John Stossel: Maybe child labor, blackmail and price gouging aren't bad

[cali]

Almost Everything We're Taught Is Wrong
8/24/2011 | Email John Stossel | Columnist's Archive



We grow up learning that some things are just bad: child labor, ticket scalping, price gouging, kidney selling, blackmail, etc. But maybe they're not.

What I love about economics is that it can show that what seems harmful is actually good for society. It illuminates what common sense overlooks.

This is all covered in the eye-opening book "Defending the Undefendable" by economist Walter Block.

Most people call child labor an unmitigated evil. David Boaz of the Cato Institute and Nick Gillespie of Reason.tv say that's wrong.

"If we say that the United States should abolish child labor in very poor countries," Boaz said, "then what will happen to these children? ... They're not suddenly going to go to the country day school. ... They may be out selling their bodies on the street. That is not an improvement over working in a t-shirt factory."

<snip>

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2011/08/24/almost_everything_were_taught_is_wrong

Spectacularly stupid and totally immoral. Gotta love the libertarian idiocy.

[undeterred]

1. John Stossel is evil.

[City Lights]

2. He's a sick fuck. eom

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. John Stasshole - a great American.

:puke:

[chillspike]

4. Lmao.. What a loon!

Didn't even get past the second sentence! Yea, and maybe poking people's eyes out with sticks isn't so wrong either? Do they hear themselves?

[JHB]

5. Ain't it grande that child labor and organlegging are the same as ticket scapling?

And even there, ticket scalpers "stand in line so I don't have to".

Don't most freemarketistas generally oppose a middleman inserting into a transaction and boosting costs?

[rfranklin]

6. Only if they are poor libertarians....

The rich ones love exploiting hungry and desperate people.

[Supersedeas]

18. Exploiting hunger and desperation is an important Capitalist principle

Wait long enough and the Capitalists will concede the ugly truths about their precious system.

[EstimatedProphet]

7. This is really their argument?

"Child labor will keep children from selling their own organs or becoming prostitutes"?

There are actually people who say things like this and expect to be taken seriously? Why aren't people throwing rotten tomatoes at these idiots every time they set foot outside their house?

[deutsey]

9. "Why aren't people throwing rotten tomatoes at these idiots"

Because the "fair and balanced" media have duped too many Americans into believing that Stossel and his ilk are conscientious pundits rather than rightwing, corporatist shills.

[Romulox]

26. Plenty of DUers were defending child labor on a recent thread about a bust in Ca.

:puke:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4949943

[Marr]

46. It reminds me of something I heard a big US executive say about Mexico.

It was about the time NAFTA was being pushed through. This executive was being interviewed as they were driving to a new plant, and passing through this complete slum. She said (almost quoting here):

'These people don't need the high salaries Americans get. After all,they don' have cars, so they don't have to make car payments. And most of them don't have houses, so they don't have a mortgage payment.'

[quaker bill]

8. And slavery reduced labor costs.... N/T

[pschoeb]

31. Actually Block believes in "voluntary" slavery as well

Block is the Libertarian douchebag who's ideas Stossel is talking about.

[trotsky]

10. I remember seeing him try to defend price gouging before.

Some contorted logic about how charging $100/bottle for water in an emergency is GOOD because it keeps someone from buying it all up. Of course RATIONING does this far more efficiently and economically (and prevents assholes from profiting excessively by exploiting the vulnerable), and was used quite patriotically and successfully during our nation's greatest test of the 20th century - WWII.

When you commit yourself to the religion that the invisible hand of the market will solve ALL problems, you just make up logic to support it. As long as it glorifies your god (money), it's good theology.

[fishwax]

33. "When you commit yourself to the religion that the invisible hand of the market will solve ..."

"... ALL problems, you just make up logic to support it."

:thumbsup:

[JHB]

36. I've heard that argument before too...

In that case, it was someone else justifying gouging for lumber in Florida after Hurricaine Andrew.


All I could think was "how about we make sure everyone can get their basic patching up done to prevent further damage before letting the market "work its magic".

[surrealAmerican]

11. Please, tell me this is satire.

Nobody could really mean that.

[matmar]

12. Coming up after the break - Zyklon B: a cure for asthma?

seriously, this clown Stossel should be a comedy writer for The Jon Stewart Show

[myrna minx]

13. He makes me ill. n/t

[hatrack]

14. Since we're talking Stossel, and just in case you haven't seen it - The Wrestling Clip!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrX9Ca7LSyQ

[florida08]

20. lol

have never seen that. Sometimes the mouth can overload the tooshie

[Frank Cannon]

30. I've seen that clip probably a thousand times...

and I NEVER get tired of it.

[JHB]

45. I suspect that was his "I don't get paid enough for this shit" moment...

...and he found it pays better to spew shit than to take it.

[NNN0LHI]

15. So it is either making t-shirts or prostituting themselves? That is it?

Stay classy John.

Don

[Gidney N Cloyd]

16. There was a wrestler once upon a time who had the right idea about what to do with Stossel...

[madinmaryland]

17. You are an idiot, John. Maybe we should be supporting these countries monetarily

so that the children don't have to do either of those things, and instead can be raised like children in America (not that things are perfect here, either).

What can you expect from a teabagging racist.

[Solly Mack]

19. What a fucker.

[marmar]

21. Good f**king grief.....

This is a level of sickness I can't even try to understand.

[cali]

22. I think what's notable is that we live in an age where people can write this shit

for public consumption- and be paid big bucks to opine like this on TV.

[Yavin4]

23. Keep It Up John Stossel and Push Us Closer to Socialism

Common sense labor regulations is why we still have capitalism, but go ahead an abolish them. All that would do is make the population demand full socialism and scrap capitalism all together.

[edhopper]

24. This was the exact argument against

ending slavery. Where would they go? What would they do?
I suppose he also defends the slave sex trade for the same reason.
Loathsome.

[Romulox]

25. Um, the word is "indefensible". "Undefendable" is a made up, ESPN word.

:shrug:

[fishwax]

34. for the record, the book actually predates ESPN

it was first published in the mid seventies ...

[Romulox]

37. I guess they had malapropisms in the '70s, too.

:shrug:

[edhopper]

27. Try this asshole

These countries, where a very few get rich off the labor of others, might be forced to address the inequities and provide the services their children desperately need and see that people make a living wage.
But that would not fit into your oligarchy mindset.

[Odin2005]

28. Jesus Christ Almighty, what an evil SOB.

[mazzarro]

29. This Stossel fellow must be the biggest idiot in the whole wide world

Along with his Cato Institute buffoons who wrote about this. Do they think that abolishing child labor will not be complemented with the requirement to have the children be in schools or in some form of training or guardianship? Or is it that once child labor is abolished the children are then left to their own devices with no direction?

Does the fact that children are already being exploited in every kind of way not include the selling of their bodies - NOW! Why must the selling of their bodies be something that only occur when child labor is abolished? It is already occurring - idiot! This man must be so stupid it pains the mind to imagine how much stupid he is.

[yellowcanine]

32. "Working in a T shirt factory" or "selling their bodies on the street" FALSE CHOICE

http://atheism.about.com/od/logicalfallacies/a/falsedilemma.htm

Tired old way to sell an immoral policy - the false choice.

[fishwax]

35. he's an idiot hack

:puke:

[Blue_Tires]

38. wow...no words...

[LoZoccolo]

39. Maybe he thinks that this is a good way to make reporters consider their words carefully.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrX9Ca7LSyQ

[Skidmore]

40. So I fully expect Stossel to sell a kidney and require any minor children he has

to work in a sweatshop until they drop. I mean, let him be a man of his convictions.

[TheKentuckian]

41. See this is not a "political disagreement", this fucker is twisted and evil.

A soulless waste that is breathing my air.

This "political disagreement" is happy horseshit that acts as cover for monstrous folk.

[Swede]

42. They should release Dave Schulz on Stossel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrX9Ca7LSyQ

[The Backlash Cometh]

43. I told you! I told you! I called it!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=439&topic_id=1777168#1779044

And make no mistakes that it's the kind of indefensible, immoral perception that's behind Koch trying to contaminant the economic departments of public schools.

[ParkieDem]

44. Interesting ...

I think just about all of us agree that child labor -- especially the way it's practiced in third-world countries -- is abhorrent. But that doesn't change the fact that the question remains: what happens to the kids when you outlaw child labor?

I know many members of the "greatest generation" who worked on their family farms from the day they were five years old. Of course, they also went to rural public schools in the winter and spring, and they were working for people (mostly parents) who, in the majority of cases, loved them and wouldn't work them to death. Comparing that type of "child labor" to factory child labor is completely misleading.

I do agree with Stossel, however, on the price gouging and ticket scalping front. In cases of emergencies, so-called "gouging" helps prevent shortages of key materials and also works to keep people from hoarding too much for themselves. And ticket scalping - don't get me started. Actually, I've noticed that most concerts, sporting events, etc. have raised their prices in the past 10 years ago so that the scalpers/resellers can't make that much of a profit anyway. You have to be a really savvy broker to make any money off of the secondary market for tickets these days.