Take two completely unrelated incidents with circumstances that aren't even remotely similar, insert skin color and cry "racism"?
If it was a black teenager with the BB gun(not that anyone would even bother reporting on it in this context) and a white teenager in this case, would the issue of race even cross your mind?
I had dinner with a H.S. teacher recently and I was amazed at how things have changed. For example, it's now SOP for them to call the police when two kids get into a FIGHT. Even a basic fistfight with no weapons and no serious injuries. "Ridiculous" is right.
They needed a "racist" slant on the article, so they found a completely unrelated incident where a white person did something "bad" and was not charged. The "obvious" conclusion therefore is that this teen's expulsion and arrest is CLEARLY motivated by racism, regardless of the details.
Exactly. That's why I don't give a damn about "climate change" and strongly oppose any more government control over the population.
We either see a collapse of the monetary and political system and widespread civil unrest OR we end up in a police state where the vast majority of the population lives in servitude with subsistence-level food and energy resources.
Either way, there is going to be a precipitous drop in energy consumption.
"If capitalism doesn't provide a profit motive to develop alternative forms of energy, government should."
The F****** government is the CAUSE of the energy problem!
Skip back to the late 1800s. The CAPITALIST transportation infrastructure of the USA was based on rail, inland waterways and horses. Then, the central planners in government came along and decided to create massive subsidies for the automobile and petroleum industries, thus making other modes of transportation less competitive. The final insult was nationalization of the railroads during WW1. They never really recovered after that.
Just imagine if cars had been forced to compete in the free market. Privately owned and operated roads alongside privately owned and operated rail. Cars and trucks NEVER would have achieved their present level of dominance. Population centers and industries would have grown up along the major railways and a small number of major roadways. Less urban sprawl and destruction of natural habitat and much less energy consumption. Millions of auto-related deaths and injuries prevented. Much less carbon, smog and other crap in the atmosphere. Fewer health problems. Less dependence on foreign petroleum.
The automobile-petroleum-asphalt transportation infrastructure and all of the problems it has caused is the GOVERNMENT "solution".
Re: the financial system, most of those big banks would be in the dustbin of history if it wasn't for government and Federal Reserve bailouts and handouts. Newer, smaller and more financially sound banks would now be thriving in the void. TBTF is another government "solution".
Quit blaming "capitalism" for the perpetual failures of GOVERNMENT and central planning.
I didn't look at the blog, but I've read Kunstler's books, and I wouldn't characterize him as an "environmentalist". You should check out "The Long Emergency". In a nutshell, it takes time and energy to extract oil from the ground, transport it, refine it, etc. Kunstler predicts that we'll eventually reach a point where it takes the equivalent of a barrel of oil to get a barrel of oil to market. At that point, the petroleum based economy is obviously dead I'm skeptical of the claim that there is "plenty of oil". For example, the new estimates of the Bakken shale oil reserves (up to 11B barrels) isn't much when you consider that the USA uses about 93M barrels per DAY. These new oil discoveries are also expensive to extract, so we have a few data points to support Kunstler's prediction.
The biggest decision maker is the free market. The biggest problem in the USA is that the "decision makers"(aka central planners) in government have spent a century distorting the free market by directly and indirectly subsidizing the petroleum industry. The best "decision" we could make as a society is to get rid of all the government distortions in the market. The price of petroleum will likely continue to increase over time. Efficiency improvements and alternatives will become more compelling. F*** the "decision makers" and their destructive attempts to micro-manage the energy sector.
This is one example of why the people who believe we need more and bigger government to protect us from the evil corporations are terribly misguided. Government isn't protecting the little people from the corporations, it's doing exactly the opposite. The bigger and more powerful the government becomes, the more corrupt it becomes. The corporations use government power to further consolidate their own positions, to grant themselves more special privileges and to crush smaller competitors. If you really want to diminish the power of corporations, cut the size of government by about 2/3. Get rid of ALL the government bailouts, handouts, subsidies, special privileges, etc. and enforce the rule of law uniformly. Granting the government more power is practically the same as granting corporations more power.
Unlike a pyramid scheme, bitcoin does not require a constant stream of new investors to pay off the original investors, nor is there fraudulent misrepresentation involved in the sales.
I don't know how "top" and "bottom" even apply to a decentralized system. People that attempted to make a quick buck by purchasing bitcoin as the exchange rate fluctuated might have gotten burned, but that's the risk you take by speculating in currencies.
Do we have any real examples of a currency that constantly increases in value? Even if there was such a thing, why would people continue to hoard it as they observed the prices of goods and services dropping? Why wouldn't there still be a premium available for lending as opposed to hoarding?
A currency which can be arbitrarily de-valued (like the P.O.S. USD) encourages MAL-investment and fuels speculative bubbles like we've seen in the U.S. economy. If the currency isn't a decent store of value, it ends up chasing returns haphazardly rather than funding productive investments. Bernanke has openly admitted that the goal of his monetary policy is to destroy the rate of return on safe investments and encourage speculation in equities. This is bad policy and it only highlights the idiocy of central planning.
You're arguing that in a transaction where one person agrees to use their special skills or qualifications in exchange for another person giving them an agreed upon amount of "money", one of the two parties has done something unethical?
The bankers and government already get their piece. It's the nature of the whole debt-based money system. The vast majority of the money supply is created by private banks in the form of loans. The money itself is a debt instrument which has been borrowed from the bankers and has an interest obligation. Thus, the game is already rigged in their favor.
It's the greatest scam in the history of the world. Bankers have usurped the monetary power from almost every sovereign government on the planet. That's why they get fabulously wealthy while the vast majority of people struggle under a burden of debt.
If it's government controlled or directly backed by USD, what's the advantage vs. a debit card?
If it was run by a private entity and backed by PMs, how would it avoid the same sort of government crackdown that we saw with e-gold or the liberty dollar?
The banker government is very jealous of its debt-based money monopoly. They won't hesitate to use violence against anyone who might provide an alternative. If Bitcoin operated under centralized control, they would have sent in the armed goons and shut it down already.
The last election proved that the mainstream media determines who the "acceptable" candidates are and ensures that no 3rd party or independent candidate has any hope of winning. The people are then given the illusion of choice in which they pick the lesser of two jackasses.
Obama? Romney? Might as well flip a damned coin to decide which banker-owned, neocon, authoritarian scumbag gets to be president.
I believe the OP was making the comment in the context of civil liberties. There is no way to frame this in a partisan way. The destruction of civil liberties is one place where the two parties always seem to find that wonderful spirit of bi-partisanship.
Hard to believe, but Obama's record on civil liberties is even worse than that of Bush. He has not only perpetuated, but expanded the Bush Administration's radical policies of executive power and state secrets. Bush illegally detained U.S. citizens without charge or trial, Obama is arbitrarily assassinating American citizens without charge or trial.
Obama has re-authorized the Patriot Act multiple times, he voted for the FISA revisions Act(telecom immunity) and also signed the 2012 NDAA. His "promise" not to use it is absolutely meaningless and could be broken with no repercussions.
Healthcare reform? More like "big handout to insurance and pharmaceutical industries". Killed Bin Laden? Led the raid and personally pulled the trigger did he? Out of Iraq? On the Bush time-table and only because Iraqi government refused to sign a new SOFA.
A "two sides" view of the world may relieve you of the labor associated with thinking, but doesn't reflect reality.
66% probability... assuming there's a 0% chance of the technology being circumvented, even with physical access, 0% chance of the killer stealing the weapons while temporarily enabled and 0% chance that the lifeless or unconscious body of the owner could be used to enable them?
If this "barter tax" applies as-described in the summary, how is the vegetable farmer, which operates via the barter system supposed to get $CA to pay the taxes?
"Barter transaction rules apply... whatever you've received in exchange for your $1 worth of vegetables must be documented as a taxable gain of at least $1 somewhere."
Seriously? You're required by law to convert the value of bartered vegetables into dollars and then claim the total value as a gain? Is there such a thing as a law making so little sense that it's less than zero?
What about the vegetables you gave up in the transaction? Obviously both parties thought there was equal value in the trade. Assuming that the equivalent market price was $1, the deal is a wash. You gave up $1 worth of items for $1 worth of items. Where's the "gain" unless you must claim the value of vegetables you grow as "income"?
Plus, he said "AT LEAST $1" how can the "gain" possibly be more than $1?
Government is the natural habitat of ignorant, authoritarian a$$#0lez.
I assumed the video was just a shameless promotion for the company, but clicked it anyway. Then, I saw that I was supposed to sit through a 30 second advertisement for some other random $#!T just so I can see an ad for this company ?
Nobody is arguing against use of computers. People are upset that big brokerages are using computers to gain an unfair advantage in the equity markets. These markets are supposed to be a mechanism for honest price discovery, not a casino where the house always wins.
The big firms not only get asymmetric information, they are able to submit and cancel thousands of orders in a matter of seconds to steal gains from small traders. Shouldn't it be fraud?
Suppose you want to buy 100 shares of company 'X' at $10 per share and put in a bid. If someone puts up 100 shares at an ask of $9.75, your order is filled and the $25 difference should be yours. With HFTs, a firm wanting to sell 100 shares of company 'X' at $9.75 will just put out 125 separate 'ask' orders starting at $11 and lowering the ask price by 1 cent each time, eventually getting to $9.75. In the process, they hit your bid of $10 and just stole $25 that would be yours in a fair market.
A few simple rules would fix this.
1. All orders must remain open for a minimum of 3 seconds. 2. There is a fee for orders that are not executed. Say $1 for every 100 orders.
Wouldn't hurt the small trader, but it would be a serious disincentive for an HFT placing millions of orders that the firm has no intention of executing.
Yeah, HFTs provide "stability" which is why we keep seeing these "flash-crash" events.
"On April 22, 2013 at 9:37:11.500 (ET), Google Flash Crashed. The price dropped from $796 to $775 in about 3/4 of a second, then rebounded to $793 a second later. The drop involved 307 trades and 57,255 shares"
A crime definitely occurs when children are used in the production. Selling or re-selling the material would also seem criminal because it is profiting from the exploitation of children. Purchasing might be considered criminal as well because it provides the financial incentive for the producer.
I can't think of a convincing argument for why "possession" is anything but a victimless crime however.
Respecting the rule of law is absolutely necessary for freedom.
There's no "expiration date" on our individual liberties. The First Amendment was ratified at the same time as the Second. How often do you think you should have to "justify" your Right to free speech and argue for it on the basis of "need"?
I know it's hard to believe, but We, The People granted powers to the government. We, therefore do not ever have to provide a "justification" or demonstrate "need" to exercise our Rights. Especially when we explicitly prohibited the government from infringing on them when we created the government.
The Constitution can "evolve" as much and as quickly as The People want via the Amendment process.
Slashdot Mirror
Take two completely unrelated incidents with circumstances that aren't even remotely similar, insert skin color and cry "racism"?
If it was a black teenager with the BB gun(not that anyone would even bother reporting on it in this context) and a white teenager in this case, would the issue of race even cross your mind?
I had dinner with a H.S. teacher recently and I was amazed at how things have changed. For example, it's now SOP for them to call the police when two kids get into a FIGHT. Even a basic fistfight with no weapons and no serious injuries. "Ridiculous" is right.
They needed a "racist" slant on the article, so they found a completely unrelated incident where a white person did something "bad" and was not charged. The "obvious" conclusion therefore is that this teen's expulsion and arrest is CLEARLY motivated by racism, regardless of the details.
Exactly. That's why I don't give a damn about "climate change" and strongly oppose any more government control over the population.
We either see a collapse of the monetary and political system and widespread civil unrest OR we end up in a police state where the vast majority of the population lives in servitude with subsistence-level food and energy resources.
Either way, there is going to be a precipitous drop in energy consumption.
"If capitalism doesn't provide a profit motive to develop alternative forms of energy, government should."
The F****** government is the CAUSE of the energy problem!
Skip back to the late 1800s. The CAPITALIST transportation infrastructure of the USA was based on rail, inland waterways and horses. Then, the central planners in government came along and decided to create massive subsidies for the automobile and petroleum industries, thus making other modes of transportation less competitive. The final insult was nationalization of the railroads during WW1. They never really recovered after that.
Just imagine if cars had been forced to compete in the free market. Privately owned and operated roads alongside privately owned and operated rail. Cars and trucks NEVER would have achieved their present level of dominance. Population centers and industries would have grown up along the major railways and a small number of major roadways. Less urban sprawl and destruction of natural habitat and much less energy consumption. Millions of auto-related deaths and injuries prevented. Much less carbon, smog and other crap in the atmosphere. Fewer health problems. Less dependence on foreign petroleum.
The automobile-petroleum-asphalt transportation infrastructure and all of the problems it has caused is the GOVERNMENT "solution".
Re: the financial system, most of those big banks would be in the dustbin of history if it wasn't for government and Federal Reserve bailouts and handouts. Newer, smaller and more financially sound banks would now be thriving in the void. TBTF is another government "solution".
Quit blaming "capitalism" for the perpetual failures of GOVERNMENT and central planning.
I didn't look at the blog, but I've read Kunstler's books, and I wouldn't characterize him as an "environmentalist". You should check out "The Long Emergency". In a nutshell, it takes time and energy to extract oil from the ground, transport it, refine it, etc. Kunstler predicts that we'll eventually reach a point where it takes the equivalent of a barrel of oil to get a barrel of oil to market. At that point, the petroleum based economy is obviously dead
I'm skeptical of the claim that there is "plenty of oil". For example, the new estimates of the Bakken shale oil reserves (up to 11B barrels) isn't much when you consider that the USA uses about 93M barrels per DAY.
These new oil discoveries are also expensive to extract, so we have a few data points to support Kunstler's prediction.
The biggest decision maker is the free market. The biggest problem in the USA is that the "decision makers"(aka central planners) in government have spent a century distorting the free market by directly and indirectly subsidizing the petroleum industry.
The best "decision" we could make as a society is to get rid of all the government distortions in the market. The price of petroleum will likely continue to increase over time. Efficiency improvements and alternatives will become more compelling. F*** the "decision makers" and their destructive attempts to micro-manage the energy sector.
This is one example of why the people who believe we need more and bigger government to protect us from the evil corporations are terribly misguided. Government isn't protecting the little people from the corporations, it's doing exactly the opposite. The bigger and more powerful the government becomes, the more corrupt it becomes. The corporations use government power to further consolidate their own positions, to grant themselves more special privileges and to crush smaller competitors.
If you really want to diminish the power of corporations, cut the size of government by about 2/3. Get rid of ALL the government bailouts, handouts, subsidies, special privileges, etc. and enforce the rule of law uniformly.
Granting the government more power is practically the same as granting corporations more power.
Unlike a pyramid scheme, bitcoin does not require a constant stream of new investors to pay off the original investors, nor is there fraudulent misrepresentation involved in the sales.
I don't know how "top" and "bottom" even apply to a decentralized system. People that attempted to make a quick buck by purchasing bitcoin as the exchange rate fluctuated might have gotten burned, but that's the risk you take by speculating in currencies.
Do we have any real examples of a currency that constantly increases in value? Even if there was such a thing, why would people continue to hoard it as they observed the prices of goods and services dropping? Why wouldn't there still be a premium available for lending as opposed to hoarding?
A currency which can be arbitrarily de-valued (like the P.O.S. USD) encourages MAL-investment and fuels speculative bubbles like we've seen in the U.S. economy. If the currency isn't a decent store of value, it ends up chasing returns haphazardly rather than funding productive investments. Bernanke has openly admitted that the goal of his monetary policy is to destroy the rate of return on safe investments and encourage speculation in equities. This is bad policy and it only highlights the idiocy of central planning.
You're arguing that in a transaction where one person agrees to use their special skills or qualifications in exchange for another person giving them an agreed upon amount of "money", one of the two parties has done something unethical?
I see nothing unethical about speculation either.
Would you take Dr. Katherine Albrecht as a more authoritative source?
http://www.katherinealbrecht.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=102%3Afirst-chapter-of-qspychips-how-major-corporations-and-government-plan-to-track-your-every-move-with-rfidq&Itemid=94
Just because it's on infowars, doesn't mean it's wrong.
Check out the video "Money as Debt".
The bankers and government already get their piece. It's the nature of the whole debt-based money system.
The vast majority of the money supply is created by private banks in the form of loans. The money itself is a debt instrument which has been borrowed from the bankers and has an interest obligation. Thus, the game is already rigged in their favor.
It's the greatest scam in the history of the world. Bankers have usurped the monetary power from almost every sovereign government on the planet. That's why they get fabulously wealthy while the vast majority of people struggle under a burden of debt.
If it's government controlled or directly backed by USD, what's the advantage vs. a debit card?
If it was run by a private entity and backed by PMs, how would it avoid the same sort of government crackdown that we saw with e-gold or the liberty dollar?
The banker government is very jealous of its debt-based money monopoly. They won't hesitate to use violence against anyone who might provide an alternative. If Bitcoin operated under centralized control, they would have sent in the armed goons and shut it down already.
The last election proved that the mainstream media determines who the "acceptable" candidates are and ensures that no 3rd party or independent candidate has any hope of winning. The people are then given the illusion of choice in which they pick the lesser of two jackasses.
Obama? Romney? Might as well flip a damned coin to decide which banker-owned, neocon, authoritarian scumbag gets to be president.
"I now live in a "socialist" country with lower taxes and more services."
Yes, but did they let you keep your 'AK' Marc? :-)
I believe the OP was making the comment in the context of civil liberties. There is no way to frame this in a partisan way. The destruction of civil liberties is one place where the two parties always seem to find that wonderful spirit of bi-partisanship.
Hard to believe, but Obama's record on civil liberties is even worse than that of Bush. He has not only perpetuated, but expanded the Bush Administration's radical policies of executive power and state secrets. Bush illegally detained U.S. citizens without charge or trial, Obama is arbitrarily assassinating American citizens without charge or trial.
Obama has re-authorized the Patriot Act multiple times, he voted for the FISA revisions Act(telecom immunity) and also signed the 2012 NDAA. His "promise" not to use it is absolutely meaningless and could be broken with no repercussions.
Healthcare reform? More like "big handout to insurance and pharmaceutical industries".
Killed Bin Laden? Led the raid and personally pulled the trigger did he?
Out of Iraq? On the Bush time-table and only because Iraqi government refused to sign a new SOFA.
A "two sides" view of the world may relieve you of the labor associated with thinking, but doesn't reflect reality.
That was my reaction as well. WTF?
66% probability ... assuming there's a 0% chance of the technology being circumvented, even with physical access, 0% chance of the killer stealing the weapons while temporarily enabled and 0% chance that the lifeless or unconscious body of the owner could be used to enable them?
If this "barter tax" applies as-described in the summary, how is the vegetable farmer, which operates via the barter system supposed to get $CA to pay the taxes?
"Barter transaction rules apply ... whatever you've received in exchange for your $1 worth of vegetables must be documented as a taxable gain of at least $1 somewhere."
Seriously? You're required by law to convert the value of bartered vegetables into dollars and then claim the total value as a gain? Is there such a thing as a law making so little sense that it's less than zero?
What about the vegetables you gave up in the transaction? Obviously both parties thought there was equal value in the trade. Assuming that the equivalent market price was $1, the deal is a wash. You gave up $1 worth of items for $1 worth of items. Where's the "gain" unless you must claim the value of vegetables you grow as "income"?
Plus, he said "AT LEAST $1" how can the "gain" possibly be more than $1?
Government is the natural habitat of ignorant, authoritarian a$$#0lez.
I assumed the video was just a shameless promotion for the company, but clicked it anyway. Then, I saw that I was supposed to sit through a 30 second advertisement for some other random $#!T just so I can see an ad for this company ?
Sorry, No.
"Government spending as a percentage of GDP has been dropping since 2009."
Considering the fact that they cranked up spending from 20.76% of GDP to 25.24% in a single year 2008 - 2009, this isn't really saying much.
2008 20.76
2009 25.24
2010 23.83
2011 24.09
2012 22.75
2013 22.74
This year's federal spending as a percentage of GDP is going to be higher than at any time between 1984 and 2008.
Keynesianism is a failure.
Nobody is arguing against use of computers. People are upset that big brokerages are using computers to gain an unfair advantage in the equity markets. These markets are supposed to be a mechanism for honest price discovery, not a casino where the house always wins.
The big firms not only get asymmetric information, they are able to submit and cancel thousands of orders in a matter of seconds to steal gains from small traders. Shouldn't it be fraud?
Suppose you want to buy 100 shares of company 'X' at $10 per share and put in a bid. If someone puts up 100 shares at an ask of $9.75, your order is filled and the $25 difference should be yours. With HFTs, a firm wanting to sell 100 shares of company 'X' at $9.75 will just put out 125 separate 'ask' orders starting at $11 and lowering the ask price by 1 cent each time, eventually getting to $9.75. In the process, they hit your bid of $10 and just stole $25 that would be yours in a fair market.
A few simple rules would fix this.
1. All orders must remain open for a minimum of 3 seconds.
2. There is a fee for orders that are not executed. Say $1 for every 100 orders.
Wouldn't hurt the small trader, but it would be a serious disincentive for an HFT placing millions of orders that the firm has no intention of executing.
Yeah, HFTs provide "stability" which is why we keep seeing these "flash-crash" events.
"On April 22, 2013 at 9:37:11.500 (ET), Google Flash Crashed. The price dropped from $796 to $775 in about 3/4 of a second, then rebounded to $793 a second later. The drop involved 307 trades and 57,255 shares"
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-22/autopsy-dead-market-google-flash-crash
Too bad your computer wasn't fast enough to submit a buy order in the 0.25s window
A crime definitely occurs when children are used in the production. Selling or re-selling the material would also seem criminal because it is profiting from the exploitation of children. Purchasing might be considered criminal as well because it provides the financial incentive for the producer.
I can't think of a convincing argument for why "possession" is anything but a victimless crime however.
Respecting the rule of law is absolutely necessary for freedom.
There's no "expiration date" on our individual liberties. The First Amendment was ratified at the same time as the Second. How often do you think you should have to "justify" your Right to free speech and argue for it on the basis of "need"?
I know it's hard to believe, but We, The People granted powers to the government. We, therefore do not ever have to provide a "justification" or demonstrate "need" to exercise our Rights. Especially when we explicitly prohibited the government from infringing on them when we created the government.
The Constitution can "evolve" as much and as quickly as The People want via the Amendment process.