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No Subject
by Rod Logic 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Capitalism and Monopolies (was RE: GPL & commercial software, the critical distinction)
by Matthew James Gering 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Choate wrote: > Only after the early 1890's when the situation got so bad > they had to do something. Prior to that there was no federal > intervention in railroad operations per se Completely false. Traffic to/from the West coast did not warrant the capital investment in transcontinental railway, so the government make *exclusive* lands grants to specific railroads to extend the railways to the West coast (100M acres between 1863-7) . Those subsidies created the monopolies, the source of coercive power over Western farmers. Protest against this arbitrary power was blamed on the market instead of the government subsidies, and resulted in the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, and the Sherman Act of 1890. I should have stated government "distortions" instead of "regulation." That includes subsidies. > And every drop of mineral rights in this country is owned > by oil companies or the US government as a result of the > conflicts that took place from the late 1800's to the > early 1900's. The placement (ownership) of these rights, their value, restrictions and enforcement are the result of a free market? No, government intervention. > Actualy the local and state regulators did that back in the > late 50's and early 60's the federals had no hand in it. Did anyone ever state monopolies result from federal regulations? Government distortion/intervention, that can come at any level. Acts of force or coercion can create a monopolistic situation, free trade cannot. > Bullshit math. The interactions are nowhere near as simple as > you state. The big company has the resources to outlast the > smaller company in any industry that can monopolize (an issue > you seem to miss, not all industries can monopolize) So what is the discriminating factor(s) distinguishing industries that can and cannot be monopolized? Don't forget capital markets; a free fluid capital market can and will support a smaller competitor if potential long term profits will support it. I will qualify that we do not have a very free capital market, it currently favors larger businesses. The answer is to deregulate the capital market. Even with our heavily regulated capital markets this works often. > Examples please where a small firm dukes it out (sic) on > equal terms with a larger one... Equality is about freedom of action, not status or result. Amazon vs Barnes & Noble, Yahoo vs NBC, Red Hat vs Microsoft, etc. I see the egalitarian perversion of "equality" polluting arguments against free market capitalism. Equal states and "game" like fairness and handicapping is not ideal, Freedom is ideal. > > In one of those nordic countries, I think Finland, the phone > > system was never made a public enterprise or state regulated > > monopoly, but most other things were. > > Then how does it operate? Who owns the switches and wires? > Either it's a public utility or it's some sort of private > enterprise (though it may by under contract to the government). However buys and installs the switches and wires. There is no artificial barriers such as right-of-way restrictions, exclusive franchise, utilities commission, or nationalization. There are many competing telecom companies, all the way to local loop. > > There is no "natural monopoly" that is not somewhere a > > A 'natural' monoploy, to my mind, is a company that operates > in an industry that can be saturated. That's a perverted definition of 'natural' monopoly. A 'natural' monopoly involves something where all or none must benefit (e.g. military defense) or something based on a severely scarce resource (e.g. real estate to your house). Market saturation is a natural effect of free competition, the number of firms it takes is irrelevant, and competition is not barred by artificial restraint, only profit. If a firm abuses its position competition can and will capitalize on the opportunity. A coercive monopoly is one that is immune to market constraints (supply and demand) -- that requires artificial barriers. > The VCR industry is a great example of a 'natural' monopoly. You must be joking. I could enter the video recording/playback equipment market tomorrow with sufficient capitalization and turn good profits in 5 years. I didn't say VCR because that is terribly myopic, the market demand is the function not the technology. Technology and innovation is a natural destabilizer to monopoly positions. Matt

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RE: I thought of an initialy regulated industry!... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From: "Blanc" <blancw(a)cnw.com> > Subject: RE: I thought of an initialy regulated industry!... (fwd) > Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 21:09:55 -0700 > Free market economices don't "work", simply because they are run by humans, who regularly suffer > psychological breakdowns, envy, and mistakes of judgement, not to mention disreputable marketing > departments. Regulated economies, however, are run by government drones, and are therefore perfect > vehicles which, with unfailing success, make all of their captive customers happy. > Not so, but I appreciate the sense of irony in your comment. > Everyone knows this, as we witness the apparent success of all those regulated economies overseas > which outshine the U.S. by three (maybe four) orders of magnitude. No one over there envies the > U.S. productivity and standard of living, and they never are moved to leave and come live over here, > to give up the benefits which extreme regulation confers upon them, in place of the (admittedly > mixed) free-market fiasco which operates over here, where all things are uncertain and frighteningly > unpredictable. Simply because people see a better place does not imply it is the *best* place. Selecting the lesser of two evils does not magicaly make one a goodness. It's still an evil. > In fact, many people become so disgusted with the monopolies and disfunctional liberty which exists > here, that they regularly expatriate to go live in places like Sweden, Germany, even Canada, where > they have the peace of mind and assurance that State coercion will provide for their every need - > in a most efficient, timely, prompt, and user-friendly manner. > They never have to worry about who has more or less, who is better or worse, or who knows better > than anyone what is best for everyone. It's all been pre-established and exists incontrovertibly in > their national consumer database. It would be nice if you said something other than "I disagree". It would really be nice if you cold describe specific examples and hypothesis, but that obviously is asking too much. Ah well. ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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RE: GPL & commercial software, the critical distinction (fwd)
by Matthew James Gering 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Corruptissima republicae, plurimae leges." -- Tacitus > -----Original Message----- > From: Robert Hettinga [mailto:rah@shipwright.com] > Most criminologists will tell that the more corrupt the > jurisdiction, the harder it is to be in compliance with > the law. That way, it's easier for the state's > functionaries to shake you down. > "'If we could just pass a few more laws', we could all be > criminals!"

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One Nation thank you
by Scott Balson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dear One Nation supporter in NSW Pauline Hanson would like to personally thank you for the outstanding support that you gave to the party before and during the election. Coverage of the events in Blair - including the One Nation party on election evening can be seen on-line at: <A href="http://www.gwb.com.au/gwb/news/onenation/federal/live">http://www.gwb.com.au/gwb/news/onenation/federal/live --------- PARTIES CONSPIRE TO KEEP IMMIGRATION OUT OF ELECTION, BOOK SHOWSThe author of a new book called "This Tired Brown Land" has accused the majorpolitical parties of conspiring to keep immigration and population off theelection agenda. The book has already attracted good reviews.Author Mark O'Connor today claimed that both the major political partieswere suppressing discussion in order to deny One Nation 'the oxygen ofpublicity'. But it is exactly such bipartisan ignoring of public sentimenton immigration which caused One Nation, and led to the enormous success ofPaul Sheehan's book Among the Barbarianns.Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock recently launched the Coalition'spolicy in Perth-too late in the day for the Eastern media to pick up thestory. Says author Mark O'Connor, 'Clearly the Coalition knows its policyis not what the electorate wants.'Polls show that the electorate has made up its mind. Only 2% or 3% ofvoters want immigration increased; and they are outnumbered, some 30 toone, by the 65% or 70% who want it reduced. Neither ethnic Australians norAborigines support higher immigration. Most Australians supportmulticulturalism, yet want an immediate moratorium on immigration.'My book shows that in 1994-95 (under Labor) our net migration gain (ABSfigures) was 80,100 persons. Last year it was 83,700. Despite this, theCoalition has tried to give the impression of reducing immigration. Somecritics have even accused the government of "racism" for "reducingimmigration". This is false.'The book is available throough bookshops at $16.95, orby cheque or money order from Duffy & Snellgrove for $19.95 (includes p&p) atPO Box 177Potts Point NSW 1335fx 2 9386 1530<A href="mailto:dands@magna.com.au">dands(a)magna.com.au ------------------ GWB Scott Balson Pauline Hanson's One Nation web master

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No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> At 12:59 PM 10/3/98 -0400, Michael Motyka wrote: > >> There is a desert which is 1000 miles across. There is a camel who can > carry > >> 1000 bananas maximum. The camel eats 1 banana per mile travelled. The camel > >> has a total of 3000 bananas to begin with. What is the maximum number of > >> bananas that the camel can get across to the other side uneaten? > > > >My camels don't understand/can't eat fractional bananas. > > Why are bananas quantized in the presense of camels? Is this > a quantum-computing thing? > Can the camel increase his miles/banana ratio if he dries out the peels and smokes them??

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US Secret Service checking laptops at airports
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Has anyone else had this happen to them? I'd love to have two independent corroborations of this, instead of hearing it third-hand... Cheers, Bob Hettinga --- begin forwarded text From: "Sidney Markowitz" <sidney(a)communities.com> To: <cryptography(a)c2.net> Subject: US Secret Service checking laptops at airports Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1998 18:26:52 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 Sender: owner-cryptography(a)c2.net A friend of mine recently traveled from one of the Washington DC area airports to Ireland and reports that US Secret Service agents checked her laptop for the domestic 128-bit crypto versions of Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer at the metal detector station. She said she saw about six other people who were checked as she was going through. As is now common, anyone carrying a laptop computer was asked to boot it up, presumably to demonstrate that if the case hid a bomb at least it was programmable with a reasonable looking user interface. But in her instance, people who identified themselves as Secret Service agents had her start up her web browser so they could check the encryption level, and made her uninstall her 128-bit Navigator. It didn't seem to matter to them that there are exemptions for devices that are for personal use as long as they are kept with the person while out of the country, or that she is an international banker who was going to conduct business with an overseas office. They didn't bother to determine whether she had a copy of the Navigator install file in a backup directory and could simply reinstall on the airplane. And of course it made no difference that she was going to Ireland where she picked up a locally produced 128-bit crypto plugin for Navigator that she says works just as well if not better than the version from Netscape. (I don't know if her "plugin" is simply one of the scripts that enable the Netscape strong crypto in the export version.) -- Sidney Markowitz <sidney(a)communities.com> --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Re: GPL & commercial software, the critical distinction (fwd)
by lcs Mixmaster Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Matthew James Gering wrote: > > Jim Choate wrote: > > I'd say the obvious one, the Unix code tree is more stable > > than the MS tree. > > Sure, but does that mean the MS platform was less suitable than Unix, or > their MS platform programmers were inferior to their Unix counterparts. > I believe Netscape outsourced the Unix development, at least initially. > I would blame insufficient SQA at Netscape, and from what I've heard > that claim is justified. > > Matt My impression is that the instability described is due to fragmentation of the virtual memory space, which happens faster on NT than Unix because of the relative immaturity of NT memory management. The side comment about Mac's being even worse would support this hypothesis (as Mac memory management is a joke). The Netscape SQA theory doesn't explain why other products also become less reliable on NT (and worse again on 95).

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RE: GPL & commercial software, the critical distinction (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From: Matthew James Gering <mgering(a)ecosystems.net> > Subject: RE: GPL & commercial software, the critical distinction (fwd) > Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 00:29:33 -0700 > state (you have no govt), at least in the manner we have now, whereas a > Laissez Faire state could enforce it (you have limited govt). That says > nothing about whether IP should exist in current form or at all, simply > that it *could* exist under LF. [other stuff deleted] Ok, so you're talking out of both sides of your mouth then. On one hand you speak of a free-market (vis-a-vis Laissez Faire) and then in the same breath, with not even a blink of an eye, you speak of limited government. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Sorry. This is gibberish. ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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RE: Another question about free-markets... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From: Matthew James Gering <mgering(a)ecosystems.net> > Subject: RE: Another question about free-markets... > Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 23:34:09 -0700 > > Now in a free-market, by definition, there is no law. > > A free market is not the absence of law (that is anarchy), a free market > is the absence of government intervention in trade and commerce. And how does government intervene and interfere? By making law. ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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