WIth all due respect, I feel I'm more than generous when the government steals 30+ percent of my income to pay for other people. Why the **** should I have to give more on top of that?
I'm not saying you need to give more. Where did you read that?
Every business's goal is to maximize profit. Period. A good product and employing people are the means to that end, not the goal itself. The beauty of producer and consumer being free top operate solely with each other is that either one can refuse to do business with the other if he doesn't like the terms the other is offering. Which means the other will have to change his terms or seek another party willing to accept his terms.
Yes, the goal of business is to maximize profit. But at what cost? What is missing in business now is ethics.
If enough consumers refuse to purchase a product or service it will have only two possible effects in a free economy: put the businessman out of business or force him to change his terms to attract the consumers.
Depends on the product or service. If it's a non-essential then you are correct. If it's an essential then consumers don't have much choice, right? Take a look at the price of gasoline.
No, it's not the opinion that inefficiencies in the system need to be addressed that earns your the appropriately applied slander of the day. It's the idea that the government is the solution and it somehow can create a better result than free people.
I never said the government is the solution. It is part of the solution. Government intervention helps to temper the profiteering that has become so prominent.
You belong in a Rand novel.
That supposed to be a putdown?
The free market has failed. Miserably. Wake up, folks! Businesses haven't had it this good since the time of the robber barons. All that's happened is prices have gone up, wages have either stagnated or decreased and unemployment has gone nearly out of control. Tax cuts for the rich because otherwise they can't help create jobs? They've had those tax cuts for years and where have all of those promised jobs gone? Where have they materialized? If being on umemployment is a job then they have succeeded beyond all expectation. Otherwise they have failed. So which is it?