>> ^Jinx:

My 4 year old inner child just found his soulmate.

(man, I had to phrase that sooooo carefully to not sound like a total creep. Still creepy? Oh ok. I'll just take a seat then.)


There's a big todo going on about Samsung plagarising Apple advertising. It seems they got the same girl in the iPhone 4s commercial (red-eye reduction etc) to do a Korean Galaxy Tab commercial.

If you ever see the two, I find the Apple one to be EXTREMELY creepy. The Samsung not so much.

http://news.ebrandz.com/miscellaneous/2011/5134-samsung-poaches-apple-advertising-model-for-its-latest-tablet-commercial-.html

@NetRunner Honestly, I'm unimpressed. Peter Schiff may not be John Nash, but you sound like Chris Matthews. Do you get your economic wisdom from Mother Jones or HuffPo?


So the response to "I doubt he's really paying 50% in taxes" is not to recount even a hypothetical example of how someone could wind up paying a sum total of 50% in taxes, but instead to just argue that the dubious statement might feel true because there are many various taxes someone might be paying?

Hypothetical example (which I thought I outlined for you): Peter Schiff owns/runs a business as his primary mode of income. That business pays a 35% corporate tax rate on their profits. The remaining profits translate into capital gains, which are then taxed at 15%. While obviously the tax rates aren't perfectly additive (15% of 65% is smaller than 15% of 100%), you can still see how one could quickly approach 50% in taxes. I haven't even included any local taxes or consumption taxes. These aren't dubious statements. These are facts about the tax code which progressives should learn to wise up to. There is a valid point there about streamlining the tax code. Like you said... Meh.


The response to my argument about the impact of marginal tax increases on employment is to make some argument about Schiff's personal labor/leisure preferences? That has nothing to do with it at all. If Schiff is the entrepreneurial capitalist he claims to be (and not just the F-list media personality he seems to be), then he doesn't really do any direct labor, he just makes choices about allocations of capital -- he makes investment decisions, and business deals where all the real work is done by other people.

He's making the case that if he has to pay a few more percentage points in taxes, he's going to start walking away from making investment deals that would have made his company money and employed people. Hell, he goes so far as to say that he would dissolve his ostensibly profitable business and fire all his employees, rather than sell it to someone else who still likes making money, even if they have to pay taxes.

Making investment deals and business decisions isn't quite like arguing on the internet and playing video games. You have to meet people, negotiate, spend basically all day on the phone or in a plane. You don't have much time for your family (though I don't know if he has one). While it may not be coal mining, it's certainly work. It's at least as much work as the people typing things into excel between trips to the water cooler are doing. It's quite possible that if he were to decide to leave, or cut back his hours worked (because of government disincentive), the firm would downsize or even fail. All those workers whose paychecks depended on his profitable decision making could be out of work. Now like I said, someone else might hire back those same workers (e.g. if he sold the firm), however there is no guarantee the business will be as profitable without their greatest profit engine (Schiff himself). Like I further argued, if there were someone equally capable of running the firm as profitably, they would likely already be a competitor.


As for the "buying labor low" argument, which sector is doing that? Right now what they're doing is shedding lots of employees, not paying out raises, cutting health benefits, and hoping that if/when they need more labor, the extended period of unemployment will provide them with a pool of desperate talent willing to work for far less than they would have pre-2007.

Right, because the government won't let the labor market correct. They keep propping everybody up with prolonged unemployment (I've known somewhat skilled people that wouldn't take jobs because unemployment pays better), and direct government employment. It is happening within some sectors, particularly highly skilled labor. Perhaps you've heard of the skills gap in the current employment picture? For example, the university I'm at is shedding lecturers, and poaching high-valued researchers from struggling institutions. There have been plenty of proposals to bridge this skills gap in more industrial sectors as well, e.g. turning unemployment benefits into vocational training. But instead you took a left turn towards "the mean corporations won't do things that are against their interests."


It's true that once upon a time, back when we had a lot of unionization, a lot of companies hoarded talent in exactly the manner you describe, so they could potentially enter into the expansion with a competitive advantage. But that's the old way of thinking, back when labor was broadly considered a valuable company resource, and not simply a fungible commodity to be purchased or discarded as needed. Offshore contractors, anyone?

Now you're a protectionist? Have you heard of "cost centers" and "profit centers?" Profit centers (valued labor) don't get outsourced. Cost centers (commoditized, fungible, unskilled, expensive labor) do. With regard to unions, it has often been their own inflexibility with their contracts (not that executives aren't equally guilty with bonuses) that has resulted in layoffs as opposed to shared pain (evenly spread hour reductions).


Lastly about the "leave the money where the market put it" -- that's a good one! You seamlessly pivoted from "economics as a theory for understanding the world" to "economics as a system of moral justice". Nicely done, you're pretty good at talking like a conservative!

Thanks. I think it's important to be able to see all sides rather than just cheerlead. Also, "economics" is theory, "the market" is the most efficient system for allocating resources with respect to individual preferences known to man. We can talk about our favorite flawed microeconomic assumptions if you want, but it's a tough case that "because I said so" is going to be more efficient than voluntary exchange.


Still it doesn't address my basic economic argument at all -- that our high unemployment is fundamentally a function of a lack of demand. Lots of people don't have money to spend, even on things they desperately need. The handfuls of people who do have money don't see any way to employ that money in a profitable way, so they're just sitting on it. There's a few ways to try to solve that problem, but cutting (or maintaining existing) taxes on the top income earners won't help.

(I get nauseous arguing against the Keynesian point so I won't directly). What I'll say is that it isn't clear drastically raising taxes on the rich will help either. What might help is a more efficient allocation of the government revenue we already have (like the vocational training instead of unemployment I outlined above). The other thing that I, and I think many others would like to see is an increase in the standard of living of individual business proprietors. They've been doing worse than "traditional labor" over the past few decades in case you haven't noticed.


A simple, but radical solution would be for the Fed to simply buy up everyone's mortgages, and then release the leins on everyone's deeds. In other words, just have Uncle Sam pay off everyone's mortgage with freshly-printed money. I suspect consumer spending would return if we did that!

I do too! I bet everyone would go leverage themselves to the gills buying houses knowing full well that when they can't cover the debt the government will bail them out! Sure, stopgap coverage, renegotiation, all that would be great (much better than bailing out the banks directly IMO), but a full fledged free money party only exacerbates the delusion. It's a recipe for currency debasement. People need to be allowed to demonstrate and feel the consequences of their lack of creditworthiness. Also, those that were creditworthy should be appropriately rewarded. It's sort of like the OWS girl that wants rich people to pay back her 100gs in student loans, but all those people that saved for college, worked for scholarships, held a job through school, well they're probably just fine the way they are.


As for my closing quip, I'm quite serious -- Schiff doesn't deserve any respect or deference. It's not classy to be deferential to the expertise of people who don't actually have any; it's foolish.

You don't find common ground, build coalitions, or change minds with ridicule.

I have family members that are Chinese. I like and respect them a lot and don't in general have any issues with Chinese or the culture. I've lived in Vancouver BC (otherwise known as Hong-couver). It is a major immigration destination for the Chinese in Canada. In Vancouver, white people seem to be a minority.

Things I know for fact:
1). Older(often first-gen) Chinese people are racist and don't like white people - We've often been kicked out of stores for being white (not just once, but so many times I lost count.) I know of MANY younger Chinese who have dated or married Caucasian and been disowned from their families.
2). Chinese people are some of the rudest people I know. But only if they don't know you. They are very hospitable to you if they know you. Go to a mall full of Chinese people you don't know and you will see what it's like to be black in the southern US.
3). Yes, the Western Chinese culture DOES gloats over it's wealth.
3a). I know families where the grandparents go without food so the teenage grandkids can have their BMWs and Jags so that everyone thinks they are rich even if they aren't. It's all about impressions. They go out of their way to flaunt wealth.
3b). the most prestigious area in the Vancouver area is Richmond because it translates to RichMan in Chinese. The town itself is below sea-level and exists only because of the dikes holding back the Pacific Ocean. It now has some of the most over-priced land in Canada.
4). Go to a Chinese home for dinner, as a guest, and you will be served chicken, beef, pork and fish often at the same meal. Serving meat to guests shows their wealth. in China they often can't afford meat. Serving as much meat as possible in one meal shows they they are wealthy. It also honors the guest by showing offering a wealth of variety. They generally don't eat a lot of meat as a normal diet but mainly when guests are present.

I have many stories on Chinese culture experiences. The culture is VERY different from ours. I don't want to sound racist towards Chinese or Asian cultures because I'm not. Most of negative things that can be pointed out originates from the older family members and is filtered down. Most 2nd & 3rd generation Chinese are very Westernized and mix easily with our culture. Age has nothing to do with it, as young immigrants bring with them unwarranted arrogance and racism. It's not the people I blame but the culture they bring with them that is both fascinating and frustrating at the same time.

*Yes, I know you can't paint everyone with the same brush. there are some very forward thinking people immigrating to Canada and are here to experience the Western way of life but there are many traditional, often wealthy families that come here to raise themselves up and don't want anything to do with western culture or the people that live here.

I also believe it is mostly these first-generation immigrants, young and old, that give Chinese and Asian people a bad name. They are not aware of western customs and the friendliness/respect that is offered amongst Canadians. They bring with them age old customs that are distasteful and outdated without even knowing they are doing it. I must also mention that at the rate of current immigration, into the Vancouver area, they no longer need to mix with cultures other than their own and few ever need to learn English. In fact, it has gone so far as to encourage them to hold on to the customs and reject western culture all together, which seems to defeat the reason they immigrated here in the first place. This is unfortunate because we all have things to learn from other cultures. I wish more of them would share more of their culture with us and we could let the better practices of both cultures sift to the top.

Things like Shark-Fin Soup and Bear-Poaching could be eliminated in Chinese culture while I'm sure they have many fixes for our errors.

>> ^dannym3141:


Ok, speaking as someone who has very recently been to china for an extendad stay, and i've met and had extensive experience with young and middle aged chinese;
How did you get the impression they were horrible people? Every single person i met in china was generous and selfless and went a long way out of their way to make sure i had a good time and to make sure i was completely taken care of. Their culture almost DEMANDS them to be respectful and polite to strangers. Self centred is a word which i could not apply to a single one of the several hundred chinese people that i've met.
Show off their wealth? Do you realise that the chinese people are extremely poor? The government may be fucking rich but the people certainly aren't. They work their fucking arse off in a shit job they get given and they get paid pennies, PENNIES, and they work fucking hard at it and fucking long hours because guess what they'd get if they didn't? Fuck all. I have never met a more humble and polite people, the chinese people seem to me like the british were 60 years ago (of which i am proud and sad we're not like that anymore).

>> ^imstellar28:

I'd be interested to hear an explanation of the moral differences between poaching and hunting, specifically why one is okay and the other is deserving of death.
>> ^Farhad2000:
Looks like fucking poachers to me.
Totally deserved to all get killed.



Hunting involves killing an animal with the permission of both the land owner and national law. Poaching involves breaking either or in this case both those requirements.

Hunting lions is almost universally illegal as they are largely recognized by national governments as an endangered species. Similarly, most anywhere you CAN find lions these days is in government owned reserves of land, where once again you don't get permission to go hunting there.

I have not heard so many condensed clichés in a while...

What a bunch of baloney.. no borders eh? Free movement of population sounds great on paper, but there seems to be a disparity in how well different populations manage their respective landscapes. Seems to me the migration would be pretty one sided.

This unidirectional movement of people causes considerable global societal problems. Namely, how can a handful of nations possible accommodate the gargantuan number of failed populations worldwide? And what is to be done once those ineptly populated lands have been vacated?

How, for instance, would the municipal government of Madrid react were it to discover that one fine Tuesday 2,000,000 Algerians had decided to set up camp. I wonder how well primary schools would be equipped to handle such an influx.

For argument's sake, say these Algerians are magically net benefit taxpayers and there were enough money to go around after the next population census to determine in which parts of the city they need to build more schools. How about if in the months subsequent to the census 3,000,000 Nigerians decide to make Madrid their home? Back to square one with a social machine completely unprepared to deal with artificial and anachronistic population surges.

As a side note, you understand why population surveys are taken right?

But the root of this problem is far more important: Do the landmasses we call Europe and North America endow its inhabitants with magical properties? Is the air we breathe and the soil we toil any different from elsewhere?

Obviously not. There's something we're doing right and they're doing wrong. The best we can do is share our knowledge with the world, not poach their populations.

Liberty and prosperity? Yes, for everyone. And every nation.

There's just so much blatant mind-numbing naïveté and grandiose sounding vacuum-filled ideas in this video I don't even know where to begin. I can't help but feel compassion (not pity) for the childish part of our minds this drivel appeals to.

The sad thing is most people feel like the man who made this clip. We deserve out fate.

It's time for Europeans and North-Americans to start thinking with logic once again. Using our bleeding hearts is a death wish.

Well I was beaten to the first one, which you then subsequently poached from a sifticidal user. So this one is mine!!

Cheers
>> ^gwiz665:

quality. Dammit, I wanted to post this.

I don't care WHO is conveying the message, Killing any animal for one little piece is a travesty!

We have the same thing here in BC, Canada with people killing Bears, cutting off their paws and dumping the rest. These bear clays are sold exclusively in the Asian marketplace.
http://www.suite101.com/content/bear-poaching-in-north-america-a39871

If they kept the rest of the animal, consider how much meat they would have. They wouldn't need to over fish/hunt the species. There is a certain mindset that needs to be abolished. Poaching on any level is wrong.
And yes, I understand that there are no laws against "Finning" the sharks and dumping the still living animal but common sense still exists and there are no excuses.

To blame poverty is a start but in no way addresses the real problem. Educating a society about conservation, extinction, and waste is a much better option. I'm sure most of the people have no idea of the impact their soup is causing but I expect more simply they just don't care. This culture just doesn't care and will continue to over-hunt/fish/kill until either everything is dead or some other country steps in and stops them - Which is it going to be??!

I think she is extremist, no doubt. I just want to highlight how much extremism we are willing to tolerate.

And, I have said nothing about all Jews. I think you are reading alot into what I wrote.

>> ^ponceleon:

>> ^longde:
The only difference between this girl and her opposition is that her opposition can hold large public rallies freely espousing and rationalizing mass murder. With total impunity.
http://videosift.com/video/Max-Blumenthal-at-a-Pro-Israel-Rally-in-
New-York

Look, don't get me wrong, I am definitely not a fan of Israel, but two wrongs don't make a right. This "moderate" muslim just agreed that rounding up all jews for extermination is a good idea.
Not all jews support Israel or what they do in their poached territories (I sure as hell don't). That said, when someone just knee-jerk says that rounding me up because of what ethnic group I was born into is a good idea, they become an extremist in my eyes and aren't worth shit.

>> ^longde:

The only difference between this girl and her opposition is that her opposition can hold large public rallies freely espousing and rationalizing mass murder. With total impunity.
http://videosift.com/video/Max-Blumenthal-at-a-Pro-Israel-Rally-in-
New-York


Look, don't get me wrong, I am definitely not a fan of Israel, but two wrongs don't make a right. This "moderate" muslim just agreed that rounding up all jews for extermination is a good idea.

Not all jews support Israel or what they do in their poached territories (I sure as hell don't). That said, when someone just knee-jerk says that rounding me up because of what ethnic group I was born into is a good idea, they become an extremist in my eyes and aren't worth shit.

>> ^vaporlock:

Not like the pirates of old. No sandals and orange swim trunks on Blackbeard's crew.


Yeah they are mainly poor fishers who lost their job because of overfishing by western corporations.
Funnily, that overfishing is also the main cause of poaching of endangered species on the main land of africa.
To put it simple: Those guys simply get taken away their main food source (yes, thats fishing) and then people wonder why they try the criminal way.
This world is fucking nuts...

>> ^KnivesOut:

They're whaling in waters where they're not supposed to be. It's not up to the Japanese government because they're outside their legal jurisdiction. They're poaching animals in international waters, or in US waters.
Does that change your ridiculous logical fallacy at all?


The thing is, what the Japanese are doing isn't considered by any government to be "whaling". They may very well be exploiting a flaw in the system that allows them to kill in the name of "research" but they're are well within their rights and the rules of the system to be doing so. The way to stop them is to correct the flaw in the system. But the Sea Shepard Society doesn't want to do that, they want to play pirate, they want to be a spectacle, because it gets them more publicity and more money. "Captain" Watson is a lunatic and an egomaniac. All he cares about is getting his name in the news, no matter who's lives he might be risking. Personally, I couldn't care less about the idiots that join his crews, frozen and drowned trust-fund idiots are at least sparing the gene pool their pompous idiot offspring, but they endanger the crews of the "research" vessels who are just people trying to make a living.

If they are whaling in another nations waters, then by all means, that government should step in and raise hell. Are these anti whalers members of the navy? Are they official representatives of the government in question?

I did make a bit of an assumption while stating my opinion, in with that assumption, I did technically commit a logical fallacy. Since this seems to upset KnivesOut, I will attempt to correct the wording of said opinion.

Ahem:

"While I can not see the future, nor accurately predict the reactions of my fellow man, I propose the following: Had these anti whaling activists been of a different skin color,and nationality, and had they been harassing American fishing vessels, I believe the American government would consider them to be committing acts of terrorism and would take action accordingly."

I know I had a bit of a run-on sentence there, but I figure I can always correct my grammar later.

>> ^KnivesOut:
>> ^LordOderus:
I'm glad their ship got rammed. I don't care one way or the other if the Japanese kill whales. It is not my place to tell the Japanese what they can and can not hunt. That is a decision to be made by the Japanese government. The only reason I side with the Japanese in this case, is because what the folks from Whale Wars are doing would be considered terrorism if it were done to us.
Imagine if the crew of that ship wasn't white, and was harassing American crab fishermen or something of that nature. They would all be locked up in one of our lovely maximum security hotels and interrogated for information on their terror cell connections. It is a ridiculous double standard. If groups of Hindus (to whom cows are sacred) started racing around American cattle ranches on 1.5 million dollar ATVs and harassing farm hands, we would have a whole bunch of arrested (and probably dead) Hindu activists on our hands.
The crew of that little ship should consider themselves lucky that the Japanese aren't as trigger happy as we are in the "civilized west".

They're whaling in waters where they're not supposed to be. It's not up to the Japanese government because they're outside their legal jurisdiction. They're poaching animals in international waters, or in US waters.
Does that change your ridiculous logical fallacy at all?

>> ^LordOderus:
I'm glad their ship got rammed. I don't care one way or the other if the Japanese kill whales. It is not my place to tell the Japanese what they can and can not hunt. That is a decision to be made by the Japanese government. The only reason I side with the Japanese in this case, is because what the folks from Whale Wars are doing would be considered terrorism if it were done to us.
Imagine if the crew of that ship wasn't white, and was harassing American crab fishermen or something of that nature. They would all be locked up in one of our lovely maximum security hotels and interrogated for information on their terror cell connections. It is a ridiculous double standard. If groups of Hindus (to whom cows are sacred) started racing around American cattle ranches on 1.5 million dollar ATVs and harassing farm hands, we would have a whole bunch of arrested (and probably dead) Hindu activists on our hands.
The crew of that little ship should consider themselves lucky that the Japanese aren't as trigger happy as we are in the "civilized west".


They're whaling in waters where they're not supposed to be. It's not up to the Japanese government because they're outside their legal jurisdiction. They're poaching animals in international waters, or in US waters.

Does that change your ridiculous logical fallacy at all?

They had a big report on CNN last night on this - I guess there are certain countries standing up against Japan on this. If anyone can find an online version of the report, I'd be interested to see it again, I only caught it half way through.

My opinion is "Stop Poaching & Killing Whales" but then my voice means nothing. I'm not an environmentalist, but I know when humans have no respect for other creatures. Whales aren't like fish, there aren't thousands of them under the surface. There are only so many pods out there. Why should we let people (who cares about what country they are from), over-fish them into extinction. Aparently the pods they were targeting here were a protected species.

The smashed boat was just a boat - The guys in the boat don't care about their boat - They only care about protecting the whales and put their own lives at risk for their cause. They are out there to interrupt the whalers. Yes they parked their boat in front of the whaler, who in turn could have stopped. They didn't need to just ram through. That's why they call it Whale Wars.

The whalers don't care about the wales or the people, they only care about their profit. Maybe they are just paying the bills but they truly don't care about what they destroy. And that's the bottom line here. Of course the activists will use the footage in their favor if it means they can slow down the company. Their only plan is to cut into the profits so they can slowly put the waling company out of business.

This isn't about who hit who, it is about buying some time. The longer they are not whaling, and the closer the company is to bankruptcy, the more the activists win. This could be a big win, despite the wrecked boat.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
They forgot the school house rules; It doesn't matter how loud your siren is but who's boat is made from carbon fiber and who's from metal!


I think the sound cannons were coming from the whales, as well as the water cannons.

The Japanese ship Shonan Maru, was providing security to Japan's whaling fleet. They go to great lengths to create distractions using aggressive diversions to keep the activists from the "Sea Shepherd & affiliated Ships" busy - Then they send out five or six whalers to suck up every whale within miles - It's like "Clear-cutting" the ocean for it's resources. I'm not an activist but the Japanese have eliminated all of the whales and large fish in their own waters and now spend their time encroaching and often poaching in foreign waters.