Sitting in traffic is a good time to reflect on state monopoly and provision. Time was when making a long distance call, you get a person cut in and say "I am sorry, all circuits are busy." Comedian Lily Tomlin built a career on making fun of the the telephone lady in the 1960s, a character we all knew all too well. We suffered under the theory, taught in law and economics schools, which the state ordered all patterns and practices, that there was such a thing as a natural monopoly, and the role of the state was to be the beneficial umpire between competing factions for access to the monopoly.
Then came the challenge from MCI, and eventually the US Supreme Court decided that the nonsense was to end, and we got deregulation of telephones, the connection of telephones to computers, and then the internet. WE were denied the good of all that as far back as the 1950s because of nonsense state suppression of free markets. So now we have more better cheaper faster research and communication.
And exact analogy to telecommunications is transportation. If we were to eliminate the nonsense theory that there is a natural monopoly on roads, when it comes to transportation, we'd get more better cheaper faster. Just like in telephones, we'd get more options for transport, it would be better transport, it would be cheaper, and faster.
But but but, there is a difference between electrons and people. Yes, there is a difference, but in scale not kind. We've worked out ways of moving phenomenal amounts of data down the information superhighway.
Yes, we can scale up to moving phenomenal amounts of people, by moving ahead to mag lev and whatever else may come forth in a relatively free market. Computers can work out the mass of people desiring to get from one place to another, stadia can be built in the woods instead of inner cities, driverless trucks can be making deliveries at odd hours, innovations as inconceivable as the internet was at the advent of telephone deregulation are as latent in deregulation of the roads and transportation.
The Seattle area must have some of the worst people involved in state provision of roads because we have some of the worst traffic in the country. And by election fraud, these people have been given another billion plus to replace an eight lane highway with a two lane tunnel. Smart thinking. The traffic across Lake Washington is very bad, so the Republican called for twelve lane highway, and the democrats compromised at eight. In a free market we would get more for less, we'd be taking down bridges because we'd always be moving more people faster with less. Only a state would call traffic jams "rush hour." Instead of solving the problem by more slower roads, the free market would speed the traffic up, mag lev at 400 miles per hour instead of 200 miles per hour when traffic warranted it.
Now these kinds of changes and inventions and innovation, similar to what we say with the internet, would command fantastic resources and make for unimaginable wealth, depending on the system that introduced it. In capitalism, the wealth would be concentrated on a few, in a free market it would the widening of goods and services and those who had access to them.
But the nature of the state is to create shortages and manage people by wait times. One palpable benefit of concentrated wealth is no wait times. The billionaire with the private jet. The people in the commanding heights have no interest in seeing such advancements because they would rather rule over ruins than serve others as just another artist. What fun is power if everyone has access to private jets?
The City of Seattle obligated taxpayers to build and pay for a 1880s technology trolley car for Paul Allen, at a cost of about $43 million a mile, plus some $25 million landlords kicked in for their toy. In China, they built a mag lev system, using German Technology, at a cost of $63 million a mile, all in.
So for roughly the same money, we could have 2001 technology, plus fantastic new cutting edge technological innovations.
In a free market the innovators compete on design and introduce the new idea in response to experienced problems. Here is the first Apple computer.
Over time, such innovations, through constant market feedback and iterations, become ubiquitous, we get more better cheaper faster. Here is the Apple computer, today.
I noticed this first working in small import companies, where the owner explicated how the markets work. If you look at the USA in decline, and China on the rise, USA building toy trolleys for the individually wealthy at the expense of the workers, while Communist China builds mag lev, and then the fact that Hong Kong is under the aegis of the Communist party, one must begin to reckon that net net consumers are better of under communism than capitalism. Now that is a false dilemma, since free markets are better than both, but between the two, the communist system seems to yield better results.
Doctors will complain that the use of technology has made the cost of medicine rise. Only in a heavily state regulated environment does technology make costs rise. Technology normally makes costs fall.
And by the way, for those who can read Chinese, here is a poster for one of the campaigns Chairman launched.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Then came the challenge from MCI, and eventually the US Supreme Court decided that the nonsense was to end, and we got deregulation of telephones, the connection of telephones to computers, and then the internet. WE were denied the good of all that as far back as the 1950s because of nonsense state suppression of free markets. So now we have more better cheaper faster research and communication.
And exact analogy to telecommunications is transportation. If we were to eliminate the nonsense theory that there is a natural monopoly on roads, when it comes to transportation, we'd get more better cheaper faster. Just like in telephones, we'd get more options for transport, it would be better transport, it would be cheaper, and faster.
But but but, there is a difference between electrons and people. Yes, there is a difference, but in scale not kind. We've worked out ways of moving phenomenal amounts of data down the information superhighway.
Yes, we can scale up to moving phenomenal amounts of people, by moving ahead to mag lev and whatever else may come forth in a relatively free market. Computers can work out the mass of people desiring to get from one place to another, stadia can be built in the woods instead of inner cities, driverless trucks can be making deliveries at odd hours, innovations as inconceivable as the internet was at the advent of telephone deregulation are as latent in deregulation of the roads and transportation.
The Seattle area must have some of the worst people involved in state provision of roads because we have some of the worst traffic in the country. And by election fraud, these people have been given another billion plus to replace an eight lane highway with a two lane tunnel. Smart thinking. The traffic across Lake Washington is very bad, so the Republican called for twelve lane highway, and the democrats compromised at eight. In a free market we would get more for less, we'd be taking down bridges because we'd always be moving more people faster with less. Only a state would call traffic jams "rush hour." Instead of solving the problem by more slower roads, the free market would speed the traffic up, mag lev at 400 miles per hour instead of 200 miles per hour when traffic warranted it.
Now these kinds of changes and inventions and innovation, similar to what we say with the internet, would command fantastic resources and make for unimaginable wealth, depending on the system that introduced it. In capitalism, the wealth would be concentrated on a few, in a free market it would the widening of goods and services and those who had access to them.
But the nature of the state is to create shortages and manage people by wait times. One palpable benefit of concentrated wealth is no wait times. The billionaire with the private jet. The people in the commanding heights have no interest in seeing such advancements because they would rather rule over ruins than serve others as just another artist. What fun is power if everyone has access to private jets?
The City of Seattle obligated taxpayers to build and pay for a 1880s technology trolley car for Paul Allen, at a cost of about $43 million a mile, plus some $25 million landlords kicked in for their toy. In China, they built a mag lev system, using German Technology, at a cost of $63 million a mile, all in.
So for roughly the same money, we could have 2001 technology, plus fantastic new cutting edge technological innovations.
In a free market the innovators compete on design and introduce the new idea in response to experienced problems. Here is the first Apple computer.
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| wikipedia |
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| Apple |
Doctors will complain that the use of technology has made the cost of medicine rise. Only in a heavily state regulated environment does technology make costs rise. Technology normally makes costs fall.
And by the way, for those who can read Chinese, here is a poster for one of the campaigns Chairman launched.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
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