First off, I never said I thought you were a right winger. I said it sounds like you are listening to them. You are clearly a smart person and you clearly do think for yourself, but you keep repeating fairly easily refuted right-wing talking points such as the one here.
It is absolutely false to say that the velocity of money is uniform regardless of where you spend it. The simplest example is what happens if I put the $600 from my stimulus check under my mattress for a few years? Obviously that money has a very low velocity. On the other hand, if I take that same $600 and spend it on groceries, the money would have a higher velocity, and spending the money on locally produced goods and services would give it an even higher velocity.
If on the other hand you give the money to the rich, there is very little motivation for them to spend the money at all. What's another $600 when you already make half a million a year? An even better example of this was the TARP program, particularly the first half that was administered under Bush. We gave the banks 350 billion dollars with absolutely no strings attached, in an effort to free up the credit market. But instead of increasing lending, the banks mostly took the money and either hoarded it or they spent it to buy up other banks at a huge discount. Neither of these has a beneficial effect on the velocity of money. The latter is certainly spending, but at firesale prices, so I suspect that the investors are not terribly happy with the situation (I know that many Washington Mutual shareholders are furious about the way the WaMu/Chase merger was forced down their throats, and it was pretty devastating to the Seattle economy, where something like 8,000 people lost jobs and the downtown real estate market lost its single biggest customer).
You are right that there is no 'perfect' stimulus plan, but there are 'good' ones. For example one of the best parts of the original proposed stimulus plan was weatherzation of public schools and other buildings. Not only would this have the short-term effect of creating thousands of jobs across the country, but it would have two additional secondary benefits: it would have lowered the ongoing energy costs of operating these buildings (therefore lowering our taxes) and it would have lowered the nations long-term energy demands. This is an obvious win/win scenario, and should have been the focal point of the entire plan, but the Republicans shot that part of the stimulus plam down. Now only a small part of the stimulus goes to these programs.
The right-wing quite literally did everything in their power to sabotage the plan that we ended up by putting their own long-term political good in front of that of the nation. They know that all that they need to do to win in 2010 is to make sure that the economy doesn't recover. So they did everything they could to water down the bill and fill it with wasteful programs. Nearly 50% of the entire stimulus package was devoted to tax cuts that the GAO and even groups like Moody's Investor Services say will have virtually no short-term benefit to the economy. Then, when the economy is still bad in 2010, they will blame the problem entirely on Obama and they assume most Americans will be to stupid to know that they are being sold a line of bullshit. Unfortunately, they are probably right, and I suspect that the Dems will continue to be too spineless to do anything about it, even with their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
For example, they were the ones who insisted on business tax cuts that will have almost no short term economic benefit (something like $1.03 return on every $1.00 spent), but forced the removal of increases to the food stamp programs when those are shown to have just about the largest return on investment of all possible stimulus methods (something like $1.83 per $1).
Screw the short run, screw the business tax cuts, and please provide support for the food stamps hypothesis. Please note: If it hangs on the velocity of money, don't bother or remove that part. Velocity arguments are complete bullshit. All transactions result in follow-on transactions. If velocity arguments held, it would imply that infinite deficit spending would pay for itself, and it would support the "we're at war, go shopping" line. If the real goal is to give $0.83 to grocers then just give $0.83 to grocers and save $0.17.
I don't have time right now to respond in full, but with this reasoning, I don't see a lot of point in even trying to. I suspect that you listen to too much right-wing talk radio or get your news from some right wing source, since your points all have their fingerprints all over tham, and they are pretty easily refuted.
I'll respond in full this evening, but in the meantime, can you provide a link to something that backs up your refutation of the concept a 'velocity of money'. From your statement, it seems like you seriously misunderstand the whole point.
Ok, a couple of points... First, to be nitpicky, 27% + 22% is not "more than half".:-)
Second, from briefly browsing their website, the Liberty Fund is either Conservative Republican or Libertarian (I'm guessing the latter), so take that into account when judging anything they say. That's not to say that they can't be trusted, but be sure to consider their biases.
But regardless of the groups biases, the survey still shows that 49% agreed at least partially with the statement "Taken as a whole, government policies of the New Deal served to lengthen and deepen the Great Depression," right? That's one way to look at it, another is that 73% of economists either completely disagreed with the statement, or disagreed "with provisos". A perfect example of how changing the words just a little bit can pretty dramatically change the apparent meaning of a statement.
So the next question... Can the survey itself even be trusted? If the survey wording or something else was wrong with it, than it's numbers are meaningless anyway. Unfortunately, the survey falls pretty flat on this point. As it is worded, anyone who has even the slightest disagreement with the opposite statement ("Taken as a whole, government policies of the New Deal served to shorten the Great Depression") would automatically be lumped in with the people who appear to think the New Deal lengthened it. There should have been a fourth option "disagree with provisos" to get a better understanding of where people lean.
Going in to debt during a budget crisis is never an ideal solution, but sometimes you have no choice. Have you ever been unemployed, and had your car break down? You have two choices, fix it by putting the repair on your credit card, or don't fix it, but not be able to make your job interview next week. Unfortunately, sometimes the axiom "desperate times call for desperate measures" is correct. The same is true for the national economy in this case.
You are correct that if we did nothing, the economy would most likely eventually recover on it's own. But if we did nothing, things would get FAR worse before they got better. You're right, much of what has been done has been bad, but remember, the Republicans get a big chunk of that blame. For example, they were the ones who insisted on business tax cuts that will have almost no short term economic benefit (something like $1.03 return on every $1.00 spent), but forced the removal of increases to the food stamp programs when those are shown to have just about the largest return on investment of all possible stimulus methods (something like $1.83 per $1). Had the Republicans put aside their ideology and actually allowed a real stimulus plan to pass instead of the watered down travesty that we have, we would almost certainly be in much better shape today.
Sorry if you feel I misrepresented your comment. That was not my intention. I understood what you were saying, and perhaps I phrased my reply badly. What I was trying to get across was more the point that if you asked 100 average people on the street which party was the more fiscally conservative, the majority of them would still sat the Republicans, in spite of the fact that our nation is now on the verge of a new great depression thanks to Republican financial mismanagement. Democrats may not be as fiscally conservative as many people would like, but at least Clinton was able to leave a budget surplus, something no Republican has done (especially no modern Republican). While I don't disagree with your last sentence (Though I usually vote Democratic,I'm more of a proud liberal than a party Democrat, and I'm happy to point out places where the Dems are wrong), I feel that it is important to make it very clear that the Republicans, when they talk about being the fiscally responsible party, are just plain lying.
To be clear, the second paragraph of my reply was not directed at you, but at any other readers who would post kneejerk anti-Obama rhetoric.
But I'm still waiting for a citation regarding your comment "More than half of economists think the New Deal didn't help". As I pointed out before, that sounds like a talking point. Even if there is a survey that says that, it doesn't necessarily mean much. I see two problems potential problems. First, who conducted the study, how large was the sample, what were the biases of the sample group, etc. Second, the University of Chicago school of Economics and the economic theories they promote have been the dominant economic worldview over the last 50 years, so presumably a sizable chunk of economists believe in that worldview. Those same theories have lead to things like the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act which pretty much directly lead to our current economic downturn. It would seem to me that those so called "experts" should maybe be ignored for a while. Remember, it wasn't all that long ago when 50% of doctors would have said leaches are a quite effective medical tool, so just because someone is an "expert" doesn't mean that they are right.
I think you definition of "Fiscal Conservative" is flat out wrong. That may be the -theoretical- definition, and that may have been the practical definition thirty years ago, but that definition no longer has any bearing on the policies of the Republican party. Since Reagan, and accelerating greatly under Bush, Republican policy has been to cut income while accelerating spending*. It is exactly the opposite of anything that could be called 'fiscally conservative'.
And before the Republicans all start screaming about Obama's rampant spending, don't blame him for the problem that your guy left us with. Unfortunately, Bush dug us deep into a hole, so now we have little choice but to spend some money to get out of it. Regardless, at least he isn't cutting taxes while accelerating spending. A true fiscal conservative understands that sometimes spending is unavoidable (such as during a time of war), but understands that in those circumstances you will have to raise taxes to pay for it.
I'd also be interested in a citation for you comment "More than half of economists think the New Deal didn't help". Sounds like a Republican talking point to me.
Whoever moderated this as offtopic is an idiot. In one sentence, that Colbert quote pretty much sums up the entire survey result. Insightful would be a much more appropriate mod.
It's much simpler than that. The Republican Party has demonstrated for at least the last 30 years, and especially in the last 8 years, that they have absolutely no respect for science in particular, or education general. Is it really hard to see why a group of well educated scientists would want little to do with a party that despises them?
Party labels have less to do with who you vote for than the GP seems to assume. Just because someone calls themselves a Democrat doesn't mean that they will never vote for a Republican. It's stating a preference, nothing more. Most people tend to lean to one side of the aisle or the other. Even most people who call themselves independents will usually self-identify with one party or the other if pressed.
That's not to say that there aren't party ideologues on each side who will vote the party line regardless of the candidate, but historically they have been a relatively small number, and well outnumbered by the people who will vote for the candidate with the better TV ads or similar ridiculous reasons. After the 2008 presidential campaign, that seems to be changing on the Republican side as they appear to be actively trying to drive out anyone who is NOT a party ideologue. Take Dick Cheney's comments about Colin Powell as just one bit of evidence of this. Another example was the smear campaign ran against any right-wing pundits who had dared to question the credentials of Sarah Palin as VP. We'll have to wait and see what happens there, but the irony is that those party ideologues are killing there party. The base, no matter how well organized, cannot carry a national election on their own. If they ever want to win the white house again, they'll need a lot more than the Republican base.
When rho tells you that a corporation is not considered a person, rho is talking out of his or her ass.
You are right that a corporation (otherwise known as a 'legal person') does not have all the rights of a human citizen (otherwise known as a 'natural person') but the doctrine of corporate personhood is, unfortunately, quite well established in US law. Just because you don't agree with the semantics doesn't mean the statement is wrong.
This would have been a good opportunity to use Google before opening your mouth... For example, this Wikipedia article provides a good summary of the issues surrounding the doctrine of corporate personhood, and would have been the first result had you googled for "corporate personhood".
All fine and good... There is no possible way to design the entire world with redundant systems. But a company like Authorize.net doesn't have that excuse. Hopingh has nothing to do with it, it's called network engineering. They should have multiple data centers located in geographically dispersed parts of the world. This is hosting 101 for any large-scale internet business. The OP is right, the CIO should be cleaning out his desk as we speak.
That's always the case. They don't want it to be true since if it were true it would make them rethink their beliefs. Same thing is true with the anti-global warming zealots. Global warming can't possibly be true since it conflicts with their political ideology. It truly is baffling how so many otherwise intelligent people can completely shut off their brains when it comes to fairly simple topics (ok, maybe Quantum Mechanics isn't that simple).
From that sentence fragment? Nothing at all. That may be a clue that they actually are a racist, or it might be an honest statement. Any reasonable person understands that a single sentence fragment such as that is not sufficient to judge the actual meaning behind it. It's quite clear that you need more context. Fortunately, in the case of Cory's statement, we have a huge amount of context with which to form an opinion. He's not exactly a recluse, so his opinions are quite public.
Really, I have to say that this is an incredibly shaky argument. It betrays a significant lack of subtle reasoning on your part. Even if your statement had the obvious meaning you imply, Cory's statement is really only analogous to it in the flimsiest of ways. If I said, "I hate spinach, but I love that Spinach dip" would you assume that I was really lying and hated the dip? If not, why is my statement ok, but Cory's proof that he really hates Amazon? It is possible for people to have two different opinions about someone or something depending on the context. Rational people understand that, but I suppose that is asking a bit much of you.
That danger is that a couple of corporate giants will end up with a buyer's market for creative works, control over the dominant distribution channel, and the ability to dictate the terms on which creative works are made, distributed, appreciated, bought, and sold.
And the danger of that is that these corporate giants might, through malice or negligence, end up screwing up the means by which the world talks to itself.
He also specifically says:
I have a lot of sympathy with artists' rights groups and even entertainment companies that mistrust giants like Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG).
Now, it's not that I hate Amazon or Google, but I do understand that they are fast becoming the intermediary between creators and audiences (and vice-versa), and that this poses a danger to everyone involved in the creative industries.
It's quite clear he's not opposed to Amazon or Google, but simply that he's warning against those two companies amassing too much control over media and the Internet, since they could than wield that power in a way that:
ultimately sets the agendas for law, politics, health, climate, justice, crime, education, child-rearing, and every other important human subject.
All that's just from the executive summary. The rest of the article expands upon that, but doesn't add anything truly significant to that. If you've ever read Doctorow before, you know that he's not opposed to either Amazon or Google, in fact he has promoted services by both of them on his blog, and I'm willing to bet that he'd agree, at least in principal, with your point. That said, he also has called out both companies when they have crossed a line. All he's doing with this article is pointing out that there is a line that they are in danger of crossing if people aren't paying attention. He's not saying people should boycott Amazon or Google or anything like that, just that they need to be aware of just how much control is concentrated in these two groups hands. That seems pretty reasonable to me.
So, before you throw around words like pathetic, it might serve you to have a clue what you're talking about, ok?
I think the subtle point the Cell phone companies were attempting to make is that you can have a phone with all sorts of gadgets, but it the Cell company doesn't support the backed for it, then it's pretty much useless gadgets.
Hmm... Think you're pretty much wrong about this. Assuming the base feature set for a carrier to remain competitive (reliable network, 3g, SMS, MMS, Maybe a few more network related things), all the othyer 'features' can just be supported by the phone. Worst case, for something like the iPhone's Visual Voicemail, the manufacturer could run a server to support those feature transparently to the carrier. Most of the "features" supported by the carriers (GPS or TV viewing for example) are just things that could just as easily be provided by third party providers, but the carrier forces a lockdown on the phone so they can charge $9.99 a month for the same feature that many other phones provide for free. Want proof? My T-Mobile G1 provides both those features for free. The TV viewing is limited to YouTube, but there's no technical reason at all that Hulu or another free TV service couldn't be supported-- except the fact that the carrier forbids it!
Economics 101 assumes that the two sides of the bargain are on relatively equal footing. If one side of the bargain has an unfair advantage, then economics 101 no longer applies. That is why there are laws against insider trading in the US.
That's also why econ 101 doesn't apply to health insurance. Even if you get rid of things like pre-existing condition limits, the consumer will never be able to adequately judge which health insurance provider is best for them any more than they were able to judge the relative risks/rewards of an ARM vs. a fixed rate mortgage. The market is just to complicated and specialized for even a well educated consumer to make a decision, so they are forced to rely on a possibly unscrupulous insurance broker, or maybe just throw a dart at a board to choose the "best" health care plan for them. Adding more insurance providers would only make a difficult situation even worse, while minimizing the one benefit that the big insurance providers have: economies of scale.
this article from this month's New Yorker looks at the city with the most expensive health care in the US (almost double the national average). It looks at quality of care, success rates and a variety of other factors, yet the only place where McAllen, TX is above average is in cost. So it asks where all that extra money goes. Interestingly, while it's not really accurate to say that competition is the cause of the increased costs, it is fair to say that capitalism is.
The article is very definitely worth reading. It brings up several key issues that I have not heard addressed in the health care debate previously. It doesn't propose a solution to the funding issue (single payer, public option, or stick with private insurers), but it does propose some simple fixes that will go a long way to reducing health care expenses regardless of which system we end up with. There's no single magic bullet that will fix the health care crsis in America, but the smarter care suggested by the article will do a lot more than just adding more doctors or insurers.
The mercury thing is a highly over-rated problem. Yes, CFL's contain mercury, but the amount is less than the amount released by burning the coal required to power an incandescent bulb, and since modern CFLs mostly use solid mercury (mercury amalgam, the same material that's in your fillings), the dangers to the environment are greatly reduced. See this article from Popular Mechanics for more info.
I suspect that they did. It actually seems to me that Mr. Specht's case may be pretty weak. The article doesn't specify what sort of software Android Data made, but trademarks only apply in cases where confusion is likely. Google may have presumed since the trademark hadn't been used and since, according to Google at least, "there couldn't be any confusion between the two names", they would be granted the trademark. Admittedly that's not a very sound way to make a business decision, but it's certainly not the first time this has happened to a major company... Remember Cisco suing Apple over it's iPhone trademark?
The real situation here is pretty simple... Intentionally or not, Google has invested many millions of dollars in developing Android and the Android brand. Mr. Specht has a relatively weak claim on the trademark, so Google will offer him a choice: A few million to sell the trademark, or they will tie him up or years, running up his legal bills until he can't afford to fight anymore.
Not saying it's a good way to do business, but it's almost certainly what will happen.
Not sure why my post showed up as AC, but here it is again for those of you filtering ACs:
Maybe I just don't read Slashdot enough, but I really don't think many people make your argument A, at least as you phrase it. For example the post you're replying to doesn't say what you're implying it says. They said "The only alternative is to defy the laws. If enough people do so, then either the laws will be repealed, or there will be too many people breaking the law it'll be untenable to prosecute everyone". Nowhere in their post do they claim that the reason that they download is in order to change the law, only that it's one possible effect of their downloading (which is possible, though highly unlikely). They also do not make claims of a lack of self-interest.
Just seems a little odd to me that you're criticizing someone for a position that he doesn't claim to hold. If he had actually made claim A, I would agree. As it is, his statement is reasonable, even if his dream of changing the copyright law through downloading is just a teeny, tiny bit optimistic.
Umm... I never said I was "the better person". I said I was being an asshole. The difference is I acknowledge it.
That said, I'll try to be more polite and maybe you'll begin to understand why your post prompted the reaction it did.
The main reason I responded the way I did was the last sentence of your post ("Just some positive criticism (really, its intended to be positive) on how you argue for legalization."). Regardless of your intentions, there was not a SINGLE positive thing in your entire post. It ranged from full bore asshole (once again, "No offense, but you annoy the shit out of me") to condescension ("You will never be effective in communicating...") without ever going positive. Your post was criticism, but it was quite clearly the negative kind.
No one faults you for trying to help someone make their arguments more persuasive. But your post attacked the GP on every front ("No offense, but you annoy the shit out of me" (Hint: saying "no offense" doesn't magically make the statement any less offensive), "fucking *hilarious*", "I find your comment hilarious", "That's false", "just rubs me the wrong way") without once even acknowledging that his key points (1: That the problem isn't going to be solved by just increasing the size of the corrupt Mexican police force and 2: that Mexican crime syndacites have money and power and won't be driven out of business easily) might have at least some validity. Even if you disagree with his his rhetoric, I think it's hard to argue that those two points aren't pretty strong.
What makes this really sad is that you almost made a few good points in your posts as well, but- at least for me- your condescension and rudeness buried any actual value your posts contained. Had you criticism actually been positive, none of the follow up to this thread would have happened.
One final point: If you reread the GP, He's not really even arguing for the legalization of drugs to begin with. I doubt that he really set out to change any minds with his post. Instead, he made a quick, off hand reply to another post that ended with the conclusion that legalizing drugs would be the best solution. Making a statement isn't the same as making an argument. It's a subtle distinction, but I think an important one. Unfortunately, the entire premise of your post assumes that he was trying to change people minds-- something that will never happen in a brief post such as his. So you're attacking him for his ineffectiveness at something that he presumably wasn't even trying to do. The irony here is that his post is the sort of thing that plants a seed of doubt that can later be used by people like yourself with your more detailed and finessed arguments. Instead of attacking him, maybe you should be thanking him for making your task easier.
If we legalize Mary Jane and Nose Candy now, the "hip, with it" people will move to something else that is way too dangerous to be legal (crystal meth, anyone?). That will create a lucrative market for it
Might get modded redundant for this, since I'm not really saying anything that others haven't said already, but I can't let this statement stand unchallenged.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that people will switch to harder drugs if marijuana or cocaine were legalized. In fact the opposite is likely true, since legalizing cocaine would lower it's cost, and some of the thousands of people currently addicted to crack might be able to make the switch to straight cocaine instead. Who know... That might be fantasy. But it's no more fantasy than the belief that people will switch to harder stuff.
The notion that people will do harder drugs if we legalize the (relatively) soft stuff is based on the notion that people do drugs -because- drugs are illegal. It ignores the possibility that there might be some other possible reason for drug use. While I suppose that there might be a few teenagers who would do meth to look cool, most teens are smart enough to know that looking like you're in your forties when you're eighteen isn't exactly cool.
You're right... You shouldn't be moderated Flamebait. Too bad you can't moderate someone "-1 Asshole", though. No offense, but you annoy the shit out of me (Hmm, where have I heard that before?).
You're also right that you didn't make the same points as the GP... He made rational point, your random paranoid conspiracy ramblings aside, your post added absolutely nothing to the discussion except insults.
Some of the GP's statements may have been overbroad, but none of them were actually wrong. Marijuana's legal status is clearly NOT a deterrent, at least not in any significant sense. You may disagree with the rationale for that legal status, but that does not invalidate the accuracy of that observation.
It's incredibly ironic that you take it upon yourself to educate the GP on how to effectively argue the pro-drug position after you have just done everything you possibly could to alienate him ("No offense, but you annoy the shit out of me", for example). If that's the way you always start these discussions, it's no wonder that you think none of your friends smoke pot: you don't have any friends left. After reading his post and yours, I can promise you that his was the much more persuasive of the two.
When we are talking about 2% loss, it is not about voting accuracy, it is about vote retention.
Since the election used a blackbox system (ie. no voter verified paper trail), we have no way of knowing whether the votes were recorded as cast or not. It's relatively easy to discover if the total number of votes recorded is inaccurate. Finding out whether they were recorded as cast is an entirely different thing.
The problem in this case appears to be a usability issue, so there is no reason to be more suspicious of this election than any other blackbox election. However we can never really know the outcome of any election for certain without a paper trail.
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First off, I never said I thought you were a right winger. I said it sounds like you are listening to them. You are clearly a smart person and you clearly do think for yourself, but you keep repeating fairly easily refuted right-wing talking points such as the one here.
It is absolutely false to say that the velocity of money is uniform regardless of where you spend it. The simplest example is what happens if I put the $600 from my stimulus check under my mattress for a few years? Obviously that money has a very low velocity. On the other hand, if I take that same $600 and spend it on groceries, the money would have a higher velocity, and spending the money on locally produced goods and services would give it an even higher velocity.
If on the other hand you give the money to the rich, there is very little motivation for them to spend the money at all. What's another $600 when you already make half a million a year? An even better example of this was the TARP program, particularly the first half that was administered under Bush. We gave the banks 350 billion dollars with absolutely no strings attached, in an effort to free up the credit market. But instead of increasing lending, the banks mostly took the money and either hoarded it or they spent it to buy up other banks at a huge discount. Neither of these has a beneficial effect on the velocity of money. The latter is certainly spending, but at firesale prices, so I suspect that the investors are not terribly happy with the situation (I know that many Washington Mutual shareholders are furious about the way the WaMu/Chase merger was forced down their throats, and it was pretty devastating to the Seattle economy, where something like 8,000 people lost jobs and the downtown real estate market lost its single biggest customer).
You are right that there is no 'perfect' stimulus plan, but there are 'good' ones. For example one of the best parts of the original proposed stimulus plan was weatherzation of public schools and other buildings. Not only would this have the short-term effect of creating thousands of jobs across the country, but it would have two additional secondary benefits: it would have lowered the ongoing energy costs of operating these buildings (therefore lowering our taxes) and it would have lowered the nations long-term energy demands. This is an obvious win/win scenario, and should have been the focal point of the entire plan, but the Republicans shot that part of the stimulus plam down. Now only a small part of the stimulus goes to these programs.
The right-wing quite literally did everything in their power to sabotage the plan that we ended up by putting their own long-term political good in front of that of the nation. They know that all that they need to do to win in 2010 is to make sure that the economy doesn't recover. So they did everything they could to water down the bill and fill it with wasteful programs. Nearly 50% of the entire stimulus package was devoted to tax cuts that the GAO and even groups like Moody's Investor Services say will have virtually no short-term benefit to the economy. Then, when the economy is still bad in 2010, they will blame the problem entirely on Obama and they assume most Americans will be to stupid to know that they are being sold a line of bullshit. Unfortunately, they are probably right, and I suspect that the Dems will continue to be too spineless to do anything about it, even with their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
I don't have time right now to respond in full, but with this reasoning, I don't see a lot of point in even trying to. I suspect that you listen to too much right-wing talk radio or get your news from some right wing source, since your points all have their fingerprints all over tham, and they are pretty easily refuted.
I'll respond in full this evening, but in the meantime, can you provide a link to something that backs up your refutation of the concept a 'velocity of money'. From your statement, it seems like you seriously misunderstand the whole point.
Ok, a couple of points... First, to be nitpicky, 27% + 22% is not "more than half". :-)
Second, from briefly browsing their website, the Liberty Fund is either Conservative Republican or Libertarian (I'm guessing the latter), so take that into account when judging anything they say. That's not to say that they can't be trusted, but be sure to consider their biases.
But regardless of the groups biases, the survey still shows that 49% agreed at least partially with the statement "Taken as a whole, government policies of the New Deal served to lengthen and deepen the Great Depression," right? That's one way to look at it, another is that 73% of economists either completely disagreed with the statement, or disagreed "with provisos". A perfect example of how changing the words just a little bit can pretty dramatically change the apparent meaning of a statement.
So the next question... Can the survey itself even be trusted? If the survey wording or something else was wrong with it, than it's numbers are meaningless anyway. Unfortunately, the survey falls pretty flat on this point. As it is worded, anyone who has even the slightest disagreement with the opposite statement ("Taken as a whole, government policies of the New Deal served to shorten the Great Depression") would automatically be lumped in with the people who appear to think the New Deal lengthened it. There should have been a fourth option "disagree with provisos" to get a better understanding of where people lean.
Going in to debt during a budget crisis is never an ideal solution, but sometimes you have no choice. Have you ever been unemployed, and had your car break down? You have two choices, fix it by putting the repair on your credit card, or don't fix it, but not be able to make your job interview next week. Unfortunately, sometimes the axiom "desperate times call for desperate measures" is correct. The same is true for the national economy in this case.
You are correct that if we did nothing, the economy would most likely eventually recover on it's own. But if we did nothing, things would get FAR worse before they got better. You're right, much of what has been done has been bad, but remember, the Republicans get a big chunk of that blame. For example, they were the ones who insisted on business tax cuts that will have almost no short term economic benefit (something like $1.03 return on every $1.00 spent), but forced the removal of increases to the food stamp programs when those are shown to have just about the largest return on investment of all possible stimulus methods (something like $1.83 per $1). Had the Republicans put aside their ideology and actually allowed a real stimulus plan to pass instead of the watered down travesty that we have, we would almost certainly be in much better shape today.
Sorry if you feel I misrepresented your comment. That was not my intention. I understood what you were saying, and perhaps I phrased my reply badly. What I was trying to get across was more the point that if you asked 100 average people on the street which party was the more fiscally conservative, the majority of them would still sat the Republicans, in spite of the fact that our nation is now on the verge of a new great depression thanks to Republican financial mismanagement. Democrats may not be as fiscally conservative as many people would like, but at least Clinton was able to leave a budget surplus, something no Republican has done (especially no modern Republican). While I don't disagree with your last sentence (Though I usually vote Democratic,I'm more of a proud liberal than a party Democrat, and I'm happy to point out places where the Dems are wrong), I feel that it is important to make it very clear that the Republicans, when they talk about being the fiscally responsible party, are just plain lying.
To be clear, the second paragraph of my reply was not directed at you, but at any other readers who would post kneejerk anti-Obama rhetoric.
But I'm still waiting for a citation regarding your comment "More than half of economists think the New Deal didn't help". As I pointed out before, that sounds like a talking point. Even if there is a survey that says that, it doesn't necessarily mean much. I see two problems potential problems. First, who conducted the study, how large was the sample, what were the biases of the sample group, etc. Second, the University of Chicago school of Economics and the economic theories they promote have been the dominant economic worldview over the last 50 years, so presumably a sizable chunk of economists believe in that worldview. Those same theories have lead to things like the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act which pretty much directly lead to our current economic downturn. It would seem to me that those so called "experts" should maybe be ignored for a while. Remember, it wasn't all that long ago when 50% of doctors would have said leaches are a quite effective medical tool, so just because someone is an "expert" doesn't mean that they are right.
I think you definition of "Fiscal Conservative" is flat out wrong. That may be the -theoretical- definition, and that may have been the practical definition thirty years ago, but that definition no longer has any bearing on the policies of the Republican party. Since Reagan, and accelerating greatly under Bush, Republican policy has been to cut income while accelerating spending*. It is exactly the opposite of anything that could be called 'fiscally conservative'.
And before the Republicans all start screaming about Obama's rampant spending, don't blame him for the problem that your guy left us with. Unfortunately, Bush dug us deep into a hole, so now we have little choice but to spend some money to get out of it. Regardless, at least he isn't cutting taxes while accelerating spending. A true fiscal conservative understands that sometimes spending is unavoidable (such as during a time of war), but understands that in those circumstances you will have to raise taxes to pay for it.
I'd also be interested in a citation for you comment "More than half of economists think the New Deal didn't help". Sounds like a Republican talking point to me.
Whoever moderated this as offtopic is an idiot. In one sentence, that Colbert quote pretty much sums up the entire survey result. Insightful would be a much more appropriate mod.
It's much simpler than that. The Republican Party has demonstrated for at least the last 30 years, and especially in the last 8 years, that they have absolutely no respect for science in particular, or education general. Is it really hard to see why a group of well educated scientists would want little to do with a party that despises them?
Party labels have less to do with who you vote for than the GP seems to assume. Just because someone calls themselves a Democrat doesn't mean that they will never vote for a Republican. It's stating a preference, nothing more. Most people tend to lean to one side of the aisle or the other. Even most people who call themselves independents will usually self-identify with one party or the other if pressed.
That's not to say that there aren't party ideologues on each side who will vote the party line regardless of the candidate, but historically they have been a relatively small number, and well outnumbered by the people who will vote for the candidate with the better TV ads or similar ridiculous reasons. After the 2008 presidential campaign, that seems to be changing on the Republican side as they appear to be actively trying to drive out anyone who is NOT a party ideologue. Take Dick Cheney's comments about Colin Powell as just one bit of evidence of this. Another example was the smear campaign ran against any right-wing pundits who had dared to question the credentials of Sarah Palin as VP. We'll have to wait and see what happens there, but the irony is that those party ideologues are killing there party. The base, no matter how well organized, cannot carry a national election on their own. If they ever want to win the white house again, they'll need a lot more than the Republican base.
When rho tells you that a corporation is not considered a person, rho is talking out of his or her ass.
You are right that a corporation (otherwise known as a 'legal person') does not have all the rights of a human citizen (otherwise known as a 'natural person') but the doctrine of corporate personhood is, unfortunately, quite well established in US law. Just because you don't agree with the semantics doesn't mean the statement is wrong.
This would have been a good opportunity to use Google before opening your mouth... For example, this Wikipedia article provides a good summary of the issues surrounding the doctrine of corporate personhood, and would have been the first result had you googled for "corporate personhood".
All fine and good... There is no possible way to design the entire world with redundant systems. But a company like Authorize.net doesn't have that excuse. Hopingh has nothing to do with it, it's called network engineering. They should have multiple data centers located in geographically dispersed parts of the world. This is hosting 101 for any large-scale internet business. The OP is right, the CIO should be cleaning out his desk as we speak.
Oh, I got that... Just thought it was funny.
Umm... That's the comment id, not my UID. My UID is a bit more than 50% lower than yours (27,873). :-)
That's always the case. They don't want it to be true since if it were true it would make them rethink their beliefs. Same thing is true with the anti-global warming zealots. Global warming can't possibly be true since it conflicts with their political ideology. It truly is baffling how so many otherwise intelligent people can completely shut off their brains when it comes to fairly simple topics (ok, maybe Quantum Mechanics isn't that simple).
From that sentence fragment? Nothing at all. That may be a clue that they actually are a racist, or it might be an honest statement. Any reasonable person understands that a single sentence fragment such as that is not sufficient to judge the actual meaning behind it. It's quite clear that you need more context. Fortunately, in the case of Cory's statement, we have a huge amount of context with which to form an opinion. He's not exactly a recluse, so his opinions are quite public.
Really, I have to say that this is an incredibly shaky argument. It betrays a significant lack of subtle reasoning on your part. Even if your statement had the obvious meaning you imply, Cory's statement is really only analogous to it in the flimsiest of ways. If I said, "I hate spinach, but I love that Spinach dip" would you assume that I was really lying and hated the dip? If not, why is my statement ok, but Cory's proof that he really hates Amazon? It is possible for people to have two different opinions about someone or something depending on the context. Rational people understand that, but I suppose that is asking a bit much of you.
I'm guessing that you haven't read TFA yet...
He also specifically says:
It's quite clear he's not opposed to Amazon or Google, but simply that he's warning against those two companies amassing too much control over media and the Internet, since they could than wield that power in a way that:
All that's just from the executive summary. The rest of the article expands upon that, but doesn't add anything truly significant to that. If you've ever read Doctorow before, you know that he's not opposed to either Amazon or Google, in fact he has promoted services by both of them on his blog, and I'm willing to bet that he'd agree, at least in principal, with your point. That said, he also has called out both companies when they have crossed a line. All he's doing with this article is pointing out that there is a line that they are in danger of crossing if people aren't paying attention. He's not saying people should boycott Amazon or Google or anything like that, just that they need to be aware of just how much control is concentrated in these two groups hands. That seems pretty reasonable to me.
So, before you throw around words like pathetic, it might serve you to have a clue what you're talking about, ok?
Hmm... Think you're pretty much wrong about this. Assuming the base feature set for a carrier to remain competitive (reliable network, 3g, SMS, MMS, Maybe a few more network related things), all the othyer 'features' can just be supported by the phone. Worst case, for something like the iPhone's Visual Voicemail, the manufacturer could run a server to support those feature transparently to the carrier. Most of the "features" supported by the carriers (GPS or TV viewing for example) are just things that could just as easily be provided by third party providers, but the carrier forces a lockdown on the phone so they can charge $9.99 a month for the same feature that many other phones provide for free. Want proof? My T-Mobile G1 provides both those features for free. The TV viewing is limited to YouTube, but there's no technical reason at all that Hulu or another free TV service couldn't be supported-- except the fact that the carrier forbids it!
Economics 101 assumes that the two sides of the bargain are on relatively equal footing. If one side of the bargain has an unfair advantage, then economics 101 no longer applies. That is why there are laws against insider trading in the US.
That's also why econ 101 doesn't apply to health insurance. Even if you get rid of things like pre-existing condition limits, the consumer will never be able to adequately judge which health insurance provider is best for them any more than they were able to judge the relative risks/rewards of an ARM vs. a fixed rate mortgage. The market is just to complicated and specialized for even a well educated consumer to make a decision, so they are forced to rely on a possibly unscrupulous insurance broker, or maybe just throw a dart at a board to choose the "best" health care plan for them. Adding more insurance providers would only make a difficult situation even worse, while minimizing the one benefit that the big insurance providers have: economies of scale.
this article from this month's New Yorker looks at the city with the most expensive health care in the US (almost double the national average). It looks at quality of care, success rates and a variety of other factors, yet the only place where McAllen, TX is above average is in cost. So it asks where all that extra money goes. Interestingly, while it's not really accurate to say that competition is the cause of the increased costs, it is fair to say that capitalism is.
The article is very definitely worth reading. It brings up several key issues that I have not heard addressed in the health care debate previously. It doesn't propose a solution to the funding issue (single payer, public option, or stick with private insurers), but it does propose some simple fixes that will go a long way to reducing health care expenses regardless of which system we end up with. There's no single magic bullet that will fix the health care crsis in America, but the smarter care suggested by the article will do a lot more than just adding more doctors or insurers.
The mercury thing is a highly over-rated problem. Yes, CFL's contain mercury, but the amount is less than the amount released by burning the coal required to power an incandescent bulb, and since modern CFLs mostly use solid mercury (mercury amalgam, the same material that's in your fillings), the dangers to the environment are greatly reduced. See this article from Popular Mechanics for more info.
I suspect that they did. It actually seems to me that Mr. Specht's case may be pretty weak. The article doesn't specify what sort of software Android Data made, but trademarks only apply in cases where confusion is likely. Google may have presumed since the trademark hadn't been used and since, according to Google at least, "there couldn't be any confusion between the two names", they would be granted the trademark. Admittedly that's not a very sound way to make a business decision, but it's certainly not the first time this has happened to a major company... Remember Cisco suing Apple over it's iPhone trademark?
The real situation here is pretty simple... Intentionally or not, Google has invested many millions of dollars in developing Android and the Android brand. Mr. Specht has a relatively weak claim on the trademark, so Google will offer him a choice: A few million to sell the trademark, or they will tie him up or years, running up his legal bills until he can't afford to fight anymore.
Not saying it's a good way to do business, but it's almost certainly what will happen.
Not sure why my post showed up as AC, but here it is again for those of you filtering ACs:
Maybe I just don't read Slashdot enough, but I really don't think many people make your argument A, at least as you phrase it. For example the post you're replying to doesn't say what you're implying it says. They said "The only alternative is to defy the laws. If enough people do so, then either the laws will be repealed, or there will be too many people breaking the law it'll be untenable to prosecute everyone". Nowhere in their post do they claim that the reason that they download is in order to change the law, only that it's one possible effect of their downloading (which is possible, though highly unlikely). They also do not make claims of a lack of self-interest.
Just seems a little odd to me that you're criticizing someone for a position that he doesn't claim to hold. If he had actually made claim A, I would agree. As it is, his statement is reasonable, even if his dream of changing the copyright law through downloading is just a teeny, tiny bit optimistic.
WAIT A MINUTE!!! That should be "B" for Bob!
Umm... I never said I was "the better person". I said I was being an asshole. The difference is I acknowledge it.
That said, I'll try to be more polite and maybe you'll begin to understand why your post prompted the reaction it did.
The main reason I responded the way I did was the last sentence of your post ("Just some positive criticism (really, its intended to be positive) on how you argue for legalization."). Regardless of your intentions, there was not a SINGLE positive thing in your entire post. It ranged from full bore asshole (once again, "No offense, but you annoy the shit out of me") to condescension ("You will never be effective in communicating...") without ever going positive. Your post was criticism, but it was quite clearly the negative kind.
No one faults you for trying to help someone make their arguments more persuasive. But your post attacked the GP on every front ("No offense, but you annoy the shit out of me" (Hint: saying "no offense" doesn't magically make the statement any less offensive), "fucking *hilarious*", "I find your comment hilarious", "That's false", "just rubs me the wrong way") without once even acknowledging that his key points (1: That the problem isn't going to be solved by just increasing the size of the corrupt Mexican police force and 2: that Mexican crime syndacites have money and power and won't be driven out of business easily) might have at least some validity. Even if you disagree with his his rhetoric, I think it's hard to argue that those two points aren't pretty strong.
What makes this really sad is that you almost made a few good points in your posts as well, but- at least for me- your condescension and rudeness buried any actual value your posts contained. Had you criticism actually been positive, none of the follow up to this thread would have happened.
One final point: If you reread the GP, He's not really even arguing for the legalization of drugs to begin with. I doubt that he really set out to change any minds with his post. Instead, he made a quick, off hand reply to another post that ended with the conclusion that legalizing drugs would be the best solution. Making a statement isn't the same as making an argument. It's a subtle distinction, but I think an important one. Unfortunately, the entire premise of your post assumes that he was trying to change people minds-- something that will never happen in a brief post such as his. So you're attacking him for his ineffectiveness at something that he presumably wasn't even trying to do. The irony here is that his post is the sort of thing that plants a seed of doubt that can later be used by people like yourself with your more detailed and finessed arguments. Instead of attacking him, maybe you should be thanking him for making your task easier.
Now, who is deserving of the -1 asshole moderation? I don't think you "came down to my level". I think you were here all along.
I believe in treating others as they treat others. You're an asshole, I'll be an asshole right back. Don't like it? Easy to fix: Don't be an asshole.
If we legalize Mary Jane and Nose Candy now, the "hip, with it" people will move to something else that is way too dangerous to be legal (crystal meth, anyone?). That will create a lucrative market for it
Might get modded redundant for this, since I'm not really saying anything that others haven't said already, but I can't let this statement stand unchallenged.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that people will switch to harder drugs if marijuana or cocaine were legalized. In fact the opposite is likely true, since legalizing cocaine would lower it's cost, and some of the thousands of people currently addicted to crack might be able to make the switch to straight cocaine instead. Who know... That might be fantasy. But it's no more fantasy than the belief that people will switch to harder stuff.
The notion that people will do harder drugs if we legalize the (relatively) soft stuff is based on the notion that people do drugs -because- drugs are illegal. It ignores the possibility that there might be some other possible reason for drug use. While I suppose that there might be a few teenagers who would do meth to look cool, most teens are smart enough to know that looking like you're in your forties when you're eighteen isn't exactly cool.
You're right... You shouldn't be moderated Flamebait. Too bad you can't moderate someone "-1 Asshole", though. No offense, but you annoy the shit out of me (Hmm, where have I heard that before?).
You're also right that you didn't make the same points as the GP... He made rational point, your random paranoid conspiracy ramblings aside, your post added absolutely nothing to the discussion except insults.
Some of the GP's statements may have been overbroad, but none of them were actually wrong. Marijuana's legal status is clearly NOT a deterrent, at least not in any significant sense. You may disagree with the rationale for that legal status, but that does not invalidate the accuracy of that observation.
It's incredibly ironic that you take it upon yourself to educate the GP on how to effectively argue the pro-drug position after you have just done everything you possibly could to alienate him ("No offense, but you annoy the shit out of me", for example). If that's the way you always start these discussions, it's no wonder that you think none of your friends smoke pot: you don't have any friends left. After reading his post and yours, I can promise you that his was the much more persuasive of the two.
Since the election used a blackbox system (ie. no voter verified paper trail), we have no way of knowing whether the votes were recorded as cast or not. It's relatively easy to discover if the total number of votes recorded is inaccurate. Finding out whether they were recorded as cast is an entirely different thing.
The problem in this case appears to be a usability issue, so there is no reason to be more suspicious of this election than any other blackbox election. However we can never really know the outcome of any election for certain without a paper trail.