People don't just spontaneously buy a house because someone told them to, they are actively engaged in the process. Only someone very stupid would buy a house they couldn't afford *and literally not realize it until they couldn't make the payments.* It's not fraud to sell something to stupid people.
Regardless, I can't believe you think more people got mortgages they couldn't afford through outright fraud than the host of other problems we've had -- the massive shock of the oil and gas price increases, and consequent price increases for food and basis necessities that happened just before the financial crisis. How about the economy that's been eroding for decades as it's being attacked left and right by everyone from ruthless outsourcers to do-good environmentalists.
Personally I think the biggest thing is the change in social fabric in the US. We have a "me first" attitude that didn't exist 100 years ago when industries like banking started getting really huge. It's been a fundamental tenet that "people don't just walk away from their houses, because they are homes, not just buildings." So mortgages have always, always been considered one of the safer investments you can make. But I still remember reading stories about people prioritizing payments and doing stuff like keeping their cell phone plan and payments on their brand new car and letting the house go into foreclosure. It's perfectly rational, due to how the foreclosure process works, especially when your house is worth less than the mortgage -- but it's just unexpected. Nobody foresaw that change, and that's what made the system collapse.
And ensure that the wealthy can not take advantage of loopholes that allow them to hide personal wealth in corporations.
Corporations are how middle income people move up in the world. "Hiding personal wealth" and stuff like that is propaganda code for someone who builds his corporation from a small startup to a serious business.
GP said the lower and middle classes can't take any risk whatsoever. There are a lot of businesses that are not capital intensive.
I think my broader point is that young people, no matter what class they're in, tend to have a social security net that they can fall back on *if they really want to*. Not just poor people who can't afford more than cheetos... if you have $150k saved up, you too can move in with your parents and devote your whole stash to starting a business. I'm just saying it's possible. The ability to take substantial economic risk with minimal physical/security risk is there, it's just not something most people jump into doing. And that's normal, not a symptom of "living hand-to-mouth" etc as GP said.
Hold on, that's because they would be doing those activities on public land that they don't own nor have any right to take over.
Nothing is stopping the OWS movement from forming their own community, incorporating a township, hiring police, passing ordinances, etc. It's just hard.
If by "free" you mean public health care, it is a lot cheaper than the current mix of private and public that exists in the United States.
How's that possible? Barring changes in the medical system itself (such as more doctors with smaller salaries), increasing access to the system is only going to drive up costs.
I know what you mean but it's difficult to frame properly. You can't vote away the freedoms of others to vote away the freedoms of others and still claim you don't want to vote away the freedoms of others.
If there is a single thing that would prevent another economic collapse in the future
There's no way you can prevent another economic collapse.
What's this fascination with the Glass-Steagall act anyway? People act like its repeal is solely responsible for the financial crisis but that's ridiculous. It was repealed in 1999 but there were banking crises before then, such as the Savings and Loan crisis of the 80s.
Your point about the intelligence of current politicians ignores the fact that the individual elections are direct democratic votes so it already comes under the umbrella of what's been proposed. If direct democratic votes are bad because people are stupid then representatives will be elected in a stupid way.
If anything, to me, that adds incredible strength to OP's argument, because I don't think there's any doubt in anyone's mind that our representatives are highly dysfunctional (look at approval ratings), yet there seems to be nothing "we" (the public) can do about it.
To me, the best alternative to nearly universal direct democracy like we have would be limited direct democracy. It could take the form of a fee to vote, a test that must be passed (intelligence test, history test, whatever), or a requirement of property ownership.
Doesn't California have an incredibly active and activist court system too? Courts are the very opposite of direct democracy. They concentrate an enormous amount of power in a few people's hands.
One thing I'd say about democracy is that it results in slow processes. Right now California seems to have a mish mash of contradictory policies, some of which come from the tools of direct democracy that you mentioned. Who's to say what would happen over a longer period of time though.
Perhaps the day will come when you'll also be forced to give a shit about what some other country thinks about yours.
In a sense you still don't give a shit about what the people of that other country think, just what they and their government do. And in any case in that scenario all you can control/influence is what your own country does, so what's the point of caring what someone else thinks?
You're kidding right? The janitor is the classic example of an outsourceable completely replaceable person.
Ok let's say the corporation we're talking about is an NFL football team. You have 1000 janitors cleaning your locker room. They get in a fight with your star quarterback. Who do you fire? Is the one quarterback worth firing 1000 janitors for? Obviously yes.
Why would you leave a serious comment as anonymous? How will you follow up on this?
What? Their charter says they're going to promote culture regardless of race, sex, language or religion, and that's what they're doing.
The claim was that they promote collaboration, not that they promote culture. They clearly are not promoting collaboration by inviting terrorist groups.
Why exactly is it that people who live west of the Jordan but who aren't Jewish by race, and whose language is Arabic, and religion is either Islam or Christianity shouldn't have an opportunity to participate in cultural preservation activities?
They can and they should. It would be GREAT if they started letting Christians do the same thing in their territory.
Are you aware that there's a law in Palestine giving the death penalty to any Palestinian who sells land to an Israeli? And that the law is also applied to Palestinian Christians?
You're deluding yourself if you think many Muslim countries are in the business of promoting and preserving the remnants of Christian culture under their geographic control. Why should such people be allowed into the UN?
When even Afghanistan is a member [unesco.org] (remember the Buddha statue demolitions?), and their government is talking to/inviting the Taliban in, why is there suddenly a problem with Palestine?
Hah, that is an excellent point, and just another reason we should have cut off funding years ago. Can you honestly say you support giving the Taliban money to preserve their own cultural heritage, while they go around blowing up other peoples' cultural heritage? What's wrong with you???
If the restaurant seated a table of KKK members next to you who started giving speeches about how the other patrons should be executed, you might get up and leave without paying and you'd be entirely justified.
But a restaurant has a duty to provide a pleasant atmosphere and decent food to customers, otherwise you really don't have to pay, so this analogy has fallen apart.
It's kind of hard for you guys to take the moral or legal high-ground in this case - much easier to stick to 'might makes right'....
Yes that's my whole point. There's no moral or legal high ground for creating a new state unless you're literally the first people to get there, and even then, today, environmentalists would be suing you and trying to get the home country to stop you.
So to Americans, who have heard about the Native American issue ad nauseum, and how we're all war criminals or descended from war criminals, it's really easy to be sympathetic to Israel.
I realize that building settlements isn't the only thing Israelis are accused of doing, but it is the number one issue that's been coming up for years. Most "atrocities" like when Israel invades Gaza or something are justifiable to many people because they are a response to violent attacks from Palestinians. Settlements are not in response to anything, they're a provocation by Israel -- albeit a nonviolent one, which is my point.
FYI, colonizing occupied territory is a war crime.
I googled it and results agree with you on the surface, but that doesn't make any sense to me. I think the key hinges on what you consider occupied versus annexed, and I'm not sure what the legal arguments are on that subject. But how could it be a war crime to take over land in a war? All of Europe is guilty of war crimes then. Is that really true? Why not just make war itself a crime in that case?
I think laws like that, that make sense to almost nobody and appeal to almost nobody and that fly in the face of all of human history, are an insult to the victims of true war crimes, like torture and rape.
And Israel isn't an immaculate martyr when it comes to violence.
I realize that, but you don't have to be perfect to be good.
Even brothers have disagreements. Just because we're not literally orcs and goblins or whatever doesn't mean we have to condone everything that every other human does, let alone participate with them.
Well that's rather a contradiction isn't it? They did not promote collaboration among the nations with their recent actions, they were quite divisive in fact.
But let's look at the broader issue of writing vs. reality. In America our Constitution says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
However, Congress has clearly made laws abridging the freedom of speech and the press -- see "obscenity" and WIkileaks.
Uh oh, what happened? Just because someone writes something doesn't make it true. UNESCO can say whatever it wants, but its actions in admitting Palestine as a member speak for themselves.
Personally I disagree with your assertion that America is isolated. But in any case why would we want to make friends with people who don't want to make friends with us? Where's the compromise?
In matters of personal status, such as birth, marriage, and inheritance, the Christian, Jewish, and Druze minorities follow their own legal systems. All other groups, in such matters, come under the jurisdiction of the Muslim code. Although the faiths theoretically enjoy equal legal status, to some extent Islam is favored. Despite guarantees of religious freedom, some observers maintain that the conditions of the non-Muslim minorities have been steadily deteriorating, especially since the June 1967 war. An instance of this deterioration was the nationalization of over 300 Christian schools, together with approximately 75 private Muslim schools, in the autumn of 1967. Since the early 1960s, heavy emigration of Christians has been noted; in fact, some authorities state that at least 50 percent of the 600,000 people who left during the decade ending in 1968 were Christians. In recent decades, however, emigration has slowed.
Have you seriously not heard about the huge spate of church burnings and the murder of Christians in Egypt?
WTF? And you're comparing that to violence by "radical Jews?"
Oh no, look out, they're building a house! Those terrorists!
Slashdot Mirror
People don't just spontaneously buy a house because someone told them to, they are actively engaged in the process. Only someone very stupid would buy a house they couldn't afford *and literally not realize it until they couldn't make the payments.* It's not fraud to sell something to stupid people.
Regardless, I can't believe you think more people got mortgages they couldn't afford through outright fraud than the host of other problems we've had -- the massive shock of the oil and gas price increases, and consequent price increases for food and basis necessities that happened just before the financial crisis. How about the economy that's been eroding for decades as it's being attacked left and right by everyone from ruthless outsourcers to do-good environmentalists.
Personally I think the biggest thing is the change in social fabric in the US. We have a "me first" attitude that didn't exist 100 years ago when industries like banking started getting really huge. It's been a fundamental tenet that "people don't just walk away from their houses, because they are homes, not just buildings." So mortgages have always, always been considered one of the safer investments you can make. But I still remember reading stories about people prioritizing payments and doing stuff like keeping their cell phone plan and payments on their brand new car and letting the house go into foreclosure. It's perfectly rational, due to how the foreclosure process works, especially when your house is worth less than the mortgage -- but it's just unexpected. Nobody foresaw that change, and that's what made the system collapse.
Crazy. A website devoted to nerds where so many people rail against automation and computerization. WTF slashdot.
And ensure that the wealthy can not take advantage of loopholes that allow them to hide personal wealth in corporations.
Corporations are how middle income people move up in the world. "Hiding personal wealth" and stuff like that is propaganda code for someone who builds his corporation from a small startup to a serious business.
GP said the lower and middle classes can't take any risk whatsoever. There are a lot of businesses that are not capital intensive.
I think my broader point is that young people, no matter what class they're in, tend to have a social security net that they can fall back on *if they really want to*. Not just poor people who can't afford more than cheetos... if you have $150k saved up, you too can move in with your parents and devote your whole stash to starting a business. I'm just saying it's possible. The ability to take substantial economic risk with minimal physical/security risk is there, it's just not something most people jump into doing. And that's normal, not a symptom of "living hand-to-mouth" etc as GP said.
Hold on, that's because they would be doing those activities on public land that they don't own nor have any right to take over.
Nothing is stopping the OWS movement from forming their own community, incorporating a township, hiring police, passing ordinances, etc. It's just hard.
If by "free" you mean public health care, it is a lot cheaper than the current mix of private and public that exists in the United States.
How's that possible? Barring changes in the medical system itself (such as more doctors with smaller salaries), increasing access to the system is only going to drive up costs.
I know what you mean but it's difficult to frame properly. You can't vote away the freedoms of others to vote away the freedoms of others and still claim you don't want to vote away the freedoms of others.
If there is a single thing that would prevent another economic collapse in the future
There's no way you can prevent another economic collapse.
What's this fascination with the Glass-Steagall act anyway? People act like its repeal is solely responsible for the financial crisis but that's ridiculous. It was repealed in 1999 but there were banking crises before then, such as the Savings and Loan crisis of the 80s.
Your point about the intelligence of current politicians ignores the fact that the individual elections are direct democratic votes so it already comes under the umbrella of what's been proposed. If direct democratic votes are bad because people are stupid then representatives will be elected in a stupid way.
If anything, to me, that adds incredible strength to OP's argument, because I don't think there's any doubt in anyone's mind that our representatives are highly dysfunctional (look at approval ratings), yet there seems to be nothing "we" (the public) can do about it.
To me, the best alternative to nearly universal direct democracy like we have would be limited direct democracy. It could take the form of a fee to vote, a test that must be passed (intelligence test, history test, whatever), or a requirement of property ownership.
Doesn't California have an incredibly active and activist court system too? Courts are the very opposite of direct democracy. They concentrate an enormous amount of power in a few people's hands.
One thing I'd say about democracy is that it results in slow processes. Right now California seems to have a mish mash of contradictory policies, some of which come from the tools of direct democracy that you mentioned. Who's to say what would happen over a longer period of time though.
I just read an article (similar to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/05/adults-living-with-parents_n_1077067.html) reporting that 19% of adult men aged 25-34 live with their parents.
These are not rich men but it seems to me that they have enough security to take risks such as starting new businesses.
Perhaps the day will come when you'll also be forced to give a shit about what some other country thinks about yours.
In a sense you still don't give a shit about what the people of that other country think, just what they and their government do. And in any case in that scenario all you can control/influence is what your own country does, so what's the point of caring what someone else thinks?
however no one is worth 1,000 times the janitor.
You're kidding right? The janitor is the classic example of an outsourceable completely replaceable person.
Ok let's say the corporation we're talking about is an NFL football team. You have 1000 janitors cleaning your locker room. They get in a fight with your star quarterback. Who do you fire? Is the one quarterback worth firing 1000 janitors for? Obviously yes.
Exactly.
Why would you leave a serious comment as anonymous? How will you follow up on this?
What? Their charter says they're going to promote culture regardless of race, sex, language or religion, and that's what they're doing.
The claim was that they promote collaboration, not that they promote culture. They clearly are not promoting collaboration by inviting terrorist groups.
Why exactly is it that people who live west of the Jordan but who aren't Jewish by race, and whose language is Arabic, and religion is either Islam or Christianity shouldn't have an opportunity to participate in cultural preservation activities?
They can and they should. It would be GREAT if they started letting Christians do the same thing in their territory.
Are you aware that there's a law in Palestine giving the death penalty to any Palestinian who sells land to an Israeli? And that the law is also applied to Palestinian Christians?
You're deluding yourself if you think many Muslim countries are in the business of promoting and preserving the remnants of Christian culture under their geographic control. Why should such people be allowed into the UN?
When even Afghanistan is a member [unesco.org] (remember the Buddha statue demolitions?), and their government is talking to/inviting the Taliban in, why is there suddenly a problem with Palestine?
Hah, that is an excellent point, and just another reason we should have cut off funding years ago. Can you honestly say you support giving the Taliban money to preserve their own cultural heritage, while they go around blowing up other peoples' cultural heritage? What's wrong with you???
If the restaurant seated a table of KKK members next to you who started giving speeches about how the other patrons should be executed, you might get up and leave without paying and you'd be entirely justified.
But a restaurant has a duty to provide a pleasant atmosphere and decent food to customers, otherwise you really don't have to pay, so this analogy has fallen apart.
It's kind of hard for you guys to take the moral or legal high-ground in this case - much easier to stick to 'might makes right'....
Yes that's my whole point. There's no moral or legal high ground for creating a new state unless you're literally the first people to get there, and even then, today, environmentalists would be suing you and trying to get the home country to stop you.
So to Americans, who have heard about the Native American issue ad nauseum, and how we're all war criminals or descended from war criminals, it's really easy to be sympathetic to Israel.
I realize that building settlements isn't the only thing Israelis are accused of doing, but it is the number one issue that's been coming up for years. Most "atrocities" like when Israel invades Gaza or something are justifiable to many people because they are a response to violent attacks from Palestinians. Settlements are not in response to anything, they're a provocation by Israel -- albeit a nonviolent one, which is my point.
FYI, colonizing occupied territory is a war crime.
I googled it and results agree with you on the surface, but that doesn't make any sense to me. I think the key hinges on what you consider occupied versus annexed, and I'm not sure what the legal arguments are on that subject. But how could it be a war crime to take over land in a war? All of Europe is guilty of war crimes then. Is that really true? Why not just make war itself a crime in that case?
I think laws like that, that make sense to almost nobody and appeal to almost nobody and that fly in the face of all of human history, are an insult to the victims of true war crimes, like torture and rape.
And Israel isn't an immaculate martyr when it comes to violence.
I realize that, but you don't have to be perfect to be good.
Even brothers have disagreements. Just because we're not literally orcs and goblins or whatever doesn't mean we have to condone everything that every other human does, let alone participate with them.
I don't get it, how are orcs and goblins relevant to UNESCO and/or culture in general? They are fictional creatures.
Well that's rather a contradiction isn't it? They did not promote collaboration among the nations with their recent actions, they were quite divisive in fact.
But let's look at the broader issue of writing vs. reality. In America our Constitution says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
However, Congress has clearly made laws abridging the freedom of speech and the press -- see "obscenity" and WIkileaks.
Uh oh, what happened? Just because someone writes something doesn't make it true. UNESCO can say whatever it wants, but its actions in admitting Palestine as a member speak for themselves.
I bet you wonder why people hate the United States...
I don't, but I do wonder who you think hates the United States.
Personally I disagree with your assertion that America is isolated. But in any case why would we want to make friends with people who don't want to make friends with us? Where's the compromise?
Religious freedom in Syria? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Syria#Religion_and_law
In matters of personal status, such as birth, marriage, and inheritance, the Christian, Jewish, and Druze minorities follow their own legal systems. All other groups, in such matters, come under the jurisdiction of the Muslim code.
Although the faiths theoretically enjoy equal legal status, to some extent Islam is favored. Despite guarantees of religious freedom, some observers maintain that the conditions of the non-Muslim minorities have been steadily deteriorating, especially since the June 1967 war. An instance of this deterioration was the nationalization of over 300 Christian schools, together with approximately 75 private Muslim schools, in the autumn of 1967. Since the early 1960s, heavy emigration of Christians has been noted; in fact, some authorities state that at least 50 percent of the 600,000 people who left during the decade ending in 1968 were Christians. In recent decades, however, emigration has slowed.
Have you seriously not heard about the huge spate of church burnings and the murder of Christians in Egypt?
WTF? And you're comparing that to violence by "radical Jews?"
Oh no, look out, they're building a house! Those terrorists!