- it works better than income tax increases because people can control their spending and avoid buying items that are taxed, avoid buying too much of them. By increasing taxes the states would decrease spending but also they would decrease satisfaction with the gov't.
So gov't would have to cut spending at some point instead of increasing sales taxes. You just can't increase sales taxes over and over without getting thrown out of office or without cutting spending.
Support for a VAT is probably growing so that the government can maintain its usual spending
- the point of the feedback mechanism is to reduce gov't spending.
when unemployment (excluding government jobs) finally reaches 100%.
- yes, and what good is gov't spending then? What would finance gov't spending at those levels? Who would give credit to any gov't that has a population that is 100% unemployed?
Would you give a mortgage to a person who doesn't have a job? Why?
So that person decides to print his own money, then you shouldn't accept that money.
The point is exactly as I noted earlier to set up a Constitutional amendment to stop gov't from manipulating economy. It's not gov't jobs that need to grow in this economy, it's the private sector jobs and the proof is the ever increasing trade deficit. Only private sector jobs decrease trade deficit and gov't spending money reallocates the available credit from the private sector to gov't but it does not increase production capacity.
What should happen is gov't should be 99% dismantled, the bills, the rules, the laws, the regulations should be abandoned, income taxes should be abolished, interest rates should be let go to where market forces take them, inflation should be stopped, all this so that economic activity could pick up and new business could start in an environment.
Obviously there will be a period of time when this restructuring will cause major pain, but it's not like it will be possible to get out of this depression without major pain. The gov't is going to continue printing (the Fed chairman said it was his mandate to keep prices rising, so expect many new t-bills printed as well as dollars) and it will cause the depression to turn into a hyper-inflationary stagflation. It's not going to be pretty, where the gov't will take the economy. Without the gov't the economy will suffer initially but will restructure with falling prices for everything, with gov't inflation will kill currency and credit will not return to US for decades for sure.
Young people will start leaving the country, why should they suffer, paying the taxes to support unsupportable gov't structure and spending and SS and UI etc.etc. when in fact the economy will be growing in other parts of the world, especially Asia, so expect the gov't to introduce some measures to force the people either to stay or at least to 'pay out their part' of the debt before they go, and good luck with that.
I don't want to see USA turning into something like USSR even though not through ideology but through stupidity and complete ignorance of economics, politics and history.
Income tax is the only tax system that provides for *fairness*
- who said it's supposed to be fair? Secondly, if you read my comment with a little more than your ass, you would have noticed that I did mention a fact, fact that federal gov't spending used to be based on taxes of certain items and food and some basic necessities do not need to be included into those items.
Alcohol, any sort of 'luxury' items, tariffs on imports etc., should be enough. More importantly, you completely missed the point of having sales taxes used as a feedback mechanism controlling the size of gov't by controlling the amount of money it is given to spend.
Also it is quite possible to have a system, where people under certain income avoid paying any taxes at all, even sales taxes by filing their income statements.
And yes, maybe the idea of income tax is foreign to you because in USSR your income was taxed 90-95% before you even got your wages.
- it's not foreign, I have spent enough time in other countries paying income taxes, but now I found a place in the world where those are no longer applicable.
So you may call me retarded, but it does not make your argument any stronger.
Lets say there are 2 groups of people. One group produces a lot of items, goods, the other group spends a lot of money to buy those items and goods but it does not produce any goods for the first group to consume.
So while one group is productive, the other is not. Of-course the second group is spending money to buy the goods that the first group produced. But where is this money coming from? If the money is coming from a printing press and/or borrowed (even borrowed from the first group) then what is happening is that the first group, that is producing, is really subsidizing the second group.
Now, if the second group stopped consuming, the first group would have to consume the goods it produced all by itself.
---
Let's connect the dots:
US gov't is borrowing money from the world and the world is importing good into USA. The trade balance is clear, the USA is a net importer and it only exports cash. Of-course it prints/borrows the cash. Now, so far the world was expecting that at some point the USA will start producing again, after all US was a net exporter of goods for the longest time after the war, because the rest of the world needed to rebuild after the war and USA really did not. The reason the USD is still accepted around the world is of-course artificial at this point, USA went to great length to keep its currency 'reserve' currency, I believe the latest/longest wars confirm this.
So far every other nation keeps printing money together with US printing money, thus all currencies are being devalued (thus gold and other commodities are going up, because in reality gold is money and fiat is paper that's printed out of existence, raced to the bottom, inflated, whatever you call it.)
USA keeps interest rates low, keeps printing t-bills, keeps printing dollars. 4-5 days ago Bernanke came out with a statement that the mandate of the Fed is not price stability, but price growth. The existing inflation is not enough for him (obviously there is huge inflation, because prices are not allowed to fall) but not only he wants the current levels of inflation to keep up, but he wants the Fed to create even more inflation.
Of-course his reasoning is that by creating more inflation he really diminishes the value of dollar and thus makes the US labor market less expensive (not in nominal, but in actual value). But with all the regulations and taxes and subsidies to monopolies and gov't spending it is not enough to have high inflation to push the labor costs down.
The labor in US is going to keep being expensive, the inflation will only cause the US citizens to pay more for food, energy and goods that they don't even produce anymore apparently (from the trade deficit.)
So what is really needed is:
1. For the Fed to stop printing money. 2. Let the interest rates go where the market takes them. 3. The interest rates will go up and prices on various big items will fall, like house prices will fall. 4. Fall of house prices will cause the US banks to collapse (which is why the Fed keeps inflating) because the banks are still holding the toxic mortgages. 5. The gov't will no longer be able to continue spending, because the interest rates on the market will go up, probably into high double digits. 6. The US gov't will have to stop spending. This means they will have to stop spending by 99%. 7. The foreign creditors will have to take a hit. They will have to be told that they can't get 100% of their investment back. And it's good for them. Either US prints the money and turns them useless and then creditors get 100% in USD but maybe 5% in their currency, or US liquidates, pays back maybe 60% in USD but at least the creditors may get 30-50% in their currencies. 8. The regulations, taxes, subsidies will have to stop. The wars will have to stop. All troops from all over the world will have to come home. Without borrowing and printing, USA has pretty much no way to maintain their armies, it's impossible, they can't pay. 9. The US population will s
Depends what numbers you are looking at not that it matters, the year is not over yet. It's more than 2x since the year 2000, the gov't grew by a factor of 2 in 10 years, while the trade balance has worsened by about the same factor.
No, I don't care to deceit anybody, my argument stands.
The question is this: what is the proper function of a government and how much should it be allowed to spend on that function?
An income tax allows a government to grow beyond its proper function and thus to increase in size all the time.
Suffices it to say that current US federal gov't budget has increased by a factor of more than 2 since the year 2000. So the amount of gov't function has increased, or more correctly stated: US gov't is spending more than twice as much money today (4T USD) as it was spending 10 years ago (1.7T USD).
How is that good for anybody in the country, except for those closely related to the gov't structures that the gov't system is spending twice as much money now, as it was spending 10 years ago, while the actual economy is so much worse, which the trade deficit shows (about -26B USD/month in 2000, to about -45B USD/month in 2010 and BTW, it did reach -70B USD/month a number of times in between.)
Before the year 1913 US federal gov't was collecting tariffs and sales taxes, half of which came from alcohol, by the way. The Income taxes implemented in 1913 really only hit the top income brackets, and the taxes were in the order of 1-1.5%. The rest of the population wasn't paying income taxes, and the Federal gov't was fairly small, really not very significant. All of the infrastructure, be it roads, bridges, police, fire etc. were really a local issue, as it was supposed to be by the Constitution of the US.
Note that the USA is a unique country (I was born in the USSR, which also was a 'unique' sort of a country, but I prefer the US uniqueness, the way it was implemented from the beginning, not the way it is now), it is unique in that it has a Constitution that LIMITS gov't powers instead of limiting personal Freedoms.
Do not forget that the liberties, the freedoms, the rights of people are not supposed to be stated specifically in the Constitution of the USA. In fact by design the people of US had all the Freedoms and the Constitution limited the Congress in how it could limit/take Freedoms away from the people. Indeed the very idea of 'amendments' is an unfortunate one, because many people do not understand that amendments are not listing their Freedoms in the USA Constitution. There should not have been any amendments at all, they are confusing the issue for many, people already have the Freedoms and amendments give some a belief that those are the only Freedoms they have (the ones listed.)
The Constitution founders realized that gov't needs money to function, so they allowed the Congress to implement taxes, but unfortunately they did not limit the types of taxes that could be implemented. The income taxes are clearly a violation of the spirit of the rest of the Constitution, as they require any person to disclose their private information: what they do, how they live, etc. to the gov't and so it became after 1913 that the gov't decided it really OWNS the people's lives, their income and they GIFT to the people whatever part of income it desires.
So that's a problem, because it simultaneously destroys Freedoms that people have and it allows gov't to grow as much as it desires, and it desires to grow.
Obviously the sales taxes are the way to go because it does a number of great things: 1. Allows people to keep the Freedoms they must have. 2. Allows people to keep their income and invest it in the manner they so desire, and that's the best way to move economy by letting people save and savings are the key to have economy moving. Not debt but savings, because savings are necessary to start new businesses. 3. Limits the size of sales taxes because if the taxes are too high, people spend less and this is an automatic feedback system, that controls the size of the gov't. 4. Limits the functions of the gov't to those, that people are clearly allowing it to have by paying for them. 5. Prevents the gov't from destroying the economy by distorting the market forces and by creati
what a great idea! When I don't feel like putting on pants and underwear at all, those I find to be the quietest days in the office, so few people are around, I wonder why?
Finally, Sobon suggests that you ignore his clothes - apparently "most geeks don't wear pants," and women should "get over it and wait for the ring to diversify his wardrobe."
- that's right, depending on how I feel I have no pants on, and/or no underwear. Is it a blessing in disguise or is it your worst nightmare? Nobody knows.
Email works fine and it doesn't go OFF LINE and it will reach most people most of the time as opposed to a single service like FB. How about that?
Yes, email is a much more valuable resource than FB.
Also if you have to notify 50 people of something, it better be either some business thing, then FB is not the right media or it's a party, and then if you are using FB for it and it's down the party is off, so big loss, whatever.
ha ha ha, sure sure, I am sure you are a very important person with very important things to post about yourself on your twatter account and what not, everybody needs to know how you are doing through your FB, it's great. Does it add anything of VALUE to the world?
. The expansion westward was as chaotic as the government permitted i
- gov't permitted? What government and why should any gov't be able to stop the pioneers on any new territories? Those people took risk in being explorers. Many have died.
Native American population lost to a more competitive new population, that's all there is to it.
There is nothing wrong with a gold rush or with a land rush. Life is about taking risks and taking what you can, what else did you think life was? There is one life, and you have to take it by the horns and do the most you can. What is this ridiculous attitude towards it, as if your life line has been drawn by your omnipotent gov't before you ever were born? Yeah, excuse me, I forgot, every child born in US (or wherever) today automatically gets to own part of the national debt, of-course your life has been predetermined for you.
Well excuse me while I go throw up in disgust.
Also watch the series on the how the U.S. national parks came to be. Bottom line: they wouldn't exist without government stepping in and stopping people from turning them into the worst kind of tourist traps. The U.S. has always worked best as a mixed economy. Our problems of late are that the government has been bought, and it seems that will get worse.
- plainly false. There is much to be gained privately from owning a piece of land that is operated as a park. It's not very high maintenance, but it requires protection, that's where the resources need to be spent to continue making income. There are plenty private parks and resorts where people make money from visitors. Same with ocean. Same with lands. Same with lakes. Etc.
On the other hand if you bought a piece of property in the middle what otherwise operates as a park, and you decided to turn it into a dump, you'd have to go through your neighbors and all the court handling first, it would be questionable, but it always is.
But there shouldn't be anything that should stop you if you can prove your case, or buy out the neighbors, whatever. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with doing what you wish with your property, and again, your concern is the neighbor of yours. If you by your negligence cause bad things to happen that affect people outside of your land (like contaminating ground waters) that could now become between you and an entire set of neighbors, thus a Class Action Lawsuit must become a powerful weapon and and a powerful warning against any such behavior.
Well, if shareholders are going to be liable too (and it seems they ought to be, since they elect the boards of directors, who hire the executives), then I'm going to sell all my stocks.
- good. But I'll keep mine. If a company is responsible together with the board and with the shareholders, the responsibility is assigned at the rate of direct to less direct input into decision making process. However I owned a year ago, and the owners of the condo were all responsible for it together, if not legally for all purposes, but definitely financially. That forces a company and its owners to be careful.
You may want not to take risk, but risk is just part of business and people will continue taking it. Didn't you complain about the gold rush? The risk was your LIFE and people still took it.
The U.S. might well have collapsed two years ago without the FDIC
- false statement.
If US let go of the few banks that needed to collapse and let them collapse the economy would have been much better off today. We know this for certain, because this happened a number of times before, look up the 19th century.
Sure, there are bank runs sometimes, sure there were recessions. But it takes a gov't intervention to turn a recession into a depression, like the Great Depression, which became what it was because a gov't took a normal, run of the mill recession and turned it into an asset bubble. That depr
Ok, let's just ignore the unimaginable chaos implied by your premise, and focus on your conclusion.
- your statement has no meaning. What does this mean 'unimaginable chaos' in this context? What is chaotic about clear cut settings of borders of private property lines?
The fact is that executives in a corporation as large as BP only care about the quarterly and annual results that determine their bonuses. If something really bad happens to BP, they take their winnings and move on to next table.
- certainly. That's why I already stated what my Constitutional change looks like.
In case you didn't notice, it had in it words that no entity should gain any economic advantage over any other entity based on a government involvement.
There would be no such thing as LIMITED PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. It wouldn't exist. All those executives could be sued under this. Responsibility is paramount in the world of business and competition. You cannot take RISK out as a major factor of doing business, and government is busy insuring against all sorts of risks.
It's too risky to give a loan to somebody who doesn't have any assets and can't put a downpayment of his own on the line? Let's insure his mortgage with a gov't provided plan: Freddie/Fannie.
It's too risky for you to put money into a bank without you doing due diligence and keeping an eye on what the bank is doing with your money and can't be bothered to put together a meaningful contract as a bank customer? Let's have FDIC.
It's too risky for a bank to have all those deposits while the bank wants to gamble with them, and it's too much hustle to run a business without gambling, but instead do due diligence on who the money is loaned to? Again, FDIC to the rescue. Start wondering who the hell came up with FDIC on the first place, I bet it was a banker together with a politician, not another way around.
My point is that gov't shouldn't be able to have any effect on any economic outcome for any entity. Gov't shouldn't limit competition in Free Market, just like it is not supposed to be able to limit competition in Free Speech.
I don't know why you find this entertaining, I am more entertained by the economic collapse that US has brought upon itself, rather than by idea of personal responsibility.
the only reason that companies are able to force their monopolies and avoid any competition and set what the prices are is because they have the gov't in their back pocket.
So get the gov't out of their back pocket but to do this, you have to get the gov't out of EVERYBODY'S back pocket, you can't pick and choose which back pocket you like and which you do not.
Thus gov't must not be a force that decides what any economic outcomes are for any entity.
Thus my proposal is no more crazy than the already proposed ideas in the Constitution that dictate that gov't can't stop competing speech, competing religions etc. That was recognized as a bad thing for gov't to get into, I am proposing that for the sake of a working economy gov't should not be stopping 'competing anything'.
Slashdot Mirror
Not sure how well this would work out
- it works better than income tax increases because people can control their spending and avoid buying items that are taxed, avoid buying too much of them. By increasing taxes the states would decrease spending but also they would decrease satisfaction with the gov't.
So gov't would have to cut spending at some point instead of increasing sales taxes. You just can't increase sales taxes over and over without getting thrown out of office or without cutting spending.
Support for a VAT is probably growing so that the government can maintain its usual spending
- the point of the feedback mechanism is to reduce gov't spending.
when unemployment (excluding government jobs) finally reaches 100%.
- yes, and what good is gov't spending then? What would finance gov't spending at those levels? Who would give credit to any gov't that has a population that is 100% unemployed?
Would you give a mortgage to a person who doesn't have a job? Why?
So that person decides to print his own money, then you shouldn't accept that money.
The point is exactly as I noted earlier to set up a Constitutional amendment to stop gov't from manipulating economy. It's not gov't jobs that need to grow in this economy, it's the private sector jobs and the proof is the ever increasing trade deficit. Only private sector jobs decrease trade deficit and gov't spending money reallocates the available credit from the private sector to gov't but it does not increase production capacity.
What should happen is gov't should be 99% dismantled, the bills, the rules, the laws, the regulations should be abandoned, income taxes should be abolished, interest rates should be let go to where market forces take them, inflation should be stopped, all this so that economic activity could pick up and new business could start in an environment.
Obviously there will be a period of time when this restructuring will cause major pain, but it's not like it will be possible to get out of this depression without major pain. The gov't is going to continue printing (the Fed chairman said it was his mandate to keep prices rising, so expect many new t-bills printed as well as dollars) and it will cause the depression to turn into a hyper-inflationary stagflation. It's not going to be pretty, where the gov't will take the economy. Without the gov't the economy will suffer initially but will restructure with falling prices for everything, with gov't inflation will kill currency and credit will not return to US for decades for sure.
Young people will start leaving the country, why should they suffer, paying the taxes to support unsupportable gov't structure and spending and SS and UI etc.etc. when in fact the economy will be growing in other parts of the world, especially Asia, so expect the gov't to introduce some measures to force the people either to stay or at least to 'pay out their part' of the debt before they go, and good luck with that.
I don't want to see USA turning into something like USSR even though not through ideology but through stupidity and complete ignorance of economics, politics and history.
You are retarded
-then why do you bother replying?
Income tax is the only tax system that provides for *fairness*
- who said it's supposed to be fair? Secondly, if you read my comment with a little more than your ass, you would have noticed that I did mention a fact, fact that federal gov't spending used to be based on taxes of certain items and food and some basic necessities do not need to be included into those items.
Alcohol, any sort of 'luxury' items, tariffs on imports etc., should be enough. More importantly, you completely missed the point of having sales taxes used as a feedback mechanism controlling the size of gov't by controlling the amount of money it is given to spend.
Also it is quite possible to have a system, where people under certain income avoid paying any taxes at all, even sales taxes by filing their income statements.
And yes, maybe the idea of income tax is foreign to you because in USSR your income was taxed 90-95% before you even got your wages.
- it's not foreign, I have spent enough time in other countries paying income taxes, but now I found a place in the world where those are no longer applicable.
So you may call me retarded, but it does not make your argument any stronger.
Lets say there are 2 groups of people. One group produces a lot of items, goods, the other group spends a lot of money to buy those items and goods but it does not produce any goods for the first group to consume.
So while one group is productive, the other is not. Of-course the second group is spending money to buy the goods that the first group produced. But where is this money coming from? If the money is coming from a printing press and/or borrowed (even borrowed from the first group) then what is happening is that the first group, that is producing, is really subsidizing the second group.
Now, if the second group stopped consuming, the first group would have to consume the goods it produced all by itself.
---
Let's connect the dots:
US gov't is borrowing money from the world and the world is importing good into USA. The trade balance is clear, the USA is a net importer and it only exports cash. Of-course it prints/borrows the cash. Now, so far the world was expecting that at some point the USA will start producing again, after all US was a net exporter of goods for the longest time after the war, because the rest of the world needed to rebuild after the war and USA really did not. The reason the USD is still accepted around the world is of-course artificial at this point, USA went to great length to keep its currency 'reserve' currency, I believe the latest/longest wars confirm this.
So far every other nation keeps printing money together with US printing money, thus all currencies are being devalued (thus gold and other commodities are going up, because in reality gold is money and fiat is paper that's printed out of existence, raced to the bottom, inflated, whatever you call it.)
USA keeps interest rates low, keeps printing t-bills, keeps printing dollars. 4-5 days ago Bernanke came out with a statement that the mandate of the Fed is not price stability, but price growth. The existing inflation is not enough for him (obviously there is huge inflation, because prices are not allowed to fall) but not only he wants the current levels of inflation to keep up, but he wants the Fed to create even more inflation.
Of-course his reasoning is that by creating more inflation he really diminishes the value of dollar and thus makes the US labor market less expensive (not in nominal, but in actual value). But with all the regulations and taxes and subsidies to monopolies and gov't spending it is not enough to have high inflation to push the labor costs down.
The labor in US is going to keep being expensive, the inflation will only cause the US citizens to pay more for food, energy and goods that they don't even produce anymore apparently (from the trade deficit.)
So what is really needed is:
1. For the Fed to stop printing money.
2. Let the interest rates go where the market takes them.
3. The interest rates will go up and prices on various big items will fall, like house prices will fall.
4. Fall of house prices will cause the US banks to collapse (which is why the Fed keeps inflating) because the banks are still holding the toxic mortgages.
5. The gov't will no longer be able to continue spending, because the interest rates on the market will go up, probably into high double digits.
6. The US gov't will have to stop spending. This means they will have to stop spending by 99%.
7. The foreign creditors will have to take a hit. They will have to be told that they can't get 100% of their investment back. And it's good for them. Either US prints the money and turns them useless and then creditors get 100% in USD but maybe 5% in their currency, or US liquidates, pays back maybe 60% in USD but at least the creditors may get 30-50% in their currencies.
8. The regulations, taxes, subsidies will have to stop. The wars will have to stop. All troops from all over the world will have to come home. Without borrowing and printing, USA has pretty much no way to maintain their armies, it's impossible, they can't pay.
9. The US population will s
Depends what numbers you are looking at not that it matters, the year is not over yet. It's more than 2x since the year 2000, the gov't grew by a factor of 2 in 10 years, while the trade balance has worsened by about the same factor.
No, I don't care to deceit anybody, my argument stands.
Obviously a gov't needs taxes to function.
The question is this: what is the proper function of a government and how much should it be allowed to spend on that function?
An income tax allows a government to grow beyond its proper function and thus to increase in size all the time.
Suffices it to say that current US federal gov't budget has increased by a factor of more than 2 since the year 2000. So the amount of gov't function has increased, or more correctly stated: US gov't is spending more than twice as much money today (4T USD) as it was spending 10 years ago (1.7T USD).
How is that good for anybody in the country, except for those closely related to the gov't structures that the gov't system is spending twice as much money now, as it was spending 10 years ago, while the actual economy is so much worse, which the trade deficit shows (about -26B USD/month in 2000, to about -45B USD/month in 2010 and BTW, it did reach -70B USD/month a number of times in between.)
Before the year 1913 US federal gov't was collecting tariffs and sales taxes, half of which came from alcohol, by the way. The Income taxes implemented in 1913 really only hit the top income brackets, and the taxes were in the order of 1-1.5%. The rest of the population wasn't paying income taxes, and the Federal gov't was fairly small, really not very significant. All of the infrastructure, be it roads, bridges, police, fire etc. were really a local issue, as it was supposed to be by the Constitution of the US.
Note that the USA is a unique country (I was born in the USSR, which also was a 'unique' sort of a country, but I prefer the US uniqueness, the way it was implemented from the beginning, not the way it is now), it is unique in that it has a Constitution that LIMITS gov't powers instead of limiting personal Freedoms.
Do not forget that the liberties, the freedoms, the rights of people are not supposed to be stated specifically in the Constitution of the USA. In fact by design the people of US had all the Freedoms and the Constitution limited the Congress in how it could limit/take Freedoms away from the people. Indeed the very idea of 'amendments' is an unfortunate one, because many people do not understand that amendments are not listing their Freedoms in the USA Constitution. There should not have been any amendments at all, they are confusing the issue for many, people already have the Freedoms and amendments give some a belief that those are the only Freedoms they have (the ones listed.)
The Constitution founders realized that gov't needs money to function, so they allowed the Congress to implement taxes, but unfortunately they did not limit the types of taxes that could be implemented. The income taxes are clearly a violation of the spirit of the rest of the Constitution, as they require any person to disclose their private information: what they do, how they live, etc. to the gov't and so it became after 1913 that the gov't decided it really OWNS the people's lives, their income and they GIFT to the people whatever part of income it desires.
So that's a problem, because it simultaneously destroys Freedoms that people have and it allows gov't to grow as much as it desires, and it desires to grow.
Obviously the sales taxes are the way to go because it does a number of great things:
1. Allows people to keep the Freedoms they must have.
2. Allows people to keep their income and invest it in the manner they so desire, and that's the best way to move economy by letting people save and savings are the key to have economy moving. Not debt but savings, because savings are necessary to start new businesses.
3. Limits the size of sales taxes because if the taxes are too high, people spend less and this is an automatic feedback system, that controls the size of the gov't.
4. Limits the functions of the gov't to those, that people are clearly allowing it to have by paying for them.
5. Prevents the gov't from destroying the economy by distorting the market forces and by creati
totally, but when was the last time you heard of a competent politician/political decision/gov't law etc.? It's rare, but grandstanding is cheap.
please, what are these animals and why when I hear about FB I hear about farms?
A stalker? Wonderful. My ways are my ways, what can you do.
what a great idea! When I don't feel like putting on pants and underwear at all, those I find to be the quietest days in the office, so few people are around, I wonder why?
I wonder, does she have a little geek in her?
If not, would she like to?
Finally, Sobon suggests that you ignore his clothes - apparently "most geeks don't wear pants," and women should "get over it and wait for the ring to diversify his wardrobe."
- that's right, depending on how I feel I have no pants on, and/or no underwear. Is it a blessing in disguise or is it your worst nightmare? Nobody knows.
good stuff, excellent hack.
Of-course there should have been a one way flap valve probably with an electrical/timer lock there as well.
Security, it's a process, there is no one single thing that is a magic silver bullet that provides it...
Email works fine and it doesn't go OFF LINE and it will reach most people most of the time as opposed to a single service like FB. How about that?
Yes, email is a much more valuable resource than FB.
Also if you have to notify 50 people of something, it better be either some business thing, then FB is not the right media or it's a party, and then if you are using FB for it and it's down the party is off, so big loss, whatever.
ha ha ha, sure sure, I am sure you are a very important person with very important things to post about yourself on your twatter account and what not, everybody needs to know how you are doing through your FB, it's great. Does it add anything of VALUE to the world?
No.
Blah blah blah, whatever, if your friend is so important to you have the cell phone ready and call.
Yes, FB has some value, no it's not important.
I think this is what you should do, just don't forget to fill out your donor card first.
Oh, noes, so you are not a hot chick then?
who are you blowing nowadays, hmmm?
how is it going, back in Toronto there? Still at work at 4:07? Good for you.
am I a loser? I am not the one stalking some anonymous entity on the web.
Free Speech, Free Software, Free Market.. I am capitalizing these things. Is Free Software not a solution? Is Free Speech not a solution?
Free Market is a solution not worse than the other ones. My solution is ti fix the Constitution by admitting this fact.
. The expansion westward was as chaotic as the government permitted i
- gov't permitted? What government and why should any gov't be able to stop the pioneers on any new territories? Those people took risk in being explorers. Many have died.
Native American population lost to a more competitive new population, that's all there is to it.
There is nothing wrong with a gold rush or with a land rush. Life is about taking risks and taking what you can, what else did you think life was? There is one life, and you have to take it by the horns and do the most you can. What is this ridiculous attitude towards it, as if your life line has been drawn by your omnipotent gov't before you ever were born? Yeah, excuse me, I forgot, every child born in US (or wherever) today automatically gets to own part of the national debt, of-course your life has been predetermined for you.
Well excuse me while I go throw up in disgust.
Also watch the series on the how the U.S. national parks came to be. Bottom line: they wouldn't exist without government stepping in and stopping people from turning them into the worst kind of tourist traps. The U.S. has always worked best as a mixed economy. Our problems of late are that the government has been bought, and it seems that will get worse.
- plainly false. There is much to be gained privately from owning a piece of land that is operated as a park. It's not very high maintenance, but it requires protection, that's where the resources need to be spent to continue making income. There are plenty private parks and resorts where people make money from visitors. Same with ocean. Same with lands. Same with lakes. Etc.
On the other hand if you bought a piece of property in the middle what otherwise operates as a park, and you decided to turn it into a dump, you'd have to go through your neighbors and all the court handling first, it would be questionable, but it always is.
But there shouldn't be anything that should stop you if you can prove your case, or buy out the neighbors, whatever. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with doing what you wish with your property, and again, your concern is the neighbor of yours. If you by your negligence cause bad things to happen that affect people outside of your land (like contaminating ground waters) that could now become between you and an entire set of neighbors, thus a Class Action Lawsuit must become a powerful weapon and and a powerful warning against any such behavior.
Well, if shareholders are going to be liable too (and it seems they ought to be, since they elect the boards of directors, who hire the executives), then I'm going to sell all my stocks.
- good. But I'll keep mine. If a company is responsible together with the board and with the shareholders, the responsibility is assigned at the rate of direct to less direct input into decision making process. However I owned a year ago, and the owners of the condo were all responsible for it together, if not legally for all purposes, but definitely financially. That forces a company and its owners to be careful.
You may want not to take risk, but risk is just part of business and people will continue taking it. Didn't you complain about the gold rush? The risk was your LIFE and people still took it.
The U.S. might well have collapsed two years ago without the FDIC
- false statement.
If US let go of the few banks that needed to collapse and let them collapse the economy would have been much better off today. We know this for certain, because this happened a number of times before, look up the 19th century.
Sure, there are bank runs sometimes, sure there were recessions. But it takes a gov't intervention to turn a recession into a depression, like the Great Depression, which became what it was because a gov't took a normal, run of the mill recession and turned it into an asset bubble. That depr
Ron Paul's take on medical care and insurance is sensible, why are you taking this against him in particular? Maybe that's why you were moderated as a troll.
Ok, let's just ignore the unimaginable chaos implied by your premise, and focus on your conclusion.
- your statement has no meaning. What does this mean 'unimaginable chaos' in this context? What is chaotic about clear cut settings of borders of private property lines?
The fact is that executives in a corporation as large as BP only care about the quarterly and annual results that determine their bonuses. If something really bad happens to BP, they take their winnings and move on to next table.
- certainly. That's why I already stated what my Constitutional change looks like.
In case you didn't notice, it had in it words that no entity should gain any economic advantage over any other entity based on a government involvement.
There would be no such thing as LIMITED PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. It wouldn't exist. All those executives could be sued under this. Responsibility is paramount in the world of business and competition. You cannot take RISK out as a major factor of doing business, and government is busy insuring against all sorts of risks.
It's too risky to give a loan to somebody who doesn't have any assets and can't put a downpayment of his own on the line? Let's insure his mortgage with a gov't provided plan: Freddie/Fannie.
It's too risky for you to put money into a bank without you doing due diligence and keeping an eye on what the bank is doing with your money and can't be bothered to put together a meaningful contract as a bank customer? Let's have FDIC.
It's too risky for a bank to have all those deposits while the bank wants to gamble with them, and it's too much hustle to run a business without gambling, but instead do due diligence on who the money is loaned to? Again, FDIC to the rescue. Start wondering who the hell came up with FDIC on the first place, I bet it was a banker together with a politician, not another way around.
My point is that gov't shouldn't be able to have any effect on any economic outcome for any entity. Gov't shouldn't limit competition in Free Market, just like it is not supposed to be able to limit competition in Free Speech.
I don't know why you find this entertaining, I am more entertained by the economic collapse that US has brought upon itself, rather than by idea of personal responsibility.
the only reason that companies are able to force their monopolies and avoid any competition and set what the prices are is because they have the gov't in their back pocket.
So get the gov't out of their back pocket but to do this, you have to get the gov't out of EVERYBODY'S back pocket, you can't pick and choose which back pocket you like and which you do not.
Thus gov't must not be a force that decides what any economic outcomes are for any entity.
Thus my proposal is no more crazy than the already proposed ideas in the Constitution that dictate that gov't can't stop competing speech, competing religions etc. That was recognized as a bad thing for gov't to get into, I am proposing that for the sake of a working economy gov't should not be stopping 'competing anything'.