75 replies to this topic

[Alex Libman]

And they'll love their servitude, Alex!

Bingo. They'll be dancing and cheering all the way to the slaughterhouse.

You said you wanted to opt out of government services and something else like "after government is abolished".

If it is routinely possible to escape government, then it's no longer "government" (i.e. a monopoly on force), but a voluntary institution, like a bizarre suicide cult of some sort.

What exactly is it that people too stupid to understand your ideology will be getting when you succeed? How do you plan on giving it to them?

I don't plan on "giving it to them", I plan to save myself and let them burn in the fires of their own making. Read Atlas Shrugged.

[ultranaut]

Read Atlas Shrugged.

Speaking of "like a bizarre suicide cult"...
Seriously though, Rand is the half-witted Lenin to von Mises' Marx. Objectivism is propaganda, it's a fantasy ideology that glorifies being an anti-social greedy asshole. I know this probably offends you and the rest of the Randians here, but you guys are the "useful idiots" of corporate totalitarianism.

[Mind]

Thought it would be a good time to revive this classic from Pravda from about one year ago.

One would be tempted to claim it ironic that a Russian writer is lecturing the US about freedom, but when someone has experienced the opposite so recently, he/she is probably drawing from more wisdom than most US citizens possess today.

Edited by Mind, 06 May 2010 - 10:48 PM.

[bobdrake12]

Thought it would be a good time to revive this classic from Pravda from about one year ago.

One would be tempted to claim it ironic that a Russian writer is lecturing the US about freedom, but when someone has experienced the opposite so recently, he/she is probably drawing from more wisdom than most US citizens possess today.

Well said, Mind. And thanks for the article.

[bobdrake12]

Read Atlas Shrugged.

Speaking of "like a bizarre suicide cult"...
Seriously though, Rand is the half-witted Lenin to von Mises' Marx. Objectivism is propaganda, it's a fantasy ideology that glorifies being an anti-social greedy asshole. I know this probably offends you and the rest of the Randians here, but you guys are the "useful idiots" of corporate totalitarianism.

Your rationale ultranaut? In other words, can you provide specifics?

[Alex Libman]

Speaking of "like a bizarre suicide cult"...

Objectivism, Suicide, and Cult... I think you just invented a three-way oxymoron!

Seriously though, Rand is the half-witted Lenin to von Mises' Marx.

Ayn Rand has no similarities with Lenin, a murderous pragmatist, except perhaps ethnicity and atheism. And Mises hardly ranks on the list of Top 10 influences on Rand, which included an unholy orgy of Aristotle, Victor Hugo, and a bunch of "Goldwater republicans". Oh my...

corporate totalitarianism

Another oxymoron.

[Mind]

This Greece thing is very interesting (thanks for bringing up the discussion Bobdrake). I was wondering aloud earlier "how much debt can a nation pile up - or print?" There has to be a limit, right? There has to be some essential value being created by human economic activity in order to "pay the bills", right? Am I missing something? It seems Greece has found a limit. Too many years with a bloated public work force getting more wages, benefits, pensions, bonuses, than anyone in the private sector. There is just not enough real value-generating activity to pay the bills - to pay the enormous public sector. While most other European countries are better off than Greece, they all still have debt and they all still have very large public sectors with very generous benefits. What is the solution. Does Greece just default on their loans? That seems to be the road they are headed down. If this happens, who is going to keep loaning money to social-democracies with similar problems as Greece. I wouldn't. What about the riots? When I was poor and didn't have any cushy benefits (I still don't), I didn't riot. I just got by. Ate less. Not much recreation, traveling or expensive entertainment. Are Greek public workers so spoiled, that they cannot live on less? It seems austerity is in order. Do Greeks expect people to keep loaning them money. To all of our Greek members, I am sorry that this might sound harsh, and I know there are many of you who are hard-working and sensible with money, but do you have any insight into the psych of the population right now?

I think this has some bearing on life extension, because if the social-democracies of the west (the U.S. is getting much much worse as well - as far as debt goes) unravel, then there will be much less money for research. There could be a set back of a few years where we have to "pay the bills" and "just get by". Like I mentioned earlier, the only way I can see avoiding a very deep and long-lived recession, is through rapid technological progress (singularity-type progress). Progress is happening very fast nowadays, but can it keep up with the headlong rush into bankruptcy that our elected officials seem so eager to send us?

Edited by Mind, 07 May 2010 - 09:44 PM.

[bobdrake12]

This Greece thing is very interesting (thanks for bringing up the discussion Bobdrake). I was wondering aloud earlier "how much debt can a nation pile up - or print?" There has to be a limit, right? There has to be some essential value being created by human economic activity in order to "pay the bills", right? Am I missing something? It seems Greece has found a limit. Too many years with a bloated public work force getting more wages, benefits, pensions, bonuses, than anyone in the private sector. There is just not enough real value-generating activity to pay the bills - to pay the enormous public sector. While most other European countries are better off than Greece, they all still have debt and they all still have very large public sectors with very generous benefits. What is the solution. Does Greece just default on their loans? That seems to be the road they are headed down. If this happens, who is going to keep loaning money to social-democracies with similar problems as Greece. I wouldn't. What about the riots? When I was poor and didn't have any cushy benefits (I still don't), I didn't riot. I just got by. Ate less. Not much recreation, traveling or expensive entertainment. Are Greek public workers so spoiled, that they cannot live on less? It seems austerity is in order. Do Greeks expect people to keep loaning them money. To all of our Greek members, I am sorry that this might sound harsh, and I know there are many of you who are hard-working and sensible with money, but do you have any insight into the psych of the population right now?

I think this has some bearing on life extension, because if the social-democracies of the west (the U.S. is getting much much worse as well - as far as debt goes) unravel, then there will be much less money for research. There could be a set back of a few years where we have to "pay the bills" and "just get by". Like I mentioned earlier, the only way I can see avoiding a very deep and long-lived recession, is through rapid technological progress (singularity-type progress). Progress is happening very fast nowadays, but can it keep up with the headlong rush into bankruptcy that our elected officials seem so eager to send us?

Interesting questions, Mind.

I don't believe the EU will allow Greece to default on their loans although the Greek President is acting like it's his idea not to default

As this story unfolds, hopefully we can get some meaningful answers to your question.

We now have a global, interelated economy. And it looks like the debt crisis could go global.

Some believe that a significant reason for the Greek debt crisis is due to the "Too Big to Fail Policy". Here is Celente's take:

According to Bob Chapman of the International Forecaster, ~19 countries are in trouble.

[bobdrake12]

Like I mentioned earlier, the only way I can see avoiding a very deep and long-lived recession, is through rapid technological progress (singularity-type progress).

There is an inherent problem with our current debt based monetary system:

o Only the amount of the P (Principal) is created as the "loan"
o P (Principal) +I (Interest) must to be paid back
o Thus, money created is < money demanded

Compounding the debt based monetary problem:

o Primary lenders *create* new money ---> Secondary lenders *loan* existing money
o Nowhere in the current system is there a *restriction* on relending money that was created as a loan
o Nor is there any obligation upon the banks to make their profits from interest available to be earned by borrowers enabling them to extinguish their debt
o Instead, bankers invest their profits to make further profits

Check out this video:

Hopefully, this provides insight to what Gerald Celente of Trends Research and Bob Chapman of The International Forecaster are saying.

Edited by bobdrake12, 08 May 2010 - 12:08 PM.

[Mind]

We (governments) are out of money.

Unfortunately this bears on life extension as well. California is so bankrupt it is not funny. Unfortunately, California is where there is a lot of research going on. SENSF moved there last year. They should have moved to Texas, but then, there is still a lot of private money in California, but I can't be very optimistic about the conditions there. I wonder if California will be able to keep their commitments to fund stem cell research?

[Alex Libman]

We [...]

I guess that's the reader's first clue that the Reason Magazine isn't a principled libertarian publication. "We"? "We" who? Show me the documents verifying the informed consent of all people included in this "we" (with documents signed under coercion being null and void). Thought so - there is no "we", just a gang of lying thugs that presume to act on your behalf down the barrel of a gun!

[AdamSummerfield]

Alex, I don't think there is any chance of a voluntary society coming into existence here on Earth. Any attempt to do so would require military force, since I doubt any region, such as a county in one of the United States, would call such a thing to a vote. Why not focus your energy on being one of the earliest cyborgs/posthumans so that you can establish such a society with like minds on Mars, the Moon or Titan?

[Alex Libman]

Uhhh.... who spilled the beans about our secret base on Titan?!

[bobdrake12]

http://www.investors....aspx?id=532490

U.S. Debt Shock May Hit In 2018, Maybe As Soon As 2013: Moody's
By JED GRAHAM, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY (exerpts)
Posted 05/05/2010 07:56 PM ET

Spiraling debt is Uncle Sam's shock collar, and its jolt may await like an invisible pet fence.

"Nobody knows when you bump up against the limit, but you know when it happens it will really hurt," said fiscal watchdog Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

The great uncertainty about how much debt is too much has tended to make fiscal discipline seem less urgent, rather than more. There is no obvious threshold beyond which investors will demand higher real yields for holding U.S. debt. Vague warnings from ratings agencies about the loss of America's 'AAA' status haven't added much clarity — until recently.

In the wake of the financial crisis and recession, Moody's Investors Service has brought new transparency to its sovereign ratings analysis — so much so that 2018 lights up as the year the U.S. could be in line for a downgrade if Congressional Budget Office projections hold.

The key data point in Moody's view is the size of federal interest payments on the public debt as a percentage of tax revenue. For the U.S., debt service of 18%-20% of federal revenue is the outer limit of AAA-territory, Moody's managing director Pierre Cailleteau confirmed in an e-mail.

[bobdrake12]

http://www.reuters.c...E64B53W20100512

U.S. posts 19th straight monthly budget deficit

(Reuters) - The United States posted an $82.69 billion deficit in April, nearly four times the $20.91 billion shortfall registered in April 2009 and the largest on record for that month, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

It was more than twice the $40-billion deficit that Wall Street economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast and was striking since April marks the filing deadline for individual income taxes that are the main source of government revenue.

Department officials said that in prior years, there was a surplus during April in 43 out of the past 56 years.

The government has now posted 19 consecutive monthly budget deficits, the longest string of shortfalls on record.

For the first seven months of fiscal 2010, which ends September 30, the cumulative budget deficit totals $799.68 billion, down slightly from $802.3 billion in the comparable period of fiscal 2009.

Outlays during April rose to $327.96 billion from $218.75 billion in March and were up from $287.11 billion in April 2009. It was a record level of outlays for an April.

Department officials noted there were five Fridays in April this year, which helped account for higher outlays since most tax refunds are issued on that day.

But for the first seven months of the fiscal year, outlays fell to $1.99 trillion from $2.06 trillion in the comparable period of fiscal 2009, partly because of repayments by banks of bailout funds they received during the financial crisis.

Receipts in April -- mostly from income taxes -- were $245.27 billion, up from $153.36 billion in March but lower than the $266.21 billion taken in during April 2009.

Receipts from individuals, who faced an April 15 filing deadline for paying 2009 taxes, fell to $107.31 billion from $137.67 billion in April 2009.

The U.S. full-year deficit this year is projected at $1.5 trillion on top of a $1.4 trillion shortfall last year.

White House budget director Peter Orszag told Reuters Insider in an interview on Wednesday that the United States must tackle its deficits quickly to avoid the kind of debt crisis that hit Greece.

(Reporting by Glenn Somerville, Editing by Diane Craft)

[bobdrake12]

http://blogs.telegra...ank-of-england/

US faces same problems as Greece, says Bank of England (excerpts)

Last updated: May 13th, 2010

Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, fears that America shares many of the same fiscal problems currently haunting Europe. He also believes that European Union must become a federalised fiscal union (in other words with central power to tax and spend) if it is to survive. Just two of the nuggets from one of the most extraordinary press conferences I have been to at the Bank.

Every country around the world is in a similar position, even the United States; the world’s largest economy has a very large fiscal deficit. And one of the concerns in financial markets is clearly – how will this enormous stock of public debt be reduced over the next few years? And it’s very important that governments, both here and elsewhere, get to grips with this problem, have a clear approach and a very clear and credible approach to reducing the size of those deficits over, in our case, the lifetime of this parliament, in order to convince markets that they should be willing to continue to finance the very large sums of money that will be needed to be raised from financial markets over the next few years, at reasonable interest rates.

[bobdrake12]

Edited by bobdrake12, 14 May 2010 - 01:08 AM.

[bobdrake12]

[bobdrake12]

[bobdrake12]

http://gatewaypundit...n-once-thought/

Revealed: Obama-Pelosi Economic Disaster Worse Than Once Thought (excerpts)
Posted by Jim Hoft on Saturday, May 15, 2010, 10:17 AM

It’s much worse than we thought.

Under the Obama Administration the national debt in the US will climb to above 100% in less than 5 years.
Edmund Conway at The Telegraph reported, via Power Line:

[T]he really interesting stuff is the detail, and what leaps out again and again is how much of a hill the US has to climb. Exhibit a is the fact that under the Obama administration’s current fiscal plans, the national debt in the US (on a gross basis) will climb to above 100pc of GDP by 2015 – a far steeper increase than almost any other country.



According to CIA 2009 statistics, the US debt to GDP ratio is currently at 52.9%. Greece currently has a GDP to debt ratio at 108%.

[Alex Libman]

The good news is that USA's GDP has much greater prospects for growth than any country in Europe.

Last night I devoured a book called The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm. It didn't teach me anything I didn't already know, but helped me put some things in perspective, and explained some recent trends I've observed as being a lot less harmful than I originally thought. Obama's presidency, environmentalist hysteria, slow housing market recovery, the fertility rate dip - it's all about the marketers chasing after Generation Y (and creating some self-fulfilling prophecies along the way)!

Generation Y'ers will eventually grow out of their desire to "save the world", and the threats that governments and corporate marketers have invented to appeal to them (ex. "global warming") will simply go away. They will get jobs, buy homes (with more reality-based credit requirements), and learn the value of a dollar.

Y'ers are a lot more tolerant than the expiring generation, so we're not going to have Republican presidents like Dubya ever again! Within the Republican Party, it were the Y'ers that passionately supported Ron Paul, and that trend will continue as more Y'ers become Republicans. As most Y'ers have very good computer skills, immigrants will not be seen as a threat to their job security but instead cheap labor that will benefit them. Restrictions on immigration will be reduced, Muslim immigrants will form a greater political lobby than the Israelis, and the terrorism hysteria will eventually "just go away" as well.

Y'ers will still want pot legalized and remain liberal on most social issues, including free speech, but they will become more fiscally conservative as they age, so some mild forms of libertarianism definitely have a very bright future in this country.

Edited by Alex Libman, 16 May 2010 - 08:27 PM.

[bobdrake12]

The good news is that USA's GDP has much greater prospects for growth than any country in Europe.

Last night I devoured a book called The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm. It didn't teach me anything I didn't already know, but helped me put some things in perspective, and explained some recent trends I've observed as being a lot less harmful than I originally thought. Obama's presidency, environmentalist hysteria, slow housing market recovery, the fertility rate dip - it's all about the marketers chasing after Generation Y (and creating some self-fulfilling prophecies along the way)!

Generation Y'ers will eventually grow out of their desire to "save the world", and the threats that governments and corporate marketers have invented to appeal to them (ex. "global warming") will simply go away. They will get jobs, buy homes (with more reality-based credit requirements), and learn the value of a dollar.

Y'ers are a lot more tolerant than the expiring generation, so we're not going to have Republican presidents like Dubya ever again! Within the Republican Party, it were the Y'ers that passionately supported Ron Paul, and that trend will continue as more Y'ers become Republicans. As most Y'ers have very good computer skills, immigrants will not be seen as a threat to their job security but instead cheap labor that will benefit them. Restrictions on immigration will be reduced, Muslim immigrants will form a greater political lobby than the Israelis, and the terrorism hysteria will eventually "just go away" as well.

Y'ers will still want pot legalized and remain liberal on most social issues, including free speech, but they will become more fiscally conservative as they age, so some mild forms of libertarianism definitely have a very bright future in this country.

This is very good news, Alex!

Did the article say how the U.S. is going to tackle its trade deficit?

Trade deficit article

[Alex Libman]

Does the trade balance reflect all of America's hidden exports?

For example, have you been to an American university or even a technical school lately? The campuses are filled with foreign students who come here to get a world-recognized reputable education, stay 4-7 years while they get their degrees, and max out their rich parents' credit cards! Those goods never cross borders, but that does in effect constitute an export. The same effect also applies to tourism, for which USA is the #2 destination in the world, and even immigration to some degree.

International business arrangements also make trying to quantify cross-border transactions very deceptive. An American engineering company might make $10 in profit per product, while that product's Chinese manufacturer only makes a few pennies, but because those products are physically transferred to America they still count as an import! America is also branching off a lot of cultural exports that haven't began to bare fruit yet - a lot of people in Nigeria watch pirated Hollywood movies without any money flowing back directly, but the cultural influences linger and will begin to pay off when Nigerians become wealthy enough to buy produces they've seen in those movies. Microsoft has learned to tolerate third world piracy to some degree, because they know it will benefit them in the long run. Etc.

Edited by Alex Libman, 17 May 2010 - 07:17 AM.

[chris w]

Read Atlas Shrugged.

Speaking of "like a bizarre suicide cult"...
Seriously though, Rand is the half-witted Lenin to von Mises' Marx. Objectivism is propaganda, it's a fantasy ideology that glorifies being an anti-social greedy asshole. I know this probably offends you and the rest of the Randians here, but you guys are the "useful idiots" of corporate totalitarianism.

Your rationale ultranaut? In other words, can you provide specifics?

http://en.wikipedia....g_plant_murders

Colombia

Panamerican Beverages (Panamco), Coca-Cola's main bottler in Latin America, has been criticized for its relationship with unions. In Colombia, it has been alleged that the bottling company hired paramilitary mercenaries to assassinate union leaders. These charges have resulted in several court cases and boycott actions against The Coca-Cola Company.

In July 2001, the United Steelworkers of America and the International Labor Rights Fund filed suit in US court against Coca-Cola and some bottlers in Colombia on behalf of their workers.[37] This lawsuit was titled Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola. According to the plaintiffs, the companies "hired, contracted with or otherwise directed paramilitary security forces". The companies denied the charges. In April 2003 District Judge Jose E Martinez in Miami excluded The Coca-Cola Company and its Colombian unit because its bottling agreement did not give it "explicit control" over labor issues in Colombia.

In January 2004, a New York City-based fact-finding delegation, a self-initiated group that included some city officials in a personal capacity,[38] confirmed the workers' allegations. They found:

To date, there have been a total of 179 major human rights violations of Coca-Cola's workers, including 9 murders. Family members of union activists have been abducted and tortured. Union members have been fired for attending union meetings. The company has pressured workers to resign their union membership and contractual rights, and fired workers who refused to do so.

Most troubling to the delegation were the persistent allegations that paramilitary violence against workers was done with the knowledge of and likely under the direction of company managers. The physical access that paramilitaries have had to Coca-Cola bottling plants is impossible without company knowledge and/or tacit approval....

The bottler and The Coca-Cola Company deny these allegations. Specifically, The Coca-Cola Company stated in its 2004 proxy[39]

Two different independent inquiries in Colombia —a judicial inquiry by a Colombian Court, and an inquiry by the Colombian Attorney General's office— examined the specific issue of whether managers at a bottling plant were complicit in the murder of a trade unionist ( and I'm sure they can be trusted because Columbia has so high judicial standards and would totally go against one of the biggest american corps ). They found no evidence to support the allegation. Further, based on internal investigations conducted by our Company and by our bottling partners ( haha, fuckin hilarious ! ), we are confident that allegations the bottlers engaged paramilitaries to intimidate trade unionists are false.

The allegations made against us in Colombia are not merely false; they are repugnant to all of us at The Coca-Cola Company. We agree with the proponents that our Company must clearly demonstrate that we and our bottling partners support human and labor rights and oppose all forms of violence. Our desire is for Coca-Cola to be seen as part of the solution to some of the business issues in Colombia today. We are convinced our current approach will allow for that outcome.

Critics argue that, whatever their source, these assassinations seem to have been helpful to Coca-Cola in eliminating agitators from their bottling plants.
[edit] SINALTRAINAL lawsuit

Colombian trade union SINALTRAINAL (National Union of Food Industry Workers) called for an international boycott of Coca-Cola products because of intimidation, kidnapping and murder of workers in Coca Cola bottling plants by paramilitaries who were acting on behalf of the Coca Cola Company in order to drive down wages in Colombia.[citation needed] With the help of the United Steelworkers of America, SINALTRAINAL filed a lawsuit against the Coca Cola Company (Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola). On March 31, 2003, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida dismissed charges against The Coca-Cola Company because the alleged wrongdoing either occurred in the United States but was too removed from the injury or occurred abroad but did not have a substantial origin within the United States.[6] Judge Jose E. Martinez allowed the case to go forward against two Coca-Cola bottlers: Bebidas y Alimentos and Panamerican Beverages, but not against Coke itself.[7] On September 4, 2006, Judge Martinez dismissed the remaining claims against the two bottlers.[40]
[edit] Shareholder resolution attempt (2002)

In 2002, Christian Brothers Investment Services, Inc. submitted, along with other co-filers, a shareholder resolution that called for Coca-Cola to adopt a code of conduct on bottling practices and employee relations. Problems in Colombia were cited, but the proposal called for "clear standards for its suppliers, vendors and bottlers."[41] The resolution received support from Coca-Cola unions in Colombia, Guatemala, Zimbabwe, the Philippines, and the United States.[42]

However, Coca Cola's board of directors recommended rejecting the proposal, noting in the proxy: "We believe that the Company's existing policies address substantially all of the concerns raised in this proposal, and that the proposal is therefore unnecessary... For example, both our policy and the Principles specifically provide that we (i) will not condone the exploitation of children, physical punishment or involuntary servitude; and (ii) will pay wages that enable our employees to meet their basic needs."[43]

Ultimately, shareholders rejected the resolution."

Not totalitarianism, but not the nicest way to do bussiness either. To me this illustrates nicely the uglier face of private enterprise - anything goes as long as the average customer doesn't give a shit, because it happened in some dirty jungle far away to sweaty peasants.

Edited by chris w, 17 May 2010 - 03:20 PM.

[chris w]

Read Atlas Shrugged.

Objectivism is propaganda, it's a fantasy ideology that glorifies being an anti-social greedy asshole.

I always wondered why libertarianism is so suspicioussly apealing to people who don't need to deal so much with other people in everyday life - IT workers, programmers etc.

Edited by chris w, 17 May 2010 - 06:23 PM.

[bobdrake12]

http://en.wikipedia....g_plant_murders

Colombia

Panamerican Beverages (Panamco), Coca-Cola's main bottler in Latin America, has been criticized for its relationship with unions. In Colombia, it has been alleged that the bottling company hired paramilitary mercenaries to assassinate union leaders. These charges have resulted in several court cases and boycott actions against The Coca-Cola Company.

In July 2001, the United Steelworkers of America and the International Labor Rights Fund filed suit in US court against Coca-Cola and some bottlers in Colombia on behalf of their workers.[37] This lawsuit was titled Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola. According to the plaintiffs, the companies "hired, contracted with or otherwise directed paramilitary security forces". The companies denied the charges. In April 2003 District Judge Jose E Martinez in Miami excluded The Coca-Cola Company and its Colombian unit because its bottling agreement did not give it "explicit control" over labor issues in Colombia.

In January 2004, a New York City-based fact-finding delegation, a self-initiated group that included some city officials in a personal capacity,[38] confirmed the workers' allegations. They found:

To date, there have been a total of 179 major human rights violations of Coca-Cola's workers, including 9 murders. Family members of union activists have been abducted and tortured. Union members have been fired for attending union meetings. The company has pressured workers to resign their union membership and contractual rights, and fired workers who refused to do so.

Most troubling to the delegation were the persistent allegations that paramilitary violence against workers was done with the knowledge of and likely under the direction of company managers. The physical access that paramilitaries have had to Coca-Cola bottling plants is impossible without company knowledge and/or tacit approval....

The bottler and The Coca-Cola Company deny these allegations. Specifically, The Coca-Cola Company stated in its 2004 proxy[39]

Two different independent inquiries in Colombia —a judicial inquiry by a Colombian Court, and an inquiry by the Colombian Attorney General's office— examined the specific issue of whether managers at a bottling plant were complicit in the murder of a trade unionist ( and I'm sure they can be trusted because Columbia has so high judicial standards and would totally go against one of the biggest american corps ). They found no evidence to support the allegation. Further, based on internal investigations conducted by our Company and by our bottling partners ( haha, fuckin hilarious ! ), we are confident that allegations the bottlers engaged paramilitaries to intimidate trade unionists are false.

The allegations made against us in Colombia are not merely false; they are repugnant to all of us at The Coca-Cola Company. We agree with the proponents that our Company must clearly demonstrate that we and our bottling partners support human and labor rights and oppose all forms of violence. Our desire is for Coca-Cola to be seen as part of the solution to some of the business issues in Colombia today. We are convinced our current approach will allow for that outcome.

Critics argue that, whatever their source, these assassinations seem to have been helpful to Coca-Cola in eliminating agitators from their bottling plants.
[edit] SINALTRAINAL lawsuit

Colombian trade union SINALTRAINAL (National Union of Food Industry Workers) called for an international boycott of Coca-Cola products because of intimidation, kidnapping and murder of workers in Coca Cola bottling plants by paramilitaries who were acting on behalf of the Coca Cola Company in order to drive down wages in Colombia.[citation needed] With the help of the United Steelworkers of America, SINALTRAINAL filed a lawsuit against the Coca Cola Company (Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola). On March 31, 2003, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida dismissed charges against The Coca-Cola Company because the alleged wrongdoing either occurred in the United States but was too removed from the injury or occurred abroad but did not have a substantial origin within the United States.[6] Judge Jose E. Martinez allowed the case to go forward against two Coca-Cola bottlers: Bebidas y Alimentos and Panamerican Beverages, but not against Coke itself.[7] On September 4, 2006, Judge Martinez dismissed the remaining claims against the two bottlers.[40]
[edit] Shareholder resolution attempt (2002)

In 2002, Christian Brothers Investment Services, Inc. submitted, along with other co-filers, a shareholder resolution that called for Coca-Cola to adopt a code of conduct on bottling practices and employee relations. Problems in Colombia were cited, but the proposal called for "clear standards for its suppliers, vendors and bottlers."[41] The resolution received support from Coca-Cola unions in Colombia, Guatemala, Zimbabwe, the Philippines, and the United States.[42]

However, Coca Cola's board of directors recommended rejecting the proposal, noting in the proxy: "We believe that the Company's existing policies address substantially all of the concerns raised in this proposal, and that the proposal is therefore unnecessary... For example, both our policy and the Principles specifically provide that we (i) will not condone the exploitation of children, physical punishment or involuntary servitude; and (ii) will pay wages that enable our employees to meet their basic needs."[43]

Ultimately, shareholders rejected the resolution."

Not totalitarianism, but not the nicest way to do bussiness either. To me this illustrates nicely the uglier face of private enterprise - anything goes as long as the average customer doesn't give a shit, because it happened in some dirty jungle far away to sweaty peasants.

Thanks for the example, chris w.

[Alex Libman]

http://en.wikipedia....g_plant_murders

Unions would be pretty much pointless in a free society - people found joining a union could be fired, quickly replaced, blacklisted, and would have a very hard time finding work every again. Unions operate entirely through violence: trespassing, violation of contract, destruction of property, and of course institutionalized government force. The people that form corporations do have a Right to defend themselves and their property!

I always wondered why libertarianism is so suspicioussly apealing to people who don't need to deal so much with other people in everyday life - IT workers, programmers etc.

The appeal of libertarian capitalist philosophy tends to correlate with logical reasoning skills, so you'll find more libertarian freelance programmers and .com entrepreneurs than office network plumbers. You will not find many lighthouse keepers or remote weather station operators who are libertarians.

[chris w]

Unions would be pretty much pointless in a free society - people found joining a union could be fired, quickly replaced, blacklisted, and would have a very hard time finding work every again. Unions operate entirely through violence: trespassing, violation of contract, destruction of property, and of course institutionalized government force. The people that form corporations do have a Right to defend themselves and their property!

And it's ok to hire death squads to keep the bottling fast and smooth, so that the $ flow is kept even ? Nice. In your "free society" the existence of vast numbers of people would be pretty pointless actually, meaning those without the traits ( think of modelling industry - accidental facial features making bucks for their owner ) and abilities deemed valuable by the all knowing free market, and don't tell me they should learn, some people are just galactically stupid ( which breaks down to lausy brain function, irrelevant of anything like free will ) and some just won't be able to get the skills if they can't afford the training ( and they're broke in the first place because they don't have the skills, maybe they would go to school.... but oh.... wait.... there are no free schools anymore or are but thanks to anti tax sentiments they went the road of California's public education since 1978's Proposition 13).

I don't see libertarianism as anything else than just a fancy shmancy party dress for the good old Victorian social darwinism, updated with a crappily written novel that Atlas Shrugged is. You will say that in free society there will still be voluntary charity, but tell me how the future reign of atheism that we can be certain about will help in that ? It's safe to say that enourmously large part of charital activity today is spurred by religious incentives ( like the Islamic zakat ), when people stop believing in afterlife, why would they work to get to heaven by helping the poor stupid bums, who will become as important as used toilet paper to them?

On the end note, the history of my country in the eighties shows that all the tresspassing and violation of contract may be in synch with fight for individualism - Solidarity Movement ( who were for most part religious lunatics and that idiot Wałęsa on top of this, but still ).

The appeal of libertarian capitalist philosophy tends to correlate with logical reasoning skills, so you'll find more libertarian freelance programmers and .com entrepreneurs than office network plumbers. You will not find many lighthouse keepers or remote weather station operators who are libertarians.

Nicely phrased, but I'm affaraid it has more to do with the appeal of big cash that the .com entrepreneur will be more likely to put his hands on than the plumber. I don't know about studies showing the correlation between high IQ and adhering to Anarcho Capitalism, but I know about the study showing correlation between low levels of empathy and Anarcho Capitalism http://www.asymptosi...d-sympathy.html . Don't take this personally, I'm not saying you particular Alex Libman are a soulless greedy asshole. We are all soulless in the end right ? , I just don't think it's fair to ideologically justify this with BS concepts like "the virtue of selfishness".

Edited by chris w, 18 May 2010 - 01:50 PM.

[JLL]

People donate a lot of money to charity even today, when the government has first stolen half of their money through taxes, raised the prices of goods through regulation, and then made their money worth less through inflation.

Even many of the extremely rich people like Bill Gates are quite willing to part with their money for what they find is a good cause.

Edited by JLL, 18 May 2010 - 02:01 PM.

[chris w]

Even many of the extremely rich people like Bill Gates are quite willing to part with their money for what they find is a good cause.

Totally true but what if tomorrow Bill Gates became a Satanist and thought that the doesn't give a damn about Africa anymore ? Sure, that's his Satan's given right, but shows that private philanthropy, as good as it is, is like a mercy fuck - "maybe I will, maybe I won't". It makes the beneficiaries of it hang on the sole whim of the beneficient, kind of a kick in the dignity if you ask me.

Edited by chris w, 18 May 2010 - 02:54 PM.