/liberty/ - Liberty

Not sure what to think of it. Just because a service is formally privatized does not mean the government is not in control of it. There's this german corporation called Telekom. Technically, it's two-thirds privately owned, but one half of that is by a bank whose shares are all held b the government. You can't tell me that's a legitimate private enterprise.

>expected to affect pharmaceuticals and aged-care

K

>>17282

Large scale monopolistic entities or oligopolistic conglomerates, and really any company owning outsized market share is suspect.

This is why I have zero problem with the government regulating the so called private banks. It's just one part of the government interfering with another part. Frankly, the bailouts were a buyout.

Same with Facebook which does everything governments say now with regards to censorship.

If there's ever an insurrection against the government, these "private" companies need to burn along with the government they belong to and have sworn allegiance to.

Big business is the partner of big government in our corporatist system.

>>17292

>Private companies do everything government tells them to because they're beholden to government.

For small business that is true. For big business, they do so enthusiastically, and lobby for government involvement. It is an objective fact that Goldeman Sachs has a revolving door relationship with government.

Just slapping the name "private" on something doesn't make it actually resistant and independent of government. You have to look at the actual structure of organizations and what is going on.

>Facebook, your example, conforms with censorship law because if it does not, it itself will be held liable

No, Facebook conforms because it is pro-government censorship, and lts shareholders are ideological SJWs.

>Whenever you afford government with more powers over business, you're strengthening government, even if you choose to rationalise it as "government interfering with another part".

I'm not affording it anything, I just don't care how government decides to structure itself to fool you. I want the government DESTROYED, not reformed.

And you can't brush it of as a rationalization if it is true. What do you call, organizations that:

>Get massive government subsidies

>Get bailed out all the time

>Lobby for government action constantly

>Have a revolving door system where many of the execs mysteriously end up in government positions

Would you say those things deserve to be treat as independent and blameless? They ARE part of the government, you just don't realize it because you focus on what things are called rather than how they actually function.

>The solution to big government is privatisation and non-intervention.

No, the solution to government is revolution and a culture of resistance, so that big government can never form again. You aren't going to get REAL independence without that, because the government is never going to just keel over and accept its own dissolution without a fight.

>The solution to corporatism is deregulation and transparency.

Corporatism is the merger of government and corporations. Those corporations are then government and should be treat as collaborators and traitors to the people.

>>17294

>For small business that is true. For big business, they do so enthusiastically, and lobby for government involvement. It is an objective fact that Goldeman Sachs has a revolving door relationship with government.

>Just slapping the name "private" on something doesn't make it actually resistant and independent of government. You have to look at the actual structure of organizations and what is going on.

"Private" is question of legal ownership. I demonstrated that outside of the free market, no company can ever be independent of government.

>>Facebook, your example, conforms with censorship law because if it does not, it itself will be held liable

>No, Facebook conforms because it is pro-government censorship, and lts shareholders are ideological SJWs.

These two facts aren't mutually exclusive. This doesn't change the fact that non-compliance is a criminal offence.

>>Whenever you afford government with more powers over business, you're strengthening government, even if you choose to rationalise it as "government interfering with another part".

>I'm not affording it anything, I just don't care how government decides to structure itself to fool you. I want the government DESTROYED, not reformed.

>Would you say those things deserve to be treat as independent and blameless? They ARE part of the government, you just don't realize it because you focus on what things are called rather than how they actually function.

Yes, you are. You want government to exert more influence over the large, private, companies it colludes with. You deliberately conflate big business and the government because you actually hate them both.

Corporations aren't government. Private corporations may be highly influential in government but, by definition, they can never actually be government. Legally the two don't mix at all unless the government owns shares in the corporation. In a property recognising, law-based society, this is important.

>What do you call, organizations that:

>>Get massive government subsidies

>>Get bailed out all the time

>>Lobby for government action constantly

>>Have a revolving door system where many of the execs mysteriously end up in government positions

Government favoured companies.

>>The solution to big government is privatisation and non-intervention.

>No, the solution to government is revolution and a culture of resistance, so that big government can never form again. You aren't going to get REAL independence without that, because the government is never going to just keel over and accept its own dissolution without a fight.

Privatisation is literally the severing of government and private enterprise. If you're an AnCap, this can be achieved through the elimination of government just so long as there are bodies to facilitate capitalism. Non-intervention, also achieved by abolishing government, eliminates avenues for government to patronise its favoured partners. These two things make corporatism impossible. I know that this is not good enough for you because you have bigger fish to fry, I get it.

>>The solution to corporatism is deregulation and transparency.

>Corporatism is the merger of government and corporations. Those corporations are then government and should be treat as collaborators and traitors to the people.

Corporatism is the collusion of the state and private firms for their mutual gains. It is a conspiracy against the citizen. If you eliminate the state's capacity to act as a king maker (or the state itself period, if that's what you're into), you eliminate corporatism.

>>17294

>No, Facebook conforms because it is pro-government censorship, and lts shareholders are ideological SJWs.

I flagged a picture for racism that showed a black guy wiping his ass with the american flag. It wasn't deemed offensive enough to be removed.

>>17278

>privatisation

Let me take a guess: locked in oligopolies, severly restricted competition, regulation out of the ass and government connected businesses on top of it, right?

>>17308

>locked in oligopolies, severly restricted competition, regulation out of the ass and government connected businesses on top of it

Probably.

Completely different story over here in NZ though, our private health care system (we have a two-tier system) is fairly close to a free market situation, with there only being about a dozen pages of regulations (most of which deal with patent records, medical licensing, etc) which private medical practices need to follow in order to operate (not including the usual business stuff).

>>17315

>the pharmaceutical industry is one of the largest donors to political parties in Australia

That's a scary set of words

>>17316

It shocked me when I found out that they donated a similar amount to the mining industry, which is massive here.

>>17315

>The worst thing that the PGA forces the government to put into its contract is the prohibition on neighbouring pharmacies. It is illegal to open a pharmacy with 10km of an existing pharmacy. In urban areas this is lowered to 1.5km and there are some exceptions for large shopping centres, but this is clearly designed purely to maintain a monopoly.

We had something like that in Germany, too. Our constitutional court declared it unconstitutional, thankfully.

>>17320

>We had something like that in Germany, too.

I forgot to mention that if you do want to open a new pharmacy you have to seek permission from a body of pharmacists in your local area.

>Our constitutional court declared it unconstitutional, thankfully.

Unfortunately our High Court has gone the way of the US Supreme Court in recent years in doing whatever the government wants. In the 40s the High Court let the federal government remove the states' (we have US style states here) power to draw tax and they're now dependent on the federal government for funding, effectively castrating their ability to pass policy independently. And in the 90s they passed the Mabo decision which gave heaps of land belonging to farmers to the abos.

>>17315

Privatization makes it less accessible.

>>17324

But public care

>widens inequality by transferring money from young wage earners to wealthy retirees

>ruins economy thru tax burdens

>is inefficient because it's done by a government monopoly

>encourages people to get care they don't need / don't need enough to justify the cost

>results in waiting times due to a mismatch of supply and demand

Poor people will overwhelmingly benefit because they'll only pay for the care they themselves use, and the care that they do pay for will be delivered more efficiently.

>>17322

Our courts mostly do the same thing. The rate of success with complaints to the constitutional courts is something like 1,3%.

>>17315

>I've never seen the problem with private healthcare anyway

Have you experienced the US system first hand? its a disaster if you are using health insurance because of the mountains of paperwork doctors have to do because of government regulation and the fact that insurance companies cant compete across state lines. However if you ditch the health insurance and pay cash it is on par with our private system in terms of cost.

Because of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) most healthy people had an increase in the premiums and deductibles of their health insurance. I believe the average figure is now about $400 per month in premiums with a $5000 deductible, so you are in for $10k before you see anything back. Because of this people have realized its better to not buy health insurance and pay for fine for not having it, and instead pay cash for their health care because there are doctors now who only deal with cash, list their prices, and are cheaper because of it.

>When we privatised Telstra we did nothing to break its monopoly

Is it still a monopoly? from memory here they split Telecom by department into several companies when they privatised which allowed competitors to come in over time and now there is a large amount of competition.

>Guess which country DIDN'T lower the income tax and still has a top bracket of over 50%?

And our government is looking to cut taxes even further, feels good man.

>>17324

>Privatization makes it less accessible.

Define 'accessible'

>>17336

>Telstra's privatisation began in 1997 and they're still by far the largest telecommunications provider

Thats a shame, here Telecom is still the biggest but not by much.

>Pretty good m8, your top tax rate is already 33%.

The ACT (Association of Consumers and Taxpayers) which is a soft-libertarian party has been pushing for tax reform for a while.

Their proposal in 2011 was to reduce it to a flat tax of 15% with the first $25k being tax free if the person opted out of state funded healthcare, the stance has since shifted to a progressive system with a max tax bracket of 20% with the short term goal of 24%.

Also your pic is great, its amazing how little liberals understand of economics and business.

>>17352

>Is that the best option for a libertarian in NZ?

Yes, we had a party called the Libertarianz but they removed themselves from the register in 2014 since they never polled high enough to get into parliament.

Their party still exists though in a sleeper state and might come back in the future

http://libertarianz.org.nz/policies/

>Taxation is legalised theft! Your money should be left in your pocket. A Libertarianz government will abolish all duties, tariffs, taxes and levies – except income tax. As a transitional measure this will be set at 15% – with an income threshold before payment of $50,000 – until being abolished in the shortest possible time consistent with debt obligations and transitional arrangements for ending the welfare state.

>that is the Chair of the DNC (the US Democrats) and Al Gore's campaign manager

Oh Jesus