It IS a bad car when you compare cost, cost of ownership & reliability over the lifetime of ownership.
Five minutes of hate news
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bintananth
behind a desk
You could do much much worse. You could own a Zastava Koral (i.e.: The Yugo) and still use it as a daily driver. You aren't getting replacement parts for one of those unless you go to great lengths.
That's considered the worst car ever offered to the US public. Those met the US safety and emission standards of the day without any modifications. A lot of contemporary European vehicles did not.
They were also considered to be so disposable and so cheap by Americans that routine things like oil changes often weren't done, which did not help the reputation of "iffy reliability on a good day" Eastern European cars had back then.
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mrttao
Well-known member
well, I did not expect to be asked to write a comprehensive economic system today. normally I think on it only in the abstract since I got zero power to actually do something about it, and the anti trust thing takes the bulk of my attention. Also anti-trust can be extended to a shocking number of things so many of the laws I support can be considered part of anti trust. but let me give it a spin anyways
Anyways, these are not comprehensive but off the top of my head aside from anti trust we also need:
1. forbid bribing policians
2. forbid banks from lending money they do not have
3. forbid banks from printing govt money. they may mint their own private currency though but it must be distinct. see fractional reserve banking on how money is created
4. wide array of anti fraud laws. such as lemon law
5. contract laws, contracts cannot just be a piece of paper.
6. ban EULA
7. no advertising to children
8. no child labor law
9. no slavery law
10. right to repair laws and the associated right to use 3rd party components
11. true ownership laws. including a backdoor in your software (intel management engine / trusted platform) should be illegal. Remotely confiscating books sold to you should be illegal. Remotely deactivating your car's heater should be illegal. Selling you a phone without the ability to easily jailbreak it should be illegal.
12. laws against foisting costs on the public. and some basic anti pollution laws. Yes the EPA is corrupt and bad... but again we get into the "abolish the police" ground. We need to purge EPA of corruption and make it vastly smaller, not completely abolish it. Or replace it with a different agency of similar remit. We can't have companies just dumping shit into the rivers and the like.
13. corporations are not people law. suing a corporation should automatically result in suing the actual owners and managers
14. anti small print laws
15. clean food laws. FDA is horribly corrupt... but it didn't come out of nowhere. Again needs a thorough fumigation but can't just "abolish the police"
I am probably missing something.
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
So, we agree on almost all of these. I'd classify just about all them as matters of criminal law, rather than regulation. For example:
1. Fraud is a criminal offense, not a violation of regulation that is only subject to fines.
2. Bribery is also a criminal offense.
3. Slavery is a criminal offense.
I think to some degree, our disagreements are about how things should be classified. I want things in criminal law rather than as part of a regulatory body, both because the punishment for violations would be more serious and have longer-term consequences for the violators, and because I have a deep-seated mistrust of regulatory bodies and bureaucracies, by their very nature they create a lot of perverse incentives.
I would also support legal clarification of the hot mess that 'terms of use' laws and the like create. Clear delineation of 'this is your property' or 'this is not your property' is pretty damned important, and this bloody mess of 'you're paying to buy this thing, and it's your property now, but you can only use it in certain ways,' is a serious problem.
The root of that problem though, comes out of the how excessively litigious our society is. Decades ago a standard was established that has since made it necessary for things like irons to have warnings on them 'do not iron clothes while being worn.' A big chunk of the problem with things like 'you can't do this with this thing that you own,' comes from companies being held legally liable for people doing things that are blatantly not the company's fault.
This certainly isn't the only problem in that regard, but the widespread corruption of the profession of 'lawyer' is a huge part of the issue.
Fractional reserve banking is another legitimate issue, but it's also one that is not easy to solve.
On the whole, I think that a big part of the difference in our position is 'what should be handled by criminal law?' vs 'what should be handled by regulatory bodied?' In all possible cases, I want it to be a matter of criminal law rather than a regulatory body, because every regulatory body by its very nature will be full of perverse incentives.
Conventional law enforcement doesn't have the same incentive to constantly try to expand its authority and regulatory mandate over a specific field, because if there's not much of a problem with a certain type of crime being committed at a given time, they can just shift manpower to focus more on a different type of work. This isn't perfect, of course, but it's better than perpetual expanding bureaucracies.
bintananth
behind a desk
Terms of use are pretty much implied whenever property exchanges hands. Most of the time it's unstated and unwritten (i.e.: Here's a can of soda, it is to be used as a drink and nothing else.).
People complained so much in the US last time they tried this (with BMW charging monthly for some apple thing, I think), that BMW gave in and stopped doing this in the US out of fear of people not buying. They are only offering the current thing in Korea (where presumably they don't care). And if Korea is fine with this, then sure, do it in Korea. They are also offering subscription stuff in parts of Europe, but again, not the US because it went so badly last time.
This is the same sort of language "feminists" use to justify their misandry. smh
mrttao
Well-known member
Well it is good we agree on my suggestions being sensible laws for a govt to enforce.
I think we also disagreed accidentally on the semantics of what constitutes a "regulatory body".
I think criminal law and its enforcement is by definition a "regulatory body".
So when I said we need those things regulated I meant "fraud should get CEO thrown in prison" not "we need to decriminalized fraud into a non-crime regulatory breach that only warrants a slap on the wrist"
When I said "we absolutely need regulation" I meant "police and laws"
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Why not the child's father instead? They're going to be paying child support for it for 18+ years, after all!
Yeah, that's not what regulation means to most people. If you don't mind, I'd just like to run a few things by you to determine what you mean here.
First, should you be able to sell a car with zero interior safety features if you are completely up front about it? (So no seatbelt, no airbags, yes blinkers).
Are you fine with selling lead paint that's clearly labeled as lead paint?
Would a company be forced to offer some kind of minimum wage?
Are you fine with people buying cocaine that is properly made and labeled (i.e. if it is cut, it is clearly labeled as such, and what it is cut with is listed, and made in a consistent manner?)
mrttao
Well-known member
Depends on the "you". If the "you" is "some guy who built it by hand" and he clearly explicitly upfront about it, yes.
If the you is a group of corporations colluding to screw the customer then fuck no.
That said, we do need some "common sense" laws that protects companies from frivolous lawsuits. "don't use hot iron on your own body" should not be a required safety label
This one is a harder one and I really needed to think about it.
The only ones who will buy it are slum lords, house flippers, shitty builders who intend to deceive their customers and then disappear. As builders are wont to do.
As such my answer is no. Lead paint, like asbestos insulation, should be illegal.
A person should not HAVE to ask "is my purchase secretly made of poison"
No, but only on the condition that there is strict enforcement against companies colluding in secret to connive to depress the value of labor. (something they do IRL)
I have mixed opinions on that.
On the one hand, no nanny state. If someone wants to smoke crack, well, it is their body.
On the other hand, opium wars show that this can be easily weaponized against a country to destroy it.
On the other hand, making it illegal is just feeding the cartels and preventing people from getting help for their addiction
On another hand, addiction is not just a matter of willpower and is utterly deleterious to society at large.
Overall, there is no simple silver bullet answer here. But there are some objectively idiotic and wrong ones like the war on drugs, or arresting people on possession (rather than on drug dealing).
I am leaning towards making it legal to deprive the cartels/mafia/etc of their source of income and make it easier to give help to people suffering from addiction.
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bintananth
behind a desk
Asbestos insulation and lead paint are "fun" to deal with. Disturb either and a HAZMAT team gets called in.
Gee, I wonder why?
Exactly, they think they'll make more from this service, so they're taking a risk. And you're just fooling yourself if you think they're going to install equipment and not price the vehicle accordingly, even if their subscription model managed to sucker anyone.
It isn't when they get government involved to interfere with property rights.
Exactly. If I bought a thing, it should be mine to do with as a please. I should not have to pay additional money in order to use a thing that I already own.
I guess that isn't the libertarianism I know/knew. We were obsessed with property rights and simplifying things. Charging people more money to use something they already own is incompatible with that.
If I purchase a car, everything in that car is mine. If there are heated seats in my car, they are mine. The manufacturer should have no interest in it outside of warranty issues that might make them liable for selling a defective product. So I should not be charged an additional fee to use a thing that I already own.
mrttao
Well-known member
That is the problem with using a label for your group.
Pretty soon it is full of morons and suddenly you are associated with the exact opposite of what you believe in.
For a time I also called myself a libertarian. Now I prefer to call myself a "not an idiot. and please listen as I explain why"
mrttao
Well-known member
Yea, scary stuff.
Also, the "just don't disturb it" plan doesn't really work.
Just one rodent in your roof chewing stuff is enough to disturb your asbestos insulation and fill your house up with toxic particles.
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The distinction you are making here is a bad one. I'm not talking about a group of corporations, but a single entity. Could be a person, could be a corporation. That you think just because it's a corporation should change the legality is my first (and only) red flag of a regulator.
But the bigger problem is this: you don't trust an individual to allow them to make a fully informed decision. You are apparently fine with having government step in, and tell the purchaser NO, this isn't good for you. That's the issue libertarian have with regulations.
Now your lead paint one, I get where you are coming from, and perhaps a bad example, as the way you took it (painting as a contractor) was different than how I imagined it (painting your own house). Same with the rest of your answers.
But you clearly went nanny state with the cars, and I'm wondering why? The purchaser knew what he was getting, what's the problem?
... But there isn't government interfering in property rights here. So I fail to see the problem.
... This is property rights. Property rights are capable of being complex things though, not just simple ones. For example, take renting. Yes, I as the renter of my apartment do not own it, and the landlord does. But by leasing the space, the landlord has temporarily sold me some of the property rights. This means that the land lord doesn't have the right during the lease to sell the apartment that I am in, authorize the government to search my apartment, live in the apartment, etc, despite still owning the apartment (obviously, specifics depends on the leasing agreement, but this definitely a possible deal that could be made). Note that at the time, we both have property rights in regards to the apartment, but different ones.
The car version is actually a lot less complicated. You buy the car in full, with an effectively broken seat heater that you are informed about prior to purchase. Good news! There's also a way to pay $18 to fix it temporarily. Alternatively, you can swap it with aftermarket parts, jailbreak the car, etc. You still have full property rights!
Really, if you want to get into very complicated property rights, look at water rights to a river. Now that gets real complicated, but there are absolutely ways to solve these problems without using government and without the upstream farmer using all the water.
I think the underlying issue here is the idea that property rights are simple. They can be, but frequently aren't.
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bintananth
behind a desk
The use of asbestos in the US was completely banned 33yrs and 2days ago. Lead paint was banned the year I was born: 1978
If you come across either you're having a bad day.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
Fair enough; but it would be far from the first time a corporation had failed to push something, only for them to try again and again, until they hit upon the right approach that will trick people into accepting a new normal where they pay more for less. Besides; it wasn't just people not buying into it that got them to stop. It was also people outright campaigning against it, and not just going "no skin off my back if other people are fooled; that's just the free market at work, and anyone who complains hates capitalism".
Yes, they can be complicated, but this is a situation where they are simple. Cars are personal property, which unless they are renting or leasing from someone else, and provided they have paid for it: they should have 100% ownership over. If I actually own something, unless it is an external service, I should not have to pay to continue to use it. It is literally one of those simple as things. I should have a right to use what I own, and not have to be double-dipped on by greedy assholes.