Can you also tell me how the fundamentals of physics no longer exist now, that many people don't believe in it
Physics is based on testable hypotheses, repeatable because they depend on unchanging rules of the universe. Economics is largely dependent on what people value, and therefore infinitely more variable.
But I can see why you're such a fan if Schiff now, if that's a surprise to you.
You're not getting the whole point: the "fundamentals" of economics no longer exist. No major world player accepts classical economics, so they ignore the "rules" that they used to accept. If the whole world decides to return to classical economic theory, then Peter Schiff will be right. Until that happens, Peter's opinions are largely divorced from reality. Does he really think gold will be worth more than dollars in the event the American economy collapses? If America goes down, all of the rules go out the window. Schiff does not understand is that the assignment of value to Gold is just as transient as the assignment of value to fiat currencies. Before gold it was oxen, or seashells, or whatever. If there's no bread for US dollars, there's certainly not going to be any for Krugerrands. Do you know why?
US dollars represent about a quarter of a million highly trained soldiers posted on every corner of the earth in 700 different bases, backed by the most technologically advanced military in the world. We're only 30 minutes away from blowing your shit up, and also happen to have encircled 90% of what's left of the world's oil. And energy is the true currency. Everything else is basically meaningless, because it's the only required component of all modern economies besides water and food. It's the political element, beyond the new dynamics of modern economies, that Schiff cannot factor in. Talk about savings rates and trade imbalances all you want, but as long as we have the guns and the oil, we get to decide what's valuable.
Now, I think long term it's probably unsustainable. Thirty more years of militarism may in fact bankrupt us beyond the point of no return, or utterly destroy the earth in another world war, but I believe we will start drawing down sooner rather than later. Just like the Chinese youth believe democracy will happen "within the party," any financial reform is going to happen within the current framework of fiat currencies and worldwide diplomatic arrangements. There are too many people - very powerful, wealthy people - who are invested in the status quo to let go of the current system overnight. Yes, the same people who engineered the bailout, and the same people who are going to arrive at a new framework of international financial relations basically aimed at not pissing off America and China.
Yes, world financial markets are a trillion dollar casino. Yeah, it has little to do with the "real" economy, and eventually it will get fixed. But if it gets fixed in the way Schiff wants, everyone loses, and it's simply not going to happen that way.
"...bulk of the downside will happen in the next couple of years." Inflation will be a major problem Dow will fall to 2,000 to 4,000 - "...might go below 2,000..." "...get out of the dollar..."
He got lucky with gold.
I think, as I stated before, that he has a very good handle on classical economics, savings rates, overvalued assets, and the like. But the world no longer operates by those rules, since they strangle economies with false scarcities of currency. Europe and China know that America is too big to fail. No one wants to see the result of an overnight power vacuum, but they're going to gladly accept a slow decline, just as the American public will accept a slower deflation with government intervention instead of the crash and hyperinflation that Peter has been predicting for ten years.
Admittedly, I was initially impressed with his predictions, but now I'm fairly he's just a broken clock trying to cash in before the time changes again. America, compared to most of the world, has excellent infrastructure, natural resources, and a vibrant economy. Not to mention the obscene amount of political and military muscle.
But if you want to see the American economy strangled, and the dollar crash, and investment in foreign nations skyrocket, by all means: Vote Schiff.
And I don't disagree, but again, you have failed to show how this is different than 95% of the other politicians out there.
I can't think of a similar example from either party in the last 20 years. Well, maybe Rand Paul.
Once again, you are completely mischaracterizing the argument.
The argument is absurd, so I have to start eliminating logic in order of absurdity. First you have to establish if you believe the Government has dominion over a female citizen's body. That's a yes or no sort of question. Then you have to decide at which point a fertilized egg has more rights than the person it depends on for it's existence. The Republican platform, when you remove all of the empty rhetoric, states that only God (or Nature if you're being polite) has the right to cause an abortion.
Perhaps, and if the Democratic party really cared about the environment, they wouldn't fly in jets and use so much hair spray. Politicians are almost all liars and hypocrites. So, what's your point?
My point is that hypocrisy isn't uniform. If abortion is murder, why isn't collateral damage? If the Bible belongs in the classroom, why not the Qu'ran, or the Bhagavad Gita? If the poor need to be held accountable, why not Wall Street? If we believe in our nation's right to self rule, why don't we support it for anyone else?
Yeah, Democrats aren't much better. But the differences still matter.
Well, no WMDs of any sort is a lie or at the very least a half truth.
Citation? I mean, besides the leftover and long inert American weapons that we gave them in the 80s. You know, the ones they used to kill the Kurds with.
Also the Iraqi's weren't fullfilling their obligations under the treaty which ended their illegal invasion of their neighbor(Kuwait)
In that case, the UN would decide when and where to use force. The Pentagon's decision to unilaterally intervene was still illegal, as no individual member country can decide such things according to the UN Charter. Besides, Israel has similar resolutions against it regarding it's nuclear program, but curiously I did not hear the call to invade Tel Aviv in order to resolve their non-compliance.
And since the US removed from power in Iraq the regime which had tried to invade Iran, the Iranians should feel safer.
We were selling Iran weapons at the same time we were selling them to Iraq. Notwithstanding the fact that we, along with the British, materially supported a military dictator in Iran from 1953 until 1979 when the Iranians took back their own government, in yet another example of the destruction of Arab nationalism resulting in a fundamentalist and militarist uprising. Although metropolitan Iranians love the American people and their ideals, they despise the American government - especially the CIA - much more.
But you are right, we have handed Iran the middle east on a silver platter. We removed the only thing resembling a secular government in the area by destroying Iraq, which will, as soon as we let them have a fair election, send Shia to the top seats of government, and their strengthening relationship with Tehran will only improve.
you shouldn't be able to kill someone just because they can't speak for themselves and are inconvenient for you
You should admend that to read: I don't believe you should be able to kill someone because they can't speak for themselves and are inconvenient -- unless of course they are already born and poor, or potentially a terrorist, or near a potential terrorist.
This is true. But they are still dependent on Evangelicals for their vote.
White evangelical Protestants have been one of the most faithful Republican constituencies in presidential elections in recent years, voting overwhelmingly for GOP candidates. In 2004, for example, 79% of white evangelicals supported President Bush, while just 21% supported his Democratic opponent, John Kerry. White evangelicals also accounted for a third of Bush's total votes that year.
To claiming that they're delusional is insulting and unnecessary
If I say I am talking to an invisible person, I would be called delusional. If you say you're talking to an invisible God, I don't think you should be treated any differently.
Do you honestly believe that conservatives are the only politicians who flip-flop or vote for popular issues with which they secretly disagree?
McCain flipped on: Bush taxes and Iraq war costs, privatizing social security, habeas corpus, catering to agents of intolerance (like Falwell), progressive tax fairness... this is called an abdication of principles, or a sign that you didn't have any in the first place.
As far as the abortion issues go, that's what is comes down to: do you believe a woman's body belongs to the government? If no, then when do you think a fetus has the rights of a human being? If you say the second after an egg is fertilized, I call bullshit, especially if you believe in some cult or another. If abortion is murder, then God has a few hundred thousand years of infanticide on his hands.
If the Republican party really cared about preventing abortion, they'd make condoms and day after pills free. But what they really care about is the political advantages anti-abortionism provides them. They'd rather have the abortions continue so you'll be more willing to write them a check.
The only thing your argument lacks is clarity and at least a passing acquaintance with reality.
My favorite paragraph from the link is this: "Largely as a result of federal regulations and union policies, Detroit now has the lowest graduation rates in the country and the highest unemployment and crime rates in the nation. In essence, Detroit is a microcosm of what happens to the golden goose when the federal government takes over."
Then it proceeds -- without any data whatsoever -- to explain how Detroit was destroyed by "left" policies. It doesn't even mention a single specific policy, most probably because this is all just someone's imagination.
Germany has much stronger union membership than the United States, and it's unemployment rate is currently lower, it's people generally happier, healthier, and it has less poverty, despite just having absorbed East Germany and all of it's problems. So, we can't blame unions or left-leaning policies, since they seem to work in other places. You could blame American unions specifically, or perhaps the short sighted decisions about moving the poor out of middle class neighborhoods in the 60s, but that would require a rational argument that you have not yet provided. (I will be happy to provide sources about the German economy if you are incapable of finding them yourself.)
Progressive taxes work. Adam Smith knew it, every economist who believes in math knows it, and as evidence by the stunning success of every western nation that has them, the world knows it as well. Furthermore, the rich have tripled their income since 1980 and seen their tax rates reduced. Meanwhile, the bottom four quintiles of Americans have seen only marginal gains that have barely kept pace with inflation. So perhaps the problem is that we are now suffering not only from paranoid militarism, but also a failure of the progressive tax code to provide infrastructure for the economy at large.
At any rate, both parties are owned by the same people who own Fox News, and MSNBC, and every other corporation. The Democrats do depend on votes from the lower middle class, so they are more likely to allow some policies that actually help to slip through. The Republicans depend on Evangelicals, so they pander to their constitutents in the same way. The difference is being poor and wanting to better yourself is a hell of a lot more rational than thinking that America was chosen by God to fight Evil, or that evolution isn't real, or that Christianity is non-violent.
Are you honestly trying to tell me that muslim theocracies aren't a threat? Have you seen most countries in the middle east?
Theocracies are a threat, regardless of their religion - and they don't have to be based on Islam or Christianity. Just look at North Korea, or Nazi Germany, or Stalinist Russia. All of these forms of government give ultimate power to a single man with disastrous consequences. This is one of the reasons America was different - it was the only place in the world where a God-king or dictator didn't rule with impunity, or where people didn't murder each other in the streets for being in the wrong sect of Christianity or Islam.
As far as the middle east goes, Iran is developing nuclear weapons to defend themselves. Why, you might ask? Because we just invaded two of their neighbors. We have proven that even Iraq, which had been inspected by the UN for years and had no WMDs of any sort was susceptible to invasion if the United States unilaterally and illegally decided to proceed. The only thing that seems to deter the US from unbridled aggression is a nuclear defense, so I think it's a perfectly rational decision.
By the way, your taxes pay for the murder of civilians all of the world, and it's much more expensive than abortion. Just thought you'd like to know.
The only difference between what I said and what you said is that you believe Schiff has good intentions. But the fact remains: Schiff is personally invested right now in the failure of the US dollar. He has staked his reputation on it. If presented with an option to freeze spending and deny social services on a massive scale that would certainly destroy the American economy, Schiff would support it, because he has said many times before that such a collapse is the cure our economy needs for the disease of cheap interest.
Peter Schiff understands perfectly the concept of classical economics. It's unfortunate that it has nothing to do with the modern world. He can't model the relationships between China and America and Europe because he simply doesn't believe in economic theory based on math. That's why he's been wrong on the dollar versus the Euro, and why he's been wrong on gold, but since he sticks to the same line year after year, sometimes he seems right.
and not so that they can personally make money or get more power.
I would caution anyone voting for Peter Schiff, who's ultimate goal is to crash the dollar since he has been predicting that for about a decade. Solipsism can do just as much damage as greed or a lust for power.
I agree with Ron Paul on many things, but as long as he stays within the Republican Party, they'll never let him be more than a sideshow.
The Republican party depends on a group of deeply delusional voters known as Evangelicals. That's why, in the 21st Century, there are elected officials pretending to be concerned about gay couples, pretending that evolution is a lie that shouldn't be taught as fact, and pretending that a woman's body is the property of the Federal Government.
The Democratic party has it's fair share of hypocrites, but only one party demands delusion as part of their party platform. They are still demanding God be put back in Government, and pretending the founding fathers wanted the same thing. Their next sentence could be about the dangers of muslim theocracies, but their delusion is thought-proof. They know God chose America to fight Evil, just like their old hero President said himself: he answers to a higher father, even if the father he has in reality fought the same war against the same army only a decade earlier.
Read from the bottom up for chronological order, which goes roughly like this:
Pre election: Allende may align himself with the Communists, so prepare for divestment and possible action if he's elected. We cannot tolerate any example of an OAS country independent and working with Russia or Cuba, or in any way harming US interests.
Post election: Now that Allende has been elected, here are the options for getting rid of him. Propaganda campaigns have already begun.
Post assassination: "Chile's coup d'etat was close to perfect."
Post political executions: This telegram, written by Ambassador Popper and directed to the U.S. Secretary of State, reports on a meeting between Assistant Secretary of State Jack Kubisch, and Chile's foreign minister General Huerta on the controversy over two U.S. citizens--Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi--executed by the military after the coup. Kubisch notes that he is raising this issue "in the context of the need to be careful to keep relatively small issues in our relationship from making our cooperation more difficult."
Allende, who was the elected president of Chile before the coup, gave a final speech while British-made jets dropped bombs on the presidential palace on 9/11/73:
My friends, Surely this will be the last opportunity for me to address you. The Air Force has bombed the antennas of Radio Magallanes. My words do not have bitterness but disappointment. May they be a moral punishment for those who have betrayed their oath: soldiers of Chile, titular commanders in chief, Admiral Merino, who has designated himself Commander of the Navy, and Mr. Mendoza, the despicable general who only yesterday pledged his fidelity and loyalty to the Government, and who also has appointed himself Chief of the Carabineros [paramilitary police]...
Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Go forward knowing that, sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open again and free men will walk through them to construct a better society.
Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!
These are my last words, and I am certain that my sacrifice will not be in vain, I am certain that, at the very least, it will be a moral lesson that will punish felony, cowardice, and treason. --Salvador Allende
BING is failing because it's result don't represent the tails of the search distribution. Well cars are the same.
If BING somehow cost thousands of dollars less per year, you may have had a point. Consumers, especially in this economy, are making smarter decisions when it comes to saving money. The inconvenience of renting a car the few times you actually go out of town far outweigh the cost of maintaining such a vehicle. And in fact, our gasoline usage has been declining since 2007.
The only thing the electric car threatens is 160 billion dollars of income every year for the 2 billion barrels of oil we wouldn't have to import for finished motor fuel, if 2/3 of the country switched to electric. There's also the terror of reliable electric drive trains, fewer moving parts, and the closure of tens of thousands of gas stations.
Current batteries for PHEVs could store the energy for driving the national average commute—about 33 miles round trip a day—so the study presumes that drivers would charge up overnight when demand for electricity is much lower.
Researchers found that in the Midwest and East, there is sufficient off-peak generation, transmission and distribution capacity to provide for all of today’s vehicles if they ran on batteries.
However, in the West, and specifically the Pacific Northwest, there is limited extra electricity because of the large amount of hydroelectric generation that is already heavily utilized, and increasing electricity from hydroelectric plants is difficult.
We were very conservative in looking at the idle capacity of power generation assets. The estimates didn’t include hydro, renewables or nuclear plants. It also didn’t include plants designed to meet peak demand because they don’t operate continuously. We still found that across the country 84 percent of the additional electricity demand created by PHEVs could be met by idle generation capacity.
—Michael Kintner-Meyer, PNNL [DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory]
The study also looked at the impact on the environment of an all-out move to PHEVs. The added electricity would come from a combination of coal-fired and natural gas-fired plants. Even with today’s power plants emitting greenhouse gases, the overall levels would be reduced because the entire process of moving a car one mile is more efficient using electricity than producing gasoline and burning it in a car’s engine...
Well, good on you. Libertarians who at least understand points 1, 2, and 3 are far and few between. So now we arrive at the problem of what government programs produce good results for the economy at large, and why you wouldn't support them, even if their tax on the economy was far outweighed by their benefits.
our government is perhaps 40-50% socialist
That is literally nonsense.
you might try living over there for a while where unemployment is frequently above 10% (even during "good" times)
European nations are required to include those who have given up looking for work, those who are underemployed, and those who are imprisoned in their employment statistics.
Compare apples to apples: the EU is sitting at around 10% unemployment, and the United States is closer to 17%. Greece's public debt to GDP ratio, and that of other "PIIGS" nations is comparable to the United States, but investors are more bullish on the American economy for some reason. Perhaps because it's owned by China.
Though the term did not enter popular use in the U.S. until the California electricity crisis of the early 2000s, outages had indeed occurred previously. The outages were almost always triggered by unusually hot temperatures during the summer, which causes a surge in demand due to heavy use of air conditioning. However, in 2004, taped conversations of Enron traders became public showing that traders were purposely manipulating the supply of electricity, in order to raise energy prices.
The DoE has stated that most of the Eastern Seaboard could support the energy requirements of every single car used for commuting today, without any changes to transmission or power production, as long as the cars are charged at night.
So isolationism means our imperialism is isolated to the Western Hemisphere? I think I can partially agree to that.
Hezbollah is not the only support system for Lebanon, far from it, it's a disruptive military and political entity only focused on Islamic militarism. Lebanon isn't an Islamic state you know, but Hezbollah would sure like them to become one. The United States entered Lebanon in the 1980s because there was a UN mandate, we went there with the French if you'll recall.
I find no resolutions that support your argument on this page. For the most part, the resolutions condemn Israel and demand that it withdraw from Lebanese territory. The US and France were supposed to be a multinational force that kept the peace after Israel invaded Lebanon and destroyed Beirut in retaliation for supporting the PLO, but were never seen as neutral in the Lebanese Civil War. As found on Wikipedia:
It is noteworthy that the United States provided direct naval gunfire support -- which I strongly opposed for a week -- to the Lebanese Army at a mountain village called Suq-al-Garb on 19 September and that the French conducted an air strike on 23 September in the Bekaa Valley. American support removed any lingering doubts of our neutrality, and I stated to my staff at the time that we were going to pay in blood for this decision. --Col. Timothy J. Geraghty, the commander of the Marines
Lebanon is a mostly muslim state, which has a constitution that forces a Christian leader - a constitution enforced by repeated Western intervention. If they decide they want a theocracy, then they do so at their own peril. As of 2006, again from Wikipedia:
On 26 July during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, 87 percent of Lebanese support Hezbollah's "retaliatory attacks on northern Israel", a rise of 29 percentage points from a similar poll conducted in February. More striking, however, was the level of support for Hezbollah's resistance from non-Shiite communities. Eighty percent of Christians polled supported Hezbollah, along with 80 percent of Druze and 89 percent of Sunnis.
Iran threatens to destroy Israel with atomic weapons, Israel has never made that threat to any other nation.
Israel has had it's famed "Samson Option" for a long time, and even this year has issued warnings through diplomatic channels that they will use tactical nukes to destroy Iranian's nuclear capacity if they feel it's necessary. In April of 2008, Ben-Eliezer said, "An Iranian attack against Israel would trigger a tough reaction that would lead to the destruction of the Iranian nation."
The last time Iran tried to invade another nation was in the 1980s. Israel's latest invasion of another nation was in 2006, and it has been illegally occupying parts of Palestine since 1967.
I got a used Verizon compatible Droid Incredible for about $300, and got a prepaid plan from Page Plus for $29 a month. It only comes with 50MB of data, but I'm usually under a WiFi umbrella. I still have used it when I needed directions or a phone number, and I think I've used 10MB in two weeks. (I got the idea from some blog, but can't find it for some reason.)
It hits everything on your list, costs less than just the data plan for AT&T (1200 min/1200 texts), and the coverage is great. Much faster than my iPhone 3G in general (e-mail, web, etc), though the intelligence of the touch keyboard was better on the iPhone. I do miss the ease of direct downloading podcasts, but I haven't really looked for a replacement yet.
Plus, it sends and receives phone calls like a champ. Which is, you know, a good feature for a phone to have.
The United States did that, it was called the 1920s and '30s.
The United States occupied Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Panama, Honduras, Guatemala, and had active military in Russia, Turkey, China, and Yugoslavia during those years. Not to mention we were selling weapons to the Nazis throughout the thirties. You'll remember, I hope, that Standard Oil was caught selling aviation fuel to the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese as late as 1941.
Were the United States to retreat back into a isolationist doctrine, the People's Republic, Russian Federation or Pan Islamic nationalism would quickly rise up and do terrible things.
That's more like it. If we don't rule the world with terroristic threats of violence, invasions, mass murder (or collateral damage, if you prefer) of civilians and their civilizations, who will?
How is planning for the DPRK or Iran "irrational"? Both governments are quickly arming for offensive goals against stable Republics (Japan, RoK, Israel) and even the Islamic neighbors of Iran are calling for military action before they totally ruin the region.
It's irrational because we created Iran, for one. Iran was a relatively stable democracy in 1953, but we decided to help the British retake "their" oil fields, and destroyed their secular government for money. Second, the DPRK is so poor and inept that they are barely able to get a Hiroshima size nuclear weapon to detonate, let alone transport a device that would survive the trip and explode correctly. Our assistance to Pakistan with their nuclear weapons technology seems far more disastrous, especially since they have not signed the NPT either. Of course, Israel still denies the obvious truth that they have nuclear stockpiles, and they refuse to give them up in exchange for Iranian reciprocation. But these are the same sort of people that still insist the UN weapons inspections programs didn't work in Iraq.
Recognizing the capabilities and threats of Syria are also rational they have been and are again destabilizing allies of Hezbollah
Hezbollah is the only functioning support system for Lebanese since Israel and the US have repeatedly invaded since the early eighties. I suspect your imaginary Chinese invasion would leave a similar shell of highly militant Baptists throughout the southeast, who also pray before their suicide attacks against the invading forces.
Something tells me you'd be rooting for the home team as well, and it's just unfortunate you can't understand why that spells long term disaster for any empire.
I was just pointing out how irrational the threat perception was. Basically, this is preparing our military for the eventuality of someone fighting back. Perhaps if we would stop arming and invading the world, we could spend less money arming ourselves.
Most of the sociopaths running fortune 500 companies aren't serial killers, or rapists.
True, but that wouldn't stop them from hiring that work out if it were profitable, and if they thought they could get away with it. The main difference between a criminal and a business genius is that one understands more intricately the phrase "plausible deniability."
Sadly your boss at your crappy minimum wage job is probably earning more than your teacher. Less than average pay, less than average teachers, less than average education.
I'll bet half the reason public schools in wealthy areas do so much better is not because the parents give more of a shit, but because it's more likely that the teachers want to live in that area. That, and it's easier to concentrate when you're not worrying about how to make ends meet before you're legally allowed to drive.
Require banks to pay for every single breach that is their fault. Right now, it's the merchants who get screwed. If someone walks into one of the retail outlets I consult for with a fake ID, matching fake credit card, and walks out with the merchandise, 9 times out of 10 there is some obscure rule that wasn't followed that will allow the cardholder to get their money back, and the bank to get their money back, leaving the merchant with the option to take cash only or take the hit and continue doing business. "Cybercrime" -- or as I like to call it, 21st Century Crime -- only gets worse from here.
This is free market capitalism at it's finest, where the costs always find their way to the entity with enough money to pay the bill, but not enough to fight the system that forces them to pay. Unfortunately, the government not giving two shits about small businesses has been old news for some time. Hopefully people are going to wise up and realize that you don't do away with the government, just the lobbyists and corporate revolving door that is currently ruining it.
Slashdot Mirror
Can you also tell me how the fundamentals of physics no longer exist now, that many people don't believe in it
Physics is based on testable hypotheses, repeatable because they depend on unchanging rules of the universe. Economics is largely dependent on what people value, and therefore infinitely more variable.
But I can see why you're such a fan if Schiff now, if that's a surprise to you.
You're not getting the whole point: the "fundamentals" of economics no longer exist. No major world player accepts classical economics, so they ignore the "rules" that they used to accept. If the whole world decides to return to classical economic theory, then Peter Schiff will be right. Until that happens, Peter's opinions are largely divorced from reality. Does he really think gold will be worth more than dollars in the event the American economy collapses? If America goes down, all of the rules go out the window. Schiff does not understand is that the assignment of value to Gold is just as transient as the assignment of value to fiat currencies. Before gold it was oxen, or seashells, or whatever. If there's no bread for US dollars, there's certainly not going to be any for Krugerrands. Do you know why?
US dollars represent about a quarter of a million highly trained soldiers posted on every corner of the earth in 700 different bases, backed by the most technologically advanced military in the world. We're only 30 minutes away from blowing your shit up, and also happen to have encircled 90% of what's left of the world's oil. And energy is the true currency. Everything else is basically meaningless, because it's the only required component of all modern economies besides water and food. It's the political element, beyond the new dynamics of modern economies, that Schiff cannot factor in. Talk about savings rates and trade imbalances all you want, but as long as we have the guns and the oil, we get to decide what's valuable.
Now, I think long term it's probably unsustainable. Thirty more years of militarism may in fact bankrupt us beyond the point of no return, or utterly destroy the earth in another world war, but I believe we will start drawing down sooner rather than later. Just like the Chinese youth believe democracy will happen "within the party," any financial reform is going to happen within the current framework of fiat currencies and worldwide diplomatic arrangements. There are too many people - very powerful, wealthy people - who are invested in the status quo to let go of the current system overnight. Yes, the same people who engineered the bailout, and the same people who are going to arrive at a new framework of international financial relations basically aimed at not pissing off America and China.
Yes, world financial markets are a trillion dollar casino. Yeah, it has little to do with the "real" economy, and eventually it will get fixed. But if it gets fixed in the way Schiff wants, everyone loses, and it's simply not going to happen that way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhJaVEWAG24&
Peter Schiff in 2002:
"...bulk of the downside will happen in the next couple of years."
Inflation will be a major problem
Dow will fall to 2,000 to 4,000 - "...might go below 2,000..."
"...get out of the dollar..."
He got lucky with gold.
I think, as I stated before, that he has a very good handle on classical economics, savings rates, overvalued assets, and the like. But the world no longer operates by those rules, since they strangle economies with false scarcities of currency. Europe and China know that America is too big to fail. No one wants to see the result of an overnight power vacuum, but they're going to gladly accept a slow decline, just as the American public will accept a slower deflation with government intervention instead of the crash and hyperinflation that Peter has been predicting for ten years.
Admittedly, I was initially impressed with his predictions, but now I'm fairly he's just a broken clock trying to cash in before the time changes again. America, compared to most of the world, has excellent infrastructure, natural resources, and a vibrant economy. Not to mention the obscene amount of political and military muscle.
But if you want to see the American economy strangled, and the dollar crash, and investment in foreign nations skyrocket, by all means: Vote Schiff.
And I don't disagree, but again, you have failed to show how this is different than 95% of the other politicians out there.
I can't think of a similar example from either party in the last 20 years. Well, maybe Rand Paul.
Once again, you are completely mischaracterizing the argument.
The argument is absurd, so I have to start eliminating logic in order of absurdity. First you have to establish if you believe the Government has dominion over a female citizen's body. That's a yes or no sort of question. Then you have to decide at which point a fertilized egg has more rights than the person it depends on for it's existence. The Republican platform, when you remove all of the empty rhetoric, states that only God (or Nature if you're being polite) has the right to cause an abortion.
Perhaps, and if the Democratic party really cared about the environment, they wouldn't fly in jets and use so much hair spray. Politicians are almost all liars and hypocrites. So, what's your point?
My point is that hypocrisy isn't uniform. If abortion is murder, why isn't collateral damage? If the Bible belongs in the classroom, why not the Qu'ran, or the Bhagavad Gita? If the poor need to be held accountable, why not Wall Street? If we believe in our nation's right to self rule, why don't we support it for anyone else?
Yeah, Democrats aren't much better. But the differences still matter.
Well, no WMDs of any sort is a lie or at the very least a half truth.
Citation? I mean, besides the leftover and long inert American weapons that we gave them in the 80s. You know, the ones they used to kill the Kurds with.
Also the Iraqi's weren't fullfilling their obligations under the treaty which ended their illegal invasion of their neighbor(Kuwait)
In that case, the UN would decide when and where to use force. The Pentagon's decision to unilaterally intervene was still illegal, as no individual member country can decide such things according to the UN Charter. Besides, Israel has similar resolutions against it regarding it's nuclear program, but curiously I did not hear the call to invade Tel Aviv in order to resolve their non-compliance.
And since the US removed from power in Iraq the regime which had tried to invade Iran, the Iranians should feel safer.
We were selling Iran weapons at the same time we were selling them to Iraq. Notwithstanding the fact that we, along with the British, materially supported a military dictator in Iran from 1953 until 1979 when the Iranians took back their own government, in yet another example of the destruction of Arab nationalism resulting in a fundamentalist and militarist uprising. Although metropolitan Iranians love the American people and their ideals, they despise the American government - especially the CIA - much more.
But you are right, we have handed Iran the middle east on a silver platter. We removed the only thing resembling a secular government in the area by destroying Iraq, which will, as soon as we let them have a fair election, send Shia to the top seats of government, and their strengthening relationship with Tehran will only improve.
you shouldn't be able to kill someone just because they can't speak for themselves and are inconvenient for you
You should admend that to read: I don't believe you should be able to kill someone because they can't speak for themselves and are inconvenient -- unless of course they are already born and poor, or potentially a terrorist, or near a potential terrorist.
Not all Republicans are evangelicals
This is true. But they are still dependent on Evangelicals for their vote.
White evangelical Protestants have been one of the most faithful Republican constituencies in presidential elections in recent years, voting overwhelmingly for GOP candidates. In 2004, for example, 79% of white evangelicals supported President Bush, while just 21% supported his Democratic opponent, John Kerry. White evangelicals also accounted for a third of Bush's total votes that year.
http://pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/Young-White-Evangelicals-Less-Republican-Still-Conservative.aspx
To claiming that they're delusional is insulting and unnecessary
If I say I am talking to an invisible person, I would be called delusional. If you say you're talking to an invisible God, I don't think you should be treated any differently.
Do you honestly believe that conservatives are the only politicians who flip-flop or vote for popular issues with which they secretly disagree?
McCain flipped on: Bush taxes and Iraq war costs, privatizing social security, habeas corpus, catering to agents of intolerance (like Falwell), progressive tax fairness... this is called an abdication of principles, or a sign that you didn't have any in the first place.
As far as the abortion issues go, that's what is comes down to: do you believe a woman's body belongs to the government? If no, then when do you think a fetus has the rights of a human being? If you say the second after an egg is fertilized, I call bullshit, especially if you believe in some cult or another. If abortion is murder, then God has a few hundred thousand years of infanticide on his hands.
If the Republican party really cared about preventing abortion, they'd make condoms and day after pills free. But what they really care about is the political advantages anti-abortionism provides them. They'd rather have the abortions continue so you'll be more willing to write them a check.
The only thing your argument lacks is clarity and at least a passing acquaintance with reality.
My favorite paragraph from the link is this: "Largely as a result of federal regulations and union policies, Detroit now has the lowest graduation rates in the country and the highest unemployment and crime rates in the nation. In essence, Detroit is a microcosm of what happens to the golden goose when the federal government takes over."
Then it proceeds -- without any data whatsoever -- to explain how Detroit was destroyed by "left" policies. It doesn't even mention a single specific policy, most probably because this is all just someone's imagination.
Germany has much stronger union membership than the United States, and it's unemployment rate is currently lower, it's people generally happier, healthier, and it has less poverty, despite just having absorbed East Germany and all of it's problems. So, we can't blame unions or left-leaning policies, since they seem to work in other places. You could blame American unions specifically, or perhaps the short sighted decisions about moving the poor out of middle class neighborhoods in the 60s, but that would require a rational argument that you have not yet provided. (I will be happy to provide sources about the German economy if you are incapable of finding them yourself.)
Progressive taxes work. Adam Smith knew it, every economist who believes in math knows it, and as evidence by the stunning success of every western nation that has them, the world knows it as well. Furthermore, the rich have tripled their income since 1980 and seen their tax rates reduced. Meanwhile, the bottom four quintiles of Americans have seen only marginal gains that have barely kept pace with inflation. So perhaps the problem is that we are now suffering not only from paranoid militarism, but also a failure of the progressive tax code to provide infrastructure for the economy at large.
At any rate, both parties are owned by the same people who own Fox News, and MSNBC, and every other corporation. The Democrats do depend on votes from the lower middle class, so they are more likely to allow some policies that actually help to slip through. The Republicans depend on Evangelicals, so they pander to their constitutents in the same way. The difference is being poor and wanting to better yourself is a hell of a lot more rational than thinking that America was chosen by God to fight Evil, or that evolution isn't real, or that Christianity is non-violent.
Are you honestly trying to tell me that muslim theocracies aren't a threat? Have you seen most countries in the middle east?
Theocracies are a threat, regardless of their religion - and they don't have to be based on Islam or Christianity. Just look at North Korea, or Nazi Germany, or Stalinist Russia. All of these forms of government give ultimate power to a single man with disastrous consequences. This is one of the reasons America was different - it was the only place in the world where a God-king or dictator didn't rule with impunity, or where people didn't murder each other in the streets for being in the wrong sect of Christianity or Islam.
As far as the middle east goes, Iran is developing nuclear weapons to defend themselves. Why, you might ask? Because we just invaded two of their neighbors. We have proven that even Iraq, which had been inspected by the UN for years and had no WMDs of any sort was susceptible to invasion if the United States unilaterally and illegally decided to proceed. The only thing that seems to deter the US from unbridled aggression is a nuclear defense, so I think it's a perfectly rational decision.
By the way, your taxes pay for the murder of civilians all of the world, and it's much more expensive than abortion. Just thought you'd like to know.
Let me rephrase to destroy your argument again:
Republicans believe that a woman's body is property of the Government.
There you go.
The only difference between what I said and what you said is that you believe Schiff has good intentions. But the fact remains: Schiff is personally invested right now in the failure of the US dollar. He has staked his reputation on it. If presented with an option to freeze spending and deny social services on a massive scale that would certainly destroy the American economy, Schiff would support it, because he has said many times before that such a collapse is the cure our economy needs for the disease of cheap interest.
Peter Schiff understands perfectly the concept of classical economics. It's unfortunate that it has nothing to do with the modern world. He can't model the relationships between China and America and Europe because he simply doesn't believe in economic theory based on math. That's why he's been wrong on the dollar versus the Euro, and why he's been wrong on gold, but since he sticks to the same line year after year, sometimes he seems right.
and not so that they can personally make money or get more power.
I would caution anyone voting for Peter Schiff, who's ultimate goal is to crash the dollar since he has been predicting that for about a decade. Solipsism can do just as much damage as greed or a lust for power.
I agree with Ron Paul on many things, but as long as he stays within the Republican Party, they'll never let him be more than a sideshow.
The Republican party depends on a group of deeply delusional voters known as Evangelicals. That's why, in the 21st Century, there are elected officials pretending to be concerned about gay couples, pretending that evolution is a lie that shouldn't be taught as fact, and pretending that a woman's body is the property of the Federal Government.
And if you don't believe me, just look at how pathetic McCain was when he had to prostrate himself in front of these idiots: http://thinkprogress.org/mccain-flip-flops/
The Democratic party has it's fair share of hypocrites, but only one party demands delusion as part of their party platform. They are still demanding God be put back in Government, and pretending the founding fathers wanted the same thing. Their next sentence could be about the dangers of muslim theocracies, but their delusion is thought-proof. They know God chose America to fight Evil, just like their old hero President said himself: he answers to a higher father, even if the father he has in reality fought the same war against the same army only a decade earlier.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8.htm
Read from the bottom up for chronological order, which goes roughly like this:
Pre election: Allende may align himself with the Communists, so prepare for divestment and possible action if he's elected. We cannot tolerate any example of an OAS country independent and working with Russia or Cuba, or in any way harming US interests.
Post election: Now that Allende has been elected, here are the options for getting rid of him. Propaganda campaigns have already begun.
Post assassination: "Chile's coup d'etat was close to perfect."
Post political executions: This telegram, written by Ambassador Popper and directed to the U.S. Secretary of State, reports on a meeting between Assistant Secretary of State Jack Kubisch, and Chile's foreign minister General Huerta on the controversy over two U.S. citizens--Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi--executed by the military after the coup. Kubisch notes that he is raising this issue "in the context of the need to be careful to keep relatively small issues in our relationship from making our cooperation more difficult."
Allende, who was the elected president of Chile before the coup, gave a final speech while British-made jets dropped bombs on the presidential palace on 9/11/73:
My friends,
Surely this will be the last opportunity for me to address you. The Air Force has bombed the antennas of Radio Magallanes.
My words do not have bitterness but disappointment. May they be a moral punishment for those who have betrayed their oath: soldiers of Chile, titular commanders in chief, Admiral Merino, who has designated himself Commander of the Navy, and Mr. Mendoza, the despicable general who only yesterday pledged his fidelity and loyalty to the Government, and who also has appointed himself Chief of the Carabineros [paramilitary police]...
Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Go forward knowing that, sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open again and free men will walk through them to construct a better society.
Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!
These are my last words, and I am certain that my sacrifice will not be in vain, I am certain that, at the very least, it will be a moral lesson that will punish felony, cowardice, and treason. --Salvador Allende
BING is failing because it's result don't represent the tails of the search distribution. Well cars are the same.
If BING somehow cost thousands of dollars less per year, you may have had a point. Consumers, especially in this economy, are making smarter decisions when it comes to saving money. The inconvenience of renting a car the few times you actually go out of town far outweigh the cost of maintaining such a vehicle. And in fact, our gasoline usage has been declining since 2007.
The only thing the electric car threatens is 160 billion dollars of income every year for the 2 billion barrels of oil we wouldn't have to import for finished motor fuel, if 2/3 of the country switched to electric. There's also the terror of reliable electric drive trains, fewer moving parts, and the closure of tens of thousands of gas stations.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/12/doe_study_offpe.html
Current batteries for PHEVs could store the energy for driving the national average commute—about 33 miles round trip a day—so the study presumes that drivers would charge up overnight when demand for electricity is much lower.
Researchers found that in the Midwest and East, there is sufficient off-peak generation, transmission and distribution capacity to provide for all of today’s vehicles if they ran on batteries.
However, in the West, and specifically the Pacific Northwest, there is limited extra electricity because of the large amount of hydroelectric generation that is already heavily utilized, and increasing electricity from hydroelectric plants is difficult.
We were very conservative in looking at the idle capacity of power generation assets. The estimates didn’t include hydro, renewables or nuclear plants. It also didn’t include plants designed to meet peak demand because they don’t operate continuously. We still found that across the country 84 percent of the additional electricity demand created by PHEVs could be met by idle generation capacity.
—Michael Kintner-Meyer, PNNL [DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory]
The study also looked at the impact on the environment of an all-out move to PHEVs. The added electricity would come from a combination of coal-fired and natural gas-fired plants. Even with today’s power plants emitting greenhouse gases, the overall levels would be reduced because the entire process of moving a car one mile is more efficient using electricity than producing gasoline and burning it in a car’s engine...
Well, good on you. Libertarians who at least understand points 1, 2, and 3 are far and few between. So now we arrive at the problem of what government programs produce good results for the economy at large, and why you wouldn't support them, even if their tax on the economy was far outweighed by their benefits.
our government is perhaps 40-50% socialist
That is literally nonsense.
you might try living over there for a while where unemployment is frequently above 10% (even during "good" times)
European nations are required to include those who have given up looking for work, those who are underemployed, and those who are imprisoned in their employment statistics.
Compare apples to apples: the EU is sitting at around 10% unemployment, and the United States is closer to 17%. Greece's public debt to GDP ratio, and that of other "PIIGS" nations is comparable to the United States, but investors are more bullish on the American economy for some reason. Perhaps because it's owned by China.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_blackout
Though the term did not enter popular use in the U.S. until the California electricity crisis of the early 2000s, outages had indeed occurred previously. The outages were almost always triggered by unusually hot temperatures during the summer, which causes a surge in demand due to heavy use of air conditioning. However, in 2004, taped conversations of Enron traders became public showing that traders were purposely manipulating the supply of electricity, in order to raise energy prices.
The DoE has stated that most of the Eastern Seaboard could support the energy requirements of every single car used for commuting today, without any changes to transmission or power production, as long as the cars are charged at night.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/12/doe_study_offpe.html
So isolationism means our imperialism is isolated to the Western Hemisphere? I think I can partially agree to that.
Hezbollah is not the only support system for Lebanon, far from it, it's a disruptive military and political entity only focused on Islamic militarism. Lebanon isn't an Islamic state you know, but Hezbollah would sure like them to become one. The United States entered Lebanon in the 1980s because there was a UN mandate, we went there with the French if you'll recall.
I find no resolutions that support your argument on this page. For the most part, the resolutions condemn Israel and demand that it withdraw from Lebanese territory. The US and France were supposed to be a multinational force that kept the peace after Israel invaded Lebanon and destroyed Beirut in retaliation for supporting the PLO, but were never seen as neutral in the Lebanese Civil War. As found on Wikipedia:
It is noteworthy that the United States provided direct naval gunfire support -- which I strongly opposed for a week -- to the Lebanese Army at a mountain village called Suq-al-Garb on 19 September and that the French conducted an air strike on 23 September in the Bekaa Valley. American support removed any lingering doubts of our neutrality, and I stated to my staff at the time that we were going to pay in blood for this decision. --Col. Timothy J. Geraghty, the commander of the Marines
Lebanon is a mostly muslim state, which has a constitution that forces a Christian leader - a constitution enforced by repeated Western intervention. If they decide they want a theocracy, then they do so at their own peril. As of 2006, again from Wikipedia:
On 26 July during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, 87 percent of Lebanese support Hezbollah's "retaliatory attacks on northern Israel", a rise of 29 percentage points from a similar poll conducted in February. More striking, however, was the level of support for Hezbollah's resistance from non-Shiite communities. Eighty percent of Christians polled supported Hezbollah, along with 80 percent of Druze and 89 percent of Sunnis.
Iran threatens to destroy Israel with atomic weapons, Israel has never made that threat to any other nation.
Israel has had it's famed "Samson Option" for a long time, and even this year has issued warnings through diplomatic channels that they will use tactical nukes to destroy Iranian's nuclear capacity if they feel it's necessary. In April of 2008, Ben-Eliezer said, "An Iranian attack against Israel would trigger a tough reaction that would lead to the destruction of the Iranian nation."
The last time Iran tried to invade another nation was in the 1980s. Israel's latest invasion of another nation was in 2006, and it has been illegally occupying parts of Palestine since 1967.
I got a used Verizon compatible Droid Incredible for about $300, and got a prepaid plan from Page Plus for $29 a month. It only comes with 50MB of data, but I'm usually under a WiFi umbrella. I still have used it when I needed directions or a phone number, and I think I've used 10MB in two weeks. (I got the idea from some blog, but can't find it for some reason.)
It hits everything on your list, costs less than just the data plan for AT&T (1200 min/1200 texts), and the coverage is great. Much faster than my iPhone 3G in general (e-mail, web, etc), though the intelligence of the touch keyboard was better on the iPhone. I do miss the ease of direct downloading podcasts, but I haven't really looked for a replacement yet.
Plus, it sends and receives phone calls like a champ. Which is, you know, a good feature for a phone to have.
The United States did that, it was called the 1920s and '30s.
The United States occupied Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Panama, Honduras, Guatemala, and had active military in Russia, Turkey, China, and Yugoslavia during those years. Not to mention we were selling weapons to the Nazis throughout the thirties. You'll remember, I hope, that Standard Oil was caught selling aviation fuel to the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese as late as 1941.
Were the United States to retreat back into a isolationist doctrine, the People's Republic, Russian Federation or Pan Islamic nationalism would quickly rise up and do terrible things.
That's more like it. If we don't rule the world with terroristic threats of violence, invasions, mass murder (or collateral damage, if you prefer) of civilians and their civilizations, who will?
How is planning for the DPRK or Iran "irrational"? Both governments are quickly arming for offensive goals against stable Republics (Japan, RoK, Israel) and even the Islamic neighbors of Iran are calling for military action before they totally ruin the region.
It's irrational because we created Iran, for one. Iran was a relatively stable democracy in 1953, but we decided to help the British retake "their" oil fields, and destroyed their secular government for money. Second, the DPRK is so poor and inept that they are barely able to get a Hiroshima size nuclear weapon to detonate, let alone transport a device that would survive the trip and explode correctly. Our assistance to Pakistan with their nuclear weapons technology seems far more disastrous, especially since they have not signed the NPT either. Of course, Israel still denies the obvious truth that they have nuclear stockpiles, and they refuse to give them up in exchange for Iranian reciprocation. But these are the same sort of people that still insist the UN weapons inspections programs didn't work in Iraq.
Recognizing the capabilities and threats of Syria are also rational they have been and are again destabilizing allies of Hezbollah
Hezbollah is the only functioning support system for Lebanese since Israel and the US have repeatedly invaded since the early eighties. I suspect your imaginary Chinese invasion would leave a similar shell of highly militant Baptists throughout the southeast, who also pray before their suicide attacks against the invading forces.
Something tells me you'd be rooting for the home team as well, and it's just unfortunate you can't understand why that spells long term disaster for any empire.
I was just pointing out how irrational the threat perception was. Basically, this is preparing our military for the eventuality of someone fighting back. Perhaps if we would stop arming and invading the world, we could spend less money arming ourselves.
Most of the sociopaths running fortune 500 companies aren't serial killers, or rapists.
True, but that wouldn't stop them from hiring that work out if it were profitable, and if they thought they could get away with it. The main difference between a criminal and a business genius is that one understands more intricately the phrase "plausible deniability."
Sadly your boss at your crappy minimum wage job is probably earning more than your teacher. Less than average pay, less than average teachers, less than average education.
I'll bet half the reason public schools in wealthy areas do so much better is not because the parents give more of a shit, but because it's more likely that the teachers want to live in that area. That, and it's easier to concentrate when you're not worrying about how to make ends meet before you're legally allowed to drive.
Require banks to pay for every single breach that is their fault. Right now, it's the merchants who get screwed. If someone walks into one of the retail outlets I consult for with a fake ID, matching fake credit card, and walks out with the merchandise, 9 times out of 10 there is some obscure rule that wasn't followed that will allow the cardholder to get their money back, and the bank to get their money back, leaving the merchant with the option to take cash only or take the hit and continue doing business. "Cybercrime" -- or as I like to call it, 21st Century Crime -- only gets worse from here.
This is free market capitalism at it's finest, where the costs always find their way to the entity with enough money to pay the bill, but not enough to fight the system that forces them to pay. Unfortunately, the government not giving two shits about small businesses has been old news for some time. Hopefully people are going to wise up and realize that you don't do away with the government, just the lobbyists and corporate revolving door that is currently ruining it.