Why We Need The FDA

[AWPrime]

Where do you think national and international standards come from?

 

[Rolfe]

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?

I'm genuinely interested to know how this is supposed to work. And how the eventual solution will be materially different from statutory regulation.

Just keeping this question active.

Rolfe.

 

[BillHoyt]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Why We Need The FDA

What would you prefer? blissful ignorance?

Everybody must get roussered.


(with apologies to Bob Dylan)

 

[richardm]

For smaller purchases, copper and bronze serves the purpose of honest money.

I see. I thought you didn't approve of tokens as 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).

I'm sorry, I thought you didn't approve of tokens as money? So, it's okay to use paper in place of gold, so long as you can still get your hands on the metal when you want it. Under what circumstances would you want to? Practically speaking, I mean, not just because you like the feel of it. Given that today there are so many practical, portable and simple ways of representing that gold.

>>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.

Yes. It's utter nonsense. That is why to this day there is a thriving illegal circuit who produce counterfeit gold coins . And they're selling them to collectors - experts who have the time to carefully study what they're buying. Imagine if everyone used gold sovereigns each time they bought something. Are you expecting them to start calculating the density of the coins while they stand at the till?

>>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.

The government is tyrannical because it issues bank notes? You really ought to get out more.

 

[richardm]

Just keeping this question active.

Rolfe.

Yeah, sorry, I'm kind of digressing a bit.

 

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by richardm [/i]

>>
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Rouser2

For smaller purchases, copper and bronze serves the purpose of honest money.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>I see. I thought you didn't approve of tokens as money?

I approve of anything the market approves of.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>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).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


>>Yes. It's utter nonsense. That is why to this day there is a thriving illegal circuit who produce counterfeit gold coins . And they're selling them to collectors - experts who have the time to carefully study what they're buying.

Source?


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>The government is tyrannical because it issues bank notes? You really ought to get out more.

Governments do not issue bank notes.; banks do.

 

[Benguin]

Who regulates the purity of the gold?
How do you determine its purity when out and about trading?
How do you get weighing scales calibrated?

Are there examples of countries where lack of government regulation works? (I've been to a few where it works very badly!)

I'd love to know the answer to Rolfe's questions too ....

 

[richardm]

I approve of anything the market approves of.

The market overwhelmingly approves of paper money - including federal reserve notes. So that's the end of that, then.

>>Yes. It's utter nonsense. That is why to this day there is a thriving illegal circuit who produce counterfeit gold coins . And they're selling them to collectors - experts who have the time to carefully study what they're buying.

Source?

Click the link. I'll give it to you again:

Counterfeit Gold Coins

Governments do not issue bank notes.; banks do.

Aha! So, when a private bank issues paper tokens, it's good as money. But when the government issues paper tokens, it's worthless scrip? Is that a good summary?

 

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by Benguin [/i]


>>Who regulates the purity of the gold?
How do you determine its purity when out and about trading?
How do you get weighing scales calibrated?


Answer: The markiet. The Market. The Market.


>>Are there examples of countries where lack of government regulation works


Yes. The USA, circa 1789 to 1913. Of course, no nation has ever been completely without goverment regulation. But at least in that golden age, government did not seize the fruits of one's labors, a brief period during the Civil War, notwithstanding. And in that golden age, you could also eat, drink, smoke or ingest the substances of one's choice without government interfenence.

 

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by richardm [/i]

>>
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Rouser2

I approve of anything the market approves of.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>The market overwhelmingly approves of paper money - including federal reserve notes. So that's the end of that, then.

Of course, that is nonsense. If it were true, there would be no need for any legal tender laws which enforce payments in Fed notes.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Governments do not issue bank notes.; banks do.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>Aha! So, when a private bank issues paper tokens, it's good as money. But when the government issues paper tokens, it's worthless scrip? Is that a good summary?

When a bank issues a paper note that really IS a note for honest, lawful money, that is not a token. When a bank, or a private banking syndicate {The Federal Reserve} issues Federal Reserve Notes, that is fraud for there is nothing 'Federal" about them; there is nothing on "Reserve" backing them up but more of the same, and they are not "notes" because a "note" is a promise to pay. But Fed Notes cannot be exchanged for anything but more of the same.

 

[Benguin]

Originally posted by Benguin [/i]


>>Who regulates the purity of the gold?
How do you determine its purity when out and about trading?
How do you get weighing scales calibrated?


Answer: The markiet. The Market. The Market.

The market regulates nothing, it merely trades. I have bought products in places where weights and measures are not regulated or checked. You are ripped off, constantly. Nothing you can do about it, everyone is. I've seen a friend stand with a standard 5 litre petrol can 3/4 full and argue the toss with the owner of a station that he hasn't been given 5 litres. I've played similar games myself. Your utopia is a nice fantasy, and I wish it could work, but it doesn't. Unless you can prove otherwise.

>>Are there examples of countries where lack of government regulation works


Yes. The USA, circa 1789 to 1913. Of course, no nation has ever been completely without goverment regulation. But at least in that golden age, government did not seize the fruits of one's labors, a brief period during the Civil War, notwithstanding. And in that golden age, you could also eat, drink, smoke or ingest the substances of one's choice without government interfenence.

Oh so great through rose tinted spectacles. Hell, if someone tried to short change me on a whore, I just went and shot the varmint.

I wonder why people so willing surrendered such amazing liberty and freedom? BTW, just out of interest are you a for a democracy or an anarchy? Feel free to give a third answer.

 

[Zombified]

How would market forces prevent evil doctors from stealing Claus Larson's organs?

 

[Rolfe]

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?

I'm genuinely interested to know how this is supposed to work. And how the eventual solution will be materially different from statutory regulation.

Just hoping for an answer sometime this month....

Rolfe.

 

[Tex]

Are there examples of countries where lack of government regulation works? (I've been to a few where it works very badly!)

I'll get blasted for saying so, but the libertarian thought process seems to typically be something along the lines of:

Government doesn't work very well in the USA (arguably true)
- therefore -
the entire concept of (even modestly) socialistic government is inherently flawed and should be thrown out the window rather than fixed. (doesn't follow)

It's like throwing out the baby with the bath water and ignores that fact that government regulations are working pretty well in places like Europe.

 

[Benguin]

I'll get blasted for saying so, but the libertarian thought process seems to typically be something along the lines of:

Government doesn't work very well in the USA (arguably true)
- therefore -
the entire concept of (even modestly) socialistic government is inherently flawed and should be thrown out the window rather than fixed. (doesn't follow)

It's like throwing out the baby with the bath water and ignores that fact that government regulations are working pretty well in places like Europe.

Oh yes, I'm aware of that bizarre extrapolation.

And I tend to agree government interference should be minimal, however minimal is subjective.

I've lived in market-forces anarchy. It's fun, but only if you're rich enough to laugh at the absurdity.

 

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by Benguin [/i]

>>I wonder why people so willing surrendered such amazing liberty and freedom? BTW, just out of interest are you a for a democracy or an anarchy? Feel free to give a third answer.


There are many third answers. I don't think much of anarchy, nor of democracy, but a Constitutional Republic -- one where the indiviudal is the Sovereign. And that's what the USA was circa 1789 to 1913 and is still "supposed" to be.

 

[Rouser2]

Originally posted by Zombified [/i]


>>How would market forces prevent evil doctors from stealing Claus Larson's organs?


Nothing can prevent evil doctors from stealing Larsen's organs. The only person who can prevent that is Larsen.

 

[AWPrime]

That would mean that he lived in an anarchy.