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[quote=BigGovernmentIsGood][quote=sdduuuude]
Who has the friggin right to tell me what car I can drive and how much gas I can put in it?
[/quote]

What right do you have to pollute the air that all of us breathe and the water that all of us drink?[/quote]

Uh. I didn’t say anything about pollution, and neither did your original post. That is a different matter entirely. Regulating pollution is sensible as it prevents people from infringing upon the rights of others. Your post has to do with gas mileage – a decision I have the right to make for myself.

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[quote=BigGovernmentIsGood][quote=sdduuuude]
Who has the friggin right to tell me what car I can drive and how much gas I can put in it?
[/quote]

What right do you have to pollute the air that all of us breathe and the water that all of us drink?[/quote]

Uh. I didn’t say anything about pollution, and neither did your original post. That is a different matter entirely. Regulating pollution is sensible as it prevents people from infringing upon the rights of others. Your post has to do with gas mileage – a decision I have the right to make for myself.

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[quote=BigGovernmentIsGood][quote=sdduuuude]
Who has the friggin right to tell me what car I can drive and how much gas I can put in it?
[/quote]

What right do you have to pollute the air that all of us breathe and the water that all of us drink?[/quote]

Uh. I didn’t say anything about pollution, and neither did your original post. That is a different matter entirely. Regulating pollution is sensible as it prevents people from infringing upon the rights of others. Your post has to do with gas mileage – a decision I have the right to make for myself.

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[quote=BigGovernmentIsGood][quote=sdduuuude]
Who has the friggin right to tell me what car I can drive and how much gas I can put in it?
[/quote]

What right do you have to pollute the air that all of us breathe and the water that all of us drink?[/quote]

Uh. I didn’t say anything about pollution, and neither did your original post. That is a different matter entirely. Regulating pollution is sensible as it prevents people from infringing upon the rights of others. Your post has to do with gas mileage – a decision I have the right to make for myself.

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[quote=briansd1]Not to mention the religious fundamentalists who want to legislate social behavior, but who themselves do wicked things.

I want unregulated porn and prostitution. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to buy it.[/quote]

Hey – I’m right there with you on all of these points, brian, especially the first one. In fact, my biggest frustration with the conservative mindset is the broken logical construct that people are free to do business but need their personal lives regulated per some idealogical sense of good and evil.

That you so staunchly support regulating so many things for environmental purposes, yet see the oppressive nature of regulating personal habits is just as disturbing.

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[quote=briansd1]Not to mention the religious fundamentalists who want to legislate social behavior, but who themselves do wicked things.

I want unregulated porn and prostitution. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to buy it.[/quote]

Hey – I’m right there with you on all of these points, brian, especially the first one. In fact, my biggest frustration with the conservative mindset is the broken logical construct that people are free to do business but need their personal lives regulated per some idealogical sense of good and evil.

That you so staunchly support regulating so many things for environmental purposes, yet see the oppressive nature of regulating personal habits is just as disturbing.

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[quote=briansd1]Not to mention the religious fundamentalists who want to legislate social behavior, but who themselves do wicked things.

I want unregulated porn and prostitution. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to buy it.[/quote]

Hey – I’m right there with you on all of these points, brian, especially the first one. In fact, my biggest frustration with the conservative mindset is the broken logical construct that people are free to do business but need their personal lives regulated per some idealogical sense of good and evil.

That you so staunchly support regulating so many things for environmental purposes, yet see the oppressive nature of regulating personal habits is just as disturbing.

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[quote=briansd1]Not to mention the religious fundamentalists who want to legislate social behavior, but who themselves do wicked things.

I want unregulated porn and prostitution. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to buy it.[/quote]

Hey – I’m right there with you on all of these points, brian, especially the first one. In fact, my biggest frustration with the conservative mindset is the broken logical construct that people are free to do business but need their personal lives regulated per some idealogical sense of good and evil.

That you so staunchly support regulating so many things for environmental purposes, yet see the oppressive nature of regulating personal habits is just as disturbing.

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[quote=briansd1]Not to mention the religious fundamentalists who want to legislate social behavior, but who themselves do wicked things.

I want unregulated porn and prostitution. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to buy it.[/quote]

Hey – I’m right there with you on all of these points, brian, especially the first one. In fact, my biggest frustration with the conservative mindset is the broken logical construct that people are free to do business but need their personal lives regulated per some idealogical sense of good and evil.

That you so staunchly support regulating so many things for environmental purposes, yet see the oppressive nature of regulating personal habits is just as disturbing.

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[quote=joec]A lot of hate is directed towards the government because the government collects your tax dollars…

People don’t care if other private companies waste money or pay out big bonuses if they don’t feel they are funding that lifestyle or paying the bill…

Same reason people are annoyed with government bailing out homeowners who ATMed their house.[/quote]

I agree with you on the first two points, Joe. Gandalf is right, however, that the bailouts benefited the banks.

The interesting thing about the bailouts: The “government is the problem” crowd hates the bailouts because government intervened in the private markets to prop up failed businesses and believes the banks should have just failed.

The “government is not the problem” crowd hates the bailout because the banks took the taxpayers to the cleaners, claiming the government had to step in or the banks would have taken the taxpayers to the cleaners through resulting economic despair.

Either way, we were screwed.

Clearly, it is the combination of the banks’ incompetence and government putting the taxpayers in a position to be reliant on the banks’ solvency. The problem isn’t banks and it isn’t government. The problem is that they are no longer separate.

I still say the Federal Reserve and the ratings agency rules are at fault here. Everyone else – banks, realtors, mortgage brokers, and homeowners – was just responding to the market created by EZ credit and “cooked” ratings.

And if you look at the Federal Reserve, it is exactly this: an autocracy that looks like both a bank and a government entity.

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[quote=joec]A lot of hate is directed towards the government because the government collects your tax dollars…

People don’t care if other private companies waste money or pay out big bonuses if they don’t feel they are funding that lifestyle or paying the bill…

Same reason people are annoyed with government bailing out homeowners who ATMed their house.[/quote]

I agree with you on the first two points, Joe. Gandalf is right, however, that the bailouts benefited the banks.

The interesting thing about the bailouts: The “government is the problem” crowd hates the bailouts because government intervened in the private markets to prop up failed businesses and believes the banks should have just failed.

The “government is not the problem” crowd hates the bailout because the banks took the taxpayers to the cleaners, claiming the government had to step in or the banks would have taken the taxpayers to the cleaners through resulting economic despair.

Either way, we were screwed.

Clearly, it is the combination of the banks’ incompetence and government putting the taxpayers in a position to be reliant on the banks’ solvency. The problem isn’t banks and it isn’t government. The problem is that they are no longer separate.

I still say the Federal Reserve and the ratings agency rules are at fault here. Everyone else – banks, realtors, mortgage brokers, and homeowners – was just responding to the market created by EZ credit and “cooked” ratings.

And if you look at the Federal Reserve, it is exactly this: an autocracy that looks like both a bank and a government entity.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=joec]A lot of hate is directed towards the government because the government collects your tax dollars…

People don’t care if other private companies waste money or pay out big bonuses if they don’t feel they are funding that lifestyle or paying the bill…

Same reason people are annoyed with government bailing out homeowners who ATMed their house.[/quote]

I agree with you on the first two points, Joe. Gandalf is right, however, that the bailouts benefited the banks.

The interesting thing about the bailouts: The “government is the problem” crowd hates the bailouts because government intervened in the private markets to prop up failed businesses and believes the banks should have just failed.

The “government is not the problem” crowd hates the bailout because the banks took the taxpayers to the cleaners, claiming the government had to step in or the banks would have taken the taxpayers to the cleaners through resulting economic despair.

Either way, we were screwed.

Clearly, it is the combination of the banks’ incompetence and government putting the taxpayers in a position to be reliant on the banks’ solvency. The problem isn’t banks and it isn’t government. The problem is that they are no longer separate.

I still say the Federal Reserve and the ratings agency rules are at fault here. Everyone else – banks, realtors, mortgage brokers, and homeowners – was just responding to the market created by EZ credit and “cooked” ratings.

And if you look at the Federal Reserve, it is exactly this: an autocracy that looks like both a bank and a government entity.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=joec]A lot of hate is directed towards the government because the government collects your tax dollars…

People don’t care if other private companies waste money or pay out big bonuses if they don’t feel they are funding that lifestyle or paying the bill…

Same reason people are annoyed with government bailing out homeowners who ATMed their house.[/quote]

I agree with you on the first two points, Joe. Gandalf is right, however, that the bailouts benefited the banks.

The interesting thing about the bailouts: The “government is the problem” crowd hates the bailouts because government intervened in the private markets to prop up failed businesses and believes the banks should have just failed.

The “government is not the problem” crowd hates the bailout because the banks took the taxpayers to the cleaners, claiming the government had to step in or the banks would have taken the taxpayers to the cleaners through resulting economic despair.

Either way, we were screwed.

Clearly, it is the combination of the banks’ incompetence and government putting the taxpayers in a position to be reliant on the banks’ solvency. The problem isn’t banks and it isn’t government. The problem is that they are no longer separate.

I still say the Federal Reserve and the ratings agency rules are at fault here. Everyone else – banks, realtors, mortgage brokers, and homeowners – was just responding to the market created by EZ credit and “cooked” ratings.

And if you look at the Federal Reserve, it is exactly this: an autocracy that looks like both a bank and a government entity.

[sdduuuude]

[quote=joec]A lot of hate is directed towards the government because the government collects your tax dollars…

People don’t care if other private companies waste money or pay out big bonuses if they don’t feel they are funding that lifestyle or paying the bill…

Same reason people are annoyed with government bailing out homeowners who ATMed their house.[/quote]

I agree with you on the first two points, Joe. Gandalf is right, however, that the bailouts benefited the banks.

The interesting thing about the bailouts: The “government is the problem” crowd hates the bailouts because government intervened in the private markets to prop up failed businesses and believes the banks should have just failed.

The “government is not the problem” crowd hates the bailout because the banks took the taxpayers to the cleaners, claiming the government had to step in or the banks would have taken the taxpayers to the cleaners through resulting economic despair.

Either way, we were screwed.

Clearly, it is the combination of the banks’ incompetence and government putting the taxpayers in a position to be reliant on the banks’ solvency. The problem isn’t banks and it isn’t government. The problem is that they are no longer separate.

I still say the Federal Reserve and the ratings agency rules are at fault here. Everyone else – banks, realtors, mortgage brokers, and homeowners – was just responding to the market created by EZ credit and “cooked” ratings.

And if you look at the Federal Reserve, it is exactly this: an autocracy that looks like both a bank and a government entity.

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[quote=afx114]If we had listened to all of these anti-regulation arguments in the late 70s, would we all still be driving cars getting 16MPG? Or would the market have taken care of that?[/quote]

This is a great example of “regulating to a result” instead of “regulating the transaction” These are my latest catch-phrases I use in my attempts to teach people that “appropriate regulation” is better than “no regulation” and that “appropriate regulation” involves regulating fraud, theft, breach of contract, and violent crimes, but NOT trying to manipulate a market away from a result that you think shouldn’t happen.

Forcing people to act how you want them isn’t nice, regardless of your intentions.

In other words – who cares if the market would have “taken care of that” because by “taken care of that” you mean “resulted in a market situation that I like.”

Who has the friggin right to tell me what car I can drive and how much gas I can put in it? Furthermore – how much money would we spend enforcing a regulation like this?

Maybe we would have been driving 5 mph cars and we would have burned through all the oil by now and would have, as a result, created solar alternatives and be living in Nirvana. Maybe 60 mph cars would be so expensive, nobody could afford them and our economic productivity would plummet and we would be plunged into the dark ages. A market is a good way for multiple people to bring about a situation, or come to a conclusion together through individual action, and that situation may not always be what you like.

To force people into a certain way of action because you think that is the way it should be is basically a totalitarian approach that never works, and invariably results in unexpected side-affects that screw up your original intentions or create worse problems. This idea is “Control Freaks Gone Wild.” Who is to say you are the guy to decide ? Why 60 mph ? Why not 1000? Why not 10?

Maybe we should restrict all art projects to 1 gallon of paint. That is about as smart.

The original poster’s user name should be “BigGovernmentIsGoodButOnlyIfTheBig
GovernmentForcesPeopleToDoWhatIWantThemTo” and I would like to suggest China as a new home for you.

Just let people buy the car they want and deal with what happens. The market may not go the way you want it to. Tough crap. This ain’t Burger King – you can’t always have it your way.

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