You raise a very good point that can be applied to a lot of situations - such as reasearch or inventment in infrasturcture or even whether or not to go to war (ex. Iraq) - but most people are terrible in assessing risk, we are comfortable with huge familiar risks like getting in a car accident, getting cancer or getting shot by a gun and so underinvest in efforts to mitigate them, while unfamiliar risks are highly overweighted (radiation, plane crash, terrorism) - needless to say the people in power understand this, they hype the obscure risks that can lead to profit (defense, homeland security) and fight like hell against anyone who trys to point out an "everyday" or long term risk that can be mitigated (lung cancer, seatbelts, global warming, motorcycle helmets, vaccines) but might cost them. It is funny that even the terrorism risk is really just being afraid of a label, every few days we have the eqivalent of hundreds of small scale terrorist attacks, i.e. shootings in malls, public places, street corners etc... yet we ignore them - whereas if a guy with a foregn name did the same thing the media would go apeshit about it...
Why has nobody modded this post up? he is right, this is econ 101 and it is stupid not to borrow money at ultra low rates if you can create an asset with a return greater than the rate
you sir, are an idiot, have you ever had food poisoning? you _can't_ hold water you barf it up every time you try and drink it - you need a fucking IV you moron
They are not bad at the internet - my Caddilac ATS is pretty well connected to the web, it sends me an email status report every month, I can talk to the car (open the doors etc.) over an iphone app, my wife's 2013 audi can't do that - also, as a car it is a good americanized version of a BMW 3 series - I did order the car from the dealer, I will not take whatever they have sitting on the lot, the dealers are bad news, anything to aviod dealers sounds good to me - but GM did for many years suck, they made horrible cars, unfortunately it took a goverment takeover to clear out the incompetent management of that company - so much for the private sector doing everything better, big private sector companies often get infested with parasitic management who loots the company and run it into bankruptcy.
I think in the context of the Fermi Paradox finding lots of habitable planets is _bad_ news because it invites the question "so where the hell is all the intelligent life on all these habitable planets" the aswers to that question indicate a term in the drake equation is close to zero, hopefully it isn't the term that indicates the length of time a technological civilization exists....
People misunderstand what large amounts of wealth really is - a billionaires wealth comes from the people who work for him and the infrastructure he owns if he wants to leave the country the people and infrastructure stays behind - the wealth of the society is unchanged, all he has done is exchanged his assets for some foreign currency slightly modifying the exchange rate - in short let them leave the country and sell their assets - the overall tax base will be unchanged - and good riddance
Well if we don't run out of oil I predict people will be stupid enough to keep burning it until our atmosphere approches that of Venus - but I doubt the mantle of the earth is a gooey delicicous layer of oil - even with the new estimate of oil reserves it amounts to only one year of extra oil consumption
I tend to agree, but you would think game developers, by not having to build a game to take advantage of the next generation hardware, would have more time to focus on making a decent game, so far they have not succeeded in doing that any better, where are the great, creative games?
You are right what is the point of finding a cure for any disease? We should just shoot the disabled and feeble who don't have the money to be cared for - the would save a lot of money - and of course you argue we don't have the money, of course we have the money to currently care for these people, we just don't have any money to really fix the problem, and money is like some sort of magic scarce resource to you instead of just a way of keeping score - saying the government is out of money is like saying you can run out of points at a basketball game - you can't - all that matters is if there are idle resources available to do what you want or not and with 7% unemployment there are plenty of idle resources - in short, sir, you are a nitwit
Russsia by far bore the brunt of casualties during WWII, but the US was critical to winning, in 1940 the US GDP was greater than the rest of thw world _combined_, the US truely was the "arsenal of Democracy" in the sense that it could produce an endless number of tanks, fighters, bombers and ships - so long as England did not fall the US could just stack up equipment in England to use as a staging ground for the invasion of Europe - Russia was quite pissed off that the US waited so long to invade while they bore the brunt of the casualties. The US had a similar role in WWI, in that american equipment helped break the stalemate between the axis and the allies.
I drive a lot in Germany, it is a joy to drive there because there are no speed traps, as a consequence people obey the law _more_ because the traffic signs mean something, you see a sign for 100kph then you go 100 because the road or conditions will not allow that speed (god help you if you get a ticket because you really fucked up). In the US most speed signs fall in the "overticket" category, the interstate highways were designed for 75MPH cruising not 55 or 65, an lots of little towns get a large amount to money from tickets from speed traps - the town should just tax approriately to support themselves instead of creating speed traps which, if anything, discourage safety and erode respect for the law.
We are - we are at the tipping point? how do you know? When the economy starts to recover interest rates will go up and so will tax income, the reason we are running a deficit is because people are unemployed, not paying taxes and collecting benefits, the deficit was much smaller before the recesssion even with the bush tax cuts and war spending and it went up because people stopped paying taxes because they didn't have a fucking job and the government had to pay them unemployment - when people get jobs the deficit goes down (as it has been for the past several years! but nobody mentions that) - we are running a smaller deficit now than we did two years ago, this will continue as employment improves - this is standard fucking stuff, but people keep repeating this nonsense about spending, people need to get a clue.
perfectly true - except for the fact that the "family" can borrow money at a rate below inflation and can print money at will - there is no comparison between family finances and a goverment that controls its own money - what a crock of shit
Insightful? - well fuck me, people are idiots -low interest rates mean people _want_ to loan you money, Greece has _high_ interest rates because they are tied to the euro and people are unsure whether they will have enough euros to pay their debt, wheras in the US we have low interest rates because people need a safe place to put their money where they know they will be paid back, if fact rates are so low we pay less servicing our "exploding debt" than we did 10 years ago when nobody cared about the debt - amazing how people commenting about debt and interest rates (like comparing the US goverment to dad with a credit card) are so stupid that they don't understand the basics - yes I said stupid there is no excuse after years of recession.
"Consequently, if you run into a law that infringes on your right to keep or carry arms in any way, shape or form, you've found an unconstitutional law." Are nukes OK? because it would be cool to have one, rocket launchers and grenades are cool too - you are correct about the definition of Militia, in the south every white male of fighting age was meant to be in one - to supress a slave uprising should one arise.
google "second amendment slave revolt" - in any event we had the second amendment, if it was put in place to preserve our freedom against an oppressive goverment how did that work out in the south before 1860? piss poor if you ask me, slavery is as oppressive as it gets and it was only overturned by a fucking army from the north, not a buch of freedum lovers with guns living in Alabama.
I was reading about the history of the 2nd ammendment - what was funny is that the second amendment wasn't put in to prevent a takeover by an oppressive government, it was put in to _preserve_ an oppressive goverment - the slave states wanted the gun provision put in so they could keep their state run militas, which were in place to prevent slave revolts - funny how it has been twisted around.
I am sure, yes some businesses do not have patent portfolios to threaten other companies if they entice their employees to work for them, but they do things like collude on pricing - screwing the consumer, buy out competetors so the employees have no other company to work for, or divvy up markets - captialism is great, except when it isn't in their own interest - face it, most large companies are assholes, and the most beautiful thing is when little people stand up for the rights of big companies to be assholes - they got to love that.
You are spot on - I don't know if this employer attitude is really a leftover from slavery or not, but it sure feels that the employer is entitled to all the profit and that employee is, in effect property of the employer, even the langage is skewed this way "Joe belongs to Fred" instead of "Joe works in Fred's organization" - in this case it just pisses the employer off that the employee was profiting from a similar realtionship.
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You raise a very good point that can be applied to a lot of situations - such as reasearch or inventment in infrasturcture or even whether or not to go to war (ex. Iraq) - but most people are terrible in assessing risk, we are comfortable with huge familiar risks like getting in a car accident, getting cancer or getting shot by a gun and so underinvest in efforts to mitigate them, while unfamiliar risks are highly overweighted (radiation, plane crash, terrorism) - needless to say the people in power understand this, they hype the obscure risks that can lead to profit (defense, homeland security) and fight like hell against anyone who trys to point out an "everyday" or long term risk that can be mitigated (lung cancer, seatbelts, global warming, motorcycle helmets, vaccines) but might cost them. It is funny that even the terrorism risk is really just being afraid of a label, every few days we have the eqivalent of hundreds of small scale terrorist attacks, i.e. shootings in malls, public places, street corners etc... yet we ignore them - whereas if a guy with a foregn name did the same thing the media would go apeshit about it...
Why has nobody modded this post up? he is right, this is econ 101 and it is stupid not to borrow money at ultra low rates if you can create an asset with a return greater than the rate
you sir, are an idiot, have you ever had food poisoning? you _can't_ hold water you barf it up every time you try and drink it - you need a fucking IV you moron
They are not bad at the internet - my Caddilac ATS is pretty well connected to the web, it sends me an email status report every month, I can talk to the car (open the doors etc.) over an iphone app, my wife's 2013 audi can't do that - also, as a car it is a good americanized version of a BMW 3 series - I did order the car from the dealer, I will not take whatever they have sitting on the lot, the dealers are bad news, anything to aviod dealers sounds good to me - but GM did for many years suck, they made horrible cars, unfortunately it took a goverment takeover to clear out the incompetent management of that company - so much for the private sector doing everything better, big private sector companies often get infested with parasitic management who loots the company and run it into bankruptcy.
You mean like RomneyCare in MA?
+1 you nailed it
I think in the context of the Fermi Paradox finding lots of habitable planets is _bad_ news because it invites the question "so where the hell is all the intelligent life on all these habitable planets" the aswers to that question indicate a term in the drake equation is close to zero, hopefully it isn't the term that indicates the length of time a technological civilization exists....
People misunderstand what large amounts of wealth really is - a billionaires wealth comes from the people who work for him and the infrastructure he owns if he wants to leave the country the people and infrastructure stays behind - the wealth of the society is unchanged, all he has done is exchanged his assets for some foreign currency slightly modifying the exchange rate - in short let them leave the country and sell their assets - the overall tax base will be unchanged - and good riddance
Well if we don't run out of oil I predict people will be stupid enough to keep burning it until our atmosphere approches that of Venus - but I doubt the mantle of the earth is a gooey delicicous layer of oil - even with the new estimate of oil reserves it amounts to only one year of extra oil consumption
I tend to agree, but you would think game developers, by not having to build a game to take advantage of the next generation hardware, would have more time to focus on making a decent game, so far they have not succeeded in doing that any better, where are the great, creative games?
You are right what is the point of finding a cure for any disease? We should just shoot the disabled and feeble who don't have the money to be cared for - the would save a lot of money - and of course you argue we don't have the money, of course we have the money to currently care for these people, we just don't have any money to really fix the problem, and money is like some sort of magic scarce resource to you instead of just a way of keeping score - saying the government is out of money is like saying you can run out of points at a basketball game - you can't - all that matters is if there are idle resources available to do what you want or not and with 7% unemployment there are plenty of idle resources - in short, sir, you are a nitwit
This is very sad news - I can't say anything more that others on this thread but just to add my voice in saying thank you
Russsia by far bore the brunt of casualties during WWII, but the US was critical to winning, in 1940 the US GDP was greater than the rest of thw world _combined_, the US truely was the "arsenal of Democracy" in the sense that it could produce an endless number of tanks, fighters, bombers and ships - so long as England did not fall the US could just stack up equipment in England to use as a staging ground for the invasion of Europe - Russia was quite pissed off that the US waited so long to invade while they bore the brunt of the casualties. The US had a similar role in WWI, in that american equipment helped break the stalemate between the axis and the allies.
I drive a lot in Germany, it is a joy to drive there because there are no speed traps, as a consequence people obey the law _more_ because the traffic signs mean something, you see a sign for 100kph then you go 100 because the road or conditions will not allow that speed (god help you if you get a ticket because you really fucked up). In the US most speed signs fall in the "overticket" category, the interstate highways were designed for 75MPH cruising not 55 or 65, an lots of little towns get a large amount to money from tickets from speed traps - the town should just tax approriately to support themselves instead of creating speed traps which, if anything, discourage safety and erode respect for the law.
We are - we are at the tipping point? how do you know? When the economy starts to recover interest rates will go up and so will tax income, the reason we are running a deficit is because people are unemployed, not paying taxes and collecting benefits, the deficit was much smaller before the recesssion even with the bush tax cuts and war spending and it went up because people stopped paying taxes because they didn't have a fucking job and the government had to pay them unemployment - when people get jobs the deficit goes down (as it has been for the past several years! but nobody mentions that) - we are running a smaller deficit now than we did two years ago, this will continue as employment improves - this is standard fucking stuff, but people keep repeating this nonsense about spending, people need to get a clue.
perfectly true - except for the fact that the "family" can borrow money at a rate below inflation and can print money at will - there is no comparison between family finances and a goverment that controls its own money - what a crock of shit
Insightful? - well fuck me, people are idiots -low interest rates mean people _want_ to loan you money, Greece has _high_ interest rates because they are tied to the euro and people are unsure whether they will have enough euros to pay their debt, wheras in the US we have low interest rates because people need a safe place to put their money where they know they will be paid back, if fact rates are so low we pay less servicing our "exploding debt" than we did 10 years ago when nobody cared about the debt - amazing how people commenting about debt and interest rates (like comparing the US goverment to dad with a credit card) are so stupid that they don't understand the basics - yes I said stupid there is no excuse after years of recession.
"Consequently, if you run into a law that infringes on your right to keep or carry arms in any way, shape or form, you've found an unconstitutional law." Are nukes OK? because it would be cool to have one, rocket launchers and grenades are cool too - you are correct about the definition of Militia, in the south every white male of fighting age was meant to be in one - to supress a slave uprising should one arise.
google "second amendment slave revolt" - in any event we had the second amendment, if it was put in place to preserve our freedom against an oppressive goverment how did that work out in the south before 1860? piss poor if you ask me, slavery is as oppressive as it gets and it was only overturned by a fucking army from the north, not a buch of freedum lovers with guns living in Alabama.
I was reading about the history of the 2nd ammendment - what was funny is that the second amendment wasn't put in to prevent a takeover by an oppressive government, it was put in to _preserve_ an oppressive goverment - the slave states wanted the gun provision put in so they could keep their state run militas, which were in place to prevent slave revolts - funny how it has been twisted around.
I think a better business model would be: 1) nudge near earth astroid into collision course with earth 2) submit ransom note 3) profit!
I am sure, yes some businesses do not have patent portfolios to threaten other companies if they entice their employees to work for them, but they do things like collude on pricing - screwing the consumer, buy out competetors so the employees have no other company to work for, or divvy up markets - captialism is great, except when it isn't in their own interest - face it, most large companies are assholes, and the most beautiful thing is when little people stand up for the rights of big companies to be assholes - they got to love that.
+1 - people should be aware that what Jobs did was standard operating procedure for large companies
You are spot on - I don't know if this employer attitude is really a leftover from slavery or not, but it sure feels that the employer is entitled to all the profit and that employee is, in effect property of the employer, even the langage is skewed this way "Joe belongs to Fred" instead of "Joe works in Fred's organization" - in this case it just pisses the employer off that the employee was profiting from a similar realtionship.
Isn't that the rate on credit cards? - I guess the goverment, or private individuals should sue banks for the 14% (or more!) intrerest on credit cards