JonKramer, CIS-HET @JonKramer@social.cleverlibre.org

@freemo @trinsec , I was just using walmart as a modern example. No really remembers who Getty was.

@freemo @trinsec Yes, I am aware. But imagine if the competition had been railroads, and electric vehicles, and home hydroelectric power generation? Right now the government requires you to use public services, often owned by private industries, or supplied by private industries. It wouldn't matter if all the gas industry all ran the market with price fixing, if the people had the choice to not buy from them.

@freemo @trinsec , and yes, I recognize Walmart exists, and your model was their business model, and I know what it did to small towns. My argument is those small town refusing to allow people to just open up businesses without incorporation, taxation, regulations, etc were what allowed Walmart to do it.

@freemo @trinsec I argue that the only reason any group can control a whole niche is because the government regulates who can be part of the groups. Get rid of corporate cronyism, and allow competition, and those groups can't form.

@freemo @trinsec , I think that looking at nations/states with higher minimum wages without doubt disagrees with that.

Personally I think the minimum wage laws are only there to undermine unions...

@freemo @trinsec , that's because we have government enforced monopolies, and no free markets. If someone else could sell the products, the price fixers would collapse.

@freemo @trinsec What makes it wrong to do it with your friends? To stop working as a mass? How is your action morally different when done with your friends than when you do it alone??

@freemo @trinsec , let them collude to fix prices, and buy from someone else. Government limiting competition is the problem there, not the companies trying to maximize profits.

@freemo @trinsec , not 'allowing' strikes is a a form of slavery. If the company or the strikers are violating a contract, you have a point, and start locking people up for fraud. But, no one should be forced to work against their will.

@freemo @trinsec , good answer, but I will suggest the jury is still out on how much harm it does... Long term more money in the economy means more money trickles down to the poor, and higher minimum wages for sure does put more money into the economy.

@freemo , yes, but unions have free market competition. (With the exception of public unions, different animal). A company can chose to not negotiate or hire a union, or can chose to have the union be the labor supplier. The company choses to sign contracts, or not. This is no difference than anyone who supplies iron ore, or oranges to a super market, or day care providers. The union supplies a service, labor. If the company doesn't like that supplier, they can hire others. This isn't often a good choice for the employer, (see Boeing and their issues moving production to North Carolina), but it is their choice to make.

Unions are a sign of a true free market economy, and I anticipate most of the objections brought up in this conversation, will be when the state screws the free market up. "right to work" laws, for example. Taft Hartley. Joe Biden screwing railway workers last year.

@peterdrake You are calling on the wrong deity. If you called on his noodily goodness, he wouldn't answer, but he would wave around tentacles, many of them, to show that you are fully capable of sporadic random task undertaking, with many multiple tasks attempted at any one time, all doomed to failure, but that's OK.

@trinsec the counterbalance point is spot on. I tried to figure out a way to word that point in a short text, and still can't, because that subject is just too complex for this medium.

@rephlex00 with enough imagination, you can find anything offensive.

@KarynDoc, ya, the scope is a bit wide, with so many subtle nuances that dictate changes in action.

I noticed a post, and my immediate reaction was to be abusive to the bigot, then block, then just block... and that change in my desires for action delayed any action. So currently just ignoring.

What I can't do is find it in any way acceptable.

And I feel anger.

Is racism acceptable from a minority, or sexism acceptable from a woman? Is it OK for a deaf person to be a bigot when it comes to firing an autistic guy?

I'm curious, when confronted by overt sexism, racism, etc, do you ignore it, attempt to make the person self-aware, or attack? What if it's an acceptable form of bigotry according to society? What it is a minor form of bigotry?

@wdlindsy I was watching TYT news before the primaries, when they pointed out trump was electable. I had dismissed him until then, because the guy is obviously just a bigoted clown, and not even the other bigots can tolerate that. Watching Cruz and Graham dress him down for being a monster misled me. I was sure the GQP had enough self respect to end his campaign. The TYT argument at the time was eye opening.

@LoganFive You have a choice of neither, or a smart fridge.

Sorry man.