First of all, you are correct. China IS a better society for me, that's why I am working on my Hong Kong related business, it's a start, right? AFAIC China is a much freer country today in terms of starting a new business that is not killed by gov't regulations, where there is a chance of real competition, where the system is not trying to stop the business. That's why Chinese economy is growing and pretty much all other economies are stagnating and/or shrinking.
The most socialist governments in Europe, USA and UK, these are the relics of economic past. Eventually these governments will collapse their own societies, and these societies will have to rebuild without those governments. That's going to be free market, fixing the problem that the shortsightedness of the people is creating (and yes, democracy is a terrible system, it ends up very stupid, too bad there are no good substitutes yet, but obviously USA is not a real democracy, nor are most other places.)
Secondly I agree with the Constitution of USA more than you do.
I believe the only reason to have a gov't at all is to do these things:
1. Minimum military to protect Freedoms and Liberties from foreign threats. 2. Justice system to make sure that criminal and contract laws are enforced. 3. I guess some cops/prisons, so that Justice system has teeth.
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That's all. The 'general welfare' is exactly about having a working economy. Economy is destroyed by all gov't actions that are aimed at purposes of morality of justice. Economy does not benefit from any gov't forces that modify it and mis-allocate resources from private sector in any way.
My 'perfect' society has gov't that only does the above mentioned 3 functions and funds it by sales taxes on some items (and probably returns the sales taxes to those, who cannot afford to pay them, I guess a more 'fair' tax, that's my only concession against the free market and for your argument.)
I honestly tried, I downloaded the thing, installed it, I was looking for something to help out with building GUIs automagically, heard that NetBeans 'has it'.
I used to work with Eclipse, Visual Age before and Visual Cafe, some other stuff long ago, like Visual Studio.
Opened NetBeans and after about an hour gave up, it has a project model that I am not familiar with and I do not want to spend time to learn it. It's different in the way it handles projects and that was the show stopper. That's too bad, maybe it had what I needed, but whatever I used something else I found for Eclipse.
Well, sure, businesses can 'suck it up'. But you are going to pay more and you will see less choice.
I do not want to pay more than the market dictates.
I do not want to see choices reduced because the pricing will drive some businesses out of business, and some will simply do much less than what they could have done, if the resources weren't mis-allocated.
I want more choice, I want lower prices.
AFAIC if those, who are impaired have a real need, they must pay for it to a service that will give them what they need - some transcription, etc.
Every single thing gov't does is to the detriment of economy, sure you can argue that this is for the 'better of the society'.
I am arguing that your gov't enforced economic policy will end up KILLING the society by destroying the economy.
AFAIC you are the one who is completely shortsighted, not able to understand that a economy is the most important part of society in the first place.
Economy is being destroyed by gov't regulations, laws, taxes, spending, borrowing and money printing. This will end up destroying society as well.
It's not like it's the first time that it's going to happen, but people don't learn and they end up killing their economies and destroying their societies over and over throughout the history of humans.
Nobody should be FORCED to do anything by the gov't, unless it's about actually protecting Freedoms and Liberties of people and providing a meaningful Justice system to resolve contract and criminal law questions.
Everything else is mis-allocation of resources.
With your logic, Google must transcribe every video because it's definitely a big company.
But those people, who work there, they already HAVE job descriptions, and it's not transcribing videos. They have to do MEANINGFUL work that Google needs to do to survive as a business.
Gov't can only raise prices and kill a business. It can kill many businesses to subsidize one business, sure. My point is that anything like this destroys resources, just like any other gov't forced action.
This is make-shift work by gov't on the backs of businesses, what else can it possibly be? That's all it is under the guise of some moral principles. Well, if it takes MY money to pay for YOUR moral principles, it is IMMORAL AFAIC.
It is also going to hurt my business, no matter how big or small. No matter. This is a terrible idea and should not be forced.
If there is an actual market for the blind/deaf whatever for this, they must pay for it through some service, that will transcribe the stuff for them that they want. I certainly don't want mis-allocation of resources to occur in any gov't directed ways.
AFAIC if a gov't wants to do this, whatever, it's the matter of the public that spends their money on that gov't. If they vote for politicians who end up taking in more and more public money, or borrowing and printing it, well, then gov't can 'afford' all these things.
(until it collapses the economy with all the borrowing, spending and taxing and regulations etc. See Greece and USA and eventually UK and Spain and Portugal. Also see former places like USSR, Zimbabwe, Argentina....)
Yeah, gov't surely can do whatever it wants as long as they can still fake solvency.
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But a private company? Now imagine that Google had to transcribe every youtube video.
How many people do they have to hire to do that?
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What if facebook had to transcribe all images and sounds and whatever they do there?
How many people do they have to hire to do that?
etc --
Understand, that all of this is make-shift work enforced by gov't. This is NOT productive in any way, this is mis-allocation of resources. Resources that could be used on whatever the companies rather use it on. Companies that can either use these resources to come up with new tech and new tech applications, solutions to real business problems that the market needs. Or they can do what the gov't forces them: let's say 100% of all videos have to be transcribed.
Holly crap. If there was an actual MARKET for that, there'd be a service, and the deaf/blind would be able to use that service and that service would figure out how to transcribe those videos and sounds, and because it takes resources to do all of that work, that service would have to find a way to pay for all that work.
BUT IT MUSTN'T BE GOVERNMENT FORCED.
It's what is wrong with the economy - gov't forced garbage is killing it. Subsidies to businesses, Wars, all military spending, SS, Medicare, wage laws, price controls, taxes, rules, laws, regulations....
Yes, I am that guy, I believe that the gov't is killing economy by every single action it is taking.
The only use for a gov't is protection of liberties:
1. Minimum military 2. Justice dep't 3. Possibly cops/prisons.
Everything else gov't does is mis-allocation of other people's resources by gov't. This is the same, and it's just as stupid.
Sure, stop charging for education. That's easy, just make all those teachers work for free.
I am not interested in paying for anybody's education but my own by the way, don't care about your education one bit. However you should care about your education.
In order to make education affordable to those who want it, get the government out of education entirely. Stop gov't subsidies and loans and prices will go down. This is the same with every single thing gov't does: loans and subsidies kill the field by driving prices up because the prices do not depend on individuals, but on gov't giving out loans, and it's not a problem to get an ever increasing loan, so education costs also tend to follow the ever increasing pattern right after gov't loans increase.
That's not regulation, that's weeding out the stupid who do stupid shit and get caught.
I left a comment in this thread responding to the moron over there, showing that as an example in Germany you don't need a license to be a food vendor AS LONG as you are actually doing the correct thing - making sure that you are following the correct food handling procedures, but if you do not follow procedures and you get caught, it means your ass - fines and who knows what other sanctions.
OTOH in USA you need to get various licenses, vendor permit, sellers permit, dba certificate...
That means that before you start a business you already have to deal with a bunch of bureaucratic nightmares, this obviously means that startup costs go up and it cuts off a bunch of people from doing business before they even start.
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So my point is that it is much easier to do business, to start business in Asia and even in Germany than it is in US in many cases. This relates to gov't subsidizing monopolies, creating monopolies, creating regulations that kill competition before it even starts. Then there are crazy taxes, rules, regulations you have to comply with while running a business, takes the joy out of otherwise interesting work as well.
Patriot Act made it impossible for new start ups in fund hedging, you have to become an IRS and CIA rat basically, you have to set up systems, logs, control and check points, you have to prove you have all of that working. Then there are enormous amounts of regulations concerning what you can even OFFER to your customers and all of this was created by gov't, who subsidizes the existing banks/insurance firms/hedge funds, in many cases it was created as a knee jerk reaction to these gov't created monopolies taking advantage of their customers BECAUSE they have no competitor they can really go to.
Then the new start ups have to somehow comply with all these regulations, that were created with huge existing monopolies in mind, for who all of these regulations are a minor issue, no problem, they have cash flow, it's just a small cost and very easy to fit into existing structures they have, and given they are also subsidized and bailed out they have basically no risk to themselves doing any of this.
But if you are a private individual today in USA, you actually have to be a millionaire to even try and start your own hedge fund and you probably will fail anyway because the field is rigged, you are not subsidized by gov't, because you'll be paying outrageous taxes that existing monopolies all have exemptions for since they are part of the system.
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Bullet in the head for an insignificant number of cases for doing something wrong? That's a tiny price to pay for a working economy.
I buy my own healthcare out of pocket, but there is a national system as well, clearly. So that is 'socialist'.
However banks in Germany are not insured by anything close to 'FDIC', that's not socialist at all. The fractional reserves in those banks is set by gov't standard, that is socialist.
But Germany has much laxer regulations on actually doing business than USA does.
Example:
Generally, vendors of food products do not need a special registration or permission to do business, as long as their merchandise conforms with legal standards, such as the specific informational and labeling requirements, and as long as they do not pose any danger to consumers' health. Nevertheless, customs authorities may stop and investigate food imports. They especially may require an official laboratory report proving the product's safety, if a national or European institution has given an alert on the item/s.
USA (Atlanta):
You are legally required to obtain a business license, register a sellers permit, and file a dba certificate. A business license is required by all businesses and because you sell items that sales taxes must be collected, you need the seller's permit. Finally you need to register a DBA because the trade name you do business under must be registered. You can also form an LLC or Incorporate instead of filing a DBA.
so even this simplest of examples shows the actual difference. The triangle that you call your head must have just exploded... yet nothing of any value was lost.
China, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Switzerland do have much more relaxed attitude towards business regulations, they do not regulate businesses the way the social paradise of US or Greece or France or Italy or Spain or UK does.
China. Yes, China. In China opening a business is a breeze. That's why so many people return to China. Of-course not everybody wants to be in China directly, so many move to Singapore or Hong Kong, but the idea is the same, yes. Business is much simpler to start and to operate and to succeed in when you are in China than if you are in USA.
The reasons are crazy regulations and high income taxes and labor laws and minimum wage laws and insurance laws etc.
Patriot Act is a very simple example of a regulation that makes USA unproductive and uncompetitive and prohibitively expensive. So is any other bill passed by US gov't. ANY subsidy to a business, any tax, any regulation, any rule, any and all of them are killing US and all these other highly socialistic places in terms of competition for production of goods, so this kills the trade balance and drives up deficit and gov't never stops spending, there is nobody to tax, gov't prints money, currency is debased, etc.etc.
Those voices are in your head, but they are not helping you it seems at all.
it is obvious why this is happening, it was obvious in this comment, it was also obvious much earlier, but it's hard to find much earlier references.
But I was just considered to be 'funny' because I stated the reasons and the solutions to economic problems that are experienced by the western world and 'economies' that have very high social obligations and expectations.
All economies with gov't intervention are suffering because of gov't intervention.
US is suffering, UK is, France is, so is Greece, Ireland. USSR has collapsed.
All this while Hong Kong is growing, China is growing, Singapore is growing, Taiwan is growing.
The point is not to find a country that has no gov't intervention. All countries have gov't intervention.
The point is to understand why the economies are dying.
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USA was created artificially, as somewhat of an ideal system, with federal gov't being pushed down and held down. Over 100 years from 1800 till 1913 the gov't was learning how to get away from that repression and it learned the tricks, it turned itself around and became the power that it was never supposed to be.
Now that power is destroying US economy and some other economies in the process by destroying their currency after they have destroyed their free market ideas.
You are siting Hong Kong and Singapore and Switzerland and Qatar as examples here, but they are not examples of anything you stand for.
It's much easier to do business in Hong Kong than in Singapore, and it's much easier to do business in Singapore than in US. Switzerland has no federal gov't anywhere near with power of US gov't over US states. Switzerland's federal gov't can't even impose federal income taxes.
Qatar is an oil exporter and importer of all other items and goods.
You are insane if you are comparing any of these economies to US, but it's not that you are truly insane, it's that you are what you accuse me of being: full of shit.
Singapore is where lots of action is in Asia and where regulations are much more lax than in US or Europe. Qatar is an exporter of oil, known as emirate state.
Luxemburg is a 'country' of 500,000 people. I suggest you go there if you haven't been, I was just in London last week and went through Belgium and into Luxemburg before going further my way. They are a producer of actual refined materials and chemicals. They are also an investment hub.
None of these countries spend on wars, they also pretty much do not print money, imagine that.
However US doesn't even belong in that list on that line. The US GDP is fake, like most of information you will keep finding about it on the web.
The CPI is fake, the inflation rate is fake, the GDP is fake. Everything about US economy that is reported by the gov't is false.
Hong Kong is an extremely free market oriented economy with competing private currencies, maybe you should look into HK dollars, they are cute. They also are printed by different private banks and are backed by production capacity.
HK also has very low taxes: 8%, 14% and 20% depending on your bracket, and that's it.
Switzerland, I enjoy my canton because there is no federal income tax there.
It has the money of the world and almost no taxes only user fees.
Ireland... you'll hear soon about Ireland. It's going down, it's a disaster.
Australia is a raw material exporter, they'll be fine.
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All these countries import Chinese products, some are running deficits now, but except US nobody is running wars and insane levels of military spending and their social spending is actually much lower than what US has it at.
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What is funny about you, is that you have not a single clue about the actual world that is around you.
Should children be still working from age of 5 on the fields? Should children be given an opportunity of being something more than a subsistence farmer?
The capitalism allowed children to be more than that. Yes, some worked in terrible dangerous conditions, that's not a reason for any gov't involvement ever.
It may be a reason for private interests to have a union, I am not against totally private unions, they make sense in an economy just as much as a business makes sense.
Gov't intervening does not make any sense and it ends up destroying economy.
As to 'workers being born into company hospital', tell me something, how much better is it to be born into the gov't caused debt, into gov't caused economic disaster that will destroy economy and currency and all jobs? How much better is it?
Should slavery exist? Did gov't really stop slavery or was slavery stopped by people? Business will use the cheapest form of labor, but realize that gov't didn't protest much AT ALL to that when slavery existed.
Gov't has a job - protect liberties and freedoms of its citizens, I am not arguing against this point.
I don't take you seriously either because you cannot argue me at all on points.
Yes, you'd be better off with no income tax. The gov't shouldn't be providing any services in the first place, and it's obvious that you don't understand now, that the services they are 'providing' are a pyramid scam that will fall soon, no better than B. Madoff's scam was, only on a larger scale.
Also it is correct, it's better not to regulate businesses but only given that the gov't also does not subsidize them in any way. Leave the businesses to survive or die on their own competing one against another.
All the bailouts should never have happened, all the bailed out 'businesses' were supposed to be killed off by market, you are against the market doing its job.
1. I am not trolling you, that's my view point, like it or not.
2. China today is a much freer society economically speaking. If you want to start a business, it's MUCH easier and faster to start it in China, it's MUCH cheaper to run it, it requires almost NO gov't regulations!
3. I don't care if ANYBODY thinks gov't regulations is a 'good thing'. Gov't is terrible from my perspective for every single one thing completely and fully.
Including pollution and other 'externalities'. Gov't CAUSES pollution by OWNING things that it should not own. Everything must be privately owned, and then all problems of pollution are problems of neighbors, who deal with each other. Gov't is not an owner, they don't give a shit. They set minimum liability caps for things like oil drilling at some ridiculous amounts like 10Million, when damages can clearly run into tens (if not hundreds) of billions. No private owner would tolerate this insanity or would allow it. If one would allow it, the ones surrounding him wouldn't.
4. Yemen? I give you the 'funny' points for this. I wouldn't call Yemen a shining beacon of free enterprise and free markets because they are not. Their elections were a sham, they have no freedoms and liberties - the only thing I grant a gov't is actually needed for. Protection of freedoms and liberties.
5. Industrial revolution moved majority of people OUT of poverty of being subsistence farmers, into cities and obviously the transition was not easy, but it DID produce much higher quality of life over the century for most people, it allowed sciences to flourish, economies to flourish, created middle class, raised quality of life for the poorest as well as for everybody else, created more advancements in science that allowed medical advancements, decreased prices for everything, including food and clothing and energy and housing and medical care, created first machines people started using in their everyday lives, like washing and sewing and refrigerators, provided most people with indoor plumbing and eventually with cars, allowed people to discover flight because they profited from all the engineering and scientific breakthroughs and were able to work on their ideas rather than in a farm field, provided people with new forms of useful energy - steam and electricity and internal combustion engines, allowed communications to develop - telegraph, telephone, radio, tv, computers and eventually the Internet, though Internet did have MONETARY input from gov't intervention, but it wasn't necessary either, private sector created the telephone, it could create the Internet with time, especially given that Tesla had ideas of wireless communication devices much before anybody else ever etc.etc.etc.
6. Standard Oil was not a problem. Gov't was breaking it up by the time it was no longer a monopoly, and just like Alcoa Aluminum they provided good service and good price. AT&T was a gov't created monopoly, just like most monopolies are, including things like BP getting help from CIA and MI5 for killing democratically elected gov't of Iran as an example.
7. I am against income taxes totally, they are taxing WORK.
Tax consumption, that I can understand and begrudgingly accept. Taxing work? That is unacceptable, I don't care about any moral ideals ideas or rhetoric. Taxing work to me IS immoral and wrong and very dangerous, as it gives unlimited power of gov't over me.
Excuse me? China (and to a very lesser extent Europe, you probably mean mostly Germany) are 'eating' your lunch because the gov't created monopolies destroyed competition in USA by using gov't as means to destroy free market and to get themselves all the subsidies and regulations that keep out the new startups, so then once the economy became global the monopolies could easily outsource the labor to cheaper locations.
But if the market in US was actually free and gov't didn't destroy the liberties in it: didn't take away capital through income tax, didn't impose regulations and rules that prevent businesses from starting and succeeding, didn't create the unbearable expectations of social net without actually having any way to pay for such obligations and because of that creating huge pyramid scams like SS and medicare and THEN because of these scams destroying the currency and eventually credit affordability of US private market, then US would still be producing.
Take the minimum wage as an example, it's not really hugely important but it does show the destructive force of gov't intervention into free market:
1. Minimum wage prices certain people out of market, out of jobs, out of apprenticeships. 2. Minimum wage kills certain jobs, jobs that are NOT worth paying over certain amount, over minimum wage in this case. 3. Minimum wage puts labor into competition not only with labor but also with capital, so instead of only competing with another worker, you have to compete with money that can be spent to automate the job away.
Now, certainly automation is inevitable, but it does compete with labor costs.
If a machine to wash floors by itself costs half a million dollars and a person costs 15K/year, then it doesn't make sense to buy the machine.
However if the person costs 50K/year total, then maybe it DOES make sense to look into buying the machine and amortizing it over 10 years especially if it's possible to get cheap money coming out of gov'ts wazoo.
China and the rest of productive labor in the world are an actual productive part of economy, while US and most of Europe are really not that productive at all when all regulations and rules and social obligations etc. are compared!
So obviously Asia will see economies growing and US and most of Europe will see economies shrinking and dying because they are borrowing (which by the way is a way to tax you in the future, so it's a deferred tax + interest) and they are printing (which is killing the fiat currencies very quickly and it is taxing people who are mostly invested into those currencies, so people who live paycheck to paycheck for example, and it's taxing the ENTIRE savings of those people, not just their income).
To fix this economics disaster that is happening and that is going to accelerate, the unproductive parts of the world need to do the following:
1. Get rid of income tax. It's crazy to tax productive work and it's a terrible idea from point of view of liberty first, and from point of view of giving money to the unproductive gov't second.
2. Get rid of all social obligations. Many believe they are entitled to SS money because they 'paid into it'. But what they don't realize is that dollars can only be spent once. 1 dollar can only be spent on 1 thing that costs 1 dollar. So if you pay taxes and supposedly some of them go to SS, but then SS is raided and money is used for other purposes by politicians elected by the people, then in principle the politicians are using the SS money to pay for other things that they promised to get elected, so the people already have gotten something for their dollars (even if they didn't want it, like Vietnam or Iraq wars for example) then they can't expect to get 2 things for 1 dollar they paid.
But the point is that if gov't actually cared about people's ability to save money and be set for their retirements and future, they wouldn't be taxing income, they would allow the people to invest the money into their own savings and businesses. Instead the
You are wrong, but hey, one has to learn the hard way, I guess
- yeah, USD falling, gold rising, it's been a terrible investment for the past few years, just terrible.
And your morals clearly have everything to do with it, otherwise you would do away with the preachy lazy American talk.
- BS. I am for private American enterprise, I clearly think Americans have what it takes to fix this, and they fixed it in 1920, when gov't cut its spending by 70% and the US private sector moved US out of recession in 1 year. Then US had the 'roaring twenties'. You are full of shit about your 'analysis' of my position.
And the fetish about manufacturing
- Yeah, India takes your exportable services, rest of Asia and Europe takes your manufacturing. You still have Hollywood and weapons. That's all you can export for all the USD you are printing. Those movies don't cost 600Billion over 7 months and nobody needs that many weapons.
US is headed the wrong way, but mostly because of dismal infrastructure
- if your infrastructure was irrelevant enough when things were going well, then it's irrelevant now as well. Your infrastructure, good or bad, doesn't change your trade balance.
poor social safety net,
- you can't pay for your social net and the money you are paying out you are borrowing. You have no money in SS, no money in welfare, no money in EI, no money for Medicare or Medicaid or the latest Obama health insurance bill. It's all a joke, you have no money, you can only borrow. Borrowing to provide 'social safety net' from the Chinese?
So how does it feel, that "communists" are giving you soup money?
falling education standards
- your gov't created monopolies, while killing the competition, so your monopolies became huge enough to profitably move jobs out. Without the manufacturing jobs you only need a very limited number of actually educated people. Not too many at all and BTW, your fed department of education eats over 100Billion/year with what to show for it? But why would it need to show more results, who cares if you have ANY education?
In fact because of gov under-intervention.
over 100 Billion/year on this nonsense and it's 'under-intervention'? Interesting definition of 'under'. Nonsense from you, as per usual.
For a hater of gov intervention, having businesses in Germany and China is hilarious. Clearly, you hate statists societies, but spend your life making them richer.
- Yet in China and Germany (and Russia) the business is easier to do than in US and most importantly these are growing markets because of their policies (especially China) on capitalism, while USA is waning as an economy, has terrible outlook, it's moving itself out of capitalism and into dictatorship of central planning. Real money happens in real economies, not in fake ones.
USA now has a fake economy, so the choice is clear.
Hedging your bets, I guess. One of us has a consistent understanding of the world -- and it isn't you.
- you don't have any understanding of the world and of economy. You have no understanding of any single economic idea.
You see the numbers for inflation and still are saying: that's not inflation.
It's not that you are inconsistent, but being consistently absolutely wrong is not a good strategy.
here are some REAL numbers, as opposed to the ones you eat up from the gov't:
October 1 2010
Gold: new high Silver: new 30 year high Gold stocks hit 52 week high Oil: strong day and strong week Dollar: dropped 13 percent from peak 3 months ago
September is done, media says: this is best September in 71 years. Dow gained 7.7%, S&P gained 8.8%.
However this month of September.
CRB Index (commodities): gained 8.7% - beat DOW and just under S&P Soy beans: up 9.5% - beat S&P Copper: up 10% - beat S&P Rice: up 10% - beat S&P Oil: up 11% - beat S&P Corn: up 12% - beat S&P Silver: up 13% - beat S&P Frozen concentrated orange juice: up 13% - beat S&P Cotton: up 17.5% - beat S&P Sugar: up 19.3% - beat S&P
Currencies: Swiss Frank: up 4.6% Euro: up 7% Australian Dollar: up 9% - beat S&P - this is all inflation and the prices hikes will hit your local shelves too in not too distant future, your gov't is working on it.
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Houses are overpriced, their prices should all drop by a large factor.
The gov't doesn't want to see the banks fail, banks who are now all insolvent, since they are still holding toxic mortgages and the rest of their 'money' is used to buy gov't bonds, all of which have low interest on them. So if the house prices actually fall where they belong (and where it would be excellent for the economy) the banks would fail first on mortgages, and then on the interest going up, because the money they have in bonds would yield much lower interest than what the banks would have to return this money at.
Your favorite Fed helicopter prints money now to lend it to the US gov't, the so called QE2 is not even about economy, it's about the US gov't borrowing exactly the same amount as the Fed will be printing all by June.
The Fed has become the lender of last resort to US gov't. It's broke, it's actually bankrupt now.
The US gov't and the US media are even saying that if the debt ceiling is not raised, the global economy will be destroyed, which is: 1. Nonsense. The global economy is producing, it's the US who'll suffer because all it produces is inflated currency. 2. Shows the world that US is never going to pay its debts out, it's never intending to.
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Intellectual property shouldn't even exist.
Gov't protection of "intellectual property" is part of the problem, not part of any solution. It should not happen, it's bad for economy, not good.
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In the early nineties even almost out of college students could start hedge funds in US, it is now absolutely impossible without huge money to cover all compliance and regulations costs.
IBM is not the issue, they are an existing business, whatever their deal is with US gov't, they'll make it through, don't you worry about them.
Worry about start ups, worry about capital. US lost its way.
People most definitely did not come to USA for rules and regulations and taxes.
Let me repeat it: rules and regulations and taxes are definitely not the reason for people to come to the US.
The reason to go to USA was always ability to be an entrepreneur, to start your own business and make it better for yourself. It wasn't about getting gov't handouts either, it also wasn't about sponsoring gov't terrorism and wars. It wasn't about empire building. It wasn't about crashing the currency by first creating the Fed, then getting off the gold standard and setting interest rates to 0% while printing trillions.
Enjoy your remaining time of still being able to buy something with those pieces of paper, the time is running out.
How do I know the time is running out? Because now the US Fed has finally become the lender of last resort to US gov't. 600 Billion they'll print over 7 months is about equal to the amount the US gov't is aiming at borrowing by June of 2011, that is NOT a coincidence. What it is, is that the Fed and US gov't now see that US bond is on its last legs, nobody wants to buy and keep financing US debt. The Fed will completely monetize the debt.
Monetizing the debt - this should scare the living crap out of anybody who wants to do business in the country, well, unless they are THE gov't. Monetizing the debt, the way Zimbabwe did it, Argentina did it, Weimar Germany did it, the way USSR did it.
The best interest of US is to create US jobs, but the US gov't has gone insane and senile, it is actively fighting anybody who is willing to save money in US holdings by killing their savings with inflation. US gov't IS THE REASON US HAS NO JOBS.
US gov't is killing US economy by killing US currency.
Sure, it was able to print and print forever since the Fed started, but the US has never being in this sort of peril as it is now since after the year 1921. In the year 1920 US has entered a severe recession. The gov't did the only correct thing: cut itself by over 70%. The recession was gone in 1 year. Then US had the 'roaring twenties' and then the Fed created another asset bubble in equities and caused another recession. That time though the US gov't decided to fight it by printing money and gov't projects. That got itself a colorful name - the Great Depression, which didn't end until the WWII, when USA was able to start selling weapons, then later the world was in ruin and US was not, so it quickly retooled its weapons factories and started actually producing civilian goods by employing all that cheap labor that came back from the war.
The US gov't is a luxury the US can no longer afford.
The US gov't is now not only a luxury, but it is a vampire sucking the last drops of blood from the dying corps, and you are telling that MY ways are in error?
Well, I am going to sleep, it's late night where I am and it's not the US.
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First of all, you are correct. China IS a better society for me, that's why I am working on my Hong Kong related business, it's a start, right? AFAIC China is a much freer country today in terms of starting a new business that is not killed by gov't regulations, where there is a chance of real competition, where the system is not trying to stop the business. That's why Chinese economy is growing and pretty much all other economies are stagnating and/or shrinking.
The most socialist governments in Europe, USA and UK, these are the relics of economic past. Eventually these governments will collapse their own societies, and these societies will have to rebuild without those governments. That's going to be free market, fixing the problem that the shortsightedness of the people is creating (and yes, democracy is a terrible system, it ends up very stupid, too bad there are no good substitutes yet, but obviously USA is not a real democracy, nor are most other places.)
Secondly I agree with the Constitution of USA more than you do.
I believe the only reason to have a gov't at all is to do these things:
1. Minimum military to protect Freedoms and Liberties from foreign threats.
2. Justice system to make sure that criminal and contract laws are enforced.
3. I guess some cops/prisons, so that Justice system has teeth.
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That's all. The 'general welfare' is exactly about having a working economy. Economy is destroyed by all gov't actions that are aimed at purposes of morality of justice. Economy does not benefit from any gov't forces that modify it and mis-allocate resources from private sector in any way.
My 'perfect' society has gov't that only does the above mentioned 3 functions and funds it by sales taxes on some items (and probably returns the sales taxes to those, who cannot afford to pay them, I guess a more 'fair' tax, that's my only concession against the free market and for your argument.)
I honestly tried, I downloaded the thing, installed it, I was looking for something to help out with building GUIs automagically, heard that NetBeans 'has it'.
I used to work with Eclipse, Visual Age before and Visual Cafe, some other stuff long ago, like Visual Studio.
Opened NetBeans and after about an hour gave up, it has a project model that I am not familiar with and I do not want to spend time to learn it. It's different in the way it handles projects and that was the show stopper. That's too bad, maybe it had what I needed, but whatever I used something else I found for Eclipse.
So you are wasting the money of your employer against their specific directions?
Good thing you are not working for me.
Well, sure, businesses can 'suck it up'. But you are going to pay more and you will see less choice.
I do not want to pay more than the market dictates.
I do not want to see choices reduced because the pricing will drive some businesses out of business, and some will simply do much less than what they could have done, if the resources weren't mis-allocated.
I want more choice, I want lower prices.
AFAIC if those, who are impaired have a real need, they must pay for it to a service that will give them what they need - some transcription, etc.
Every single thing gov't does is to the detriment of economy, sure you can argue that this is for the 'better of the society'.
I am arguing that your gov't enforced economic policy will end up KILLING the society by destroying the economy.
AFAIC you are the one who is completely shortsighted, not able to understand that a economy is the most important part of society in the first place.
Economy is being destroyed by gov't regulations, laws, taxes, spending, borrowing and money printing. This will end up destroying society as well.
It's not like it's the first time that it's going to happen, but people don't learn and they end up killing their economies and destroying their societies over and over throughout the history of humans.
So what? Who are you to tell those websites HOW they should operate themselves?
You don't like them? Don't use them. That's the correct solution.
Your solution is terrible and will cause more economic problems.
I object to your comment completely..
Nobody should be FORCED to do anything by the gov't, unless it's about actually protecting Freedoms and Liberties of people and providing a meaningful Justice system to resolve contract and criminal law questions.
Everything else is mis-allocation of resources.
With your logic, Google must transcribe every video because it's definitely a big company.
But those people, who work there, they already HAVE job descriptions, and it's not transcribing videos. They have to do MEANINGFUL work that Google needs to do to survive as a business.
Gov't can only raise prices and kill a business. It can kill many businesses to subsidize one business, sure. My point is that anything like this destroys resources, just like any other gov't forced action.
This is make-shift work by gov't on the backs of businesses, what else can it possibly be? That's all it is under the guise of some moral principles. Well, if it takes MY money to pay for YOUR moral principles, it is IMMORAL AFAIC.
It is also going to hurt my business, no matter how big or small. No matter. This is a terrible idea and should not be forced.
If there is an actual market for the blind/deaf whatever for this, they must pay for it through some service, that will transcribe the stuff for them that they want. I certainly don't want mis-allocation of resources to occur in any gov't directed ways.
I object. I just don't want to repeat the objection over and over.
well, for a government.
AFAIC if a gov't wants to do this, whatever, it's the matter of the public that spends their money on that gov't. If they vote for politicians who end up taking in more and more public money, or borrowing and printing it, well, then gov't can 'afford' all these things.
(until it collapses the economy with all the borrowing, spending and taxing and regulations etc. See Greece and USA and eventually UK and Spain and Portugal. Also see former places like USSR, Zimbabwe, Argentina....)
Yeah, gov't surely can do whatever it wants as long as they can still fake solvency.
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But a private company? Now imagine that Google had to transcribe every youtube video.
How many people do they have to hire to do that?
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What if facebook had to transcribe all images and sounds and whatever they do there?
How many people do they have to hire to do that?
etc
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Understand, that all of this is make-shift work enforced by gov't. This is NOT productive in any way, this is mis-allocation of resources. Resources that could be used on whatever the companies rather use it on. Companies that can either use these resources to come up with new tech and new tech applications, solutions to real business problems that the market needs. Or they can do what the gov't forces them: let's say 100% of all videos have to be transcribed.
Holly crap. If there was an actual MARKET for that, there'd be a service, and the deaf/blind would be able to use that service and that service would figure out how to transcribe those videos and sounds, and because it takes resources to do all of that work, that service would have to find a way to pay for all that work.
BUT IT MUSTN'T BE GOVERNMENT FORCED.
It's what is wrong with the economy - gov't forced garbage is killing it. Subsidies to businesses, Wars, all military spending, SS, Medicare, wage laws, price controls, taxes, rules, laws, regulations....
Yes, I am that guy, I believe that the gov't is killing economy by every single action it is taking.
The only use for a gov't is protection of liberties:
1. Minimum military
2. Justice dep't
3. Possibly cops/prisons.
Everything else gov't does is mis-allocation of other people's resources by gov't. This is the same, and it's just as stupid.
Sure, stop charging for education. That's easy, just make all those teachers work for free.
I am not interested in paying for anybody's education but my own by the way, don't care about your education one bit. However you should care about your education.
In order to make education affordable to those who want it, get the government out of education entirely. Stop gov't subsidies and loans and prices will go down. This is the same with every single thing gov't does: loans and subsidies kill the field by driving prices up because the prices do not depend on individuals, but on gov't giving out loans, and it's not a problem to get an ever increasing loan, so education costs also tend to follow the ever increasing pattern right after gov't loans increase.
that's good, that was there too weed out the weaker of minds.
That's not regulation, that's weeding out the stupid who do stupid shit and get caught.
I left a comment in this thread responding to the moron over there, showing that as an example in Germany you don't need a license to be a food vendor AS LONG as you are actually doing the correct thing - making sure that you are following the correct food handling procedures, but if you do not follow procedures and you get caught, it means your ass - fines and who knows what other sanctions.
OTOH in USA you need to get various licenses, vendor permit, sellers permit, dba certificate...
That means that before you start a business you already have to deal with a bunch of bureaucratic nightmares, this obviously means that startup costs go up and it cuts off a bunch of people from doing business before they even start.
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So my point is that it is much easier to do business, to start business in Asia and even in Germany than it is in US in many cases. This relates to gov't subsidizing monopolies, creating monopolies, creating regulations that kill competition before it even starts. Then there are crazy taxes, rules, regulations you have to comply with while running a business, takes the joy out of otherwise interesting work as well.
Patriot Act made it impossible for new start ups in fund hedging, you have to become an IRS and CIA rat basically, you have to set up systems, logs, control and check points, you have to prove you have all of that working. Then there are enormous amounts of regulations concerning what you can even OFFER to your customers and all of this was created by gov't, who subsidizes the existing banks/insurance firms/hedge funds, in many cases it was created as a knee jerk reaction to these gov't created monopolies taking advantage of their customers BECAUSE they have no competitor they can really go to.
Then the new start ups have to somehow comply with all these regulations, that were created with huge existing monopolies in mind, for who all of these regulations are a minor issue, no problem, they have cash flow, it's just a small cost and very easy to fit into existing structures they have, and given they are also subsidized and bailed out they have basically no risk to themselves doing any of this.
But if you are a private individual today in USA, you actually have to be a millionaire to even try and start your own hedge fund and you probably will fail anyway because the field is rigged, you are not subsidized by gov't, because you'll be paying outrageous taxes that existing monopolies all have exemptions for since they are part of the system.
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Bullet in the head for an insignificant number of cases for doing something wrong? That's a tiny price to pay for a working economy.
I am in Germany right at this very moment.
I buy my own healthcare out of pocket, but there is a national system as well, clearly. So that is 'socialist'.
However banks in Germany are not insured by anything close to 'FDIC', that's not socialist at all. The fractional reserves in those banks is set by gov't standard, that is socialist.
But Germany has much laxer regulations on actually doing business than USA does.
Example:
Generally, vendors of food products do not need a special registration or permission to do business, as long as their merchandise conforms with legal standards, such as the specific informational and labeling requirements, and as long as they do not pose any danger to consumers' health. Nevertheless, customs authorities may stop and investigate food imports. They especially may require an official laboratory report proving the product's safety, if a national or European institution has given an alert on the item/s.
USA (Atlanta):
You are legally required to obtain a business license, register a sellers permit, and file a dba certificate. A business license is required by all businesses and because you sell items that sales taxes must be collected, you need the seller's permit. Finally you need to register a DBA because the trade name you do business under must be registered. You can also form an LLC or Incorporate instead of filing a DBA.
so even this simplest of examples shows the actual difference. The triangle that you call your head must have just exploded... yet nothing of any value was lost.
I don't make anonymous comments, didn't make the above one either.
I am not dodging any questions.
China, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Switzerland do have much more relaxed attitude towards business regulations, they do not regulate businesses the way the social paradise of US or Greece or France or Italy or Spain or UK does.
China. Yes, China. In China opening a business is a breeze. That's why so many people return to China. Of-course not everybody wants to be in China directly, so many move to Singapore or Hong Kong, but the idea is the same, yes. Business is much simpler to start and to operate and to succeed in when you are in China than if you are in USA.
The reasons are crazy regulations and high income taxes and labor laws and minimum wage laws and insurance laws etc.
Patriot Act is a very simple example of a regulation that makes USA unproductive and uncompetitive and prohibitively expensive. So is any other bill passed by US gov't. ANY subsidy to a business, any tax, any regulation, any rule, any and all of them are killing US and all these other highly socialistic places in terms of competition for production of goods, so this kills the trade balance and drives up deficit and gov't never stops spending, there is nobody to tax, gov't prints money, currency is debased, etc.etc.
Those voices are in your head, but they are not helping you it seems at all.
it is obvious why this is happening, it was obvious in this comment, it was also obvious much earlier, but it's hard to find much earlier references.
But I was just considered to be 'funny' because I stated the reasons and the solutions to economic problems that are experienced by the western world and 'economies' that have very high social obligations and expectations.
here is how it will end for USA
All economies with gov't intervention are suffering because of gov't intervention.
US is suffering, UK is, France is, so is Greece, Ireland. USSR has collapsed.
All this while Hong Kong is growing, China is growing, Singapore is growing, Taiwan is growing.
The point is not to find a country that has no gov't intervention. All countries have gov't intervention.
The point is to understand why the economies are dying.
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USA was created artificially, as somewhat of an ideal system, with federal gov't being pushed down and held down. Over 100 years from 1800 till 1913 the gov't was learning how to get away from that repression and it learned the tricks, it turned itself around and became the power that it was never supposed to be.
Now that power is destroying US economy and some other economies in the process by destroying their currency after they have destroyed their free market ideas.
You are siting Hong Kong and Singapore and Switzerland and Qatar as examples here, but they are not examples of anything you stand for.
It's much easier to do business in Hong Kong than in Singapore, and it's much easier to do business in Singapore than in US. Switzerland has no federal gov't anywhere near with power of US gov't over US states. Switzerland's federal gov't can't even impose federal income taxes.
Qatar is an oil exporter and importer of all other items and goods.
You are insane if you are comparing any of these economies to US, but it's not that you are truly insane, it's that you are what you accuse me of being: full of shit.
Singapore is where lots of action is in Asia and where regulations are much more lax than in US or Europe. Qatar is an exporter of oil, known as emirate state.
Luxemburg is a 'country' of 500,000 people. I suggest you go there if you haven't been, I was just in London last week and went through Belgium and into Luxemburg before going further my way. They are a producer of actual refined materials and chemicals. They are also an investment hub.
None of these countries spend on wars, they also pretty much do not print money, imagine that.
However US doesn't even belong in that list on that line. The US GDP is fake, like most of information you will keep finding about it on the web.
The CPI is fake, the inflation rate is fake, the GDP is fake. Everything about US economy that is reported by the gov't is false.
Hong Kong is an extremely free market oriented economy with competing private currencies, maybe you should look into HK dollars, they are cute. They also are printed by different private banks and are backed by production capacity.
HK also has very low taxes: 8%, 14% and 20% depending on your bracket, and that's it.
Switzerland, I enjoy my canton because there is no federal income tax there.
It has the money of the world and almost no taxes only user fees.
Ireland... you'll hear soon about Ireland. It's going down, it's a disaster.
Australia is a raw material exporter, they'll be fine.
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All these countries import Chinese products, some are running deficits now, but except US nobody is running wars and insane levels of military spending and their social spending is actually much lower than what US has it at.
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What is funny about you, is that you have not a single clue about the actual world that is around you.
Should children be still working from age of 5 on the fields? Should children be given an opportunity of being something more than a subsistence farmer?
The capitalism allowed children to be more than that. Yes, some worked in terrible dangerous conditions, that's not a reason for any gov't involvement ever.
It may be a reason for private interests to have a union, I am not against totally private unions, they make sense in an economy just as much as a business makes sense.
Gov't intervening does not make any sense and it ends up destroying economy.
As to 'workers being born into company hospital', tell me something, how much better is it to be born into the gov't caused debt, into gov't caused economic disaster that will destroy economy and currency and all jobs? How much better is it?
Should slavery exist? Did gov't really stop slavery or was slavery stopped by people? Business will use the cheapest form of labor, but realize that gov't didn't protest much AT ALL to that when slavery existed.
Gov't has a job - protect liberties and freedoms of its citizens, I am not arguing against this point.
I don't take you seriously either because you cannot argue me at all on points.
Yes, you'd be better off with no income tax. The gov't shouldn't be providing any services in the first place, and it's obvious that you don't understand now, that the services they are 'providing' are a pyramid scam that will fall soon, no better than B. Madoff's scam was, only on a larger scale.
Also it is correct, it's better not to regulate businesses but only given that the gov't also does not subsidize them in any way. Leave the businesses to survive or die on their own competing one against another.
All the bailouts should never have happened, all the bailed out 'businesses' were supposed to be killed off by market, you are against the market doing its job.
1. I am not trolling you, that's my view point, like it or not.
2. China today is a much freer society economically speaking. If you want to start a business, it's MUCH easier and faster to start it in China, it's MUCH cheaper to run it, it requires almost NO gov't regulations!
3. I don't care if ANYBODY thinks gov't regulations is a 'good thing'. Gov't is terrible from my perspective for every single one thing completely and fully.
Including pollution and other 'externalities'. Gov't CAUSES pollution by OWNING things that it should not own. Everything must be privately owned, and then all problems of pollution are problems of neighbors, who deal with each other. Gov't is not an owner, they don't give a shit. They set minimum liability caps for things like oil drilling at some ridiculous amounts like 10Million, when damages can clearly run into tens (if not hundreds) of billions. No private owner would tolerate this insanity or would allow it. If one would allow it, the ones surrounding him wouldn't.
4. Yemen? I give you the 'funny' points for this. I wouldn't call Yemen a shining beacon of free enterprise and free markets because they are not. Their elections were a sham, they have no freedoms and liberties - the only thing I grant a gov't is actually needed for. Protection of freedoms and liberties.
5. Industrial revolution moved majority of people OUT of poverty of being subsistence farmers, into cities and obviously the transition was not easy, but it DID produce much higher quality of life over the century for most people, it allowed sciences to flourish, economies to flourish, created middle class, raised quality of life for the poorest as well as for everybody else, created more advancements in science that allowed medical advancements, decreased prices for everything, including food and clothing and energy and housing and medical care, created first machines people started using in their everyday lives, like washing and sewing and refrigerators, provided most people with indoor plumbing and eventually with cars, allowed people to discover flight because they profited from all the engineering and scientific breakthroughs and were able to work on their ideas rather than in a farm field, provided people with new forms of useful energy - steam and electricity and internal combustion engines, allowed communications to develop - telegraph, telephone, radio, tv, computers and eventually the Internet, though Internet did have MONETARY input from gov't intervention, but it wasn't necessary either, private sector created the telephone, it could create the Internet with time, especially given that Tesla had ideas of wireless communication devices much before anybody else ever etc.etc.etc.
6. Standard Oil was not a problem. Gov't was breaking it up by the time it was no longer a monopoly, and just like Alcoa Aluminum they provided good service and good price. AT&T was a gov't created monopoly, just like most monopolies are, including things like BP getting help from CIA and MI5 for killing democratically elected gov't of Iran as an example.
7. I am against income taxes totally, they are taxing WORK.
Tax consumption, that I can understand and begrudgingly accept. Taxing work? That is unacceptable, I don't care about any moral ideals ideas or rhetoric. Taxing work to me IS immoral and wrong and very dangerous, as it gives unlimited power of gov't over me.
Excuse me? China (and to a very lesser extent Europe, you probably mean mostly Germany) are 'eating' your lunch because the gov't created monopolies destroyed competition in USA by using gov't as means to destroy free market and to get themselves all the subsidies and regulations that keep out the new startups, so then once the economy became global the monopolies could easily outsource the labor to cheaper locations.
But if the market in US was actually free and gov't didn't destroy the liberties in it: didn't take away capital through income tax, didn't impose regulations and rules that prevent businesses from starting and succeeding, didn't create the unbearable expectations of social net without actually having any way to pay for such obligations and because of that creating huge pyramid scams like SS and medicare and THEN because of these scams destroying the currency and eventually credit affordability of US private market, then US would still be producing.
Take the minimum wage as an example, it's not really hugely important but it does show the destructive force of gov't intervention into free market:
1. Minimum wage prices certain people out of market, out of jobs, out of apprenticeships.
2. Minimum wage kills certain jobs, jobs that are NOT worth paying over certain amount, over minimum wage in this case.
3. Minimum wage puts labor into competition not only with labor but also with capital, so instead of only competing with another worker, you have to compete with money that can be spent to automate the job away.
Now, certainly automation is inevitable, but it does compete with labor costs.
If a machine to wash floors by itself costs half a million dollars and a person costs 15K/year, then it doesn't make sense to buy the machine.
However if the person costs 50K/year total, then maybe it DOES make sense to look into buying the machine and amortizing it over 10 years especially if it's possible to get cheap money coming out of gov'ts wazoo.
China and the rest of productive labor in the world are an actual productive part of economy, while US and most of Europe are really not that productive at all when all regulations and rules and social obligations etc. are compared!
So obviously Asia will see economies growing and US and most of Europe will see economies shrinking and dying because they are borrowing (which by the way is a way to tax you in the future, so it's a deferred tax + interest) and they are printing (which is killing the fiat currencies very quickly and it is taxing people who are mostly invested into those currencies, so people who live paycheck to paycheck for example, and it's taxing the ENTIRE savings of those people, not just their income).
To fix this economics disaster that is happening and that is going to accelerate, the unproductive parts of the world need to do the following:
1. Get rid of income tax. It's crazy to tax productive work and it's a terrible idea from point of view of liberty first, and from point of view of giving money to the unproductive gov't second.
2. Get rid of all social obligations. Many believe they are entitled to SS money because they 'paid into it'. But what they don't realize is that dollars can only be spent once. 1 dollar can only be spent on 1 thing that costs 1 dollar. So if you pay taxes and supposedly some of them go to SS, but then SS is raided and money is used for other purposes by politicians elected by the people, then in principle the politicians are using the SS money to pay for other things that they promised to get elected, so the people already have gotten something for their dollars (even if they didn't want it, like Vietnam or Iraq wars for example) then they can't expect to get 2 things for 1 dollar they paid.
But the point is that if gov't actually cared about people's ability to save money and be set for their retirements and future, they wouldn't be taxing income, they would allow the people to invest the money into their own savings and businesses. Instead the
add a diesel engine to it, then you can add some armor because you'll have enough power and it's ready for a weapons system.
Of-course you are stuck once you run out of diesel
You are wrong, but hey, one has to learn the hard way, I guess
- yeah, USD falling, gold rising, it's been a terrible investment for the past few years, just terrible.
And your morals clearly have everything to do with it, otherwise you would do away with the preachy lazy American talk.
- BS. I am for private American enterprise, I clearly think Americans have what it takes to fix this, and they fixed it in 1920, when gov't cut its spending by 70% and the US private sector moved US out of recession in 1 year. Then US had the 'roaring twenties'. You are full of shit about your 'analysis' of my position.
And the fetish about manufacturing
- Yeah, India takes your exportable services, rest of Asia and Europe takes your manufacturing. You still have Hollywood and weapons. That's all you can export for all the USD you are printing. Those movies don't cost 600Billion over 7 months and nobody needs that many weapons.
US is headed the wrong way, but mostly because of dismal infrastructure
- if your infrastructure was irrelevant enough when things were going well, then it's irrelevant now as well. Your infrastructure, good or bad, doesn't change your trade balance.
poor social safety net,
- you can't pay for your social net and the money you are paying out you are borrowing. You have no money in SS, no money in welfare, no money in EI, no money for Medicare or Medicaid or the latest Obama health insurance bill. It's all a joke, you have no money, you can only borrow. Borrowing to provide 'social safety net' from the Chinese?
So how does it feel, that "communists" are giving you soup money?
falling education standards
- your gov't created monopolies, while killing the competition, so your monopolies became huge enough to profitably move jobs out. Without the manufacturing jobs you only need a very limited number of actually educated people. Not too many at all and BTW, your fed department of education eats over 100Billion/year with what to show for it? But why would it need to show more results, who cares if you have ANY education?
In fact because of gov under-intervention.
over 100 Billion/year on this nonsense and it's 'under-intervention'? Interesting definition of 'under'. Nonsense from you, as per usual.
For a hater of gov intervention, having businesses in Germany and China is hilarious. Clearly, you hate statists societies, but spend your life making them richer.
- Yet in China and Germany (and Russia) the business is easier to do than in US and most importantly these are growing markets because of their policies (especially China) on capitalism, while USA is waning as an economy, has terrible outlook, it's moving itself out of capitalism and into dictatorship of central planning. Real money happens in real economies, not in fake ones.
USA now has a fake economy, so the choice is clear.
Hedging your bets, I guess. One of us has a consistent understanding of the world -- and it isn't you.
- you don't have any understanding of the world and of economy. You have no understanding of any single economic idea.
You see the numbers for inflation and still are saying: that's not inflation.
It's not that you are inconsistent, but being consistently absolutely wrong is not a good strategy.
Inflation is low?
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here are some REAL numbers, as opposed to the ones you eat up from the gov't:
October 1 2010
Gold: new high
Silver: new 30 year high
Gold stocks hit 52 week high
Oil: strong day and strong week
Dollar: dropped 13 percent from peak 3 months ago
September is done, media says: this is best September in 71 years. Dow gained 7.7%, S&P gained 8.8%.
However this month of September.
CRB Index (commodities): gained 8.7% - beat DOW and just under S&P
Soy beans: up 9.5% - beat S&P
Copper: up 10% - beat S&P
Rice: up 10% - beat S&P
Oil: up 11% - beat S&P
Corn: up 12% - beat S&P
Silver: up 13% - beat S&P
Frozen concentrated orange juice: up 13% - beat S&P
Cotton: up 17.5% - beat S&P
Sugar: up 19.3% - beat S&P
Currencies:
Swiss Frank: up 4.6%
Euro: up 7%
Australian Dollar: up 9% - beat S&P
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this is all inflation and the prices hikes will hit your local shelves too in not too distant future, your gov't is working on it.
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Houses are overpriced, their prices should all drop by a large factor.
The gov't doesn't want to see the banks fail, banks who are now all insolvent, since they are still holding toxic mortgages and the rest of their 'money' is used to buy gov't bonds, all of which have low interest on them. So if the house prices actually fall where they belong (and where it would be excellent for the economy) the banks would fail first on mortgages, and then on the interest going up, because the money they have in bonds would yield much lower interest than what the banks would have to return this money at.
Your favorite Fed helicopter prints money now to lend it to the US gov't, the so called QE2 is not even about economy, it's about the US gov't borrowing exactly the same amount as the Fed will be printing all by June.
The Fed has become the lender of last resort to US gov't. It's broke, it's actually bankrupt now.
The US gov't and the US media are even saying that if the debt ceiling is not raised, the global economy will be destroyed, which is:
1. Nonsense. The global economy is producing, it's the US who'll suffer because all it produces is inflated currency.
2. Shows the world that US is never going to pay its debts out, it's never intending to.
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Intellectual property shouldn't even exist.
Gov't protection of "intellectual property" is part of the problem, not part of any solution. It should not happen, it's bad for economy, not good.
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In the early nineties even almost out of college students could start hedge funds in US, it is now absolutely impossible without huge money to cover all compliance and regulations costs.
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So, are you starting a business in USA?
IBM is not the issue, they are an existing business, whatever their deal is with US gov't, they'll make it through, don't you worry about them.
Worry about start ups, worry about capital. US lost its way.
People most definitely did not come to USA for rules and regulations and taxes.
Let me repeat it: rules and regulations and taxes are definitely not the reason for people to come to the US.
The reason to go to USA was always ability to be an entrepreneur, to start your own business and make it better for yourself. It wasn't about getting gov't handouts either, it also wasn't about sponsoring gov't terrorism and wars. It wasn't about empire building. It wasn't about crashing the currency by first creating the Fed, then getting off the gold standard and setting interest rates to 0% while printing trillions.
Enjoy your remaining time of still being able to buy something with those pieces of paper, the time is running out.
How do I know the time is running out? Because now the US Fed has finally become the lender of last resort to US gov't. 600 Billion they'll print over 7 months is about equal to the amount the US gov't is aiming at borrowing by June of 2011, that is NOT a coincidence. What it is, is that the Fed and US gov't now see that US bond is on its last legs, nobody wants to buy and keep financing US debt. The Fed will completely monetize the debt.
Monetizing the debt - this should scare the living crap out of anybody who wants to do business in the country, well, unless they are THE gov't. Monetizing the debt, the way Zimbabwe did it, Argentina did it, Weimar Germany did it, the way USSR did it.
The best interest of US is to create US jobs, but the US gov't has gone insane and senile, it is actively fighting anybody who is willing to save money in US holdings by killing their savings with inflation. US gov't IS THE REASON US HAS NO JOBS.
US gov't is killing US economy by killing US currency.
Sure, it was able to print and print forever since the Fed started, but the US has never being in this sort of peril as it is now since after the year 1921. In the year 1920 US has entered a severe recession. The gov't did the only correct thing: cut itself by over 70%. The recession was gone in 1 year. Then US had the 'roaring twenties' and then the Fed created another asset bubble in equities and caused another recession. That time though the US gov't decided to fight it by printing money and gov't projects. That got itself a colorful name - the Great Depression, which didn't end until the WWII, when USA was able to start selling weapons, then later the world was in ruin and US was not, so it quickly retooled its weapons factories and started actually producing civilian goods by employing all that cheap labor that came back from the war.
The US gov't is a luxury the US can no longer afford.
The US gov't is now not only a luxury, but it is a vampire sucking the last drops of blood from the dying corps, and you are telling that MY ways are in error?
Well, I am going to sleep, it's late night where I am and it's not the US.