I don't know how competitive / tough/expensive is farming in the USA. I've been planning for this i.e., the IT schit to hit the fan. For me, farming means away from city. Healthy & no nonsense life. Not much money tho. People still eat right?
They still eat, but not necessarily pay enough for food to make it worth your while growing it. If you do this, set it up with no debt. If you can feed yourself and have no debt, you don't need to make much money to survive. Also do not assume that farming is an occupation for the clueless. Study the science of whatever you plan to do.
It is the best lifestyle I've had though, although I'm not doing it at the moment. The freedom of having that space has to be experienced to be believed. Want to do your target practice in your backyard? No problem. Want to do nearly anything? Who's going to know?
Their biggest mistake was not programming the autopilot correctly for that flight.
Oh, that's all? Well now you put it like that it seems AOK. I suppose that some people do not consider "where the plane goes" to be a minor detail of the flight. As nit picky as that might seem to you, I think we have to cater to those people too.
775M might mean that the parking costs for using the state parks did not go up by $2/car
Yet you have accepted the basic premise that government continually takes more money. When you view restraint from increasing the cost of government services as a win it means you have accepted expanding government costs as the status quo.
a school grant program was not reduced in funding, or that school funding was increased instead of holding steady.
Yet there is not a very good correlation between increasing money spent on public education and good educational outcomes. Increased money for education is many times useful only for political self-promotion of the incumbent. I already accept that the money the government takes may benefit the politicians, I am extremely sceptical of the claim that it will reduce the tax burden on other portions of the population.
In my country, tax per capita has increased by more than a third since 1996 after allowing for inflation. Government collecting more money will result in an increase of government expenditure power not an easing of tax burdens for others. It's possible for it to happen some other way, but I'll believe it when I see it.
If Microsoft were paying this 775M+ in taxes they are avoiding with a loophole that is 775M less in taxes that need to be assessed elsewhere.
You will never be able to find a tax reduction you can attribute to the government collecting this. That's not how it works, it just means the government is taking more. That doesn't mean I think the government should tolerate tax evasion. It will make MS a little less profitable/competitive, because they either have to absorb the higher tax from their profits or raise their prices/sales.
The number of people travelling overseas and handing their root password over at an internet cafe is unlikely to ever reach the levels needed for the widespread distribution of malware, so while it is possible to get an infection in such a situation it's not really a big problem.
As for your response to another poster who said not to give her root access:
What does she do if the is in another hemisphere and timezone from you, and she needs to configure a static IP address?
No internet cafe should require root access to your laptop for you to connect. No doubt she will not hand it over again after you explain it to her. If that's a laptop used to access things that must remain secure (as it seems from your post) I'm sure you would prefer a call or SMS at any time of day instead of having that computer compromised, if it's not important enough to call you, it's not urgent enough to let random strangers access either.
My own (Australian) government only makes it's online tax reporting software available as windows only, making windows just short of compulsory. I would see the Chinese government offering a subsidy and some apps for a FOSS OS to it's people as a lower level of market intervention than requiring the use of a proprietary OS for taxation reporting.
So I would regard it as not ideal, but significantly better than is being done in at least one of the "politically free", "free market" countries.
I disagree. Money is inherently good but like all good things has the capacity to be used for evil. It is an expression of value. As you say, it is a tool to exchange goods and services, service generally also being taken to be a good thing.
Increase in taxation isn't inflation, full stop. An increase in taxation is a reduction of spending power, and inflation causes a reduction in spending power, but they're not the same thing at all.
Well your comments on this and other aspects of the fall of Rome mean several wikipedia edits are required, I'll leave it to you. Your self-contradiction on the banks existing by government and your comment on the government not getting wiped out (in the light of the borrowing enabled bailouts) makes me uninterested in reading another post of yours on this topic. You may be suffering from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome
The problem isn't that a bank account is a bad investment.
So too many people were losing their money but it wasn't a bad investment. Whatever, you and I obviously have very different ideas of what constitutes a good or bad investment.
One of the big reasons for bank failure before the FDIC was graft, where people within the bank skimmed off money or faked the books until the bank died.
Thankfully that doesn't happen any more. Oh wait...
government protection covers the investments you tout above, by protecting you from the effects of criminality on the part of those you're invested with.
Which is entirely different to having the industry exist only by government edict, such as is the case with banking.
You'll have to cite some reasonable sources for the imminent hyperinflation
Your governments finances are propped up by borrowing and inflating the currency supply. Other countries are less likely to be willing to lend to you as your currency loses value and ceases to be the reserve currency of the world, that leaves inflation or massive cutbacks in government spending. Cutbacks in government spending do not seem to be on the agenda. It's only one possible scenario but it is possible. Given that those who couldn't foresee the GFC are still in control of your financial system it's hard to have much confidence in them.
As to your cite for the fall of Rome, you must be joking.
There's little mention of the explosive expansion of the empire causing problems, there's no mention of uneven taxation (taxation, by the way, doesn't cause inflation as your article states), there's no mention of the slave/freeman imbalance
There's little mention of anything, it's a summary on a tourism site. Increases in taxation ARE price inflation of one of the single biggest costs most people have. It mentions the effect of slavery on unemployment. You aren't willing to even take the effort to google for it and you won't see what you don't want to see when it's put in front of you. There doesn't seem to be much point to this conversation. As for "Decline of morals and values"?!? Please. I haven't done any sort of study on how this affected Rome, but the mention of gladiators as entertainment is also linked to the spread of disease, if there was an increase in prostitution with primitive medical care and no condoms it would likewise be linked to the spread of disease, increases in public drunkenness would be likely to result in more accidents, more crime and less productivity. You don't have to be a priest to see that could be a significant problem for a society.
This is wordsmithing. All investment is "risky debt" by this definition, so it's useless to this discussion.
No, I've got investments in capital that don't require the government to make any guarantees. That's capitalism. When you have the government guaranteeing deposits or investments because they aren't good investments it doesn't turn them into good investments it just spreads the loss, through the government, to the whole population. They are still bad investments.
I've already covered what would happen in a society that can't support a banking industry.
Inflated currency has been part of the downfall of many an empire. It's a temporary boost only. What happens in societies that can't inflate their currency at will (the basic purpose of banking) is that they can't afford continual war to expand their empires and ever increasing welfare programs.
You can say that my money is worth a lot less than it was, but that's meaningless if my purchasing power is better than it would have been without the banking industry. Because of that industry I have a house on mortgage that I could never have afforded to buy flat out with cash, and back in 1900 I would never have qualified for the credit to buy it. That's a net gain in my financial well-being. I didn't get hoodwinked into knowing that.
Yet at this stage there is significant risk of the US going into hyperinflation. Hopefully that won't happen but your big house won't do you much good if it does, although you'll be on the right side of the debt, especially if you have a fixed interest rate, so it could still turn out well for you. If it does happen I wonder if you will associate the cause accurately. It's interesting to have a look at http://www.rome.info/history/empire/fall/ which lists nine contributing causes to the fall of the Roman empire. I'd say at least five of those are in action right now in the US and in Australia right now (although Australia we don't have an empire, what do we fall from?), arguably more. Inflation is one of them.
Banking failures aren't being blamed on free market economics
Well all I can say is you haven't been reading the papers in Australia.
It's not a deception, it's a gamble.
Yes, it works just like a casino. The casino always makes money, the punters are the losers.
Creating money supply didn't cause these failures, disguising risky debt as good debt did.
Which is what happened when those deposits got "guaranteed", it's all risky debt propped up only by government intervention.
In fact, many bank instruments compare their gains to inflation to show real value growth, so it's not only not deceptive, it's right there in the ad copy.
Official inflation figures are deceptive. They don't include house prices for example, which affect everyone, borrower or renter.
it's not a scam against confidence, which means someone convincing you of something detrimental.
I disagree. They've devalued the US dollar by about 96% since the creation of the Fed, Australian currency by about the same proportion, which is undoubtedly detrimental, yet they've convinced you and many others that it's a good system.
Give them some more time. In every country, most people spend their life taking orders. The product of their labour is taken from them in taxes. In my own country per capita taxation has increased by more than a third since 1996. Is it really only followers of Ayn Rand that think that can't last forever? You'd have to be insane to think the continual increase in government isn't going to end in totalitarianism.
The problem is that, in the absence of the government oversight, there wasn't any real way to run a bank profitably
Yet the banking failures are being blamed on free market economics. If the system is only sustainable through such spin, it's a fraud and ought to be exposed as such. What is the reason that nobody wants to admit that it's a government system, not a real free market enterprise? You say most people want that, but it seems to require ongoing deception of those people to keep them wanting it.
People didn't want to deposit their money in a bank that couldn't guarantee they'd get it back
And yet they'll accept the current inflationary system, guaranteeing that their money will lose value. Again, they've been deceived.
The problem isn't that the money disappeared, it was that the faith in the market started cycling down
You're wasting your time arguing with these people. They are the creationists of secularism. They think the government can say "Let there be health care" and health care will be, and the government saw that it was good. They have no regard for the fact that health care must actually be produced and provided, that it always has a cost and that when one person gets it "free" it means someone else paid for it without receiving it.
Any time they are saying that people have a right to something produced by others they are advocating the slave state. Lots of people are happy with that so long as they think there will be a cushion in their cage. They do not anticipate that the cushion can and will be taken away, and they will still be in the cage.
then they'd need to hold every cent deposited, in cash, against that possibility.
No, they'd just need to admit that it isn't simultaneously available to the borrower and the lender (depositor). Term deposits meet this criteria for example.
the only people who could loan money are those who already have enough to loan out.
You and I are in that position right now. We can only loan things we have accumulated. I like to call that "reality".
History have proven that there are simply not enough rich people to support the demand for credit, which is why the banking industry appeared in the first place.
Demand for lots of things outstrips supply. Every other industry responds to this first by raising prices which then provides incentive for others to enter the market and increase supply which then in turn lowers the price so that an equilibrium is reached between supply and demand that allows for a normal profit margin. The idea that the proper response to increased demand is to simply declare the demanded good to exist is in essence the same as creationism, but with the bank or government in place of god. On the third day, the government said "Let there be money" and there was money, and the government saw the money, that it was good. Except the government isn't very good at creationism because from time to time the money disappears again and we have a crash. In a market economy, increased demand for money that wasn't met by increased production would result in the value of money relative to other goods increasing (deflation or lowering prices) which is a good thing, provided you don't create your money supply through loans. You only get deflationary spirals because of fractional reserve lending, except for that deflation increases the value of savings, increasing the size of the middle class.
Production creates value. The demand for capital can only be truly met by production. If we pretend we've met that demand by magic we'll get the results of magic, the magician leaves the stage at the end of the show and everyone else is left wondering what happened. That's fine for entertainment, not as the basis of well being of a country. Consider the financial collapse: everything of real tangible value still existed, all the gold and silver, all the factories, roads, railroads, planes and ships, all the farms and machinery, all the workers and their skills were all still there. So what happened? The magically created "money" disappeared, some entries on the books of the banks, and for that reason millions of people became poorer.
The reason the banking industry is so strongly regulated is because people demanded banking services, and without central regulation each bank ended up creating its own money supply, which made the whole system fragile. The banks were given that power by borrowers, not the government
No, when that bank created money supply can be used to pay taxes and the courts enforce it's acceptance in the payment of debts it is a government created power. Without that, no-one who understood the banking system would accept their funny money, they would only be able to operate by deception.
No amount of heart-stirring speeches can change the fact that if you're not on the side with the biggest sticks, you either do what they say, or leave.
Unusual for a nanny stater to be so blunt about their true belief. You aren't interested in a government based on a logical philosophy but on forcing your preferred solution on everyone. Of what value is it to debate with you when if I accept your view it would be a more profitable use of my time to obtain a big stick.
I thought I might have been talking to someone interested in reason, my mistake, I won't bother you further.
and secondly because you haven't demonstrated why "good health" is any less of a right that "self defence".
So long as you produce it yourself or obtain it by voluntary exchange it is. It just isn't a right that justifies the use of force against others in order to pay for it. You haven't justified your position that your "right to good health" trumps my right to the product of my labour. If you wish to take my money, surely the onus is on you to provide justification. Oh, that's right, the big stick is the only justification you acknowledge.
firstly because the level of "self-defence" you can have without the police is minimal
Tell it to this woman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTAADW9wNvk&feature=youtube_gdata Not everyone accepts the role of helpless victim in need of protection. You seem to think that being pathetic gives your arguments moral force. It doesn't. Go ahead, post last.
You refer to them as a "convenience", thus indicating they are not an essential service. Is the provision of non-essential services not an indication of the "nanny state", in your opinion?
No, I mean it's a convenience to have them do it rather than do it ourselves. Not everybody, myself included, wants to live in a fortress. The point came up in regard to whether you have a basic right to the services of others. It is more convenient for us to operate together and pay for a specialist police force than to arrange that ourselves. Self-defence is a basic right, ie: you could never be rationally understood to have given up the right to it, no matter the system of government in place. The justice system functions of the police are more appropriately considered social contract rights, not basic rights, ie: we give up our right to personal revenge in return for a police and court system. Medical services can only be considered as a contractual right, either by private contract between you and the provider or as part of the social contract. You tend towards wanting it as part of the social contract, I by private contract, a worthy subject of debate. Trying to claim it as a basic right is an attempt to shut down the debate. It also has the effect of claiming the effort of someone else as your natural right. I personally believe that only the results of your own effort are your natural right. Everything else is a form of contract or an acquisition by force.
Ah, let me guess. You're a get-back-to-the-gold-standard person as well ?
Not necessarily, but I'm certainly not in favour of the hybrid government/banking currency supply system we have. Given a fiat currency I would like the supply controlled solely by the government (ie: no more money supply created as loans and through shady banking practices). Have the money printed or created electronically by the government be the total money supply in other words. To the extent that a private organisation can create money, they ought to have to make a real product like everyone else, not just enter numbers into an account because the government says they can. When banks have been given that power it is ludicrous to blame their actions on the free market.
the reasonable inference from your comments thus far is that you consider even the police to be an indication of a "nanny state"
Using slightly irregular definitions of "reasonable".
In your world, all problems are caused by excessive taxation. Irresponsible - if not outright fraudulent - behaviour by banks and other financial institutions was a relatively minor factor, and only happened at all because of Government meddling.
I don't excuse the behaviour of banks. I would agree that they are fraudulent. However that is (so far) government sanctioned fraud that is specifically enabled by banking regulations. Banks tell all depositors their money is available, yet in reality they do not have everyone's deposit available for withdrawal, they depend on most people not withdrawing their money. This has long been banking practice and would be illegal in any other industry. It is a practice that bears some similarity to bait and switch advertising, for example, because they are claiming availability of something when they have no intention of honouring that claim. Pretty much every aspect of our banking system is fraudulent and legally sanctioned, something the increased regulation proposed will do nothing at all to resolve. Forcing the banks to play by the rules of real free market enterprises would require repealing legislation, not increased regulation to try to prop up their dishonest business practices and make them stable.
Increasing regulation on banks to prevent harm to the economy while leaving their basic structure intact is like making rules for the crocodile in your backyard to keep your children safe. What you really need to do is not keep crocodiles in your backyard.
Heh. Says the bloke ignoring pretty much all of my points.
Tell me then, what would have to be implemented for you to agree it's a nanny state? You don't have a point. Your position is that you want a nanny state, but you can't bring yourself to admit it. So you pretend we don't have one.
Even Kevin Rudd has as good as admitted the government caused the economic collapse. To claim a stimulus plan of giving us back our tax money solves the problem is a tacit acknowledgement that excessive taxation was a significant contributor to the problem. That taxation is necessary for your beloved nanny state though. Unless we acknowledge it for what it is and start to dismantle it things will only get worse.
There is no way to prevent this that I can see as long as the information is being entered into an invalid PC. The only possible way I can think of to bypass it would be by using SMS but requiring the user's registered cellphone to text (not receive) one of the codes to the banking authority - this would mean that at least one password travels across a system that is (hopefully) not compromised.
If it is a one time code used not to give access but to complete a particular action then it doesn't make any difference if the attacker gets it from the compromised PC. It only gives them the ability to complete the transaction initiated by the user. The SMS with the code should also have the details of the transfer requested.
If you can think of a way for a government to reliably and consistently provide services without some form of taxation, feel free.
I didn't object to all forms of taxation, I objected to income tax. You are not even making a minimal attempt to understand what I'm saying, you seem to prefer to answer with straw man arguments.
Something you might not be aware of: most people don't live isolated from each other on farms. They live cheek to cheek in large cities.
Another straw man. I didn't say most people live on farms.
How useful do you think a gun is going to be to some 20-year old woman living alone when a dozen guys kick down her door at 2am looking for a good time ?
That depends if any are willing to be the first to die. Since that's unlikely, very useful. I doubt there are many people willing to sacrifice their lives so their friends can rape someone. It's another dishonest argument anyway, since you know full well that the police will not defend her in that circumstance anyway, unless you plan to station them in people's homes.
You obviously have no intention of having an honest discussion about this. I doubt there is anything short of government agents tucking us in for sleep and singing us lullabies that would cause you to admit we have a nanny state.
If you're relying on a consultant for support like that, and his actions cause the BSA to bring the hammer down on you, wouldn't the consultant be liable?
That might not help you if the disruption caused your customers to go to your competition.
If more people buy it will not reduce the price you've paid. Other people downloading should not determine your behaviour, just what you think is right or wrong, or in absence of a moral issue, what you think is the best action to take.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know how competitive / tough /expensive is farming in the USA. I've been planning for this i.e., the IT schit to hit the fan. For me, farming means away from city. Healthy & no nonsense life. Not much money tho. People still eat right?
They still eat, but not necessarily pay enough for food to make it worth your while growing it. If you do this, set it up with no debt. If you can feed yourself and have no debt, you don't need to make much money to survive. Also do not assume that farming is an occupation for the clueless. Study the science of whatever you plan to do.
It is the best lifestyle I've had though, although I'm not doing it at the moment. The freedom of having that space has to be experienced to be believed. Want to do your target practice in your backyard? No problem. Want to do nearly anything? Who's going to know?
Their biggest mistake was not programming the autopilot correctly for that flight.
Oh, that's all? Well now you put it like that it seems AOK. I suppose that some people do not consider "where the plane goes" to be a minor detail of the flight. As nit picky as that might seem to you, I think we have to cater to those people too.
775M might mean that the parking costs for using the state parks did not go up by $2/car
Yet you have accepted the basic premise that government continually takes more money. When you view restraint from increasing the cost of government services as a win it means you have accepted expanding government costs as the status quo.
a school grant program was not reduced in funding, or that school funding was increased instead of holding steady.
Yet there is not a very good correlation between increasing money spent on public education and good educational outcomes. Increased money for education is many times useful only for political self-promotion of the incumbent. I already accept that the money the government takes may benefit the politicians, I am extremely sceptical of the claim that it will reduce the tax burden on other portions of the population.
In my country, tax per capita has increased by more than a third since 1996 after allowing for inflation. Government collecting more money will result in an increase of government expenditure power not an easing of tax burdens for others. It's possible for it to happen some other way, but I'll believe it when I see it.
If Microsoft were paying this 775M+ in taxes they are avoiding with a loophole that is 775M less in taxes that need to be assessed elsewhere.
You will never be able to find a tax reduction you can attribute to the government collecting this. That's not how it works, it just means the government is taking more. That doesn't mean I think the government should tolerate tax evasion. It will make MS a little less profitable/competitive, because they either have to absorb the higher tax from their profits or raise their prices/sales.
As for your response to another poster who said not to give her root access:
What does she do if the is in another hemisphere and timezone from you, and she needs to configure a static IP address?
No internet cafe should require root access to your laptop for you to connect. No doubt she will not hand it over again after you explain it to her. If that's a laptop used to access things that must remain secure (as it seems from your post) I'm sure you would prefer a call or SMS at any time of day instead of having that computer compromised, if it's not important enough to call you, it's not urgent enough to let random strangers access either.
My own (Australian) government only makes it's online tax reporting software available as windows only, making windows just short of compulsory. I would see the Chinese government offering a subsidy and some apps for a FOSS OS to it's people as a lower level of market intervention than requiring the use of a proprietary OS for taxation reporting.
So I would regard it as not ideal, but significantly better than is being done in at least one of the "politically free", "free market" countries.
Money is not good, nor evil.
I disagree. Money is inherently good but like all good things has the capacity to be used for evil. It is an expression of value. As you say, it is a tool to exchange goods and services, service generally also being taken to be a good thing.
the fact that it isn't a risky investment is why the government isn't ending up getting wiped out by the losses.
No need for the government to get wiped out, just print more money! Hy-Brasil is NOT sinking. Repeat, NOT sinking.
Sorry, but banking doesn't exist by government edict.
Funny, you already acknowledged in the absence of the government oversight, there wasn't any real way to run a bank profitably AKA the banks can't exist except by government edict. Government oversight happens by edict, ie command.
Increase in taxation isn't inflation, full stop. An increase in taxation is a reduction of spending power, and inflation causes a reduction in spending power, but they're not the same thing at all.
Well your comments on this and other aspects of the fall of Rome mean several wikipedia edits are required, I'll leave it to you. Your self-contradiction on the banks existing by government and your comment on the government not getting wiped out (in the light of the borrowing enabled bailouts) makes me uninterested in reading another post of yours on this topic. You may be suffering from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome
The problem isn't that a bank account is a bad investment.
So too many people were losing their money but it wasn't a bad investment. Whatever, you and I obviously have very different ideas of what constitutes a good or bad investment.
One of the big reasons for bank failure before the FDIC was graft, where people within the bank skimmed off money or faked the books until the bank died.
Thankfully that doesn't happen any more. Oh wait ...
government protection covers the investments you tout above, by protecting you from the effects of criminality on the part of those you're invested with.
Which is entirely different to having the industry exist only by government edict, such as is the case with banking.
You'll have to cite some reasonable sources for the imminent hyperinflation
Your governments finances are propped up by borrowing and inflating the currency supply. Other countries are less likely to be willing to lend to you as your currency loses value and ceases to be the reserve currency of the world, that leaves inflation or massive cutbacks in government spending. Cutbacks in government spending do not seem to be on the agenda. It's only one possible scenario but it is possible. Given that those who couldn't foresee the GFC are still in control of your financial system it's hard to have much confidence in them.
As to your cite for the fall of Rome, you must be joking.
It's a tourism site, but it isn't the only one out there that links inflation to the fall of the roman empire. http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=inflation+fall+of+rome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_Roman_Empire
There's little mention of the explosive expansion of the empire causing problems, there's no mention of uneven taxation (taxation, by the way, doesn't cause inflation as your article states), there's no mention of the slave/freeman imbalance
There's little mention of anything, it's a summary on a tourism site. Increases in taxation ARE price inflation of one of the single biggest costs most people have. It mentions the effect of slavery on unemployment. You aren't willing to even take the effort to google for it and you won't see what you don't want to see when it's put in front of you. There doesn't seem to be much point to this conversation. As for "Decline of morals and values"?!? Please. I haven't done any sort of study on how this affected Rome, but the mention of gladiators as entertainment is also linked to the spread of disease, if there was an increase in prostitution with primitive medical care and no condoms it would likewise be linked to the spread of disease, increases in public drunkenness would be likely to result in more accidents, more crime and less productivity. You don't have to be a priest to see that could be a significant problem for a society.
I'm still trying to figure out how to divide a group of 16 people into thirds without staining the carpet.
Have one of them do the counting.
This is wordsmithing. All investment is "risky debt" by this definition, so it's useless to this discussion.
No, I've got investments in capital that don't require the government to make any guarantees. That's capitalism. When you have the government guaranteeing deposits or investments because they aren't good investments it doesn't turn them into good investments it just spreads the loss, through the government, to the whole population. They are still bad investments.
I've already covered what would happen in a society that can't support a banking industry.
Inflated currency has been part of the downfall of many an empire. It's a temporary boost only. What happens in societies that can't inflate their currency at will (the basic purpose of banking) is that they can't afford continual war to expand their empires and ever increasing welfare programs.
You can say that my money is worth a lot less than it was, but that's meaningless if my purchasing power is better than it would have been without the banking industry. Because of that industry I have a house on mortgage that I could never have afforded to buy flat out with cash, and back in 1900 I would never have qualified for the credit to buy it. That's a net gain in my financial well-being. I didn't get hoodwinked into knowing that.
Yet at this stage there is significant risk of the US going into hyperinflation. Hopefully that won't happen but your big house won't do you much good if it does, although you'll be on the right side of the debt, especially if you have a fixed interest rate, so it could still turn out well for you. If it does happen I wonder if you will associate the cause accurately. It's interesting to have a look at http://www.rome.info/history/empire/fall/ which lists nine contributing causes to the fall of the Roman empire. I'd say at least five of those are in action right now in the US and in Australia right now (although Australia we don't have an empire, what do we fall from?), arguably more. Inflation is one of them.
Banking failures aren't being blamed on free market economics
Well all I can say is you haven't been reading the papers in Australia.
It's not a deception, it's a gamble.
Yes, it works just like a casino. The casino always makes money, the punters are the losers.
Creating money supply didn't cause these failures, disguising risky debt as good debt did.
Which is what happened when those deposits got "guaranteed", it's all risky debt propped up only by government intervention.
In fact, many bank instruments compare their gains to inflation to show real value growth, so it's not only not deceptive, it's right there in the ad copy.
Official inflation figures are deceptive. They don't include house prices for example, which affect everyone, borrower or renter.
it's not a scam against confidence, which means someone convincing you of something detrimental.
I disagree. They've devalued the US dollar by about 96% since the creation of the Fed, Australian currency by about the same proportion, which is undoubtedly detrimental, yet they've convinced you and many others that it's a good system.
European democracies are 'slave states'?
Give them some more time. In every country, most people spend their life taking orders. The product of their labour is taken from them in taxes. In my own country per capita taxation has increased by more than a third since 1996. Is it really only followers of Ayn Rand that think that can't last forever? You'd have to be insane to think the continual increase in government isn't going to end in totalitarianism.
The problem is that, in the absence of the government oversight, there wasn't any real way to run a bank profitably
Yet the banking failures are being blamed on free market economics. If the system is only sustainable through such spin, it's a fraud and ought to be exposed as such. What is the reason that nobody wants to admit that it's a government system, not a real free market enterprise? You say most people want that, but it seems to require ongoing deception of those people to keep them wanting it.
People didn't want to deposit their money in a bank that couldn't guarantee they'd get it back
And yet they'll accept the current inflationary system, guaranteeing that their money will lose value. Again, they've been deceived.
The problem isn't that the money disappeared, it was that the faith in the market started cycling down
So it's a confidence scam?
You're wasting your time arguing with these people. They are the creationists of secularism. They think the government can say "Let there be health care" and health care will be, and the government saw that it was good. They have no regard for the fact that health care must actually be produced and provided, that it always has a cost and that when one person gets it "free" it means someone else paid for it without receiving it.
Any time they are saying that people have a right to something produced by others they are advocating the slave state. Lots of people are happy with that so long as they think there will be a cushion in their cage. They do not anticipate that the cushion can and will be taken away, and they will still be in the cage.
then they'd need to hold every cent deposited, in cash, against that possibility.
No, they'd just need to admit that it isn't simultaneously available to the borrower and the lender (depositor). Term deposits meet this criteria for example.
the only people who could loan money are those who already have enough to loan out.
You and I are in that position right now. We can only loan things we have accumulated. I like to call that "reality".
History have proven that there are simply not enough rich people to support the demand for credit, which is why the banking industry appeared in the first place.
Demand for lots of things outstrips supply. Every other industry responds to this first by raising prices which then provides incentive for others to enter the market and increase supply which then in turn lowers the price so that an equilibrium is reached between supply and demand that allows for a normal profit margin. The idea that the proper response to increased demand is to simply declare the demanded good to exist is in essence the same as creationism, but with the bank or government in place of god. On the third day, the government said "Let there be money" and there was money, and the government saw the money, that it was good. Except the government isn't very good at creationism because from time to time the money disappears again and we have a crash. In a market economy, increased demand for money that wasn't met by increased production would result in the value of money relative to other goods increasing (deflation or lowering prices) which is a good thing, provided you don't create your money supply through loans. You only get deflationary spirals because of fractional reserve lending, except for that deflation increases the value of savings, increasing the size of the middle class.
Production creates value. The demand for capital can only be truly met by production. If we pretend we've met that demand by magic we'll get the results of magic, the magician leaves the stage at the end of the show and everyone else is left wondering what happened. That's fine for entertainment, not as the basis of well being of a country. Consider the financial collapse: everything of real tangible value still existed, all the gold and silver, all the factories, roads, railroads, planes and ships, all the farms and machinery, all the workers and their skills were all still there. So what happened? The magically created "money" disappeared, some entries on the books of the banks, and for that reason millions of people became poorer.
The reason the banking industry is so strongly regulated is because people demanded banking services, and without central regulation each bank ended up creating its own money supply, which made the whole system fragile. The banks were given that power by borrowers, not the government
No, when that bank created money supply can be used to pay taxes and the courts enforce it's acceptance in the payment of debts it is a government created power. Without that, no-one who understood the banking system would accept their funny money, they would only be able to operate by deception.
No amount of heart-stirring speeches can change the fact that if you're not on the side with the biggest sticks, you either do what they say, or leave.
Unusual for a nanny stater to be so blunt about their true belief. You aren't interested in a government based on a logical philosophy but on forcing your preferred solution on everyone. Of what value is it to debate with you when if I accept your view it would be a more profitable use of my time to obtain a big stick.
I thought I might have been talking to someone interested in reason, my mistake, I won't bother you further.
and secondly because you haven't demonstrated why "good health" is any less of a right that "self defence".
So long as you produce it yourself or obtain it by voluntary exchange it is. It just isn't a right that justifies the use of force against others in order to pay for it. You haven't justified your position that your "right to good health" trumps my right to the product of my labour. If you wish to take my money, surely the onus is on you to provide justification. Oh, that's right, the big stick is the only justification you acknowledge.
firstly because the level of "self-defence" you can have without the police is minimal
Tell it to this woman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTAADW9wNvk&feature=youtube_gdata
Not everyone accepts the role of helpless victim in need of protection. You seem to think that being pathetic gives your arguments moral force. It doesn't. Go ahead, post last.
You refer to them as a "convenience", thus indicating they are not an essential service. Is the provision of non-essential services not an indication of the "nanny state", in your opinion?
No, I mean it's a convenience to have them do it rather than do it ourselves. Not everybody, myself included, wants to live in a fortress. The point came up in regard to whether you have a basic right to the services of others. It is more convenient for us to operate together and pay for a specialist police force than to arrange that ourselves. Self-defence is a basic right, ie: you could never be rationally understood to have given up the right to it, no matter the system of government in place. The justice system functions of the police are more appropriately considered social contract rights, not basic rights, ie: we give up our right to personal revenge in return for a police and court system. Medical services can only be considered as a contractual right, either by private contract between you and the provider or as part of the social contract. You tend towards wanting it as part of the social contract, I by private contract, a worthy subject of debate. Trying to claim it as a basic right is an attempt to shut down the debate. It also has the effect of claiming the effort of someone else as your natural right. I personally believe that only the results of your own effort are your natural right. Everything else is a form of contract or an acquisition by force.
Ah, let me guess. You're a get-back-to-the-gold-standard person as well ?
Not necessarily, but I'm certainly not in favour of the hybrid government/banking currency supply system we have. Given a fiat currency I would like the supply controlled solely by the government (ie: no more money supply created as loans and through shady banking practices). Have the money printed or created electronically by the government be the total money supply in other words. To the extent that a private organisation can create money, they ought to have to make a real product like everyone else, not just enter numbers into an account because the government says they can. When banks have been given that power it is ludicrous to blame their actions on the free market.
Glad you liked it. My mum always said I had nice hyperbole.
the reasonable inference from your comments thus far is that you consider even the police to be an indication of a "nanny state"
Using slightly irregular definitions of "reasonable".
In your world, all problems are caused by excessive taxation. Irresponsible - if not outright fraudulent - behaviour by banks and other financial institutions was a relatively minor factor, and only happened at all because of Government meddling.
I don't excuse the behaviour of banks. I would agree that they are fraudulent. However that is (so far) government sanctioned fraud that is specifically enabled by banking regulations. Banks tell all depositors their money is available, yet in reality they do not have everyone's deposit available for withdrawal, they depend on most people not withdrawing their money. This has long been banking practice and would be illegal in any other industry. It is a practice that bears some similarity to bait and switch advertising, for example, because they are claiming availability of something when they have no intention of honouring that claim. Pretty much every aspect of our banking system is fraudulent and legally sanctioned, something the increased regulation proposed will do nothing at all to resolve. Forcing the banks to play by the rules of real free market enterprises would require repealing legislation, not increased regulation to try to prop up their dishonest business practices and make them stable.
Increasing regulation on banks to prevent harm to the economy while leaving their basic structure intact is like making rules for the crocodile in your backyard to keep your children safe. What you really need to do is not keep crocodiles in your backyard.
Heh. Says the bloke ignoring pretty much all of my points.
Tell me then, what would have to be implemented for you to agree it's a nanny state? You don't have a point. Your position is that you want a nanny state, but you can't bring yourself to admit it. So you pretend we don't have one.
Even Kevin Rudd has as good as admitted the government caused the economic collapse. To claim a stimulus plan of giving us back our tax money solves the problem is a tacit acknowledgement that excessive taxation was a significant contributor to the problem. That taxation is necessary for your beloved nanny state though. Unless we acknowledge it for what it is and start to dismantle it things will only get worse.
There is no way to prevent this that I can see as long as the information is being entered into an invalid PC. The only possible way I can think of to bypass it would be by using SMS but requiring the user's registered cellphone to text (not receive) one of the codes to the banking authority - this would mean that at least one password travels across a system that is (hopefully) not compromised.
If it is a one time code used not to give access but to complete a particular action then it doesn't make any difference if the attacker gets it from the compromised PC. It only gives them the ability to complete the transaction initiated by the user. The SMS with the code should also have the details of the transfer requested.
If you can think of a way for a government to reliably and consistently provide services without some form of taxation, feel free.
I didn't object to all forms of taxation, I objected to income tax. You are not even making a minimal attempt to understand what I'm saying, you seem to prefer to answer with straw man arguments.
Something you might not be aware of: most people don't live isolated from each other on farms. They live cheek to cheek in large cities.
Another straw man. I didn't say most people live on farms.
How useful do you think a gun is going to be to some 20-year old woman living alone when a dozen guys kick down her door at 2am looking for a good time ?
That depends if any are willing to be the first to die. Since that's unlikely, very useful. I doubt there are many people willing to sacrifice their lives so their friends can rape someone. It's another dishonest argument anyway, since you know full well that the police will not defend her in that circumstance anyway, unless you plan to station them in people's homes.
You obviously have no intention of having an honest discussion about this. I doubt there is anything short of government agents tucking us in for sleep and singing us lullabies that would cause you to admit we have a nanny state.
If you're relying on a consultant for support like that, and his actions cause the BSA to bring the hammer down on you, wouldn't the consultant be liable?
That might not help you if the disruption caused your customers to go to your competition.
If more people buy it will not reduce the price you've paid. Other people downloading should not determine your behaviour, just what you think is right or wrong, or in absence of a moral issue, what you think is the best action to take.