@NetRunner @dystopianfuturetoday

I'm looking for debate too, but I'm not going to find it if I argue the progressive angle. I'll be Lucifer's lawyer on this one.


A few things. First, I'm with those of you who doubt the truth of Schiff's statement that he's paying 50% of his income in taxes. I demand to see his tax return!

I'm potentially sympathetic to Schiff here. As we all know income taxes, and even capital gains taxes aren't the only taxes that exist. Schiff is a business owner. I suspect his issue is with the "double taxing" of profits. His business makes a profit which is then taxed. That taxation thus reduces the value of his business. Further, the remaining profits are taxed again (in the form of capital gains) when he decides to liquidate his stake in the company. So if you basically make your money by creating value in businesses in exchange for an ownership stake, that value is taxed twice before you even see it. Now of course this comes from someone that frequently makes disingenuous claims like the majority of Americans "don't pay taxes," considering the substantial share of their income they pay in consumption taxes; but his point stands on its own. I wish we had a more streamlined tax system that did away with loopholes as well as double taxation of value creation (like a VAT).


Secondly, even if it were 50%, and it went up to 65%, in what universe is it ever in Schiff's interest to stop making money? In fact, wouldn't it be an incentive for him to work harder? If he's used to a lifestyle of consumption of $1 million a year, and suddenly he's only able to consume $800k/yr, wouldn't that mean he'd redouble his efforts and try to make more money if he couldn't accept such austerity? He certainly wouldn't dismantle his businesses and cut off the source of his income.

You clearly don't value your time. Schiff's input/brand is probably the core asset of his ventures (in fact that's something you always have to remember about the guy, he's selling himself). That means he probably leads a fairly stressful life, and might choose to exchange some of his labor for the leisure time he could clearly afford in either case. That means generating less business, and thus requiring fewer "cost centers" (like staff). One argument might be that if he does dismantle his business, someone else will just fill the void in the marketplace, and hire (possibly that same) staff. However, if it was the case that there was someone willing to do what Schiff does for substantially less than Schiff, it's likely they'd already be competing with him under the favorable tax rates.


Thirdly, on jobs, like dft said, employers hire exactly as many people as they need to produce the amount of goods (or services) they're able to sell, and not a single person more. They're not going to hire more people to produce more goods if they can't sell all of what they're currently producing, that would just be pure loss to them.

This isn't always true. Businesses often use recessions to "buy labor low" to prepare a competitive advantage for the next cycle. Propping up the labor market arguably never lets the labor market reach a valuation in which this market based counter-cyclic mechanism can take place. It's further arguable that if you allowed that mechanism to take place, the resulting employment allocation may be more efficient/sustainable than, e.g. taking a census. I'm a bleeding heart, so you don't have to tell me about breadlines and old people in the streets, but part of me feels as though the youth has become soft. They don't want to learn. They don't create with what they have. They play video games and argue on Videosift.


Putting more money into the hands of the suppliers isn't going to boost employment for exactly that reason. Employers will only hire new people if they need to produce more goods, and they're only going to produce more goods if their sales increase. You really need to put more money into the hands of people who want to consume, not those who want to produce. You need to find a large group of people who want to buy more things, but can't because they don't have the money. In other words, you need to put money into the hands of poor people, not rich factory owners.

See Schiff would say DON'T give money to the employers. Stop giving money to ANYBODY. Leave the money right where the market put it. Doing anything else just allows some asshole to hoodwink the whole damn country rather than just their clients. Personally I feel there needs to be some initial breaking up of the oligarchy if you really want to pursue that line of reasoning (i.e. sorry Schiff, we're taking your gold with our pitchforks), but that's just me.


Schiff doesn't seem to know all this stuff, which is why everyone should laugh in his face when he says he knows anything about economics.

Come on, we're classier than that.

totally agree, once you get going it can be really addicting, which rocks. You really should consider rock climbing, I think per capita it's one of the best workouts and it doesn't feel like working out at all. Huge thrill, not dangerous at all, addicting and as challenging as you want to make it. If you can find a gym, that's a nice safe place to start and you don't need to get on-rope either. Plus, there's no real ceiling to how good you can get. I got tired of running because even running daily and on weekends for distance, I wasn't really getting much faster, and running longer just takes more and more time.

Keep up the good work!

In reply to this comment by EDD:
Thanks - and great to hear about you too! I don't know much and I've seen even less of mountain climbing, but I gotta say, I'm starting to see the appeal and maybe one day I'll try my hand in it - for now and for at least a year yet I'll be primarily a runner/triathlete though. High five for us both turning turning our lives around! Don't you just love the addiction and the post-workout high? :

In reply to this comment by residue:
awesome story! I was in horrible shape long ago and got sick of it.. now I'm an avid rock climber and run a couple half marathons each year. I don't think I ever want to do the full...

In reply to this comment by EDD:
I'm going to work out and work out, and work on it, and keep pushing myself until I can do at least one.
Seriously.

Let me elaborate a bit. A year ago I was a complete couch potato. I couldn't jog for more than a kilometer, couldn't do more than 6 or 7 consecutive pushups - near-zero marks on a fitness scale, basically. That all changed this April, when I finally decided to get of my (fat) ass. I'd already started gradually changing my eating habits since year's end 2010, and in April I finally started working out. For half a year I've been allocating somewhere between an hour and two and a half practically each day for workouts; running almost every other day and in between - also every other day - did bodyweight exercises: started with these, built a routine around them, but recently substituted it for a weightlifting program in a gym. I've lost some 15 kg, I've done the 100 pushups program (yup, pretty much anyone can do it, and in less than six months, too), recently ran my first half-marathon (1:47, very proud of that time), and I'm aiming for 2 marathons (NYC among them, hopefully), a 70k ultra, and a long-course triathlon next year.

So because this is so inspiring to me, and because I want to be able to do what he does, and because I realize now that anyone who sets their mind to it and works towards it relentlessly can do it, let's *doublepromote

Thanks - and great to hear about you too! I don't know much and I've seen even less of mountain climbing, but I gotta say, I'm starting to see the appeal and maybe one day I'll try my hand in it - for now and for at least a year yet I'll be primarily a runner/triathlete though. High five for us both turning turning our lives around! Don't you just love the addiction and the post-workout high?

In reply to this comment by residue:
awesome story! I was in horrible shape long ago and got sick of it.. now I'm an avid rock climber and run a couple half marathons each year. I don't think I ever want to do the full...

In reply to this comment by EDD:
I'm going to work out and work out, and work on it, and keep pushing myself until I can do at least one.
Seriously.

Let me elaborate a bit. A year ago I was a complete couch potato. I couldn't jog for more than a kilometer, couldn't do more than 6 or 7 consecutive pushups - near-zero marks on a fitness scale, basically. That all changed this April, when I finally decided to get of my (fat) ass. I'd already started gradually changing my eating habits since year's end 2010, and in April I finally started working out. For half a year I've been allocating somewhere between an hour and two and a half practically each day for workouts; running almost every other day and in between - also every other day - did bodyweight exercises: started with these, built a routine around them, but recently substituted it for a weightlifting program in a gym. I've lost some 15 kg, I've done the 100 pushups program (yup, pretty much anyone can do it, and in less than six months, too), recently ran my first half-marathon (1:47, very proud of that time), and I'm aiming for 2 marathons (NYC among them, hopefully), a 70k ultra, and a long-course triathlon next year.

So because this is so inspiring to me, and because I want to be able to do what he does, and because I realize now that anyone who sets their mind to it and works towards it relentlessly can do it, let's *doublepromote

awesome story! I was in horrible shape long ago and got sick of it.. now I'm an avid rock climber and run a couple half marathons each year. I don't think I ever want to do the full...

In reply to this comment by EDD:
I'm going to work out and work out, and work on it, and keep pushing myself until I can do at least one.
Seriously.

Let me elaborate a bit. A year ago I was a complete couch potato. I couldn't jog for more than a kilometer, couldn't do more than 6 or 7 consecutive pushups - near-zero marks on a fitness scale, basically. That all changed this April, when I finally decided to get of my (fat) ass. I'd already started gradually changing my eating habits since year's end 2010, and in April I finally started working out. For half a year I've been allocating somewhere between an hour and two and a half practically each day for workouts; running almost every other day and in between - also every other day - did bodyweight exercises: started with these, built a routine around them, but recently substituted it for a weightlifting program in a gym. I've lost some 15 kg, I've done the 100 pushups program (yup, pretty much anyone can do it, and in less than six months, too), recently ran my first half-marathon (1:47, very proud of that time), and I'm aiming for 2 marathons (NYC among them, hopefully), a 70k ultra, and a long-course triathlon next year.

So because this is so inspiring to me, and because I want to be able to do what he does, and because I realize now that anyone who sets their mind to it and works towards it relentlessly can do it, let's *doublepromote

I'm going to work out and work out, and work on it, and keep pushing myself until I can do at least one.
Seriously.

Let me elaborate a bit. A year ago I was a complete couch potato. I couldn't jog for more than a kilometer, couldn't do more than 6 or 7 consecutive pushups - near-zero marks on a fitness scale, basically. That all changed this April, when I finally decided to get of my (fat) ass. I'd already started gradually changing my eating habits since year's end 2010, and in April I finally started working out. For half a year I've been allocating somewhere between an hour and two and a half practically each day for workouts; running almost every other day and in between - also every other day - did bodyweight exercises: started with these, built a routine around them, but recently substituted it for a weightlifting program in a gym. I've lost some 15 kg, I've done the 100 pushups program (yup, pretty much anyone can do it, and in less than six months, too), recently ran my first half-marathon (1:47, very proud of that time), and I'm aiming for 2 marathons (NYC among them, hopefully), a 70k ultra, and a long-course triathlon next year.

So because this is so inspiring to me, and because I want to be able to do what he does, and because I realize now that anyone who sets their mind to it and works towards it relentlessly can do it, let's *doublepromote

>> ^rottenseed:

I'm wary of "Cancer Society" and "Susan G. Komen Foundation" (even though I donate every year to support a friend whose mother died from breast cancer). I don't trust where the money is being allocated.


It's good that you donate.

It's very good you are wary.

I'm wary of "Cancer Society" and "Susan G. Komen Foundation" (even though I donate every year to support a friend whose mother died from breast cancer). I don't trust where the money is being allocated.

Federal government wastes half of every tax dollar.

So what's this magic millionaire money going to do that the spending addicts haven't done already?

By all means, patriots, send that extra income in! Don't wait for the official raising of taxes: the wise, brilliant geniuses in government will certainly allocate your money better than you ever could.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^Yogi:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
I love it, when women have sex, they are whores. No one even mentioned the men using the site, sexist fucks

No when they have sex for Money they're whores. Also I think most of the criticism about this video is that they have to in this richest of all nations sell their bodies for an education. That's fucked up no matter how you slice it.

Not an education, but debts. She isn't fucking a teacher to get accepted, she is fucking for money, period. It would be akin to her getting into debt from buying a car that she needed to get to a job she wanted, and fucked on the side to pay for it. @NetRunner Strawman on freemarkets is pretty classy too. Because women shouldn't view sex as an empowering act, the should be shameful of any sexual experience outside of pure love. Because all of us here sell our bodies to the jobs that we love, unequivocally. Women fucking is a holy experience, give me a break. If a person could make a living off of fucking, eating, or shitting, more power to them...it is what your body would rather be doing.


Lemme try and make a more full statement, since my succinct snark clearly rubbed you the wrong way.

Mostly my point was that everything in this video is good news from the perspective of a free market fundamentalist. The scarce resource of quality education gets a price set by market forces -- a high price. It commands those prices because it's a valuable investment in human capital which investors (students) can expect to get a sizable return on over their lifetime. In order to acquire capital to make this investment in their own human capital, enterprising young women are leveraging their existing assets (namely, their "assets") through free and voluntary positive sum exchanges (i.e. prostitution). Now we have an even further advancement brought to us by the wonders of the free market -- some enterprising guy who helps facilitate these positive-sum voluntary exchanges by helping connect sellers (of pussy) and buyers (of pussy) for a modest fee. Another positive-sum voluntary exchange! Society as a whole has been made richer through all of this.

Now to people who aren't free market fundamentalists, this situation all seems wrong. Education shouldn't be something each individual has to pay for, it should be something society collectively decides is a good investment to make in its citizenry as a whole. We should pay for it by collecting taxes from everyone, but with most of the burden falling on those most able to pay (mostly rich old men, who might otherwise rather spend that money on prostitutes).

I don't know about other people, but I generally see working a job as being a form of slavery. I'm paid, but I wouldn't care about being paid if I didn't need to pay for things I need. Money and capitalism is just one arbitrary way to allocate resources, and there's no particular reason to blind ourselves to the reality that most of us would do something else with the time we're currently working if we didn't have to pay the bills for the things we need. We ultimately acquiesce to this arrangement because of coercion -- you can't get food from the Supermarket (or get land to grow your own food) without money, at least not unless you want to be arrested.

So my take on prostitution is that if you really do need to become a prostitute to get by, it's a form of rape. Technically it's consensual sex, but it's tainted consent.

If it were purely a recreational activity that you happen to make some money off of, I say no harm no foul. Hell, even if you decide you want that to be your primary source of income because you love the work, more power to you.

But if you wind up with a lot of young women weighing their dignity against the impact of college on their entire future, then I think we're asking them to make a sort of Sophie's choice that they shouldn't have to make. And worse, this guy is putting that Sophie's choice in front of as many young women as he can, in order to make a buck. It's disgusting.

And you can't deny that this is the shape of a society ruled by free market ideology. Everything for sale, nothing sacred, and nobody thinking about anything but personal material gain. It's not utopia, it's sick.

(Los Angeles, CA) – Today the NAACP passed a historic resolution calling for an end to the war on drugs. The resolution was voted on by a majority of delegates at the 102nd NAACP Annual Convention in Los Angeles, CA. The overall message of the resolution is captured by its title: A Call to End the War on Drugs, Allocate Funding to Investigate Substance Abuse Treatment, Education, and Opportunities in Communities of Color for A Better Tomorrow.

“Today the NAACP has taken a major step towards equity, justice and effective law enforcement,” stated Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP. “These flawed drug policies that have been mostly enforced in African American communities must be stopped and replaced with evidenced-based practices that address the root causes of drug use and abuse in America.”

The resolution outlines the facts about the failed drug war, highlighting that the U.S. spends over $40 billion annually on the war on drugs, locking up low-level drug offenders – mostly from communities of color. African Americans are in fact 13 times more likely to go to jail for the same drug-related offense than their white counterparts.
“Studies show that all racial groups abuse drugs at similar rates, but the numbers also show that African Americans, Hispanics and other people of color are stopped, searched, arrested, charged, convicted, and sent to prison for drug-related charges at a much higher rate,” stated Alice Huffman, President of the California State Conference of the NAACP. “This dual system of drug law enforcement that serves to keep African-Americans and other minorities under lock and key and in prison must be exposed and eradiated.

”Instead of sending drug offenders to prison, the resolution calls for the creation and expansion of rehabilitation and treatment programs, methadone clinics, and other treatment protocols that have been proven effective.

“We know that the war on drugs has been a complete failure because in the forty years that we’ve been waging this war, drug use and abuse has not gone down,” stated Robert Rooks, Director of the NAACP Criminal Justice Program. “The only thing we’ve accomplished is becoming the world’s largest incarcerator, sending people with mental health and addiction issues to prison, and creating a system of racial disparities that rivals Jim Crow policies of the 1960’s.”
Once ratified by the board of directors in October, the resolution will encourage the more than 1200 active NAACP units across the country to organize campaigns to advocate for the end of the war on drugs.

Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private

NZ uses an MMP (Mixed Member Proportional) system. Essentially, everyone gets two votes: one for your local candidate and one for a political party on a national scale. This means that even if a party doesn't have enough people in one district to win a seat, if it has enough votes nationally, it still gets allocated some seats based on it's percentage of the vote. So, for example, the Greens didn't win any electorates, but they still got 7% of the national party vote so they get ~7% (9 actual seats) of the seats in parliament. Where it gets tricky, is that a party must get at least 5% to get any votes unless it wins an electorate seat. So in this case, the right wing ACT party won one seat, got 3% of the vote and still got 5 seats. Worse, the party that won the most seats (National) joined with them to form a government, which means that a party with 3% of the national vote gets a ministerial portfolio.

Overall though, it's a much better system than FPP

Thanks for the promote, by the way.
In reply to this comment by radx:
That entire set is pure gold. The "federally allocated recommended daily allowance of pussy" still gets me every single time.

Been sitting on half a dozen power points for too long anyway, might as well throw a *promote in the ring.

>> ^radx:

That entire set is pure gold. The "federally allocated recommended daily allowance of pussy" still gets me every single time.
Been sitting on half a dozen power points for too long anyway, might as well throw a promote in the ring.


I love how naturally he segues into the bit. He actually plays off of audience interaction...almost as if he's coming up with it off-the-cuff.

That entire set is pure gold. The "federally allocated recommended daily allowance of pussy" still gets me every single time.

Been sitting on half a dozen power points for too long anyway, might as well throw a *promote in the ring.