I guess you can come full circle on the issue of how fast food tastes. I grew up with a suburbanites typical diet: single mom cooking average quick meals, often from cans or prepackaged stuff, sometimes fast food, sometimes healthier meals, sometimes comfort food like roasts, etc..
High school and early college fast food tasted good to me. Late college I started learning how to cook. After college I really got into cooking. Watching cooking shows, researching different ingredients, etc.. After learning how to make 3 star+ food in my own home, cheaply and often quickly, I was hooked. The ability to control the flavors exactingly meant every meal was custom tailored to my particular taste buds.
Any fast food now seems bland, feels unhealthy, and doesn't even seem like real food to me. I really don't think it is social conditioning. High quality, well prepared food just tastes 10x better. And (now this may be imaginary:) I swear I feel healthier and more full of energy. If you cook like that for a few months, I'd be willing to bet that a Big Mac would repulse you.
If we attribute the obesity problems in America only to a lack of personal discipline, that implies that Americans are the least disciplined citizenry of any modern westernized nation. I don't think that is true. There must be other factors that make it, on average, extra hard to avoid becoming obese in America.
There are a lot of food documentaries that point out all sorts of problems with our food system. It is actually pretty easy to become obese and not over eat in the US. A lot of our prepackaged / TV dinner type foods have enormous calorie counts. You could quite literally still feel hungry after every meal and gain weight.
You could push that back to discipline then, about making smarter decisions about what types of food to eat, but it is often not very clear about a particular food's total impact on your body. The massive use of Corn Syrup in just about everything doesn't help either.
You can also factor in larger issues, like the design of our cities / suburbs, necessitating that people drive to work. In more centrally planned urban centers in Europe (that tend to not have huge suburbs requiring commutes nearby), people tend to do a lot more walking or bike riding.
We also are a 'young food culture'. We don't value good food to the same extent that older country's do. Your average suburban Mom is likely buying all the packaged stuff, like Eggo's, instead of making things from scratch, which tend to be healthier.
Have any neutral sources backing those claims up? In the US the amount of litigation, and the regulations and testing procedures, are not much different than other westernized countries, yet our costs are disproportionately much higher.
It seems a way more simple explanation is to say that our health care costs are high because most health care is delivered by for profit organizations who are going to charge as high a price as the market can bare. Combine that with little to no competition on pricing for various reasons, and we are left with only the worst parts of a partially free market.
I know that just one factor: by law required emergency room service to any person, has driven many hospitals out of business (one I happened to be working for at the time). So we either strip out much of our laws that we have for moral reasons (emergency care, can't let a kid die because they can't pay), strip out our laws that limit competition, and strip out laws that we have deemed necessary for public safety, and let the buyer attempt to choose intelligently in a real wild west free market..... or, we remove all profit motive from the health care system and go single-payer / universal health care.
Although malpractice litigation is a growing problem in the United States as well as in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, there is limited evidence that it is responsible for much of the difference in health spending levels between the United States and these countries.
As the cost of health care goes up, the medical liability component of it has stayed fairly constant. That means it’s part of the medical price inflation system, but it’s not driving it. The number of claims is small relative to actual cases of medical malpractice.
"PAY: The teachers union wants a three-year contract that guarantees a 3-percent increase the first year and 2-percent increases for the second and third years. The contract also includes the possibility of being extended a fourth year with a 3-percent raise. A first-year teacher earns about $49,000, according to the National Council on Teacher Quality; the highest-paid teacher earns $92,227."
If you like that, you should try putty + vcxsrv.sourceforge.net + mRemote.
mRemote can connect using ssh, http, citrix, rdp, vnc and more protocols. When you set up a ssh connection for a server, you can choose a putty profile to use. And then putty is setup to talk to your xserver provided by vcxsrv.
I'm not sure sure you saw the most recent coverage about this, but things are a bit more complicated than one movie = lots of violent riots.
For instance, the Libyan assault on the US consulate wasn't protestors (in fact recent reporting says that there were not protestors), but rather a well organized militia associated with al-qaeda. The arrived in jeeps that had black al-qaeda flags. And this is 24 hours after a 9/11 al-qaeda memorial type video was released about the US killing al-qaeda's second in command. His nickname was "The Libyan".
As for the rest of the rioters, we could start with Egypt. According to Richard Engle's latest interview on the Maddow show, the protestors are motivated by religion, yes, but mostly by conspiracy theories. And keep in mind, the ones protesting are a tiny sliver of the population. Those conspiracy theories, like the US secretly funded the creation of this movie, that our troops in Afghanistan are ordered to burn Koran's, that free masons are involved to destroy Islam, etc.. have been subtly and at times not so subtly used by various dictators over the years to create suspicion of the west and unify people under that dictator. And at the same time shifting focus from real problems at home to focusing their attention on 'the real enemy' (the west).
Like is often the case, religion makes a nice simple excuse to act out over a what is mainly a general frustration/fear/anger about the circumstances you find yourself in. Poor economy, no job opportunities, repressive society, and you've been told all your life that their is some big conspiracy that is keeping you down...
It sure doesn't help to tamp down the conspiracy theories when we are still in a "no ends in sight" war on terror that is conducting secret operations all over the place.
Or even better: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/10/infiltrating_occupy_austin_activists_face_charges
Demonstrators arrested and charged with felonies (instead of misdemeanors) for using lock boxes (pvc tubes that two people put their hands in so that police cannot pull them apart) given to them to use by a cop that infiltrated their group.
"It's a pretty narrowly defined term with loopholes you can drive a tanker truck through."
That's is why the people I know who "buy organic" aren't just looking at the labels. We can all probably agree that the label is nearly worthless. I'm lucky living in Portland. We have enough people like these two:), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2LBICPEK6w , that many stores have sprung up that seek out food that is produced in such a way to be 1) tastier 2) local 3) sustainably grown. For instance: http://www.newseasonsmarket.com/our-departments/meat
When I travel to smaller towns, I find it impossible to find out anything about the food I'm buying.
You'd need something a bit more scientific than that to come to a conclusion on taste. For instance, it is immediately obvious that the taste is different if you drink milk from a free range grass fed cow vs a grain fed cow.
Likewise, if you fed someone the tomatoes we get in winter (all grown in Florida's sandy soil) vs one from a greenhouse grown in rich dark earth, the difference would be obvious.
The 'tastes' better thing really has nothing to do with organic vs inorganic though. It is about growing methods. However, more often than not, organic farmers will tend to pick growing methods that are a bit more 'natural' (grass fed vs grain, rich black soil vs sand that must be supported with chemicals).
I guess for me, when I think 'organic', farmer's markets come to mind. The stuff in stores like "Whole Foods" may or may not have been grown using a tastier method, despite being labeled organic.
That is really the big problem when debating organics: "organic" is not defined well.
Depends on what is being tested. Milk produced by wild grass fed cattle has a noticeable difference in taste from grain or alfalfa fed cattle. And winter tomatoes, the ones that mainly come from the sandy soils of Florida, are extremely bland compared to summer tomatoes grown in richer soil.
The person you responded to is correct "2) Where the definitions exist, they are re farming methods;"
It really has nothing to do with "organic". Which most people think means 'no chemicals'. It is about the growing method.
On the other hand we have a large group of people with a deluded sense of "entitlement": - i shouldn't have to wait because I'm international - i shouldn't have to watch advertising - i shouldn't have to buy a whole cable package - i shouldn't be limited to what device i watch it on
Care to explain why any of those 'wants' are delusional? Pick one, say, international viewers. Why should they have to wait? I've never heard a good explanation. (there might be some business reasons, but I've yet to hear them described).
It seems to me that there aren't any technological reasons or business reasons why those 'wants' couldn't be met, while *content producers* could still make money. People like Louis CK proved that point.
Why we don't have those 'wants' met is because the media industries know that an 'a la carte', direct to the consumer approach, would mean the death of their old behemoth structure whereby the vast majority of the profits go to the studios/cable companies, and not the content creators (actors, directors, camera folks, etc..).
If a group of actors/director banded together and pulled a "Louis CK" with a movie, I think it would be a game changer.
I think you have to check the dates carefully. I'm guessing that he started out agreeing with the AGW science from ~2000-2008, but in an article published in 2012, he said:
“Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming."
So in 2009 he found what he thought were problems with the science, became critical of it, decided to check it out, and then concluded:
"...that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.”
that translates to higher taxes for the rest of us which we can ill afford.
Taxes have not been this low in the last 50-60 years. Historically low. Somehow the country managed to survive with much higher tax rates. Look up any of the tons of graphs of taxes in the last 100 years.
The debate over raising or lowering taxes isn't using facts. It is 100% ideologically driven on the conservative side. Say everyone's taxes went up 5%, but instead of using that money for war, etc.., it went into things that government traditionally does well: infrastructure, basic research, , etc.. things that private business cannot or will not accomplish.
The problem is that these types of government duties produce beneficial results that A) take a long time to realize and B) aren't obvious to most tax payers. For example, that new electrical grid, water lines, improved roads, etc.. may have made possible many new small businesses opening up, increasing competition, giving consumers more choice, etc.. But to sell that to a voter is hard.
Likewise with basic non-profit driven research. Saying to a voter, "hey, let us tax you 1% more and we can quadruple the National Science budget, which, at some point in the future, will lead to great American innovation, improved health care, etc..".
Of course, the best solution would be to half our national defense budget, given that it is equal to something like the next top 10 defense spending countries combined, most of whom are our allies anyway.
Can you imagine what an extra 300 billion yearly being pumped into science, infrastructure, and general welfare could do if spent wisely? For one thing, it could mean free college for everyone who can pass an entrance test, like many European countries already have. Getting the profit motive out of education would be great. Students who wanted an education could have one, leave school with no debt, and contribute back to the country with a more skilled job generating much higher taxes.
But I think the argument falls down for music. Sure, following the 'services' argument, performers can make a living (in theory) by performing the music. But not all song-writers are also performers. So in this case, how would RMS propose that a songwriter get reimbursed? What about the people involved in the production of music, e.g. sound engineers.
If a songwriter chooses not to perform, I would suggest they have two options for payment: 1) Sell the song to a band that will perform it (or arrange some percent from each performance of it for ongoing revenue) or 2) provide additional value in a physical copy: poems, thoughts about the music, interesting artwork and a poster or two.
An mp3 should be a band's advertisement. As such, the sound engineers, etc.., should be paid by the artist.
I was listening to NPR's 'The Splendid Table' and the host was interviewing Sheryl Crow about her (now) healthy food she eats on tours. One of the things that Crow mentioned was that album sales are down for many musicians, and that pretty much all of them know that touring is the main source of income. In fact, even before wide spread file sharing, musicians always knew that touring is where the money is at. Very little money is earned by cd sales.
There really isn't any reason that sharing for personal use couldn't be legal tomorrow. Musicians would still make music. Well, perhaps it might weed out the over produced mega pop stars, but would that really be a bad thing? To be left with musicians who performed music because they love doing it?
Would you say though that some regulations are good and some are bad? But that aside, wouldn't you agree that having no regulations would result in monopolies in every industry?
A mix of good and bad regulation is far better working with a free market than none at all.
The Republican talking points have framed the situation to where any regulation, no matter how good, is considered bad. The motto is regulation=bad, always. I wish people would talk about specific regulations instead of generalities.
There is going to be over a billion dollars spent on each side of the Presidential race this year. Those donations by JP Morgan, Google, etc.. are pennies in comparison.
You likely don't know very many of the people that are really buying our elections. A few of them get caught in the spotlight from time to time, but not many. (Sheldon Adelson, Koch Brothers, etc..)
Of course many of those individuals do benefit from loser restrictions on places like JP Morgan, because they may have 10's of billions invested. But some of these rich donors have been very candid about having strong ideologies that are driving their donations. The probable increase in their fortunes is a side benefit for some of them.
And don't get me started on Supreme Court Justices attending events that are obviously political strategy conferences... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/24/koch-brothers-funds-secretive-gathering
People need to wake up. I'm honestly unsure even where to begin in combating this level of near fascism and corruption.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess you can come full circle on the issue of how fast food tastes. I grew up with a suburbanites typical diet: single mom cooking average quick meals, often from cans or prepackaged stuff, sometimes fast food, sometimes healthier meals, sometimes comfort food like roasts, etc..
High school and early college fast food tasted good to me. Late college I started learning how to cook. After college I really got into cooking. Watching cooking shows, researching different ingredients, etc.. After learning how to make 3 star+ food in my own home, cheaply and often quickly, I was hooked. The ability to control the flavors exactingly meant every meal was custom tailored to my particular taste buds.
Any fast food now seems bland, feels unhealthy, and doesn't even seem like real food to me. I really don't think it is social conditioning. High quality, well prepared food just tastes 10x better. And (now this may be imaginary:) I swear I feel healthier and more full of energy. If you cook like that for a few months, I'd be willing to bet that a Big Mac would repulse you.
If we attribute the obesity problems in America only to a lack of personal discipline, that implies that Americans are the least disciplined citizenry of any modern westernized nation. I don't think that is true. There must be other factors that make it, on average, extra hard to avoid becoming obese in America.
There are a lot of food documentaries that point out all sorts of problems with our food system. It is actually pretty easy to become obese and not over eat in the US. A lot of our prepackaged / TV dinner type foods have enormous calorie counts. You could quite literally still feel hungry after every meal and gain weight.
You could push that back to discipline then, about making smarter decisions about what types of food to eat, but it is often not very clear about a particular food's total impact on your body. The massive use of Corn Syrup in just about everything doesn't help either.
You can also factor in larger issues, like the design of our cities / suburbs, necessitating that people drive to work. In more centrally planned urban centers in Europe (that tend to not have huge suburbs requiring commutes nearby), people tend to do a lot more walking or bike riding.
We also are a 'young food culture'. We don't value good food to the same extent that older country's do. Your average suburban Mom is likely buying all the packaged stuff, like Eggo's, instead of making things from scratch, which tend to be healthier.
I second the taste argument. Not only for grass fed beef but also for grass fed milk. It has more flavor.
Plus, since it usually costs more, it tends to limit how much beef I eat, which is a good thing for a variety of reasons.
Have any neutral sources backing those claims up? In the US the amount of litigation, and the regulations and testing procedures, are not much different than other westernized countries, yet our costs are disproportionately much higher.
http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/24/4/903.full
It seems a way more simple explanation is to say that our health care costs are high because most health care is delivered by for profit organizations who are going to charge as high a price as the market can bare. Combine that with little to no competition on pricing for various reasons, and we are left with only the worst parts of a partially free market.
I know that just one factor: by law required emergency room service to any person, has driven many hospitals out of business (one I happened to be working for at the time). So we either strip out much of our laws that we have for moral reasons (emergency care, can't let a kid die because they can't pay), strip out our laws that limit competition, and strip out laws that we have deemed necessary for public safety, and let the buyer attempt to choose intelligently in a real wild west free market..... or, we remove all profit motive from the health care system and go single-payer / universal health care.
http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/24/4/903.full
Although malpractice litigation is a growing problem in the United States as well as in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, there is limited evidence that it is responsible for much of the difference in health spending levels between the United States and these countries.
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/would-tort-reform-lower-health-care-costs/
As the cost of health care goes up, the medical liability component of it has stayed fairly constant. That means it’s part of the medical price inflation system, but it’s not driving it. The number of claims is small relative to actual cases of medical malpractice.
I'd try Cardapio out if I could install it. https://bugs.launchpad.net/cardapio/+bug/833382
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-natural-cycle.htm
Are you sure those numbers are right?
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/17/13915011-judge-declines-to-expedite-hearing-in-chicago-teacher-strike?lite
"PAY: The teachers union wants a three-year contract that guarantees a 3-percent increase the first year and 2-percent increases for the second and third years. The contract also includes the possibility of being extended a fourth year with a 3-percent raise. A first-year teacher earns about $49,000, according to the National Council on Teacher Quality; the highest-paid teacher earns $92,227."
If you like that, you should try putty + vcxsrv.sourceforge.net + mRemote.
mRemote can connect using ssh, http, citrix, rdp, vnc and more protocols. When you set up a ssh connection for a server, you can choose a putty profile to use. And then putty is setup to talk to your xserver provided by vcxsrv.
I'm not sure sure you saw the most recent coverage about this, but things are a bit more complicated than one movie = lots of violent riots.
For instance, the Libyan assault on the US consulate wasn't protestors (in fact recent reporting says that there were not protestors), but rather a well organized militia associated with al-qaeda. The arrived in jeeps that had black al-qaeda flags. And this is 24 hours after a 9/11 al-qaeda memorial type video was released about the US killing al-qaeda's second in command. His nickname was "The Libyan".
As for the rest of the rioters, we could start with Egypt. According to Richard Engle's latest interview on the Maddow show, the protestors are motivated by religion, yes, but mostly by conspiracy theories. And keep in mind, the ones protesting are a tiny sliver of the population. Those conspiracy theories, like the US secretly funded the creation of this movie, that our troops in Afghanistan are ordered to burn Koran's, that free masons are involved to destroy Islam, etc.. have been subtly and at times not so subtly used by various dictators over the years to create suspicion of the west and unify people under that dictator. And at the same time shifting focus from real problems at home to focusing their attention on 'the real enemy' (the west).
Like is often the case, religion makes a nice simple excuse to act out over a what is mainly a general frustration/fear/anger about the circumstances you find yourself in. Poor economy, no job opportunities, repressive society, and you've been told all your life that their is some big conspiracy that is keeping you down...
It sure doesn't help to tamp down the conspiracy theories when we are still in a "no ends in sight" war on terror that is conducting secret operations all over the place.
Or even better: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/10/infiltrating_occupy_austin_activists_face_charges
Demonstrators arrested and charged with felonies (instead of misdemeanors) for using lock boxes (pvc tubes that two people put their hands in so that police cannot pull them apart) given to them to use by a cop that infiltrated their group.
"It's a pretty narrowly defined term with loopholes you can drive a tanker truck through."
That's is why the people I know who "buy organic" aren't just looking at the labels. We can all probably agree that the label is nearly worthless. I'm lucky living in Portland. We have enough people like these two:), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2LBICPEK6w , that many stores have sprung up that seek out food that is produced in such a way to be 1) tastier 2) local 3) sustainably grown. For instance: http://www.newseasonsmarket.com/our-departments/meat
When I travel to smaller towns, I find it impossible to find out anything about the food I'm buying.
You'd need something a bit more scientific than that to come to a conclusion on taste. For instance, it is immediately obvious that the taste is different if you drink milk from a free range grass fed cow vs a grain fed cow.
Likewise, if you fed someone the tomatoes we get in winter (all grown in Florida's sandy soil) vs one from a greenhouse grown in rich dark earth, the difference would be obvious.
The 'tastes' better thing really has nothing to do with organic vs inorganic though. It is about growing methods. However, more often than not, organic farmers will tend to pick growing methods that are a bit more 'natural' (grass fed vs grain, rich black soil vs sand that must be supported with chemicals).
I guess for me, when I think 'organic', farmer's markets come to mind. The stuff in stores like "Whole Foods" may or may not have been grown using a tastier method, despite being labeled organic.
That is really the big problem when debating organics: "organic" is not defined well.
Depends on what is being tested. Milk produced by wild grass fed cattle has a noticeable difference in taste from grain or alfalfa fed cattle. And winter tomatoes, the ones that mainly come from the sandy soils of Florida, are extremely bland compared to summer tomatoes grown in richer soil.
The person you responded to is correct "2) Where the definitions exist, they are re farming methods;"
It really has nothing to do with "organic". Which most people think means 'no chemicals'. It is about the growing method.
They certainly don't seem to advertise that very well.
On the other hand we have a large group of people with a deluded sense of "entitlement":
- i shouldn't have to wait because I'm international
- i shouldn't have to watch advertising
- i shouldn't have to buy a whole cable package
- i shouldn't be limited to what device i watch it on
Care to explain why any of those 'wants' are delusional? Pick one, say, international viewers. Why should they have to wait? I've never heard a good explanation. (there might be some business reasons, but I've yet to hear them described).
It seems to me that there aren't any technological reasons or business reasons why those 'wants' couldn't be met, while *content producers* could still make money. People like Louis CK proved that point.
Why we don't have those 'wants' met is because the media industries know that an 'a la carte', direct to the consumer approach, would mean the death of their old behemoth structure whereby the vast majority of the profits go to the studios/cable companies, and not the content creators (actors, directors, camera folks, etc..).
If a group of actors/director banded together and pulled a "Louis CK" with a movie, I think it would be a game changer.
Wow, you've got crappy subsidies in your area. In Oregon it would cost you 9,000 for a 3Kw system.
http://earthshare-oregon.org/our-groups/profiles/oregonsolar/newsolarcredits
I think you have to check the dates carefully. I'm guessing that he started out agreeing with the AGW science from ~2000-2008, but in an article published in 2012, he said:
“Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming."
source: http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0730/Prominent-climate-change-denier-now-admits-he-was-wrong-video
So in 2009 he found what he thought were problems with the science, became critical of it, decided to check it out, and then concluded:
"...that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.”
that translates to higher taxes for the rest of us which we can ill afford.
Taxes have not been this low in the last 50-60 years. Historically low. Somehow the country managed to survive with much higher tax rates. Look up any of the tons of graphs of taxes in the last 100 years.
The debate over raising or lowering taxes isn't using facts. It is 100% ideologically driven on the conservative side. Say everyone's taxes went up 5%, but instead of using that money for war, etc.., it went into things that government traditionally does well: infrastructure, basic research, , etc.. things that private business cannot or will not accomplish.
The problem is that these types of government duties produce beneficial results that A) take a long time to realize and B) aren't obvious to most tax payers. For example, that new electrical grid, water lines, improved roads, etc.. may have made possible many new small businesses opening up, increasing competition, giving consumers more choice, etc.. But to sell that to a voter is hard.
Likewise with basic non-profit driven research. Saying to a voter, "hey, let us tax you 1% more and we can quadruple the National Science budget, which, at some point in the future, will lead to great American innovation, improved health care, etc..".
Of course, the best solution would be to half our national defense budget, given that it is equal to something like the next top 10 defense spending countries combined, most of whom are our allies anyway.
Can you imagine what an extra 300 billion yearly being pumped into science, infrastructure, and general welfare could do if spent wisely? For one thing, it could mean free college for everyone who can pass an entrance test, like many European countries already have. Getting the profit motive out of education would be great. Students who wanted an education could have one, leave school with no debt, and contribute back to the country with a more skilled job generating much higher taxes.
But I think the argument falls down for music. Sure, following the 'services' argument, performers can make a living (in theory) by performing the music. But not all song-writers are also performers. So in this case, how would RMS propose that a songwriter get reimbursed? What about the people involved in the production of music, e.g. sound engineers.
If a songwriter chooses not to perform, I would suggest they have two options for payment: 1) Sell the song to a band that will perform it (or arrange some percent from each performance of it for ongoing revenue) or 2) provide additional value in a physical copy: poems, thoughts about the music, interesting artwork and a poster or two.
An mp3 should be a band's advertisement. As such, the sound engineers, etc.., should be paid by the artist.
I was listening to NPR's 'The Splendid Table' and the host was interviewing Sheryl Crow about her (now) healthy food she eats on tours. One of the things that Crow mentioned was that album sales are down for many musicians, and that pretty much all of them know that touring is the main source of income. In fact, even before wide spread file sharing, musicians always knew that touring is where the money is at. Very little money is earned by cd sales.
There really isn't any reason that sharing for personal use couldn't be legal tomorrow. Musicians would still make music. Well, perhaps it might weed out the over produced mega pop stars, but would that really be a bad thing? To be left with musicians who performed music because they love doing it?
I wonder how accurate gpeters is given:
"Based on popular usage, it is 1.587 times more common for Jason to be a boy's name."
I have never heard of a women with the first name "Jason".
Interesting how median household income has increased by about 70% in 20 years
And adjust that for inflation and no one in the middle has seen a raise in over 10 years.
Would you say though that some regulations are good and some are bad? But that aside, wouldn't you agree that having no regulations would result in monopolies in every industry?
A mix of good and bad regulation is far better working with a free market than none at all.
The Republican talking points have framed the situation to where any regulation, no matter how good, is considered bad. The motto is regulation=bad, always. I wish people would talk about specific regulations instead of generalities.
There is going to be over a billion dollars spent on each side of the Presidential race this year. Those donations by JP Morgan, Google, etc.. are pennies in comparison.
You likely don't know very many of the people that are really buying our elections. A few of them get caught in the spotlight from time to time, but not many. (Sheldon Adelson, Koch Brothers, etc..)
Of course many of those individuals do benefit from loser restrictions on places like JP Morgan, because they may have 10's of billions invested. But some of these rich donors have been very candid about having strong ideologies that are driving their donations. The probable increase in their fortunes is a side benefit for some of them.
And don't get me started on Supreme Court Justices attending events that are obviously political strategy conferences... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/24/koch-brothers-funds-secretive-gathering
People need to wake up. I'm honestly unsure even where to begin in combating this level of near fascism and corruption.
Does that still work? Streamripper doesn't accept the grooveshark playlist URL.