If you think you know something every now and then you must Question all your Assumptions about what you think you know periodically to see if they are still or ever were true. Science advances when we uncover mistaken assumptions and start over.
Today I question the idea of Free Markets being left to regulate themselves free of Government regulations as being the best way to grow the economy, create jobs and bring new products to market.
But I need help can anyone give me an example where Free Markets left to regulate themselves free of Government regulations proved to be the best way to grow the economy, create jobs and bring new products to market.
I have been looking for examples of this to do a pro vs con post and generate debate but I can’t find any. But its not for lack of trying.
Example 1)
“Volkswagen is poised to become become the world’s biggest carmaker this year, overtaking Toyota and General Motors (GM).”
American automaker GM is also picking up steam again with sales up about 8% to 7.55 million. But Toyota, which saw its sales tumble after March’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan, will likely drop 9% to 7.27 million, Bloomberg News says. Toyota was hit again recently in Southeast Asia with production problems due to flooding in Thailand.
Toyota will fall to fourth place behind Renault-Nissan in the wake of its current supply problems due to March’s earthquake in Japan, JD Power said, although some analysts predicted a third-place finish for the Japanese brand.”
“Sales of VW Group, the parent company for Volkswagen, is projected to rise 13% to 8.1 million vehicles this year, based on the average of three analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. “
http://www.zimbabwemetro.com/...
Even with an earthquake, tidal wave a nuclear disaster and flooding in Thailand closing a Toyota plant GM misses almost being Fracking third by 7.55 million to 7.27 Nissan might even beat Toyota this year and with numbers that close they might beat GM for third this year.
But what about next year GM when Toyota, Nissan etc all have all their auto plants running? Toyota and Volkswagon will duel for first and second biggest car makers and Nissan tries for second or third GM will be looking to hold fourth and avoid being the fifth biggest car maker.
GM has a long history of lobbying against government regulations on fuel economy saying it would cost American jobs. Never mind the Japanese have stolen market share from GM since the 70's making fuel efficient cars. National Healthcare and drug price controls help lower their auto worker health insurance costs. GM lost market share because they had gas guzzlers, GM instead of lobbying for National Healthcare instead preferred to lose market share for decades rather than do what needed to be done to compete against the Japanese .
Newly obtained documents reveal that a group that lobbied on behalf of the oil, coal and auto industry intentionally misled the public about the causes of global warming during the mid-nineties, The New York Times reports.
The Global Climate Coalition spent millions of dollars in the nineties running ads to convince the public that global warming was not caused by humans and that joining the Kyoto Protocol was a mistake. However, its own internal documents said, “The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied.”
http://articles.businessinsider.com/...
GM has a long history of opposing safety features like air bags, head rests for trucks etc saying they will cost American jobs. How many Americans bought foreign cars because they had air bags before GM Ford etc realized that safety sells? I know I did:)
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the total spending on automotive lobbying in 2009 was about $60.2 million, down from about $66.9 million in 2008. An all-time high of $70.7 million was spent the year before in 2007, and prior to that the auto industry had been spending right around $60 million a year for about a decade. In 2009, there were 576 auto industry lobbyists working for 124 clients, such as carmakers, auto suppliers, lobbying groups and trade associations.
General Motors was the lobbying leader in 2009, spending $8.7 million, a fairly significant drop from the $13.4 million GM spent in 2008
http://autos.aol.com/...
My bold lets say GM spent 10 million a year to keep the math simple and as this article indicates lobbying expenses were stable for 10 years that $100 million dollars spent on lobbying against government regulation that could have been spent making more fuel efficient cars in America.
Since GM needed a bailout from the government we can conclude that their approach did not work. Since GM, Ford etc lost market share to Government Regulated Japanese cars since the 70's. So then we can conclude that government deregulation never worked since it never could beat the Japanese. Heck German Volkswagon is number 1 this year does anyone want to argue the German's don't regulate their car makers more than we do?
Example 2) High tech computers where would Microsoft, Google, Apple be today without IBM and where would IBM be without big government contracts in its early days? Government is the spender of last resort Keynes said Government spends big on projects private industry can't afford to develop on their own and given IBM's success and the tech that was built off the idea of computers that investment has paid off huge! Lets see Ron Paul argue IBM never benefited from big government.
In 1937, IBM's tabulating equipment enabled organizations to process unprecedented amounts of data, its clients including the U.S. Government, during its first effort to maintain the employment records for 26 million people pursuant to the Social Security Act,[23]
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
What about the internet Al Gore got the funding for that Tim Berners-Lee came up with the idea without the internet Google would not have been one of the hottest stocks of the century. No Internet no Itunes store and no Ipod, No internet no Facebook, Myspace, Groupon etc.
In the 1980s, scientists at CERN were asking themselves how massive, complex, collaborative projects -- like the fledgling LHC -- could be orchestrated and tracked. Tim Berners-Lee, then a contractor, answered by inventing the World Wide Web. This global system of hypertext documents, linked through the Internet, brought about a massive cultural shift ushered in by the new tech and content it made possible: AOL, eBay, Wikipedia, TED.com...
Berners-Lee is now director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which maintains standards for the Web and continues to refine its design. Recently he has envisioned a "Semantic Web" -- an evolved version of the same system that recognizes the meaning of the information it carries. He is also a senior researcher at MIT's Computer Science and AI Lab.
http://www.ted.com/...
But but the Free Market is doing such a good job of providing the fastest internet speeds so cheaply and creating the latest tech!
Where’s the best place to surf the web? No surprise, it’s not North America! South Korea continues to lead with the fastest internet connection speeds, according to Akamai’s eleventh quarterly State of the Internet report. The U.S. ranks 12th.
There are two main reasons why the US is comparatively low in terms of global Internet connection speeds:
The first reason is a comparatively lower investment in broadband infrastructure in the US, as compared to many Asian nations such as South Korea and Japan, whose cities tend to dominate the list. In addition, Wall Street frequently punishes carriers in the short-term for making long-term investments in network infrastructure.
The second reason is that getting a high speed Internet connection in the US costs consumers more money than it does in other countries, so less people can afford it. This pricing issue is due in part to a lack of effective competition amongst Internet service providers in the US. This lack of competition has also provided a disincentive for broadband providers to significantly raise the speeds included in their service tiers.
Additionally, the South Korean government invests in extremely high-speed connectivity, such as the Korea Information Infrastructure (KII) Plan aimed at connecting of 84% of South Korean households to broadband services with speeds of up to 1 Mbps by 2005, and the 2010 announcement of a plan to boost residential connections to 1 Gbps by 2012.
http://www.forbes.com/...
In metropolitan France, intense competition between Internet service providers has led to the introduction of moderately-priced high speed ADSL up to 28 Mbit/s (ATM) for 29,90€ per month. They often include other services such as unlimited free VoIP telephonecommunications to land lines, and digital television. Dial-up internet access is considered outdated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
The Free Market unregulated by the government it is claimed most notably by Thomas Friedman, Ron Paul will provide more jobs by lowering costs as low wage jobs are Outsourced to countries that can do the job cheaper.
This will free up Americans to concentrate on high wage jobs most notably in high tech fields.
The low wage jobs have been outsourced, the middle wage jobs are being outsourced. Where are the high tech jobs?
Free Markets are suppose to provide cheaper, better goods by fostering competition how come we don't have the best high speed internet then?
Can America keep its edge in high tech with an internet slower than South Korea? High Government Regulation countries South Korea and France seem to have no problem delivering benefits for their consumers.
Maybe if Free Markets were not worried about Shareholder profits so much we would not be so behind.