Rural Electrification Administration

By Hunter Wallace

The following excerpt comes from The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Agriculture & Industry:

“When the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was created in 1935, less than 4 percent of farms in the southern states had electricity. Without it, many of the comforts of modern life were unavailable, and for that reason the South enthusiastically welcomed the REA. In 1936, when Congress gave the REA statue authority, southern congressmen were among the agency’s most ardent supporters. The Southern Policy Association, a group of southern congressmen eager to promote southern development, endorsed the REA bill and regarded electrification as an important step in that direction.

As the REA began operation, southern farmers quickly established electric cooperatives, and the percentage of farms with service slowly grew. By 1941 the national average had climbed to 30 percent, and, although the southern percentage was lower, the South moved steadily ahead. At the end of World War II, the REA started a massive construction program to finish the job, and by 1955 virtually 90 percent of the South’s farmers had electrical service. Although the effects of electrification were evident nationwide, they had the most dramatic impact in the South, owing probably to the region’s higher number of substandard homes when the REA started.

By providing running water and indoor toilets, the REA finally helped bring an end to the hookworm that had ravaged the south for over a century …”

According to free-market theorists, the entrepreneur should have responded, but … sigh.

Anyway, next time libertarians tell you the state has never accomplished anything remind them of the TVA, mass literacy, splitting the atom, NASA putting a man on the moon, eradicating the boll weevil, ending malaria, polio and hookworms, ending sharecropping and child labor, and bringing electricity to the rural South.

About Hunter Wallace 12378 Articles
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Occidental Dissent

160 Comments

  1. Nice Video and nice song. Very white!! But it makes FDR look good, doesn’t it? Actually, there wasn’t much difference between Hoover and FDR as is noted by Paul Johnson and other historians. And we never really did get out of the depression until WWII which is an terrible way to get out of a depression

  2. Oh, dear. I see where this is going.

    Most of these are cases where the state beat the free market to the punch on an endeavor. True, but at what cost?

    We would have gotten running water, toilets and shoes (shoes from the private sector helped stop the hookworms bc they get in through your feet) anyway, but yes, in this case the state projects beat FM to it. I am confident we would not still be without running water, toilets and electricity today had it not been for the subsidies.

    “Anyway, next time libertarians tell you the state has never accomplished anything…”

    I don’t think many serious thinkers would say that. But a lot of thinkers would say that “open market and entrepreneurs are generally more efficient than the government sector.”

    By the same token, I acknowledge the huge mean IQ disparity between whites and blacks and that the disparity is mostly genetic in origin.

    But it would be foolish for me to say “There is no such thing as an intelligent negro.”

    It would also be very foolish for me to point out Thomas Sowell and Ben Carson and declare “Look how intelligent, polite, and well spoken these negro men are. We need to import as many negroes from Africa as we possibly can.”

    I would have to concede that when it comes to eradicating diseases, invasive species, whatever, that the state wins over the private sector because the private sector has no interest in the eradication of the disease, only in the sale of vaccines, but I would not concede that the state has the upper hand in vaccine or pesticide development. Of course a state subsidy might help the breakthroughs to come faster, but at what cost? And what are the chances that the subsidy will succeed and not be wasted?

    I would also concede that in certain infrastructure projects we need to get the state involved, such as dams, canals, roads, oil/gas pipelines, powerlines, municipal water in towns (kinda silly to do it all over the countryside).

    I do not say that the state should do the construction or even subsidize. We need the state to act as an arbitrator by securing the property rights. Without the state, the private sector is powerless to acquire an easement when a property owner just refuses to sell for any price. The state has the power of imminent domain while the private sector does not. And it is foolish to reroute many miles of roads or pipelines just because one person refuses to sell. No serious roads would ever get built that way.

    But once the property rights are secured I think we’d be better off letting private or corporate road companies do the paving, the maintenance, and the toll collecting. As it is, the state has a virtual monopoly on the road business.

    Regarding powerlines, new line construction will become less and less needed because home generator and solar panels are becoming more common, but will still be needed in urban/suburban areas especially and they would also fall in this category. Someday new homes in the country just won’t even bother hooking up to the grid.

  3. Excellent point, HM. I can still remember as recently as 1980 the shotgun shacks in certain areas of metro ATL that barely had utility service, as well as similar areas in SC during the 1970’s. Without the government directed TVA program starting in the 1930’s almost the entirety of the South might have been that way.

    Question. What’s your general view on Huey Long? I suspect he gets your thumbs-up & that you tie in FDR people with his assassination, but that’s just a guess.

  4. Jeff Davis,”…Someday new homes in the country just won’t even bother hooking up to the grid.”

    Unfortunately the power companies are suing people who do this. There was a lady in Florida that had a small house with solar for water and power. The power company sued her and won. Means she can’t afford to live in her house.

  5. “We would have gotten running water, toilets and shoes (shoes from the private sector helped stop the hookworms bc they get in through your feet) ” – Jeff, thank you. Never having had/known/experienced this (as Midwestern Winters don’t allow one to be barefoot, and over-protective moms always making you wear shoes, lest you stub your toe) I was confused about the toilet and hookworms. Some pretty gross images flitted through my brain for a second.

    And, isn’t it ’eminent domain’ and not ‘imminent domain’? Though, under O’Bummer, it’s probably imminent, more than eminent……

    • Is Jeff right? Even with huge social changes the South was still behind the remainder of the nation in far too many basic services. It’s hard to speculate on “left to our own devices” because many changes in ATL were compelled by it becoming an important business center. It would be impossible to attract companies from other regions w/o offering certain services.

      When I compare that to an area like S. Central Ky, which essentially had no businesses locate there along with textile biz dying, I don’t really know when certain services, etc. would have come. Jeff’s view seems naive.

    • Fr. John,

      “And, isn’t it ’eminent domain’ and not ‘imminent domain’? ”

      Yeah, I spelled it wrong. Makes a good pun though.

  6. The REA also contributed a key element to the growth of suburbs & exurbs in the 1950’s because it provided electric power to those rural areas outside of cities, towns and villages off of main roads.

    • At least in parts of the BlueGrass State, I can remember kids whose homes didn’t have telephones in 1965, though that was by choice or economics. But even in the early 1980’s “party lines” were not unknown in rural & semi-rural areas. I knew a gal from Blue Water, I think, and they were on a party line in ’82 or ’83.

  7. Here in Northern Illinois a friend of mine and his house did not get electricity till 1948 so it wasn’t just the South.

    Anyway the real story is when do parts of Alabama lose its electricity?

  8. Jack,

    There is a reason why FDR was enormously popular in the South. Unfortunately, half a century of propaganda from conservatives and libertarians have pushed back the memory of the South in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.

    The South that my grandparents grew up in in the 1930s and 1940s was just as important, if not more so in the long term, than the Confederacy. That’s one of my pet peeves: the “Civil War,” especially military battles, gets so more attention than the century that followed.

  9. Jeff,

    I would turn the question around on you: surveying the South on October 24, 1929, the day the stock market crashed and kicked off the Great Depression, one might look around and ask what the free-market had cost.

    The song makes the same point … the South had been in the “Great Depression” for generations. That’s why I included it.

    • Hunter

      “I would turn the question around on you: surveying the South on October 24, 1929, the day the stock market crashed and kicked off the Great Depression, one might look around and ask what the free-market cost.”

      That’s not exactly turning the question around on me. That’s refusing to concede that I have a point, then asking me a separate question.

      I have never claimed that the free market is without fluctuations or that private sector companies never go broke, or that *every* person will grow rich no matter how stupid, lazy, or unlucky he is. I, and I think other free market advocates simply insist that the free market is *generally superior* to gov intervention for the purpose of wealth maximization to the general public. I have explained in another thread that national security is a good reason to manipulate with tariffs, not because it makes us richer, but because it makes us safer from sanctions/embargoes.

      To answer your question though, I think that the free market on Oct 24 1929 was superior to gov planning because the free market is resilient. It would not have stayed down.

      By the same token, a crop disease or a storm that ruins, say a corn crop, does not prove that hunter-gathering is superior to agriculture, and that agriculture should be abandoned in favor of hunter-gathering. Even 10 years in a row of bad corn crops would not prove that.

      • Jeff,

        “That’s not exactly turning the question around on me. That’s refusing to concede that I have a point, then asking me a separate question.”

        I’m not following you.

        Prior to October 24, 1929, the free-market had been given its chance and the involvement of the state in the Southern economy had been minimal. Thus, it makes a lot more sense to ask what the free-market had cost over the preceding 64 years. According to free-market theorists, the entrepreneur should have responded during this golden age of laissez-faire in the South.

        “I have never claimed that the free market is without fluctuations or that private sector companies never go broke, or that *every* person will grow rich no matter how stupid, lazy, or unlucky he is. I, and I think other free market advocates simply insist that the free market is *generally superior* to gov intervention for the purpose of wealth maximization to the general public. I have explained in another thread that nateity is a good reason to manipulate with tariffs, not because it makes us richer, but because it makes us safer from sanctions/embargoes.”

        Yeah, I know.

        I’m saying that the free-market theorists are wrong and that the state of the Southern economy on October 24, 1929 shows otherwise.

        “To answer your question though, I think that the free market on Oct 24 1929 was superior to gov planning because the free market is resilient. It would not have stayed down.”

        Behold what the free-market had accomplished on October 24, 1929. Then contrast it with what followed in the New Deal era.

        “By the same token, a crop disease or a storm that ruins, say a corn crop, does not prove that hunter-gathering is superior to agriculture, and that agriculture should be abandoned in favor of hunter-gathering. Even 10 years in a row of bad corn crops would not prove that.”

        How did the free-market handle the arrival of the boll weevil, the stock market crash of 1929, or pellagra, hookworms and malaria?

  10. Interesting. What percentage of farms in the rest of America had electricity during the same era? Originally electricity was an urban phenomenon that was provided by public utilities organized at the city or county level. Electrification lends itself to high density populations. Electricity was primarily a public utility service rather than a privately provided service. Like public roads, sewage, etc. I would like to know the rates of electrification in other non-southern states and to what extent was electrification achieved outside the public utility model?

    I’m a free market person but I recognize the necessity of public services/utilities for certain types of products/services. I’m not big on private police and fire, for instance.

    I think it’s also interesting that FDR’s efforts to use Federal power to electrify and uplift the South came just a few decades after the federal power was used to inflict a crushing military defeat and military occupation on that same region. Perhaps Southern history of that era should be interpreted as a continuation of the post civil war recovery. The South was not on equal footing with the North during this period and extraordinary efforts to assist the South’s recovery were justified in light of the extraordinary efforts to destroy the South in 1861-1865 and thereafter.

  11. HBD theorists in the 1920s debated why Northern blacks scored higher on US Army IQ tests than White Southerners and whether White people in Central Appalachia were genetically inferior and ought to be sterilized.

    In reality, the free-market and cotton monoculture had made the South so poor and underdeveloped by the 1920s that lots of families couldn’t afford shoes for their children or indoor toilets and plumbing. This is why Southerners suffered from hookworms, pellagra, and malaria which wasn’t wiped out until after World War II.

    In Central Appalchia, surface mining led to company towns that moved from place to place. The region had a colonial economy that sucked the profits from coal mining outside of the region. Large corporations owned several industries at once – timber, mining, railroads – and had enormous leverage over their workforce. This is why the area had such bitter labor relations.

    If you look at Appalachia today, you will find that it is part where the coal industry used to be located that is the poorest, most underdeveloped part of the region. The same people who settled the mountains settled the Great Valley, the rest of the Southern Uplands, and much of the South all the way to Texas.

    • Hunter,

      “In Central Appalchia, surface mining led to company towns that moved from place to place. The region had a colonial economy that sucked the profits from coal mining outside of the region.”

      If the coal companies are sucking the profits out of the region, do you support Obama’s war on coal? Isn’t he helping rural Appalachia by suppressing the coal industry?

      What if they were mining iron ore in Alabama, would you be against it for sucking the wealth out of Alabama?

      I have demonstrated forwards, backwards, and sideways that these industries make a region less poor, not more poor. The only way it makes a place more poor is if it brings in poor immigrants to settle there. That was not a problem in the Appalachian coal example you gave.

      • Jeff,

        “If the coal companies are sucking the profits out of the region, do you support Obama’s war on coal? Isn’t he helping rural Appalachia by suppressing the coal industry?”

        Central Appalachia’s legendary poverty existed long before the Obama presidency. The same is true of the Alabama Black Belt, Mississippi Delta, the Ozarks, the South Carolina Low Country, etc. I don’t think Obama’s actions explain the backwardness of the region.

        Look at the rest of Southern Appalachia. Outside of the old coal mining heartland, the rest of the region is doing much better. Look at that big government project – Great Smoky Mountains National Park – and the tourism dollars it brings to the region via all the interstates and roads the government has built.

        “What if they were mining iron ore in Alabama, would you be against it for sucking the wealth out of Alabama?”

        I’m not against mining. Clearly, mining can be done and produce great jobs and wealth that enriches an area. There was a difference between the type of mining done in Central Appalachia in Pennsylvania.

        “I have demonstrated forwards, backwards, and sideways that these industries make a region less poor, not more poor. The only way it makes a place more poor is if it brings in poor immigrants to settle there. That was not a problem in the Appalachian coal example you gave.”

        Extractive industries make a region relatively poorer because other regions, which are not burdened by colonial economies, have a different mix of industries and government policies that produce greater wealth and higher wages.

        • Hunter

          You quoted me:
          “If the coal companies are sucking the profits out of the region, do you support Obama’s war on coal? Isn’t he helping rural Appalachia by suppressing the coal industry?”

          You replied:
          “Central Appalachia’s legendary poverty existed long before the Obama presidency. The same is true of the Alabama Black Belt, Mississippi Delta, the Ozarks, the South Carolina Low Country, etc. I don’t think Obama’s actions explain the backwardness of the region.”

          You are dodging the question. If coal mining is an “extractive industry” that makes the region poorer, then do you believe the War on Coal is helping them by shutting down the coal operations?

          “Extractive industries make a region relatively poorer because other regions, which are not burdened by colonial economies, have a different mix of industries and government policies that produce greater wealth and higher wages.”

          Well I’m so glad they stopped “sucking them dry” like they did a few posts back. With this statement, you are conceding that these industries do generate wealth for the local people, just not as much as if they were all Wall Street tycoons. The net wealth of both regions increases, but your problem is that the other region might be making more. One possible solution to that might be to try and get a Southern city to be the next Wall Street. Charlotte NC seems to be an emerging financial center so maybe that will help.

          • Jeff,

            “You are dodging the question. If coal mining is an “extractive industry” that makes the region poorer, then do you believe the War on Coal is helping them by shutting down the coal operations?”

            No, I directly responded to you. The poverty and underdevelopment of Central Appalachia existed long before Obama became president. I don’t like Obama’s energy policies either, but that doesn’t explain the widespread poverty in the region. Whatever else Obama has done, he didn’t cause the problem.

            “Well I’m so glad they stopped “sucking them dry” like they did a few posts back. With this statement, you are conceding that these industries do generate wealth for the local people, just not as much as if they were all Wall Street tycoons. The net wealth of both regions increases, but your problem is that the other region might be making more. One possible solution to that might be to try and get a Southern city to be the next Wall Street. Charlotte NC seems to be an emerging financial center so maybe that will help.”

            As we saw with Honduras, even the poorest countries in the world – like the poorest places in the South, such as Central Appalachia or the Mississippi Delta – have some type of economy. It’s just that different countries and regions develop in different ways according to different models and those with extractive industries like the United Fruit Company end up at the bottom of the barrel in average per capita income.

            No one disputes that chicken processing, cotton, timber, some types of coal mining generate wealth. They generate wealth, but don’t spread that wealth in a way that creates the kind of long-term economic growth that lifts their populations out of poverty. They end up falling behind other places which aren’t burdened with similar economies.

          • Hunter,

            “No, I directly responded to you.”
            That’s not exactly the same as answering the question, now is it?
            Anyway, you have conceded that these industries do not suck the people dry, so I’m happy to move on.

            “No one disputes that chicken processing, cotton, timber, some types of coal mining generate wealth.”

            Hmmm. “some types of coal mining”? Do we really need to keep this going? If a certain type of coal mining ceases to generate a profit, then the businesses will either go broke or change their practices–unless it’s a gov monopoly of course. If the miners aren’t getting paid, they will quite showing up for work. It’s really that simple.

            “They generate wealth, but don’t spread that wealth in a way that creates the kind of long-term economic growth that lifts their populations out of poverty.”

            No economic system can *make* people rise out of poverty. If a young hard working, honest white man spends his paycheck on beer, cigarettes and new pickup payments, then gets the pickup jacked up to be “barely legal” then wrecks the pickup while driving drunk and singing along with his David Allen Coe CD, he is probably not going to rise out of poverty much faster than a negro on welfare. The virtue of the white man in this example is that he worked and earned his own money honestly, even if he doesn’t save or invest wisely.

            “They end up falling behind other places which aren’t burdened with similar economies.”

            You are always going to have relatively rich neighborhoods and relatively poor neighborhoods, unless you advocate for communism/socialism which helps everybody (who doesn’t have the right connections) to stay poor.

            Some things are just facts of life whether you like it or not. Egalitarianism is a fool’s errand, and unlike many fool’s errands that may be harmless to others, egalitarianism leaves plenty of damage in its wake.

  12. How the state brought electricity to the South

    Wrong. Supplying electricity to customers consists of three components; generation, transmission, and distribution. The REA and the co-opts provided funding for distribution. The generation and transmission of electricity was provided by the utilities. Without power generation and transmission (with the exception of TVA, it was provided by the private sector) there would be no electricity anywhere. And TVA was not necessary as there existed numerous private sector utilities that successfully provided electricity in the South. And the private sector was working to provide electricity to rural areas. From the book Big Bets

    Initially, C&S cooperated with the agency, sharing surveys, maps, and other information with cooperatives, helping them secure rights of way and line construction, and providing electricity at wholesale rates. Although C&S continued to build its own rural lines, the Depression had slowed those extensions to remote areas and caused some farmers to drop service. Georgia Power lost nearly half its rural customers during the hard times , and Arkwright believed that wherever his company could not afford to bring service in rural areas, it should help REA do so.

    The private sector was doing its job with or without the REA. The private sector, unlike the government, has to be economical with how it allocates its resources.

    Anyway, next time libertarians tell you the state has never accomplished anything remind them of the TVA, mass literacy, splitting the atom, NASA putting a man on the moon, eradicating the boll weevil, ending malaria, polio and hookworms, ending sharecropping and child labor, and bringing electricity to the rural South.

    1. TVA was never needed. Private sector companies already provide what the TVA provides at a lower cost.

    2. The Amish don’t attend government schools and yet they are literate in two languages (German and English). Tell me why are government schools needed again?

    3. The government split the atom in order to create a doomsday device that could wipe out all of humanity. Thank God the private sector doesn’t spend its resources on creating devices for mass murder.

    4. What tangible benefits are associated with putting a man on the moon? What is it that we have today that we wouldn’t have if a man were not put on the moon?

    5. The private sector already provides numerous pesticides and medical treatments. You seem reluctant to give them any credit for this.

    6. Child labor was a necessity. It’s not practiced because the government saved us. It’s not practiced because its no longer needed.

    • Jeff,

      You’ve made some good points that I hadn’t though of. Thanks. I’ll try adding a little to it though.

      “3. The government split the atom in order to create a doomsday device that could wipe out all of humanity. Thank God the private sector doesn’t spend its resources on creating devices for mass murder.”

      We also use atom splitting for nuclear energy, which is great. But the atom would have eventually gotten split anyway by the private sector for the purpose of power generation.

      I also think it was a legitimate project for the gov to undertake as a means of national defense.

      4. What tangible benefits are associated with putting a man on the moon? What is it that we have today that we wouldn’t have if a man were not put on the moon?

      We also have intangible benefits, like national pride, and believe it or not, national defense. Beating the Russians to the moon was a huge boost of confidence and national pride for Americans, and a huge slapdown to the Russians. That’s worth a lot. But looking forward, we see that space travel is becoming privatized and will probably advance more cost-efficiently from here on because of it.

      “5. The private sector already provides numerous pesticides and medical treatments. You seem reluctant to give them any credit for this.”

      Amen to that! And they get produced at a lower cost to society too! My only caveat is that eradications are best handled by the state since entrepreneurs only want to sell their vaccines, not actually eradicate the disease, which would put them out of business. Therefore, the state should buy the vaccines from the private sector and carry out the vaccine programs from there.

      “6. Child labor was a necessity. It’s not practiced because the government saved us. It’s not practiced because its no longer needed.”

      Well, as long as the kid is getting an education too, what’s wrong with child labor? I’ve seen lots of college punks who never had a job and would probably be a lot less stupid if they had worked a day or two in their lives. Maybe if they actually worked their way through college they wouldn’t be going to all those BLM protests.

      That said, my father only got a sixth grade education because he had to help support a sharecropping family. His father was an alcoholic that stayed gone for days at the time, so as the oldest son, my father had to pick up the slack and just didn’t go to school very often. I wonder how different his life might have turned out had he gone through school or even gotten some post high school education like his younger brother. It’s easy to blame the circumstances, but to be honest, my father had plenty of opportunity to get a GED or even go further as an adult, but he never took the opportunity. I wonder if his dire circumstances as a child really made that much difference in the long run. I can only speculate and it’s easy to make a case both ways. Obviously malnutrition and disease would be a different story.

  13. “HBD theorists in the 1920s debated why Northern blacks scored higher on US Army IQ tests than White Southerners and whether White people in Central Appalachia were genetically inferior and ought to be sterilized.”

    With a vast population of former black slaves and their descendants, living amid their former masters and the descendants thereof, the post-Civil-War South, I think it fair to say, was unlike any other white region in history. I’m not sure we can really understand its sociology, by which I mean the white character it formed.

  14. It’s hard to know where to begin when critiquing this essay.

    The whole of the socialist/fascist Frank “the cripple” Roosevelt dealings with the south were all about vote buying for his junta, and it worked.

    The take over of the businesses in the US, the destruction of the publishing industry except for New York, the payoffs to Hollywood, the build up years in advance for entry into World War Two were all bought and paid for by the table scraps listed in the essay.

    For shame.

  15. Jeff,

    “Wrong. Supplying electricity to customers consists of three components; generation, transmission, and distribution. The REA and the co-opts provided funding for distribution. The generation and transmission of electricity was provided by the utilities. Without power generation and transmission (with the exception of TVA, it was provided by the private sector) there would be no electricity anywhere. And TVA was not necessary as there existed numerous private sector utilities that successfully provided electricity in the South. And the private sector was working to provide electricity to rural areas. From the book Big Bets …

    private sector was doing its job with or without the REA. The private sector, unlike the government, has to be economical with how it allocates its resources. …”

    Let’s all give a big round of applause for the free-market and private sector utility companies … by 1935, a total of 4 percent of Southern farms had electricity compared to 90 percent to 100 percent of farms in Germany, France and the Netherlands.

    In their infinite wisdom, the free-market system and private-enterprise had decided it was unprofitable to transmit electricity to rural areas in the South unless farmers were charged unaffordable rates:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Utilities_Service

    “In the 1930s, the U.S. lagged significantly behind Europe in providing electricity to rural areas due to the unwillingness of power companies to serve farmsteads.

    Private electric utilities argued that the government had no right to compete with or regulate private enterprise, despite many of these utilities’ having refused to extend their lines to rural areas, claiming lack of profitability. Private power companies set rural rates four times as high as city rates.[2] Under the REA there was no direct government competition to private enterprise. Instead, REA made loans available to local electrification cooperatives, which operated lines and distributed electricity.”

  16. “Again, at what cost?

    This is a hilarious question.

    What was the cost of the private Northern-owned railroad network that charged exorbitant rates to Southerners, the economic impact of hookworms, pellagra, and malaria, the sharecropping and farm tenancy system, 96 percent of farms in the 1930s which didn’t have electricity, pests like the boll weevil, Northern control of the steel, textile, and coal mining industries?

    • Hunter,

      “‘Again, at what cost?’

      This is a hilarious question.

      What was the cost of the private Northern-owned railroad network that charged exorbitant rates to Southerners, the economic impact of hookworms, pellagra, and malaria, the sharecropping and farm tenancy system, 96 percent of farms in the 1930s which didn’t have electricity, pests like the boll weevil, Northern control of the steel, textile, and coal mining industries?”

      No, it’s a very serious question. We have to weigh the cost of the program against the benefit. That’s how we should make any decision, even personal decisions. If you don’t believe in weighing the cost of a decision against the benefit, then you end up living like an animal.

      I have already conceded that the state should manage eradication programs, outsourcing the production of relevant vaccines and pesticides to the private sector. There is no need bringing those up over and over. I have conceded.

      Regarding the sharecropping/tenancy system I don’t hold it as evil. It was a form of rent. It was simply a step in the evolution of agriculture to get where we are now, where oftentimes farmers still rent rather than buy land. Much, if not most of this land is still owned locally, but I admit some farmlands and timberlands are managed like mutual funds by absentee managers. Some states have bans on this practice, but I wonder how much difference it really makes.

      I’d say the invention of tractors and multirow implements, and pesticides had as much to do with advancing agriculture than gov subsidies. Actually I’m certain, because the gov could not give equipment loans for equipment that had not been invented, but it is possible for the equipment to make its way to the farmers by trickle down without the need for gov subsidies or gov loans. It is possible that the gov programs in this department were cost effective, but it is probable that the private sector loans and trickle down would have been even more cost effective. This means that even though the gov project was not an embarrassing failure, it is still probable that the free market would have been more efficient.

      I’m not sure what Northern control of the railroads, steel, textile, and coal mining industries have to do with gov subsidies in this thread. Would the South have had these industries own its own at that time if the Northerners had not invested? Did the North prevent the South from creating these industries on its own? I can’t say, except that the Pittsburgh Plus pricing strategy was a good argument against monopolies.

      • Jeff,

        “No, it’s a very serious question. We have to weigh the cost of the program against the benefit. That’s how we should make any decision, even personal decisions. If you don’t believe in weighing the cost of a decision against the benefit, then you end up living like an animal.”

        Shall we take a trip down memory lane to remind everyone what the free-market had accomplished in the Tennessee Valley circa 1933?

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Valley_Authority

        “Even by Depression standards, the Tennessee Valley was economically dismal in 1933. Thirty percent of the population was affected by malaria, and the average income was only $639 per year, with some families surviving on as little as $100 per year. Much of the land had been farmed too hard for too long, eroding and depleting the soil. Crop yields had fallen along with farm incomes. The best timber had been cut, with another 10% of forests being burnt each year.”

        Hey, it sounds like your kind of Third World economy. The “cost” in this case was giving up a backward economy based on sharecropping and Northern-owned textile mills that moved to the region to exploit child labor, where 30 percent of the population was plagued by malaria, where average per capita income was $639, and less than 4 percent of farms had access to electricity because privately owned utility companies were unwilling to run lines to rural areas at affordable rates.

        “I have already conceded that the state should manage eradication programs, outsourcing the production of relevant vaccines and pesticides to the private sector. There is no need bringing those up over and over. I have conceded.”

        The free-market reduced the South to such destitute poverty that generations of Southerners suffered from malnutrition, pellagra and hookworms because they couldn’t afford toilets, running water, or shoes. Given the laissez faire attitude of the late 19th/early 20th century, the lack of public investment in sanitation also contributed to endemic disease. Then there was malaria, which crippled Southern urbanization for centuries, which the entrepreneur had failed to eradicate until the state intervened after WW2.

        “Regarding the sharecropping/tenancy system I don’t hold it as evil. It was a form of rent. It was simply a step in the evolution of agriculture to get where we are now, where oftentimes farmers still rent rather than buy land. Much, if not most of this land is still owned locally, but I admit some farmlands and timberlands are managed like mutual funds by absentee managers. Some states have bans on this practice, but I wonder how much difference it really makes.”

        If this were true and sharecropping and tenancy were part of the “natural” evolution of American agriculture rather than crushing poverty, then the Midwest would have had the sharecropping and tenancy system too. That wasn’t the case because Midwestern farmers had access to credit and the capital to invest in mechanization much earlier than the South.

        • Hunter,

          “Hey, it sounds like your kind of Third World economy. The “cost” in this case was giving up a backward economy based on sharecropping and Northern-owned textile mills that moved to the region to exploit child labor, where 30 percent of the population was plagued by malaria, where average per capita income was $639, and less than 4 percent of farms had access to electricity because privately owned utility companies were unwilling to run lines to rural areas at affordable rates.”

          No, you are not counting the costs. In the Wikipedia article you linked I think Dean Russell summed it up:

          Opponents, such as Dean Russell in The TVA Idea, in addition to condemning the project as being socialist, argued that TVA created a “hidden loss” by preventing the creation of “factories and jobs that would have come into existence if the government had allowed the taxpayers to spend their money as they wished.”

          You are not counting the loss of what could have been done with the money had it not first been forcibly extracted from the people. Even if there has been a positive ROI on the project during this time, that still does not mean that it was worth taking the money from the people in the first place because free trade may have given an even higher ROI.
          I suspect you already know about the broken window fallacy and resent being accused of it, but just in case you haven’t here it is:
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

          In the case of TVA the gov did not fix a broken dam, like the broken window in the story, but the concept of the unseen opportunity costs applies just the same.

          One could coin a new phrase called “The TVA Question” and pose the questions:
          –What would have been done with the money had it not been spent on the dam?
          –Would the other use of the money have given a higher ROI than the dam?

          Obviously this question is a moot point if the dam has been a net loss, as have been almost every megadam project in the world has been.

          http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-03-13/megadams-are-dismal-investments

          Notice in the article that private companies were unwilling to invest in the project. Go figure.

          Notice that the state company estimated the cost at 8 billion reais, but now it is expected to be 29 billion ($12.3 billion US). And it still isn’t done yet. Go figure.

          Notice that the gov representative insists:
          “The investors analyzed the project and decided the return is good.”
          It works the same way here. Obamacare is working great, according to Obama.

          This article actually claims that about 50% of megadams break even, but I’ve read before that the break even rate is less than that.

          Of course, if you do decide that these ventures are worth it, the state would have to acquire property rights via eminent domain since the private sector can’t do it. Then the best strategy would be to have the private sector do the whole project, start to finish, including the sale of electricity for profit. The problem is you may have trouble finding private sector companies willing to do it! No problem! If you can’t find a private sector entity stupid enough to do it, then you can put together a state run enterprise to do it!

          If the goal is flood control and not electricity generation, then you can still do it the same way: eminent domain, then private sector to buy all the property, do the entire job and earn the profit from the resale of the improved property or rental as resort, or whatever. Same thing applies, if you can’t find anybody in the private sector stupid enough to do it, you can always hire gov employees to do it!

          If the goal is to improve the navigation of the river, then the best bet would be to allow a private company(s) to do the work in exchange for charging a toll on all boats that benefit from the improved navigation.

          There is no reason all of these could not have been bundled into one package by the private sector, so that’s not a reason to do it by government agency.

          If the goal were to eradicate malaria, then the gov would have been better off to subsidize the work to be done by the private sector, but I didn’t see anything about malaria in the Wikipedia article.

          The most likely goal was to maintain federal control over the electricity supply. Here’s what the Wikipedia article says:

          During his presidential campaign, Roosevelt claimed that private utilities had “selfish purposes” and said, “Never shall the federal government part with its sovereignty or with its control of its power resources while I’m president of the United States.” By forming utility holding companies, the private sector controlled 94 percent of generation by 1921, essentially unregulated. (This gave rise to the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 (PUHCA)). Many private companies in the Tennessee Valley were bought by the federal government. Others shut down, unable to compete with the TVA. Government regulations were also passed to prevent competition with TVA.

          I respond:
          The federal government bought out, shut down, and banned the private sector competition already in the area. How about that?

          “The free-market reduced the South to such destitute poverty that generations of Southerners suffered from malnutrition, pellagra and hookworms because they couldn’t afford toilets, running water, or shoes. Given the laissez faire attitude of the late 19th/early 20th century, the lack of public investment in sanitation also contributed to endemic disease. Then there was malaria, which crippled Southern urbanization for centuries, which the entrepreneur had failed to eradicate until the state intervened after WW2.”

          What do you want me to say? I told you already, I concede that eradication programs are best left up to the state, but that the materials (like vaccines or pesticides) should be researched, developed, and produced by the private sector.

          “If this were true and sharecropping and tenancy were part of the “natural” evolution of American agriculture rather than crushing poverty, then the Midwest would have had the sharecropping and tenancy system too. That wasn’t the case because Midwestern farmers had access to credit and the capital to invest in mechanization much earlier than the South.”

          Agriculture evolved differently in the South than the Midwest. The South had a slavery system that was taken away while the Midwest did not. The sharecropping system was what filled in the gap after the plantation system was killed. Farmers today would be using modern tractors and pesticides, and gmo crops whether the gov sector intervened or not. Private sector banks lend money for agricultural endeavors, even though the gov still maintains the Farm Credit Services (perhaps the name has changed) where farmers might get a slightly better rate or higher limits–the defaults of course are at the expense of the taxpayer. That’s a cost you have to factor in.

          I honestly doubt it was all that different back then whether it was called sharecropping or not, though if you owned your own land you didn’t have to pay rent on it, but many farmers rent land today even though they aren’t poor, just doing business by the spreadsheet.

          Agriculture was inefficient and it took a lot more farmers to grow the same amount of food, and farming was low skill labor compared to what it is now, so naturally farmers were poor people who lacked the education or ability to rise up. Today most farmers earn pretty comfortable livings and continue farming because that’s what they want to do. Obviously in the free market system the least competitive farmers (or any other business) will go out of business and have to find something else to do for a living. It’s a real bummer for that individual, but it works best for society as a whole that way.

    • Hunter,

      “According to the EIA, 31 percent and 50 percent of the electricity generated in North Carolina and South Carolina respectively comes from nuclear power.”

      Maybe so. I’ve never thought much about it. I don’t understand what your point is. I made the point above that even if the gov had not split the atom for defense, it would have gotten split anyway by the private sector for the purpose of power generation. It is possible that gov research pushed the date forward a little bit, but I doubt we’d be without nuclear energy today if the gov had not made the bomb. Even if we didn’t have nuclear energy yet, we still have lots of fossil fuels, though I’m quite happy to have nuclear in the mix if it helps keep electricity cheaper and helps us get off foreign oil faster.

      I think the bomb was a good investment for our defense alone.

  17. Agree 100% It is not a matter of big government verses small government but is instead is one of “OUR” government verses “THEIR” government and truth by told I don’t think we had had an “Our government” since the days of Woodrow Wilson who I consider the fist globalist.

  18. “I’d say the invention of tractors and multirow implements, and pesticides had as much to do with advancing agriculture than gov subsidies. Actually I’m certain, because the gov could not give equipment loans for equipment that had not been invented, but it is possible for the equipment to make its way to the farmers by trickle down without the need for gov subsidies or gov loans.”

    As we saw in the other thread, 55 percent of White farmers in Alabama had been reduced to sharecropping by the greatness of the free-market in 1935. Yes, the tractor and mechanical cotton picker did eliminate sharecropping, BUT the free-market system had made farmers so damn poor that they couldn’t afford the equipment!

    “It is possible that the gov programs in this department were cost effective, but it is probable that the private sector loans and trickle down would have been even more cost effective. “

    BTW, it was precisely the lack of private sector credit and this “trickle down” of loans that created and sustained sharecropping in the first place. Fortunately, the government intervened in the free-market and finally destroyed this extraordinarily wasteful, backward system.

    “This means that even though the gov project was not an embarrassing failure, it is still probable that the free market would have been more efficient”

    Nevermind the fact that the “free-market” hadn’t shown its fabled efficiency in half a century!

  19. Jeff,

    “Maybe so. I’ve never thought much about it. I don’t understand what your point is. I made the point above that even if the gov had not split the atom for defense, it would have gotten split anyway by the private sector for the purpose of power generation.”

    According to free-market theorists, the entrepreneur should have responded by splitting the atom and developing nuclear technology faster than the state. I suppose the same is true of the computer and the rockets which put commercial satellites into space in the late 20th ccentury.

    “It is possible that gov research pushed the date forward a little bit, but I doubt we’d be without nuclear energy today if the gov had not made the bomb. Even if we didn’t have nuclear energy yet, we still have lots of fossil fuels, though I’m quite happy to have nuclear in the mix if it helps keep electricity cheaper and helps us get off foreign oil faster.

    I think the bomb was a good investment for our defense alone.”

    How much more expensive would elecricity be today were it not for hydroelectric and nuclear power?

  20. “TVA was never needed. Private sector companies already provide what the TVA provides at a lower cost.”

    Understandly, libertarians hate the TVA and REA for the following reasons:

    1.) In the US, the private sector transmitted electricity to only 4 percent of Southern farms in 1935. In Japan, Germany and France, over 90 percent of farms had access to electricity, and it was 100 percent in the Netherlands.

    2.) The privately owned utilities produced electricity at unaffordable rates and served only limited areas. Hence, the takeover during the New Deal.

    3.) The TVA produced so much cheap electricity that it drove private sector utilities out of business and spurred industrialization all across the Tennessee Valley. Alcoa’s aluminium plants and Oak Ridge National Laboratory depended on that electricity to develop the atom bomb.

    “2. The Amish don’t attend government schools and yet they are literate in two languages (German and English). Tell me why are government schools needed again?”

    If you are watching college football tomorrow, remember that over half the SEC universities were founded as land-grant colleges and were created by the Morrill Act. Insofar as literacy and higher education exists in your state, you can thank the “government” for that too.

  21. “What tangible benefits are associated with putting a man on the moon? What is it that we have today that we wouldn’t have if a man were not put on the moon?

    Sadly, free-market theorists have a hard time conceding the greatest technological accomplishment in the history of mankind – putting a man on the moon – to “the state.” I suspect they would be more than happy to claim it if an entrepreneur in a private spacecraft instead of an astronaut had landed on the moon!

    Perhaps this attitude is also reflected in their views of all the vast advances that have been made in astronomy and genetics by the state? I won’t even bother to list all the technologies we take for granted that are spinoffs of spaceflight or NIH funding.

    “5. The private sector already provides numerous pesticides and medical treatments. You seem reluctant to give them any credit for this.

    Because, I don’t dispute this.

    “6. Child labor was a necessity. It’s not practiced because the government saved us. It’s not practiced because its no longer neede

    Child labor flourished in the early 20th century South until the practice was outlawed. The lack of a maximum work week and child labor attracted the New England textile industry to the Piedmont.

  22. Hunter,

    “According to free-market theorists, the entrepreneur should have responded by splitting the atom and developing nuclear technology faster than the state.”

    Absolutely not true! Free market theorists argue that the free market does things more *cost effectively* than the state. There’s a difference between “first” and “more cost effective.” First is not always better, but cost effective is.

    “I suppose the same is true of the computer and the rockets which put commercial satellites into space in the late 20th ccentury.”

    Same answer as with splitting the atom. You never get to see what would have been done with the money had *extractive* taxation not taken it from the people in the first place.

    Again, as with eradication programs, I have already conceded that when it comes to national defense the state should subsidize. These technologies fall squarely under defense strategy.

    “How much more expensive would elecricity be today were it not for hydroelectric and nuclear power?”

    I don’t feel like doing a thesis on it, but it may well be more expensive because of gov hydro projects, most of the cost being prepaid by taxation.

    Regarding nuclear, I don’t feel like doing a thesis on it either, but it would have probably come about anyway, and more efficiently, based on the private sector response to the demand for electricity. But the free market would not have developed the bomb. But I already conceded that as a national security interest, and squarely under the domain of the state.

  23. Why hasn’t “the market” responded and brought cheap broadband to my county? Why hasn’t it responded and rebuilt and modernized the failing infrastructure in my county? Why hasn’t “the market” responded and brought jobs to my county?

    If it wasn’t for “the state” which employs my entire county in it’s prison system no one would have a job. Where’s the market at?

    I know – we haven’t been competitive and innovative enough right? Not wiling to work hard enough and long enough hours as Jeb Bush pointed out. Got it.

    • According to free-market theorists, if it were not for the taxation imposed on your county by the state, the entrepreneur George Jetson would have responded by innovating a FTL warp drive industry in your county that would have employed thousands by opening up free-trade with other spacefaring entrepreneurs in our galaxy!

      • Hunter,

        Wish I could post images here. Anyway, here’s a link where you can scroll down and see the chart comparing TVA electricity prices to private sector prices. And don’t forget, TVA was taxpayer funded so the true cost is much higher than the chart indicates.
        http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/05/time-for-the-sun-to-set-on-the-tennessee-valley-authority

        Here’s an interesting paragraph from the article:

        “Part of the federal taxpayer’s original investment in the TVA from 1933 to 1959 has not been paid back, nor the interest thereon, and is not scheduled for payback. In 1959, the TVA owed the Treasury $1,258.3 billion for appropriations from 1933 to 1959 for principal. There was no interest charged for the appropriations for the 26 years during which the funds were appropriated and used. Had a simple interest rate been charged at long-term Treasury interest rates of 2 percent annually (about the average rate for this period) the interest is estimated at $314.4 million through 1959. From 1960 through 2013, assuming an average interest rate of 4 percent on longer-term treasuries, the interest on the interest amount becomes $2.5 billion. Since interest was not charged, the estimated interest accrued should be recognized as federal taxpayer equity in the TVA.”

        So this is essentially saying that the TVA has never paid off its debt to the US Treasury after all these years, and since the interest isn’t being charged, it’s basically being subsidized to this day by the taxpayer.

        Only the government could get away with this:
        –never recovered capital investment
        –still collecting taxpayer money (by not paying interest on principal)
        –selling some of the highest priced electricity in the region

        But hey, It’s still accomplishing Roosevelt’s purpose of not letting the private sector do the job.

        I’m going to have to count TVA as a giant gov fiasco, unless the navigation channel contributes significantly to our national security, and that doesn’t seem likely since it was never listed as a purpose for the project.

        • This is an extremely impressive and interesting discussion/debate on everyones’ part. I absolutely cede to the superior knowledge of a few of those involved, such as Hunter & JD, but there is one bottom-line debate winner put out by HW that deserves to be repeated:

          “Shall we take a trip down memory lane to remind everyone What the free-market had accomplished in the Tennessee Valley circa 1933?”

          It’s hard to argue when you look at, e.g., the stats from inductees & volunteers during WWI and (still) WWII. Certainly, during 1917/1918 the numbers & info for Southern soldiers (I’m including all of Ky, some of Mo. should also be included; Oklahoma is a diff debate) they look like stats from what we would now call the Third World. There were areas of South America (Argentina) that were far ahead of a good part of the US. By 1941 this was still largely true.

          I’ve always thought interjecting the “race to the moon” element required an entirely diff analysis because of the military’s role. Any time you have the military involved in what is basically a conflict situation (the space race was Cold War plus!) it changes things a bit. An interesting element of the race to the moon is having the ability to do a direct comparison with the USSR, which was a 100% “pure” state-run operation. (Though you do have to fill in a few “gaps” because of Soviet secrecy).

  24. Hunter,

    “The TVA produced so much cheap electricity that it drove private sector utilities out of business and spurred industrialization all across the Tennessee Valley.”

    LMAO! The TVA electricity wasn’t cheaper! It was subsidized with tax money!!! Even then the gov had to prohibit competition from the private sector!!!

  25. The county next to mine is doing just as bad as we are. I guess the market has decided not to “respond” there either.

    • “The county next to mine is doing just as bad as we are. I guess the market has decided not to “respond” there either.

      South Korea has the fastest internet in the world with speeds twice as fast as the United States. It also has the most widespread coverage network. In South Korea, Seoul and public areas have free Wi-Fi:

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_South_Korea
      http://www.korea.net/NewsFocus/Sci-Tech/view?articleId=101482

      According to free-market theorists, the entrepreneur in the United States should have responded by creating an even better system than private sector-government cooperation managed to do in South Korea. Of course, 90 percent of Japanese farms had electricity in 1935 compared to less than 4 percent in the South, so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised by the underdevelopment of public infrastructure caused by the free-market.

      In the 1930s, America’s niggardly investment in the electric grid under the free-market system, unaffordable rates of electricity, and its relative backwardness compared to other Western industrialized nations prompted the Public Utility Holding Company Act:

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Utility_Holding_Company_Act_of_1935

      After the Wall Street crash of 1929 sunk the world into the Great Depression, Southerners and all Americans began to address the problems created by the free-market. The Tennessee Valley, for example, went from being an extremely poor, malaria infested region with hardly any access to electricity and a backward economy based on sharecropping and child labor in textile mills to an industrialized region thanks to cheap TVA electricity that produced the atom bomb and led America in the Space Race.

      • “No, you are not counting the costs. In the Wikipedia article you linked I think Dean Russell summed it up:

        Opponents, such as Dean Russell in The TVA Idea, in addition to condemning the project as being socialist …”

        “Socialist.”

        Among other public goods, we also have police and fire protection in the United States, as well as public highways like the interstate system which facilitate commerce. Most Americans think that is a far better idea than the libertarian alternatives.

        ” argued that TVA created a “hidden loss” by preventing the creation of “factories and jobs that would have come into existence if the government had allowed the taxpayers to spend their money as they wished.”

        The argument was rejected by the people of the Tennessee Valley who became overwhelmingly loyal to FDR because of the TVA, REA, and the thousands of jobs both created when the region industrialized during the Second World War. Having lived under the free-market system for generations, they rejected it based on its performance.

        • Hunter,

          “‘argued that TVA created a “hidden loss” by preventing the creation of “factories and jobs that would have come into existence if the government had allowed the taxpayers to spend their money as they wished.’

          The argument was rejected by the people of the Tennessee Valley who became overwhelmingly loyal to FDR because of the TVA, REA, and the thousands of jobs both created when the region industrialized during the Second World War. Having lived under the free-market system for generations, they rejected it based on its performance.”

          And people with Obamaphones overwhelmingly support Obama. That doesn’t mean that it increases the general wealth of Americans–And I don’t think it helps national security either.

  26. Hunter,

    “Sadly, free-market theorists have a hard time conceding the greatest technological accomplishment in the history of mankind – putting a man on the moon – to “the state.” I suspect they would be more than happy to claim it if an entrepreneur in a private spacecraft instead of an astronaut had landed on the moon!”

    Not a problem here. There was no real market value to putting a man on the moon. Nobody had relatives there, nobody had lost anything there. The space program at the time was a defense issue and squarely under the domain of the state. It still is a defense issue, but our leaders would rather cut defense than cut welfare.

    “Perhaps this attitude is also reflected in their views of all the vast advances that have been made in astronomy and genetics by the state?”

    Genetics? The human genome project was undertaken by the federal government, headed by Francis Collins but after 6 years of slow progress, Craig Venter (self employed in his own company) decided he could do it better. Rather than sequencing the genome end to end, one base pair at a time, as the government was doing, he decided to cut the DNA strands into shorter strips, sequence them all at the same time. He finished in 2 years, while the gov took 8 years, and only got it in that amount of time because Collins decided to abandon his previous method and adopt Venter’s! I bet Collins spent a lot more money though!

    Sequencing the human genome was an embarrassing defeat for the gov if you look at it as state vs private sector competition. At least Collins was not too egotistical to swallow pride and do it the better way, following the private sector.

    “Child labor flourished in the early 20th century South until the practice was outlawed. The lack of a maximum work week and child labor attracted the New England textile industry to the Piedmont.”

    See? the regulations drove it out of New England and to a less regulated place, like NC. Those paychecks then got spent in NC rather than New England. You are conceding that Freemarketers are right when they say regulations run business out of the area.

  27. Ulfric,

    “Why hasn’t “the market” responded and brought cheap broadband to my county?”

    Easy. Because there aren’t enough people willing to pay the price to make broadband cost effective in your county. If the government were to do it it would have to do it at a loss, funded by taxpayers.

  28. HW, you are really shining here. No matter what you think, my opinion is your talent really lies in your ability to do work on the post-Civil War South. In fact, post-Reconstruction South. Civil War historians are a big number. So big, in fact, I’ve been to symposia where the academic speakers openly defer in knowledge to amateurs attending. The Reconstruction field is always active, esp since Eric Foner opened it up to black academics.

    Your knowledge of the South in the, let’s call it 1876-1945 period, is incredibly impressive. And not just knowledge, but your ability to apply it in a discussion or debate. You’re a young guy & for two reasons, actually three, I think you should dump the idea of law school (if it was an idea). Please consider Grad School. I’m not necessarily sure your field is history. You ought to at least consider Poli Sci or Economics. Maybe even Sociology.

    It seems like you might have things to say or add to greater debates on subjects. In addition, the farther you stay away from the Civil Rights era the better will be your work.

  29. South Korea has the fastest internet in the world with speeds twice as fast as the United States. It also has the most widespread coverage network. In South Korea, Seoul and public areas have free Wi-Fi:

    There is no incentive for say Verizon to build a better broadband network when they can just keep the one they have and fleece the shit out of us. That is the free market in a nutshell.

    The broadband I have now was only provided to our area because the government put pressure on Verizon to do more for rural areas. Needless to say, they did as little as possible and gave us substandard extremely expensive options which most people in my county cannot afford.

    The other options are dial up and satellite. I will not even get into the extremely expensive lame nonsense that is satellite internet. Anyone who has had it will understand and need no further explanation. Rip off is the best way to describe the broadband options we have.

    They are following the same model with broadband that they did electricity 80 years ago.

      • Hunter,

        “Do you love your monthly Verizon data bill as much as I do?”

        This is ridiculous.

        Free market model:
        –Cable Internet is available in most areas already, but some rural areas haven’t got service yet.
        –You can opt out if you don’t think it is worth it.

        State subsidized model:
        –You are being taxed to pay for public Internet.
        –The tax is not optional, you have to pay it, unless you are on welfare.
        –It doesn’t matter if you think the service is worth the price or not.
        –It will actually cost more this way, but we are going to tell everybody that it is FREE!
        –It does not matter that most of the bandwidth will be wasted on kids playing video games or men watching porn. You have to pay for that too, even if you don’t do either of those things.
        –Your leaders will have control of your Internet service from now on, and they are not going to give it up.

        I can see why negroes like the state version, but why would a white man want it?

        • Jeff,

          As someone who lives in a rural area in Alabama and has to pay Verizon’s insane data bill every month for shitty service, I would say that South Korea and Japan have internet that is vastly superior to what exists here. It is cheaper, faster, and better in every way than what the “free-market” model offers here.

          • Hunter,

            I don’t think it is a free market failure if rich and/or urban areas get infrastructure (like electricity, cable, Internet) sooner and/or cheaper than poor and/or rural areas. I think it is perfectly normal and to be expected that these services are going to cost more and be less reliable in rural areas. If you like city life better, then move to a city. We have cities all over the South for you to choose from.

            Another thing. You don’t have to pay Verizon’s insane bill for shitty service if you don’t want to. You can always opt out, but you would not be able to opt out of the gov version because taxes (except for excise taxes and sin taxes) are mandatory.

            Asking for the gov to bring better/cheaper Internet into your area ahead of the free market is just asking for wealth redistribution from taxpayers to you. Why don’t you just ask for a welfare check? It would be a much more efficient form of redistribution and you could spend it on whatever you wanted. It also wouldn’t give the government control over your Internet.

          • Jeff,

            That’s precisely my point.

            According to free-market theorists, the entrepreneur is supposed to respond and deliver far superior service than the state, but I am sorry to report that the facts show that the US ranks #12. in average internet connection speed. This sort of backwardness is only “perfectly normal” under the American free-market system.

            https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_connection_speeds
            In South Korea, the internet is twice as fast as it is in the United States. Seoul and other public areas have FREE Wi-Fi. The internet is faster, cheaper, and better in South Korea where rural areas have better broadband than most of our cities.

          • Hunter,

            “According to free-market theorists, the entrepreneur is supposed to respond and deliver far superior service than the state, but I am sorry to report that the facts show that the US ranks #12. in average internet connection speed. This sort of backwardness is only “perfectly normal” under the American free-market system.”

            Wrong. The free market delivers things more cost effectively than the government sector most of the time. That is to say that the free market is generally more efficient than the government.

            –It does not mean that the free market will always be first.
            –It doesn’t even guarantee that the free market will always deliver a superior product, though that is almost always the case.
            –It means that the free market is going to be more cost efficient a good 99% of the time when it comes to wealth generation, and not to do with common defense or disease/pest eradication (which are really an aspect of common defense)

            “In South Korea, the internet is twice as fast as it is in the United States. Seoul and other public areas have FREE Wi-Fi. The internet is faster, cheaper, and better in South Korea where rural areas have better broadband than most of our cities.”

            The internet there may be faster, but I doubt it’s cheaper, unless the Koreans are simply better at that kind of tech than we are. Also, this setup gives the gov control over heir Internet service. That is a nonstarter for me.

            You say the wifi in Seoul is free. It is no more free than the Internet in San Francisco. It is funded at public expense–that is some people are forced to pay for other people’s Internet.

            If you cannot grasp the key difference between “free” and “subsidized” then I don’t know what else to say to you.

          • Jeff,

            “Wrong. The free market delivers things more cost effectively than the government sector most of the time. That is to say that the free market is generally more efficient than the government.

            –It does not mean that the free market will always be first.
            –It doesn’t even guarantee that the free market will always deliver a superior product, though that is almost always the case.
            –It means that the free market is going to be more cost efficient a good 99% of the time when it comes to wealth generation, and not to do with common defense or disease/pest eradication (which are really an aspect of common defense)”

            Translation: whether it is infrastructure like bridges, all weather roads, or broadband internet, police and fire protection, health insurance, EMT service, disease control or any number of other public goods, the magic of the free-market efficiently makes these things more expensive and less available than the state.

            “The internet there may be faster, but I doubt it’s cheaper, unless the Koreans are simply better at that kind of tech than we are. Also, this setup gives the gov control over heir Internet service. That is a nonstarter for me.”

            But what if the government does it cheaper and faster than Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile and provides a better coverage area?

            “You say the wifi in Seoul is free. It is no more free than the Internet in San Francisco. It is funded at public expense–that is some people are forced to pay for other people’s Internet.

            If you cannot grasp the key difference between “free” and “subsidized” then I don’t know what else to say to you.”

            Is there anyone in South Korea or Japan clamoring for an American standard of internet service? How about an Alabama-style economy?

          • Hunter,

            “Translation: whether it is infrastructure like bridges, all weather roads, or broadband internet, police and fire protection, health insurance, EMT service, disease control or any number of other public goods, the magic of the free-market efficiently makes these things more expensive and less available than the state.

            Not at all. The free market doesn’t make any of these things more expensive, in fact cheaper, except that the free market doesn’t have much interest in defense or disease eradication. I have already conceded multiple times that these are best administered by the state.

            Why do you keep bringing up defense and diseases when that issue is settled already?

            Bridges and roads should be built and tolls collected by the private sector, but the private sector has no power of eminent domain, so the state would have to act in this authority role.

            I do not believe health insurance or Internet should be funded or administered by the government. Free market, all the way, including the right to opt out, hands down,

            The arguments could be made for leaving police, fire, emt services to the free market/private sector, but I haven’t really thought enough about it to make up my mind.

            Police and EMT services are partly free market already, but only in part. Security guards don’t have the authority the police do though. And ambulance services do cost on a per use basis, so that’s a hybrid model already. I doubt the police/EMT/fire department strategy is going to make or break the country either way, so I’d rather think and argue about other stuff.

            Public goods: I think some would do well privatized probably, but again, things like parks and monuments aren’t exactly going to make or break us either way. I’d rather think and talk about other stuff.

            “But what if the government does [the Internet] cheaper and faster than Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile and provides a better coverage area?”

            It’ll be a cold day in Hell before the gov over here beats the free market/private sector in all of those ways at the same time. Again “subsidized” is not the same as “free.” And btw, you forgot to include “more dependable.”
            It is possible that Koreans/Japanese as a race just do electronic type stuff better than we whites do.

            “Is there anyone in South Korea or Japan clamoring for an American standard of internet service?”

            At one time they were. But probably not so much these days.

            “How about an Alabama-style economy?”

            Well, in secret maybe, but I doubt they do it on the gov controlled Internet–They don’t want to go to prison and end up assembling electronic widgets for the rest of their lives.

            Incidentally, they may be jealous of our cheap chicken and beef.

          • “Not at all. The free market doesn’t make any of these things more expensive, in fact cheaper, except that the free market doesn’t have much interest in defense or disease eradication. I have already conceded multiple times that these are best administered by the state.

            Why do you keep bringing up defense and diseases when that issue is settled already?”

            Because the same principle applies: more expensive, limited coverage, long term underdevelopment due to lack of investment.

            “Bridges and roads should be built and tolls collected by the private sector, but the private sector has no power of eminent domain, so the state would have to act in this authority role.

            The tolls will stiffle economic activity and reduce tax revenue.

            I do not believe health insurance or Internet should be funded or administered by the government. Free market, all the way, including the right to opt out, hands down,

            The same principle applies here with the same result: both are more expensive and coverage is restricted.

            The arguments could be made for leaving police, fire, emt services to the free market/private sector, but I haven’t really thought enough about it to make up my mind.

            That’s the quickest way to make police, fire, and services more expensive and to restrict their access to the wealthy. In the long run, this will do extraordinary damage to the economy.

            “Police and EMT services are partly free market already, but only in part. Security guards don’t have the authority the police do though. And ambulance services do cost on a per use basis, so that’s a hybrid model already. I doubt the police/EMT/fire department strategy is going to make or break the country either way, so I’d rather think and argue about other stuff.

            Yes, that’s why places all around here are losing fire and EMT service and regressing in other ways.

            “Public goods: I think some would do well privatized probably, but again, things like parks and monuments aren’t exactly going to make or break us either way. I’d rather think and talk about other stuff.”

            I’m glad the Redwoods weren’t cut down and turned into grape stakes.

            “It’ll be a cold day in Hell before the gov over here beats the free market/private sector in all of those ways at the same time. Again “subsidized” is not the same as “free.” And btw, you forgot to include “more dependable.”
            It is possible that Koreans/Japanese as a race just do electronic type stuff better than we whites do.”

            Considering that we innovated the radio, television, semiconductor, computer, the internet, satellites, and most recently the smartphone, I tend to doubt it. The difference is that South Koreans, Japanese, Finns and so forth believe in investing in public infrastructure.

          • “At one time they were. But probably not so much these days.”

            Their system is better than ours. Hands down.

            Well, in secret maybe, but I doubt they do it on the gov controlled Internet–They don’t want to go to prison and end up assembling electronic widgets for the rest of their lives.

            Incidentally, they may be jealous of our cheap chicken and beef.

            They already buy our chicken and beef and run a vast trade surplus. Didn’t China recently buy Smithfield?

          • Hunter,

            “They already buy our chicken and beef and run a vast trade surplus. Didn’t China recently buy Smithfield?”

            Yeah, we had better reduce minimum wage or use prison labor or at least look for reasonable ways to deregulate so we can keep up.

          • Jeff,

            “Yeah, we had better reduce minimum wage or use prison labor or at least look for reasonable ways to deregulate so we can keep up.”

            This is hilarious.

            Are you joking? It seems your answer to everything is deregulation and reducing wages. How long will it take to become an economic superpower like Honduras? Did it ever occur to you that China wouldn’t be running such an enormous trade surplus if it were not for free-trade?

          • Hunter,

            You quoted me:
            “Yeah, we had better reduce minimum wage or use prison labor or at least look for reasonable ways to deregulate so we can keep up.”

            You said:
            “This is hilarious.

            Are you joking? It seems your answer to everything is deregulation and reducing wages.”

            Are you saying that deregulation, minimum wage reduction (or prison labor) wouldn’t help us compete with China? Please explain why it wouldn’t help compete.

            Also, I have repeatedly defended the use of tariffs to key core industries at home. Those core industries being the ones that would hurt us the most and the fastest should trade be disrupted by war or whatever. Clothes (because they can last for years), chocolates, coffee, French wines and cheeses don’t make the list.

            Working harder, being more innovative and investing your money wisely are also factors that would help, but those are not things that the government can create a policy on, except we could make more prisoners work.

            “Did it ever occur to you that China wouldn’t be running such an enormous trade surplus if it were not for free-trade?”

            China is running a surplus against us by outcompeting us. They just work cheaper and less regulated. Where do you think the money is going to go?

            My position puts me squarely among 90% of economists, so don’t shout me down too loud. You are the one holding on to the position that few believe in anymore. I grant that does not guarantee that I am right and you are wrong, but based on the agreement among the experts, it’s pretty unlikely to be the other way around.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade
            Please note the graph as a visual aid. The loss to the consumers is greater than the gain to the producers, so tariffs have a negative effect on national wealth.

            Here is a paper that does several modern day case studies around the world.
            http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/04/tariff-reform-needed-to-boost-the-us-economy
            This paper also includes a chart of the average per capita GDP for countries in the four quartiles of the Trade Freedom Score.

            In fact, I am more reserved than 90% of economists because I do advocate for the aforementioned selective tariffs. The reduction in free trade would be the price paid for increased national security.

            Again, there exists the slim possibility that you are right and that I and 90% of economists are wrong. (I have to wonder if it would be more like 99% agreement if the question had been posed to still allow for tariffs on certain goods that contribute to national security.)

            So please explain exactly how they are wrong, and please show your math if you want credit. Repeating that you live in a poor part of Alabama or that Honduras is poor, or that you see Chinese goods at WalMart does not count as a good explanation.

    • Ulfric,

      The broadband I have now was only provided to our area because the government put pressure on Verizon to do more for rural areas. Needless to say, they did as little as possible and gave us substandard extremely expensive options which most people in my county cannot afford.”

      Exactly. It was not yet cost effective to run broadband into the area, so Verizon wouldn’t do it. Then the gov put pressure on them to do it, so they had to cut corners and charge a higher price in order to not go broke. The gov should have left them alone. Eventually broadband, or some other kind of fast Internet would have made it to your area as it became more cost effective.

      I grew up in a rural area and could not get cable. My grandmother lived in town and did get cable. I wished that I could get cable and watch cartoons at home like I could with my grandmother. I did not blame the evil cable company or the free market. I just accepted that people living in rural areas didn’t get all the amenities that people living in towns got. Somewhere along the way I must have realized that progress is made over time since cable keeps creeping into rural areas. My parents’ home now has cable. I think the free market worked just the way it was supposed to.

  30. Hunter,

    “Among other public goods, we also have police and fire protection in the United States, as well as public highways like the interstate system which facilitate commerce. Most Americans think that is a far better idea than the libertarian alternatives.”

    I don’t think very many people that self identify as Libertarian would advocate against these things. I’m not even arguing that anyone identify as Libertarian. I don’t care about the Libertarian party and I don’t care if the word Libertarian ever gets used. I am arguing that:
    –the free market and private sector are far superior at generating wealth than gov planning and the gov sector.
    –nonetheless, some things are inherently more suited to handle as state projects, at the expense of the free market.
    –canals, roads, pipelines, electric/utility lines, etc. that have to be run across many properties require an authority like the state to step in and use eminent domain.

    You seem to have reduced your arguments to smearing libertarianism in general, so that people will be conditioned like Pavlov’s dog to think negatively of anything that might be associated with the word libertarian. Liberals have successfully done this with the word “racist.” All anybody has to do is say “racist” and intelligent debate shuts down. Please do not lower yourself to this modus operandi.

    My simple philosophy is that professional businessmen make better businessmen that politicians do. If the gov gets involved in a project, it should be for some reason other than wealth creation because if that is the purpose it will almost certainly fail to achieve adequate ROI, though a stopped clock is right twice a day, so there’s a slim chance the gov could get lucky once in a while. The gov did not get lucky on TVA.

    Your argument that the TVA was well received by the people of Tennessee (the ones who didn’t have to give up their homes) means nothing. It would have been much more straightforward and efficient for politicians to have just bought votes by writing checks to everyone in the area. That way nobody would have to give up his home.

    I guess whites aren’t as easily bought as blacks and mestizos, so they had to come up with something like TVA.

    • Jeff,

      “I don’t think very many people that self identify as Libertarian would advocate against these things. I’m not even arguing that anyone identify as Libertarian. I don’t care about the Libertarian party and I don’t care if the word Libertarian ever gets used. I am arguing that:”

      I’ve had plenty of libertarians argue for the privatization of fire departments, police departments and roads over the years both on this blog and the forum that preceded it.

      “–the free market and private sector are far superior at generating wealth than gov planning and the gov sector.”

      Yes, I know. I’m arguing that the history of the South, particularly from 1877 to 1932, shows us otherwise. By that I mean the laissez-faire, free-market, free-trade system was a failure.

      “–nonetheless, some things are inherently more suited to handle as state projects, at the expense of the free market.
      –canals, roads, pipelines, electric/utility lines, etc. that have to be run across many properties require an authority like the state to step in and use eminent domain..”

      See the latest post for the merits of the privately Northern-owned railroad network vs. the interstate transportation system and long distance trucking that succeded it.

      “You seem to have reduced your arguments to smearing libertarianism in general, so that people will be conditioned like Pavlov’s dog to think negatively of anything that might be associated with the word libertarian. Liberals have successfully done this with the word “racist.” All anybody has to do is say “racist” and intelligent debate shuts down. Please do not lower yourself to this modus operandi.”

      I’ve used the word a few times because it is easier than typing out the laissez-faire, free-market, free-trade system every time I address something about that model. In any case, libertarians lionize the classical liberal school of economics.

      • I will have to continue this discussion later.

        The State of Alabama is about to get caught up in Iron Bowl mania. I’m watching the game this afternoon with some friends and have to start gathering the food we need to grill out.

        Note: Auburn was established as a land-grant college. Sadly, Abraham Lincoln and the Morrill Act get the credit for fostering education in Alabama.

  31. Later? Were into the second decade of the 21st century and the free market has no plan to bring broadband to rural areas other than what the government has demanded. If government had not made demands on them to at least bring us expensive inferior broadband, I would still be on dial up.

    Trust me, the government has pulled Verizon kicking and screaming into what little they have done to bring broadband to my county. Hunter is right. They are following the same path as we have seen before because this is how the free market operates and it has nothing to do with Obama or anything else.

      • Hunter,

        “Obama’s stimulus brought broadband to much of the Alabama Black Belt. If it were not for the government, we would be even worse off.”

        Obama’s stimulus did not create anything except more government jobs to administrate the stimulus. It was a wealth redistribution scheme. If you want wealth redistribution from other areas to the area in question, why not just advocate for more welfare. That would be a much more efficient form of redistribution, and they could all spend the money on whatever they wanted.

        Based on your and my arguments so far about what kind of economic policy a free South should have, then I can pretty confidently say that my views are far closer to mainstream among Southern whites than yours are.

        Therefore, the best chance you have for implementing your ideas is to bring in as many black and Hispanic voters as possible to vote for those kinds of policies. They seem to feel entitled to much more “free” stuff than people like me are.

        • Jeff,

          “Based on your and my arguments so far about what kind of economic policy a free South should have, then I can pretty confidently say that my views are far closer to mainstream among Southern whites than yours are.”

          As we saw last time around, a “free South” didn’t end up having a laissez faire, free-market, free-trade economy, and it won’t be any different this time either.

          “Therefore, the best chance you have for implementing your ideas is to bring in as many black and Hispanic voters as possible to vote for those kinds of policies. They seem to feel entitled to much more “free” stuff than people like me are.”

          BTW, Brazil has a higher per capita income than many of the places which have benefited the most from your kind of economic polices. Some of those places are relatively worse off than Mexico.

          • Hunter,

            “As we saw last time around, a “free South” didn’t end up having a laissez faire, free-market, free-trade economy, and it won’t be any different this time either.”

            Tell me about all the free stuff they gave away to everybody before the free market came and took it away.

            If you’re talking about investment in national security, I’ve already conceded that. What else are you talking about?

            “BTW, Brazil has a higher per capita income than many of the places which have benefited the most from your kind of economic polices. Some of those places are relatively worse off than Mexico.”

            Gee, is that before tax or after tax?

            Here’s a relevant quote you may want to keep in mind. It’s posted on http://southernnationalcongress.org/

            “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”

            Samuel Adams

          • “Tell me about all the free stuff they gave away to everybody before the free market came and took it away.

            If you’re talking about investment in national security, I’ve already conceded that. What else are you talking about?”

            Even though the Confederate Constitution banned internal improvements and protective tariffs, the Confederate government ended up creating everything from state-owned enterprises to a welfare state simply because it had no other choice.

            “Gee, is that before tax or after tax?”

            In the United States, the free-market has made some places in the South poorer than Mexico and Brazil. Yet this system which creates and sustains so much backwardness and poverty in our midst – things like pellagra and hookworms, a national disgrace – is supposedly better at generating economic development than all other development models. I’m not buying it.

          • Hunter,

            “Because the same principle applies: more expensive, limited coverage, long term underdevelopment due to lack of investment.”

            Not true at all. FM is generally cheaper and better, but in matters of defense, FM just isn’t that interested, unless the government is the high paying customer. Defense and wealth creation aren’t the same at all. FM isn’t interested in tanks and bombs unless the government is willing to buy them.

            “The tolls will stiffle economic activity and reduce tax revenue.”
            They would take the place of gas tax. So no, they would not stifle the economy. We’re seeing alternative fuels and electronic tolling come into play anyway, so the trend is going to be from gas tax to tolling.

            “The same principle applies here [insurance, Internet] with the same result: both are more expensive and coverage is restricted.”

            Are you actually pro-Obamacare?
            Based on the website rollout, do you want them running your health care too?

          • “Not true at all. FM is generally cheaper and better, but in matters of defense, FM just isn’t that interested, unless the government is the high paying customer. Defense and wealth creation aren’t the same at all. FM isn’t interested in tanks and bombs unless the government is willing to buy them.”

            The free-market produces the same result across a broad spectrum of public goods: it restricts access to the wealthy, retards investment, and it makes public goods more expensive.

            That’s the common denominator. If we want a country where the wealthy can afford to use the private roads, hire private security, afford healthcare and education, have great broadband, EMT service and fire protection, then the free-market is the way to go.

            “They would take the place of gas tax. So no, they would not stifle the economy. We’re seeing alternative fuels and electronic tolling come into play anyway, so the trend is going to be from gas tax to tolling.”

            Elaborate.

            “Are you actually pro-Obamacare?
            Based on the website rollout, do you want them running your health care too?

            No, I am not.

            At the same time, I don’t believe the American healthcare system is better than its peers.

    • Ulfric,

      “Later? Were into the second decade of the 21st century and the free market has no plan to bring broadband to rural areas other than what the government has demanded. If government had not made demands on them to at least bring us expensive inferior broadband, I would still be on dial up.

      Trust me, the government has pulled Verizon kicking and screaming into what little they have done to bring broadband to my county. Hunter is right. They are following the same path as we have seen before because this is how the free market operates and it has nothing to do with Obama or anything else.”

      I don’t blame Verizon or any other company for not taking bad investments!
      Why exactly do you believe anybody owes you broadband Internet that you have not invented or paid for? It simply costs more to run cable over long distances in rural areas. Of course it’s going to be more expensive and less reliable than in the city!
      What else do other people owe you?
      Does Boeing owe you an airplane?
      Does Mercedes owe you a car?
      Does Sony owe you a TV?

      Please tell me how I can also become as entitle to other people’s wealth as you are. Just because something has been invented doesn’t mean somebody owes it to you.

      Do you want a subway also, since NY and DC have them?
      I guess the free market is screwed up there too, since we don’t have subways in rural Alabama. Maybe you prefer a skytrain like they have in Atlanta. Please let us all know asap whether you want subway or skytrain so the government can get to work on it right away! We simply cannot allow the private sector to take it’s own sweet time inventing and marketing personal aircraft. You need it NOW!

      • Skytrain? In Atlanta? I guess you could call it that, maybe.

        Speaking of Atlanta, most people who travel might not recognize the circuitous and difficult routings brought on by the gov’t stepping out of regulating air transit. It’s great for Atlanta- you ever try to fly to Birmingham from, e.g., Baltimore? Or just about anywhere? I imagine Montgomery or Mobile is even worse. Baltimore to Atlanta to Birmingham to Montgomery? Or maybe even Baltimore to Atlanta to New Orleans and then East to Montgomery? You can wave at Montgomery as you pass over it.

        As far as the free market, no Jet Blue is going to crop up in the SE to make your life easier. Even if a company finds it marginally economical on paper, the boys controlling the gates at Hartfield will take care of that!

  32. Obama’s stimulus brought broadband to much of the Alabama Black Belt. If it were not for the government, we would be even worse off.

    Those who received the service would be even worst off. Those of us who pay the taxes to fund government (ie those of us who pull our own weight) would be better off without the spending/debt associated with Obama’s stimulus.

    • “Those who received the service would be even worst off. Those of us who pay the taxes to fund government (ie those of us who pull our own weight) would be better off without the spending/debt associated with Obama’s stimulus.”

      The game is still on but real quick … my best friend’s wife just had to shut her mobile data off. She has Verizon and exceeded her monthly data limit. All hail the free-market!

      • Hunter,

        “The game is still on but real quick … my best friend’s wife just had to shut her mobile data off. She has Verizon and exceeded her monthly data limit. All hail the free-market!”

        I have to admit, I am absolutely amazed that you count this as a legitimate argument against the free market. This one could go in a comedy skit if you ask me.

        I haven’t had mobile service in years and I don’t blame either the free market or socialism for it. In fact I only had mobile before when I was under different circumstances and was required to have it for other people’s convenience, not mine. I’m still using my iPhone from 2010, just without the mobile service.

        You blame the free market for her not having unlimited data transfer on her mobile phone?

        Please tell me more about the history of unlimited mobile data transfer as a universal human right that the free market took it away.

        I can honestly say you have discovered more entitlements in life than I have.

        • Jeff,

          “I have to admit, I am absolutely amazed that you count this as a legitimate argument against the free market. This one could go in a comedy skit if you ask me.”

          Why is this surprising?

          In 1935, a whopping 4 percent of Southern farms had electricity compared to over 90 percent in Germany, France, and Japan and 100 percent in the Netherlands. In rural Alabama, the free-market couldn’t even bring electricity to this community, so why should anyone be surprised that it failed to bring broadband internet?

          “I haven’t had mobile service in years and I don’t blame either the free market or socialism for it. In fact I only had mobile before when I was under different circumstances and was required to have it for other people’s convenience, not mine. I’m still using my iPhone from 2010, just without the mobile service.

          You blame the free market for her not having unlimited data transfer on her mobile phone?”

          The free-market is to blame for retarding the development of broadband infrastructure in this country. Because other countries don’t have this problem, they have cheaper and faster internet without the spotty coverage in rural areas like the Alabama Black Belt.

          “Please tell me more about the history of unlimited mobile data transfer as a universal human right that the free market took it away.

          I can honestly say you have discovered more entitlements in life than I have.”

          The free-market always has this effect: it makes public goods more expensive and limits access to those who can afford it. If the police and fire departments were privatized, the magic of the market would similarly limit the coverage area. The rich would be able to afford private security forces, fire departments, healthcare, education, EMT services and so forth while much of the country would be left without protection.

          According to free-market theorists, the entrepreneur is supposed to respond to the demand for public goods and provide superior services. But if that is true, why is the US ranked #12. in internet speed? Why is broadband internet more expensive, slower, and less available in rural areas in the US than Finland, Japan and South Korea?

          • Hunter,

            I have to admit that you and Ulfric are the first two people I’ve ever met who thought the government owed them free high speed Internet in a rural area!

            Just curious, what kind of free Internet service would you expect for the government to provide for you if you lived in rural Alaska?

            “The free-market is to blame for retarding the development of broadband infrastructure in this country. Because other countries don’t have this problem, they have cheaper and faster internet without the spotty coverage in rural areas”

            Please tell us what you expect the gov to provide and include a budget proposal so we can see it. Don’t forget to include where the revenue is coming from and how much the tax increase would be. Also tell us how the increased government control is not a threat to our personal freedoms.

            Can’t do it?
            The government can’t either.

            What other things do you think the government should give you, you know, for “free”?

            –free toilet paper?
            –free car?
            –free phone?

  33. The game is still on but real quick … my best friend’s wife just had to shut her mobile data off. She has Verizon and exceeded her monthly data limit. All hail the free-market!

    Tell her to switch to another carrier.

  34. Two things regarding your best friend’s wifel

    1. What is she doing on the phone that causes her to exceed her data limit. I do a lot and I can’t even get close to my data limit. Instead of blaming the free market, why not have her limit her data usage.

    2. Tell us all that you know about setting up and maintaining a wireless data system. I bet all that you know couldn’t fill up a thimble and yet you will blame the free market for not giving you everything you want.

    • Jeff,

      “Two things regarding your best friend’s wifel

      1. What is she doing on the phone that causes her to exceed her data limit. I do a lot and I can’t even get close to my data limit. Instead of blaming the free market, why not have her limit her data usage.”

      I’m sure she is watching YouTube videos. I can’t watch more than a handful of videos on my smartphone a month without exceeding my 10 GB data limit. This actually limits my ability to update this website.

      “2. Tell us all that you know about setting up and maintaining a wireless data system. I bet all that you know couldn’t fill up a thimble and yet you will blame the free market for not giving you everything you want.”

      I know this much:

      1. First, the free-market failed to even bring electricity to this area in the 1930s, which retarded economic development until the state intervened and fixed the problem.

      2.) Second, if it had been up to the free-market, we would still be stuck with dial up internet in this area.

      3.) Third, the broadband internet in rural areas in South Korea is superior to that available in Montgomery, and it is not nearly as expensive.

      BTW, I got a laugh watching the Iron Bowl on a Samsung flatscreen. Because of free-trade, we don’t make either our own steel or television sets anymore, but we process poultry in this state! We drive to work in Hyundais and Toyotas.

      • “I know this much:

        1. First, the free-market failed to even bring electricity to this area in the 1930s, which retarded economic development until the state intervened and fixed the problem.

        2.) Second, if it had been up to the free-market, we would still be stuck with dial up internet in this area.

        3.) Third, the broadband internet in rural areas in South Korea is superior to that available in Montgomery, and it is not nearly as expensive.”

        I know this much:
        Hunter sure knows how to complain about all the free stuff the government never gave him!

        “BTW, I got a laugh watching the Iron Bowl on a Samsung flat screen. Because of free-trade, we don’t made either steel or television sits anymore, but we process poultry in this state!”

        There are two ways of looking at this:
        1) Because of minimum wage and other regulations we don’t make those things here anymore.

        2)Because of our prosperity, we have outsource these jobs to be done overseas, just like some wealthy people hire chef, gardeners, maids, etc.

        Again, you seem to have some kind of irrational disdain for poultry processing. It’s an industry that produces food and allows a lot of people to earn a living. The problem is the immigration, and we should handle that separately. I thought you had conceded that.

        Incidentally, I asked my brother, and he guestimates that his plant employs about 2,500 and that probably about 100 are whites. I’m glad the plant produces 2,500 jobs for the area. I’m not happy about the immigrants coming to take those jobs.

    • Jeff,

      “What possibility is there for a free South if the South is suckling on the Federal Government’s teat?”

      Exactly. If I didn’t know better, I’d think a bunch of BLM guys had hijacked the thread. Let’s see, what else do we need to gov to do for us?

      –kick out private sector and generate our electricity
      –kick out private sector and give us hi speed Internet
      –kick out private sector and give us unlimited mobile data transfer

      Nevermind that this will give the gov control over our electricity, and Internet. Yeah, that’s the kind of country I want to live in.

      We can really count on people like this to help us forge a newly independent state.

      I’m going to repeat a line from my previous post:

      Regarding free market vs gov, I have only made the arguments that:

      –the free market/private sector is generally more efficient than the state when it comes to creating wealth.
      –the state is generally superior to the private sector when it comes to running national defense, including pest/disease eradication programs.
      –generally speaking, state run programs should outsource R&D and production to private sector, such as having private sector to develop and produce vaccines, even if state administers eradication program. In some cases the gov might even subsidize some of the vaccine research.

      I have conceded that:

      –free market does not (and need not) distribute new wealth evenly.
      –free market does not (and need not) always serve rural areas for the same quality and price as urban areas.

      Regarding processing plants and immigration, I have only made the arguments that:

      –processing plants are good industries that create wealth for a community/country, it’s the unwanted immigration that’s the problem.
      –we should deport immigrants rather than close processing plants in hopes that immigrants will leave.
      –as a consequence of deportation, processing plant wages will go up, chicken prices will go up, and some, but not all plants will close. This is a small price to pay for getting rid of undesirable immigrants.

      Call me crazy, but my bet is that the overwhelming majority of white Southerners agree with my stance. Therefore, if Hunter wants to implement his agenda in a newly independent South, his best bet is to import lots of negroes and Hispanics to vote for his policies.

      • Jeff,

        “Exactly. If I didn’t know better, I’d think a bunch of BLM guys had hijacked the thread. Let’s see, what else do we need to gov to do for us?

        –kick out private sector and generate our electricity
        –kick out private sector and give us hi speed Internet
        –kick out private sector and give us unlimited mobile data transfer”

        1.) In 1935, 4 percent of Southern farms had electricity compared to over 90 percent in Hitler’s Germany. Needless to say, the embarrassment that the underdevelopment caused by the free-market prompted the public takeover during the New Deal.

        2.) FYI, the internet in South Korea is 2x as fast as the United States. In fact, the US ranks #12. in internet speed behind countries like Finland, South Korea and the Czech Republic.

        3.) High speed internet is free in Seoul and lots of places in Japan and South Korea because those countries, unlike the US, believe in developing and investing in their infrastructure.

        “Nevermind that this will give the gov control over our electricity, and Internet. Yeah, that’s the kind of country I want to live in.”

        If it had been up to the free-market, much of the rural South wouldn’t have broadband right now, and likely wouldn’t have had electricity until the 1980s.

        “We can really count on people like this to help us forge a newly independent state.”

        Didn’t we secede once before? And didn’t 1 out of every 4 White Southern men die in that war because the free-market had structured our economy in such a way that we lacked the physical means to win our independence?

        “the free market/private sector is generally more efficient than the state when it comes to creating wealth.”

        The poverty and underdevelopment of the South on October 24, 1929 decisively shows us otherwise.

        “–the state is generally superior to the private sector when it comes to running national defense, including pest/disease eradication programs.”

        Yes, the state is superior to the private sector in investing in public health. The destruction of the Cotton Kingdom by the boll weevil, the presence of pellagra and hookworms, and the failure of the private sector to eradicate malaria after two centuries shows the tendency of the free-market to neglect public goods.

        “–generally speaking, state run programs should outsource R&D and production to private sector, such as having private sector to develop and produce vaccines, even if state administers eradication program. In some cases the gov might even subsidize some of the vaccine research.”

        50 to 75 percent of R&D in the US is done by the state, not the private sector. The greatest innovations of the late twentieth century – nuclear power, computers, rockets, commercial satellites, consumer electronics, the internet – are due to public sector investment.

        “Regarding processing plants and immigration, I have only made the arguments that:

        –processing plants are good industries that create wealth for a community/country, it’s the unwanted immigration that’s the problem.
        –we should deport immigrants rather than close processing plants in hopes that immigrants will leave.”

        As I have shown, extractive industries create long term underdevelopment in places like the Alabama Black Belt and Central Appalachia. Why should we model our nation’s economy on the poorest parts of the country with the greatest economic problems? Why on earth would we want to emulate Honduras or Bangladesh?

        “–as a consequence of deportation, processing plant wages will go up, chicken prices will go up, and some, but not all plants will close. This is a small price to pay for getting rid of undesirable immigrants.”

        While it is true that reporting immigrants will increase the bargaining power of workers, eliminating the minimum wage, worker safety laws, and environmental laws, as well as the welfare state, will more than compensate and drive down real wages and lower living standards for workers beyond what they are now.

        “Call me crazy, but my bet is that the overwhelming majority of white Southerners agree with my stance. “

        How many elected libertarians hold office in the South?

        “Therefore, if Hunter wants to implement his agenda in a newly independent South, his best bet is to import lots of negroes and Hispanics to vote for his policies.”

        The vast majority of Whites won’t support seceding from the United States if it means lowering their standard of living.

  35. Jeb Bush has run on that platform of competitiveness in the form of reducing wages and longer hours with great success so far.

    Last I checked he was running at 5%?

  36. Hunter,

    You quoted me:

    “They would take the place of gas tax. So no, they would not stifle the economy. We’re seeing alternative fuels and electronic tolling come into play anyway, so the trend is going to be from gas tax to tolling.”

    You said:
    “Elaborate.”

    We now have electric and hybrid and natural gas vehicles on the road. We are probably going to keep seeing more vehicles like these and more fuel variants as time goes on. I’m not really into electric cars saving the planet, but we’re at least going to see more hybrids that will come as tech improves. The point is the traditional gas tax and highway diesel tax are not going to do the job like they have done.

    At the same time we see more and more electronic tolling on major highways where e-tolling cars only have to slow down to keep it safe for the cars that still stop to do traditional tolls and have to merge back into traffic after leaving the booth. As cars get smarter, they’ll probably come with the toll transponder built in rather than aftermarket and electronic tolling will eventually become the new way that roads are paid for instead of the old gas tax.

    If there is enough demand from the public, this will make it easier for the private sector to take over road construction and maintenance since the toll will be collected electronically rather than at the pump. Again, you still need the authority of the state to acquire land by eminent domain for new roads. Of course we may have personal aircraft by then…

  37. “Are you saying that deregulation, minimum wage reduction (or prison labor) wouldn’t help us compete with China? Please explain why it wouldn’t help compete”

    If we want to lower our standard of living and retard our economy, then we should engage in free-trade with China. Alternatively, we could easily produce the manufactured goods we import from China here, reduce unemployment, cut our trade deficit, reduce our national debt, raise our standard of living, and keep our tax dollars in this country.

    “Also, I have repeatedly defended the use of tariffs to key core industries at home. Those core industries being the ones that would hurt us the most and the fastest should trade be disrupted by war or whatever. Clothes (because they can last for years), chocolates, coffee, French wines and cheeses don’t make the list.

    Isn’t this why your own state, North Carolina, which has the largest manufacturing sector in the South lost tens of thousands of textile manufacturing jobs thanks to NAFTA and the WTO? And isn’t this why China runs such enormous trade surpluses now that it was able to purchase Smithfield and take over your swine industry?

    • Hunter,

      “If we want to lower our standard of living and retard our economy, then we should engage in free-trade with China. Alternatively, we could easily produce the manufactured goods we import from China here, reduce unemployment, cut our trade deficit, reduce our national debt, raise our standard of living, and our keep tax dollars in this country.”

      Not all at the same time. We could cut our trade deficit, but it would lower our standard of living if we are buying things that cost more.

      Again, around 90% of economists believe the way I do, so you are the one that bears the burden of proof. Telling me how you learned economics from historians isn’t even close to a cogent argument. I still want to know, do you take history lessons from economists?

      I’m also much closer to the mainstream thought among Southerners, so in a newly independent South, the best way for you to get your ideas passed would be to import lots of blacks/Hispanics to vote for your policies.

      Isn’t this why your own state, North Carolina, which has the largest manufacturing sector in the South lost tens of thousands of textile manufacturing jobs thanks to NAFTA and the WTO?”

      What? You mean the TVA region doesn’t have the largest manufacturing sector? That’s funny, NC was proposed for the Atlantic Seaboard Authority but it got shot down. Now our mfg is higher than TVA?

      Yes, the jobs were lost but total wealth was gained because we can get so much cheaper stuff. The most economically feasible strategy for getting those jobs back would be to simply out compete China.

      “And isn’t this why China runs such enormous trade surpluses now that it was able to purchase Smithfield and take over your swine industry?”

      I honestly had not heard about the purchase until you told me. It’s not good for national pride, but I can’t tell that it hurts us economically. It hurts us that we are not competing well against China.

      You seem to think that free trade is inherently flawed because China is beating the US and because your area of the South is poorer than most of the North.

      If you lived in China would you be against free trade?

      If you were a Yank from a rich region of the North would you be against free trade?

      Or are you just against free trade because your area has not competed well?

      Please tell us what you would do to turn it all around if you were president of the South.

      Would you make us all rich with tariffs?
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhD–UeRiOI

      Would you redistribute wealth to keep everybody equally poor?

      If you propose “free” Internet for everybody, then where will the money come from?

      How would you decide if a public project (like public Internet) was a good investment and not a bad investment for the state?

  38. “Working harder, being more innovative and investing your money wisely are also factors that would help, but those are not things that the government can create a policy on, except we could make more prisoners work.”

    How many North Carolinians who lost their jobs in the textile industry thanks to free-trade are now working at their local Wal-Mart (the Chinese discount store) or at the Chinese-owned swine industry or at chicken processing plants for low-wages? Aside from your own brother?

    China is running a surplus against us by outcompeting us. They just work cheaper and less regulated. Where do you think the money is going to go?

    According to free-market theorists, China is out competing us, but they fail to mention the huge trade deficit with China was created by bringing China into the WTO.

    My position puts me squarely among 90% of economists, so don’t shout me down too loud. You are the one holding on to the position that few believe in anymore. I grant that does not guarantee that I am right and you are wrong, but based on the agreement among the experts, it’s pretty unlikely to be the other way around.

    That’s why I love economic history … it allows us to empirically test the predictions made by free-market theorists in the real world and exposes the quackery of their abstract theories.

    • Hunter,

      “How many North Carolinians who lost their jobs in the textile industry thanks to free-trade are now working at their local Wal-Mart (the Chinese discount store) or at the Chinese-owned swine industry or at chicken processing plants for low-wages? Aside your own brother?”

      Weren’t you arguing earlier that textiles were an “extractive industry” that was keeping us poor?

      Shouldn’t you be glad we dumped all these “extractive” jobs onto China so we can “suck them dry” working for low wages?

      “According to free-market theorists, China is out competing us, but they fail to mention the huge trade deficit with China was created by bringing China into the WTO.”

      Both countries win in free trade, but due to current policies, China is out competing us, so they are winning more than we are.

      To reverse the trend and stay wealthy at the same time, we should compete better. If you are willing to make us all poorer, you could kill the deficit by restricting trade.

      • Jeff,

        “Weren’t you arguing earlier that textiles were an “extractive industry” that was keeping us poor?”

        Like coal mining, textiles can be an extractive industry in a free-market economy, but government regulation can change that by taking the “free” out of the “free-market.” In coal mining, government regulation made the industry safer and improved wages, while in textiles many of the abuses were ended by child labor, maximum work week laws, and tariffs on imports.

        “Shouldn’t you be glad we dumped all these “extractive” jobs onto China so we can “suck them dry” working for low wages?”

        No, I am glad that government regulation ended the free-market and improved living standards for workers, which kept more wealth in local communities and enlarged the tax base. Also, government investment in infrastructure and education improved the economy, for example, in your home state of North Carolina.

        “Both countries win in free trade, but due to current policies, China is out competing us, so they are winning more than we are.”

        How is a $350 billion dollar trade deficit a win-win?

        “To reverse the trend and stay wealthy at the same time, we should compete better. If you are willing to make us all poorer, you could kill the deficit by restricting trade.”

        Hilarious.

        Since when have free-market theorists cared about the majority of our population and particularly the poor? The answer is never. Instead, free-trade hurts the poor by sending working class jobs overseas, which is why they support it.

        • Hunter,

          ” Also, government investment in infrastructure and education improved the economy, for example, in your home state of North Carolina.”

          So tell me again where the government got the money that it invested.

          You quoted me:
          “To reverse the trend and stay wealthy at the same time, we should compete better. If you are willing to make us all poorer, you could kill the deficit by restricting trade.”

          You replied:

          “Hilarious.”

          I don’t know what’s so hilarious about it. Those are our options. I’m afraid I don’t get the joke there.

          “Since when have free-market theorists cared about the majority of our population and particularly the poor? The answer is never.”

          It doesn’t matter how much anybody does or doesn’t care. It only matters which method works best. By the same token, it doesn’t matter whether the trading partner is acting altruistically or selfishly, it only matters what the terms of the deal are.

          “Instead, free-trade hurts the poor by sending working class jobs overseas, which is why they support it.”

          Are you actually saying that 90% of economists are actively plotting against us when they advocate for free trade?

          Didn’t you complain earlier that these jobs were “extractive” and “sucking us dry”? If you really believe these industries take advantage of us and keep us poor, Why then would they not be doing us a favor by sending the jobs overseas?

          Hunter, it doesn’t even look like you are trying to make cogent arguments anymore.

          • Jeff,

            “So tell me again where the government got the money that it invested.”

            The federal government raises the money from taxes and invests the money in infrastructure and education in all the states. Are you opposed to this? If so, what do you propose to do about education in North Carolina?

            “I don’t know what’s so hilarious about it. Those are our options. I’m afraid I don’t get the joke there.

            Okay, let me put it to you this way: in Vietnam, wages have risen from 23 cents an hour to 65 cents an hour. If we engage in free-trade with Vietnam, that would put textile and apparel workers in competition with Vietnamese workers. Therefore, should we abolish the minimum wage and pay North Carolina workers 65 cents an hour?

            “It doesn’t matter how much anybody does or doesn’t care. It only matters which method works best. By the same token, it doesn’t matter whether the trading partner is acting altruistically or selfishly, it only matters what the terms of the deal are.

            Define “works best.”

            Are you actually saying that 90% of economists are actively plotting against us when they advocate for free trade?

            Answer the above question.

            If free-trade with Vietnam means paying North Carolina workers 65 cents an hour, should we do it to remain “competitive”?

            Didn’t you complain earlier that these jobs were “extractive” and “sucking us dry”? If you really believe these industries take advantage of us and keep us poor, Why then would they not be doing us a favor by sending the jobs overseas?

            Under free-market conditions some industries are extractive, yes. That problem can be solved though by doing away with the free-market and regulating the market instead.

            Hunter, it doesn’t even look like you are trying to make cogent arguments anymore.

            I don’t understand how paying North Carolina workers 65 cents an hour to remain competitive with Vietnam in an economic system based on free-trade is what “works best.”

  39. Please note the graph as a visual aid. The loss to the consumers is greater than the gain to the producers, so tariffs have a negative effect on national wealth.

    This must explain why the United States became the wealthiest country in the world under high protectionist tariffs.

    Here is a paper that does several modern day case studies around the world.
    http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/04/tariff-reform-needed-to-boost-the-us-economy
    This paper also includes a chart of the average per capita GDP for countries in the four quartiles of the Trade Freedom Score.

    As we have already seen, developed countries like Britain, the US, Germany, Japan and so on embrace free-trade after they have become rich and powerful. This doesn’t prove they became wealthy on account of free-trade.

    In fact, I am more reserved than 90% of economists because I do advocate for the aforementioned selective tariffs. The reduction in free trade would be the price paid for increased national security.

    Economic history allows us to test the predictions of the aforesaid free-market economists.

    Again, there exists the slim possibility that you are right and that I and 90% of economists are wrong. (I have to wonder if it would be more like 99% agreement if the question had been posed to still allow for tariffs on certain goods that contribute to national security.)

    As we have already seen with Central Appalachia, free-market ideology is impervious to the grotesque empirical realities of underdevelopment caused by free-market economics.

    So please explain exactly how they are wrong, and please show your math if you want credit. Repeating that you live in a poor part of Alabama or that Honduras is poor, or that you see Chinese goods at WalMart does not count as a good explanation.

    They’re consistently proven wrong because their economic forecasts and policy prescriptions are discredited by subsequent history. Two recent examples include the South Korea free-trade agreement and China’s entry into the WTO.

    • Hunter,

      “As we have already seen, developed countries like Britain, the US, Germany, Japan and so on embrace free-trade after they have become rich and powerful. This doesn’t prove they became wealthy on account of free-trade.”

      http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/04/tariff-reform-needed-to-boost-the-us-economy
      No. The link shows that these countries have increased wealth faster with lower tariffs than they did with higher tariffs.

      In case I haven’t showed you already, here is the math to calculate the burden to society imposed by tariffs.

      • “No. The link shows that these countries have increased wealth faster with lower tariffs than they did with higher tariffs.”

        Question: what was the average rate of economic growth in the US from 2000 to 2014 under free-trade?

        “In case I haven’t showed you already, here is the math to calculate the burden to society imposed by tariffs.”

        Did the US become the richest, most industrialized and powerful nation in world history from 1816 to 1945? Yes or no.

  40. How many North Carolinians who lost their jobs in the textile industry thanks to free-trade are now working at their local Wal-Mart (the Chinese discount store) or at the Chinese-owned swine industry or at chicken processing plants for low-wages? Aside from your own brother?

    I have had relatives who worked at textile mills. The job wasn’t as glamorous as you make it sound. A job a Wal-Mart would probably be a significant step up in terms of working conditions and benefits. And there probably is a lot of parity in pay.

    • Jeff,

      “I have had relatives who worked at textile mills. The job wasn’t as glamorous as you make it sound. A job a Wal-Mart would probably be a significant step up in terms of working conditions and benefits. And there probably is a lot of parity in pay.”

      Hunter earlier argued that the textile industry was one of the many ways the North “sucked the South dry” with such an “extractive” industry.

      Now he blames it on free trade that the industry has moved overseas.

      That’s right! He has literally blamed the free market for bringing textile industry to the South and then again for taking it away from the South.

      I don’t think the free market did either one, but the people. Once upon a time people in the South were willing to work cheaper and less regulated than the North so they got the jobs. As conditions improved and as intl trade was deregulated, those jobs went to other countries that were willing to work cheaper and less regulated.

      If we want those jobs back, we will have to work cheaper and/or less regulated. In the end it’s not really the jobs we want, but the wealth. We can get that wealth from any industries we are competitive in. Economically it doesn’t matter what the industry is–All export industries are good for the economy, though we may not want to be known for prostitution and gambling.

      The difference between processing plants and textiles is in the fact that it is much more expensive and problematic to transport live animals and fresh meat around the world than it is to transport textiles, so as we white Americans (Southerners) move up to better jobs, the textile industries will naturally go overseas and the processing plants will naturally attract immigrants (if we let them in). If it were easier to transport live and fresh processed chickens, then the processing plants would have gone away just like the textile mills.

      Hunter and I have argued about this also, but my argument is that the best way to control immigration is to simply not let them in and to deport (or imprison in prison work camps) those that won’t leave. As a consequence, there will be less competition for jobs at the processing plants, so wages will go up for whites, but chicken will be slightly more expensive (and I really mean *slightly*) and a few, but not all of the plants will close or move across the border.

      Hunter’s argument is that processing plants are inherently evil because they “extractive” industries that attract immigrants and “suck the region dry.” I’ve asked him repeatedly why so many people show up at processing plants year in and year out only to be sucked dry, but so far he has failed to answer.

      • “Hunter earlier argued that the textile industry was one of the many ways the North “sucked the South dry” with such an “extractive” industry.

        Now he blames it on free trade that the industry has moved overseas”

        Could there be a reason for that?

        Yes, there is. The reason is that both coal mining and textiles were heavily extractive industries when they first arrived in the South under free-market conditions. Later, government regulation gradually eliminated the “free” in the “free-market.”

        Child labor, for example, was outlawed. We passed minimum wage laws, environmental laws, labor laws, and worker safety laws. We restricted immigration for decades. Thus, it was no longer possible for free-market theorists to do things like exploit children, wreck the environment, suppress unions, milk their workforce for 30 cents a day like they do in Vietnam, etc.

        That’s why living standards and average per capita income rose in the South. Those industries paid better wages and became less extractive. This pressure by the state forced private industries against the logic of the free-market to engage in economic development.

        As the gallery can see from Jeff’s posts, free-market theorists eventually hit on a solution to this. By engaging in free-trade, we could force America to lower its standard of living to the global average by exporting jobs and economic growth overseas.

        • Hunter,

          Could there be a reason for that?

          Yes, there is. The reason is that both coal mining and textiles were heavily extractive industries when they first arrived in the South under free-market conditions. Later, government regulation gradually eliminated the “free” in the “free-market.”

          Child labor, for example, was outlawed. We passed minimum wage laws, environmental laws, labor laws, and worker safety laws. We restricted immigration for decades. Thus, it was no longer possible for free-market theorists to do things like exploit children, wreck the environment, suppress unions, milk their workforce for 30 cents a day like they do in Vietnam, etc.

          That’s why living standards and average per capita income rose in the South. Those industries paid better wages and became less extractive. This pressure by the state forced private industries against the logic of the free-market to engage in economic development.

          As the gallery can see from Jeff’s posts, free-market theorists eventually hit on a solution to this. By engaging in free-trade, we could force America to lower its standard of living to the global average by exporting jobs and economic growth overseas.”

          Hey, according to you views we are really sucking China and Mexico dry since they have lower wages than we do.

          Again, the story line goes like this:
          step 1–textile mills moved from New England to the South because it was less regulated and people were willing to work cheaper.

          Hunter says textile industry was “extractive” and “sucked us dry.” Blames free trade.

          Step 2–The South became more regulated and minimum wage was raised, so the textile industry goes to China because it is less regulated and people are willing to work cheaper.

          Hunter blames free trade that these jobs went to China, gives credit to min wage laws and regulations for improving our standard of living.

          Hunter has never blamed regulations and min wage for sending jobs to China–only free trade.

          Hunter has never credited free trade for the virtually infinite selection of cheap clothes we now have. Much cheaper and higher quality than we can make at home after growing our own cotton/wool/polyester/nylon–or we would grow,make them at home, Right?

          • Jeff,

            1.) In 2014, the US trade deficit with China and Mexico was $402 billion dollars. Foreigners like the Chinese finance our trade deficit by purchasing our debt. As our national debt rises, we pay Chinese bondholders more and more interest on that debt. Because we make fewer things in this country due to free-trade (99 percent of which we used to make in this country), the government collects less tax revenue, which means less investment in education and infrastructure which drives long term economic growth.

            2.) Jeff leaves out a key part of the story. The textile industry didn’t suddenly move out of North Carolina in the 1990s because of labor and environmental laws. It was only able to do so because of the tax code and free-trade with Third World countries like China and Mexico.

            3.) I credit free-trade for the $402 billion dollar trade deficit with China and Mexico, our soaring national debt, and +359,000 lost jobs in North Carolina alone – 44 percent of all manufacturing jobs – from 1994 to 2014. How “cheap” will those textiles and furniture be when our children and grandchildren pay the price for free-trade instead of making them in the North Carolina Piedmont?

            4.) Oh, and China also owns the North Carolina hog industry now because of it.

            http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=3420

      • “That’s right! He has literally blamed the free market for bringing textile industry to the South and then again for taking it away from the South.”

        FYI, here’s the correct timeline:

        1.) In the late 19th/early 20th century, the free-market brought the textile industry to the Carolinas and places like North Alabama due to incentives like child labor and the lack of a maximum work week. New England was starting to reform abuses in this area.

        2.) Several decades later, the New Deal imposed all kinds of changes on the textile industry that made it less extractive.

        3.) Several decades after that, the lowering of trade barriers after the Second World War put American textile workers into competition with Third World labor. The free-market was allowed to return via free-trade and that decimated the industry and sucked jobs and production overseas.

        I don’t think the free market did either one, but the people. Once upon a time people in the South were willing to work cheaper and less regulated than the North so they got the jobs. As conditions improved and as intl trade was deregulated, those jobs went to other countries that were willing to work cheaper and less regulated.

        That’s exactly what I am saying: at first, the textile and apparel industry was heavily extractive (antebellum Southerners condemned the North’s “satanic mills” to indict the free-labor system), but later the state and federal governments imposed laws that forced it to change and improve working conditions. Then the free-market was allowed to return via the backdoor through free-trade with Third World countries.

        “If we want those jobs back, we will have to work cheaper and/or less regulated. In the end it’s not really the jobs we want, but the wealth. We can get that wealth from any industries we are competitive in. Economically it doesn’t matter what the industry is–All export industries are good for the economy, though we may not want to be known for prostitution and gambling.”

        1.) If we want those jobs back and our standard of living, all we have to do is reject the advice of the free-market theorists. After all, they were the ones who free-traded those jobs to China.

        2.) Even Jeff doesn’t believe all industries are equal. Prostitution, which he mentions above, creates a public health hazard that other industries simply don’t.

        3.) It you are thrilled by our current economy, which is based on free-trade with the Third World, continue to listen to the free-market theorists. You ain’t seen nothing yet.

        “The difference between processing plants and textiles is in the fact that it is much more expensive and problematic to transport live animals and fresh meat around the world than it is to transport textiles, so as we white Americans (Southerners) move up to better jobs, the textile industries will naturally go overseas and the processing plants will naturally attract immigrants (if we let them in). If it were easier to transport live and fresh processed chickens, then the processing plants would have gone away just like the textile mills.”

        1.) The Chinese takeover of North Carolina’s swine industry is one of the many wonders of free-trade.

        2.) Jeff fails to mention that free-market theorists support the Third World immigration.

        3.) The decimation of entire industries is not a natural process. Rather, it is due to the WTO and trade agreements like NAFTA. 9 out of 10 times the WTO rules against the US in trade disputes with East Asia.

        4.) We’re not moving on to better jobs. Instead, job growth is concentrated in sectors like sales and food service.

        “Hunter and I have argued about this also, but my argument is that the best way to control immigration is to simply not let them in and to deport (or imprison in prison work camps) those that won’t leave. As a consequence, there will be less competition for jobs at the processing plants, so wages will go up for whites, but chicken will be slightly more expensive (and I really mean *slightly*) and a few, but not all of the plants will close or move across the border.”

        Jeff fails to mention here that free-market theorists like writers at the Wall Street Journal are the biggest supporters of open borders.

        “Hunter’s argument is that processing plants are inherently evil because they “extractive” industries that attract immigrants and “suck the region dry.”

        That’s precisely what the free-market leads to which is why we regulate the market to encourage economic development.

        I’ve asked him repeatedly why so many people show up at processing plants year in and year out only to be sucked dry, but so far he has failed to answer.

        Because, the free-market underdevelops the economy, and lack of other options forces people into low-wage processing and service jobs.

        • Hunter, You are wearing me out. It looks like you have the stamina to keep going longer than I do.

          “Several decades later, the New Deal imposed all kinds of changes on the textile industry that made it less extractive.”

          Still talking about “extractive.” Amazing. Please give examples of some industries that aren’t “economically extractive.”

          3.) Several decades after that, the lowering of trade barriers after the Second World War put American textile workers into competition with Third World labor. The free-market was allowed to return via free-trade and that decimated the industry and sucked jobs and production overseas.”

          Well it certainly took those jobs and production overseas, but it reduced the price of the clothes for consumers.
          We pay them money, they pay us clothes. This goes back to the analogy of either buying or sewing your own clothes. I don’t see many people who sew their own, except the Amish.

          “Jeff fails to mention here that free-market theorists like writers at the Wall Street Journal are the biggest supporters of open borders.”

          I don’t know if this is true or not, but I’m sure some people agree to both. It is irrelevant whether they do or not. It is perfectly reasonable for me to believe in free trade but not free immigration.

          You quoted me:
          “If we want those jobs back, we will have to work cheaper and/or less regulated. In the end it’s not really the jobs we want, but the wealth. We can get that wealth from any industries we are competitive in. Economically it doesn’t matter what the industry is–All export industries are good for the economy, though we may not want to be known for prostitution and gambling.”

          You said:
          “1.) If we want those jobs back and our standard of living, all we have to do is reject the advice of the free-market theorists. After all, they were the ones who free-traded those jobs to China.”

          No, we could have the jobs back if we banned the trade w other countries, but those goods would cost more. Our overall standard of living would go down.

          “2.) Even Jeff doesn’t believe all industries are equal. Prostitution, which he mentions above, creates a public health hazard that other industries simply don’t.”

          They would generate a profit from tourists, but do you want to be known for that kind of industry? You might also be morally opposed to it. I just think there are plenty of other options that we can be prouder of. I am not implying that it is inherently inferior as an economic model. Just otherwise undesirable. Likewise I would not go into the porn business, not because it isn’t profitable, but because I’m otherwise opposed to it.

          3.) It you are thrilled by our current economy, which is based on free-trade with the Third World, continue to listen to the free-market theorists. You ain’t seen nothing yet.

          They are willing to make shirts cheaper than we are willing to make our own shirts, so we buy from them. It’s the basis of trade since the first transaction ever took place.

          “Okay, let me put it to you this way: in Vietnam, wages have risen from 23 cents an hour to 65 cents an hour. If we engage in free-trade with Vietnam, that would put textile and apparel workers in competition with Vietnamese workers. Therefore, should we abolish the minimum wage and pay North Carolina workers 65 cents an hour?”

          We should abolish minimum wage. It would then be up to North Carolina workers how cheap they were willing to work at a certain job, at a certain time, and under certain conditions. I doubt many of them would be willing to work for 65 cents an hour, so depending on the cost of transport the Vietnamese would probably get those jobs. We could apply tariffs, but I’ve already shown that tariffs do more harm than good economically. One might reasonably apply tariffs for some other reason.

          You quoted me:
          “It doesn’t matter how much anybody does or doesn’t care. It only matters which method works best. By the same token, it doesn’t matter whether the trading partner is acting altruistically or selfishly, it only matters what the terms of the deal are.”

          You replied:
          “Define ‘works best.'”

          I respond:
          What works best economically is what generates the greatest net wealth for the population in question. If it is Americans, then it is what makes America richer overall. If it is the new Confederation of Dixie, then it is whatever makes Dixians the richest as a group.

          One could justify restrictions for values other than economic prosperity.

          The free market makes no guarantee that every individual will get rich or that the wealth will be shared equally. It also makes no claim that one can’t lose what wealth he has.
          Example: If you are not qualified for a job better than cutting chickens or sweeping floors or sawing boards at a sawmill, then you are probably not going to rise to the top of society, but you still benefit from whatever paycheck you can earn and you still benefit from cheaper chicken, cheaper whatever.

          “If free-trade with Vietnam means paying North Carolina workers 65 cents an hour, should we do it to remain “competitive”? ”

          I doubt many NC’ers will take the job at 65 cents/hr. They will just get some other job that pays better and enjoy the cheap clothes from Vietnam that they can buy from Walmart.

          “Under free-market conditions some industries are extractive, yes. That problem can be solved though by doing away with the free-market and regulating the market instead.”

          Please define “extractive” and please give some examples of industries that are not extractive.

          “I don’t understand how paying North Carolina workers 65 cents an hour to remain competitive with Vietnam in an economic system based on free-trade is what “works best.””

          They don’t really have to beat 65 cents/hour, you know. There are transport and customs costs, not to mention the other company might charge a tariff. Plus the time itself spent on a barge would cost the investor by having to wait longer to get his roi. Then there’s the risk of trade disruption that investors would account for. Plus other factors like the plant having a reliable power supply or whatever. Anyway, we wouldn’t have to compete w the 65 cents by itself.

          Suppose we only have to be willing to work for $2/hour. Ok, if there aren’t enough people willing to work for $2, then the plant simply won’t get built and NC workers, instead of making clothes and buying other stuff, will make other stuff and buy clothes.

          The point is not having a min wage doesn’t mean people have to work for a lower amount, it just means they are free to if they choose to and that companies are free to pay whatever they want as long as it’s enough to get the workers.

          Without min wage or other regulations (other than enforcement of contracts):
          The workers must work hard enough to keep the job.
          The company must pay enough to keep the workers.

          What could be more fair than that?

          • Jeff,

            “Hunter, You are wearing me out. It looks like you have the stamina to keep going longer than I do.”

            I’m just getting started. I enjoy these debates because they stimulate my research. I learn a lot from them and so do the readers.

            “Still talking about “extractive.” Amazing. Please give examples of some industries that aren’t “economically extractive.”

            Okay, sure.

            The American automobile industry after WW2. Millions of people fled the coalfields of Central Appalachia to work in those jobs.

            “Well it certainly took those jobs and production overseas, but it reduced the price of the clothes for consumers.”

            The “consumers” are also taxpayers, citizens, and workers. Thanks to free-trade, North Carolina has lost 44 percent of its manufacturing jobs since 1994. That creates poverty and unemployment in North Carolina and the labor surplus depresses wages. It also means the government, which collects less in taxes, has to support displaced workers with various social programs. Finally, we go into debt to pay for imports and we have to pay interest on that debt just like a credit card.

            “We pay them money, they pay us clothes. This goes back to the analogy of either buying or sewing your own clothes. I don’t see many people who sew their own, except the Amish.”

            If I buy clothes which are made in North Carolina, how am I sewing my own clothes? My economic demand in Alabama creates jobs and tax revenue in North Carolina instead of China without creating debt owned by foreign bondholders.

          • Hunter,

            I said:
            “Still talking about “extractive.” Amazing. Please give examples of some industries that aren’t “economically extractive.”

            You said:
            “Okay, sure.

            The American automobile industry after WW2. Millions of people fled the coalfields of Central Appalachia to work in those jobs.”

            Millions? wow. So is the litmus test for extractiveness about whether people migrate to get the jobs?
            Where are those jobs now?
            Weren’t cars awful expensive back then?
            Why is it that now the average family might have 2-3 cars where teens usually have a car of their own?
            How can families afford so much nowadays that they couldn’t afford after WWII?

            “The “consumers” are also taxpayers, citizens, and workers. Thanks to free-trade, North Carolina has lost 44 percent of its manufacturing jobs since 1994. That creates poverty and unemployment in North Carolina and the labor surplus depresses wages. It also means the government, which collects less in taxes, has to support displaced workers with various social programs. Finally, we go into debt to pay for imports and we have to pay interest on that debt just like a credit card.”

            I can only find data back to 2005, but here it is:
            http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LASST370000000000003

            With the loss of mfg jobs over that time, we have a bigger labor force than ever. Hmmm. and despite the buble, our unemployment rate is about the same, but slightly higher than it was in 2005. Hmm.

            It’s like new jobs have been created or something.

            You quoted me:
            “We pay them money, they pay us clothes. This goes back to the analogy of either buying or sewing your own clothes. I don’t see many people who sew their own, except the Amish.”

            You replied:
            “If I buy clothes which are made in North Carolina, how am I sewing my own clothes? My economic demand in Alabama creates jobs and tax revenue in North Carolina instead of China without creating debt owned by foreign bondholders.”

            It’s an analogy. The US has the option to buy its clothes, or to make its own clothes, to steal them, to take them by conquest, or to go without.

            I’m ruling out the last two options, so we, as a nation, can either buy our clothes or make our clothes. Same thing at the individual level, you can buy your clothes or make them.

            The same principle applies whether you are talking about an individual or a nation.

            We, as a nation, could make our own clothes and not have to pay another nation for them.

            You, Hunter Wallace, could make your own clothes and not have to pay anyone else for them.

            Now, Hunter, do you make your own clothes, or do you deem it more cost effective to just buy them?

            I suspect you just buy them because you have bigger fish to fry than sewing your own clothes from the cotton/wool/polyester you grew. You are engaging in free trade at the personal level and it is profitable, even though you are handing your money over to someone else.

            Likewise if another country is willing to make clothes and sell them to us cheap enough, we, as a nation, are better off to just buy them and focus on other pursuits than make the clothes ourselves. It seems that you want to practice free trade for yourself but you don’t want the country to do it.

            Hypocrite.

          • Jeff,

            “With the loss of mfg jobs over that time, we have a bigger labor force than ever. Hmmm. and despite the buble, our unemployment rate is about the same, but slightly higher than it was in 2005. Hmm.

            It’s like new jobs have been created or something.”

            Alternatively, people have given up looking for jobs, which is why the labor force participation rate is so low. Also, there is no proof the jobs that have been created are better than the ones that were lost. North Carolina’s congressional delegation appears to be feeling some real heat.

            “It’s an analogy. The US has the option to buy its clothes, or to make its own clothes, to steal them, to take them by conquest, or to go without.

            I’m ruling out the last two options, so we, as a nation, can either buy our clothes or make our clothes. Same thing at the individual level, you can buy your clothes or make them.

            The same principle applies whether you are talking about an individual or a nation.

            We, as a nation, cotton/wool/polyester you grew. You are engaging in free trade at the personal level and it is profitable, even though you are handing your money over to someone else.”

            I’m not following you. When I buy textiles made in North Carolina, it keeps money and employment in this country. My tax dollars stay in this country. When I buy Chinese imports, it adds to our trade deficit and the amount of interest paid on our national debt.

            “Likewise if another country is willing to make clothes and sell them to us cheap enough, we, as a nation, are better off to just buy them and focus on other pursuits than make the clothes ourselves. It seems that you want to practice free trade for yourself but you don’t want the country to do it.

            Hypocrite.”

            You have never explained why we as a country are better off by going over $300 billion dollars in debt to China a year, paying interest on that debt, and sending our money and tax dollars overseas.

          • nter,

            “You have never explained why we as a country are better off by going over $300 billion dollars in debt to China a year, paying interest on that debt, and sending our money and tax dollars overseas.”

            We are not better off with the debt, we are better off for the cheap stuff. The debt is the price we pay for importing more than we export.

            If you run up a credit card bill buying stuff much cheaper than you could have made yourself, you need to either do without some stuff or earn more money. You would not be better off sewing your own shirts or making your own shoes as previously demonstrated.

          • Jeff,

            “We are not better off with the debt, we are better off for the cheap stuff. The debt is the price we pay for importing more than we export.”

            Since the debt and interest on the debt are part of the cost, then all that stuff really isn’t that cheap now is it?

            “If you run up a credit card bill buying stuff much cheaper than you could have made yourself, you need to either do without some stuff or earn more money. You would not be better off sewing your own shirts or making your own shoes as previously demonstrated.”

            That’s why we need to get rid of free-trade. Otherwise, irrational consumer behavior will continue to wreck our finances. The “cheap stuff” only appears to be “cheap” at the store.

          • “I don’t know if this is true or not, but I’m sure some people agree to both. It is irrelevant whether they do or not. It is perfectly reasonable for me to believe in free trade but not free immigration.”

            Elaborate.

            “No, we could have the jobs back if we banned the trade w other countries, but those goods would cost more. Our overall standard of living would go down”

            I’m not sure why we have to engage in free-trade with people who make 65 cents an hour, or else our standard of living goes down. It seems to me like your fellow citizens in North Carolina saw their standard of living go down when their factories moved to countries like Vietnam.

            “They would generate a profit from tourists, but do you want to be known for that kind of industry? You might also be morally opposed to it. I just think there are plenty of other options that we can be prouder of. I am not implying that it is inherently inferior as an economic model. Just otherwise undesirable. Likewise I would not go into the porn business, not because it isn’t profitable, but because I’m otherwise opposed to it.”

            In this case, a free-market in sex would lead to diseases which would fall on our healthcare system. It would be a feature of that “industry,” but not textiles or apparel.

            “They are willing to make shirts cheaper than we are willing to make our own shirts, so we buy from them. It’s the basis of trade since the first transaction ever took place.”

            How cheap is the interest we pay to China and Japan on our national debt every year?

            “We should abolish minimum wage. It would then be up to North Carolina workers how cheap they were willing to work at a certain job, at a certain time, and under certain conditions. I doubt many of them would be willing to work for 65 cents an hour, so depending on the cost of transport the Vietnamese would probably get those jobs. We could apply tariffs, but I’ve already shown that tariffs do more harm than good economically. One might reasonably apply tariffs for some other reason.”

            Ladies and gentlemen, this is how free-trade has destroyed entire industries in this country, burdened our grandchildren with a mountain of debt, and impoverished the American worker.

            “What works best economically is what generates the greatest net wealth for the population in question. If it is Americans, then it is what makes America richer overall. If it is the new Confederation of Dixie, then it is whatever makes Dixians the richest as a group.”

            How does a race to the bottom with the poorest people in the Third World – people who are poorer than the Vietnamese who make 65 cents an hour – make the working class and middle class richer? It doesn’t and the proof is the economic distress that free-trade has created whether it is poverty, unemployment, stagnant real wages, dual income families or household debt.

          • “One could justify restrictions for values other than economic prosperity.”

            If I am a North Carolina textile worker who has lost my job because I can’t compete with a foreigner who makes 65 cents an hour and I have landed a new job at Wal-Mart that pays me significantly less, how am I economically more prosperous?

            “The free market makes no guarantee that every individual will get rich or that the wealth will be shared equally. It also makes no claim that one can’t lose what wealth he has.”

            The tendency of the free-market is to concentrate great wealth and power in the hands of the few.

            “Example: If you are not qualified for a job better than cutting chickens or sweeping floors or sawing boards at a sawmill, then you are probably not going to rise to the top of society, but you still benefit from whatever paycheck you can earn and you still benefit from cheaper chicken, cheaper whatever.”

            As the Dutch say, “cheap is expensive.”

          • Hunter,

            “If I am a North Carolina textile worker who has lost my job because I can’t compete with a foreigner who makes 65 cents an hour and I have landed a new job at Wal-Mart that pays me significantly less, how am I economically more prosperous?”

            You, personally may not be, but the nation as a whole will be because we get cheaper clothes.

            “The tendency of the free-market is to concentrate great wealth and power in the hands of the few.”

            What else can I say? The cream rises to the top! That’s your incentive to study/work hard and to be creative! We are richer than they are so they are doing our low skill jobs for us. You complain that low wages are exploiting American workers, but when the jobs go overseas you cry because they are gone! Why don’t you cry that the 65 cents/hour is exploiting the Vietnamese? The bottom line is that they want those jobs worse than we do, so they get them. You want somebody to pay a lardass Bubba $15/hour when he doesn’t show up half the time, takes 30 min bathroom breaks and acts like a little overtime is going to kill him–oh, yeah, he has to get paid a higher rate for overtime. Needs workman’s comp every time he stumps his toe. Well this is just too damn extractive, so we need to send that evil company overseas so we can extract from some Vietnamese. I don’t know what the hell that war was all about, we could have just wiped them out with textile jobs to hear you tell it!

          • Jeff,

            “You, personally may not be, but the nation as a whole will be because we get cheaper clothes.”

            I see.

            The “cheaper clothes” are not weighed against the national debt, stagnant real wages, poverty, unemployment, government spending on unemployment, household debt, dual income households, loss of tax revenue, and the subsequent loss of public investment that “free-trade” causes in North Carolina.

            And what precisely are the better jobs? From what I have read, the people who are losing their jobs due to free-trade often take substantial pay cuts even if they find a new job.

            “What else can I say? The cream rises to the top! That’s your incentive to study/work hard and to be creative!”

            Why should anyone study and work hard though if the jobs associated with their education are offshored to China and India? The jobs of the future were supposed to be in information technology, but we free-trade those jobs away too.

            We are richer than they are so they are doing our low skill jobs for us.

            We’ve gone from $7 trillion to $18 trillion in debt in ten years.

            “You complain that low wages are exploiting American workers, but when the jobs go overseas you cry because they are gone! Why don’t you cry that the 65 cents/hour is exploiting the Vietnamese? The bottom line is that they want those jobs worse than we do, so they get them.”

            Because I am a nationalist, I have a genuine interest in raising our standard of living. I don’t believe in forcing North Carolina textile and apparel workers to “compete” against the Vietnamese for 65 cents an hour.

            I would rather buy products in my own country, which create employment for my own people, which keeps my tax dollars in my country, which are invested in infrastructure in my country, and which are not expended as interest on our debt to Chinese and Japanese bondholders.

            “You want somebody to pay a lardass Bubba $15/hour when he doesn’t show up half the time, takes 30 min bathroom breaks and acts like a little overtime is going to kill him–oh, yeah, he has to get paid a higher rate for overtime. Needs workman’s comp every time he stumps his toe.”

            It’s nice to finally see where you are coming from.

            “Well this is just too damn extractive, so we need to send that evil company overseas so we can extract from some Vietnamese. I don’t know what the hell that war was all about, we could have just wiped them out with textile jobs to hear you tell it!”

            No, it makes much more sense just to regulate the market and engage in trade whenever it suits our national interest. We don’t need free-markets or free-trade.

          • Hunter,

            “The “cheaper clothes” are not weighed against the national debt, stagnant real wages, poverty, unemployment, government spending on unemployment, household debt, dual income households, loss of tax revenue, and the subsequent loss of public investment that “free-trade” causes in North Carolina.”

            True or false:
            The average American today can afford a lot more stuff that he could in 1950.

            If the answer is “True” then on the average, we are richer, not poorer.

            “No, it makes much more sense just to regulate the market and engage in trade whenever it suits our national interest. We don’t need free-markets or free-trade.”

            Oh, you just want to regulate my trading options a little bit for my own good. I see. Will you be regulating other things for my own good too? Are you going to regulate how many hours of sleep I get, or how much junk food I eat also? I know it’s in our national interest to stay healthy…

          • Jeff,

            “True or false:
            The average American today can afford a lot more stuff that he could in 1950.

            If the answer is “True” then on the average, we are richer, not poorer.”

            Technology and production methods have advanced. Economic growth is ultimately a matter of mastering and applying new technology and production methods. That’s why we are a wealthier country.

            Over the past fifty years, the benefits of new technology – things like smartphones, computers, cheap clothes – become available in the poorest countries on earth like Congo. This isn’t due to free-trade though. It is due to scientific and technological progress.

            What do we owe to free-trade then? In part, 19 trillion dollars in debt, the $350 billion dollar trade deficit with China, women in the workforce, real wages that have stagnated since the 1970s, enormous household debt, the decimation of entire industries, our collapsing infrastructure, the economic rot seen in every Southern downtown and an economy based on non-tradeable services that pay low-wages. In short, the economy is the number one issue in the country because of the distress caused by free-trade.

            “Oh, you just want to regulate my trading options a little bit for my own good. I see. Will you be regulating other things for my own good too? Are you going to regulate how many hours of sleep I get, or how much junk food I eat also? I know it’s in our national interest to stay healthy…”

            As a nationalist, I believe our national interest takes precedence over selfish and destructive individual choices. Again, I am not a liberal, and don’t subscribe to libertarianism, neo-liberalism, or the classical liberal school of economics. Since our trade policy affects our entire nation, not just you as a consumer, it should be geared toward fostering prosperity for everyone …including all the bubbas who you think are lazy for not working for you at 65 cents an hour for 70 hours a week to afford a private school for their kids.

          • Hunter,

            Quoted me:
            “True or false:
            The average American today can afford a lot more stuff that he could in 1950.

            If the answer is “True” then on the average, we are richer, not poorer.”

            You said:
            “Technology and production methods have advanced. Economic growth is ultimately a matter of mastering and applying new technology and production methods.

            Over the past fifty years, the benefits of new technology – things like smartphones, computers, cheap clothes – become available in the poorest countries on earth like Congo. This isn’t due to free-trade though. It is due to scientific and technological progress.”

            I respond. Gee you sure didn’t make this argument when you were talking about how bad all the extractive industries were.

            Anyway,
            where do smartphones come from?
            A: Private sector

            Where do computers come from?
            A: Private sector

            Where do cheap clothes come from?
            A: Private sector

            I am aware that the computer chip was invented by the gov, but other than that, computers and smartphones have been private sector innovations and produced by the private sector. Hopefully you are not going to credit the gov for clothes.

            If you think the invention of the chip is reason to give credit to the gov for everything that involves a chip, then I have a get rich plan for you:

            –Go to Nashville and hunt down all the aspiring Country music stars you can find.
            –Sell them a sandwich for $10 (akin to gov giving us chip in exchange for tax money)
            –All those that eventually make it bigtime will owe their success to you because they sang using calories that you sold them.

            “What do we owe to free-trade then? In part, 19 trillion dollars in debt, the $350 billion dollar trade deficit with China, women in the workforce, real wages that have stagnated since the 1970s, enormous household debt, the decimation of entire industries, our collapsing infrastructure, the economic rot seen in every Southern downtown and an economy based on non-tradeable services that pay low-wage.”

            Again, you only count the losses, not the benefits. You’ve been pretty “creative” with the things you blame on free trade too, but I don’t feel like defending them.

            My hometown has not experienced economic rot, but has grown. The problem is immigration.

          • Jeff,

            “I respond. Gee you sure didn’t make this argument when you were talking about how bad all the extractive industries were.”

            Scientific and technological progress will continue to improve our standard of living. If it were not for free-trade, we would probably be a lot better off than we are now.

            “Anyway,
            where do smartphones come from?
            A: Private sector”

            Smartphones are manufactured in East Asia because we lack the high-value added manufacturing capacity to make them here. Instead, we import smartphones, which drive up the trade deficit.

            “Where do computers come from?
            A: Private sector”

            The government created both the computer and the internet.

            “Where do cheap clothes come from?”
            A: Private sector

            Thanks to free-trade, 97 percent are imported from overseas. NC used to produce more textiles and apparel than any other state. Since the WTO and NAFTA, NC has lost 44 percent of manufacturing jobs which have driven hundreds of thousands of people in your state out of work, so now we import the “cheap” clothes and it drives up the trade deficit and our national debt which we pay interest on to China.

            “I am aware that the computer chip was invented by the gov, but other than that, computers and smartphones have been private sector innovations and produced by the private sector. Hopefully you are not going to credit the gov for clothes.”

            The private sector did not innovate the computer, nuclear power, the satellite, the internet, the jet, or the television.

            “If you think the invention of the chip is reason to give credit to the gov for everything that involves a chip, then I have a get rich plan for you:”

            The government deserves credit for inventing the computer.

            “–Go to Nashville and hunt down all the aspiring Country music stars you can find.
            –Sell them a sandwich for $10 (akin to gov giving us chip in exchange for tax money)
            –All those that eventually make it bigtime will owe their success to you because they sang using calories that you sold them”

            Unlike the smartphone, I will note the country music industry is at least based in Nashville.

            “Again, you only count the losses, not the benefits. You’ve been pretty “creative” with the things you blame on free trade too, but I don’t feel like defending them.”

            The benefits are obvious.

            As you have pointed out, the “consumer” buys the cheap clothes and toys, for example, literally everything that my son has to play with or will be getting for Christmas. When people like my dear mother buy him toys for Christmas, the price at the store is cheap … it is just not so cheap when you look at the trade deficit, the national debt, and particularly the interest on the debt. It invisible to the “consumer” when they go shopping.

            “My hometown has not experienced economic rot, but has grown. The problem is immigration.”

            What’s your hometown?

          • Hunter,

            I said:
            “I don’t know if this is true or not, but I’m sure some people agree to both. It is irrelevant whether they do or not. It is perfectly reasonable for me to believe in free trade but not free immigration.”

            You said:
            “Elaborate.”

            What’s there to elaborate on? It’s perfectly reasonable for me to be pro-free trade but against the immivasion. Just like it is perfectly reasonable for me to go to a flea market and trade with people that I don’t want as roommates.

            Why would anybody think he had to be pro open border just because he’s pro free market?

            “I’m not sure why we have to engage in free-trade with people who make 65 cents an hour, or else our standard of living goes down. It seems to me like your fellow citizens in North Carolina saw their standard of living go down when their factories moved to countries like Vietnam.”

            This is another case for the sewing analogy. I assume you don’t sew your own clothes because you have bigger fish to fry. The jobs did not go to Vietnam because someone took them from us but because we had bigger fish to fry than to compete with Vietnam. I still think minwage should be abolished though, so we could bargain freely. Not every example is going to be as clearcut as this one.

            At 65 cents an hour it is probably cheaper to hire it done over there than it would be if I had my very own mulatto negress to sew them for me. Why wouldn’t I just buy rather than make?

            “In this case, a free-market in sex would lead to diseases which would fall on our healthcare system. It would be a feature of that “industry,” but not textiles or apparel.”

            This assumes we have a socialized healthcare system. Why would I want to pay for some tramp’s std? (Which by the way is what we have now, even though prostitution is banned.) But I’m not really interested in arguing over whether we should have legalized prostitution. I’m against it, but it’s not something SNers are fighting over so why bother.

            You quoted me:

            “They are willing to make shirts cheaper than we are willing to make our own shirts, so we buy from them. It’s the basis of trade since the first transaction ever took place.”

            You said:
            “How cheap is the interest we pay to China and Japan on our national debt every year?”

            The debt is a real problem. I’m certainly not going to argue with you over that. The fix is either for us to buy less or to sell more. By the same token, at the personal level, if you have credit card debt, the answer is to spend less or to earn more.

            We as a nation need to either:
            –make more stuff for ourselves even if it costs more, import less
            –start making stuff more efficiently, importing less
            –export more of the stuff we are competitive at
            –simply do without some stuff

            Making it here, even if more expensive, import less:
            I’ve already made the case with the buy vs sew your own clothes example, that when you can buy cheap, it makes more sense to buy than to make your own. So insisting that we make everything here expensively when we can buy cheaper is not the best strategy, the first option is now ruled out.

            Making stuff cheaper, importing less:
            We could deregulate, reduce minwage, end war on coal, lower corporate taxes, and our governors/congressmen could write letters inviting companies into certain areas. Hopefully getting realated industries to conglomerate. This strategy could also help us to export more.

            Export more of the stuff we are competitive at:
            Much the same as above, except that we are growing what’s already here rather than trying to woo something back after it’s gone.

            Simply do without some stuff:
            Nobody wants this option, but it would work.

            So we are left with two options and they are almost identical steps in how to achieve them.
            –look for environmental laws that hinder much but conserve little
            –end war on coal
            –end war on fracking
            –approve pipelines or any other infrastructure private sector is willing to fund/construct
            –end min wage
            –end/reduce corporate tax (will have to cut a lotta gov waste to do this)
            –slash laws against drug research on animals/volunteer humans
            –reduce welfare (so they will be more likely to take that low wage job)
            –end undesirable immigration (for many reasons)
            –put prisoners to work doing something profitable that we can consume or export (maybe assemble smartphones, flatscreens?).
            –reduce gov worker staff as much as possible (like streamlining welfare and not having as many social workers) laid off gov workers can find a job in the private sector.
            –govs/congress write letters to desirable companies to try to get them in, maybe ask them “What would it take to get you to move here?” Think of what we have a competitive advantage in. For instance, we could probably bait in a chemical/pharmaceutical company easier than we can bait in a textile company.

            “Ladies and gentlemen, this is how free-trade has destroyed entire industries in this country, burdened our grandchildren with a mountain of debt, and impoverished the American worker.”

            How can you say that? We have one of the highest standards of living in the world.

            “How does a race to the bottom with the poorest people in the Third World – people who are poorer than the Vietnamese who make 65 cents an hour – make the working class and middle class richer? It doesn’t and the proof is the economic distress that free-trade has created whether it is poverty, unemployment, stagnant real wages, dual income families or household debt.”

            As I’ve already stated, if they are working for 65 cents an hour, and transport cost isn’t prohibitive, it is cheaper than having your own private slave do stuff for you. Why wouldn’t I let the Vietnamese sew my clothes for that price?

          • They don’t really have to beat 65 cents/hour, you know. There are transport and customs costs, not to mention the other company might charge a tariff. Plus the time itself spent on a barge would cost the investor by having to wait longer to get his roi. Then there’s the risk of trade disruption that investors would account for. Plus other factors like the plant having a reliable power supply or whatever. Anyway, we wouldn’t have to compete w the 65 cents by itself.

            Are you willing to explain that to the 44 percent of North Carolina manufacturing workers who lost their jobs since 1994?

            Suppose we only have to be willing to work for $2/hour. Ok, if there aren’t enough people willing to work for $2, then the plant simply won’t get built and NC workers, instead of making clothes and buying other stuff, will make other stuff and buy clothes.”

            What is all this other stuff?

            The point is not having a min wage doesn’t mean people have to work for a lower amount, it just means they are free to if they choose to and that companies are free to pay whatever they want as long as it’s enough to get the workers.”

            Why can’t you just say it drives down wages to the global average? That’s what we are talking about, right? We want our fellow citizens in North Carolina to compete with people who make 65 cents an hour and less than that in many countries.

            Without min wage or other regulations (other than enforcement of contracts):
            The workers must work hard enough to keep the job.
            The company must pay enough to keep the workers.

            Perhaps we could bring back child labor? How long and hard do people have to work to satisfy free-market theorists?

            What could be more fair than that?

            I don’t know … maybe the system we have now? It is more equitable than what you are proposing here.

          • Hunter,

            “Are you willing to explain that to the 44 percent of North Carolina manufacturing workers who lost their jobs since 1994?”

            Why don’t you just forward it to them. They may be too busy working to read it though.

            “What is all this other stuff?”
            The things we can export. We’re doing well in agriculture and energy right now. That’s a good start.

            “Why can’t you just say it drives down wages to the global average? That’s what we are talking about, right? We want our fellow citizens in North Carolina to compete with people who make 65 cents an hour and less than that in many countries.”

            It doesn’t drive them down all the way to the global average because there are other costs involved that I already explained once. You’re not even trying to have an intelligent debate with this question.

            “Perhaps we could bring back child labor?”
            No, they are making way too much money playing video games to do that! We need the fatter and lazier, and working just isn’t going to help that happen!

            “How long and hard do people have to work to satisfy free-market theorists?”
            They don’t have to work at all. It is up to you if you want a job or not.

          • Jeff,

            “Why don’t you just forward it to them. They may be too busy working to read it though”

            How long should people in North Carolina work a week? 60 hours? How about their children?

            “The things we can export. We’re doing well in agriculture and energy right now. That’s a good start.”

            Over half the people who work in agriculture in North Carolina are Hispanic. As for energy, how many jobs are there in North Carolina? I know over a third of the electricity there comes from nuclear power. Maybe the free-market would have split the atom at some point.

            “It doesn’t drive them down all the way to the global average because there are other costs involved that I already explained once. You’re not even trying to have an intelligent debate with this question.”

            Maybe a dollar an hour then? Much of the world lives on a dollar a day. Is that a good wage for North Carolina’s workforce? Is that the kind of economy we want in an independent South?

            “No, they are making way too much money playing video games to do that! We need the fatter and lazier, and working just isn’t going to help that happen!”

            All those fat and lazy children. When should they enter the private sector? 10 years old? I assume we won’t be giving them an education. What would the be opportunity cost of literacy?

          • Hunter,

            “How long should people in North Carolina work a week? 60 hours?”
            As long as they want. Let them freely negotiate with their employers.

            “How about their children?”
            Let the parents sort it out. I suppose they could do chores at home and let parents work longer hours. There would have to be a max limit for the sake of children. It would be up to the parents.

            I guess you don’t want to hear the big H-word, but I’m going to drop it anyway. When I was in North Honduras, the local school taught small children in the daytime and older children in the evenings using the same room. That way if an older kid was working a day job he could still go to school at night and they got to just use a single building. I don’t know how many older kids were working, or if before school jobs were better than after school jobs, but that’s how they did it.

            In the area of Honduras that never got sucked dry by the extractive banana industry, I doubt they even had electricity. I was told that for them finishing the 6th grade was essentially going “all the way.”

            “Over half the people who work in agriculture in North Carolina are Hispanic.”

            So? Get rid of them.

            “As for energy, how many jobs are there in North Carolina? I know over a third of the electricity there comes from nuclear power. Maybe the free-market would have split the atom at some point.”

            I don’t know, but think nuclear is one of the more expensive ways to generate electricity when all is said and done. Especially now with fracking making fossil fuels cheaper. Nevertheless, I can be reasonably certain that the private sector would have split the atom at some point had it been worthwhile.

            “Maybe a dollar an hour then? Much of the world lives on a dollar a day. Is that a good wage for North Carolina’s workforce? Is that the kind of economy we want in an independent South?”

            Dude, you’re not even trying here. A dollar an hour times 8 hours is 8 dollars which is clearly above the dollar a day figure that I’m pretty sure is way outdated since people have been saying it for as long as I can remember and the value of a dollar has gone down so much.

            Does anybody believe that in a free market, white peoples’ wages would sink as low as negro wages?

            “All those fat and lazy children. When should they enter the private sector? 10 years old? I assume we won’t be giving them an education. What would the be opportunity cost of literacy?”

            You’re being silly, I’ve already addressed that minors would have to be protected, but largely up to parents. My first summer job was picking produce when I was 8 and have suffered no ill effects that I am aware of, so yes, I think 10 is a decent age for that. My first regular year round job started when I was 14, full time in summer, after school in winters but very flexible. If your kid can’t read by 10, he’s probably not going to miss out on much by not going to high school anyway.

          • Jeff,

            “As long as they want. Let them freely negotiate with their employers”

            So, in the restored Southern Confederacy, one of the many advantages will be poor people working for 70 hours a week in North Carolina like they used to in company towns around 1900.

            “Let the parents sort it out. I suppose they could do chores at home and let parents work longer hours. There would have to be a max limit for the sake of children. It would be up to the parents.”

            Also in the new Southern Confederacy, there will be child labor like there was in the North Carolina of 1900. Perhaps these new industries will hire 10-year-olds on Tobacco Road?

            “I guess you don’t want to hear the big H-word, but I’m going to drop it anyway. When I was in North Honduras, the local school taught small children in the daytime and older children in the evenings using the same room. That way if an older kid was working a day job he couldhe could still go to school at night and they got to just use a single building. I don’t know how many older kids were working, or if before school jobs were better than after school jobs, but that’s how they did it.

            This sounds like a winning message: in the Research Triangle, North Carolina should emulate the education system of Honduras.


            In the area of Honduras that never got sucked dry by the extractive banana industry, I doubt they even had electricity. I was told that for them finishing the 6th grade was essentially going “all the way.”

            I’m not sure what happens to NC State or UNC, but this doesn’t bode well for their fate in the new Southern Confederacy.

          • Hunter,

            “So, in the restored Southern Confederacy, one of the many advantages will be poor people working for 70 hours a week in North Carolina like they used to in company towns around 1900.”

            They will have the option to. It would be up to them whether they choose to do so or not. I don’t know what the problem is. I’ve done 70 hrs/week in agricultural labor lots of times.

            “Also in the new Southern Confederacy, there will be child labor like there was in the North Carolina of 1900. Perhaps these new industries will hire 10-year-olds on Tobacco Road?”

            I’ve already explained that this would be between children, parents, and employers, but the gov would have to set limits I the case of children, to prevent their abuse, but not adults, since unless they are retarded they should be able to take care of themselves.

            By setting limits on what adults can freely negotiate, you are hurting the workers, companies, and the consumers who buy the goods.

            Do you want the gov to set prices on what things can be bought or sold for?

            If the gov sets a minimum wage, then will it set prices for other things too? What will the gov approved prices of milk and bread be?

          • Jeff,

            “They will have the option to. It would be up to them whether they choose to do so or not. I don’t know what the problem is. I’ve done 70 hrs/week in agricultural labor lots of times.”

            I don’t expect many people in NC will support secession to have a 70 hour work week. On the contrary, that would give them an incentive to oppose secession.

            “I’ve already explained that this would be between children, parents, and employers, but the gov would have to set limits I the case of children, to prevent their abuse, but not adults, since unless they are retarded they should be able to take care of themselves.”

            How will this message be received in NC? Let’s secede for we can bring back child labor. Again, it creates another incentive to oppose secession.

            “By setting limits on what adults can freely negotiate, you are hurting the workers, companies, and the consumers who buy the goods.”

            The limits were set because of the abuses in the late 19th/early 20th century. Just so we are clear, that’s what you propose to bring back, and anyone who wants to know how it would play out can consult their history books and learn more about the NC of 1910.

            “Do you want the gov to set prices on what things can be bought or sold for?”

            The government already regulates the labor market which is why we don’t have children working for 65 cents an hour or adults for 70 hours a week in NC.

            “If the gov sets a minimum wage, then will it set prices for other things too? What will the gov approved prices of milk and bread be?”

            If memory serves, dairy and wheat are both heavily subsidised by the government, which is already playing a role in setting prices. Let’s also not forget that free-trade or tariffs set consumer prices.

          • Hunter,

            “I don’t expect many people in NC will support secession to have a 70 hour work week. On the contrary, that would give them an incentive to oppose secession.”

            They don’t have to work that much at one place, but they would have the option to if the employer was willing to do it.

          • Jeff,

            “They don’t have to work that much at one place, but they would have the option to if the employer was willing to do it.”

            Feel free to make the case that NC should secede to be free of maximum work week laws, child labor laws, environmental laws, worker safety laws, the minimum wage, etc. Throw in free-trade which has hit NC harder than any other Southern state.

            How about the Research Triangle? Are we abolishing public education, higher education and investment in infrastructure in the restored Southern Confederacy too? What are you trying to do? Is NC going back to 1910 except without the textile industry?

          • Jeff,

            “So? Get rid of them.”

            Are these jobs left behind illegal aliens – terrible jobs, for sure – the future of the North Carolina workforce in the Southern Confederacy?

            I don’t know, but think nuclear is one of the more expensive ways to generate electricity when all is said and done. Especially now with fracking making fossil fuels cheaper. Nevertheless, I can be reasonably certain that the private sector would have split the atom at some point had it been worthwhile.

            From what I have read, North Carolina doesn’t have the coal, oil, or natural gas of other Southern states. Perhaps some jobs could be created from offshore drilling but those will be limited.

            “Dude, you’re not even trying here. A dollar an hour times 8 hours is 8 dollars which is clearly above the dollar a day figure that I’m pretty sure is way outdated since people have been saying it for as long as I can remember and the value of a dollar has gone down so much.”

            Okay then, not a $1 a day, but $8 dollars a day. Why would the vast majority of North Carolinians want to secede to make in a day less than what the federal minimum wage pays in one hour?

            “Does anybody believe that in a free market, white peoples’ wages would sink as low as negro wages?”

            Since lots of blacks make the federal minimum wage and workers in Bangladesh make $53 cents an hour, then yeah, I do believe the free-market and free-trade would push wages down to the global average.

            “You’re being silly, I’ve already addressed that minors would have to be protected, but largely up to parents. My first summer job was picking produce when I was 8 and have suffered no ill effects that I am aware of, so yes, I think 10 is a decent age for that. My first regular year round job started when I was 14, full time in summer, after school in winters but very flexible. If your kid can’t read by 10, he’s probably not going to miss out on much by not going to high school anyway.”

            Why is this silly?

            The taxpayers are paying for public education in North Carolina. We universally educate all children. That’s clearly an example of wealth redistribution and a distortion created by state interference in the free-market. Thus, it is reasonable to ask: what is the opportunity cost of fostering literacy in North Carolina?

            Surely, there is a cost to the wages that 10-year-olds could be earning making 65 cents and hour, maybe 40 hours a week. Those lazy kids are playing Nintendo and living off the taxpayer while learning algebra.

          • Hunter,

            “Are these jobs left behind illegal aliens – terrible jobs, for sure – the future of the North Carolina workforce in the Southern Confederacy?”

            I have already beaten this one to death and you keep bringing it up like a new and valid point.

            If we get rid of illegals, then:
            –there will be less competition for low skill labor, such as cutting up chickens in processing plants, or picking produce.
            –the pay for those jobs will go up because of reduced competition, giving higher wages to whites who work those jobs.
            –relevant products, such as chicken and fresh produce in grocery store will become slightly, but only slightly, more expensive and a few of the processing/produce picking jobs will go away but this is a small price to pay for getting rid of illegals.

            There will still be plenty of low skill jobs to be had, such as cutting up chickens or picking produce. This is good because not everyone is capable of a high skill job. Sad, but true, but someone with an 80 IQ is not going to be capable of highly skilled labor. Unless we are going to put them all on welfare, then we shouldn’t take away their jobs.

            “From what I have read, North Carolina doesn’t have the coal, oil, or natural gas of other Southern states. Perhaps some jobs could be created from offshore drilling but those will be limited.”

            There is plenty of coal in KY we can burn. WV gas via pipeline sounds good too. Also, I think we are going to get some gas drilling now due to fracking.

            “Okay then, not a $1 a day, but $8 dollars a day. Why would the vast majority of North Carolinians want to secede to make in a day less than what the federal minimum wage pays in one hour?”

            The vast majority would be earning much more than $8/day. I doubt many people other than kids or retarded people will be working for $1 an hour. After all, there are lots of things that could reasonably be done for $1 an hour, like a college student receptionist at a really slow business could stay at a desk for $1 an hour and spend the vast majority of that time studying. Minwage laws don’t allow this.

            It couldn’t go all the way down to the global average because of transport and currency exchange costs. Besides, this blog is for the benefit of whites, not blacks.

          • Jeff,

            “I have already beaten this one to death and you keep bringing it up like a new and valid point.”

            As I have said, over 50 percent of workers in agriculture in NC are Hispanic. These are generally terrible, low-wage jobs that attract marginal workers like illegal aliens. Even if every illegal alien were deported from NC, there would still be relatively few jobs in agriculture and they would pay terrible wages.

            “If we get rid of illegals, then:
            –there will be less competition for low skill labor, such as cutting up chickens in processing plants, or picking produce.
            –the pay for those jobs will go up because of reduced competition, giving higher wages to whites who work those jobs.”

            By abolishing everything from the minimum wage to worker safety standards to environmental laws to child labor laws, there is no reason to believe that real wages would go up after illegals are deported from NC.

            “–relevant products, such as chicken and fresh produce in grocery store will become slightly, but only slightly, more expensive and a few of the processing/produce picking jobs will go away but this is a small price to pay for getting rid of illegals.”

            Even if the illegals were deported, there would be few jobs in NC agriculture, those jobs would become more extractive after your reforms, and they wouldn’t pay wages nearly comparable to the manufacturing sector. NC is one of the most industrialized states in the South, but has lost almost 50 percent of its manufacturing jobs since 1994 thanks to free-trade.

            “There will still be plenty of low skill jobs to be had, such as cutting up chickens or picking produce. This is good because not everyone is capable of a high skill job. Sad, but true, but someone with an 80 IQ is not going to be capable of highly skilled labor. Unless we are going to put them all on welfare, then we shouldn’t take away their jobs.”

            Not really.

            There’s a reason why 50 percent of agricultural workers in NC are Hispanic. The reason is that agriculture doesn’t employ many people and the types of jobs where labor is required – poultry processing, hog processing, some food crops – are terrible jobs.

            “There is plenty of coal in KY we can burn. WV gas via pipeline sounds good too. Also, I think we are going to get some gas drilling now due to fracking.”

            That will create jobs in KY and WV. As for NC, if memory serves, it produces less natural gas than most of the rest of the South. The numbers are insignificant. NC doesn’t have a big energy sector in coal, oil, natural gas.

            “The vast majority would be earning much more than $8/day. I doubt many people other than kids or retarded people will be working for $1 an hour. After all, there are lots of things that could reasonably be done for $1 an hour, like a college student receptionist at a really slow business could stay at a desk for $1 an hour and spend the vast majority of that time studying. Minwage laws don’t allow this.”

            Even if they made $10 a day, why would anyone want NC to secede to join your version of the Southern Confederacy? You are giving them a strong incentive to oppose NC secession.

            “It couldn’t go all the way down to the global average because of transport and currency exchange costs. Besides, this blog is for the benefit of whites, not blacks.”

            FYI, transport costs have never been lower thanks to FedEx, commercial aircraft, and the internet. This argument might have held water a century ago when the lack of air travel provided natural protection from foreign competition, but it is no longer true in 2015.

  41. Well, speaking as someone who favors (in theory) third-positionism, socialism, heavy regulation of finance and even, as needed, semi-fascist control of the national economy, I’d like to point out that we’re participating in this conversation using technology pioneered by the US government and paid for through “wealth redistribution.”

    The gist of HWs comments in my mind boil down to the fact that case for the “free market” and “free trade” fails and fails badly on functional and utilitarian grounds alone. It can’t effectively deliver what its partisans claim it delivers. The case for the free market fails before one even gets into issues like the inability of the free market to provide for public goods or issues like the wisdom of functionally subordinating all of human life to economic imperatives.

    The problem with libertarians like Jeff is the same problem that applies to all libertarians: they can’t think past money and have an extraordinarily impoverished view of the wider public good.

    • Lew,

      “I’d like to point out that we’re participating in this conversation using technology pioneered by the US government and paid for through ‘wealth redistribution.'”

      At what cost? Where did the government get this money?

      If you believe in wealth redistribution, please redistribute $100 directly from your bank account to mine. If you don’t have $100 right now, no problem, just transfer $10/week for the next 10 weeks (no interest).

      I’ll be interested to see how much money I get.

      • Jeff,

        “At what cost? Where did the government get this money?

        If you believe in wealth redistribution, please redistribute $100 directly from your bank account to mine. If you don’t have $100 right now, no problem, just transfer $10/week for the next 10 weeks (no interest).

        I’ll be interested to see how much money I get.”

        Since the Japanese and South Koreans have far better broadband the US, I guess their system of wealth redistribution and planning is superior to the free-market version here.

  42. ‘Anyway, next time libertarians tell you the state has never accomplished anything remind them of the TVA, mass literacy, splitting the atom, NASA putting a man on the moon, eradicating the boll weevil, ending malaria, polio and hookworms, ending sharecropping and child labor, and bringing electricity to the rural South.’

    Mr. Griffin – you are right to say that the Yankee government has done some good.
    All in all, they have been the most benevolent of conquerors – particularly in between 1885-1950.

    Still, they are not we, and, ultimately, they have usurpt the government our forefathers had conceived together, to undermine and dismantle our Southern society, and reshape it to the own druthers.

    You can correctly argue, Sir, that some of it has been to the better, but much of it has not been.

    Still, it remains that the licence is not morally theirs to do so.

    In the final analysis – the scales have tippt against their government in my mind. Why?

    Because, since WWII they have made war against how our society is organized, and told us whom we must hire, fire, and or with whom we must be. They have made war on our tobacco habits, our diet, our religious faith, all while licensing in the hammering of millions of babies’s heads, mandating poisonous vaccinations, and filling our children’s head with poisonous entertainment, artificial sweeteners, and diabolical hydrogenated oils and godforsaken gmos.

    Against the express will of their own Constitution, they have policed every other man’s border, while failing to secure our own; they sold our currency to one man, they have not conducted the defence of the country, but, instead droppt trillions of pounds of ordinance on the innocent head of women and children, in 3rd world nations,without just cause – without declarations of war.

    They passt the balancet budget amendment, only to now have us in debt $20,000,000,000,000 – and borrowing $1,000,000 a minute.

    Against the express will of The Constitution, they never laid tariffs on imports, to protect our businesses, but, instead, have allowed over 90% of our manufacturing base, since WWII, to leave the country – while still allowing those companies to sell their goods in our market.

    They have lain a waste to our privacy rights – now collecting & storing, in bulk, our every e-mail, online record, and phone conversation, into perpetuity.

    They have diminsht our free speech by collaborating with leftists to create a culture of intolerance.

    They have held our farmers down with an iron fist, and undermined every small town, by their pro-corporate policy which has destroy almost every mom & pop business.

    Now, President Obama, spoiling to get further control of us, has instituted gay marriage, and is now fashioning a bill against our 2nd amendment rights, to bear arms.

    They have targetted white male southern Christians as ‘dangerous’, yet, have sought to protect the rights of gender confused boys, who want to invade girl’s restrooms, in elementary school!

    Sir – even the fraction of these violations would have spelled a blood feud to our Confederate forefathers, and rightly so.

    Sir, I was once damn proud and grateful to be an American, as was my daddy before me, and, like he, served in the infantry of the Federal army, but, now I am not, and have only this to say :

    America is dead – done in by the very government sworn to protect the idea.

    Yet, at the same time, I see that North Carolina is not going along for the ride. No, Sir! I am very proud that, in recent months, our legislature has taken steps to protect our monuments, our graveyards, our firearms, and Governor McCory has even told President Obama, with the support of many of our sheriffs – that NO SYRIAN REFUGEES HERE.

    Sir, though I would prefer secession, I am pleased to see North Carolina moving in the right direction – towards The re-embracal of The Old Constitution, and away from the Stalinist/Corporate hell the Federal government has been cooking up for us.

    Now, I’ll keep my fingers crosst for Ted Cruz, as he is the only candidate with a chance to lead the Yankee empire, who has the record of fighting big government and the demonstrated will to do it.

    May God shrink this government back down to size – as the illustrious Senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul, says, ‘so small you can’t see it.’

  43. Hunter,

    “Since the Japanese and South Koreans have far better broadband the US, I guess their system of wealth redistribution and planning is superior to the free-market version here.”

    Talk is cheap. Show me the money if you believe in wealth redistribution so much!

    • Jeff,

      “Talk is cheap. Show me the money if you believe in wealth redistribution so much!”

      I would happily support the creation of a Japanese or South Korean-style broadband network here. Feel free to decry it as “socialism” or “wealth redistribution.” It is just an infrastructure project or what free-market theorists used to decry as “internal improvements” before the WBTS when they opposed roads, bridges, railroads, canals, etc.

      Unfortunately, the Confederate Army needed that infrastructure in 1861-1865, but by then it was too late. The South lost the war because of it was economically retarded by generations of this nonsense.

      • Hunter,

        “I would happily support the creation of a Japanese or South Korean-style broadband network here. Feel free to decry it as “socialism” or “wealth redistribution.” It is just an infrastructure project or what free-market theorists used to decry as “internal improvements” before the WBTS when they opposed roads, bridges, railroads, canals, etc.”

        More cheap talk. The challenge is for anybody who believes in wealth redistribution to prove it by redistributing $100 of their money to me. I’m still waiting for my first $100.
        Call me socialist if you want, but I support this redistribution plan wholeheartedly!

        • Jeff,

          “More cheap talk. The challenge is for anybody who believes in wealth redistribution to prove it by redistributing $100 of their money to me. I’m still waiting for my first $100.
          Call me socialist if you want, but I support this redistribution plan wholeheartedly!

          How would creating a South Korean-style broadband network be any different from all the infrastructure projects, which are financed by taxpayers, in Alabama and North Carolina? How is it any different from the money we spend on education and healthcare?

          It’s not. You are using all the same arguments that were heard in the antebellum era against roads, canals, railroads, turnpikes, bridges, harbors, dredging of rivers, etc. The cumulative effect of it was to retard the South’s economy and lose the War Between the States.

          • Hunter,

            “How would creating a South Korean-style broadband network be any different from all the infrastructure projects, which are financed by taxpayers, in Alabama and North Carolina? How is it any different from the money we spend on education and healthcare?

            It’s not. You are using all the same arguments that were heard in the antebellum era against roads, canals, railroads, turnpikes, bridges, harbors, dredging of rivers, etc. The cumulative effect of it was to retard the South’s economy and lose the War Between the States.”

            Still waiting for you to pay up on my $100 challenge. My neighborhood needs some statues and trees. You do believe in public goods investment don’t you?

          • Jeff,

            “Still waiting for you to pay up on my $100 challenge. My neighborhood needs some statues and trees. You do believe in public goods investment don’t you?”

            Sure I do.

            I already pay taxes to the government which is invested in infrastructure in other states. I don’t have any problem with that concept, but why are we paying interest on our national debt to build up the Chinese military? Know any free-traders who can explain that one?

          • Hunter,

            “Still waiting for you to pay up on my $100 challenge. My neighborhood needs some statues and trees. You do believe in public goods investment don’t you?”

            Sure I do.

            I already pay taxes to the government which is invested in infrastructure in other states. I don’t have any problem with that concept,”

            No, you seem to think it’s not enough and we need to go above what we’re doing now so you can have the gov run your Internet. You are advocating for an *increase* in redistribution, not status quo. You have consistently argued that we are too free market and need to pay for your Internet as an infrastructure project.

            You can lead by example and redistribute $100 into my bank account.

          • Jeff,

            “No, you seem to think it’s not enough and we need to go above what we’re doing now so you can have the gov run your Internet. You are advocating for an *increase* in redistribution, not status quo. You have consistently argued that we are too free market and need to pay for your Internet as an infrastructure project.

            You can lead by example and redistribute $100 into my bank account.”

            As a taxpayer, my tax dollars already subsidize hospitals, schools, and infrastructure in your area. I’m already paying to take care of all the North Carolina workers who lost their jobs due to free-trade and the poor in every corner of your state. Again, there is no difference whatsoever between I-85 in Charlotte and broadband internet as an infrastructure project in North Carolina.

          • Hunter,

            “As a taxpayer, my tax dollars already subsidize hospitals, schools, and infrastructure in your area. I’m already paying to take care of all the North Carolina workers who lost their jobs due to free-trade and the poor in every corner of your state. Again, there is no difference whatsoever between I-85 in Charlotte and broadband internet as an infrastructure project in North Carolina.”

            You’re not doing it by choice either, you’re doing it because the gov is taking the money from you whether you think the projects are worth it or not.

            Also, as I already pointed out:
            When you are advocating for gov to run Internet to your area, you are asking that we do *more* tax funded stuff, not maintain status quo. You are advocating for *more* wealth redistribution than we already have now.

            My challenge stands to everyone who reads this. If you are a proponent of wealth redistribution, then prove it by redistributing $100 from your pocket to mine. If you don’t have $100 right now, no problem, just pay in $10 increments.

          • Jeff,

            “You’re not doing it by choice either, you’re doing it because the gov is taking the money from you whether you think the projects are worth it or not.”

            As previously noted, everyone who pays taxes is already subsidizing healthcare, infrastructure and education in NC. While some libertarians are opposed to government investment in public goods, most people prefer the system we have now.

            “Also, as I already pointed out:
            When you are advocating for gov to run Internet to your area, you are asking that we do *more* tax funded stuff, not maintain status quo. You are advocating for *more* wealth redistribution than we already have now.”

            I believe the state should invest in infrastructure … like it does in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc. We already invest in our own infrastructure in countless ways. The interstate highways in NC are just one example.

            “My challenge stands to everyone who reads this. If you are a proponent of wealth redistribution, then prove it by redistributing $100 from your pocket to mine. If you don’t have $100 right now, no problem, just pay in $10 increments.”

            If you are opposed to “wealth redistribution” on the grounds of principle, doesn’t it follow that you should be opposed to government investment in education, infrastructure, and healthcare?

          • Hunter,

            “I believe the state should invest in infrastructure … like it does in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc. We already invest in our own infrastructure in countless ways. The interstate highways in NC are just one example.”

            The Interstate system was for defense and you know it.

          • Jeff,

            “The Interstate system was for defense and you know it.”

            Regardless, all of the countries listed above invest in their infrastructure, and Japan and South Korea excel in broadband internet, which is just another infrastructure project. They do this because investing in their infrastructure fosters commerce which generates economic growth and increases national wealth. The interstate system was modeled on Germany’s autobahn.

            The US does the same thing. The same is true not only of transportation projects like roads, bridges and highways, but also public health hazards like malaria which was eradicated after WW2. New Orleans, for example, used to be crippled by malaria and the yellow jack and is much better now that it is gone.

  44. ‘Hunter, You are wearing me out. It looks like you have the stamina to keep going longer than I do.’

    President Davis : Mr. Griffin has got a might facile mind and frenzick fingers. In fact, I think he’s in the wrong line of work, entirely. No, Sir : as good as he is at this, in 5 years he’d be the best bluegrass fiddler or mandolinist around, with abilities like that.

    He’d sure as hell outlast anyone at a bluegrass festival:)

  45. Sir, I’m glad you enjoyed my ‘summary’ of your position.

    Now, with your permission, this ole boy is goin’ beddie-bye…

  46. I am actually glad that these people say things like this now – at least they are finally being honest. Before, they would play up Jesus and abortion and say how much they love tradition and the church and all the rest. The “free market” never won the power they have by coming out and saying that the American workers needed to work harder to compete with 65 cents an hour.

    The hubris brought on by decades of screwing over American workers and getting away with it has reached a new height that they come right out and insult the American worker now by saying that he doesn’t work hard enough. Only hardcore libertarians used to make statements like that – now mainstream GOP candidates do it like Jeb Bush which probably explains his 5% approval rating among voters.

    You guys will never win elections with rhetoric like this. You have to mask it behind social issues and such to get elected. Of course, with changing demographics supported by the “free market” even your ability to win elections by lying about how you care for social issues won’t even work any longer.

    The people do not support the current iteration of what is known as the “free market.” You only win by masking your intentions around other issues. When the working class supports the free market, they think small business – they do not support big boy billionaire CEO screaming about how American workers are not working hard enough to compete with 65 cents an hour.

    • Ulfric,

      “The hubris brought on by decades of screwing over American workers and getting away with it has reached a new height that they come right out and insult the American worker now by saying that he doesn’t work hard enough.”

      Vietnamese works for 65 cents/hour, no extra for overtime, no retirement, no insurance.

      American worker thinks $10/ is oppressive. Gets extra for overtime, insurance, retirement. Thinks it’s unfair when Vietnamese worker gets his job!

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