Yeah, I'm not 100% sure they're for sale yet. It looked to me like they're still looking for investors. Too bad, these look AWESOME.

Or alternatively, Forbes and their imaginary investors could just fuck off, since Gravity is privately held...

They are in the payment processing business, historically a high-margin one, they're not going anywhere any time soon.

from Forbes:

Unfortunately, this well-intended gesture is likely to either end badly or just end quietly. It will end badly if the company enacts the program as written, as Gravity is likely to experience reduced investor interest due to unusually high labor costs. A growing company with a $70,000 entry-level wage for every employee will be a difficult sell in the capital markets.

More likely, the plan will end quietly. As investors weigh in and influence company policy, the $70,000 minimum wage is likely to be drastically modified and adjusted. Conditions are likely to be placed on earning the $70,000 minimum, and industry standard wages will be subsidized with bonuses and other cash incentives to maintain the appearance of a $70,000 minimum wage. People unable or unwilling to commit to a bonus-based or incentive-based system will not select themselves for employment at Gravity. Within three years, Gravity’s pay structure will probably revert to industry standards, and Price’s minimum wage will be seen as a well-intended, but economically naïve, compensation plan.

I wonder if they would accept an I.O.U from this investor.

OK, had a chance to watch the start of the video again to remind me of the context, and thought of some other ways to look at it.

1. You could, if you were particularly heartless, look at it as the individual failures of the people who borrowed money they had no hope of repaying. That I consider this a rather unfair way of looking at it is unlikely to stop the usual suspects from actually voicing this opinion.

2. You could look at it as a failure of risk management. Each individual player understood that there were risks involved, but each thought that passing the risk along to the next person would avoid the risk being their own! Nobody understood that they were creating a risk to the entire system.

3. You could also look at it as a failure of regulation. I am quite astounded that, amidst the sea of fraudulent activity by banks and their agents, there were no charges laid against anybody for the activities that brought about the GFC. The regulations also, in some cases, prevented banks from taking sensible steps to avoid default. Once the loans were bundled together, rules 'protecting' investors by preventing discounting were actually what caused the investors to lose their shirts.

4. You could look at it as a failure of business: In many cases, the folks who had been encouraged to take out these dodgy loans were actually going along just fine until the banks increased the interest rates. There was, therefore, a huge missed opportunity for someone to buy these loans in default at a discount, and let the homeowners keep paying the introductory rates that they quite clearly had been managing quite well.

I think it's more like if they would stop redistributing the wealth to themselves from their workers.

If they would stop being greedy f'tards, then more people would have money to buy the things that move the economy and nobody would need government aid in the form of food stamps and welfare (save those who are honestly mentally or physically unable to work).If you want to build an economy the keyword is "build". You don't build a house by building the attic first magically floating there, then the foundation and walls to get up to it, you start with a foundation, then walls. If the people at the bottom have money to do more than barely survive, they buy things that actually move the economy, they buy things at retailers, who need to hire more people; those people buy things which results in transportation and warehouses hiring more people, those people buy things; manufacturing starts hiring (if the rich f'tard didn't send those jobs overseas, which the conservatives blame on the government rather than the rich guy who sent the job overseas for some reason, it's not like the price of that shirt went down when they sent it overseas, they just pocketed the extra wealth for themselves) and those people buy even more expensive things.

Our right wing economy favors investors and large business over the needs of the vast majority. It doesn't matter how much GM stock investors buy and trade, GM won't make more cars and hire more people until enough people can buy cars.

As we slide more and more money from the people who actually spend money in the economy and make it move, to people who just horde and invest, the economy will continue to spiral down. More and more people will require food stamps and welfare due to the actions of the rich, but the conservative right will blame the workers and former workers rather than pushing blame onto the people who are refusing to pay living wages, who push jobs overseas so they can personally pocket more wealth, and complain about the people they aren't giving living wages to and the people they laid off need government assistance, and the conservative voters go right along because the pulpit and Fox News has brainwashed them into believing that a party that disobey's everything their Jesus taught them is the Christian party.

The growing wealth and income gap is the biggest challenge facing our nation, and indeed much of the world. Of course most of the rest of the world does a better job of caring for the work force than the US does, paid maternity leave in all but 4 nations, paid vacation time in most of the world by law, paid sick time in most developed economies, minimum wages tied to inflation in much of those countries, a minimum level of health insurance for every man woman and child without having to buy from for-profit corporations (most actually use a single payer, which sort of ignores the fact that our individual mandate that we have now was invented by the Republican party, and is financed the same way they wanted to do it and the tax penalty for not participating is the same...the other nations that use individual mandates do so via not-for-profit insurance)... We do so much to protect the rich and investor class in this nation... sickening really.

Economically, it'd be really counter-productive for them to leave.

They currently receive more in revenue that they pay in taxes and receive more generous social programs than England. Like mentioned, they'll get full control over their oil reserves just as output begins to decline. Also their banking sector (relative to their economy/tax take) is huge and will have to shrink as investors will see it as a risk and divest otherwise.

They'll most likely retain the pound as the currency by default (at least in the short term), but lose control over interest rates. If the economy sours they will have the same problem that indebted Mediterranean countries had, in that all the pressure will fall on wages and job cuts rather than being eased by lower rates or currency depreciation. If they join the euro, they will of course have same issue.

Speaking of which, an interesting point is that with a large liberal wing of the UK leaving, this will strengthen conservative arguments to leave the EU.

Up until I saw my fellow countrymen (including many I respected) fawning like chimps at a tea party during that whole "jubilee" thing I might have agreed. There seems to be a huge cognitive dissonance for most people when it comes to the royals.

On the one hand most don't really take it very seriously, on the other many (maybe even most) appear to have a sub-conscious desire/need to submit to their natural betters. Our whole national identity is built on the myths of Kings and failed rebellions and I fear for many the Monarchy represents a kind of bizarre political security blanket. We claim to not really care but deep down I think many of us secretly fear loosing our mythical matriarch.

One might liken it to celebrity worship backed by 100's & 1000's of years of religious mythology. The Royal's aren't really human to us, they are more like some closely related parent species born to a life we could only dream of. I realise that when asked directly most people would consciously acknowledge that was silly, but most would also respond the same to say Christian sexual repression. They know sex and nakedness when considered rationally are nothing to be ashamed of, but they still continue to treat their own urges as somehow sinful when they do not fall within rigidly defined social parameters.

We still haven't gotten over such Judeo-Christian self policing because the social structures built up around it are still with us (even if we fool ourselves into thinking we are beyond the reach of such sub-conscious influences). I don't think we will ever get over our master-slave culture while class and unearned privilege are still built into the fabric of our society. Having a Royal family, no matter how symbolic, is the very living embodiment of this kind of backwards ideology.

It's like trying to quit heroin while locked in a room with a big bag of the stuff.

It's true to say most don't take the whole thing very seriously but that to me is almost as concerning. Most people when asked don't believe advertising has a significant effect on their psyche but Coke-a-cola still feels like spending about 3 billion a year on it is worthwhile. One of them is clearly mistaken!

Our royal family here, is to me working in the same way as coke's advertising. It's a focal point for a lot of sub-conscious concepts we are bombarded with our whole lives. Naturally there are many sides to this and it wouldn't work without heavy media manipulation, state indoctrination etc. but it's an intrinsic part of the coercive myth none the less. Monarch's, Emperors and wealthy Dynasties are all poisons to me. No matter the pragmatic details, the sub-conscious effect seems significant and cumulative.

"Dead" symbolisms IMHO can often be the most dangerous. At least one is consciously aware of the devils we see. No one is watching the one's we have forgotten.....

The above is reason enough for me but I have bog all better to do this aft so I'll dive into the rabbithole a bit.....

(We do very quickly start getting into conspiracy theory territory hare so I'll try to keep it as uncontroversial as I can.)

A. The UK is truly ruled by financial elites not political ones IMHO. "The city" says jump, Whitehall says how high. The Royal family being among the wealthiest landowners and investors in the world (let alone UK) presumably can exert the same kind of influence. Naturally this occurs behind closed doors, but when the ownership class puts it's foot down the government ignores them to their extreme detriment. (It's hard to argue with people who own your economy de-facto and can make or break your career)

B. The queen herself sits on the council on foreign relations & Bilderberg group and she was actually the chairwoman of the "committee of 300" for several years. (and that's not even starting on club of Rome, shares in Goldman Sachs etc.)

C. SIS the uk's intelligence services (MI5/6 etc.), which have been proven to on occasion operate without civilian oversight in the past, are sworn to the crown. This is always going to be a most contentious point as it's incredibly difficult to prove wrongdoings, but I have very strong suspicions based on various incidents (David Kelly, James Andanson, Jill Dando etc.), that if they wanted/needed you dead/threatened that would not be especially difficult to arrange.

D. Jimmy Saville. This one really is tin foil hat territory, but it's no secret he was close to the Royal family. I am of the opinion this is because he was a top level procurer of "things", for which I feel there is a great deal of evidence, but I can't expect people to just go along with that idea. However given the latest "paedogeddon" scandal involving a extremely high level abuse ring (cabinet members, mi5/6, bankers etc.) it certainly would come as little surprise to find royal family members involved.

Points A&B I would stand behind firmly. C&D are drifting into conjecture but still potentially relevant I feel.

But even if we ignore all of them, our culture is built from the ground up upon the idea of privilege of birth. That there are some people born better or more deserving than the rest of us. When I refer to symbolism this is what I mean. Obviously the buck does not stop with the monarchy, England is hopelessly stratified by class all the way through, but the royal family exemplify this to absurd extremes.

At best I feel this hopelessly distorts and corrupts our collective sense of identity on a sub-conscious level. At worst....Well you must have some idea now how paranoid I'm capable of being about the way the world is run. (Not that I necessarily believe it all wholeheartedly, but I'm open to the possibility and inclined to suggest it more likely than the mainstream narrative)


On a pragmatic note: Tourism would be fine without them I think, we still have the history and the castles and the soldiers with silly hats etc. And I think the palaces would make great hotels and museums. They make great zoo exhibits I agree, just maybe not let them continue to own half the zoo and bribe the zoo keepers?


Anyway much love as always. You responded with considered points which is always worthy of respect, regardless of whether I agree with it all.

I couldn't find a video that didn't cut the sound off at then end, but I found a list for you and posted it here:

1. My dick is so big, there's still snow on it in the summertime.
2. My dick is so big, I went to The Viper Room and my dick got right in. I had to stand there and argue with the doorman.
3. My dick is so big, I have to call it Mr. Dick in front of company.
4. My dick is so big, it won't return Spielberg's calls.
5. My dick is so big, it graduated a year ahead of me from high school.
6. My dick has an elevator and a lobby.
7. My dick has an better credit than I do.
8. My dick is so big, clowns climb out of it when I cum.
9. My dick is so big, it was once overthrown by a military coup. It's now known as the Democratic Republic of My Dick.
10. My dick is so big, it has casters.
11. My dick is so big, I'm already fucking a girl tomorrow.
12. My dick is so big, ships use it to find their way into the harbor.
13. My dick is so big, there was once a movie called Godzilla vs. My Dick
14. My dick is so big, it lives next door.
15. My dick is so big, I entered it in a big-dick contest and it came in first, second, and third.
16. My dick is so big, it votes.
17. My dick is a better dresser than I am.
18. My dick is so big, it has a three-picture deal.
19. My dick is so big that the head of it has only seen my balls in pictures.
20. My dick is so big, Henry Aaron used it to hit his 750th home run.
21. My dick runs the 440 in fifteen seconds.
22. My dick is the Walrus, koo koo ga joob.
23. No matter where I go my dick always gets there first.
24. My dick takes longer lunches than I do.
25. My dick contributed $50,000 to the Democratic National Committee.
26. My dick was once the ambassador to China.
27. My dick is so big, it's gone condo.
28. My dick hit .370 in the minors before it hurt its knee.
29. My dick was almost drafted by the Cleveland Browns, but Art Modell didn't want a bigger dick than he was on the team.
30. My dick is so big, I use the Eiffel Tower as a French tickler.
31. It's so big, when it rains the head of my dick doesn't get wet.
32. My dick is so big, I could wear it sas a tie if I wasn't so aftaid of getting a hard-on and killing myself.
33. My dick is so big, I have to use an elastic zipper.
34. My dick is so big, it has feet.
35. My dick is so big, a homeless family lives underneath it.
36. My dick is so big, it takes four fat women and a team of Clydesdales to jack me off.
37. My dick is so big, my mother was in labor for three extra days.
38. My dick is so big, they use the bullet train to test my condoms.
39. My dick is so big, it has investors.
40. My dick is so big, it seats six.
41. My dick is so big, I use a hula hoop as a cock ring.
42. My dick is so big, we use it at parties as a limbo pole.
43. My dick is so big, King Kong is going to crawl up it in the next remake.
44. My dick is so big, it has an opening act.
45. My dick is so big I can fuck an elevator shaft.
46. My dick is so big, it has its own Wheaties box.
47. My dick is so big, I have to cook it breakfast in the mornings.
48. My dick is so big, the city had to carve a hole in the middle of it so cars could get through.
49. My dick is so big, every time I get hard I cause a solar eclipse.
50. My dick is so big, it only plays arenas.
51. If you cut my dick in two, you can tell how old I am.
52. My dick was once set on fire for a Dino DiLaurnetis movie.
53. My dick is so big, it needs an airplane warning light.
54. My dick is so big, Trump owns it.
55. My dick is so big, that we're all a part of it, and it's all a part of us.
56. My dick is so big, I can never sit in the front row.
57. My dick is so big, it has its own dick. And even my dick's dick is bigger than your dick.
58. My dick is so big, you can't blow me without a ladder.
59. My dick is so big, it only does one show a night.
60. My dick is so big, you can ski down it.
61. My dick is so big, it has an elbow.
62. My dick is so big, I have to check it as luggage when I fly.
63. My dick is so big, it has a personal trainer.
64. My dick is so big, that right now it's in the other room fixing us drinks.
65. My dick is so big, it has a retractable dome.
66. My dick is so big, it has stairs up the center like the Statue of Liberty.
67. My dick is so big, there's a sneaker named "Air My Dick."
68. My dick is so big, I'm its bitch.
69. My dick is so big, it's against the law to fuck me without protective headgear.
70. My dick is so big, I could fuck a tuba.
71. My dick is so big, Stephen Hawking has a theory about it.
72. My dick is so big, it has its own gravity.
73. NASA once launched a space probe to search for the tip of my dick.
74. My dick is so big, it's impossible to see all of it without a satellite.
75. The inside of my dick contains billions an dbillions of stars.
76. My dick is so big, it has a spine.
77. My dick is so big, it has a basement.
78. My dick is so big, movie theatres now serve popcorn in small, medium, large, and My Dick.
79. My dick is more muscular than I am.
80. My dick is so big it has cable.
81. My dick is so big, it violates seventeen zoning laws.
82. My dick is so big, it has its own page in the Sierra Club calendar.
83. My dick is so big, it has a fifty-yard line.
84. My dick is so big, I was once in Ohio and got a blow job in Tennessee.
85. My dick is so big, Las Vegas casinos fly it into town for free.
86. My dick is so big, I can braid it.
87. My dick is so big, than when it's Eastern Standard Time at the tip, it's Central Mountain Time at my balls.
88. My dick is so big, I painted the foreskin red, white, and blue and used it as a flag.
89. My dick is so big, I can sit on it.
90. My dick is so big it can chew gum.
91. My dick is so big, it only tips with hundreds.
92. My dick is so big, the Carnegie Deli named a sandwich after it. Actually, two sandwiches.
93. My dick is so big, the city was going to build a statue of it but they ran out of cement.
94. My dick is so big, Michael Jackson wants to build an amusement park on it.
95. My dick is so big, when I get hard my eyebrows get pulled down to my neck.
96. My dick is so big, you're standing on it.
97. My dick is so big, it only comes into work when it feels like it.
98. My dick is so big, it plays golf with the president.
99. My dick is so big, it charges money for its autograph.
100. My dick is so big, it has an agent. My dick's people will call your people. Let's have lunch with my dick.
101. My dick is so big, it's right behind you.

I guessed from the outset that this was one of those 'inventions' asking for 'investors' on one of those kickstarter type sites that allows the 'inventor' to keep the money even if the venture fails (or never gets started). If that's the case (I'm just guessing) then these WERE successful, as they got tons of investment but will never have a product.

I don't get how he differentiates market and investment return. Besides the market returns on stocks, commodities etc, the only meaningfully different options are a variety of government bonds (which return much less than the market at the moment) and cash, which will lose value against inflation.

Unless you leverage investment returns, you can't achieve a higher return than the market on average (evidence shows that passive investors beat active investors, exceptions exist but on average this is true). Higher leverage is just multiplying your risk though, so you're equally exposed to up and down turns over the long term. May have to check out this book but logically it makes no sense.

@Trancecoach

He focusses on inherited wealth, not earned wealth so most of your post is a bit of a red herring.

As far as advocating higher taxes, besides 70% being obvious hyperbole, you would have to assume that if he's publicly writing and advocating for more redistributive tax policies then he'd be okay with slightly higher rates at his income bracket, otherwise he's kind of going against his own interests.

My wife's last trip to the ER in the US: 26 hours to get admitted to the hospital.

Fuck the US healthcare system. I have lost my entire life's work after getting layed off and my wife becoming ill. I can't even tell you what I owe since I couldn't bare to open the bills after it passed 6 figures. With the bankruptcy I will be left with very little of what I spent my life building.

I played the game. I upheld my end of the contract. I got screwed the first opportunity some rich prick had to earn an extra dime for the investors.

Fuck you if you believe healthcare isn't a universal right.

> "[Austerity] frees up resources for private investment" is a statement that
> does not match my perception of reality"

Well, far be it from me to try to introduce you to some basic epistemologies to which you may not be familiar: like rationalism, deduction, etc, in order to move you away from "authority" as the only path to knowledge you seem to use. Unfortunately, however, this "authority" method is inappropriate to the study of economics.

> "So, demand vs supply... we all know that discussion won't be resolved here,
> ever."

Keynes and Hayek were at it for a while. It's all in the two hip-hop videos.

> "It's utterly pointless."

Yes. There is nothing new not covered by Keynes vs. Hayek.

> "Shamelessness was my addition, my interpretation. "

Bad thymology (my interpretation).

> "He "weakens" society, economically, by suppressing aggregate demand.
> The more wealth you accumulate, the less of it, as a percentage, translates
> into demand."

I see. So, by this logic, any making of money is, in itself, a "weakening" of society. Unless I'm a socialist, like David Simon, then I cannot make money without also "weakening" society.

> "But since you apparently share the views of Hollenbeck, all of that was
> probably hogwash to you."

Yes, at best hogwash. Alas, I've no interest in going into this with you, especially since you've no have interest in actually looking at it. Had you any interest at all -- or studied the subject beyond deferring to the "authority" method of epistemology -- you could at least provide me with a concise explanation as to why you think the Austrian/Misean economic position falters. Rather than thinking for yourself, however, you dismiss it as "wrong," "right-wing," or "pointless" to debate or go into. "Here Be Monsters, period."

The Keynes/Hayek debates have the similar tones, with Keynes simply ignoring all of Hayek's points, evasions, and going off into something else. You clearly agree with the Keynesian approach/theory, which likely means you cannot really explain anything except through unfounded claims, that are "pointless" to argue, debate, or rationally defend.

As I have said before, one cannot have this sort of intellectual relationship with those either unwilling or unable to grasp basic economic principles, like for example those clearly explained by Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson." There's simply no common language through which to communicate. Confronted with these kinds of beliefs, one can either try to educate (but only those who ask for it, since attempting to educate those who do not want to be educated will likely fail, as any public school teacher can tell you) or one can pull out the snake oil and the cash register. The third option involves ignoring such ignorance altogether, and use what one knows for one's own financial and life benefit in ways that don't involve such people in the first place.

There are so many errors in the Keynesian 'demand' theory of economics (you can find much on that if you want to read up on it), but Keynesians tend to avoid any real debates. You're coming from the Keynesian fallacy of saving money as being bad for the economy (because spending it all/consumerism is supposedly what gets the economy going). And the even more absurd fallacy which presupposes (with no proof of it at all) that rich people keep most of their wealth stored somewhere outside of circulation. When in reality, rich people only save some and the richer they are the more they spend/invest. Of course, when the economy seem fragile, due to central banks meddling, bubbles, etc., investors get nervous and don't invest as much a they otherwise would. When they don't invest, it shrinks supply of things people would want to spend on. Demand does nothing, it doesn't exist, if there is nothing to supply that people want to buy.

In fact, I am starting to think that central bankers are not really Keynesian at all, in the sense that they don't really believe their own bullshit. They know better but also know how to exploit their positions as central bankers, making folks like @radx buy into it, the snake oil. For example, he may not care for gold, but bankers do. Whatever they say against it, folks will still buy it, both for themselves and the banks they run. And as @radx rightly says, he's a human. And apparently he can sell his 'charm' if push comes to shove.

McDonald's was an early investor in Chipotle. Here's a current list of all the GMO's in Chipotle's meals (i.e., everything marked with a G).

Too bad it's the marketing campaign that matters, not its veracity.

Well, just ask @blankfist , if banks ever did this, people would just go to another bank. No government intervention needed here.

Oh wait: http://investor.bankofamerica.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71595&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1838343&highlight=

"'We are doing more business with our customers and clients, and gaining momentum across every customer group we serve,' said Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan."

It must be that people like being taken advantage of. I know that's why I personally own a rubber bondage set, because I'd rather get taken advantage of via hot candle wax and use a credit bureau. Different strokes for different folks.