this looks like a hacked game.

rabbit gives you magic ball w/ a hat and score multiplier.
lobster gives you pinball flippers on the sides.
you can't mix 2.

so i highly question this video for authenticity.

>> ^shuac:
Are those pinball flippers made of carrot?


They're crab claws!

Robster Craws!

Are those pinball flippers made of carrot?

garmachi:
I predict that this will be my first #1 post.

Easy, Kreskin.

The flipper flapping had me, brilliant!

AND ANOTHER DAMNED THING!! This doesn't cover ARMs or the interest only loans or the minimum payment loans. The videos "cute" little graphic makes it seem as if it was only the unwashed, working class purchasers of subprime mortgages (cigarette smokers, parents of multiple children; gee, why didn't they just shade them in to make them Black and/or Mexican??) who caused the problem, not the yuppie flippers or the innumerate (numbers equivalent of illiterate) middle class home-aspirants. Plenty of middle class folks have gone down the shitter through this arrangement, not just the "poor."

Now that I look at it again, this video leaves out not only the credit default swaps, but the flippers AND the builders who overbuilt areas, like in Merced County, CA, where I grew up, and which is now the epicenter of foreclosures and defaults. All these houses were built for the SF Bay Area market--two hours away by car--and the county, and others like it, were just saturated with homes, I mean, INFESTED with new developments. When my mother died in October, 2004, I put her 50yr old house on the market immediately and sold it within two weeks. This was a 1200 sq ft. house originally purchased for $16,000 in 1971 that was now "worth" $225,000. I got my check in Dec. and the market peaked in Jan. 2005. Now no one in that county can sell their home for anywhere near what it is "worth" because the market has completely collapsed.

really fantastic video.
really depressing subject.

didn't really cover credit-default-swaps though. which is the so-called insurance for the "safe" tier. There was another video on the sift explaining that, but I'm too lazy to search for it right now.

the real problem is 1 word - greed.

it's great that people or families with bad credit can still buy a house, but for god sakes, buy something reasonable. ask yourself "is it worth this much?" I mean if it's a 2-bedroom house in a shithole LA suburb, is it really worth $500k+ ?? Or, if you have a small family, do you really need 3000+ sq ft of living space? Why invest in something so expensive?

and the "flippers" made the problem worse, along with all the stupid reality shows that are about flipping a house. Each show only had stories about people who succeeded. It's easy to fill 1 hour with 3 success stories, but what about the 13 failures that you aren't covering? Who sponsored that shit? Investment bankers?

new rule: only buy a house if you are actually gonna live in it.

You say: Europe is choking to death from socialism.

No, they're deteriorating from it and on the path to serfdom. But as I said, they live within their means, and their lack of military spending and their lack of domestic oil reserves has resulted in better energy efficieny and policies, because they were spurred by high gas prices that we never had. You can HAVE a benevolent dictator that works to your advantage for a while, but the enablement of certain powers gaurantees inevitable costs that outweigh those benefits. You need to understand this, and why our forefathers bothered with a constitution limiting government from the get-go. They knew it, they lived it, they saw it happen, and as a result of this document, gold money, and unmitigated markets, we rose from nothing to the most powerful, affluent country in the world. Government was miniscule on the way up, it will be humongous on the way down.

It was 1913 the path to destruction began, the federal reserve and the income tax were passed in the same year. The Fed's inflation of the 20s caused the correction of 29, then turned into a long depression by Hoover and FDR's interventionist policies. The Smoot Hawley bill was a protectionist reaction resulting in retaliatory tariffs on American exports. Taxes then went from 20% to 63% under hoover, then 90% under FDR. Anyone with any money to hire people, sat on it. What revenue did come in from those taxrates, government used it to pay government workers to basically dig holes and fill them back up again. The policies always destroyed more wealth than they created, decreasing unemployment for the sake of it. You simply can't centrally direct the desires and wealth brought about by millions of diverse individuals freely transacting and trading with each other. They also ordered farmers to plow under fields and slaughter livestock to reduce the supply of food, because they believed falling prices would hurt the economy. This is also the same guy that confiscated people's gold (for which he should have been arrested), absolved the banks of having to pay people back despite their fraudulent lending, and allowed Pearl Harbor to be a massacre. It wasn't until he died and Europe was ransacked by a world war that we got out of it.

Europe is getting there. One thing you can always count on when you're putting your faith in benevolent dictators spending other people's money, is that it will invariably corrupt and cascade in on itself. Socialism has failed in every country that's tried it, including ours now. It fundamentally perverts the risk reward system of capitalism. Because if you're gauranteed the same share regardless of your contribution to the pool, why excel? Where's the incentive? If you're spending other people's money, why be thrifty? It's not like you're wasting something you worked hard for.

Fannie and Freddie were pseudo-government institutions in many democratic congressmen's campaign coffers, formed originally under the socialist ideal of making housing more affordable. Every one of their managers got golden parachutes. They accomplished exactly the opposite in the end, prices are now exorbitant, bid up by inflation equipped flippers, who left the banks with the mortgage after they realized that the appraisal price was phony and that legitimate buyers had been priced out of the market. Now the banks are stuck with the collateral, homes they loaned money out to buy at the appraisal price, well above what they can sell it back for. The market would have them decline in price, good for savers.

Or how about the Federal Reserve? Why self-regulate from a fear of bankruptcy when the government creates an arm to backstop it with inflation? If there's no risk of consequence, what is the disincentive to taking huge gambles with other people's money? Likewise, if you're a depositor, why not invest in the highly leveraged bank down the street offering a 5% yield by gambling on subprime? The government insures your deposit if they fail, so you have zero disincentive to give them your money with which to make those bets. If there was no FDIC, no one would be reckless enough to do it, thus that business model would have never existed.

If people don't start realizing how government policies change human behavior that create economic distortions and disruptions, we are gauranteed an inflationary depression.

I say: Check your facts again, Europe is excelling, and we're declining, and between the two, we're vastly closer to libertarian philosophy.

We are nowhere near being 90% capitalist. The majority of our GDP is controlled communally by the government, making us a socialist nation by definition. We are absolutely drowning in socialist failures and my list should have convinced you of that. Yet you sit here and tell me to vote for someone who just passed a trillion dollar bailout mortgaged on my children to reward someone else's bad behavior.

You say: Monopolies don't/can't exist.

I say: Google Enron and California.

Enron wasn't a self-sustaining one like government monopolies, it died a quick death, thank god (today, it would probably be bailed out by your money). It was a scam business enabled by ignorant employees and citizens who have been completely brainwashed into company directed 401k programs, as well as speculative, non-dividend paying investments. Enron never had to prove it was making money by paying a dividend because people allow themselves to be fooled by wall street valuations of stocks. If you're buying a stock without a dividend, you're purely speculating on the price going up or down. Just like the tech stocks of the 90s. People thought they were rich on paper, but when the stocks crashed, they had nothing. Because they didn't sell at those paper prices, they didn't complete the gamble by guessing the top like Mark Cuban did, who was one of the lucky ones. People illogically shirk responsibility on learning basic economics and stock principles and then flail helplessly for the government with which Enron was colluding to help them. It's idiotic. Rather than admit the mistake and educate others, they flip out emotionally, call on the government to recompensate their loss with their neighbor's money, and resign themselves to repeating the same mistake. It never would have been possible if they had taken twenty minutes to be skeptical and educate themselves.

Why don't you start listening to libertarian Ron Paul advisor Peter Schiff? The guy is brilliant in explaining this stuff, and predicted most of this mess years in advance while most economic types were dumb enough to confuse problems for strengths.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhJaVEWAG24
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfascZSTU4o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-a_r4qx4WE


When's the last time you saw a small, independent grocery store?

Yesterday. I go to several. The big chains won't carry most of the organic and specialty items that I want. And I purchase my grass fed meat directly in bulk from a local cattle farmer, stuff's amazing.

You say: Regulation of banks with pesky laws is impossible, so let's get rid of them so that people are forced to police the banks themselves.

I say: Why stop there? Why not get rid of property laws too, and let people engineer their own way of defending their property from thieves?

That would actually be a good start because banks would start fearing failure again. But I want fraudulent fractional reserves banned. You can't currently take them to court for it, because it's federally sanctioned. See, politicians are big spenders with a symbiotic relationship with the inflationary banks. They don't want honest money, they don't want a system where they are limited to direct taxation, because taxes are overt appropriations that elicit a lot more resistance. The average citizens can SEE how much exactly he's being taxed. Not so with inflation, it's very confusing and has a lag effect. The trillions that the Fed is adding to the balance sheet over the next year is going to result in hyperinflation, not immediately, but down the road.

Nah, Darwin was better than Flipper.

"And things got pretty tough for us down in Florida with... the deadly dolphins."

Dolphins? * WTF? Who knew Flipper was Chuck Norris's arch-nemesis?

After watching more videos on tasting menus I have come to appreciate what they are. I guess I more rail against the restaurants that serve up tiny dishes as THE meal... no large number of courses.

I would have been there in a flash if I were anywhere near Vancouver!

I've discovered a highly regarded restaurant which does tasting menus a couple of hours from me... one day I shalst go.

Good luck, hope it goes well.

In reply to this comment by djsunkid:
Mheh- too bad you're missing out on this:
http://www.videosift.com/talk/Sift-Up-in-Vancouver-Whos-Coming#comment-526180

No dandelion petal unfortunately, but each course will only be a few bites.

Then again, it is 12 courses, not just 3 or 4

In reply to this comment by spoco2:
>> ^djsunkid:
Sorry, have to downvote. It was a reflex reaction when they showed mcdonalds with fine dining over it. Want to see american fine dining? Try Alinea or MOTO or The French Laundry, or WD-50, or any of a hundred different places. America actually does have a cuisine. STFU. Fucking big mac. Argh.

I just watched the Alinea video, and while I'm sure the food is delicious, I HATE that form of cuisine...
"Here is your main meal sir"
"Where?"
"There sir, on the plate"
"I can see a flower petal on a stick"
"Yes sir, that is your meal, a dandelion petal infused with Yak butter broth, perched delicately atop a reduction of baby seal flipper, drizzled with aioli and ground camel hoof."
"Well, that sounds great, but I think I'll eat that in, erm, one, maybe two mouthfuls"
"Ahh, but of course, you just need to order another 18 courses sir"
"This one cost me $45 on its own!"
"Is sir a cheapskate?"
"No, but I do need to pay the bills"
"I scoff at you sir... scoff"

Really, a complete wank... I enjoy good food, I enjoy food with great presentation, but I can NEVER come at food where the portion sizes are so insanely small that even after a 3 or 4 course meal you're left empty. I don't suggest just going to a steakhouse and getting the largest damn slab o' meat you can, but come on, I go out to EAT not to sample.

Mheh- too bad you're missing out on this:
http://www.videosift.com/talk/Sift-Up-in-Vancouver-Whos-Coming#comment-526180

No dandelion petal unfortunately, but each course will only be a few bites.

Then again, it is 12 courses, not just 3 or 4

In reply to this comment by spoco2:
>> ^djsunkid:
Sorry, have to downvote. It was a reflex reaction when they showed mcdonalds with fine dining over it. Want to see american fine dining? Try Alinea or MOTO or The French Laundry, or WD-50, or any of a hundred different places. America actually does have a cuisine. STFU. Fucking big mac. Argh.

I just watched the Alinea video, and while I'm sure the food is delicious, I HATE that form of cuisine...
"Here is your main meal sir"
"Where?"
"There sir, on the plate"
"I can see a flower petal on a stick"
"Yes sir, that is your meal, a dandelion petal infused with Yak butter broth, perched delicately atop a reduction of baby seal flipper, drizzled with aioli and ground camel hoof."
"Well, that sounds great, but I think I'll eat that in, erm, one, maybe two mouthfuls"
"Ahh, but of course, you just need to order another 18 courses sir"
"This one cost me $45 on its own!"
"Is sir a cheapskate?"
"No, but I do need to pay the bills"
"I scoff at you sir... scoff"

Really, a complete wank... I enjoy good food, I enjoy food with great presentation, but I can NEVER come at food where the portion sizes are so insanely small that even after a 3 or 4 course meal you're left empty. I don't suggest just going to a steakhouse and getting the largest damn slab o' meat you can, but come on, I go out to EAT not to sample.

Flipper smelled tuna.




(Sorry).

Phelps has flippers for feet. No seriously.

One-time stripper speaks from limited experience, return you now to your regularly programmed schedule....This blows for any information based in any reality but the one they decide to lead you by.....Fuck man, this is no stripper, Flipper...and this ain't worth watching for a second-