Hm, so if businesses don't create jobs, I guess the only other option would be employment by the state... That's the theory that John Galt put to the test in fiction, and Joseph Stalin put to the test in practice. (And we all know how well that went!)

Jeez, 4 years under a Clinton regime seems like such a long time! I suppose the only glimmer of hope would be that, given how pro-cronyism she clearly is, I doubt she really believes what she says here. Maybe what she means is that businesses don't create jobs unless they are cronies. Otherwise, they just have to go out of business. Perhaps having a hypocrite in office may be better than having a fanatic, but who can tell?

Of course, there's always the chance that she actually knows nothing of economics and has no common sense either....

People who spend all their lives in "public service" often have no clue of how businesses actually run or what businesses do or need to function. Such people live in a different world where money "magically" comes out of a (Federal-Reserve-controlled) "printing press" at the push of a button whenever the powers-that-be deem it so. They live in a world where the "customers" are forced by law to pay for "services" they don't want, and follow rules that are not applicable to the rulers themselves.


(But then, again, Hilary says she was "dead broke" when she left the White House. I guess we should take her word for it.)

Note: Ancient Rome also had its share of crazy Patricians and rulers. This tends to become more commonplace as empires go off the deep end.

*DEAD, AND pETER jOSEPHS' a frikkin' tool in a debate with anyone....goddamn insect.

Yeah dude, Peter JOsephs a fuckin' insectoid tool, check that debate he had with Molyneax and watch him sweat and stick to his script....he's damaged-goods and don;t know it yet, talk about yer egomaniacal flesh-sack...
fuck his Zeitgeist ass

So you're going to prove an idiot wrong with another idiots testimony? Peter Joseph of "Zeitgeist" which is a movie that espouses 3 of the biggest conspiracy theories ever, without proving anything. Wonderful, education is permanently dead then.

Check out Peter Joseph of Zeitgeist fame's take down of this total goober. Molyneax is a pratt and basically the opposite of everything he says is true.

one of the judges look like Joseph Gordon-Levitt

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I know OF folks involved in human trafficking who are opposed to slavery. I don't have to know them to know they exist. Some of these kids for instance have probably been killed for saying so or refusing to enslave others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uls-bYzcBjQ
(report on Joseph Kony)

..and yes, I did understand you were likely being facetious, but you didn't hit 'sarcasm', so who knows? Way to dodge!

Let's look at the scripture in a little more detail:

Mat 19:21 Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

This scripture is at the tail end of a conversation Jesus had with a young rich man. The young man had inquired of the Lord how he could have eternal life. The answer Jesus gave was simple, "sell your possesions and follow me." In the rest of the scripture we see that the only requirements for salvation is a confession of Jesus as Lord and a belief that He was raised from the dead. So, why did the Lord give the additional requirement to the rich young man of selling all of his possessions? We see why in the next verse:

Matthew 19:22 But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.

This man, even knowing that Jesus could instruct him on how to attain eternal life, could not follow after the Lord because he loved his wealth more than God. This is what Jesus said in Matthew 6:24

"No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

His riches were the stumbling block preventing him from following the Lord, and that is why the Lord dealt with it there. The Lord knew He was a slave to his wealth and could not bear to be parted from it, even at the expense of his eternal life. This is a reason why the Lord warned us in Matthew 16:26

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

Which is to say, that if someone laid all the wealth of the world at your feet, and you traded your soul for it, you would have made an unprofitable deal. The wealth of this world is perishing and will pass away, and we along with it, but those who do the will abide with Him forever. So, let's look on to what Jesus said to His disciples after the young rich man parted:

Matthew 19:23-26 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.

And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved?

But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.

You'll notice that Jesus only said it was impossible for men, but with God all things are possible. The problem with the young rich man was not his wealth but his heart condition before God. He wanted the gift more than he wanted the giver of the gift. When Jesus put his loyalties to the test, the true condition of his heart was exposed. There is nothing inherently bad about money, but there is something inherently bad about putting it before God. That is the sin of idolatry, and that is what Jesus is condemning, not money itself. Take Joseph of Arimethea for example:

Matthew 27:57-60 When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus.
He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him.

And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away.

Joseph was a disciple of Jesus yet He did not require Joseph to sell all of his possessions. Indeed, if he had Joseph would not have been able to provide the tomb that Jesus was buried in, ultimately fulfilling the prophecy about Jesus in Isaiah 53:9.

So, to conclude, what God is most concerned about is the heart. If your love for your possesions is what is keeping you from the Lord, He may ultimately require you to sacrifice them. I think is especially difficult for the rich man to realize his need for salvation because he is so self-sufficient. He believes he is in control of his life because his money insulates him from many of the cares of this world. He does not realize that his very breath rests in the hands of the Lord. He may not confess, as Job did, that his riches are all blessings from on High, and at the disposal of the Almighty to do with them what He may.

Job 1:21 And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD."

I don't think you're grumpy, radx. Granted, my posts tend to have that same ominous tone, in general so I guess I'm a grump too. If you really think about the scale of inequality today, the absolute plundering the ultra-rich enjoyed during the recent recession and the efforts to keep money in politics to perpetuate this cycle with brilliant tools like Citizens United, it's hard not to be bleak.

Unfortunately, what we like to call democracy simply does not have the teeth to affect meaningful change. I am encouraged by the relative economic performance from the list of countries that have scrapped first past the post (reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation ) except for maybe Portugal, but even with more effective elections there is still an extra seat for the rich in every government.

Even more unfortunate will be the painful revolution the world will endure to either change from capitalism to some other form of economics (maybe resourced-based, a-la Peter Joseph.) If we don't simply slide obediently into greater and greater concentrations of wealth for the ultra-rich, we get closer and closer to revolution. But all it will take will be one upheaval to spur the revolution into action, be it:
- another, even more severe recession (maybe the EU will implode, taking the world economy down with it)
- severe global warming positive feedback loop from the arctic methane stores
- nuclear war

And who the hell knows what else might set people off. Maybe a solar flare will fry all the satellites in orbit and the lack of new tweets will create a world-wide frenzy of irate twats. And who knows when it will happen. Maybe 5 years, maybe 50 years. Since money pulls the strings, I think we're doomed to guess as to the source of VoodooV's "tipping point."

Basically this, it's sort of like cheering for Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare. Even though he's a piece of shit, he is ruffling the feathers of establishment assholes, so fucking keep him going. The system is fucked, let's keep it that way and maybe it'll eat itself.

Dude WHAT!? Noah's ark with some CG and Crowe as ol' gloom 'n doom?! Hell man, he fucks his own daughter before it plays out, give it a chance!?


I wanna see the cinematic version of ol' Joseph Smith and the Mormons fuckin' shit up...Let me cast THAT epic motherfucker!

@artician

Even if the models for the decline of empires are inexact, poorly sourced or even exaggerated, they are doing so to combat the overwhelming force of the status quo that feeds us a constant stream of comforting, mind-numbing bliss through mass media, mostly delivered though TV news, advertising and cleverly veiled in the actual entertainment that the audience enjoys.

It's hard to mount a comeback against a presupposed cultural truth supported by any form of economic interest. The tobacco industry, for example, mounted powerful misinformation and doubt as scientific evidence slowly leaked out that smoking was harmful. People just don't want to hear that the way they live and what they "know" to be true is going to change and that personal choice is going to have to be limited to some extent.

The same is true for global warming, deforestation, species extinction, pollution, etc., etc. You can resist the "ineffectual mumblings" of Hitchens, Chomsky and the like, but you do so to at your own peril. People like you are the do-do bird in this scenario. People like you are the 2 pack-a-day smoker who thinks they've been smoking for 20 years and feeling fine so why quit now. "Screw the scientists, they're all out to make themselves rich so they concoct these cackamamy experiments to 'prove' they need more research funding." Okay, it's your right to dismiss the advice of people smarter than you.

This video follows the same vein as Peter Joseph's Zeitgeist series (which I suggest you watch or rewatch for shits and giggles.) The idea of consumption tax seems a lot easier for our system to adopt than Joseph's idea of a "Resource-Based Economy." It just sounds more fair that those consuming resources pay back into the system and less airy-fairy than some socialist "to-each as to his need" idea. And let's face it, it's right on a social level. It's just too hard to get there based on our current economic and political structure.

Our wasteful way of life is just unsustainable. I don't think anyone can deny that the ponzi scheme of FIAT money is eventually going to collapse because the balance of wealth is way out of whack AND ONLY GETTING WORSE. And the USA is at the top, and yet owes trillions in funny money that they can only pay back if they stop building missiles and tanks. But I think we all know that when the shit hits the fan, we're going to want to get behind those tanks to ride out the storm of resistance from the 99%. Not the privileged 99% in the west, the 99% of destitute, impoverished poor that build the toys, sew and clothes, glue the plastic Walmart crap, and GROW THE FOOD that we want.to have cheap. We're doing this all on the backs of the "free slaves" in undeveloped countries: Columbia, Bangladesh and on and on.

Search your feelings, Luke. You know it to be true.

http://www.firstshowing.net/2013/joseph-gordon-levitt-paul-rudd-are-frontrunners-to-play-ant-man/