Try DMT, cowboy. Makes Salvia look like a Children's Chewable Tylenol. Also, people with schizophrenia should never do hallucinogens. Most people can do them, and still know the difference between hallucination and reality. Schizophrenics, not so much.
And THAT is the problem with limited liability in general, people can make decisions that impact billions of other humans, perhaps even killing or maiming thousands, and they get ten million dollar bonuses for "making the tough decisions."
Your example does not hold water, because I am not a corporation, I do make a living from driving, and I keep my car maintained. The nuclear power industry is, to use your example, a school bus driver who will only pay for fifty year old school buses, does not pay for proper maintenance, and boozes it up while speeding through residential areas. Oh, and I only carry the minimum insurance mandated by law, in fact, I payed to have the law written to my standards, and by law YOU must pay if I kill a bunch of kids with my reckless activity.
In general, if an activity is so potentially dangerous that no one could possibly insure it for the likely amount of damage it will cause, that activity will never become a business. Unless of course the people standing to profit from said activity are allowed to write the laws governing it themselves. Nuclear power and offshore drilling are unique in that, rather than being required to carry insurance sufficient to cover costs (which would make the business absolutely unprofitable), we, the taxpayers, are on automatically responsible, no court proceedings or bankruptcy necessary.
Do you understand what that means? The insurance industry, the industry that calculates risk, has calculated the risks of nuclear power and they want nothing to do with it. It is, according to the experts, too risky to insure. Maybe you are okay funding some fat cat CEO by covering the potential risk while letting him take home the profit, but I am not.
Where did you get the idea that the nuclear power industry pays into a fund? Do you have some kind of citation for that? I'm pretty sure they do not.
Yes, we must remember all the silicon miners who died in that recent, tragic, solar power mishap.
Things would be much safer if we did not allow people to risk other people's money and lives for their own profit. Pebble bed reactors, anyone? Nuclear could be a great power source, if we made the owners responsible for all damages. Then they would have incentive to pioneer safer technology. As it is, they profit when things go right but we lose when things go wrong.
The two things that have done the most to kill nuclear power are, first, the owners and operators of nuclear plants, and second, the smug, tone deaf nuclear boosters who dog-pile on anyone with concerns over the safety of nuclear power. Berating someone to be less of a worry-wort is hardly the best way to get them on your side.
Got it, pro-nuke crowd? YOU killed nuclear power because you are elitist know -it-alls who have alienated the public by continually attempting to blow smoke up their ass. When something goes wrong, do not immediately begin downplaying people's fears and belittling them for being worried. Have some sympathy, even if you KNOW they are wrong. In fact, the more certain you are, the more you should keep your socially challenged mouths shut.
Okay, Pollyanna. But you need to spend a day as close as you can get to the plant, without protection. Send me a signed contract stating you will do this and I will send you a ticket.
Well you missed the point. Perhaps I wasn't clear: nuclear power could be safer if the owners invested more into safety, but as long as taxpayers here and in Japan are on the hook for the majority of damages, the ultra-wealthy sociopathic owning class assholes have no incentive to invest in safety. They profit, we pay.
Nuclear power COULD be safe if we stuck the plant owners with the whole cost of any potential disaster. As it is, they profit but we pay the costs. What incentive is there for them to spend any money on safety, when the taxpayers here and in Japan are on the hook for the damages?
You believe almost anything can cause incalculable damages? Uh, okay. You did know the damages for oil spills are also capped, right? Now, the profits, they are not capped. Things go well and the ultra-rich owning class profits. Things go badly, and WE pay for it.
Nuclear power, as I fucking well said, CAN BE safer. But NOT when we let the owners off the hook! Get it, dipshit? I'm not against nuclear power. I'm against greedy sociopaths profiting off of something we have to pay for when it goes wrong. And I'm against THAT because the damn greedy sociopaths have ruined nuclear power, just absolutely killed it as an option.
Good, because saying the reactor is fixed and there is no concern would be absolutely fucking ludicrous, wouldn't it? I wonder how much plane tickets to Japan are right now? I'd love to get the Pollyanna nuclear cheerleaders here a ticket to Japan, so they can check out the damage for themselves and report back to us, if they survive. It's no problem, right? Perfectly safe.
Nuclear power can be made perfectly safe, but that would cut into profits. And as long as the taxpayers of the world are on the hook for most of the damages a nuclear plant can create (owners and operators have a liability cap, or they could never afford insurance, given that the maximum possible damages are basically incalculable), the moral hazard that creates will ensure that there are no investments in safer nuclear technology.
Our government does terrible things in the present because we, the people, let it. We don't have to, and in the past, we haven't let it do that. In many other countries, they don't let their government do that. The answer is never to get rid of government, it is always to limit the power of the wealthy over everyone else. Government can be a tool of the wealthy, or it can be a tool to control the dominance of the wealthy elite over the rest of us. We do need to band together to protect ourselves from powerful people who would oppress us and take the fruits of our labor through unfair practices and pressures. When we band together to do that, we call it "government." We need cops in the market place, keeping it free, or the wealthy will dominate the marketplace like they dominate everything else.
When you buy a hamburger, is the money still yours, or does it belong to the individual or group that sold you the hamburger? I believe it no longer belongs to you. If you pay your taxes in exchange for living in the society you want to live in, is the money yours or does it belong to the society? I believe that, as you have received the advantages of living in society, and you have paid for those advantages, a valid contract exists between you and your society, and the money you spent for the privilege of living in that society is no longer your money.
The minimum wage does not guarantee an income no matter what, and so, the poor will be desperate, and the rich will take advantage of them. If everyone made a minimum wage no matter what, say $20,000/year, employers would have to offer more value than that in order to attract employees, and they could no longer take advantage of the desperate, because no one would be desperate. If your choices are constrained by circumstance, you are not free. Society can help everyone to have more freedom than they would as isolated individuals, indeed, I believe that is society's purpose.
Wealth can buy political influence because we let it. We don't have to let it. We also don't have to allow some individuals to accumulate millions of times more resources than other individuals. This is how we get rid of the ruling class: place limits on ownership. Ensure everyone has control over some of the means of production, and you have no ruling class.
A will will not always guarantee that the person you love inherits your property. Your relatives can fight it in court. If your lover is of the same sex, they may even win. There is no law forbidding hospital visitation for your gay lover, but there is no law mandating it either, and in practice, many hospitals will not allow your gay lover to visit you. I'd say, the government has the same place in marriage that it has in any other contract, which is the defense of your rights. Register your contract, and get protections. There are two parts to marriage, the contract between the individuals, and the religious or societal part. Let the state enforce the first, and if people want, they can register with their church to enforce the second.
Rich people do not necessarily buy more things than poor people, most often, they invest most of their money. Tax people on their total wealth, and I might be interested in hearing about it. Otherwise, no. The fair tax is not, it is backed by a coalition of cheap labor conservatives, and the purpose of the tax is the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. The founding fathers had most certainly heard of income taxes, and allowed the states to levy them. What the constitution did not originally allow was Federal collection of taxes that were not allocated on a per capita basis.
Libertarians certainly want a police force to protect the property of the rich from the desperate poor, but they do not want police in the marketplace, keeping it free.
I don't want to tell you what to do with your body, life or mind. But I do want to offer you a deal. You see, I'm part of a society that offers great benefits to individuals. You will have more freedom, and more choices, living in my society than living by yourself. But you will have to pay for the deal, like you pay for anything that benefits you. If you do not like the deal, you are free to shop around among the hundreds of world governments for a better deal. Or, you can live as a hermit, out of the way somewhere, and you will not have to pay taxes at all. Up to you.
Libertarianism is the bastard child of the ultra wealthy raping anarchism. The Koch brothers are major backers of modern American libertarianism. They back the party because they do not want police in the market place. They use libertarianism as a tool to get the cops of their backs and let them take advantage of you. You probably don't even know what anarchism means. It does not mean "no government." That would be "anocracy." It means no archons, or tyrants.
As I explained before, liberal means generous, and generosity is a good thing. And the word "homosexual" has the word "sex" in it, which makes it good as well.;)
Economic freedom will not exist without a guaranteed national income, like some European Democratic socialist states have. Flat out take from the rich and give to the poor. Anything else leads to domination by the ultra wealthy.
The so-called "fair tax" is anything but. It is regressive, meaning that a poor person pays a larger percentage of their income in taxes than a rich person, even though the rich person is obviously getting more for their money.
People do not need a contract with the state to love someone. They need a contract to protect their rights. Without such a contract, they will not have inheritance rights, joint property rights, hospital visitation rights, and about 1,000 other rights that come along with marriage.
Classical liberalism is nothing like the bastard anarchy of libertarianism. Libertarianism, as it exists in America today, was invented by the Koch brothers. Anyone practicing it is an unpaid tool of the ultra wealthy owning class elites.
They have marsh-mallow crapping ponies in make believe land?!? Since you appear to be a resident, can you tell me how to get there? I love marsh-mallow.
I don't think anyone is upset about his salary, per se. We are upset with his elitist insensitivity to the financial suffering of many Americans, and his utter irresponsibility at managing his not inconsiderable income.
Some Democrats have been bought by special interests, but ALL Republicans have. Democrats are still by far the lesser of two evils. Republicans have recently taken off the mask and let us all see the elitist, middle-class-hating monsters they really are.
Sorry, typed that wrong. Meant "In America, corporate CEOs are above the law." Applies to any and all CEOs, if the company is big enough. Have any banksters, from any country, been prosecuted in America for any crime relating to the recent depression?
Worse than Sony's rootkit. Both programs attempt to do something to your property without your consent, but only this one also takes the opportunity to spy on you. They won't be prosecuted, though. At the very worst, some sacrificial lamb from marketing will be fired. American corporate CEOs are above the law.
Yes, because the Internet is a big place, and there are a LOT of idiots out there, all too ready to waste my time. I don't know whether you really believe what you write, or you are attempting to be facetious, but either way: buh-bye. I'm just not wasting any more time with you.
The government does not "take" money from the people. The people PAY the government for the privilege of living in a society they like. Nothing is free. You want to live here in America? You gotta pay for the privilege. Otherwise, shop around for a better deal, there are hundreds of countries in the world, and if you have skills, most would be glad to have you. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way to Somalia, a place that has just the amount of government you seem to want.
Hahahaha, what a good little Eichmann you are. Look at tax policy changes over the last 40 years. There is a class war going on, and the rich not only started it, they are winning. Despite enormous increases in GDP, the average family makes the same amount now that they made 40 years ago. All the increase went to the top.001 percent. Those 400 people now own as much as the bottom 150 MILLION. And you think it was because they earned it, how naive. Class traitor.
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You know what else twists facts and perspectives? Hallucinogens. Even weak ass hallucinogens like Salvia Divinorum.
Try DMT, cowboy. Makes Salvia look like a Children's Chewable Tylenol. Also, people with schizophrenia should never do hallucinogens. Most people can do them, and still know the difference between hallucination and reality. Schizophrenics, not so much.
And THAT is the problem with limited liability in general, people can make decisions that impact billions of other humans, perhaps even killing or maiming thousands, and they get ten million dollar bonuses for "making the tough decisions."
Your example does not hold water, because I am not a corporation, I do make a living from driving, and I keep my car maintained. The nuclear power industry is, to use your example, a school bus driver who will only pay for fifty year old school buses, does not pay for proper maintenance, and boozes it up while speeding through residential areas. Oh, and I only carry the minimum insurance mandated by law, in fact, I payed to have the law written to my standards, and by law YOU must pay if I kill a bunch of kids with my reckless activity.
In general, if an activity is so potentially dangerous that no one could possibly insure it for the likely amount of damage it will cause, that activity will never become a business. Unless of course the people standing to profit from said activity are allowed to write the laws governing it themselves. Nuclear power and offshore drilling are unique in that, rather than being required to carry insurance sufficient to cover costs (which would make the business absolutely unprofitable), we, the taxpayers, are on automatically responsible, no court proceedings or bankruptcy necessary.
Do you understand what that means? The insurance industry, the industry that calculates risk, has calculated the risks of nuclear power and they want nothing to do with it. It is, according to the experts, too risky to insure. Maybe you are okay funding some fat cat CEO by covering the potential risk while letting him take home the profit, but I am not.
Where did you get the idea that the nuclear power industry pays into a fund? Do you have some kind of citation for that? I'm pretty sure they do not.
Yes, we must remember all the silicon miners who died in that recent, tragic, solar power mishap.
Things would be much safer if we did not allow people to risk other people's money and lives for their own profit. Pebble bed reactors, anyone? Nuclear could be a great power source, if we made the owners responsible for all damages. Then they would have incentive to pioneer safer technology. As it is, they profit when things go right but we lose when things go wrong.
The two things that have done the most to kill nuclear power are, first, the owners and operators of nuclear plants, and second, the smug, tone deaf nuclear boosters who dog-pile on anyone with concerns over the safety of nuclear power. Berating someone to be less of a worry-wort is hardly the best way to get them on your side.
Got it, pro-nuke crowd? YOU killed nuclear power because you are elitist know -it-alls who have alienated the public by continually attempting to blow smoke up their ass. When something goes wrong, do not immediately begin downplaying people's fears and belittling them for being worried. Have some sympathy, even if you KNOW they are wrong. In fact, the more certain you are, the more you should keep your socially challenged mouths shut.
Okay, Pollyanna. But you need to spend a day as close as you can get to the plant, without protection. Send me a signed contract stating you will do this and I will send you a ticket.
Well if you survived Chernobyl rain, you should be ready for a dip in the cooling pool. I mean, they are totally equivalent, right?
Well you missed the point. Perhaps I wasn't clear: nuclear power could be safer if the owners invested more into safety, but as long as taxpayers here and in Japan are on the hook for the majority of damages, the ultra-wealthy sociopathic owning class assholes have no incentive to invest in safety. They profit, we pay.
Nuclear power COULD be safe if we stuck the plant owners with the whole cost of any potential disaster. As it is, they profit but we pay the costs. What incentive is there for them to spend any money on safety, when the taxpayers here and in Japan are on the hook for the damages?
You believe almost anything can cause incalculable damages? Uh, okay. You did know the damages for oil spills are also capped, right? Now, the profits, they are not capped. Things go well and the ultra-rich owning class profits. Things go badly, and WE pay for it.
Nuclear power, as I fucking well said, CAN BE safer. But NOT when we let the owners off the hook! Get it, dipshit? I'm not against nuclear power. I'm against greedy sociopaths profiting off of something we have to pay for when it goes wrong. And I'm against THAT because the damn greedy sociopaths have ruined nuclear power, just absolutely killed it as an option.
Good, because saying the reactor is fixed and there is no concern would be absolutely fucking ludicrous, wouldn't it? I wonder how much plane tickets to Japan are right now? I'd love to get the Pollyanna nuclear cheerleaders here a ticket to Japan, so they can check out the damage for themselves and report back to us, if they survive. It's no problem, right? Perfectly safe.
Nuclear power can be made perfectly safe, but that would cut into profits. And as long as the taxpayers of the world are on the hook for most of the damages a nuclear plant can create (owners and operators have a liability cap, or they could never afford insurance, given that the maximum possible damages are basically incalculable), the moral hazard that creates will ensure that there are no investments in safer nuclear technology.
Our government does terrible things in the present because we, the people, let it. We don't have to, and in the past, we haven't let it do that. In many other countries, they don't let their government do that. The answer is never to get rid of government, it is always to limit the power of the wealthy over everyone else. Government can be a tool of the wealthy, or it can be a tool to control the dominance of the wealthy elite over the rest of us. We do need to band together to protect ourselves from powerful people who would oppress us and take the fruits of our labor through unfair practices and pressures. When we band together to do that, we call it "government." We need cops in the market place, keeping it free, or the wealthy will dominate the marketplace like they dominate everything else.
When you buy a hamburger, is the money still yours, or does it belong to the individual or group that sold you the hamburger? I believe it no longer belongs to you. If you pay your taxes in exchange for living in the society you want to live in, is the money yours or does it belong to the society? I believe that, as you have received the advantages of living in society, and you have paid for those advantages, a valid contract exists between you and your society, and the money you spent for the privilege of living in that society is no longer your money.
The minimum wage does not guarantee an income no matter what, and so, the poor will be desperate, and the rich will take advantage of them. If everyone made a minimum wage no matter what, say $20,000/year, employers would have to offer more value than that in order to attract employees, and they could no longer take advantage of the desperate, because no one would be desperate. If your choices are constrained by circumstance, you are not free. Society can help everyone to have more freedom than they would as isolated individuals, indeed, I believe that is society's purpose.
Wealth can buy political influence because we let it. We don't have to let it. We also don't have to allow some individuals to accumulate millions of times more resources than other individuals. This is how we get rid of the ruling class: place limits on ownership. Ensure everyone has control over some of the means of production, and you have no ruling class.
A will will not always guarantee that the person you love inherits your property. Your relatives can fight it in court. If your lover is of the same sex, they may even win. There is no law forbidding hospital visitation for your gay lover, but there is no law mandating it either, and in practice, many hospitals will not allow your gay lover to visit you. I'd say, the government has the same place in marriage that it has in any other contract, which is the defense of your rights. Register your contract, and get protections. There are two parts to marriage, the contract between the individuals, and the religious or societal part. Let the state enforce the first, and if people want, they can register with their church to enforce the second.
Rich people do not necessarily buy more things than poor people, most often, they invest most of their money. Tax people on their total wealth, and I might be interested in hearing about it. Otherwise, no. The fair tax is not, it is backed by a coalition of cheap labor conservatives, and the purpose of the tax is the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. The founding fathers had most certainly heard of income taxes, and allowed the states to levy them. What the constitution did not originally allow was Federal collection of taxes that were not allocated on a per capita basis.
Libertarians certainly want a police force to protect the property of the rich from the desperate poor, but they do not want police in the marketplace, keeping it free.
I don't want to tell you what to do with your body, life or mind. But I do want to offer you a deal. You see, I'm part of a society that offers great benefits to individuals. You will have more freedom, and more choices, living in my society than living by yourself. But you will have to pay for the deal, like you pay for anything that benefits you. If you do not like the deal, you are free to shop around among the hundreds of world governments for a better deal. Or, you can live as a hermit, out of the way somewhere, and you will not have to pay taxes at all. Up to you.
Libertarianism is the bastard child of the ultra wealthy raping anarchism. The Koch brothers are major backers of modern American libertarianism. They back the party because they do not want police in the market place. They use libertarianism as a tool to get the cops of their backs and let them take advantage of you. You probably don't even know what anarchism means. It does not mean "no government." That would be "anocracy." It means no archons, or tyrants.
As I explained before, liberal means generous, and generosity is a good thing. And the word "homosexual" has the word "sex" in it, which makes it good as well. ;)
Economic freedom will not exist without a guaranteed national income, like some European Democratic socialist states have. Flat out take from the rich and give to the poor. Anything else leads to domination by the ultra wealthy.
The so-called "fair tax" is anything but. It is regressive, meaning that a poor person pays a larger percentage of their income in taxes than a rich person, even though the rich person is obviously getting more for their money.
People do not need a contract with the state to love someone. They need a contract to protect their rights. Without such a contract, they will not have inheritance rights, joint property rights, hospital visitation rights, and about 1,000 other rights that come along with marriage.
Classical liberalism is nothing like the bastard anarchy of libertarianism. Libertarianism, as it exists in America today, was invented by the Koch brothers. Anyone practicing it is an unpaid tool of the ultra wealthy owning class elites.
The way I see it, liberal means generous, which is good. And homosexual has the word 'sex' in it, which makes it good too.
They have marsh-mallow crapping ponies in make believe land?!? Since you appear to be a resident, can you tell me how to get there? I love marsh-mallow.
I don't think anyone is upset about his salary, per se. We are upset with his elitist insensitivity to the financial suffering of many Americans, and his utter irresponsibility at managing his not inconsiderable income.
Public figure, fair use, you are simply wrong.
Some Democrats have been bought by special interests, but ALL Republicans have. Democrats are still by far the lesser of two evils. Republicans have recently taken off the mask and let us all see the elitist, middle-class-hating monsters they really are.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. Seriously, liberal and homosexual are good things.
Sorry, typed that wrong. Meant "In America, corporate CEOs are above the law." Applies to any and all CEOs, if the company is big enough. Have any banksters, from any country, been prosecuted in America for any crime relating to the recent depression?
Worse than Sony's rootkit. Both programs attempt to do something to your property without your consent, but only this one also takes the opportunity to spy on you. They won't be prosecuted, though. At the very worst, some sacrificial lamb from marketing will be fired. American corporate CEOs are above the law.
Yes, because the Internet is a big place, and there are a LOT of idiots out there, all too ready to waste my time. I don't know whether you really believe what you write, or you are attempting to be facetious, but either way: buh-bye. I'm just not wasting any more time with you.
So you are saying that you ARE an idiot, gotcha. I'll be sure to ignore any future posts you might peck out. Have fun licking those windows!
The government does not "take" money from the people. The people PAY the government for the privilege of living in a society they like. Nothing is free. You want to live here in America? You gotta pay for the privilege. Otherwise, shop around for a better deal, there are hundreds of countries in the world, and if you have skills, most would be glad to have you. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way to Somalia, a place that has just the amount of government you seem to want.
Hahahaha, what a good little Eichmann you are. Look at tax policy changes over the last 40 years. There is a class war going on, and the rich not only started it, they are winning. Despite enormous increases in GDP, the average family makes the same amount now that they made 40 years ago. All the increase went to the top .001 percent. Those 400 people now own as much as the bottom 150 MILLION. And you think it was because they earned it, how naive. Class traitor.