Why can't anti-trust laws be enforced against these mega media conglomerates, especially Time? The DOJ almost (but failed to) went through with requiring that Microsoft be broken up. They successfully broke up the old Ma Bell back in the 1980s.
Or is the mega-media status quo "neccessary" because of our politically correct global economy and one-world regime?

There would be no call for anti-trust laws if the government did not charter & limit the liability of corporations in the first place; they are troublesome laws unevenly enforced passed to correct a problem the government created in the first place (in other words, standard operating procedure for the Republicrats).

Methinks it's time for the cigar-chomping corporate fatcats who are generously subsidized with our tax dollars to be taken off of welfare. Looks to me like they are making plenty of money.

Of course, asking for the Republicrats to end corporate welfare is pretty futile. Corporate welfare, military boondoggles, and pork-barrel deficit spending is what they're all about.

The democrats might protest, but not too loudly. They, like the republicans depend on contributions from the corporate fat-cats.

The last thing we need to go on is an anti-trust rampage. In fact, a sidebar of policy should be the eventual repeal of all anti-trust laws.

Correct policy:

1. Abolish Federal Reserve and establish 100% reserve banking and 100% gold standard. This step will end the excessive capitalization that enables the mega corporations to exist in the first place. It will also curtail access to excessive credit and force corporations to downsize to a reasonable level.

2. Abolish limited liability and corporate personhood. Neither of these exist in a true free market and neither should exist in the present market. The availability of litigation against officers, directors and shareholders and true, full, joint and several liability for the actions of the corporation will put an immediate stop to almost all the abuses occuring today.

3. Abolish patents. This is a conclusion I have more recently come to. The vast majority of patents today are held by corporations, not by the individual inventors. There are of course, still a few "kitchen" inventors, but so few as to be an insignifcant number of the total. Patent protections was a well meaning policy when it was first conceived and the end was the promotion of science. Today, however, patents actually HINDER science and it is time for them to go. Most actual inventors never receive any specific compensation for their invention. Almost all corporations make their employees sign contracts relinquishing the ownership of all patents to the corporation. So only corporations benefit from patents, not the actual inventor. Patents cause harm in some ways. Sometimes patents for useful technology are obtained and buried by a corporation, if the resulting technology would be harmful or competitive to the corporations purpose. Also, patents severely hinder the standardization of technology, as corporations are locked out of using technology patented by a competing corporation.

Ultimately, we need to eliminate the Federal policies that lead to these corporate abuses, for ultimately the Federal Government is the root and cause of all corporate abuse.

Mark B.,

If #2 of your proposals were enacted, #1 would be unnecessary - it's a more difficult and controversial step anyway; I personally believe a debt-free fiat system would be preferable to the gold standard (read "Social Credit" by Douglas - my URL - and you'll understand why), and 100% reserve banking would require more of that meddlesome regulation & oversight which we generally oppose - and #3 would actually be counterproductive - with no corporations for the patents to belong to, all patents would belong to the inventors again, as was intended and actually advances science & technology.

First of all is suprising seeing such anti-libertarian thoughts on this site. Here are some potential problems I see with you suggestions.

1. I will not argue with you on the gold standard. My only issue is we have 800billion dollars in circulations, which means we would need an equal value of gold to switch back. The current value of gold is 646.65 USD, and the treasury has around 143 mil oz. So we would need to buy 708B USD worth of gold or buy back that many dollars from the public.

2. This would sigle handedly crash the market. Who would want to own stock if it meant they were liable for the actions of a company.

3. You are exactly right, if you remove patents, corporations will have no incentive to invent new products. After all why spend millions on development if the second its developed everyone else will copy you. And small inventors, forget it. In the past we had many single inventors, but they are gone since most easy things have been invented. A hammer takes a single person to invent. But an advanced microchip requires a massive team. Not to mention far more money then the individual inventor has. And then even after an invention is completed they would need to come up with a way to produce it, and a market for it.

For the person who commented that ma-bell was successfully broken up, if you look into which phone companys are owned by who, you will find out nation is still run by 2 mega corporations, which at this moment are trying to merge again.

I have to admit, I would have a hard time accepting any system, not based on specie and 100% banking. Having read a number of books by Austrian school authors, particularly Rothbard, I have been particularly impressed by Austrian methodology.

While I have not read any work, specifically devoted to the theory of social credit, I have seen summaries of the theory and Austrian refutations thereof. It would seem to me that, as designed, Social Credit would be inherently inflationary, as would any system which did not use a fixed specie. Also, several derivatives of the Social Credit Theory, particularly the living wage credit, are blantantly socialist in nature. Also, such system would have to be administered by a bureacratic apparutus, and we all know where that road leads.

100% banking needs little oversight. Simple fact of the matter. If I go to a bank with my warehouse receipt for 20 pounds of gold bullion and the bank cannot make good on that demand note, said bank gets liquidated on the spot and the proprietors are subject to civil suits and possibly criminal fraud charges. No need for any bureacracy to enforce this.

Also, I am not sure I understand your final point. There will still be corporations after reform. It is just that the corporations will be jointly owned by their stockholders, rather than some mythical personhood. They will not be the monstrocities they are now by any means, but they will exist, and as such will still be able to own patents in the joint name of their stockholders.

coffeeguy:

Not all that money in circulation needs to be redeemed at par. Much of that is merely governments debt either to itself or to the Federal Reserve, which can simple be wiped away. If necessary, silver can be issued as a subsidiary currency. Gold is an extremely viable system, in fact, the ONLY system which will not result in inflationary ruin.

As for your objections to my second point, this is a good thing. Individuals should invest "capitalize" a company for the long term. Also, liability could be avoided for small stockholders by the same mechanism used by small non stock companies. Simply use the "silent partner" system. In stock companies, small stockholders would be limited to no more than 10% of outstanding shares and would agree not to vote their shares or participate in the government of the company in any way. In return, they would be protected from any liability, beyond of course the normal risk of losing their investment.

What makes a corporation a corporation if not legal personhood? Otherwise, you're left with a multi-party partnership.

I admittedly cherry pick from Douglas' work and do not advocate the socialist derivatives such as the living wage credit.

What makes gold valuable? Only its desirability, which other than use in jewelry is driven only by unspoken agreement between parties with regard to its acceptability as payment; current fiat money, minus the effects of government-irresponsibility-driven inflation, is just as valuable in this sense as the same market value of gold.

What makes gold any more reliable as currency than fiat money? Only the fact that its scarcity prevents overrissuance, whereas issue of fiat money has typically been limited only by the restraint of the government issuing it; this would obviously require an analog of the oft-proposed Balanced Budget Amendment to accomplish. But as long as the total growth of the fiat money supply does not exceed the growth of the GDP (current monetary policy by the Fed results in fiat money growth roughly equivalent to 10 times GDP growth), it is not inflationary.

Additionally, use of only limitedly available new fiat money to fund government would enable the funding of a minimal government with NO TAXES WHATSOEVER.

I give Dennis Kucinich less than a month to be all over this.

Mark B.-What you are suggesting would require such a drastic change in the american business struction that it would be impossible as I see it. Of course I could be wrong, but I just don't see it ever being done.

Mark-I agree with you fix of inflation. And I think you did a good job of making a point I had been thinking about. At least the value of the dollar is based on our economy and our government. Golds value is based soley on its demand. There are many many large gold reserves in the world held by other nations, companys and private investors. If another nation sold off their gold if could lower the price prompting a massive sell off by investors causing a collapse of the USD.

a. Dr. Rothbard once responded to my question at a conference that a laissez faire economy could not stop fractional reserve banking, would not prohibit you from banking with such a bank, and would probably make more in profits (and interest for depositors) than a 100% reserve bank thus attracting even more depositors who wanted to take the risks associated.
b. Most of Mark B.'s proposals are nonsense and
would lead to a huge economic collapse in the U.S.
much to the glee of China, India, and the EU.
c. My local paper recently editorialized against "Big Oil Profits." I went on line and compared the return on investment from Exxon with
their own parent -- guess what, the media outfit made nearly twice as much return on investment than Exxon. Oh, and the newspaper didn't publish my letter pointing out same. Try it with your papers and see if you have better luck.

Creech:

To start with point b first:

We are ALREADY heading towards economic collapse, a collapse that will be beyond huge and will be catastrophic. The NONSENSE is aiding and abetting in a fiat, inflationary monetary system that will inevitable lead to catastrophe.

Now for point a:

I would actually be willing to indulge in the type of free banking you describe, although it would certainly not be my first choice. Any sort of central banking mechanism MUST be thoroughly destroyed so that any bank that wishes to inflate does so at its own peril. While free banking would put a severe curtail on inflation to be sure, only 100% banking will end inflation once and for all. But I would support free banking as a compromise to rid the country of the scourge of central banking.

I agree with you on your point c.

Creech:

On quick addendum:

A collapse in the U.S. will NOT lead to the glee of China, India and the E.U. or anywhere else in the world. It WILL lead to the rapid collapse of those fiat economies which are all based on a flimsy, inflationary money supply. The disruption in trade alone and the loss of export markets in the U.S. would rapidly bring down the rest of the world in depression, just as it did in 1929. No, they won't be laughing, they will be in fear.

Mark:

As long as a government has the device of fiat money at it's disposal, it will use it to fund all its grand ambitions, don't think for a moment that government could ever engage in responsible fiat issues. By defination, I don't believe that any fiat is responsible, but for those of you who support the fiat, don't expect the government to be responsible. Government only begets more government and to do that requires endless fiat issues.

I put up a poll regarding which type of monetary system people prefer at www.lpstuff.com in the forums area. For those that aren't aware, lpstuff is part of the Libertarian Party's website. I am interested where the bulk of the LP's membership stands on the issue of monetary policy.

Mark B, in your crusade to take away corp.'s limited liability protection, I hope you will at least promote, first, an overhaul of the legal system. To wit: institute "loser pays" so that your unlimited liability corporation can recover its costs when it is unfairly sued. Case in point from the latest issue of a financial magazine: a company named Bostik has been sued
six times over benzene (a suspected carcinogen) in its products. Bostik's products don't and never have contained benezene. Never the less,
it had to spend about $150,000 for lab tests and lawyers to fend off such suits. There is nothing to stop sharks, in mean plaintiff lawyers, from naming Bostik to every benezene suit in every state and hoping to extort money from them rather than having them defend every meritless case.
Until every state has "loser pays" there is nothing to stop the extortion game. If every corporation stockholder was joint and severally liable, the upside to seeking extortion would be
huge.

Mark B.,

I am well aware of the potential for abuse of a purely fiat monetary system. That is why I pointed out the necessity of an analog to the Balanced Budget amendment, by which I meant that in order to prevent runaway-minting-induced inflation, the Constitution would have to be amended to prohibit the government from increasing the money supply by any more than the GDP increased.

For example: Assume there are $1 trillion ($1,000,000,000,000) in circulation, and that the GDP increases by 2% in a given year (these numbers are not intended to accurately correspond to actual values and are used for illustration of my proposed principle only). This would mean the government could increase the money supply by $20 billion ($20,000,000,000 = $1,000,000,000,000 x 2%) and not one cent more.

-Mark P. (formerly just Mark)

Back to basics... boys...

It's all about personal rights. As an inventor, I need protection that I'm not told what to invent, who to sell it to, or how much I receive. That is personal freedom. Likewise, a corporation needs the same protection. They should not be told what they can't invent, how much they can or wonВ’t pay for an invention, when they take it to market at so forth. The only rub should come in insuring that NEITHER party's freedom of choice is violated. There will always be a demarcation line between one person's rights and an other's. It is the role of government to manage these demarcation lines. Without it ability and control there would be absolute chaos. What we have now is the artificial building of demarcation lines for personal governmental agendas.

If Time Warner has a better mousetrap and can sell it or services for whatever the market will bear... why would we care if they make $1M, $10M or $1B? Doesn't their freedom to make choices, again as long as personal freedoms are not tromped, also work?

The switch to a more 'libertarian' government and concepts of implementation will take decades to accomplish, just as the beginnings of democracy has taken centuries to take root. As we push forward with individual freedoms and the right to choose, other subtle changes will need to be made. There will never be a 'big bang' where everything will all of a sudden be 'libertarian'. It will take time, constant pressure, and we have to let the system adjust to the changes. Only then will we have lasting change and an increasing set of personal, professional and corporate freedoms that will stand the test of time.

Bob, the question of corporations is not about patents, it is about liability; if an individual inventor puts a new product on the market which, unexpectedly, explodes after 100 hours of use killing the user (an extreme example to illustrate my point), every last cent the inventor has is subject to his liability for releasing a dangerous product. Now jump to the corporate analog: same dangerous product with same results, except that now the owners of the corporation - its stockholders - are only liable up to the amount invested in stock; wronged customers can now only receive partial compensation for their loss. It's a question of the rights of consumers vs. the rights of producers; in the case of corporate limited liability, an imbalance has been artificially introduced into the market by government charter to shift rights away from the consumer to the producer. The problem is that corporations are chartered by the several states, so there is no simple path to removing their unwarranted legal protection; patents, however, are issued by at the federal level, so it is conceivable that by removing the otherwise just protection of corporate patents only (individuals should still retain patent rights), which is admittedly not directly related to the core issue, it will more than offset the unequivocally unjust protection of limited liability, creating a disincentive to incorporation sufficient to offset the incentive created by limited liability and create sufficient total market pressure to eventually remove corporations and their disproportionate market power from the economy.

On the issue of fiat money, I feel that more thorough explanation of the basic theory will clarify things. Production - measured in GDP - increases over time because some of past productivity is used to increase productive capacity (computers are used to design faster computers, tools are used to build more powerful & efficient tools); the result is that over time there are more goods & services available in the marketplace. If the money supply were fixed, prices & wages would drop over time (same amount of money divided by more goods & services) which is deflation. If the money supply increases faster than production, which is the case under current fiscal policy, prices & wages will increase (a lot more money divided by a little more goods & services) which is inflation. Only when the money supply increases by the same proportion as production is neither inflation nor deflation encountered (110% of last year's money supply divided by 110% of last year's goods & services still equals 1). Note that while net prices & wages would not change, those for individual goods & services still could vary as market forces adjust resources towards more economically efficient ventures.

Just a quick defination, for the purpose of clarification.

I use Rothbard's defination of the word inflation, as being solely referring to the increase in the money supply, and not referencing prices. Price increases being considered just a symptom of the aforementioned inflation.

That being said, I would prefer the steadiness of a gold based, 100% reserve money system. Yes, this would lead to a price index decrease, NOT deflation, which by definition would be a decrease in the money supply. As money became more "relatively" scarce, it would increase in value and you would get a slow, steady price index decrease. Because wages would tend lag other prices in falling, it would be mildly beneficial to consumers over the long term. I wholeheartedly concur with Rothbard in the subjective value theory. Values would not fall, only prices.

OK, I now understand that some confusion has occurred due to your use of a non-standard definition of inflation; directly from Dictionary 1.0.1 (the included program with Mac OS X): inflation: noun, 2) ECONOMICS a general increase in prices and fall in the purchasing value of money.

Your concept may be mildly beneficial for awhile, but eventually goods & services will have increased relative to the money supply so much that our currency will not be precise enough to reflect market pressures; for example, eventually a gallon of milk could sell for $0.05, but if costs increase 8% (a significant jump), prices would have to increase 10% since we'd have run out of decimal places.

Additionally, traditionally defined deflation (not your definition) is particularly hard on debtors, as the money they owe is more valuable than what they borrowed (inflation is conversely hard for creditors as the money they get back is less valuable than what they lent, driving up interest rates); this pressure from a fixed money supply would likely more than offset the relative increase in purchasing power as wage drops lagged behind price drops.

Third, what you suggest would increase friction in the marketplace as workers would be reluctant to switch jobs, since they would be unlikely to even make as much at a new job (as dollars have increased in value over time) than they are making in their current positions. Free flow of labor in the market place is crucial to the economy's ability to adjust to new pressures.

Finally, one of the assumptions of the idealized free market is perfect information by all actors (obviously not true in a real market). However, the real market can be moved towards the theoretical maximum efficiency of the ideal market by improving the amount and quality of the information of all players. Uncertainty of the future value of a dollar due to either inflation or deflation creates an unnecessary imperfection in available information; GDP-growth-linked fiat money supply increases would fix the value of a dollar as constant, allowing for a closer-to-ideal market.

p.s., The gold standard is not steady; sales of large private or foreign reserves would makes gold less valuable, as does mining of new gold deposits. Also, advancing nuclear technology makes alchemy physically possible, although not currently economically feasible; a switch to the gold standard could drive research, especially by hostile foreign powers, to make in economically viable and attack the value of the dollar by flooding the world with cheap gold, which, as I have explained before, has no intrinsic value, only market value.

The main reason I support anti-trust law is that I don't like price discrimination. Unfortunately their is a double standard when the government is allowed to create pseudo regulated monopolies.