He's not a climatologist. He has never done research on global warming. He has absolutely no data of his own. He is not an expert in this field. There is no reason, whatsoever, to listen to his opinions.
You might as well have your car mechanic perform surgery on you. After all, he's a professional, right? Therefore he must be qualified!
If your car mechanic tells you that you need to pay $790 to replace your gizrogyronmeter before you car implodes- when you brought the car in for an oil change- you don't have to be a mechanic to figure out you're being bullshitted and he probably has something else besides your best interests in mind.
If your surgeon is trying to sell you a $32,000 surgery on your feet because of hyspotoxiomosis of the anterior legamoid deltamint, and you came in for a mole removal, you don't have to be a PHD to see he just wants to fund his next vacation.
The fact is that AGW advocates demand 'solutions' involving control and expenditures that are entirely out of whack with their established credibility and perceived integrity.
Claiming "you can't understand it, it's too complex" in the face of the legitimate questions about the intent, integrity, and aims of Global Warming's high priests and salesmen is an evasion of the issue.
Though likely a good number of them would also be the first to spit in the face of black's or women's right's activists.
And now we come full circle, as the first gun control laws targeted free blacks to make them easier to lynch. Unarmed women are also easier to rape.
This has always been one of my least favorite lines of defense. Why not base your arguments on what we find to be right at the current time? The founding father's certainly don't have a monopoly on good ideas, and they never had to fit them into conditions that exist in the present.
The nature of humanity has not substantially changed in 250 years. Our toys have, and the extent that we bullsh*t ourselves about our current superiority has, but human nature? Unchanged.
Some principles, facts and philosophies are timeless. Others change with the season. I doubt you can differentiate between the two.
If 'right at the current time' is the sole basis of a legitimate 'right', then rights are subject to being argued away by charlatans and sophists. I'll pass, thank you, and fix my rights to be eternal and unchanging.
Environmental damage that happens in other countries counts as US caused if it's done by US corporations. E.g., the Union Carbide disaster may have happened in India, but it was a US corporation that caused it.
Come now, take responsibility for your (collective) actions.
Got it. Only white people have free will, and control their own destinies and everyone else's destiny at the same time. The democratically elected government of India has nothing to do with what they allow in their country./sarcasm off.
The problem with blaming everything on Whitey and/or the United States is it essentially reduces everyone else in the world to a pile of simple neurons that only react to what We do. It's the most racist, condescending attitude one could possibly have.
Well put. I would only add that all money is imaginary, and it simply serves as a medium of exchange for human endeavors. It's a beautifully chaotic system, in that it essentially works, and attempts to control it are met with limited success.
What we are seeing is the culmination of a couple decades of bad ideas in parenting and education. Hope the generation slightly older than the 'millenials' (the usual term given to this defective generation) will go back to more effective ways.
he hasn't really changed how your country is percieved around the world. it's going to take a lot more than a new figure head to change that.
Hate to burst your bubble, but much of America only cares about the opinion of nations and people we respect.
That's a shorter list than you might think.
If I think your government and people are soft, effette, and shirk from the duty of free men everywhere, I'm not going to be particularly interested in what you think of me and my country.
This is especially true if I know your displeasure is a particularly common sort- that is, an impotent oral rage.
the best thing to do in response to a nuclear attack by a terrorist organization would be to STFU and fucking NOT retaliate.
You can bare your neck and beg for a merciful death if you like.
Personally, I'm going to ensure there is a high cost for attacking me and mine. How best to exact that cost is something reasonable people can debate, but a cost must be exacted.
Else you might as well surrender all you hold dear to 7th century barbarians.
A flamebait moderation here is completely unfair. Violence is always around us, even when we pretend it's not. Pointing out that violence has legitimate uses is 'flamebait' to the hopelessly naive.
Let's say you call the police because someone has broken into your home and is attacking a family member. Let's make the ridiculous assumption that the police get there in time to make a difference.
What do you think they're going to do to stop the criminal? Ask him nicely? Maybe once. After that they're going to beat the hell out of him or kill him. And if the criminal DOES stop after being asked nicely, it will be only because he fears the coming violence.
The police are subcontracted violence, generally used to a legitimate end.
The parent poster made the point that violence is inherent in human society, and at best we can aim to have it wielded by the competent and just. This is not flamebait, this is the plain truth.
If you are utterly unaware of what I could possibly be referring to when I say "The climate has been warmer in recorded human history", then you could hardly be called reasonably informed.
If you're going to be arguing a point, it's a basic tenet that you become at least vaguely familiar with the arguments of the other side.
Now, if you're unaware of what I could be talking about, that's okay. Ignorance of certain facts, theories or arguments is not a crime. You could have asked politely what I was referring to, and I would have told you.
Instead you act like a religious fundamentalist who has just had a basic tenet of his belief system attacked. You replied to me in an extremely rude manner, and then you reply with a childish comeback when I dismiss you out of hand.
Try to be civil. It makes Slashdot and everywhere else a more informative and enjoyable experience.
And if someone could find compelling evidence that indicated global warming wasn't happening, that would be welcomed by the climate science community. New evidence that overturns an old understanding is the holy grail of science.
I'll grant you for a moment that the climate is warming.
If so, considering that the climate has been both significantly warmer and colder in recorded human history than it is now, why panic? Why the apocolyptic talk?
Past that, what are the upsides of global warming? A longer growing season would certainly be an asset. Rising ocean levels- if they occur- can be managed (ref: Netherlands).
What the true believers of AGW suffer from is a lack of faith in human invention, and an unbridled fear of change. I have seen proposals for trillion dollar projects to 'turn back the clock', when several billion in dikes and relocations would manage the problem.
Now, back to my point... Even if you are as pure as the driven snow, AGW has been forever tainted by demands for control and taxation by those who think themselves our betters.
I will consider treating it as a crisis when AGWs biggest proponents treat it as a crisis. As long as UN AGW conferences are plagued by a shortage of private jet parking and Al Gore buys carbon credit indulgences from his own companies in order to 'justify' his rich lifestyle*, I'm pretty sure I'm being bullshitted somewhere down the line.
Your science and research, pure as the driven snow as it might be, is represented by these sorts of clowns. It is a stench you will never escape.
*I have no problem with his lifestyle, per se. It's the whole preaching-doom-and-gloom-to-us while-excusing-himself thing I have a problem with.
'Climate Change' is a politically hot topic, and plenty of governments give grants into this kind of research.
"The overwhelming majority* of the world's climate scientists" know what side their bread is buttered on. It's on the side of giving governments more excuses to tax and define their citizens activities ever more closely.
Follow the money. Isn't that what you'd say about the report of any climate scientist who is a global warming 'denier'?
(*I don't know how many climate scientists there are, but hundreds have signed on to papers with adverse positions.)
The thing is, in any field besides theoretical physics, he has no more credibility than you or I.
I wouldn't ask him to run a 7-11 or set the timing chain on my truck, either. I'm sure he'd be capable of learning how to do either, but he hasn't, and it's best to ask elsewhere.
I'm also sure he has opinions on running a 7-11 or setting a timing chain, but opinions aren't worth much. Demonstrated competence is worth something, and he never demonstrated competence in timing chain maintenance, convenience store operations, or statecraft.
Having an opinion you agree with isn't demonstrating competence, it's just having an opinion you agree with..
Capitalism can only work because it thrives on and creates the poor.
The default human condition is poverty and violence.
We are created poor. We are created with nothing more than base survival impulses.
I cannot rightly comprehend how you can not acknowledge those two self-evident truths, and once you've done so, how you can hold on to your absurd statement that 'capitalism... creates the poor.'
I don't suppose you're capable of naming both the de-regulations and the increasing regulations that contributed specifically to the mess, are you?
I'll agree with you on the need for good regulation, but to blame this all on de-regulation is as naive as you accuse the other guy of being.
There was no end to government meddling on CEO pay rates, on who banks must loan money to(community reinvestment act), on socializing risks while privatizing profits and any number of other acts. These well-intentioned but ignorant attempts of the government to 'help' business men be 'better citizens' often had disastrous unforeseen consequences, and many of them couldn't be called 'deregulation' by any stretch.
For example, sometime in the 80's they required that CEO pay rates be published, obstinately to shame the companies or outrage shareholders. Instead this lead to open competition in pay rates for CEO's, and CEO pay skyrocketed. Then they changed tax laws so salaries over $1 million dollars couldn't be expensed the same way as any other salary. This lead to bonus programs based on stock price performance, which lead to short term thinking to maximize personal pay.
What else? The Community Re-investment Act. This is a bludgeon used on banks that need any regulatory approval for anything- (opening new branches, mergers, etc.) The long and short of it was that if your mortgage customer base isn't the right shade of tan, your business activities don't get approved, and you can't ever be anything more than a small time bank. Certain racial subgroups have notoriously bad credit (FICO doesn't give a sh*t what your skin color is, they care if you pay), but if your bank doesn't lend to them anyway, you start having problems.
That problem was made significantly worse when racial data was required to be collected from mortgage apps, and then this data was used to gin up cries of racism by groups like ACORN. Tremendous political pressure was placed on banks to overlook legitimate financial records that happened to make certain racial subgroups less viable customers.
Lending standards went down, risk went up.
Add in Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac. With the implicit guarantee of the federal government, but the private collection of profits, risky behavior that yielded short term gain was inevitable, even if that gain was utterly unsustainable.
Lending standards went down, risk went up further.
So, sir, while you and I can probably find common ground on the need for good regulation, and place fault on such esoteric activities as the default credit swap, 'regulation' isn't all that it's cracked up to be.
How incredibly naive you are, if it is your position that well-intentioned government intervention is somehow magically prevented from causing great harm. Government legislators and regulators are mortal, fallible men, no better than those they seek to regulate. They can have a bright idea that sounds great, but when applied, has disastrous unforeseen consequences. Their good intentions cannot make up for the ruin they cause.
Perhaps you will agree with me on this: Good regulation seeks to manage risk to bearable levels, and bring stability to the market.
Nothing less, and especially nothing more.
Fanciful regulations based on naive notions of 'social justice' got us halfway to the current situation, and deregulation purchased by campaign donations brought us the rest of the way.
Please demonstrate a clearly well-run town, state or organization that uses this system.
Pointing out the flaws of a system is easy- everyone is a critic.
The use of your proposed system needs to end in objectively better, real results for it to be worth considering at all.
The collision of a scheme based on a sound theory quite often exposes unconsidered lethal weaknesses. It might also demonstrate that there is no practical difference in outcome. It could end up being better.
My point? Show me where it has worked- ie, delivered objectively better results- before we even begin to consider making this national. There are 50 states, and hundreds of towns in each state. There are countless committees and executive councils around the nation as well.
Get the plan implemented at a low level, have it's weaknesses exposed, and then we'll talk national.
Somehow, trying to evoke empathy - a basic human trait - is a 'liberal' thing to conservatives. It's funny, really. The grandparent is a 'beautiful' illustration of the conservative mindset.
I'll respond in a general sense, not about Gates or Malaria specifically.
'Liberals' often attempt to evoke empathy for a current state of suffering. What they omit is the antecedant behavoir that created the current state of suffering.
No mention is made of the people who do not suffer from the difficulty of the day, and what they have done differently to avoid being in the same situation.
No mention is made on how to change the destructive behavoiral patterns that created the current state of suffering.
No mention is made of how relieving the current state of suffering externally prevents natural corrective pain from teaching it's lesson. No one utters how relieving the suffering aftificially basically promotes the destructive behavoirs that preceeded the suffering.
No mention is made if the state of suffering is a transient condition that the 'pitied' will soon escape through their own efforts.
'Liberals' show us a pitiful snapshot of someone's life and then demand that we relieve the suffering. What came before the suffering, what came after, and what is 'off camera' is not to be questioned by conservatives, else we're thought of as heartless.
We are told that an impoverished, desperate state of affairs is something that one comes to and stays in regardless of their own actions.
When I point out that someone suffering the malady of the day shares behavoiral patterns with everyone else who suffers the same, I am called heartless. When I further point out that everyone who doesn't have that problem behaves in a completely different way, I am called heartless.
The 'conservative' way is to get people to stop doing stupid stuff that hurts them. The liberal way is to simply relieve the hurt.
Empathy is all well and good- God knows I've done plenty of stupid things that have hurt my personal life, my professional standing, or earlier my academic record.
Those stupid acts caused me pain, so I stopped doing them. If I never had significant pain inflicted, I would have never done anything differently, and I wouldn't be in the comfortable, happy, successful spot I'm in now.
In short: Conservatives: Stop doing stupid stuff! Liberals: Have some money.
Unfortunately this is a real predicament for a lot of people in the industry, neh the world. Demonstrates how capitalism is not that far removed from slavery for a large proportion of people. Indeed this ruthless efficiency of working every "cog" in the machine to death is considered an end goal of a successful pure capitalist society.
If you want bare subsistenance living, then find a tiny apartment somewhere, drive a beater, shop at goodwill/ salvation army, and eat mac and cheese all the time. You'll find that it takes very little money to sustain this style of life and you can more or less 'opt out' of the capitalist rat race.
You want more than that? Then you need the wealth the capitalist society generates, and you need the wealth you generate as a part of it.
Now quit bitching about society and go make the company you want to work for if you can't find it in a job search.
I'm guessing you find the relative comfort you find in working for someone else and the creature comforts you have around you to be far more important to you than your sophomoric ideals about 'slavery in a capitalistic society.'
You can choose your level of participation in this horrible, nasty society of ours. Your trouble is you think you should be able to make that choice- how much to participate in what you lament- without giving ANYTHING up.
Sorry, the world doesn't work that way. You don't have to play, but you don't get any 'points' if you don't play.
You go to work, you generate wealth for someone else, they give you a portion of that back as compensation, and you use that money to buy luxuries unavailable to kings 100 years ago. There are four parts to that process, and you can substantially change any one of those.
But you won't, because you like to bitch about how unjust life is more than you actually want to live up to your ideals.
*Aside from that, I second your call for six month's savings.
That's all a very good point, except for the fact that the financial reality of the situation doesn't allow for such quaint thoughts as who should have to suffer or whose fault it is.
If the numbers don't add up, they don't add up. Either everyone involved takes a cut, or everyone involved gets nothing. Pretty simple.
again, let me get this absolutely clear to you: for the sake of the current (flawed) interpretation of the second amendment, there are needless deaths every day in urban settings. right now, for the disproportionate influence of rural people, urban people die.
The Urban tendency is to blame objects for acts degenerates commit. This avoids any uncomfortable questions about the sick culture in the most violent American cities. Further, your entire post is pretty much negated by the facts- that crime, and armed crime, go up whenever a gun ban is introduced.
Why? Lawful people follow the law, criminals don't, advantage: criminals. It's really, really, simple, and I don't see why so many folks have a hard time grasping this repeatedly demonstrated phenomenon.
i look forward to the day when a few rural folks die for having their gun rights curtailed, rather then the status quo we have today, in which a lot of urban folks die for the sake of irresponsible gun ownership.
Again, rural people don't guy to gun violence, urban people do. The 'irresponsible gun ownership' occurs in the urban environment, because you allow a subculture of entitlement, selfishness and shortsightedness to flourish there, AND the cities with the worst crime have banned guns, making honest people easy targets for criminals.
You have amoral degenerates running around your cities that you refuse to deal with. That is your problem. Not guns.
Rural voters don't deserve to have more rights than urban voters, which is exactly what you are asking for, no matter how you frame it, and it is still wrong. any, ANY disproportionate influence leads to injustice and abuse of power.
Simple fact: Take away the electoral college, and the influence of small states is irrelevant. There is no way they would sign off on that change, and there is no way they would have joined the union without it.
Maine, by splitting their electoral vote to the popular vote, has made themselves irrelevant in campaigning. Most contests are close- within a few percentage points. To get an extra electoral vote in Maine, you'd need to swing an additional >10% of the vote your way.
This would take a massive campaigning effort- if it was even possible- for one additional vote.
Easier to ignore the state instead and get your half, or half +1. States that follow your idea make themselves irrelevant to the campaign and can safely be ignored.
Amazon sells straight MP3's for the same price Itunes sells their DRM'd stuff. ($0.99)
I don't know how the selections compare, but I've found what I wanted so far. It's pretty nice to be able to play purchased songs on my aftermarket car stereo without buying an ipod and an expensive adapter.
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He's not a climatologist. He has never done research on global warming. He has absolutely no data of his own. He is not an expert in this field. There is no reason, whatsoever, to listen to his opinions.
You might as well have your car mechanic perform surgery on you. After all, he's a professional, right? Therefore he must be qualified!
If your car mechanic tells you that you need to pay $790 to replace your gizrogyronmeter before you car implodes- when you brought the car in for an oil change- you don't have to be a mechanic to figure out you're being bullshitted and he probably has something else besides your best interests in mind.
If your surgeon is trying to sell you a $32,000 surgery on your feet because of hyspotoxiomosis of the anterior legamoid deltamint, and you came in for a mole removal, you don't have to be a PHD to see he just wants to fund his next vacation.
The fact is that AGW advocates demand 'solutions' involving control and expenditures that are entirely out of whack with their established credibility and perceived integrity.
Claiming "you can't understand it, it's too complex" in the face of the legitimate questions about the intent, integrity, and aims of Global Warming's high priests and salesmen is an evasion of the issue.
Though likely a good number of them would also be the first to spit in the face of black's or women's right's activists.
And now we come full circle, as the first gun control laws targeted free blacks to make them easier to lynch. Unarmed women are also easier to rape.
This has always been one of my least favorite lines of defense. Why not base your arguments on what we find to be right at the current time? The founding father's certainly don't have a monopoly on good ideas, and they never had to fit them into conditions that exist in the present.
The nature of humanity has not substantially changed in 250 years. Our toys have, and the extent that we bullsh*t ourselves about our current superiority has, but human nature? Unchanged.
Some principles, facts and philosophies are timeless. Others change with the season. I doubt you can differentiate between the two.
If 'right at the current time' is the sole basis of a legitimate 'right', then rights are subject to being argued away by charlatans and sophists. I'll pass, thank you, and fix my rights to be eternal and unchanging.
Got it. Only white people have free will, and control their own destinies and everyone else's destiny at the same time. The democratically elected government of India has nothing to do with what they allow in their country. /sarcasm off.
The problem with blaming everything on Whitey and/or the United States is it essentially reduces everyone else in the world to a pile of simple neurons that only react to what We do. It's the most racist, condescending attitude one could possibly have.
Well put. I would only add that all money is imaginary, and it simply serves as a medium of exchange for human endeavors. It's a beautifully chaotic system, in that it essentially works, and attempts to control it are met with limited success.
That's been my .sig for years. I don't remember where i first saw it.
What we are seeing is the culmination of a couple decades of bad ideas in parenting and education. Hope the generation slightly older than the 'millenials' (the usual term given to this defective generation) will go back to more effective ways.
News film at 11.
Well, at least it's becoming okay again to point out what is incredibly obvious to everyone, except feminists with an axe to grind.
Hate to burst your bubble, but much of America only cares about the opinion of nations and people we respect.
That's a shorter list than you might think.
If I think your government and people are soft, effette, and shirk from the duty of free men everywhere, I'm not going to be particularly interested in what you think of me and my country.
This is especially true if I know your displeasure is a particularly common sort- that is, an impotent oral rage.
You can bare your neck and beg for a merciful death if you like.
Personally, I'm going to ensure there is a high cost for attacking me and mine. How best to exact that cost is something reasonable people can debate, but a cost must be exacted.
Else you might as well surrender all you hold dear to 7th century barbarians.
A flamebait moderation here is completely unfair. Violence is always around us, even when we pretend it's not. Pointing out that violence has legitimate uses is 'flamebait' to the hopelessly naive.
Let's say you call the police because someone has broken into your home and is attacking a family member. Let's make the ridiculous assumption that the police get there in time to make a difference.
What do you think they're going to do to stop the criminal? Ask him nicely? Maybe once. After that they're going to beat the hell out of him or kill him. And if the criminal DOES stop after being asked nicely, it will be only because he fears the coming violence.
The police are subcontracted violence, generally used to a legitimate end.
The parent poster made the point that violence is inherent in human society, and at best we can aim to have it wielded by the competent and just. This is not flamebait, this is the plain truth.
If you are utterly unaware of what I could possibly be referring to when I say "The climate has been warmer in recorded human history", then you could hardly be called reasonably informed.
If you're going to be arguing a point, it's a basic tenet that you become at least vaguely familiar with the arguments of the other side.
Now, if you're unaware of what I could be talking about, that's okay. Ignorance of certain facts, theories or arguments is not a crime. You could have asked politely what I was referring to, and I would have told you.
Instead you act like a religious fundamentalist who has just had a basic tenet of his belief system attacked. You replied to me in an extremely rude manner, and then you reply with a childish comeback when I dismiss you out of hand.
Try to be civil. It makes Slashdot and everywhere else a more informative and enjoyable experience.
Ah, I see. I'm sorry. I thought I was talking to reasonably informed adults who happen to disagree on a variety of particulars.
Instead I find a petulant, swearing child demanding I do all his homework for him.
I shall not make the same mistake again.
And if someone could find compelling evidence that indicated global warming wasn't happening, that would be welcomed by the climate science community. New evidence that overturns an old understanding is the holy grail of science.
I'll grant you for a moment that the climate is warming.
If so, considering that the climate has been both significantly warmer and colder in recorded human history than it is now, why panic? Why the apocolyptic talk?
Past that, what are the upsides of global warming? A longer growing season would certainly be an asset. Rising ocean levels- if they occur- can be managed (ref: Netherlands).
What the true believers of AGW suffer from is a lack of faith in human invention, and an unbridled fear of change. I have seen proposals for trillion dollar projects to 'turn back the clock', when several billion in dikes and relocations would manage the problem.
Now, back to my point...
Even if you are as pure as the driven snow, AGW has been forever tainted by demands for control and taxation by those who think themselves our betters.
I will consider treating it as a crisis when AGWs biggest proponents treat it as a crisis. As long as UN AGW conferences are plagued by a shortage of private jet parking and Al Gore buys carbon credit indulgences from his own companies in order to 'justify' his rich lifestyle*, I'm pretty sure I'm being bullshitted somewhere down the line.
Your science and research, pure as the driven snow as it might be, is represented by these sorts of clowns. It is a stench you will never escape.
*I have no problem with his lifestyle, per se. It's the whole preaching-doom-and-gloom-to-us while-excusing-himself thing I have a problem with.
'Climate Change' is a politically hot topic, and plenty of governments give grants into this kind of research.
"The overwhelming majority* of the world's climate scientists" know what side their bread is buttered on. It's on the side of giving governments more excuses to tax and define their citizens activities ever more closely.
Follow the money. Isn't that what you'd say about the report of any climate scientist who is a global warming 'denier'?
(*I don't know how many climate scientists there are, but hundreds have signed on to papers with adverse positions.)
Sure, he could.
The thing is, in any field besides theoretical physics, he has no more credibility than you or I.
I wouldn't ask him to run a 7-11 or set the timing chain on my truck, either. I'm sure he'd be capable of learning how to do either, but he hasn't, and it's best to ask elsewhere.
I'm also sure he has opinions on running a 7-11 or setting a timing chain, but opinions aren't worth much. Demonstrated competence is worth something, and he never demonstrated competence in timing chain maintenance, convenience store operations, or statecraft.
Having an opinion you agree with isn't demonstrating competence, it's just having an opinion you agree with..
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
Ah, yes, Albert Einstein, the great statesman. Truly the one to turn to for theories of diplomacy, and not such paltry matters as physics.
Capitalism can only work because it thrives on and creates the poor.
The default human condition is poverty and violence.
We are created poor. We are created with nothing more than base survival impulses.
I cannot rightly comprehend how you can not acknowledge those two self-evident truths, and once you've done so, how you can hold on to your absurd statement that 'capitalism... creates the poor.'
I don't suppose you're capable of naming both the de-regulations and the increasing regulations that contributed specifically to the mess, are you?
I'll agree with you on the need for good regulation, but to blame this all on de-regulation is as naive as you accuse the other guy of being.
There was no end to government meddling on CEO pay rates, on who banks must loan money to(community reinvestment act), on socializing risks while privatizing profits and any number of other acts. These well-intentioned but ignorant attempts of the government to 'help' business men be 'better citizens' often had disastrous unforeseen consequences, and many of them couldn't be called 'deregulation' by any stretch.
For example, sometime in the 80's they required that CEO pay rates be published, obstinately to shame the companies or outrage shareholders. Instead this lead to open competition in pay rates for CEO's, and CEO pay skyrocketed. Then they changed tax laws so salaries over $1 million dollars couldn't be expensed the same way as any other salary. This lead to bonus programs based on stock price performance, which lead to short term thinking to maximize personal pay.
What else? The Community Re-investment Act. This is a bludgeon used on banks that need any regulatory approval for anything- (opening new branches, mergers, etc.) The long and short of it was that if your mortgage customer base isn't the right shade of tan, your business activities don't get approved, and you can't ever be anything more than a small time bank. Certain racial subgroups have notoriously bad credit (FICO doesn't give a sh*t what your skin color is, they care if you pay), but if your bank doesn't lend to them anyway, you start having problems.
That problem was made significantly worse when racial data was required to be collected from mortgage apps, and then this data was used to gin up cries of racism by groups like ACORN. Tremendous political pressure was placed on banks to overlook legitimate financial records that happened to make certain racial subgroups less viable customers.
Lending standards went down, risk went up.
Add in Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac. With the implicit guarantee of the federal government, but the private collection of profits, risky behavior that yielded short term gain was inevitable, even if that gain was utterly unsustainable.
Lending standards went down, risk went up further.
So, sir, while you and I can probably find common ground on the need for good regulation, and place fault on such esoteric activities as the default credit swap, 'regulation' isn't all that it's cracked up to be.
How incredibly naive you are, if it is your position that well-intentioned government intervention is somehow magically prevented from causing great harm. Government legislators and regulators are mortal, fallible men, no better than those they seek to regulate. They can have a bright idea that sounds great, but when applied, has disastrous unforeseen consequences. Their good intentions cannot make up for the ruin they cause.
Perhaps you will agree with me on this:
Good regulation seeks to manage risk to bearable levels, and bring stability to the market.
Nothing less, and especially nothing more.
Fanciful regulations based on naive notions of 'social justice' got us halfway to the current situation, and deregulation purchased by campaign donations brought us the rest of the way.
Please demonstrate a clearly well-run town, state or organization that uses this system.
Pointing out the flaws of a system is easy- everyone is a critic.
The use of your proposed system needs to end in objectively better, real results for it to be worth considering at all.
The collision of a scheme based on a sound theory quite often exposes unconsidered lethal weaknesses. It might also demonstrate that there is no practical difference in outcome. It could end up being better.
My point? Show me where it has worked- ie, delivered objectively better results- before we even begin to consider making this national. There are 50 states, and hundreds of towns in each state. There are countless committees and executive councils around the nation as well.
Get the plan implemented at a low level, have it's weaknesses exposed, and then we'll talk national.
I'll respond in a general sense, not about Gates or Malaria specifically.
'Liberals' often attempt to evoke empathy for a current state of suffering. What they omit is the antecedant behavoir that created the current state of suffering.
No mention is made of the people who do not suffer from the difficulty of the day, and what they have done differently to avoid being in the same situation.
No mention is made on how to change the destructive behavoiral patterns that created the current state of suffering.
No mention is made of how relieving the current state of suffering externally prevents natural corrective pain from teaching it's lesson. No one utters how relieving the suffering aftificially basically promotes the destructive behavoirs that preceeded the suffering.
No mention is made if the state of suffering is a transient condition that the 'pitied' will soon escape through their own efforts.
'Liberals' show us a pitiful snapshot of someone's life and then demand that we relieve the suffering. What came before the suffering, what came after, and what is 'off camera' is not to be questioned by conservatives, else we're thought of as heartless.
We are told that an impoverished, desperate state of affairs is something that one comes to and stays in regardless of their own actions.
When I point out that someone suffering the malady of the day shares behavoiral patterns with everyone else who suffers the same, I am called heartless.
When I further point out that everyone who doesn't have that problem behaves in a completely different way, I am called heartless.
The 'conservative' way is to get people to stop doing stupid stuff that hurts them. The liberal way is to simply relieve the hurt.
Empathy is all well and good- God knows I've done plenty of stupid things that have hurt my personal life, my professional standing, or earlier my academic record.
Those stupid acts caused me pain, so I stopped doing them. If I never had significant pain inflicted, I would have never done anything differently, and I wouldn't be in the comfortable, happy, successful spot I'm in now.
In short:
Conservatives: Stop doing stupid stuff!
Liberals: Have some money.
Unfortunately this is a real predicament for a lot of people in the industry, neh the world. Demonstrates how capitalism is not that far removed from slavery for a large proportion of people. Indeed this ruthless efficiency of working every "cog" in the machine to death is considered an end goal of a successful pure capitalist society.
If you want bare subsistenance living, then find a tiny apartment somewhere, drive a beater, shop at goodwill/ salvation army, and eat mac and cheese all the time.
You'll find that it takes very little money to sustain this style of life and you can more or less 'opt out' of the capitalist rat race.
You want more than that? Then you need the wealth the capitalist society generates, and you need the wealth you generate as a part of it.
Now quit bitching about society and go make the company you want to work for if you can't find it in a job search.
I'm guessing you find the relative comfort you find in working for someone else and the creature comforts you have around you to be far more important to you than your sophomoric ideals about 'slavery in a capitalistic society.'
You can choose your level of participation in this horrible, nasty society of ours. Your trouble is you think you should be able to make that choice- how much to participate in what you lament- without giving ANYTHING up.
Sorry, the world doesn't work that way. You don't have to play, but you don't get any 'points' if you don't play.
You go to work, you generate wealth for someone else, they give you a portion of that back as compensation, and you use that money to buy luxuries unavailable to kings 100 years ago. There are four parts to that process, and you can substantially change any one of those.
But you won't, because you like to bitch about how unjust life is more than you actually want to live up to your ideals.
*Aside from that, I second your call for six month's savings.
See, what's funny is that I have run into a telephone pole, and it's a damn good thing my passenger was wearing a seatbelt.
Telling them that story usually works, but it's been quite some time since someone didn't simply comply with my request to buckle up.
That's all a very good point, except for the fact that the financial reality of the situation doesn't allow for such quaint thoughts as who should have to suffer or whose fault it is.
If the numbers don't add up, they don't add up. Either everyone involved takes a cut, or everyone involved gets nothing. Pretty simple.
again, let me get this absolutely clear to you: for the sake of the current (flawed) interpretation of the second amendment, there are needless deaths every day in urban settings. right now, for the disproportionate influence of rural people, urban people die.
The Urban tendency is to blame objects for acts degenerates commit. This avoids any uncomfortable questions about the sick culture in the most violent American cities.
Further, your entire post is pretty much negated by the facts- that crime, and armed crime, go up whenever a gun ban is introduced.
Why? Lawful people follow the law, criminals don't, advantage: criminals. It's really, really, simple, and I don't see why so many folks have a hard time grasping this repeatedly demonstrated phenomenon.
i look forward to the day when a few rural folks die for having their gun rights curtailed, rather then the status quo we have today, in which a lot of urban folks die for the sake of irresponsible gun ownership.
Again, rural people don't guy to gun violence, urban people do. The 'irresponsible gun ownership' occurs in the urban environment, because you allow a subculture of entitlement, selfishness and shortsightedness to flourish there, AND the cities with the worst crime have banned guns, making honest people easy targets for criminals.
You have amoral degenerates running around your cities that you refuse to deal with. That is your problem. Not guns.
Rural voters don't deserve to have more rights than urban voters, which is exactly what you are asking for, no matter how you frame it, and it is still wrong. any, ANY disproportionate influence leads to injustice and abuse of power.
Simple fact: Take away the electoral college, and the influence of small states is irrelevant. There is no way they would sign off on that change, and there is no way they would have joined the union without it.
Maine, by splitting their electoral vote to the popular vote, has made themselves irrelevant in campaigning. Most contests are close- within a few percentage points. To get an extra electoral vote in Maine, you'd need to swing an additional >10% of the vote your way.
This would take a massive campaigning effort- if it was even possible- for one additional vote.
Easier to ignore the state instead and get your half, or half +1. States that follow your idea make themselves irrelevant to the campaign and can safely be ignored.
Amazon sells straight MP3's for the same price Itunes sells their DRM'd stuff. ($0.99)
I don't know how the selections compare, but I've found what I wanted so far. It's pretty nice to be able to play purchased songs on my aftermarket car stereo without buying an ipod and an expensive adapter.