Tags for this video have been changed from 'faith, epic, what is it, floppy, fish, Chile, 1991' to 'faith, epic, what is it, floppy, fish' - edited by dystopianfuturetoday

Well, this is interesting.

I agree with all of @dystopianfuturetoday's general guidelines. I also agree with @bareboards2's observation that we can't really know what the original video was for sure.

But, it looks to me as if @LadyBug put the original tags on the video and they only confuse me.
I didn't know this song--or band--so I looked up the wiki.
The tags "floppy" and "fish" seem to point to the original music video--also the thumbnail from @rasch187's fix is from the original music video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERTT_sv8sV0 -- embedding disabled).
The tags "Chile" and "1991" seem to refer to this live recording (or a similar live recording).
The music video was recorded in 1990--not in Chile.

One thing I can say is that @chingalera really does care (no matter what he says) and wants to do the right thing. He didn't have to point out this possible wrong video fix--but he did.
What a mensch.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'faith, epic, what is it, floppy, fish' to 'faith, epic, what is it, floppy, fish, Chile, 1991' - edited by chingalera

Tags for this video have been changed from 'stars, amazing' to 'stars, amazing, cerro paranal, chile, telescope, astronomy, eso' - edited by eric3579

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Fuck this genocidal scumbag.


Dude, we all hate Friedman, and with good reason. However, I don't disagree with this line of argument. I think the resurgence of true libertarians in the republican party makes this one of the few issues we could get bipartisan agreement on. I'd just as soon pursue it than malign their ideologues.

Also, I think some of what happened in Chile is overly associated with Friedman. He wasn't Pinochet himself. I don't think he was "disappearing" women himself. While it was a horrible blemish on human history, it's hard to say what exactly his involvement was.

....for anyone unfamiliar with Chile 1973.

In 1973 he collaborated with brutal Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to force 'free market' reforms on the country by way of a coup. The coup used murder and torture to terrify opponents into silence. Business owners sympathetic to the coup allowed their warehouses to be used as impromptu torture centers to torture union members that had previously been employees. The national futbol stadium was transferred into a massive torture/rape/prison/execution complex where tens of thousands of Chilean citizens died. Milton said his coordinated economic plan for the coup would require some 'shock therapy'.

For more on this, read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. It details this incident and dozens of similar ones to impose 'free market' capitalism on the people by way of fear, torture, force, bribery and blackmail. http://www.amazon.com/Shock-Doctrine-Rise-Disaster-Capitalism/dp/0805079831

related sifting:

http://videosift.com/video/Sept-11-The-start-of-a-dark-era-for-Chile
http://videosift.com/video/USA-commits-911-attrocities-on-Chile
http://videosift.com/video/The-War-On-Democracy-by-John-Pilger

>> ^renatojj:

@.


Np, glad you liked them. I'm not saying there is only one account of what went down, I'm saying that it is fact that America was most prosperous when taxes were the highest. You don't need to be a historian or theorizer to use Google and check that for yourself.

Your quick Google search brung up an article that deals only in theory, and the argument they use is that people that are taxed 0% are more motivated than people that are taxed 100% - so that the imperitive becomes to cover Govt. expenses while keeping the taxes as low as possible to maintain motivation. That makes perfect logical sense and doesn't disagree with the facts I bought to the table, that America has been most prosperous during periods of high taxation, it simply proves that low is subjective. Taxing someone who earns $10,000 50% of their income means they take home a tiny amount of money, the same tax rate on a billionaire means they still take home five hundred million dollars, more than enough don't you think? If all income was related to productivity then my argument would be different, but quite simply it's not. Look at derivatives trading or inheritence funds as a couple of examples.

Fixing tax rates is also just the beginning, there needs to be a complete overhaul of your taxation system, there is plenty of information out there that details how dozens of your fortune 500 companies are paying no tax at all (e.g. GE and Boeing), Pepco Holdings Inc had a negative 57.6% tax rate for 2010 according to this article:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/03/us-usa-tax-corporate-idUSTRE7A261C20111103

So not only are the tax rates poorly thought out, the tax system allows companies that rake in billions in profits ways by which to avoid paying any tax at all (and even get refunds).

The same goes for individuals as well, Mitt Romney, who made over twenty million in 2010, and has at least thirty million stashed in over 138 investment funds in the Caimans paid close to 15% tax in that same year. That's the same tax rate that someone earning $10,000 would have to pay.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/romney-parks-millions-offshore-tax-haven/story?id=15378566#.Tx-lKm_9PUd

Is he using this additional money he's making from not paying his taxes for productive purposes? It would appear not... His motive is profit, and to that end he's closed plants, cut employee wages, laid off American workers and outsourced their jobs to other countries, all while he and his partners have made tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars, while the companies he's invested in have often ended up going bankrupt:
http://www.romneygekko.com/mitt/

So my point is that it's a pipedream to think that lower taxes on the rich has only one effect, to make them more productive, it also carries with it a myriad of negative consequences as I've illustrated, the worst one being lobbying, which is rampant in your country. In terms of Chile, you say that all education there is state funded? Have a look at this report and you will see that the total investment in tertiary education Chile makes is probably close to about half a percent of their GDP, which is indeed lower than any other country surveyed, they are also at the very bottom of the list when it comes to actual dollars invested in public education. Meanwhile the cost of education for students is the highest of any OECD country.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/45/48/37864432.pdf

The reasons for that come full circle back to your economic theories. Have you heard of Augusto Pinochet? America installed him as the dictator of Chile after the CIA organised a successful air strike on the palace of the existing democratically elected leader - Allende, which resulted in his death. It's well known that Pinochet relied on the Chicago boys for economic policy, who in turn were trained by Milton Friedman. Friedman was ... the major free-market economist of his time, and it's these exact same policies that still linger around today in the education system thanks to Patricio Aylwin and others. It's clear evidence that your model has flaws, and it's also clear who benefits the most from it.

We should pay Chile some reparations as well, we fucked that country up hardcore. Thank you Milton Friedman.

@ghark, thanks for the links, I read all of them, very informative.

I'm sure you know that economics has more than one school of thought, which often times are very opposed to each other not only in theory, but also in their interpretations of important historical events like the Great Depression or even the Industrial Revolution. It seems straightforward that, given all historical evidence we have, there should be only one account of what went down in history, right? It's too bad that's not the case Historians are, themselves, often influenced by their own ideological bias. At least we both know it would be naïve to think all historians agree exactly on everything in history! Ask economists from different schools what happened during the Great Depression and they will invoke very opposite historic accounts.

A quick google search gave me an article stating almost the opposite of your 1st article (which is no surprise given its purpose to dismiss an alleged economic myth):
http://economics.about.com/cs/taxpolicy/a/taxing_growth.htm

That being said, I'd like to address your statement that "higher taxes is bad for our economy" being a rumor spread by the rich. I could just as well state the opposite is a rumor spread by those with a vested interest on taxing other people: the government and those who aren't being taxed. Wouldn't you agree that's more likely, given there are more people with that vested interest than rich people in the world? Also, wouldn't it be more likely that, maybe, a socialist ideology would be behind an effort to spread such a statement? I'm not questioning socialism, just saying, it's very likely a socialist would take a biased interpretation of economic growth and higher taxation and state that they're related in direct proportion (socialists usually want bigger governments that require higher taxes).

Economists say controversial things like "war is good/bad for the economy", "inflation is good/bad for the economy", "when you break a window, that helps/hinders the economy", so it's no wonder that something like "higher taxes is good/bad for the economy" falls into that category.

We cannot solve all economic fallacies here, I'm just trying to point out that we should be aware of the underlying economic schools of thought to better understand the ideological bias motivating their own sets of conclusions.

Chile's approach does not seem free market to me, even if it appears to be closer to that because of privatization. All education there seems to be state funded. When the state comes into a market providing easy money, costs go up, it's supply and demand. If every student has X amount of money provided by the state, private schools stop competing over price, so tuition costs go up (at least that's what I could gather, I'm sorry if I'm not exactly an expert on the Chile situation!)

About the uneven distribution, what I was stating is that not much moral judgement can be made on distribution itself, but on how this distribution is happening. If you have more money than me, I don't have enough information to judge whether that situation is unfair or whether you're undeserving of that money.

When I consider those who benefitted from TARP bailouts though, it pisses me off , because they got money from the taxpayer, money that they're not legitimately entitled to, they didn't have to work for, they didn't deserve. That particular kind of uneven distribution is scandalous IMHO, and it's the kind of injustice that more often results from misallocation of taxpayer money that is more likely to happen with higher taxation.

@renatojj It's nonsense that lower taxes on the wealthy means they become more productive, that's simply a rumor spread by the rich. The problem with low/no corporate taxes (which is what RP wants) is that over time more and more wealth accumulates in the top bracket and less and less is available to the middle and lower classes, the wealthy then use this money to influence policy making and the problem becomes worse - which is exactly what is happening now. Yes, this is going to happen anyway, but poor tax policy exacerbates it.

If you don't believe me then just look at history: Coolidge became president in 1923 and signed into law the Revenue Act of 1924, the tax rate for the those earning above $10,000 (about $120,000 by today's standards) was only 6%, there was a surtax added to higher incomes but it only crept up very slowly. Guess what happened? 10 years of economic hell for America - otherwise known as the great depression. Guess what kick started the economy? In part higher taxes. For example the highest period of growth for America was when it had the highest tax rate for the upper bracket (91%) - which was during WWII. Once the tax rate's started coming down again, guess what happened to economic growth - right, it slowed.

If you look at one specific person that makes a lot of money, and you double there taxes, it's easy to make the assumption that you are harming them - but a countries economy is far more complex than that and works in ways most economists don't even understand. To assume that you know what is best for American tax policy is ridiculous unless you happen to know more than every other economist on the planet (and same goes for me). What is clear from history though is that lower tax rates on the wealthy do not help the economy grow, that is pure myth that has been perversely thrown out there to misdirect the general population while the wealthy accumulate more and more money.
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-taxgrowth.htm

As far as the RP - Chile connection - RP's 'free market' approach to education is exactly what has already happened in Chile - this privatization of higher education has resulted in Chile's technical schools, colleges and universities having the "highest costs of higher education of any OECD country and the lowest public expenditure" (from the doco I link below). And the quality of the education? Very poor according to an October Economist article:
http://www.economist.com/node/21531468

Is that what you want to happen to American education?

More info about the issues and protests:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Chilean_protests

And I've sifted a documentary on the issue if you want to watch:
http://videosift.com/video/Chile-Rising

And lastly, maldistribution is simply uneven distribution - e.g. according to the NY Times "The current maldistribution of wealth is also scandalous. In 2009, the richest 5 percent claimed 63.5 percent of the nation’s wealth. The overwhelming majority, the bottom 80 percent, collectively held just 12.8 percent"

Please justify that to us.

>> ^ghark:


Yes I agree that he's consistent, but consistency only matters so much, his tax policies would widen the already-disastrous income maldistribution problems in America, the consequences of his education policies would further destroy the education system - go research Chile's education system if you want to see how much of a disaster privatizing an education system is. And that's just the beginning. He's a trojan horse my friend.


Well, his tax policy is mostly "less taxes", which seems like a good idea for a battered economy. Why would you use taxing to solve "maldistribution of income"? What is maldistribution of income anyways? Is income something supposed to be distributed? In a market, aren't people usually paid on a supply/demand basis or depending on how productive they are to society?

I'm guessing you're a progressive taxation guy, which I happen to think is not a very fair tax policy. Whenever you tax the rich by a larger percentage, you discourage or punish them for being more productive to society, which is a moral hazard and bad economics (according to austrians anyway).

What I could gather from Chile's education system (Wikipedia) is that it's pretty hybrid, a lot of private and public schooling and many gradations in between, mostly with state funding of education at many levels. I don't think Ron Paul is proposing anything to that effect.

To my knowledge, he'd probably shut down federal student loans as a way of directly lowering college tuition costs. While in Chile, everything education, whether public or private, seems to be state funded. So I fail to see the comparison sorry

>> ^renatojj:

>> ^ghark:
>> ^renatojj:
TLDR: ...

When your only choice is the 'least evil' one (on the surface), you know that the representatives you are voting for are not working for you, but against you. Ron Paul is irrelevant to what's going on in America, he may get in, he may not, but the entire system needs to change before the people are represented. Fantastic list btw @dystopianfuturetoday, no need to apologize.

I don't get it. Why would you dismiss him so carelessly? I wouldn't consider him "least evil" at all, the guy deserves a lot more credit than that. Ron Paul certainly holds himself to high standards of consistency that I would never expect from a politician. I think his social, foreign and economic policies, no matter how controversial, or whether we agree with him or not, are very relevant to America's current situation.


Yes I agree that he's consistent, but consistency only matters so much, his tax policies would widen the already-disastrous income maldistribution problems in America, the consequences of his education policies would further destroy the education system - go research Chile's education system if you want to see how much of a disaster privatizing an education system is. And that's just the beginning. He's a trojan horse my friend.

>> ^cosmovitelli:

I read your stuff Yogi!
FWIW Involving the US in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan is all about money and power. Oil, minerals, rate earth shit etc etc.
In Iran they got rid of a benevolent democratically elected progressive who tried to return the oil wealth of the country to its people and replaced him with a foreign sponsored greedy foolish puppet.
When it swung back the other way the clerics took over. Doh!
They used Afghanistan as a proxy war with the soviets, training the mujahideen / aka Taliban fighters in improvised explosives, insurgency warfare and basically how to fuck up a mechanised invading army. Then they invaded. Doh!
In Iraq they supported Saddam despite his demented paranoid savagery until the Iraqi oilfields became too tasty to ignore.
Duck Cheney said it couldn't be done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I&sns=em
But they upped his end via massive Haliburton projects and installed a puppet moron to keep blaming Iraq for the Saudi attacks on 9/11.
Then they invaded, killing thousands of civilians, and dismantled the police and social services while fucking up the food and water supply. Just for good measure they disbanded the army and sent 375,000 heavily armed young men off to find food for their own families. Doh!
Never mind about panama, chile, Vietnam, Cuba, Russia, Pakistan etc etc.


I'd pretty much agree with your facts. I'm a little less sure on your point.

America helped train and support the Islamic fighter in Afghanistan to chase out the Soviets. America supported Saddam while he was using chemical weapons against Iran and even Iraqi Kurds. America propped up a strong man of their choosing in Iran which backfired and led to the current theocracy.

You needn't look far or very hard to find examples where almost any and every nation has selfishly done very bad things, or things with terrible consequences. America, Russia and China being such large nations, the examples for them are much bigger and numerous. It makes for great propaganda, and all 3 continually make heavy use of it to tarnish each other. America is characterized by the genocide of native americans and Vietnam, Russia by Stalin and China by Mao. It's great propaganda, but it's not insightful or helpful analysis.

Pretend you get be President when Bush Jr. was president. America's narrow self interests are being threatened by terrorism. Bin Laden has extremely close ties with Islamists not only in Afghanistan, but throughout nuclear armed Pakistan. AQ Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, is going around selling nuclear secrets and equipment to the highest bidder. That's an uncomfortably short path from Pakistan's nuclear arsenal to the hands of a very credible terrorist network. Do you demand Pakistan break it's ties with the Taliban, or just let it slide? Do you demand the Afghan Taliban break ties with Al Qaeda, or just let it slide? I think selfish American interest DID dictate making those two demands, and being willing to launch a war if they were refused.

I think that is a strong argument that the Afghan war was indeed a good thing from the perspective of America's narrow self-interest.

What about the Afghan people though? Their self interest depends on what the end game is, and nobody can predict that. What we DO know is that the formerly ruling Taliban hated women's rights, and we fought against them. What we DO know is that the formerly ruling Taliban burnt off more of Afghanistan's vineyards than even the Russians had, because making wine was anathema to their cult. What we DO know is that the Taliban was one of the most brutal, backwards and hateful organizations around.

I can not say that the Afghan war ensured a better future for Afghanistan's people. What I CAN say is that leaving the Taliban in power in Afghanistan ensured a dark, bleak and miserable future for Afghanistan's people. I would modestly propose that a chance at something better was a good thing.

I read your stuff Yogi!

FWIW Involving the US in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan is all about money and power. Oil, minerals, rate earth shit etc etc.

In Iran they got rid of a benevolent democratically elected progressive who tried to return the oil wealth of the country to its people and replaced him with a foreign sponsored greedy foolish puppet.
When it swung back the other way the clerics took over. Doh!

They used Afghanistan as a proxy war with the soviets, training the mujahideen / aka Taliban fighters in improvised explosives, insurgency warfare and basically how to fuck up a mechanised invading army. Then they invaded. Doh!

In Iraq they supported Saddam despite his demented paranoid savagery until the Iraqi oilfields became too tasty to ignore.

Duck Cheney said it couldn't be done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I&sns=em

But they upped his end via massive Haliburton projects and installed a puppet moron to keep blaming Iraq for the Saudi attacks on 9/11.
Then they invaded, killing thousands of civilians, and dismantled the police and social services while fucking up the food and water supply. Just for good measure they disbanded the army and sent 375,000 heavily armed young men off to find food for their own families. Doh!

Never mind about panama, chile, Vietnam, Cuba, Russia, Pakistan etc etc.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'russia, finger paint, street artist, talent' to 'russia, finger paint, street artist, talent, chile, fabian gaete maureira' - edited by xxovercastxx