No, now they are hiding them out in treasury bonds, which you get to pay them interest for. Any money in banks isn't being lent out right now.
People without money can't buy products. That's the situation which has been developing over the last 20 years.
The people with money can't spend it all. The banks aren't loaning it. The companies are not spending it.
The people without money can't buy anything from the companies and the banks won't loan them money.
There is value in having a pool of wealth.
Once 1% of the population has EVERY FRIKKIN LAST DIME then your utopia sort of breaks down. There has to be a distribution of wealth. The top 1% can get by fine with a mere 20% of all the wealth and 40% of all the income and share just a little bit with the rest of society. They don't have to have every last bit leaving nothing for the rest and that typically doesn't turn out well historically speaking.
Just to make that clear- they were HITTING and killing walking and running human size targets with 12" accuracy from a range of over a mile while they were themselves flying in circles at speeds exceeding 30mph and probably exceeding 50mph.
Now, get out your hunting rifle or hand gun and deal with that.
---
Basically at this point, we keep breeding, food and quality of life inches lower, the government surveillance increases, corporate (not government) based fascism grows. Things get increasingly brittle and then we likely have a world war in the 30-50 year range that results in massive deaths (mostly due to food shortages but also due to power outages and loss of water service).
The parent poster is pretty much on target. Remember we were revolting against a government at the time and saw that civilians needed weapons to keep the government in line. Recall that jefferson thought we would have a mini revolution every couple generations.
However, I think we haved reached a point in weapon cost and technology where private individuals don't stand a chance, even in large masses.
Recall the apache helicopter footage- they were hitting people from a mile away. Apache's shooting "effective" range is close to 3 miles. And they have infravision capabilities beyond that of the populace these days so they can see you at night in heavy bushes.
Private weapons might help against an oppressive government some, but unless the military and national guard throws in with you, you are toast.
When you combine this with continuous surveillance by the government, even if a group gets started they can backtrack you.
As long as the government allows people religious, artistic, and sexual freedom, they are unlikely to revolt and more likely to just find one of the top berths. There is no need for 80% of the population to have democracy as long as you leave those issues alone.
"Vote for getting this neato service from the government" "Vote for more police" "Vote for candy for children"
Sounds good- but voting for a bond automatically generates a tax obligation. they don't even have to have a vote to increase your taxes. Every bond you vote for increases your taxes for them.
Need to keep pushing the message about just how wealthy they are (top 20% has 95% of the wealth and over 70% of the income)(top 1% has about 40% of the wealth and 40% of the income).
At some point, enough people get upset about it at the same time that a flash-point is reached.
Hannity will say, "we should cut taxes for the wealthy" and be booed by a conservative crowd or something like that. Enough people will lose their jobs and houses and savings that they'll get mad and start voting in their own self interest instead of for the wealthy and the corporations.
For now the momentum isn't there.
And in some ways it doesn't matter. In 25, 30 years we either hit a world war, the singularity, or some other crisis and things are likely to be so brittle that we get a reset. Pretty sure I'm dead by then.
Cheap robotic manual labor is going to be devastating to the job market. With robotic vision beaten, it's probably 10 years away. Robot checkers, stockers, ditch diggers, office cleaners. Cheaper than humans.
Fox is more about pushing the agenda of the wealthy than pushing conservative politics.
If they were truly conservative, they could spend an hour a day publishing wasteful spending items in bills. Explaining the context and identifying the sponsors (of BOTH parties).
Still *sort* of like O'Reilley. He still is at least a bit logical/rational/consistent over half the time. The rest just seem like "it's raining! Cut taxes. It's not raining! Cut taxes!"
They don't control so much as they keep them balkanized.
The religious people historically worked on social justice issues-- but they are all divided over abortion and gay marriage.
The conservatives historically held the lid on prices-- but they are all divided over abortion, gay marriage, and drug legalization.
Every issue comes down to 50/50 decisions making it very easy for corporations to a) drop a little dirt to kill a candidate they don't like. b) drop a little money to support a candidate they do like.
Heck, the corporations *prepare* as high as 70% of the "news" articles for some main stream news shows these days. They hand the pre-filmed, scripted article they made to the news show and the news show runs it without telling you it is really an advertisement.
The top 1% of the population is taking 10x the money it was 20 years ago and even poor people losing their houses are voting to "lower taxes" because they have been convinced they are blood brothers with the wealthy. It's crazy.
Heck, all they have to do is bring out a gun control argument and you probably get so worked up that you don't read the bond issues and vote "Yes" for all of them because you don't realize a bond issue is just a pretty way of saying "vote YES to raise your taxes".
Baby boomers were living on welfare on communes in the 60's and 70's doing drugs and having lots of sex.
Now that the boomers are grown up, they cut off all the benefits that their parents gave them.
The hippies who didn't turn hard-nosed dropped out and never got back up mostly. We call them "bums" and "homeless" today.
The 20's and 30's somethings would probably have more fun if not for lack of welfare and STD's.
Plus, I think people who were hippies expected less out of the world. And they were turned off by even the modest expectations of their parents. Today's 20's and 30's want to be exec VP, drive a $40k new car, and have a 3200sq foot micro mansion.
You once publicly instructed the Rolling Stones not to grow old gracefully. What about Pete Townshend? Are you glad you didn't die before you got old?
Nick MacGregor, by e-mail
Ah hypocrisy! Does the questioner believe I am looking graceful? I feel like a wreck after five Who shows in the past week. Recently, I did my stint as an editor at Faber and Faber, and even that didn't feel graceful. How was I to know that the literary fraternity live harder, faster and more illicitly than rock stars?
And from People.com Pete himself, who wrote in My Generation in 1966, "Hope I die before I grow old," now feels drastically different about aging. "Picasso," he points out, "still had a shining light in his eyes at 76."
I always love getting into the semantics of words because correct usage improves communication.
Sooo..
google define:fact and you find.
fact/fækt/ Show Spelled[fakt] Show IPA -noun 1. something that actually exists; reality; truth: Your fears have no basis in fact. (primary usage of fact. the main meaning) 2. something known to exist or to have happened: Space travel is now a fact. (secondary usage of fact.) 3. a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true: Scientists gather facts about plant growth. (etc.) 4. something said to be true or supposed to have happened: The facts given by the witness are highly questionable. (your point). 5. Law. Often, facts. an actual or alleged event or circumstance, as distinguished from its legal effect or consequence.Compare question of fact, question of law. (doesn't apply)
So the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd most common usage is that a fact is implicitly true and the 4th is that someone is saying something is a fact/true but may be lying or mistaken.
When a scientist says something is a fact (especially if it is calculable or measurable), after all these years, I assume that other scientists can verify and if I had the training and equipment, so could I. I assume it really is a fact (true statement).
Anyway, by definition, a fact is a real thing/true statement. The only time that isn't true is if the person is lying or confused.
If I wasn't in the discussion, i would mod you funny for the irony.
Sorry about your loss. Everyone I know that drinks is very careful. They are much more of a risk from texting that from drinking.
One was pulled over for drunk driving.. and he was sober but had been texting while driving home after the bar.
Cop made him have a a friend come and take him home anyway. An ironic punishment. I don't think he texts while driving any more. He was in denial how much it was affecting his driving.
About 20% of the drinkers have 80% of the alcohol.
It doesn't take much.
Our drinking friend goes to the bar 3 nights a week and has 5 to 7 drinks in 6 hours.
The rest of us average 3 drinks a week.
So we have 12 drinks a week while he is having 18 drinks a week.
I wouldn't call him an alcoholic by any stretch of the imagination.
Esp when you consider in 1800 when they had real booze issues folks were averaging over 7 GALLONS of pure alcohol a year. Now we barely break 2 gallons a year.
There's nothing I can disagree with in your post. All those are reasonable and plausible points.
However, the study was done by experienced researchers (who have other papers on alcohol, depression vs alcohol, and alcoholism) and controlled for most of the things you raised (including people being told to avoid alcohol).
No data collection will ever come out the same (I learned that back in college lab. Everyone got similar but different data in the same damn room with very simple things to measure).
The study could be wrong, but it fits with prior moderate drinking data. One of the problems of our puritan heritage is that this kind of data (especially for pot and Nixon) has been suppressed in the past. And another problem is when the people collecting the data have an agenda.
Looking over the other papers by two of the authors, it seemed to me they are the classic dry scientist types and lack an agenda.
I'm not a teetotaler, moderate drinker or heavy drinker. I'm a sub moderate drinker (1/10th to 1/2 a drink a day) who has a couple heavy drinking vacations a year.
The surprise was the lower death rate (61%) among heavy drinkers vs abstainers (68%). So the net benefits are higher for boozers than abstainers. And the study controlled for ex drinkers so that's not the cause for the higher rate among abstainers.
I don't even drink at a moderate level myself. I typically have a few drinks a week (about half a drink per day) and sometimes as little as a few drinks a month. But twice a year I drink pretty hard (beach and ski trips).
Slashdot Mirror
No, now they are hiding them out in treasury bonds, which you get to pay them interest for.
Any money in banks isn't being lent out right now.
People without money can't buy products. That's the situation which has been developing over the last 20 years.
The people with money can't spend it all.
The banks aren't loaning it.
The companies are not spending it.
The people without money can't buy anything from the companies and the banks won't loan them money.
There is value in having a pool of wealth.
Once 1% of the population has EVERY FRIKKIN LAST DIME then your utopia sort of breaks down.
There has to be a distribution of wealth. The top 1% can get by fine with a mere 20% of all the wealth and 40% of all the income and share just a little bit with the rest of society. They don't have to have every last bit leaving nothing for the rest and that typically doesn't turn out well historically speaking.
Wow. I didn't know senator's were modding on slashdot these days!
Just to make that clear- they were HITTING and killing walking and running human size targets with 12" accuracy from a range of over a mile while they were themselves flying in circles at speeds exceeding 30mph and probably exceeding 50mph.
Now, get out your hunting rifle or hand gun and deal with that.
---
Basically at this point, we keep breeding, food and quality of life inches lower, the government surveillance increases, corporate (not government) based fascism grows. Things get increasingly brittle and then we likely have a world war in the 30-50 year range that results in massive deaths (mostly due to food shortages but also due to power outages and loss of water service).
The parent poster is pretty much on target. Remember we were revolting against a government at the time and saw that civilians needed weapons to keep the government in line. Recall that jefferson thought we would have a mini revolution every couple generations.
However, I think we haved reached a point in weapon cost and technology where private individuals don't stand a chance, even in large masses.
Recall the apache helicopter footage- they were hitting people from a mile away. Apache's shooting "effective" range is close to 3 miles. And they have infravision capabilities beyond that of the populace these days so they can see you at night in heavy bushes.
Private weapons might help against an oppressive government some, but unless the military and national guard throws in with you, you are toast.
When you combine this with continuous surveillance by the government, even if a group gets started they can backtrack you.
As long as the government allows people religious, artistic, and sexual freedom, they are unlikely to revolt and more likely to just find one of the top berths. There is no need for 80% of the population to have democracy as long as you leave those issues alone.
Next bond election look at the bonds.
"Vote for getting this neato service from the government"
"Vote for more police"
"Vote for candy for children"
Sounds good- but voting for a bond automatically generates a tax obligation. they don't even have to have a vote to increase your taxes. Every bond you vote for increases your taxes for them.
Right now, all that happens is you get squashed.
Need to keep pushing the message about just how wealthy they are (top 20% has 95% of the wealth and over 70% of the income)(top 1% has about 40% of the wealth and 40% of the income).
At some point, enough people get upset about it at the same time that a flash-point is reached.
Hannity will say, "we should cut taxes for the wealthy" and be booed by a conservative crowd or something like that.
Enough people will lose their jobs and houses and savings that they'll get mad and start voting in their own self interest instead of for the wealthy and the corporations.
For now the momentum isn't there.
And in some ways it doesn't matter. In 25, 30 years we either hit a world war, the singularity, or some other crisis and things are likely to be so brittle that we get a reset. Pretty sure I'm dead by then.
Cheap robotic manual labor is going to be devastating to the job market. With robotic vision beaten, it's probably 10 years away. Robot checkers, stockers, ditch diggers, office cleaners. Cheaper than humans.
So this is the "Green Mile" lady journalist character (WSJ in the movie).
I was wondering.
It was about 50x in 1970 (40 years ago) and is between 450 and 525x today (depending on your source).
Who is better for the economy - one person earning $13 million and spending $4 million or 260 people earning $13 million and spending $12 million?
The CEO's (and wealthy) are killing the economy by paying low wages or not hiring at all.
Fox is more about pushing the agenda of the wealthy than pushing conservative politics.
If they were truly conservative, they could spend an hour a day publishing wasteful spending items in bills. Explaining the context and identifying the sponsors (of BOTH parties).
Still *sort* of like O'Reilley. He still is at least a bit logical/rational/consistent over half the time. The rest just seem like "it's raining! Cut taxes. It's not raining! Cut taxes!"
Just so long as you realize that even if you know it's wrong going in, after a few weeks it percolates back up as your own thoughts.
Our brains are weird that way. Put enough garbage in and even if you think you are filtering it, garbage will start coming out.
And btw, I love Colbert. Very witty and droll. Especially like him unscripted -- like watching a high wire act. Never got into the other guy.
They don't control so much as they keep them balkanized.
The religious people historically worked on social justice issues-- but they are all divided over abortion and gay marriage.
The conservatives historically held the lid on prices-- but they are all divided over abortion, gay marriage, and drug legalization.
Every issue comes down to 50/50 decisions making it very easy for corporations to
a) drop a little dirt to kill a candidate they don't like.
b) drop a little money to support a candidate they do like.
Heck, the corporations *prepare* as high as 70% of the "news" articles for some main stream news shows these days.
They hand the pre-filmed, scripted article they made to the news show and the news show runs it without telling you it is really an advertisement.
The top 1% of the population is taking 10x the money it was 20 years ago and even poor people losing their houses are voting to "lower taxes" because they have been convinced they are blood brothers with the wealthy. It's crazy.
They control you all the time.
Heck, all they have to do is bring out a gun control argument and you probably get so worked up that you don't read the bond issues and vote "Yes" for all of them because you don't realize a bond issue is just a pretty way of saying "vote YES to raise your taxes".
Journalism is doing what your corporate sponsors tell you to say.
Keep the voters split and controllable by using hot point issues.
They are really
"Give me a chance to be macho" and
"Give her a chance to be squealy"
So we can touch each other "accidentally" to get things started.
And usually a bit of... "watch the obnoxious rich attractive bully get killed in a nasty way"
Baby boomers were living on welfare on communes in the 60's and 70's doing drugs and having lots of sex.
Now that the boomers are grown up, they cut off all the benefits that their parents gave them.
The hippies who didn't turn hard-nosed dropped out and never got back up mostly. We call them "bums" and "homeless" today.
The 20's and 30's somethings would probably have more fun if not for lack of welfare and STD's.
Plus, I think people who were hippies expected less out of the world. And they were turned off by even the modest expectations of their parents. Today's 20's and 30's want to be exec VP, drive a $40k new car, and have a 3200sq foot micro mansion.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/you-ask-the-questions-pete-townshend-660476.html
You once publicly instructed the Rolling Stones not to grow old gracefully. What about Pete Townshend? Are you glad you didn't die before you got old?
Nick MacGregor, by e-mail
Ah hypocrisy! Does the questioner believe I am looking graceful? I feel like a wreck after five Who shows in the past week. Recently, I did my stint as an editor at Faber and Faber, and even that didn't feel graceful. How was I to know that the literary fraternity live harder, faster and more illicitly than rock stars?
And from People.com
Pete himself, who wrote in My Generation in 1966, "Hope I die before I grow old," now feels drastically different about aging. "Picasso," he points out, "still had a shining light in his eyes at 76."
"Trip and break your arm getting off my lawn! "
(which reminds me of the old joke...
A young person in a sports car cuts off an old lady in a Cadillac.
the old lady honks in irritation and the young person shouts out, "you were too slow! I'm younger and faster!"
to which the old lady guns her Cadillac into the sports car shouting, "Well I'm old and insured!"
I always love getting into the semantics of words because correct usage improves communication.
Sooo..
google define:fact and you find.
fact /fækt/ Show Spelled[fakt] Show IPA
-noun
1. something that actually exists; reality; truth: Your fears have no basis in fact. (primary usage of fact. the main meaning)
2. something known to exist or to have happened: Space travel is now a fact. (secondary usage of fact.)
3. a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true: Scientists gather facts about plant growth. (etc.)
4. something said to be true or supposed to have happened: The facts given by the witness are highly questionable. (your point).
5. Law. Often, facts. an actual or alleged event or circumstance, as distinguished from its legal effect or consequence.Compare question of fact, question of law. (doesn't apply)
So the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd most common usage is that a fact is implicitly true and the 4th is that someone is saying something is a fact/true but may be lying or mistaken.
When a scientist says something is a fact (especially if it is calculable or measurable), after all these years, I assume that other scientists can verify and if I had the training and equipment, so could I. I assume it really is a fact (true statement).
Anyway, by definition, a fact is a real thing/true statement. The only time that isn't true is if the person is lying or confused.
What do you think?
If I wasn't in the discussion, i would mod you funny for the irony.
Sorry about your loss. Everyone I know that drinks is very careful. They are much more of a risk from texting that from drinking.
One was pulled over for drunk driving.. and he was sober but had been texting while driving home after the bar.
Cop made him have a a friend come and take him home anyway. An ironic punishment. I don't think he texts while driving any more. He was in denial how much it was affecting his driving.
About 20% of the drinkers have 80% of the alcohol.
It doesn't take much.
Our drinking friend goes to the bar 3 nights a week and has 5 to 7 drinks in 6 hours.
The rest of us average 3 drinks a week.
So we have 12 drinks a week while he is having 18 drinks a week.
I wouldn't call him an alcoholic by any stretch of the imagination.
Esp when you consider in 1800 when they had real booze issues folks were averaging over 7 GALLONS of pure alcohol a year. Now we barely break 2 gallons a year.
a vacation where I drink heavily. Typically a week long ski trip and a two week long beach trip.
The cholesterol thing was tricky. People with low cholesterol live longer.
So they thought "force cholesterol lower and it will be good" and that wasn't the case.
Cholesterol may be more like firemen at a fire. Forcing the firemen to leave doesn't help even tho lack of a firemen is normally a good sign.
Excessive sugar is more likely the base problem. It makes things sticky and it also damages things (which cholesterol is sent to patch).
I'm not a medical doctor so these facts may not be current.
Very often in this country we rush to an incorrect conclusion when we get facts. Especially if money can be made with that conclusion.
There's nothing I can disagree with in your post. All those are reasonable and plausible points.
However, the study was done by experienced researchers (who have other papers on alcohol, depression vs alcohol, and alcoholism) and controlled for most of the things you raised (including people being told to avoid alcohol).
No data collection will ever come out the same (I learned that back in college lab. Everyone got similar but different data in the same damn room with very simple things to measure).
The study could be wrong, but it fits with prior moderate drinking data. One of the problems of our puritan heritage is that this kind of data (especially for pot and Nixon) has been suppressed in the past. And another problem is when the people collecting the data have an agenda.
Looking over the other papers by two of the authors, it seemed to me they are the classic dry scientist types and lack an agenda.
I'm not a teetotaler, moderate drinker or heavy drinker. I'm a sub moderate drinker (1/10th to 1/2 a drink a day) who has a couple heavy drinking vacations a year.
The surprise was the lower death rate (61%) among heavy drinkers vs abstainers (68%). So the net benefits are higher for boozers than abstainers. And the study controlled for ex drinkers so that's not the cause for the higher rate among abstainers.
I don't even drink at a moderate level myself. I typically have a few drinks a week (about half a drink per day) and sometimes as little as a few drinks a month. But twice a year I drink pretty hard (beach and ski trips).
Some people just hate the taste of alcohol.
And a lot of people around the world can't consume it (and would probably die much earlier if they did).
But if the reasons are mental/philosophical I completely agree with you.
And in those cases, pot would probably serve just as well. Let's hope it is legalized in california this fall!
Much better for diabetics.