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>> ^quantumushroom:

I was 100% against the failouts, but not much you can do against a leviathan government made that way by worshipers of leviathan government as the solution to every problem. You don't create a Kong then act surprised when Kong does what he wants instead of what you want, do you?


If I recall, Bush pushed for the bailout. Here is the Fox News article.


Due to increasingly efficient software and other tech advances, over time a job that once required a thousand workers can be done with only 300. It's called "creative destruction" and yeah, it requires you to be on the ball.


I agree with you. This happened to the TV repairmen in the 80s when the Japanese firms starting making better TVs. It's a problem that we will have to deal with regularly. It happened, and it will happen again. If it wasn't for prescriptions, most General Physicians would be out of the job today as internet self-diagnostics have become extremely popular in the last 10 years. We still subsidize farmers, cotton growers, and steelworkers. I say let's drop them! The same rule should apply to all. If we are willing to support outsourcing, then we should be willing to cut all subsidies to farmers, oil companies, pharmaceuticals, etc. I'm all for that.

I've never been offered a job by a poor man, have you? Unless you're a vote-buying politician, you shouldn't overly concern yourself that someone else has more than you, nor blame them. Economics is not a zero-sum game.

I don't see your point at all here. People do not want to tax the rich more, they just want repeal the tax breaks that Bush implemented. Unless you know otherwise, over the ENTIRE lifespan of these tax breaks, the economy has been on a downhill. How can you justify them then? Remember this is tax breaks over income only, if the rich invest their money into their businesses, they are never taxed on that money anyways.

are you talking about the deregulation of the banking system and Wall Street that led to not just this crash but the previous one? because, yeah... the oh-so-lovable working class were behind that

Oh, no, more about the Let's-Give-Free-Houses-To-People-We-Know-Can't-Pay-For-Them-But-That's-The-Banks'-Problem-We-Just-Buy-Votes-From-The-Poor-Act.

The left likes to call it 'deregulation' as if that were a dropping of vital safeguards keeping the wealthy in check. It was more like a creating an opportunity for certain parties--not all of them wealthy--to take stupid risks thanks to government offering to cover their butts with taxpayer largesse. Not the same thing.

or the banking bailouts, where instead of using the money to cover the banking losses (see above) wasn't used to get lending going again, but for banks to consolidate and buy each other out... leading to banks that are even more TOO BIG TO FAIL

I was 100% against the failouts, but not much you can do against a leviathan government made that way by worshipers of leviathan government as the solution to every problem. You don't create a Kong then act surprised when Kong does what he wants instead of what you want, do you?

and how exactly is Trickle-Down Economics, which have been repeated over and over by the rich as reasons not to tax them, not completely horsesh_t considering the last 30yrs?
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/23/7927178-the-koch-brothers-graph

Why do liberals insist on calling 1% paying 40% of all taxes "not being taxed"? They're being taxed plenty already, and if you try to confiscate the rest, they'll just beam it overseas or keep it in tax-free products where it won't get invested or circulate. And that's ignoring the moral issue of why someone gets taxed proportionately higher for the 'crime' of having more?

of course, regarding that link, I assume your first response is... "Well Rachel Maddows, that's all I need to know about that link"

No, but I'm not sure what the point of that link was, really. Due to increasingly efficient software and other tech advances, over time a job that once required a thousand workers can be done with only 300. It's called "creative destruction" and yeah, it requires you to be on the ball.

I will say, if you already don't, you should lobby for some rich interests... I'm sure they got a teet for you... because you sure a capable job of touting the rhetoric without providing any concrete details

I've never been offered a job by a poor man, have you? Unless you're a vote-buying politician, you shouldn't overly concern yourself that someone else has more than you, nor blame them. Economics is not a zero-sum game.









>> ^packo:

>> ^quantumushroom:
The average oh-so-lovable working class stiff is chock-full of wrongful assumptions about business, law and government.
The most harm has been done and money wasted in the past 60 years by governments trying to guarantee an equality of outcomes.

are you talking about the deregulation of the banking system and Wall Street that led to not just this crash but the previous one? because, yeah... the oh-so-lovable working class were behind that
or the banking bailouts, where instead of using the money to cover the banking losses (see above) wasn't used to get lending going again, but for banks to consolidate and buy each other out... leading to banks that are even more TOO BIG TO FAIL
and how exactly is Trickle-Down Economics, which have been repeated over and over by the rich as reasons not to tax them, not completely horsesh_t considering the last 30yrs?
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/23/7927178-the-k
och-brothers-graph
of course, regarding that link, I assume your first response is... "Well Rachel Maddows, that's all I need to know about that link"
I will say, if you already don't, you should lobby for some rich interests... I'm sure they got a teet for you... because you sure a capable job of touting the rhetoric without providing any concrete details

Poor people are poor because they make poor economic or social decisions, the same way rich people can be made poor. Fortunately most people learn not to make the same mistakes.

"So, if everyone in the world worked hard enough, could everyone be a millionaire?"

Why is this a 'clever' question? The answer is no, because not every nation in the world has a capitalist system which supports the trade of valuable goods and services for money, or heavily taxes citizenry to the point being "extra" productive is worth it.

The idea that economics is a zero-sum game and that the system is hopelessly rigged are left wing shibboleths. Outside of black markets, there is no such thing as "unregulated capitalism." The socialists have seen to that.




>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Great sift, Bill is really getting to the heart of conservative psychology here, which reminds me...
I had a conversation with a conservative friend a few weeks ago, and the conservative used the typical 'poor people are poor because they don't work hard enough' spiel. I responded, "so if a poor person works hard enough, he or she could become a millionaire?" "Yes", the conservative said. (The trap is sprung.) "So, if everyone in the world worked hard enough, could everyone be a millionaire?" No response - the conservative was literally speechless. Put that one in your quiver.

@raverman: "The inequality of distribution of wealth has to be fixed INSIDE the corporations remuneration for effort."

If I found a corporation, and never go public, why should you have any right to the profits of the corporation, other than the normal payment of taxes?

What, will you forcefully nationalize my corporation and take it away from me, to give it to the workers? There's a name for that.

@jmzero: "As such, it's perfectly possible to think of the "poor getting poorer" if their relative income isn't growing as fast as others' incomes... the gap in income can still have social consequences."

How? If all the poor suddenly earned $60k a year in constant dollars and could afford all the health care, food, and whatever else they wanted, do you think there's going to be "social consequences" because Warren Buffet and his friends made an extra billion that year?

No, there wouldn't be.

You have to both look at the percentage of the pie each income quintile is taking, but also the size of the pie. Economics is not a zero-sum game, which is a mistake most of the people make when talking about income inequality.

1. Why is it that the more we move away from social democracy and towards fundamentalist capitalism, the more stratified our culture becomes. With record high profits, record low taxes, deregulation of the financial sector and privatization of the government, why is there more corruption, more inequality, more violence, more war, more unemployment, more inflation, more poverty and more misery rather than less. Why are your beliefs so at odds with reality?

And also, individualism is a zero sum game by definition - my me mine. Collectivism is a ‘multi-sum’ game by definition - us we ours. You have it completely backwards. You can’t have it both ways. A functioning democracy works in concert with markets and regulates them to make sure they remain working in a 'multi-sum' manner.

2. You didn't explain why countries that lean more towards social democracy have a happier, healthier, better off populous than countries that lean more towards deregulated markets? Do you dispute this disparity? If so, back it up. Why is it that the more we stray from the New Deal in our own country, the worse our country suffers?

3. Liberals oppose human science? As in eugenics? Liberals prioritize tribalism over science? What does that even mean? Knowledge is useless unless it can make you money? This section is incomprehensible. This is an area of argument I've not heard before. I'd be interested to hear you flesh it out in a more straightforward manner.

4. Cool, let’s get to the heart of the problem:

What does capitalism have to do with liberty? Doesn’t it seem manipulative to define your partisan economic outlook as the embodiment of liberty? How would you feel if I started using social democracy and liberty as the same word? (note to self: fun argument applications here.) How would unregulated markets deal with chattel or wage slavery, labor abuse, environmental destruction, violence, unemployment, vast social inequity, or other kinds of oppression? Why would unregulated markets care that people are suffering?

Why has there never been a successful free market society?

Why is it that the individual tenets of the free market (lowering taxes,lowering wages,deregulation,privatization,austerity) seem to have such a negative and destructive effect on society?

@dystopianfuturetoday

1. "well, if everyone works hard enough, can everyone be rich?" Of course not. It's a pie in the sky.

One of the biggest differences between careerists and collectivists is that careerists view society as a multi-sum game rather than a zero-sum game. (In a multi-sum game, the more one person contributes, the more he and everyone else benefits. In a zero-sum game, if one person gains, another must lose, and the balance is always zero.) Steve Jobs revolutionizing technology 5 times didn't make everyone else poorer, it made them even more lucky than they already are.

Liberalism is created by a genetic 'yuck factor' against hierarchy, so liberals feel that we can only be happy if we're well-off relative to our neighbors, rather than well-off in more absolute terms --that is, relative to the 99.99% of humankind throughout human history that were poorer than us.



2. In places with stronger social democracies like Belgium, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, the UK (among others) you see happier, healthier people and far less suffering, poverty and unemployment.

Those places are wealthy because they're filled with white people and they inherited infrastructure from previous generations. They could run just about any government policies and they'd still have high academic test scores. Use the same measurement on the US (only count white people (or count Asian Americans also)) and the US performs even better than Europe on just about all metrics (crime rates, academic test scores, health and medicine, etc.)



3. "Still, these people are generally anti science"

As soon as liberals stop opposing the human sciences, they can criticize others for being anti-science. I left academia to become a capitalist because I realized liberals were always going to prioritize tribalism over science, so the professional pursuit of knowledge was useless unless it's for the purposes of making money. Indeed, they view it as bad faith to even bring up the human sciences, despite their importance to human knowledge.



4. "@chilaxe I challenge you to be more critical with your politics; to question what you've been taught, who taught it to you, and what these people stand to gain from your support?"

I accepted your challenge years ago and became critical of my liberal upbringing. My entire family's liberal, and 95% of the people I've ever met are liberal. (I grew up in northern Califiornia.) I began to question what I'd been taught by my teachers and professors, 100% of whom were liberal.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Now that your tepid squirt gun of insults is sucking air, maybe you'd like some FACTS.
Medicare Fraud: A $60 Billion Crime

Poverty in America - based on US Census
Speaking of deluded "logic", is yours really 'If it doesn't happen to me, it doesn't happen anywhere.' ?????????????????????????????

>> ^VoodooV:
>> ^quantumushroom:
You gotta bunch of fatalist losers in the audience who believe life is a zero-sum game, that is, in order for one person to win, another must lose. Not one of them has the understanding that wealth is not finite slices of pie, the pie itself is getting larger all the time.
America's "poor" are the wealthiest poor in the world. Most own their own homes, have two cars, air-conditioning, 2 computers, 3 TVs, etc. And that's on top of "free" food and health care.
I'm not so cavalier as to believe losing 60 billion dollars EVERY YEAR to fraud, waste and abuse means nothing, but it really highlights the liberal mindset. When you're taking someone else's money at gunpoint, you really don't care how hard they had to work to earn it.

Like Spitzer said to Kibbe, "You're so wrong on so much of that I don't know where to begin"
You're either incompetent, deliberately lying, or both.
Speaking for myself, by QM's deluded logic, I obviously don't live in America, because I don't even have HALF of what QM claims the poor have.
But that can't be....I'm a public employee, I should have 10 cars and 5 homes if that were true.



What's your point QM? As others have already said. Proving that there is fraud does nothing other than show that things need to be improved. But that's not what you want to do, you want to slash the budget. Slashing budgets doesn't fix fraud...fixing fraud fixes fraud. Pretty basic concept there. It's really quite disappointing. Conservatives cry all the time about how they want efficient government...but they have some pretty inefficient ways to do it.

As to your second link, nice try, but The Heritage Foundation is an obviously conservative movement and thus, obviously biased. But let's go simpler than that. You...and THF made the claim that the "poor" have their own home, have two cars, air conditioning, two computers and 3 TVs. Fortunately, I qualified MY remarks with "Anecdotally" You do know what that word means right, QM? I know it's a big word and conservatives don't like big words, you like manipulating issues with sound bites, I know, but you guys hate big words. So I never claimed that my experiences speak for everyone. So nice try at a strawman, but QM fails again.

But more to the point. THF is full of shit, or their definition of poor is way the heck off or poor compared to Beverly Hills or something . While I do have air conditioning, I rent, I certainly don't have two cars, I certainly don't have two computers or three TVs and I know I'm doing FAR better than most of the people I work with. And again, I work in State Gov't and contrary to your marching orders from Fox News, we don't make a whole hell of a lot. So if, according to THF, I'm apparently lower than poor, but wait, I'm doing better than most of my peers, so they have to be even lower than the lowest of the poor...so again, either THF is incompetent, or much more likely, since THF is clearly a conservative, thus biased, organization, they are either exaggerating, or outright lying.

You clearly don't know what poor is, QM. You lose...again.

Troll elsewhere

Now that your tepid squirt gun of insults is sucking air, maybe you'd like some FACTS.

Medicare Fraud: A $60 Billion Crime

Poverty in America - based on US Census

Speaking of deluded "logic", is yours really 'If it doesn't happen to me, it doesn't happen anywhere.' ?????????????????????????????



>> ^VoodooV:

>> ^quantumushroom:
You gotta bunch of fatalist losers in the audience who believe life is a zero-sum game, that is, in order for one person to win, another must lose. Not one of them has the understanding that wealth is not finite slices of pie, the pie itself is getting larger all the time.
America's "poor" are the wealthiest poor in the world. Most own their own homes, have two cars, air-conditioning, 2 computers, 3 TVs, etc. And that's on top of "free" food and health care.
I'm not so cavalier as to believe losing 60 billion dollars EVERY YEAR to fraud, waste and abuse means nothing, but it really highlights the liberal mindset. When you're taking someone else's money at gunpoint, you really don't care how hard they had to work to earn it.

Like Spitzer said to Kibbe, "You're so wrong on so much of that I don't know where to begin"
You're either incompetent, deliberately lying, or both.
Speaking for myself, by QM's deluded logic, I obviously don't live in America, because I don't even have HALF of what QM claims the poor have.
But that can't be....I'm a public employee, I should have 10 cars and 5 homes if that were true.

>> ^quantumushroom:

You gotta bunch of fatalist losers in the audience who believe life is a zero-sum game, that is, in order for one person to win, another must lose. Not one of them has the understanding that wealth is not finite slices of pie, the pie itself is getting larger all the time.
America's "poor" are the wealthiest poor in the world. Most own their own homes, have two cars, air-conditioning, 2 computers, 3 TVs, etc. And that's on top of "free" food and health care.
I'm not so cavalier as to believe losing 60 billion dollars EVERY YEAR to fraud, waste and abuse means nothing, but it really highlights the liberal mindset. When you're taking someone else's money at gunpoint, you really don't care how hard they had to work to earn it.


The top one percent have been getting wealthier and wealthier for the last 25 years. You're seeing the results right now. You're seeing the tail end of a failed social experiment. You're just reading it backwards.

That's great and all, but the entire country would be better off if our society would do the right thing and admit going gung ho towards a free market is short sighted, and destructive to everyone in the economy.

So why not get better at busting medicaid fraud?! There's police fraud, but no one is going around saying we need to abolish police. There's insurance fraud, but we don't make insurance illegal. I could go on and on.

BTW, America's poor, most of them own their own homes?! Where on earth do you get these statistics?! The homeownership rate for all of the US is 66.4% in Q1 of 2011 and declining. Gee, I wonder who makes up the vast majority of the 33.6% that don't own their own homes. Prove most poor people own two cars, two computers, 3 TVs, etc. Prove it, show me actual data that proves it. Don't just make outlandish claims you can't back up.

Do you just sit around all day and make crap up?

Edit: just for fun, I looked up statistics for fraud in Medicaid. Nowhere can I find Medicaid fraud estimated at $60 billion annually.

>> ^quantumushroom:

You gotta bunch of fatalist losers in the audience who believe life is a zero-sum game, that is, in order for one person to win, another must lose. Not one of them has the understanding that wealth is not finite slices of pie, the pie itself is getting larger all the time.
America's "poor" are the wealthiest poor in the world. Most own their own homes, have two cars, air-conditioning, 2 computers, 3 TVs, etc. And that's on top of "free" food and health care.
I'm not so cavalier as to believe losing 60 billion dollars EVERY YEAR to fraud, waste and abuse means nothing, but it really highlights the liberal mindset. When you're taking someone else's money at gunpoint, you really don't care how hard they had to work to earn it.

>> ^quantumushroom:

You gotta bunch of fatalist losers in the audience who believe life is a zero-sum game, that is, in order for one person to win, another must lose. Not one of them has the understanding that wealth is not finite slices of pie, the pie itself is getting larger all the time.
America's "poor" are the wealthiest poor in the world. Most own their own homes, have two cars, air-conditioning, 2 computers, 3 TVs, etc. And that's on top of "free" food and health care.
I'm not so cavalier as to believe losing 60 billion dollars EVERY YEAR to fraud, waste and abuse means nothing, but it really highlights the liberal mindset. When you're taking someone else's money at gunpoint, you really don't care how hard they had to work to earn it.


Like Spitzer said to Kibbe, "You're so wrong on so much of that I don't know where to begin"

You're either incompetent, deliberately lying, or both.

Speaking for myself, by QM's deluded logic, I obviously don't live in America, because I don't even have HALF of what QM claims the poor have.

But that can't be....I'm a public employee, I should have 10 cars and 5 homes if that were true.

You gotta bunch of fatalist losers in the audience who believe life is a zero-sum game, that is, in order for one person to win, another must lose. Not one of them has the understanding that wealth is not finite slices of pie, the pie itself is getting larger all the time.

America's "poor" are the wealthiest poor in the world. Most own their own homes, have two cars, air-conditioning, 2 computers, 3 TVs, etc. And that's on top of "free" food and health care.

I'm not so cavalier as to believe losing 60 billion dollars EVERY YEAR to fraud, waste and abuse means nothing, but it really highlights the liberal mindset. When you're taking someone else's money at gunpoint, you really don't care how hard they had to work to earn it.

Dude, really, the positive experiences of some east Asian groups does not negate the negative experiences of other visible minorities, nor does it disqualify their claims for justice. There is no zero-sum, or black/white (no pun intended) on this issue.

I'm glad that those asian groups don't experience discrimination or prejudice despite the fact that some come to the table without the required language skills or adequate income. Bully for them. Some of us have fluent and native english skills, and have all the supposed advantages of being in the middle class, yet somehow get passed over.

I also love that fact that you lump all Asian groups together to muddy the issue again. Hmong and Japanese groups have vastly different household income, health outcomes, education levels, discriminatory experiences, and so on. They are not the same in any way, yet you can use extremes in either group to create a distorted picture of the "Asian" experience.

And this video is just ridiculous. Who cares about the fucking NBA/NCAA? Let it all be white and chinese for all I care. That's not what really matters in our society for most people. Aside from the fact that making a jump shot is a direct measure of performance in basketball; no way to manipulate it, either you can or you can't. SAT, GPA, and other measures of so-called "merit" are deeply flawed.

>> ^chilaxe:
Most of what's been said in the comments above this isn't true because Asian Americans outperform Whites, even though Asian Americans are a minority, were very recently more poor than any groups in the US, and had greater language disadvantages than anyone in the US.
All the people in the above comments who support racist discrimination against Asian Americans don't believe in personal accountability and are in favor of a permanently hyper-racialized society. http://videosift.com/poll/Is-discrimination-against-Asian-Americans-in-college-admissions-good-or-bad
This comment could be disproved if you can show that Asian Americans didn't have greater linguistic and financial barriers to overcome than any groups in the US, or that they don't outperform White people.

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^NetRunner:
These are just unvarnished genius.

I'm surprised. Most bloodthirsty progressives who cheered the assassination of Osama want to forget about the trampling of a human's rights and move on.


You're surprised because you're completely out of touch with reality. You think things like "bloodthirsty progressives" exist, not because you've found any, but because it's an article of faith with you that all of us are evil.

You're so intent on trying to prove your prejudices right, that you entirely ignore what progressives actually say, including (and possibly especially) me.

I'm ultimately okay with bin Laden getting killed this way, but I'm not filled with joy about it either. I still have a ton of concerns and reservations about the way the US conducts itself internationally, and the way our society likes to pretend we're more just and honorable than we really are.

If you really cared about these things, you would reach out to progressives and work together with them on this. On the other hand, if all you really care about is trying to win some sort of zero-sum political battle, just keep acting the way you are.

Obama is conservative as fuck. He's worse then Bush.

"Fact" and opinion. Both wrong.

More warrantless wiretapping.

Same if not a minor decrease in torture.

Sold us out to Big Pharma Banks & Military Complex.

For fuck sake, he cutting community organization budgets and heating assistance for low income groups.

Just proves my point about the leftmedia. If they'd done their job you would've known he'd turn out this way. It's too bad this Obamian "conservatism" you speak of stops well before low taxes, free markets and the rule of law. And not bowing like a serf to foreign kings and the mayor of Tampa, Florida for fk's sake.

What the fuck else do you want to happen to prove that Obama is in no way liberal or progressive or whatever pejorative label you have for left leaning ideology?

How bout that whole POS unaffordable socialized medicine scheme 26 states have now filed lawsuits against? Remember that? Remember the failed scamulus? TARP? Bailouts? And yes Bush is also to blame, but only for starting crap that a "conservative" Obama would've tried to stop. But as we all know, NO ONE outspends taxocrats and by gosh, they'll prove it! Ever stop and wonder why crony capitalism looks so much like socialism?

The entirety of United States politics has shifted more and more to this crazy neo-conservative free-market less government-but-we-still-want-govern-who-you-marry-&-force-you-to-have-babies mentality since 2000.

Really? Abortion is still legal. Civil unions are recognized by many states. Government is an ever-bigger gorilla with a machine gun. Taxes will go up and the 'crats know it: "someone" has to pay for all this indolence and the 50-fucking-percent of Americans who pay NO federal income tax but suck up plenty of government entitlements.

The entire world is owned my wealthy bankers and war profiteers. They all favor the "conservative" mentality you hold because it makes them more money.

Wrong and wrong. You're prejudiced against the wealthy because you believe that life is a zero-sum game. In other words, someone has to "lose" at economics so someone else can "win". You believe that life is a lottery and those who have money have simply been "fortunate" without doing anything to earn it. If the liberal phantasy of giving everyone an equal share of $$$ (by force) were to come true, as long as markets were allowed to work, by the end of the week the poor would be poor again. You've been brainwashed by 12 years of government schooling followed by indoctrination at 'kollij'. Where do you think all those otherwise unemployable 1960s marxist dinosaurs are hiding from reality? The universities. No one busting their ass in the real world to survive only to hand over 40% to the federal mafia believes this BS. Yeah, life is unfair and freedom is hard. And BTW, no, I am not rich, and I don't believe I have a "right" to plunder my neighbor's wealth.

You're too narrow-minded and indoctrinated to understand that.

I hope you don't have kids. I would feel sorry for them.


You undermine your "devastating" talking points with personal attacks. I would hope you own a library card. And use it.

p.s. - Obama is Political Science Major who taught Constitutional Law.

Palin majored in journalism.. yet can't name any newpaper or magazine she reads regularly.

The "scholar" who doesn't understand America and is a total ingrate for the opportunities he received, now reviled as a clueless idiot by all except the diehards and the leftmedia VERSUS the "dumb" beauty queen who loves America and recognizes American Exceptionalism, and thus so terrifies the left they're still attacking her.

Now you can continue your point about who is more qualified as a president.

It's done. I would vote for this over the dangerous crypto-marxist who believes in unlimited federal power.