Don't patronize me, don't need to. Obviously there are some natural monopolies, but that's not what we are talking about, is it?
Well, I am not talking about the natural monopolies, I am talking about all the monopolies that are not natural, and their nature is found in the halls of the government offices, where they are pumped up with money and privilege and where they are protected from the market forces, protected from any competition, where they get their preferable tax treatments, where they get the government contracts.
And who gets the government contracts? Well, it's not 'natural' monopolies that get them, that's for sure.
Government created all of the monopolies that matter, that's my point. All monopolies that actually MATTER. --
When you say: the rich will not invest in American business.
Let me tell you something. I will not invest in American business. I am not rich, but I would NOT invest in American business. I refuse to invest in American business. I am investing into a business that is on a different continent right now because there are possibilities, because there is nearly NO government intervention compared to USA, because it is POSSIBLE to do business.
Do you know which freedom really matters at the end? The freedom to do business and to make your living. Because all other freedoms, they are really inconsequential if this one freedom is absent. Because what good is just 'freedom of speech' - so you can complain about how the government is killing the society by killing the economy? Great. Now what? How about freedom of doing business? That's the one that matters, that's the one that separates a society that ALLOWS upward mobility, from the one that only TALKS about it.
The rich are not investing in America. Why should they invest in America? Should it be out of some patriotic duty to do so? OK, but see how America is treating its patriots - those who are actually fighting in combat for America. It's not pretty.
Really, you know when people will START investing in America again? When America stops destroying the savers.
Do you know what an investment is? It is first of all a saving. It is a saving. Capital is savings. America today says: fuck you if you save. If you save you are a piece of shit, you must be SPENDING instead.
It's all about spending. Where is the respect for the saver? No respect for the saver. The saver gets to suck the Fed's cock. That's all. Suck Fed's cock.
The Fed is growing its cock by printing all these dollars, so that the saver sees the value of his savings disappear, so he can SUCK that ever growing COCK of INFLATION.
Also you know when the rich will start investing in America again? When America wakes up and turns back to the free market - system that PREFERS BUSINESS.
OK? You cannot expect anybody to invest into your system, if your system rejects the idea of capital savings and investment in principle.
If your system destroys the currency and destroys the savings and does not allow business to grow just by competing with OTHER BUSINESS instead of competing with GOVERNMENT and government regulations.
How about removing the road blocks that are on the way of anybody who maybe would want to start a business? All of those regulations.
It's much easier to do business in China today than in USA, that's the freaking sad thing. You will say: China is 'slave labor'. Sure, that's because they are slaving away, subsidizing the US consumer with both, money and products.
Let the prices fall. Let the labor prices fall. Get rid of regulations that are preventing businesses from normal work and force businesses to do something they do not need to do - compete with government, fight government every step of the way. Stop printing money, but this of-course means stop government spending.
Monopolies exist outside of government creation and control
- maybe you want to think about this before you type another one like that.
Monopolies are government creations. The natural monopolies, such as if you own the original of Mona Lisa, that's not a government creation, that's real. But natural monopolies are far and between, while government has created and subsidized and protected and stimulated and bailed out and protected and created tax loopholes for and regulated for all of the really important monopolies of today, anything from AT&T, to the military industrial complex monopolies, to food production monopolies - the agricultural, the processing, the communications and the financial monopolies.
Think about FDIC, think about what that means - removing risk from lending to certain banks.
Think about Freddie/Fannie and what that means - removing risk from lending mortgages and then selling the 'securitized' debt around in SIVs.
Think about 0-1% interest - taking huge loans from government at almost 0% interest and buying gov't debt and "making" the spread, thus in one shot - propping up more gov't spending and displaying 'record' profits.
The utilities - energy department. When Carter established it, it had this agenda to get USA off foreign oil. Ok, how did that work out? But what happened to all the 'energy producing' companies that are dealing with the gov't?
The monopolies, they are what government loves, they are what government wants, they are what pays the government officials to be reelected. It's a symbiotic relationship between politicians and monopolies, and they are parasites on the back of the society and economy that does not need them, suffers and suffocates because of them.
You are saying: government is not the problem, the rich controlling it are the problem.
But how did that happen? Who are these 'rich'? They are rich, because they are at the helm of the government, taking in the free money and KILLING competition with government power.
They are the rich, and they are the government, because the people do not care, right? People do not care to stop the government from destroying the free market.
Because the people, average people, they NEED the competition and free market. Because average people need prices to go DOWN, but monopolies do not allow that.
Prices must go down. You are hearing that the gov't right now is telling you that the economy is improving. Do not believe a single word, it's a gigantic lie.
An improving economy would mean more economic activity, and that only means more production and the result of that would be savings and reduction of trade deficit. The trade deficit is not reducing, the jobs are not appearing, the prices are not falling. Falling prices are brought to you by a working economy, by an economy that is becoming more efficient due to more efficient allocation of resources, and it's never planned, it just happens by the market forces, that choose for the falling prices.
The government destroys the economy, takes away your purchasing power by printing money and causing prices to go up, at the same time it regulates the free market away to keep its monopolies running without any threat of competition, and this again causes prices to go up. The gov't also provides money.
Gov't gives money, gives out loans to students, securitizes all these risky assets and loans and all this money is printed, given out with no interest, no backing, no reserves of any kind, no production to back it up.
The US Fed is counterfeiting US Federal Reserve Notes (which are not dollars, dollars are coins, that are minted by US Treasury, that's the extent to which the gov't is allowed to 'create' money).
The Federal Reserve is supposed to be this 'independent' entity, so that if the gov't starts spending too much, it can SHUT DOWN the printing press. Of-course the Congress will NEVER prevent the Fed from printing more money, because it will never stop from pr
No. They are "finding" that the government can "regulate" the market so that this will not happen again.
That's bullshit.
What you are saying is that the market has caused this crash, I have been saying forever: the government has killed the free market and that is why you have no competition, and that is why there are no trade houses that are retail friendly.
There is a market for retail trading, but it's impossible to have your own trading house, and has been impossible for a very long time because of all the government regulations that protect the monopolies that exist in that business.
I cannot be happy until the government burns in hell for what they have done to the market.
The problem is actually the Fed in the first place, the Fed and Treasury and all government spending, which could NEVER be paid for, it's just that NOW, that there are no jobs and eventually the credit to US government will stop, you will find out - you were living much beyond your means for too long.
The Wars and SS and Medicare and Medicaid and EI and all the departments: energy, transportation, education, agriculture, small business, fda, faa, fcc, epa. Also IRS and Fed and FDIC and all other government initiatives - they never could be paid for fully anyway, but with fewer and fewer jobs and with less and less economic activity they can't be afforded at all.
Now, are the bankers responsible? Well of-course they are. They are responsible in the same way that an alcoholic that runs his car over you. But the alcohol, where did it get the alcohol? It was in the car, supplied by the government, even mandated by the government.
Freddie/Fannie + FDIC + 1-0% interest rates - that was the mandate. Mandate to give bad mortgage loans, mandate to 'securitize' them, you know that HUD invented mortgage securitization?
Get rid of government spending, stop all government programs, shut down all government offices, fire all government officials, abolish all government departments, break the government money printer and you will start on the healing process, but first you will go through the breaking process of getting de-intoxicated, as economy restructures and loses maybe 60% of the jobs and then prices for everything fall, including labor, all regulations are repealed, THEN you will have capital come back to USA and there will be jobs again.
This was done before, you know, it's not radical and crazy. Hardin did it in 1920 to stop that Fed created recession, that recession was over in 1 year.
Well yes, and all of those rich people who are doing that, they are found in Washington DC.
The class warfare is one of the last attempts of a failed government, that has spent everything it could and couldn't, to divert attention from themselves. When an empire falls apart it starts class warfare, and its started by the government, who divert the attention from themselves.
Without government creating monopolies, there wouldn't be such huge disparities and differences between the 'rich' and the 'poor' (and by the way, the 'poor' in USA are not the same as 'poor' in Bangladesh.)
The monopolies that government creates end up enriching some people beyond believe, while destroying the competition and market and driving capital and jobs away, all while the government is getting bigger and bigger, promising to spend ever more, much more than the economy has to provide.
Eventually the government's only 'solution' is to PRINT and BORROW and as long as they can borrow they will, but they will absolutely not stop printing until it's Zimbabwe.
Don't be fooled, gov't is destroying your life, it is destroying your money, it is destroying your ability to buy anything, it is taking away your food and energy by printing the money and creating all the inflation in the middle of a financial crisis that is structural in nature and the government has structured it.
You know, results of a government commission that was established to figure out the causes for the financial crisis of 2008 came out, and that commission was a charade, just like this one.
That commission "found" that the crisis was caused by lack of regulations, that low interest rates and Freddie/Fannie had nothing to do with the housing bubble, they "found" that the only thing that government did "wrong" was let the Lehman brothers fail and that the future crisis can only be avoided if there is more government regulations.
Lets start with this: I despise the governments.
The results of that commission were just as well known in advance as the results of the one from this story. Of-course a government commission will find that what is needed is more government and that whatever structural problems that are caused by government are not the real problems.
THIS IS THE SAME BULLSHIT. IT IS BULLSHIT, DO NOT BELIEVE A SINGLE WORD THAT YOU ARE READING IN THE FABRICATED CONCLUSIONS OF THESE COMMISSIONS.
They are finding one thing: there is need for more government.
They are finding this other thing: whoever is in power cannot be blamed.
China has set its tariffs, exchange rates, rules and standards to tilt the game in favor of employing Chinese labor for producing manufactured goods and for making exporters selling to China pay to compete.
- China has a tariff that the gov't of China collects on imports.
It's 25%, right? More or less, something like that, without looking at any specific case by case situation.
US has that at about 2.5%, again, no case by case analysis, just overall number.
You think you can produce SOMETHING in USA that you can export into China, and even if they had 0% tariff you'd be able to compete on price with the goods that are produced in China?
Good luck.
Think about this: the USA produces some stuff, but it really mostly assembles parts that come from other countries, specifically mostly from China and maybe Germany and Japan, but mostly China.
So with the 25% tariff on import of RAW materials into China, and then after exporting the parts into USA and paying maybe 2.5% tariff on import into USA, then with all the assembly costs added in USA, you think you could then ship this item back to China to sell it there?
Why do you think that? Even if the tariff on import to China was 0, again, the cost of assembling the part in USA is crazy compared to that cost in China.
In reality the USA cannot export anything into China and compete on price even with 0% tariffs on Chinese side, it's simple - in USA cost of organizing labor/corporation/regulations/taxes is too high, that's all there is to it.
You can't compete this way with China at all.
For USA to become actually competitive in production ALL US business regulations must be abolished, all capital and income taxes must be abolished, all US departments must be abolished, all gov't subsidies to everybody, from a corporation to any one individual, all of that has to stop and the US gov't must stop printing money.
The logic that we need to compete with workers who are poorly paid, who live and work in an environmental nightmare, is ridiculous.
- but it's not that you need to compete.
You don't need to compete.
You are competing.
So the logic is this: you are competing and you are losing. Now, is that actually ridiculous as logic? No. It is perfect logic and I am not sure why your comment has this high moderation, but anyway.
You are competing, you are spending on consumables, much more than those 'poor' people, with who you are competing (I hope you didn't actually feel dirty typing the description of 'those' people, poor you.)
You are competing with those people, they are winning, you are spending the money you borrowed from them.
How about this logic: you are BORROWING MONEY from THOSE POOR PEOPLE.
Then you are BUYING PRODUCTS MADE BY THOSE POOR PEOPLE.
I actually disagree that they are poorly paid people. They are paid what the market is setting for them, it is you, who is probably overpaid and thinking that you are OWED that for some reason.
Here is a clue: if you didn't borrow money from those people and didn't buy the consumables to the net tune of -50Billion USD/month (that's your monthly deficit), if that number was at least 0 instead of -50Billion, THEN that logic would have been 'ridiculous'.
There are only harsh solutions left. For the guy in his 20s-30s, 40s maybe it just makes sense to leave the country and start a business somewhere else, maybe in Asia.
As to the problem with SS, it can be solved like so:
means testing and switching people who genuinely need SS to survive to welfare
Cut off everybody immediately from SS, also abolish all SS collecting taxes. Have people reapply for welfare if they must have this money to survive. Anybody who can survive without this money, they cannot have it.
SS is welfare anyway, it's not a real savings account for example, there is no money there, so call it what it is and deal with it. Means testing has to be very strict as well: you own your house and have no mortgage payments? You can't have welfare. Sell your house, use the money to rent, etc.
Sorry if people don't like it, but it's not like the 20-30-40 year olds do not have an OPTION. They do - they can LEAVE the country. Why pay into this?
All things considered, I believe the best course of action for all the people who are in this position - 20-40 is to seriously start thinking about what I did and move out of the country, stop paying all taxes in it, move all assets out of US dollars, skip it, start a business somewhere in Asia.
It is much easier for any foreigner to start a business in Asia, than for a foreigner to start business in USA.
Given your solution to his problem, I think my solution sounds much more enticing.
He can leave the country, that makes much more sense than to go down with this ship.
I don't want to copy paste my comment, but I can link to it - where I question why there isn't more outrage about the state of the Union.
The other comments are also related but for a reason that is a bit different. Those threads do display the tendencies that are overwhelming on this forum. It's not good when so many people understand so little (if anything at all) about economics, there must be more discussions on this.
The real outrage that everybody needs to know is right on the surface: how can this be, it feels like a twilight zone, why are so many people not outraged MORE about what is happening in USA?
Late last week the Federal Reserve Bank has declared that it will no longer count its losses on its balance sheet the same way, instead these losses will shown as liabilities and the losses are shifted to the US Treasury, so all those bad loans and mortgages and credit card debt 30 year US treasuries at 4% and 10 year US bonds that the Fed is holding, all of those are not going to show as losses on the Fed's balance sheet.
Isn't THAT an outrage? The Fed is holding all the toxic assets from all the banks and financial institutions that were sold to it by all those institutions before they 'paid back' the TARP money (and the US gov't is telling you that those made money for US gov't.) Don't you understand that all of those toxic assets are still toxic?
WHY ARE YOU NOT OUTRAGED?
Do you not understand that the inflation causes the interest rates to rise and that those 30 year 4% treasuries and 10 year bonds will be losing money once the rate passes that threshold? And that would mean that the US Fed is insolvent, but because of this PR stunt that the losses are on US Treasury balance sheet, while US Fed is showing these as liabilities this tricks you into thinking US Fed is solvent? What do you think you can get from the US Fed if you come to their bank and ask them to redeem that Federal Reserve Note that you have in your wallet? You think you are going to get some of those Treasuries or foreign holdings, or do you perhaps think you will get the gold, that the US Fed and Treasury are still valuing at 35 dollars an ounce? THIRTY FIVE. You think they are obligated to redeem the bank notes? They are printing them every day, billions, they are counterfeiting the money, they only are allowed to mint coins and that doesn't even mean they can actually print money at all.
WHY ARE YOU NOT OUTRAGED?
What about the spending?
At the end of 2006 the total debt held by the public was 4.9 Trillion dollars. According to the Treasury dep't the average interest paid on that debt was 4.9% So Annualized interest payment was 240Billion dollars
At the end of 2010 the publicly traded debt was 9.3 Billion dollars (that's 87% increase in 4 years) The average interest rate was only 2.3% So Annualized interest payment fell to 213Billion dollars
So average interest was 2.3% in 2010.
But in 5 years the publicly traded debt will be 15Trillion dollars. if interest rate is even only 7% at that point, then 50% of all revenue will be spent only to pay the INTEREST on that debt. Now think about that. 7% is actually very very small amount considering the speed at which the long term interests on US gov't bonds are rising today.
I actually think that by the end of 2011 the interest on public debt will be 5% easy.
WHY ARE YOU NOT OUTRAGED?
The gov't grows during the 'good years' without looking at all at the fact that the rate of its growth is unsustainable, it does not correspond to the growth of economy, so why isn't gov't CUT during the bad years much faster than the rest of the economy is cut organically?
What about all those unfunded liabilities and all those pensions that are promised to the Federal and State and Municipal workers? What about the fact that all those pensions are "funded" with US bonds - debt?
What about the fact that SS and EI and Medicare and all other programs are funded with US bonds - debt?
What about the fact that USA is in wars ALL THE TIME?
WHY ARE YOU NOT OUTRAGED?
What about the fact that today it is MUCH MUCH easier to do business in China than in USA and that is why all the capital is leaving? The rules and regulations and taxes are destroying the production in USA. The unions and minimum wage laws distorting the market, but OK, fine, forget about those. The inflation and corporate bailouts and stimulus are destro
I have something else to say about your 'paradox'.
There is a new ruling by Federal Reserve, change of accounting, that took place last week. It announced that any losses on securities that Federal Reserve holds, will not be recognized as loss against Federal Reserve balance sheet, and instead the Fed will accrue those losses as liabilities to the US Treasury!
Now, you may not understand what this means, but let me try ant put it in very simple terms.
This is done to try and alleviate the fears that exist that the Federal Reserve may go bankrupt, because now it will LOOK like the Fed has no losses, instead these losses will belong on the books of US taxpayers.
The gov't is claiming that it made money on TARP, they are saying that the banks and others have paid the money back. But the REASON why the TARP was 'repaid', was because the Federal Reserve BOUGHT the toxic assets, and the Fed paid ABOVE market or on par for these assets. The Fed has held the short term interests low to allow these banks make all those 'record' profits on all that leverage.
Most of those short term profits will come at expense of long term losses, so all those banks will be going bankrupt again soon and will be asking for more bailouts.
But the point is that the Fed is holding all those terrible toxic assets, which are all money losers. But now the Fed and US gov't are saying: those losses are all losses of the Treasury, not of the Fed. Those are US tax payer losses.
So when the US gov't is saying: we MADE money on TARP, they are fucking lying, because now they are holding all that toxic debt.
But HOW, just HOW can Fed do this?
Fed's balance sheet consists of assets and liabilities, like a company's balance sheet does.
Liabilities are the PAPER MONEY: Federal Reserve Note - Legal Tender. It's not a 'dollar', it's a note = liabilities.
What's Fed's asset? The asset is what Fed buys with those notes when it spends them. The assets of Fed are US government securities. Until recently the Fed was buying very short term US Treasury bills - fairly secure form of asset until recently, their value wasn't falling, so the Fed's balance sheet held its balance.
With QE, the Fed has 30 year bonds, 10 year treasuries, credit card debt, auto loan debt, mortgage debt........... It's all bad stuff. The interest rates are going up. So all those 30 year treasuries, that are yielding 4%, the Fed will be stuck with them for 30 years. But the interest rates will go up. Say it's at 8% in a couple of years. If the value of the asset will fall (those 30 year treasuries are like 60-70 cents on a dollar now, but that's just a side note), the interest rates will rise and Fed's liabilities will exceed their assets, the Fed will be insolvent.
IF, IF the Federal reserve notes could be redeemed, then people would go and try to redeem them, it would BANKRUPT the Fed.
But the Fed notes cannot be redeemed, and that's what I am talking about. This is fraud, this is counterfeiting the bank notes. Those notes cannot be redeemed, they are fake - counterfeit.
What will the Fed give you if you ask to redeem the note? Will it give you the Treasury debt? Foreign exchange reserves? They don't have to give you ANYTHING.
It used to be, you could bring 35 Federal Reserve Notes to the Fed and get 1 ounce of gold for it. They had to have REAL assets to match their liabilities, so that the notes could be redeemed. Fed note is a promise to pay DOLLARS, promise to pay GOLD.
Now they will just say: OK. Would you like your 35 dollars in 1 note bills or in 5ves? They will not give you anything for all those fake notes.
So as the Fed's assets collapse due to the rising interest rates and defaulting mortgages, so the Fed becomes insolvent, it would mean what? What can you get for all those PROMISES TO PAY from the Fed?
NOTHING. You will get NOTHING. The Fed doesn't have to make good on its notes. This collapse of the Fed assets would expose the Fed for the FRAUD that it is. A coun
"counterfeiting" applying to a governments use of its own imprimatur via normal currency production is paradoxical.
- but it is not paradoxical. In the case of USA the Constitution sets the rules and US Fed is breaking the rules, so there is no paradox, the government has exceeded its authority, that's all.
Every bank note must be backed by gold, if it is not backed by gold then it cannot exist. This is what Constitution states, this rules is one of the rules that the US government decided to break, so what is the paradox about simply doing something illegal?
There are two states for the government: Either they have the authority to print currency or they don't.
- false choice. The US Fed must have the gold coin first in order to print a corresponding bank note. Any bank notes that are printed that have no corresponding gold coin are counterfeit.
You can attack the legitimacy of the currency, and some of your arguments make sense to a certain degree, but by using terms like "counterfeiting" you're just using incendiary rhetoric.
- based on what? I am stating the fact, not an opinion.
Not that a fractional reserve system is a bad idea.
- it is a bad idea, there are no ifs and buts about it. Either there is money or there isn't money, fake credit given out on the fractional reserve will only last the country until it spirals into an inflationary depression.
Those things make perfect logistical sense, as long as there's a proper, working, regulatory regime in place.
- there is no such thing as a 'proper', 'working', 'regulatory regime'.
There is no need for any regulations, in fact all regulations are poison to the economy. Market distortions are the only real products of regulations.
f we ease these regulations" and then they foul the public commons.
- there shouldn't be any public commons. There is no such thing. Either there is an actual owner or not, if there isn't an owner, than all bets are off.
The Glass Steagall for example was an example of a counter-regulations put in place due to the original gov't sin of creating a moral hazard of FDIC. Of-course FDIC allowed some banks to get very big very fast, they became the political power, they got close with the politicians, got various free money from the Fed and were able to remove the Glass Steagall with that power.
In reality it is the gov't that should never have meddled with economics and should never have created FDIC in the first place, thus not creating the monopolies, not providing the breeding grounds for gambling with deposits, removing the due diligence that depositors should have exercised before giving their money to these FDIC insured banks.
ill solve the problem and most people don't.
- that's not an argument. Most people never in their lives even understand what money is in the first place. Most people don't know anything about computers or cars, why should anybody care what 'most people' have to say on economics?
It might add some natural constraints, except that they'd be just as easily worked around by crooked bankers and politicians
- it's very simple. The gov't has found a way to get around the limitations imposed on it by the Constitution of USA. Gov't shouldn't be in any businesses, there mustn't be a federal bank, there mustn't be any business related regulations, any commerce related regulations, any income taxes or payroll taxes or estate taxes, there mustn't be any departments of anything.
Education, Agriculture, IFS, Fed, FDA, FCC, EPA, FAA, etc.etc.etc., none of it should exist.
Has the US ever had enough gold to back its whole economy?
- that's a strange question. Even if you only have 1 kg of gold in TOTAL you can have the entire monetary system b
Yeah, and they should definitely remove all buttons and links and only have one button, definitely, and put Steve Job's turtleneck as the background and have the words 'google' randomly appear and disappear in various screen locations.
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Also how about add a feature, that would place Google ad-words into the text, based on the discussion topic?
Also, how about contextual ads, which are not just ad-words that are clearly demarcated, but instead are woven right into the discussion. Maybe a/. bot could leave random comments like: 'drink pepsi-cola, the best cola', or maybe such little tidbits of promotion material could be inserted right into the comments themselves.
You don't actually read you own comments after you post them, ever, right? So why would you care?
I have many many wonderful ideas what to absolutely put into all that white space. To definitely put many many things that you would love, to preferably put there some things that other people enjoy too.
To clearly identify problems, to always have various discussions, to just sit there, to various music listen, and to at various pictures look at too. So how about that, isn't that great?
I always felt that out of ALL characters in that movie, Cypher was the most intriguing and interesting, and also he probably is the best actor there as well.
Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.
The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well.
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Internet was going to happen with or without government. The gov't intervened with money into an already developing idea. There were peer to peer networks before the Internet and the idea of packet switching was derived from phone networks. So, yes, the TCP/IP was specifically developed with gov't money, but it doesn't mean it wouldn't have been developed privately. After all, the telegraph, radio, phone, light communications, TV were developed privately, and Tesla was envisioning an electronic wireless communication network way before anybody had that in mind.
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GPS - nothing without Einstein's relativity, both special and general. Nothing without Tsiolkovsky's formulation of rocket math and science. But yes, gov't money often accelerates something that is not directly useful to the market at that very moment. But look at the Moon landings - how many years have passed since and what?
Gov't can produce a lot of waste.
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Personally I wouldn't even be bothered with gov't spending on SCIENCE if it was not involved in ECONOMICS.
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Deregulation has its own set of problems and I'm mystified why free-market purists like you consistently fail to acknowledge them. Remember the near-complete financial meltdown of '08? It was a purely free-market product caused by a combination of unbelievable greed (across all layers of society, not just top) and appalling lack of government intervention even when it was obvious we were headed for disaster.
- I wonder if it would be better for me to write a book on this subject and then just link to it every time I hear this nonsense, what do you think? I have no idea how many times I have already explained what happened on the Internet, many of those times on this forum. My journal has some info on it.
But basically, point by point:
1. It was a purely free-market product - false.
There was no free market for a hundred miles around. FDIC - gov't provided insurance was and still is the moral hazard, which pushes banks into gambling and which allows people not to care which bank they lend the deposits to. That's not free market at all.
Fed setting 1%-0% short term interest rates have nothing to do with free market either. These 'free money' together with FDIC opened the flood gates for gambling with deposits AND leverage.
Freddie/Fannie is not free market at all. Gov't can't remove risk from lending and expect everybody not to jump on that and not to oversell/overbuy it. It's impossible. Once you 'remove risk' from lending, that's it, there is no more free market provided safe guard to stop any sort of abuse.
The regulation that was removed, that everybody cites in this case was Glass Steagall, which
Slashdot Mirror
Don't patronize me, don't need to. Obviously there are some natural monopolies, but that's not what we are talking about, is it?
Well, I am not talking about the natural monopolies, I am talking about all the monopolies that are not natural, and their nature is found in the halls of the government offices, where they are pumped up with money and privilege and where they are protected from the market forces, protected from any competition, where they get their preferable tax treatments, where they get the government contracts.
And who gets the government contracts? Well, it's not 'natural' monopolies that get them, that's for sure.
Government created all of the monopolies that matter, that's my point. All monopolies that actually MATTER.
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When you say: the rich will not invest in American business.
Let me tell you something. I will not invest in American business. I am not rich, but I would NOT invest in American business. I refuse to invest in American business. I am investing into a business that is on a different continent right now because there are possibilities, because there is nearly NO government intervention compared to USA, because it is POSSIBLE to do business.
Do you know which freedom really matters at the end? The freedom to do business and to make your living. Because all other freedoms, they are really inconsequential if this one freedom is absent. Because what good is just 'freedom of speech' - so you can complain about how the government is killing the society by killing the economy? Great. Now what? How about freedom of doing business? That's the one that matters, that's the one that separates a society that ALLOWS upward mobility, from the one that only TALKS about it.
The rich are not investing in America. Why should they invest in America? Should it be out of some patriotic duty to do so? OK, but see how America is treating its patriots - those who are actually fighting in combat for America. It's not pretty.
Really, you know when people will START investing in America again? When America stops destroying the savers.
Do you know what an investment is? It is first of all a saving. It is a saving. Capital is savings. America today says: fuck you if you save. If you save you are a piece of shit, you must be SPENDING instead.
It's all about spending. Where is the respect for the saver? No respect for the saver. The saver gets to suck the Fed's cock. That's all. Suck Fed's cock.
The Fed is growing its cock by printing all these dollars, so that the saver sees the value of his savings disappear, so he can SUCK that ever growing COCK of INFLATION.
Also you know when the rich will start investing in America again? When America wakes up and turns back to the free market - system that PREFERS BUSINESS.
OK? You cannot expect anybody to invest into your system, if your system rejects the idea of capital savings and investment in principle.
If your system destroys the currency and destroys the savings and does not allow business to grow just by competing with OTHER BUSINESS instead of competing with GOVERNMENT and government regulations.
How about removing the road blocks that are on the way of anybody who maybe would want to start a business? All of those regulations.
It's much easier to do business in China today than in USA, that's the freaking sad thing. You will say: China is 'slave labor'. Sure, that's because they are slaving away, subsidizing the US consumer with both, money and products.
Let the prices fall.
Let the labor prices fall.
Get rid of regulations that are preventing businesses from normal work and force businesses to do something they do not need to do - compete with government, fight government every step of the way.
Stop printing money, but this of-course means stop government spending.
Only this will have investors back in America.
I do despise corruption.
But the government is the only institution, among all other institutions, that has the ultimate power over people - it can jail and kill people.
OK? So I can hate corporations, whatever, but none of them have the legitimate power to kill you or me or to jail you or me.
So when it's government corruption, I really really really despise it, because what is the ultimate conclusion of that? It's terrible, it's the worst.
Government corruption must be treated with the most contempt out of all other kinds of corruption.
Monopolies exist outside of government creation and control
- maybe you want to think about this before you type another one like that.
Monopolies are government creations. The natural monopolies, such as if you own the original of Mona Lisa, that's not a government creation, that's real. But natural monopolies are far and between, while government has created and subsidized and protected and stimulated and bailed out and protected and created tax loopholes for and regulated for all of the really important monopolies of today, anything from AT&T, to the military industrial complex monopolies, to food production monopolies - the agricultural, the processing, the communications and the financial monopolies.
Think about FDIC, think about what that means - removing risk from lending to certain banks.
Think about Freddie/Fannie and what that means - removing risk from lending mortgages and then selling the 'securitized' debt around in SIVs.
Think about 0-1% interest - taking huge loans from government at almost 0% interest and buying gov't debt and "making" the spread, thus in one shot - propping up more gov't spending and displaying 'record' profits.
The utilities - energy department. When Carter established it, it had this agenda to get USA off foreign oil. Ok, how did that work out? But what happened to all the 'energy producing' companies that are dealing with the gov't?
The monopolies, they are what government loves, they are what government wants, they are what pays the government officials to be reelected. It's a symbiotic relationship between politicians and monopolies, and they are parasites on the back of the society and economy that does not need them, suffers and suffocates because of them.
You are saying: government is not the problem, the rich controlling it are the problem.
But how did that happen? Who are these 'rich'? They are rich, because they are at the helm of the government, taking in the free money and KILLING competition with government power.
They are the rich, and they are the government, because the people do not care, right? People do not care to stop the government from destroying the free market.
Because the people, average people, they NEED the competition and free market. Because average people need prices to go DOWN, but monopolies do not allow that.
Prices must go down. You are hearing that the gov't right now is telling you that the economy is improving. Do not believe a single word, it's a gigantic lie.
An improving economy would mean more economic activity, and that only means more production and the result of that would be savings and reduction of trade deficit. The trade deficit is not reducing, the jobs are not appearing, the prices are not falling. Falling prices are brought to you by a working economy, by an economy that is becoming more efficient due to more efficient allocation of resources, and it's never planned, it just happens by the market forces, that choose for the falling prices.
The government destroys the economy, takes away your purchasing power by printing money and causing prices to go up, at the same time it regulates the free market away to keep its monopolies running without any threat of competition, and this again causes prices to go up. The gov't also provides money.
Gov't gives money, gives out loans to students, securitizes all these risky assets and loans and all this money is printed, given out with no interest, no backing, no reserves of any kind, no production to back it up.
The US Fed is counterfeiting US Federal Reserve Notes (which are not dollars, dollars are coins, that are minted by US Treasury, that's the extent to which the gov't is allowed to 'create' money).
The Federal Reserve is supposed to be this 'independent' entity, so that if the gov't starts spending too much, it can SHUT DOWN the printing press. Of-course the Congress will NEVER prevent the Fed from printing more money, because it will never stop from pr
No. They are "finding" that the government can "regulate" the market so that this will not happen again.
That's bullshit.
What you are saying is that the market has caused this crash, I have been saying forever: the government has killed the free market and that is why you have no competition, and that is why there are no trade houses that are retail friendly.
There is a market for retail trading, but it's impossible to have your own trading house, and has been impossible for a very long time because of all the government regulations that protect the monopolies that exist in that business.
I cannot be happy until the government burns in hell for what they have done to the market.
The problem is actually the Fed in the first place, the Fed and Treasury and all government spending, which could NEVER be paid for, it's just that NOW, that there are no jobs and eventually the credit to US government will stop, you will find out - you were living much beyond your means for too long.
The Wars and SS and Medicare and Medicaid and EI and all the departments: energy, transportation, education, agriculture, small business, fda, faa, fcc, epa. Also IRS and Fed and FDIC and all other government initiatives - they never could be paid for fully anyway, but with fewer and fewer jobs and with less and less economic activity they can't be afforded at all.
Now, are the bankers responsible? Well of-course they are. They are responsible in the same way that an alcoholic that runs his car over you. But the alcohol, where did it get the alcohol? It was in the car, supplied by the government, even mandated by the government.
Freddie/Fannie + FDIC + 1-0% interest rates - that was the mandate. Mandate to give bad mortgage loans, mandate to 'securitize' them, you know that HUD invented mortgage securitization?
Get rid of government spending, stop all government programs, shut down all government offices, fire all government officials, abolish all government departments, break the government money printer and you will start on the healing process, but first you will go through the breaking process of getting de-intoxicated, as economy restructures and loses maybe 60% of the jobs and then prices for everything fall, including labor, all regulations are repealed, THEN you will have capital come back to USA and there will be jobs again.
This was done before, you know, it's not radical and crazy. Hardin did it in 1920 to stop that Fed created recession, that recession was over in 1 year.
Well yes, and all of those rich people who are doing that, they are found in Washington DC.
The class warfare is one of the last attempts of a failed government, that has spent everything it could and couldn't, to divert attention from themselves. When an empire falls apart it starts class warfare, and its started by the government, who divert the attention from themselves.
Without government creating monopolies, there wouldn't be such huge disparities and differences between the 'rich' and the 'poor' (and by the way, the 'poor' in USA are not the same as 'poor' in Bangladesh.)
The monopolies that government creates end up enriching some people beyond believe, while destroying the competition and market and driving capital and jobs away, all while the government is getting bigger and bigger, promising to spend ever more, much more than the economy has to provide.
Eventually the government's only 'solution' is to PRINT and BORROW and as long as they can borrow they will, but they will absolutely not stop printing until it's Zimbabwe.
Don't be fooled, gov't is destroying your life, it is destroying your money, it is destroying your ability to buy anything, it is taking away your food and energy by printing the money and creating all the inflation in the middle of a financial crisis that is structural in nature and the government has structured it.
You know, results of a government commission that was established to figure out the causes for the financial crisis of 2008 came out, and that commission was a charade, just like this one.
That commission "found" that the crisis was caused by lack of regulations, that low interest rates and Freddie/Fannie had nothing to do with the housing bubble, they "found" that the only thing that government did "wrong" was let the Lehman brothers fail and that the future crisis can only be avoided if there is more government regulations.
Lets start with this: I despise the governments.
The results of that commission were just as well known in advance as the results of the one from this story. Of-course a government commission will find that what is needed is more government and that whatever structural problems that are caused by government are not the real problems.
THIS IS THE SAME BULLSHIT.
IT IS BULLSHIT, DO NOT BELIEVE A SINGLE WORD THAT YOU ARE READING IN THE FABRICATED CONCLUSIONS OF THESE COMMISSIONS.
They are finding one thing: there is need for more government.
They are finding this other thing: whoever is in power cannot be blamed.
That's all.
Guns don't kill people, ah ah. the modern entertainment media industry kill people. With guns.
-MC Vagina
China has set its tariffs, exchange rates, rules and standards to tilt the game in favor of employing Chinese labor for producing manufactured goods and for making exporters selling to China pay to compete.
- China has a tariff that the gov't of China collects on imports.
It's 25%, right? More or less, something like that, without looking at any specific case by case situation.
US has that at about 2.5%, again, no case by case analysis, just overall number.
You think you can produce SOMETHING in USA that you can export into China, and even if they had 0% tariff you'd be able to compete on price with the goods that are produced in China?
Good luck.
Think about this: the USA produces some stuff, but it really mostly assembles parts that come from other countries, specifically mostly from China and maybe Germany and Japan, but mostly China.
So with the 25% tariff on import of RAW materials into China, and then after exporting the parts into USA and paying maybe 2.5% tariff on import into USA, then with all the assembly costs added in USA, you think you could then ship this item back to China to sell it there?
Why do you think that? Even if the tariff on import to China was 0, again, the cost of assembling the part in USA is crazy compared to that cost in China.
In reality the USA cannot export anything into China and compete on price even with 0% tariffs on Chinese side, it's simple - in USA cost of organizing labor/corporation/regulations/taxes is too high, that's all there is to it.
You can't compete this way with China at all.
For USA to become actually competitive in production ALL US business regulations must be abolished, all capital and income taxes must be abolished, all US departments must be abolished, all gov't subsidies to everybody, from a corporation to any one individual, all of that has to stop and the US gov't must stop printing money.
I asked the question here - why aren't people outraged at the state of the Union in USA? Perhaps it's because they want to pretend that things can continue the way they used to be, but it's just not going to continue that way.
The logic that we need to compete with workers who are poorly paid, who live and work in an environmental nightmare, is ridiculous.
- but it's not that you need to compete.
You don't need to compete.
You are competing.
So the logic is this: you are competing and you are losing. Now, is that actually ridiculous as logic? No. It is perfect logic and I am not sure why your comment has this high moderation, but anyway.
You are competing, you are spending on consumables, much more than those 'poor' people, with who you are competing (I hope you didn't actually feel dirty typing the description of 'those' people, poor you.)
You are competing with those people, they are winning, you are spending the money you borrowed from them.
How about this logic: you are BORROWING MONEY from THOSE POOR PEOPLE.
Then you are BUYING PRODUCTS MADE BY THOSE POOR PEOPLE.
I actually disagree that they are poorly paid people. They are paid what the market is setting for them, it is you, who is probably overpaid and thinking that you are OWED that for some reason.
Here is a clue: if you didn't borrow money from those people and didn't buy the consumables to the net tune of -50Billion USD/month (that's your monthly deficit), if that number was at least 0 instead of -50Billion, THEN that logic would have been 'ridiculous'.
As it is, your comment is ridiculous.
There are only harsh solutions left. For the guy in his 20s-30s, 40s maybe it just makes sense to leave the country and start a business somewhere else, maybe in Asia.
As to the problem with SS, it can be solved like so:
means testing and switching people who genuinely need SS to survive to welfare
Cut off everybody immediately from SS, also abolish all SS collecting taxes. Have people reapply for welfare if they must have this money to survive. Anybody who can survive without this money, they cannot have it.
SS is welfare anyway, it's not a real savings account for example, there is no money there, so call it what it is and deal with it. Means testing has to be very strict as well: you own your house and have no mortgage payments? You can't have welfare. Sell your house, use the money to rent, etc.
Sorry if people don't like it, but it's not like the 20-30-40 year olds do not have an OPTION. They do - they can LEAVE the country. Why pay into this?
All things considered, I believe the best course of action for all the people who are in this position - 20-40 is to seriously start thinking about what I did and move out of the country, stop paying all taxes in it, move all assets out of US dollars, skip it, start a business somewhere in Asia.
It is much easier for any foreigner to start a business in Asia, than for a foreigner to start business in USA.
Given your solution to his problem, I think my solution sounds much more enticing.
Just because you did it, he does not have to.
He can leave the country, that makes much more sense than to go down with this ship.
I don't want to copy paste my comment, but I can link to it - where I question why there isn't more outrage about the state of the Union.
The other comments are also related but for a reason that is a bit different. Those threads do display the tendencies that are overwhelming on this forum. It's not good when so many people understand so little (if anything at all) about economics, there must be more discussions on this.
The real outrage that everybody needs to know is right on the surface: how can this be, it feels like a twilight zone, why are so many people not outraged MORE about what is happening in USA?
Late last week the Federal Reserve Bank has declared that it will no longer count its losses on its balance sheet the same way, instead these losses will shown as liabilities and the losses are shifted to the US Treasury, so all those bad loans and mortgages and credit card debt 30 year US treasuries at 4% and 10 year US bonds that the Fed is holding, all of those are not going to show as losses on the Fed's balance sheet.
Isn't THAT an outrage? The Fed is holding all the toxic assets from all the banks and financial institutions that were sold to it by all those institutions before they 'paid back' the TARP money (and the US gov't is telling you that those made money for US gov't.) Don't you understand that all of those toxic assets are still toxic?
WHY ARE YOU NOT OUTRAGED?
Do you not understand that the inflation causes the interest rates to rise and that those 30 year 4% treasuries and 10 year bonds will be losing money once the rate passes that threshold? And that would mean that the US Fed is insolvent, but because of this PR stunt that the losses are on US Treasury balance sheet, while US Fed is showing these as liabilities this tricks you into thinking US Fed is solvent? What do you think you can get from the US Fed if you come to their bank and ask them to redeem that Federal Reserve Note that you have in your wallet? You think you are going to get some of those Treasuries or foreign holdings, or do you perhaps think you will get the gold, that the US Fed and Treasury are still valuing at 35 dollars an ounce? THIRTY FIVE. You think they are obligated to redeem the bank notes? They are printing them every day, billions, they are counterfeiting the money, they only are allowed to mint coins and that doesn't even mean they can actually print money at all.
WHY ARE YOU NOT OUTRAGED?
What about the spending?
At the end of 2006 the total debt held by the public was 4.9 Trillion dollars. According to the Treasury dep't the average interest paid on that debt was 4.9%
So Annualized interest payment was 240Billion dollars
At the end of 2010 the publicly traded debt was 9.3 Billion dollars (that's 87% increase in 4 years)
The average interest rate was only 2.3%
So Annualized interest payment fell to 213Billion dollars
So average interest was 2.3% in 2010.
But in 5 years the publicly traded debt will be 15Trillion dollars. if interest rate is even only 7% at that point, then 50% of all revenue will be spent only to pay the INTEREST on that debt.
Now think about that. 7% is actually very very small amount considering the speed at which the long term interests on US gov't bonds are rising today.
I actually think that by the end of 2011 the interest on public debt will be 5% easy.
WHY ARE YOU NOT OUTRAGED?
The gov't grows during the 'good years' without looking at all at the fact that the rate of its growth is unsustainable, it does not correspond to the growth of economy, so why isn't gov't CUT during the bad years much faster than the rest of the economy is cut organically?
What about all those unfunded liabilities and all those pensions that are promised to the Federal and State and Municipal workers? What about the fact that all those pensions are "funded" with US bonds - debt?
What about the fact that SS and EI and Medicare and all other programs are funded with US bonds - debt?
What about the fact that USA is in wars ALL THE TIME?
WHY ARE YOU NOT OUTRAGED?
What about the fact that today it is MUCH MUCH easier to do business in China than in USA and that is why all the capital is leaving? The rules and regulations and taxes are destroying the production in USA. The unions and minimum wage laws distorting the market, but OK, fine, forget about those. The inflation and corporate bailouts and stimulus are destro
I have something else to say about your 'paradox'.
There is a new ruling by Federal Reserve, change of accounting, that took place last week. It announced that any losses on securities that Federal Reserve holds, will not be recognized as loss against Federal Reserve balance sheet, and instead the Fed will accrue those losses as liabilities to the US Treasury!
Now, you may not understand what this means, but let me try ant put it in very simple terms.
This is done to try and alleviate the fears that exist that the Federal Reserve may go bankrupt, because now it will LOOK like the Fed has no losses, instead these losses will belong on the books of US taxpayers.
The gov't is claiming that it made money on TARP, they are saying that the banks and others have paid the money back. But the REASON why the TARP was 'repaid', was because the Federal Reserve BOUGHT the toxic assets, and the Fed paid ABOVE market or on par for these assets. The Fed has held the short term interests low to allow these banks make all those 'record' profits on all that leverage.
Most of those short term profits will come at expense of long term losses, so all those banks will be going bankrupt again soon and will be asking for more bailouts.
But the point is that the Fed is holding all those terrible toxic assets, which are all money losers. But now the Fed and US gov't are saying: those losses are all losses of the Treasury, not of the Fed. Those are US tax payer losses.
So when the US gov't is saying: we MADE money on TARP, they are fucking lying, because now they are holding all that toxic debt.
But HOW, just HOW can Fed do this?
Fed's balance sheet consists of assets and liabilities, like a company's balance sheet does.
Liabilities are the PAPER MONEY: Federal Reserve Note - Legal Tender. It's not a 'dollar', it's a note = liabilities.
What's Fed's asset? The asset is what Fed buys with those notes when it spends them. The assets of Fed are US government securities. Until recently the Fed was buying very short term US Treasury bills - fairly secure form of asset until recently, their value wasn't falling, so the Fed's balance sheet held its balance.
With QE, the Fed has 30 year bonds, 10 year treasuries, credit card debt, auto loan debt, mortgage debt........... It's all bad stuff. The interest rates are going up. So all those 30 year treasuries, that are yielding 4%, the Fed will be stuck with them for 30 years. But the interest rates will go up. Say it's at 8% in a couple of years. If the value of the asset will fall (those 30 year treasuries are like 60-70 cents on a dollar now, but that's just a side note), the interest rates will rise and Fed's liabilities will exceed their assets, the Fed will be insolvent.
IF, IF the Federal reserve notes could be redeemed, then people would go and try to redeem them, it would BANKRUPT the Fed.
But the Fed notes cannot be redeemed, and that's what I am talking about. This is fraud, this is counterfeiting the bank notes. Those notes cannot be redeemed, they are fake - counterfeit.
What will the Fed give you if you ask to redeem the note? Will it give you the Treasury debt? Foreign exchange reserves? They don't have to give you ANYTHING.
It used to be, you could bring 35 Federal Reserve Notes to the Fed and get 1 ounce of gold for it. They had to have REAL assets to match their liabilities, so that the notes could be redeemed. Fed note is a promise to pay DOLLARS, promise to pay GOLD.
Now they will just say: OK. Would you like your 35 dollars in 1 note bills or in 5ves? They will not give you anything for all those fake notes.
So as the Fed's assets collapse due to the rising interest rates and defaulting mortgages, so the Fed becomes insolvent, it would mean what? What can you get for all those PROMISES TO PAY from the Fed?
NOTHING. You will get NOTHING. The Fed doesn't have to make good on its notes. This collapse of the Fed assets would expose the Fed for the FRAUD that it is. A coun
"counterfeiting" applying to a governments use of its own imprimatur via normal currency production is paradoxical.
- but it is not paradoxical. In the case of USA the Constitution sets the rules and US Fed is breaking the rules, so there is no paradox, the government has exceeded its authority, that's all.
Every bank note must be backed by gold, if it is not backed by gold then it cannot exist. This is what Constitution states, this rules is one of the rules that the US government decided to break, so what is the paradox about simply doing something illegal?
There are two states for the government: Either they have the authority to print currency or they don't.
- false choice. The US Fed must have the gold coin first in order to print a corresponding bank note. Any bank notes that are printed that have no corresponding gold coin are counterfeit.
You can attack the legitimacy of the currency, and some of your arguments make sense to a certain degree, but by using terms like "counterfeiting" you're just using incendiary rhetoric.
- based on what? I am stating the fact, not an opinion.
Not that a fractional reserve system is a bad idea.
- it is a bad idea, there are no ifs and buts about it. Either there is money or there isn't money, fake credit given out on the fractional reserve will only last the country until it spirals into an inflationary depression.
Those things make perfect logistical sense, as long as there's a proper, working, regulatory regime in place.
- there is no such thing as a 'proper', 'working', 'regulatory regime'.
There is no need for any regulations, in fact all regulations are poison to the economy. Market distortions are the only real products of regulations.
f we ease these regulations" and then they foul the public commons.
- there shouldn't be any public commons. There is no such thing. Either there is an actual owner or not, if there isn't an owner, than all bets are off.
The Glass Steagall for example was an example of a counter-regulations put in place due to the original gov't sin of creating a moral hazard of FDIC. Of-course FDIC allowed some banks to get very big very fast, they became the political power, they got close with the politicians, got various free money from the Fed and were able to remove the Glass Steagall with that power.
In reality it is the gov't that should never have meddled with economics and should never have created FDIC in the first place, thus not creating the monopolies, not providing the breeding grounds for gambling with deposits, removing the due diligence that depositors should have exercised before giving their money to these FDIC insured banks.
ill solve the problem and most people don't.
- that's not an argument. Most people never in their lives even understand what money is in the first place. Most people don't know anything about computers or cars, why should anybody care what 'most people' have to say on economics?
It might add some natural constraints, except that they'd be just as easily worked around by crooked bankers and politicians
- it's very simple. The gov't has found a way to get around the limitations imposed on it by the Constitution of USA. Gov't shouldn't be in any businesses, there mustn't be a federal bank, there mustn't be any business related regulations, any commerce related regulations, any income taxes or payroll taxes or estate taxes, there mustn't be any departments of anything.
Education, Agriculture, IFS, Fed, FDA, FCC, EPA, FAA, etc.etc.etc., none of it should exist.
Has the US ever had enough gold to back its whole economy?
- that's a strange question. Even if you only have 1 kg of gold in TOTAL you can have the entire monetary system b
The next thing that needs to be hacked and improved is /.
I can't even imagine what can be done to the site at this point to make it any more ugly and less user friendly.
You can't invent anything better than BBS for this type of a system anyway.
Yeah, and they should definitely remove all buttons and links and only have one button, definitely, and put Steve Job's turtleneck as the background and have the words 'google' randomly appear and disappear in various screen locations.
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Also how about add a feature, that would place Google ad-words into the text, based on the discussion topic?
Also, how about contextual ads, which are not just ad-words that are clearly demarcated, but instead are woven right into the discussion. Maybe a /. bot could leave random comments like: 'drink pepsi-cola, the best cola', or maybe such little tidbits of promotion material could be inserted right into the comments themselves.
You don't actually read you own comments after you post them, ever, right? So why would you care?
I have many many wonderful ideas what to absolutely put into all that white space. To definitely put many many things that you would love, to preferably put there some things that other people enjoy too.
To clearly identify problems, to always have various discussions, to just sit there, to various music listen, and to at various pictures look at too. So how about that, isn't that great?
I don't know, the last time I brought a human head into the theater they evacuated the place. I had to escape through a fire door and a roof.
What's with 'styrofoam' though?
Have you ever considered a career in destroying lives on planets by inducing constant non-stop hysterical laughter?
I always felt that out of ALL characters in that movie, Cypher was the most intriguing and interesting, and also he probably is the best actor there as well.
Yet in Portugal they decriminalized drugs and getting better results: quote:
Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.
The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well.
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Internet was going to happen with or without government. The gov't intervened with money into an already developing idea. There were peer to peer networks before the Internet and the idea of packet switching was derived from phone networks. So, yes, the TCP/IP was specifically developed with gov't money, but it doesn't mean it wouldn't have been developed privately. After all, the telegraph, radio, phone, light communications, TV were developed privately, and Tesla was envisioning an electronic wireless communication network way before anybody had that in mind.
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GPS - nothing without Einstein's relativity, both special and general. Nothing without Tsiolkovsky's formulation of rocket math and science. But yes, gov't money often accelerates something that is not directly useful to the market at that very moment. But look at the Moon landings - how many years have passed since and what?
Gov't can produce a lot of waste.
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Personally I wouldn't even be bothered with gov't spending on SCIENCE if it was not involved in ECONOMICS.
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Deregulation has its own set of problems and I'm mystified why free-market purists like you consistently fail to acknowledge them. Remember the near-complete financial meltdown of '08? It was a purely free-market product caused by a combination of unbelievable greed (across all layers of society, not just top) and appalling lack of government intervention even when it was obvious we were headed for disaster.
- I wonder if it would be better for me to write a book on this subject and then just link to it every time I hear this nonsense, what do you think? I have no idea how many times I have already explained what happened on the Internet, many of those times on this forum. My journal has some info on it.
But basically, point by point:
1. It was a purely free-market product - false.
There was no free market for a hundred miles around. FDIC - gov't provided insurance was and still is the moral hazard, which pushes banks into gambling and which allows people not to care which bank they lend the deposits to. That's not free market at all.
Fed setting 1%-0% short term interest rates have nothing to do with free market either. These 'free money' together with FDIC opened the flood gates for gambling with deposits AND leverage.
Freddie/Fannie is not free market at all. Gov't can't remove risk from lending and expect everybody not to jump on that and not to oversell/overbuy it. It's impossible. Once you 'remove risk' from lending, that's it, there is no more free market provided safe guard to stop any sort of abuse.
The regulation that was removed, that everybody cites in this case was Glass Steagall, which
You are displaying some violent flamebaitish kind of tendencies yourself, are you talking to a mirror?
Kill your neighbors, save a tree!
- hhmmmmm. I like the way you think.
Hold on, I have a park to save.