Oh and yes, "vapid"...Facebook is nothing if not vapid....and apparent.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/investors-sold-stock-facebook-ipo-17049466#.UDS5bKNWIa4

Facebook phenomena has its roots in what sells to the masses.
Defend it against its detractors, oh user and supporter, and you may cloak some denial in the realization of its hold on you.
Support it, and you may indulge in a diversion which gives incredible power over your life to others, some anonymous, to many aspects and influences in your robotic existence.

Play well with others, and discover a brand new world of someone parked in a cubicle in Langley, Virginia knowing what brand of baby powder you like to use on Wednesdays for that special date....
THIIINK ABOUT IT!!??

@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.

>> ^nock:

>> ^shinyblurry:
It's a great ad if you're not interested in facts:
http://factcheck.org/2012/06/obamas-outsourcer-overreach/
You might also want to consider President Obamas outsourcing record:
http

/www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obamas-record-on-outsourcing-draws-criticism-from-the-left/2012/07/09/gJQAljJCZW_story.html

Your rebuttal is only true if he indeed left Bain in 1999, which is why he is adamantly denying involvement up to 2002 despite recent evidence to suggest otherwise.


The Obama campaign hasn't actually provided any evidence that their accusations are true. That Romney signed a few documents while they were transferring ownership of the company doesn't prove Romney was actually running the company. He was working 112 hour work weeks running the Olympics; how was he supposed to have an active role at Bain?

There is also the evidence of three confidential offering documents distributed to potential investors, two in 2000, 1 in 2001, in which Romneys name is conspicuously absent from. If he was really running the company, his name would have been on them:

http://factcheck.org/2012/07/romneys-bain-years-new-evidence-same-conclusion/

Comparing a classroom setting to our economy is a poor analogy, if you work hard in class you can usually get a decent grade, unlike money, grades aren't a finite resource, you do work that deserves an A and you get an A. It doesn't cost the teacher anything to give one and most likely they feel better giving A's than F's, it means they're doing a good job after all (provided the grading is honest to begin with). In the workplace however it's the exact opposite, a person may work hard and do great work for their employer, but giving more money to employee's means less money for CEO's and shareholders as well as lower profit margins all around and according to current social dogma CEO's and investors are the really important people, everyone else is just a replaceable cog.
This video is so full of bullshit that I swear I could hear the sound of cows mooing in the background.

My office is in a neighborhood where such women fear to tread.In reply to this comment by UsesProzac:
What about young, overweight, misanthropic white women?

In reply to this comment by Trancecoach:
Clinical therapist... I talk to young, attractive, affluent white women between the ages of 25 and 35 about finding meaning and purpose in their lives...

I also consult with artists and filmmakers about how to make their projects appealing to investors and financiers.

Clinical therapist... I talk to young, attractive, affluent white women between the ages of 25 and 35 about finding meaning and purpose in their lives...

I also consult with artists and filmmakers about how to make their projects appealing to investors and financiers.

@bmacs27

No doubt, the best deals get done. The two I have in mind as examples are either under construction or fully built. When you have firm tenant commitments with specific requirements there is money out there that will back the project. In one case an institutional investor partnered with the developer to fund the project. In the other the developers got cash from just about everywhere and anywhere they could to meet the equity requirement.

What happened in my market is a "flight to quality" or "flight to safety". Basically tenants and developers stopped looking at the green belt (developing outer edges) and started looking at the strongest parts of the local market. That means the CBD and established communities. These deals are harder, but they are safer. Thus the "easy" deals in the developing (speculative) communities ended.

The idea that there are a bunch of empty shopping malls isn't really true. Vacancy rates spiked several years ago yes, but since then the amount of new space to market (supply) has dropped.


When I recently surveyed four communities in Central, IL (Bloomington/Normal, Springfield, Decatur, & Champaign/Urbana) I found that there is very little available retail space. Same goes for the Chicago Loop.

I agree we need infrastructure investment but we also need let the market dictate where new construction is going to take place because each market is different. Location location location. If the fundamentals make sense we need to build.

Are you at all sympathetic to the view that there is too much concentration of capital in the financial sector, and not enough in the real economy? I think the compensation has gotten way out of whack in relation to the services they perform. I also think the securitization of debt was a horrible idea. What was wrong with glass steagall you know? What I'd like to see is a return to bankers loaning out deposits, and investors seeking out entrepreneurs. Instead, we have investors seeking to leverage systemic risk knowing full well they have a lifeline because the government can't go ahead and flush our life savings down the toilet now can it?

>> ^kevingrr:

What we are going to see shortly is traditional banks close up shop in low to low-mid income areas.
The banks offered "Free Checking" with the knowledge that people would overdraft and they would make fees on those overdrafts. There is no such thing as a free lunch or free banking. This was always part of every banks business plan. Caveat Emptor.
Those fees are now being restricted by Dodd-Frank. Therefore the banks can no longer turn a profit in many low/mid income neighborhoods. Banks are in business to make a profit and when they cannot make a profit they will close or downsize.
The solution is fairly simple. Banks will close and currency exchanges and payday loan shops will open. I don't think these businesses are preferable to banks. It an unintended consequence of the bill. It will hurt people it was meant to help.
I have free checking. I maintain a four to five figure balance and I have never been charged. I don't have everything I want, but I have more "things" in my life than I will ever need.
Chase lost $2 Billion dollars? Yea that's a bad call, but they have $2.26 Trillion in assets, $90 Billion in revenue, and $19 Billion in net income. I think they can absorb the loss.

On that same note, why are these workers staying with these employers.
After the first check is missed, they should be "Out the door"

I've been there where my employer's check bounced. when I got a replacement check. the bank phoned it in before cashing it it, only to find out there were insufficient funds to cover that check as well. The company had to have their accountant come and pay me out of their petty cash.

When I handed them my notice right after that (because I couldn't continue to work for an unstable company) I was taken into the office and brow beaten. I was told that dedication was part of the job and by not being part of the solution for the company, I was part of the problem. Then they invited me back and told me they would excuse my indiscretion of deciding to quit if I put in extra hours to help turn the company around. In fact, I was unwilling to quite my other job which was a guaranteed full time position and was told, my lack of dedication was an issue. This from a company who couldn't afford to pay their employees. (I wasn't the only one). On top of that. The guy running the company on investors money was living in the richest hotel penthouse in town and was always away on guiding hunting trips with his wife, the secretary of the company. Spending the investor's money on himself, instead of the business overhead. (It was an internet design company and we weren't even allowed to have internet access at our desks and wereexpected to bring in or own computer equipment from home.)

Ya right, needless to say, I was out the door.

If we let the people out of prison, who will operate the factories they are attached to? Where will we get our cheap paint and crappy fiberboard office furniture?

(In the United States)the federal prison industry produces 100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98% of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints and paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of home appliances; 30% of headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people. (...)

Profits are so good that now there is a new business: importing inmates with long sentences, meaning the worst criminals. When a federal judge ruled that overcrowding in Texas prisons was cruel and unusual punishment, the CCA signed contracts with sheriffs in poor counties to build and run new jails and share the profits. According to a December 1998 Atlantic Monthly magazine article, this program was backed by investors from Merrill-Lynch, Shearson-Lehman, American Express and Allstate, and the operation was scattered all over rural Texas. That state's governor, Ann Richards, followed the example of Mario Cuomo in New York and built so many state prisons that the market became flooded, cutting into private prison profits.

After a law signed by Clinton in 1996 - ending court supervision and decisions - caused overcrowding and violent, unsafe conditions in federal prisons, private prison corporations in Texas began to contact other states whose prisons were overcrowded, offering "rent-a-cell" services in the CCA prisons located in small towns in Texas. The commission for a rent-a-cell salesman is $2.50 to $5.50 per day per bed. The county gets $1.50 for each prisoner.

Source=/globalreasearch.ca/Vicky Pelaez/2008

>> ^Porksandwich:

Hope he's "rich rich" and not just "well off", because the more he's worth...the better his stance on it. Which shouldn't be, but wealthy people get idolized and their words mean just a little bit more than yours.


Wiki "In the 1990s, Hanauer was one of the first investors in Amazon.com (where he served as adviser to the board until 2000). He founded gear.com (which eventually merged with Overstock.com) and Avenue A Media (which in 2007, under the new name aQuantive, was acquired by Microsoft for $6.4 billion)."

Probably a smidge more than "well-off".

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:
Wow that's a large wall of text, @newtboy.
But yes, it appears that:
"Calleja has developed a lighting system that requires no electricity for power. Instead it draws CO2 from the atmosphere and uses it to produce light as well as oxygen as a byproduct. The key ingredient to this eco-friendly light? Algae."
I guess that's why the video empathized that Calleja has been a biochemist for twenty years. i.e. years of research have helped developed a strain of algae with such properties
Apparently the electricity the algae produces is stored in a battery underneath the unit.
http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/biochemist-creates-co2-eating-light-that-runs-on-algae-2012055/



It appears that this is NOT the case...which is why they redacted the claims here...http://www.earthtechling.com/2012/04/algae-powered-street-lamps-suck-up-c02/
(thanks entrOpy) Don't believe everything you read, especially if the writer is looking for investors!
...and I think you meant emphasized, but maybe they did empathize with him about something and that's why they agreed to re-print his unverified, improbable, sometimes completely wrong claims. *edit-after reading other articles and comments, I find that others claim Calleja is NOT known for being a leading biochemist, but instead is a businessman, which makes me even more warry of his claims.
Also, did no one else notice the name of the company...shame-an(d)-go, is that a play on words describing their actions?
Sorry for the wall of text, there were a lot of mis-statements and implications that needed pointing out and correcting. Science is rarely simple.

This one ?

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

Wow that's a large wall of text, @newtboy.
But yes, it appears that:
"Calleja has developed a lighting system that requires no electricity for power. Instead it draws CO2 from the atmosphere and uses it to produce light as well as oxygen as a byproduct. The key ingredient to this eco-friendly light? Algae."
I guess that's why the video empathized that Calleja has been a biochemist for twenty years. i.e. years of research have helped developed a strain of algae with such properties
Apparently the electricity the algae produces is stored in a battery underneath the unit.
http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cete
ra/biochemist-creates-co2-eating-light-that-runs-on-algae-2012055/


>> ^newtboy:

The written description said 'with no electricity for power', but the video clearly shows an electric light in the center of the tank...not bioluminescent, electric. They tell you it only works 'in a lighted aquarium'. You even see the operator plug it in and the light turn on at :32, and again at :40, with the electric cord also clearly visible. The audio never claims the device or the algae MAKES light or electricity, only that it takes in CO2 and releases O2. The video of the garage version also shows this clearly, with the plain fluorescent lights turned on while they add the algae to a fish tank. If the power is supposed to be coming from the algae, not the grid, how is the light supposed to be being powered without any algae in the tank? There is never ANY mention of POWER being produced from the algae in the video itself, and the few ways I've read this could be possible are NO WHERE NEAR being financially viable, just possible. They require specialty genetically altered algae (expensive) and reactors with exotic materials to capture electrons from charged algae (also expensive), and the algae must be exposed to light to become charged. If, as the written description claims, they have solved this problem and ARE generating electricity from nothing more than an anaerobic reaction without external heat/light/energy required, you would think they would have said so in the video itself, and made a HUGE deal about it. They did not.
If this really worked without outside electricity added, they could put panels of the algae and reactors outside and run the white light (now inside the algae tank) indoors as a living solar panel/light setup, I note they did not do or even suggest this.
Without the 'magic', unmentioned light/electricity generating portion, this is NOT a new idea in the least as he claimed, people have advocated using simple algae and micro algae to scrub CO2 for decades, and usually in sun light rather than electric light so it's better than carbon neutral. What this really seems to be is a filter you can put OVER a light to make it produce some O2, but it also gives off far less light. There is no indication whatsoever from the video that this is intended to produce light or electricity itself without external power. I can't see where the poster got that idea. Perhaps they are involved in the project and want 'investors' that can't see the difference and can't do any research?

The written description said 'with no electricity for power', but the video clearly shows an electric light in the center of the tank...not bioluminescent, electric. They tell you it only works 'in a lighted aquarium'. You even see the operator plug it in and the light turn on at :32, and again at :40, with the electric cord also clearly visible. The audio never claims the device or the algae MAKES light or electricity, only that it takes in CO2 and releases O2. The video of the garage version also shows this clearly, with the plain fluorescent lights turned on while they add the algae to a fish tank. If the power is supposed to be coming from the algae, not the grid, how is the light supposed to be being powered without any algae in the tank? There is never ANY mention of POWER being produced from the algae in the video itself, and the few ways I've read this could be possible are NO WHERE NEAR being financially viable, just possible. They require specialty genetically altered algae (expensive) and reactors with exotic materials to capture electrons from charged algae (also expensive), and the algae must be exposed to light to become charged. If, as the written description claims, they have solved this problem and ARE generating electricity from nothing more than an anaerobic reaction without external heat/light/energy required, you would think they would have said so in the video itself, and made a HUGE deal about it. They did not.
If this really worked without outside electricity added, they could put panels of the algae and reactors outside and run the white light (now inside the algae tank) indoors as a living solar panel/light setup, I note they did not do or even suggest this.
Without the 'magic', unmentioned light/electricity generating portion, this is NOT a new idea in the least as he claimed, people have advocated using simple algae and micro algae to scrub CO2 for decades, and usually in sun light rather than electric light so it's better than carbon neutral. What this really seems to be is a filter you can put OVER a light to make it produce some O2, but it also gives off far less light. There is no indication whatsoever from the video that this is intended to produce light or electricity itself without external power. I can't see where the poster got that idea. Perhaps they are involved in the project and want 'investors' that can't see the difference and can't do any research?