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Pirate Party Gaining Strength In Germany
bs0d3 writes "For the third consecutive regional election, The German Pirate Party has breached the five-percent mark needed to enter the state parliament, winning 8.2 percent of the vote in state of Schleswig-Holstein. From the article: 'The big winners on the night were the Pirates, an upstart party that has shaken up the staid world of German politics with a campaign based on more transparency in the political process and internet freedom.'"
Too easy. Mod me down.
Yo ho!
Maybe they will be able to make a valuable contribution to the situation in the seas off the horn of Africa.
Aside from the obvious position of the party concerning copyright and p2p technologies, what exactly are the Pirate Party political positions.
Tomorrow is another day...
I'd mod you flamebait but instead....
All this shit that's happened is because a handful of uber rich fucks are in bed with a handful of uber powerful fucks. The pirate party is for exposing that and being more open. Why do we have dinosaur-lifespan copyright? Because Disney is in bed with the US congress. And every other country is in bed with US Congress, at least when it comes to copyright.
So let's shine a light on what's going on between the sheets.
While the assorted techie shenanigans of the previous thread are all good fun, this sort of (much more difficult, and much less entertaining) work is arguably a much better strategy to keep your intertubes open.
Dodging the man is fun and all, and certainly can beat the alternatives; but playing cat-and-mouse with state power can be a poor long term strategy. You have to get away with it every time. They only have to catch you once...
Global warming will be reduced a bit.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
They also host Wikileaks. They have a broader view of internet freedom than merely downloading in violation of copyright.
Germany FTW
I think the OP was talking about problems aside from copyright issues.
WOOSH!!!
That could be said about the people who are doing shit like taking down websites (like Megaupload) which allow people to download copyrighted material. They're addressing extremely insignificant issues, wasting taxpayer money, hurting innocents, and enabling censoring (hurting innocents).
so they can download shit for free
They already can. Some people just want it to be legal. But you should have no complaints, right? That's the most peaceful way to go about it.
And so was I. Look at the big winners in the housing market bubble. Who came out on top, and who lost? This was possibly the biggest transfer of wealth from the middle class to the uber wealthy in modern history. How many of the uber rich have lost everything? How many middle class people have?
No. You mention the "uber rich" than go on a rant about copyright. If your intent was outside the scope of copyright you did an exceptionally bad job in presenting your larger point.
I'm pretty sure that the parent's point is that the problems of transparency, regulatory capture, questionably-representative democracy, and such are also at play in the context of many issues aside from copyright. Given the involvement of those issues in such minor matters as the EU's ugly 'austerity vs. popular opinion' and 'web censorship and surveillance: awesome or mega awesome?' controversies, this isn't a hard point to argue for...
(Also, in the context of a parliamentary system, it is much more usual to have assorted issue-focused parties that don't need to have an opinion on all matters because their expected outcome is to end up as part of a coalition government with one or more other parties that bring other positions to the table. Given voter inertia, it is as illogical as it is unproductive to form a new party with too significant an overlap with an existing one, so you expect upstart parties to be mainly focused on some issue they feel to have been previously unaddressed or mis-handled, with the assumption that whatever coalition they end up in will take care of issues on which they don't differ significantly from the mainstream.)
maplight.org matches how politicians get paid by donors with how they vote and displays the correlations as nice graphics.
Cool ... Lessig thinks so too.
How to deal with this corruption?
Lawrence Lessig has a good idea about this:
search for his talk titled "How money corrupts Congress and a plan to stop it" on fora.tv and other sites.
With crony capitalism that has legalized theft by the 1% from the remaining 99%, is it not a surprise that the popularity is increasing for political parties promoting the legalization of theft for everyone else, to make it a level playing field.
Heck, even I am thinking of joining the pirate party, but I will might need to mug someone to pay my membership dues. (Just kidding!)
But we do have a serious problem on how crony capitalism has corrupted copyright and patent law. Especially when you consider DMCA, SOPA, digital locks, copyright extensions that has choked off public domain, etc.
The only real possibility to fix crony capitalism is with true democracy, which means mandatory public financing of political campaigns, banning of private political contributions and lobbying, banning of super-pacs and other groups, etc. So I won't hold my breath that enough mundane people will magically become sufficiently enlighten enough to support it. (Especially with the steady decline in education.)
Specific links:
Media lives on copyright and money infusions from its owners.
Corrupt politicians live on media support.
Extremely rich own the media.
Politicians extent copyright granting media unprecedented ability to control information through legal means. Media pays back by not reporting on major issues that are harmful to political system that births such politicians (aka voluntary self-sensorship such as lack of coverage of occupy protests in USA causing a historic collapse on the reporters without borders media freedom chart).
And with extremely rich controlling both politicians and media they can ensure that laws that transfer wealth from poor and middle class to them are written and enacted while media keeps telling you that it's fair to have such laws.
Is there an American Pirate Party and can anyone provide a link?
The people who caused the copyright issues caused many (most?) of the other issues. Fix the people supporting copyright, and you'll fix many of the other issues.
Learn to love Alaska
http://us.pirate.is/
No, he said a lot of problems are caused by rich and powerful corrupting the political process, and then gave an example using copyright law.
The Pirate Parties are the only parties that support unlimited non-commercial file sharing, which is the only sane position on the matter.
Personally, I think it's the most important IP issue we have, since, if we're shutting down websites for copyright infringement, we are shutting down websites. And thence, we cannot discuss anything freely.
expandfairuse.org
So... are they doing credit default swaps and derivatives yet, with copyrights as the underlying assets?
No?
I'll have to get in touch with JP Morgan...
Stealth RIAA bombers are flying over Berlin.
This.
The problem with trying to fix the system from the inside is, once you're inside, you have a vested interest in keeping the system as is. Yes, it's broken, but the only people who can fix it are getting reelected due specifically to those campaign contributions from those high powered lobbyists and super-pacs. It's a classic case of 'who will bell the cat?'
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Interesting though, about an 8% vote for the Pirate party in Germany, and about an 8% vote for the Nazi party in Greece..
Greek neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
Just stumbled upon a great document that addresses that very topic. It's on market economies and the rule of law. Worth the ~20 minutes to read.
Here's a particularly relevant excerpt:
The second economic function of the rule of law is for the state to enforce laws and contracts in an impartial way. This can be achieved only after the government distances itself from microeconomic decisions. Defining property rights, preserving fair competition, fighting monopoly and enforcing contracts are all essential to economic development because they are necessary for establishing credible commitments among economic agents. Without the enforcement of contracts, economic agents cannot become motivated because they will always worry about opportunistic behavior of the other parties to the transaction. But how can we establish an orderly market environment? The enforcement of contracts and preservation of competition should rest on the rule of law instead of the government's discretion. For example, the government should not be in a position to define arbitrarily what unfair competition is, or what business activities need to be regulated.
It is by no means an easy task for the government to act as a impartial arbitrator. For example, errors could occur during the enforcement of law, either unintentionally or intentionally such as when induced by vested interests. Therefore, under the rule of law, it is essential that individuals and business enterprises are empowered to challenge the government on laws, regulations and judgements and to sue the government if necessary. The Administrative Procedure Law and Administrative Redress Law that we have enacted is a promising start, but we still have a long way to go.
Another substantial barrier to the effective enforcement of law is the judicial corruption. Obviously, a corrupt judiciary, which gives rise to insecure property rights and ineffective contract enforcement, forces business enterprises to resort to the traditional way of making back-door deals instead of using legal methods when there is a dispute. This is one of the factors that suffocate economic activities. A better way to tackle the problem of judicial corruption is to create better institutions rather than relying on political campaigns.
In summary, the second economic function of the rule of law is fundamentally about how the government acts as an impartial "third-party" in economic transactions.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
You raise a good point, but it seems equally apparent that representative democracies pretty much universally fall prey to corruption. I don't know the details of how Germany's government works, but in a US context where our congressional branch is split into a Senate that represents each state equally and a House of Representatives that represents each state based on population, I've often thought that the latter might be profitably replaced with a direct democracy. Or perhaps a third "House of Commons" branch could be added with any two branches being able to override the third. Or maybe just give the Commons the ability to veto and repeal laws unilaterally to keep the career folks in line.
There's lots of different ways it could be implemented, and I think now that the technology has made it possible it would be good for governments to start exploring ways in which direct democracy could be integrated into the system. Probably not replacing the existing structure, as you point out you'll have trouble getting the populace interested in a lot of the menial details of governing, but it seems like some measure of direct voice would help to counteract the creeping spread of corruption and cronyism. Even if it's largely advisorial to start with - if politicians had a central source where they could get direct information as to the leanings of their constituents who care enough to take part, perhaps even draw upon them for suggestions - I imagine something like an "Ask Slashdot" about how a bill under consideration could be improved. And I do think veto power would be a good thing, even if the bar is set pretty high to start with - say you need 60-70% of participants to vote against it, with some minimum quorum of citizens participating. Basically a leash to keep the representatives in check on specific issues rather than being limited to replacing them entirely.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I am sorry to disappoint those who think that the German Pirate Party gets their votes from their main issues like copyright, opposition to surveillance laws, etc. The vast majority are people fed up with the political parties in Germany. They are (for now?) mostly a protest party.
The People's Party. Their platform could be focused on government transparency and accountability, some candidates might even incorporate certain aspects of direct democracy to guide their voting on issues not related to their platform.
Yeah, sounds rather similar to another party with the same initials but as you say it's all in the name.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Your post is another reason why the pirate party winning is a good thing. Hopefully it can help the government stop worrying so much about serving the rich through IP enforcement and start worrying about more important things, like serving its citizens.
Your critique of naive direct democracy - that leaders arise, but are informal and therefore not subject to safeguards - is an excellent one. But it's not enough.
Consider that the United States today suffers under exactly this scenario. Informal unelected elites have captured the levers of power to the point where the U.S. is not looking much like a democracy any more. This was accomplished despite the excellence of the design of the American system the strength of democratic principles among the American people - a citizenry still fairly engaged, and which was formerly also relatively well educated and informed.
Democracy is often present as the mechanism through which individuals, born citizens with their own preferences and interests, express and negotiate those preferences and interests, ideally with an eye to the common good. According to many advocates of direct democracy, this is wrong. We are not born citizens. It is not citizens who create democracy: rather it is the practice of democracy that creates citizens. We do not come to politics as individuals with already developed preferences and interests. It is by engaging with others in public discourse and debate that we learn to be citizens, to reason, to participate in public discourse, and through this process we discover and develop our preferences and interests. Democracy is thus a process of education. One of the great failings of representative democracy is that instead of treating us as active and evolving partners, it relegates us to the role of disengaged consumers who occasionally choose one option over another.
Yet realistically, even if we were to provide the perfect mechanism for people to participate, most of us, lacking interest and starved of time, wouldn't: with results like those you describe. One intriguing alternative draws on the jury system and the elections of ancient Athens. Decisions would be made not by professional politicians, but by randomly-selected groups of citizens with their range of private expertise. Such groups would be charged with investigating a particular issue for a period of time, after which they would disband.
I realize juries (chosen by counsel more for ignorance than independent thought) are typically reported as dysfunctional, and I don't doubt that this is so. Yet it only confirms that we do not know how to be citizens: and when it is demanded of us, we fail. Through failure, though, we can learn, and teach others. Forming a jury today, when virtually no one has substantial experience, amounts to throwing together a bunch of greenhorns and expecting them to spontaneously become experts.
For an idealized view of how a jury can teach its participants to be jurors, I suggest the film 12 Angry Men. I admit am not convinced of the wisdom of such a system. But if I was forced to choose, I would place my fate in the hands of a court rather than a politician. I would trust a random selection of my fellow citizens over a self-selected professional of politics. For with the crises we face today, our common fate is indeed the question.
People should have really listened to the lecturers in Economics 101.
It doesn't make sense to own your own home. Period. Why pretty much every government is advocating home ownership is beyond me (Granted, it used to be wealth that was relatively hard to tap into, thus forcing medium income peeps to save up, but nowadays even that's not true). There are only a few cases where home ownership makes sense; First, if it is a really truly unique home that simply is not available on the rental market (Not many of these around, and in any way when you can afford them, they won't make even close to 40% of your net worth), or second, if there is a price regulation scheme in place for this home, but most of the homes in the area are not in the said scheme, and the regulated price is less than 50% of market value of comparable homes
The housing bubble was, and still is, akin to convincing 85% of the population that it's a wise idea to take out a loan for $400k and invest it in a single non-liquid commodity, when your annual pre-tax, pre-expense income is less than $100k. Would anyone in the middle class march to the bank and take out a loan for $400k to buy shares of a single company?
My advice, if you want to stay in the real estate market, buy stake in a REIT or similar depending on your locality, and don't fall into the trap of thinking of home ownership as investing
Disclaimer: I'm a real estate investor, and I rent
What's there that's not in other parts of the country?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
I _knew_ the US Congress was a whore.
It doesn't make sense to own your own home. Period.
It (usually) doesn't make sense to own your own home as an investment. Otherwise, the above sentence is completely moronic, as most absolute blanket statements tend to be.
true democracy
Define it with something other than "true." Using that word in that manner is only objectively correct if you mean completely unfettered direct democracy, with no restrictions on vote topic, wherein a simple majority may command anything including servitude or death to the minority on a whim. Since you go on to talk about banning PACs, lobbying, etc, all of which would be completely allowable in a direct democracy, I'm going to assume that is not, in fact, what you actually meant. If that's not what you meant, then calling it "true" is using the word in the same way certain people use "true American" to denigrate those who do not agree with their positions.
Proportional representation allows new ideas a chance to grow and become a political force. Often the newcomer will not stay for long or grow big but the bigger parties have to incorporate the idea in their respective programs to stay competitive.
The American political system is showing its age. The people have the right to vote but are disgusted by the ruling duopoly and thus the majority stays home on election day.
Proportional representation is not the only option. Pretty much any alternative voting scheme is an enhancement to the existing one.
Fix the people supporting copyright, and you'll fix many of the other issues.
So what exactly broke? Exhaust issues are easy, carburetors are more expensive but gearboxes are a nightmare.
Saving money is one of todays big challenges for states.
Stop waisting money on "intellectual property" seems like an excellent plan to me.
Given the colleteral damage of limiting free speech, dangers of abuse and censorship, it is more than just wanting to download for free.
Another criticism is the one issue character of the pirate party. I fail to see what is wrong with that. In a democracy, if an issue is being ignored by established parties for a period of time, it is only right to start a party to change this and deal with the issue. Why should every party have a 100% "vision" for society, and not just be focussed to reach a particular goal which has the support of a majority of the population?
I did some experimental runs with a real estate administration software which was the main result of a project I worked with and I compared it with alternate investments or none at all for different income, taxation and interest levels.
There was a clear picture: A very narrow band of income actually profits from investing in a house, because they can then save on rent, and the savings on rent and the investment in real estate in sum trumped the possible income of paying rent and investing the surplus into mutual funds or other means of relatively safe investments. It was at the lower bound of income. If someone can barely pay for the rent, it doesn't pay to invest in real estate. If, after paying the rent, the income surplus is above a certain amount, it does pay to invest it into a mutual fund instead of paying off a debt for a house.
The higher interest on a loan together with the necessary maintenance for a house makes it unattractive in most cases to use a house bought on a loan as an investment. The case is different if you can buy the house with money you already have, then the savings on rent might offset the cost of maintenance for your property and thus yield some interest on the not payed rent.
Somebody on the internet did it, somebody actually finally did it. It's too common to mix up 'you're' and 'your'. You went and mixed up 'waist' and 'waste'. Well done Sir.
Jonathanjk.com
The only thing I don't understand is why it's me who gets ass-fucked in this story. And I don't even get a kiss. :(
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Well. someone has to own the house. If it doesn't pay to invest in a house to live in, why should it pay to invest in a house for someone else to rent?
The way I see it is that by owning my own house I'm cutting out the middle man, thus reducing the total cost.
In other words, the best way to get rid of the nazis is to have a Pirate Party :-)
What I find sad is that if you try explaining this concept to people, they think you are an idiot. Many times, friends have told me that they will be living a life of borderline affordability when they finally buy their new house. I suggest they carry on renting. Their usual line is "but if you rent you're throwing money away!". Oh really? And how is this different to your mortgage interest payments? "But at least you're on the ladder!". Right, so you are going to pay substantially more than you would to rent, just so you can be a "home owner". I know people who are paying 40% more per year in mortage interest compared to their previous rent, with flat house prices predicted for the next decade, and they are convinced they're doing the right thing, because society has convinced them that it is so. And then they complain that they have no money, despite having a combined income that is double the median for their area. If you're taking home double the median pay, and the numbers still don't add up, then you're doing something wrong.
It should be noted that the German Pirate Party has strayed a little from its root of copyright criticism. It's pretty much a left-wing liberal party now that has some ideas concerning copyright and privacy, but also advocates other concepts such as free education, a citizen's income, deregulation in certain areas, voting rights for foreign citizens, sustainable energy sources, and so on.
Even in traditionally tech-savvy Germany, a party that only focuses on copyright and patents can't get 8% in parliamentary elections. An important factor in the Pirate Party's success in Germany is that it's very easy for anyone to participate in the political discourse within the party, but after 6 years and with 30k members now, that was bound to produce something more than just "copyright law is broken".
"Say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos."
It's a funny quote from a movie, but it has some truth to it: I find their beliefs beyond despicable, but at least they have some, unlike the current governments who seem to believe in getting the most to their corporate friends. Is it any wonder that they are growing in popularity? (Not only in Greece, but also in France and elsewhere)
Dilbert RSS feed
Well. someone has to own the house.
Yes, but as they say here: You don't need to buy a cow if you want milk.
And I especially talked about buying a house on loan and then paying it off for the next quarter of a century. Imagine 25 years of interest on your investment money, even if it's only $100 per month you are saving!
It doesn't make sense to own your own home. Period.
It (usually) doesn't make sense to own your own home as an investment.
If so, it is a mightily awkward one. Especially if purchased using leverage. In the latter case, your landlord merely happens to be your banker. You're additionally saddled with an illiquid asset that might prevent you from moving then and there should an opportunity arise. And whatever inflation-adjusted net profit you might eventually make would demonstrably have been better invested in growing your business or in liquid assets.
Some of the consistently profitable businesses during the gold rush sold shovels and miscellaneous supplies. Home-builders and home-centric stores were no exception to this rule during the housing boom. Each were a much more liquid asset to get out of -- especially compared to a Miami condo -- when things went to hell.
Adding insult to injury, the key driver in house prices is not supply and demand. Location arguably counts, but that merely sets the long term mean. Rather, and the US or Spain impeccably demonstrated this in recent years, it is the rate of change in mortgage debt: ready loan availability stirs the price upwards, and decreased loan availability brings it back down. (Google Steve Keen for more on this, in case it doesn't strike you as obvious.)
Copyright issues is what made the pirates realize where _many_ problems, including copyright, originate: rich and powerful people (aka money) circumventing democracy.
The copyright issue crystalized that even though the majority of people opposes today's copyright, there is no way to change it, because political parties are so much in bed with IP stakeholders (which in the US for example, openly make threats "touch this protection law with a pole, motherfucker, and I wont finance your next campaign."), that they make laws _against_ the population, for the benefit of the influential stakeholders. It is a sick, dangerous symbiosis, which shouldnt be allowed to exist. They effectively shield off copyright policy from _ever_ being voted on, because they know what the result of a popular vote would be.
The pirates started out with copyright, then realized "oh fuck, this is just the tip of the iceberg" and are now mainly advocating total transparency, separation of money and state, and basic, direct democracy. If we the people have the means to vote on single issue, then we _should_ be able to directly vote on it, and not be forced delegate the vote to a "representative", whom we cant force to vote to our benefit.
The representative system has a fatal bug: a representative can make promises, get votes first, win seats, then get money, and then vote for the money wants, not for what the voters wanted when they voted for him. The only thing we supposedly can "do" about this is to not vote for the same representative again, but we cant change his once made decision. But the representative we vote in next is still subject to the same exploitability that corrupted the first one, and there is no way for the electorate to do anything to stop this bug in the system to get constantly exploited by money. The only way, and this is what the pirates are actually attempting, is to fix this fundamental bug in the system by letting voters override policitician's decisions, switzerland style. Direct democracy.
The copyright law nightmare is just a symptom of the fact that we cant directly vote on copyright law, while money can. Money gets what it wants and we dont. We can only vote on _who_ makes decisions, but money can vote on _what_ decisions he will make. So money already has a kind of direct democracy, and we dont. The goal is for us to get direct democracy, and to decrease the influence money has.
The trend is in: politicians that are not offering concrete solutions for problems, offering instead promise of change. This motley group includes protest candidates, "process" candidates, "change" candidates (I am talking about you, Mr.President). They can have their pet peeve/cause du jour as well (never meant to be comprehensive platform): green party, now pirate party. They never meant to be actual leaders, they are meant to represent a vocal minority group that attract many other people as well by populist demagoguery (tautological emphasis mine), like "clean air", "internet freedom", etc.
Those a signs of systemic fatigue of a democratic process. In the past Western democracy was more driven my synthetic approach which was represented by charismatic leaders like Roosevelt, Nixon, Reagan or Thatcher. Now we have mediocrities like Blair, Merkel, Putin, Obama and Romney.
It's like moving backwards from Pixar level CGI of puppetry towards Commedia dell'Arte.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
My mortgage payments are about half of what I'd pay if I were renting my property. I'm happy to agree that it might not always a great idea to jump on the ladder, but sometimes it is and it's not nearly as simple as you're arguing for. Where you've hit the nail on the head is that you shouldn't be living beyond your means, but there are some things to consider.
#1 - Your mortgage rates will go down - You get your deals based on how the value of your property, vs how much you owe. I'm expecting, due to owning over %40, that my rate will be around 3%, but it started off higher than this originally.
#2 - Renting reaps you no longer term benefit - If I were to pay the rent costs of my property, in 5-10 years, I'd own it outright. It's an asset, therefore I can sell it, or at least stop paying rent some day. If I never buy, I'll be renting forever.
#3 - Most of us are going to need to spend this money anyway - You might as well get something out of it.
I've already agreed that sometimes the math simply doesn't work out but I decided I'd rather live under my means and got a deal that saves me a whole bunch and gives me the value of my property at the end. For me it's a nobrainer, for others it's a grey area, and some some again it's stupid. It all depends on the circumstances. :)
The economy is broke, the workers are broke. That's what's broke.
Learn to love Alaska
Right, so you are going to pay substantially more than you would to rent, just so you can be a "home owner".
Around here, renting a low end apartment costs about the same year as paying for a medium end house, even after mortgage and property taxes.
Small apartment: ~$580/month
2000sq-ft house with 1 acre: ~$600/month effective
You also get lower energy costs because the houses seem to have better insulation and newer heating/cooling systems.
The problem is banks are VERY picky about who gets loans around here.
I guess that depends on where you live.
Here in Norway there are many who buy a house or an apartment on loan, not to live there but just to rent it out. And the income from the rent pays for the interest on the loan, all maintenance expences and there is still enough left to get a profit.
If someone else can buy my house on loan and make a profit renting it to me, then it should be better for me to just buy it myself with the same loan and pay the interest and downpayments with the money I otherwise would spend paying rent.
Whenever the rent is higher than interest and downpayments on a loan, then buying a house on loan is in my mind a sensible action.
Of course it's no wonder. Getting voted out of office should be the least of the worries of the incumbents in government these days. If things keep trotting down this path they're going to end up needing to be airlifted out before the mobs get a hold of them. Who could have guessed that the poor and middle-class would have revolted in the face of "austerity measures"? Anyone that's ever opened a history book.
In most markets (reasonable markets...not the fantasy markets that are sucking right now) the cost of a home closely tracks the cost of an apartment of similar size.
The buy needs to pick and choose tradeoffs. If you don't want the hassle of the landscaping and other maintenance, then an apartment works out.
If you want space that is your own, then owning a home makes sense as long as you are willing to put up with the hassle. Many people (including me) enjoy the "hassle".
But my home is not an investment in my mind (even though it is currently worth more than $100,000 what I paid). In fact, I could not get an apartment of the same size with the same features as my home at anywhere near the same price. And I'm in a major metropolitan area.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
and basic, direct democracy.
Now if that isn't the most stupid fucking idea ever.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
And despite your little rant, your basic problem is still that you want stuff for free.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The major difference between your house and an apartment is that in 30 years you pay the same amount in rent on an apartment, but once you pay off the loan, you own the house. It's actually yours. And even when the bank owns most of it, it still counts are *your* asset. Your credit is better, you get tax writeoffs and you can even take out loans against it. If you are old, you can then turn it into a reverse mortgage to help your living expenses going forward.
Sure, there are expenses, and so there is a certain amount of money that needs to be invested in maintenance. That said, all that money you put into the house, less the interest and maintenance, is yours. You may have to fix the roof every decade or so, but at the end of it, you don't have to pay rent on it and all of your principal is now in an asset that you can sell. You never get any of the money back on an apartment, ever.
I own a house and have since 2001. Thirty years after that, I won't even be retirement age. If I stayed in apartments, I'd be paying rent until the day I die. I'm not saying that its a get rich sort of investment, but it's a significantly better long term investment than an apartment.
The software used by the pirate party is representative in so far as you can delegate your vote - on specific matters - to someone you judge to be more knowledgable than you, on that topic. He will represent you.
Two obvious differences from the rythmic-vote kind of democracy are a) you can remove you vote from your representative at any time and b) you entitle them to represent you on specific matters only.
Mind you, I've not yet used the software, but that's how someone deeply involved with the pirate party has explained it to me.
Since it seems that you can keep your vote to yourself, and in that case it indeed functions as a direct democracy... I guess that's what is "liquid" about it: http://liquidfeedback.org/mission/
Two things spring immediately to mind:
The tyranny of the majority - you don't want 51% of the population to be able to casually strip the rights from the other 49%.
Manipulation of the masses - plenty, probably the overwhelming majority, of people will believe what they're told by an "authoritative" source who plays to their hopes and fears, even in the face of readily available evidence that they're being lied to. At our base we're not rational creatures, if we're wise we recognize this and safeguard against our own capricious use of power, knowing it can just as easily be used against us as with us.
As for the repeated invocation of Switzerland I've been seeing - it's wonderful that they've managed to effectively integrate direct democracy into their government, and I'd be strongly in favor of drawing inspiration from them in other governments, but we should remember that it's NOT actually evidence that it can continue to work at scales such as the US, which has ~40x the population. 40x smaller would be 200,000, not even large city size, and I think it's pretty obvious there are scaling issues between those two. Not that that's a reason not to try, but we should recognize that there is a real difference.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Perhaps we should consider a hybrid:
Representatives are voted in, but if they get voted out the same term then ALL VOTES they cast on laws and changes are rescinded back to popular vote in that representative's district. That way, if they don't represent us their laws and changes are undone. Basically, they have to follow through on their promises. It could also slow the growth of government.
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There's a bit of a reality disconnect there - if the 88% truly don't vote because they feel disenfranchised by the Party then they could just as easily upset the applecart by voting for every 3rd party candidate available, regardless of their stance. Figure all those competing ideologies would likely lead to near deadlock in the halls of power, but it would be a deadlock that disrupts the stranglehold of the Party. If we all voted that way for just a couple election cycles we could give the 3rd parties enough legitimacy that we could begin to take back our government.
It seems to me that a smart thing for all those third-party candidates would be to cooperate on a collective "throw the bums out" campaign stressing just this, especially in the current atmosphere of disenfranchisement. Instead of thousands of candidates running thousands of tiny doomed campaigns they could have one big organized negative campaign against the major parties just encouraging people to get out and vote for anyone else. I'd be willing to bet that the number of people that could be mobilized to vote "against the system" far outweighs the number that could be mobilized for any given fringe candidate.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
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I just looked up the voter turnout figures from USA and they're quite a bit higher than 12%. In fact, they've not gone down all that much since the 60s and are way up from what they used to be in 70s, 80s and 90s. Even so, the third parties haven't gained that much more support... This means that the people find the distinction between the two parties much more important than they used to find during the last few decades.
Just because you don't want that to be true, doesn't mean it isn't true.
I own a house. I pay a mortgage *HALF* of the renting price of a comparable house. In 11 years, the house is *MINE*, for the rest of my life. If I did not invest in a house 10 years ago, I would be paying about 50% more in rent now, for a small apartment, for the rest of my life.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
All the money has ended up in the hands of an ever increasingly wealth group of people. I wonder what effect this has on the economy in the long run, but I am guessing this will lead to an eventual collapse of the financial system, or a short period with an insane inflation rate.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Maybe I'm one of those who were conned, but I do believe in buying my own home as an investment. However, I took a 15year loan (trying to get a 10year but they wouldn't give it to me) I purchased a house for 180k and I make 6figures. I also drive a car from 2002 with 170k miles on it, pointing out a bit of frugality. The real con is the the 30year loan, you will never pay up if you don't have to, but you should. But here's the real kicker, you really should pay up even on a 15 year loan, you should calculate what it would take to pay off your houses principal in 10years and tack on the difference to your mortgage because then you won't pay 2.5times the price for the house if you spend 15 years paying for it.
But renting an apartment (especially a high cost one) is the same as hemorrhaging money, a complete loss of money versus some value back. I may be naive/ignorant, and if I am I would really love to know to why. But it's a simple formula to me, home ownership > 0% value retention (except when you buy a widely inflated price for a house, which then yes an apartment is better), apartment = 0% value retention.
WTF Slashdot, why do I have to login 50 times to post?
While I am 110% in agreement with you, in 30 years of renting you are out of 30 years worth of rent. In 30years of mortgage payment you have the value of your house remaining in your pocket (like a savings account). And if you actually keep ahead of maintenance and even did a little yourself (you don't need a guy to come out for $400 to pour Drano into your sink or $500 to unscrew a couple of bolts to put in a new water heater... use youtube it's all there) the maintenance costs will be fine.
But the real con is 30 year loans, if you can't afford a 15year loan you can't afford the house. With a 15year loan I believe it's a 1.5 increase on the price (so if your house is 200 you end up paying 300) but on a 30 year loan is almost 4x the price (200 becomes 800, note I MAY BE WRONG but I do remember it being substantial). You should never buy a house on a anything bigger than a 15 year loan. The other reality to accept is that on a 30year loan the likely hood you will ever meet the end of that is small. Let's consider, you graduate high school and goto college, that makes you 23. After working in your field for 5 years (28), you have married and had a child, you are in need of something bigger and you can finally own your own picket fence of a house. Add a year of looking, searching, saving, you are 29. That makes you essentially 60 if you never take a second mortgage or loose your job and have to get forbearance, etc etc etc. However had you taken a 15year loan (or better yet a 10year loan) you are 44 or maybe even 39. That means you own the property and you have no need to make any more payments for 25 years.
Tell me, which is better, and it's a small breed that actually pays up on their loan. It's a great idea if you can but you always need X more and the money is there. It's the same issues with paying up on any debt or savings that plague the American market. And stop convincing yourself you will eat out less, it just doesn't happen with most (nothing is all).
WTF Slashdot, why do I have to login 50 times to post?
Mortgages are by nature lower than rent. When paying rent you are paying someone else's mortgage AND paying them a premium for the convenience and low risk of renting. This premium is also their profit. If they rented below mortgages rates they would losing money! Of course you need to be in a position to get a good mortgage before this makes sense, until then you will have to live with being fleeced on renting market.
You make an interesting point. For my part, I bought my house when I was 26 or 27, and I have no kids. So, the equation is a little different. However, moving from house to house will erode the value in having a mortgage, and certainly a shorter term mortgage is going to allow you to spend less long term.
There are definitely points where renting makes sense. I think if I was moving around a lot, there's no point getting a mortgage. The longer you stay in the one house, the better the proposition. I've been in my house 10-11 years, and I definitely understand that moving more often than every 5 years is just not a good idea at all. It can be pretty easy to make a mortgage a problematic situation, especially when you have kids and need to move around.
On the other hand, when you have a growing family, you often have no choice as your family's needs dictate that you have a decent sized abode and you will need a new one if there are any additions. I don't know how easy it is to find houses of any significant size to rent.
Hey fucktard. You only got modded up because bitches here cry about copyright. You're an ass who has little command of the english language. So go fuck yourself for not being able to present your ideas in a logical manner.
When purchasing in Philadelphia, at a 6.5% interest rate, a house was 1280/month for 30 years, and 1550 for 15.
The ratio between the two is dependent on local taxes and interest rate (both being higher bring the ratio closer).
the 30 year was about equivalent to rent, but not going to change, mortgage interest deduction covered typical costs of ownership (plumbing supplies for work done, simple repairs and maintenance (note, repairs with a lot of sweat equity in them primarily).
If rents were to increase with inflation, in time savings would be large vs renting. though after about 20 years the interest deduction would dramatically drop off. Over-all, I'd call it a bad market to purchase in vs rent (you want a 15 year just over rental cost, or a 30 year for at least $200/month less, to stand a chance saving with a purchase in any meaningful short time-frame).
In Wilmington (DE), the money highly favors purchasing, especially with 10% down. A savings can easily be had of $400/month on a 30 year mortgage even ($90k-$130k rent regularly for 1100-1300, with 10% down and a 30 year mortgage your under $900 (insurance taxes included), and they have some simple work to be done to increase value, but are livable/rent-able legally).
The rental price vs mortgage payment ratio is not consistent area to area though, so the sense of one vs the other varies.
I would, if I planned to be immobile buy a house with a 30 year loan no question in Wilmington. Many would be profitable as rental properties on day one.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
The political process is not corrupted. It's working exactly as designed.. by the rich and powerful. Poor people don't have the means to set up a government.
I'm not sure if my comment was driving you to simply expand on what I had stated, or if it was somehow intended as disagreement. The below only applies in the case of the latter:
Hence why it usually doesn't make sense to own one for that purpose, which is what I said. The conditions where it does make sense as an investment are fairly slim. There are, however, other reasons to purchase a home which make a great deal of sense.