At 11/9/09 09:04 PM, estrago1 wrote: Just because Obama promised something doesn't mean it's automatically going to happen. He is human like the rest of us. And he is a politician; remember, politicians do A LOT of lying to get where they are.

Give the guy a chance.

How about... No?

There's a difference between promising to do something, fighting to make it happen, and then failing, and what obama has done. Promise to do one thing and then BLATANTLY do the opposite.

If Obama promised to make government more transparent, tried to get a bill passed that would do such a thing, and then it failed, that's not obama's fault.

Obama promises to make government more transparent, having his democratic congress go completely rogue, and then acting like nothing wrong has happened. That's a blatant promise breaker.

At 11/6/09 01:44 AM, aviewaskewed wrote:

I think what's happening now is what always is happening within any large group of people, and certainly a large group not in power: Trying to reconfigure themselves and figure out what face to put forward to win votes. Because in the end that's the game, win votes and get offices. It's disheartening how politics seems to have degenerated into like a big game fight between two teams. The points are scored by who has the most offices...for fuck's sake it's supposed to be about representing your country and your values!!! Sadly I don't think we'll ever go back to that.

I hate to disappoint you, but politics has always been about getting your men in power. There was never a golden age of government. There were only days when the government was so small that even if it was corrupt to the core, it touched so little of it's country that society as a whole was left unharmed.

Government corruption becomes more evident not because the marks of corruption have become more extreme, but because the marks have become larger.

Keep voting for 'the other guy', keep voting for the other party. Keep getting fed lies about how things are going to change, and keep complaining when they don't.

At 11/9/09 06:26 PM, poxpower wrote: So I was watching the Nostalgia Critic today and for like the 24234th time he makes a "joke" about how it's innapropriate for an adult to do anything that could even remotely be considered sexual to/around a kid.

Shit like just touching them, tickling, pushing, looking at them weird. That guy has a severe case of "everyone is a pedophile" and I think this is just the time we live in. Right now, there is nothing worse to be than a pedophile. You can murder your entire family and eat them but as long as you didn't fuck your children before you bleached their skulls to make a candy bowl, you're not THAT bad.

Societal customs are weird pox power.

Trying to use rationality to arrive at some sort of logical ethical code that is universally preferable (Like what guys like Augustine, Kant, Rand, and Molyneux have tried to do) is simply going to end up in you causing your head to implode.

It's my opinion that ethics is a product of human evolution. And the reason why people hate pedophiles so much is probably related to an intense sexual guardianship that parents have with their children that evolved over thousands of years.

There's also the 'innocence' factor with sexual predators. People aren't as emotionally outraged at the mafia 'whacking' somebody, because whoever the mafia killed probably wasn't very innocent. If there ever was a mafia that was targeted at little childeren, the reaction might be different.

________

On the other hand, i think you also need to consider that the reason Pedophiles make the news more often might be because of the fact that sexual predators are far more common than truly gruesome cereal killers.

You might be assuming people hate sexual predators more than cereal killers because they make the news more often.

just some possibilities.

At 11/9/09 07:59 PM, Chavic wrote: lol, its not. I think we are pass that era now.

But its a common excuse among Obama supporters that he is just cleaning up Bush's mess. I disliked Bush, but that excuse is ignorant. Bush gave us a $500 billion increase to the deficit, so Obama has to give us a $1.75 Trillion increase to the deficit in his first year with more to come? Where's the logic?

Anyways, back on topic, I'd like to see peoples' opinions on these questions.

They're legitimate questions. The problem is that you expect WAY to much from government.

I love it when these idiots say 'What's to stop private business from doing XXXX"

And XXX is pretty much everything.

And they say it with a straight face while the government commits blatant criminal acts, even their beloved change bringer is quite clearly corrupted to the core, and

But to be quite honest, it's probably a good thing that the government didn't give those 4000 dollar student loans, more student loans from the government is the last thing we need.

At 11/9/09 07:47 PM, danicos wrote: To long to read

TLDR for the lazy.

Have a public option as currently proposed, except imposts are only placed on those that participate.

And in return the government will completely deregulate the health care market.

I was thinking about it for awhile and, although this proposition goes against some of my other principles. I think this might be the solution to the problem of Health care that will appease both the statists and the glenn beckers alike.

We will have a Government Health insurance program, a public option if you want to call it that. That is run entirely by the government. And the government is free to set whatever terms and conditions it wants with respect to that public option plan. Presumably, this plan will be cheaper than private insurance because government doesn't work for profit. The plan can be paid for in taxes or by government fees, but these fees can only be levied on individuals who subscribe to the government service.

In return, the federal government will eliminate ALL private regulations on private health care and private health insurance.

If the statists trust the government more than the free market, then there is no danger in this. They can subscribe to the government health insurance. The Government as a a health provider, in the eyes of those statists, as a 'big buyer' can negotiate with the private health industry in the purchase of doctors and other health supplies, or they can use the fees they collect from those that subscribe to government insurance to have their own purely government run system that doesn't need to buy supplies from the priv. sector. if the government is smart enough to regulate the private health sector, then there's no reason why it's necessary to worry about the government not being able to tell ahead of time if the private sector is somehow selling the government nasty drugs or something.

If the 100% unregulated private health insurance industry (which does not exist today) is as evil as the Statists think it will be, then people should rationally subscribe to the government service. In other words, if the 'unregulated' private insurance agents charge insane rates or give lousy products, people can always appeal to our munificent guardians of non-profit for protection.

In reality this would be impossible not because the system itself would fail, but because the government would never concede to doing it, nor could it resist the temptation to regulate private insurance out of existence. (For example, the previous public option included a 'bit' that said that public option doctors are immune from malpractice suits, something that is impossible for private doctors). I don't expect government to resist the temptation to try and pass laws to remove competitors for the same reason i don't expect private business to resist the temptation to try and get laws passed to remove competitors.

But it is something nice to dream about.

The private health industry would be governed solely by the interactions of people, and the government health equivalent could do essentially whatever it wanted so long as the private health industry was untouched. Everyone has their way.

At 10/17/09 11:10 AM, Der-Lowe wrote:

Keynes was wrong.

That is not Keynesian theory, that's core economic thinking: benefit-cost analysis.
Keynesian theory says that unemployment is possible in the long run. If you were against keynes, you'd say the the government should do nothing, like our fellow minarchist here.

Those businesses you talk about are making the right choice. The only reason that those particular businesses were able to get loans, expand, or operate in general in the first place was based on the assumption that of wrong signals put through the economy stirred by artificially low interest rates. That the marginal revenue of the labor is not equate to the wages that laborer is paid means that the laborer, and perhaps the entire business is unproductive and therefore should have it's assets sold off to more productive ends.

Then again outright firing may not be necessary and this may not be the case. The Macro-Economic theory seems to assume that the only alternative is either save the workers from mass unemployment by stimulus, or the worker isn't worth his wage and gets fired. The system should be flexible enough to allow workers wages to be lowered rather than cut completely.

This is pretty much what happened in the 1919-21. The Harding administration did less than the hoover administration, there should have been an incredible recession in that era.

And with lower nominal wages people would get pushed into lower tax brackets (We didn't always have indexing, and even with indexing, more and more people are being forced to pay the AMT) and have relatively more income.

At 11/8/09 03:27 PM, DXplayer wrote: ofcourse right now the flu isn't that bad but the flu mutates like doctors all over the world are talking about... it might get that bad that it would kill more the the regular flu. i heard that they say that mutated edition of the Swine flu (H1N1) might kill 2 or 3 times more then regular flu
which is BAD

And the hysteria causes overcrowding of hospitals, which means people who are genuinely sick are worse off.

At 11/9/09 09:57 AM, Der-Lowe wrote:

At 11/8/09 08:10 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

At 11/1/09 08:29 PM, X-Gary-Gigax-X wrote: How the heck did that happen? We still remain on the brink of 10% unemployment.

A recession does not necessarily balance itself with a boom afterwards, and vice versa.
The only way in which a drop in consumption now can mean higher consumption tomorrow is if that savings are being channeled into investment. This is not the case in recessions, since businessmen get pessimistic. For example, Net investment went negative during the great depression, despite the increased investment by the decrease in consumption.

That is to be expected. If prior to a recession / depression you have artificially low interest rates one would expect over investment, or loans being made on the assumption that loans are cheaper then they actually are relative to the REAL amount of deferred consumption. I'm not saying that overinvestment is good either. And it makes sense that after the depression of 1929 and the depression of 1920 that you had declines in both consumption and investment.

The other kind of growth involves spending, you spend money you don't have, and say that the economy has improved because people are spending more, this is like going on a junk food binge and measuring your weight and saying 'my economy has grown' or injecting yourself with steroids and telling everyone how your physique has improved.

The thing is that the money being spent exists, in the way of not realized investment. The private sector has a huge amount of funds that is currently not using (that's why NOMINAL interest rates went negative on the T-bills a year ago) , so the government uses the opportunity, and spends them. Since we're in a liquidity trap, there is no crowding-out effect: the government does not displace investment, because the deficit does not raise interest rates (which are zero).

I'm highly skeptical of the notion that someone somewhere has the actual wealth that is backing all of the debt that Americans and their government have accumulated. I mean... Asside from all of the foreigners.

The pitfalls of GDP are more related to its accurate measuring of the level income, (or "utility"), rather than its evolution.
And even if you eliminate government expenditures, the economy still grew. We call that the multiplier effect, and it's greater than 1.
Hooray! suck that friedman.

I'm talking about cases where the money is borrowed or printed by the government. The Tin Pot Dictator in this case would channel the money from foreign aid into military expenditures, or building a golf court for himself.

As for utility, that was my point, but it's almost certain that if Government is spending the money, it's probably not maximizing society's utility.

I wonder what the loony libertarians are saying about Healthcare Reformz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws7hdwQNJ Os

At 10/9/09 11:39 PM, Elfer wrote: This is only a real problem in which there is only one majority and one minority, and the minority has the ability to become the majority. They try to make it look like the majority is being a bunch of assholes and taking advantage of their privilege, in the hopes that people will hate the majority and like the minority more.

That's politics, bitch!

That's the most agreeable thing i've ever heard you say.

"Los Anglos" have pretty much turned the guns on the mexicans. I can imagine in a few years when "los chincanos" become the majority it will become politically expedient to grant citizenship to pretty much every single illegal in the country, at which point it's pretty easy for that politician to turn the guns back on the "Anglos".

At 10/30/09 05:32 PM, MultiCanimefan wrote:

At 10/30/09 05:08 PM, puddinN64 wrote: Well, Fascism, Nazism, and Communism are all basically dead. What else is there to use besides Capitalism?

A moneyless society. Contrary to popular belief, personal freedom isn't obliterated with an absence of currency.

It is if one supposes that such a feat can only be achieved by forcing people to accept some sort of 'non' currency. But i doubt you hold that position so i would rather not be accused of straw manning you.

Currency emerged because it's more convenient to trade in uniform quantities of a particular good that everyone in the general area regards as having value, rather, it is more convenient then bartering.

I have no problem with people NOT trading in some sort of coin or the realm, or even trading in some other means that you wouldn't classify as money. (Beanie babies perhaps)

Funny though. Poxpower doesn't make posts addressed specifically to you about the absurdity of a society that doesn't perform transactions in money.

At 11/8/09 08:41 PM, adrshepard wrote:

Despite our "broken" health system, Americans are still the most productive workers and have the greatest per capita real income (except for few obscure countries like Luxembourg and Brunei).

The Health Care System IS broken. It's simply that human freedom is not the problem and the state is not the solution.

And these tea party protesters that play into the hands of the so-called liberals by acting like there is a dichotomy between supporting free markets and implying that the health care system needs reform are not doing freedom a service.

It would be logical to ask, if someone thinks that, for example, Cuba is a better country than the United States to live in, why they bother to force their suffering upon themselfs and simply move from Cuba to America.

But the argument that someone who doesn't like a state should leave is the social contract fallacy.

If i invade your home and tell you that in order to live in this home you have to pay a tax of 10% to me, and obey whatever laws i decide to impose upon you, by living in that home do you agree to obey those laws?

At 11/7/09 11:04 PM, Warforger wrote: So basiclly what your saying is, companies are great people and fight for the greater good of the people, while governments are made up of sick bastards who want to reap the benefits of its people?

The Commissar was as effectively private as Google or Walmart. What made Joseph Stalin any different from J.J. Hill? Except for the fact that unlike Stalin Hill didn't build his railroad empire on the blood of what were effectively his Russian slaves.

Simply because something is run by a state doesn't make it public, this is an absurdity that even a social democrat should realize. A King is no more public than a local merchant, neither is an oligarchy and neither is a dictatorship. And that these institutions collect their money via force only exacerbates the problem.

At 11/8/09 01:43 PM, Warforger wrote:

At 11/7/09 09:53 AM, Ericho wrote:

At 11/6/09 03:46 PM, poxpower wrote: Except he probably never existed anyway so who cares.

Uh, yeah, he did exist. If you need any reassurance, Albert Einstein (a scientist in the modern post-Darwinian age) was asked if he believed in Jesus at least as an historical figure to which he replied "Absolutely". That's good enough for me.

As a historical figure, not the "omg he gave a guy arms and legs who had his arms and legs chopped off !!!1111!!!!11!!" as in he existed, just not in the same way people would say he did, as in not the myth, but like a doctor. Again, Einstein is a scientist , not a Historian.

History books affirm the existence of historical figures well before Jesus. Did Hammurabi really exist? Was Hammurabi perhaps a fake story told by Babylonian nobles attempting to justify the laws of the code? What about Confucious? Did Muhhamad Exist? Buddha? Julius Caesar?

At 11/1/09 08:29 PM, X-Gary-Gigax-X wrote: How the heck did that happen? We still remain on the brink of 10% unemployment.

Actually our real unemployment is somewhere around seventeen percent.

__________________

The reason that people are running around saying that the economy is growing, is because they are measuring likely measuring it by. The government injected a huge amounts of stimulus money into the economy to stimulate demand. Not even the heaviest critics of the stimulus (I.E. peter schiff) can deny that pumping money into an economy is going to stimulate demand.

There are two kinds of economic growth, one kind of economic growth involves savings. Capital is accumulated which then goes to build up the factories and firms and infrastructure that is essential to maximizing our world of scarcity. Deferred consumption today leads to greater overall opportunities for consumption tomorrow. This kind of growth is like increasing the strength of one's muscles, or increasing one's height naturally.

The other kind of growth involves spending, you spend money you don't have, and say that the economy has improved because people are spending more, this is like going on a junk food binge and measuring your weight and saying 'my economy has grown' or injecting yourself with steroids and telling everyone how your physique has improved.

The second kind of growth is NOT the kind of growth that the "The United States of America" needs right now. America was experiencing a great deal of economic growth in the phony sense before the economic collapse, and the debt-consumption which was conflated with growth of yesteryear (Which i openly admit to having been an apologist for back when i was a neocon) laid the foundation for the collapse.

on another note, GDP numbers are terrible barometers of economic growth. It's entirely too easy for some tin pot dictator to spend millions on weapons and materials for the army to oppress the masses, and then report those millions in it's GDP and call it growth. Likewise if politicians hand out hundreds of billions of printing press money to politically connected allies, it doesn't mean that society as a whole is any better off.

At 11/8/09 06:28 PM, Drakim wrote:

At 11/8/09 05:54 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: but by merely placing a stamp of approval which affirms that the product is of good quality, the individuals who invested in the rating organization now know which products to buy and which ones not to buy.

What would prevent me from putting the stamp on my product despite it not being approved?

The same forces that you expect to keep a politician from defrauding an entire country, except the process involves more competitors and isn't limited to election seasons, and it doesn't require a 51% vote of no confidence. (most private companies would go bankrupt much sooner than a 51% drop in sales)

If that makes sense at all to you.

Plus, If Dishonesty on such a scale was so universally profitable in the long run i doubt a state poses much of a solution.

And I've never heard of something like this happening for UL or the Ebay rating system.

Suffice to say that if it ever did, UL and Ebay would have every incentive to figure out some way to deal with it. (if anyone ever found out, their credibility would be ruined by no fault of their own)

Now, I'm not a central planner and neither are you, and I don't have the hubris to say that I know with apodictic certainty exactly how an individual or organization could solve a problem X, and neither do you.

Most people when saying 'the government should pass a law' never get very detailed about how the law would handle nuance cases, cases of bribed judges, corrupt politicians, or whatever. Though i can conceive that, for example, if UL was ever afraid that some electric company was selling products with it's label, it could include for consumers a list of all the company products that have been approved by UL over the last decade or so, this becomes especially easy with the internet. Your argument would have to go even farther.

All that i can suggest, is that a rational society would have solutions to problems solved in a way where there is the greatest amount of reciprocity between sellers and buyers, and sellers includes those that "sell" services such as law, regulation, protection, roads, education, etc. Also, that there should be the greatest level of calibration to the mechanisms of profit and loss, that people feel the consequences of their mistakes and make decisions to fix said mistakes accordingly, and finally, that they be solved in a manner which is CAPABLE of taking into account specific situations, and therefore is not designed in some 'one size fits all' solution.

Having food produced by the government, paid for by taxes which are collected at the point of a gun, or simply letting the government decide what prices to set, is an irrational solution to the problem of food production. Ignoring all historical evidence to affirm this contention, A state food production service does not alter it's structure in any way shape or form in response to demand, and elections are strictly limited in the extent to which they ensure 'accountability' on the part of leaders, for the same reason that elections have been a miserable failiure at ensuring the end of the largely unpopular Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

If someone came on the new grounds BBS and suggested that the government nationalize and collectivize all farms, I wouldn't be so unfair as to ask this person how the government would specifically run the aspects of the

It's like the contrast between a plant that grows to the nutrients, versus some writhing artifice of a creature that is structured with no relation to the demands of the environment, but isn't allowed to die.

I would ask what would make a statist method of food production systematically more accountable than a voluntarily arrived at method of food production.

And what convinces me of the fact that the belief in the state is FUNDAMENTALLY religious is the fact that many so called liberals today can conceive that communist dictatorships, which are effectively and systematically as 'privatized' as any private profit-seeking company (Because they lack even the simplest of control mechanisms, the election), are some how, for no logical conceivable reason, more accountable and less selfish than the private seeking company.

At 11/8/09 02:14 PM, Der-Lowe wrote:

At 11/8/09 10:32 AM, morefngdbs wrote:

Economically, it's government owned, since government gets all the interest that the Fed earns by buying US T-bills.

I think you've hit something here. It's basically worth saying that any sort of unique, exclusive, and symbiotic nature between a private company and government would suggest that the government effectively owns and governs that private institution.

This line of logic would suggest that the government has far more that it 'owns' than one would initially expect.

At 11/7/09 07:48 PM, poxpower wrote:

Yeah there's too many laws.

indeed.

For one i highly recommend using the word Market Anarchist rather than Anarchists.

hmm nah

Alright but there are plenty of people who call themselfs anarchists who wholeheartedly agree with you that people should be forced at gun point into animal farms, and all they want is to abolish private property. You're just alienating activists for your cause.

Now I'm curious, how exactly does the state ensure the quality of food products? Inspections most likely.

You can sue someone who sold you shit.

Notions of 'Shit' are subjective. Even in a modern statist system you can't sue someone for selling you a product that you don't like. What you CAN do it sue someone for violating a contract or a formal guarantee of product quality. And the rating systems aforementioned mean that any open and deliberate violation of contract is ultimately punished by it being revealed that

Credit scores work the same way, although this does not mean that a a free society necessarily can't have individuals who enforce decisions made by arbiters, but since this topic is on food regulation I'm not willing to spend another half our talking about free market courts.

It's not important who does the checking, what's important is that you're accountable if your product sucks balls.

But It's obviously important to you. Individuals could easily form organizations paid for voluntarily that would examine the quality of a product, these organizations wouldn't even have to force companies who produce bad products to shut down, but by merely placing a stamp of approval which affirms that the product is of good quality, the individuals who invested in the rating organization now know which products to buy and which ones not to buy.

But no, you and every other statist insists that this can only be done by the State. And so you create a system where unelected bureaucrats arbitrarily decide which products can be produced and which products cannot be produced. If the government service sucks, it doesn't matter. It's protected from failure because it's paid for in taxes. (And the odds of it being removed are next to zero, historically, programs existing back from the new deal like farm subsidies are no longer but for political reasons these programs are permanent)

Government programs are NOT MAINTAINED BY ACCOUNTABILITY, their success and failure does not depend upon individuals judging the trust worthiness of the state agents and their systems.

Like how the FDA let the Drug Cartel dump aids tainted drugs on European markets without telling anyone, a scandal like that would ruin any private institution whose income was paid for voluntarily.

Or how studies have shown that the FDA has killed more people than it has saved by prohibiting drugs from being sold in the united states. Because the FDA has the guns of the state to force companies not to produce

That's the main flaw of anarchy. No accountability. Technology might make it possible one of these days though, that's starting to look more and more likely.

That is the main flaw of statism. You're entire argument is founded upon the unspoken assumption that the State is composed of some sort of superhuman race that is except from the negative qualities associated to human nature, i.e. selfishness and greed.

The only major distinction that exists between government and a private business is the election. If governments were unelected everyone would realize that your arguments for statism were completely idiotic, since government would seem to be no more accountable than private business, and giving them a monopoly on regulation food, drugs, or anything else, would be like giving google a monopoly on regulating the internet.

Now consider the nature of the election. Every 2 to 4 years only two candidates, who have to spend hundreds of millions on campaigns. (In case you hadn't taken a single economics class, the reason this is important is because Enormous start up costs are barriers to entry which restrict competition) Both candidates must heavily entrance themselves with the lobbying interests in order to get elected.

Governments only have to appeal to 50+% of the population to get elected. (often times less due to the electoral college) Which means that at any given time 50 percent of the population didn't think that the quality

And if you think consumers are so stupid with decisions about their own lives, why do you create a double standard for politicians. Why are voters so smart on political issues, able to judge (one of only two provided) politicians into seats of power over arts and industries where they have 0 knowledge, yet cannot decide for themselves whether a can of tomatoes is just a renamed copy of a dangerous copy of neurotoxin which got passed the regulators they so wisely elected.

imagine if a private company had the power to get half of it's income by force.

if governments break the law or they break their promises, they are effectively their own judge. of course one government agent isn't it's own judge, but since congress pays the salaries of it's judges why would any judge be inclined to (Except in the most extreme of cases where public outcry is extreme) do anything to stop them?

just IMAGINE a private company that sold it's goods like it was some sort of election. A system of only two competitors where so long as 51 percent of the (Frankly politically uninformed) population votes for a particular company, the company can then sell it's product however it likes, paid for with money collected at gunpoint. At which point, for the next two to four years that company can sell it's product for as high a price or as low a quality as it wants, because there are no alternatives.

And I'm supposed to believe that governments are somehow accountable?
And I'm supposed to believe that you're belief in government isn't grounded solely on religiosity and faith?

I'm not saying government is completely unaccountable. It's limited to a certain extent as proven by the fact that advocating some sort of... 90% tax rate is political suicide, there are certain things that voters cannot accept regardless of how much money is invested by lobbyists into it. But that limitation is continually pushed backward because people like YOU are constantly being indoctrinated with fantamagorical stories of a good government. And the more fanatical people become the more tollerant they become to the kinds of super-atrocities that can ONLY be commited by institutions that are desentizied to the mechanisms of profit and loss.

Easy. bribe the inspectors or send lobbyists to Washington to rewrite the regulatory laws so they effectively prevent new tomato canning companies from entering the market.

If you're just going to use " you can bribe them" as an out, then nothing works whether under anarchy or a government.

In a statist society you have a monopoly regulator. If it is discovered that the government regulator took a bribe, they get trialed in a GOVERNMENT COURT, and since the regulator is paid for in taxes, and changing nearly anything in the government is impossible, the regulator agency gets off free.

In a sane society, the man to took a bribe would ruin his company, everyone would know not to trust that man or the company and the company would have to take great pains to convince the public that it was trust worthy again. Scandals spell bankrupcy for any company that operates on a purely voluntary basis, which is why companies would prefer to save themselves the risk or a scandal and just not take the bribe.

You asked what sort of regulatory mechanisms exist on a free market? What sort of regulatory mechanisms exist in the state? if a police officer beats you over the head, what court will you appeal to? Who will you vote for in the next election? What contractual guarantee do you have that something will change? What power do you have to ensure that institutions behave in ways that you individually see as legitimate? You have next to none.

At 11/8/09 02:05 PM, morefngdbs wrote:

At 11/8/09 12:53 PM, SEXY-FETUS wrote: I'm gonna sit back with the "How the hell are we going to afford this?" crowd.

The same way we do & CUBA DOES...France does...England does... Germany...Finland...Norway...Sweden...et c. etc. etc.

Except America has a global police force, a bankrupt social security system, a bailout program, and a stimulus package to pay for already.

Oh... And a global Empire.

______________

Here's my favorite Gem from this whole thing.

To keep down costs, the government subsidies and consumer protections don't take effect until 2013. During the three-year transition, both bills would provide $5 billion in federal dollars to help get coverage for people with medical problems who are turned down by private insurers.

of course Yahoo would never tell it's readers that one of these things invariably raises the cost, and both of them invariably raise the price of healthcare.

Virtually all consumer protection schemes simply work to tell consumers that they can't buy certain kinds of products. And these laws are usually written by insurance or drug companies attempting to stifle competitors by making it illegal to have one's health care provided in a certain way. It doesn't protect consumers, it protects the capitalists.

Subsidies raise prices by encouraging people to consume, this only lowers the 'price' for the person who gets the subsidy, but stimulating demand you inevitably raise prices for everyone else.

Proof that the agents of the state have zero allegiance to 'society'. Both of these were likely put in to satisfy the medical industry by continuing to remove competitive forces and have the taxpayer pay for other people's medical consumption; which ultimately ends up in the hands of the medical industry.

At 11/8/09 02:40 AM, Der-Lowe wrote:

Although i'm not particularly sure why China consuming it's own products would help the global economy,

Because the products they consume themselves are to be replaced by foreign production. A more expensive yuan will also increase imports, increasing Chinese demand of foreign goods.

i think China would be stupid to continue it's current relationship with the united states. It seems to me that the only goods that the united states produces any more are Health, Education, and Government. Health and education are expenses, not things you want to have to be so large and it should be startling to anyone at the fact that these sectors have grown whilst the manufacturing sectors have continually been shrinking. As for the government sector i don't think i have to say much about it.

Yeah, because the secret to development is underfunded educational and health systems.
Look how well Ghana is doing

The increased personal investment in health and education are not solely demand derived, the cost of healthcare and education have gone up, which is why people are spending more of their income on these things. Having young americans go deeper and deeper in to debt to pay for education which is all too often over-rated does not sound like a healthy trend.

And on the same token neither is

I'm not saying that developed countries aren't going to have more real resources (in absolute terms) dedicated to issues of health care, as compared to under developed nations. But idealistically a developed country should be capable of running it's health care system efficiently enough that people can afford to spend LESS not more, of their income on health services. The same applies to education.

For example, cosmetic and lasik surgery's have been getting increasingly advanced, and on the same token they have been getting increasingly cheaper. in developed countries Vane people can alter their faces with less of their income in relative terms even when the technology of those surgery's has improved.

point is, China having all of these US dollars is worthless for them, since i cannot conceive of what they could possibly buy from us with those dollars.

Soy, every agricultural product known to man, basically any technological good known to man. Cars, basically any type of machinery, etc.

But America's Manufacturing base is declining.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GMkD4mFrFxw/Sn 92P-qjBDI/AAAAAAAAB7w/tHxChL2SZEM/s1600-
h/Annual+employment+growth+in+US.gif

I can conceive that if China restructured it's economy to allow for more domestic consumption of it's products, it would probably experience the same kind of euphoria that America experienced in the 50's. All of the factories that were originally configured for war production turned to producing goods for domestic use.

Yeah, well, it would actually be the other way round. A higher yuan would shift demand outwards (which is why they would save the world), since foreign goods become cheaper. They'd export less, and import more, possibly moderating their growth rates. Their fiscal stimulus might compensate for the loss.

I don't see the difference between what you said and what i said.

At 10/19/09 05:38 PM, Der-Lowe wrote: and save themselves.

Although i'm not particularly sure why China consuming it's own products would help the global economy, i think China would be stupid to continue it's current relationship with the united states. It seems to me that the only goods that the united states produces any more are Health, Education, and Government. Health and education are expenses, not things you want to have to be so large and it should be startling to anyone at the fact that these sectors have grown whilst the manufacturing sectors have continually been shrinking. As for the government sector i don't think i have to say much about it.

point is, China having all of these US dollars is worthless for them, since i cannot conceive of what they could possibly buy from us with those dollars. In my opinion the dollar right now should be next to worthless, and the Yuan should be much higher in value.

I can conceive that if China restructured it's economy to allow for more domestic consumption of it's products, it would probably experience the same kind of euphoria that America experienced in the 50's. All of the factories that were originally configured for war production turned to producing goods for domestic use.

At 10/18/09 03:47 AM, ReiperX wrote: Is the 2009 H1N1 flu shot expected to be associated with Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS)?

In 1976, an earlier type of swine flu vaccine was associated with cases of a severe paralytic illness called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) at a rate of approximately 1 case of GBS per 100,000 persons vaccinated. Some studies done since 1976 have shown a small risk of GBS in persons who received the seasonal influenza vaccine. This risk is estimated to be no more than 1 case of GBS per 1 million persons vaccinated. Pregnant women should tell the person giving the shots if they have ever had GBS.

http://www.cdc.gov/H1N1flu/vaccination/p regnant_qa.htm

This is what I was thinking of earlier.

Ironically, though fewer people took the vaccine than those that did not, you were more likely to die from the vaccine than the flu.

Since i'm not in the high risk category when it comes to swine flu, I'm disinclined to want the vaccine... My guess is i probably have a better chance of dying from a quick-fix vaccine than i do from the flu.

Statists should support this bill. After all, is proposition 8 not the will of the people?

Do not the majority have the right to pass laws which affect the whole of society, minorities included?

If the state has the legitimate authority to claim de-facto ownership over nearly half of the product of one's labor, and already establish numerous laws and statues governing human behavior, why shouldn't the government decide who gets to run around with the title of 'marriage' and who doesn't?

See what i love about social issue debates is that people tend to be far less prone to authoritarian tendencies, and argue with much cooler heads than topics of economics or foreign policy.

a pragmatic person interested in the 'rights' of minorities while at the same time fearful of trying to undermine democracy by saying that 'certain things the majority cannot vote away' might say to leave the issue of gay marriage to the states, because people in the same state probably have similar social veiws to those in other states.

More socially liberal states can allow for gays to feel happy because they can run around with the title of marriage and all of the ego benefits it brings, and socially conservative states can feel secure knowing that the sanctity of the term marriage (Which has itself been completely discredited over the years) is left in tact.

but then it might make more sense to do it on a per county basis, since the people living in one part of one state, (for instance, California) probably have different social views than those in other parts of the state, and people living in the same county probably have more uniform social views. This has the added benefit of radical changes in social policy being less potentially ruinous to individuals living in those counties, if they ever had to move, it might not require moving very far.

of course if you took this to it's rational conclusion, one would have to say that the most optimal solution to the social problem is to have these issues done on the most local of levels, to that of villages or hamlets, and in this way home buyers can factor in social law legislation in those towns when they move, and not be forced to live in other states or worse, other countries, just to live in a place that is more tollerant of their lifestyles. You are far more likely to get a consensus of 90% of people or more agreeing to a particular proposal because they all share a similar social background, in a hamlet, then a conesnsus of 90% of everyone in a country of 300 million, where the cultural differences amongst Americans are nearly comparable to that of European states.

This solution also makes the issue of gay marriage less of a psychodrama. You wouldn't have people going insane trying to impose their 'system' upon millions of total strangers because individual sovereignty is maximized.

In reality what i have just described is perhaps a crude model of what occurs in a market, individuals or small groups deciding amongst themselves and only themselfs what the arrangements will be, rather than forming 51% percent gangs and forcing other people who have nothing in common with them, to live and act the way THEY want them do.

At 11/7/09 07:58 PM, Proteas wrote:

"Elevating atheism to the same status that religion holds now" would be a pretty terrible idea.

I've read enough of these threads to know what the common goal of atheism is, that's why I find the idea of an atheist church to be deliciously ironic. I know the intention is to satirize religion as a whole, but the idea that they would actually copy the organizational pattern of the Church in spreading atheism intrigues me. Could it lead to atheism becoming a large organization, with doctrines and dogma?

I think atheism might have two meanings in this case, for the same reason as a 'church' and theism are not necessarily the same thing.

I can imagine, especially in the united states, individuals believing in a skydaddy to some degree or another, but not forming any organizations based on that collective belief. So it is theoretically possible to believe in god without subscribing to a church.

on the same token you can have a bunch of people who do not believe in god, but do not form special associations on the basis of that belief [or lack thereof]

But you could, theoretically, have an 'atheist' society, or a congregation of people who shared atheism commonly.

In fact that's pretty much what Objectivism is. Of course Rand would have rolled in her grave (Assuming she wasn't cremated) if she found out that people were using the name 'church of objectivism' or maybe the 'first baptist church of rand' or something.

In fact it reminds me of a you tube user by the name of Thunderf00t. He seems to know what he's talking about, as far as science goes, and he has almost fanatical support from his subscribers. So when he says something about politics or economics that's pure bullshit and even an inbred 'god believer' can prove it to be illogical, thunderf00t's drones do his dirty work and run a smear campaign against the person who dared question him... kind of like a religious leader.

You give a small group of people monopolistic authority over law, defense, arbitration, and the allocation of all property, and instruct that group of people to make everyone equal.

(Naturally, since this is a state we are talking about, there are virtually no repercussions if they pursue a different course)

That small group of people, as selfish and self interested as the rest of humanity, does the rational thing and rapes the wealth for their own benefit, and essentially equates communism with feudalism.

Communism is Utopian for placing all that power in the hands of a few, and expecting good things to come from it.

An addendum to the Op's argument....

States always fall. Democracy, Dictatorship, Monarchy, Oligarchy, they all fall, at some point. They're all strands of the same virus that at some point kill their host.

it really doesn't matter WHO gets to run machine, because whoever runs the machine is faced with the same incentives as anyone else. Even dictators are limited in the kinds of actions they can perform.

At 11/2/09 04:31 PM, gumOnShoe wrote: I would agree that the rich should pay more towards social projects (i.e. taxes) as they have more of a percentage of the U.S. currency. However, your example of mansion building is the prime example of how them having money creates jobs, if they are actually building new ones.

I think the larger problem is when the money ends up in cyclical cycles or sits in a savings bit somewhere without any application. If indeed they were able to support jobs it would be excellent, but I'm more concerned about the point at which we decided their work was more valuable than a person who works probably 3 to 4 times as hard, even if that person isn't responsible for the work of several others.

Savings is essential to economic growth, and you want everyone (including the rich) To save a portion of their money.

Savings doesn't mean keeping your money under your mattress. It means forgoing present consumption for future consumption, and increasing society's reserves of capital.

The money that gets saved in banks is lent out and (Assuming that the banks are giving out loans only to people who they believe will be able to pay that loan back, with their own money) those loans lead to economic growth.

Plus, most of the time when we talk about 'soaking the rich' politicians aren't talking about the Walton's of the Rockefeller, they're talking about the up-and-coming rich, the rich that lack the political clout to avoid paying taxes.

Another serious issue with raising taxes is the flawed assumption that this leads to proportional increases in revenue for government, this isn't the case. The higher the taxes, on ANYONE, rich or poor, the more incentivized people are to take risks and avoid paying those taxes. If the government taxes everyone 10%, people probably would not be willing to break the law just to save themselves a bit of lost money. if taxes on everyone were, say, 70%, a seven fold increase, now it becomes worth the extra money to avoid paying taxes by hook or by crook.

in the case of a 10% taxe rate, the government may estimate that it gets... for simplicity's sake, 1 trillion dollars in revenue, and since very few people avoid paying those taxes, the government gets approximately 1 trillion dollars.

in the case of 70% tax rate, the government estimates getting 7 trillion dollars in tax revenue, but since everyone is avoiding those taxes (or trying to) it may only get 6 trillion or 5 trillion.

And most generally the higher the tax rate (and the more complex the tax code) the greater the discrepancy between real and expected tax income.

Note that this is NOT the same as saying that lowering taxes results in immediate higher tax revenues because now everyone is paying taxes. (Although in my opinion lower taxes leads to a larger long term tax revenues, in the same way that lowering present consumption leads to greater future consumption and visa versa)

At 11/7/09 05:00 PM, fatape wrote:

At 11/7/09 04:53 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: look at how horrible govenrment is

this is basicly every arguement for anarchism ever , they tell you how bad govenrment is but never explain how anarchism would functionaly work.

To avoid getting off topic of the original arguement ii'll basicly send you the information you claim is never provided via PM.