Guardian: Apple would still be highly profitable if production was in U.S.

[Oexmelin]

You seem particularly ideological these days.

No, I am explicitely ideological - which is a different thing, and not especially new with me. One of my constant refrain is the need to reclaim the political realm as a legitimate and necessary aspect of human life. Our ideal, at least after the brief flash of 1989, has been political irrelevance - the idea that politics can not, and indeed, should not, matter to what actually should - the market. The 19th century, at least, had overinvested the political realm - it could do anything and everything - which is why socialists thought it was their primary target, and why liberals thought it needed to be strictly controlled by elites. Our recent sense of loss in many parties, the decline of participation in elections, the conspiracy theorists on right and left both point to the fact that people are being told that they can't do anything. That whatever they do has no impact, and indeed, should have no impact. Your own suggestion - that we should divest funds from politics to health care, is quite representative. I shouldd ad that this is no less ideological, but because you seem to subscribe to this necessary irrelevancy of politics, you cover your ideological underpinings under a misleadingly neutral notion of "policy".

I will freely admit that my rare interventions here are more polemical, but it is perhaps simply the late realization that in some instances, and some venues, one can put so much water in one's wine that one can't taste the wine anymore.

Plus, when some consumate socialists as CdM and Berkut share a sense of uneasiness at how the world is turning, you kind of have to agree that there is something off...

[HVC]

Tax exec income, dividends, and capital gains the greater of the current rate and the percentage of the companies overseas operations compared to the whole. (ie 70% of the companies manufacturing is outside of the country then you tax at 70%) it'd ruin the economy and screw over the poor living in other countries, but Ide and Oex would be happy lol

[Neil]

But I do NOT believe that government regulation is the answer, at least not in any direct manner.

Would your answer on how to get people to act against their own interests be to have a wizard do it?

No, it would be to set it up so that when they act in their own interests, it does not result in sucha perverse outcome for society in general.

Such a system, however, might require a wizard to be involved...

You know what's better than a wizard, in that it can actually do things?  Government legislation and regulation.

Saying that you'd like this to happen, but are unwilling to take any steps to have it take place is a bit odd.  That sort of thinking seems almost... religious.

[Valmy]

Our recent sense of loss in many parties, the decline of participation in elections, the conspiracy theorists on right and left both point to the fact that people are being told that they can't do anything. That whatever they do has no impact, and indeed, should have no impact.

I think it is more of the fact that even concerted and long political efforts, like campaign finance reform, repeatedly come to nothing and have no impact (well ok they have an impact, they seem to make the problem worse) and the resulting demoralization is the problem.  Not somebody, whoever that might be, coming forth and telling us we cannot do anything.  We are not fools.  The huge international nature of corporations means that our ability to control their behavior through political action is seriously reduced.  That is a fact.

[Berkut]

Tax exec income, dividends, and capital gains the greater of the current rate and the percentage of the companies overseas operations compared to the whole. (ie 70% of the companies manufacturing is outside of the country then you tax at 70%) it'd ruin the economy and screw over the poor living in other countries, but Ide and Oex would be happy lol

That is exactly the kind of ham handed idiocy that never works. Blunt dis-incentives to act in some manner just makes businesses figure out how to get around the dis-incentive. Blunt incentives to act in some manner just makes businesses figure out how to reap the benefit of the incentive without actually providing the benefit to society the incentive is designed to encourage.

Neither of these really work for the most part.

Rather than paying people to act in a certain manner, we need to structure the system so that people simply act in that manner because it makes good sense for them to do so - I used to believe that the free market was the best means to accomplish this, and for the most part still do - but I am not a fool, and I am not going to kid myself into having faith that it is so simply because it makes for a convenient and consistent philosophical view about how society and economics ought to work.

In a practical sense, there is a real problem. The continued trend that increasing productivity and wealth is being concentrated into a smaller and smaller segment of society is a real problem. I do not know the solution, but I am not really interested in just chanting a bit about the "free market" and assume that could fix it if only we made it a bit more free. I just don't see any reason to believe that is true, and I think this article does a passable job of illuminating an example of why it isn't necessarily true.

[PDH]

Such a system, however, might require a wizard to be involved...

Fireball!

[Berkut]

But I do NOT believe that government regulation is the answer, at least not in any direct manner.

Would your answer on how to get people to act against their own interests be to have a wizard do it?

No, it would be to set it up so that when they act in their own interests, it does not result in sucha perverse outcome for society in general.

Such a system, however, might require a wizard to be involved...

You know what's better than a wizard, in that it can actually do things?  Government legislation and regulation.

Saying that you'd like this to happen, but are unwilling to take any steps to have it take place is a bit odd.  That sort of thinking seems almost... religious.

Nah, I am not saying I am unwilling to take steps, I am experssing skepticism that the types of solutions generally proposed by government in the form of regulation and legislation are not likely to work. My resistance is purely practical, not ideological.

I do realize this is a bit of a bullshit position. I think there is a problem, but not only do I not have a solution, I am fundamentally skeptical of the very means by which a solution could be crafted even in theory.

[Valmy]

I do realize this is a bit of a bullshit position. I think there is a problem, but not only do I not have a solution, I am fundamentally skeptical of the very means by which a solution could be crafted even in theory.

Right there with you.

[derspiess]

I do realize this is a bit of a bullshit position. I think there is a problem, but not only do I not have a solution, I am fundamentally skeptical of the very means by which a solution could be crafted even in theory.

Nothing wrong with acknowledging that something is a problem, but also realizing that the most realistic "solutions" might be worse than the problem itself.  Unless maybe it's your pet issue-- then you need to shit or get off the pot.

[Admiral Yi]

Can't they use the same method that US manufacturers used to use?  Murder?

Of course they can kill people, like unions did to brother workers crossing picket lines.

They can juggle pumpkins while standing on their head too.  But my comment was about what they have done.

[Valmy]

Of course they can kill people, like unions did to brother workers crossing picket lines.

You mean class traitors! 

[Admiral Yi]

You mean class traitors! 

I mean hard working Americans trying to provide for their families.

[Valmy]

I mean hard working Americans trying to provide for their families.

Trying?  Did this just happen yesterday?

Anyway I was obviously kidding.  Murderous picket lines are pretty ancient history.  I did not realize you felt so strongly about them.

[CountDeMoney]

Of course they can kill people, like unions did to brother workers crossing picket lines.

Snitches get what snitches get.

And scabs aren't brother workers.

[Razgovory]

Can't they use the same method that US manufacturers used to use?  Murder?

Of course they can kill people, like unions did to brother workers crossing picket lines.

They can juggle pumpkins while standing on their head too.  But my comment was about what they have done.

I thought China did kill people.   I think a strike would fall under an "Illegal demonstration".