andrew langer

In article <bu7b4f$evv$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk>, Alastair McDonald says...


If... If? If my grandmother had wheels she'd be a bus, as the old yiddish
proverb goes.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths among women, Alastair, and has
been since 1987. Breast cancer follows. Incidentally, breast cancer was the
leading killer of women before that for 40 years, and I wonder how long
aluminum-based deodorants have been around.

I would venture to guess that womens' aluminum based deodorants weren't marketed
until at least the mid-60s.

Also, as to the aggregate issue of rates of death of women 21-60, it's no
surprise that cancer becomes the leading cause of death. Cancer rates spike up
after age 40.

Cheers!

- Andrew Langer

Any posts by Andrew Langer are his own, written by him, for his own
enjoyment (and the education of others). Unless expressly stated,
they represent his own views, and not those of any other individuals
or entities. He is not, nor has he ever been, paid to post here.

andrew langer

In article <bu7cis$52q$1@news5.svr.pol.co.uk>, Alastair McDonald says...


And see mine. Lung cancer beats breast cancer, and has since 1987.


Not one that a lot of scientists find credible.


Sure. And I am sure that it has been tested and is being tested and will be tested.


Why? Why can't those who are interested in researching the hypothesis find their own funds?

Or, how about the possibility that people who have a "fetish" for personal
cleanliness may have some sort of disorder, on the order of OCD? (As has been demonstrated.)

How about aluminum pots, too, Alastair?


There is no perfection, Alastair. Even the most devout capitalist will tell you
that. Any system which relies on men to exist is going to be an imperfect one.

It's akin to what Churchill said about democracy.


You don't believe that freedom is good?


A strawman argument. It's not that the free market is "perfect", Alastair, it's
that it is democratic, efficient, and promotes prosperity and freedom.

No other economic system does that. Period. Communism, by contrast, neither
promotes democracy, efficiency, prosperity, nor freedom.

No, it believes that government restrictions create more problems than solutions.

And you ignore the fact that companies are run and staffed by people. On the
other hand, bureaucracies do _NOT_ have consciences. They have rules and
regulations and bureaucrats (I'm going to have to remember that the next time I
am speaking to an audience of civil servants).


Gee, does every anti-marketeer have the same blind spot? How many times do I
have to tell you guys that if a business doesn't do right by the public, then it
_GOES OUT OF BUSINESS_. People don't buy products from those who are going to
harm them.

Do you want examples?

Recently, Donald Ferry raised the issue of Wampler Foods and problems with their
poultry products. On researching that issue, I discovered that upon the
public's discovery of this problem with Wampler, they deserted the company,
driving their profits down by 80% from one quarter to the next.

Conclusion? Companies that don't do right by the public don't do right by their
shareholders either, because they lose business.

Oh, and in a non-market economy, such businesses can't be punished, generally
because the government running the entity can't efficiently transfer operations
to a competitor. So much for non-market economies protecting consumers.


Oh, I can think of dozens of state-run enterprises which harmed people, either
the public generally or consumers directly.

Perhaps you can, too.

- Andrew Langer

Any posts by Andrew Langer are his own, written by him, for his own
enjoyment (and the education of others). Unless expressly stated,
they represent his own views, and not those of any other individuals
or entities. He is not, nor has he ever been, paid to post here.

alastair mcdonald

to breast cancer (highly unlikely IMHO).


Does that apply to the tobacco industry?

I am not anti-market. I do think it is a fairly efficent economic system,
certainly more efficient than communism, but it does need to be regulated.
All human activities need policing. Take sport, do you know of a game where
an umpire or referee is not used.

It is not a matter of state run enterprise versus private enterprise. It
is whether companies are made to follow the law, and laws are made
for companies.

Here is a good example of how free enterprise works. The ferries
between Britain and the continent were deregulated, so they started
racing each other across the English Channel. By leaving port
before their bow doors were closed they could knock 10 minutes
off the crossing time (to the consumer benefit.) Then one day they
forgot to close the bow doors. See this page and links from it;

Service for ferry disaster victims
More than 190 people died when the ferry capsized
A memorial service has been held to mark the 16th anniversary of the Herald of
Free Enterprise ferry disaster.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2827229.stm

Regulations are needed, and no where more than in the case
of carbon dioxide emissions, which have a global, not just
national, effect.

Cheers, Alastair.

tim jackson

Microsoft. Please make an example of Microsoft! Please!


Tim Jackson

andrew langer

In article <bu85ei$1er$1@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk>, Alastair McDonald says...


Ah, but in the case of tobacco, and alcohol, and fatty foods, and a host of
other products, people know that there is a risk inherent in them, and choose to
buy those products anyway. And before you start talking about tobacco companies
denying the risk of their product, consumers were well-aware of the risks of
tobacco for _YEARS_, and nevertheless smoked.

It's a basic issue of whether or not the public feels they've been dealt with
honestly - in the case of Wampler foods, people felt wronged by Wampler's
actions, and punished Wampler accordingly. In the case of tobacco, people knew
the risks, chose to smoke, and big tobacco dealt with the vicissitudes of the marketplace.

The operative word there is "game", Alastair. An economy isn't a game, it's a
system, like an organic system. Sure there are rules that govern the system,
and it is up to some artifice to make sure that the rules are followed, but they
have to be simple rules that work in concert with the system with a minimum of
barriers. Those barriers cause unintended consequences that have to be dealt
with elsewhere.

What rules? Well, rules that essentially protect the rights of those within
that system, as both producers and consumers. Rules against fraud, rules
against theft, rules against causing palpable harm. The rules should extend
from that precept.

But what about rules that only tangentially relate to that precept? Take
Maryland, for instance. Maryland's legislature passed a law restricting certain
products that were not, in their estimation, energy efficient.

Is that really the role of a governing force in a marketplace?

And even the most ardent free-marketeer recognizes that there need to be basic
rules to govern the practices within that economy. You're like those people who
claim that libertarians are anarchists, without examining the realities of
libertarian beliefs: government serves a limited purpose - to preserve and
protect individual rights. This holds true for the political system, as well as the economic one.


Negligence is negligence is negligence is negligence. Let me ask you this,
Alastair - if there is no regulation governing a particular action, should
someone therefore have no responsibility to redress a harm if a harm is caused
by that action?

See, what I'm getting at is that you don't necessarily need a "regulation" to
address every form of negligent act, and if you bury businesses under
regulations, it has the potential to give businesses an "out" (ie, there was no
regulation governing it, therefore we can't be held responsible).

A) You can harness the power of the marketplace to reduce CO2 emissions, if
there is an important public purpose in doing so. You don't need a new
regulatory state, certainly not one on a global scale as would be required.
National environmental bureaucracies are unwieldy and burdensome enough - a
global environmental regulatory bureaucracy would be an intactible bohemoth;

I've written a number of items on the use of market forces to produce
environmental benefits across national boundaries, generally through the use of
guilds and guild seals of approval.

B) Furthermore, not only can you not hamstring nations by creating massive
regulatory schemes on unsettled science (without proper risk assessment and
cost-benefit ****yses), but you also cannot make choices for nations that may
not be advanced as yours, either politically, socially, or economically. It's
immoral and elitist to hobble developing nations that cannot afford to make the
same social policy choices that the developed world can when it comes to the
environment.

- Andrew Langer

Any posts by Andrew Langer are his own, written by him, for his own
enjoyment (and the education of others). Unless expressly stated,
they represent his own views, and not those of any other individuals
or entities. He is not, nor has he ever been, paid to post here.

andrew langer

In article <lxNNb.15570$tQ6.579520@wards.force9.net>, Tim Jackson says...


Has the public really been "harmed" by Microsoft? I mean, we can get into
economic arguments about trusts, but when it comes down to it, but in the end,
there are a lot of consumers that really like Microsoft products.

- Andrew Langer

Any posts by Andrew Langer are his own, written by him, for his own
enjoyment (and the education of others). Unless expressly stated,
they represent his own views, and not those of any other individuals
or entities. He is not, nor has he ever been, paid to post here.

tim jackson

This is normal for a monopoly. It doesn't make it or its products good.

But I'm not going to get drawn into a technical discussion about software
design on these newsgroups.


Tim

myrlj

Andy,
I must admit, I'm a Microsoft/Bill Gates devotee. Before Microsoft
and Windows, civilization as we know it today, lurked in the dark
ages. IBM had a strangle hold on computer technology, and the common
man didn't have access to it. Along comes Bill Gates, and Microsoft
Windows, and for an affordable cost, computers can be put into many
homes, libraries, schools, and access given to kids, the elderly, the
handicapped, the poor, the middle class, and the rich, all via the
internet, and easy to use applications. It is an awesome empowerment
of mankind when you stop to think about it.

I never quite understood what the gripe was that the competitors had,
other than Microsoft when packaging Windows, used their own Internet
Explorer as the browser. Business is business in America, it's all
about competition. No business would freely give away advantage, or
technology to it's competitors.

I feel in this universe, throughout the ages, there have been a "few"
benevolent Gods. . .I believe that Bill Gates is one of 'em!

If you think Microsoft isn't better than IBM, try giving up Outlook
and using Lotus Notes for awhile. . .IBM Lotus Notes, is 1960s
technology. They are so far behind, that I doubt they will ever catch
up!

Myrl

tim jackson

Bill Gates didn't do that, Apple did. I remember, I was in the business at
the time.

Quick history lesson. IBM, crown prince of the mainframe, ignored the rise
of personal computing until it was almost too late. Seeing the writing on
the wall (and it was Apple shaped, with a bite out) the only way to get back
into the market and ahead of Apple was to throw their design open to
third-world manufacturers to build compatibles. They needed an operating
system quickly. Forward Bill Gates, owner (but not author - he got it in a
garage sale or something) of QDOS, Quick & Dirty Operating System (honestly,
it was). Bill Gates milked the IBM whirlwind and got rich.

Windows never made computers a cent cheaper, and Microsoft never made PCs at
all. So the low price of PC's has nothing to do with Microsoft and
everything to do with IBM's 1 Big Mistake.


Tim Jackson

ilena

"Tim Jackson" <tim@tim-jackson.co.uk>


There's a very telling moment in the film "Pirates of Silicon Valley"
(I believe that's the name) when Gates is negotiating with IBM ...

Right before he left ... the software rights were brought up ... Gates
of course wanted them ... IBM nodded and waved him away with something
like, "Sure ... all of the profits are in the hardware anyway" (my
recollection from a few years ago) ...