War One, who responded to any hope of reclaiming past glory.

Nor are we the children of formerly occupied Europe which underwent rapine, pillage and plunder and a complete loss of national and ethnic dignity in World War Two. Nor are we some 'banana republic' where corruption and bribery will buy a government.

80 Million American's own guns and most of them are not for hunting.

You left leaning pussies always seem to forget or cannot comprehend, that men will fight for their freedom, to the death, if necessary.

When it happens, and it will, you and your ilk, Pure included, as left wing intellectuals, if not hung and quartered in public squares somewhere, will be incarcerated for the rest of your miserable lives.

Is that a threat? You bet your lilly-livered ass it is!

Amicus, the Angry American, Nobel Peace Prize my ass!

 

[dr_mabeuse]

You left leaning pussies always seem to forget or cannot comprehend, that men will fight for their freedom, to the death, if necessary.

When it happens, and it will, you and your ilk, Pure included, as left wing intellectuals, if not hung and quartered in public squares somewhere, will be incarcerated for the rest of your miserable lives.

Is that a threat? You bet your lilly-livered ass it is!

(A) Amicus's wet dream.

(B) Amicus's definition of "freedom": you disagree with him and you're drawn and quartered.

The foam is showing around your mouth, Amicus, and this time it's not from your usual reading of underage porn.

Take your fucking Haldol and shut the fuck up already.