imagine the most orwellian government possible, and it will be a government that uses highly addictive drugs to control the masses. highly addictive drugs are the greatest enemy to freedom in the history of the world. if you don't understand this, you understand nothing
That is exactly what is happening right now. Through prohibition, government (and criminal gangs, and powerful lobbies) are using drugs to control the masses and get what they want. "If you don't understand that you understand nothing." (Notice how I threw that back in your face at the end there? I would never say anything like that under normal circumstances because it adds nothing to the argument. Make a good argument so that it stands alone. Then you don't have to accuse people of being stupid if they disagree with you.)
As for your issue with addictive substances ruining people's lives. My opinion is that those lives simply are not worth saving. It is just survival of the fittest. If you want to F yourself up on meth, go right ahead. Give the drugs out freely and force people to be responsible for themselves. Eventually society (and the species) will be better for it. Though there is likely to be a lot of ugliness and pain along the way. Unfortunately most people (as you exemplify) are unwilling to go through the growing pain phase to get to something better. This is another major flaw in our species. It is the same flaw that will prevent us from making significant cuts to the deficit before the country goes bankrupt.
On PBS series Antique Roadshow, rare Mark Zuckerberg Action Figure said to be worth 2 trillion dollars.
Unfortunately, due to inflation, 1 trillion dollars in 3000 is only worth 50 cents in year 2000 dollars.
There is only one way to be a PC gamer now days and maintain your sanity.
1. Download the DRM free game and play it.
2. At the time the Ultimate Edition of the game comes out and is on sale, purchase it as a courtesy if you enjoyed playing the game.
This takes no effort and allows you to avoid all the DRM bull and release after release of little DLC content at $10 a pop. Oh, and it maintains a clear conscience.
Well if your looking at anecdotal evidence, I ordered and Ipad from the apple store (as a gift) and it didn't even ship until 4 days after it was supposed to be delivered. This is with a promise of "ships in 24 hours". Apple customer service ran me around for an hour claiming I hadn't even made an order until suddenly they found it in "some other system". They then promised it would still deliver on time. I don't see why they just couldn't have been honest and told me they were backordered instead of wasting an hour of my time mostly listening to crappy on-hold musak!
but if you say something like caffeine should be legally equal to something like methamphetamine, such a world has downsides even worse than the war on drugs
Fannie guarantees loans that no bank would touch if it had to keep the loan on its own books. Saying that loans were paid off well through 2008 isn't saying much as that is too close to when the housing crisis began. See how well these get paid off into the future. Try a google search on "Fannie Mae forclosure" or "Fannie Mae Bailout" to see what the future holds. Read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Mae and then tell me Fannie Mae is or was a good thing!
As for the building, possibly helping to create a few temporary jobs in new york is not a good reason for fed backing of 3.5% loans on million dollar condos. I could as legitimately speculate that the reason behind doing this was political favors as you can it was for job creation.
Fannie didn't just start the avalanche, it is continuing even now. Fannie guarantees bad loans that fail and we the tax payers then pay the originating banks. Can anyone tell me why this project needs FHA backing, for example? http://therealdeal.com/newyork/articles/long-island-city-l-haus-gets-fha-approval 3.5% down on million plus condos. Come get some.
bad regulation compounds an existing problem. you believe bad regulation is actually the source of the problem. this is like saying that if the police didn't have corrupt officers that no one would get robbed. hilarious!
I think it is more like having the corrupt police participate in and encourage the robbery can be worse than not having any police. People will always get robbed in both situations. The issue is which is worse.
please try to understand that having no regulations is far, far worse than whatever problems we have. really. take your kneejerk blinders off for once and examine the simple truth, please
You haven't provided an argument in any way that shows that having no regulation is far worse than what we have. You only believe that it is obviously so. Yet you call the other guy "propagandized". That and other name calling is the extent of your argument and yet you are marked "insightful". That is indeed hilarious.
yes, the feds forgot to lock the doors. which allowed the robbers to steal the loot. so you blame the feds, and give the robbers a pass! and then, you conclude that the real solution to the robbery is to take off the doors entirely!
I didn't see anyone attempting to give banks a pass in this. This discussion is not about the banks, it is about the role of fed government. The fact is that the government enabled the banks to make bad loans in several ways. They guaranteed bad loans directly through fanny and freddy. They allowed bad loans to be sold by the originating bank as high quality investments through lack of regulation and oversight. They encourage people to take out risky adjustable rate loans when they should have been (AGAIN) regulating these loans. They encourage people to buy homes with high mortgages by giving large tax breaks. They encourage speculative investment in homes by giving large capital gains write offs for home sales. (I believe it was first $500k of sale has no gains tax if you owned house for 2+ years. Could still be that way.) The fact is the fed government was totally complicit in the housing bubble, and negligent in the credit bubble.
the regulations don't tell you how to live your life, fool. the regulations simply prevent you from committing crimes. duh. is it your assertion that if we had no laws against mugging and no police to stop muggers that no one would get mugged? then why the hell do you believe that an unregulated marketplace will have no crimes committed? why are you so daft?
Just more non-substantive name calling and strawmen. I think we all agree that the concept of regulation is a great idea in theory. However, we have a very large central government now and they are failing to successfully regulate anything, and in fact are making many things worse, so what good is it?
There are really 5 morons that would mark this straw-man bullcrap as interesting! The poster has no clue how to form a logical argument to make his case.
So if I write: "Please learn economics. Please read up on history. Please wake up from propaganda. Please learn to use capital letters. Your really believe the large central government we have is helping the economy function better? It is so disturbing that so many people like you think that the government was not complicit in the financial meltdown.", five people are going to mark me insightful? Amazing!
Slashdot Mirror
imagine the most orwellian government possible, and it will be a government that uses highly addictive drugs to control the masses. highly addictive drugs are the greatest enemy to freedom in the history of the world. if you don't understand this, you understand nothing
That is exactly what is happening right now. Through prohibition, government (and criminal gangs, and powerful lobbies) are using drugs to control the masses and get what they want. "If you don't understand that you understand nothing." (Notice how I threw that back in your face at the end there? I would never say anything like that under normal circumstances because it adds nothing to the argument. Make a good argument so that it stands alone. Then you don't have to accuse people of being stupid if they disagree with you.)
As for your issue with addictive substances ruining people's lives. My opinion is that those lives simply are not worth saving. It is just survival of the fittest. If you want to F yourself up on meth, go right ahead. Give the drugs out freely and force people to be responsible for themselves. Eventually society (and the species) will be better for it. Though there is likely to be a lot of ugliness and pain along the way. Unfortunately most people (as you exemplify) are unwilling to go through the growing pain phase to get to something better. This is another major flaw in our species. It is the same flaw that will prevent us from making significant cuts to the deficit before the country goes bankrupt.
On PBS series Antique Roadshow, rare Mark Zuckerberg Action Figure said to be worth 2 trillion dollars. Unfortunately, due to inflation, 1 trillion dollars in 3000 is only worth 50 cents in year 2000 dollars.
There is only one way to be a PC gamer now days and maintain your sanity. 1. Download the DRM free game and play it. 2. At the time the Ultimate Edition of the game comes out and is on sale, purchase it as a courtesy if you enjoyed playing the game. This takes no effort and allows you to avoid all the DRM bull and release after release of little DLC content at $10 a pop. Oh, and it maintains a clear conscience.
Well if your looking at anecdotal evidence, I ordered and Ipad from the apple store (as a gift) and it didn't even ship until 4 days after it was supposed to be delivered. This is with a promise of "ships in 24 hours". Apple customer service ran me around for an hour claiming I hadn't even made an order until suddenly they found it in "some other system". They then promised it would still deliver on time. I don't see why they just couldn't have been honest and told me they were backordered instead of wasting an hour of my time mostly listening to crappy on-hold musak!
but if you say something like caffeine should be legally equal to something like methamphetamine, such a world has downsides even worse than the war on drugs
Like what?
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-14/fannie-freddie-fix-at-160-billion-with-1-trillion-worst-case.html
bubbles and pops and is manipulated by large players
do you deny that?
Are you talking to me? I agree, with the largest players being the Fed Govt and the Fed Reserve.
Fannie guarantees loans that no bank would touch if it had to keep the loan on its own books. Saying that loans were paid off well through 2008 isn't saying much as that is too close to when the housing crisis began. See how well these get paid off into the future. Try a google search on "Fannie Mae forclosure" or "Fannie Mae Bailout" to see what the future holds. Read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Mae and then tell me Fannie Mae is or was a good thing!
As for the building, possibly helping to create a few temporary jobs in new york is not a good reason for fed backing of 3.5% loans on million dollar condos. I could as legitimately speculate that the reason behind doing this was political favors as you can it was for job creation.
Fannie didn't just start the avalanche, it is continuing even now. Fannie guarantees bad loans that fail and we the tax payers then pay the originating banks. Can anyone tell me why this project needs FHA backing, for example? http://therealdeal.com/newyork/articles/long-island-city-l-haus-gets-fha-approval 3.5% down on million plus condos. Come get some.
bad regulation compounds an existing problem. you believe bad regulation is actually the source of the problem. this is like saying that if the police didn't have corrupt officers that no one would get robbed. hilarious!
I think it is more like having the corrupt police participate in and encourage the robbery can be worse than not having any police. People will always get robbed in both situations. The issue is which is worse.
please try to understand that having no regulations is far, far worse than whatever problems we have. really. take your kneejerk blinders off for once and examine the simple truth, please
You haven't provided an argument in any way that shows that having no regulation is far worse than what we have. You only believe that it is obviously so. Yet you call the other guy "propagandized". That and other name calling is the extent of your argument and yet you are marked "insightful". That is indeed hilarious.
yes, the feds forgot to lock the doors. which allowed the robbers to steal the loot. so you blame the feds, and give the robbers a pass! and then, you conclude that the real solution to the robbery is to take off the doors entirely!
I didn't see anyone attempting to give banks a pass in this. This discussion is not about the banks, it is about the role of fed government. The fact is that the government enabled the banks to make bad loans in several ways. They guaranteed bad loans directly through fanny and freddy. They allowed bad loans to be sold by the originating bank as high quality investments through lack of regulation and oversight. They encourage people to take out risky adjustable rate loans when they should have been (AGAIN) regulating these loans. They encourage people to buy homes with high mortgages by giving large tax breaks. They encourage speculative investment in homes by giving large capital gains write offs for home sales. (I believe it was first $500k of sale has no gains tax if you owned house for 2+ years. Could still be that way.) The fact is the fed government was totally complicit in the housing bubble, and negligent in the credit bubble.
the regulations don't tell you how to live your life, fool. the regulations simply prevent you from committing crimes. duh. is it your assertion that if we had no laws against mugging and no police to stop muggers that no one would get mugged? then why the hell do you believe that an unregulated marketplace will have no crimes committed? why are you so daft?
Just more non-substantive name calling and strawmen. I think we all agree that the concept of regulation is a great idea in theory. However, we have a very large central government now and they are failing to successfully regulate anything, and in fact are making many things worse, so what good is it?
There are really 5 morons that would mark this straw-man bullcrap as interesting! The poster has no clue how to form a logical argument to make his case. So if I write: "Please learn economics. Please read up on history. Please wake up from propaganda. Please learn to use capital letters. Your really believe the large central government we have is helping the economy function better? It is so disturbing that so many people like you think that the government was not complicit in the financial meltdown.", five people are going to mark me insightful? Amazing!