Can we continue that discussion from Will's derailed thread?

[MutantJohn]

Yeah, Ayn Rand wrote "Atlas Shrugged" way back in the 1950s. Today it's not concidered PC by the tyrants that rule us.

A tyrant is a tyrant even if elected. People forget that Adolf Hitler was originally elected Chancellor of Germany.

I feel like you're being incredibly melodramatic.

You mean, that entity that says the thing you covet so much has value wants to control and regulate it? You can't claim any money devoid of the government because it's the government that says the money you have has any value to begin with! Like, there is no money without the government. It's a made up concept based on the idea that the things you do have value. It's a way for people to work together and not feel like they're being taken advantage of.

I also never understood this fear of the government. If you don't like the way this country as going, then write your politicians. If you wanna get money out of politics then we as a people need to rebel against that. Let the flames begin, so sayeth Paramore.

Edit : I actually liked Anthem although it was obvious Rand was trolling or going to such extremes. In some scenarios I guess the government can assign jobs but I feel like most visions of perceived communism are free government housing and food.

[Will1]

Who's right? Who knows, personally I think science is humanity's only real hope. It's the only thing that brings more to the table than it eats.

For the past 30-40 years the only thing that has kept the United States of America afloat is entrepreneurs' use of science to keep ahead of the "Drunken Sailor" like federal government that has put the nation so far in debt that the only way out is for the entrepreuneurs to fall behind the spend thrift governement we have and the federal government to collapse. That seems to me to be the only way out of mess we're in. John Adams was right when he said,

"Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide."

If you think things like Ferguson, Missouri are bad, just wait!

[MutantJohn]

That's an entirely irrelevant point. Mr. White-and-in-Texas.

Ferguson is happening because this country is racist as ****.

[Mario F.]

I also never understood this fear of the government. If you don't like the way this country as going, then write your politicians.

Alternatively, become an elected official and fight whatever you fear from within.

Will1's US vs. Them attitude towards his/her government is the type of warmongery (sp?) that characterized many of the saddest episodes in USA history. These people just forget there's only a Them if they refuse to be a part of the solution.

[Yarin]

That's an entirely irrelevant point. Mr. White-and-in-Texas.

What does his color have anything to do with anything?

Ferguson is happening because this country is racist as ****.

Using yourself as the sample, I presume.

[Will1]

Ferguson is happening because this country is racist as ****.

You're fomenting the same thing that is stirring up the people in Feguson who are throwing molotov coctails and other things at the police who are trying to maintain order. I say you are full of SH1T. My generation may be guilty of practically driving this nation into bankruptcy but at least we (mostly) solved the problem of racism. Sure there are a few racist hanging on to the arian race idiocy but they are fewer and fewer with each passing generstion. Most Americans accept the Bill of Rights as applying to all races. I remember when I was a kid in the 1940s I ran into racist attitudes but I found out that the man who invented peanut butter was a black man (George Washington Carver). I have accepted the equality of the races ever since.

[Alpo]

That's an entirely irrelevant point. Mr. White-and-in-Texas.

Ferguson is happening because this country is racist as ****.

:shocked: How is it not racist to invalidate someone's point on the color of their skin? I'm white too (and in Louisiana), but I didn't give up my right to have intelligent conversation at birth.

Edit: Imo, police brutality has more to do with human psychology than it does with race. Police are encouraged into a form of groupthink that just makes it hard for an individual to assert his morals. They are also trained to view people with suspicion, or at the very least as potential threats. Also they are trained to speak very aggressively to quell opposition to their will (anyone who has been detained might attest to this).

[Mario F.]

Oops! Thread has kaput.

[MutantJohn]

Fair enough, I apologize for my comment.

I feel like it is detracting from the quality of the thread and should be dropped. The Ferguson case has no bearing in this argument, was my original intent. That is a different debate than what we are having here.

[phantomotap]

I just thought I would add to this, that there is actually a way to combat this sort of price cutting warfare. It is to buy your competitors stock yourself, and sell it at normal price at a place where your competitor isn't undercutting.

O_o

There are many ways to combat predatory pricing for the example, but your attempt is already doomed.

Let's look at some quotes the relevant post and what they mean:

"I own competing businesses in Portugal and Angola with similar pedigree but far more financial reserves because my stores are slightly more accessible and have been throughout their existence allowing me a more substantial "customer loyalty" income." -> "I have a massive investment and more convenient points-of-sale to call upon for my strategy."

"I'll just strait up spy on your inventory modulating my prices and inventory" -> "I know you'll try to compensate for my strategy so I'll be watching to compensate in turn."

"I can't have you undercutting my Angola location in a similar way." -> "I know you'll try to sell lower in the other location to compensate, but I'm going to match whatever price you set making my location more appealing."

In other words, I've already addressed and planned for that attempt to compensate predatory pricing because I would be counting on it. The price is not being undercut in both locations, but matching the published price for the second location in the second location means that the attempting to relocate or surplus stock from the first location will only result in an unsaleable inventory for the duration thanks to people shopping at the more convenient address for the same price and Mario having insufficient financial resources to place a significant burden on my resources by acquiring the implied surplus inventory.

The only way to sell the relocated or surplus inventory is, as suggested, to survive the war of attrition making a profit on the failure of the predatory pricing after my banked investments are depleted. A much better strategy then, illegal in most of the real world, would involve getting investors on futures which would easily solve the problem in this limited scenario because Mario could repeatedly buy all of my stock making his locations the only places with inventory which would not only eat into my financial reserves but would allow repeated temporary sales at "nosebleed" prices. Of course, the most resources would then be obtained by making a slow steady show of trying to survive my predatory pricing.

Which, if you are keeping score, means a different flavor of predatory pricing. In this case, Mario managed exactly as claimed: Give me complete "freedom", eliminate my taxes, deregulate my businesses and I'll try to eat you alive for my well being and that of my family. In this type of competitive environment, some will win and some will lose.

*shrug*

You've seen nothing really change; you'll just have a malicious, hungry Mario to deal with instead of a malicious, hungry Soma.

Soma

[whiteflags]

If you think things like Ferguson, Missouri are bad, just wait!

If you think the Earth is bad now, just wait until the Sun explodes.

[Alpo]

O_o

The only way to sell the relocated or surplus inventory is, as suggested, to survive the war of attrition making a profit on the failure of the predatory pricing after my banked investments are depleted. A much better strategy then, illegal in most of the real world, would involve getting investors on futures which would easily solve the problem in this limited scenario because Mario could repeatedly buy all of my stock making his locations the only places with inventory which would not only eat into my financial reserves but would allow repeated temporary sales at "nosebleed" prices. Of course, the most resources would then be obtained by making a slow steady show of trying to survive my predatory pricing.

Which, if you are keeping score, means a different flavor of predatory pricing. In this case, Mario managed exactly as claimed: Give me complete "freedom", eliminate my taxes, deregulate my businesses and I'll try to eat you alive for my well being and that of my family. In this type of competitive environment, some will win and some will lose.

*shrug*

You've seen nothing really change; you'll just have a malicious, hungry Mario to deal with instead of a malicious, hungry Soma.

Soma

I'm just glad Daniel Plainview isn't in this thing. Then everyone would be hungry.

[Matticus]

I'm just glad Daniel Plainview isn't in this thing. Then everyone would be hungry.

I don't like that guy. He drank my milkshake...

[Alpo]

I don't like that guy. He drank my milkshake...

I used to really like him. Then he told me I was just a bastard from a basket. lol

[Will1]

If you think the Earth is bad now, just wait until the Sun explodes.

Yeah! That should happen in a few billion years!