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Rouser2 said:
communism and fascism are not mutually exclusive, one being an economic system and the other being a poltical system.
communism and fascism are not mutually exclusive, one being an economic system and the other being a poltical system.
Rolfe
Adult human female
You completely miss the point. With no regulation, how can you possibly know the advertising is false?Rouser2 said:
I don't understand. On what do you base these decisions? I'm asking for an example of the chain of events which would lead you to decide, after proper consideration, that you would take a drug in an unregulated market.Rouser2 said:
Not my problem, mate. I repeat, heroin (labelled as "diamorphine" so as not to alarm the natives) is standard palliative treatment for terminal cancer patients. It must be prescribed by a doctor, but it is often started at the recommendation of a terminal-care nurse. (It was the easy availability of the drug for this and other medical purposes which made it so easy for Harold Shipman to get his hands on so much and use it to kill about 250 people, by the way.)Rouser2 said:
So, does that make it evil allopathy not to be touched at any price?
Rolfe.
Originally posted by Benguin [/i]
>>Makes sense logically, but it does not applyin practice. Business has a primary responsibility to its share-holders not its customers.
The responsibity of a seller is first to his customer. If custormers are served, then so are owners/shareholders. Find an example of where that is not true, and I will show you an example of fraud. Fraud is a crime, and prosecutable even under a system of laisse faire. The propensity for Man to sin cannot be ended via any political system.
>> Companies know it is sometimes economically better to defend the legal claims post hoc win or loose than not go to market. They take a risk. The public takes a risk, how would you ever distinguish between a rogue and a genuine ethical trader? You'd spend your life doing background research and (in the case of medicines) die while doing it.
By the history of the company. I'ts past and present performance.
>>That is a pretty naff mangling of Winston Churchill's quote;
"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried."
I said it was a paraphrase. Get it?
>>State your claim, then you can claim hyperbole. There is no strawman in what I said as I am merely asking you to describe the system you think will work better than the current one. Unless you are now admitting you don't have anything in mind.
Already done that. Regulation should be done in the market place by the customer, not by government.
>>Makes sense logically, but it does not applyin practice. Business has a primary responsibility to its share-holders not its customers.
The responsibity of a seller is first to his customer. If custormers are served, then so are owners/shareholders. Find an example of where that is not true, and I will show you an example of fraud. Fraud is a crime, and prosecutable even under a system of laisse faire. The propensity for Man to sin cannot be ended via any political system.
>> Companies know it is sometimes economically better to defend the legal claims post hoc win or loose than not go to market. They take a risk. The public takes a risk, how would you ever distinguish between a rogue and a genuine ethical trader? You'd spend your life doing background research and (in the case of medicines) die while doing it.
By the history of the company. I'ts past and present performance.
>>That is a pretty naff mangling of Winston Churchill's quote;
"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried."
I said it was a paraphrase. Get it?
>>State your claim, then you can claim hyperbole. There is no strawman in what I said as I am merely asking you to describe the system you think will work better than the current one. Unless you are now admitting you don't have anything in mind.
Already done that. Regulation should be done in the market place by the customer, not by government.
Rolfe
Adult human female
So, how does the customer know whether or not the advertising of a new product is truthful?Rouser2 said:
Rolfe.
Benguin said:
All depends on the article being counterfeited. Take money, for example. How can you counterfeit money that is already counterfiet (eg., Federal Reserve Notes)???
It is very easy to prevent the counterfeiting of money. All you need is to eliminate all legal tender laws. Then, the market place will determine what is, and what is not real money. Over thousands of years, that has already been deterimined. The substance of real money is gold or in the alternative, some other durable precious metal. And you can't counterfeit gold -- nor silver, I should think.
Hellbound
Merchant of Doom
Rouser2 said:
Sorry, but "counterfeit" gold and silver was relatively common during the barter days. Most common methods were plating a worthless metal with gold or silver, or using other compunds with similar properties.
In fact, counterfeiting various precious metals would be much easier than counterfeiting cash. Requires less equipment, too. Unless someone tests every bit they come across, it'll pass. And, of course, since there is no legal tender, and it's all barter, there's not much anyone could do about it. I suppose word might spread eventually, but for someone who travels around you could easily become "rich" before you got to the point of being unable to barter.
Rolfe said:
By the experience of customers with it and the reputation of the company. Sheesh! And what about new products? Unknown products? An unknown company??? The market place might well determine that some private accreditation agency would be useful in judging that -- just like Underwriters Lab.
Hellbound
Merchant of Doom
Rouser2 said:
And history has already proved you wrong.
Besides, plating was only one example, there are others. To be sure, chemical tests of some sort would probably be the cheapest and easiest.
Of course, then again, there's also the issue of trick scales and other devices to shortchange someone. Not to mention that you'd have to carry around a test kit and a set of scales to make sure you didn't get cheated in a transaction.
There is a reason that almost every culture in the world went to some form of representative currency...barter was innefficient and cumbersome.
Rouser2 said:
Looking after ones share holders first, and customers where it is congruent to that is standard business practice. There is no way you'd survive five minutes any other way. Some businesses make customer service an important part of their strategy, others don't. Not look after customers is not even remotely fraud, lying to them is, but you can harm them and rip them off without doing that.
A company would actually be breaking the law by not considering share-holders interests primarily. Jeez, what connection with business and free-market economics do you actually have?
Syllogism, gettit? here's another
"Gubberment regulation is the worst form of preserving consumer safety, except for all the others that have been tried."
That's what we are doing at the moment. Explain properly your proposed improvement, with reasoning and stop moving the goalposts.
As above. Needs more work.
Rolfe
Adult human female
Yes, well spotted. It was new products and new companies I was asking about.Rouser2 said:
So, what sequence of events might lead to the setting up of a private accreditation agency?
- Nobody ever buying new products?
- People dying because they bought new products?
- Something else?
Rolfe.
Hellbound
Merchant of Doom
Duh, Rolfe!
It's not the gubmint, so it's better. Ip Say Dix It and all.
And then the private company can punish the bad drug makers with fines and stuff....oh, wait, no they can't.
It's not the gubmint, so it's better. Ip Say Dix It and all.
And then the private company can punish the bad drug makers with fines and stuff....oh, wait, no they can't.
Rouser2 said:
You've clearly never lived anywhere where legal tender is negotiable. Fraud thrives.
Until the invention of the pocket mass spectrometer (and universal training etc), I'll ignore that 'vision' of yours.
richardm
Philosopher
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2001
- Messages
- 9,248
Rouser2 said:
Don't get carried away with the "Counterfeit" part. I'm talking about the relationship between the manufacturer and the customer here. Most people couldn't give a stuff whether the Louis Vuitton bag they're buying is genuine or not. They're getting a fashionable-looking bag for £5 instead of £500, and they're quite happy. They're buying it in the full knowledge that they're buying a knock-off, too (or most of them are - caveat emptor, indeed!). Ditto DVDs - you're hardly being duped if you see DVD with the title written on in indelible marker.
The important part is that manufacturers are happily making cheap, substandard products and selling them, and that customers are quite happily buying them - even though the dye is likely to come off in the rain, and the handles detach spontaneously. It gives the lie to the idea that manufacturers will, left to themselves, make the best product they can. Some will - but some won't. They'll make the best product they can sell.
richardm
Philosopher
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2001
- Messages
- 9,248
Rouser2 said:
Gold and other precious metals are hopelessly impractical as currency. What if you want to buy a newspaper? Even the bloody Romans used copper and bronze for small denomination coins.
And when you come to exchanging large sums of money, you have a portability problem. It's why people started using bank notes in the first place - literally, a note from a bank guaranteeing that you had the money in your account, that could be transferred from one person to another.
We've already been there, anyway, as Huntsman says. You can forge a gold coin as easily as any other piece of currency.
As for the idea of going back to bartering for things - there is a reason that the bartering system was replaced by a system of tokens, and it's obvious.
Originally posted by richardm [/i]
>>The important part is that manufacturers are happily making cheap, substandard products and selling them, and that customers are quite happily buying them - even though the dye is likely to come off in the rain, and the handles detach spontaneously. It gives the lie to the idea that manufacturers will, left to themselves, make the best product they can. Some will - but some won't. They'll make the best product they can sell.
Of course that is utter nonsense. By and large the products of today are of higher quality, lower releative price and more durable than ever before.
>>The important part is that manufacturers are happily making cheap, substandard products and selling them, and that customers are quite happily buying them - even though the dye is likely to come off in the rain, and the handles detach spontaneously. It gives the lie to the idea that manufacturers will, left to themselves, make the best product they can. Some will - but some won't. They'll make the best product they can sell.
Of course that is utter nonsense. By and large the products of today are of higher quality, lower releative price and more durable than ever before.
Originally posted by richardm [/i]
>>Gold and other precious metals are hopelessly impractical as currency. What if you want to buy a newspaper? Even the bloody Romans used copper and bronze for small denomination coins.
For smaller purchases, copper and bronze serves the purpose of honest money.
>>And when you come to exchanging large sums of money, you have a portability problem. It's why people started using bank notes in the first place - literally, a note from a bank guaranteeing that you had the money in your account, that could be transferred from one person to another.
A perfectly good and honest system where the bank note did indeed represent a store of gold (so long as the banker did not put out more notes than the gold on hand).
>>We've already been there, anyway, as Huntsman says. You can forge a gold coin as easily as any other piece of currency.
And of course that is utter nonsense.
>>As for the idea of going back to bartering for things - there is a reason that the bartering system was replaced by a system of tokens, and it's obvious.
Replaced? Yes. But not be market forces, but by the tyranny of government.
>>Gold and other precious metals are hopelessly impractical as currency. What if you want to buy a newspaper? Even the bloody Romans used copper and bronze for small denomination coins.
For smaller purchases, copper and bronze serves the purpose of honest money.
>>And when you come to exchanging large sums of money, you have a portability problem. It's why people started using bank notes in the first place - literally, a note from a bank guaranteeing that you had the money in your account, that could be transferred from one person to another.
A perfectly good and honest system where the bank note did indeed represent a store of gold (so long as the banker did not put out more notes than the gold on hand).
>>We've already been there, anyway, as Huntsman says. You can forge a gold coin as easily as any other piece of currency.
And of course that is utter nonsense.
>>As for the idea of going back to bartering for things - there is a reason that the bartering system was replaced by a system of tokens, and it's obvious.
Replaced? Yes. But not be market forces, but by the tyranny of government.
Originally posted by AWPrime [/i]
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Originally posted by Rouser2
Of course that is utter nonsense. By and large the products of today are of higher quality, lower releative price and more durable than ever before.
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>>And the FDA and other organisations like that are the main reason for that.
Nonsense. The FDA has nothing to do with the very best products made today -- cars, houses, electronics. It is in the very area of FDA "approved" drugs where you find most of the product "flim-flammery."
>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Rouser2
Of course that is utter nonsense. By and large the products of today are of higher quality, lower releative price and more durable than ever before.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>And the FDA and other organisations like that are the main reason for that.
Nonsense. The FDA has nothing to do with the very best products made today -- cars, houses, electronics. It is in the very area of FDA "approved" drugs where you find most of the product "flim-flammery."