Obama has shown what he is very clearly when he confiscated GM from the owners and handed it over to the union labour (in fact the non-union labour was also left out to dry). He does not believe in ownership of means of production. As to him being a socialist, it is you, who must be kidding.
One pushed through a big health care reform which will cover millions of uninsured people while the other is moving as far away from his (mostly identical) program as possible.
- They are identical on this topic. First of all Romney's plan is Obama's plan. Secondly Romney is not going to cut anything from either Medicare or SS. It's not his plan.
Paul Ryan is a complete joke, total sell out, a fraud. His 'plan' makes rosy assumptions that will never come true about the interest rates and growth of economy and he never cuts anything from any budget.
Even his supposed cuts to the rate of growth of the government are nonsense, they can't start for another 10 years, that's what the point is that he is bringing across - if you are 55 or over, you will not be affected by his cuts.
But there are no cuts. No cut is a cut unless it's done in the first term of presidency, everything else is a funny game they like to play. Even the so called 'sequestration', or automatic cuts that were the deal to avoid the US rating from being cut further by the rating agencies (political beats, not real rating agencies), even this is not going to happen and this was the agreement just 1 year ago.
Why would anybody care what anybody says about any cuts 10 and more years into the future? USA doesn't have 10 years, the US dollar and bonds will be destroyed much earlier than that.
One believes that progressive taxation is essential to prosperity. The other has done everything he can to make the tax system regressive.
- ha, the ONLY difference between Romney and Obama in this is that the top earners will have the SAME CUTS as the rest of them under Romney's plan, and Obama, as the Marxist that he is, is leading the class warfare, so he is going to give tax cuts to everybody except the top 1% (that's his platform).
(As to 'believing in progressive taxation' - what a stupid idea. Progressive taxation is simply theft, nothing else, it cannot grow anything by definition, it removes the investment funding from the productive part of society and moves it to the unproductive part).
One believes we need to regulate the financial sector to ensure stability. The other has pledged to tear down what little regulation we have.
- USA has over 100,000 regulations of financial institutions in place, that's first. Secondly - Obama is not going to do anything more than than Romney.
Here is the real problem - the financial sector is the symptom of the dying economy, it's not the cause of it. It doesn't produce anything on its own, it can only discover prices and allocate resources, the production is dying not because of the financial sector, but because of the size and power of government, that destroyed the savings, investments and incentives to create the welfare state. Regulating or not regulating the financial sector will do absolutely nothing to fix the economy, this is about as meaningful as your idea on progressive taxes.
"We used to think you could spend your way out of recession and increase employment by boosting government spending, I tell you, in all candour, that that option no longer exists. And in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion⦠by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next stepâ¦
As to the energy sources, this is again, a market decision, not government decision to make and it will not be.
Obama does not believe in private ownership and operation of means of production and he has displayed this in practice, GM was confiscated from its rightful owners, the non-union labourers also lost their share and the company was given away to the labour union.
I don't need Obama to be theoretically a Marxist, he is practically a Marxist.
That's not a choice, that's lack of options, that's false choice.
Obama and Romney differ very little when it comes to the actual issues, the difference is that Obama is a convinced Marxist basically, he is completely convinced that the free market capitalism is the root of all evil. Romney on the other hand simply doesn't understand free market capitalism.
Both of them will do the same thing - spend more and more on government, will not do anything to reduce the actual size of government, will do nothing to reform SS, Medicare and will not stop wars (will have more of them) and will do nothing about the growing problem of the real interest rates.
The real choice is not between Romney and Obama, it's between both of them and people like Gary Johnson (Libertarian ticket in these elections) or Ron Paul (you can write him in if you want).
There is no difference otherwise, it's going to be more destruction of the real economy, bigger government, eventual destruction of US dollars and all dollar denominated credit.
I know that on/. this is going to be met with a huge outcry from all sides, there will be more funny kind of moderation, as if this is a 'troll' or 'overrated' or 'flamebait', but as far as I am concerned this is just the reality.
I'm confused by what you expect government to do. I, personally, like roads and sewers.
- roads and sewers must not be under government's purview, they are none of government's business. They are purely a function of a market supply/demand for the purposes of increasing efficiency.
Gov't must exist to ensure that a worse one does not take its place, that's the role that must be allocated to the government. Gov't must exist to protect individual freedoms, and when I say 'protect freedoms', I do mean protect freedoms of individuals from government stealing those freedoms. Gov't does have a role in national defence, that must be its only real authorised role.
An enormous majority of the comfort of your life comes from having a good government
- pointing out things that exist because money was stolen is easy, pointing out that the money was stolen and because of it many things do not exist is hard. The comforts in my life have nothing to do with having 'good government', first of all if you want to be personal about it - I was born in the former USSR, the government was the biggest obstacle people had to their lives there. But today this unfortunate trend is spread around the world like a wildfire.
These are really, at the heart, what people want in their lives.
- what people want is meaning, and no meaning comes out of government, people get their meaning when they find something they are good at. Today people have much less ability to find what they are good at, since they are prevented from even trying early on with all the government that exists.
If businesses could create, they wouldn't need to charge money. Eh?
- businesses do create money, they make money, it's the only real money that is created - money that is created as a result of production.
You are talking about currency, just a form of exchange of money between trading partners. All trade is done for things, not for paper cash. All fiat currencies that ever existed and will ever exist have failed and will fail, the only real money is production and the only stable medium of exchange, store of value and unit of account is gold.
Corporations are a concentration of power.
- that's a meaningless statement, corporations do not have the type of power that governments do over people. Corporations are businesses that you can choose to deal with or to deal with their competitors or not at all.
Partnerships are a concentration of power.
- same thing as other forms of business, partnership does not have power over you, you are dealing with it voluntarily.
Government has legislative means that companies do not, since you don't understand that simple concept, I don't think I can help you much.
There is no god. It's a fictional idea that has not a shred of evidence behind it. If you think there is a god, you have to examine your reasons, you'll find that you are believing in something without any evidence.
If you do have evidence, present it and then at least there can be room for some discussion about the merits of your case. Until such time it is obvious that every story that people have ever told each other that involve any type of paranormal activity is pure imagination.
There is no god, and I do not have to prove that there is no god, just like I can say: there is no Pinocchio and I do not have to prove that statement.
You know, if this mad any sense at all, I'd be running a bunch of businesses and undercutting everybody else by that 'gender gap' percentage.
So if women can really be hired for the same jobs with the same experience, with the same work ethic and ability as men, and they do not require anything extra in terms of any type of insurance, health care, then I would be running female only companies making a killing because of my lower prices.
--
Here is what this statistic does not take into account: the higher cost of having women as employees. Women cost more as employees, and they will cost even more with all this new legislation, from the 'condoms for pay' to the 'equal pay', it's all going to push prices higher.
Do you know why women cost more than men to have as employees? I am not even going to talk about maternity leave, etc., I am going to address the much higher liability cost.
The liability cost alone is enough to make one's hair stand on its ends. Having women as employees is very dangerous because of the possible lawsuits. All this sexual discrimination and all the sexual harassment lawsuits that can result from women working for a company, men just don't cost as much.
What do you think happens when government says: you, the employer, have to give your employees something, say minimum wage or 3 weeks of paid vacation or whatever? What do you think it means? It just means one thing: the government is buying votes by making it look as if the employees are getting something for nothing, but in reality the employees are paying for this.
Minimum wage means that fewer people are hired, fewer jobs exist. There are jobs that are viable at half the minimum wage, but not at minimum wage, those are now illegal, nobody can get hired for those, nobody can start their employment experience in those jobs.
With vacation or whatever else that you think you are getting for 'free', it's simple - you are not getting it for free, it's part of your pay. You are just not getting paid in money.
With medical insurance it's the same thing, the difference being that you don't have to pay income taxes on that insurance package, so it's a huge incentive to get as big a health insurance package as possible, because if you had to buy it out of your earnings, you'd be buying it with your POST-income tax salary.
There is nothing free. The so called 'gender gap' is nonsense created by the government regulations.
Unfortunately I still end up paying some of the tax burden, not all taxes can be minimised. I used to pay much more in taxes than now (I didn't have all the necessary tools and knowledge at the time). But saying that individuals are not paying for all of the services they buy completely neglects the fact that we are paying for everything either directly or through taxes (in this broken world) but also this completely neglects the fact that we are paying for all of this with much lower standard of living.
The standard of living that the people have, depends on productivity of the people, and the collective is a system that steals, prevents and destroys productivity. Unfortunately for all, we are all paying for the loss of productivity that is caused by the ever growing government.
As to 'herd immunity', as I stated a number of times, I am not against vaccines, I am against the violent use of government force to mandate that the individuals must be vaccinated.
There is simply no way for you to "pay" for that benefit; it requires a group effort.
- of-course I pay for this. I pay for this with the diminished standard of living due to the productivity because of the diminished individual freedoms.
There is no excuse for the collective to subjugate the individual, AFAIC any collective that engages in this practice must and will be destroyed (and from my POV it's the great thing that happens when the equation is rebalanced).
Alternately, allowing each individual to contribute exactly as he wishes, and no more, to society will also harm society.
- this is completely wrong, based on a false premise that individuals are not contributing to the society simply by being productive and successful, but that they must also be robbed to 'contribute'. That's the part that takes a while to go around in this society.
but I see the advantage in sacrificing some personal liberty towards a shared goal
- there cannot be such thing as 'sacrificing some personal liberty'. There is no 'some' in this case, it means that eventually no personal liberties will be left, that's all it means.
That's why altruism is a terrible thing, by the way, it allows the promotion of such damaging, anti-life ideas as 'self sacrifice'.
and luckily it's a self-defeating philosophy. Ironically, you'd have to get enough other individualists to work together to impose YOUR philosophy on me
- no, the great part is that your philosophy is going to destroy your very system, that's the good part.
The bad part is that your philosophy is a huge setback to the progress, to the economy, to the standard of living of all.
Well then, the US government better hurry up then with its plans to invade Iran, because, god forbid, it may become a democracy. Again. The US and UK can't stand that.
A collective is just a collection of individuals, working towards a common goal under a shared set of rules.
- no it's not. 1. There is no goal. 2. There are no shared rules.
There are rules that are imposed and will stay imposed upon the individuals until the system collapses.
There are some individuals who gain from using this power over the rest of the individuals, that's what is sold to you under this concept of 'shared goal'.
I do not have a shared goal with anybody for example. I don't share your goals, at least not on purpose. I have my own goals and your goals are not my goals. I am sure that you have your goals, and they are not mine either.
And I don't quite understand how the idea of people contributing to society is going to kill us all by....destroying society?
- it's very easy. Lemmings jump into the water together, some die for sure. Your economy right now is a result of such collective behaviour that is destroying that economy. The majority of the people don't understand the economy, that don't understand money, they don't understand inflation, they don't understand production, they don't understand business. They believe that consumers drive the economy rather than producers, which is complete nonsense, consumption is a trivial consequence of production. Production is driven by individuals, consumption right now is a collective effort, with the collective, collectively engaging in behaviour that is destroying the economy by destroying the money.
Where? Certainly not in America, or any other society I've personally experienced.
- in America, yes, in Europe as well, in many other places as well. The places where individuals right now are not suppressed are places where people are much freer to do business as they see fit. It is all about business, it is all about production and it's all about being able to not be robbed by the collective obviously.
I get that you don't like having other people tell you what to do and you object to being forced to contribute back to the society that enabled your production, I'm not most best fond of it, but that's just the way it is. It is impossible for you (or me), as an individual, to produce the electricity that powers the refrigerator you built to keep fresh the food that you grew to feed yourself.
- this is a false argument, it supposes that I owe MORE THAN I PAY for the services that I buy.
You see, I actually PAY for services I need, I don't have any other obligations to anybody for the services that I buy. All services that are worth buying are produced by the free market, the government steals from the individuals by creating monopolies in most obvious business sectors and by hiking the prices and then forcing people to give up part of their income to pay for these overprices services they may or may not need at all.
A refrigerator manufacturer does not own me, you see, once I pay for the fridge he cannot come back to me and say: you owe me more of what you are producing right now.
I already paid the fair price, that transaction is over. Same with all these nonsense arguments (teachers, cops, etc., whoever your gov't pretends are there with you every step of the way as you are going through your life. They get paid, they are not there for free, their services were paid for unfortunately.)
The fact that our society is functioning indicates that most people are mostly OK with the current teamwork paradigm.
- that's my point.
The society is breaking the individual and the society is falling apart. I am very glad that it is falling apart, I want to see all of the attributes of modern society to be revamped, no more theft from one and redistribution to another, whoever it is, for whatever purpose.
it would be great if you could go live in the wilderness by yourself rather than have t
You are blind to the obvious, which is that so much was destroyed and stolen in order to create that system of subsidised and controlled interstate highways, a system that is not built in order maximise efficiencies in the market. The rail that was maximising the efficiencies in the market was destroyed by the government, while it used the stolen resources to buy the tools, products and knowledge necessary from the individuals to put together that interstate highway system.
Interstate highway system in USA includes H1 (Hawaii), exactly what is 'interstate' about it? Nothing, it's not about communications, it's not about efficiencies, it's about control, subjugation of the individual freedoms by controlling those freedoms with this hammer that is hanging over the heads of the people.
How much was stolen from the people, what projects did not take place, what business was crowded out by all that credit and money that government extracted from the economy to put together this system of control over the individuals?
What happened to the environment, as the people used this supposedly 'free' resource and how did it play into the urban sprawl, that makes US living standard non-viable once the subsidies are gone? What about the pollution created by all these subsidised highways and thus all that traffic? The impossibility of having a profitable private mass transit system in such an environment is obvious.
How much productivity is stolen from the economy every year to run this monstrosity that was built as a giant make work project?
Nothing that is worth doing is worth doing by stealing.
Each governmental agency thinks it's an entity unto itself.
- yes, and another wrong belief that many hold is that government is productive, that it can create something. It cannot. If government could create, it wouldn't need taxes to be extracted from the people. It is the people, the individuals that create, government takes it and does something with it, most often it ends up using the stolen resources to destroy.
Wars are ran by governments, don't forget that. Wars destroy. Governments run wars and kill people. They kill millions of people. No private entity ever killed anywhere near close to any number of people that governments kill. Governments murder people and steal their property, that's the point. That is why governments must be understood to be inherently evil in nature. Governments are concentration of power and the power that concentrated is not used for anything good, it's always used for evil. Governments are inherently evil.
Now, it's possible to argue that people must have government and use that inherent evil in order to make sure that it is the evil that is controlled. The controlled evil. There is one thing that people really need governments to do - make sure that they are there, so that a more evil thing does not become the government.
Government must have authority to do something and it must not be allowed to take a single step beyond that authority. If you do not explicitly state that the government has any other authority, it must not be allowed to do whatever it is it just wants to do.
The evil that inherent in government power wants to be unleashed. There are many people who want to go be part of a government so that they can unleash that evil. If you let them do it, you will all be subjugated to the people who will hold that power over you.
It is the individual that makes things. It is the individual that owns a farm and runs it. It is the individual that runs a store. It is the individual that runs a construction company. It is the individual that runs a manufacturing plant. It is the individual that at least used to run investment banks as partnerships.
Actually until the collective, this society took over the individual freedoms with regulations, rules, central banks, fake money, income taxes, labour laws, etc., the individuals used to do everything very well. Even just in the 1970 NO investment bank was a publicly run company, not a single one. All investment banks were individually ran partnerships (maybe 2 people, maybe 5 people, but they were individual running their business), so when the society screwed up the freedom in the market to enough point, these partnerships disappeared and now you have only public investment banks. But what disappeared with the individual partnership and appeared with the public option? It is the RESPONSIBILITY. The individual responsibility. Those partners had their own money on the line, make a bad move, fuck with your client and you lose your business, and that was a very powerful incentive to be a good individual, good enough to make money and good enough to stay in business, that's what I mean when I say 'good' - working for profit, but not running a fraud of a bank, running an actual useful company.
The society, the collective, the government is what destroys things.
What individuals create, the collective destroys. What individual invent, the collective uses to kill. What individual build, the collective steals.
There are no nice things created, built, invented by the collective. Collective is a meaningless concept, there are only individuals, and when this meaningless concept becomes the centre, rather than the Individual being the centre, the priorities change, the morals change, everything changes in a very terrible manner. The individuals are enslaved, they become property of the collective.
There are now 66 million people in USA that are getting this so called 'public assistance' from 'the government' one way or another. It's in quotes, because that money is simply stolen from the individuals who made it and it's redistributed so that the mass of the non-individuals can carry on with their meaningless existence.
If the individual is destroyed and stays destroyed, you will have nothing. There will be nothing created, there will be nothing invented, there will be nothing built, nothing will be made. But this cannot last for too long, it's not in the nature of people just to lay down and die, so there will be soon enough a choice - let the individual be free or die. There will be no 'society', there will be no 'collective' that will give you anything. The saying is that the government that is big enough to take care of your every need, is the government that is big enough to steal your every freedom, and this is easily done with democracy, democracy is the gateway to totalitarianism, and this does destroy the individual.
But the obvious question is - who are you going to be living off of? With nobody creating, building, inventing there will be nothing to steal and to redistribute. And so that society will collapse, obviously the government is way, way, radically, hugely oversized. Obviously the individual is way, way, radically, hugely suppressed.
This is an extreme part of the spectrum that you are reaching, it will swing in the opposite direction. It will, be prepared to observe the opposite side of this at some point in not so distant future.
The Internet that I am using to communicate with others was not created by a meaningless organisation. The Internet that I am using was built by companies that wanted to make a buck.
These companies are not the ones trying to force me either to pay income taxes and they are not the ones saying that everybody must be forced to be vaccinated.
Have you failed every logic class or just most of them?
. Although why you think you have the right to endanger me and my loved ones against my will is an interesting question.
- my position on vaccines is irrelevant, it's not about vaccines themselves, the merits of vaccines, the dangers. None of it is what I am talking about. I am talking about the fact that the collective must not be able and cannot force an individual to take action like that, to work for the collective or to be property of the collective, and all individuals must fight the abuse of the individuals by the collective.
Collective becomes the evil force that tries to overpower the individual, that's the part that is despicable - deserving hatred and contempt.
You may believe that 'as a group' you say something that it must mean something, but all that means is that there IS a group that wants things to be ran that way. There are individuals, whether they are a group or not is irrelevant, who want things to be the exact opposite - they do not want the collective to dictate to the individual, to own him. We are in the process of observing this very battle right now, economically speaking.
Society is a meaningless term. There is only the individual. The society is nothing. Society doesn't live, it's not born and it doesn't die. Society is an organisation, and only individuals are born, live and die. Only individual matter, society does not matter, it's not alive.
Individuals cannot and must not be forced by society into anything - from becoming work slaves (being forced to pay income taxes), to becoming property (being forced into vaccinations).
It is up to the individuals to get vaccinated, not up to society to force them. Society is a meaningless idea, it's not alive.
You are born and you die alone within yourself. Once you are born your Universe is born with you, once you die, your Universe dies with you as well. Society is an external meaningless organisational structure and it is not above any one individual.
Clayton is arguing for regulations that remove the developerâ(TM)s right to waive any responsibility for security flaws in their software. Itâ(TM)s an argument that has already won support from officials across Europe, with a House of Lords committee recommending such a measure be implemented in 2007 and European Commissioners arguing for the requirement in 2009 - however agreements to this effect have not been passed.
âoeItâ(TM)s remarkable that of all the things that you could buy as a consumer, software is the one where youâ(TM)re expected to make up your mind whether itâ(TM)s dangerous,â Clayton says.
This person wants to create what he understands and works with - more laws. It's more work for himself, he wants to create environment where he would be given more power over other people, that's all.
All people who are for any type of legislation over other people are really looking for power over other people, you have to understand it. The guy says: "it's amazing, you have to make your own mind about something and there is no law!" Wow, amazing.
How about doing the exact opposite of what he proposes, namely removing the EXISTING regulations from the books that regulate businesses out of existence already?
This interview is about a couple of entrepreneurs from California that are shutting down their business because they couldn't make it there, but if you listen to the interview you'll find out why they couldn't make it there, the government prevented them from doing business as they wanted. They basically had something like cycle rickshaws driving people around for tips and the city (in this case) prevented them from having electronic advertising on their bicycles.
The drivers (10 to 17 people or so) made up to 20 bucks per hour doing this work for tips. The two people running the company couldn't go around a few city rules, like that with the advertising and also something about being unable to cross a bridge where people on bicycles are allowed to cross, but with passengers people aren't allowed. It's amazing to listen and find out that they had to pay thousands of dollars to the government just to start a business like that, with all the licenses and compliance costs! It's ridiculous obviously (should be obviously). People clearly like their services, but the gov't prevents them from operating in a way that would allow them to continue.
But all business regulations are about shutting down the business, all of it. It's about creating monopolies for some businesses and it's about creating worthless, economy damaging government jobs. It's about creating more work for lawyers of-course, it's about all the parasites riding on the backs of the real economy, and it all ends up destroying jobs, destroying the economy in the process.
Regulating software creation? Good way to shut down free/open source software and hand over the monopolies to a few large enterprises that have the necessary lobbyists and economies of scale to comply with these regulations. Will the clients, customers, consumers be better served by these few monopolists?
That's what the deductible is for. Of-course I don't make rules for what is legal in your country, I'd be very upset if I were you that in USA it is not even really possible to get medical insurance across State borders, but why shouldn't you be able to buy health insurance or any type of insurance across nations borders?
It is illegal for foreign insurance companies to advertise in USA.
Well, I did visit Rochester hospital and Buffalo Medical Group on a number of occasions, always paid out of pocket, don't see the problem that you are seeing.
As far as I understand there are plenty of hospitals and clinics that do not have a problem taking cash.
So the OP says that government kills people on every day basis and your response is - you are a nut?
Government DOES kill people on daily basis, thousands, tens of thousands, millions are killed by governments every year. Aren't you priorities misplaced?
10 thousand rounds is not hard right now, just have 10,000 barrels, each one preloaded with a single shot, fired electrically, no need to strike anything, just a couple of wires. Have this configured as a wearable vest, covered up lightly.
How about 100 by 100 barrels, for a total of 10,000, all placed on a single wearable vest, bullets preloaded, the barrels shut with thin paper, bullets fired electrically?
Treat insurance as insurance, not as a health care account, buy critical illness with a high deductible (maybe 10-20K), but make sure it covers 5-10 years of your expenses for sure. For the normal every day stuff just pay out of pocket.
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Obama has shown what he is very clearly when he confiscated GM from the owners and handed it over to the union labour (in fact the non-union labour was also left out to dry). He does not believe in ownership of means of production. As to him being a socialist, it is you, who must be kidding.
One pushed through a big health care reform which will cover millions of uninsured people while the other is moving as far away from his (mostly identical) program as possible.
- They are identical on this topic. First of all Romney's plan is Obama's plan. Secondly Romney is not going to cut anything from either Medicare or SS. It's not his plan.
Paul Ryan is a complete joke, total sell out, a fraud. His 'plan' makes rosy assumptions that will never come true about the interest rates and growth of economy and he never cuts anything from any budget.
Even his supposed cuts to the rate of growth of the government are nonsense, they can't start for another 10 years, that's what the point is that he is bringing across - if you are 55 or over, you will not be affected by his cuts.
But there are no cuts. No cut is a cut unless it's done in the first term of presidency, everything else is a funny game they like to play. Even the so called 'sequestration', or automatic cuts that were the deal to avoid the US rating from being cut further by the rating agencies (political beats, not real rating agencies), even this is not going to happen and this was the agreement just 1 year ago.
Why would anybody care what anybody says about any cuts 10 and more years into the future? USA doesn't have 10 years, the US dollar and bonds will be destroyed much earlier than that.
One believes that progressive taxation is essential to prosperity. The other has done everything he can to make the tax system regressive.
- ha, the ONLY difference between Romney and Obama in this is that the top earners will have the SAME CUTS as the rest of them under Romney's plan, and Obama, as the Marxist that he is, is leading the class warfare, so he is going to give tax cuts to everybody except the top 1% (that's his platform).
(As to 'believing in progressive taxation' - what a stupid idea. Progressive taxation is simply theft, nothing else, it cannot grow anything by definition, it removes the investment funding from the productive part of society and moves it to the unproductive part).
One believes we need to regulate the financial sector to ensure stability. The other has pledged to tear down what little regulation we have.
- USA has over 100,000 regulations of financial institutions in place, that's first. Secondly - Obama is not going to do anything more than than Romney.
Here is the real problem - the financial sector is the symptom of the dying economy, it's not the cause of it. It doesn't produce anything on its own, it can only discover prices and allocate resources, the production is dying not because of the financial sector, but because of the size and power of government, that destroyed the savings, investments and incentives to create the welfare state. Regulating or not regulating the financial sector will do absolutely nothing to fix the economy, this is about as meaningful as your idea on progressive taxes.
By the way, James Calaghan was one of the PMs in UK, here is what he said at the 1976 Labour Party conference, when UK was doing what US is doing now:
"We used to think you could spend your way out of recession and increase employment by boosting government spending, I tell you, in all candour, that that option no longer exists. And in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion⦠by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next stepâ¦
As to the energy sources, this is again, a market decision, not government decision to make and it will not be.
There is no difference between Romney and Obama.
Obama does not believe in private ownership and operation of means of production and he has displayed this in practice, GM was confiscated from its rightful owners, the non-union labourers also lost their share and the company was given away to the labour union.
I don't need Obama to be theoretically a Marxist, he is practically a Marxist.
That's not a choice, that's lack of options, that's false choice.
Obama and Romney differ very little when it comes to the actual issues, the difference is that Obama is a convinced Marxist basically, he is completely convinced that the free market capitalism is the root of all evil. Romney on the other hand simply doesn't understand free market capitalism.
Both of them will do the same thing - spend more and more on government, will not do anything to reduce the actual size of government, will do nothing to reform SS, Medicare and will not stop wars (will have more of them) and will do nothing about the growing problem of the real interest rates.
The real choice is not between Romney and Obama, it's between both of them and people like Gary Johnson (Libertarian ticket in these elections) or Ron Paul (you can write him in if you want).
There is no difference otherwise, it's going to be more destruction of the real economy, bigger government, eventual destruction of US dollars and all dollar denominated credit.
I know that on /. this is going to be met with a huge outcry from all sides, there will be more funny kind of moderation, as if this is a 'troll' or 'overrated' or 'flamebait', but as far as I am concerned this is just the reality.
I'm confused by what you expect government to do. I, personally, like roads and sewers.
- roads and sewers must not be under government's purview, they are none of government's business. They are purely a function of a market supply/demand for the purposes of increasing efficiency.
Gov't must exist to ensure that a worse one does not take its place, that's the role that must be allocated to the government. Gov't must exist to protect individual freedoms, and when I say 'protect freedoms', I do mean protect freedoms of individuals from government stealing those freedoms.
Gov't does have a role in national defence, that must be its only real authorised role.
An enormous majority of the comfort of your life comes from having a good government
- pointing out things that exist because money was stolen is easy, pointing out that the money was stolen and because of it many things do not exist is hard. The comforts in my life have nothing to do with having 'good government', first of all if you want to be personal about it - I was born in the former USSR, the government was the biggest obstacle people had to their lives there. But today this unfortunate trend is spread around the world like a wildfire.
These are really, at the heart, what people want in their lives.
- what people want is meaning, and no meaning comes out of government, people get their meaning when they find something they are good at. Today people have much less ability to find what they are good at, since they are prevented from even trying early on with all the government that exists.
If businesses could create, they wouldn't need to charge money. Eh?
- businesses do create money, they make money, it's the only real money that is created - money that is created as a result of production.
You are talking about currency, just a form of exchange of money between trading partners. All trade is done for things, not for paper cash. All fiat currencies that ever existed and will ever exist have failed and will fail, the only real money is production and the only stable medium of exchange, store of value and unit of account is gold.
Corporations are a concentration of power.
- that's a meaningless statement, corporations do not have the type of power that governments do over people. Corporations are businesses that you can choose to deal with or to deal with their competitors or not at all.
Partnerships are a concentration of power.
- same thing as other forms of business, partnership does not have power over you, you are dealing with it voluntarily.
Government has legislative means that companies do not, since you don't understand that simple concept, I don't think I can help you much.
There is no god. It's a fictional idea that has not a shred of evidence behind it. If you think there is a god, you have to examine your reasons, you'll find that you are believing in something without any evidence.
If you do have evidence, present it and then at least there can be room for some discussion about the merits of your case. Until such time it is obvious that every story that people have ever told each other that involve any type of paranormal activity is pure imagination.
There is no god, and I do not have to prove that there is no god, just like I can say: there is no Pinocchio and I do not have to prove that statement.
You know, if this mad any sense at all, I'd be running a bunch of businesses and undercutting everybody else by that 'gender gap' percentage.
So if women can really be hired for the same jobs with the same experience, with the same work ethic and ability as men, and they do not require anything extra in terms of any type of insurance, health care, then I would be running female only companies making a killing because of my lower prices.
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Here is what this statistic does not take into account: the higher cost of having women as employees. Women cost more as employees, and they will cost even more with all this new legislation, from the 'condoms for pay' to the 'equal pay', it's all going to push prices higher.
Do you know why women cost more than men to have as employees? I am not even going to talk about maternity leave, etc., I am going to address the much higher liability cost.
The liability cost alone is enough to make one's hair stand on its ends. Having women as employees is very dangerous because of the possible lawsuits. All this sexual discrimination and all the sexual harassment lawsuits that can result from women working for a company, men just don't cost as much.
What do you think happens when government says: you, the employer, have to give your employees something, say minimum wage or 3 weeks of paid vacation or whatever? What do you think it means? It just means one thing: the government is buying votes by making it look as if the employees are getting something for nothing, but in reality the employees are paying for this.
Minimum wage means that fewer people are hired, fewer jobs exist. There are jobs that are viable at half the minimum wage, but not at minimum wage, those are now illegal, nobody can get hired for those, nobody can start their employment experience in those jobs.
With vacation or whatever else that you think you are getting for 'free', it's simple - you are not getting it for free, it's part of your pay. You are just not getting paid in money.
With medical insurance it's the same thing, the difference being that you don't have to pay income taxes on that insurance package, so it's a huge incentive to get as big a health insurance package as possible, because if you had to buy it out of your earnings, you'd be buying it with your POST-income tax salary.
There is nothing free.
The so called 'gender gap' is nonsense created by the government regulations.
Not all of them.
- all of them.
Unfortunately I still end up paying some of the tax burden, not all taxes can be minimised. I used to pay much more in taxes than now (I didn't have all the necessary tools and knowledge at the time). But saying that individuals are not paying for all of the services they buy completely neglects the fact that we are paying for everything either directly or through taxes (in this broken world) but also this completely neglects the fact that we are paying for all of this with much lower standard of living.
The standard of living that the people have, depends on productivity of the people, and the collective is a system that steals, prevents and destroys productivity. Unfortunately for all, we are all paying for the loss of productivity that is caused by the ever growing government.
As to 'herd immunity', as I stated a number of times, I am not against vaccines, I am against the violent use of government force to mandate that the individuals must be vaccinated.
There is simply no way for you to "pay" for that benefit; it requires a group effort.
- of-course I pay for this. I pay for this with the diminished standard of living due to the productivity because of the diminished individual freedoms.
There is no excuse for the collective to subjugate the individual, AFAIC any collective that engages in this practice must and will be destroyed (and from my POV it's the great thing that happens when the equation is rebalanced).
Alternately, allowing each individual to contribute exactly as he wishes, and no more, to society will also harm society.
- this is completely wrong, based on a false premise that individuals are not contributing to the society simply by being productive and successful, but that they must also be robbed to 'contribute'. That's the part that takes a while to go around in this society.
but I see the advantage in sacrificing some personal liberty towards a shared goal
- there cannot be such thing as 'sacrificing some personal liberty'. There is no 'some' in this case, it means that eventually no personal liberties will be left, that's all it means.
That's why altruism is a terrible thing, by the way, it allows the promotion of such damaging, anti-life ideas as 'self sacrifice'.
and luckily it's a self-defeating philosophy. Ironically, you'd have to get enough other individualists to work together to impose YOUR philosophy on me
- no, the great part is that your philosophy is going to destroy your very system, that's the good part.
The bad part is that your philosophy is a huge setback to the progress, to the economy, to the standard of living of all.
Well then, the US government better hurry up then with its plans to invade Iran, because, god forbid, it may become a democracy. Again. The US and UK can't stand that.
A collective is just a collection of individuals, working towards a common goal under a shared set of rules.
- no it's not. 1. There is no goal. 2. There are no shared rules.
There are rules that are imposed and will stay imposed upon the individuals until the system collapses.
There are some individuals who gain from using this power over the rest of the individuals, that's what is sold to you under this concept of 'shared goal'.
I do not have a shared goal with anybody for example. I don't share your goals, at least not on purpose. I have my own goals and your goals are not my goals. I am sure that you have your goals, and they are not mine either.
And I don't quite understand how the idea of people contributing to society is going to kill us all by....destroying society?
- it's very easy. Lemmings jump into the water together, some die for sure. Your economy right now is a result of such collective behaviour that is destroying that economy. The majority of the people don't understand the economy, that don't understand money, they don't understand inflation, they don't understand production, they don't understand business. They believe that consumers drive the economy rather than producers, which is complete nonsense, consumption is a trivial consequence of production. Production is driven by individuals, consumption right now is a collective effort, with the collective, collectively engaging in behaviour that is destroying the economy by destroying the money.
Where? Certainly not in America, or any other society I've personally experienced.
- in America, yes, in Europe as well, in many other places as well. The places where individuals right now are not suppressed are places where people are much freer to do business as they see fit. It is all about business, it is all about production and it's all about being able to not be robbed by the collective obviously.
I get that you don't like having other people tell you what to do and you object to being forced to contribute back to the society that enabled your production, I'm not most best fond of it, but that's just the way it is. It is impossible for you (or me), as an individual, to produce the electricity that powers the refrigerator you built to keep fresh the food that you grew to feed yourself.
- this is a false argument, it supposes that I owe MORE THAN I PAY for the services that I buy.
You see, I actually PAY for services I need, I don't have any other obligations to anybody for the services that I buy. All services that are worth buying are produced by the free market, the government steals from the individuals by creating monopolies in most obvious business sectors and by hiking the prices and then forcing people to give up part of their income to pay for these overprices services they may or may not need at all.
A refrigerator manufacturer does not own me, you see, once I pay for the fridge he cannot come back to me and say: you owe me more of what you are producing right now.
I already paid the fair price, that transaction is over. Same with all these nonsense arguments (teachers, cops, etc., whoever your gov't pretends are there with you every step of the way as you are going through your life. They get paid, they are not there for free, their services were paid for unfortunately.)
The fact that our society is functioning indicates that most people are mostly OK with the current teamwork paradigm.
- that's my point.
The society is breaking the individual and the society is falling apart. I am very glad that it is falling apart, I want to see all of the attributes of modern society to be revamped, no more theft from one and redistribution to another, whoever it is, for whatever purpose.
it would be great if you could go live in the wilderness by yourself rather than have t
You are blind to the obvious, which is that so much was destroyed and stolen in order to create that system of subsidised and controlled interstate highways, a system that is not built in order maximise efficiencies in the market. The rail that was maximising the efficiencies in the market was destroyed by the government, while it used the stolen resources to buy the tools, products and knowledge necessary from the individuals to put together that interstate highway system.
Interstate highway system in USA includes H1 (Hawaii), exactly what is 'interstate' about it? Nothing, it's not about communications, it's not about efficiencies, it's about control, subjugation of the individual freedoms by controlling those freedoms with this hammer that is hanging over the heads of the people.
How much was stolen from the people, what projects did not take place, what business was crowded out by all that credit and money that government extracted from the economy to put together this system of control over the individuals?
What happened to the environment, as the people used this supposedly 'free' resource and how did it play into the urban sprawl, that makes US living standard non-viable once the subsidies are gone? What about the pollution created by all these subsidised highways and thus all that traffic? The impossibility of having a profitable private mass transit system in such an environment is obvious.
How much productivity is stolen from the economy every year to run this monstrosity that was built as a giant make work project?
Nothing that is worth doing is worth doing by stealing.
Each governmental agency thinks it's an entity unto itself.
- yes, and another wrong belief that many hold is that government is productive, that it can create something. It cannot. If government could create, it wouldn't need taxes to be extracted from the people. It is the people, the individuals that create, government takes it and does something with it, most often it ends up using the stolen resources to destroy.
Wars are ran by governments, don't forget that. Wars destroy. Governments run wars and kill people. They kill millions of people. No private entity ever killed anywhere near close to any number of people that governments kill. Governments murder people and steal their property, that's the point. That is why governments must be understood to be inherently evil in nature. Governments are concentration of power and the power that concentrated is not used for anything good, it's always used for evil. Governments are inherently evil.
Now, it's possible to argue that people must have government and use that inherent evil in order to make sure that it is the evil that is controlled. The controlled evil. There is one thing that people really need governments to do - make sure that they are there, so that a more evil thing does not become the government.
Government must have authority to do something and it must not be allowed to take a single step beyond that authority. If you do not explicitly state that the government has any other authority, it must not be allowed to do whatever it is it just wants to do.
The evil that inherent in government power wants to be unleashed. There are many people who want to go be part of a government so that they can unleash that evil. If you let them do it, you will all be subjugated to the people who will hold that power over you.
It is the individual that makes things.
It is the individual that owns a farm and runs it.
It is the individual that runs a store.
It is the individual that runs a construction company.
It is the individual that runs a manufacturing plant.
It is the individual that at least used to run investment banks as partnerships.
Actually until the collective, this society took over the individual freedoms with regulations, rules, central banks, fake money, income taxes, labour laws, etc., the individuals used to do everything very well. Even just in the 1970 NO investment bank was a publicly run company, not a single one. All investment banks were individually ran partnerships (maybe 2 people, maybe 5 people, but they were individual running their business), so when the society screwed up the freedom in the market to enough point, these partnerships disappeared and now you have only public investment banks. But what disappeared with the individual partnership and appeared with the public option? It is the RESPONSIBILITY. The individual responsibility. Those partners had their own money on the line, make a bad move, fuck with your client and you lose your business, and that was a very powerful incentive to be a good individual, good enough to make money and good enough to stay in business, that's what I mean when I say 'good' - working for profit, but not running a fraud of a bank, running an actual useful company.
The society, the collective, the government is what destroys things.
What individuals create, the collective destroys.
What individual invent, the collective uses to kill.
What individual build, the collective steals.
There are no nice things created, built, invented by the collective. Collective is a meaningless concept, there are only individuals, and when this meaningless concept becomes the centre, rather than the Individual being the centre, the priorities change, the morals change, everything changes in a very terrible manner. The individuals are enslaved, they become property of the collective.
There are now 66 million people in USA that are getting this so called 'public assistance' from 'the government' one way or another. It's in quotes, because that money is simply stolen from the individuals who made it and it's redistributed so that the mass of the non-individuals can carry on with their meaningless existence.
If the individual is destroyed and stays destroyed, you will have nothing. There will be nothing created, there will be nothing invented, there will be nothing built, nothing will be made. But this cannot last for too long, it's not in the nature of people just to lay down and die, so there will be soon enough a choice - let the individual be free or die. There will be no 'society', there will be no 'collective' that will give you anything. The saying is that the government that is big enough to take care of your every need, is the government that is big enough to steal your every freedom, and this is easily done with democracy, democracy is the gateway to totalitarianism, and this does destroy the individual.
But the obvious question is - who are you going to be living off of? With nobody creating, building, inventing there will be nothing to steal and to redistribute. And so that society will collapse, obviously the government is way, way, radically, hugely oversized. Obviously the individual is way, way, radically, hugely suppressed.
This is an extreme part of the spectrum that you are reaching, it will swing in the opposite direction. It will, be prepared to observe the opposite side of this at some point in not so distant future.
The Internet that I am using to communicate with others was not created by a meaningless organisation. The Internet that I am using was built by companies that wanted to make a buck.
These companies are not the ones trying to force me either to pay income taxes and they are not the ones saying that everybody must be forced to be vaccinated.
Have you failed every logic class or just most of them?
. Although why you think you have the right to endanger me and my loved ones against my will is an interesting question.
- my position on vaccines is irrelevant, it's not about vaccines themselves, the merits of vaccines, the dangers. None of it is what I am talking about. I am talking about the fact that the collective must not be able and cannot force an individual to take action like that, to work for the collective or to be property of the collective, and all individuals must fight the abuse of the individuals by the collective.
Collective becomes the evil force that tries to overpower the individual, that's the part that is despicable - deserving hatred and contempt.
You may believe that 'as a group' you say something that it must mean something, but all that means is that there IS a group that wants things to be ran that way. There are individuals, whether they are a group or not is irrelevant, who want things to be the exact opposite - they do not want the collective to dictate to the individual, to own him. We are in the process of observing this very battle right now, economically speaking.
Society is a meaningless term. There is only the individual. The society is nothing. Society doesn't live, it's not born and it doesn't die. Society is an organisation, and only individuals are born, live and die. Only individual matter, society does not matter, it's not alive.
Individuals cannot and must not be forced by society into anything - from becoming work slaves (being forced to pay income taxes), to becoming property (being forced into vaccinations).
It is up to the individuals to get vaccinated, not up to society to force them. Society is a meaningless idea, it's not alive.
You are born and you die alone within yourself. Once you are born your Universe is born with you, once you die, your Universe dies with you as well. Society is an external meaningless organisational structure and it is not above any one individual.
Here is the pertinent part of this article:
Clayton is arguing for regulations that remove the developerâ(TM)s right to waive any responsibility for security flaws in their software. Itâ(TM)s an argument that has already won support from officials across Europe, with a House of Lords committee recommending such a measure be implemented in 2007 and European Commissioners arguing for the requirement in 2009 - however agreements to this effect have not been passed.
âoeItâ(TM)s remarkable that of all the things that you could buy as a consumer, software is the one where youâ(TM)re expected to make up your mind whether itâ(TM)s dangerous,â Clayton says.
This person wants to create what he understands and works with - more laws. It's more work for himself, he wants to create environment where he would be given more power over other people, that's all.
All people who are for any type of legislation over other people are really looking for power over other people, you have to understand it. The guy says: "it's amazing, you have to make your own mind about something and there is no law!" Wow, amazing.
How about doing the exact opposite of what he proposes, namely removing the EXISTING regulations from the books that regulate businesses out of existence already?
Here is an audio interview, starts at 19:19 and ends at around 40:00 (with VLC I listen at 1.5 times the speed, it's a time saver)
This interview is about a couple of entrepreneurs from California that are shutting down their business because they couldn't make it there, but if you listen to the interview you'll find out why they couldn't make it there, the government prevented them from doing business as they wanted. They basically had something like cycle rickshaws driving people around for tips and the city (in this case) prevented them from having electronic advertising on their bicycles.
The drivers (10 to 17 people or so) made up to 20 bucks per hour doing this work for tips. The two people running the company couldn't go around a few city rules, like that with the advertising and also something about being unable to cross a bridge where people on bicycles are allowed to cross, but with passengers people aren't allowed. It's amazing to listen and find out that they had to pay thousands of dollars to the government just to start a business like that, with all the licenses and compliance costs! It's ridiculous obviously (should be obviously). People clearly like their services, but the gov't prevents them from operating in a way that would allow them to continue.
But all business regulations are about shutting down the business, all of it. It's about creating monopolies for some businesses and it's about creating worthless, economy damaging government jobs. It's about creating more work for lawyers of-course, it's about all the parasites riding on the backs of the real economy, and it all ends up destroying jobs, destroying the economy in the process.
Regulating software creation? Good way to shut down free/open source software and hand over the monopolies to a few large enterprises that have the necessary lobbyists and economies of scale to comply with these regulations. Will the clients, customers, consumers be better served by these few monopolists?
Pffffft.
That's what the deductible is for. Of-course I don't make rules for what is legal in your country, I'd be very upset if I were you that in USA it is not even really possible to get medical insurance across State borders, but why shouldn't you be able to buy health insurance or any type of insurance across nations borders?
It is illegal for foreign insurance companies to advertise in USA.
That's what critical illness insurance is for. Choose a high deductible to have low monthly payments.
Well, I did visit Rochester hospital and Buffalo Medical Group on a number of occasions, always paid out of pocket, don't see the problem that you are seeing.
As far as I understand there are plenty of hospitals and clinics that do not have a problem taking cash.
Well, of-course, if they put it that way then it totally makes perfect sense. It's the 'Yeah, but they were all bad' excuse.
When it's 4 people putting a game together? then you can stick.....
laugh about it. when its 20 .....
code? it because an ...
TO answer...
I often out Easter eggs ....
I do most my work on my own....
Also, jokes.
This entire comment is an Easter egg.
So the OP says that government kills people on every day basis and your response is - you are a nut?
Government DOES kill people on daily basis, thousands, tens of thousands, millions are killed by governments every year. Aren't you priorities misplaced?
10 thousand rounds is not hard right now, just have 10,000 barrels, each one preloaded with a single shot, fired electrically, no need to strike anything, just a couple of wires. Have this configured as a wearable vest, covered up lightly.
4 barrels? Why 4?
How about 100 by 100 barrels, for a total of 10,000, all placed on a single wearable vest, bullets preloaded, the barrels shut with thin paper, bullets fired electrically?
I think I like the idea.
Treat insurance as insurance, not as a health care account, buy critical illness with a high deductible (maybe 10-20K), but make sure it covers 5-10 years of your expenses for sure. For the normal every day stuff just pay out of pocket.