biccat wrote:One that has limited power and authority, not simply limited money. While social welfare spending causes deficit problems, it's expanded government authority that causes the problem of corruption and power imbalance.

biccat wrote:
If government doesn't have the authority to set wheat prices, then there will not be anyone lobbying for laws increasing wheat prices. So long as there are laws setting wheat prices, individuals/groups who have money to lobby will have an advantage over those who do not.

biccat wrote:No, it's like saying "if there were no iPads, there wouldn't be any demand for iPads."

Melissia wrote:

biccat wrote:No, it's like saying "if there were no iPads, there wouldn't be any demand for iPads."

That is a stupid comparison which is also stupid.

biccat wrote:This is your fallback position every time someone points out that your argument doesn't make sense. Simply stating "I'm right, you're wrong" isn't actually a hallmark of reasoned debate. It's simply bullying.

Since you appear to continue to intentionally misconstrue what I've been posting, I'll try it again. I'm talking about a limited government. One that has limited power and authority, not simply limited money.

If government doesn't have the authority to set wheat prices, then there will not be anyone lobbying for laws increasing wheat prices. So long as there are laws setting wheat prices, individuals/groups who have money to lobby will have an advantage over those who do not.

sebster wrote:Once I've pointed that out, there are two options available to you. You can accept this, and either modify or withdraw your argument, or you can find some way of arguing that government could actually be made much smaller than that.

sebster wrote:At which point the only option available to me is to keep repeating it to you, over and over again, until you recognise or challenge it.

sebster wrote:Ha! I mean holy gak dude, that is funny.

I wrote this sentence in my first response to you on this;
"Never mind that outside of direct government spending, there is a vast amount of gain to be found in beneficial legislation, or just on matters of principle."

When you quoted me, you removed that part, claiming it was incomprehensible.

sebster wrote:Never mind government doesn't set wheat prices, let's look at something they do regulate, like air safety. As long as government is attempting to ensure planes won't crash out of the sky, there will be lobbying by aircraft designers (to make their newly safety features mandatory, and make safety features developed by other manufacturers non-mandatory), and lobbying from airlines (to remove any costly safety features).

According to you, the left wing response would be to control how much money and facetime those parties could have with legislators, while the right wing response would be to... not regulate air traffic at all? Is that it?

biccat wrote:Further, companies like Delta, USAir, Northwest, and RyanAir actually have a vested interest in not buying unsafe planes

biccat wrote:Um, no, because your basic fact is that government cannot actually be made smaller. If I accept that a multi-trillion dollar government is a requirement of a modern state, then I can't argue that a multi-trillion dollar government is not a requirement of a modern state.

So we're at an impasse. I present an argument as to why government should be reduced in scope.

Yes, because it's bad grammar and doesn't make sense. If you would care to try again, I would be happy to respond to your argument.

Yup, makes sense to me.

You see, companies like Boeing, Airbus, Lockheed and Cesna actually have a vested interest in not making unsafe planes. Further, companies like Delta, USAir, Northwest, and RyanAir actually have a vested interest in not buying unsafe planes, and not operating unsafe planes. Consumers who fly also have a vested interest in not flying in unsafe planes.

Therefore, there is a market interest in making safe planes, even without government regulation.

These types of situations arise constantly. That's why there's so much money in lobbying.

sebster wrote:No, it is a basic part of modern economies. I can't believe you can't see that. I've pointed it out to you in many, many threads now, a variety of ways.

sebster wrote:But to shrink government to the level where there would no longer be incentive to corrupt it is impossible. Roads and transport alone are too big for that to happen. Then you get into policing, and defence, support for research, education... I mean, seriously, exactly how small do you think government could be? How few dollars?

sebster wrote:And even if that were the case, you'd still have all those other pieces of law that have nothing to do with government spending, like, say, gun control or abortion law.

sebster wrote:And I explain that it is an absolute impossibility to reduce government to the level where there would no longer be any incentive to corrupt government. I provide numbers to demonstrate this.

sebster wrote:You ignore this, and make some vague argument about how smaller government is better (as if that were ever the issue being debated).

sebster wrote:I return to my point, that in a modern economy government at its absolute smallest would still be so big that the incentive to corrupt the system would remain. You complain that this is bullying, but still don't substantiate exactly how small this minimal government would actually be.

sebster wrote:Never mind that outside of direct government spending, individuals would still be motivated to corrupt the legislative process, in order to benefit financially from law that impacts them even though it doesn't relate to direct government spending (such as an insurance company wanting a cap put on payments awarded by a civil lawsuit) or purely on a matter of conviction to the individual (such as having abortion banned).

sebster wrote:Uh huh. So when people on board an Airbus A380 see the engine explode and fall to the ground, in amidst the terror they can at least take solace in the fact that their near-death experience sent a valuable signal to the market, and incentivised Airbus to build safer engines the next time around.

sebster wrote:Does that also apply to toys produced in anonymous workshops in China, do you think they're conducting extensive testing to ensure there is no choking hazard, and that the paint contains no harmful toxins?

sebster wrote:Instead, there must be controls over how people can affect the process. There must be controls over who can give money, and how much they can give.

sebster wrote:But it is incredible that you, who doesn't benefit from that process at all, would contort an argument to justify that state of affairs.

biccat wrote:I will note again, simply saying "because I said so" isn't an argument. Despite how many times and in how many threads you've posted it.

Again, you're not understanding the argument. The issue I'm addressing isn't how many dollars government consumes but how much power government has. We here in the States have a document that (hypothetically) limits the powers of the government. It's the position of the current government (and has been for a while) that there aren't any practical limits on that power.

You're right that some minimum level of government power is necessary. And you're right that there will be lobbying on those measures. However, that's a far cry from saying that the current level of regulation is necessary or acceptable, or that reducing the level of regulation would have no effect on corruption/lobbying dollars.

Simply because you continue to misinterpret the argument doesn't change the issue being debate.

Better. My response to that argument would be that even if individuals are motivated to spend money on an issue, if the government is incapable of granting them the relief they seek they will not spend money on the issue.

Is that better or worse than the fact that their near-death experience will be analyzed by a committee and referred to the appropriate rulemaking authority to propegate a rule on engine safety?

I think that also applies to toys produced in anonymous workshops in China. Presumably, kids in China are exposed to these toys, despite the lack of regulation ensuring that there is no choking hazard and there aren't any harmful toxins. Is there a flood of deaths or injuries to kids using these toys?

If the problem sought to be solved by regulation doesn't exist, then what's the need for regulation?

Good idea.

Who is going to draft the rules?

My starting position for any argument is based on a limited government and personal freedom. I don't attempt to contort my argument to justify an end result that is politically popular.

sebster wrote:It's why you look at any developed country, and the government is somewhere over 20% of GDP. If you decided by some kind of magic that government simply must not be part of social welfare, you can cut that back by anywhere up to half, but you simply cannot bring it below 10%. In the US, that'd mean an annual budget of one and a half trillion.

sebster wrote:That's not an answer. It's just your particularly vague general notion, repeated once more. It just ignores the point that government has to make a decision, and that decision will inevitably matter to people enough for them to use money and power to influence it.

biccat wrote:
No, you're missing the point. I'm saying that government shouldn't be making such decisions in the first place.

biccat wrote:
If you reduce the incentive to do X then you reduce the propensity of people to do X.

Melissia wrote:"If you reduce the incentive to do X then you reduce the propensity of people to do X."

And you propose to reduce the incentive... how?

Because... I haven't seen you produce a proposal that actually works, Biccat.

Even if, through some miraculous act of god, you managed to get all you wanted pushed into a constitutional ammendment-- about as permanent as you can get with US law-- people would still feel the incentive to change government and reverse that ammendment.

biccat wrote:Of course, per usual, you're asking for the impossible.

Melissia wrote:

biccat wrote:Of course, per usual, you're asking for the impossible.

... I just rephrased what YOU are arguing for and asked you to actually propose something for it.

But yes, I agree, it is impossible. I'm glad you realized it.

biccat wrote:What I'm arguing for is not impossible. What you're asking for is.

Melissia wrote:Considering I'm asking you to provide a proposal to make what you're arguing for a possibility, if what I'm asking for is impossible, then what your arguing for is impossible.

Melissia wrote:You want to remove federal agencies? People will want to put them back in place. Or make a new one that does something similar.

Melissia wrote:The demand won't vanish like you claim it will, it won't even really diminish-- it'll just change forms. And with such massive deregulation as you suggest, the corruption will simply change forms from government corruption to corporate corruption. MASSIVE corporate corruption, which will make people look back fondly on Enron and the like.

biccat wrote:

Melissia wrote:You want to remove federal agencies? People will want to put them back in place. Or make a new one that does something similar.

Actually, they generally won't.

sebster wrote:And in amongst all that ugliness, you never even bothered to substantiate your assumption that the value of CEOs had grown by a factor of ten in the last two decades. It gives the impression you're only capable of parrotting cheap, nasty soundbites from Anne Coulter and not actually capable of substantiating your claims with original thoughts.

biccat wrote:
Arguing against regulation doesn't work with people who believe in the infallability of government regulation.

Phanatik wrote:
I have to substantiate that someone else is of a certain value? Is that your point? That's all you got?

biccat wrote:
Actually, they generally won't. The will to institute regulations doesn't arise from companies who are affected by them, they arise from a political source - usually some politician who sees something and decides "something must be done!" Or they're ideologically driven to regulate some issue.

Melissia wrote:If they are removed, the demand will still be there, all the stronger because people who wanted them remember having them. Your woefully bad misunderstanding of economics does not prove your point.

daedalus wrote:

Spoiler:

biccat wrote:Believe it or not, it's not companies who are regulated by the EPA who wanted the EPA to exist.

biccat wrote:The fundamental problem is that people think these government programs are necessary and effective when the fact is that in most cases they are neither.

Melissia wrote:The fundamental problem is peopel who think that corruption doesn't exist in capitalism without government.

US corporate tax
Nov 4th 2011, 16:06 by The Economist Online


The statutory federal income tax rate for big American companies is 35%. But a study by the Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, two Washington, DC-based think-tanks, has assessed the tax records of 280 companies from the Fortune 500 list with reliable pre-tax profit reports. Among these companies the average effective tax rate between 2008-10 was only 18.5%. While 71 companies paid over 30% of their profits in federal income tax, 30 enjoyed negative tax rates over the whole three year period. Pepco, an electricity company, had the lowest effective tax rate of -57.6%. Wells Fargo, a bank, received the biggest tax subsidy over the three years of almost $18 billion, and was one of 25 companies which took more than half of the total $223 billion subsidy claimed. In at least one of the three years, 78 firms paid no or negative tax rates, and legally-by writing off capital investments before they actually wear out (known as "accelerated depreciation"), making use of tax deductible stock options and industry-specific tax breaks, and offshore tax havens.

porkchop806 wrote:At first I was kind interested in what this was about. Till at least for the US, the American Nazi party and the American communist party fully endorsed the movement kinda turned me off

Difference Engine: Luddite legacy
Nov 4th 2011, 16:10 by N.V. | LOS ANGELES

AN APOCRYPHAL tale is told about Henry Ford II showing Walter Reuther, the veteran leader of the United Automobile Workers, around a newly automated car plant. “Walter, how are you going to get those robots to pay your union dues,” gibed the boss of Ford Motor Company. Without skipping a beat, Reuther replied, “Henry, how are you going to get them to buy your cars?”

Whether the exchange was true or not is irrelevant. The point was that any increase in productivity required a corresponding increase in the number of consumers capable of buying the product. The original Henry Ford, committed to raising productivity and lowering prices remorselessly, appreciated this profoundly—and insisted on paying his workers twice the going rate, so they could afford to buy his cars.

For the company, there was an added bonus. By offering an unprecedented $5 a day in 1914, he caused the best tool-makers and machinists in America to flock to Ford. The know-how they brought boosted production efficiency still further and made Ford cars ever more affordable. With its ingenious Model T, Ford became the first car company in the world to bring motoring to the masses.

Economists see this as a classic example of how advancing technology, in the form of automation and innovation, increases productivity. This, in turn, causes prices to fall, demand to rise, more workers to be hired, and the economy to grow. Such thinking has been one of the tenets of economics since the early 1800s, when hosiery and lace-makers in Nottingham—inspired by Ned Ludd, a legendary hero of the English proletariat—smashed the mechanical knitting looms being introduced at the time for fear of losing their jobs.

Some did lose their jobs, of course. But if the Luddite Fallacy (as it has become known in development economics) were true, we would all be out of work by now—as a result of the compounding effects of productivity. While technological progress may cause workers with out-dated skills to become redundant, the past two centuries have shown that the idea that increasing productivity leads axiomatically to widespread unemployment is nonsense.

But here is the question: if the pace of technological progress is accelerating faster than ever, as all the evidence indicates it is, why has unemployment remained so stubbornly high—despite the rebound in business profits to record levels? Two-and-a-half years after the Great Recession officially ended, unemployment has remained above 9% in America. That is only one percentage point better than the country’s joblessness three years ago at the depths of the recession.

The modest 80,000 jobs added to the economy in October were not enough to keep up with population growth, let alone re-employ any of the 12.3m Americans made redundant between 2007 and 2009. Even if job creation were miraculously to nearly triple to the monthly average of 208,000 that is was in 2005, it would still take a dozen years to close the yawning employment gap caused by the recent recession, says Laura D’Andrea Tyson, an economist at University of California, Berkeley, who was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration.

The conventional explanation for America's current plight is that, at an annualised 2.5% for the most recent quarter (compared with an historical average of 3.3%), the economy is simply not expanding fast enough to put all the people who lost their jobs back to work. Consumer demand, say economists like Dr Tyson, is evidently not there for companies to start hiring again. Clearly, too many chastened Americans are continuing to pay off their debts and save for rainy days, rather than splurging on things they may fancy but can easily manage without.

There is a good deal of truth in that. But it misses a crucial change that economists are loth to accept, though technologists have been concerned about it for several years. This is the disturbing thought that, sluggish business cycles aside, America's current employment woes stem from a precipitous and permanent change caused by not too little technological progress, but too much. The evidence is irrefutable that computerised automation, networks and artificial intelligence (AI)—including machine-learning, language-translation, and speech- and pattern-recognition software—are beginning to render many jobs simply obsolete.

This is unlike the job destruction and creation that has taken place continuously since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, as machines gradually replaced the muscle-power of human labourers and horses. Today, automation is having an impact not just on routine work, but on cognitive and even creative tasks as well. A tipping point seems to have been reached, at which AI-based automation threatens to supplant the brain-power of large swathes of middle-income employees.

That makes a huge, disruptive difference. Not only is AI software much cheaper than mechanical automation to install and operate, there is a far greater incentive to adopt it—given the significantly higher cost of knowledge workers compared with their blue-collar brothers and sisters in the workshop, on the production line, at the check-out and in the field.

In many ways, the white-collar employees who man the cubicles of business today share the plight of agricultural workers a century ago. In 1900, nearly half of the adult population worked on the land. Thanks to tractors, combine harvesters, crop-picking machines and other forms of mechanisation, agriculture now accounts for little more than 2% of the working population.

Displaced agricultural workers then, though, could migrate from fields to factories and earn higher wages in the process. What is in store for the Dilberts of today? Media theorist Douglas Rushkoff (“Program or Be Programmed” and “Life Inc”) would argue "nothing in particular." Put bluntly, few new white-collar jobs, as people know them, are going to be created to replace those now being lost—despite the hopes many place in technology, innovation and better education.

The argument against the Luddite Fallacy rests on two assumptions: one is that machines are tools used by workers to increase their productivity; the other is that the majority of workers are capable of becoming machine operators. What happens when these assumptions cease to apply—when machines are smart enough to become workers? In other words, when capital becomes labour. At that point, the Luddite Fallacy looks rather less fallacious.

This is what Jeremy Rifkin, a social critic, was driving at in his book, “The End of Work”, published in 1995. Though not the first to do so, Mr Rifkin argued prophetically that society was entering a new phase—one in which fewer and fewer workers would be needed to produce all the goods and services consumed. “In the years ahead,” he wrote, “more sophisticated software technologies are going to bring civilisation ever closer to a near-workerless world.”

The process has clearly begun. And it is not just white-collar knowledge workers and middle managers who are being automated out of existence. As data-analytics, business-intelligence and decision-making software do a better and cheaper job, even professionals are not immune to the job-destruction trend now underway. Pattern-recognition technologies are making numerous highly paid skills redundant.

Radiologists, who can earn over $300,000 a year in America, after 13 years of college education and internship, are among the first to feel the heat. It is not just that the task of scanning tumour slides and X-ray pictures is being outsourced to Indian laboratories, where the job is done for a tenth of the cost. The real threat is that the latest automated pattern-recognition software can do much of the work for less than a hundredth of it.

Lawyers are in a similar boat now that smart algorithms can search case law, evaluate the issues at hand and summarise the results. Machines have already shown they can perform legal discovery for a fraction of the cost of human professionals—and do so with far greater thoroughness than lawyers and paralegals usually manage.

In 2009, Martin Ford, a software entrepreneur from Silicon Valley, noted in “The Lights in the Tunnel” that new occupations created by technology—web coders, mobile-phone salesmen, wind-turbine technicians and so on—represent a tiny fraction of employment. And while it is true that technology creates jobs, history shows that it can vaporise them pretty quickly, too. “The IT jobs that are now being off-shored and automated are brand new jobs that were largely created in the tech boom of the 1990s,” says Mr Ford.

In his analysis, Mr Ford noted how technology and innovation improve productivity exponentially, while human consumption increases in a more linear fashion. In his view, Luddism was, indeed, a fallacy when productivity improvements were still on the relatively flat, or slowly rising, part of the exponential curve. But after two centuries of technological improvements, productivity has "turned the corner" and is now moving rapidly up the more vertical part of the exponential curve. One implication is that productivity gains are now outstripping consumption by a large margin.

Another implication is that technology is no longer creating new jobs at a rate that replaces old ones made obsolete elsewhere in the economy. All told, Mr Ford has identified over 50m jobs in America—nearly 40% of all employment—which, to a greater or lesser extent, could be performed by a piece of software running on a computer. Within a decade, many of them are likely to vanish. “The bar which technology needs to hurdle in order to displace many of us in the workplace,” the author notes, “is much lower than we really imagine.”

In their recent book, “Race Against the Machine”, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology agree with Mr Ford's analysis—namely, that the jobs lost since the Great Recession are unlikely to return. They agree, too, that the brunt of the shake-out will be borne by middle-income knowledge workers, including those in the retail, legal and information industries. But the authors' perspective is from an ivory tower rather than from the hands-on world of creating start-ups in Silicon Valley. Their proposals for reform, while spot on in principle, expect rather a lot from the political system and other vested interests.

Unlike Mr Ford, Dr Brynjolfsson and Dr McAfee are more sanguine about the impact smart technology is having on the job market. As they see it, those threatened the most by technology should learn to work with machines, rather than against them. Do that, they suggest, and the shake-out among knowledge workers becomes less of a threat and more of an opportunity.

As an example, they point to the way Amazon and eBay have spurred over 600,000 people to earn their livings by dreaming up products for a world-wide customer base. Likewise, Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Marketplace have made it easy for those with ideas for doing things with phones to distribute their products globally. Such activities may not create a new wave of billion-dollar businesses, but they can put food on the table for many a family and pay the rent, and perhaps even the college fees.

In the end, the Luddites may still be wrong. But the nature of what constitutes work today—the notion of a full-time job—will have to change dramatically. The things that make people human—the ability to imagine, feel, learn, create, adapt, improvise, have intuition, act spontaneously—are the comparative advantages they have over machines. They are also the skills that machines, no matter how smart, have had the greatest difficulty replicating.

Marina Gorbis of the Institute for the Future, an independent think-tank in Palo Alto, California, believes that, while machines will replace people in any number of tasks, “they will amplify us, enabling us to do things we never dreamed of doing before.” If that new “human-machine partnership” gives people the dignity of work, as well as some means for financial reward, all the better. But for sure, the world is going to be a different place.

Melissia wrote:

porkchop806 wrote:At first I was kind interested in what this was about. Till at least for the US, the American Nazi party and the American communist party fully endorsed the movement kinda turned me off

Why should it matter what douchey nonsensical fringe groups think about the movement?

Certainly it didn't matter what douchey nonsensical fringe groups (And they were legion) liked-- and still like-- the Tea Party movement.

biccat wrote:Well, your first sentence is simply incorrect. The United States has operated under 20% of GDP (see table 1 about halfway down the page, particularly 2000 and 2001), and somehow remains a developed country.

Second, I note that you've excluded health and welfare spending from your list of 'essentials.' I think we could agree that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are not 'essential' government programs.

Looking at the above link, we see that defense, non-defense discretionary, and the all-important 'other' category only make up 8.5% of GDP.

But again, you're addressing an argument that I didn't make.

No, you're missing the point. I'm saying that government shouldn't be making such decisions in the first place.

If you reduce the incentive to do X then you reduce the propensity of people to do X.

The rest of your post is full of conjecture, but if you really want to engage in pedantry I'll be happy to respond to the rest of it.

biccat wrote:I have already provided examples in this thread, for example aircraft regulation, which results in Sebster thinking I want people on airplanes to die.

Arguing against regulation doesn't work with people who believe in the infallability of government regulation.

biccat wrote:Even if you pass a constitutional amendment banning spending money in politics, there will be a lot of money spent to repeal the amendment. If you pass a law prohibiting corporations from influencing elections, then you'll get individuals to lobby to repeal that law.

Or they're ideologically driven to regulate some issue.

Phanatik wrote:Whereas you are the definition of objective thought?

Your statements reek of a bloated opinion of your own self-righteous beliefs and the delusion that only you and the people you parrot are right. Anyone else is "ugly?"

I have to substantiate that someone else is of a certain value? Is that your point? That's all you got?

Phanatik wrote:The fundamental problem is that some people think that it's possible to legislate/regulate equality of outcomes in a randomized world.

Phanatik wrote:If they do support someone, it's for a reason.

Anyone capable of putting their trousers on for themselves should be able to figure out what those reasons are.

Posted on Nov 2, 2011

(photo: Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen, 24, lies bleeding in Oakland, Calif., after being struck by a projectile apparently fired by police.)


By Amy Goodman

11-11-11 is not a variant of Herman Cain’s much-touted 9-9-9 tax plan, but rather the date of this year’s Veterans Day. This is especially relevant, as the U.S. has now entered its second decade of war in Afghanistan, the longest war in the nation’s history. U.S. veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are appearing more and more on the front lines—the front lines of the Occupy Wall Street protests, that is.

Video from the Occupy Oakland march on Tuesday, Oct. 25, looks and sounds like a war zone. The sound of gunfire is nearly constant in the video. Tear-gas projectiles were being fired into the crowd when the cry of “Medic!” rang out. Civilians raced toward a fallen protester lying on his back on the pavement, mere steps from a throng of black-clad police in full riot gear, pointing guns as the civilians attempted to administer first aid.

The fallen protester was Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old former U.S. Marine who had served two tours of duty in Iraq. The publicly available video shows Olsen standing calmly alongside a Navy veteran holding an upraised Veterans for Peace flag. Olsen was wearing a desert camouflage jacket and sun hat, and his Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) T-shirt. He was hit in the head by a police projectile, most likely a tear-gas canister, suffering a fractured skull. As the small group of people gathered around him to help, a police officer lobbed a flashbang grenade directly into the huddle, and it exploded.

Four or five people lifted Olsen and raced with him away from the police line. At the hospital, he was put into an induced coma to relieve brain swelling. He is now conscious but unable to speak. He communicates using a notepad.

I interviewed one of Olsen’s friends, Aaron Hinde, also an Iraq War veteran. He was at Occupy San Francisco when he started getting a series of frenzied tweets about a vet down in Oakland. Hinde raced to the hospital to see his friend. He later told me a little about him: “Scott came to San Francisco about three months ago from Wisconsin, where he actually participated in the holding of the State Capitol over there. Scott’s probably one of the warmest, kindest guys I know. He’s just one of those people who always has a smile on his face and never has anything negative to say. ... And he believed in the Occupy movement, because it’s very obvious what’s happening in this country, especially to us veterans. We’ve had our eyes opened by serving and going to war overseas. So, there’s a small contingency of us out here, and we’re all very motivated and dedicated.”

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As I was covering one of the Occupy Wall Street rallies in Times Square on Oct. 15, I saw Sgt. Shamar Thomas become deeply upset. Police on horseback had moved in on protesters, only to be stopped by a horse that went down on its knees. Other officers had picked up metal barricades, squeezing the frightened crowd against steam pipes. Sgt. Thomas was wearing his desert camouflage, his chest covered with medals from his combat tour in Iraq. He shouted at the police, denouncing their violent treatment of the protesters. Thomas later wrote of the incident: “There is an obvious problem in the country and PEACEFUL PEOPLE should be allowed to PROTEST without Brutality. I was involved in a RIOT in Rutbah, Iraq 2004 and we did NOT treat the Iraqi citizens like they are treating the unarmed civilians in our OWN Country.”

A group calling itself Veterans of the 99 Percent has formed and, with the New York City Chapter of IVAW, set Wednesday as the day to march to Liberty Plaza to formally join and support the movement. Their announcement read: “ ‘Veterans of the 99 Percent’ hope to draw attention to the ways veterans have been impacted by the economic and social issues raised by Occupy Wall Street. They hope to help make veterans’ and service members’ participation in this movement more visible and deliberate.”

When I stopped by Occupy Louisville in Kentucky last weekend, the first two people I met there were veterans. One of them, Gary James Johnson, told me: “I served in Iraq for about a year and a half. I joined the military because I thought it was my obligation to help protect this country. ... And right here, right now, this is another way I can help.”

Pundits predict the cold weather will crush the Occupy movement. Ask any veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq about surviving outdoors in extreme weather. And consider the sign at Liberty Plaza, held by yet another veteran: “2nd time I’ve fought for my country. 1st time I’ve known my enemy.”


Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America. She is the author of “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.

© 2011 Amy Goodman

Personnel, including reserve forces, are prohibited from wearing military uniforms at political campaign or election events. Attendance at rallies, meetings and conventions as a spectator and not in uniform is allowed.

When acting in their official capacity, service members may not engage in activities that associate the Navy with any partisan political campaign or election, candidate, cause, or issue.

Military members should not answer politically-charged questions from media except to say "To answer the question would violate DoD's policy to avoid associating the service with a particular political cause."

halonachos wrote:If I see a guy in uniform protesting then he's not following the DoD's official guide to how their personnel should represent themselves and the Service as a whole, if they can't follow that simple rule then they shouldn't be in the Service.

Protest, but uniform is sacred
STARS AND STRIPES
Letters to the Editor, November 4, 2011
This is not in regard to any particular story but just in general. Ever since the Occupy Wall Street protests started, I’ve read a lot of stories and seen photos of individuals who are reported to be veterans attending these protests in the uniform of their former service. The most irritating thing to me is these people who say they are veterans show up wearing their uniforms grossly out of regulation. The photograph on Stars and Stripes’ Nov. 4 front page for its Mideast and Europe editions shows a former sailor in his uniform — wearing earrings. To me, I feel that is completely disrespectful to the uniform.

I’m not sure about the uniform regulations of other services but the Army clearly outlines when retired servicemembers, separated servicemembers, and even civilians can wear Army uniforms. This is under Chapter 30 of AR 670-1. Paragraph 1-10 in AR 670-1 also clearly outlines when wear of the Army uniform is “required or prohibited.”

There is no question about when, where and how anyone is allowed to wear the Army uniform — and it is likely the same for other services.

However, for Army veterans who were honorably discharged, they can only wear the Army uniform to ceremonial occasions, parades on national or state holidays, or other patriotic parades in which any U.S. military unit is part of. “Wear of the Army uniform at any other time, for any reason other than the purpose stated above, is prohibited.”

Bottom line, if you are a veteran taking part in any protests, that is your constitutional right; however, if you want to wear your uniform I suggest you take a gander at your service’s uniform regulation. Just because you are no longer in does not mean you can discredit your former service or uniform.

Staff Sgt. Kelly Calder
Fort Meade, Md.

sebster wrote:Because they're all part of the evil football team, embracing evil in all it's forms, and entirely opposed to the good football team, that you happen to cheer for?

sebster wrote:The world isn't random. No-one is arguing for equality of outcomes.

Phanatik wrote:And yes, the liberal/progressive agenda is all about equality of outcomes.

biccat wrote:Well, since the MODs apparently don't care about the personal insults and attacks going on in this thread, I'm going to bow out.

But I did find this comment particularly hilarious:

sebster wrote:Because they're all part of the evil football team, embracing evil in all it's forms, and entirely opposed to the good football team, that you happen to cheer for?

It's amazing that you can recognize this in others but apparently not in yourself.

Phanatik wrote:

sebster wrote:The world isn't random. No-one is arguing for equality of outcomes.

By random I meant chaotic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory#Distinguishing_random_from_chaotic_data

And yes, the liberal/progressive agenda is all about equality of outcomes. You apparently don't know what you support.

halonachos wrote:
Secondly it appears he may be alright for wearing the uniform because many reports are saying that he was dishonorably discharged for cocaine/crack use. Whether its true or not I don't know but it seems to be the consensus.

halonachos wrote:
Thirdly they disobeyed an order from law enforcement to clear the area. They disobeyed it and law enforcement reacted as they should. Just because you are in the military does not mean you are above the law, especially if you were kicked out with a dishonorable discharge.

sebster wrote: It would only sense if you honestly believed that all those people were part of a great hive mind, all endlessly seeking the same set of goals.

dogma wrote:Tragically, this seems to be about par for the course for the people on this board who have chosen their sides.

If you note he said that his parents made the money

halonachos wrote:
And last but not least some people need to stop complaining and realize how relatively good they have it.

Melissia wrote:And what's wrong with objecting to the many rights (often without the legal responsibilities) of corporations?

Our founding fathers objected to them to be sure, isn't that something that both left and right wingers care about?

halonachos wrote:If you note he said that his parents made the money, yet he's so pompous and set in that he decided that he wants his parents to pay more because he's never had to work for a living nor made it in the world on his own. These people sicken me because they want to give away money they did not make and I hope their parents make them part of the "99%" by removing all of their support.

And last but not least some people need to stop complaining and realize how relatively good they have it.

halonachos wrote:
These people sicken me because they want to give away money they did not make and I hope their parents make them part of the "99%" by removing all of their support.

halonachos wrote:And last but not least some people need to stop complaining and realize how relatively good they have it.

dogma wrote:

Regardless, every report I've seen has called him a veteran, which means he can basically do whatever he wants with is uniform.

sebster wrote:Not really, because people generally fail to understand what is meant by corporations being considered people. Outside of very particular (and admittedly very ridiculous) situations like campaign funding, the concept of corporations as people is basically a legal convenience.

Melissia wrote:

sebster wrote:Not really, because people generally fail to understand what is meant by corporations being considered people. Outside of very particular (and admittedly very ridiculous) situations like campaign funding, the concept of corporations as people is basically a legal convenience.

I was being sarcastic anyway.

But I really do support removing the rights of corporations to donate to political campaigns... too bad it'll never happen.

dogma wrote:

halonachos wrote:
And last but not least some people need to stop complaining and realize how relatively good they have it.

Is that an inclusive statement?

halonachos wrote:
And last but not least some people need to stop complaining and realize how relatively good they have it.

I normally ignore your remarks, but yes it is inclusive. I have it fething fantastic right now and I am utterly and completely happy.

No this is not me.

halonachos wrote:So you have friends who chose degrees that have low starting incomes. I chose a degree that will allow me to start at $50,000 a year. That's not my fault they chose something that is not as marketable as mine.

I chose a job that will most likely never be outsourced because it requires hands on work that can't be done over the phone or over the net.

Also, did you even look at the guy's full spiel? It says that he joined the military not once, but twice. If you want a job with benefits and your degree isn't working out then try for the military. Is it hard work, yes, is it worth it, you bet.

I have seen plenty of military photos of guys holding papers that say they are the 1% of the 99% who are getting off of their asses to do something for themselves.

As far as jobs being outsourced, I will agree that the idea ticks me off and I think that corporations should be punished for doing so. But choosing jobs that can't be easily outsourced is also an option. For example, it would be awfully difficult for an Indian in India to drive an 18-wheeler across the country.

halonachos wrote:
"We are the 99%!"- sent via iPad(supports 1%ers who own and run Apple) on Facebook(supports even more 1%ers).

halonachos wrote:We have people who work in shoe factories because they wanted a job. We have job openings for picking berries that people don't take because they think they are too good for that job. No job should ever be deemed too degrading to someone who doesn't hav one, barring things that are currently illegal.

If we have a nation of soliders then we could reap benefits as the world's largest PMC, think about it. We fight overseas for other countries anyways, might as well prosper as a nation for doing so.

Also military service offers a lot of benefits but is high risk. First and foremost is medical care, second is housing, and third is food. Its a job were you can possibly learn a trade and should you make it out alive you can use the GI Bill to pay for your college tuition.

Most companies favor veterans for two reasons, good PR and it shows a level of dedication that most employers are looking for.

If you don't believe that there is an american operated shoe factory and company then I'll tell you that its New Balance and they are awesomely american. They're so American they make shoes with the emblems of various military branches on them and give them to the military as discounted or even free shoes.

Da Boss wrote:
Meanwhile my state pays millions in bond yields to the corrupt financial institution that brought down the irish economy almost on it's own, forced into it by the ECB to prevent contagion spreading to the irresponsible investors in France, Germany and the UK.

Da Boss wrote:Under regulate them and you get the great recession.

Da Boss wrote:All countries with weak regulation. You can add Ireland to that list too.

Da Boss wrote:That's a point, but the banks weren't exactly doing us a whole lot of good as is.

Basically, the banks are amoral and not to be trusted. If they leave, feth 'em. I don't need an amoral entity with that kind of power in my state.

I'm pretty resigned though. I doubt OWS will change a damn thing, though I do salute the effort. I'm just gonna try and make it through.

Da Boss wrote:Unsustainable, irresponsible loans that have left the country in the worst recession it has experienced.

Frazzled wrote:

Da Boss wrote:All countries with weak regulation. You can add Ireland to that list too.

And when you drive the banks out - killing those jobs permanently, how is that going to help unemployment again?

Da Boss wrote: Man, you think the UK has gak all industry?
Ireland is way worse. We've basically got inefficient agriculture and...ummm, american multinationals. Little to no homegrown industry. If you guys ever pull out we'll be back to a nearly pre-industrial economy.

Frag wrote:I feel that I should move to texas. From what frazzled has mentioned thus far, I think my manlyness would fit in rather well.

daedalus wrote:I kind of wonder if we all shouldn't move to Texas. Seems like quite the paradise.

Frazzled wrote:

Frag wrote:I feel that I should move to texas. From what frazzled has mentioned thus far, I think my manlyness would fit in rather well.

You're welcome if you make it through the Survivor Texas entrance exam. Only Aussies get auto entrance as they pretty live on a death world.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

daedalus wrote:I kind of wonder if we all shouldn't move to Texas. Seems like quite the paradise.

All the wild fires a man could hope for.

Melissia wrote:I was being sarcastic anyway.

But I really do support removing the rights of corporations to donate to political campaigns... too bad it'll never happen.

halonachos wrote:

halonachos wrote:I have seen plenty of military photos of guys holding papers that say they are the 1% of the 99% who are getting off of their asses to do something for themselves.

Frazzled wrote:And when you drive the banks out - killing those jobs permanently, how is that going to help unemployment again?

halonachos wrote:
I normally ignore your remarks, but yes it is inclusive. I have it fething fantastic right now and I am utterly and completely happy.

halonachos wrote:

dogma wrote:

halonachos wrote:
I normally ignore your remarks, but yes it is inclusive. I have it fething fantastic right now and I am utterly and completely happy.

And yet you continue to complain on the internet.

Its almost as if complaining about things, and happiness were not mutually exclusive.

College, business
Technical or vocational courses
Correspondence courses
Apprenticeship/job training
Flight training(usually capped at 60%)

halonachos wrote:
I have complained once about one thing on this forum yet you insist that it was multiple things over multiple times.

halonachos wrote:
Dogma you are a truly sad and resentful person who gets mad at the very people who ask you for help with history lessons. Yes I do recall you stating that you get mad when people you are tutoring are unable to grasp a concept because they are too stupid to comprehend it. Yet you are not the one at blame for not being able to actually teach and then there's the fact that these are people who are seeking help to improve themselves, that's a rather disgusting character trait in my own opinion.

halonachos wrote:
See, I tutor organic chemistry and instead of getting mad at a student for not getting the concept I change my method of explanation to fit them because that's what a good tutor does. Oh, and best of all I tutor for free. The school doesn't pay me nor do the students I tutor pay me because I do it for the benefit. They aren't asking for handouts, they're asking for the explanations that will allow them to better themselves in the future.

halonachos wrote:
I don't believe in handouts or doing work for a person, I believe in giving them the tools to do better and seeing them get a higher grade than they would have if I didn't help them is pretty gratifying in its own right.

halonachos wrote:
Now as far as the GI Bill goes, there are a few things it actually covers.

College, business
Technical or vocational courses
Correspondence courses
Apprenticeship/job training
Flight training(usually capped at 60%)

If the guy went to medical school then it isn't covered under the GI Bill. It also only covers 36 months of education for what it does cover.

halonachos wrote:
Also the guy now makes $100,000 a year, how many jobs in the military do you know of that pay $100,000 a year especially if you are enlisted. Now as far as the GI Bill goes, there are a few things it actually covers.

Criticize: Indicate the faults of (someone or something) in a disapproving way: "they criticized the failure of Western nations".

halonachos wrote:I don't see how I am complaining. I'm stating the facts and that is just about it, now if I said that somehow these people are ruining things for then I would be complaining. But for now I am just calling them idiots because that's how I perceive them.

halonachos wrote:
They are idiots who need to stop supporting what they don't believe in. Its hard to go make your own paper and tools, but it has been done before and if I saw someone with some scratch built protest signs then I would know that they're 100% serious about this thing. Until then they are a bunch of whiny toddlers.

halonachos wrote:
Look I'm not complaining about them, I'm criticizing their values! Oh and by the way, criticizing and complaining are not synonyms.

Criticize: Indicate the faults of (someone or something) in a disapproving way: "they criticized the failure of Western nations".

The movement has plenty of faults and I am pointing them out, that's criticism as opposed to complaining.

halonachos wrote:
No Dogma, I don't give them handouts by giving them the tools to do work.

dogma wrote:

halonachos wrote:
No Dogma, I don't give them handouts by giving them the tools to do work.

Yes, you do. A handout is something given without compensation, it doesn't matter if what is given happens to be particularly useful. If you aren't compensated for giving a person something, even your time, then you are giving that person a handout.

daedalus wrote:
Actually, and for the record, I agree with you in as so far as what the definition of a handout is above, but how far do you carry it? Is it a handout if you do ANYTHING for anyone without compensation? If my neighbor assaults his girlfriend, I hear it happening and she comes over because she's scared, and I call the cops, am I giving her a handout?

I don't want to think so, but at the same time, I'm offering a service at a cost to myself without compensation.

Note that the answer would not how I would react in such an occasion.

halonachos wrote:First of all Dogma I am not speaking with dissatisfaction, I'm speaking with disapproval.

halonachos wrote:
I am not saying that they are not fulfilling the goals they should be fulfilling I am saying that their goals are foolish. On one hand we have a showing of dissatisfaction with the movement, which would be complaining, compared to what I have been doing, which is disapproving of the movement. Disapproving is criticism, dissatisfaction is complaint.

halonachos wrote:
Hey Dogma, I believe that I said my compensation was knowing that I helped someone out and seeing them succeed because of my help. So by your definition its not a handout because I am being compensated.

dogma wrote:
I would say yes, as handouts are basically just a form of aid.

To be clear, the point I'm making is that if a thing is a handout it isn't necessarily bad, and that we give many handouts all the time without even thinking about it. Yet, when money or the state become involved, handouts suddenly become horrible, horrible things.

(CBS/AP) — A group of Oakland anti-Wall Street protesters who blame large banks for the economic downturn have decided that one of those institutions is the best place to stash their money for now.

Protesters at an Occupy Oakland meeting Monday voted to deposit a $20,000 donation into a Wells Fargo account. The move comes just days after one of Wells Fargo’s branches was vandalized during a massive downtown demonstration.

An Occupy statement said the money only will be with Wells Fargo temporarily while they work to establish an account with a credit union or community bank. Protesters said it was the easiest way to access the money to bail out people from jail.

biccat wrote:To avoid making a new thread, I'll leave this here.

Occupy Oakland Protesters Deposit Funds At Wells Fargo After Bank Attacks

(CBS/AP) — A group of Oakland anti-Wall Street protesters who blame large banks for the economic downturn have decided that one of those institutions is the best place to stash their money for now.

Protesters at an Occupy Oakland meeting Monday voted to deposit a $20,000 donation into a Wells Fargo account. The move comes just days after one of Wells Fargo’s branches was vandalized during a massive downtown demonstration.

An Occupy statement said the money only will be with Wells Fargo temporarily while they work to establish an account with a credit union or community bank. Protesters said it was the easiest way to access the money to bail out people from jail.

You really can't make this gak up.

daedalus wrote:
Well, I can't argue with that then. Perhaps some of the, hypocrisy, I guess you could say, is that my example is more of a 'community goodwill' type thing, so it is okay, while the 'bad' kind is an institutionalized thing?

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:That's right, BrassScorpion, we want sick children to die and granny to not get her pills so we can acquire more money for our money statues paying homage to money. Get with the program.

BrassScorpion wrote:
TEA Rx: If conservatives can call it Obamacare, every time a family is forced to file for bankruptcy due to a medical misfortune, or a sick child is dropped by his insurance company, or a patient dies because she can’t afford surgery, we get to call it: “Tea Bagger Care.” -- Bill Maher, New New Rules

halonachos wrote:
"Bill Maher is an idiot who delusionally believes that his dull wit makes for good social commentary ."-halonachos

Not saying anything about the chart, but he's an idiot. I remember reading one of his "New Rules" books and in fact I recall him saying that women shouldn't be allowed to breastfeed in public, especially in a restaurant.

Melissia wrote:Honestly, people attack the Occupy Whatever movement saying "get a job!", which is loaded with so many bad asinine assumptions that it makes my face hurt.

You know what? Back when I worked as a groundskeeper at a college, I would have agreed with the Occupy Whatever movement's desire for change. It sucked, it was hard work during the day during a heat wave for less than 13k a year. Back when I worked at Wal-Mart, I would have agreed with the Occupy Whatever movement's desire for change. It sucked, it was hard work doing whatever the hell my manager needed done for less than 8k a year (because of limited hours). Back when I worked at a newspaper place packing papers, I would have agreed with the Occupy Whatever movement's desire for change. It was backbreaking work stacking papers, cleaning, and generally getting in and around the machinery, for less than 12k a year. When I was unemployed and actively trying to find a job despite having a two-year degree and a few certifications for semi-skilled labor (such as pharmacy technician), and couldn't find a job despite putting out almost a thousand applications over the course of a SINGLE YEAR, I would have agreed with the Occupy Whatever movement's desire for change. Right now, as a student who's only able to afford college because of government assistance because the job market is dried up, I still agree with the Occupy Whatever movement's desire for change.

Why the FETH would having a job make these people change their minds? That kind of assumption is brain-splatteringly stupid with no rhyme, reason, or logic to it. Can we, as a forum, stop this nonsense and finally move on to a more logical objection to the movement, PLEASE?

starhawks wrote:I'm not going to read through pages and pages of what I assume to be an endless tide of repetetive, left winged comments...I will say the protestors have lost any credibility in my mind when they used a bank that they were not only protesting against, but actually vandalized and when they blocked the street preventing an ambulance from getting through potentially endangering lives...actually nevermind, they lost credibility when they decided to whine and moan about something and blaming other people instead of going out and changing their circumstances for themselves

Melissia wrote:Once again, the conservative "argument" is to ignore any argument points that the other side brings up to attack a strawman instead.

starhawks wrote:I'm not going to read through pages and pages of what I assume to be an endless tide of repetetive, left winged comments...I will say the protestors have lost any credibility in my mind when they used a bank that they were not only protesting against, but actually vandalized and when they blocked the street preventing an ambulance from getting through potentially endangering lives...actually nevermind, they lost credibility when they decided to whine and moan about something and blaming other people instead of going out and changing their circumstances for themselves

WarOne wrote:The system is broken. Roll back regulations to a time when enterprise and free trade were minimally hindered.

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:The system is broken. Roll back regulations to a time when enterprise and free trade were minimally hindered.

My counter-argument would be that the deregulation or overly lax regulation was the very reason that we're in our current economic slump.

Melissia wrote:The problem is, this position also usually results in people insulting or insinuating an insult on my intelligence. Go figure... or hell, it's often simply ignored. Because apparently only a crazy person would believe that regulation is a good thing.

WarOne wrote:The response would be that the market needs the least restrictions in order to properly function. That is supply-side economics.

WarOne wrote:What constitutes a minimally regulated market before it becomes laissez-faire economics, free of any intervention?

WarOne wrote:Do we establish that we need laws that make the market equal for everyone and makes sure that those in power don't cheat? Can we do things like break monopolies and trusts when they become too big?

WarOne wrote:Such as it is, deregulation could mean streamlining the laws to make it simple and easy to understand and implement, removing loop holes and hurdles that would prevent smaller companies and individuals to compete.

Melissia wrote:Supply side economics isn't working-- supply is fine, what we have a problem with is aggregate demand; no, I advocate government policies which will enhance demand instead. Rather than trickle-down, a sort of trickle-up economics-- like watering the roots of a plant so that the rest of the plant also gets the moisture it needs.

Government should not be tied to supply-side and only supply-side economics, especially when it's not even working.

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:Such as it is, deregulation could mean streamlining the laws to make it simple and easy to understand and implement, removing loop holes and hurdles that would prevent smaller companies and individuals to compete.

But more likely than not it involves removing hurdles that keeps big business in line as has been the case in the past. "Streamlining" for the sake of "streamlining" isn't a good thing. Reforms to regulation need to have the goal of making the regulation actually work, not removing it for the sake of removing it. That just screws over the consumers.

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:Do we establish that we need laws that make the market equal for everyone and makes sure that those in power don't cheat? Can we do things like break monopolies and trusts when they become too big?

How can it be a true capitalist society without these? Competition is the main thing that separates capitalism from communism and mercantilism... without an educated populace-- and this results from a company being honest about its products-- item values become distorted and thus their true market value is not represented in their prices. And without equality, again, the prices of various products become distorted and aren't representing their real value, including labor.

Aren't those essentially the same things that those oppose to any government assistance at all claim government does to an economy?

WarOne wrote:green energy subsidies that failed domestically

WarOne wrote:Raising taxes would be considered bad by supply side economics as it would force the private sector to be conservative with their spending and rely upon the government to provide the boost to the economy (which if it is already cutting spending, then there will be a slower recovery).

WarOne wrote:And as a realist, the government would need to step in at some point in order to do something if the market could not do it itself.

WarOne wrote:The idea is not to remove the government from the market entirely.

Radiation wrote:The republican party is no longer conservative. They want to change everything radically. Look at the lunacy their presidential canidates are spouting. Dismantling multiple government agencies, creating new tax systems, resetting foreign aid to zero, electric fences, etc. These are not conservative principles. How much do they want to cut on government spending? Not conservatively. It also sounds like they want to go to war with Pakistan. The party is no longer conservative. It has been hijacked by the super-rich. They are the Neo-Cons, the modern day robber barons. They have used the media and their political lapdogs to completely twist the meaning of the term conservative. The word no longer means what it is supposed to mean. It has become a new buzzword. Drill baby drill!

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:green energy subsidies that failed domestically

Oh please, that didn't even get close to causing this.

It was the lack of effective regulation in the financial market that caused this a few years ago, and the effects are still lingering. Deregulating would only cause it to happen again.

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:Raising taxes would be considered bad by supply side economics as it would force the private sector to be conservative with their spending and rely upon the government to provide the boost to the economy (which if it is already cutting spending, then there will be a slower recovery).

Funny, tax cuts haven't actually worked for the last ten years, so why would they work now?

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:And as a realist, the government would need to step in at some point in order to do something if the market could not do it itself.

Yes, like right now.

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:The idea is not to remove the government from the market entirely.

That's not what conservatives on this very forum have argued....

WarOne wrote:I stated the market reacted poorly. The market does not like it when things rock the boat, such as the government investing in bad financial decisions with tax payer money.

WarOne wrote:But with poor financial decision after another in a global market, each bad decision forces the players in the market to act conservatively with their money.

WarOne wrote:And so far the governments of the world have had poor luck in recovering and also in preventing another recession.

WarOne wrote:Not all conservatives ascribe to a purely libertarian form of free market enterprise.

WarOne wrote:Such as it is, define for me what a free market means to you, as we may be having differing opinions on what a free market is.

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:I stated the market reacted poorly. The market does not like it when things rock the boat, such as the government investing in bad financial decisions with tax payer money.

On the contrary, "the market" loves things that rock the boat, it latches on to them and creates bubbles, which then alter burst.

Don't act like "the market" is somehow an intelligent beast.

It's a dumb animal.

It makes dumb decisions.

All the freaking time.

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:But with poor financial decision after another in a global market, each bad decision forces the players in the market to act conservatively with their money.

Yeah, the financial market has fethed up pretty bad, and it needs reform and more effective regulation.

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:And so far the governments of the world have had poor luck in recovering and also in preventing another recession.

In the US, the "conservatives" are the very reason we have had this "poor luck", a misnomer if I've ever heard one...

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:Not all conservatives ascribe to a purely libertarian form of free market enterprise.

Right, mostly just the ones who are running for office in the Republican party right now-- IE the ones which have power.

Melissia wrote:

WarOne wrote:Such as it is, define for me what a free market means to you, as we may be having differing opinions on what a free market is.

I've already defined it for you once in this thread...

starhawks wrote:I'm not going to read through pages and pages of what I assume to be an endless tide of repetetive, left winged comments...

WarOne wrote:Roll back regulations to a time when enterprise and free trade were minimally hindered.

Lower taxes such that job creators can do what their title states, and remove entitlement laws hijacked by lazy people so that those people are forced to go back to work.

WarOne wrote:The response would be that the market needs the least restrictions in order to properly function. That is supply-side economics.

The central crux of the argument is to find the appropriate rate wherein governmental tax rates are as low as they can go, allowing the people to produce the most while maximizing the profits of the tax revenues taken in, assuming of course that the maximum tax revenue the people produce for the government falls within an acceptably low tax rate.

Do we establish that we need laws that make the market equal for everyone and makes sure that those in power don't cheat?

Can we do things like break monopolies and trusts when they become too big?

Such as it is, deregulation could mean streamlining the laws to make it simple and easy to understand and implement, removing loop holes and hurdles that would prevent smaller companies and individuals to compete.

WarOne wrote:It doesn't need reform per se, but it needs to be consistent.

Greece didn't help

WarOne wrote:One crisis after another

WarOne wrote:While jobs have been saved by these acts, the money spent has dug a bigger hole for America's debt.

WarOne wrote:

Melissia wrote:Once again, the conservative "argument" is to ignore any argument points that the other side brings up to attack a strawman instead.

I would think that a good conservative argument would make a case not to change things, or at the very least slow down the process of change or bring about a more traditional approach.

Frazzled wrote:

WarOne wrote:

Melissia wrote:Once again, the conservative "argument" is to ignore any argument points that the other side brings up to attack a strawman instead.

I would think that a good conservative argument would make a case not to change things, or at the very least slow down the process of change or bring about a more traditional approach.

Oh snap!

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

WarOne wrote:

Melissia wrote:Once again, the conservative "argument" is to ignore any argument points that the other side brings up to attack a strawman instead.

I would think that a good conservative argument would make a case not to change things, or at the very least slow down the process of change or bring about a more traditional approach.

Oh snap!

It's a pity that he's basically saying you're not a good conservative, considering you haven't argued for this, Frazzled.

Course, I imagine you don't really care, hehe.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/business/turning-the-dialogue-from-wealth-to-values.html

Just saw this link from Economist, and it's an interesting view relevant to this discussion.

The Green Git wrote:I find it interesting and somewhat humorous that there is all this talk of "income inequality". The Occutards have made great points of denouncing the difference in incomes between the EVIL rich and themselves, and we heard cries for "income parity regardless of occupation" and a $20 minimum wage.

This is, of course, pure and utter nonsense. The reason for "income inequality" is "effort inequality".

Protection from fraud and theft should be the extent of the government's involvement in the marketplace.

The Green Git wrote:Taking goods from someone by force is usually called "Theft", but in this case is called "Redistribution of Wealth" and made to seem more beneficent, almost noble. Again, pure rubbish.

starhawks wrote:...actually nevermind, they lost credibility when they decided to whine and moan about something and blaming other people instead of going out and changing their circumstances for themselves

halonachos wrote:Clinton wanted the banks to give loans to underprivileged people, the result was the same people being kicked out when they got loans beyond what they could pay.

sebster wrote:

halonachos wrote:Clinton wanted the banks to give loans to underprivileged people, the result was the same people being kicked out when they got loans beyond what they could pay.

So never lend to poor people? Keep them trapped in the rent trap for their own good?

halonachos wrote:Rent trap or foreclosure, your choice.

halonachos wrote:
Rent trap or foreclosure, your choice.

sebster wrote:

halonachos wrote:Rent trap or foreclosure, your choice.

No room at all for responsible lending practices? Initiatives to provide more low cost housing? Replacing funding for rental assistance with mortage assistance?

halonachos wrote:Its called Section 8 housing and Richard Nixon created it. Unfortunately there are a lot of tenants who are less than savory and end up wrecking the place, my friend's dad had to replace three AC units because they were taking the copper out of them before leaving the houses. They left the houses because they trashed them, how do I know they trashed them? Because I helped fix them up before and after each tenant. You can't go after the tenants because its not worth it.

But yes we have had initiatives for low cost housing.

Space Crusader wrote:Why do people call the protesters lazy? Im sure they would love getting your job! There are not many jobs in the west now due to cuts and moving industry to cheaper countries where slave labour is used. Anyway as in village peoples "Go West" song change to to "Go north!".
God bless Canada!

sebster wrote:

halonachos wrote:Clinton wanted the banks to give loans to underprivileged people, the result was the same people being kicked out when they got loans beyond what they could pay.

So never lend to poor people? Keep them trapped in the rent trap for their own good?

sebster wrote:

halonachos wrote:Rent trap or foreclosure, your choice.

No room at all for responsible lending practices? Initiatives to provide more low cost housing? Replacing funding for rental assistance with mortage assistance?

Space Crusader wrote:Why do people call the protesters lazy? Im sure they would love getting your job! There are not many jobs in the west now due to cuts and moving industry to cheaper countries where slave labour is used. Anyway as in village peoples "Go West" song change to to "Go north!".
God bless Canada!

halonachos wrote:An external locus of control will never help one improve their own lives.The occupy crowd seems to be saying "We're poor because the 1% has all of the money.", which is cool because that's the same thing some dictators say to their people, "Our country is poor because America has all of the money.".

halonachos wrote:Clinton wanted the banks to give loans to underprivileged people, the result was the same people being kicked out when they got loans beyond what they could pay.

Easy E wrote:
So, this wasn't about one law durign the Clinton years, it was about a lot of stuff; but mostly bankster greed.

Frazzled wrote:Kill off the bankers?

Frazzled wrote:Kill off the bankers?

Frazzled wrote:

sebster wrote:

halonachos wrote:Clinton wanted the banks to give loans to underprivileged people, the result was the same people being kicked out when they got loans beyond what they could pay.

So never lend to poor people? Keep them trapped in the rent trap for their own good?

You shouldn't lend to anyone who doesn't meet loan criteria. Millions didn't.

On the flip side you have the absolute degredation of standards like you saw in California. People acquiring mansions on loans at 5x - 10x income. Thats not sane. Yet it happened, a lot. And thats the fault of the mortgage lenders permitting their standards to fall, on the mistaken belief the market would continue to grow, in other words, a perpetual bubble.
Same that happened in Japan.



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sebster wrote:

halonachos wrote:Rent trap or foreclosure, your choice.

No room at all for responsible lending practices? Initiatives to provide more low cost housing? Replacing funding for rental assistance with mortage assistance?

You're not getting it. Responsible lending practices would not have lent the money in the first place. That led to so called "redlining practices" (similar practices occurred in the insurance industry. Once the walls were breached with poor lending criteria for some, everybody got greedy. The borrowers borrowed for homes way above their ability to repay them, or multiple homes on the theory they could float it for two years and flip for a profit. The lenders got $ signs in their eyes. The mortgage brokers and real estate agents got $ signs in their eyes. The local tavxing districts got $ signs in their eyes. In this instance, greed was not good.

Meanwhile China decided to become the manufacturer for the world.


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Space Crusader wrote:Why do people call the protesters lazy? Im sure they would love getting your job! There are not many jobs in the west now due to cuts and moving industry to cheaper countries where slave labour is used. Anyway as in village peoples "Go West" song change to to "Go north!".
God bless Canada!

Because they are. Lower your standards and get a job. Thats what my parents did when Dad's industry imploded. Thats what I have done.
They aint, so they can suck it.

Easy E wrote:
It would probably also help to end the charade of Corporate Personhood as well.

dogma wrote:

Easy E wrote:
It would probably also help to end the charade of Corporate Personhood as well.

There isn't necessarily anything wrong with establishing corporations as legal persons. The issue comes in deciding what rights the state is going to extend to legal persons.

Easy E wrote:
It would probably also help to end the charade of Corporate Personhood as well. Corps don't vote, why should they be treated as persons?

Rented Tritium wrote:
But if me and my friend get together and form a company with those exact same dollars, suddenly it's not speech anymore? Sounds kind of silly, doesn't it?

dogma wrote:

Rented Tritium wrote:
But if me and my friend get together and form a company with those exact same dollars, suddenly it's not speech anymore? Sounds kind of silly, doesn't it?

That depends, is the company an independent entity with its own pool of assets?

Easy E wrote:No it doesn't sound silly. You form something other than a corportion and those entities exist, they are called PACs. Therefore, as a person, your ability to express you or your groups views are not restricted.

I am part of a corporation. However, that corporation does not speak for me or my political beliefs at all. However, it has no problem donating money to political groups that I do not want to be affiliated with in my name, since I am part of the corporation. Seems kind of silly doesn't it.

Rented Tritium wrote:
No such thing. A company either has investors, shareholders, a direct owner or it is a non-profit. Of those, only a non-profit doesn't directly represent the will of regular people...

Rented Tritium wrote:
...(and oh man are non-profits ever a can of worms here).

dogma wrote:

Rented Tritium wrote:
No such thing. A company either has investors, shareholders, a direct owner or it is a non-profit. Of those, only a non-profit doesn't directly represent the will of regular people...

The argument goes that publicly traded corporations function as de facto independent entities due to their relative isolation from shareholders.

Rented Tritium wrote:
...(and oh man are non-profits ever a can of worms here).

There are ever so many fantastic tricks to get around the political restrictions on 501(c)(3)s.

Rented Tritium wrote:No you are not. You are an employee. Being an employee does not make you part of a corporation. Being a SHAREHOLDER makes you a part of a corporation.

Easy E wrote:

Rented Tritium wrote:No you are not. You are an employee. Being an employee does not make you part of a corporation. Being a SHAREHOLDER makes you a part of a corporation.

Many employees are also shareholders due to retirement plan options. I am one of those employees. So, I am also a shareholder.

The issue of my companies political donations has come up in our shareholder meetings, guess what; nothing changed. Even shareholders don't get a say unless you own a large percentage of the company. Even if I take 100% of the shares I own out, it is onlly a very small drop in the bucket and will still not change the political focus of my company.

On the other hand, I work to make the Corp money as an employee and get no say in what the company does with it, unless I am a shareholder; where I get an unequal vote. At least my vote for the government carries the same weight as the vote of a billionaire.

Easy E wrote:So, I exercise my rights by excluding myself from the rights.

That's a real catch that catch-22.

Easy E wrote:I get it. What you aren't getting is how as part owner of the company I "exercise leverage" over what the company to stop doing something I disagree with when i am also an employee.

So, if I am a shareholder, I am part owner and 'do" have a say in how the company is run. Right?

If I am not happy with the way it is going, the best way to show my "leverage" is to sell those stocks so I am no longer a part "owner" of the company. Which is what you said I should do.

So, once I sell my ownership, how exactly does that help change the political donations that I don't agree with? Oh, it doesn't, and now the other owners don't have to hear me raise the issue.

Well, everyone wins! Except the company that I work for is still doing stuff I disagree with. So, I guess I don't win at all.

Well, I have a feeling of what you think I should do then. Quit! That will show them. Now I don't need to be associated with those acts I find objectionable.

of course, the company is still doing them, but not by the profits I am helping them make.

Then, the real world kicks in, and I have to find a job at some other place that is most likely doing the exact same thing.

People think I'm idealistic.

Pretty simple message. Corporations are not people. They are legal contracts. Contracts do not have free speech rights.

Rented Tritium wrote:
IMO, that argument doesn't work. The shareholders literally own every penny of the company. If they don't like what their company is doing, they are 100% free to take their dollars out.

dogma wrote:

Rented Tritium wrote:
IMO, that argument doesn't work. The shareholders literally own every penny of the company. If they don't like what their company is doing, they are 100% free to take their dollars out.

Provided that their willing to incur any possible loss, that's true. However, that isn't overly far from a definition of freedom that doesn't really allow for its absence.

Of course, that isn't necessarily a problem, as the idea that you can have your freedom taken away, in general, isn't particularly salient; ie. you're always free to do something.

Rented Tritium wrote:
Right, like. Freedom of speech is the freedom to use your will to express anything you want.

It's not the freedom to force company X to say or not say thing Y. Not being able to do that is not a loss of freedom.

Rented Tritium wrote:
But if you OWNED some of company X, company X benefits from your freedom of speech. Since the company is made up of the collective wills of people who HAVE freedom of speech, then the company has it. To restrict it is restricting the will of the owners who are in fact people who have a first amendment right to speak with their resources.

Frazzled wrote:If you are a shareholder you can bring opposition to a policy at the next shareholder meeting. If there is suffiicent opposition you can interrogate management, even force a vote on the issue.

You can't do that if you are not an owner.

Easy E wrote:
However, the point was, as an employee the company can do what ever they want with the company, and I have no say in the matter; even if it is directly against my own interests. Why should the "companies" speech be able to override my own? I'm pretty sure that a company has more resources as a whole than any one employee does.

Easy E wrote:Why shoudl someone who is part of a corporation have different speech rights?

I believe there are still limts on what an individual can contribute?

Frazzled wrote:You shouldn't lend to anyone who doesn't meet loan criteria. Millions didn't.

On the flip side you have the absolute degredation of standards like you saw in California. People acquiring mansions on loans at 5x - 10x income. Thats not sane. Yet it happened, a lot. And thats the fault of the mortgage lenders permitting their standards to fall, on the mistaken belief the market would continue to grow, in other words, a perpetual bubble.
Same that happened in Japan.

You're not getting it. Responsible lending practices would not have lent the money in the first place.

Meanwhile China decided to become the manufacturer for the world.

Because they are. Lower your standards and get a job. Thats what my parents did when Dad's industry imploded. Thats what I have done.
They aint, so they can suck it.

Rented Tritium wrote:Here's the thing about that. If I have some money and I'd like to buy an ad expressing my opinions, that's totally unrestricted and legal.

If I have a friend who is doing it as well, that is unrestricted and legal.

But if me and my friend get together and form a company with those exact same dollars, suddenly it's not speech anymore? Sounds kind of silly, doesn't it?

Campaign reform is RIFE with little things like that.

sebster wrote:And China has a very large asset bubble of its own.

Rented Tritium wrote:IMO, that argument doesn't work. The shareholders literally own every penny of the company. If they don't like what their company is doing, they are 100% free to take their dollars out.

Rented Tritium wrote:I don't think you understand how this works.

A company represents the combined will and resources of its owners.

Rented Tritium wrote:Correct. Working for a company means you do not have ANY rights to tell them what to say. It's just a job. You work for them.

Melissia wrote:No kidding... China is having a huge amount of economic issues right now, and only its government-owned companies are really consistently flourishing (because they have more connections than the privately owned ones).

You can remove equity limits while still lending an amount that's reasonable given the homeowner's income. It seriously isn't that difficult.

Monster Rain wrote:Adam Corolla's extremely NSFW breakdown of OWS.

If you're getting tired of the overbearing drumcirclers of the Occupy movement nothing brings you back around to their point of view quite like a steaming pile of one percenter consumerism. It serves as a reminder that, nope, not everyone is in this together. Some people are doing just fine. Finer, even. It's time for another "December to Remember Sales Event" from Lexus.

This month's festival of excess comes courtesy of the 2011 Lexus marketing campaign, running ad nauseum, which suggests the only way to create a "December to Remember" is to play the Lexus theme song and tie a bow around a 60,000 dollar hybrid SUV that you're giving to somebody for Christmas. I know you've seen these miserable things. They amount to either a terrible miscalculation about what Americans want shot out of their TVs at their faces or a sort of cocky, "deal with it" from Lexus about how gakky our lives are.

I understand that Lexus is a manufacturer of luxury automobiles and I don't begrudge them that. Certain people just need fancier cars to go to their fancy places fancier. If the commies had won the Cold War we'd all be waiting to get our chance for an unpainted Lada made out of tin with features like "front and one side window," "power headlight" and "full floor." At least this way a few hours of busking outside the train station and you can buy enough gasoline to drive your heated '89 Tercel to a different train station to busk, all so you can save up money to buy a Chinese hunk of crap and a couple video games about murdering robots for your ungrateful kids.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

Meanwhile, the catalog models floating in the soft-white sugar plum loft apartments and gated enclaves of the one percent are tying a ribbon around a car and rigging up music boxes and making the elevator play the instantly forgettable Lexus theme song that we all supposedly know by heart. Everyone is smiling and happy and sheathed in sweaters. Golden holiday lights glow out of focus in the background of every shot. Children gather around wondering what mom is going to think when she gets a brand new luxury car.

The music box plays the theme song and we know...YES...another luxury automobile is waiting in the driveway with a bow. Hooray.

feth you, Lexus. Nobody can afford your cars right now. We'll be lucky if we can afford a picture of a Lexus to email to somebody. Did you not notice that the whole world is sliding into a slow economic apocalypse? This is the spin you put on it? Play a music box and light up the faces of little tots with the candy cane dream of a car with heated leather seats and seatback LCDs. I'm glad the hedge fund managers and investment bankers living in your fantasy scenario are throwing around the kind of dough it takes to roll a Lexus off the lot, but isn't there some channel just for rich people you can run these commercials on?

Look at that ridiculous setup. It looks like Michael Cain's house in Children of Men. They're playing the Lexus song on Guitar Hero in a frigging Frank Lloyd Wright house. Do you think people who live like this are sitting around watching Cartoon Network at 2 AM? They're skiing in Aspen at their private lodge or shopping at some specialty all-wood toy store buying a 1/2 scale T-rex skeleton made out of oak for a kid who will be a record producer at age fifteen.

Here's an idea, Lexus: how about you sponsor Kudlow's daily Goldman Sachs ball tickler, slap a sticker on whatever pole Maria Bartoromo is grinding her stink on, and leave the other channels alone. That way the rest of us can wallow in the pacifying glow of singing competitions and vampire TV shows and we don't have to see your messed up alternate reality where people are happy and rich.

The one percenters can have their Lexus champagne parties in the VIP and the rest of us can pretend it's okay that we're underwater on our mortgages and drowning under student loan debt and we'll be fething lucky if our parents' pensions aren't "renegotiated" to zero and we end up with them living with us for the next twenty years and driving the same car we had in college that makes a sound like a cat having its anal glands flushed out with a cleat because blah blah blah American Dream.

It's not jealousy, it's that our misery is heightened by the ecstasy of the select few. It's a parade of excess in the midst of austerity. It's gross. You're gross, Lexus.

Oh, and Lexus, while you're at it, tap the diamond people on the shoulder and let them know that one of their commercials features an adult man sharing a romantic moment with a teenage boy. I think it's for Zales/Peoples Jewellers. I don't know who green-lit that one, but it's also gross. Take your Lexii and catamites and disappear back behind your mansion walls. It's not cool to throw garbage at us out here.

We have train stations to busk.

- Zack "Geist Editor" Parsons

Nobody can afford your cars right now.