come up with ONE THING to make this world a better place
"One Thing only please" or make a sperate reply for each.
Example:
- make all food free
- eliminate money
- destroy all weapons
and try to explain what impact it would have, and how to get there
The One Thing - A huge asteroid strike.
Describe The Effect - KABOOM !
How To Get There - Use the mother of all tractor beams to bring it on down.
abolish trade restrictions, complete open unrestricted trade. nothing would increase the prosperity of the world more.
shareI admit, I don't really keep up on this stuff.
My limited understanding is: everyone already trades globally, excluding North Korea (for being dumbasses), but I guess each government makes up certain restrictions, to control how much of what goes where and how? Why would they do that?
Again, I do NOT know about such things, and that is my bystander observation. so im probably way off.
what would be the downside to unlimited restrictions? someone cuts down ALL the trees on the planet to sell toothpicks to everyone? that sort of thing?
yeah, essentially what you said is right: there are restrictions on everything, put in place in the name of some good cause like helping industry, protecting jobs, preventing dumping of cheap products, whatever. those rules are often put in place though the lobbying efforts of industries to make sure they hold onto their place in their existing market.
the restrictions can take lots of different kinds of forms. tariffs on imports, quotas on certain types of products, regulations stating that a certain % of input materials have to be produced in your country. there are a maze of rules and regulations all made in the name of helping your nation that restrict trade & make us worse off.
and those restrictions are popular. people generally support them. this is one of the areas of life where people tend to get things really wrong, because the thing that would often create the best results is counterintuitive, at least to some extent.
it's easy to understand why people see things that way. everyone can see a job disappearing when a factory moves overseas. that's immediate and apparent. but when you save that job by imposing restrictions, you don't see what you've lost.
you don't see the increase in price to consumers.
you don't see the decline in innovation and product improvement because industries are now sheltered from competition.
you don't see all the different, new, innovative products you'd get if everyone in the world was allowed to freely sell you stuff.
you don't see the decline in exports from your country because if you won't do business with the country you're locking out, why would they do business with you?
you don't see the decline in growth & investment that results from restricting all the trade that would come if we got rid of this maze of rules.
you don't see the decline in poverty that would come if you would allow poor nations to sell you their stuff.
so you save a factory and everyone feels really good about themselves and politicians and industry & unions talk about the greatness of what they've done, while they've actually made us all worse off.
Ok as example, where I live, I do want to keep my factory job, don't want to compete with China wages - kids working for pennies - I see there could be benefits but I have to eat, therefore prefer restrictions.
What an I supposed to do? Support potential for something possibly better widgets, go broke loose my house and die hungry?
well, that's where i would point to the allure of this kind of thinking, in that you're seeing the loss. and you're not seeing the gains. because the loss is immediate & obvious, and the gains are diffuse and sometimes harder to see. but they're still real.
you're not seeing all the increased economic activity that comes because consumers now have cheaper products and now have a lot more money in their pockets. you're not looking at all the economic expansion that comes from that trade.
and if you only look at that loss, then you're going to make yourself worse off in the long run by not looking at all the improvements.
the creative destruction that comes from the free movement of goods & money can create a lot of chaos and displacement. but the emergent order that comes from billions of people freely buying and selling creates prosperity far beyond the kinds of things smart people sitting around in rooms dreaming up ways of restricting and regulating activity can.
& the other thing i should have mentioned is that when people are hurt by trade, and some people are hurt no question, you can help those people!
you can give them charity, or give them unemployment benefits, or help them move to a part of the country that is growing.
& it's a lot easier to do those things when you have economic expansion.
that's a better use of government than restricting trade in a way that makes everyone in the aggregate worse off.
Would this open up for those poor nations to sell us unsafe junk full of lead or whatever? I wonder home much regulations also cover safe products
sharethis is one of the things that's often trotted out. i had a conversation very much like this with someone who works in the dairy industry in canada - she said 'oh, we have to keep those products out because cheese in france in dangerous, blah blah blah.'
generally speaking, it's not in the interest of producers to sell you something bad. some might, most wouldn't because most producers want to stay in business. but yes, there can be legitimate rules put in place regarding lead content, whatever.
but of course, such things are often just used as a wedge to prevent trade. the most absurd example of that is when trump restricted imports of canadian steel in the name of national security. because canada's steel posed a security threat.
so all kinds of industries spend lots of money asking the government for protection, and they concoct all kinds of reasons, some with the grain of truth. but then you have to ask yourself, are you really gaining much when you're imposing higher and higher costs and poorer product on consumers in the name of preventing someone from possibly getting sick from bad cheese?
this is one of the many areas of life where we'd be much better off if we let consumer's decide what they like, rather than having rules imposed from the top down by regulators working in concert with the industries.
Pot bombs!
(AP)
As the smoke settles over Ukraine, Russian troops are dug-in and ‘laid back’. The echoes of giggles have replaced the sound of air-raid sirens. It appears that we have reached true peace & security!
14 tons of Cheetos have been ordered and shipped by the Biden administration. Hunter Biden takes the lead in ‘Operation: Chill-Out!’ All is well with the world! And Frito Lay stock is up 780% since yesterday.
I like this
sharepeople would set those off in courtrooms, concerts & church
shareA place to talk about movies among friends.
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