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Wall of Text Warning!!!
I would have found that far less entertaining.
Heh. Well, whatever makes you happy, I suppose.
But you believe that if it were more of a problem that the government would be justified in stepping in and protecting people from themselves?
No. The government should never protect people from themselves. The government should prevent people from harming others. Like murder, thievery, etc.
In your example, it could be argued that Person B, trading for the card which will be canceled, is stealing from Person A, who does not know about such.
That, I think, is the essence of the insider trading rules.
I think the insider trading rules are necessary, but feel free to present an argument to the contrary.
Why should it be anyone's responsibility other than the consenting adults involved to determine whether or not the deal they are entering into is to their benefit or not?
It shouldn’t be, in most cases. In this case, however, it seems to be reasonable to me.
And this is somehow different from any other voluntary arrangement? No one is holding a gun to an employee's head and telling them that they can't quit their job, start their own business and produce their own capital.
If employers treat their employees like slaves, they do so with the employee's consent.
I tend to agree with you. But in some cases, I think such could be abused. I still don’t like minimum wage, though.
Why do they need to be regulated? What compelling reason do we have to protect people from themselves?
None, IMO. It is the potential harm to others that is the issue.
As an example, suppose a company designs, builds, and markets a product which is defective. Defective to the point of potentially causing harm to those who purchase it. The company, through incompetence, doesn’t know it is defective until many have been sold. None of those who purchase the product know it is defective until the first incident occurs.
Sure, you could then punish the company for building a harmful product, force them to pay for repairs to the person who died, and they will lose business most likely, as people avoid a company which made a defective product.
But someone still was harmed, or perhaps died, because there was no regulation except self-regulation, which in this case, failed.
I once read a sci-fi book, in which the author imagined a society with no laws except those prohibiting people from harming others.
To get around situations like the example I posed, the author had multiple 3rd party private regulatory agencies. Basically, they were paid to examine/audit companies by the companies themselves, and then allowed those they had examined to place their seal of approval on a product.
I suppose you would have no issue with such.
So for example, I am a member of REI, which is a co-op. It means I am a partial owner. I pay dues and as a result I get cheap outdoor gear. People who don't want cheap outdoor gear are not forced to pay dues through the threat of violence or incarceration.
Sometimes people come into the store, not to buy anything, but just to get out of the cold. We owners pay for the heating and they freeload off it, but really, that’s fine. Its just the cost of doing business.
That example would seem to be quite different from a co-op governing a town, county, state, or the whole nation.
And in some ways the same, I suppose.
But after further thought, the main reason I dislike the idea is that it seems to limit the ability to have a say in what the governing body does to those who, through some form of capital transfer, pay for that right.
This, in my mind, is not acceptable.
It is my opinion that the right to vote should be something everyone who reaches adulthood has. Lets not get into a discussion about when someone is an adult, or how there are some 40+ year-old children out there, you know what I refer to.
Why shouldn't they be allowed to consent to being exploited? Especially since they can quit their job and unexploit themselves at any time? How is that fundamentally different from someone consenting to be a sex slave?
It isn’t, really, but if they are the breadwinner for their family, said exploitation, however self-imposed you want to couch it as, affects their dependents.
Yeah, I think letting people determine the value of their own labour would be better. It would involve no bureaucracy and would cost no tax dollars.
True, and I tend towards support of eliminating the minimum wage standards, as such fits my ideals of how the world should work.
But I don’t know that it does work that way, so I can’t say for sure that it is the best way.
And what's to keep the employees from banding together and forming labour unions to oppose the employer's cartels?
Nothing, unless laws are passed to prevent it (and I think that would be unconstitutional).
But the very idea of employer or employee organizations of this sort, however informal, seems counter to the idea that competition is good.
Wage-fixing measures from either side would seem to reduce the opportunities for employees to compete for better-paying positions due to ability.
Ah, there we go. Safety at the expense of liberty is really the heart of the issue. Why then should sex be excluded? Why not make safe sex mandatory? Issue licenses to those apply to produce children and make everyone else use a condom?
Because the vast majority of people consider sex, sex lives, and who can have babies to be no ones business.
But nowhere near as many people consider it to be no ones business what someone does in a financial transaction.
Either that, or laws were passed against the will of the people, and they just didn’t care enough to protest to the point that such was changed.
, for me to from the evilness of my heart start paying him less (not great for employee retention) or for her to demand higher pay as a requirement for her continued participation in the arrangement. (which would be a smart move on her part since I am clearly willing to pay more for the services she provides)
