I'm of age, I teach at a smaller university. I used to frequent and still do to some extent awesome small venues. Good small venues don't rely solely on alcohol sales, some of them do all-ages shows with a tiered or sequestered area for alcohol. Also there are plenty of clubs that do weekday shows for great bands that are all-ages and make their money doing weekend clubbing.
Also the groups that can kill a 30K arena usually don't want to do smaller venues and the smaller venue groups can't fill a 30K arena, it was an example.
This has NEVER been true. This same argument has been applied to taxing those who make millions, that somehow this sort of regulation (or deregulation in this case) will discourage the creation and perpetuation due to lost revenue. Theoretically huge budget movies could be affected by long-term piracy but that's about the only area that could discourage investment due to lost revenue. To cut an album and then go tour is miniscule for an independent band, to make a funny movie or even a classic without it being an epic retelling of a Greek war or Lord of the Rings costs far less than what people think. Ideally this will shift media back towards a pay-for-play ideal where production costs will step back in line with profitability. For decades with the VCR movies have been able to recoup all losses in the box office by simply waiting it out. Music has a similar low overhead except for the mega-hits who spend ten times as much promoting it as they do recording it. The money in music though is in concerts and selling out smaller venues makes more sense than trying to fill a 30K arena every other night.
So your argument really has leg to stand on. You're playing into a false dichotomy in an effort to come across as the sensible middle. It doesn't work since the sensible argument is to do nothing about this sort of piracy and reinvent how you do business.
. ..That's called industrial espionage and it is in fact a serious crime. In most western countries it's enough to get you a very long prison term. The apples to oranges argument is really obnoxious. Nobody is saying it's OK to tromp around stealing information from your corporation. The Swiss have agreed that media (music, pictures, movies, etc) are legal to obtain through torrent and P2P sites along with other traditional routes that are called "piracy" because ultimately Swiss citizens still pay a vast amount into these industries.
Also, it's far more realistic for people to be pirating mega-hits than little known bands. Plus if anything has been shown over the last two decades is that smaller bands make more of their money touring than cutting albums. Cutting albums are for elite acts that can sell 10 million copies. Then their tours are really a promotional arm to their album sales.
The point is that as I stated the enemy of your enemy may not be your friend. Also, did you use a wrestling term? Really? If anything it's more so a subtle stab in their back as they have made it clear they're willing to lie at the drop of the hat.
It's all reactionary responses. People when faced with an affront to their beliefs instead of rationally weighing the options and either disagreeing or agreeing they simply cling harder to their beliefs and become hostile to the opposition. Think atheism and religions. Neither side will concede and since they're value judgments the reactionary response wins out and causes more damage than simply agreeing to disagree and moving on. I have to say PETA's approach to animal cruelty is both novel and incredibly stupid simply because they think shock = views = change where the argument stops at views. They have no real proof that their shock campaigns do anything besides create more pornography or bad flash games. In most cases the ASPCA & their compatriot groups do more for common animal cruelty than PETA ever has. I do admit PETA has done well for circus animals but outside of that realm they've left animal lovers yearning.
I think PETA knows they're never going to get converts in any sort of real numbers and will always be a well-funded fringe group. They're embracing that role more I think with these sorts of campaigns. On a side note: The anti-PETA website somebody mentioned earlier explaining about the killing at the supposed no-kill shelters is accurate but made by the same people who fought against anti-smoking legislation, unions, federal regulation on just about everything. Usually they resort to lying and cheating to make their point. It is important to remember that while the enemy of my enemy is a friend they're still a floating greasy brain with nothing but a seething hatred for everything good, so yeah...keep that in mind.
Wilson didn't create a powerful central government, Lincoln and then Johnson did.
You don't understand what Wilson did then. I don't pick him at random or just because I'm following the libertarian fad of the moment.
I know exactly what Wilson did, he passed the 1913 banking act that created the central reserve and then under his watch had federal income tax ammendment passed. Nothing is truly unique or interesting about either of those, modern western states use both and our central reserve banking system is much weaker than most other central banks due to the 13 individual banks that make up the reserve system. If you're discussing the Income tax, the requirement of the federal government had been met by selling western land up until that point. A need to have another route of funding was required and we still pay about 10% on average less in taxes (including all taxes) than other western states. If you're discussing Wilson's handling of dissention then you're talking about his right-wing desire for suppression not a liberal ideology. You have to remember modern left and right were still rudimentary under Wilson. He was an intellectual progressive not a liberal one.
1.) FDR created tons of meaningless programs: FDR as part of his "New Deal" and "New Deal II" created enormous amounts of new programs, not all of them were successful but a vast majority did great things like the Tennessee River Valley Power Authority, Social Security, WPA, and others. Most of the work programs seriously upgraded the US' infrastructure at a fraction of the cost of privately-funded ventures or even fully-employed public ventures. We were able to have a modern 20th century country before anybody else.
Private-funded ventures would have been cheaper, if FDR hadn't created a vast number of oligopolies and taken a variety of other measures (such as the creation of the above organizations you name) to sabotage the economy. And Social Security (by far the biggest program on your list) merely moves wealth around, it builds future liabilities not infrastructure.
Privately funded ventures due to their inherent need to produce a profit are never "cheaper" than their public counterparts. Your term use of oligopolies is totally incorrect for what the New Deal encompassed. It was direct government intervention without the use of outside contractors except where their knowledge was needed. FDR's New Deal programs were largely designed around the Keynesian idea of infrastructure building and public support. The Great Depression created a lack of spendable income which crippled our economy so the sooner we created employment and spending the economy would and did recover. There was no sabotaging of the economy, in fact it is very clear his programs worked to the detriment of the few oligopolies that did exist. Social security was perfectly funded because the people who got it first were paid for by the youngest entering, the system is continous and is based on overall income not number of recipients. Thus lifting the cap on it will allow it to become infintely stable.
2.) The FCC is a horrible agency that only watches for dirty words! Silly Liberals want us to stop saying fuck: The FCC was made to regulate the airwaves both in respect to content but also in administrative aspects. Before that radio stations overlapped and there was no central control since a radio station broadcasting in NYC, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, or Richmond could be heard in adjoining states and in the case of Pittsburgh on a good night could be heard in Chicago. State authorities have no power to limit this kind of broadcast thus it fell to the Federal government under the interstate commerce act. They do a helpful service still and most content is handled by internal censors at networks not the FCC.
Courts can do that just as well as the FCC could. The FCC
I've read comments about hating the hobbyist apps and general floatsam in the app store yet in the very next breath they're beating their chest over the number of apps on their perspective platform. When most smartphones without enterprise apps would be served by 10-25K apps without duplicates the apple & android stores are boasting close to millions of apps. Very clearly Apple likes the floatsam to pay 100 dollars to essentially break even or make a small profit. The app stores are less like department stores and more like sweat shops. The casino term is accurate for the business model, play upon the greed and naivety of developers and make a profit on them either way.
The so-called capitalists if they weren't so caught up in their own circle jerk of resentment and egotism would recognize the stranglehold Apple and others have on the gatekeeping of this frontier. Substantially less than a plurality sideload another market so their ecosystem's place is where they know & go. This leads to economic dictatorships and an unbalanced system we're now beginning to see.
Wilson didn't create a powerful central government, Lincoln and then Johnson did. The most powerful central government the US has ever known was run under Lincoln and a strong central government is a necessity of a modern 21st century global power (let alone a superpower). State's rights as we view it in the US has always been a cover for either slavery or in later years various forms of racism and bigotry. For the most part the US has the least strength of all Western powers in terms of Federal-State relations (i.e. Universal health care fight). Senators directly elected by a popular vote just makes vastly more sense than having the state legislature elect them. The more we allow "appointments" over "direct election" the more we hand power to the political parties and not to the people. This is similarly the case in term limits. So you're really arguing that centralized government is bad, which it isn't, but then turning around and arguing that political party power is good, which if you're a supporter of democratic republics is bad. Funny how that works...
Alright lets tackle these misconceptions in list form!
1.) FDR created tons of meaningless programs: FDR as part of his "New Deal" and "New Deal II" created enormous amounts of new programs, not all of them were successful but a vast majority did great things like the Tennessee River Valley Power Authority, Social Security, WPA, and others. Most of the work programs seriously upgraded the US' infrastructure at a fraction of the cost of privately-funded ventures or even fully-employed public ventures. We were able to have a modern 20th century country before anybody else.
2.) The FCC is a horrible agency that only watches for dirty words! Silly Liberals want us to stop saying fuck: The FCC was made to regulate the airwaves both in respect to content but also in administrative aspects. Before that radio stations overlapped and there was no central control since a radio station broadcasting in NYC, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, or Richmond could be heard in adjoining states and in the case of Pittsburgh on a good night could be heard in Chicago. State authorities have no power to limit this kind of broadcast thus it fell to the Federal government under the interstate commerce act. They do a helpful service still and most content is handled by internal censors at networks not the FCC.
3.) Social Security is a Ponzi/Pyramid Scheme: Unless you're Rick Perry you have no excuse for believing this. A pyramid scheme is different from a Ponzi scheme. One rewards people on a level system where the upper levels get most of the profit and is constantly moving to find new victims. Thus it looks like a pyramid. Ponzi schemes are named after Mr. Ponzi who was given money and was offering unrealistic returns on it, in reality he was using money from new customers to pay off old ones. Social Security is neither of these. We pay about 7% of our income up to 107K (after which it isn't taxed). Our employer pays another 7% for us into social security. From day one the money was funded and has been stable for 75 years. Social security is a way for older citizens to retire and survive. For the first time since 1983 they took in less than they paid out due to falling receipts due to the recession. But all they need is to lift the cap on the 7% tax from 107K to unlimited and the huge profits that CEOs pick up will be paid into the system and they'll remain solvent well into the 22nd century. Your argument is pathetic and proven untrue. Also, pensions are a perfectly reasonable desire and aren't the deadly thing that right-wingers want you to believe. If anything pensions are an extension of our economic need to get fewer people working due to over large population and the lack of need for full employment.
4.) He killed public transit: Nope. He's president of the US. Most public transit wasn't public in the 1920s. It was MASS transit but privately owned. Truman and then Eisenhower had greater hands in developing the inter
I wouldn't disagree with you there, that's why Adam Smith in his treatise on Capitalism explained why the State has to be the enforcing entity of morality in this case. He knew people would be greedy and wished they wouldn't need coercion but accepted that the State was the best answer for these situations. It's later economists like Ayn Rand and her Austrians that justify the intensified view of greed which Ron Paul subscribes to.
Right-wing troll is trolling for the right-wing.:(
Where did Wilson and FDR cause irreparable damage to the US? Damn us for having social security, enhanced military, and keynesian economics that led to the huge post-war boom! Damn those evil liberals for actually made a society that was successful! So much better when we have a corporatist right-winger in the office who tricks the religious bigots into voting for them while lining their pockets.
The term "FairTax" is used by republicans and libertarians in the US to describe an unfair taxation system that lowers the taxation on the rich and ultra-rich. While obviously a prebate would be used to make it work it still wouldn't be a better system than the income tax system we currently use. The reason our tax code is so large is to deal with the diverse and economically unstable positions that our system has. In other words: we need 10 pages to deal with farmers and 40 for renters. The inherent flaw in the "FairTax" is that to compensate for a non-tiered system everybody has to have their taxes raised and it just creates a greater headache than it ever fixes.
Intriguing program you managed to succeed in. I think you misinterpreted my position, that those who have gained shouldn't be trying to close the door on the next generation. Unless you disagree and believe you got your share and shouldn't have to (put in a cliche) pay it forward.
10K in 1984-5? That's a private university. Public universities in those same times were 1-2K, maybe 3-4K if they were a classy place. I only paid 5.5K a year for my undergrad at a state university, they were ranked 8th overall for my subject. The idea that college has to be obscenely expensive is a notion pushed by private for-profit and non-profit schools because the state doesn't offer them a subsidy at all. Even then, the average state subsidy in my state (Pennsylvania) made tuition + subsidy about 13K last year. So a private university is charging 7K more, not offering a pension, and while the biggest and best private schools may offer a better degree the vast majority are on-par with their state rivals.
Ron Paul wants to follow a Randian belief system of hate and bile. Greed is not good, life shouldn't come down to "cost-benefit analysis" since in most cases most of your so-called business acumen was given to you by people who never followed it and were able to successfully attain employment and empowerment. In other words: You have a good life because somebody else suffered, don't turn your back now.
The IMF and the World Bank tend to use austerity policies to continue to promote their right-wing business oriented agenda. Too bad our own US government keeps that agenda when Republicans are in office. So until you're either competent in international politics or economics I suggest you shut your mouth since you're apparently utterly clueless as to how debt works. Counting inflation and other effects debt can actually cost the lender more depending on the situation and theoretically you should be doing something productive with the debt like enhancing value instead of depleting resources. The only country with a structural debt problem currently is Greece because their social safety net is very large but their major business of shipping is limited as the cost of fuel increases.
The United States on the other hand is one of the most populous, wealthiest, and largest countries on the planet. Most of our land is arable and we have a robust knowledge system. Our continued choice to follow right-wing austerity programs is our problem, not the solution and this PDF explains why in vivid detail.
Your story was cute until you showed your hand by blaming the democrats for what is essentially a right-wing business sector issue. The bankrupties that were occuring during the meltdown were 94% unregulated zones to largely middle-class whites while 6% were from the Clinton-era programs.
The problem stemmed from allowing banks which were essentially S&Ls to buy investment houses or form their own so they were interested in selling to the financial sector rather than balancing their S&L business.
First off most crimes are insolvable within normal parameters. This is something we never want to admit but largely without video cameras or physical evidence the crime is untrackable. In the case of your anecdotal GTA unless the car is recovere there is nothing to go on. They aren't going to blanket search the area for your 2003 Corolla either when more pressing crimes are at hand. Trust me on this the lowest murder victim still out ranks an expensive GTA.
So your argument about only the wealthy getting justice is just untruthful. If cybercrimes involving MMOs and virtual property weren't a grey area for jurisdiction and criminal status we would see sufficiently large crimes be proscecuted. The current issue is that they are a legal grey area where criminality and jurisdiction come into question.
Not in the US. The government secedes ownership of land but not sovereign ruling rights over it. There is a massive difference between owning the land and having governing rights over it. Unless you believe you live in some feudal state?
The cost of a full price DVD hovers around $20-22 while nexflix is about $15 for both services. It would take 3 DVDs purchased to equal 4 months of service. Cable is hovering between $60-120 a month. The equivalent costs are so much higher on netflix with the margins lower. So if you are acknowledging the issue is copyright holders why would you still attack your one friend in the fight?
Amazon is only interested in getting customers then driving the price up as netflix was forced to do. The rest of the streamers are pathetic or run in such a way as to be piece meal. Netflix was the best chance for legal streaming to work.
Boggles my mind. Slashdot runs with all the most ludicrous right-wing BS humanly possible.
The federal Reserve is a government agency that is self-regulating with smaller branches making up the larger board. Each branch has 3 sets of directors. One for the government, one for banks, and one for the people usually represented by a business interest. They are NOT responsible for printing money. The treasury prints money. The federal reserve is able to lend money through an overnight window and create borrowing through it but all of that money is backed by the US government. The concept revolves around fractional banking & the multiplier effect.
Since bitcoins are unregulated the arbitrage deals that occur are pushed through by speculators trying to manipulate the market in the exact opposite way that the federal reserve does. In other words speculators are trying to destabilize the market while the Reserve is attempting to stabilize it.
You use life insurance if it isn't term as a long-term investment and to cover funeral expenses. If anything life insurance will increase as the time to pay it will increase so that the reward for the family will be greater.
I see this as fine but realistically only those with wealth or atleast the middle-class in first world countries would get the benefit. So population explosion wouldn't be an issue.
Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, Stanford University, University of California-Berkeley, University of California-Davis, University of California-Irvine, University of California-Los Angeles, University of California-San Diego, University of California-Santa Barbara, University of Chicago, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor!
Give me a break!
Are those meant to represent extremely liberal campuses? I could guarantee you every one of those campuses has conservative teachers and students on them. The problem you would face is that in the face of a vastly educated force, probably the smartest on the planet, why are you conservative then? Most of the hires in the economics department aren't Austrians, they don't support the bigotry involved in gay marriage or abortion. I'm trying to figure out where your bias lies in the face of a clear cut education and intellectual gap between your ideas and their ideas.
I'm talking about public schools, not public universities.
If you're talking about charter schools versus private schools versus public schools we could argue. Private schools charge more per student than public schools get in public tuition, private schools are averaging about 10K a yeah and public schools average about 3-6K. Charter schools very depending on if they get public money or are essentially private. In either case they charge about even with public schools but can't maintain long-term teachers because their pay is less than public which is a similar problem for private schools. Most teachers bide their time teaching for them and then head for public school for the pension and benefits like anybody who loves their job but realizes that there is a better option out there. The vast majority of public teaching jobs are in suburban school districts not in inner-city ones so once you correct for economic disproportions public schools even out or excel past private schools. Last time I looked public schools were ahead of most every private school in national rankings except for elite prep academies when we go economic group to economic group.
Are you seriously talking about the voucher programs for public schooling in K-12? What they found was this was an idea dreamed up by wealthy suburban families that already paid for private school and still paid house taxes or some form of school tax.
Yes I am. Do you seriously believe all the bullshit the unions fed you to protect their jobs? Here, from the Wiki page:
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration pushed for vouchers, as did the George W. Bush administration in the initial education-reform proposals leading up to the No Child Left Behind Act. This year, it is estimated that nearly 171,000 students will participate in 18 existing school choice programs in 10 states and the District of Columbia. Most of these programs are offered to students in low-income families, low performing schools, or special-education programs.
So, you feel it's more important that a teacher, who is NOT teaching kids, to protect his/her job than it is to give a lower income child a chance at making it out of the lower income bracket? Or do you just want YOUR people poor, ignorant, gullible and dependent.
Hey Herman Cain, hypocrites want their goofy double-talk back. Why don't you yell at black people for being lazy again? Perhaps you should retract trying to strawman my supposed hate for children, I'm a professor and I did do some time in a public high school. I love educating children. The wiki page is always telling a very rose-tinted story because it doesn't get into the nitty-gritty of reality. Of the charter schools opened since 2000 a substantial number have already closed. The numbers we're talking about here aren't insignificant, t
Are you freaking kidding me?? Academia as a right wing institution. Dude! I really want some of what you're smoking, only not as much as it seems if you smoke too much, you turn stupid!
Liberty University, Grove City College..The list goes on. The most conservative colleges in America are thoroughly right-wing and already state colleges like University of Florida have right-wing funded professors who have a job because of a corporate fund.
First, of all, there have been private schools for longer than there have been public ones.
So has slaves, ships, people, the sun....The list goes on and on. What kind of point are you trying to make?
They often do a much better job of educating students for less money spent per student. Unfortunately, because they don't receive government funding, it costs the parents more to enroll their kids, meaning only the wealthy can afford it.
I nearly choked on that one. The average cost of attendance for a public university is still around 6-8K a year for tuition. Private is now over 20K. I've seen the funding reports for public universities. If we factor in what the state gives it comes to about 13-14K a year. You're nearly $6,000 shy of the mark. I suggest you rewrite what you're talking about since you clearly don't know. Also in most cases barring the ivy leagues state universities are better in most areas of Science and liberal arts. So your argument is without merit.
Of course, those evil right wingers tried to set up a system where poor parents could send their kids to the schools only previously accessible to the rich, but your lefty Democratic brethren shot it down. Why? It would give parents a choice as to where to send their kids, provide competition in the education system and provide a more educated student population. They shot it down because the unions went into a frenzy because they thought it might cost teachers that couldn't compete their jobs. That's right! They shot it down to protect crappy teachers.
So don't give me that crap about "Do you really think rich conservative right wingers want any criticism of capitalism or protection for the poor?". You are lying your ass off when you say that. Let me give you some free advice; If you have to lie to make your point, your point is wrong!
Are you seriously talking about the voucher programs for public schooling in K-12? What they found was this was an idea dreamed up by wealthy suburban families that already paid for private school and still paid house taxes or some form of school tax. Essentially they wanted to be able to get their money out of the system without making it seem greedy. If anything with the voucher system we would see private schools raise their rates to keep poor students out and only allow in the moderately less wealthy who could afford the tuition anyways. Most states would be handing out 3-5K checks and barring again the small focused private charters who tend to get students who's parents are more involved this system would peter out in less than a decade and most of the poorest students would be back in public schools that were even less funded. The reality is teachers take a hit to work in academia whether it is K-12 or Post-graduate. They make less with more education and capability than their private sector counterpart and the only reward is a pension which is once measured actually smaller than the reward for private sector pay bonus. So who is really cheating who in this equation?
False dichotomy is such BS. Make a stand you gutless simpleton. You're afraid to hurt people's feelings or are you simply unwilling to manifest a viewpoint? It reaches a point where you need to make a stand. This argument over capitalism in education is ludicrous. Students are not consumers. Students pay to cover the cost of educators doing a job. It isn't an act of buying groceries.
Second of all the act of this university is just a grab at power. Online classes only work to a certain extent & there is no real way to verify that. Until that time stealing the knowledge of a professor to assemble a class for online is paid upon each use I cannot seriously support anything to do with online courses that aren't well managed.
When we discuss taxation as a whole not just income the US runs about 10% behind western countries as a whole. If anything though the support of a higher corporate tax on internet businesses makes far greater sense since they can choose to increase prices to offset the tax (which isn't really true in the sense it's proportional but for the sake of argument) or make due with less profit to remain cheaper than the B&M stores. A national sales tax as all sales taxes disproportioniately affect the poor & middle class as those taxes eat into their disposable income and generally don't reward at the same rate.
Because science is occurring at such rapid speed that new innovations are always occurring and energy generation is a MAJOR issue currently in the world. A vast combination of graphene like this and solar/wind power could solve a great many problems. The current issue is that oil companies have a stranglehold on power generation as they are in alliance with the coal industry to keep us using non-renewable resources for the foreseeable future and it will take government intervention to stop that. Talk to your right-wingers and libertarians about that before griping about science.
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I'm of age, I teach at a smaller university. I used to frequent and still do to some extent awesome small venues. Good small venues don't rely solely on alcohol sales, some of them do all-ages shows with a tiered or sequestered area for alcohol. Also there are plenty of clubs that do weekday shows for great bands that are all-ages and make their money doing weekend clubbing.
Also the groups that can kill a 30K arena usually don't want to do smaller venues and the smaller venue groups can't fill a 30K arena, it was an example.
This has NEVER been true. This same argument has been applied to taxing those who make millions, that somehow this sort of regulation (or deregulation in this case) will discourage the creation and perpetuation due to lost revenue. Theoretically huge budget movies could be affected by long-term piracy but that's about the only area that could discourage investment due to lost revenue. To cut an album and then go tour is miniscule for an independent band, to make a funny movie or even a classic without it being an epic retelling of a Greek war or Lord of the Rings costs far less than what people think. Ideally this will shift media back towards a pay-for-play ideal where production costs will step back in line with profitability. For decades with the VCR movies have been able to recoup all losses in the box office by simply waiting it out. Music has a similar low overhead except for the mega-hits who spend ten times as much promoting it as they do recording it. The money in music though is in concerts and selling out smaller venues makes more sense than trying to fill a 30K arena every other night.
So your argument really has leg to stand on. You're playing into a false dichotomy in an effort to come across as the sensible middle. It doesn't work since the sensible argument is to do nothing about this sort of piracy and reinvent how you do business.
. . .That's called industrial espionage and it is in fact a serious crime. In most western countries it's enough to get you a very long prison term. The apples to oranges argument is really obnoxious. Nobody is saying it's OK to tromp around stealing information from your corporation. The Swiss have agreed that media (music, pictures, movies, etc) are legal to obtain through torrent and P2P sites along with other traditional routes that are called "piracy" because ultimately Swiss citizens still pay a vast amount into these industries.
Also, it's far more realistic for people to be pirating mega-hits than little known bands. Plus if anything has been shown over the last two decades is that smaller bands make more of their money touring than cutting albums. Cutting albums are for elite acts that can sell 10 million copies. Then their tours are really a promotional arm to their album sales.
The point is that as I stated the enemy of your enemy may not be your friend. Also, did you use a wrestling term? Really? If anything it's more so a subtle stab in their back as they have made it clear they're willing to lie at the drop of the hat.
It's all reactionary responses. People when faced with an affront to their beliefs instead of rationally weighing the options and either disagreeing or agreeing they simply cling harder to their beliefs and become hostile to the opposition. Think atheism and religions. Neither side will concede and since they're value judgments the reactionary response wins out and causes more damage than simply agreeing to disagree and moving on. I have to say PETA's approach to animal cruelty is both novel and incredibly stupid simply because they think shock = views = change where the argument stops at views. They have no real proof that their shock campaigns do anything besides create more pornography or bad flash games. In most cases the ASPCA & their compatriot groups do more for common animal cruelty than PETA ever has. I do admit PETA has done well for circus animals but outside of that realm they've left animal lovers yearning.
I think PETA knows they're never going to get converts in any sort of real numbers and will always be a well-funded fringe group. They're embracing that role more I think with these sorts of campaigns. On a side note: The anti-PETA website somebody mentioned earlier explaining about the killing at the supposed no-kill shelters is accurate but made by the same people who fought against anti-smoking legislation, unions, federal regulation on just about everything. Usually they resort to lying and cheating to make their point. It is important to remember that while the enemy of my enemy is a friend they're still a floating greasy brain with nothing but a seething hatred for everything good, so yeah...keep that in mind.
Wilson didn't create a powerful central government, Lincoln and then Johnson did.
You don't understand what Wilson did then. I don't pick him at random or just because I'm following the libertarian fad of the moment.
I know exactly what Wilson did, he passed the 1913 banking act that created the central reserve and then under his watch had federal income tax ammendment passed. Nothing is truly unique or interesting about either of those, modern western states use both and our central reserve banking system is much weaker than most other central banks due to the 13 individual banks that make up the reserve system. If you're discussing the Income tax, the requirement of the federal government had been met by selling western land up until that point. A need to have another route of funding was required and we still pay about 10% on average less in taxes (including all taxes) than other western states. If you're discussing Wilson's handling of dissention then you're talking about his right-wing desire for suppression not a liberal ideology. You have to remember modern left and right were still rudimentary under Wilson. He was an intellectual progressive not a liberal one.
1.) FDR created tons of meaningless programs: FDR as part of his "New Deal" and "New Deal II" created enormous amounts of new programs, not all of them were successful but a vast majority did great things like the Tennessee River Valley Power Authority, Social Security, WPA, and others. Most of the work programs seriously upgraded the US' infrastructure at a fraction of the cost of privately-funded ventures or even fully-employed public ventures. We were able to have a modern 20th century country before anybody else.
Private-funded ventures would have been cheaper, if FDR hadn't created a vast number of oligopolies and taken a variety of other measures (such as the creation of the above organizations you name) to sabotage the economy. And Social Security (by far the biggest program on your list) merely moves wealth around, it builds future liabilities not infrastructure.
Privately funded ventures due to their inherent need to produce a profit are never "cheaper" than their public counterparts. Your term use of oligopolies is totally incorrect for what the New Deal encompassed. It was direct government intervention without the use of outside contractors except where their knowledge was needed. FDR's New Deal programs were largely designed around the Keynesian idea of infrastructure building and public support. The Great Depression created a lack of spendable income which crippled our economy so the sooner we created employment and spending the economy would and did recover. There was no sabotaging of the economy, in fact it is very clear his programs worked to the detriment of the few oligopolies that did exist. Social security was perfectly funded because the people who got it first were paid for by the youngest entering, the system is continous and is based on overall income not number of recipients. Thus lifting the cap on it will allow it to become infintely stable.
2.) The FCC is a horrible agency that only watches for dirty words! Silly Liberals want us to stop saying fuck: The FCC was made to regulate the airwaves both in respect to content but also in administrative aspects. Before that radio stations overlapped and there was no central control since a radio station broadcasting in NYC, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, or Richmond could be heard in adjoining states and in the case of Pittsburgh on a good night could be heard in Chicago. State authorities have no power to limit this kind of broadcast thus it fell to the Federal government under the interstate commerce act. They do a helpful service still and most content is handled by internal censors at networks not the FCC.
Courts can do that just as well as the FCC could. The FCC
I've read comments about hating the hobbyist apps and general floatsam in the app store yet in the very next breath they're beating their chest over the number of apps on their perspective platform. When most smartphones without enterprise apps would be served by 10-25K apps without duplicates the apple & android stores are boasting close to millions of apps. Very clearly Apple likes the floatsam to pay 100 dollars to essentially break even or make a small profit. The app stores are less like department stores and more like sweat shops. The casino term is accurate for the business model, play upon the greed and naivety of developers and make a profit on them either way.
The so-called capitalists if they weren't so caught up in their own circle jerk of resentment and egotism would recognize the stranglehold Apple and others have on the gatekeeping of this frontier. Substantially less than a plurality sideload another market so their ecosystem's place is where they know & go. This leads to economic dictatorships and an unbalanced system we're now beginning to see.
Wilson didn't create a powerful central government, Lincoln and then Johnson did. The most powerful central government the US has ever known was run under Lincoln and a strong central government is a necessity of a modern 21st century global power (let alone a superpower). State's rights as we view it in the US has always been a cover for either slavery or in later years various forms of racism and bigotry. For the most part the US has the least strength of all Western powers in terms of Federal-State relations (i.e. Universal health care fight). Senators directly elected by a popular vote just makes vastly more sense than having the state legislature elect them. The more we allow "appointments" over "direct election" the more we hand power to the political parties and not to the people. This is similarly the case in term limits. So you're really arguing that centralized government is bad, which it isn't, but then turning around and arguing that political party power is good, which if you're a supporter of democratic republics is bad. Funny how that works...
Alright lets tackle these misconceptions in list form!
1.) FDR created tons of meaningless programs: FDR as part of his "New Deal" and "New Deal II" created enormous amounts of new programs, not all of them were successful but a vast majority did great things like the Tennessee River Valley Power Authority, Social Security, WPA, and others. Most of the work programs seriously upgraded the US' infrastructure at a fraction of the cost of privately-funded ventures or even fully-employed public ventures. We were able to have a modern 20th century country before anybody else.
2.) The FCC is a horrible agency that only watches for dirty words! Silly Liberals want us to stop saying fuck: The FCC was made to regulate the airwaves both in respect to content but also in administrative aspects. Before that radio stations overlapped and there was no central control since a radio station broadcasting in NYC, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, or Richmond could be heard in adjoining states and in the case of Pittsburgh on a good night could be heard in Chicago. State authorities have no power to limit this kind of broadcast thus it fell to the Federal government under the interstate commerce act. They do a helpful service still and most content is handled by internal censors at networks not the FCC.
3.) Social Security is a Ponzi/Pyramid Scheme: Unless you're Rick Perry you have no excuse for believing this. A pyramid scheme is different from a Ponzi scheme. One rewards people on a level system where the upper levels get most of the profit and is constantly moving to find new victims. Thus it looks like a pyramid. Ponzi schemes are named after Mr. Ponzi who was given money and was offering unrealistic returns on it, in reality he was using money from new customers to pay off old ones. Social Security is neither of these. We pay about 7% of our income up to 107K (after which it isn't taxed). Our employer pays another 7% for us into social security. From day one the money was funded and has been stable for 75 years. Social security is a way for older citizens to retire and survive. For the first time since 1983 they took in less than they paid out due to falling receipts due to the recession. But all they need is to lift the cap on the 7% tax from 107K to unlimited and the huge profits that CEOs pick up will be paid into the system and they'll remain solvent well into the 22nd century. Your argument is pathetic and proven untrue. Also, pensions are a perfectly reasonable desire and aren't the deadly thing that right-wingers want you to believe. If anything pensions are an extension of our economic need to get fewer people working due to over large population and the lack of need for full employment.
4.) He killed public transit: Nope. He's president of the US. Most public transit wasn't public in the 1920s. It was MASS transit but privately owned. Truman and then Eisenhower had greater hands in developing the inter
I wouldn't disagree with you there, that's why Adam Smith in his treatise on Capitalism explained why the State has to be the enforcing entity of morality in this case. He knew people would be greedy and wished they wouldn't need coercion but accepted that the State was the best answer for these situations. It's later economists like Ayn Rand and her Austrians that justify the intensified view of greed which Ron Paul subscribes to.
Right-wing troll is trolling for the right-wing. :(
Where did Wilson and FDR cause irreparable damage to the US? Damn us for having social security, enhanced military, and keynesian economics that led to the huge post-war boom! Damn those evil liberals for actually made a society that was successful! So much better when we have a corporatist right-winger in the office who tricks the religious bigots into voting for them while lining their pockets.
The term "FairTax" is used by republicans and libertarians in the US to describe an unfair taxation system that lowers the taxation on the rich and ultra-rich. While obviously a prebate would be used to make it work it still wouldn't be a better system than the income tax system we currently use. The reason our tax code is so large is to deal with the diverse and economically unstable positions that our system has. In other words: we need 10 pages to deal with farmers and 40 for renters. The inherent flaw in the "FairTax" is that to compensate for a non-tiered system everybody has to have their taxes raised and it just creates a greater headache than it ever fixes.
Intriguing program you managed to succeed in. I think you misinterpreted my position, that those who have gained shouldn't be trying to close the door on the next generation. Unless you disagree and believe you got your share and shouldn't have to (put in a cliche) pay it forward.
10K in 1984-5? That's a private university. Public universities in those same times were 1-2K, maybe 3-4K if they were a classy place. I only paid 5.5K a year for my undergrad at a state university, they were ranked 8th overall for my subject. The idea that college has to be obscenely expensive is a notion pushed by private for-profit and non-profit schools because the state doesn't offer them a subsidy at all. Even then, the average state subsidy in my state (Pennsylvania) made tuition + subsidy about 13K last year. So a private university is charging 7K more, not offering a pension, and while the biggest and best private schools may offer a better degree the vast majority are on-par with their state rivals.
Ron Paul wants to follow a Randian belief system of hate and bile. Greed is not good, life shouldn't come down to "cost-benefit analysis" since in most cases most of your so-called business acumen was given to you by people who never followed it and were able to successfully attain employment and empowerment. In other words: You have a good life because somebody else suffered, don't turn your back now.
The IMF and the World Bank tend to use austerity policies to continue to promote their right-wing business oriented agenda. Too bad our own US government keeps that agenda when Republicans are in office. So until you're either competent in international politics or economics I suggest you shut your mouth since you're apparently utterly clueless as to how debt works. Counting inflation and other effects debt can actually cost the lender more depending on the situation and theoretically you should be doing something productive with the debt like enhancing value instead of depleting resources. The only country with a structural debt problem currently is Greece because their social safety net is very large but their major business of shipping is limited as the cost of fuel increases.
The United States on the other hand is one of the most populous, wealthiest, and largest countries on the planet. Most of our land is arable and we have a robust knowledge system. Our continued choice to follow right-wing austerity programs is our problem, not the solution and this PDF explains why in vivid detail.
Your story was cute until you showed your hand by blaming the democrats for what is essentially a right-wing business sector issue. The bankrupties that were occuring during the meltdown were 94% unregulated zones to largely middle-class whites while 6% were from the Clinton-era programs.
The problem stemmed from allowing banks which were essentially S&Ls to buy investment houses or form their own so they were interested in selling to the financial sector rather than balancing their S&L business.
First off most crimes are insolvable within normal parameters. This is something we never want to admit but largely without video cameras or physical evidence the crime is untrackable. In the case of your anecdotal GTA unless the car is recovere there is nothing to go on. They aren't going to blanket search the area for your 2003 Corolla either when more pressing crimes are at hand. Trust me on this the lowest murder victim still out ranks an expensive GTA.
So your argument about only the wealthy getting justice is just untruthful. If cybercrimes involving MMOs and virtual property weren't a grey area for jurisdiction and criminal status we would see sufficiently large crimes be proscecuted. The current issue is that they are a legal grey area where criminality and jurisdiction come into question.
Not in the US. The government secedes ownership of land but not sovereign ruling rights over it. There is a massive difference between owning the land and having governing rights over it. Unless you believe you live in some feudal state?
The cost of a full price DVD hovers around $20-22 while nexflix is about $15 for both services. It would take 3 DVDs purchased to equal 4 months of service. Cable is hovering between $60-120 a month. The equivalent costs are so much higher on netflix with the margins lower. So if you are acknowledging the issue is copyright holders why would you still attack your one friend in the fight?
Amazon is only interested in getting customers then driving the price up as netflix was forced to do. The rest of the streamers are pathetic or run in such a way as to be piece meal. Netflix was the best chance for legal streaming to work.
Boggles my mind. Slashdot runs with all the most ludicrous right-wing BS humanly possible.
The federal Reserve is a government agency that is self-regulating with smaller branches making up the larger board. Each branch has 3 sets of directors. One for the government, one for banks, and one for the people usually represented by a business interest. They are NOT responsible for printing money. The treasury prints money. The federal reserve is able to lend money through an overnight window and create borrowing through it but all of that money is backed by the US government. The concept revolves around fractional banking & the multiplier effect.
Since bitcoins are unregulated the arbitrage deals that occur are pushed through by speculators trying to manipulate the market in the exact opposite way that the federal reserve does. In other words speculators are trying to destabilize the market while the Reserve is attempting to stabilize it.
You use life insurance if it isn't term as a long-term investment and to cover funeral expenses. If anything life insurance will increase as the time to pay it will increase so that the reward for the family will be greater.
I see this as fine but realistically only those with wealth or atleast the middle-class in first world countries would get the benefit. So population explosion wouldn't be an issue.
Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, Stanford University, University of California-Berkeley, University of California-Davis, University of California-Irvine, University of California-Los Angeles, University of California-San Diego, University of California-Santa Barbara, University of Chicago, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor!
Give me a break!
Are those meant to represent extremely liberal campuses? I could guarantee you every one of those campuses has conservative teachers and students on them. The problem you would face is that in the face of a vastly educated force, probably the smartest on the planet, why are you conservative then? Most of the hires in the economics department aren't Austrians, they don't support the bigotry involved in gay marriage or abortion. I'm trying to figure out where your bias lies in the face of a clear cut education and intellectual gap between your ideas and their ideas.
I'm talking about public schools, not public universities.
If you're talking about charter schools versus private schools versus public schools we could argue. Private schools charge more per student than public schools get in public tuition, private schools are averaging about 10K a yeah and public schools average about 3-6K. Charter schools very depending on if they get public money or are essentially private. In either case they charge about even with public schools but can't maintain long-term teachers because their pay is less than public which is a similar problem for private schools. Most teachers bide their time teaching for them and then head for public school for the pension and benefits like anybody who loves their job but realizes that there is a better option out there. The vast majority of public teaching jobs are in suburban school districts not in inner-city ones so once you correct for economic disproportions public schools even out or excel past private schools. Last time I looked public schools were ahead of most every private school in national rankings except for elite prep academies when we go economic group to economic group.
Are you seriously talking about the voucher programs for public schooling in K-12? What they found was this was an idea dreamed up by wealthy suburban families that already paid for private school and still paid house taxes or some form of school tax.
Yes I am. Do you seriously believe all the bullshit the unions fed you to protect their jobs? Here, from the Wiki page:
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration pushed for vouchers, as did the George W. Bush administration in the initial education-reform proposals leading up to the No Child Left Behind Act. This year, it is estimated that nearly 171,000 students will participate in 18 existing school choice programs in 10 states and the District of Columbia. Most of these programs are offered to students in low-income families, low performing schools, or special-education programs.
So, you feel it's more important that a teacher, who is NOT teaching kids, to protect his/her job than it is to give a lower income child a chance at making it out of the lower income bracket? Or do you just want YOUR people poor, ignorant, gullible and dependent.
Hey Herman Cain, hypocrites want their goofy double-talk back. Why don't you yell at black people for being lazy again? Perhaps you should retract trying to strawman my supposed hate for children, I'm a professor and I did do some time in a public high school. I love educating children. The wiki page is always telling a very rose-tinted story because it doesn't get into the nitty-gritty of reality. Of the charter schools opened since 2000 a substantial number have already closed. The numbers we're talking about here aren't insignificant, t
Are you freaking kidding me?? Academia as a right wing institution. Dude! I really want some of what you're smoking, only not as much as it seems if you smoke too much, you turn stupid!
Liberty University, Grove City College..The list goes on. The most conservative colleges in America are thoroughly right-wing and already state colleges like University of Florida have right-wing funded professors who have a job because of a corporate fund.
First, of all, there have been private schools for longer than there have been public ones.
So has slaves, ships, people, the sun....The list goes on and on. What kind of point are you trying to make?
They often do a much better job of educating students for less money spent per student. Unfortunately, because they don't receive government funding, it costs the parents more to enroll their kids, meaning only the wealthy can afford it.
I nearly choked on that one. The average cost of attendance for a public university is still around 6-8K a year for tuition. Private is now over 20K. I've seen the funding reports for public universities. If we factor in what the state gives it comes to about 13-14K a year. You're nearly $6,000 shy of the mark. I suggest you rewrite what you're talking about since you clearly don't know. Also in most cases barring the ivy leagues state universities are better in most areas of Science and liberal arts. So your argument is without merit.
Of course, those evil right wingers tried to set up a system where poor parents could send their kids to the schools only previously accessible to the rich, but your lefty Democratic brethren shot it down. Why? It would give parents a choice as to where to send their kids, provide competition in the education system and provide a more educated student population. They shot it down because the unions went into a frenzy because they thought it might cost teachers that couldn't compete their jobs. That's right! They shot it down to protect crappy teachers.
So don't give me that crap about "Do you really think rich conservative right wingers want any criticism of capitalism or protection for the poor?". You are lying your ass off when you say that. Let me give you some free advice; If you have to lie to make your point, your point is wrong!
Are you seriously talking about the voucher programs for public schooling in K-12? What they found was this was an idea dreamed up by wealthy suburban families that already paid for private school and still paid house taxes or some form of school tax. Essentially they wanted to be able to get their money out of the system without making it seem greedy. If anything with the voucher system we would see private schools raise their rates to keep poor students out and only allow in the moderately less wealthy who could afford the tuition anyways. Most states would be handing out 3-5K checks and barring again the small focused private charters who tend to get students who's parents are more involved this system would peter out in less than a decade and most of the poorest students would be back in public schools that were even less funded. The reality is teachers take a hit to work in academia whether it is K-12 or Post-graduate. They make less with more education and capability than their private sector counterpart and the only reward is a pension which is once measured actually smaller than the reward for private sector pay bonus. So who is really cheating who in this equation?
False dichotomy is such BS. Make a stand you gutless simpleton. You're afraid to hurt people's feelings or are you simply unwilling to manifest a viewpoint? It reaches a point where you need to make a stand. This argument over capitalism in education is ludicrous. Students are not consumers. Students pay to cover the cost of educators doing a job. It isn't an act of buying groceries.
Second of all the act of this university is just a grab at power. Online classes only work to a certain extent & there is no real way to verify that. Until that time stealing the knowledge of a professor to assemble a class for online is paid upon each use I cannot seriously support anything to do with online courses that aren't well managed.
When we discuss taxation as a whole not just income the US runs about 10% behind western countries as a whole. If anything though the support of a higher corporate tax on internet businesses makes far greater sense since they can choose to increase prices to offset the tax (which isn't really true in the sense it's proportional but for the sake of argument) or make due with less profit to remain cheaper than the B&M stores. A national sales tax as all sales taxes disproportioniately affect the poor & middle class as those taxes eat into their disposable income and generally don't reward at the same rate.
Because science is occurring at such rapid speed that new innovations are always occurring and energy generation is a MAJOR issue currently in the world. A vast combination of graphene like this and solar/wind power could solve a great many problems. The current issue is that oil companies have a stranglehold on power generation as they are in alliance with the coal industry to keep us using non-renewable resources for the foreseeable future and it will take government intervention to stop that. Talk to your right-wingers and libertarians about that before griping about science.