This sort of thing is why I'm wary of of grand overarching conspiracy theories these days.

The reality of the situation seems far too fickle and "Game of thrones" for that kind of co-ordination to be sustained long term.

If any individual element see's an opportunity to get ahead by shafting some or all of the others then try to shaft them they will.

Yes, I was wondering when you would trot out Hooker's paper and the 'CDC whistleblower" bit. You see, in the lack of clear scientific fact, conspiracy theorists tend to grab whatever they can to prove that they are right. I'll dissect your attempt right now.

First, Hooker's paper was covering the data involving African-American children with supposed predilection towards autism. The sample size was small, the math was ludicrous, and he incorrectly analyzed a cohort study. Because of the NUMEROUS failures to appropriately conduct a true scientific study, his paper was retracted. So, when exposed to the light, his theory was decidedly lacking in content and was canned.

http://retractionwatch.com/2014/08/27/journal-takes-down-autism-vaccine-paper-pending-investigation/

This incompetent study was the result, allegedly, of discussions between Hooker and a senior psychologist at the CDC named William Thompson. Hooker then teamed up with Andrew Wakefield to cherry pick bits to make it sound as though Thompson were confessing to some horrible crime of data manipulation to hide this “bombshell” result reported by Wakefield. Thus was born the “CDC whistleblower".

In February 2010, the General Medical Council in the U.K. recommended that Wakefield be stripped of his license to practice medicine in the U.K. because of scientific misconduct related to his infamous 1998 case series published in The Lancet, even going so far as to refer to him as irresponsible and dishonest, and in May 2010 he was. He is a now doing everything he can to prove his theories, like possibly illegal recording of conversations, so that he can regain some credibility. The guy is a hack.

Thompson has admitted to being prone to anxiety disorders, being delusional, and has shown that he is more scared of being 'the bad guy' then doing his job. His career is pretty much finished at the CDC, because he has shown that he will waffle if confronted by angry people who can't understand science. I feel sorry for him, but he has issues.

So, now we can address your link. A congressman, not a scientist, has received information from people who have been laughed out of the scientific community for multiple reasons. He sees buzzwords and decides to get ahead of the bandwagon, calling for further investigation and research. I can, of course, show you knee-jerk reactions by multiple members of congress similar to this, like Ted Cruz calling for immediate investigation into Planned Parenthood over the recent videos. You know, the ones that were chopped and spliced together to make it sound like PP was selling aborted babies? Do you see a pattern with the chop and splice for sensationalism? I hope you do.

In other words, you don't have any scientific facts. Like all anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists, you rely on a few items that seem to tie together to form a true fact, but they don't. When confronted with this, you will say that it's all big pharma and money trails, etc. Do you not see the fallacy in that logic? It's like saying that the the earth was created 9000 years ago...because RELIGION!

Btw, if you want to place your trust in politicians trying to be scientists, I leave you with this gem from former congressman Paul Broun.

"You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I've found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don't believe that the earth's but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That's what the Bible says."

I don't fear the black, yellow or other taking my job because of race? I don't freaking care. May the best candidate get the job. I have had many jobs in my life and would find another if I needed to.

Do you think I would hire a black? not in a million years? You would be wrong at that. I had 1 opportunity to hire 1 candidate. I picked the best educated person that would fit the job and he was a black man.

You think my wife and kids are Lilly white. You would be wrong at that also. My family is so mixed that I am the lone token white.

You have any other falsehoods you wish to inquire about? Go ahead I answer them too.

Bottom line I don't care what "you" are. All I care is that you are trying to get ahead in life and that you are a peaceful neighbor.

I have little sympathy for those who desire to stay at the bottom out of convenience, leaching off our tax dollars and blaming others for their misfortune. I not bitching about those given a shitty hand in life or those needing a helping hand. We all need a helping hand at times. But not decade after decade. The nation spends about 3% on social needs, Fine make it 5% or something. Just don't waste it on looses and government bureaucracy.

You would probably make a fine neighbor and work colleague.

You asked me once how old I was and I answer 53. So out of curiosity how old are you?

It depends...social security, about 1937, medicare, more like 65, public schools, that depends on what you want to call different systems, but in North America it started in 1647
https://www.raceforward.org/research/reports/historical-timeline-public-education-us
The road bit is a PERFECT example of how, even if you don't directly use a service, you benefit from others using it....just like EVERY OTHER SERVICE MENTIONED.
Because we don't deny medical services to those without money, it's a question of do you pay less beforehand or more later, because either way you pay.
Because uneducated children cost society FAR more than educating them does, standing on your myopic moral high ground demanding 'personal parental responsibility' is a self defeating stance demanding people 'give' more than some have to give with no option for the children of the poor. (That said, I can get behind the 'public schools being free only for the poor' plan I think Jefferson had, as long as those schools are on par with private one's)
I explained clearly why even those average numbers are misleading.
Again, is that purchasing power per dollar, per person, or what?
OK, 'middle class' is not the average American. How about give the average American salary instead of cherry picking a rapidly shrinking sub-group that makes your point?
We all pay through the nose...it's just about when and how. You pay for the indigent by paying higher insurance and medical bills...it would be FAR cheaper to simply pay for their medical care in the first place (as in single payer health care). That saves the 10-25% that insurance companies take as profit on day one, and saves on overall medical care cost per person by properly taking care of people instead of waiting until there's an expensive emergency to pay for. (and makes a much healthier, so happier society as a whole)
The fact is that they are happy with their system. It does not make them all 'perfectly equal', there are rich and poor in Norway...or do you not believe that? People DO get ahead in Norway, probably more so than the average person in America who has seen their financial/social status in life, purchasing power, benefits, opportunities, and security go backwards over the last 40 years, unlike Norway.
No, I think the entire 'identical to everyone else' thing is something in YOUR head, not theirs, and not reality.
Don't have disposable income?!? In Norway, not the US?!?! You've GOT to be kidding. Let's ask someone who lives there...@BicycleRepairMan , is there only one social class in Norway, all equal, all making the same amount of money, all poor and destitute with no disposable income?
Well, the American system certainly disagrees with you. Those that put the most effort into their jobs usually make FAR less than those that put little effort into taking advantage of the opportunities available to them, but not to others. Those that make more in our society almost NEVER do it with manual labor, the hardest work to do. They also rarely do 2 or 3 full time jobs, as many poor must do. It's simply not true that working harder gets you advancement in the US, opportunity and connections get you advancement.
I do agree, giving medals for average/expected performance is ridiculous, but that rarely happens in business.

We have decided? When did we have this decision? Because it's pretty much an assumption that we all feel that we are better off if our neighbor's children go to college, etc. The road bit is a terrible example, because even if you don't own a car, you use the roads or some other part of transportation that road taxes aid with. I don't feel that I should have to pay for other people's fuckups and I am not the only one to feel that way, by far. If you smoke all your life and then don't have insurance when the cancer comes around, maybe you should have made some other life decisions. If you screw around and get someone pregnant, it isn't my family's responsibility to fix your mistake. If you feel differently, then we are probably going to continue to disagree on everything else.

The numbers are the average of gross monthly income, before taxes. They have less purchasing power because they have far more money removed towards their taxes and because they have a VAT. The local purchasing power is going to vary due to cost of living in each state being different. For instance, the cost of living where I live is much higher than the rest of the state, while the state overall cost of living is less than some other states, such as California.

I am not playing with numbers or inventing facts, just listing what information could be found by simple google searches. As far as the top 5 bottom 5 bit, I can tell you the average middle class family income in 2014 was 4250 US dollars a month gross. This is the average for the entire middle class, which while declining due to various factors is still larger than the upper and lower class in the country.

I am not outraged and indignant for them, I am defending the facts. The fact is that for all they have, they pay through the nose. The fact is that they have a CULTURAL idiosyncrasy that allows them to be happy with being perfectly equal with everyone else, it is the only way a system like this can make someone happy. Do you not grasp that there is almost no single way to get ahead in a society like Norway's? You have to be identical to everyone else. If your idea of happiness is going to a dead end job, working 40 hours, coming home and not being able to do much because you don't have discretionary income, paying for others to not work hard, etc, then by all means move to Norway. Just be careful if you do, because they really don't like paying for immigrants to have free stuff. In fact, they recently had someone get quite violent over it.

I was raised to believe that if you put more effort in that another person, you should be recognized for that effort and get ahead accordingly. Does this mean I agree with CEO salaries? I do not, but that is a different discussion. What I was not raised to believe in is that, if you simply put in the minimum effort, you should get a medal or trophy for just competing. That is bullshit and counter-intuitive to the way the world actually works. If that was actually possible, Darwin would have had a wildly different theory about natural selection.

No, the car was in the wrong and acting like a dickhead.

It's happened to all of us and it's annoying as hell, but you suck it up, act like a grown up and realise that sometimes inconsiderate assholes get ahead in life.

What you don't do is go "fuck it, I'm in the right" and plough into them, as tempting as it is to teach them a lesson (especially when you're going to come out on top, like the truck).

The correct response is to tailgate the motherfucker until they realise what a terrible human being they are and bow to your moral superiority. Failing that, follow them home and explain to their family why they fail at life.

The only way to get ahead is not to rely on others, including government.

Both parties have failed the poor and the government have been bought by the rich for over 100 years.

Lots of stupid cunts posting in here. Maybe it's time I weighed in.

Looks like even the White house is starting to feel the pressure, and they do react to it when it get's too heavy. So they've announced a ceasefire and they've moved to try and get ahead of the criticism. They're probably sick of it anyways, we've got our own problems and if an outpost of our military is going to be such a pain in the ass we don't need them anymore.

The overwhelming point is that the White house could tomorrow tell Israel to stop this and leave the Palestinians alone, and we'd have a two state solution. That isn't a joke, this only occurs with our consent and that's the consent of our government and us by default. We get mad enough and you see they do whatever they can to ease up on things before it gets too embarrassing for them.

This is the main point from out of all of this. You are responsible for the predictable results of your own actions. It's a basic moral truism. You want to stop terrorism in the world, you have to STOP Using Terrorism to rule it. The Largest Terror operations in the world are run right out of Washington. Stop Terrorism being committed in your name. Stand Up.

Democrats are the party of NO
No Nuclear power
No coal,
No fracking,
No oil,
No gasoline.
No cars,
No GOD,
No getting ahead,
No profits,
No equality
No capitalism
No Free markets
No critical thought
No Jobs

This is not the party of "Move Forward" but the party of the dark age.
And by looking at this video we will be heading back to the dark age soon

I forget the name, but one of our Native Chiefs here in Canada goes further. He declares that wasn't even the worst of it. The worst thing that Canada did to Aboriginal peoples was welfare. What violence and aggression couldn't destroy in generations, welfare was able to destroy in one. Of all the destructive things the Canadian Aboriginal reserve system has done, the worst imho is the impact it(inadvertently?) had on the self reliance of people living on reserve. We now have a culture on far too many reserves in Canada where working really, really hard to get ahead yields you absolutely ZERO better results than those drinking and partying 24/7. It's tragic, and all the worse for the fact both aboriginal and non-aboriginals seem completely paralyzed in trying to address it.

Not a fan of Fox, bill-o, telly, corporate media or their use of propaganda, shills, etc. in general OR the presidency. However, it's no great mystery that the words terror, terrorists, terrorism and all derivatives thereof are tools used to foment agendas, fear, and control. People should care when they are constantly bombarded with jargon and rhetoric of any kind that's designed to influence public opinion, win elections, or sell you some horseshit the human race can do completely without.

"Here in America, if you work hard you can get ahead."
Thank you Mr. President. How simple. Now. Who's gonna win the 10-billion-dollars in revenue-producing bread and circus diversion??

Health insurance is priced to be profitable taking into account the group that is being covered.

For example:

If an individual (group of 1) woman gets coverage, birth control costs will be in her monthly payment.
She however won't have high risk of prostate cancer factoring into her payment.

If an individual (group of 1) man gets insurance coverage, he won't have birth control costs in his monthly payment.
He will however have the higher risk of prostate cancer factoring into his payment.

If an employer gets coverage, the payments will be the average cost of each individual (aside from a 'group discount')
If there is 1 woman and 1 man, they are splitting the cost of 1x birth control and 1x higher risk of prostate cancer.


This is why businesses like to hire young employees, and don't like to hire older employees.
Younger employees keep the monthly insurance payments lower, older employees make monthly insurance payments higher.
That way a bunch of kids get to subsidize the old farts running the place.

Anyways, point being...

Women getting birth control coverage will NOT mean that an individual man with his own plan will have to pay anything for birth control.

It does mean that if birth control coverage is required, then groups containing women will be required to pay for birth control for the women in that group.

In a group, women already subsidize men's prostate cancer, and men already subsidize women's breast cancer, etc.
Birth control would just be another of many items that are mostly male/female specific that people already pay for when in a group.

It's worth keeping in mind that plans commonly offer 'blue pill' coverage for men, so it's not like women are getting ahead in the sexy-time costs.

-scheherazade

Every system has coercion.
The specifics may change, but they're all based around gaming the rules to get ahead, and preventing others from catching up.

Even if there are no government rules, you end up with private rules, set by the private owners of things you depend on, or things you have to work around or work with.

Deregulated systems are great, but they have one major flaw. Over time, you will end up with a monopoly. It's 100% certain. One business will always grow at least a tad quicker than others, and given enough time, will displace the others.
Especially when larger size creates beneficial economy of scale, and makes for prices that no one else can beat, which only accelerates the growth, leading to the inevitable.
This was the case for the U.S. in the "Rockefeller/Morgan/Vanderbilt-esque" days, and it is becoming the case to day in China.

(China is an amusing example. They have essentially wild-west capitalism and no effective labor laws. It's a bubbling brew of mega rich and mega poor. Much like pre-ww1-ish USA.)

Most economic crises we've had were the result of a few influential agents acting in their own best self interest, while their self interest did not coincide with national interest.

Local optima vs Global optima, mathematically speaking.

For example, oil speculation leads to higher oil prices, which means you can then sell your oil options for a good profit. It's quite good for the speculator.
It just isn't good for the rest of the nation, as higher energy costs drive down everyone else's profits/revenue.

In a more cartoonish sense, you can for example: get land real cheap by purchasing all the land around it, land-locking the access, and not agreeing to a public easement.
Then the land owner of the center-plot is holding worthless land, it's useless to anyone else, and the only possible customer is you.
You get to set the price, because it's you or nobody.
*Also, this is a real example that happened in my neighborhood.

-scheherazade

That would be a great system. And if you want to get ahead you could work 2 or 3 jobs, and get ahead, instead of being forced to work 2 just to break even.

Having Trouble Getting Ahead in Your Career, Ladies? has been added as a related post - related requested by jonny on that post.