The US Govt does use Bell Labs. Bell Labs developed for the army missiles that could hit aircraft. This necessity of govt was brought about by the invention of the jet aircraft which was also a necessity of govt.

The History Channel used to have a show that would show technology developed for the military to include the space program that later found its way into the civilian sector but be reminded that there was no demand nor necessity for these things by the civilian sector in the first place.

Aviation greatly advanced due to government necessity not the civilian sector. The US military had intercontinental aircraft in service before the civilians did. It was the technology gained by doing necessity work for the US Govt that those civilian owned aviation companies used to put in their civilian fleet.

The term computer referred to a job title of a person. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer

Without the US Govt necessity would IBM had ever become as big as it did since the US Govt had a need and IBM filled it.

We can assume that something else would have come along but we do not have the luxury of a time machine to play out our fantasies.

What I find funny are the comments about someone making 50 million and then saying that HE created all these other people as if he singlehandedly Al Gored the internet. Does anyone get the irony in that? That man did not create any millionaires. They created themselves. And the man who makes 50 million should learn humility and be more humble that he would not be able to make that 50 million without the blood sweat and tears of those below that actually make the company function.

I used to hear that lame analogy when in the US Army to where Officers would take great credit for things and are blinded and think gee that General won the battle, if it were not for the General's decision if not for his decision blah blah blah. Well it may had been that general's decision to move around the left but it was the soldiers who actually made this left who made it possible who further made decisions based on situational awareness as they arose that the General could never had made sitting back in his limousine. They deserve the lion share of the credit because if it had failed just like Corporate America they would have been blamed. That General would have skipped off to some other duty post. In the case of Corporate America casualties are not measured in deaths but measured in layoffs while that CEO either remains with the same salary or jumps ship to another company with equal or higher pay and huge retirement packages.

We have heard this before with some saying Bill Gates made all these millionaires, as if he personally did all the work and just hired people and said here is a million dollars, in other words he Al Gored Microsoft. Billy was a co founder and could not afford to pay his workers so he paid them in shares. Those workers did not just sit on their butts they actually programmed and did the lion share of all the programming. It is their hard work that turned those stock certificates into millions. Bill Gates by proxy of company title simply raked in the dough since he as well paid himself a higher amount of shares. Those btw were his initial programmers because Billy is also known for cheating out his other programmers by making promises he never kept and paying them dick wages as programmers. He was eventually was sued by them and lost to which he appealed, rinse repeat. It as well changed how Temps were classified. They became called Contractors but this did not stop the abuse of what a contractor is. IT is now foolishly outsourcing a lot of talent.

Maybe the stockholders will one day wake up and realize that giving one man 50 million dollars only means that one man can buy one TV but putting more money into the hands of the workers who actually do the work buys a hell of a lot more TVs and churns the economy a hell of a lot faster. It as well puts the money right back into their hands which allows them to create jobs etc. Putting all the money into the hands of a few is no guarantee that money will be churned but sit in massive bank accounts. Sure some of it will eventually create jobs but the vast amount of it collects in massive bank accounts.

Having been now in the private sector for 20 years I see as much if not more red tape in the private realms, waaaaay too many chiefs and not enough Indians. We need to take some military principles such as leadership and stop this old school corporate structure as well as put more decision making into the hands of those who actually do the work not those who push pencils and make up terms that never do the work themselves. I am not a line item expense. I save the company face all the time due to upper management poor decision making and two corporate giants duking it out. Btw my first job out of the military I worked my way up in 2 years to management. It was a low paying dead end job with stupid management.

In a bizarro world it would be funny as hell if stockholders started to outsource management to all these other cultures who are eager and will work for less and have a huge supply of advanced degree holders. We do have video and audio conferencing capabilities.

Commence with the name calling. This is my one and only post.

It would take the legislative body making a full committement to the principle of federalism and then implementing a tax scheme built on that principle — where the states would have to tax their residents with the federal government billing the individual states for federal services.

The final result would have to look something like governmental power being divested and returned back to the states…as if an amendment were to read: "Remember the ninth and tenth amendments? Yeah, well this time we're gonna really mean it!"

So, if the Progressives really want mandatory health insurance where premiums have nothing to do with insurance risk and everything to do with ability to pay the premium, get your STATE legislators to go along with that and leave everyone else out of it: watching the economics play out.

The way to eliminate rent seeking (and those seeking the rent) is to eliminate the rent.

Duh. How do you propose to do that? Please don't say "vote Republican". That's not even funny anymore.

From an economic stand point hell yeah I'd want us to go back to that time. The economy grew far greater during that period and the middle class expanded and became wealthier. A single working father could raise a family, buy a house and pay for health care and college. A society that sees value in every person and helps them to prosper will be far more successful then one that simply caters to the rich.

But if you're asking me if I want a black and white TV rather then my 55" LCD then you're simply asking a dumb question.

Posted by: Oil Shock

I've noticed this as well. I actually find lots of issues I agree with at the Mises site. They are particularly concerned with corporate welfare and also monetary issues that create unfairness.

At your recommendation I'm reading more there and they have regular free podcast.

For what it is worth there is a free podcast called Demandside by Alan Harvey that makes IMO very good arguments for Demand side economics. The August 22 podcast is very good.

He makes a good argument that at least with regards to Republicans and Democrats the Democrats now having accepted the success of competitive markets have better policies for them.

Before Muirduck gave us a temporary reprieve from his muirpidity, he admitted favoring subsidies to GE and Archer Daniels Midland because they make producks <- :p His Holiness, The Divine Prophet Algore I has deemed environmentally-correct.

First: you don't even know how to properly present the very data that you provided. You have, from day one, claimed stuff about this data that the authors never intended.

Second: you asked me to choose an economy (or as you put it, economic results [even though earlier in that post you asked me to choose an economy]). I choose to live in the latter economy and stand by that decision. Would you choose to go back to a period somewhere within '46 and '76? It's your question, DUCKtor; you answer it now.

Third: show me, DUCKtor, where I claimed that liberty was maximized in either period. I release that you may like to have things put in your mouth, muirgeo, but leave your words out of mine, thank you very much.

I don't know if you know this or not, but your posts have an extremely condescending. Other than lecturing and dropping hints, what else do you do on this blog? I think it will be much productive for you to post your "superior" thoughts than lecturing others on their "short comings" – everybody would benefit.

That said, I agree with you that there are plenty of rent-seeking corporations. I agreed with Muirgeo on multiple occassions. Two of us disagree on the solutions.

Side note: I have come to notice that blogs that identify or sympathize with monetarist schools, tend to sound more like apologists for big corporations. Where as if you go to blogs that sympathize with the Austrian School, they tend to be more openly critical of corporatism. Another observation, if the bloggers are more republican than libertarian, they are likely to turn a blind eye to corporatist tendencies. May be I am reading it all wrong, but unless somebody else proves otherwise, I have no reason to change my mind.

1… there are a lot more of you then me so I have more replies to respond to

2… Good debate doesn't occur over one or two post. You need to follow the arguments through. It would be nice if there were discussion forums on given issues as sometimes the debate dies only because the topic rolls off the front page.

3…. I've been on many blogs including this one where excessive posts from people with little to say are imply passed by… I don't read them. Is there a problem with your scroll down button?

4… Sorry SteveO, I'm a reductionist and like to follow arguments and ideas through to some conclusion… that takes multiple post. But I would agree if some one is not really interested in discussing something in detail or really just wants to flame me don't bother.

We all know this and do oppose it, occasionally making note.
Unfortunately, muirgeo does not take note of our assertions that no one should benefit from government this way and that if the government weren't so powerful, then there would be few rents to seek.

How often to we have to add the qualifier?
Everytime?

If he ever got a clue from our stated positions in this regard, then he might not try to pin it on us.

In fact, a number of times I have pointed out that rent seeking is an inevitable consequence of progressive government and that his desire to eliminate rent seeking, while the equivalent of our, is not feasible given his remedy, which is to further increase the power of government over economic behaviors.

Yes, we deplore rent seeking. It is our (libertarian) position that human nature makes such behavior inevitable when there is political management of, well, just about anything, but most especially economic behavior.

Muirgeo want to essentially regulate natural human behavior because he insists upon a system where it expresses in ways which we agree are undesirable.

Muirgeo thinks the system can be tinkered to remove systemic problems.

Yes, there are rent-seeking corporations, and some companies enjoy competitive advantages that they wouldn't have without government support.

Because you let him pin this to you everytime, he can't understand the difference between pro-market libertarians, and pro-business Republicans.

Muirgeo: To you directly, can you please post less. You account for 9 out of 35 posts so far. That's more than 25% of this thread. Do you have a job? Or hobbies, or things to do around the house? Can I have your wife's phone number so I can tell her what you're doing with all your time?

I suggested this recently in another thread, EVERYONE- can you please consider posting *your thoughts* maybe twice a day? The current behavior is simply to add more straw to the pile, making it harder to find the quality needles. Please stop blaming Muirgeo, he doesn't have enough power to make you respond. You only show a stunning lack of self-discipline when you respond to him.

I know some of the people here have great input, and I'd love to hear it. But instead you get distracted and controlled by someone you despise. I'd like to hear your ideas, not insistent rebuttals, but this guy is making you look like fools.

How about those who really feel a sense of belonging and ownership here practice a little discipline and make this forum what would be valuable for us.

Really? A half of a billion? I wasn't aware of that.

I wasn't being literal. It's just a number I picked out of the air. I vaguely remember talk of a huge windfall on this order for some CEO of an oil company, probably related to options rather than a bonus.

Perhaps the board of directors and/or the company's shareholders felt that his decision-making abilities led to at least a half a billion in net profits posssibly even a half of a billion more than the next availible and qualified applicant. Can you prove that this is not true?

I can't prove that Queen Elizabeth hasn't earned Buckingham Palace somehow, and I also can't prove, in any absolute sense, that the palace isn't rightfully yours instead. I'm a mathematician by training. Proof is a very high standard. Can you prove that any CEO's "productivity" is equivalent to his earnings? You can if you simply define "productivity" this way.

"Entitlement" seems a far more descriptive label than "productivity" in this context, but if you want to define "productivity" so that Saddam Hussein's golden toilet seats reflect his "productivity" definitively, you can do that.

Your source isn't very helpful, because it essentially discusses the measurement of average productivity. If an organization's raw material and other non-labor-related cost is X dollars and if the organization earns Y dollars in a year and if the organization has N employees, then we might agree that the productivity of the employees, measured in dollars, is (Y – X)/N on the average; however, if the organization's CEO receives half of (Y – X) in a given year, even if all of the other employees quit the following year, calling this quantity the CEO's "productivity" seems a stretch. It seems a stretch even if the other employees don't quit, particularly if they're bound to the organization by long-term pension benefits and the like or a scarcity of similar opportunity.

Why do you assign the burden of proof as you do?

You're going to have to repeal the first amendment to do that.

Congress shall make no law … abridging … the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The transistor, the basis of modern electronics, was developed by Bell Labs.