documentaries always have a certain bias.
we all do when trying to make an argument or point.this should not come as a surprise.
people have a right to their own opinions and ideologies,they just dont have a right to their own facts and to impose disinformation in order to manipulate using a contrived argument.

@heropsycho
your comment was well thought out but i do find a few statements you made a tad...disconcerting.
you question the stay at home mother as to her reasons for staying home.
they may be many but the main reason most stay-at-home moms..well..stay at home is for the children.which has been statistically proven to be beneficial for the well-being of not only the home but the children as well.
you wonder why she is not at work.
should everybody get on the hampster wheel and sacrifice the welfare of their family?
has the american dream so devolved as to be almost non-existent?
should every family become debt slaves?
and those who do not should be criticized and derided for not being one?

another part of your comment mentioned outsourcing and the possible reason was lack of education and training.
i agree with that comment but i feel it is missing some vital contextual references:
1.america was a manufacturing giant during the 50's 60's and 70's mainly due to WWII and the decimation of europes manufacturing (bombs tend to do that).
2.while the IT business is booming and i agree that we do need more training,you failed to mention that these "imported" workers tend to make far less than their american counterparts.
3."outsourcing" is a media manufactured word to fit the narrative but fails to identify what it really is:slave labor in third world countries.
4.you also failed to mention the REASON why so many american manufacturing companies "outsource" which is basically sweetheart deals and tax havens,nevermind the total lack of labor safety practices,humane working conditions,child labor laws.these companies dont go to third world countries due to lack of labor or training but rather so they can pay an 8 yr old girl 37 cents a day to make your nike sneakers.

so i disagree with your conclusion that the biggest problem facing the US economy is training and education (a factor but not the biggest problem).
the biggest problem the US economy faces is:two full scale wars and a "police action" all funded on borrowed money.
public elections funded by private entities (corporations and financial institutions)which leads to a corrupt legislature who works for their financial backers and no longer for the people.
a bail out of financial institutions due to their being "too big to fail" and are now ironically bigger than ever.
the absolute and utter failure of the fourth estate to watchdog the powerful in order to inform the public for fear of losing access to the very power they were charged to watchdog.because if they had done their job iraq would have never happened nor would the housing and consequent financial crisis.

these are just a few of the things from a very long list but i feel they are substantial in where we are now.

@GeeSussFreeK, I think you just need to think about it more. It's not really that hard to realize that there's no harm really being done to straight people when gays get married, and that there's a pretty serious harm being done to gay people in denying them the ability to marry who they want.

Maybe the thought grosses out some straight people, but nothing is actually being done to them at all, while denying gay people equal legal status involves depriving them of something very important.

I do think developing nuclear bombs was done without any real attempt to think about the moral consequences of creating such a weapon. Given that they exist, it seems to me that a lot of things are justifiable in the name of keeping them from being used, considering how harmful they could be. That just makes me dislike them all the more.

I'm not sure why you'd ever be off the hook (morally speaking) from looking at the consequences of your actions. If cheetos and soda are made with slave labor, or are made via a process that's killing the environment, maybe it's not moral for you to buy them.

As for this:

Even if consequentialism were a valid moral dogma, it fails to be readily applied in beings that are mortal and can only factor in very very limited scopes.

This is as good an explanation as any for why liberals tend not to be particularly judgmental about people, unless their actions can clearly be seen as causing harm.

I don't really blame people for buying tube socks at Walmart, even though it's essentially just fueling modern-day slavery. I do think people should, if they want to be a better person, pay closer attention to that kind of stuff, but I don't blame them for not investing the time and energy to know. I'd rather we just do better about making slavery illegal, or at least set up trade agreements so we refuse to import goods from countries with labor conditions below a certain minimum level...

I can understand why you're tempted to reject the idea out of hand -- it's hard to suddenly realize that you probably should spend more time thinking about the ways in which your actions might harm others, rather than telling yourself you have a right to cause all the harm you want, as long as you follow a couple simple rules.

I don't really care if you adopt it as your own moral guide, but if you're interested in understanding the moral reasoning behind most left-wing people, it's essentially the underlying mechanic we use for judging what's right and wrong, and should help you understand why liberals come to different conclusions about moral questions than you.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Why not answer some tough questions?

@blankfist, since you seem to be too chicken to take up DFT's challenge, how about I try to play devil's advocate and try to argue the libertarian position for you.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Underregulated markets in early America resulted in slavery, child labor, monopolies, labor abuse and the great depression. Why should we want to return to those dark days?

We wouldn't return to those days. To take on each in turn:

1. Slavery
   
   No one would be compelled by violence to do anything they like. People may choose to sell their entire lifetime worth of labor voluntarily if they so choose, but they will not be coerced to do so with violence.
   
   
2. Child labor
   
   Again, no one would be compelled by violence to do (or not do) things. If children don't want to work, they may choose not to. But if you're 9 years old and want to work 80 hours a week to help your family, what right does the government have to coerce people not to?
   
   
3. Monopolies
   
   Natural monopolies, where the cost of entering a sector of the market outweighs the expected return, are just part of market economics, and should be tolerated. Market leaders that become a de facto monopoly, but do not actually enjoy 100% market share (such as Microsoft Windows), are not monopolies, and also a natural result of the free market, so government must not interfere.
   
   Government sponsored monopolies, like the USPS, are evil in ways the others are not because their existence is based on violent coercion, not natural market choice.
   
   
4. Labor abuse
   
   Everyone is free to quit and seek employment elsewhere. It isn't abuse if you voluntarily subject yourself to it.
   
   
5. The Great Depression
   
   This was caused by government interference in the market, an no amount of historical or economic facts will ever convince me otherwise.
   

Of course there's no guarantee that none of these dark things will come back, I'm just saying it's totally legitimate for them to come back provided no violence is used to coerce people. Coercion in the form of economic desperation is totally okay though.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Deregulation and privatization always seem to result in massive unemployment, economic inequity, inflation and corruption. Is this the desired effect?

Deregulation in Chile is a huge success story. Ditto for China, Ireland, southeast Asia, etc.

On the other hand, the economies of Cuba and North Korea have remained depressingly stagnant. Everyone's equally poor.

To use John McCain's turn of phrase "I'm not worried about who's getting a bigger slice of the pie, I'm trying to grow the pie!"

Just...don't ask me about Sweeden, they give me a rash with their high equality, high tax, high growth model. Must be something unique and exceptional about Scandinavians that's superior to us Americans.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
There is no evidence to suggest a libertarian society would function at all. Why should I join you on blind faith?

It's about doing what's right. When Lincoln tried to free the slaves, no one knew how the economy could function without slave labor. They did it anyway, because you have to do what's morally right!

In this case, we're talking about ending violent coercion, because everyone knows that only people who work for the government ever use violent coercion. Eliminate government, and it'll be gone forever!

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Why do corporations fund your movement? What do they have to gain out of supporting your cause?

Good question, it must be patriotism, or altruism. Rich people are actually really nice, and very generous!

They're willing to adopt a radically unregulated, untaxed world, knowing that it's somehow against their interests. Much more altruistic than agreeing to let their taxes go up so the government can waste it on children's education, helping the poor, the sick, the elderly, maintaining roads...

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Why does this American version of libertarianism require absolute fealty to market capitalism? Doesn't that kind of totalitarianism go against the concept of liberty?

No, you must adopt my narrow conception of liberty! Government telling you that you have to serve black people = tyranny, businesses telling you that you have to submit to a drug test as a condition of employment = liberty.

Once properly understood, it's about fealty to nonviolence, at least government-based nonviolence. Corporations using violence to enforce their rules on the use of their property is self-defense, and therefore totally morally justifiable. Duh.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Why is it that violence, blackmail and intimidation seem to be the primary ways of bringing these kinds of free market changes to other countries around the world? Liberty at the butt of a gun?

Only governments do those things! Wealthy businessmen would never go along with that, because they're all paragons of moral virtue. They'd never let a thing like considerable personal gain motivate them to call for these things in the first place...

[Wow, this sorta tumbled off topic but we'll see where it goes.]

      1.] Slavery bit

Declining profitability & the industrial revolution ended slavery.
Federal regulations were implemented later, mostly as political platforms.

If you're Britain, and the paid-workers of Brazil or Cuba can produce more sugarcane at lower prices compared to slave-workers.. which side of slavery would you support?

If you're an American plantation owner, how much money are you willing to waste rebuilding your business after every, rapidly increasing slave revolt?

If you're an American or European Labor Union supporter, are you going to buy sugar or textiles from companies that don't pay their workers?

[No, you might even start a petition to enact legislation.]

      2.] Regulation ≠ Improvement

You and @peggedbea seem to think I'm implying that oligarchs should be allowed off some magical leash called regulation.

What I should have articulated first, was the understanding that:
Regulation & incentive - sticks & carrots - work counter-intuitively, more often than not.

Think about it. Is it the people typing up the regulations or the management?
Is it the workers writing up the wage laws or the owners?

If you're a small business owner who you can't afford to pay your workers minimum wage, you're out of the game before you can even start.

Regulations are the Oligarchs best tool to maintain or expand their power.

Mostly because folks like you & Bea legitimize their authority thru your support of regulation as the best thing since sliced bread.

      Lastly

While I support truly free economic exchange, I also support single payer universal health care.

It's possible for them both to exist together at once.

The sooner more people are allowed into the market..
the sooner capitalist fundamentalist healthcare oligarchs will be overlooked because someone offers a better service.

[Again, are you gonna buy from the small, local owner whose minimum wage is slightly below your standards.

..Or the giant multinational conglomerate who uses Southeast Asian slave labor.]

These things tend to work themselves out.

Attempting to elicit obedience from the oligarch only causes problem for all of us you aren't powerful enough to game the system like they can.

Hence, why free economic exchange - yes even the darker side - is necessary for true liberty.



>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

http://videosift.com/video/Ber
nie-Sanders-slaps-down-Rand-Paul-Health-care-as-slavery?loadcomm=1#comment-1205705

see what slave labor can do for you?

>> ^bobknight33:

Government employees should not be allowed to unionize. It just wrong. If you want to serve the government then fine. But don't soak the taxpayers by getting union wages and benefits. We work too. We have families to support. I don't need to support lazy union workers.

What evidence is there that anyone involved in a union in Wisconsin is "lazy"? Remember, you're talking about school teachers and trash collectors here.

Why is there any difference between public and private sector unions? In both cases they exist because people have a basic human right to assemble and negotiate contracts. Are public servants somehow not human in your mind? Don't they have families to support too?
>> ^bobknight33:
Unions are bad for any business. Look at all the major companies that have failed or have been greatly crippled such as the Steel industry, Auto Industry, Airline industry.

The Auto industry is a bit broad, Ford is doing great with unions still in place, and without any government loans. GM took a government loan, and is now doing fine with unions still in place. Chrysler's problems were that they kept making ugly, sucky cars, even when they were merged with Mercedes. Hopefully now that they've merged with FIAT, we'll see an improvement in the quality of their designs.

The Steel Industry I know a lot less about, but the main thing that killed them there was bad trade agreements. It's tough for a country that believes in worker safety and humane treatment of workers to compete with countries that don't really shy away from using slave labor to do labor-intensive high-risk work.

The Airline Industry is in trouble because oil is already fucking expensive, and will continue to get more so. We're likely to soon find ourselves in a world where only millionaires will be able to pay the ticket prices that would make air travel profitable for an airline.

But at the most fundamental level, I don't get your motivations here. Why do you see unions as being some sort of unmitigated evil, while lining the pockets of millionaires and billionaires as some sort of ultimate good?

I think you're overstating your case on the slavery thing, Morganth, especially in the Roman Empire of the first century, though you do have a point about the fundamental differences between the old/new slavery, i.e. the systematic destruction of entire nations for slave labor instead of it being just a natural byproduct of war/conquest. It is no accident that slaves were largely visually indistinguishable from the general populace, the Roman Senate knew and feared that if they were easily recognizable then they could easily identify each other and therefore join arms and rebel against their masters (to the ire of the prevailing opinion of the day which spawned numerous proposals of this which failed to pass many times in the Senate).

The majority of slaves in the time were the absolute property of their owners who reserved the right to whip, beat, and kill them with no fear of punishment (again though there were many "charitable" masters but your case is a bit overstated), pending the various forms of either outright or payed, formal or informal manumission if their masters even granted them that (not to mention the carrot-on-a-stick of just the possibility of a freedom which may never come kept slaves in line and obedient, removing the impetus of even trying to improve one's lot in life). This was no guaranteed right by any stretch of imagination. To say that the average slave was no worse off than the average citizen just had me honestly and genuinely scratching my head for a bit.

Your issue with Harris on slavery is a matter of degree not kind.

Out of curiosity, what was your friend/employer's business?

Also, if he was employing that many people, it's almost certain that he owned a corporation. You can't get workers comp as a sole proprietor & you don't have limited liability.>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

Like Frisk said.
Minimum wage kills jobs. Basic supply and demand.
If you set a fixed price, you throw of equilibrium which results in a shortage i.e. unemployment
My former employer and friend had to close his small business because his mandatory license fees doubled and minimum wage rose just two bucks in two years.
He employed 8 people and barely broke even each month.
The 24% wage increase cost him an extra 5,000 a year.
Can't say the same for corporations tho.
Walmart's minimum wage should be at least 8 or 9 with all the money they save twisting producers arms & using slave labor.>> ^gwiz665:
Make tipping illegal, raise minimum wages.

Like Frisk said.

Minimum wage kills jobs. Basic supply and demand.
If you set a fixed price, you throw of equilibrium which results in a shortage i.e. unemployment

My former employer and friend had to close his small business because his mandatory license fees doubled and minimum wage rose just two bucks in two years.

He employed 8 people and barely broke even each month.

The 24% wage increase cost him an extra 5,000 a year.

Can't say the same for corporations tho.
Walmart's minimum wage should be at least 8 or 9 with all the money they save twisting producers arms & using slave labor.



>> ^gwiz665:

Make tipping illegal, raise minimum wages.

you guys are focusing on the word "progress" - i think the focus is on the word "crazy" ... and in that regard, segregation and slavery wasn't really crazy to anyone reaping the profits of the systems in place.

Slavery, in actuality, yes - crazy. But in financial terms, a business practice to maximize profits. This country has always been ruled by the landowners and the wealthy and slave labor has always been used. First african americans, now foreign workers at slave's wages... including migrant workers.
The elite still have slaves, kept in bondage by wages far below a living wage.

@blankfist, since you seem to want my thoughts on this (but for some reason, wanted to edit the comment to look like you were just clearing your throat), I'll give you my rebuttal.

I'll take his three points in reverse order.

#3 about regulatory uncertainty is one of these universal conservative economic fantasies. There's no evidence that this really has any kind of macroeconomic effect. Certainly the usual conservative and business advocacy groups always get a laundry list of businessmen to all line up and say how they won't be able to function if they have to pay compensation to workers injured on the job, have to check to see if the products they produce are poisonous or otherwise unsafe, can't dump toxic chemicals into lakes and rivers, can't use slave labor, etc, etc. They always fight against efforts to stop them from being able to leverage negative market externalities for extra profit.

#2 The Yahoo Finance link itself debunks this, because what Schiff says is a flat-out lie. Here's what that link says:

In contrast to Schiff's warning, the law does the following, according to Reuters:

“The bill would set up an "orderly liquidation" process that the government could use in emergencies, instead of bankruptcy or bailouts, to dismantle firms on the verge of collapse.

“The goal is to end the idea that some firms are 'too big to fail' and avoid a repeat of 2008, when the Bush administration bailed out AIG and other firms but not Lehman Brothers. Lehman's subsequent bankruptcy froze capital markets.

“Under the new rule, firms would have to have 'funeral plans' that describe how they could be shut down quickly.”

Liberal critics also question whether the bill addresses "Too Big to Fail", but they're talking about limits on the overall size of banks.

#1 I've covered this fantasy of Schiff's about the nature of the crisis before. Here are two quick points I always make, which you never respond to: low interest rates don't create moral hazard, and Fannie and Freddie weren't even remotely the biggest players in the subprime mortgage-backed security space, much less the chief source of moral hazard.

All the moral hazard was created by the financial industry thinking it had found a way to insulate itself from the risks involved in bad mortgages using CDO's and CDS's -- without relying on government backing of any kind.

I'm happy to go into much more depth on #1 if you like, but you've never really demonstrated that you have any interest in listening to what I have to say on the topic with anything like an open mind.

Oh, and liberals agree that this bill doesn't really do enough in addressing the underlying problems that led to the crisis (the real ones). Basically, they say there's not enough rating agency reform, no leverage caps on investment banks, no Glass-Steagall separation of traditional and investment banks, no commitment to break up banks that grow beyond a certain size, etc.

In fact, from what I've read, the strongest part of this bill is exactly the part Schiff lied about -- it should prevent future Congresses from being forced to do taxpayer-funded bailouts. Instead, it'll be like the standard FDIC process for failed banks, only scaled up to deal with corporations of this size and complexity. Under that process, the bank shareholders, owners, and management get wiped out and fired, but the bank's creditors and depositors are made whole. The bank fails, but it doesn't take a huge chunk of the economy with it when it goes.

But corporations ARE merchants and merchants ARE the ruling class. Who protects us from the merchant monarchy? That's my question. How many times will you avoid my question? I believe this is the 5th time I've asked, for the record.

Example: Zorloc is sick of the powerful Mars Mining Co abusing the Shnnarr'Ghol people and forcing them to choose between abusive labor in the Adamantium mines or starvation. So, after stumbling across an ancient alien artifact which is worth krillions of space credits, he buys the Mars Mining Co and pays the workers a fair wage, until the old Mars Mining Co opens up a new business, the Jupiter Mining Co. Zorloc cannot compete with Jupiter's wage slave labor and is forced to return his mine to old, abusive conditions. At first he feels bad, but eventually, after several protests from his former workmates, he grows to loathe them and feels entitled to what he refers to as 'the sweat of his brow'.

I think the Renaissance Faire is in town. Live the dream.

You moron , I have seen the full series how about you engage your brain gears.

the piont is the nazies didnt get away with it and they fucked it up , they could have exsploited the laber far more efficently ,

all the clever countries now are getting away with it , exploiting the 3rd world is how its ment to be done.
the nazies just didnt have the imaginatoin to do it properly.

the advantage of doing things totaly overseeies with the most deprived natoins is that no other natoins give a shit and the populatoins of the natoin your raping are evan more poweless to do annything , becuse they dont know anny better and allso they are to far islated from the controlers to do annything.

allso its a waist of money and time puting them all in camps and killing them all , why not let them maintain themselfs just make sure you keep it so they can never be in a positoin to actualy earn the true amount of income they deserve.

The reasoin the germans faild is the top brass was so concernd in setting up a new rome/empire. im sure if they had got away with it everyone would hail the germans as sucsesfull conqerors and masters of a new civalisatoin . In the same way allot of people have this bizar respect for the romans and how gr8 they were , despite the fact that there gratness was most likely bult of the backs of slave labor murder and genoside.

a more recent example than romans would be How the british raped and exploited people around most the world and still remain respectable.
the germans were just noobs.


The whole genoside thing repatedly happens and we still dont seem to give a shit it would be nice if people were educated about genoside in general and how easily it happens.


Intresting genosides

Mao Ze-Dong (China, 1958-61 and 1966-69, Tibet 1949-50)

Slobodan Milosevic (Yugoslavia, 1992-99)

Kim Il Sung (North Korea, 1948-94)

Pol Pot (Cambodia, 1975-79)

colinisatoin of amerca ( admitedly allot of it was desize but the british and other people that moved to USA compelaty fucked up a whole load of people)


I dont know if u can class the reacent wars in iraq a genoside , or maby veatnam war. personaly im not so sure how much intentoin matters , in the sence that if u intend to wipe out a natoin of people or if thats just what happens. in the end if a whole load of people end up dying then from the perspective of that group of people its a genoside. the only difference would be if they died because they were activly in combat with the otherside running at them with guns , or if they were cavileans that were killed through a genetic / gealogical asoceatoin .





>> ^demon_ix:

If you had actually watched the video instead of just trolling, you would have seen that's exactly what they did. They set up factories in Poland to take advantage of the Coal resources in the area and used the prisoners as forced labor to build weapons for the German war effort.
>> ^westy:
~Its still fine to murder people or just forget its hapaaning , you just canot do it in camps .
if the nazies were clever they would have just exsploited 3rd world labor and only invaded countries that had pore militaries but strong resources.

>> ^thumpa28:

Haha anyone who doesnt agree with you, who calls you on your bullshit is 'a fascist'? do you even know what fascism is? Go out, do some reading, come back when youve grown a clue. But in the meantime, thanks for proving my point about brainless idiots with no idea what theyre talking about.
edit oh and by the way as much fun as it is trading insults, if you wanna make an ACTUAL point that would at least be vaguely interesting, if your vocab stretches because there are lots oof more fun places I can spend time insulting people.


You are fascism. The fascist says that it's okay to bomb and kill people as long as you get what you want. The ends always justify the means. And that is exactly what you promoted in your cock-sucking piece of shit post above.

"Im going to leave an irate comment about how evil the americans are, then go back to munching my cheap food, buy some cheap petrol and wear these cheap clothes without giving a toss about where they come from."


You justified the murder of those Iraqi's because you seem to think that we can't munch cheap food unless we shed their blood, or have cheap oil, or whatever else you seem to value as the epitome of the American lifestyle.

And like others here, you justify slave labor overseas because we just can't seem to live without $5 T-shirts and $20 cargo shorts.

It's bullshit. We're not in Iraq or Afghanistan to protect America. Those people weren't killed to protect America.

Yet you justify it as such. I am not the brainless idiot, but I'm surely writing to one.

>> ^mentality:
>> ^rougy:
The special irony about this film is the stark contrast revolving around the beads themselves.
On the production side, in China, the people are busting their butts to meet quota and quality expectations. They are punished with wage cuts if they fail to make enough beads in a day, or if the beads aren't up to standard. They are confined to a compound and allowed to leave about once a week, if they're lucky. If they're lucky, they make $75 a month.
Contrast that with the Mardi Gras crowd. Each float in each parade throws out a minimum of $500 of beads to the crowd. Most of those beads are thrown away after the party as if they were trash.
There is no clearer example of how the third world suffers in order to maintain the first worlds decadent lifestyle.

This reminds me of reading about new immigrants coming to American in the early 20th century, looking for employment. Many would end up in cities like New York working for 16+ hours a day, 7 days a week, for pennies a day. And from this adversity there were some amazing success stories, embodiments of the American Dream. Criticize globalization all you want, but having the opportunity to work for a living is infinitely better than having no opportunity at all and starving.


Slave labor! It works!