@chilaxe @NetRunner

I've been stupid busy all week, but would've loved to talk about this stuff with you two.

About importing poverty...have either of you heard of this thesis? I gather that it has been tested, but I haven't seen that evidence myself.

Dopamine, a pleasure-inducing brain chemical, is linked with curiosity, adventure, entrepreneurship, and helps drive results in uncertain environments. Populations generally have about 2% of their members with high enough dopamine levels with the curiosity to emigrate. Ergo, immigrant nations like the U.S. and Canada, and increasingly the UK, have high dopamine-intensity populations.


It's been cited numerous times in things I've read, including in the infamous citigroup plutonomy memos:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6674234/Citigroup-Oct-16-2005-Plutonomy-Report-Part-1

High dopamine is also associated with risk-taking. The citigroup guys were obviously citing it as though being an immigrant nation was going to save us in uncertain times. However, regardless of which theories or hypotheses you subscribe to or hear about, there's something quite different about people who emigrate. Taking that idea further, you have to separate people who emigrated en masse because of rather forced conditions (tons of Irish people during the potato famine, Polish/Lithuanian people in the early 1900s, etc) and individuals who emigrate simply because they're after more money/opportunity.

I've also read some stuff that indicates dopamine levels affect your perception of time. Schizophrenics have really high dopamine levels, which causes their internal clock to speed up, and it alters their perception of time. This is interesting in relation to the dopamine/emigration theory because of Philip Zimbardo's work on perception of time and how it relates to personality.

Plus, Zimbardo's work is just interesting, period:
http://videosift.com/video/The-Secret-Powers-of-Time
http://fora.tv/2008/11/12/Philip_Zimbardo_The_Time_Paradox

Another article about time perception with a few mentions of dopamine, drugs, etc.
http://delontin1.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/stretch-time/

Anyway, not to derail things, but it's mostly on topic with all the earlier discussion of brain stuff. I really think perception of time affects our personality in profound ways, and it's clear that brain chemistry affects our perception of time. I also think there's evidence that there can be overall brain chemistry trends in populations which have interesting implications.

Sounds like he should start an "old timey signs" business. When he sees how many punishing taxes and fees and regulations the proto-commie government has made to discourage entrepreneurship and thwart innovation, he'll get his real wake-up call on why A is F.

The way wing-nuts portray Sweden as a bogeyman is the opposite of the truth. It's a nice place to live, really.

Time to LEARN THE F*CKING DIFFERENCE between USSR and Sweden:

classic USSR:
*Medium-Poor
*one-party Dictatorship
*No free speech
*State planning of entire economy - little or no entrepreneurship

Sweden:
*Affluent
*Democratic
*Freer speech and freer press than the USA according to Reporters Without Borders (Sweden ranked 7th while USA ranked 36th)
*Progressive income tax provides socialist services whilst the economy is still market-based and entrepreneurs are free to start new companies.
*No stupid laws written by religious-conservative-fundamentalists.
*Half the infant mortality and 3 years longer life expectancy than the USA.
*Less than half the murder rate of the USA [reference: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur-crime-murders 219/9M vs 16.2k/303M]
*Had the 2nd highest average math education scores in the world (USA was ranked 19th out of 21 industrialized countries). [Reference: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs98/98049.pdf]
*Fewer wasteful farm subsidies than the USA

>> ^Farhad2000:
Run away deregulation and free market economics is the reason this occurred. Bailouts for the private finicial sector? private housing sector? run away defense sector?
Politically you need to create jobs right now not let the free market rebalance the market and make alot of people lose jobs.
Its a fucked up situation but that's what you get running an economy on bubbles. I think Obama's plan is too moderate and doesn't go as far as it needs to shore up the economy.


There shouldn't be bailouts for anyone.

I think its really sad that instead of seeing times like these as opportunities to pursue independence and entrepreneurship it instead causes panic and dependence on government. I see the fundamental problem being that whenever there is an "emergency" the government is called upon to do something about it even when there is no constitutional authority to do so. I can't stand George Bush (just want to put that out there) but do people really think he was being purposefully evil when he signed and pushed for the Patriot Act? I don't think so. I think he really believes he is saving the country from terrorists. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I believe Obama wants to save the country from economic disaster but will only make things worse unless he allows people to save themselves. I'm so sick of the hero worship we give presidents, they are ordinary people like you and me. This is America, THERE ARE NO KINGS HERE.
So the government has to create jobs? Where in the constitution does it say anyone is owed a job? Where does that end?

Bubbles are a market phenomena but only get as big as the current housing bubble with the help of government.

I knew we were hosed when I saw a credit card machine in a McDonald's. Sez I, "Ruh roh!" We have had an ongoing paradigm shift in terms of economics/finance/communication/transportation/regulation over the past twenty years. We won't know how to get through it until we get through it (if we do). Since everything is in a state of flux, one of the concepts I believe we have to rethink is the top-down management/ownership/governance ideology. The internet is showing us the value of bottom-up organization and generation. What we sorely need is education of a rigorous, persistent and emancipating fashion, to see human populations as incubators of entrepreneurship, innovation, progressive ideas. As biological evolution seems to show, smaller, smarter, more agile is the way to go for organisms; perhaps that is the way to go with human organization in industry, education, finance, governance. Seems counterintuitive, doesn't it?

The flat tax efficiency proposition is a myth to me personally, the often cited example is the Russian Federation which posed such a tax system, and saw revenues rise however investigation of the tax revenues showed that economic growth as a whole contributed to those figures.

Tax evasion will always be a problem even with a flat tax, which while good on paper would disproportionately benefit the rich which is already systemic in the current tax system and am not talking exclusively about individuals here but mostly about corporate entities.

The last 8 years of tax cuts are simply a benefit of decades of government investment taken directly from the taxes themselves, cutting the upkeep of say road up keep and reverting it back as a tax cut is a net loss not a net gain for the society as a whole. Eventually these resources degrade leading to bridge collapses, then the federal government lobbied by private firms proposes privatization as a solution. This is stupid.

I mean at the end of the day we are talking about several years of slow erosion of regulation of the market by the federal government, the tax system as it is just one facet of the continuous break down of boundaries between the federal government and private business as a whole.

But this isn't the government's fault only, it also has to do with the political malaise of the citizenry as well who are satisfied with just enough and not beyond that, I mean how many years has the health care system failed the American public, these issues were raised again and again only to fall back to Reageanesque arguments that socialization of the Health care system being related to communism.

Economically a health society is a productive society, this system is implemented in almost every first world nation but the US. But the problem is that private business can funnel more profit out of the consumer via privatized healthcare, the health management firms and various other schemes.

Now such a long term implementation would only be possible through a federal government implementation, because it considers social good as a benefit sometimes over profit. This is currently seen in China were higher educational standards is leading to more engineers graduating then the US, this is stark revelation for a nation that 2 decades ago was a economical no body.

This is not however an endorsement on nanny societies like Sweden which have taken government intervention to highly ridiculous levels leading to loss of entrepreneurship.

jeeeeez, I can see why the whole, internet bully thing is an issue for some folks....from the looks of the last 5-7 comments, it's apparent that most of the roasters here, have struggled with self-esteem most of their short, extremely white lives, as well as potty-training in those very early years, until at least the age of 7-And sad to say for your sake karaidl, it seems they have reserved some of the least inspired, sophomoric, and anemic remarks for this 3rd and what let’s hope, final, anal-expulsion, shit, cock, balls puke, and fuck fest.

If you will peruse some of the inspired ejaculations karaidl has graced this site with, you will see that he is not afraid to speak his mind, unlike the bulk of the most outspoken here on the sift, who can’t stop speaking Other People’s Minds, with control “C”, and control “V’, as their only hedge, between themselves, and a career stint in the fast-food industry, animal hospice care, etc. Give most of these cretins an opportunity to pen some creative musings, and it’s straight to the men’s restroom at an interstate rest stop…..what I wrote, who I called, and how much it produced or stunk.

About the only thing bad about having the awareness of a thousand lifetimes, crammed into a plump, chronologically challenged being, is how bitter and disillusioned he is bound to become when at age 30, the witless boobs to follow his generation, will provide constant irritation, and the nagging temptation to, slay, skin, and smoke. He will have left Las Vegas after making sure his Mother is well-cared for, by his harem of whores, professional gamblers and grifters, and of course, his dealers-all wondering what they will do, when Master Teat, moves on, to greener pastures, and hairy bush.
At 20, he will turn down scholarships to various trade schools and mining concerns, and turn all his energies towards entrepreneurship….Celebrity Bobble-Cock Dolls, and skin-care/massage parties.(I can get clients and do scheduling, man)

Humble beginnings will lead to noble effort, and drug and fork abuse.

Your children will start coming to find out who their real daddy is after seeing their mother’s reactions to how many swinger’s blogs have posted user comments and photos, some of which have them standing in front of their mirrors, wondering, “Why is MY mom is so much older than the other kids’ moms?”

Seriously now, waist-down naked, and boyish charm will get you as far as the back door, before you smell the aroma from ma’s kitchen….and before you know it, you’re young again…at 36, with a lot less hair, and a breech at every stitch in yer sweatsuit.
I see a future of service to the community……a neighborhood kid’s bike and sporting goods equipment collection, and monthly garage sales, proceeds going to your favorite cause, ample paper products in all baths and computer/game-station rooms.

Growing up coddled, unparented and sensory-enriched by cathode-ray addiction, subjected to pathetic primary and secondary educations, with a sense of arrogance, entitlement, and privilege, having attended even worse colleges and universities, has afflicted most of the users on this site, but you Karaidl, have the ability and distinction, of being in a similar situation, and actually using it to your advantage, and attempting the unending process of self-awareness…..unlike your some of your elders here, who couldn’t wrangle a stray thought after a blow to the skull, much less work to become more in tune with themselves.

Salute to you Karaidl, we need more like you here, and less like these others, most of which I would not trust to call me a fucking cab, should I ever have the dis-pleasure of meeting them in person. You know who you are, at least if you think you might, the sentiment is appreciated……

That's a simplistic argument to make, that Russians 'tried' democracy and it failed. The fact is that Russian's never got to experience democracy at all, with the coming of Yeltsin into power the centralized market system was thrown out overnight for a capitalist economy, workers were issued shares for the companies they worked in, the Russian currency collapsed, pensions were stopped, all due to western economists (who arrived in droves) believing that the spirit of entrepreneurship would suddenly infect the souls of people who lived under communist rule for over 60 years.

But what happened was that some individuals within that system started buying out the shares from the workers who needed to sustain themselves at that point, seizing massive control of various industries, thus creating the oligarchs. The same people who now own various football clubs in the UK.

The people as a whole felt robbed, they blamed democracy for that, failing to see how the economic reforms worked against them, instead of blaming the transition many more people assumed it was democracy that was at fault. What should have been a long term phased switch into a market economy like the one seen with China was rushed within the space of a few years, incomes and welfare of course fell. Look at how gradually China introduced free market zones, by cordoning them off to small regions, then allowed foreign direct investment there. The whole motto of their capital development was "import 1st product, assemble 2nd product, manufacture 3rd product".

The current Putin government is full of KGB cronies who have muscled their way into acquisition of the most important sectors of the economy, most significant of them being the oil sector, which is wholly responsible for the economic boom in Russia. The war in Iraq and possible war with Iran has seen the Oil price soar year on year since 2000 and Putin's coming into power and the economic boom in Russia, that's not coincidental. This is why Putin visited Iran, instability in the Middle East sustains the high oil price and Russia's development.

Putin did give something to the Russians, and that is pride in their nation, a seeming return to the heyday of the Soviet Union with it's planting of flags in the Arctic, stance against the American government and nuclear armed patrols that hark back to the Cold War era. But it also came with government control of oil resources, elimination of civil rights, elimination of freedom of press, state control of media, needless military expansionism, Byzantine rule of government, political oppression through assassination of those who oppose the government.

Just this past month he imposed a collective freeze on food prices until after the elections sometime in January, this was done so as to keep the appearance to Russia's poor that the economy was doing well when in reality food prices across the world are rising, once elections are over they can remove the freeze.

A good article on "Why Putin Wins" is Sergei Kovalev's article , who gives a realistic breakdown of Russia as it is now and what is its future. As Scott Horton says in "What Putin Wants":

The challenge will be for America more than for Russia. In America, there is still a hope that the democratic process can work to effect a rollback of creeping authoritarianism and a restoration of the beacon of hope that the land once held up to the world. In Russia, all sight of that beacon is lost.

Your argument that non-democratic states like Kingdom of Saudi Arabia offer a higher standard of living is ridiculous, most of the population lives in poverty as the wealth is concentrated in the Royal family and even then only through the continual oil production, almost everything it produces is sustain through government subsidization, much more of its products are simply imported. Jordan differs because they possesses a technocrat King who believes in development, that doesn't mean tomorrow a tyrant will take power.

And am sorry but slave like hours on minimal wage for 90% of the population making Nike shoes does not translate into a higher standard living for the Chinese as a whole, not to mention that development is confined to the coastal areas, while inland China lives in poverty due to lack of investment and encroaching desert taking away valuable agricultural land. China possess an incredible amount of income disparity, firms are still mainly controlled by the Chinese government. It is true that there is slowly an emergence of a middle class, that is being educated abroad and not going back to mainland China, because opportunities in the west are much better.

The argument that ANY government policy has a potential to achieve strong economy is simplistic, the market system works because various agents start to develop products and services to supply a demand of other agents. That requires freedom of enterprise, the ability to freely form business solutions. That means reform laws that actively invite business activities to take place. Communism or centralized market economy does not lead to a strong economy because the demand and supply signals do not exist, the government decides what is important to produce and does it. It leads to a mis balance and a concentration of power in the hands of the few, this is why the USSR failed, and why China started to put in place free market reforms in the 80s. States in the Middle East still sustain their perverse development through oil money, without which all of them would quite realistically fail, as they are overly reliant on foreign labor and are not actively developing their skilled labor force, not to mention the sheer amount of corruption that occurs between those in high office and citizens.

Your mention of a few democratic states that are in poor shapes is simplistic again, they are not failures of democracy but rather a lack of proper reforms and rule. Brazil is doing rather well now actually even though government corruption is still rife as is political instability. Nepal is constitutional monarchy, where the King has assumed emergency powers and holds all executive power so I have no idea why you lumped it in there. Albania on the other hand has had successive government instability with the neighboring war, socialist, democratic governments in succession, the economy however is steadily developing even though stability has been hard to attain since 1990.

The idea behind democracy is that citizens can have a say in where their nation is heading, being elected to government doesn't make saints out of people where they suddenly selflessly try to achieve economy development for the people as a whole. The African nations where strong armed authoritative ruler one after the other prove this, as does Hugo Chavez who after winning the trust of the poor is now concentrating all executive power under his own control, as does Iran where Mahmoud's promises to the poor for oil revenue sharing amounted to nothing but continuous tensions and sanctions from the west.

I think you need to further broaden your understanding of the complexities of government rule and policy with regards to economic development as they are rather basic right now.

This one's hard to classify, but I don't see the comedy channel applying. There may be something comedic about it, but not necessarily comedy.
And not sports. And judging by the production value, it isn't terrible either.

It's a show from Canada venturing into the United States that is the American Idol equivalent to Entrepreneurship/Venture Capitalism.

jeepers, they sound like pros!!!
Investors include The Pilot Group (owned and managed by Bob Pittman, father of MTV and ex-COO of AOL Time Warner) and Bill Sahlman (Harvard Business School vice-dean and professor of entrepreneurship). The amount of funding has not been previously disclosed but is believed to be around $5-7million. (a possible answer to Roe's question)

How many mil did videosift start with dag???

Time and time again I see the West take the same misguided steps in trying to alleviate poverty in the Africa. The only solution presented to people is send more money, buy this CD, go to this concert, wear this t-shirt, wear this bracelet.

Over the last 30 years the first world has transferred over a trillion dollars in aid, yet GDP levels are actually lower then levels at independence. Clearly this approach doesn't work.

Yet Bob Geldof and other world wide NGOs hold the same misguided idea that pumping more money would somehow solve everything. When in reality it's creating a larger problem, it's reaching a point where local entrepreneurship is dying out because people just expect NGOs to come solve everything. Of course eventually they do, give the population some complicated piece of machinery, that breaks 3 days later and no one knows how to fix, and the parts of course aren't available in Africa.

What about food aid? There is wasn't a more ironic name for it. Food Aid is usually dumped by donor nations to the country, of course it alleviates short term hunger problems. But the west dumps so much aid (because western agricultural industries are overproducing) that in the long term it destroys the local agricultural market. The local agricultural market goes into subsistence mode, producing only for itself, how do you compete with free dumped food? So what happens is that the nation is again set up for the same thing to happen, the market never recovers to provide for the population.

What the First world should do is open up borders between African nations so that food supply shocks are handled by the agricultural market within Africa. Aid packages even come with stipulations that WTO, IMF and other donors can set.

What Africa needs is directed foreign investment, skilled labor that can train the population, sustainable growth initiatives instead of hand outs. Once you raise the welfare of the people problems such as AIDs and other diseases would decreased as people get educated and increase their standard of living. You can't solve the problem if you don't attack it's roots.

Why not protest about the restrictive agricultural subsidies and tariff systems that the EU and US possess that destroy the import/export competitiveness of agricultural products from Africa? (Africa is mostly agriculturally based) Of course you won't your governments will warn you of dangerous lower food standards in the Third World, which is so ironic considering food borne diseases sprung up in the UK first with BSE.

Try this next time at Live 8 Aid, ask an NGO representative how they want to actually promote change, you will receive ambiguous answers that show no understanding of the situation on the ground... How I ever managed not to punch out my colleagues and their delusional views, I don't know... NGO people think they are just morally superior because they have a good humanitarian agenda, but don't realize that even good causes can be carried out poorly, like the Democrats.

This is the type of aid the western world should be providing Africa, not just debt write offs and bundles of cash loans with strings attached. I worked with NGOs, with EWB specifically and witnessed their effect in Central Africa. While many mean well, their intrusion into the environment, short term provision of aid which dissipates once the mission leaves is only creating a beggar mentality in the African people.

An example is the provision of agricultural service to the populace, if there is a famine, the western world floods the nation with surplus food aid, this of course cures the immediate problem but destroys the local agricultural market, which means the nation becomes dependent on aid until the market recovers from an influx of goods (which is free don't forget). The western world never tries to actually work on the trade relations between nations which could easily support any famine relief themselves and in effect create a network of agricultural markets that could sustain and prevent further disasters. But borders are closed because of minor disputes between African leaders, the west could easily force borders open via negotiations, especially since WTO and IMF aid package negotiations allow this to happen to equip the economy for capitalization and recovery.

Further more, money donations such as the outburst of contributions seen last year with Live 8 Aid and Make Poverty History campaign, are USELESS. We never hear of the results these aid packages provide, there is no reportage or follow up, because most of the money is earmarked by the organization for self growth! How else do you think Make Povery History, AIDS and other campaigns get all those celebrity endorsements? Or the large office blocks these organizations possess? It's sick. This type of money aid has also been around for 40 years, combined totally over a trillion dollars worth of aid has been given to Africa since the 70s, clearly this doesn't work, actual GDP has fallen in most nations. Mostly because these aid packages go to naive inexperienced corrupt governments, that produce a large public sector snuffing private development, resulting in mismanaged economies. Most of these aid donations can be reflected in the shiny fleets of government Mercedez cars.

Time and time again it has been shown that provision of educational services, and on site training with available resources creates entrepreneurship and development, Engineers Without Borders works in such a way, providing engineering solutions to problems faced there everyday. These solutions are always built via locally available resources, training of the population ensures that the knowledge will be retained, and the systems could be rebuilt if broken, without NGO presence.

Once these aims are achieved actual economic growth can have a chance to take place. However the West has to finally come to a decision to whether it will continue undertaking economic policies that are determental to third world development. Currently both the US and EU maintain high tariffs and quotas on agricultural products coming from the third world, and subsidize their agricultural producers. Meanwhile 70% of Africa's economy is agriculturally based while in the US and EU this is only a small percentage, due to the subsidization, the agricultural industry in the west has ballooned to large inefficient size, government subsidizes created artificial demand and both have been producing surpluses, so much so that the EU pays farmers not to use a percentage of their land now! The government actually buys the surplus (to artificially raise the price), and then dumps the surplus into the world market which hurts the African producers even more.

There are layers and layers to this issue that I won't even dwell into, but the basic fact is that the west keeps it's markets closed to the third world which stumps growth of their economies. And this has to change, but the problem lingers as WTO after WTO meeting ends in deadlock over this pivotal issue.