Why bother? Perhaps my economics is shaky, but wouldn't reducing the amount of currency in circulation increase its value? Seems like a self-correcting system to me. Your economics seems to be solid, at least that which you've displayed. But here's the problem with reducing the amount of currency in circulation:
The Federal Reserve--a quasi-private institution--is hired by the federal government to do something the government is supposed to be doing itself: coining money and regulating the value thereof. But that, in and of itself, is not the problem.
The problem is that in return for granting them this monopoly on issuing currency, the Federal Reserve loans the government lots of money, which they then spend on all sorts of stupid things, like expensive vacations for Congressmen. The Federal Reserve spends like $0.05 printing a piece of paper that they proclaim is worth $1.00, making $0.95 for every one dollar note they print. So the Federal Reserve is happy, cause it's making money hand over foot, and the government is happy because it's getting money to spend.
Neither the Federal Reserve nor the government wants to stop doing this; why would they? Eventually, as it happens with all central banks throughout history, the value of the US dollar will be completely destroyed. Because it's no longer backed by gold, people will find it more useful to use as toilet paper.
Nevermind that inflation--printing more currency without more stuff to back it up with--is the most egregiously foul form of taxation; let's say the annual rate of inflation is %5. That means last year, a loaf of bread costing a dollar costed, well, a dollar. This year, it'll cost $1.05. If you have a dollar in your bank account, last year you were able to buy a loaf of bread, but this year you would be unable to--no one stole your dollar, rather they lowered your purchasing power through inflation: the Federal Reserve and the government effectively taxed you 5 cents without you really ever knowing it.
The ultimate solution would be to destroy the Federal Reserve, and return to a commodity-based (gold, silver, etc.) currency so that inflation only happens when more of that commodity is found, and large deposits of gold are rarely found... thus we end up with a stable currency that will buy as much as it did the day you first got it, rather than losing its value every year as is the status quo.
Another solution would be to use other forms of currency, such as the Liberty Dollar, which is backed by silver and has regular audits (unlike the Federal Reserve's currency).
The Case Against The Fed is an excellent book and describes the ingenious craft of slight of hand the government and the Federal Reserve are playing with the American people.
Exactly. If the demand for MySQL support on "non-generic" Linux is there, then the demand will be met by 3rd-party support companies. And if the demand ain't there, then it's a moot point. (God I love the magic of the free market...)
But I'm still trying to figure out how they defined "generic".
Alright, but it certainly isn't causing the poverty. And do you really think that people would fix the problem if they weren't taxed so much?
Suppose you didn't have to pay a dime in taxes next year. How much of that would you spend dealing with poverty?
Now, suppose you got a raise to a job that pays twice as much next year. Same question. Simple economics, my friend.
Let's say I earn a raise (or don't have to pay taxes), so I go out and buy goods and services I normally wouldn't buy; my demand for those goods and services means a proportional demand in jobs to create and provide those goods and services. In short, the more money people have the more jobs there will be and the less poverty we will have. Tax people less, and they can afford more things.
You make an interesting point, but don't you think there would be far more of us dying from Dr. Bob-Earl-Smith if we didn't have a decent amount of regulations? You may want to fix the regulations, but I hope you don't actually want to remove them. Actually, no there wouldn't be more people dying from bad healthcare than there would be from people not having access to healthcare that hasn't gotten a seal-o'-approval. Case in point: back when beta-blockers first came out, the FDA said that they would save something on the order of 10,000 lives a year; well, if they save ~10K lives a year, didn't that mean that for every year the FDA prevented people from obtaining that drug, 10K lives were lost? 10 years of mandated testing * 10K lives = 100,000 lives the FDA did away with. Compare that to the numbers that died from snake oil before the inception of the FDA and you will be surprised. Similar cases regarding the regulation of other forms of healthcare such as physicians.
Regarding doing away with regulations, I have no comment there. I'm simply trying to illustrate that more regulation is not the answer.
No disagreement here. However, wouldn't you rather your capslock GOVERNMENT would talk about this stupidity, rather than the "issue" of "obscenity"? I would rather, but I'm not naive enough to believe they will. There are reasons why pot is illegal and there's a lot of corporate interest in keeping it that way.
Better free public transportation, tighter restrictions on licenses -- maybe the truck driver shouldn't have been driving? Better free public transportation = higher taxes = less money consumers have to spend on goods and services = less jobs = people in poverty are worse off than before... but we'd have free public transportation!
Tighter restrictions on licensing won't do any better. It would reduce the competition, causing prices on goods in transport to rise and make everyone worse off.
I don't have all the answers, but wouldn't you rather they actually talk about this, and take this on? It's not like it's any more hopeless than the "war on terror", and terrorism actually costs us far fewer lives. I've lost all hope in the government. It's become a big stupid monster machine that wants to put its snout into every facet of our lives. For them to improve themself is like an employer never firing bad employees, giving them bonuses and raises regardless of performance, and then expecting their employees to work harder.
Do the words "private school" mean anything to you? Even private schools are subject to the government. Not to mention that if you attend private schools, you still have to pay for going to public school (even though you don't actually go). I'd prefer a voucher program while closing all public schools; let the students/parents take their government-given money-for-education where they go, then private schools would compete for students just like any other company has to compete for your business.
So you're saying that in a free market, a kid would walk into school and get paid? I mean, you do realize that public school is free, right?
I mean, that's the whole point of public school in the first place. It's free. Free? Who do you think's flipping the bill? Santa Claus?! Public schooling is not free, it's funded through taxation just like all government "services".
I see no difference in your pushing for regulations that you deem important and the regulations these jackass politicians are pushing for; both of you want to control other people (arguably both with good intentions).
The problem is that you both see government as the solution rather than the problem:
Over 12 million living in poverty Because the GOVERNMENT taxes us like an inmate fucks his bitches. Stop stealing people's money and they can spend it elsewhere, creating jobs, giving to charity, etc.
40-50 million without health care Because the GOVERNMENT mandates that new drugs be tested for about a decade. The price of getting a new drug on the shelf is about a billion dollars. No wonder these drugs are $50/pill!
Healthcare services are expensive because those practicing those services are regulated out the ass and are forced to buy malpractice insurance (due to the frivolous lawsuits the GOVERNMENT has been siding with). "But without those regulations, people would die from snake oil and Dr. Bob-Earl-Smith's toolshed clinic!!!" you cry. I ask you, what about the myriad souls who lose their life every year because they don't have access to that new life-saving drug that *might* be harmful? The FDA and other regulations kill more people than they protect.
25% of the worlds prison population Because the GOVERNMENT is throwing people in jail for smoking joints, while throwing out the violent offenders to make more room for more non-violent hippies.
46800 car deaths in 2005 And this is in government's field because... ? I had a loaded semi tractor trailer rear-end me earlier this year, nearly killing me and my father; government wouldn't have been able to do a damn about that.
Every 90-second a car is colliding with a train due to lacking regulations if crossing. Regulations increases taxes (see my point above on poverty). Good intentions but unforeseen consequences.
Higher education costs and arm and a leg and your first born. Ah, this would be because the GOVERNMENT has a monopoly on education. The USPS has a monopoly on mail less than $1.00 (which is why UPS and FedEx don't have that sort of service available) and as a result, it has no competition... no competition means it doesn't have to innovate, balance a checkbook so it doesn't go bankrupt, etc. When schools don't have competition, we get shitty education and high costs. Destroy the monopoly, and the free market will provide better quality education at a lower price; even those in poverty will be able to afford education on par with current government-provided education.
This country has some serious problems to deal with, but obscenity is not one of them! You're damned right about that. Government regulating everything we fucking do and buy is one of the problems.
I might add that stem cell research might just very well allow me to hear again in my left ear, in which I'm deaf. But I don't want to force you to pay for fixing my deafness, and I expect the same from you.
Don't ban cloning, but don't pay for it with my taxes.
Everyone wins. The fundamentalists don't have to finance something they don't agree with, yet modern science is allowed to continue promising research.
I also use MultipleIE all the time. Works great for testing (there's some issues in IE6 but fairly minor), and I don't think it requires a legal Windows license to work.
Not necessarily true, if you try to severely eliminate the existence of guns to begin with (including for the use of law enforcement).
But don't you see... this is exactly what we did with alcohol prohibition, and yet people still got their alcohol. If you did the same with guns, people would still get their hands on them; but instead of having a safety and a gunlock, they'd be homemade arms that'd be more dangerous than the ones you banned in the first place.
The guy is right: prohibition never works, even in regards to nuclear explosives.
But there's a difference in having a prohibition law against--say--pot, and a prohibition law against--say--murder. In both cases, prohibition doesn't deter the activity being prohibited. The difference is that the point of the second law is not to deter but to impose retaliatory force, i.e., justice.
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The Federal Reserve--a quasi-private institution--is hired by the federal government to do something the government is supposed to be doing itself: coining money and regulating the value thereof. But that, in and of itself, is not the problem.
The problem is that in return for granting them this monopoly on issuing currency, the Federal Reserve loans the government lots of money, which they then spend on all sorts of stupid things, like expensive vacations for Congressmen. The Federal Reserve spends like $0.05 printing a piece of paper that they proclaim is worth $1.00, making $0.95 for every one dollar note they print. So the Federal Reserve is happy, cause it's making money hand over foot, and the government is happy because it's getting money to spend.
Neither the Federal Reserve nor the government wants to stop doing this; why would they? Eventually, as it happens with all central banks throughout history, the value of the US dollar will be completely destroyed. Because it's no longer backed by gold, people will find it more useful to use as toilet paper.
Nevermind that inflation--printing more currency without more stuff to back it up with--is the most egregiously foul form of taxation; let's say the annual rate of inflation is %5. That means last year, a loaf of bread costing a dollar costed, well, a dollar. This year, it'll cost $1.05. If you have a dollar in your bank account, last year you were able to buy a loaf of bread, but this year you would be unable to--no one stole your dollar, rather they lowered your purchasing power through inflation: the Federal Reserve and the government effectively taxed you 5 cents without you really ever knowing it.
The ultimate solution would be to destroy the Federal Reserve, and return to a commodity-based (gold, silver, etc.) currency so that inflation only happens when more of that commodity is found, and large deposits of gold are rarely found... thus we end up with a stable currency that will buy as much as it did the day you first got it, rather than losing its value every year as is the status quo.
Another solution would be to use other forms of currency, such as the Liberty Dollar, which is backed by silver and has regular audits (unlike the Federal Reserve's currency).
The Case Against The Fed is an excellent book and describes the ingenious craft of slight of hand the government and the Federal Reserve are playing with the American people.
Exactly. If the demand for MySQL support on "non-generic" Linux is there, then the demand will be met by 3rd-party support companies. And if the demand ain't there, then it's a moot point. (God I love the magic of the free market...)
But I'm still trying to figure out how they defined "generic".
Suppose you didn't have to pay a dime in taxes next year. How much of that would you spend dealing with poverty?
Now, suppose you got a raise to a job that pays twice as much next year. Same question. Simple economics, my friend.
Let's say I earn a raise (or don't have to pay taxes), so I go out and buy goods and services I normally wouldn't buy; my demand for those goods and services means a proportional demand in jobs to create and provide those goods and services. In short, the more money people have the more jobs there will be and the less poverty we will have. Tax people less, and they can afford more things. You make an interesting point, but don't you think there would be far more of us dying from Dr. Bob-Earl-Smith if we didn't have a decent amount of regulations? You may want to fix the regulations, but I hope you don't actually want to remove them. Actually, no there wouldn't be more people dying from bad healthcare than there would be from people not having access to healthcare that hasn't gotten a seal-o'-approval. Case in point: back when beta-blockers first came out, the FDA said that they would save something on the order of 10,000 lives a year; well, if they save ~10K lives a year, didn't that mean that for every year the FDA prevented people from obtaining that drug, 10K lives were lost? 10 years of mandated testing * 10K lives = 100,000 lives the FDA did away with. Compare that to the numbers that died from snake oil before the inception of the FDA and you will be surprised. Similar cases regarding the regulation of other forms of healthcare such as physicians.
Regarding doing away with regulations, I have no comment there. I'm simply trying to illustrate that more regulation is not the answer. No disagreement here. However, wouldn't you rather your capslock GOVERNMENT would talk about this stupidity, rather than the "issue" of "obscenity"? I would rather, but I'm not naive enough to believe they will. There are reasons why pot is illegal and there's a lot of corporate interest in keeping it that way. Better free public transportation, tighter restrictions on licenses -- maybe the truck driver shouldn't have been driving? Better free public transportation = higher taxes = less money consumers have to spend on goods and services = less jobs = people in poverty are worse off than before... but we'd have free public transportation!
Tighter restrictions on licensing won't do any better. It would reduce the competition, causing prices on goods in transport to rise and make everyone worse off. I don't have all the answers, but wouldn't you rather they actually talk about this, and take this on? It's not like it's any more hopeless than the "war on terror", and terrorism actually costs us far fewer lives. I've lost all hope in the government. It's become a big stupid monster machine that wants to put its snout into every facet of our lives. For them to improve themself is like an employer never firing bad employees, giving them bonuses and raises regardless of performance, and then expecting their employees to work harder. Do the words "private school" mean anything to you? Even private schools are subject to the government. Not to mention that if you attend private schools, you still have to pay for going to public school (even though you don't actually go). I'd prefer a voucher program while closing all public schools; let the students/parents take their government-given money-for-education where they go, then private schools would compete for students just like any other company has to compete for your business. So you're saying that in a free market, a kid would walk into school and get paid? I mean, you do realize that public school is free, right?
I mean, that's the whole point of public school in the first place. It's free. Free? Who do you think's flipping the bill? Santa Claus?! Public schooling is not free, it's funded through taxation just like all government "services".
The problem is that you both see government as the solution rather than the problem: Over 12 million living in poverty Because the GOVERNMENT taxes us like an inmate fucks his bitches. Stop stealing people's money and they can spend it elsewhere, creating jobs, giving to charity, etc. 40-50 million without health care Because the GOVERNMENT mandates that new drugs be tested for about a decade. The price of getting a new drug on the shelf is about a billion dollars. No wonder these drugs are $50/pill!
Healthcare services are expensive because those practicing those services are regulated out the ass and are forced to buy malpractice insurance (due to the frivolous lawsuits the GOVERNMENT has been siding with). "But without those regulations, people would die from snake oil and Dr. Bob-Earl-Smith's toolshed clinic!!!" you cry. I ask you, what about the myriad souls who lose their life every year because they don't have access to that new life-saving drug that *might* be harmful? The FDA and other regulations kill more people than they protect. 25% of the worlds prison population Because the GOVERNMENT is throwing people in jail for smoking joints, while throwing out the violent offenders to make more room for more non-violent hippies. 46800 car deaths in 2005 And this is in government's field because... ? I had a loaded semi tractor trailer rear-end me earlier this year, nearly killing me and my father; government wouldn't have been able to do a damn about that. Every 90-second a car is colliding with a train due to lacking regulations if crossing. Regulations increases taxes (see my point above on poverty). Good intentions but unforeseen consequences. Higher education costs and arm and a leg and your first born. Ah, this would be because the GOVERNMENT has a monopoly on education. The USPS has a monopoly on mail less than $1.00 (which is why UPS and FedEx don't have that sort of service available) and as a result, it has no competition... no competition means it doesn't have to innovate, balance a checkbook so it doesn't go bankrupt, etc. When schools don't have competition, we get shitty education and high costs. Destroy the monopoly, and the free market will provide better quality education at a lower price; even those in poverty will be able to afford education on par with current government-provided education. This country has some serious problems to deal with, but obscenity is not one of them! You're damned right about that. Government regulating everything we fucking do and buy is one of the problems.
I might add that stem cell research might just very well allow me to hear again in my left ear, in which I'm deaf. But I don't want to force you to pay for fixing my deafness, and I expect the same from you.
Don't ban cloning, but don't pay for it with my taxes.
Everyone wins. The fundamentalists don't have to finance something they don't agree with, yet modern science is allowed to continue promising research.
I also use MultipleIE all the time. Works great for testing (there's some issues in IE6 but fairly minor), and I don't think it requires a legal Windows license to work.
The guy is right: prohibition never works, even in regards to nuclear explosives.
But there's a difference in having a prohibition law against--say--pot, and a prohibition law against--say--murder. In both cases, prohibition doesn't deter the activity being prohibited. The difference is that the point of the second law is not to deter but to impose retaliatory force, i.e., justice.
"Guns don't protect people - Regulation does!" Regulation also keeps me from smoking this fat joint right now. Oh wait, no it doesn't.