That would be why I said, "(For simplicity, imagine that you have no additional production costs)".

Jon'C
You seem to be assuming that the people that make the decisions in big businesses will be willing to follow everything that the smartest economists say. Often, the people who get to the top of a business do it due to their people skills, not necessarily their economic skills (or, by virtue of being related to the previous owner, and having all of their relevant training payed for by said relative). Do you realy think that every single business owner would be willing to do what someone who does not have any risk involved if the company fails?

If someone came up with an economic policy that would cause neither inflation nor deflation, doesn't put certain population groups at an extreme disadvantage (i.e. once a stapler salesman, always a stapler salesman, and your kids will also be stapler salesmen), then they would probably win the Nobel Prize for economics, because such a system would require deep studies into human behavior as both an individual and in groups (in many different situations), studying the many different cultures that will be interacting with your economy (e.g. trading in resources that you cannot get in your own country), research into population growth, human health, and far too many other factors, some of which are possibly not even known yet (as in, nobody realizes that it effects the economy directly).

Do you realy think that every single business owner would be willing to do what someone who does not have any risk involved if the company fails?

America will refuse to elect a man with two first names.

Of course I am.

America will refuse to elect a man with two first names.

2. America will refuse to elect a man with two first names.

(Reuters) - A direct-mail solicitation for Ron Paul's political and investment newsletters two decades ago warned of a "coming race war in our big cities" and of a "federal-homosexual cover-up" to play down the impact of AIDS.

The eight-page letter, which appears to carry Paul's signature at the end, also warns that the U.S. government's redesign of currency to include different colors - a move aimed at thwarting counterfeiters - actually was part of a plot to allow the government to track Americans using the "new money."

The letter urges readers to subscribe to Paul's newsletters so that he could "tell you how you can save yourself and your family" from an overbearing government.

The letter's details emerge at a time when Paul, now a contender for the Republican nomination for president, is under fire over reports that his newsletters contained racist, anti-homosexual and anti-Israel rants.

Reports of the newsletters' contents have Paul's campaign scrambling to deny that he wrote the inflammatory articles.

Among other things, the articles called the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. a "world-class philanderer," criticized the U.S. holiday bearing King's name as "Hate Whitey Day," and said that AIDS sufferers "enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick."

As Paul made a campaign stop in Manchester, Iowa, on Thursday, his Iowa chairman, Drew Ivers, repeated Paul's assertions that he did not write the articles that resurfaced this week in a report in the Weekly Standard magazine.

Paul has said that he is not sure who wrote the articles that were published under his name. He has said the articles do not reflect his views, and noted that his public stances - supporting gays in the military for example - have run counter to the incendiary statements in the newsletters.

In an interview with CNN's Gloria Borger on Wednesday, Paul said of the newsletter's articles: "I didn't write them. I didn't read them at the time and I disavow them."

When Borger continued to pursue the subject, Paul removed his microphone and walked out of the interview.

"It is ridiculous to imply that Ron Paul is a bigot, racist, or unethical," Ivers said.

However, Ivers said, Paul does not deny or retract material that Paul has written under his own signature, such as the letter promoting Paul's newsletters.

When asked whether that meant Paul believed there was a government conspiracy to cover up the impact of AIDS, Ivers said, "I don't think he embraces that."

Paul's newsletters "showed good factual information and investment information," Ivers said. "It was a public service, helping people understand and equip them to avoid an unsound monetary policy."

"EXTRAORDINARY SOURCES"

The letter promoting Paul's newsletters was written about 1993. It was during a period in which Paul - who left Congress in 1985 after serving about eight years - returned to Washington after a decade's absence.

(For a PDF of the solicitation letter see link.reuters.com/vud75s)

The letter was provided to Reuters by James Kirchick, a contributing editor for The New Republic magazine. He says he found the letter in archives of political literature maintained by the University of Kansas and the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Early in the 2008 presidential campaign - in which Paul was a candidate - Kirchick published an article in The New Republic in which he described Paul as "not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing - but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics."

The letter promoting Paul's newsletters claims that Paul - through what he describes as a network of "extraordinary sources" in Congress, the White House, the Treasury and Justice departments, the Federal Reserve and the Internal Revenue Service - had acquired unique insider information that would his subscribers to "neutralize" the plans of "powerbrokers."

Paul's letter went on to describe various plots and schemes that he had "unmasked," including a "plot for world government, world money and world central banking." He also claimed to have exposed a plan by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to "suspend the Constitution" in a falsely declared national emergency.

Despite being "told not to talk," Paul wrote that his newsletters also "laid bare" the "Israeli lobby, which plays Congress like a cheap harmonica," and a "federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS."

Paul claimed that his "training as a physician" helped him "see through" this alleged cover-up.

Paul also suggested that a planned U.S. currency with new notes designed to curb counterfeiting and money laundering would result in the distribution of "totalitarian bills" that "were tinted pink and blue and brown, and blighted with holograms, diffraction gratings, metal and plastic threads and chemical alarms."

Paul said the money was designed to allow authorities to "keep track of American cash and American citizens."

He urged the letter's readers to send in $99, which would buy subscriptions to his monthly political and investment newsletters, a copy of his book "Surviving the New Money," an investment manual and access to the "unlisted phone number of my Financial Hotline for fast breaking news."

(Additional reporting by Samuel P. Jacobs in Manchester, Iowa; Editing by David Lindsey and Eric Walsh)

Taylor, Grant and Pierce are much more common as Surnames.

We're mostly ignoring Sarn's stapler economy post because it's just that terrible, right? Especially the part where demand for staplers is perfectly inelastic?

In my opinion, Libertarianism and racism are inherently linked.

I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such an opinion.

Just about every explanation for racial disparity in the US I've heard by libertarians involves either a sort of "minorities don't work hard enough" or "they are somehow tricked by welfare programs to not work hard enough." The majority of libertarians fail to attribute any fault of the private sector in explaining segregation, which itself ignores the historical connections between private property and racism in the United States (amongst other advanced industrial countries)

Just about every explanation for racial disparity...

It's like watching a $15 trillion train crash.

Hey guys Alan doesn't like politics but keeps posting in a politics thread whats up with that

Your whole country is run by stupid, malignant narcissists, incapable of even the smallest amount of introspection. I love this **** so much. It's like watching a $15 trillion train crash.

Michele Bachmann called Ron Paul dangerous.
Newt Gingrich said he would vote for Obama over Ron Paul.
Rick Santorum said he wouldn't vote for Ron Paul.
Jon Huntsman called Ron Paul unelectable.
Rush Limbaugh said Ron Paul is going to destroy the Republican party.
Neocon insiders said that Ron Paul isn't Republican enough.
Rich white right-wing Christian landowners called Ron Paul racist.

I'm going to hazard a guess that you may be injecting race where it need not be. i will bet a dollar that most libertarians who have that opinion of minorities on welfare, also have that opinion of people on welfare who are not minorities. They probably wouldn't have given a flying **** about the recipients skin color in most cases.
But if your asking specifically about minorities... then guess what! The answer will be about minorities! Never-mind that the answer very well may have been the same if you asked about "non minorities" on welfare.

The point is that it is a real social problem, and at best, the Libertarian analysis of the problem and solution to that problem are insufficient. And that's being charitable, in my opinion there is an underlying racism inherent in their analysis.

By attacking libertarians, I'm going to assume that you are implying something about the free-market as well. Greedy capitalists and racism don't mix. Really think about it. Think about profit-maximization, productivity, and why it'd be absurd to not hire someone who may even be more productive because he's a minority.

You are choosing to hire Mr. White, who can produce 5 widgets an hour, or a minority, who can produce 10 widgets an hour. You are basically "paying" 5 widgets to keep Mr. Minority out. You could be making money from those 5 widgets. And not only that, but you have less productive workers, making your costs relatively rise which means higher prices. Your competitor is gonna go hire Mr. Minority in a heart beat because, after all, if he's the greedy rich profit-maximizing capitalist, it would be 100% incompatible with his logic to not hire him because he could steal all that profit and MAKE MOAR MONEYZ! Any other example where the minority is less productive than the white guy is useless, because, well, he's less productive and it makes 100% perfect sense why you wouldn't hire him.

The only place where you have to worry about discrimination is in monopolistic/oligopolistic situations where there isn't much competition for labor. But if you really believe that the greedy are just out for the extra bottom line, you realize that it costs way too much to be racist. Not saying people don't make that mistake, it happens all the time because people ARE racist. But they are being punished. They could be making a lot more, and most likely our support is already heading to another product because of price differentials.

So to answer your question, if a libertarian was asked about it, he should say that it would be stupid for him to be racist because it's not a maximization strategy. As for existing inequality, why aren't things like a poorly allocated education system, some minorities not getting real rights until pretty recently (by recent yes, I do mean like the 1960s), and structural unemployment all valid explanations? I'm pretty sure save for "poorly allocated education system", that libertarians would include those other two factors in their analysis.

By attacking libertarians, I'm going to assume that you are implying something about the free-market as well. Greedy capitalists and racism don't mix. Really think about it. Think about profit-maximization, productivity, and why it'd be absurd to not hire someone who may even be more productive because he's a minority.

Rise of monopolies in the United States? This implies that there was a time when there weren't monopolies.

The problem with this claim is that it is predicated on the absence of any correlation between ethnicity and marginal benefit of labour. Any rational, profit-maximizing firm will look at labour, education, and crime statistics, and they will always choose a white person over an equally-qualified black person.

The free market disadvantages certain classes of people precisely because they are disadvantaged.

Just about every explanation for racial disparity in the US I've heard by libertarians involves either a sort of "minorities don't work hard enough" or "they are somehow tricked by welfare programs to not work hard enough."

The problem with this claim is that it is predicated on the absence of any correlation between ethnicity and marginal benefit of labour. Any rational, profit-maximizing firm will look at labour, education, and crime statistics, and they will always choose a white person over an equally-qualified black person.

The free market disadvantages certain classes of people precisely because they are disadvantaged.