Yeah. Exactly.


ONE OF THE WAYS we spend "foolishly" is by giving tax breaks to billionaires so they can spend part of it convincing dumb shetts like you that it's all the people who are workin three jobs and can't barely scrape by - convincin people like you that THOSE people are the problem
-=and=-
------------------->here's the rub
--------------------------------------->

They gotta new plan!
This could be the one that could fix all the problems!

-->Step 1. Spend less on social services
--->Step 2. Give Billionaires EVEN MORE MONEY!

It really makes you wonder how a kid gets like that, so angry and saying crazy shit like, "I'll cut you up with an axe." Wtf!
Clearly the dad cares enough to teach his son a lesson but still. ...and yeah I get it raging hormones and all, I'm sure I was a little angry at that age too, but I never disrespected my elders or people in authority. I see this more and more with the kids in our neighbourhood too (not all obviously) - so many seem so angry. Is it because they spend less time socialising with people face to face and/or the influence of unchecked internet access, etc. Crazy.

He wants the govt to fail and spend less, seems fair he loses some security.

The first one basically was just an asshole, and later clarified that point. He was basically doing a long-winded version saying "She should spend less time on social media and more time practicing if she wants to win."

Name recognition and irony, I suppose.
My diet has been about 90% soylent for the past 7 months and I can't imagine going back. I've reduced my body fat, have more energy and more ambition, I'm healthier, better moods, spend less on food, waste less food, waste less time figuring out what to eat and when I eat the food I actually enjoy it tastes amazing.

Thanks for your "very scientific" definition (just like GenjiKilpatrick's "evidence" for global warming, saying "OMG, Global Warming is real because it was 70 degrees in Georgia!")

No, unlike you, I don't confuse partisanship with data... Nor do I look for arbitrary reasons to discount a person's entire argument because the rules of epistemology suddenly no longer apply. On the contrary, I choose to instead examine what the data actually shows before arriving at my own changing thoughts on the matter.

But I guess, for you, the data isn't as important as the source, so long as your pre-cooked distortions of reality aren't disrupted by something as pesky and difficult to conform to one's beliefs as the FACTS... (remember those?)

But, yes, you are absolutely right about fucking yourselves. Perhaps you should spend less time online and save some electricity. (Or maybe it's too much for you to actually Walk The Talk instead of just bloviating online.)

I went to a gas station recently. Lots of people were pumping gas... And none of them seemed to care very much about your ideas of oil company fellatio. They also didn't seem concerned at all about crackpot climate change "theories"... (Go figure.) You should get out there and yell at them for ruining the planet, ChaosEngine. I was also at an airport recently, too. There were lots of planes burning fuel. You're not making a single dent on oil consumption with your tirades... Perhaps you should try another strategy and see if anyone cares.

(Haha.. Of all the fictional "crises" you could choose to be an alarmist about, you've chosen one on which you have zero impact! But, hey, for all I know, you're just addicted to the adrenaline rush of faux outrage. Lucky for you, I'm here to feed it...

I would love to spend less time thinking about the US and how messed up parts of it are. Unfortunately, I live in a world where that's not possible.

At least until China buys you out, the US is still the biggest influence on the rest of the world.. economically, politically and militarily.

Right now, NZ is part of the TPPA talks that will directly affect the way country is run.

So yeah, I comment on the US.

Besides, this is the 21st century. The people in my life are not decided by anything as archaic as national boundaries or even geography. I have friends and family all over the globe.

And @Mordhaus Norway has
- 6th highest per capita income (US is 10)
- 3rd highest educational attainment (US is 5)
- 5th highest on the anti corruption index (US doesn't even make top 10)
- 10th on environmental health (again, US doesn't make top 10)
- 8th in the "Good country" index (US is 21)
- 7th on Forbes list of "best for business" (US is 18)

On pretty much any ranking you look at, Norway is rated as a great place to live. Objectively, it outperforms the USA on almost every metric. As does NZ and Ireland

The US is actually a great country. It has an amazing natural landscape, has fantastic science and technology and the people are (for the most part) incredibly friendly. But it's held back by its refusal to acknowledge its faults and its frankly appalling political system. You do lots of things extremely well, but self-reflection is not one of them.

Funnily enough, I met my wife at a party like that too.

I'd kinda assumed that party ~= "Bunch of your friends + maybe one or two new people".

It also depends on your stage of life. I'm 37. This might sound terrible, but I don't want new friends. I'm perfectly happy with the ones I have and new ones would only mean spending less time with existing friends/family.

OTOH, if you're in your early 20s, crap parties are an important character forming experience:)

Nah, I think he's saying that there is a cultural bias towards being overly cautious on inflation. Whereas the kind of fiscal policy size needed to stimulate Greece is in excess of what politics would allow in Germany, who is effectively dictating Greece's debt terms at the moment.

I mean, right now the eurozone as a whole is risking falling into deflation because of this cautiousness, where people spend less in expectation of lower prices, the value of debts rise and you get secular stagnation a la Japan's lost decade.

<< Well thank (G)god and quantum theory and the high-priestesses of non-linearity (Hail Eris) for assisting the few brave and hapless souls in the quest watcher-man, I'd imagined in the most heated of moments to be dealing with creatures that looked like humans who were in fact, mindless automaton designed to make my experience on Earth a living hell of sorts...That said, if everyone shopped at Walmart the few times a year I go in there and spend less than $20 bucks atta time, every one of their locations would be a black hole of unused square footage slated for demolition and re-acquisition. They'd make for some great multi-lane bowling alleys, skating rinks, or homeless shelters-

Just my opinion here, but I think there are better ways to solve the issues with soaring profits while paying people nearly nothing for said profits.

Negate tax loop holes. If you're making a billion more each year, you shouldn't be showing a 0 dollar tax burden year after year. Incentivize expanding (lower taxes, etc), heavily tax companies who sit on their money or offshore nearly everything but still call themselves a US company. You should not get both the benefit of low cost offshoring, while the US has to maintain a military presence, infrastructure, and other safety/security institutions that allow you to operate your business and live in safety as you do.

Regulations on speculation that have made a lot of markets spiral out of control. I'm no economist, but when you see prices rise and fall based on rumors and possibilities...look at fuel prices especially. People shouldn't be making money on commodities when they have no hand in adding value to said commodity. If they aren't processing/shipping/extracting/packaging/ANYTHING but sitting on something waiting for a price spike, you need to take that avenue of profit out of the equation. There are places out there with enough buying power they can literally buy all supply, hold it for a few days to jack up the price and sell it off. Creating false shortages should get you a kick to the nuts.

Basically put profit back into production and manufacturing instead of offshoring and screwing with markets to get profit.

Leads to stagnation and often times inferior products as people race to the bottom to drive costs down to increase profits.

For stagnation, look at the broadband market. They have done jack and shit to improve it for a long time now for the majority of the the US, there is absolutely no reason for them to because monopolies and ability to drive costs down while continuing to jack up the rates and influence laws in their favor.

Inferior products, a good example of this would be the Craftsman line of products. Or hell something as simple as kitchen utensils...they look the same until you've had em for a bit and your forks and spoons are bending and not holding up in the dishwasher like they should getting kinda "off" looking.....probably made in China or some other Asian nation with inferior stainless steel. Then you got your US made ones, they might be more expensive but they still make them the same way they did your grandparents silverware...which your grandparents left to your parents and they still look better than the inferior china ones.



This is why I don't believe offshoring lowers consumer prices, because you might spend less on a single thing..but it likely won't last as long and you end up either buying a "good quality one" or repeatedly buying shitty ones. I do however believe offshoring lowers COMPANY costs, and increases their profits. Rarely does stuff actually end up cheaper once they offshore it, and if it does it usually comes with a swift decline in quality.


Lots of ...."off" ways of thinking about things that have become ingrained into the media and people's minds. And I think it's intentional. Minimum wage debate puts the focus on the "greedy" worker, and gives them another reason to move more jobs offshore "to maintain low prices for consumers" yet the company profits continue to go up. IE they pay less to make it, you pay the same or more to buy it. And people are too busy blaming joe schmoe for his minimum wages to notice they just keep doing this shit.

You had me at "Superman's butt".

EDIT: They spend less than a minute on butts.

*promote spending less time with family + being too productive at work!

We learn more and spend less money with Jet Propulsion Labs' mechnical gizmos doing the exploring for us than with men: we've learned more about the moon than those guys who went there brought back through robotic exploration. Also, as has been demonstrated, private enterprise builts better exploratory rockets. So why rely on NASA for anything: in fact, NASA, who just happened to take over administration of JPL, is now trying to take all the credit from JPL as NASA's doings.