you can't just 'regulate' and cap expenses like housing, because there are so many levels of housing. one person lives in a 15-room penthouse that cost thousands of dollars per week to rent, while another has a whole family living in government subsidized, 4 room tenements. how are you going to justify capping the price of a 3 million dollar home, by comparing it a $15k single-wide trailer?
transportation can't be 'regulated' the same way either, because people commute in hundred-thousand dollar cars and others in $500 clunkers. the government does what it can already to try to keep actual fuel costs stable, which is probably the closest thing we can do to regulating transportation expense, but prices are ultimately set by supply & futures trading, and since so much of it is imported, we're largely at OPEC's mercy. this kind of thinking, though, is why the fed imposes fuel economy standards and regulations on the auto industry. now, if we could nationally move toward something like electric powered cars, then the source of energy cost moves back home, and domestically we can regulate cost much more effectively through regulating utilities.
. . but i don't see overall how you can just 'fix' the cost of a car or bus ticket, nationally, or of an apartment. you can offer gov't subsidized programs for lowering the expenses involved for the poor, and we do things like that nationally ((USA is already more socialist than the conservative propaganda likes to admit - and has been for a long time)).
though there are already certain forms of economic controls imposed by the government, i think historically actual price control in the US has not fared well. this kind of forceful governmental interaction with the free market gets a lot of pushback from for-profit producers, and winds up creating artificial shortages when meeting demand at fixed costs becomes unprofitable, so companies drop production rather than lose money on sales that don't earn them appreciable gains. this is the sort of area where government-owned production centers are poised much better to ostensibly produce the desired results in the market, but governing bodies themselves are notoriously inefficient and lack the motivation that profit gives to innovate and keep overheads low.
i don't really know as much about economic history as i'd like to, to really go into depth about what the OP raises. i'm not opposed to socialism at all in principle, and i freely confess to idealism, but i'm not so 'starry-eyed' an idealist nor so ignorant of history not to recognize that implementation of production control and price fixing by a government bureaucracy has serious issues and sketchy track records of success. nevertheless, there are successes around. the top economies in the world have some form of socialistic model governments, with free enterprise business sectors, rather than anything like 'pure marxism'
. . this whole thread makes me want to go read economic histories. thanks a lot lol should be exciting. they aren't bad principles, but how to implement that ?? good grief. so what has or hasn't been tried and has or hasn't worked around the world over the last century?
((so much post is ignorant of!
))
transportation can't be 'regulated' the same way either, because people commute in hundred-thousand dollar cars and others in $500 clunkers. the government does what it can already to try to keep actual fuel costs stable, which is probably the closest thing we can do to regulating transportation expense, but prices are ultimately set by supply & futures trading, and since so much of it is imported, we're largely at OPEC's mercy. this kind of thinking, though, is why the fed imposes fuel economy standards and regulations on the auto industry. now, if we could nationally move toward something like electric powered cars, then the source of energy cost moves back home, and domestically we can regulate cost much more effectively through regulating utilities.
. . but i don't see overall how you can just 'fix' the cost of a car or bus ticket, nationally, or of an apartment. you can offer gov't subsidized programs for lowering the expenses involved for the poor, and we do things like that nationally ((USA is already more socialist than the conservative propaganda likes to admit - and has been for a long time)).
though there are already certain forms of economic controls imposed by the government, i think historically actual price control in the US has not fared well. this kind of forceful governmental interaction with the free market gets a lot of pushback from for-profit producers, and winds up creating artificial shortages when meeting demand at fixed costs becomes unprofitable, so companies drop production rather than lose money on sales that don't earn them appreciable gains. this is the sort of area where government-owned production centers are poised much better to ostensibly produce the desired results in the market, but governing bodies themselves are notoriously inefficient and lack the motivation that profit gives to innovate and keep overheads low.
i don't really know as much about economic history as i'd like to, to really go into depth about what the OP raises. i'm not opposed to socialism at all in principle, and i freely confess to idealism, but i'm not so 'starry-eyed' an idealist nor so ignorant of history not to recognize that implementation of production control and price fixing by a government bureaucracy has serious issues and sketchy track records of success. nevertheless, there are successes around. the top economies in the world have some form of socialistic model governments, with free enterprise business sectors, rather than anything like 'pure marxism'
. . this whole thread makes me want to go read economic histories. thanks a lot lol should be exciting. they aren't bad principles, but how to implement that ?? good grief. so what has or hasn't been tried and has or hasn't worked around the world over the last century?
((so much post is ignorant of!
))
Last edited:
