02-02-2005 22:59									#241
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quote: Originally posted by Last Conformist The car market is liquid enough that finding a buyer willing to pay the market price does not normally take alot of time. To have to sell the car to me for a much lower price the seller would have to be in major hurry. Being in a major hurry to get money to a predictible cost like rent certainly implies bad planning.

This is completely beside the point. You have no idea about their planning, because I didn't say anything about it.

I could be the best planner in the world. I could plan to take over the world. That doesn't mean it's going to happen.

Now I would like to take one bad assumption or yours at a time.

quote: If it were just self-interest, why should I care if the other party consents to the deal?

Huh? You care because you get to buy the car for less than it is worth.

quote: People of like mind to mine? Who'd that be?

People who normally believe that deals between two consenting adults are always fair, except that aren't as absolute about it as you are.

quote: Let's say you're right about the majority of polytubbies. If so, so what? If said majority thought that boiling bearded people alive should be legalized, would that therefore be right?

You claimed an axiom. It's hardly so. If your opinion is such a minority then you should really consider alternatives. Truth exists outside of yourself. You are biased towards yourself. You have to be open to the opinions of others. Why do you call yourself the Last Conformist anyway? You don't seem to be living up to your name.

	02-02-2005 23:18									#242
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious The value of land is speculative value though. Land doesn't provide more utility than food.

What does this mean and how does it advance any point you are trying to make?

Obviously everyone needs food . .. what's your point?

	02-02-2005 23:19									#243
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To follow up . . . if value is utility wht doesn't land have value just like everything else? Why do you call it speculative?

	02-02-2005 23:21									#244
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quote: Originally posted by Flubber What does this mean and how does it advance any point you are trying to make? Obviously everyone needs food . .. what's your point?

I don't have a point about it. I was just responding to Ned.

	02-02-2005 23:22									#245
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quote: Originally posted by Flubber To follow up . . . if value is utility wht doesn't land have value just like everything else? Why do you call it speculative?

Land doesn't have utility anymore than people have utility. Land is used to produce things that have utility, just like people are used.

	02-02-2005 23:28									#246
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious This is completely beside the point. You have no idea about their planning, because I didn't say anything about it.

Actually your failure to mention planning is irrelevant. If you set up a scenario in which people cannot fetch near market price in a fact situation where it would normally take only a couple of days at most to fetch near-market price . . . and the reason is that they must meet a normal expected monthly expense, it is totally reasonable to state that this situation arose from a failure to plan.

quote: Originally posted by Kidicious I could be the best planner in the world. I could plan to take over the world. That doesn't mean it's going to happen.

The "best planner" in the world would only plan based on reasonable expectations and assumptions. Something that is unreasonable and unattainable would not in my book, qualify as a "good plan".

	02-02-2005 23:36									#247
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious Land doesn't have utility anymore than people have utility. Land is used to produce things that have utility, just like people are used.

Why can't land have utility?

cultivated farmland
berry picking grounds
forestry
that mountain view

heck-- 3 of these 4 involve completely unmodified land.


So why is land different than a car, vase, air compressor or baseball bat? The major difference I see is that in most cases it is not possible to cause land to cease to exist (although you can make it uninhabitable or destroy possible economic uses of it).... But its probably more difficult to destroy a diamond.

	02-02-2005 23:36									#248
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quote: Originally posted by Flubber Actually your failure to mention planning is irrelevant. If you set up a scenario in which people cannot fetch near market price in a fact situation where it would normally take only a couple of days at most to fetch near-market price . . . and the reason is that they must meet a normal expected monthly expense, it is totally reasonable to state that this situation arose from a failure to plan.

It's not. Obviously plans fail. Anything could happen. This is all irrelevent to the issue anyway.

	02-02-2005 23:40									#249
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quote: Originally posted by Flubber Why can't land have utility? cultivated farmland berry picking grounds forestry that mountain view heck-- 3 of these 4 involve completely unmodified land. So why is land different than a car, vase, air compressor or baseball bat? The major difference I see is that in most cases it is not possible to cause land to cease to exist (although you can make it uninhabitable or destroy possible economic uses of it).... But its probably more difficult to destroy a diamond.

It does have utility, obviously. It's just in a category of it's own, like labor, because it is a factor of production.

	02-02-2005 23:40									#250
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oh and land CAN be created-- I saw a piece on the UAE where they are creating small islands (with channels about a hundred metres across between them) and are selling these properties for huge sums.

The interesting part was that they were shaping these islands so that from the air it looked like a political map of Canada and I think their intent was to do pretty much the whole world

	02-02-2005 23:43									#251
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quote: Originally posted by Flubber oh and land CAN be created-- I saw a piece on the UAE where they are creating small islands (with channels about a hundred metres across between them) and are selling these properties for huge sums. The interesting part was that they were shaping these islands so that from the air it looked like a political map of Canada and I think their intent was to do pretty much the whole world

The value of that type of land is clearly created by labor. God, or nature, created the natural type, not labor obviously.

	02-02-2005 23:50									#252
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious It's not. Obviously plans fail. Anything could happen. This is all irrelevent to the issue anyway.

Probably but you were trying to set up a scenario where one party was in obvious duress that the other party could use to their advantage. Your scenario would only occurr if people failed to plan properly.

But I do accept that some people get themselves in these types of situations. Your question is whether I would snap up a great deal in those circumstances.

My answer is that I would snap up something that I saw as a good deal but if it was outrageously good I probably wouldn't allow myself to do it. For example, if a car that was obviously "worth" at least 6000 dollars was offered to me for 600, I would have difficulty making that deal

	02-02-2005 23:54									#253
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious This is completely beside the point. You have no idea about their planning, because I didn't say anything about it.

You tell me why I said it was beside the point at the beginning of this little tangent. Hint: It was not because I thought it was relevant to the point at hand.

quote: Huh? You care because you get to buy the car for less than it is worth.

Look at it like this: I have three alternatives:

i) Pay the guy the market price.
ii) Pay the guy the (lower) price he is willing to accept.
iii) Kick the guy in the groin and make off with his car without giving him a cent.

You, I'm sure, would only find (i) acceptable. I find (i) and (ii) acceptable. Someone who only cared for his or her own benefit would find all three acceptable.

This means that my stance is not equal to only caring about my own benefit - it leads to a different evaluation of (iii).

quote: You claimed an axiom. It's hardly so. If your opinion is such a minority then you should really consider alternatives. Truth exists outside of yourself. You are biased towards yourself. You have to be open to the opinions of others.

What makes you think I have not considered the alternatives? What do you think made me ask for people in this thread to justify their positions if not a desire to understand them?

At the end of the day, tho, truth isn't a democracy. If a lot of people think something, that in itself doesn't make that right.

quote: Why do you call yourself the Last Conformist anyway? You don't seem to be living up to your name.

I'm the Last Conformist, ie the only one. Obviously this means I'm different from all you non-conformists.

	02-02-2005 23:55									#254
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quote: Originally posted by Flubber Probably but you were trying to set up a scenario where one party was in obvious duress that the other party could use to their advantage. Your scenario would only occurr if people failed to plan properly.

No. One possibility is that the money was stolen. There are many.

quote: But I do accept that some people get themselves in these types of situations. Your question is whether I would snap up a great deal in those circumstances. My answer is that I would snap up something that I saw as a good deal but if it was outrageously good I probably wouldn't allow myself to do it. For example, if a car that was obviously "worth" at least 6000 dollars was offered to me for 600, I would have difficulty making that deal

And that's all I was trying to show. If you have the information about the situation, and you are suspicious, then you will have reservations. Some people might still do it, but most people will get at least a little bad feeling from it.

	03-02-2005 00:04									#255
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quote: Originally posted by Last Conformist You tell me why I said it was beside the point at the beginning of this little tangent. Hint: It was not because I thought it was relevant to the point at hand.

You tell me why planning should be an issue at all. You never mentioned it, and it's completely irrelevent to me. If you think that people who plan adequately don't make unfair deals for themselves you are wrong on that account too, but that's not what the issue is. The issue is whether two people can make an unfair deal regardless of planning.

quote: quote: Huh? You care because you get to buy the car for less than it is worth. Look at it like this: I have three alternatives: i) Pay the guy the market price. ii) Pay the guy the (lower) price he is willing to accept. iii) Kick the guy in the groin and make off with his car without giving him a cent. You, I'm sure, would only find (i) acceptable. I find (i) and (ii) acceptable. Someone who only cared for his or her own benefit would find all three acceptable.

No. People who steal are criminals. You can be self-interested and operate within the law.

quote: This means that my stance is not equal to only caring about my own benefit - it leads to a different evaluation of (iii).

Tell me again why you think two is not in your self-interest.

quote: quote: You claimed an axiom. It's hardly so. If your opinion is such a minority then you should really consider alternatives. Truth exists outside of yourself. You are biased towards yourself. You have to be open to the opinions of others. What makes you think I have not considered the alternatives? What do you think made me ask for people in this thread to justify their positions if not a desire to understand them?

You told me that I was automatically wrong because I disagreed with you about fair deals.

quote: At the end of the day, tho, truth isn't a democracy. If a lot of people think something, that in itself doesn't make that right.

Obviously not, but even more relevant is that just because you yourself beleive something doesn't make it truth.

quote: I'm the Last Conformist, ie the only one. Obviously this means I'm different from all you non-conformists.

ok, I wondered about that.

	03-02-2005 01:39									#256
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On fair deals


I think deals freely entered into without duress or misrepresentation between competent parties are fine. I don't know if I want to use the word "fair" because that could get into a 1000 post argument over what "fair" means. lets just say that I like a system where people have the freedom to make their own deals, whether it be to decide how much to pay for a house or how much to sell their labor for. I believe in the idea of capacity to contract and that people should be able to make and be bound by such deals (subject to standards mandated by legislation)

	03-02-2005 04:50									#257
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Imagine that instead of a capitalist system with an unequal distribution of income the game is poker. You can either play poker or starve to death, so you play of course. The only problem is that you only have $5 and your opponent has $500 dollars. You argree to play. Does that make it fair? Of course not, and you can write all the 1000 word essays you want, but you can't convince a reasonable person that it's fair.

	03-02-2005 05:42									#258
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Who's a reasonable person? If you mean the majority, they vote capitalist. If you mean legally, you need a hell of a stronger argument than that. If you mean anything else, well, I suppose it's a bit of a nonsense word anyway. Reasonable depends on who you're talking to. Fez might think Franco was reasonable, Floyd that letting someone starve to death because they couldn't afford to eat was reasonable, or one of the commies that forced reappropriation of wealth was. I'm betting the other two would disagree that each was reasonable.

	03-02-2005 05:44									#259
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reasonable to me is a theoretical intelligent unbiased person.

	03-02-2005 06:13									#260
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious reasonable to me is a theoretical intelligent unbiased person.

That pretty much rules out everyone.

	03-02-2005 06:19									#261
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious No. People who steal are criminals. You can be self-interested and operate within the law.

People who only care about their self-interest don't care about the law, as long as breaking it does not subject them to punishment.

quote: Tell me again why you think two is not in your self-interest.

I never said that. I said that my stance did not amount to caring only about my self-interest.

quote: You told me that I was automatically wrong because I disagreed with you about fair deals.

Where did I say that?


As regards reasonable opinions of unbiased intelligent people such don't exist.

	03-02-2005 07:27									#262
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quote: Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe That pretty much rules out everyone.

Yeah it does. No one can be totally unbiased. The best we can do is try. Sometimes it's hard.

	03-02-2005 22:39									#263
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious Imagine that instead of a capitalist system with an unequal distribution of income the game is poker. You can either play poker or starve to death, so you play of course. The only problem is that you only have $5 and your opponent has $500 dollars. You argree to play. Does that make it fair? Of course not, and you can write all the 1000 word essays you want, but you can't convince a reasonable person that it's fair.

1. Why do you always make your example that the worker can do x "or starve to death"?? Thats not the case and you know it. People do have choices. They might not always be as appealing as you might like but choices and options do exist. You may feel sad that you can't get paid well to pontificate about Marx but that does not in any way make this unfair.

2. I avoided the "fair" word in the previous post since it is a term that you and I would fundamentally disagree about. from what I have read, you think of things like interest , or rent or profit as "unfair" while I have no problem with them. They can be abused and perhaps in individual cases there can be unfairness but it is not the usual case.

3. Read better. I never said anyhting about 1000 word essays. I merely indicated that I avoided the word "fair" to hopefully avoid a 1000 post definitional debate which ends up being about nothing at all.

4. In your poker game you take your 5 bucks and buy enough food to last for a couple of days- (2 lb bag of carrots, maybe some pasta etc)-- oh and offer to act as dealer for the game and make some bucks and for the right to eat the pretzals and beer nuts.

	03-02-2005 22:44									#264
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Flubber,

Why do I have to explain simple things to you over and over again.

You can either work in the system and accept an unfair deal or you can die. That is your choice. I don't feel any need to keep explaining that.

	03-02-2005 22:47									#265
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious Flubber, Why do I have to explain simple things to you over and over again.

Because your explanations only too often make no sense or fail to explain what was asked.

	03-02-2005 23:17									#266
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Or because he didn't explain it. Flubber's point was whether or not you consider it fair doesn't matter, what does is whether it's acceptable or not. IMHO, any deal not made under duress is acceptable.

	03-02-2005 23:18									#267
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious reasonable to me is a theoretical intelligent unbiased person.

And you biad towards communism therefore rules you out? Moreover, I'd consider your definition of reasonable to be unreasonable.

	03-02-2005 23:20									#268
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quote: Originally posted by Drogue Or because he didn't explain it. Flubber's point was whether or not you consider it fair doesn't matter, what does is whether it's acceptable or not. IMHO, any deal not made under duress is acceptable.

Duress is extreme. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about having to take a deal where the other person benefits more than you do because they have more negotiating power.

	03-02-2005 23:23									#269
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So every deal should have enforced equal power? For instance, a child saying "I want that" in a toy shop, when the alternative is fit of crying, is morally wrong, because the child has more bargaining power than the parent?

	03-02-2005 23:23									#270
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quote: Originally posted by Drogue And you biad towards communism therefore rules you out? Moreover, I'd consider your definition of reasonable to be unreasonable.

Actually, I'm a white male. My father is a college graduate, and my mom comes from a somewhat wealthy family. I, myself, have one degree, a teaching credential, and I'm half way to getting another degree in Accounting. Accountants are starting out with pay as high as 50k these days. There is a family trust that I stand to inheret part of.

In short, my bias is not towards communism. Just the opposite. Many of my attitudes come from my emotions, and those are the ones I have to fight against, and be rational.