Apple production facilities are in China already, aren't they? Foxconn if I am not mistaken? If Chinese GOVERNMENT wanted to hurt Apple, they'd start there.
This is not government by itself, this is some competitor using his ties to the government channels maybe?
Yeah, of-course Nixon actually caused the "oil-crisis" with the default on the dollar in 1971. Then the price and wage controls came (and oil prices were pushed even higher artificially as a result to ensure that there is some oil coming in from the middle eastern suppliers)
The government, if some amount of it is not solving your problems, apply even more of it.
While I agree with all comments that are similar to yours in this story, you are correct on the issue of email in general, however when legislation like this is introduced you have to look beyond the immediate and the obvious that is on the surface, look below it a little bit.
Is this aimed at all emails? I would argue this would be aimed at large web mail providers, gmail, yahoo mail, hotmail and such. If the politicians could ever be successful at targeting email for payment it would be through large central web mail providers (and it would probably destroy their business model because people would not all of a sudden want to pay to send email, so they would stop using those web mail accounts for the most part).
Balanced budget is the only sound economic policy. Central gov't is a LUXURY item, it's unnecessary for a society to exist by the way, society can run without any central gov't and have local gov't instead (if any, whatever the form it may be).
Central gov't is a spending item on the overall balance sheet of a country. It's the country that spends too much that has constant deficits, government deficits, trade deficits. USA has 50 Billion USD/month (around that) trade deficits. Lately they went down a bit, because USA reduced its fuel consumption and it's exporting some of its oil. That's how bad things are in USA, it's no longer using the oil, it exports it, like a raw material/energy exporter.
Well, that's the only thing that USA has left that it can actually trade with - raw energy, raw materials, probably food items. What else can it sell? Nuclear warheads? Aircraft carriers? Well, eventually, when the dollar is done and the bonds are toilet paper, they may even SELL THEIR AIRCRAFT CARRIERS. Why not? They could be used for metal or as barges maybe.
USA used to be a net importer before 19th century, it was a debtor nation and over the first 124 years of existence it became a net exporter and the largest CREDITOR nation in the world. It did it without any gov't, it did it without any gov't debt.
The debt was mostly private and it was repaid as the industry built up and made profits.
Americans will learn eventually that there is no difference between a pre-industrial economy and a post-industrial one, the major difference will be more difficult access to natural resources, because the easy ones were mined long ago, and so the American economy will be in a much more difficult position in the future century than it was 2 centuries ago from that perspective.
The REAL money is NOT created by gov't. Money is what market makes, not what gov't says it is, and market chooses money that is not easy for politicians to fake. Gold is money, paper is not. Gold has to be mined, the metal has real intrinsic value in it, people's effort goes into it, it's not very easy to increase the supply.
Paper, OTOH (and any electronic equivalent) is nothing at all, but a number printed in inc on a dirty sheet.
Real money does not come from fractional reserve lending, unless all of the banking participants (creditors, depositors) are aware of the fact that most of their money is in the hands of debtors, who may lose it. This means that REAL MONEY CAN BE LOST, there is a risk associated with lending.
That's not at all what gov't is facing when it issues more and more fake debt promises and more and more fake credit is created out of thin air by the Fed, to buy that fake debt, to keep interest rates down. But they can only keep the interest rates down as long as they take in all of the new debt and only until the currently held bonds start rolling over.
The real question becomes: with all the short term paper that is held by the foreigners and various public interests, will it be the very NEXT roll over or the one after that, which will collapse the US dollar and thus the bond, will push the interest rates way up and cause a massive recession (that USA actually needs to clear its debts and restart the economy)?
Which one?
I think whatever happens next depends on whether the creditors are willing to wait just one more roll over or if they are inpatient. So 2-3 years, no more than 5 is when the entire thing goes down.
USA is leading the currency war (able to do it so far, since USD is 'reserve', but everything is transitory), and the objective of a currency war is to inflict damage upon yourself. Destroying your own currency means literally destroying its purchasing power, destroying savings, destroying investment.
However historically all currency wars lead to trade wars, that's because once the participants of a currency war realise that printing money is actually a very simple thing (compare actually to producing something of value), they open the flood gates and it starts pouring down like there is no end. Trade war is the next logical step in this path towards complete self-destruction. That's when tariffs and import taxes and various other legal barriers to entry of foreign products and services (and labour obviously) are elevated ever higher.
They say that the greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing people that he didn't exist. Well, the greatest trick the governments are able to play on the people is to convince them that inflation is good for them but also that there is no inflation.
It's insane how brainwashed the public is, both to believe that rising prices increase economic activity and that money printing is not inflation itself. But that's what it takes for the government to be able to pull this crap and enter a self-destructing currency war - a brain dead population, that believes that shooting itself in the head repeatedly is a good strategy for survival.
This story is related to this same problem, people thinking that their misery comes from the outsiders, from foreign currency markets, from foreign products, foreign labour. That's how wars start - by the mob believing that it is at war with other nations, while in reality the mob is the primary mover and self-destructing mechanism, with complete lack of vision and total lack of understanding that it is its own worst enemy.
Currency war and trade war is not something you want to participate in, it's like they said in the War Games: the only winning move is not to play.
So some people are still being entrepreneurial and are still manufacturing something in USA and the/. crowd is yelling *in loud shrieking, Anonymous Coward voices* - fuck you, you subversive, you are committing a thought crime a speak crime, you are expressing yourself individually while probably coming up with a way to build a business, making you totally uncontrollable by government that wants you on a subsidy, so that you'd support all gov't nonsense spending programs with stolen, borrowed and fake money.
I really don't care about your 'giving credibility', I wrote about this problem previously. SCOTUS is not supposed to 'interpret the law', it's supposed to uphold the law. If a law is unclear, it should be clarified in the Constitution. "Interpreting" the Constitution = breaking it.
I am quite certain there isn't one type of argument that you can throw at me that I didn't actually address previously in some comment or a journal entry (not that it matters, just a thought).
You omitted the third option, the one that is the most politically expedient: you borrow money and once you can't borrow you print.
Thus eventually you destroy your currency and the entire issue becomes irrelevant - you can get your SS or Medicare check, but they don't buy anything, because your country isn't producing anything and all of your importers don't want to take your fake currency for their products.
Central planning, destruction of competition, government money (taxed, borrowed, printed, whatever), more 'data crunching'.
The costs are going up, the people who used to have health insurance (whether paid for it themselves or through their employer) will be falling while the number of people who never had health insurance but can now have it because it will be heavily subsidized for them will be going up.
The nonsensical SCOTUS decision on ACA (4 vs 5 makes something Constitutional as opposed to unconstitutional?) is only technically 'constitutional' because the fine for not buying insurance is seen as a tax, but as such, it cannot be too high (whatever that means), otherwise it means the Congress is legislating by taxing, and that's illegal. Of-course ACA is unconstitutional, because it is a direct tax, the fact that some people will not pay it does not turn it into indirect tax. There are plenty of people who are not paying federal income taxes, yet that does not make them indirect. (Here I cover all these arguments and more).
But Americans were sold a bill of goods, the health care COSTS will be going up, as there will be even more demand generated than just with gov't money in Medicare, fake demand that would not have existed otherwise with fake money, that nobody that would spend it had to earn.
The costs will be going up, the insurance companies will see a drastic fall in subscribers, their revenues will disappear, and the gov't will have to either bail out the insurance companies or the next bill will completely nationalize health insurance and turn it into 'single payer', which is even more devastating than that USA used to have prior to ACA.
Of-course there is no money for any of it, this is another giant step towards destruction of the American economy, and people are still wondering, 'why are investors not investing in America?'
USSR used to have a 'free for all' health care and education and even 'right to work' (where you'll get a job, regardless whether you want it or not, otherwise you could even face jail time for being a 'parasite') American CIA even believe until the last day of USSR that the former Soviet state was strong. Yeah, well, the same people (or the same attitudes and misconceptions) that worked for the CIA at the time are at work today, believing that what USA needs is more socialism and not less of it.
USA is bankrupt, ACA doesn't matter anymore, the US economy cannot afford it but it doesn't even have to, it won't matter much to the final outcome.
Well, your story is fine and all... I took various jobs before 95, went to university, took a loan in the first year (7500). By the end of the first year I was working in the field already, 12.50/hr. Graduated a bit slower than usual (end of 2000), but switched to contracts right away starting my first contract at 70/hr. Running a few businesses now, some property, selling my own software services (spent near 3 years building the software first). I don't see an hourly wage as some form of achievement. AFAIC an achievement is to produce something on your own that people want to have.
I never understood this suggestion because people in this position often don't have the luxury of working for free.. transportation costs money you know. Usually this suggestion comes from the affluent: people who are used to having extra cash they can turn into free time.
- Oh, I see, so you must have finished one of them fancy edumacation faculties, because you figure it's better to pay for years to go to a college that you don't actually need to get a job and get into all sorts of debt while not getting any smarter or younger or wealthier than not get into all that debt, not waste time and instead use the same time you would have wasted in college accruing debt to get a low paying job (or even to volunteer, like the GP said) while getting enough skills/networking to get to the next step on that ladder?
1. Gov't must not and is not authorized to force you to wear a seatbelt, it's must be a personal choice (it may be a rule if you are driving on a private road though), but you are not forced to drive on that road.
2. Gov't must not and is not authorized to limit abortions.
3. If gov't is actually a lawful one and governs with the consent of the governed, its only true function is protection from tyranny, for example protection from foreign invasion. Personally I do not buy that logic either, it's up to the individuals to form a militia and protect themselves if a need comes up.
4. Gov't must not and is not authorized to run wars that are not actually declared by the people (never mind the fact that there is no money for it, so it goes onto the credit card and into inflation - money printing).
5. If gov't has a role protecting the people from invasion, then it must be able to protect borders from military invasion, but this has nothing to do with people going in and out of country on their own. I don't buy the logic that national borders even mean anything. All people (that are not coming as an army to enslave you) should be free to cross any borders at any time.
6. Gov't must not and is not authorized to tell people how to live their lives, what to eat, what to drink, who to fuck, what to smoke and inject, what to grow, what to manufacture, how to manufacture it, how to market it, etc. The only purpose for USA federal gov't ability to 'regulate interstate commerce' was to prevent individual States from stifling competition by requiring special licenses to do business across State lines. Everything else is a perversion, the federal gov't completely perverted the idea and used it to destroy individual freedoms.
Jails, criminal code, none of this is or must be authorized to government either, it's a completely local matter, it can be handled by localities however they see fit and you are free to choose which locality suits you best.
In short, AFAIC most governments that exist today are totalitarian socialist / fascist (and the only difference there is the means of achieving approximately the same goals - destruction of individual freedoms, collectivism, central planning, technocratic oppressive tyrannical despotic, even if democratic system of enslavement of individuals).
- pure, unadulterated nonsense either out of ignorance or lack of integrity (lies).
Goldwater didn't have a problem with minorities, he had a problem with that law, which stole individual liberties from private property owners, placed obligations upon them to provide entitlements to people who were specifically given entitlements by the politicians in that law.
AFAIC that law should have stopped at ensuring that GOVERNMENT does not discriminate against minorities (or anybody for that matter). What private people do in their private lives and business is none of government's business or authority.
If Goldwater was elected POTUS, USA most likely would have kicked its bad habits, that stem out of the socialist ideology and lead towards fascist implementations. Goldwater was a true statesman, the dear elected leaders who actually come to power are just self-serving politicians with no principles.
What a Country, where the citizens are given the implicit right and means for violent revolution should the government turn evil.
- yes, THAT country was great. All people need to have this option at all times, the governments are evil, they are discriminatory, tyrannical, oppressive. Governments are stuffed with thieves, murderers and liars.
That's how it is, actually revolting and taking down governments should be a periodic exercise - prophylactic for freedom.
Yes, so the government shouldn't be selling licenses to the rating agencies and shouldn't be forcing mutual funds, especially pension funds to only buy debt that is rated by the agencies that the government licenses.
US government treasury bonds are rated as high as they are by the agencies that are licensed by the government, and the moment one of these agencies decides to downgrade US Treasuries because US Tresuries are actually junk, it is sued and prohibited from rating US Treasuries. Of-course that one agency actually gets paid by the buyers of the bond, not by the sellers.
The banks and bankers are only a symptom of the actual problem, which is lack of real economic activity, fake money, money printed by the Fed, all the regulations that create all the moral hazards, from FDIC to FHA, Freddie and Fannie, HUD, etc.
The bankers are just people who are given free money and incentives to give out loans with free 'insurance' (gov't doesn't provide insurance, it has no assets for that, no investment, it's all based either on future taxation, more borrowing or printing - inflation).
Bankers cannot do what they did if the gov't doesn't create the entire environment where it is profitable to do it because the actual risk is no longer with the bankers. Actually banks used to be private partnerships until the end of seventies, you won't find banks like that anywhere anymore, it's all large corporations that are all tied to government, all getting their bail out money, discount window is opened for them, they are protected top to bottom and the laws are set to ensure that they are part of the wealth transfer.
The wealth that is being transferred from the real savers and real investors to the consumers (whoever the gov't makes into consumers, this means the banks themselves, military industrial complex, all the connected corporations and of-course the mob - the promise of socialism, stealing from the productive and subsidising the unproductive is what gives the politicians the green light to be able to continue this theft).
Banks are not only too big to fail now, banks are now too big to investigate, to big to charge with crimes. That's because banks are now the government, there is really no difference.
JPMorgan is now the 'Tresury' (there is no treasure, there is only debt, it should be know as the dep't of debt).
Everything that gov't does creates incentives to destroy the real competitive free market capitalism. The savers and investors are punished with inflation, taxes, regulations. The politicians and top connected corporate drones are protected from any investigation and actually from failure.
This is an atrocity. The fact that many bankers understood this and still acted upon it is just the proof positive that this SYSTEM is rotten, the system shouldn't be set up to allow this. But the system is what it is because the MOB, the democratic mobocracy votes for politicians who promise and deliver destruction of the law, destruction of the Constitution.
Democracy destroys good self-governance, it destroys the Republic, which builds the wealth and thus it destroys the wealth and creates poverty and misery. Democracy is the root cause of the problem, people who vote for the politicians that promise free shit to be stolen from a minority and given to the majority, that's the problem.
The problem is the complete abolition of the law, of the Constitution, of the principles that were set when the Constitution was created. It's not a nation of laws, it's the nation of men.
Socialism is promised and somewhat delivered, but the implementation is much more fascist (and no, those two are not polar opposites, they are both collectivist, central planning, anti-capitalist, so anti-private property, anti-human, anti-free market, oppressive, tyrannical systems).
That's the root cause. Bankers understanding that they are using the incentives that the system provides them with to make easy money from suckers who really should have known better? That's the symptom.
The entire mainstream industry of the so called "mainstream" economics is fake.
Realise that what economics really is, it's very simple. In reality there isn't actually a need for economists. In the beginning of the 20th century there were maybe 10 people who actually were known as economists, today there are tens of thousands. Why is that and what is it that they do? How is being an 'economist' more important or useful than being say an accountant?
An accountant can be very useful to a company, he really can find ways to make things more efficient, find ways to structure the business in a way that reduces costs. Unfortunately the government forces companies, people not only to pay income taxes (which is the most terrible tax, the most destructive tax you can think of for an economy, you get less of what you tax, you get more of what you subsidise, so if you tax people's work, you get less of it, if you subsidise people not working, you'll get more of that) to be unpaid IRS agents.
In 1942 the government forced employers to start withholding employee's income taxes, and that added more work for an employer, it costs money to do that kind of work. Of-course the government doesn't have a problem adding costs to activities that other people have to incur, but really, you have to be crazy to want to invest and employ people in most of the Western countries today. So accountants can help companies to reduce taxes for example.
What have economists done for the businesses and for people though? Have the economists helped people? As I said, in the beginning of the 20th century USA had maybe 10 economists. The economy of USA was growing, the 19th century was time of slight deflation (prices were slightly falling all the time, the dollar was strengthening, yet more and more productive capacity was added, people invested. USA became largest manufacturer, exporter and creditor nation). Of-course there are tens of thousands of 'economists' today and today USA is the largest in the world and in history of the world debtor nation, with 40-50 Billion USD / month trade deficits, with largest in the world and in history funded debt, unfunded debt, various contingency liabilities.
People like Krugman are suggesting dropping the pretence of solvency and just starting to print 1Trillion dollar coins, etc.
Greenspan was known for this 'Greenspan Put' over the nineties, when his policies of inflation fuelled the stock market bubble and started the housing and the bond bubble. Bernanke is known as the "Helicopter Ben".
None of these people saw the stock market and the housing market bubbles being inflated, none of them understand the biggest gov't credit bubble being inflated right now (bond and USD bubble, really it's the government bubble). Bernanke didn't know the US housing was in a bubble while the bubble was actually bursting already. These 'economists'.
In the meanwhile people who just follow the fundamental principles (normal economics, known as 'Austrian' school, but really it is just common sense economics), people like John Paulson, Peter Schiff, Jim Rogers, Marc Faber, they made millions and more because they just followed the fundamentals.
The fundamentals are: you can't spend more than you earn. Earning = working = selling things in the real market that people want to buy. Economy = production, it does not equal consumption. Consumption is just a trivial consequence of production, without production nothing can be consumed. Production comes first. Production comes out of investments. Investments come out of savings. Savings come out of the difference between some over-production and under-consumption.
Money cannot be printed, printing money is inflation. Printing money does not make more products. Real money IS products. Fiat currency is not real money if it's not backed by anything. Fiat = currency that is mandated by gov't to be accepted, currency by decree.
Real money imposes lending and spending discipline. Fake money (fiat that is printed by gov
What the hell does gov't have to do with that either? Why has the gov't taken over all of the nuclear research and materials and access? From point of view of individuals this is a terrible situation, the government holds this power in its hands and it can literally use it to destroy the world and the individuals have no symmetric response to this threat.
Gov't deciding where nuclear materials will go and how they will be stored, etc. Well, you can be assured that the no-competition bid will be won by the most politically connected people, who will do a great job siphoning off whatever money they still can into their own bank accounts.
Slashdot Mirror
Chinese government makes money off of Foxconn's business, why would they purposefully hurt it?
Apple production facilities are in China already, aren't they? Foxconn if I am not mistaken? If Chinese GOVERNMENT wanted to hurt Apple, they'd start there.
This is not government by itself, this is some competitor using his ties to the government channels maybe?
You took the words exactly out of my mouth.
- then shouldn't you be angry with him for copyright infringement?
Yeah, of-course Nixon actually caused the "oil-crisis" with the default on the dollar in 1971. Then the price and wage controls came (and oil prices were pushed even higher artificially as a result to ensure that there is some oil coming in from the middle eastern suppliers)
The government, if some amount of it is not solving your problems, apply even more of it.
While I agree with all comments that are similar to yours in this story, you are correct on the issue of email in general, however when legislation like this is introduced you have to look beyond the immediate and the obvious that is on the surface, look below it a little bit.
Is this aimed at all emails? I would argue this would be aimed at large web mail providers, gmail, yahoo mail, hotmail and such. If the politicians could ever be successful at targeting email for payment it would be through large central web mail providers (and it would probably destroy their business model because people would not all of a sudden want to pay to send email, so they would stop using those web mail accounts for the most part).
China needs the USA for economic strength
- yeah, sort of like a pig needs a roundworm for better health. Or maybe like a dog needs flees, because they are a sign of dominance and power.
Well, or he could send Biden to do this address, and then you just KNOW what the next headline will be:
"VP calls on the North Korean leader to cum all over him".
Balanced budget is the only sound economic policy. Central gov't is a LUXURY item, it's unnecessary for a society to exist by the way, society can run without any central gov't and have local gov't instead (if any, whatever the form it may be).
Central gov't is a spending item on the overall balance sheet of a country. It's the country that spends too much that has constant deficits, government deficits, trade deficits. USA has 50 Billion USD/month (around that) trade deficits. Lately they went down a bit, because USA reduced its fuel consumption and it's exporting some of its oil. That's how bad things are in USA, it's no longer using the oil, it exports it, like a raw material/energy exporter.
Well, that's the only thing that USA has left that it can actually trade with - raw energy, raw materials, probably food items. What else can it sell? Nuclear warheads? Aircraft carriers? Well, eventually, when the dollar is done and the bonds are toilet paper, they may even SELL THEIR AIRCRAFT CARRIERS. Why not? They could be used for metal or as barges maybe.
USA used to be a net importer before 19th century, it was a debtor nation and over the first 124 years of existence it became a net exporter and the largest CREDITOR nation in the world. It did it without any gov't, it did it without any gov't debt.
The debt was mostly private and it was repaid as the industry built up and made profits.
Americans will learn eventually that there is no difference between a pre-industrial economy and a post-industrial one, the major difference will be more difficult access to natural resources, because the easy ones were mined long ago, and so the American economy will be in a much more difficult position in the future century than it was 2 centuries ago from that perspective.
The REAL money is NOT created by gov't. Money is what market makes, not what gov't says it is, and market chooses money that is not easy for politicians to fake. Gold is money, paper is not. Gold has to be mined, the metal has real intrinsic value in it, people's effort goes into it, it's not very easy to increase the supply.
Paper, OTOH (and any electronic equivalent) is nothing at all, but a number printed in inc on a dirty sheet.
Real money does not come from fractional reserve lending, unless all of the banking participants (creditors, depositors) are aware of the fact that most of their money is in the hands of debtors, who may lose it. This means that REAL MONEY CAN BE LOST, there is a risk associated with lending.
That's not at all what gov't is facing when it issues more and more fake debt promises and more and more fake credit is created out of thin air by the Fed, to buy that fake debt, to keep interest rates down. But they can only keep the interest rates down as long as they take in all of the new debt and only until the currently held bonds start rolling over.
The real question becomes: with all the short term paper that is held by the foreigners and various public interests, will it be the very NEXT roll over or the one after that, which will collapse the US dollar and thus the bond, will push the interest rates way up and cause a massive recession (that USA actually needs to clear its debts and restart the economy)?
Which one?
I think whatever happens next depends on whether the creditors are willing to wait just one more roll over or if they are inpatient. So 2-3 years, no more than 5 is when the entire thing goes down.
I give it, at most, 50-100 more years before it completely collapses.
- less than 5, probably 2-3.
USA is leading the currency war (able to do it so far, since USD is 'reserve', but everything is transitory), and the objective of a currency war is to inflict damage upon yourself. Destroying your own currency means literally destroying its purchasing power, destroying savings, destroying investment.
However historically all currency wars lead to trade wars, that's because once the participants of a currency war realise that printing money is actually a very simple thing (compare actually to producing something of value), they open the flood gates and it starts pouring down like there is no end. Trade war is the next logical step in this path towards complete self-destruction. That's when tariffs and import taxes and various other legal barriers to entry of foreign products and services (and labour obviously) are elevated ever higher.
They say that the greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing people that he didn't exist. Well, the greatest trick the governments are able to play on the people is to convince them that inflation is good for them but also that there is no inflation.
It's insane how brainwashed the public is, both to believe that rising prices increase economic activity and that money printing is not inflation itself. But that's what it takes for the government to be able to pull this crap and enter a self-destructing currency war - a brain dead population, that believes that shooting itself in the head repeatedly is a good strategy for survival.
This story is related to this same problem, people thinking that their misery comes from the outsiders, from foreign currency markets, from foreign products, foreign labour. That's how wars start - by the mob believing that it is at war with other nations, while in reality the mob is the primary mover and self-destructing mechanism, with complete lack of vision and total lack of understanding that it is its own worst enemy.
Currency war and trade war is not something you want to participate in, it's like they said in the War Games: the only winning move is not to play.
So some people are still being entrepreneurial and are still manufacturing something in USA and the /. crowd is yelling *in loud shrieking, Anonymous Coward voices* - fuck you, you subversive, you are committing a thought crime a speak crime, you are expressing yourself individually while probably coming up with a way to build a business, making you totally uncontrollable by government that wants you on a subsidy, so that you'd support all gov't nonsense spending programs with stolen, borrowed and fake money.
Subversive = a normal, thinking, free individual.
I really don't care about your 'giving credibility', I wrote about this problem previously. SCOTUS is not supposed to 'interpret the law', it's supposed to uphold the law. If a law is unclear, it should be clarified in the Constitution. "Interpreting" the Constitution = breaking it.
I am quite certain there isn't one type of argument that you can throw at me that I didn't actually address previously in some comment or a journal entry (not that it matters, just a thought).
You omitted the third option, the one that is the most politically expedient: you borrow money and once you can't borrow you print.
Thus eventually you destroy your currency and the entire issue becomes irrelevant - you can get your SS or Medicare check, but they don't buy anything, because your country isn't producing anything and all of your importers don't want to take your fake currency for their products.
Central planning, destruction of competition, government money (taxed, borrowed, printed, whatever), more 'data crunching'.
The costs are going up, the people who used to have health insurance (whether paid for it themselves or through their employer) will be falling while the number of people who never had health insurance but can now have it because it will be heavily subsidized for them will be going up.
The nonsensical SCOTUS decision on ACA (4 vs 5 makes something Constitutional as opposed to unconstitutional?) is only technically 'constitutional' because the fine for not buying insurance is seen as a tax, but as such, it cannot be too high (whatever that means), otherwise it means the Congress is legislating by taxing, and that's illegal. Of-course ACA is unconstitutional, because it is a direct tax, the fact that some people will not pay it does not turn it into indirect tax. There are plenty of people who are not paying federal income taxes, yet that does not make them indirect. (Here I cover all these arguments and more).
But Americans were sold a bill of goods, the health care COSTS will be going up, as there will be even more demand generated than just with gov't money in Medicare, fake demand that would not have existed otherwise with fake money, that nobody that would spend it had to earn.
The costs will be going up, the insurance companies will see a drastic fall in subscribers, their revenues will disappear, and the gov't will have to either bail out the insurance companies or the next bill will completely nationalize health insurance and turn it into 'single payer', which is even more devastating than that USA used to have prior to ACA.
Of-course there is no money for any of it, this is another giant step towards destruction of the American economy, and people are still wondering, 'why are investors not investing in America?'
USSR used to have a 'free for all' health care and education and even 'right to work' (where you'll get a job, regardless whether you want it or not, otherwise you could even face jail time for being a 'parasite') American CIA even believe until the last day of USSR that the former Soviet state was strong. Yeah, well, the same people (or the same attitudes and misconceptions) that worked for the CIA at the time are at work today, believing that what USA needs is more socialism and not less of it.
USA is bankrupt, ACA doesn't matter anymore, the US economy cannot afford it but it doesn't even have to, it won't matter much to the final outcome.
Well, your story is fine and all... I took various jobs before 95, went to university, took a loan in the first year (7500). By the end of the first year I was working in the field already, 12.50/hr. Graduated a bit slower than usual (end of 2000), but switched to contracts right away starting my first contract at 70/hr. Running a few businesses now, some property, selling my own software services (spent near 3 years building the software first). I don't see an hourly wage as some form of achievement. AFAIC an achievement is to produce something on your own that people want to have.
I never understood this suggestion because people in this position often don't have the luxury of working for free.. transportation costs money you know. Usually this suggestion comes from the affluent: people who are used to having extra cash they can turn into free time.
- Oh, I see, so you must have finished one of them fancy edumacation faculties, because you figure it's better to pay for years to go to a college that you don't actually need to get a job and get into all sorts of debt while not getting any smarter or younger or wealthier than not get into all that debt, not waste time and instead use the same time you would have wasted in college accruing debt to get a low paying job (or even to volunteer, like the GP said) while getting enough skills/networking to get to the next step on that ladder?
Is that what they taught you?
1. Gov't must not and is not authorized to force you to wear a seatbelt, it's must be a personal choice (it may be a rule if you are driving on a private road though), but you are not forced to drive on that road.
2. Gov't must not and is not authorized to limit abortions.
3. If gov't is actually a lawful one and governs with the consent of the governed, its only true function is protection from tyranny, for example protection from foreign invasion. Personally I do not buy that logic either, it's up to the individuals to form a militia and protect themselves if a need comes up.
4. Gov't must not and is not authorized to run wars that are not actually declared by the people (never mind the fact that there is no money for it, so it goes onto the credit card and into inflation - money printing).
5. If gov't has a role protecting the people from invasion, then it must be able to protect borders from military invasion, but this has nothing to do with people going in and out of country on their own. I don't buy the logic that national borders even mean anything. All people (that are not coming as an army to enslave you) should be free to cross any borders at any time.
6. Gov't must not and is not authorized to tell people how to live their lives, what to eat, what to drink, who to fuck, what to smoke and inject, what to grow, what to manufacture, how to manufacture it, how to market it, etc. The only purpose for USA federal gov't ability to 'regulate interstate commerce' was to prevent individual States from stifling competition by requiring special licenses to do business across State lines. Everything else is a perversion, the federal gov't completely perverted the idea and used it to destroy individual freedoms.
Jails, criminal code, none of this is or must be authorized to government either, it's a completely local matter, it can be handled by localities however they see fit and you are free to choose which locality suits you best.
In short, AFAIC most governments that exist today are totalitarian socialist / fascist (and the only difference there is the means of achieving approximately the same goals - destruction of individual freedoms, collectivism, central planning, technocratic oppressive tyrannical despotic, even if democratic system of enslavement of individuals).
Barry Goldwater specifically appealed to racism
- pure, unadulterated nonsense either out of ignorance or lack of integrity (lies).
Goldwater didn't have a problem with minorities, he had a problem with that law, which stole individual liberties from private property owners, placed obligations upon them to provide entitlements to people who were specifically given entitlements by the politicians in that law.
AFAIC that law should have stopped at ensuring that GOVERNMENT does not discriminate against minorities (or anybody for that matter). What private people do in their private lives and business is none of government's business or authority.
If Goldwater was elected POTUS, USA most likely would have kicked its bad habits, that stem out of the socialist ideology and lead towards fascist implementations. Goldwater was a true statesman, the dear elected leaders who actually come to power are just self-serving politicians with no principles.
What a Country, where the citizens are given the implicit right and means for violent revolution should the government turn evil.
- yes, THAT country was great. All people need to have this option at all times, the governments are evil, they are discriminatory, tyrannical, oppressive. Governments are stuffed with thieves, murderers and liars.
That's how it is, actually revolting and taking down governments should be a periodic exercise - prophylactic for freedom.
Yes, so the government shouldn't be selling licenses to the rating agencies and shouldn't be forcing mutual funds, especially pension funds to only buy debt that is rated by the agencies that the government licenses.
US government treasury bonds are rated as high as they are by the agencies that are licensed by the government, and the moment one of these agencies decides to downgrade US Treasuries because US Tresuries are actually junk, it is sued and prohibited from rating US Treasuries. Of-course that one agency actually gets paid by the buyers of the bond, not by the sellers.
Here is a good take on this issue in the first 10 minutes of the show.
The banks and bankers are only a symptom of the actual problem, which is lack of real economic activity, fake money, money printed by the Fed, all the regulations that create all the moral hazards, from FDIC to FHA, Freddie and Fannie, HUD, etc.
The bankers are just people who are given free money and incentives to give out loans with free 'insurance' (gov't doesn't provide insurance, it has no assets for that, no investment, it's all based either on future taxation, more borrowing or printing - inflation).
Bankers cannot do what they did if the gov't doesn't create the entire environment where it is profitable to do it because the actual risk is no longer with the bankers. Actually banks used to be private partnerships until the end of seventies, you won't find banks like that anywhere anymore, it's all large corporations that are all tied to government, all getting their bail out money, discount window is opened for them, they are protected top to bottom and the laws are set to ensure that they are part of the wealth transfer.
The wealth that is being transferred from the real savers and real investors to the consumers (whoever the gov't makes into consumers, this means the banks themselves, military industrial complex, all the connected corporations and of-course the mob - the promise of socialism, stealing from the productive and subsidising the unproductive is what gives the politicians the green light to be able to continue this theft).
Banks are not only too big to fail now, banks are now too big to investigate, to big to charge with crimes. That's because banks are now the government, there is really no difference.
JPMorgan is now the 'Tresury' (there is no treasure, there is only debt, it should be know as the dep't of debt).
Everything that gov't does creates incentives to destroy the real competitive free market capitalism. The savers and investors are punished with inflation, taxes, regulations. The politicians and top connected corporate drones are protected from any investigation and actually from failure.
This is an atrocity. The fact that many bankers understood this and still acted upon it is just the proof positive that this SYSTEM is rotten, the system shouldn't be set up to allow this. But the system is what it is because the MOB, the democratic mobocracy votes for politicians who promise and deliver destruction of the law, destruction of the Constitution.
Democracy destroys good self-governance, it destroys the Republic, which builds the wealth and thus it destroys the wealth and creates poverty and misery. Democracy is the root cause of the problem, people who vote for the politicians that promise free shit to be stolen from a minority and given to the majority, that's the problem.
The problem is the complete abolition of the law, of the Constitution, of the principles that were set when the Constitution was created. It's not a nation of laws, it's the nation of men.
Socialism is promised and somewhat delivered, but the implementation is much more fascist (and no, those two are not polar opposites, they are both collectivist, central planning, anti-capitalist, so anti-private property, anti-human, anti-free market, oppressive, tyrannical systems).
That's the root cause. Bankers understanding that they are using the incentives that the system provides them with to make easy money from suckers who really should have known better? That's the symptom.
USA is bankrupt, by the time the majority of people understands and sees it will be disastrously late, just like it was late for the people who didn't see the housing and the stock market bubbles.
Yeah, no shit.
In fact I remembered that some time ago there was a story on /. about Marx.
I had a journal entry dedicated to that topic, going over every point that was discussed ITFA, showing how all of them were wrong.
You are funny indeed, but you are completely wrong. Marx didn't understand anything about economics, but even worse, he never understood human nature.
The entire mainstream industry of the so called "mainstream" economics is fake.
Realise that what economics really is, it's very simple. In reality there isn't actually a need for economists. In the beginning of the 20th century there were maybe 10 people who actually were known as economists, today there are tens of thousands. Why is that and what is it that they do? How is being an 'economist' more important or useful than being say an accountant?
An accountant can be very useful to a company, he really can find ways to make things more efficient, find ways to structure the business in a way that reduces costs. Unfortunately the government forces companies, people not only to pay income taxes (which is the most terrible tax, the most destructive tax you can think of for an economy, you get less of what you tax, you get more of what you subsidise, so if you tax people's work, you get less of it, if you subsidise people not working, you'll get more of that) to be unpaid IRS agents.
In 1942 the government forced employers to start withholding employee's income taxes, and that added more work for an employer, it costs money to do that kind of work. Of-course the government doesn't have a problem adding costs to activities that other people have to incur, but really, you have to be crazy to want to invest and employ people in most of the Western countries today. So accountants can help companies to reduce taxes for example.
What have economists done for the businesses and for people though? Have the economists helped people? As I said, in the beginning of the 20th century USA had maybe 10 economists. The economy of USA was growing, the 19th century was time of slight deflation (prices were slightly falling all the time, the dollar was strengthening, yet more and more productive capacity was added, people invested. USA became largest manufacturer, exporter and creditor nation). Of-course there are tens of thousands of 'economists' today and today USA is the largest in the world and in history of the world debtor nation, with 40-50 Billion USD / month trade deficits, with largest in the world and in history funded debt, unfunded debt, various contingency liabilities.
People like Krugman are suggesting dropping the pretence of solvency and just starting to print 1Trillion dollar coins, etc.
Greenspan was known for this 'Greenspan Put' over the nineties, when his policies of inflation fuelled the stock market bubble and started the housing and the bond bubble. Bernanke is known as the "Helicopter Ben".
None of these people saw the stock market and the housing market bubbles being inflated, none of them understand the biggest gov't credit bubble being inflated right now (bond and USD bubble, really it's the government bubble). Bernanke didn't know the US housing was in a bubble while the bubble was actually bursting already. These 'economists'.
In the meanwhile people who just follow the fundamental principles (normal economics, known as 'Austrian' school, but really it is just common sense economics), people like John Paulson, Peter Schiff, Jim Rogers, Marc Faber, they made millions and more because they just followed the fundamentals.
The fundamentals are: you can't spend more than you earn. Earning = working = selling things in the real market that people want to buy. Economy = production, it does not equal consumption. Consumption is just a trivial consequence of production, without production nothing can be consumed. Production comes first. Production comes out of investments. Investments come out of savings. Savings come out of the difference between some over-production and under-consumption.
Money cannot be printed, printing money is inflation. Printing money does not make more products. Real money IS products. Fiat currency is not real money if it's not backed by anything. Fiat = currency that is mandated by gov't to be accepted, currency by decree.
Real money imposes lending and spending discipline. Fake money (fiat that is printed by gov
What the hell does gov't have to do with that either? Why has the gov't taken over all of the nuclear research and materials and access? From point of view of individuals this is a terrible situation, the government holds this power in its hands and it can literally use it to destroy the world and the individuals have no symmetric response to this threat.
Gov't deciding where nuclear materials will go and how they will be stored, etc. Well, you can be assured that the no-competition bid will be won by the most politically connected people, who will do a great job siphoning off whatever money they still can into their own bank accounts.