"And if you knew they were not enforceable, then there is no conspiracy. This happens frequently.
But the police department is claiming they are enforceable. So by this logic, there is conspiracy, since they reasonably must have known it was not so. Not conspiracy with the other party, to be sure, but conspiracy to break the law.
To have a conspiracy you have to have some action taken in furtherance of the crime."
You mean like illegally tapping telephones then giving obviously bogus justifications to the court?
"So, rather than being surprised they're in China, maybe you should be surprised that after being MADE IN CHINA they're shipped all over the world (even your neighborhood hardware store)."
You're trying to imply that I meant something other than what I actually wrote.
"I bought 3 boxes of the 3M 8210V respirator on Taobao, they are not hard to come by. Plenty of my Chinese coworkers also buy other types of 3M N95 masks."
I didn't say they weren't available. I wrote about them being in every neighborhood hardware store. Not the same thing.
"The "everybody's gotta go to college!" nonsense needs to die. Most people are unfit (too unintelligent) for college and will only serve to dumb it down, as we've seen."
While I agree that not everybody needs to (or should) go to college, the idea that only the rich should go to college is bad news from the start. What a mess that would make of America. Even more of a mess, that is.
But that seems to be the America that Bush and now Obama have promoted.
"Your previous paragraph shows why we know so little about it. The noise from Koch and others who see their dream as running an untaxed unregistered coal mine in China with employees desperate enough to work to death on a pittance drown out the rest."
David Koch was VP candidate in 1980. That was 34 years ago. Since then, the Koch Brothers have staunchly supported Republican causes, and have had nothing to do with Libertarians.
"It took me a second to figure that out. Neutrinos don't participate in the strong force and don't have any flavor. (The names are charming, but kind of annoyingly ambiguous out of context.)"
Be careful when you say "charm" in the context of subatomic particles. (Or "strange", for that matter. I'm looking at you, OP.) You might end up saying something you did not intend.
I don't think they've named anything "weird" yet though. Still waiting for that one.
"That's not much different than the summary's author, who seems to think that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health sets standards in China."
... or that N95 masks are to be found in neighborhood hardware stores in China.
"The big mistake here is thinking that anyone that self-labels as "libertarian" is just as extreme as those noisy outliers that just use it to try to pretend that "greed is good" is a noble philosophy."
In my experience, about half the people I've encountered who claim to be Libertarian (big "L") know little to nothing of the actual philosophy, while many more don't know the difference between Big L and Little l.
Regardless, it gets even worse when you see how little others, who don't claim to subscribe to the philosophy, actually know about it. The political Left has been particularly egregious in this regard. They have seemingly made it a policy to attack Libertarians out-of-hand. (Or characterize them as far-right, which is complete bullshit, and as far as I am concerned IS an attack and an insult.)
The fact is that neither Left or (real) Right these days have shown much tolerance for people who actually believe in principles, as opposed to merely giving them lip-service.
"Cars and appliances seem pretty stable for the last decade, as does housing ( rent ), appliances down a small fraction even."
Durable goods like cars and houses are the last to go up in an inflationary period. Have you looked at your grocery bill lately? Mine has been about twice what it was 3 years ago.
"Regulation. For a start, with banks and financial services in official currencies, you actually know who you are dealing with. They are registered with the government, and have real bricks and mortar addresses."
"It's symptomatic of the naivety of libertarians that you even have to ask the question."
As I already pointed out elsewhere, you are simply wrong about that. Bitcoin is, in fact, regulated. Not by the Fed, but by other government agencies.
It's symptomatic of someone who likes to knee-jerk attack Libertarians to get things so utterly wrong.
"The collapse in housing (and it's ramifications) were predicted by pretty much everyone since '03 in papers/magazines I read (I don't know names or schools, but ratios of rents to price were already a common theme then)."
The BUBBLE was talked about fairly commonly since '03. But the collapse was not a popularly discussed subject at all. In fact the possibility was consistently denied by mainstream economists, and the video I linked to above is an example. I know it's just one example but there are boatloads to be found.
Art Laffer is about as Keynesian as they get. He was an adviser to President Reagan, you may recall. As recently as 2007, economists and financial advisers were saying "the economy is just fine!"
In fact, that has been a Keynesian and Neo-classical mantra in times of trouble: "The economy is fine!" Just like Irving Fisher did publicly the day before the market crash of '29, while early Austrians had publicly predicted a crash. It was just history repeating itself... far too many times now.
"Not true. Libertarians wax lyrical about bitcoin, whilst often repeating complains about fiat currency and the fall of the gold standard."
I see. So the fact that Democrats like education and support it makes child education a Democrat concept? That's interesting.
"Indeed the only supporters of bitcoin are libertarians, criminals, and those that are easily suckered into get-rich-quick investment schemes and pyramid scams."
I agree on the latter, but one out of three is not a very good score.
"Who are the regulators? That's right, there aren't any."
Yes, there are. At least in the United States. I know you're not in the U.S. but here, it most certainly is subject to regulations.
Having said that: is our government regulating it responsibly or effectively? Hell no. But then they haven't been regulating Wall Street responsibly or effectively either.
"Nobody forces you to take a student loan. You can very well skip graduation and start working earlier. Graduation is an investment. If you think it is worth it go for it, otherwise it is not really necessary for a person to live or prosper."
It's not like it probably was when you were a student. Depending on when that is, of course.
Compared to when I first went to college, there is less actual "grant" money available for financial aid. As for loans, less of them are direct loans, and lot higher percentage of the loan money is now through banks. The interest rates have gone way up -- in an economy with close to 0% prime interest rate! Repayment must be started sooner, accrued interest is higher, and the repayment terms are usually not as easy as they were in the past.
Add that to the huge increases in tuition and fees, and you have yourself a real problem. Bush and Obama both promised to help people get a higher education but they have done just the opposite.
I read a few paragraphs of the article, and it's ridiculous. The author obviously has something against those particular three things: creationists, climate change "deniers" (the very phrase indicates bias), and Whole Foods.
If this were anything but a rant against certain particular entities this person didn't like, why not acknowledge that homeopathic "medicines" can be found in pretty much any local grocery store? They're certainly in all the stores near here. So... why single out Whole Foods and compare them with creationists?
If this is the kind of crap Slashdot is going to keep posting, maybe it's time to go elsewhere.
"Um, er... have you read *anything* other than that coming out of the Weekly Standard and Fox News?
The Monetarist and Austrian schools were 100% wrong about the bubble, the 2008, and everything they propose has been hurting any recovery, both here and in Europe."
I'll ignore the personal insult this one time. As for the rest: are you out of your mind? That's a huge reality distortion.
Peter Schiff, Ron Paul, and others of the Austrian school were warning about the bubble and its pending collapse for several years prior to 2008. Schiff is saying so right there in the video for everyone to see, in 2006 and 2007. And guess who was arguing that there was no problem? No less than Art Laffer, dyed-in-the-wool, outspoken Keynesian (who was also wrong about stagflation in the 70s, by the way). The others who argued with Schiff are also followers of either Keynes or Neo-classicism.
I can give you MANY such examples from history. Here's just one more: after WWII, the Keynesians and other "mainstream" economists who advised the President warned against bringing all the troops back home quickly. They said it would create a huge economic collapse. Austrians said the opposite. The President ignored his economic advisors for political reasons. Guess who turned out to be right? Post WWII was the biggest economic boom the country had ever seen.
I could go on but I won't. The FACT is that Keynesian and Neo-classical economists did NOT predict the bubble or its consequences (which we're still suffering from, because they are still advising the politicians). You have a little proof above but I can show you lots more. It's a matter of record, man. They made fools of themselves all over the newspapers and magazines at the time, and it's pretty easy to find the proof with a few minutes on Google. Historically the "mainstream" economists have a LOUSY record of predicting much of anything.
"I was editing this comment in Emacs, and suddenly my window split and began to laugh."
I wasn't saying split windows was anything new or unusual. Just that a couple of the most popular code editors don't have that feature. I have used them before of course and the lack of that feature in an editor is a serious lack indeed.
On the other hand, I've also found that Atom uses an enormous amount of CPU compared to most editors. That's not good.
"In any case, current inflation rates are very low, and anyone who actively wants deflation is an idiot--deflation is a growth-killer."
Current inflation rates are "low", according to whom?
Even if they were as low as the seemingly constant government BS figure of 2%, that means they're still higher than interest rates.
Do you know how the Government calculates its completely bogus Consumer Price Index? If you did, you wouldn't believe their inflation figures for a second. Also, you should be aware that many economists are saying CPI is expected to go up, which means more inflation.
"Money is supposed to be a medium of exchange, not an investment. If you believe that a zero inflation rate is a good thing, I suggest you take an introductory course in economics."
I have a hell of a lot more education in the subject than "an introductory course" in economics, and you're just plain wrong. As are the "mainstream" economists who have been saying this for the last 100 years.
Even they will admit that inflation undermines savings (which, again, even they will admit are essential to a healthy economy). What they won't admit is that inflation props up Government and the Fed, and Wall Street, while hurting just about everybody else.
The current economy woes are a direct result of your "inflationary" economy. And just wait until the the latest round of Obama administration and Fed inflation hits, as it is just starting to do. You won't be so smug then. By the way, simple figures: inflation right now is higher than interest rates so don't expect your savings to be worth much if you keep them in a bank.
You should be aware that in science, a theory is only as good as its ability to predict. Well, guess what? "Mainstream" economists, by which I mean mostly Neo-classical and Keynesian economists, have been absolutely TERRIBLE at predicting much of ANYTHING over the last 100 years. In fact they often got it 180 degrees wrong. Which means their "scientific" graphs and curves aren't so scientific after all.
Who has a better track record of predicting economic events? The Monetarist and Austrian schools, by a VERY long way. And guess what? BOTH of them say inflation sucks the life out of the economy.
Second, and this is the whole point (and maybe the point you intended, I don't know): fiat money isn't real money. When the government can print it whenever it wants (which it DOES, as you can easily see from that chart), it simply isn't real money in the historical sense. It can be devalued at any time, just like anything in the stock market (like Bitcoin!). And our Government has been making that situation worse at a consistent but increasing rate.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, is inherently deflationary. Or would be, at any rate, if investors were anything like rational. Though the recent housing bubble and even more recent Bitcoin bubble indicate that they aren't.
Slashdot Mirror
"And if you knew they were not enforceable, then there is no conspiracy. This happens frequently.
But the police department is claiming they are enforceable. So by this logic, there is conspiracy, since they reasonably must have known it was not so. Not conspiracy with the other party, to be sure, but conspiracy to break the law.
To have a conspiracy you have to have some action taken in furtherance of the crime."
You mean like illegally tapping telephones then giving obviously bogus justifications to the court?
Nobody said they were 'in every neighborhood hardware store.' The summary said they were "generally available in hardware stores."
Did you read the chain of comments you're replying to?
"... or that N95 masks are to be found in neighborhood hardware stores in China."
"So, rather than being surprised they're in China, maybe you should be surprised that after being MADE IN CHINA they're shipped all over the world (even your neighborhood hardware store)."
You're trying to imply that I meant something other than what I actually wrote.
Don't do that. It's rude.
"Nope. In stores != in every store."
Did you read the chain of comments you're replying to?
"or that N95 masks are to be found in neighborhood hardware stores in China."
"... ice"
They won't need ice. They're going at night.
"I bought 3 boxes of the 3M 8210V respirator on Taobao, they are not hard to come by. Plenty of my Chinese coworkers also buy other types of 3M N95 masks."
I didn't say they weren't available. I wrote about them being in every neighborhood hardware store. Not the same thing.
"The "everybody's gotta go to college!" nonsense needs to die. Most people are unfit (too unintelligent) for college and will only serve to dumb it down, as we've seen."
While I agree that not everybody needs to (or should) go to college, the idea that only the rich should go to college is bad news from the start. What a mess that would make of America. Even more of a mess, that is.
But that seems to be the America that Bush and now Obama have promoted.
"Your previous paragraph shows why we know so little about it. The noise from Koch and others who see their dream as running an untaxed unregistered coal mine in China with employees desperate enough to work to death on a pittance drown out the rest."
David Koch was VP candidate in 1980. That was 34 years ago. Since then, the Koch Brothers have staunchly supported Republican causes, and have had nothing to do with Libertarians.
"As you failed to point out elsewhere. Being subject to money laundering laws and other laws of the land does not make something regulated."
This is the most ridiculous assertion I have heard all year.
You must be referring to some particular KIND of regulation. But if so, I have no idea what kind you mean. Law are regulation. Regulations are laws.
"It took me a second to figure that out. Neutrinos don't participate in the strong force and don't have any flavor. (The names are charming, but kind of annoyingly ambiguous out of context.)"
Be careful when you say "charm" in the context of subatomic particles. (Or "strange", for that matter. I'm looking at you, OP.) You might end up saying something you did not intend.
I don't think they've named anything "weird" yet though. Still waiting for that one.
"That's not much different than the summary's author, who seems to think that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health sets standards in China."
... or that N95 masks are to be found in neighborhood hardware stores in China.
"The big mistake here is thinking that anyone that self-labels as "libertarian" is just as extreme as those noisy outliers that just use it to try to pretend that "greed is good" is a noble philosophy."
In my experience, about half the people I've encountered who claim to be Libertarian (big "L") know little to nothing of the actual philosophy, while many more don't know the difference between Big L and Little l.
Regardless, it gets even worse when you see how little others, who don't claim to subscribe to the philosophy, actually know about it. The political Left has been particularly egregious in this regard. They have seemingly made it a policy to attack Libertarians out-of-hand. (Or characterize them as far-right, which is complete bullshit, and as far as I am concerned IS an attack and an insult.)
The fact is that neither Left or (real) Right these days have shown much tolerance for people who actually believe in principles, as opposed to merely giving them lip-service.
"Cars and appliances seem pretty stable for the last decade, as does housing ( rent ), appliances down a small fraction even."
Durable goods like cars and houses are the last to go up in an inflationary period. Have you looked at your grocery bill lately? Mine has been about twice what it was 3 years ago.
"Fairly flat" is not accurate at all. Even without any recent increases, THIS is how your money is being inflated on a regular basis. From 1913 on, those are the government's own figures.
Of course, that differs quite a bit from the government's periodic claims of inflation rate, but that just shows what BS they are.
Do you actually know how the government calculates CPI?
"Regulation. For a start, with banks and financial services in official currencies, you actually know who you are dealing with. They are registered with the government, and have real bricks and mortar addresses."
"It's symptomatic of the naivety of libertarians that you even have to ask the question."
As I already pointed out elsewhere, you are simply wrong about that. Bitcoin is, in fact, regulated. Not by the Fed, but by other government agencies.
It's symptomatic of someone who likes to knee-jerk attack Libertarians to get things so utterly wrong.
"The collapse in housing (and it's ramifications) were predicted by pretty much everyone since '03 in papers/magazines I read (I don't know names or schools, but ratios of rents to price were already a common theme then)."
The BUBBLE was talked about fairly commonly since '03. But the collapse was not a popularly discussed subject at all. In fact the possibility was consistently denied by mainstream economists, and the video I linked to above is an example. I know it's just one example but there are boatloads to be found.
Art Laffer is about as Keynesian as they get. He was an adviser to President Reagan, you may recall. As recently as 2007, economists and financial advisers were saying "the economy is just fine!"
In fact, that has been a Keynesian and Neo-classical mantra in times of trouble: "The economy is fine!" Just like Irving Fisher did publicly the day before the market crash of '29, while early Austrians had publicly predicted a crash. It was just history repeating itself... far too many times now.
"Not true. Libertarians wax lyrical about bitcoin, whilst often repeating complains about fiat currency and the fall of the gold standard."
I see. So the fact that Democrats like education and support it makes child education a Democrat concept? That's interesting.
"Indeed the only supporters of bitcoin are libertarians, criminals, and those that are easily suckered into get-rich-quick investment schemes and pyramid scams."
I agree on the latter, but one out of three is not a very good score.
"Who are the regulators? That's right, there aren't any."
Yes, there are. At least in the United States. I know you're not in the U.S. but here, it most certainly is subject to regulations.
Having said that: is our government regulating it responsibly or effectively? Hell no. But then they haven't been regulating Wall Street responsibly or effectively either.
"Nobody forces you to take a student loan. You can very well skip graduation and start working earlier. Graduation is an investment. If you think it is worth it go for it, otherwise it is not really necessary for a person to live or prosper."
It's not like it probably was when you were a student. Depending on when that is, of course.
Compared to when I first went to college, there is less actual "grant" money available for financial aid. As for loans, less of them are direct loans, and lot higher percentage of the loan money is now through banks. The interest rates have gone way up -- in an economy with close to 0% prime interest rate! Repayment must be started sooner, accrued interest is higher, and the repayment terms are usually not as easy as they were in the past.
Add that to the huge increases in tuition and fees, and you have yourself a real problem. Bush and Obama both promised to help people get a higher education but they have done just the opposite.
Why single out Whole Foods?
Why indeed? What's wrong with Whole Foods?
I read a few paragraphs of the article, and it's ridiculous. The author obviously has something against those particular three things: creationists, climate change "deniers" (the very phrase indicates bias), and Whole Foods.
If this were anything but a rant against certain particular entities this person didn't like, why not acknowledge that homeopathic "medicines" can be found in pretty much any local grocery store? They're certainly in all the stores near here. So... why single out Whole Foods and compare them with creationists?
If this is the kind of crap Slashdot is going to keep posting, maybe it's time to go elsewhere.
"Um, er... have you read *anything* other than that coming out of the Weekly Standard and Fox News?
The Monetarist and Austrian schools were 100% wrong about the bubble, the 2008, and everything they propose has been hurting any recovery, both here and in Europe."
I'll ignore the personal insult this one time. As for the rest: are you out of your mind? That's a huge reality distortion.
Here is solid proof that you've got that exactly backward.
Peter Schiff, Ron Paul, and others of the Austrian school were warning about the bubble and its pending collapse for several years prior to 2008. Schiff is saying so right there in the video for everyone to see, in 2006 and 2007. And guess who was arguing that there was no problem? No less than Art Laffer, dyed-in-the-wool, outspoken Keynesian (who was also wrong about stagflation in the 70s, by the way). The others who argued with Schiff are also followers of either Keynes or Neo-classicism.
I can give you MANY such examples from history. Here's just one more: after WWII, the Keynesians and other "mainstream" economists who advised the President warned against bringing all the troops back home quickly. They said it would create a huge economic collapse. Austrians said the opposite. The President ignored his economic advisors for political reasons. Guess who turned out to be right? Post WWII was the biggest economic boom the country had ever seen.
I could go on but I won't. The FACT is that Keynesian and Neo-classical economists did NOT predict the bubble or its consequences (which we're still suffering from, because they are still advising the politicians). You have a little proof above but I can show you lots more. It's a matter of record, man. They made fools of themselves all over the newspapers and magazines at the time, and it's pretty easy to find the proof with a few minutes on Google. Historically the "mainstream" economists have a LOUSY record of predicting much of anything.
"I was editing this comment in Emacs, and suddenly my window split and began to laugh."
I wasn't saying split windows was anything new or unusual. Just that a couple of the most popular code editors don't have that feature. I have used them before of course and the lack of that feature in an editor is a serious lack indeed.
On the other hand, I've also found that Atom uses an enormous amount of CPU compared to most editors. That's not good.
"In any case, current inflation rates are very low, and anyone who actively wants deflation is an idiot--deflation is a growth-killer."
Current inflation rates are "low", according to whom?
Even if they were as low as the seemingly constant government BS figure of 2%, that means they're still higher than interest rates.
Do you know how the Government calculates its completely bogus Consumer Price Index? If you did, you wouldn't believe their inflation figures for a second. Also, you should be aware that many economists are saying CPI is expected to go up, which means more inflation.
In fact... how does a theft of Bitcoins due to insufficient security measures differ from a theft of dollars due to insufficient security measures?
"Money is supposed to be a medium of exchange, not an investment. If you believe that a zero inflation rate is a good thing, I suggest you take an introductory course in economics."
I have a hell of a lot more education in the subject than "an introductory course" in economics, and you're just plain wrong. As are the "mainstream" economists who have been saying this for the last 100 years.
Even they will admit that inflation undermines savings (which, again, even they will admit are essential to a healthy economy). What they won't admit is that inflation props up Government and the Fed, and Wall Street, while hurting just about everybody else.
The current economy woes are a direct result of your "inflationary" economy. And just wait until the the latest round of Obama administration and Fed inflation hits, as it is just starting to do. You won't be so smug then. By the way, simple figures: inflation right now is higher than interest rates so don't expect your savings to be worth much if you keep them in a bank.
You should be aware that in science, a theory is only as good as its ability to predict. Well, guess what? "Mainstream" economists, by which I mean mostly Neo-classical and Keynesian economists, have been absolutely TERRIBLE at predicting much of ANYTHING over the last 100 years. In fact they often got it 180 degrees wrong. Which means their "scientific" graphs and curves aren't so scientific after all.
Who has a better track record of predicting economic events? The Monetarist and Austrian schools, by a VERY long way. And guess what? BOTH of them say inflation sucks the life out of the economy.
It is inane, but maybe not for the reasons you seem to think.
First, your first figure is probably pretty close, maybe a bit of understatement. But the second one is completely detached from reality.
Second, and this is the whole point (and maybe the point you intended, I don't know): fiat money isn't real money. When the government can print it whenever it wants (which it DOES, as you can easily see from that chart), it simply isn't real money in the historical sense. It can be devalued at any time, just like anything in the stock market (like Bitcoin!). And our Government has been making that situation worse at a consistent but increasing rate.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, is inherently deflationary. Or would be, at any rate, if investors were anything like rational. Though the recent housing bubble and even more recent Bitcoin bubble indicate that they aren't.
"And so the libertarian unregulated money dream dies."
WTF?
(A) Bitcoin is no more "Libertarian" than cash is. Do you have something against cash?
(B) Bitcoin is not "unregulated". In fact, it's regulated a lot more than cash, which is also "anonymous". Surprise!
Where did this whole BS idea come from?