There are times when your parabolic orbit around reality comes dangerously close before you swing wide again. You are SOOO CLOSE to getting it, here. There is no free market. Not in our lifetime. Not in any lifetime. Like all utopic visions, it's a fantasy; a fantasy used to manipulate people like you into subservience. Liberty for the rich. Tyranny for rest.

When free market principles are put into place (like lowering taxes for the rich, privatization and deregulation) they yield no positive results. If you haven't been manipulated, then how do you explain your support for policies that fail time and time again? It's not a belief system, it's religion.

In the name of the Market, Ron Paul and the Invisible Hand, amen.

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
The free market crowd said that lowering taxes, privatization and deregulation would create jobs and grow the economy. We've done all that and we are now suffering massive income inequality, massive unemployment and recession. How many times do we have to bang our head against the wall before we figure out that free market politics don't work, never have and never will?

What free market is that exactly? I can't see a nurse for my medical needs without paying a doctor. I can't buy the drugs I need without a prescription. I can't cut people's hair without getting a license. I can't shoot a film without the cops shutting me down unless I have the tens of thousands the studios pay for permits. And on and on and on.
And don't blame a free market you and I've never seen in our lifetimes for the ills of the economy. The manipulation of interest rates, wall street bailouts and the housing bubble got us here to begin with, and that was 100% socially engineered. Time to renew your platitudes.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

The free market crowd said that lowering taxes, privatization and deregulation would create jobs and grow the economy. We've done all that and we are now suffering massive income inequality, massive unemployment and recession. How many times do we have to bang our head against the wall before we figure out that free market politics don't work, never have and never will?


What free market is that exactly? I can't see a nurse for my medical needs without paying a doctor. I can't buy the drugs I need without a prescription. I can't cut people's hair without getting a license. I can't shoot a film without the cops shutting me down unless I have the tens of thousands the studios pay for permits. And on and on and on.

And don't blame a free market you and I've never seen in our lifetimes for the ills of the economy. The manipulation of interest rates, wall street bailouts and the housing bubble got us here to begin with, and that was 100% socially engineered. Time to renew your platitudes.

>> ^TheFreak:

>> ^volumptuous:
What's your point GSF?

He's just sad you left him off your blacklist of delusional posters.


I'm sad that I am a human being and deserve some decent human respect for my thoughts. I am not a moron, and @volumptuous position is demeaning and dehumanizing, as is your remark. Thanks for your inhumanity, it marks more reason I wish I had to courage to shuffle off this mortal coil.

Above all, please remember it's nothing personal, just the future of our country on the line.

It's not Kenyan, it's "Kenyawaiian". Because Obama's papa was Kenyan, and he (the son) was born in Hawaii. Allegedly.

No one has the time or energy to read--much less list--all the failures of the corrupt regime presently in power, so settle for a single buzz word or two that summarizes the opposition.

I cannot care about the fine tuning between definitions of socialism, marxism and communism, they're all dung from different animals.

Suspend thinking of me (or Blanky) as your idealogical frenemies for a moment and try to see us instead as peeps concerned about fidelity to the Constitution and positive results. I don't give a sh1t about what the Obama regime or liberals in general say they want to do, or claim will happen, my concern is what are the REAL results of following liberal policies such as raising taxes on the wealthy (which then trickle down to us in the form of higher prices and less employment), non-stop government spending of money we don't have and onerous, business-killing regulations.

If this socialist claptrap worked, Europe would have less than permanent double-digit unemployment and less than 4 countries on the verge of economic collapse.

I really don't think you want to go to the tale of the tape (facts-n-sh1t) because from Roosevelt onward, federal tyranny has increased exponentially with the size of the welfare state.

If you want me to stop 'accusing' Obama of being a screw-up, tell him to stop jumping off the same cliff of tried-n-failed socialist baloney with styrofoam wings, then blaming Republicans instead of gravity when he plummets.

I don't say it enough: I wish the left could prove me wrong with examples of success instead of promises that never arrive.





>> ^volumptuous:

What's your point GSF?
Should we learn from people like Cafferty (a know-nothing millionaire pundit with absolutely zero focus on monetary policy or economics) and Ron Paul (a devout racist and sexist dominionist who hates our democracy and would like nothing more than to transfer our dwindling wealth all the way upward) and Blankfist (who's a film maker who identifies strictly to Ayn Randian/Paulian methods of extreme wealth inequality) and Quantum (who can't even get his soshulism/marxism right?) ?
OR
Should we listen to pretty much every single economist on the planet who tells us exactly the opposite of these people?
That's really up to you. But personally, arguing with the likes of these people is the same as arguing against a witch doctor in Africa who performs ritual genital mutilations for religious purposes. There's absolutely no way that person will ever think "oh, ya know you're right. maybe women should keep their clitorises and all this religious stuff is nonsense".
No, it's never going to happen, ever. But it doesn't matter. These videos get at most 2-5 upvotes, and Blanky has to keep promoting his own videos because the rest of the planet doesn't buy into this type of garbage.
So, open your mouth and eat my vomit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States


>> ^bobknight33:

Capitalism it the best. It serves all people equally.

>> ^volumptuous:

What's your point GSF?


He's just sad you left him off your blacklist of delusional posters.

QM is living in the real world. You got your head stuck in the sand and refuse to see the light.
You don't need to raise taxes, You need to stop spending.
Capitalism it the best. It serves all people equally. ( I'm not talking about sweat shops or other forms of in moral work environments. )

>> ^volumptuous:

Announcement: I'm never again going to rebut any of Blanky or QM's crap anymore. It's just not worth it. Same for Winston P.
You can point out how the sky is in fact blue, and not red, until the cows come home and it will never make one bit of difference. You can show charts, historical data, actual wording of actual policy and suddenly an influx of "But Ron Paul COINS!" and "Kenyan" nonsense comes out like word-vomit out of a firehose with a broken shutoff valve.
So, have fun guys. Your twisted weird versions of reality must be a sincerely sucky, dark and lonely place to live. (pssst: you don't have to live there!)

>> ^volumptuous:

Announcement: I'm never again going to rebut any of Blanky or QM's crap anymore. It's just not worth it. Same for Winston P.
You can point out how the sky is in fact blue, and not red, until the cows come home and it will never make one bit of difference. You can show charts, historical data, actual wording of actual policy and suddenly an influx of "But Ron Paul COINS!" and "Kenyan" nonsense comes out like word-vomit out of a firehose with a broken shutoff valve.
So, have fun guys. Your twisted weird versions of reality must be a sincerely sucky, dark and lonely place to live. (pssst: you don't have to live there!)


Announcement:

>> ^volumptuous:

Announcement: I'm never again going to rebut any of Blanky or QM's crap anymore. It's just not worth it. Same for Winston P.
You can point out how the sky is in fact blue, and not red, until the cows come home and it will never make one bit of difference. You can show charts, historical data, actual wording of actual policy and suddenly an influx of "But Ron Paul COINS!" and "Kenyan" nonsense comes out like word-vomit out of a firehose with a broken shutoff valve.
So, have fun guys. Your twisted weird versions of reality must be a sincerely sucky, dark and lonely place to live. (pssst: you don't have to live there!)


speaking of self satisfied vomit...

Despite some crazy ideas about the inevitability of communism, even capitalists are beginning to realize Marx was right about capitalism.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/197468/20110813/roubini-nouriel-roubini-dr-doom-financial-crisis-debt-crisis-europe.htm

A Pyrrhic 'Victory'
By Thomas Sowell
8/10/2011

In Don Marquis' classic satirical book, "Archy and Mehitabel," Mehitabel the alley cat asks plaintively, "What have I done to deserve all these kittens?"

That seems to be the pained reaction of the Obama administration to the financial woes that led to the downgrading of America's credit rating, for the first time in history.

There are people who see no connection between what they have done and the consequences that follow. But Barack Obama is not likely to be one of them. He is a savvy politician who will undoubtedly be satisfied if enough voters fail to see a connection between what he has done and the consequences that followed.

To a remarkable extent, he has succeeded, with the help of his friends in the media and the Republicans' failure to articulate their case. Polls find more people blaming the Republicans for the financial crisis than are blaming the President.

Why was there a financial crisis in the first place? Because of runaway spending that sent the national debt up against the legal limit. But when all the big spending bills were being rushed through Congress, the Democrats had such an overwhelming majority in both houses of Congress that nothing the Republicans could do made the slightest difference.

Yet polls show that many people today are blaming the Republicans for the country's financial problems. But, by the time Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives, and thus became involved in negotiations over raising the national debt ceiling, the spending which caused that crisis in the first place had already been done -- and done by Democrats.

Had the Republicans gone along with President Obama's original request for a "clean" bill -- one simply raising the debt ceiling without any provisions about controlling federal spending -- would that have spared the country the embarrassment of having its government bonds downgraded by Standard & Poor's credit-rating agency?

To believe that would be to believe that it was the debt ceiling, rather than the runaway spending, that made Standard & Poor's think that we were no longer as good a credit risk for buyers of U.S. government bonds. In other words, to believe that is to believe that a Congressional blank check for continued record spending would have made Standard & Poor's think that we were a better credit risk.

If that is true, then why is Standard & Poor's still warning that it might have to downgrade America's credit rating yet again? Is that because of the national debt ceiling or because of the likelihood of continued runaway spending?

The national debt ceiling is just one of the many false assurances that the government gives the voting public. The national debt ceiling has never actually stopped the spending that causes the national debt to rise to the point where it is getting near that ceiling. The ceiling simply gets raised when that happens.

Just a week before the budget deal was made at the eleventh hour, it looked like the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives had scored a victory by getting the President and the Congressional Democrats to give up the idea of raising the tax rates -- and to cut spending instead. But now that the details are coming out, that "victory" looks very temporary, if not illusory.

The price of getting that deal has been having the Republicans agree to sitting on a special bipartisan Congressional committee that will either come to an agreement on spending cuts before Thanksgiving or have the budgets of both the Defense Department and Medicare cut drastically.

Since neither side can afford to be blamed for a disaster like that, this virtually guarantees that the Republicans will have to either go along with whatever new spending and taxing that the Democrats demand or risk losing the 2012 election by sharing the blame for another financial disaster.

In short, the Republicans have now been maneuvered into being held responsible for the spending orgy that Democrats alone had the votes to create. Republicans have been had -- and so has the country. The recent, short-lived budget deal turns out to be not even a Pyrrhic victory for the Republicans. It has the earmarks of a Pyrrhic defeat.

OK, let me start by saying I was never incensed, irked, consternated, angered, or otherwise bothered. I always think it's funny to hear the assumptions people make about me, they are invariably wrong, I'm a wierdo and rarely take the path expected. I take joy in setting the record straight in the hopes of presenting a different point of view for consideration, I see no reason for revenge or anger over a misunderstanding and usually not schadenfreude either.
I didn't see it as consession to my arguement, I saw it as coming to agreement that we really meant the same thing. I guess to some people that might be the same thing, it's not to me.
The only apology needed is to Umption, you made an ass out of him. I'm not looking for one myself, I don't know why I might be due one except for the blankfist thing. You misunderstood me again.
It depends on which current financial crisis you mean. I completely agree, our economic crisis was caused by mismanagement and deregulation of the banking system/wallstreet, which is now made worse by the European crisis. Our debt crisis is a decades old issue that's suddenly in the forefront, but is also a huge and looming problem. The European debt situation is different, and seems to be a major cause of their current economic crisis, so is the whole credit default swap thing to a lesser extent, but they're far more removed from it.
The debt discussion stems from the discussion of the european crash, which I believe was caused mostly by the crushing debt of many union members, caused in large part by over spending on social programs like paid maternity (along with many others), and the worsening of that debt to the point their partners could no longer ignore it caused by the global market declines. It came to a head when Greece couldn't borrow more money to pay for the services they refused to curtail. I disagree with the contention that Spain and Ireland were in "good" shape simply because they were not collapsing yet. Greece has been spending like a teenager with daddy's credit card for far too long (probably decades), so long that it's people (and corperations most likely, don't misunderstnad) believe they are entitled to all their handouts because many have never known different, and they flatly refused to raise taxes to pay for those services and entitlements, forget paying their debts. Let's be clear, they are not us, they were even worse about entitlement programs and ignoring debt. That does not mean we should not use them as a cautionary tale of what to avoid, we don't want to be where they are now, and it's where we are heading.
Here in the USA, I think our debt stems from overspending (on defense and entitlement programs, stupid wastes, and needed services) AND under taxing. I'm not sure about your health care point, we haven't really paid for it yet, so it hasn't really effected the debt. Maybe I'm missing your point.
I disagree with your final point, that our debt is a made up problem. I also disagree with the contention that we must erase the debt completely and instantly, damn the consequences. Sadly, the big 'debt debate' that once again tarnished our reputation worldwide (and continues to) is really not about paying down our debt. As far as I know, no one seriously even floated a ballanced budget ammendment, forget actually paying down the debt. All the wrangling is over a small percentage of the insane increase they expect in the national debt over 10 years (I think I recall the number 24trillion). I fear the debt will crush us, and stagnate our economy if not dealt with quickly, but it must be done with reason and thoughfulness, not ignored OR myopicly focused on.>> ^NetRunner:
@newtboy the part that reminds me of blankfist is that you seem to be incensed at my terrible crime of misunderstanding an ambiguous statement, and then thinking I owe you something (a retraction, an apology, or a concession to your argument) because of that.
Let's wind this train of thought back a bit. My contention is that the present economic calamity started with a financial crisis, driven by mortgage-backed securities.
I didn't mention debt, you did.
I agree that debt plays a role in the unfolding of this crisis, especially in Europe, but it's not a cause of the crisis. Any kind of economic crisis throws a government's budget into deficit (or pushes it further into), because tax revenue goes down when GDP and employment go down, while at the same time, more people wind up needing to rely on the social safety net as they loose their jobs (or just get their hours or pay cut). Greece and Italy were in bad shape before the crisis, and got much worse. But Spain and Ireland were in good fiscal shape before the crisis, and wound up deep in debt as a consequence of the crisis.
I also disagree with your contention that the debts are caused by "people taking maternity leave along with other social programs to a ridiculous extent." I'm not intimately familiar with the specific fiscal details of the European countries, but basically the way government budgets work is that you need to make sure you have tax revenues that are higher than spending in normal times.
Here in the US, our debt issues are primarily a result of cutting taxes, overspending on defense, and a refusal to adopt a single-payer health care system for everyone.
But for the most part, debt is a made-up problem in the US. It's not that it's not a problem at all, it's just that it's not something we need to solve in 2011, it's something we need to solve by 2030 or so. It's important, but not urgent.

@newtboy the part that reminds me of blankfist is that you seem to be incensed at my terrible crime of misunderstanding an ambiguous statement, and then thinking I owe you something (a retraction, an apology, or a concession to your argument) because of that.

Let's wind this train of thought back a bit. My contention is that the present economic calamity started with a financial crisis, driven by mortgage-backed securities.

I didn't mention debt, you did.

I agree that debt plays a role in the unfolding of this crisis, especially in Europe, but it's not a cause of the crisis. Any kind of economic crisis throws a government's budget into deficit (or pushes it further into), because tax revenue goes down when GDP and employment go down, while at the same time, more people wind up needing to rely on the social safety net as they loose their jobs (or just get their hours or pay cut). Greece and Italy were in bad shape before the crisis, and got much worse. But Spain and Ireland were in good fiscal shape before the crisis, and wound up deep in debt as a consequence of the crisis.

I also disagree with your contention that the debts are caused by "people taking maternity leave along with other social programs to a ridiculous extent." I'm not intimately familiar with the specific fiscal details of the European countries, but basically the way government budgets work is that you need to make sure you have tax revenues that are higher than spending in normal times.

Here in the US, our debt issues are primarily a result of cutting taxes, overspending on defense, and a refusal to adopt a single-payer health care system for everyone.

But for the most part, debt is a made-up problem in the US. It's not that it's not a problem at all, it's just that it's not something we need to solve in 2011, it's something we need to solve by 2030 or so. It's important, but not urgent.

I have to agree with Chaosengine. Being Portuguese I can assure you our problems are not a direct result of a socialist agenda. In fact, it's the direct result of governments borrowing more than we can pay, and leaving the tab for the next guy like the assholes that they are, and spending money on completely moronic things.

Did you know Portugal is actually one of the countries in the world with the best network of roads? There are no more, no less that 3 different roads, in parallel connecting Lisbon and Porto (the two biggest cities). You have the A1 (the most important highway), then the A17 (a newer highway) and the old N1 (just a regular 2 lane road). WHY? We don't need it.

A few years back, the then Minister of Defence (who is now the foreign affairs minister, a disgusting weasel) order 2 fucking submarines from Germany. They cost 500 million euros each (1 billion in total). Now... It's true that Portugal has an absolutely huge area of the Atlantic to survey, control, and administer, but anyone with half a brain knows that you do that with frigates and fast ships. That 1 billion euros could have been used to save a big famous shipyard which is on the brink of bankruptcy, and could have easily manufactured hundreds of smaller vessels. (oh.. and that shit head of a minister, when he was the defence minister actually told the people who worked at the shipyard that they would be building what I just said. Of course, they never did)

The previous government insisted against EVERYONE that Lisbon needed a new Airport. Of course, that is now on the shelf, be cause it was completely stupid and it would cost several billion euros.

Oh, did I mention the TGV? (the high speed train). Porto and Lisbon are connected by a train called the Pendular, which looks a lot like a tgv, and is supposed to reach speeds of 250 km/h (which is great really. At that speed the trip between the two cities would take no more than 2 hours) the problem is, greedy incompetent assholes always get their hands on government funded programs, and they built the whole line between Porto and Lisbon (which is about 350km's in lenght) and the only place the train can achieve the top speed is between my city and another one to the south, in a journey of no more than 50km's (it's not a safety thing mind you, it's just the track wasn't built like it was supposed to) The rest of the time, the train hops along a 150.. 170km/h. WHY THE FUCK WOULD WE NEED A TGV between the two cities when the existing train is already great IF it had been properly built. Thankfully that's also in the shelf.

The European Championship of 2004... it was great. Portugal almost won the championship, which would have been great, since we were the hosts. And everything went great. Several new stadiums were built, the festivities were very nice, etc. The problem is, most of these stadiums are now a maintenance nightmare, because the ones left with the bill are the cities and not the government. My own city is 200 million in the red because of all this shit (a city of less than 80,000 people. although the whole district has a lot more people. About 600,000).

These are just a few examples, and not ONE of them is a result of socialism, but of stupid management and capitalism, and wanting to buy shiny things.

AND then we also get fucked nice and royally in the ass by most atrocious capitalist system in the world, the american one, which has the 3 most notorious rating agencies spewing nothing but stupidity, speculation, lies, and anything that gets their fuck buddies some extra euros or dollars. The United States was 2 days away from going into default, and only came up with a ridiculous temporary measure. Yet, none of the agencies touched the american rating. How curious! Portugal was bailed out by the IMF, it has a majority government, consensus from the people that sacrifices must be done even though they suck and in some cases are completely unfair, was actually going beyond what the IMF requested, and still Moody's slashed the rating to junk.

In short... this whole financial crisis was caused by over-consumption, really shitty management, and a lot of business practices that should, quite frankly be a crime!

There's a fundamental problem with his argument:

Wall Street was not given all that money!!!

I don't know how many times I've had to say that to a TAARP opponent. They weren't "given" anything. They were *LOANED* the money. Granted, the terms were very very favorable, but it still must be paid back to the government!

It's dishonest to say the federal gov't gave Wall Street anything, and obfuscates what actually happened.

I do think Wall Street got away with financial murder, and there needs to be significant fundamental regulations instituted to prevent the financial crisis from happening again. But this kind of crap doesn't help because it's destroying the truth.

Debating about cutting medicare and social security is a whole other issue, and there are pros and cons to both sides, but people need to stop lying about what actually happened.