Let me ask you, what don't you like about Maddow's style of broadcasting? I'm a liberal, and while I often agree with both Olbermann and his guest, I find the sycophantic interviews and leading questions extremely obnoxious. Maddow, on the other hand, consistently puts together what I consider to be one of the most intelligent hours of programming on television. Is it just that you don't like opinion shows?
Watch a Sunday talker this week, and time how long it takes George Will or Peggy Noonan to criticize Obama from the right. Watch Maddow tonight, and see how long it takes her to criticize Obama from the left. Or watch CNN and see if you can spot a guest with (R) next to his name talking about how we can't afford this, or we better not rush into that, or Obama really needs to give McCrystal everything he asked for.
If Obama fooled anyone it was the liberals who thought we'd have universal healthcare, an end of DOADT and DOMA, a climate change bill, wall street reforms, Gitmo closed, etc. - you know those things he promised to do in his campaign. No one who was paying attention in 2008 honestly thinks Obama has over-delivered.
Remember also that TARP was passed and AIG, GM, and Chrysler were all bailed out on W's watch (with a democratic house and an evenly split senate.)
You must be in the south. Universal healthcare and the public option share majority support everywhere else. If Obama loses in 3 years, or if the dem's lose control of congress, it will because they failed at the task of leadership in failing to pass meaningful reforms.
People don't care about government debt during a recession unless they're asked about it specifically. In reality, they're much more concerned with jobs.
When exactly was this golden age of political discourse?
Was the year when the term swiftboating was coined?
How about the year W insinuated South Carolinians shouldn't vote McCain because he had a black baby?
The year Clinton focused on Dole's age?
The year Bush 41 accused Clinton of draft dodging and dope smoking, which was countered by accusations that Bush 41 had an affair with his secretary?
How about Nixon's southern strategy?
Maybe back when Kennedy was accused of being the pope's puppet?
The era of McCarthyism and the red scare?
The wartime campaigns maligning krauts, japs and their perceived sympathizers?
or do we have to go back further to antebellium politics where a senator was beaten to death on the senate floor and Andrew Jackson's Eaton affair nearly derailed his presidency?
Or all the way back to the framer's era with Jefferson and Hamilton sniping at each other?
there's no expectation of privacy in a convenience store either, but if the police want the surveillance video, the management can insist on a court order. (but they don't have to.)
legally, there never was any greater expectation of privacy on the internet, but you stick a box on a webform that says, "post anonymously" and everyone thinks it means something.
Graffiti and anonymous pamphleteering are a lot older than this little country. Also older than this country are the problems associated with people saying provocative things in the town square.
The difference is that with the advent of the internet, everyone thinks they have the right to public anonymity - which should be recognize as an oxymoron, but isn't.
Guess who decides if the comments are libelous/threatening? The courts. In the US anyone can sue anyone else for anything, and the courts are obligated to get involved - they can dismiss the case pretty quickly, but they must get involved, regardless of the merits of the case.
I agree that you don't have the right not to be insulted, but there is a fine line between an insult and libel - a line that is adjudicated by the courts. Furthermore, you only have the right to privacy in private places, and the internet isn't one of those.
Incidentally, it was already illegal to say seditious things at one time - way back when congress was populated by the same guys who wrote the first amendment.
Expensive yes, but even if a mega-corporation mires you down and causes you not to litigate, the patent doesn't go away. If someone steals an invention you patented, especially if they do it willfully, and makes a ton of money, you might be able to locate a lawyer willing to represent you on contingency (if you can prove willfulness you're awarded treble damages), or you can sell the patent with pockets deep enough to litigate.
I'm not going to pretend that patents are all good for the little guy all the time, but even the deepest pockets are deferential to sound patents.
"This decision shall be interpreted as applying solely to those methods and processes that may be feasibly performed without a computer."
And to forestall your answer "but all software could be performed with a pen, paper, and slide rule", the relevant word is feasible. Go decode a PGP message with a pen, paper and slide rule and come back when you're finished to describe how any software can feasibly be done manually.
Do you think that a (novel) business method for hedging risk in derivatives markets could feasibly performed without a computer? If not, adding that language would invalidate the very decision the court just made.
Personally, I'd wager that actual implementation of the Bilski method would be a considerably more complicated and computationally intensive piece of software than PGP.
neither the Japanese lost decade nor the current economic slump would have been as bad had governments spent a little more time listening to Keynesians about regulation, and stopped assuming that the regulation averse FFriedmanites were infallible.
The austrians were all wrong, but fortunately you'd never know it because they don't get a seat at the table because no one takes them seriously. Speculative bubbles require only lax regulation, they can get along just fine in specie systems (see dutch tulips, the panic of 1837,and any number of expansionist land grabs.)
In a modern economy specie currency would result in deflation and wealth concentration, ultimately send us back to a kind of neo-feudalism. In fact the only time that specie currency ever really worked was during the colonial period when new reserves in the new world created inflation.
Trade imbalance is already a factor for calculating GDP (GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports - imports)). You seem to be proposing that we count it twice.
Second, it's irrelevant how the money got into American businesses, GDP doesn't count dollars, it counts production. In fact the faster money flow from the public to business, the higher the GDP - and the more wealth business accumulates, the larger their share of the debt. The only way it makes sense not to include institutions in debt calculations is if you assume that every asset in the country is held by an individual - and not only would that get very clumsy very fast it would make the mean/median wealth disparity problem orders of magnitude more severe.
I'm not sure what the point you're trying to make is, but it sounds like you're arguing from a position that hinges on the economy being a zero sum game.
Your bullshit debt numbers are just as wrong and useless as they were two days ago - so I'm going to just paste in part of my reply from then.
For starters per household debt numbers are useless because, among other reasons, they don't factor in the business/institutional share of the debt, and it's a stealthy way of bungling the mean/median income disparity. If you're going to talk debt, talk about raw dollars, or better yet or percent GDP. Right now it's at ~90% and headed to somewhere around 100% GDP. National debt is like a mortgage, lower is better, but the ability to take out a second mortgage in dry times is extraordinarily important. One thing you don't ever do (if you're rational) is become hawkish on the deficit during a recession - government spending factors into the GDP, so cutting government spending actually increases the debt/GDP ratio, additionally public spending has a multiplier factor (essentially a way of increasing the velocity of money), removing those multiplying dollars can turn a recession into a depression.
But I can tell from your sig that you don't let being wrong stop you.
Economics is an empirical science, when something new happens you adjust your models (something that's only possible to avoid if you steadfastly deny all your shortcomings in the face of all evidence, a la the Austrian school).
At any rate all the economists of the '60s were half wrong (except the nascent Austrians - who were all wrong), the possibility of stagflation was underestimated, but the principle that a sound monetary policy could curb inflation was validated by a moderate Keynsian, Paul Volker. At any rate even stagflation is better than running on a deflationary gold standard.
I swear, Friedman/Reagan destroyed rational economic thinking for a generation. Less government spending is not always better government spending.
For starters per household debt numbers are useless because, among other reasons, they don't factor in the business/institutional share of the debt, and it's a stealthy way of bungling the mean/median income disparity. If you're going to talk debt, talk about raw dollars, or better yet or percent GDP. Right now it's at ~90% and headed to somewhere around 100% GDP. National debt is like a mortgage, lower is better, but the ability to take out a second mortgage in dry times is extraordinarily important. One thing you don't ever do (if you're rational) is become hawkish on the deficit during a recession - government spending factors into the GDP, so cutting government spending actually increases the debt/GDP ratio, additionally public spending has a multiplier factor (essentially a way of increasing the velocity of money), removing those multiplying dollars can turn a recession into a depression.
It would always be better if the debt were lower, but the real cost of constraining spending now would more than counter-balance the decreased debt. We have the largest economy in the world, as the US's global influence wanes, we will be able to support less debt, but for now with global political realities the way they are we can support the debt we carry. People are still buying our debt at very low interest rates - which in itself should tell you that there's no debt crisis. And with all the panic about China holding our debt, their share of the national debt is actually decreasing, with domestic firms are picking up the slack. It's also worth noting that every T-bill held domestically is money we owe to ourselves - it's important to keep it in the debt column, but when it's paid back it's win-win. Come back to me about the defect when we're not shedding jobs every month, or when a t-bill auction fails, or when inflation is approaching double digits.
This sounds like one of the things that's been repeated so many times it's become true.
While I probably spent close to 3 times as much time studying out of class than I did in lectures for advanced classes, but I promise you, it was not copying and recopying my notes, it was almost entirely working sample problems. (I studied mechanical engineering - so I've done my fair share of math).
I especially wasn't worried about getting the equations right - lectures are for concepts, text books are for details. If you have a professor who does derivations for an hour skip the lecture and study the textbook.
If you study humanities, you might spend more time with your notes, but then you don't have to worry about complex equations either.
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Glann Beck couldn't find the moral high ground if the Dalai Lama was his shirpa.
So you admit to being a francophile pinko commie witch.
Let me ask you, what don't you like about Maddow's style of broadcasting? I'm a liberal, and while I often agree with both Olbermann and his guest, I find the sycophantic interviews and leading questions extremely obnoxious. Maddow, on the other hand, consistently puts together what I consider to be one of the most intelligent hours of programming on television. Is it just that you don't like opinion shows?
Does anybody watch the news?
Watch a Sunday talker this week, and time how long it takes George Will or Peggy Noonan to criticize Obama from the right. Watch Maddow tonight, and see how long it takes her to criticize Obama from the left. Or watch CNN and see if you can spot a guest with (R) next to his name talking about how we can't afford this, or we better not rush into that, or Obama really needs to give McCrystal everything he asked for.
If Obama fooled anyone it was the liberals who thought we'd have universal healthcare, an end of DOADT and DOMA, a climate change bill, wall street reforms, Gitmo closed, etc. - you know those things he promised to do in his campaign. No one who was paying attention in 2008 honestly thinks Obama has over-delivered.
Remember also that TARP was passed and AIG, GM, and Chrysler were all bailed out on W's watch (with a democratic house and an evenly split senate.)
You must be in the south. Universal healthcare and the public option share majority support everywhere else. If Obama loses in 3 years, or if the dem's lose control of congress, it will because they failed at the task of leadership in failing to pass meaningful reforms.
People don't care about government debt during a recession unless they're asked about it specifically. In reality, they're much more concerned with jobs.
Ok, so do you lack freedom of speech if there are criminal consequences for inciting violence or putting people in danger?
When exactly was this golden age of political discourse?
Was the year when the term swiftboating was coined?
How about the year W insinuated South Carolinians shouldn't vote McCain because he had a black baby?
The year Clinton focused on Dole's age?
The year Bush 41 accused Clinton of draft dodging and dope smoking, which was countered by accusations that Bush 41 had an affair with his secretary?
How about Nixon's southern strategy?
Maybe back when Kennedy was accused of being the pope's puppet?
The era of McCarthyism and the red scare?
The wartime campaigns maligning krauts, japs and their perceived sympathizers?
or do we have to go back further to antebellium politics where a senator was beaten to death on the senate floor and Andrew Jackson's Eaton affair nearly derailed his presidency?
Or all the way back to the framer's era with Jefferson and Hamilton sniping at each other?
Political discourse has never been civil.
after that find the bit where he tears into CNN for "leaving it there" after guests make things up on the air.
there's no expectation of privacy in a convenience store either, but if the police want the surveillance video, the management can insist on a court order. (but they don't have to.)
The problem with dog bans is that there's a correlation/causation problem when defining "vicious breeds."
legally, there never was any greater expectation of privacy on the internet, but you stick a box on a webform that says, "post anonymously" and everyone thinks it means something.
Graffiti and anonymous pamphleteering are a lot older than this little country. Also older than this country are the problems associated with people saying provocative things in the town square.
The difference is that with the advent of the internet, everyone thinks they have the right to public anonymity - which should be recognize as an oxymoron, but isn't.
Guess who decides if the comments are libelous/threatening? The courts. In the US anyone can sue anyone else for anything, and the courts are obligated to get involved - they can dismiss the case pretty quickly, but they must get involved, regardless of the merits of the case.
I agree that you don't have the right not to be insulted, but there is a fine line between an insult and libel - a line that is adjudicated by the courts. Furthermore, you only have the right to privacy in private places, and the internet isn't one of those.
Incidentally, it was already illegal to say seditious things at one time - way back when congress was populated by the same guys who wrote the first amendment.
civil action isn't an official consequence.
Expensive yes, but even if a mega-corporation mires you down and causes you not to litigate, the patent doesn't go away. If someone steals an invention you patented, especially if they do it willfully, and makes a ton of money, you might be able to locate a lawyer willing to represent you on contingency (if you can prove willfulness you're awarded treble damages), or you can sell the patent with pockets deep enough to litigate.
I'm not going to pretend that patents are all good for the little guy all the time, but even the deepest pockets are deferential to sound patents.
Do you think that a (novel) business method for hedging risk in derivatives markets could feasibly performed without a computer? If not, adding that language would invalidate the very decision the court just made.
Personally, I'd wager that actual implementation of the Bilski method would be a considerably more complicated and computationally intensive piece of software than PGP.
neither the Japanese lost decade nor the current economic slump would have been as bad had governments spent a little more time listening to Keynesians about regulation, and stopped assuming that the regulation averse FFriedmanites were infallible.
The austrians were all wrong, but fortunately you'd never know it because they don't get a seat at the table because no one takes them seriously. Speculative bubbles require only lax regulation, they can get along just fine in specie systems (see dutch tulips, the panic of 1837,and any number of expansionist land grabs.)
In a modern economy specie currency would result in deflation and wealth concentration, ultimately send us back to a kind of neo-feudalism. In fact the only time that specie currency ever really worked was during the colonial period when new reserves in the new world created inflation.
Trade imbalance is already a factor for calculating GDP (GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports - imports)). You seem to be proposing that we count it twice.
Second, it's irrelevant how the money got into American businesses, GDP doesn't count dollars, it counts production. In fact the faster money flow from the public to business, the higher the GDP - and the more wealth business accumulates, the larger their share of the debt. The only way it makes sense not to include institutions in debt calculations is if you assume that every asset in the country is held by an individual - and not only would that get very clumsy very fast it would make the mean/median wealth disparity problem orders of magnitude more severe.
I'm not sure what the point you're trying to make is, but it sounds like you're arguing from a position that hinges on the economy being a zero sum game.
P.S. care to share the source of your not just misleading, but wrong numbers.
The standard debt numbers are something like $15 trillion and there are ~$300 million people in the US. That's a per capita debt number of ~$50,000.
Your numbers and presentation are so far off they're not even wrong.
Your bullshit debt numbers are just as wrong and useless as they were two days ago - so I'm going to just paste in part of my reply from then.
But I can tell from your sig that you don't let being wrong stop you.
That's true, the media does love radical fringe loons.
Economics is an empirical science, when something new happens you adjust your models (something that's only possible to avoid if you steadfastly deny all your shortcomings in the face of all evidence, a la the Austrian school).
At any rate all the economists of the '60s were half wrong (except the nascent Austrians - who were all wrong), the possibility of stagflation was underestimated, but the principle that a sound monetary policy could curb inflation was validated by a moderate Keynsian, Paul Volker. At any rate even stagflation is better than running on a deflationary gold standard.
yeah that unparalleled growth from the end of the depression to the mid 70s was a real downer.
also, when Friedman's economics aren't classically liberal enough for you, you know you're off the deep end.
I swear, Friedman/Reagan destroyed rational economic thinking for a generation. Less government spending is not always better government spending.
For starters per household debt numbers are useless because, among other reasons, they don't factor in the business/institutional share of the debt, and it's a stealthy way of bungling the mean/median income disparity. If you're going to talk debt, talk about raw dollars, or better yet or percent GDP. Right now it's at ~90% and headed to somewhere around 100% GDP. National debt is like a mortgage, lower is better, but the ability to take out a second mortgage in dry times is extraordinarily important. One thing you don't ever do (if you're rational) is become hawkish on the deficit during a recession - government spending factors into the GDP, so cutting government spending actually increases the debt/GDP ratio, additionally public spending has a multiplier factor (essentially a way of increasing the velocity of money), removing those multiplying dollars can turn a recession into a depression.
It would always be better if the debt were lower, but the real cost of constraining spending now would more than counter-balance the decreased debt. We have the largest economy in the world, as the US's global influence wanes, we will be able to support less debt, but for now with global political realities the way they are we can support the debt we carry. People are still buying our debt at very low interest rates - which in itself should tell you that there's no debt crisis. And with all the panic about China holding our debt, their share of the national debt is actually decreasing, with domestic firms are picking up the slack. It's also worth noting that every T-bill held domestically is money we owe to ourselves - it's important to keep it in the debt column, but when it's paid back it's win-win. Come back to me about the defect when we're not shedding jobs every month, or when a t-bill auction fails, or when inflation is approaching double digits.
This sounds like one of the things that's been repeated so many times it's become true.
While I probably spent close to 3 times as much time studying out of class than I did in lectures for advanced classes, but I promise you, it was not copying and recopying my notes, it was almost entirely working sample problems. (I studied mechanical engineering - so I've done my fair share of math).
I especially wasn't worried about getting the equations right - lectures are for concepts, text books are for details. If you have a professor who does derivations for an hour skip the lecture and study the textbook.
If you study humanities, you might spend more time with your notes, but then you don't have to worry about complex equations either.