OMG!!!
I could not disagree more.
Trump wrote a book about how to lie your way to 'success', the truth simply is not within that man. 2 days ago he claimed to not know the KKK or David Duke, but 8-10 years ago he refused to join any organization that Duke supported...so what happened? It can't be true he doesn't remember, he said he has the best memory in the world, remember? So he's just lying again, right? It is how he said you get what you want, just lie until you get it, then forget all the lies you told and insult and attack anyone bringing them up.
He's also totally incompetent, failing over and over at businesses, including one business that's nearly impossible to lose at, casinos, he's had 3, and bankrupted all of them 4 times! Then there are Trump steaks, vodka, magazine, mortgage, the game, airlines, and even his terribly named web site...gotrump.com (supposed to be go-trump, not got-rump). He claims to be a successful builder, but he doesn't build things, he just stamps his name on things others build. I think the reason he won't release his taxes is they will show he's actually lost money, never made any, and is only rich today because he was once massively rich (thanks to a huge inheritance and before that, no interest, 'never pay it back' loans from daddy) and lost a ton of money, both his and investors, not because he ever made money or was particularly successful at anything...contrary to what he says.
So, the contention that he 'knows the best people and will put together a team of greatness' goes against his record of putting together teams that fail miserably at businesses that are idiot proof! The contention that his big mouth will let us in on what he's doing supposes that he'll tell the truth...something he never does.
Clinton may have no spine, be a liar, and may wave whatever way the wind blows (all 3 of which Trump trumps her on), but for 'more evil', Trump is definitely your man.

Heh, I made a similar argument years ago to a friend of mine but I wasn't so harsh on the common people.

I don't think it is so much that people are sheep as it is the fact that the system is designed to keep people as preoccupied as possible with their own survival so that they simply can't afford to be truly political activists.

Think about it--in the U.S. you can be legally fired from your job, for example, for expressing political opinions your boss disagrees with. It isn't a freedom of speech issue because freedom of speech only prevents the government from censoring your speech--not private business. Hell, it doesn't even have to be a political opinion. When someone wears an ostensibly "offensive" Halloween outfit and pictures of it show up on the Internet, they can be fired without having any kind of recourse.

Now you add on top of that how the middle class has been eroded away. A lot of families need dual incomes just to survive. That means you also need to pay for childcare if you have kids. Prices have increased but wages haven't kept pace. Now add debts on top of all this, whether it be from college loans, credit cards, car payments, mortgages, or whatever.

What you get from all this is a society where, as bad as things are in Washington, it's not bad enough for people to risk their already precarious circumstances by boycotting work to attend protests or engaging in some other form of extreme activism that would probably be required to effect real changes. A lot of people are one bad circumstance away from, if not bankruptcy, then at least a drastic lifestyle shift where they'll lose most of their personal belongings and possibly dreams (like having their kids go to college).

So things plod along pretty much the way they always have, with those in power continuing to consolidate that power and see how far they can push it. Barring college students with pretty much nothing to lose (they have both the free time and probably economic freedom to protest and engage in political activism), the best most people can do is gripe about things on the Internet.

@radx

I tend to see controlling the quantity of money along with the interest rate as a valid way for central banks to influence the economy when necessary but I admit in or after crises they are generally almost useless. Economics being a social science is always going to be notoriously unreliable in both prediction and in isolation the causes of a prior event, some would say almost useless.

Controlling purely the interest rates on overnight bank deposits for banks at the central bank (what setting the rate is, as opposed to the commonly held belief that the central bank dictates lending and borrowing rates) is if anything of little impact. These rates can be at 0% and if banks consider economic prospects poor, that will not cause them to lend any further.

Such was the case in the US in the immediate years after '08. i would argue the only action to have real economic impact was the buying up of distressed mortgage securities by the Fed. The parts of QE1, 2 that involved injecting money into the banks basically just led to them investing in low risk securities and earning interest (effectively just sitting on it) because they were not willing to risk lending it.

While I'm not a big fan of ceding authority to a largely independent organisation, I have to admit that since central banks have become independent, inflation in those countries has become a thing of the past. Now granted they get things wrong (e.g. Greenspan inflating the '08 bubble) but their main advantages is being willing to take measures that cause short term pain but long term gain. I don't think any elected politician would have been willing to take the measures Volcker did to curb inflation for example. In fact, while he was at the Fed, Reagan's government effectively inflated the Savings and Loans bubble.

Yeah, this really is beyond horrifying.

"PC is more scary that open totalitarianism"? Nope, here's your real villain: stealth totalitarianism. Fuck over your fellow man in the name of a higher score.

"Chairman, oppressing the citizenry is hard work!"
"Fear not! I have a cunning plan to make them oppress each other"

And by god will it work.... put a number beside a name and people will do anything to make that number go up.

As an example: my wife got a new car recently that shows your average fuel consumption in l/100km. I didn't pay any attention to it until I was playing in the settings and found I could switch the units to km/l. A completely innocuous change, right? Except now it's a number that can go up, and I am obsessed with making it go up everything I drive her car.

I set cruise control at the speed limit and brake as little as possible.

A/C? Not unless I am actually melting!

Corners? You'd be amazed at how fast you can round them if you let a machine control your speed!

Red lights? Er, yeah, I suppose I should stop, but then I'll have to accelerate again!

And that number doesn't even matter! FSM only knows what I'd do if it affected my mortgage rate or something....

there many forms of enslavement,to wit most people are wholly unaware,either unwittingly or unwillingly.

"none are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free" van goethe.

consider this my friends:
if you accept currency for your labors,where you toil for anothers financial gain.you are literally renting yourself.trading your time,creativity and labors for coin.you are a wage slave and a hundred years ago our ancestors were very aware of this and found it detestable.they literally saw it as a form of slavery.

now as @Lawdeedaw pointed out,there are some protections put forth by our government,along with other governments,but those were not just handed out.they had to be fought for,and many died for those protections.by whom? wage slaves,but in those days they KNEW thats what they were,and proceeded from that premise.

the philosophy of the matrix even addressed this very idea of slavery (yep,i went there).that the majority of the people had become so entrenched and immersed in the system,that to even question the system would illicit a violent and defensive response.they would fight to remain in the system.

just look at our friend @Barbar 's reaction.
even the term "slave" was enough for a visceral reaction.

i am reminded of a doug stanhope routine in where he states " at least i KNOW i am a slave,YOU,however..remain clueless".

so let us take the term "slave" off the table and instead use the dynamic of "power vs powerlessness".

the current systems of power have the majority of people running on hamster wheel of desperation.may it be "pay check to paycheck" or "mortgage and credit cards" or the subtle doctrine of "conform and obey".this could also be "all of the above".

the real question is this:
do you consider yourself free?
because a comfortable slave.....is still a slave.
the term may be dramatic,but it is accurate.

WE as is "That's not the country we have decided we want to live in" Who is WE??

I don't agree with the WE. So there is no WE.

Anyway:

After reading you response it appears that you premise is this:

People are too inferior to make reasonable and logical decisions to succeeded in life so we need a benevolent government to provide for its people.

----------------Such a defeatist position.-------------------------



I believe that it is a basic instinct to want to succeed. That one naturally raises to the occasion and overcomes adversity. I believe in ones ability to rise to the occasion. To get knocked down and get back up. I believe in the human spirit.



AS for "How about we just remove all corporate welfare" Yep I agree and also get rid of mortgage deductions and all other government cheese.

I should mention as a footnote that with the arrival of my little boy, when the missus went back to work I've had to buy a car to help with ferrying him to daycare, etc. Couldn't really put him in the backpack on the bike.

The bike's since been mothballed in the garage. The missus has said that I can ride it again, but only if I show her a current life insurance policy with a minimum value enough to pay off the mortgage.

The way a bank is supposed to operate is that it matches the terms of its loans and its deposits. A 5 year mortgage is funded by 5 year term deposits or bonds or whatever. This is what a bank that wants to make a safe reasonable profit does. Of course the big American banks aren't really banks any more. They're gamblers and what's worse they are the kind of gambler's that think they can recoup their losses by gambling more.

If I had invested all the quarters that I sunk into Asteroids, Missile Command and Defender, I'd be mortgage-friggin' free.

I take issue with that... I don't own any over priced consoles!

Completely guilty of the rest though

And on that note, anyone got any recommendations for a good HOTAS setup? Preferably one that won't require a second mortgage (I'm looking at you, warthog!)

She used to be his little elf princess, but then marriage, mortgage and two kids happened.

While I actually agree with the report, I have to point out that Standard & Poor should have ZERO credibility on any issue. They're the same guys that were rating the sub-prime mortgage backed securities as triple-A. Their analysis of anything at all is, to say the least, highly suspect.

It's ok, this is Texas. Less paperwork than buying a car or getting a mortgage. Cool part, I'm not even an American citizen. I'm with Hipnotic way down there at the bottom... just because we can doesn't mean we should. Comes with common sense and basic respect or consideration for those around us. Hope you get your prescription renewed real soon and are able to chill out a bit Chingy... "bullshit hit list"? Someone's been watching too much Fox again... have fun.

Australia for arguments sake, but your assumption that my post was about one upping the US is incorrect.

I find the situation sad when so many people are so poorly treated by a system and yet still perpetuate that system. You mention not being able to play a game due to a lack of freedom, but how is that an issue compared to not getting medical or dental care for a child? Access to life saving drugs without mortgaging not only your own future, but the future of your kids. Oh woo-fucking-hoo, you can buy the handful of games our censors knocked on the head, but you can't feed your homeless or pay your retired police/firefighters pensions. You can't guarantee a living wage for huge swathes of the population so a few people can have even larger money vaults. Your security apparatus crawls through your vaunted rights at will, and convinces the populace that the guy shining a light on just how undermined US freedom really is, is a traitor...

If all I was concerned about is feeling superior, I could stop right there, mission accomplished.

But it's not. It's fucking sick that so many people eek out shitty existences for the protection and perpetuation of a tiny portion of the population. Feudalism at least was honest, you were born in the dirt and you died in the dirt.

American's are, from my experience, just people like everyone else. For the most part, wonderful people. I've met so many great people on my travels to the US. They deserve better, they fought and bled and worked for better. So how is it most never even get close?

It's not about who's better, or more fortunate, or who's national dick is collectively longer. It's about giving good people a fair chance rather than the so called 'representatives' conspiring to stack the game against them.

This is so misleading. It makes me sad. Of course "The Answer" is hogwash, but to say that "Positive Thinking" and the so called "Law of Attraction" are the same thing is a lie.

The Answer, by John Assaraf and The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne (whom Ehrenreich references) are not representations of what most people consider positive thinking, nor does it have much to do with the idiocy of firing those that warned about the dangers of out-of-control sub-prime mortgage loans.

In other words, this video confuses many separate philosophies and psychological principles, some of which are real, and some of which are false.

There have been numerous studies on positive thinking, meditation, and mental practice that point to positive gains in actual performance. Retorhic and references to George W Bush, don't make this video accurate, though they do garner applause, as evidenced by the number of votes and promotes this video has earned.

Research points to the following benefits of positive thinking:
Increased life span
Lower rates of depression
Lower levels of distress
Greater resistance to the common cold
Better psychological and physical well-being
Reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease
Better coping skills during hardships and times of stress

Positive thinking SHOULD NOT be confused with blinding yourself to realities and dangerous actions, as in the George Bush example given, nor should it be confused with "The Law of Attraction," as in the numerous references she gives to people getting things simply by thinking them.

Positive Thinking is a very powerful force that can lift one into a self reliant and full life. Positive thinkers impact the world with invention, ingenuity, and an uplifting influence on their community.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_visualization
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/stress-management/in-depth/positive-thinking/art-20043950
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3156028/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-clear/positive-thinking_b_3512202.html