>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

This is a popular argument among lazy armchair pundits, but it isn't true. With selective editing, you can find similarities between any two people. On the issues this propagandist chose to make his point on, most of it (The bailouts, stimulus, quantitative easing and healthcare) was good policy.
There is much ignorance on what the NDAA actually is. It's a military budget bill. John McCain attached a rider that authorized indefinite detention and it was passed by congress with a veto proof majority. Obama did what he could to get it taken off, but there wasn't much else to be done, aside from defunding the military. It's a game designed to make Obama look bad, and you've fallen for it.
Big downvote for this kind of bullshit propaganda.


You mean down voting bullshit propaganda that doesn't fit in with your narrative. Your upvote record has plenty of bullshit propaganda in it...and so does mine

This is a popular argument among lazy armchair pundits, but it isn't true. With selective editing, you can find similarities between any two people. On the issues this propagandist chose to make his point on, most of it (The bailouts, stimulus, quantitative easing and healthcare) was good policy.

There is much ignorance on what the NDAA actually is. It's a military budget bill. John McCain attached a rider that authorized indefinite detention and it was passed by congress with a veto proof majority. Obama did what he could to get it taken off, but there wasn't much else to be done, aside from defunding the military. It's a game designed to make Obama look bad, and you've fallen for it.

Big downvote for this kind of bullshit propaganda.

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:

>> ^jjw001:
so what happens when more than 1 super rich guy wants to come/leave around the same time?

They're just gonna have to request another bailout to build that second lift. Why should these people have to wait just so some poor assholes can keep their houses?
IT'S IN SINGAPORE!

>> ^jjw001:

so what happens when more than 1 super rich guy wants to come/leave around the same time?


They're just gonna have to request another bailout to build that second lift. Why should these people have to wait just so some poor assholes can keep their houses?

@rbar np, take your time, I'm quite busy as well.

Did East Germany have a great economy? Like you said, it faired well in some sectors, highly subsidized sectors I might add, at the huge expense of the rest of its economy which was miserable compared to West Germany (or to what it could be if it were capitalistic). Think of all the "luxuries" enjoyed right outside the Berlin Wall that were denied to east germans. Can you see purchasing or providing those products and services as economic activity being denied, and, therefore, less cooperation?

You have to question your assumption that capitalism universally strives for competition, or that it always should, or that it's the philosophy of free markets to make everyone compete. There are forces *for* and *against* competition everywhere in capitalism, from those who benefit and lose from it, respectively. I think that's what you mean by "near perfect competition", the perfection being the balance between competing and not competing as required.

Why are labor unions formed? So workers can compete less with each other and cooperate for better employment terms. Does that favor companies? No, but who cares, it's meant to favor the workers. Why are cartels formed? So companies can compete less with each other and cooperate for better profits. Is that good for the consumers? Usually not, but it's good for the companies in the cartel. Why are consumer groups formed... you get the point. These institutions operate against competition, but that doesn't make them any less capitalistic or contrary to the incentives of free markets, assuming they're formed without the use of force, criminal or lawful. A lawful association between individuals or companies to cooperate instead of compete with each other is capitalism at work too.

When you talk about situations where there is less or no competition, you're not considering the competition that arises on the other side of the demand-supply relation!

If there is large demand and little supply, you correctly point out that there is little competition *among suppliers*, right? However, aren't you overlooking the increased competition among the *demanders*? Like I said, competition is increasing as supply and demand differ. Who is competing with whom is beside the point.

You might argue, "well, how is competition among the demand going to help??", because it sucks to be in the demand for something in low supply, that unmet demand represents an incentive for more supply. Supplying something in high demand is a coveted position. Resources from elsewhere will tend to be allocated towards that coveted position, supplying that demand, and increasing competition in what started out as a less or non-competitive environment.

So, I don't follow your "markets universally tend towards monopolies" argument. As much as companies like monopolies, they like it because it profits from the clients/consumers' desperate demand for it, but these people are not ok with fighting each other for something in low supply. THAT is the incentive towards competition, towards destabilizing any monopoly that abuses its position.

The derivatives market is a complex example, but you're blaming the "free market", when the banking system is far from a free market if there's a central bank. Banks should be allowed to make risky investments and, if these investments don't pan out, they should pay the price with loss and bankruptcy, like it happens with any business that makes bad decisions. That is one of the best incentives to make good decisions! If the whole banking system is to blame for that, then it would collapse, which would be disastrous, but it would expose the disaster that is central banking.

Would the government want society to realize that central banking is terrible? Of course not, they're the ones who profit from it the most, which is why it stepped in with a massive taxpayer-funded bailout. None of what I just described is allowed in a free market.

Just like people realized the Church and State should be separate centuries ago, it will take a while for people to realize the State and Banks should be separate as well. The evidence is unravelling right before us.

@rbar I didn't call you a socialist, I don't know you that well! It was about your portrayal of capitalism. Also, I apologize for referring to free market capitalism, subject of this topic, as just "capitalism", that caused understandable confusion. I completely agree with you that some of those "isms" fall under a broader definition of capitalism, as they're social orders dependent on private property rights. Those who advocate free markets like me, however, really tend to consider free market capitalism as the only real one, while variations are just "less capitalistic" or not capitalism at all.

Any economic system is as cooperative as the next? Hmm... I don't know, rbar. Would you say there's as much cooperation inside North Korea as there is in South Korea? The old East and West Germanies? Surely any country with a lesser economy enjoys much less cooperation of their citizens among themselves (or with other countries) than a country where policy favors economic growth, no? Very common in North Korea, the "do what I tell or you'll starve in a concentration camp" approach, just isn't my favorite definition of cooperation. Coincidence or not, their economy is shit.

You raise a very important issue of limited resources, that wikipedia article on Capitalism explains better than I ever could, that counter-arguments to "those criticisms of the depletion of finite natural resources consists of the economic Law of Diminishing Returns, opportunity cost, and scarcity in economics". Interesting stuff.

My issue is with you portrayal of capitalism as ever-increasing competitiveness, because it's kind of biased and overlooks the abundance of cooperation. Imagine looking at a crowded night club and describing it simplistically as "a bunch of people struggling for the attention of the opposite sex". Seems pretty accurate if one hates night clubs. There is competition going on, specially for the most popular people, but what about all the other people enjoying each other's company over drinks, talking, flirting, and laughing, couples making out and enjoying the music on the dance floor? Who would describe those activities as purely competitive?

There is a lot of supply and demand in a capitalistic economy, not trying to sound like an economist, but competition is proportional to the difference between supply and demand. So what about where supply is meeting demand, should we just overlook the huge amount of cooperation happening there?

I find it amusing that you ask "What? What policy?", then, at the end of the same paragraph, write "The way the bailout happened is ... utter crap, but that is a different story all together." No, it's not a different story, the bailouts are government/central bank policy, partly the answer to your important question. Stepping in and handing out money to bankers who should have been punished by their excessive risk-taking with bankruptcy, is the exact opposite of letting free markets work.

To try to answer your persistent request for examples of free markets, if you didn't realize it yet, free markets are not very compatible with central banks, institutions that have a legal monopoly over what happens to half of a country's economy (usually half of all economic transactions involve money). Now, do you know how many countries have central banks today? Except for Monaco and Andorra, all of them.

Centuries ago, there wasn't a single country in the world where people enjoyed freedom of expression. That fact could be considered an obstacle to its adoption, but never a testament to its impracticality.

@renatojj Ah, its nice to be called a socialist for once. Where I come from, they call me a right wing capitalist
Any economic system is as cooperative as the next. That is the definition of an economic system, a system where economic transactions take place, ie cooperation. So capitalism is NOT more (or less) cooperative than other isms. (And mercantilism and corporate capitalism (corporatism right?) are forms of capitalism ;-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism)

Definition of capitalism:
"an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state" - oxford dictionary
Emphasis is on "for profit". So yes, all capitalist are per definition profit seeking. Relentless is something that follows Darwin. Those who are more relentless get higher profits and have more money to grow, invest, invent, etc. They eventually push out less relentless profit seekers so the relentless ones are the only ones left.
And remember you said them first, not me. I just said that capitalism tries to achieve profit and as competition drives prices down one way to do so is to minimize cost, ie become more efficient. So there is always a drive for efficiency in capitalism.
I am not against profit seeking, I believe that capitalism is the system that pushes the most growth in most regions, be it economic growth, technological progress, etc. That also makes it a rat race, where you continually need to go faster to keep up. As I am getting older I see that running is not the only game in town. And in most cases it detracts from happiness more then other methods in the long run (though it brings more wealth). Given also the finite resource problem and it is a good discussion to have if capitalism is the best and only economic system we should have on this planet. Like I said, for another time.

"The Libor and derivatives markets scandals, are not examples of free markets at all, they're abuses where the bad behavior was encouraged by policy"

What? What policy? The entire idea of over-the-counter (OTT, the largest amount by far) derivatives was that they are traded without any supervision or visibility. Complete free market! That and the inability to value and understand the risk per unit made for instance the Credit Default Swaps so dangerous. These were perfectly legal, and are still in most cases. The market is still unregulated today. You can argue that in the end it wasnt a free market because they got bailed out. Bullshit. They got bailed out because the other option was to let the entire economic system collapse. Letting the system collapse is not free markets, its stupid. The damage would have been catastrophic. The markets wouldnt repair that, they wouldnt exist anymore. That is why people call the derivatives market an example of a free market that should have been more regulated, because they had the power to destroy everything and the incentive to take the risk (for profit).
The way the bailout happened (and is still happening) is total and utter crap, but that is a different story all together.

Which leads again to the same question: if not the (IMHO obvious) derivatives market, name me an example of a free market?

@rbar have these thousands of philosophers, lawyers and activists ever considered that, if people have material needs, they may or may not be satisfied in exchange for money, money that may or may not be provided through a job? What about other ways of making money, like being self-employed, a businessman, an investor, or a beggar? What if I can satisfy those needs without money, as a farmer?

Should the self-employed have a right to customers? Should a businessman or an investor have a right to profits, or a beggar to handouts? Should farmers also be entitled to good crops? If there's no direct and necessary link between job->survival, what, then, would justify it being declared an unalienable human right?

Your objection about government causing social injustice, sounds to me like asking, "if government outlaws drinking, how is it wrong to stop people from drinking if it's against the law?". If government outlaws something that doesn't use force, it inevitably uses force to outlaw it, thus increasing the overall use of force in society and diminishing our condition as a civilization. On the other hand, any force used to repress wanton shooters is a good deterrent to their use of force, no?

About laziness, your characterization of capitalism as "more and more efficiency", with no regard to human hapiness is very typical of a socialist's portrayal of capitalism as a social order of relentless profit-seeking and competition. When in fact, capitalism is the most cooperative of any social system ever devised. Markets thrive in capitalism, and markets are a bunch of people trading and making agreements with each another. There's nothing more cooperative than trades and handshakes. You get more cooperation in capitalism than in feudalism, mercantilism, corporatism, socialism or any other "ism". In the end, you're allowed more choices, including that of softer lifestyles in capitalism, than anywhere else.

The Libor and derivatives markets scandals, are not examples of free markets at all, they're abuses where the bad behavior was encouraged by policy. What you and I argued about making the weak complacent, also applies to bad rules encouraging excessive greediness and risk-taking that went unpunished, bad behavior that would, otherwise, be "regulated" in a free market by the very real prospect of bankruptcy, and being sued for fraud instead of a get-out-of-jail-free card and juicy bailouts granted by a secretive central bank (which wouldn't exist in a free market!).

Things are not necessarily less regulated when you have economic freedom, and anything resulting from deregulation is not an automatic example of free markets at work. Regulation just happens to come from the bottom-up, from forces in the market itself, instead of by force from the top-down, by well-intentioned bureaucrats who fancy writing human rights declarations in their spare time.

>> ^Trancecoach:

Does this account for inflation? What/Where are the actual numbers?


Inflation would favour science - a payment today has a set value (bank bailouts) but payments in the past only stand to increase. If it doesn't account for inflation then i can't imagine how it would add up when you consider that the prices of HOUSES rapidly reduce to merely thousands of pounds when you go back only a hundred years (or less according to my nan) in britain.

This is one case of a trustable talking head though. I'm not a fan of brian cox but he is a very good physicist and he wouldn't say it if he hadn't thoroughly checked which is more than i can say for the others on the panel. I'd also like to see a simple chart though, because his words are wise - imagine what could be done if we weren't getting robbed blind and led by the fucking blind.

Your video, Bank bailouts are costlier than UK science since Jesus, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

>> ^Porksandwich:

Couldn't understand a lot of what was said after the "drip" part.


There certainly was a lot of talking over each other, but this is what I heard:


Cox: "I think that just a drip of that quantative easing to the science budget would possibly transform our economy."

Campbell: "He could get into Downing Street anytime he wants, and why don't you stand for parliament?"

Cox: *Stammers*

Neil: "Good answer"

Cox: "Not much happens then does it, I think you've got to be ..."

Portillo: "don't you have a 15 year term in the House of Lords?"

Cox: " .. don't you have to be Prime Minister, at least, until you can get anything done?"

We are nearing the edge of collapse. Spending has really gone out of control. The last 3 years under Obama have been an explosion of spending. QE3 will come and debase the dollar even more. Money is noticeably worth less already from the QE1, QE2 and banks bailouts and the substantial increase in spending. . In short order we well be totally enslaved to bankers, like some countries in Europe where the lenders are dictating the terms.


Some say raise taxes. Even if one could tax every corporate and rich person there still be a drop in the bucket. Sure you might scrape up for 1 year of cash to cover government spending. Then what? everyone will be tapped out. (Penn Jillette did a podcast that was posted on th sift that addressed this aspect. I just cant find it now.)


Only through cutting spending and getting our debt down to a respectable level will turn this ship around.

what a paradox to deal with people pretending we all wont need what we already know we will need ... insurance ... and pretending we need to pay CEO's and pay administrative overhead for obstructionist paperwork that is in between YOU and your DOCTOR, which is currently the system.

What happened in peoples lives that makes them have the stockholm syndrome for corporations?? do they not know about cannabis? shrug, its all getting a little much.

You're running out of time to find things to blame on Obama. And things to blame on him, in general...

Look how fast Bush Jr got out of the scene... while Cheney still runs his fuckin mouth. Guess how things went when they were in office? Gimme a break.

Bush was a puppet and his attitude was, as long as you can breathe things will work out. How else is the rich son of an ex-CIA chief supposed to feel? empathy for poor people? LOL

and here we have one of the most successful sitting presidents in history, who has ended discrimination in the military, the war in iraq, killed bin laden, and saved the economy (remember, either a bailout wasnt enough or it was... and it wasn't... meaning it HAD to happen, sorry you lose)

its my own mental illness that i want to gloat that we are all going to be better off... HAHA IN YOUR FACE WE ALL GET A FAIRER SYSTEM .. what's your mental illness in wanting everything you've been told to want, and your willingness to kill for it? Who is really sick here... *tokes*

>> ^lantern53:

When Bush was president, Krugman opposed financial bailouts.
Now that Obama is president, he changed his mind. We aren't spending enough.
So...


Citation needed.

Krugman, as he states in the video, felt the bailouts were necessary, but that the "other side" (I.e. mortgage reform) was missing.

Krugman didn't oppose the bailouts. >> ^lantern53:

When Bush was president, Krugman opposed financial bailouts.
Now that Obama is president, he changed his mind. We aren't spending enough.
So...