I think it's funny that the ad suggests that Men are things, and that the woman can "have" one of the men as currency.

Sorry for the delayed response. I got a bit busy this week, and didn't have the time/energy to dedicate that a response of this sort deserves. Thanks for your patience.

Your response suggests an adoption to Marxism which, in my opinion, is unmatched in the level of suffering it has caused, but leaving that aside...
In response to your bullet points:

#1. "ever wonder why there is an economics course and a business admin course? there is a reason for that.one is theory the other practical application. and economists get it wrong...and often."

This is the kind of thing Paul Krugman often says, and it's flat wrong. To the extent we have a free market, we have a successful exchange of goods and services at a fair and competitive price. To the extent to which we have socialism, with central planners, and governmental regulation, we have cronyism, plutocratic kleptocracy, and failure. The Austrian school of economics does a very good job of explaining -- step by step in a manner in which you can follow along using deductive logic, how such contradictions come about. Entrepreneurs are to Austrian economists as artists are to the best of art/literary critics. There's no discrepancy between theory and practice. They can clearly and accurately describe what entrepreneurs are doing. Unless you have studied Mises, you'll probably have little to no good idea as to what economics is or what it can or cannot do.

#2: fascism is, in fact, a type of socialism because it follows a socialist economic model.

#3: Yes, I've thought it through. Explain to me specifically how you arrived at your conclusions. Otherwise, you're just making assertions.

> "france is a democracy. they have capitalism AND
> socialism."

France has a mix of capitalism and socialism, not unlike the U.S. Again, to the degree that France has a free market, things work and to the degree that they have socialism, the problems arise and get worse, as they/we are seeing now. To the degree that they are socialist, they are a failure. Socialism is unsustainable because you have no economic calculation. (And the European Union, which includes France, is failing -- in case you haven't noticed. This video can provide you with the data you need to understand this.)

Socialism is planned chaos because the issue of economic calculation (and its absence) gets glossed over. The EU is partially socialist -- it's a mix -- so it can somewhat slow down the effects of socialist chaos, unlike full-blown socialist systems. But it is increasingly more socialist and the chaos increases.
To deal with this planned chaos, these mixed systems rely on Lord Keynes' theories and policies of credit expansion, which equates to basically "throwing money" at the problem.
But, (as the Keynes/Hayek rap video says) "there's a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it!"

(Quite honestly, I'm surprised that you're not for establishing stable rules for the banks. You know, so that they're no longer able to extend money/credit that they don't have without being charged with fraud.
Because if you were for such banking rules, then you would no longer support the Keynesian approaches upon which your ideology is resting. Personally, I think money and credit needs rules and, for this reason, I don't support socialism or central planning in the absence of economic calculation, which is only possible within a free market system.)

The credit expansion expands the circumference of the boom and bust cycle, slowing it down, extending the boom period, but setting things up for a worse bust. It's all very predictable. If some are still not convinced about Europe's failure, it is because even as bad as things are, the bust has not really hit. Yet, it will. Eventually.

Unlike the Dollar, the Euro is not the world's reserve currency, and there is no petro-euro like there is a petro-dollar. So Europe cannot delay the bust in the manner that the U.S. can. On the other hand, thanks to German objections, the credit expansion in Europe has not gone as high as in the U.S. so their bust may not be as disastrous as it can be for the U.S.

The boom and bust cycle cannot occur in an anarchy because you need a central bank with powers of credit expansion to make it happen.
The alternative explanation, the "animal spirits" (a la Lord Keynes) posits that all businesses suddenly make mistakes at the same time, and/or all consumers at the same time decide to stop buying, causing the bust. I doubt it. That's no explanation at all.

> "my point is that health care should be a collective project
> but i believe i also entertained a free market solution as well."

I think you need to define what you mean by "collective" because the free market is as collective as it gets. I don't think you grasp what the free market means (i.e., voluntary interactions that allow for economic calculation and involve zero violence, allowing for better service and cheaper prices). Unless you understand this, no further discussion will lead to very much.

You say some things should be done collectively. I say many things must be done collectively. That's the basic premise of Austrian economics, the division of labor. You cannot do everything yourself. That's one reason I say that the free market economy is as collective as it gets.

> "i am a dissident. an anarchist."

If you're an anarchist, then you don't believe in government, by definition. So you can't be a socialist, as socialism requires a government to manage things. Without government, the only thing left is voluntary exchanges, which is the definition of a free market, economic capitalism (not to be confused with sociological capitalism).

You shouldn't rely on economists to tell you how things are. See for yourself. Again, only the Austrian school (that I know of) enables you to follow deductively on your own and make rational sense of the market activity.

You say economists are "probably wrong." How do you know? Economics isn't mysterious heuristics and sociological prophesy. It's like mathematics. You don't need to "believe" me that 2 + 2 = 4. You can deduce it for yourself.

I think that if you can learn a few basic economic lessons (which you can easily verify for yourself), you'll understand better where I'm coming from. (Then you'll be a coherent anarchist and not sound so confused ).

If you are an "anarchist," then who do you want administering things if not the government?

Hayek was much more of an anarchist (again, the rap video:
"The question is who plans for whom? Do I plan for myself, or leave it to you? I want plans by the many, not by the few.")

An anarchist who thinks otherwise is not much of an anarchist, is he?

Oh, they named their hard 1 dollar-equivalent currency after this bird as well, nothing better to fucking DO! Love the Canadians, save me a seat at the Apocalypse, will you guys??
"Oh and here she comes, yes, there she is! The aboot-to-be, princess of Canada, isn't she ravishing?..So pure of heart:....so strong in body, so hot-in-the-face....She is indeed, the living symbol, of our great country...(*gushing and queafing) "My god, she's beautiful!"

I love that you're using drywall as a relative currency.

Fear fap. (fapfapfapfapfapfapfpafpafapfpafapfapfapfapfapfapfap) Come on. Study economics and history and you will know exactly how the government is going to "fix" the debt. It's called intentional devaluation of the national currency. Followed by massive digital printing of money to cover all international debt. Following repayment, the government will use a substitute currency or simply "erase" the serial numbers issued to foreign powers, thereby revaluing the physical and digital currency held by National assets (citizens). This is a one day solution that will most likely be used. Of course this is just my educated opinion, but it is a significantly less problematic one than preparing for civil war or rebellion against the Fed. If you are worried about the currency devaluation hurting you in your retirement options or investments, buy land.

@NinjaInHeat go ahead, throw away your money paying higher taxes, no one's stopping you, but it won't give you any moral authority to demand higher taxes for other people.

I'd seriously like to understand what justifies a corporation paying progressively more taxes than the rest of us. Aren't we trying to right a wrong here, are profits in the hands of a productive entity or person something inherently bad for society? Should it be transferred to government instead, who is much better at wasting resources than petty cost-conscious businessmen?

Your hatred towards all corporations is misplaced because, believe it or not, they don't all conspire to enjoy the same amount of freedom and privileges. Government is stepping in and benefitting a select few at the expense of many. In this awful economy, many corporations have gone bankrupt or are struggling to get by, while a few benefit from massive bailouts and federal contracts handsomely paid for with the debasement of our currency and heavy taxes you so fiercely want all corporations to pay.

To me, that's neither representative of capitalism, nor of a healthy functioning society.

I think you're mistaken in your understanding that we have any substantial power or responsibility for the actions of our governments. In a democracy, your participation outside of a more influential circle is mostly symbolic. Sure, you can vote and run for office, but that limited capacity for involvement shouldn't be an excuse to shunt any criticism of government.

Turning US Currency into artwork is exempted from that.

Payback is right, our prisons are overflowing with parent-turned-felon currency defacers already. Lets not encourage this sort of deviant behavior.

Thank god you are here.

Ya, parenting hacks that get you jail time...

United States Code
** TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE *** PART I - CRIMES **** CHAPTER 17 - COINS AND CURRENCY

U.S. Code as of: 01/19/04

Section 333. Mutilation of national bank obligations

Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or
unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank
bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national
banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal
Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note,
or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined
under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

Easy, don't use gold as your currency. Then don't borrow your entire fiat money supply from private banks and pay them interest on it. That's just stupid.

I stand corrected. The video was nice (you should post to the sift with the 40 minute offset, and mark as related to this video). But the link you sent mentions (just before the footnotes) that Virtual Currency is not considered "legal tender", and with that, you wouldn't have the same legal problems that the Liberty Dollar had. It also mentions the banking regulations apply to those that convert to/from real currency, not to users.

So, invest all you like in Bitcoin. It will be nice until a (reasonably sized) quantum computer comes around. After that, Bitcoins will be useless (along with all other systems built around asymmetric cryptography).

Watch my first link (start halfway through to skip to BtC; @Mobius as well) and read this.

Essentially you're mistaken with this assertion.

@rebuilder : FYI

@schlub : this was the first crypto currency to get the execution right; therein a very original idea.



Back in my hole.

The case I remember was the Liberty Dollar - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar (also mentioned in the wiki article you posted).

That guy was convicted of http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/485 and others counts - basically conspiracy to undermine the legitimacy of the US Treasury.

Certainly since bitcoin is digital, you couldn't get arrested for the "making your own coins" but it could still pose a problem.

In-game currencies have no cash value, and never claim to be "legal tender". All EULAs for MMOs forbid "mining" and reselling of in-game property outside of the game. Therefore the game companies are off-the-hook for users' actions.

Source please? It's illegal to create a currency that can be confused with the dollar, but private currencies exist in the USA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_currency#United_States

And that's not to mention virtual currencies in games like WOW, which can be traded for other currencies.

It should be noted that creating a currency other than the existing Dollar, is illegal in the USA. (that won't stop people from using bitcoin, just not legally accepted). Not sure of laws governing Euro...

It used to be computationally easy to generate bitcoins, but nowadays you need a fast GPU or large cluster to even have a chance.

Also, I remember a story of guy who generated a ton of bitcoins early on. Someone found out, broke into his house and stole all his computers - and with them, his bitcoins (~ 5 million). Good luck trying to tell the insurance company that you had $350 Million worth of bitcoins stolen...