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At 4/17/10 11:14 PM, RydiaLockheart wrote: What is the drinking age in Argentina anyways?

De jure 18, de facto 0

Caffeine wise, my favorite is Jolt.

Never heard of it. I like mate because it takes a while to drink (literally, hours) so the caffeine effect is more dispersed, and not just a shock.

At 4/17/10 09:10 PM, fli wrote: And it's really fucked up the indigenous farmers in Mexico... it's practically made them into slaves.

Elaborate, plz, since I had not heard of this phenomenon.

ALWAYS ABOUT ALCOHOL U.

I'll stick to my mate. It has caffeine!

At 4/16/10 06:43 PM, Memorize wrote:

At 4/16/10 06:31 PM, Der-Lowe wrote:

At 4/16/10 04:58 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: what you SHOULD be saying is look what happens when the STATE gets involved in the economy.

Yah, transforms an underdeveloped nation into a developed one.
Eg, Japan, Germany, US, Belgium, etc.

Because underdeveloped nations don't have states?

Quick someone!

Get on the phone to Mugabe with this amazing news!

Hm, I didn't make myself clear.
I wasn't saying that the government always makes wonders when it gets involved in the economy, but that it is a necessary condition (not sufficient) for a country to develop, to have a government intervening in the economy in the first place.

Logically
P: Nation is advanced
Q: it has a government that has intervened in the economy
=> then

P=>Q

The truth table of the conditional is

P|=>|Q
T|T|T
T|F|F
F|T|F
F|T|T

What you said is a case in which P is clearly false, and Q is true, which does not contradict what I have said (it would be line 4 in the truth table). It would if I had stated (and I believe it is what you meant, correct me if I am wrong).

Q|=>|P
T|T|T
T|F|F
F|T|T
F|T|F

that is, if the government intervenes, then a nation will become advanced.

Onto SM.

At 4/17/10 05:03 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 4/16/10 06:31 PM, Der-Lowe wrote: Yah, transforms an underdeveloped nation into a developed one.
US,

Um what? The expansion of government proceeds the industrialisation of a nation, not precedes.

Both are true. For the industrialization of a nation, the state must provide for some conditions, which then will "expand " the size of the government (if we're talking about expansion in a broader term than the ratio between government expenditures and GDP), before the growth takes place. If the government efforts succeeds, then (here I agree with you), most of that growth will be employed in the provision of goods by the government, which will certainly expand its size.

Colonial America was essentially minarchist, and many of the western colonies were even basically stateless.

It was only after America started becoming amazingly prosperous ( a result of having freedom from government intervention/control) that government expanded and started interfering in the economy. Had the government stayed at its original size, America would have developed far more quickly.

And there would have also been less in the way of "evil" industrialists using political pull to subvert the free market and destroy competition from arising, which leads to less prosperity.

I will need more precise dates to formulate my argument, regarding to "Colonial America" (Before 1776?), and "after America started becoming amazingly prosperous" (1880? 1950?)

At 4/16/10 04:58 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: what you SHOULD be saying is look what happens when the STATE gets involved in the economy.

Yah, transforms an underdeveloped nation into a developed one.
Eg, Japan, Germany, US, Belgium, etc.

At 4/15/10 07:45 AM, bcdemon wrote:

At 4/15/10 07:07 AM, StCyril wrote: All of our economic problems today are because of Bill Clinton. He signed NAFTA which sent millions of jobs overseas. That's why nobody has jobs in our country.

Ok now I'm not an expert on NAFTA, but what I do want to know is, how can a NORTH AMERICAN free trade agreement send millions of jobs overseas? I figured Chinas cheap operating cost and the want to pocket more money sent millions of jobs overseas.

Exactly.
Furthermore, on the topic of liberalization of trade on employment, while protectionism does increase employment (see the General Theory), it's perverse effects on Global efficiency make the trade-off not good at all, specially considering there are others alternatives for counter-cyclical policy: monetary and fiscal.

Sorry I have to credit Clinton with this one. All of our economic problems today are because of Bill Clinton.

Oversimplifications like this are evident to be false, even to the layman.

Clinton also passed three legistlative acts, started by the CARTER administration (both left wing dems btw), so that people who could not afford a mortgage could get a mortgage, even if they couldn't pay it back. All of this done in some misguided interest of 'fairness.' Then he (he and his administration) pressured Fannie Freddie into buying all these newly-termed sub-prime loans.

This is correct, however, the cause of the crisis is not that simple.
Firstly, the crisis was triggered by the over-humane effort of the Greenspan administration to increase the employment level after the burst of the .com bubble.
But as you have said, it was merely the trigger. The whole structure that let the low interest rates have such a profound perverse effect was the legal framework of the financial system which was (dumdummmmmm) a Reagan invention.

So why then is Clinton hailed for a great economy while Bush is berated for a bad one?

Simply, because the economy boomed during clinton years and was rather stagnant during the Bush years, and ended in the biggest economic crisis the country had faced in the last 80 years.
I agree that this form of analysis is too simple, because there are underlying factors that determine the economic performance of a nation that come from the past. However, your critique of the Clinton administration is shaky, specially when you praise the Bush sr and Reagan administrations (there is a clear pro-Republican bias). You do not also address the most critical issue with the Bush administration, which was the structural deficit it created for no reason, destroying all the efforts the Clinton administration had made in having an actual surplus.

YERBA MATE LATTE!!!!

There's actually a drink made with yerba, but it is a kind of tea, no milk.
ANYWAY YAY.

Impulsive buy yay.
That's how I got my $2700 notebook.

I'm watching Barça vs Real Madrid online (MESSI GOAL) and the ads are targeted for Hispanics living in the US. They're teh lulz.

"US Navy, unidos para el bien"
"Burger King: hamburguesa por un dólar"
"Ford: mejor calidad que Honda y Toyota"

The mexican Spanish, and then perfectly pronouncing the r for English words.
Fun.

Rather, get windows seven. Srsly, that os is sleeeeeeeek. I got the Premium (and LEGAL =O) version on my phenom X3.

At 4/5/10 05:31 PM, Elfer wrote: All it does is prolong dependence on an inherently unsustainable system.

Engineering and Economics agree! :D

*high five*?

If you wanted to develop green energy, you should tax oil or artificially increase its price, instead of tapping on oil reserves. The incentives are all wrong; as it has been said, this is a political measure.
That, unless the development of renewable energy is in full motion now, and it's just a matter of time.
But I think the incentives are really there. This is quite evident in the consumption side do you really need 6-cylinder engines for cars? SUVs?

Heh. Happened to me as well. FIFA was all laggy.
Just wait 15 minutes or so.

At 4/2/10 06:48 AM, zephiran wrote:

At 4/1/10 08:37 PM, SolInvictus wrote:

why the fuck does the spell check keep telling me "internet" is spelt wrong?

Check your language settings! My swedish FFox dislikes almost ALL that I write, but I can´t be assed to change it.

April fools is over I see. Which is kind of a bummer, I really liked those bacon strips.

Oh well.

Curious note: I got a PM about an hour ago that I feel is vaguely familiar. Something along the lines of "Chat me up!". Is anyone else getting something similar? I´m feeling a bit targeted here... The account the PM came from is one month old, but has no activity recorded.

This?

hey.

i was browsin through for people like me, & I noticed your profile. u give me the impression that you're a very cool dude, but I'm pretty inexperienced here, & dont really know what to do on here. Don't they have a chat thing here? I hate writing messages to people, & sometimes not receiving anything back. Anyways, if you feel like talkin' with me, you can check me over at make-a-match.net?id=3590&profile=FallenA ngel801 , my name there is FallenAngel801.

So, ya, hope to see you. always looking to find more ppl.
Sydney Morris

Not enough Pimpin' Panda.

Indeed.

At 4/1/10 01:30 PM, Stoicish wrote: Honestly this I stuff is making Politics so much more funnier.%u2248%u2248%u2248

The best is Smileyz loooong walls of text.

Yay estudiantes de la plata icons! :D
http://images.google.com.ar/images?q=ban dera%20estudiantes%20de%20la%20plata&um=
1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=es&tab=wi

On a related note, I'm studying theory of probabilities!

I am sooooooo stealing this idea for my Public Finance class
:D

At 3/22/10 10:28 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

At 3/22/10 10:42 AM, Der-Lowe wrote:

At 3/21/10 10:44 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote: Sean Penn has already displayed his idiocy concerning Chavez on numerous occasions.

Because those who disagree with me, are idiots.

Calling people idiots for thinking a certain way, although he is basically saying Penn made statements that were idiotic, is perhaps wrong headed, but it's more or less just an informal Thesis, this is the NGBBS after all.

Uh, he didn't say that. He stated that

1) The US media in general (not just Fox News and the WSJ) have had quite erroneous positions regarding Chavez, calling him a dictator.

I mean, the guy is a horrible president, you have tons of his decisions to criticize, why invent a negative attribute?

Because the media sells sells sensationalism,

eeeeeeeexactly.
They could have gone with "they are taking away their freedomz!" which is partially true and easy to understand.

2) Journalists have a responsibility when it comes to the information they provide to the public, and they should be held liable for the crap they say.

Actually, we have that kind of law, it's called a Slander and Libel Law. If you go saying lies about me, you hurt my image, and therefore you should compensate me for your irresponsible behavior.
It is quite debatable, because it imposes a liberty-justice trade-off, but well.

I disagree with Sadistic, and you, Libel laws are nonsense. Lying about someone is not an attack on their person or property, it is an attack on their reputation and identity, which is simply the perceptions that other people have of them. One does not 'own' their reputation and so one cannot claim wrongdoing if it is attacked.

I don't like them for different reasons; I believe that for some persons, reputation is an important asset that they have invested time in, and there should be a legal way of protecting it. Elaborating on your wealth distinction issue, in the end, libel laws are used by wealthier people to shush the media for anything negative they have said against them, because sometimes the person can afford the legal process, and the newspaper, news channel, etc cannot or it is costly to them.
But again, one does not need to lie in a newspaper to hurt a person's image; a while back, members of a certain party started a baseless lawsuit against the most prominent figure of the other party, for drug trafficking. Despite it has been a year or so, some people still call him a drug dealer.

At 3/21/10 10:44 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote: Sean Penn has already displayed his idiocy concerning Chavez on numerous occasions.

Because those who disagree with me, are idiots.

But now he's angry. Angry at journalists who call Chavez a dictator:

At the end of a discussion of Haiti on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, actor Sean Penn went on a rant in defense of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, suggesting prison time for American journalists: "every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it! And accept it. And this is mainstream media, who should - truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies."

WOW.

Fair enough if you're going to be a leftist but be critical of regimes like those of Hugo Chavez's,
But to actually praise positively EVIL men like him and suggest IMPRISONMENT for criticising him? Just, wow.

Why is Hollywood so fucking stupid.

Uh, he didn't say that. He stated that

1) The US media in general (not just Fox News and the WSJ) have had quite erroneous positions regarding Chavez, calling him a dictator.
I mean, the guy is a horrible president, you have tons of his decisions to criticize, why invent a negative attribute?
2) Journalists have a responsibility when it comes to the information they provide to the public, and they should be held liable for the crap they say.
Actually, we have that kind of law, it's called a Slander and Libel Law. If you go saying lies about me, you hurt my image, and therefore you should compensate me for your irresponsible behavior.
It is quite debatable, because it imposes a liberty-justice trade-off, but well.

Wow, you really ARE slackers.
POST PEOPLEZ

At 3/9/10 12:38 PM, RydiaLockheart wrote: Considering the issues Venezuela is having with its electrical grid, I don't think there will be much gaming soon anyways.

It has waay more serious issues, like crime. I hear they beat Colombia, Brazil and Iraq in that one now.

Shooting=bad

Anyway, WE WONNNNNNNNNN THE OSCAAAAAAR

ARGENTINA 2 - 0 REST OF LATIN AMERICA

Heard it from me first.

At 2/28/10 02:53 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 2/28/10 02:49 AM, Dawnslayer wrote: let's have an honest discussion on the matter.

okay.

Social programs involve the FORCED redistribution of wealth at gunpoint and are hence inherently immoral.

Any government expenditure includes coercion, that's the only way of providing public goods, and the main justification for them being provided by the government. Basically, everyone wants them,but nobody wants to chip in, so you force people.

At 2/25/10 12:04 AM, adrshepard wrote: That's possible, of course, but I don't see the economic theory behind it.

As I've said, the theory is there and the empirical evidence as well. 1968, 2001.

The major theme I've heard for the past ten years is that the US barely saves at all,

As shown in graph (source, Bureau of Economic Analysis), personal savings rate (as % of GNI) has been falling steadily for decades, so has been government surplus until Clinton showed up (gone with Bush, though). I believe that when the crisis is over the US will have to sustain significant surpluses not only to pay its public debt, but also to compensate the lack of saving coming from households.

Barro, "Are government bonds net wealth?"

That's the guy! I remember his picture.
What a loon.

Nobel Laureate, though.
Had a nice hit on Keynesian theoretical structure, (Keynesianism had some silly assumptions that contradicted classical economics) and also altered the view on inflation and unemployment. But some of his conclusions were also, um, silly.
However, his Ricardian Equivalence is more of a theoretical exercise than a serious policy recommendation.

At 2/25/10 02:39 PM, Elfer wrote: That's what I mean, the fed bought those assets and is behaving as if they're worth something when in reality they have almost no value whatsoever.

But the Fed's balance sheet doesn't really matter (for itself, it's a major key in the money supply), nothing would happen if those assets turn to be worth zero.

At 2/25/10 10:40 AM, Elfer wrote:

At 2/24/10 09:57 PM, Der-Lowe wrote:

At 2/24/10 05:11 PM, Memorize wrote: and keeps the bad assets on the books.

What bad assets?

There's a ton of bad assets on the US books that are one of the major keys to the potential long-term failure of the stimulus plan.

I was thinking in those lines, but didn't the Fed buy all of these? As in, graph?

At 2/24/10 05:52 PM, Proteas wrote:

At 2/24/10 02:48 PM, Der-Lowe wrote: I'm joking, dude. You are actually quite cuddly :3

Thank you.

Can I ... cuddle with you? O_o

At 2/24/10 05:26 PM, Ravariel wrote: Girl Scout Cookies = Win + puppies.

Then Girl Scout Cookies - puppies = win ?

At 2/24/10 03:39 PM, morefngdbs wrote:

At 2/24/10 02:48 PM, Der-Lowe wrote:

At 2/24/10 01:30 PM, Ravariel wrote: On the subject of locking, I have to say that I think Mal wins the awesome award for his lock of the Africa topic.

hahahaha, that's awesome.

;;;;
Actually, besides the fact the ignorance of the OP is unbelievable !

It saddens me that our schools teach so liitle about that continent, that someone can come to a conclusion or actually believe.... that Africa's a country ~:(

Heh. I had a geography teacher that talked of Africa as a country. She was SUCH and idiot. I hate Geography teachers. They have to teach economics for some reason, and believe me, they know nothing. They just repeat idiotic stereotypes like "We're like this because of rich people" "Capitalism is evil", etc.
I want to teach Economics in High school not because I liked High school or anything, just to compensate the idiocy of Geography teachers.

At 2/24/10 08:53 PM, SkunkyFluffy wrote: Today was better, but not great. Got to Metro in about 45 minutes, train only took about thirty.

Thirty minutes of subway? Hmmm, must be long. So you drive to the subway station? Aren't parking rates, like, insane? A month of parking lot downtown costs more than renting in the suburbs.
Anyway, you remind me of this guy at my college who lived in mexico, he had to take train, bus and subway to get to uni, crossing the whole DF. And now he lives two blocks away from college :D

On the way home it was WAY better - Metro was about 25 minutes, drive was another 25. That's more like what it should be under regular conditions. The problem is that in the DC area, "regular conditions" are actually few and far between, and heavy traffic is far to common.

I guess it's the same in every big city. When it's not tsunami trains, it's protestors, or car accidents, or what not.

At 2/24/10 04:28 PM, adrshepard wrote:

At 2/23/10 08:43 PM, Der-Lowe wrote: As if tax cuts were the solution; most of that income gets saved and does not enter the economic flow.

I've heard that argument used against one-time tax rebates, but never against a tax rate decrease. Unless everyone has fears about his job security, more weekly income is going to increase weekly spending.

We're mixing things here. What I state is that, given that people save a portion of their income (and subsequently a larger share the more they earn), part of the tax cut will not be spent.
Now, the one-time vs all time thing was used under permanent income theory, that people make long term plans about their spending, so increasing their income now will mean a lot for them in the present, but not in the long term, so they will somewhat counter this abnormal increase and save it for a rainy day. That's Friedman, I believe.
That theory, besides being theoretically sound, has strong empirical evidence supporting it.
Anyway, thinking it over, the whole deal of the tax cut would be if the government can convince the economic agents that the tax cuts are permanent (remember Bush's insistence about it?). That's quite hard to do now with the whole debt issue.

That's obvious enough, unless you believe that crazy economist guy (I forget his name, he was nothing more than a passing note in my textbook) who theorized that no tax cut of any kind would increase consumption because people would predict future tax increases, no matter how far in the future they may be.

Barro, "Are government bonds net wealth?" Journal of Positive Economics, I believe.
Conservative economics to you! The markets knows everything and nothing can steer it away from its glorious path.

Cochrane, from Chicago University (Booth) used it to construct the most laughable argument ever, that spending wouldn't affect output because of Ricardian Equivalence (that's what that theory is called) , but the theory says that financing through taxes or debt is equivalent, given a level of spending, not that altering spending will not affect output!
Ah, this is what Chicago has come to. Sad.

At 2/24/10 05:11 PM, Memorize wrote:

At 2/23/10 10:30 PM, Der-Lowe wrote:

Depends on what you call recovery, if you measure it in an unemployment basis, then obviously not because you got p^¬p. However, if you define recovery as a recovery of GDP, then that can easily happen.

So you believe that as long as GDP is above zero even if 50% of the country were to be under-employed... you'd call that a recovery?

Are you familiar with the conditional structure?

Basic reasoning tells you that it would have been worse; if the State hadn't spent that money, then nobody would have, and those businesses and consumers that were able to get hold (directly or indirectly) of the stimulus money benefited.

So the two stimulus bills passed by Bush did what, exactly?

Read my debate with adrshepard above

Did his second one avoid this downturn?

So you accept its short run effects? You just said it didn't work.

I'm saying that the Government uses the short term as an excuse to justify their actions.

If you pass a giant spending bill like the stimulus, then the downturn won't be quite as bad,

mhmm

but that just leaves more debt,

mhmm

more inflation,

Erh, well, yes, but we're not talking 2% vs 20%, rather -5% and deflationary spiral vs 0.

and keeps the bad assets on the books.

What bad assets?

This produces another downturn in the future because the foundations for the economy are still faulty.

Don't pass a giant spending bill, you might get a more severe impact in the short term, but the recession ends sooner and provides for a stable foundation with no added inflation or debt.

Or you enter a deflationary spiral, the deflation destroys your already shaken and frozen banking system, until you have to basically click the reset button on it, pump them with liquidity, and start a major spending effort to try to start the economy again.

Why people don't talk about 1920 is beyond me.

Well, let's say that not every person can print as much money as it wants, and no other person is as risk-free as the State.

So you're saying that a Government who has the ability to print as much as it wants while being risk free is a good thing?

Now just listen to yourself, you'd rather have a Government that's on the brink of defaulting its debt?
Been there, done that, was not fun.

At 2/24/10 11:41 AM, ASKDodge wrote: - Single Currency

Horrible idea. The economies of the Commonwealth are not linked tight enough to make a monetary union. They're even in different continents! When a crisis hits Australia and the UK booms, the Common Wealtho won't adjust neither for the UK (appreciation to lower exports and therefore pull demand downn) nor Australia (deppreciation for the opposite effect). Heck, even Europe lacks this bond!

I have no objections with regards to the rest of the bullet points.