the external costs are simply too high for modern societies to bear.
- that's a laugh. The US has the sack to criticize the Chinese for NOT having SS and EI, the US is telling the Chinese: you are saving too much, your rate of consumption is too low.
How about the US minds its own fucking business? The Chinese are doing it right - they are saving for their own future and they are thinking about their own retirement and they are not interested and not trusting the government to do any of it. They are doing it right. You are stuck in magic land, with magical unicorns that care about you.
If we completely deregulated the markets, even with competition, this doesn't guarantee food would be safe,
- nothing is guaranteed ever. Today food safety is totally up to the manufacturers/processors as well. The food safety is first of all a concern for the producer because he is the one getting stuck with bad image, with lawsuits, with reduced customer base if he fucks up.
The gov't has nothing to do with food safety. Gov't only does one thing: collects payments for licenses and maybe once a year (if even that often) an official asshole from gov't shows up and takes a tour. I am sure those gov't officials never take bribes and always do the best jobs, of-course, right, after all - they are the monopoly on this 'safety' business. Obviously they care.
Except they don't care. The food is safe ONLY as long as the producer keeps it safe. Producers fuck up on regular basis now and then, and you have recalls.
Nobody forces them to recall, but they know that they have a lot of money at stake.
Hint: Most of our western quack nostrums eg: homeopathy, chiropractic, etc come from largely deregulated periods of our culture
- hint - you are wrong. All this nonsense existed always, chiropractors, etc.
The only reason the society even UNDERSTANDS that it's nonsense is NOT because of government regulations, but because there is legitimate field of pharmaceutical research and medicine based on trial and error and statistics. Government again, has nothing to do with this. You think government KNOWS somehow what is right, what is wrong in medical field? Sure, just as much as they know about oil drilling or food safety or educating kids or stock exchanges or finance.
Now that the US government also guarantees that GM will have their customers, simply by controlling the flow of cars, taxing and subsidizing, you think the US gov't made the cars better? If they were better, GM wouldn't have had the trouble it was in. Of-course majority of GM trouble is the fact that it became a finance company, like GE, rather than being a manufacturing company. But how could they still be a manufacturing company when the unions got such a strong hold there, that GM was in the same situation with pensions that the separate US States and Municipalities are finding themselves in now. Government doesn't know a good car if it drove right over it.
Consequences for a car manufacturer that causes people to die were always clear. First all cars used simple glass as windshields, then one manufacturer came up with safe glass and all others copied this one eventually. Same with seat belts.
This is MARKET AT WORK, NOT GOVERNMENT. Because if I come to a dealer and he shows me 2 cars, one has extra safety, it's MY CHOICE to buy one or the other, and government has no place there at all. Not even to 'protect' myself from myself. Of-course government must not guarantee anything, including health of people, so if I make a mistake of buying a car that has worse safety record and then I get into an accident it's MY PROBLEM, NOT YOURS, NOT GOVERNMENT'S.
This is the problem with gov't - it wants to pretend it can protect you and it destroys the market. It's the same deal with FDIC and health insurance and with regulations of any type of safety. Gov't has no place there. But it's IMMORAL so it U
Buddy, I just shaved a 200 year old musical cylinder, I do it periodically when I get tired of listening to the same thing over and over.
Just now I put the newest lady Gaga hit onto a wax cylinder marked as 'Greetings to Edison by William Ewart Gladstone, December 18th, 1888'. I had to shave that cylinder clean to do that first and some new wax had to be applied as well. So don't you be dissing no wax cylinder shaving units! They are as useful as they ever were.
Reminded me of this story about Gates petals around the rose, though of-course in this case it's more like 'evolutionary gene stealing'.
Bing is getting there, right, does it matter how it's getting there? So it's copying the results - evolution is about copying the results from more successful beans, so with this move MS is admitting that Google is more successful.
Just FYI, government is IMMORAL. It's stupid, greedy, heartless, gutless, spineless trash.
I have so much proof, it is insane.
How about going into the ridiculous coo coo land - Cash for Clunkers.
This was immoral - destroying a bunch of second hand cars and driving used car prices up. Giving incentives to people who had fully owned cars, without any debt, to get into debt to buy new cars. So now you have fewer used cars and thus higher prices on them. You have people IN DEBT because of government - that's immoral.
It was greedy. It was done to promote gov't owned auto-industry. It was done to buy votes.
It was spineless - bailing out another company instead of letting the market work itself out.
It was heartless - pushing prices up on used cars. Great idea, exactly what the poor people need.
It was trashy - only government can come up with such a harebrained idea - destroying an asset by clogging working engines with sand solutions.
And this was a TRIVIAL example of government corruption.
- hmm. Keynesians are to economics like what witch doctors are to medicine.
Austrian relies on very basic and fundamental things, not trying to manipulate economy, only looking at market as a self sufficient force and any outside force, like government with a money printer, as a destructive influence that removes useful energy and puts in breaks, for example in form of subsidies.
Like that Obama saying in Wisconsin he has this plan for 'clean energy'. He was talking about this factory with 250 people working in it, saying that this is the way forward and he will be giving tax breaks to that company and he said he will ensure that there will be a customer base for that company! That company is Orion Energy Systems. in 2007 its stock was $19, now it's $4. That company also just happens to be owned mostly by GE. GE's ex-CEO now just happens to be in government, advising Obama.
This is Keynes type shamanism - Obama 'providing customers' to a losing company. A company that is failing, a company that does not see the clear signals that whatever it's doing, it should be ceased immediately and the capital should be saved and redirected into something else, because it's not working.
This is the Keynesian shamanism, but of-course it's always mixed with just enough government propped monopolism that to YOU it looks like it's working, doing something 'good'.
It's all a game, they are playing it on you and you are buying it, hook line and sinker. And they have turned you into a 'useful idiot', you are PROMOTING their ideas no less.
The Fed prints money. They also destroy money in circulation. Using this principle, they control the supply and flow of money in the system.
- they certainly do not control the FLOW of money because they do not control the money. The money is not this stupid currency, the money is gold. They don't have enough gold to back their IOU notes, so they are not controlling the money, but in CURRENCY they do increase inflation.
The money destruction is irrelevant today, shows what you understand! Most money is not physical, it's like Bernanke said himself a couple of years ago at 60 minutes - I don't even have to print it, I just push buttons on a computer and money magically appears.
Not everything was sunshine and daisies in the 70's, but, the economic system was ran by less incompetent dolts.
- BS. It's the same idea, same people, doing same things. In 70s the USA was losing its status as a production monopoly, that's all that changed. Before 70s it was a monopoly from the end of WWII.
The market is ran by greedy, amoral, feckless, spineless, heartless, gutless trash. The Government is merely spineless.
- shows what you know. Market is PEOPLE. People can be whatever. I am market. I produce AND I consume. I choose to buy and I choose not to buy. I choose to produce one thing over another based on signals from other people whether they want/need what I am producing or not. That's market. Market MUST be profit driven. If Obama gives that company (Orion) what he promises: customers by doing all sorts of monopolist stuff, then what kind of signal Orion is going to get? Produce whatever, any garbage, the 'market' is fixed, it will have to buy into this stupid stuff we make anyway.
Good idea, right?
Government is not just greedy, amoral, feckless, spineless, heartless and trashy. Government by its very nature is destructive, lazy, stupid, useless and ever growing and consuming everything it can. Government is a stupid parasite.
In my book that is much worse than anything you described by the way, and I don't even agree with you on half of your adjectives there. Amoral? Sure. Greedy? Sure. Feckless? Sure.
Spineless and heartless and gutless? Bullshit. Market is based on people who take risks, people who invest their own time and money and yes, HEART into w
Nixon was fine with his inflation after the gold shock and him fixing prices on food? And at that time inflation only hit 4%, it's at least twice as big now, but at that time the US economy was still a producer and saw prices go up immediately.
Everything was fine, ha? The decline in the seventies was fine then. The wars - Vietnam, Korea, it was all fine. All of the monopolies that the gov't created that destroyed competition, it was all good.
USA is the hyper inflation engine of the world, that's the only reason for the central bank even to exist - to print money. They don't do anything else. You think they DO something else?
Everything is fine, even though people after school don't even know basic economic principles and Keynesian shamanism is taught as if it was actual science.
Do you even know what 50Billion/month trade deficit is and why it + gov't spending/borrowing/printing means US economy is being destroyed?
US 'real economy' is under 10%. So that's maybe 33,000,000 people out of 310,000,000, but it's not really that, it's much less than that, it's good to know SOME people are still producing something in USA except hot air.
No but we are at a disadvantage since we depend on private sector infrastructure which isn't coordinated enough to fend off a coordinated attack.
- you should be so lucky, to have the infrastructure for such an important resource NOT be in the hands of the government, but instead in MANY private hands. You may hate the corporations, but at least private corporations do not all align themselves together at once, like government officials do. Private corporations maybe bad in this or in that, but they do have to compete (at least nominally, now that they all get government subsidies and government monopoly powers).
Imagine that all of the Internet infrastructure was in the hands of ONLY ONE corporation. That's what you'd get if the government was in control of it all instead of many separate entities. Do you really think that's better?
The 2nd amendment is the government kill switch. That's how farsighted the Founders of US were.
Watch the video attached to my sig, it explains how the government caused the 2008 crisis, the video is shot in 2006.
What is happening around the world today, is partially caused by the inflation and rising prices, thus the people are protesting. The reason for all of the inflation is the fact that US dollar is reserve currency and USA has been exporting its inflation to the world. The world is subsidizing the high standard of living that USA enjoys, but in return the world gets the higher prices, which USA does not immediately face even though it prints all the money. That's because stagnating economies that manage to export inflation do not get the prices to rise if the productive economies subsidize them.
The US dollar has been inflated since the creation of the Fed, but it became especially painful for the world since Nixon's 72 gold shock.
USA used to be the biggest lender of all in 19 century, US citizens were savers and investors into their own businesses. Now USA is the biggest debtor and a huge consumer, while the world is subsidizing it.
China, Japan, Germany and many other countries including countries in South America are subsidizing US standard of living and are printing their own currencies because they want their currencies to be backed by something, unfortunately they chose the worst thing to back their currencies with - US dollar, which in turn is backed by nothing.
The biggest economic crisis is still ahead for US of A, it will be the US bonds/treasuries failure and US dollar will be printed into nothingness, but the rest of the world will live through that shock and since it's productive, it will quickly reroute its economies to satisfy its own demands, driving the currencies of other nations (especially Chinese) up and allowing the holders of those currencies to get much higher purchasing power.
At the same time the purchasing power of US citizens will be destroyed, the US will not get any more imported goods, the US has no capital left to restart its own manufacturing, the US has no 'stand by' facilities that could be turned on just by 'flicking a switch'. USA is facing the reality that it has created for itself since the Fed was formed and US government started with its insane rate of growth, far outpacing the economy and relying on only the subsidies from the rest of the world.
USA was the biggest producer of consumer goods in 19 century, it was the wealthiest country in the world. The Fed quickly ended that with 1920 and 1929 recessions. The 1920 recession was fought by the last sane president of USA - Hardin, who cut spending by 70% (cut government by 70%). Today to match that cut, the US government needs to be cut by 99.9%.
The recession of 1920 was over in 1 year. Of-course the US government never wanted to face those types of cuts again, so the next recession (all of them were caused by loose monetary policy of the Fed) was met with more government spending instead of cuts, with printing and borrowing and gov't projects. That was the 'Great Depression'. But what is coming is going to be much much worse. During that depression, most of debt that US gov't had was to the US citizens (like what Japan has today - most debt to its citizens) and USA was able to come back after WWII once the gov't stopped spending on the war. After the WWII US had no competition in the world in production, so prices for its labor went up, that was the fluke they like to call the 'golden age', in reality it was not middle class, but working class that got that huge break, because it got a monopoly on labor (compared to the rest of the world).
Eventually the rest of the world started producing and USA was already consuming much faster than it was producing, thus capital started leaving. But US had the 'reserve currency', so it was subsidized by China, Japan, etc.
Japan's credit rating was cut to AA- last week, now it's same as Chinese credit. All of thi
No, I don't have it all wrong, I have spent enough time here 'discussing' this but the responses are mostly negative, so I am thinking now that it is not going to be possible, with this attitude, to get any meaningful change, so instead the change should be hilarious and yet it should attempt fixing the situation, thus setting up the dumbest government, or gov't that consists of 4 year olds would do. Of-course there should be no private interests of any kind (either corporate, or socialist/marxist/union based) around the government.
I suppose you could always seek to hire the most incompetent admin you can find a person who lacks the expertise to break the servers but somehow that seems rather pointless.
- no no no, this is excellent.
I've been searching for the answer: how to set up a government that does NOT collapse the economy somehow, because they all end up doing it sooner or later, because governments grow when times are good and they never shrink like they are supposed to when times are not good.
So this is excellent - hire the biggest nincompoop, the dumbest of the dumb, really really stupid.
OR hire 4 year olds, they are not stupid but they only care about playing with their toys and won't do a job as bad running a government as any government on the planet, they'd be a quintillion times better at running governments.
As long, of-course, as they do not get surrounded by special interests (Bush + Cheney comes to mind), then it should be good.
So that's it, I now must write a book - the dumbest government - the best government or alternatively - 4 year olds, and why they make the best Presidents.
USA became the top manufacturer in 19 century, USA was the TOP lender, it had very high savings. The Fed has destroyed the economy very quickly actually. The 1920 recession started only 7 years after the Fed was created, and 1929 recession started 9 years after that.
Then there was the depression, which was deepened by the Fed and federal gov't. However at that time most of the debt was held by private US citizens, not by foreign countries. The Great Depression ended after the WWII ended, and at that time USA was the only economy with an intact infrastructure and had no competition in manufacturing, so from about 47 to about 70, the US was again, a major power and exporter.
Simultaneously the US dollar was prolonged in life by making it reserved currency.
Eventually Nixon took US off the gold standard in 72 and from about then on the collapse of US economy became inevitable as the Chinese economy started coming on line and clearly the capital preferred the under-regulated, low wage labor economy to the over-regulated, monopolized, high-wage, unionized, overburdened with various 'social obligations' economy.
Every time the US economy was about to collapse, the Federal reserve printed even more money and it was inflation that was exported to more productive nations from the less and less productive one, and productive nations feel the inflation in rising prices almost immediately, while the economy with less production does not feel it, because it does not need to consume as many raw resources and bring more capital and labor on line to produce.
USA is the hyper-inflation engine of the entire world at this point. USSR was the same but only for its own republics, as it was a closed loop economy, they also printed trillions or rubles a year, but who cares about funny currencies, when they don't turn around and do not become manufacturing capacities of consumer goods? Nobody does, they eventually all go the way of dodo and Zimbabwe.
USA inflated one asset bubble after another all to make it look like there is something happening, the last bubble that is about to burst in a huge implosion for the US is the sovereign debt bubble, and it will take down the US dollar, as US Fed will monetize this debt and that's a default - funny money.
Of-course other countries helped the USA to dig this hole - Japan, China, Germany and even South America. Giving USA all this credit, never asking for the principal and allowing the US to take short term loans at very low interest, but now finally the bond holders are waking up, not buying the bonds, their prices are falling and US has to start raising the long term interest - one thing that the government can't actually control, the only thing it can do is default because it can't pay back.
Again, it won't default honestly, which would have been preferable, people could get at least a little of their original investment in money that is still worth something, but that's not how it will play out. The US will destroy the dollar.
Same as gov't reporting 4th quarter GDP number a couple of days ago, which they reported 'rose' by 3.2%, saying that there is this 'huge jump in consumer spending'.
Consumer spending is not economic growth, but now all the spending is done with borrowed money.
But GDP up by 3.2% based on consumer spending? Where is the money coming out of?
So the gov't reported nominal GDP at 3.4% and after gov't 'adjusted for inflation' it went to 3.2%.
So they are saying that inflation is only 0.2%? THAT is a laugh. Gov't is assuming that annualized inflation is running at.2%... for the year.
The REAL reason 'GDP went up' is BECAUSE of inflation. Gov't is lying about GDP, lying about inflation.
S&P downgraded Japan as I said to AA-, same as China. Both of those countries hold trillions of dollars of US debt, US must fail before those 2 countries fail, because if they fail all they have to do is cash in their US holdings. Right? More bogus bullshit.
The entire GDP and Inflation reporting by US gov't is bullshit, it's all subjective. They can subtract ANY number they want from the real inflation by saying:
-Sure, the spending on item went up, but the item is now so much better, so in reality the person got more for the money. It's nonsense.
Sure, there is more economy than Fed. But government growth is the real answer to this question: where all the money is going?
Whenever economy grows, the government sees that as the reason to grow more and faster. So when JFK took the tax rate DOWN from that ridiculous 94%, then people started paying SOME money in income taxes, because they started writing themselves personal salaries from the money that was in their business, but the government saw that as an invitation to grow.
Government always grows, regardless of the economy, but when economy is good, government grows insanely fast, as fast as it can to the point where the money that the government is collecting is not enough. That's all there is to it. They see any economy and any growth of economy as an invitation to grow the government.
They NEVER see slow down in economy and decrease of economy as a signal to STOP spending, to REDUCE spending.
When the president or anybody in government talk about 'reduction of spending' , they never actually mean DECREASE of spending.
They mean decrease in INCREASE. So if they wanted to grow the spending next year by, say, 1000 billion, then they say: we are going to reduce spending by 300 billion, all the mean, is that next year the spending will increase by 700 billion instead of increasing by 1 trillion.
That's MORE BS. The ONLY thing I expect from any government is BS, it's all we get and it never stops until the government takes economy down and destroys it and destroys society with it.
It's true for all types of governments, for all types of economies, we haven't invented a government yet, that didn't do this, that didn't cause a collapse in economy, not in the long term.
The companies, as long as they do not get preferential treatment from government, ARE the economy. Companies are built by people. People - that's what economy is based on. Individuals. Not government.
Central reserve banking -works-...
- no.
Central reserve banking does not work. You are going to observe a major collapse of a huge economy - US economy.
We have already observed a collapse of a huge economy - USSR. All of this was about central banking printing money.
Central banks end up destroying economy by destroying the currency.
The only way for an economy NOT to collapse, is to prevent any central banking from coming into existence, to keep the currency backed by real money like gold and by real production - manufacturing. There is nothing a government can do that is GOOD for economy, for any economy ever. Governments can only destroy economies or slow them down, but eventually governments destroy economies.
There will be no stopping of spending, the US will default on its debt by monetizing it.
Also, yesterday Japan's credit rating was downgraded by S&P to AA-, which is the same credit rating as China's.
What is funny, is that Japan has a very high savings rate, most of its debt is owned by the Japanese citizens and it holds over a Trillion of US debt.
China has over 3 Trillion of US debt and has basically no debt of its own and has a very high savings rate.
So before China OR Japan fail, USA MUST FAIL, because if Japan is failing, all it has to do is call the US to pay its Trillion, right?
Right?
So why the fuck are China and Japan given lower credit rating than the USA?
It's the same reason why this 'commission' spent 9 million dollars and 2 years to 'figure out what caused the financial crisis of 2008'.
They figured out that it was lack of regulations, can you believe this nonsense? Lack of regulations, not Freddie/Fannie, not 1-0% interest rates, not FDIC and not HUD that created the idea of securitizing mortgages.
Instead of wasting the 9 million and 2 years all they had to do was watch the video, which you will find in my signature now and which was shot in 2006.
- right. Not nearly as fast as inflation and dollar falling.
I really don't care about your comments because you have already shown what your approach to my comment is - you'll be doing ad hominem BS, but here is another fact at you:
S&P came out today, downgraded Japan's credit to their fourth highest rating, to AA-, same as they give to China.
Now you are going to tell me 'Ayn Rand', I'll throw this nonsense back right into your face. Japan has a large debt, which is payable to the population of Japan. Citizens of Japan hold Japanese debt. Japan also has a Trillion dollars worth of US Treasuries. Japanese people have huge savings.
China has no debt. They hold 3 Trillion in foreign exchange reserve.
USA has no ability to pay, yet it's rated highest among its creditors.
Creditors of USA have lower rating than the debtor that US is and US has higher credit rating.
This is all BS. Just like the commissions that report these nonsensical 'findings', same with these credit rating agencies. Gov't is a bunch of lying thieves and the companies they work with are a bunch of monopolistic lying thieves, I am pointing this out and you attack me based on what? So I have no more interest in your nonsense.
I am sorry, that's just a strange thing to say - why would you want to take over the liabilities of a failing entity, that is going bankrupt?
What's the point?
No, you don't nationalize, you let it fail.
You let it go down, crash and burn, and let the economy heal itself. It's GOOD to let things crash and burn in economy - makes a good example for the rest of the institutions to be more aware of the risk, to be more risk averse, to make sure that things like lending standards for example, are really followed.
But I also have something else to add, watch this - that's a video shot in 2006. The same speech was given many times before that one time when it was shot on camera.
That's the complete explanation of the housing inflation bubble, of the credit default swaps, of the SIVs, of the Freddie/Fannie catastrophe, of the failure on part of the gov't by setting the low interest rates, etc.
Watch that and tell me something: if this guy, and MANY others like him, saw it coming, understood the PRINCIPLES of it, understood how it was going to play out simply by understanding the fundamentals of economics, and those guys explain it and show that it is the government that is actually creating these problems that end up destroying the economy, how can then the solution be MORE government? Governments taking over banks? To do what? Crash the planet into Uranus?
actually a good way to learn basic accounting and balancing the checkbook, etc., and some very very simple basics of economics is to take a course in real estate management / sales.
The only thing that the people in that commission needed to do was to watch it, because it laid it out simply and fully.
But of-course government commissions are not about explaining what happened, they are not about that at all. They are about one thing, same thing they are always about: making sure the gov't is not to blame and making sure that the proposed solution is more government.
Actually fairly easily, I can very easily substantiate my point.
This speech was given in 2006, but the same speech was given in 2005, but in 2006 it was recorded. If you watch it, you will see a person explaining point by point how the housing bubble is inflated and how it will collapse, it describes in painstaking details every process that is involved, the connections between the Freddie/Fannie and interest rates and SIVs and how this inflated the bubble and why it will collapse.
The commission that came out now saying that the 2008 financial collapse had nothing to do with Freddie/Fannie, low interest, government incentives in general is based on nothing, or more correctly, it's based on lies.
The person in that speech is predicting it from understanding of basics behind the economic processes, that's why he is able to predict it, not because he is 'Nostradamus' or just somebody getting it right by a huge coincidence, it's because it was very predictable and many many many people - investors who understood the underlying principles behind the financial collapse, saw it coming a mile away and made a lot of money on it.
So yes, there are actual real facts, real people, who made money on this, because they understood the causes of it. There was no need for this commission that was done over these past 2 years. They could have just watched that speech.
- she wasn't a libertarian, she was an 'objectivist', but whatever, point taken, you hate me.
The Fed itself isn't a bad thing.
- really? The only mandate that Fed had from inception was 'price stability'.
How did that work out for you?
The dollar losing 98% of its value since the Fed was established, how did that work out for you? Is it so much better with the Fed and dollar falling, than it was in the century prior to the Fed and dollar rising and prices falling instead?
I hope you have a lot of THINGS stowed away, because money is quickly becoming worthless and the lenders (you know, Chinese and such) are finding out what the Fed is doing, and they are suffering from inflation of prices, because their economy is actually growing and producing, and production economies suffer inflation by seeing prices go up rapidly, while stagnating and dying economies do not CARE for SOME time, do not see prices go up, especially USA, since it exports its inflation since the USD is reserve (not for much longer).
Sorry. No. We tried that already in the late 19th century.
- USA had the most economic growth in late 19 century, you are confused.
Slashdot Mirror
Weren't you 'done'?
the external costs are simply too high for modern societies to bear.
- that's a laugh. The US has the sack to criticize the Chinese for NOT having SS and EI, the US is telling the Chinese: you are saving too much, your rate of consumption is too low.
How about the US minds its own fucking business? The Chinese are doing it right - they are saving for their own future and they are thinking about their own retirement and they are not interested and not trusting the government to do any of it. They are doing it right. You are stuck in magic land, with magical unicorns that care about you.
If we completely deregulated the markets, even with competition, this doesn't guarantee food would be safe,
- nothing is guaranteed ever. Today food safety is totally up to the manufacturers/processors as well. The food safety is first of all a concern for the producer because he is the one getting stuck with bad image, with lawsuits, with reduced customer base if he fucks up.
The gov't has nothing to do with food safety. Gov't only does one thing: collects payments for licenses and maybe once a year (if even that often) an official asshole from gov't shows up and takes a tour. I am sure those gov't officials never take bribes and always do the best jobs, of-course, right, after all - they are the monopoly on this 'safety' business. Obviously they care.
Except they don't care. The food is safe ONLY as long as the producer keeps it safe. Producers fuck up on regular basis now and then, and you have recalls.
Nobody forces them to recall, but they know that they have a lot of money at stake.
Hint: Most of our western quack nostrums eg: homeopathy, chiropractic, etc come from largely deregulated periods of our culture
- hint - you are wrong. All this nonsense existed always, chiropractors, etc.
The only reason the society even UNDERSTANDS that it's nonsense is NOT because of government regulations, but because there is legitimate field of pharmaceutical research and medicine based on trial and error and statistics. Government again, has nothing to do with this. You think government KNOWS somehow what is right, what is wrong in medical field? Sure, just as much as they know about oil drilling or food safety or educating kids or stock exchanges or finance.
Now that the US government also guarantees that GM will have their customers, simply by controlling the flow of cars, taxing and subsidizing, you think the US gov't made the cars better? If they were better, GM wouldn't have had the trouble it was in. Of-course majority of GM trouble is the fact that it became a finance company, like GE, rather than being a manufacturing company. But how could they still be a manufacturing company when the unions got such a strong hold there, that GM was in the same situation with pensions that the separate US States and Municipalities are finding themselves in now. Government doesn't know a good car if it drove right over it.
Consequences for a car manufacturer that causes people to die were always clear. First all cars used simple glass as windshields, then one manufacturer came up with safe glass and all others copied this one eventually. Same with seat belts.
This is MARKET AT WORK, NOT GOVERNMENT. Because if I come to a dealer and he shows me 2 cars, one has extra safety, it's MY CHOICE to buy one or the other, and government has no place there at all. Not even to 'protect' myself from myself. Of-course government must not guarantee anything, including health of people, so if I make a mistake of buying a car that has worse safety record and then I get into an accident it's MY PROBLEM, NOT YOURS, NOT GOVERNMENT'S.
This is the problem with gov't - it wants to pretend it can protect you and it destroys the market. It's the same deal with FDIC and health insurance and with regulations of any type of safety. Gov't has no place there. But it's IMMORAL so it U
Buddy, I just shaved a 200 year old musical cylinder, I do it periodically when I get tired of listening to the same thing over and over.
Just now I put the newest lady Gaga hit onto a wax cylinder marked as 'Greetings to Edison by William Ewart Gladstone, December 18th, 1888'. I had to shave that cylinder clean to do that first and some new wax had to be applied as well. So don't you be dissing no wax cylinder shaving units! They are as useful as they ever were.
Reminded me of this story about Gates petals around the rose, though of-course in this case it's more like 'evolutionary gene stealing'.
Bing is getting there, right, does it matter how it's getting there? So it's copying the results - evolution is about copying the results from more successful beans, so with this move MS is admitting that Google is more successful.
I guess even in Russia some 'hackers' are better than others:
Additional whois information for 213.248.54.246:
You are done. You were done from the start, but now you have realized you have no arguments.
Just FYI, government is IMMORAL. It's stupid, greedy, heartless, gutless, spineless trash.
I have so much proof, it is insane.
How about going into the ridiculous coo coo land - Cash for Clunkers.
This was immoral - destroying a bunch of second hand cars and driving used car prices up. Giving incentives to people who had fully owned cars, without any debt, to get into debt to buy new cars. So now you have fewer used cars and thus higher prices on them. You have people IN DEBT because of government - that's immoral.
It was greedy. It was done to promote gov't owned auto-industry. It was done to buy votes.
It was spineless - bailing out another company instead of letting the market work itself out.
It was heartless - pushing prices up on used cars. Great idea, exactly what the poor people need.
It was trashy - only government can come up with such a harebrained idea - destroying an asset by clogging working engines with sand solutions.
And this was a TRIVIAL example of government corruption.
Keynesian shamanism actually works.
- hmm. Keynesians are to economics like what witch doctors are to medicine.
Austrian relies on very basic and fundamental things, not trying to manipulate economy, only looking at market as a self sufficient force and any outside force, like government with a money printer, as a destructive influence that removes useful energy and puts in breaks, for example in form of subsidies.
Like that Obama saying in Wisconsin he has this plan for 'clean energy'. He was talking about this factory with 250 people working in it, saying that this is the way forward and he will be giving tax breaks to that company and he said he will ensure that there will be a customer base for that company!
That company is Orion Energy Systems. in 2007 its stock was $19, now it's $4. That company also just happens to be owned mostly by GE. GE's ex-CEO now just happens to be in government, advising Obama.
This is Keynes type shamanism - Obama 'providing customers' to a losing company. A company that is failing, a company that does not see the clear signals that whatever it's doing, it should be ceased immediately and the capital should be saved and redirected into something else, because it's not working.
This is the Keynesian shamanism, but of-course it's always mixed with just enough government propped monopolism that to YOU it looks like it's working, doing something 'good'.
It's all a game, they are playing it on you and you are buying it, hook line and sinker. And they have turned you into a 'useful idiot', you are PROMOTING their ideas no less.
The Fed prints money. They also destroy money in circulation. Using this principle, they control the supply and flow of money in the system.
- they certainly do not control the FLOW of money because they do not control the money. The money is not this stupid currency, the money is gold. They don't have enough gold to back their IOU notes, so they are not controlling the money, but in CURRENCY they do increase inflation.
The money destruction is irrelevant today, shows what you understand! Most money is not physical, it's like Bernanke said himself a couple of years ago at 60 minutes - I don't even have to print it, I just push buttons on a computer and money magically appears.
Not everything was sunshine and daisies in the 70's, but, the economic system was ran by less incompetent dolts.
- BS. It's the same idea, same people, doing same things. In 70s the USA was losing its status as a production monopoly, that's all that changed. Before 70s it was a monopoly from the end of WWII.
The market is ran by greedy, amoral, feckless, spineless, heartless, gutless trash. The Government is merely spineless.
- shows what you know. Market is PEOPLE. People can be whatever. I am market. I produce AND I consume. I choose to buy and I choose not to buy. I choose to produce one thing over another based on signals from other people whether they want/need what I am producing or not. That's market. Market MUST be profit driven. If Obama gives that company (Orion) what he promises: customers by doing all sorts of monopolist stuff, then what kind of signal Orion is going to get? Produce whatever, any garbage, the 'market' is fixed, it will have to buy into this stupid stuff we make anyway.
Good idea, right?
Government is not just greedy, amoral, feckless, spineless, heartless and trashy. Government by its very nature is destructive, lazy, stupid, useless and ever growing and consuming everything it can. Government is a stupid parasite.
In my book that is much worse than anything you described by the way, and I don't even agree with you on half of your adjectives there. Amoral? Sure. Greedy? Sure. Feckless? Sure.
Spineless and heartless and gutless? Bullshit. Market is based on people who take risks, people who invest their own time and money and yes, HEART into w
"everything was fine until..." - that's bullshit.
Nixon was fine with his inflation after the gold shock and him fixing prices on food? And at that time inflation only hit 4%, it's at least twice as big now, but at that time the US economy was still a producer and saw prices go up immediately.
Everything was fine, ha? The decline in the seventies was fine then. The wars - Vietnam, Korea, it was all fine. All of the monopolies that the gov't created that destroyed competition, it was all good.
USA is the hyper inflation engine of the world, that's the only reason for the central bank even to exist - to print money. They don't do anything else. You think they DO something else?
Everything is fine, even though people after school don't even know basic economic principles and Keynesian shamanism is taught as if it was actual science.
Okay.
Do you even know what 50Billion/month trade deficit is and why it + gov't spending/borrowing/printing means US economy is being destroyed?
US 'real economy' is under 10%. So that's maybe 33,000,000 people out of 310,000,000, but it's not really that, it's much less than that, it's good to know SOME people are still producing something in USA except hot air.
Cheers.
No but we are at a disadvantage since we depend on private sector infrastructure which isn't coordinated enough to fend off a coordinated attack.
- you should be so lucky, to have the infrastructure for such an important resource NOT be in the hands of the government, but instead in MANY private hands. You may hate the corporations, but at least private corporations do not all align themselves together at once, like government officials do. Private corporations maybe bad in this or in that, but they do have to compete (at least nominally, now that they all get government subsidies and government monopoly powers).
Imagine that all of the Internet infrastructure was in the hands of ONLY ONE corporation. That's what you'd get if the government was in control of it all instead of many separate entities. Do you really think that's better?
The 2nd amendment is the government kill switch. That's how farsighted the Founders of US were.
Watch the video attached to my sig, it explains how the government caused the 2008 crisis, the video is shot in 2006.
What is happening around the world today, is partially caused by the inflation and rising prices, thus the people are protesting. The reason for all of the inflation is the fact that US dollar is reserve currency and USA has been exporting its inflation to the world. The world is subsidizing the high standard of living that USA enjoys, but in return the world gets the higher prices, which USA does not immediately face even though it prints all the money. That's because stagnating economies that manage to export inflation do not get the prices to rise if the productive economies subsidize them.
The US dollar has been inflated since the creation of the Fed, but it became especially painful for the world since Nixon's 72 gold shock.
USA used to be the biggest lender of all in 19 century, US citizens were savers and investors into their own businesses. Now USA is the biggest debtor and a huge consumer, while the world is subsidizing it.
China, Japan, Germany and many other countries including countries in South America are subsidizing US standard of living and are printing their own currencies because they want their currencies to be backed by something, unfortunately they chose the worst thing to back their currencies with - US dollar, which in turn is backed by nothing.
The biggest economic crisis is still ahead for US of A, it will be the US bonds/treasuries failure and US dollar will be printed into nothingness, but the rest of the world will live through that shock and since it's productive, it will quickly reroute its economies to satisfy its own demands, driving the currencies of other nations (especially Chinese) up and allowing the holders of those currencies to get much higher purchasing power.
At the same time the purchasing power of US citizens will be destroyed, the US will not get any more imported goods, the US has no capital left to restart its own manufacturing, the US has no 'stand by' facilities that could be turned on just by 'flicking a switch'. USA is facing the reality that it has created for itself since the Fed was formed and US government started with its insane rate of growth, far outpacing the economy and relying on only the subsidies from the rest of the world.
USA was the biggest producer of consumer goods in 19 century, it was the wealthiest country in the world. The Fed quickly ended that with 1920 and 1929 recessions. The 1920 recession was fought by the last sane president of USA - Hardin, who cut spending by 70% (cut government by 70%). Today to match that cut, the US government needs to be cut by 99.9%.
The recession of 1920 was over in 1 year. Of-course the US government never wanted to face those types of cuts again, so the next recession (all of them were caused by loose monetary policy of the Fed) was met with more government spending instead of cuts, with printing and borrowing and gov't projects. That was the 'Great Depression'. But what is coming is going to be much much worse. During that depression, most of debt that US gov't had was to the US citizens (like what Japan has today - most debt to its citizens) and USA was able to come back after WWII once the gov't stopped spending on the war. After the WWII US had no competition in the world in production, so prices for its labor went up, that was the fluke they like to call the 'golden age', in reality it was not middle class, but working class that got that huge break, because it got a monopoly on labor (compared to the rest of the world).
Eventually the rest of the world started producing and USA was already consuming much faster than it was producing, thus capital started leaving. But US had the 'reserve currency', so it was subsidized by China, Japan, etc.
Japan's credit rating was cut to AA- last week, now it's same as Chinese credit. All of thi
No, I don't have it all wrong, I have spent enough time here 'discussing' this but the responses are mostly negative, so I am thinking now that it is not going to be possible, with this attitude, to get any meaningful change, so instead the change should be hilarious and yet it should attempt fixing the situation, thus setting up the dumbest government, or gov't that consists of 4 year olds would do. Of-course there should be no private interests of any kind (either corporate, or socialist/marxist/union based) around the government.
As a typical antisocial nerd, I'm astounded. I honestly thought I couldn't count more than five friends across 47.78 years of life.
- that's because you are not a typical antisocial nerd... I know antisocial, there are no 5 friends.
I suppose you could always seek to hire the most incompetent admin you can find a person who lacks the expertise to break the servers but somehow that seems rather pointless.
- no no no, this is excellent.
I've been searching for the answer: how to set up a government that does NOT collapse the economy somehow, because they all end up doing it sooner or later, because governments grow when times are good and they never shrink like they are supposed to when times are not good.
So this is excellent - hire the biggest nincompoop, the dumbest of the dumb, really really stupid.
OR hire 4 year olds, they are not stupid but they only care about playing with their toys and won't do a job as bad running a government as any government on the planet, they'd be a quintillion times better at running governments.
As long, of-course, as they do not get surrounded by special interests (Bush + Cheney comes to mind), then it should be good.
So that's it, I now must write a book - the dumbest government - the best government or alternatively - 4 year olds, and why they make the best Presidents.
USA became the top manufacturer in 19 century, USA was the TOP lender, it had very high savings. The Fed has destroyed the economy very quickly actually. The 1920 recession started only 7 years after the Fed was created, and 1929 recession started 9 years after that.
Then there was the depression, which was deepened by the Fed and federal gov't. However at that time most of the debt was held by private US citizens, not by foreign countries. The Great Depression ended after the WWII ended, and at that time USA was the only economy with an intact infrastructure and had no competition in manufacturing, so from about 47 to about 70, the US was again, a major power and exporter.
Simultaneously the US dollar was prolonged in life by making it reserved currency.
Eventually Nixon took US off the gold standard in 72 and from about then on the collapse of US economy became inevitable as the Chinese economy started coming on line and clearly the capital preferred the under-regulated, low wage labor economy to the over-regulated, monopolized, high-wage, unionized, overburdened with various 'social obligations' economy.
Every time the US economy was about to collapse, the Federal reserve printed even more money and it was inflation that was exported to more productive nations from the less and less productive one, and productive nations feel the inflation in rising prices almost immediately, while the economy with less production does not feel it, because it does not need to consume as many raw resources and bring more capital and labor on line to produce.
USA is the hyper-inflation engine of the entire world at this point. USSR was the same but only for its own republics, as it was a closed loop economy, they also printed trillions or rubles a year, but who cares about funny currencies, when they don't turn around and do not become manufacturing capacities of consumer goods? Nobody does, they eventually all go the way of dodo and Zimbabwe.
USA inflated one asset bubble after another all to make it look like there is something happening, the last bubble that is about to burst in a huge implosion for the US is the sovereign debt bubble, and it will take down the US dollar, as US Fed will monetize this debt and that's a default - funny money.
Of-course other countries helped the USA to dig this hole - Japan, China, Germany and even South America. Giving USA all this credit, never asking for the principal and allowing the US to take short term loans at very low interest, but now finally the bond holders are waking up, not buying the bonds, their prices are falling and US has to start raising the long term interest - one thing that the government can't actually control, the only thing it can do is default because it can't pay back.
Again, it won't default honestly, which would have been preferable, people could get at least a little of their original investment in money that is still worth something, but that's not how it will play out. The US will destroy the dollar.
USA had it all and it blew it all.
Yeah, the chart.
Same as gov't reporting 4th quarter GDP number a couple of days ago, which they reported 'rose' by 3.2%, saying that there is this 'huge jump in consumer spending'.
Consumer spending is not economic growth, but now all the spending is done with borrowed money.
But GDP up by 3.2% based on consumer spending? Where is the money coming out of?
So the gov't reported nominal GDP at 3.4% and after gov't 'adjusted for inflation' it went to 3.2%.
So they are saying that inflation is only 0.2%? THAT is a laugh. Gov't is assuming that annualized inflation is running at .2%... for the year.
The REAL reason 'GDP went up' is BECAUSE of inflation. Gov't is lying about GDP, lying about inflation.
S&P downgraded Japan as I said to AA-, same as China. Both of those countries hold trillions of dollars of US debt, US must fail before those 2 countries fail, because if they fail all they have to do is cash in their US holdings. Right? More bogus bullshit.
The entire GDP and Inflation reporting by US gov't is bullshit, it's all subjective. They can subtract ANY number they want from the real inflation by saying:
-Sure, the spending on item went up, but the item is now so much better, so in reality the person got more for the money. It's nonsense.
Sure, there is more economy than Fed. But government growth is the real answer to this question: where all the money is going?
Whenever economy grows, the government sees that as the reason to grow more and faster. So when JFK took the tax rate DOWN from that ridiculous 94%, then people started paying SOME money in income taxes, because they started writing themselves personal salaries from the money that was in their business, but the government saw that as an invitation to grow.
Government always grows, regardless of the economy, but when economy is good, government grows insanely fast, as fast as it can to the point where the money that the government is collecting is not enough. That's all there is to it. They see any economy and any growth of economy as an invitation to grow the government.
They NEVER see slow down in economy and decrease of economy as a signal to STOP spending, to REDUCE spending.
When the president or anybody in government talk about 'reduction of spending' , they never actually mean DECREASE of spending.
They mean decrease in INCREASE. So if they wanted to grow the spending next year by, say, 1000 billion, then they say: we are going to reduce spending by 300 billion, all the mean, is that next year the spending will increase by 700 billion instead of increasing by 1 trillion.
That's MORE BS. The ONLY thing I expect from any government is BS, it's all we get and it never stops until the government takes economy down and destroys it and destroys society with it.
It's true for all types of governments, for all types of economies, we haven't invented a government yet, that didn't do this, that didn't cause a collapse in economy, not in the long term.
The companies, as long as they do not get preferential treatment from government, ARE the economy. Companies are built by people. People - that's what economy is based on. Individuals. Not government.
Central reserve banking -works-...
- no.
Central reserve banking does not work. You are going to observe a major collapse of a huge economy - US economy.
We have already observed a collapse of a huge economy - USSR. All of this was about central banking printing money.
Central banks end up destroying economy by destroying the currency.
The only way for an economy NOT to collapse, is to prevent any central banking from coming into existence, to keep the currency backed by real money like gold and by real production - manufacturing. There is nothing a government can do that is GOOD for economy, for any economy ever. Governments can only destroy economies or slow them down, but eventually governments destroy economies.
There will be no stopping of spending, the US will default on its debt by monetizing it.
Also, yesterday Japan's credit rating was downgraded by S&P to AA-, which is the same credit rating as China's.
What is funny, is that Japan has a very high savings rate, most of its debt is owned by the Japanese citizens and it holds over a Trillion of US debt.
China has over 3 Trillion of US debt and has basically no debt of its own and has a very high savings rate.
So before China OR Japan fail, USA MUST FAIL, because if Japan is failing, all it has to do is call the US to pay its Trillion, right?
Right?
So why the fuck are China and Japan given lower credit rating than the USA?
It's the same reason why this 'commission' spent 9 million dollars and 2 years to 'figure out what caused the financial crisis of 2008'.
They figured out that it was lack of regulations, can you believe this nonsense? Lack of regulations, not Freddie/Fannie, not 1-0% interest rates, not FDIC and not HUD that created the idea of securitizing mortgages.
Instead of wasting the 9 million and 2 years all they had to do was watch the video, which you will find in my signature now and which was shot in 2006.
The idea of America still remains.
- yes. The idea still remains. Only one thing changed - the location of where that idea is. The idea of America is no in China.
Same as they said about where the last British gentlemen will be found - India.
Because wages ALSO went up
- right. Not nearly as fast as inflation and dollar falling.
I really don't care about your comments because you have already shown what your approach to my comment is - you'll be doing ad hominem BS, but here is another fact at you:
S&P came out today, downgraded Japan's credit to their fourth highest rating, to AA-, same as they give to China.
Now you are going to tell me 'Ayn Rand', I'll throw this nonsense back right into your face. Japan has a large debt, which is payable to the population of Japan.
Citizens of Japan hold Japanese debt. Japan also has a Trillion dollars worth of US Treasuries. Japanese people have huge savings.
China has no debt. They hold 3 Trillion in foreign exchange reserve.
USA has no ability to pay, yet it's rated highest among its creditors.
Creditors of USA have lower rating than the debtor that US is and US has higher credit rating.
This is all BS. Just like the commissions that report these nonsensical 'findings', same with these credit rating agencies. Gov't is a bunch of lying thieves and the companies they work with are a bunch of monopolistic lying thieves, I am pointing this out and you attack me based on what? So I have no more interest in your nonsense.
I am sorry, that's just a strange thing to say - why would you want to take over the liabilities of a failing entity, that is going bankrupt?
What's the point?
No, you don't nationalize, you let it fail.
You let it go down, crash and burn, and let the economy heal itself. It's GOOD to let things crash and burn in economy - makes a good example for the rest of the institutions to be more aware of the risk, to be more risk averse, to make sure that things like lending standards for example, are really followed.
But I also have something else to add, watch this - that's a video shot in 2006. The same speech was given many times before that one time when it was shot on camera.
That's the complete explanation of the housing inflation bubble, of the credit default swaps, of the SIVs, of the Freddie/Fannie catastrophe, of the failure on part of the gov't by setting the low interest rates, etc.
Watch that and tell me something: if this guy, and MANY others like him, saw it coming, understood the PRINCIPLES of it, understood how it was going to play out simply by understanding the fundamentals of economics, and those guys explain it and show that it is the government that is actually creating these problems that end up destroying the economy, how can then the solution be MORE government? Governments taking over banks? To do what? Crash the planet into Uranus?
actually a good way to learn basic accounting and balancing the checkbook, etc., and some very very simple basics of economics is to take a course in real estate management / sales.
the 'justice system' that USA has is not to protect 'the wealthy', it's there to protect the power.
Not all 'wealthy' are in power, however those, who are in power, are mostly very very wealthy.
The problem power + wealth. The 'justice', but really the 'punishment' system is there to make sure those in power stay in power.
The fact you were modded up is kinda sad.
- don't worry about that, I am sure it won't stay up too long, here is where my comments on basic economics and politics end up in most cases:
tu tu tu tu tu tu tu tu tu tu tu tu tu
---
As to what happened in 2008 is very simply explained in this an hour and 12 minutes video, which was shot in front of a mortgage bankers association in 2006, the same speech was given a number of times before it, in 2005, etc.
The only thing that the people in that commission needed to do was to watch it, because it laid it out simply and fully.
But of-course government commissions are not about explaining what happened, they are not about that at all. They are about one thing, same thing they are always about: making sure the gov't is not to blame and making sure that the proposed solution is more government.
Actually fairly easily, I can very easily substantiate my point.
This speech was given in 2006, but the same speech was given in 2005, but in 2006 it was recorded. If you watch it, you will see a person explaining point by point how the housing bubble is inflated and how it will collapse, it describes in painstaking details every process that is involved, the connections between the Freddie/Fannie and interest rates and SIVs and how this inflated the bubble and why it will collapse.
The commission that came out now saying that the 2008 financial collapse had nothing to do with Freddie/Fannie, low interest, government incentives in general is based on nothing, or more correctly, it's based on lies.
The person in that speech is predicting it from understanding of basics behind the economic processes, that's why he is able to predict it, not because he is 'Nostradamus' or just somebody getting it right by a huge coincidence, it's because it was very predictable and many many many people - investors who understood the underlying principles behind the financial collapse, saw it coming a mile away and made a lot of money on it.
So yes, there are actual real facts, real people, who made money on this, because they understood the causes of it. There was no need for this commission that was done over these past 2 years. They could have just watched that speech.
Hey Ayn Rand, shove it.
- she wasn't a libertarian, she was an 'objectivist', but whatever, point taken, you hate me.
The Fed itself isn't a bad thing.
- really? The only mandate that Fed had from inception was 'price stability'.
How did that work out for you?
The dollar losing 98% of its value since the Fed was established, how did that work out for you? Is it so much better with the Fed and dollar falling, than it was in the century prior to the Fed and dollar rising and prices falling instead?
I hope you have a lot of THINGS stowed away, because money is quickly becoming worthless and the lenders (you know, Chinese and such) are finding out what the Fed is doing, and they are suffering from inflation of prices, because their economy is actually growing and producing, and production economies suffer inflation by seeing prices go up rapidly, while stagnating and dying economies do not CARE for SOME time, do not see prices go up, especially USA, since it exports its inflation since the USD is reserve (not for much longer).
Sorry. No. We tried that already in the late 19th century.
- USA had the most economic growth in late 19 century, you are confused.