>> ^marbles:

>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^messenger:
Yes. They now have that freedom. I don't recommend that course of action for them, but it's better than not having that freedom. Or are you saying here that living in a dictatorship is preferable if the dictator prevents you from doing some things that harm yourself, and perhaps Libyans were better off under Gaddafi?
That's a serious question BTW, not a sarcastic jab.
Or maybe you're suggesting that liberating Libya was just a cynical move on the part of the IMF to get more contributors?
Again, that's a serious question. Your hints aren't clear to me.>> ^marbles:
>> ^messenger:
Yup. And vote. And criticize government.
Freedom doesn't make us smart. It just makes us free.>> ^marbles:
http://i.imgur.com/YqXXg.jpg


And squander their wealth and independence to IMF and World Bank loan sharks.


I'm not clear either. Marbles is either just trolling, or unable to understand the concept of bad and worse.
He readily grasps the potential downsides of instability after the fall of dictator. He doesn't seem to grasp that the alternative was continued dictatorship and the genocide of those that toppled Gaddafi. Either that, or he's a troll that just doesn't care.

You're the last person to understand anything going on North Africa. The continued genocide of al-qaeda rebels? What about the genocide committed by the rebels? Any concern on that?
And how about just last week Obama sent US troops to Uganda to help the dictator there. I guess this is a "reverse-Libyan-style" intervention, where the US is sending troops to crush, not assist rebels rising up against their despotic ruler.


From you that's a compliment.

The evidence of Gaddafi's pending genocide is undeniable, from his own public declarations of it, to his deputy minister to the UN, do Gaddafi's forces deliberate actions to attempt and implement it. What evidence do you have of the rebels genocide? So far, the only source claiming that was Gaddafi's own media, which got really silent on the matter now...

Oh, and before you show any dead bodies remember there is a distinct difference between war crimes like massacres that likely did occur on both sides in the fighting in Libya, and a genocide. A genocide is a concerted effort to track down and exterminate a specific group of people. There is zero evidence the rebels have or ever did have any such plans, while Gaddafi announced his publicly from his own mouth. The fact you can't accept this says something very sinister about what ever glasses taint your vision.

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^messenger:
Yes. They now have that freedom. I don't recommend that course of action for them, but it's better than not having that freedom. Or are you saying here that living in a dictatorship is preferable if the dictator prevents you from doing some things that harm yourself, and perhaps Libyans were better off under Gaddafi?
That's a serious question BTW, not a sarcastic jab.
Or maybe you're suggesting that liberating Libya was just a cynical move on the part of the IMF to get more contributors?
Again, that's a serious question. Your hints aren't clear to me.>> ^marbles:
>> ^messenger:
Yup. And vote. And criticize government.
Freedom doesn't make us smart. It just makes us free.>> ^marbles:
http://i.imgur.com/YqXXg.jpg


And squander their wealth and independence to IMF and World Bank loan sharks.


I'm not clear either. Marbles is either just trolling, or unable to understand the concept of bad and worse.
He readily grasps the potential downsides of instability after the fall of dictator. He doesn't seem to grasp that the alternative was continued dictatorship and the genocide of those that toppled Gaddafi. Either that, or he's a troll that just doesn't care.


You're the last person to understand anything going on North Africa. The continued genocide of al-qaeda rebels? What about the genocide committed by the rebels? Any concern on that?

And how about just last week Obama sent US troops to Uganda to help the dictator there. I guess this is a "reverse-Libyan-style" intervention, where the US is sending troops to crush, not assist rebels rising up against their despotic ruler.

>> ^messenger:

Yes. They now have that freedom. I don't recommend that course of action for them, but it's better than not having that freedom. Or are you saying here that living in a dictatorship is preferable if the dictator prevents you from doing some things that harm yourself, and perhaps Libyans were better off under Gaddafi?
That's a serious question BTW, not a sarcastic jab.
Or maybe you're suggesting that liberating Libya was just a cynical move on the part of the IMF to get more contributors?
Again, that's a serious question. Your hints aren't clear to me.>> ^marbles:
>> ^messenger:
Yup. And vote. And criticize government.
Freedom doesn't make us smart. It just makes us free.>> ^marbles:
http://i.imgur.com/YqXXg.jpg


And squander their wealth and independence to IMF and World Bank loan sharks.



I'm not clear either. Marbles is either just trolling, or unable to understand the concept of bad and worse.

He readily grasps the potential downsides of instability after the fall of dictator. He doesn't seem to grasp that the alternative was continued dictatorship and the genocide of those that toppled Gaddafi. Either that, or he's a troll that just doesn't care.

The more I think about it, the more I feel that nearly ALL of our problems come from the fact that the real wages for most people have stagnated or gone down since 1980 while the folks on top have continued to increase their own income. If most of us were paid more, proportionally, tax revenue would not be a problem, nor would double income families be struggling to make ends meet.

I don't know how to legislate a solution. When I lived in Japan I was led to believe that CEO's only made 20 times the average worker because to make more would create resentment and social instability. This was a custom, not a law.

How do we get to a place in the US where most of us realize we all have to pull our own weight, including the fabulously uber-wealthy?

@mgittle

I agree that particularly the sheer volume of speculative versus physical transactions is an issue.

You say though that speculative activity has nothing to do with supply and demand though, which I disagree with as ultimately that's what it's looking to predict. After all speculation based on rumor and not fundamentals is essentially a ponzi scheme, ultimately the price will fall back down to true levels when enough further buyers cannot be found, or for that matter when counter parties can't be found. Food may to some extent be an exception here in that people can't choose not to buy it though, so there is less pressure on it to fall if it rises too far.

Ultimately I agree that whether it causes more instability is debatable, but you could just as easily argue that more transactions means a deeper, more liquid market and that the price instability is more as a result of the market pricing in food price changes more readily. My issue with the video was more than it only listed the other factors, saying nothing of their significance relative to the argument it was making, which seems disingenuous.\

@RedSky Both "sides" are just gambling. They use all kinds of statistical models and data to convince themselves that they're not, but they are. They know it's unstable, but they're trying to avoid the hot potato.

You're correct in your logical assertions that each of these parties have a "role" in the market. Yes, hedge funds can have a downward influence. Yes, speculators can drive up prices. In theory, these cancel out. In reality, it causes the system to become fragile because these upward and downward influences don't happen simultaneously in a neat math equation. The problem is that all of this up/down activity causes drastic fluctuations in the price of goods which have nothing to do with supply or demand. The more layered the contracts and transactions get, the less stable the price. Even if the up/down forces actually succeed in "stabilizing" (or even lowering) the average price over time, that doesn't prevent people from starving because rice is too expensive this month.

Yes, all of those supply/demand issues are factors in price, but they do not mitigate the central point. The video started off by explaining that the 4 "complex" factors you listed at the end don't account for price instability. Consumers, producers, supply chains, etc can acclimate to gradual changes, but they have a hard time responding to spikes. That's one of the central points of the video.

The biggest problem is that the application of these economic theories work well to increase stability when complexity is low, yet they actually decrease stability when complexity increases. It's easy to logically explain why speculators are necessary. It's a persuasive argument, but it ignores the bigger issue at hand. It's much harder to explain why "speculators speculating on speculators" is a problem when people can easily understand "speculators are good in this logical everyday situation".

On topic, there needs to be a better ability to measure and monitor OTC derivative contracts, but I think generally people who sorely blame speculators don't understand how markets work.

Everything ultimately has a fundamental value, if speculators are taking excessive amounts of positions expecting the price to go up, ultimately it will rise far beyond levels determined by supply and demand for the physical good and these speculators will stand to lose in their derivative position.

What is their incentive to inflate prices if they know that this will happen? Why not simply attempt to predict the market price accurately, whether it is trending up or down? Now obviously bubbles happen and what the video says about property investors heading into food commodities may well be true, but that is precisely why shorters have a role in the market to push the price down if it gets over-inflated.

You know when the video talks about hedge funds betting in price falls? What they conveniently omit to mention is taking these contracts puts downward pressure on prices.

Furthermore, whether high or low food prices hurt people in developing economies depends on who you're talking about. People living in country areas who rely on farming for their livelihood tend to gain from higher prices, urban dwellers tend to lose from it.

Demand and supply is also quite obviously driving increases in prices regardless of what you believe about speculation.

1) As developing countries have become wealthier they've shifted from a grain/rice diet to a more meat reliant diet, which is far more agriculturally intensive.

2) It's pretty self evident that weather instability has increased worldwide which destabilises prices.

3) Increased use in bio-fuels both in the US and Europe has taken up supply and pushed up prices.

4) All of these factors have in several cases resulted in countries establishing temporary trade barriers which in itself push up prices.

Point is, it's easy (and not entirely rational) to blame speculators but analysing all the factors at play (which this video brushes off) paints a far more complex picture.

Are you ever going to address the fact that the Great Depression was ended by massive record deficits, followed by taxing the richest by over 90%?

Your entire argument is deficits never work, and raising taxes on the rich hurts the economy. I just gave you an irrefutable example of that being dead wrong, and you go into FDR's New Deal. Dude, I'm not debating the New Deal with you.

Prove that the US economy got out of the Great Depression without massive deficits (regardless if it was New Deal spending or WWII spending, it's irrelevant), followed by massively taxing the rich over 90% in the 1950s, during which the US economy was extremely prosperous.

That's the thing, dude. You can try to dodge this all you want. I'm not letting you try to move to discussing the New Deal, or Social Security, or how apparently communist George W. Bush (SERIOUSLY?!?!? WTFBBQ?!?!?!?) is.

This example in US history proves your rigid, ideological economic philosophy is dead wrong. You can't argue honestly that deficits are always bad, and massive gov't spending is always bad, and the US gov't can't help aid in turning around the economy. It most certainly can. It indisputably did. There's no "some fact" to this. It absolutely is historical fact.

That's the thing. Once you admit that yes, deficits can and do help end recessions, and taxing the rich more heavily can be good for the economy, we might be able to actually have an honest, adult conversation about how to help the economy. Until that, you're just spewing idiotic and/or intentional misinformation.

And then you just completely glossed over the entire reason why the gov't is almost always the one who HAS to spark the economic turnaround. We NEED the gov't to stimulate the economy, just as we need the gov't to put the brakes on when the economy grows too quickly, which is when those deficits can get paid for incidentally.

Are you just gonna sit there and call everyone other than the Tea Party communists, or are you actually going to address any of this?

>> ^quantumushroom:

The rich pay a higher percentage, and more taxes overall than the poor. Why do you think anyone is saying otherwise?

And that's absolutely how it should be, for the good of everyone, rich included.
But why doth "the poor," who siphon the "free" money, have no civic responsibility at all? Shouldn't they be paying something into the system? Or maybe "dependency voters" are needed by a certain political party?

It's perfectly sensible to talk about why some people don't pay any taxes at all. I'm not even debating that. But the rich should still pay more, regardless. The US has been one of the strongest economies for most of the 20th and 21st centuries with a progressive income tax, and it's been a heck of a lot more progressive than it is now, and we were still very prosperous.
The rich already DO pay more. It will do NO GOOD to shakedown the rich for ever more $$$. The problem with tax addicts is they can never get enough. It's too easy to spend money. Destroy the incentive to invest and/or create (or deny there is incentive at all) and you get stagnation. GOVERNMENT CREATES NOTHING.
Showing fraud in some programs doesn't mean the program should be abolished. It can be reformed as well. There are plenty of ways to do that. We didn't abolish welfare in the 1990s. We reformed it. And no, it's not true that private businesses will always create the jobs when the economy is down. History has proven quite the opposite. Why would a business invest to make more goods and services if there's no market for it. A downturn in the economy breeds more economic decline. It's called a business cycle, and it's a natural occurrence. If you were a business owner, generally speaking, if you know less people out there have the money to buy your goods and services, would you increase production and hire more workers? Of course not. Does the average person put more money into the stock market or take money out when the market tanks? Takes money out, which drains money for investing. This is basic micro and macroeconomics.
But what about now, when our cherished federal mafia creates INstability? No sane businessperson will hire now with the Hawaiian Dunce in office. I've heard this claptrap about government spending as savior before.
"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot."

Henry Morganthau, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Some force has to run counter to the natural tendencies of the market to force demand to increase, and of course this virtually always requires running a deficit. This is why slogans like "the gov't should be run like a business" are simplistic and wrong. The gov't should in those situations create jobs through various programs, thereby increasing income for the lower classes, which creates spending and demand, which then causes businesses to increase production, hire more workers, and that gets the economy back on track. You can site case study after case study in our history we've done this, and it worked.
But it's not working now, is it. OOPS! I agree that govt should not be run like a business. It should instead by treated like the dangerous raw force it is, because that's ALL it is.

We ended the Great Depression via defense spending in the form of WWII in record levels as the most obvious exaggerated example. That historically was qm's worst nightmare - record deficits in raw amount at the time, and still to this day historic
record deficits as a percentage of GDP during WWII, followed by a tax raise on the richest Americans to over 90%. And what calamity befell the US because of those policies? We ended the Great Depression, became an economic Superpower, and Americans enjoyed record prosperity it and the world had never seen before.
This is historical fact that simply can't be denied.
There's some fact in there, but the cause and effect seems a little skewered.
FDR was a fascist, perhaps benevolent in his own mind, but a fascist in practice nonetheless, the sacred cow and Creator of the modern, unsustainable welfare state. He had no idea what he was doing and there is a growing body of work
suggesting his policies prolonged the Depression.

Here's what happened - Democrats deficit spent as they were supposed to (which is exactly what the GOP would have done had they been in power, because it was started by George W. Bush), which stopped the economic free fall.
This is all quite arguable. Yes, Bush the-liberal-with-a-few-conservative-tendencies ruined his legacy with scamulus spending, but nothing--NOTHING--close to 3 trillion in 3 years! Spending-wise, it's comparing a dragster to a regular hemi.

Moody's didn't downgrade the US debt. It was S&P. They sited math about the alarming deficits which contained a $2 trillion mistake on their part. They also sited political instability as the GOP was risking default to get their policies in place, which btw still include massive deficits.
Do you wonder why you can so neatly explain things while the Democrats in DC, with their arses on the line, cannot? The failed scamulus has forced the DC dunces to change boasts like "jobs saved" to "lives touched". Apparently there's a lot more to this tale than the Donkey Version.

The GOP couldn't stop the Democrats from spending all that money?! Laughable.
They didn't have the votes.

The GOP started the freakin' bailouts and stimulus! What did the GOP do the last time there was a recession after 9/11? Deficit spent, then continued to deficit spend when the economy was strong. Dude, seriously, you have no factual basis for
that kind of claim whatsoever.
Compare taxocrats' dragster-speed spending of the last three years versus Repub spending during the 8 years before it. The argument of "But they do it too!" has some merit, but as the rise of the Tea Party has shown, business-as-usual is no longer acceptable.
Oh, and taxocrats, remember this: the Hawaiian Dunce considers anyone making over 250K to be millionaires and billionaires.

The rich pay a higher percentage, and more taxes overall than the poor. Why do you think anyone is saying otherwise?

And that's absolutely how it should be, for the good of everyone, rich included.

But why doth "the poor," who siphon the "free" money, have no civic responsibility at all? Shouldn't they be paying something into the system? Or maybe "dependency voters" are needed by a certain political party?

It's perfectly sensible to talk about why some people don't pay any taxes at all. I'm not even debating that. But the rich should still pay more, regardless. The US has been one of the strongest economies for most of the 20th and 21st centuries with a progressive income tax, and it's been a heck of a lot more progressive than it is now, and we were still very prosperous.

The rich already DO pay more. It will do NO GOOD to shakedown the rich for ever more $$$. The problem with tax addicts is they can never get enough. It's too easy to spend money. Destroy the incentive to invest and/or create (or deny there is incentive at all) and you get stagnation. GOVERNMENT CREATES NOTHING.

Showing fraud in some programs doesn't mean the program should be abolished. It can be reformed as well. There are plenty of ways to do that. We didn't abolish welfare in the 1990s. We reformed it. And no, it's not true that private businesses will always create the jobs when the economy is down. History has proven quite the opposite. Why would a business invest to make more goods and services if there's no market for it. A downturn in the economy breeds more economic decline. It's called a business cycle, and it's a natural occurrence. If you were a business owner, generally speaking, if you know less people out there have the money to buy your goods and services, would you increase production and hire more workers? Of course not. Does the average person put more money into the stock market or take money out when the market tanks? Takes money out, which drains money for investing. This is basic micro and macroeconomics.

But what about now, when our cherished federal mafia creates INstability? No sane businessperson will hire now with the Hawaiian Dunce in office. I've heard this claptrap about government spending as savior before.

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot."

Henry Morganthau, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Some force has to run counter to the natural tendencies of the market to force demand to increase, and of course this virtually always requires running a deficit. This is why slogans like "the gov't should be run like a business" are simplistic and wrong. The gov't should in those situations create jobs through various programs, thereby increasing income for the lower classes, which creates spending and demand, which then causes businesses to increase production, hire more workers, and that gets the economy back on track. You can site case study after case study in our history we've done this, and it worked.
But it's not working now, is it. OOPS! I agree that govt should not be run like a business. It should instead by treated like the dangerous raw force it is, because that's ALL it is.

We ended the Great Depression via defense spending in the form of WWII in record levels as the most obvious exaggerated example. That historically was qm's worst nightmare - record deficits in raw amount at the time, and still to this day historic
record deficits as a percentage of GDP during WWII, followed by a tax raise on the richest Americans to over 90%. And what calamity befell the US because of those policies? We ended the Great Depression, became an economic Superpower, and Americans enjoyed record prosperity it and the world had never seen before.

This is historical fact that simply can't be denied.

There's some fact in there, but the cause and effect seems a little skewered.

FDR was a fascist, perhaps benevolent in his own mind, but a fascist in practice nonetheless, the sacred cow and Creator of the modern, unsustainable welfare state. He had no idea what he was doing and there is a growing body of work
suggesting his policies prolonged the Depression.


Here's what happened - Democrats deficit spent as they were supposed to (which is exactly what the GOP would have done had they been in power, because it was started by George W. Bush), which stopped the economic free fall.

This is all quite arguable. Yes, Bush the-liberal-with-a-few-conservative-tendencies ruined his legacy with scamulus spending, but nothing--NOTHING--close to 3 trillion in 3 years! Spending-wise, it's comparing a dragster to a regular hemi.

Moody's didn't downgrade the US debt. It was S&P. They sited math about the alarming deficits which contained a $2 trillion mistake on their part. They also sited political instability as the GOP was risking default to get their policies in place, which btw still include massive deficits.

Do you wonder why you can so neatly explain things while the Democrats in DC, with their arses on the line, cannot? The failed scamulus has forced the DC dunces to change boasts like "jobs saved" to "lives touched". Apparently there's a lot more to this tale than the Donkey Version.

The GOP couldn't stop the Democrats from spending all that money?! Laughable.

They didn't have the votes.

The GOP started the freakin' bailouts and stimulus! What did the GOP do the last time there was a recession after 9/11? Deficit spent, then continued to deficit spend when the economy was strong. Dude, seriously, you have no factual basis for
that kind of claim whatsoever.

Compare taxocrats' dragster-speed spending of the last three years versus Repub spending during the 8 years before it. The argument of "But they do it too!" has some merit, but as the rise of the Tea Party has shown, business-as-usual is no longer acceptable.

Oh, and taxocrats, remember this: the Hawaiian Dunce considers anyone making over 250K to be millionaires and billionaires.

The rich pay a higher percentage, and more taxes overall than the poor. Why do you think anyone is saying otherwise. And that's absolutely how it should be, for the good of everyone, rich included.

It's perfectly sensible to talk about why some people don't pay any taxes at all. I'm not even debating that. But the rich should still pay more, regardless. The US has been one of the strongest economies for most of the 20th and 21st centuries with a progressive income tax, and it's been a heck of a lot more progressive than it is now, and we were still very prosperous.

Showing fraud in some programs doesn't mean the program should be abolished. It can be reformed as well. There are plenty of ways to do that. We didn't abolish welfare in the 1990s. We reformed it. And no, it's not true that private businesses will always create the jobs when the economy is down. History has proven quite the opposite. Why would a business invest to make more goods and services if there's no market for it. A downturn in the economy breeds more economic decline. It's called a business cycle, and it's a natural occurrence. If you were a business owner, generally speaking, if you know less people out there have the money to buy your goods and services, would you increase production and hire more workers? Of course not. Does the average person put more money into the stock market or take money out when the market tanks? Takes money out, which drains money for investing. This is basic micro and macroeconomics.

Some force has to run counter to the natural tendencies of the market to force demand to increase, and of course this virtually always requires running a deficit. This is why slogans like "the gov't should be run like a business" are simplistic and wrong. The gov't should in those situations create jobs through various programs, thereby increasing income for the lower classes, which creates spending and demand, which then causes businesses to increase production, hire more workers, and that gets the economy back on track. You can site case study after case study in our history we've done this, and it worked. We ended the Great Depression via defense spending in the form of WWII in record levels as the most obvious exaggerated example. That historically was qm's worst nightmare - record deficits in raw amount at the time, and still to this day historic record deficits as a percentage of GDP during WWII, followed by a tax raise on the richest Americans to over 90%. And what calamity befell the US because of those policies? We ended the Great Depression, became an economic Superpower, and Americans enjoyed record prosperity it and the world had never seen before.

This is historical fact that simply can't be denied.

Here's what happened - Democrats deficit spent as they were supposed to (which is exactly what the GOP would have done had they been in power, because it was started by George W. Bush), which stopped the economic free fall. Moody's didn't downgrade the US debt. It was S&P. They sited math about the alarming deficits which contained a $2 trillion mistake on their part. They also sited political instability as the GOP was risking default to get their policies in place, which btw still include massive deficits.

The GOP couldn't stop the Democrats from spending all that money?! Laughable. The GOP started the freakin' bailouts and stimulus! What did the GOP do the last time there was a recession after 9/11? Deficit spent, then continued to deficit spend when the economy was strong. Dude, seriously, you have no factual basis for that kind of claim whatsoever.

>> ^quantumushroom:

this is what we've been trying to tell you QM, the system doesn't work when only a few contribute...the system works when ALL contribute based on what they can afford.
I totally agree, so why does the bottom 50% of Americans pay NO income tax? The wealthy already pay a disproportionately high percentage of all taxes and I have yet to find a liberalsifter who admits this.
I well understand that Scrooge McDuck won't miss a few more shovelfuls of gold coins swiped by federal bulldozers, but lets review reality:
1) The "extra" money attained by "soaking" Scrooge and Rich Uncle Pennybags (from the Monopoly game) will be pi$$ed away, like the 60 billion dollars EVERY YEAR lost to fraud, waste and abuse in Medicaid/Medicare. The federal mafia is composed of sh1tty stewards of our money.
2) The Hawaiian Dunce has spent 3 trillion in 3 years with little or nothing to show for it. So what magical number of dollars is going to make everything all right? A quadrillion?
3) When the socialists raise taxes, the wealthy of 2011 have their accountant press a few buttons on their computating machines, sending their $$$ overseas, invested in more stable markets. Apparently many already have, probably the moment they knew Obama was elected.
4) Liberal say, "Rich man not know difference he still rich." But there's now less money to invest and less money to create jobs. Now some liberalsifter will say, "This graph indicates that the rich don't create jobs with their ill-gotten gains."
BUT, if you're honest with yourselves, you'll know that one million dollars has a much better chance of creating jobs in the hands of entrepreneurs and investors than the government "Department of Creating Jobs" which probably spends that much just on office furniture.
5) The debt limit 'debate' is total BS, always has been. Here is what happened: taxocrats burned through tax money at an alarming rate and there weren't enough elected Republicans to stop them. THAT'S why Moody's got scared and US was downgraded. Republicans can't communicate for sh1t anyway, and so the socialists and their media lapdogs managed to blame the right for this mess.
6) Warren Buffoon likes to be liked, I get that, but he should still STFU and make a real gesture. Giving a symbolic billion dollars to the federal mafia should do it. He won't miss it.

oh btw, that stupid story has a happy ending.

I had enough dirt on that company to have my termination changed to a lay off, be granted a severance package and a nice stipend for my trouble and given unemployment. It is also the best damn thing that ever happened to us. I don't know if I would've had the balls to risk instability to go to grad school and start my own business... where no one can ever ever fire me again for not wanting to be groped.

Nope, but the GOP isn't any better. Also, your comments on "employers" are overly simplistic. Firstly, take an employer who draws a reasonable salary and makes sure his company pays taxes. Now take an employer that takes tens of millions of dollars in bonuses and benefits, just because they can, and attempts to get laws passed which reduce his companies tax rate to basically nothing.

One of these employers is beneficial to the economy, the other leeches from the economy so I think it is unfair to lump them together.

Also, what's the deal with calling them taxocrats, don't you guys have some of the lowest rates of taxes in history right now?

>> ^quantumushroom:

Does anyone still believe Taxocrats "care" about "working people?" At least more than the other side?
Taxocrats take more money from Wall Street "donors" than Republicans. Taxocrats caused the housing crisis via bad loans to people who they knew would never repay.
Evil rich people have a second identity the left doesn't like to mention: "Employers." Taxocrats cause employers to do nothing and wait out the reign of financial instability fomented by confiscatory threats; no one is going on a hiring spree only to have Taxocrats slam them with a bill for socialist medicine.
Not that Maddow doesn't have a point. It's possible even those RINOS now realize The SS Obama is a sinking ship. Welcome to politics.

Does anyone still believe Taxocrats "care" about "working people?" At least more than the other side?

Taxocrats take more money from Wall Street "donors" than Republicans. Taxocrats caused the housing crisis via bad loans to people who they knew would never repay.

Evil rich people have a second identity the left doesn't like to mention: "Employers." Taxocrats cause employers to do nothing and wait out the reign of financial instability fomented by confiscatory threats; no one is going on a hiring spree only to have Taxocrats slam them with a bill for socialist medicine.

Not that Maddow doesn't have a point. It's possible even those RINOS now realize The SS Obama is a sinking ship. Welcome to politics.

Just stating my own opinion, but to me this video did bring discussion to the front; especially since other sifters and I had already discussed some of these debating points. A-Assault rifles are killing Americans, B-Psychological instability, C-The violence of our culture, D-The culture we are creating in law enforcement that makes them timid and fearful to pull a gun, least not certain sifters be there with a camera, E-The fact that nobody cares when a cop does the right thing.

Yes, the clip itself does not talk about these things, but then neither does any of the other videos--at all. They talk about useless crap like "law enforcement sucks" or "I'd sue the shit out of the office." That isn't discussion, that's a diatribe.

I won't gainsay what you have done because I am a man who follows rules and laws--but I will be like Socrates and defend my position while the hemlock is placed into this video. I just find it ghastly that this video being implied as "just for the horror factor" when it's far from it.

Perhaps I will take Sagemind's advice and use the Sift Talk as an outlet for these points.

>> ^lucky760:
In general, videos that depict a person being killed just for the horror factor are not exempt from our snuff guidelines. Furthermore, there is no discussion or debate to be had; the video just says "watch this guy murder this cop!"
If this exact video was the reverse, where the cop in the firefight survived by killing the driver of the truck, it would still be considered snuff. This would just be no more than "watch this cop defend himself and kill this guy to death!" However, if it was a case of an officer abusing his power to the point that a life is lost, it has greater potential to elevate the video's significance beyond the sole act of killing.
It is typically easier for a video to fall outside our snuff guidelines when an officer is unlawfully inflicting rather than unlawfully receiving the fatality because such events are by nature more likely to be worthy of discussion/debate. (Criminals are supposed to commit crimes; cops are not.) Think "dog bites man" versus "man bites dog."

@radx yea I am consistently disgusted by mainstream media's treatment of these types of conflicts. There were several major articles in the newspapers I read on Wednesday and all listed similar reasons to what you describe. I had to stop reading after a while, it's just too awful when you know that this "international standing" they are maintaining is really at it's core, hundreds and thousands of civilian deaths, political instability, a drop in living conditions for the country, and a reduction of freedom. Iraq is up over 100,000 civilian deaths last I checked. I was born in a small town of about 5,000, so that's 20 of my hometowns worth of people simply erased.