Quote from: ascent on July 26, 2011, 08:45:33 PM

Quote from: Rassah on July 26, 2011, 08:35:55 PM

Quote from: rainingbitcoins on July 26, 2011, 07:58:58 PM

There's a reason that most people who believe in libertarianism are in high school and have zero experience with the real world, and you and Atlas illustrate it quite well.

Btw, just fyi, I was a liberal democrat until I got to college. After getting my degree in business finance, and now going through most of my master's in business, I've become more of a social liberal and economic conservative. I guess moderate democrat/libertarian or something. The main reason was that I ended up learning how economics works, exactly, what effects government tax policies REALLY have (I don't mean "omg they're evil!", I mean totally unexpected things and tax avoidance issues), and what kind of crap people and businesses have to deal with globally from a bureaucratic/regulation aspect.

I'm not against free markets. Not at all. Competition is necessary. But regulation is necessary. Especially with resource management and the environment. We don't have enough regulation with regard to resource exploitation and pollution, frankly. If you're proud of your education and ability to understand economics, then look into steady state growth and ecological economics. Keyword: "Herman Daly".

One idea I'm a fan of is, instead of leasing land to companies to drill and mine on, make them buy it, and make them pay property taxes like everyone else. That way, instead of them just abandoning the land back to the government, they'll have to sell it. And if the company wants to be able to resell the land after they're done with it, they'll either make sure to be really careful when mining, or clean it up when they're done. Otherwise they're stuck with worthless land and are forced to keep paying property taxes for it.