Every single episode involves cops putting some innocent third party's life under a microscope and using dirt they dig up to compel them to do things which may destroy every relationship in their life or even endanger their life.
I'm sure most people are thinking to themselves "Yeah, way to stick it to that slippery worm", but the implications of their investigative tactics are disturbing, indicating the true weakness of the constitution and bill of rights.
It's because more than half of economics is really applied sociology. Any pure math model, and attempts to simplify (such as Libertarianism) are flawed for that reason, but I also wish they'd cut down on meaningless formulas just for the sake of looking like "hard science". Economics isn't that.
mathematical models do work surprisingly well, but many people misapply these models under the mistaken assumption that economics has a "goal" of efficiency and anything which detracts from that efficiency, such as quality of life or humanity, is unholy.
Additionally, those mathematical models are only reliably able to project so far in advance, and have a known issue of momentum and inertia. Applying common sense and soliciting fresh perspective is important in the construction of variables.
What is desperately needed in economics is a more reality based outlook that attempts to truly deal with the social and economic problems of wider society, rather than a bunch autistic, antisocial, arrogant geeks who don't even realise they're only allowed to keep doing what they're doing because it serves the interests of the powerful (and they're not getting in the way too much).
You could also replace "bunch autistic, antisocial, arrogant geeks" with "bunch of cold, ruthless theorists who mistakenly believe believe economics has a 'goal' of maximizing efficiency at all costs, and that the suffering of others are moot"
Only yesterday I read an article (found through Reddit) called (paraphrasing) "You are not a macroeconomist - you are a geek" - about all the Reddit/Digg/whatever people that think they understand the economy and how to fix it.
Shouldnt that be "you are not an economist - you are a(n) X"
seriously, people need to start thinking empirically and stopped being duped by political pseudo-science.
Is there something factually or logically wrong with my argument (apart from the flavor)?
Yes, because the rest of the world was rebuilt and humming along by 1960, and we kept growing into the 70's before "free trade" started gutting our local industry.
When we ask in return "what do you plan to do with the money? What's your proposed budget?" all the Democrats give us back is blank stares and accusations that we "don't care about the children", which is laughable given that I spend my day every day working to give them a better education.
As if republicans are any better. Iraq war and anti-terrorism funding anyone? External contractor fraud anyone? TARP to corporate bonus conversion ratio anyone?
Democrats are better, and why?, because they spend the money on the people who need it, the american lower and middle class!
such that new loans aren't as ridiculously risky as the ACORN/Obama-bred crap loan
Stop citing this "blame the poor" bullshit from the ultra-right echo-chamber. The law was against red-lining, or discriminating against people based on the area in which they lived -- essentially penalizing people for not wasting money and not being pretentious. The law forced banks to evaluate people based on their credit rating.
Fannie and freddie's job was to assume packaged/secritized mortgage securities. They were not responsible for the decision to issue sub-prime loans, private banks were.
They will have to do what the responsible ones of us have done the rest of the time, and learn to live within their means.
Their wages have been frozen for 10 years and inflation has continued at 3% annually. Do the math. They were compelled to do this to maintain their current standard of living. Maybe if you exited your ivory tower you'd see that.
It's time to start being fiscally responsible on all fronts.
Lets start by providing labor standards and labor laws which compel corporations to be fiscally responsible and provide proper cost of living increases and actually employ americans.
The reason is because, just like the Great Depression, there really are no answers to deal with the current economic downturn. Only time and debt destruction can fix it...
the new deal put people to work, allowing the destruction of debt.
Stripping these programs out in favor of tax cuts for people who have employment and therefore dont need them is the stupidest, greediest thing i've ever seen.
If you want to accomplish an extrication from this situation, the best way is to take that money and mail it to anyone making 40k a year or less.
Where do the sex differences come in? It turns out that, if you bin the data based on sex and then perform a similar subtraction, male brains seem to be more active than their female peers, which the authors interpret in light of the female gender's reputation for being more empathetic.
.
If females were more empathic, you'd think their brain might be more focused on what the other person was thinking.
Sounds to me more like the female subjects didn't care and just weren't trying.
I remember seeing documentaries on problem solving, and people who tend to solve problems more efficiently tend to show less neural activity when faced with a problem.
The increased activity in male brains indicates more second-guessing, and possibly more error.
Empathy is a very powerful tool in guessing the potential responses of others correctly.
As long as the edits aren't being made by a government or corporate entity and/or their minions, it should be valid.
Oh, so if the edits are made by the dupes who drink their kool-aid whole it's fine?
The problem with these entities is they have tremendous power and access to mass media, which is under their umbrella conglomerates, and will therefore never provide real fact checks or challenges to the BS they spew.
Lobbying groups for powerful business interests who know they are doing something ethically parasitic to society have a stanard MO of "manufacturing controversy" through thinly disguised think tanks or publications pushing an agenda.
Example: Smoking doesn't actually cause cancer.
Tracking the number of edits only shows whether an interest group is actively trying to revise reality. It does not say which side it is or whether the "controversy" is genuine.
In other words, it's no more dependable than the signs they slap across half of wikipedia because powerful groups of outright looneys shry about it.
In your Real Economy, should IP creators have to sell shoes to pay the bills while also designing microprocessors?
a straw man, read the rest to see why.
I don't know how you define real goods, but a lot of them are just IP goods which are subsequently transcribed or created in physical form.
those would be called real (as in physical) goods. You see, unlike individual citizens or other nations, you can actually apply meaningful pressure on a company if they want your permission to market to your citizens. Notice how I said your citizens, because they could feasibly remain in their home market of china and pirate all they want, which is why goods produced physically here are the future, not some arbitrary and imaginary concept our enemies could care less about.
Here's what everyone on Slashdot seems to miss. IP goods - those easily-reproducible but hard-to-think-up-or-produce-in-the-first-place goods - are the future of modern society.
no, real goods are the future of our society. This idea of yours is nothing but a dot-com pipe dream. The point of the information economy is to boost the real economy
You can't extract revenue from goods which require another nation, often an enemy, to voluntarily honor your arbitrary valuation.
Additionally, the populace of your own nation is not going to take kindly to you destroying their own consumer rights.
They can change all the laws they like, the people have spoken, governments are dealing with mass civil disobedience and it will not stop.
What is not covered in this article, but buried deep in the links, is that this treaty calls for nations to act immediately upon accusations without any burden of proof, and to absolve copyright companies from any responsibility if they engage in false accusations.
Imagine DMCA takedown notices for the physical world. Talk about a cudgel for anti-competitive harassment with impunity.
How are they going to do that? Protecting the US market to IBM? That will only make IBM charge more and become less competitive, tanking the US.
Lehman is dead. All employees have been fucked in the behind. If IBM dies, all employees are out of work, not only a handful. That's the thing about protectionism. In the long run, you become a closed, fucked-up economy.
Oh well, fuck it. It's your country anyway. Why should I give a crap?
That's only with extreme protectionism.
Our economy grew exceedingly well with mild protectionism which prevented the kind of labor exploitation happening now.
Slashdot Mirror
Just watch law and order...
Every single episode involves cops putting some innocent third party's life under a microscope and using dirt they dig up to compel them to do things which may destroy every relationship in their life or even endanger their life.
I'm sure most people are thinking to themselves "Yeah, way to stick it to that slippery worm", but the implications of their investigative tactics are disturbing, indicating the true weakness of the constitution and bill of rights.
The law is like a computer program.
If it's not designed to strict standards, any holes will be abused, manifesting a "bug", or deviation from the intent of the law.
Just like any program, eventually someone will find a hole, thus the law must be patched to fix bugs.
Sadly, this never happens.
It's because more than half of economics is really applied sociology. Any pure math model, and attempts to simplify (such as Libertarianism) are flawed for that reason, but I also wish they'd cut down on meaningless formulas just for the sake of looking like "hard science". Economics isn't that.
mathematical models do work surprisingly well, but many people misapply these models under the mistaken assumption that economics has a "goal" of efficiency and anything which detracts from that efficiency, such as quality of life or humanity, is unholy.
Additionally, those mathematical models are only reliably able to project so far in advance, and have a known issue of momentum and inertia. Applying common sense and soliciting fresh perspective is important in the construction of variables.
What is desperately needed in economics is a more reality based outlook that attempts to truly deal with the social and economic problems of wider society, rather than a bunch autistic, antisocial, arrogant geeks who don't even realise they're only allowed to keep doing what they're doing because it serves the interests of the powerful (and they're not getting in the way too much).
You could also replace "bunch autistic, antisocial, arrogant geeks" with "bunch of cold, ruthless theorists who mistakenly believe believe economics has a 'goal' of maximizing efficiency at all costs, and that the suffering of others are moot"
Only yesterday I read an article (found through Reddit) called (paraphrasing) "You are not a macroeconomist - you are a geek" - about all the Reddit/Digg/whatever people that think they understand the economy and how to fix it.
Shouldnt that be "you are not an economist - you are a(n) X"
seriously, people need to start thinking empirically and stopped being duped by political pseudo-science.
The only people who go on and on ad nauseum about "Darwinism", as if it were the be-all and end-all of Evolutionary Theory, are the Creationists.
Don't forget the greedy, the exploitative, and their apologists also crow about darwinism.
Anyone who is poor is obviously lazy/inferior (always stated indirectly so they can label anyone who calls a spade a spade a cook)
The USA should be doing free trade agreements with everybody and his dog. This should include the free relocation of people between countries.
That way young people in the US could look for entry level positions where they are: outside the US.
Yes, working for absolutely nothing in hellish conditions with no labor standards or even food and water safety regulations is the right thing to do.
Or we could impose trade sanctions on nations which dont implement the labor standards we have here.
We could also encourage unionization, because unionized industries here are experiencing a LOT less offshoring.
Is there something factually or logically wrong with my argument (apart from the flavor)?
Yes, because the rest of the world was rebuilt and humming along by 1960, and we kept growing into the 70's before "free trade" started gutting our local industry.
When we ask in return "what do you plan to do with the money? What's your proposed budget?" all the Democrats give us back is blank stares and accusations that we "don't care about the children", which is laughable given that I spend my day every day working to give them a better education.
As if republicans are any better. Iraq war and anti-terrorism funding anyone? External contractor fraud anyone? TARP to corporate bonus conversion ratio anyone?
Democrats are better, and why?, because they spend the money on the people who need it, the american lower and middle class!
such that new loans aren't as ridiculously risky as the ACORN/Obama-bred crap loan
Stop citing this "blame the poor" bullshit from the ultra-right echo-chamber. The law was against red-lining, or discriminating against people based on the area in which they lived -- essentially penalizing people for not wasting money and not being pretentious. The law forced banks to evaluate people based on their credit rating.
Fannie and freddie's job was to assume packaged/secritized mortgage securities. They were not responsible for the decision to issue sub-prime loans, private banks were.
They will have to do what the responsible ones of us have done the rest of the time, and learn to live within their means.
Their wages have been frozen for 10 years and inflation has continued at 3% annually. Do the math. They were compelled to do this to maintain their current standard of living. Maybe if you exited your ivory tower you'd see that.
It's time to start being fiscally responsible on all fronts.
Lets start by providing labor standards and labor laws which compel corporations to be fiscally responsible and provide proper cost of living increases and actually employ americans.
What I if I want to remain single and not have any kids at all?
Why should I be penalized with higher taxes for my decision to relieve burden from the education system and job markets down the road?
Tax incentives should only be granted once married partners have children.
That is harvard.
Citing harvard's endowment in response to GP is like citing bill gates's net worth in response to a comment about how main street is struggling.
The reason is because, just like the Great Depression, there really are no answers to deal with the current economic downturn. Only time and debt destruction can fix it...
the new deal put people to work, allowing the destruction of debt.
Stripping these programs out in favor of tax cuts for people who have employment and therefore dont need them is the stupidest, greediest thing i've ever seen.
If you want to accomplish an extrication from this situation, the best way is to take that money and mail it to anyone making 40k a year or less.
.
If females were more empathic, you'd think their brain might be more focused on what the other person was thinking.
Sounds to me more like the female subjects didn't care and just weren't trying.
I remember seeing documentaries on problem solving, and people who tend to solve problems more efficiently tend to show less neural activity when faced with a problem.
The increased activity in male brains indicates more second-guessing, and possibly more error.
Empathy is a very powerful tool in guessing the potential responses of others correctly.
As long as the edits aren't being made by a government or corporate entity and/or their minions, it should be valid.
Oh, so if the edits are made by the dupes who drink their kool-aid whole it's fine?
The problem with these entities is they have tremendous power and access to mass media, which is under their umbrella conglomerates, and will therefore never provide real fact checks or challenges to the BS they spew.
Lobbying groups for powerful business interests who know they are doing something ethically parasitic to society have a stanard MO of "manufacturing controversy" through thinly disguised think tanks or publications pushing an agenda.
Example: Smoking doesn't actually cause cancer.
Tracking the number of edits only shows whether an interest group is actively trying to revise reality. It does not say which side it is or whether the "controversy" is genuine.
In other words, it's no more dependable than the signs they slap across half of wikipedia because powerful groups of outright looneys shry about it.
In your Real Economy, should IP creators have to sell shoes to pay the bills while also designing microprocessors?
a straw man, read the rest to see why.
I don't know how you define real goods, but a lot of them are just IP goods which are subsequently transcribed or created in physical form.
those would be called real (as in physical) goods. You see, unlike individual citizens or other nations, you can actually apply meaningful pressure on a company if they want your permission to market to your citizens. Notice how I said your citizens, because they could feasibly remain in their home market of china and pirate all they want, which is why goods produced physically here are the future, not some arbitrary and imaginary concept our enemies could care less about.
Just keep drinking the koolaid and reading your republican revisionist history.
I mean, i'm only degreed in economics, after all.
Here's what everyone on Slashdot seems to miss. IP goods - those easily-reproducible but hard-to-think-up-or-produce-in-the-first-place goods - are the future of modern society.
no, real goods are the future of our society.
This idea of yours is nothing but a dot-com pipe dream.
The point of the information economy is to boost the real economy
You can't extract revenue from goods which require another nation, often an enemy, to voluntarily honor your arbitrary valuation.
Additionally, the populace of your own nation is not going to take kindly to you destroying their own consumer rights.
They can change all the laws they like, the people have spoken, governments are dealing with mass civil disobedience and it will not stop.
FTP developers
FTP Developers? like ipswitch?
Also, FTP is client/server, peer to peer means more than just filesharing networks goddamnit.
FTP is client/server in the same way any other p2p is client/server.
Anyone can set up an FTP on their personal computer (with a dyndns if they want a dependable domain)
What is not covered in this article, but buried deep in the links, is that this treaty calls for nations to act immediately upon accusations without any burden of proof, and to absolve copyright companies from any responsibility if they engage in false accusations.
Imagine DMCA takedown notices for the physical world. Talk about a cudgel for anti-competitive harassment with impunity.
Try bit torrent, FTP developers, web hosts..
wherever p2p goes, it will follow, eventually resulting in the evisceration of the entire internet, as it is, fundamentally, p2p in nature.
How are they going to do that? Protecting the US market to IBM? That will only make IBM charge more and become less competitive, tanking the US.
Lehman is dead. All employees have been fucked in the behind. If IBM dies, all employees are out of work, not only a handful. That's the thing about protectionism. In the long run, you become a closed, fucked-up economy.
Oh well, fuck it. It's your country anyway. Why should I give a crap?
That's only with extreme protectionism.
Our economy grew exceedingly well with mild protectionism which prevented the kind of labor exploitation happening now.
... when USA DOESNT UNIONIZE.
There, fixed that for you.
Every occupation which has a union experiences little to no off-shoring because of the reprocussions of organized labor.
Its funny how reaganites have such hatred to organized labor, but its perfectly ok for management to consolidate obscene amounts of power.
So much for "equality"
I would do something like this if I was young and single--it'd be quite the adventure!
people who are young and single also have student debts.
Those dont diminish if you move overseas.