Punishing people for not adhering to a particular law is not necessarily morally legitimate. Smoking weed is a prime example.

You know those concepts are different, so you're intentionally conflating things, which means you're a troll/sophist.

That's a ridiculous idea in the reality we live in.

> IMO we need to trim regulations here and there

Who's "we"?

If you believe the act of dropping a piece of paper into a box actually affects what a politician can do, I've got a bridge to sell you. That's what it would take for voting to actually affect something, otherwise you're just engaging in a pointless ritual.

Of course it's only pointless on the voter's part. People believing in the idea that subjects have a say in how they're ruled sure as hell benefits the rulers!

> I just object to libertarians pretending they can avoid it

In fact, I've avoided all non-governmental forms of coercion all my life!

So you think we're now experiencing too little draconian legislation then?

Entities like rulers, perhaps? You know "campaign contributions" are an euphemism for bribes, don't you?

When the people who you think are preventing externalities get bribed, they actually have an incentive to not care about them.

> You can call them "rulers" if you like, but then you'd be ignoring the concept of democracy.

What exactly am I ignoring? The idea that you can affect something by dropping a piece of paper into a box? That belief is extremely convenient for the people who are in no way bound by that act, you know?

> Except you don't support "voluntary" anything, because you're talking about property rights.

Do you sincerely think the main reason why people don't steal from others is that they'd be punished for it?

> As long as there is scarcity, there will inevitably be coercion in the distribution of resources.

That's probably true in the sense that someone somewhere will rob someone regardless, but.. if you actually have a problem with "coercion in the distribution of resources", then you just can't sanely support the idea of an organization that coerces potentially hundreds of millions of people in how their resources are "distributed".

Except that no one asked us if we agreed. Without mutual agreement, there is no contract. In reality, laws are commands that we're punished for disobeying.

Tell me, what's the practical difference between getting punished for disobeying a King's or Emperor's law, and getting punished for disobeying a law written by politicians or bureaucrats somewhere?

Then there's the problem that governments don't actually adhere to their own laws anyway. NSA's surveillance is unconstitutional. That's not a problem for them, but if you disobey laws, you will be punished one way or another.

Who do you think you're kidding?

Well, they don't need orders to hurt protesters. Some of them will actively seek out opportunities for doing so, because that's what they signed up for. Those would be the psychopaths, by the way.

Yes, in theory they can get in trouble for hurting people, but in practice we all know they don't.

> The final blow was a court ruling that said they have to clear out. (The wording was a bit more subtle, but that's what Wikipedia is for.)

I have no clue if that's accurate, but it sure would have been convenient for Wall Street.

By "instability" do you mean draconian legislation like SOPA / PIPA / CISPA / NDAA / TPP / TTIP and all the other nasty shit we're supposed to keep "pushing back" on, because otherwise they'll just inflict it all on us, and then it's too bad because we kind-of-sort-of asked for it by voting in the bums and not resisting.. ? :P

Let's hope we never experience whatever catastrophic failure would follow from pushing back too successfully!

Another take is that Tesla is a company that's doing what it needs to, to get into a position where they can sell affordable cars to low-to-middle class people.

But damn Elon Musk, that nasty capitalist oppressor pig that abuses poor people by pricing his cars higher than they can afford, just like Motorola when selling their first mobile phone http://mashable.com/2014/03/13/first-cellphone-on-sale/ .. those filthy bastards!

Workers Unite!

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems you're suggesting that "externalities" are better handled by rulers ruling over their subjects than voluntary co-operation between individuals.

That's what we have now, you know. Rulers and subjects. There's a small elite imposing their will on everyone else, and it seems you think they're taking care of externalities better than we could without rulers.

Presumably, if you didn't think so, you'd support voluntary co-operation instead of our current societal arrangements.

But it's pretty damn difficult to believe you sincerely think so, considering we all know corporations around the world are somehow managing to pollute their hearts out despite our benevolent overlords being there to protect and serve us.

The people of Beijing can't be particularly happy with how their externalities are handled, for example.

It's like there's this thing called "bribery", and it's a really effective way of getting to do whatever the hell you want with the environment, as long as you keep handing money to the right politicians.

Oh, and by the way, this way of circumventing any negative consequences for destroying the environment wouldn't be available without political power, as you may be able to comperehend.

But nevermind, I wrote this message not so much to you, but to some innocent bystander who might happen to read this.

Value is subjective, by the way.

That means that if a Tesla costs $70k and someone buys one, then he demonstrably values the Tesla higher than his $70k, which means it's safe to say he considers a Tesla worth the price.

> maybe even "objectively"(lol...) nicer than other sports/luxury cars

Nope, not "lol". For example, Teslas are objectively safer than other cars. That's because they can be constructed to be like that because they're electric vehicles, but that doesn't make it any less objectively true.

Also, there's no problem with someone having the money and wanting something luxurious. The fact that some people do is the reason why lots of jobs involved in serving their wants exist, which surely you'd agree is a good thing.

(So basically: Teslas getting bought for their current prices is a Good Thing for us little folks, so I'm not sure what your problem is)

> My point is. [..] They. Are. Not. Within. The. Price. Range. Of. The. Middle. Class... [..] Apple. Computers. Were.

If both of those claims are true, then you've established that "Tesla is not like Apple that way". But is that what you mean?

It seems you're more concerned with some other people being able to afford Teslas than whether Tesla is like Apple that way.

> if you look at it from a price-to-value standpoint

Again, what the hell does "price-to-value" mean?

> Maybe they do in your life and then you are most likely either single, upperclass, or bad with money.

Huh? If someone buys a Tesla, it most definitely doesn't follow that he's bad with money.

> The first two are ok, expensive luxury vehicles are ok. Am I touching a nerve here?

Did you accidentally a word there? But no, you're not touching a nerve. I'd like to have a Tesla for myself, in the right circumstances (which don't even currently apply), but I couldn't afford one anyway.

That's perfectly fine with me though. It's alright that I don't have one, and it's fine I wouldn't even have the money. It's also perfectly fine that some others do, and buy them. If that touches a nerve with you, then there's something wrong with your nerves.

Indeed. An actual free-trade agreement would be really simple to implement. Just stop intervening in trade in any way, and you'll have Free Trade.

But that would be against a lot of cronies' interests and very much in the people's interests, so it's never going to happen.

On a related note: Stop intervening in what people do with their property, and you'll have a free market.

That would preclude taxation though, and so, a lot of people who believe they somehow benefit from someone forcefully taking their money would object.

I'm not sure what you mean with "value-to-price", but aren't pretty much all Tesla owners in love with their cars? They seem to be valued very highly, and considered worth the price.

Weren't the first Macs really expensive too?

>> A lead author of the U.S. Patriot Act has some advice for European officials as they wrestle with the balance between personal liberties and security in the wake of the Paris terror attacks

That implies that security is actually achieved through a reduction in liberties, which is obviously not the case.

For example, monitoring the shit out of the general population didn't seem to help prevent the recent spate of shootings in the US.

>> He notes that at the time, a broad range of lawmakers, from security hawks to civil libertarians, voted for the bill

What's a "security hawk"? In light of the developments in the past few years, wouldn't it be more accurate to call them "tyranny hawks"? That would sound kind of unpleasant though.

>> The USA Freedom Act was signed into law in June, and government’s authority for bulk data collection ended this week

But let's not mention that in reality, the legislation did nothing to curtail the surveillance. It's unconstitutional to begin with, so why would any other law be an impediment?

>> Among other things, the prime minister proposed allowing authorities to hold suspects for 72 hours without a warrant and tag extremist young people with electronic tethers. “We must always preserve the balance between safety, freedom and privacy of citizens,” he said.

Extremist young people, you say? Here's the UK government's helpful advisory on what that might entail: http://www.cscb-new.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/CSCB_Ra...

>> "Showing a mistrust of mainstream media reports and belief in conspiracy theories" [..] "Appearing angry about government policies, especially foreign policy."

So I guess if you're 'mistrustful' of the US government telling you the economy is doing fine, that makes you an "extremist" that should be "tagged with an electronic tether", whatever that might be.

You shouldn't question foreign policy either. For example, clearly the US has done a wonderful job of fighting ISIS, right? To suggest otherwise would be heresy! Don't complain about meddling in other countries' affairs either, or you might find yourself "tagged with an electronic tether"!

Everything in "The Free World" is just doubleplusgood all around.

So Google is like a child that wants to eat candy, has candy, but doesn't eat it?

Of course they're using all the data they can, to the extent they can.

They're just telling us there's no reason to worry, while they feed their data to the NSA's surveillance machinery etc.

You see, Google is not the only "child with candy". Then there's the US government, and that kid has a ravenous appetite.

Too bad the theory is complete nonsense.

>> The basic theorem states that under a certain market price process (the classical random walk), in the absence of taxes, bankruptcy costs, agency costs, and asymmetric information, and in an efficient market, the value of a firm is unaffected by how that firm is financed.

In short, the theorem states that in conditions that will never exist in the real world, the value of a firm is unaffected by how it's financed.

>> the value of the company increases in proportion to the amount of debt used

First they say "the value of a firm is unaffected by how it's financed", but then: "the value of the company increases in proportion to the amount of debt used", so if "debt used" counts as "financing" then the theory contradicts itself, at least as described by Wikipedia.

This is where I rambled about some other related stuff, but decided to just leave it out because fuck everything about mainstream economics.