I haven't actually heard a single "drill, drill, drill" person with the notion that it is going to solve our energy problem by itself. That's obvious, the math on that is simple and this guy is building up a strawman. All I've heard, from people like Kudlow and his ilk, is that the act of freeing it up will cause the market price to decline in the short-term (speculators price in what they think the future is going to be), thereby allowing some sort of reprieve for the transition that this guy is praying for to be less painful. And surely, the democrats on this forum can't use the ten year argument without burying their head in the sand: there was a vote ten years ago to do this very thing and they all shot it down. They used the same "it's too far away" argument back then. So... I guess now is too far away.

The real problem is the the ignorant opposition to nuclear in this country, and the extent to which we're already broke and unable to fund such massive infrastructure changes without further extensions of credit from producer nations that probably are going to pull the plug on the U.S. bond market when they wake up.

Before you rate me down, I'm not defending anyone. I think the Democrats are idiots and the neo-cons are insincere sacks of crap that will lie to get elected and then do the opposite. I'm libertarian who doesn't believe the government should be subsidizing or blocking domestic resources in any way, shape, or form. The market will determine the best product as it has in the past. When oil gets expensive, it incentivizes new forms of energy. And of course, nuclear has been the most efficient source of energy for thirty years, but it got NIMBYed to death to put us in this position by fearmongering radical environmentalists while France is now 80%. Meanwhile, wind costs 10x and solar 25x per BTU relative to nuclear and millions have died or are dying from biofuel subsidies on food crops and oil resource wars. Ugh.

What's funny is how distracted and concerned you people are with all this vacuous bickering. You could be doing actual research right now, reading books on economics and looking at rational arguments on both sides... nope, let's have dogfights about which media outlet is more biased and get sucked into the whole sociopolitical gender/race crap that isn't going to mean two fucks when the shit really hits the fan.

I personally think you're doing both parties a favor. As long as you're consumed in class/religious warfare chasing scapegoats they've laid out for you, both parties can continue to inflate and subsidize and borrow and increase the footprint of government as they have for most of the century.

>> ^Crosswords:
Depending on who you talk to it last happened during the Clinton administration where a surplus was reported for several years.


Ah, the Clinton surplus myth rears its ugly head again. The "surplus" was merely a projection based on the unrealistic expectation of continued illusory tech stock bubble growth that occurred in the 90s which finally crashed and filtered into real estate (thanks, Greenspan) to delay a smaller recession then. The CPI calculations on inflation were changed during the Clinton years to understate real inflation. As a result, a greater excess of Social Security funds were freed up to be raided by congress (invested in itself, roundabout theft). Public debt went down by borrowing from government holdings, but total debt continued to increase. This site does a pretty good job of explaining it. He has a good section on the Social Security ponzi scheme, too.

http://www.letxa.com/articles/16

>> ^NetRunner:
>> Actually, quite a few historians would argue that American preeminence started after WWII and FDR's New Deal, and that the dismantlement of it during my lifetime has created our current downfall.
I'd argue it too, but I know I'm not gonna change your mind. Just filing my objection to the record.


Only if you're an idiot with no understanding of history. As the socialist central bank artificially sat on the inflow of gold from abroad, causing a sharp 30% contraction succeeding their inflation of the 20s (doing pretty much the opposite of what they were created for), socialist protectionism sent tariffs on imports to the moon just a year after the market crash of 1929. Other countries retaliated by raising their tariffs on American exports and forming greater partnerships with each other. It was too fast of a shift for existing industry to handle. A recession would then become the longest and most unnecessary depression in recorded history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot-Hawley_Tariff_Act

FDR followed with unprecedented socialist intervention, absolving the banks, confiscating gold, flooding productive farmland to create nationalized energy, taxing the living shit out of individuals and companies to pay government workers who were essentially paid to dig holes and fill them up again to lower unemployment. Tax rates reached their highest in American history at 95% for the highest brackets. Anyone who had any substantial sums of money left closed shop at these tax rates, as there was no point in hiring workers and risking business losses for such after-tax return. These two policies essentially prevented a recovery until after the war some twenty years later when the fucker, after four terms, finally DIED.

Social Security, yes, the unsustainable ponzi scheme that haunts us today was part of the New Deal as well. The taxrate on wages was 2% when it began. They've ballooned to 12% and show no signs of stopping. Current workers are taxed to instantly transfer that money to congress, who pay retirees and then spend the excess on itself by buying treasury bonds (IOUs of with a nominal rate of return that is supposed to compensate for inflation but doesn't after they changed the measurements in the 90s to understate it). Rinse and repeat. With old people made dependent on a previous generation paying in in real time, suggesting it be privatized has proved political suicide.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh-NqdmEDq4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS2fI2p9iVs

>> ^MINK:
^whereas the pharmaceutical industry is a group of competent and honest people with incentives to make people healthy? how about that health insurance industry? they have your health as their number one priority?


They don't have to be competent and honest, they simply have to be put in an environment in which their desires to collude with government-specific powers are disabled. Neo-con socialists and democratic socialists alike (this includes you) vote for people who want to subsidize, charge income taxes, and inflate, but tell me: how does a company bribe a politician for a special subsidy when subsidies are illegal? How does a company bribe a politician for a special tax credit if income taxes don't exist? A libertarian like Ron Paul knows the powers were idealist in nature and can't but be abused, so he's going to remove them entirely. That's exactly how you solve the problem. It isn't by talking tough with one hand and taking a lobbyist's payout on the other like every other candidate. And it isn't Nader's solution to get ANOTHER government agency to oversee this bullshit which will invariably degenerate into another bloodsucking corrupt agency after his well-meaning sponsors die off and are replaced by the order of the day.

And regarding health quality, the average lifespan of a white American male has gone from 50 in 1900 to almost 80 today. That's pretty good considering we eat like crap. You want to cite socialist nations which are dependent on imports developed by capitalist sources? How about the horror stories where people are waiting months for a scan to reveal a tumor before it's too late? Or how about the true cases of people who had tumors, but the government hospitals refused to operate on them because they didn't believe their chances of surviving were good enough to justify the cost of operating? At which point they paid for private care and lived.

The two things you're missing are these: companies are out to make a sustainable profit. Government is supposed to make sure they're not infringing on rights, and to provide courts for recourse in the event that they do. In that environment, the only way to make a profit and keep it is to give customers what they want. Do you want bullshit drugs that make you sick? No. So how could a company profit from ruining your life? With the internet and informational publications as easy to obtain as ever, they can't.

If you research some more, you'll find that the HMO act and Medicare are some of the most fiscally irresponsible and collusive enablements out there. Those, the central bank, and inflation enabled by not restricting the government to non-inflatable money are THE reasons private health care costs (and gas, and groceries, and well... everything) are becoming increasingly unaffordable. These are all socialist policies doomed to failure and that's exactly what you're getting. And your solution is more government? You're NUTS. You're barking up the completely wrong tree.

>> ^MINK:
^jesus i have no idea why people want to privatise EVERYTHING. We live together in a community. A little bit of "commun"ism is natural. Otherwise you are talking about walking around with a concealed loaded weapon all day, paying corporations to fix your gunshot wounds. Instant utopia, eh?


Communism/socialism is defined as what percentage of your labor is owned "communally" via its populist government rather than its earner. If you own someone else's labor, why work harder than the next guy? Where's the disincentive to being the lazy, unproductive one in the group when you're gauranteed the same share? Where's the incentive to work and think harder than anyone and innovate new things to get a bigger share? What happens when the government dictates unproductive positions in society, like who the artists and athletes are? These are the crushing oversight that causes every socialist big government economy to degenerate into equal misery and financial collapse.

>> ^MINK:
^I mean private TV companies are so competent and efficient, right? Let's do for our health what we did for our TV networks!! wohooo!


Besides the fact that airwaves are heavily regulated by government already, you want the content itself to be owned entirely by the government because private owners have a political bias one way or the other? Guess what happens when the government owns it. All channels = one side. I must be dreaming you said that and got rated up by the idealist socialist smeg-for-brains on this site. You don't understand the inherent costs of the best system (capitalism), you're just blinded by the false promise of a benevolent dictator who will come in and sweep away the scapegoats, and in the process you and people like you will lead us to bankruptcy and fascism.

>> ^jwray:
I agree with you completely on this. However you've failed to consider the full range of interventions that may be necessary to protect individual rights.
1. Would you say you have a right to not starve to death on the street according to the whims of a few local employers?


I don't understand what you're implying here. Is this person capable of working, why wouldn't someone hire him unless some socialist policy destroyed the economy? Remember when the Federal Reserve sat on the inflow of gold in the thirties and caused a hyperdeflationary depression where money stopped getting loaned out, therefore people couldn't get paid and businesses which relied on the inflated credit of the 20s all went belly up? You wouldn't, would you, because you're just a sheep with no actual understanding of the driving forces of poverty. Do you realize that charity was at it's highest when there was no income tax and gold backed money? See, there's nothing wrong with helping someone voluntarily. There is something wrong with you believing that I or anyone else is OBLIGATED to give up their wealth to this person just because he is starving. And why would anyone work if we're all entitled to each other's production? You must also believe that he is morally within his rights to steal from the grocery store if he's "helpless" like you say. It's the same thing when you legislate redistribution of wealth schemes. You need to get off your Marxist boat already.

2. Would you say you have a right to know what is in food that you buy? 3. Would you say you have a right to know how much electricity will be used by an appliance that you buy?


In most cases, if the consumer demands it, the consumer gets it. Because how do companies make money? By reaching out to demand in the market. But I don't really have a problem with information gathering, even though it could easily be done by independent consumer groups.


5. Would you say that when you are trying to buy an essential product, which is not a very new invention, you have the right to choose between two or more competitors instead of paying an extortionary price to a monopoly?

Monopolies are not self-sustaining unless the enablements exist within government for companies to collude with and benefit from government specific powers. Remember, the government is the largest and most powerful monopoly of all. They can do things a private company can only DREAM of doing: force payment (tax), create new money (inflate), and ban competing products.

6. Would you say you have the right to pay a competitive market price for any good, which is not inflated by conspiracy of the suppliers of that good (OPEC, for example)

You are getting a competitive price, tinfoil man. The dollar is being crushed by socialist policies and foreign currencies are gaining relative to it by definition. That increases their buying power in this international bidding contest for a finite resource. So sorry it's become unpleasant for you, but maybe you also shouldn't have supported blocking domestic drilling and nuclear power for thirty years. Kinda hard to reduce prices when you intentionally decrease supply and competition. You want the energy, you just refuse to allow anyone to make it in your backyard. So suffer the consequences and ride your bike and stop whining like an entitlement freak. There are people in Africa who would kill to drive around in a car all day.

Would you say certain proactive regulations are necessary to prevent the creation of monopolies, such as prohibition against exclusive supply contracts, where for example a computer vendor who wants to sell Microsoft Windows computers won't have to sign a contract with Microsoft promising to never sell any Linux computers.

Exclusive contracts are made all the time. Bidding contests are real competition. McDonald's contracted with Heinz for ketchup and mustard supplies. The Olympics only accepts Visa credit cards. If an OEM contracts with someone exclusively, they have to gauge if that payout is going to be worth the loss to competitor's offering the supposedly superior product which will inevitably be used by other OEMs. It's not like Microsoft can put poop in a box and stay a monopoly, they STILL have to deliver or it opens a window for competition.

Clearly, you are locked in to the corporate blame game that marxists play to gain power. The only thing you need to worry about is removing the collusive enablements that allow private companies to gain unfair advantages over their competition through bribery: subsidies, special tax breaks, inflation, and banned choice under the pretense of protecting you.

jwray... i am with you .. i also think that there are many things that "the market" cannot solve, especially education.

Education is a service like any other, in which case the optimal result will be from consumers spending their own money, not politicians dishing it out to government teachers. This is a terribly uninvolved system where the parents just expect the best and do no research, it's all "provided" for you. Education has become daycare. We used to be first in the world before the Department of Education was created. Now we're not, though. Any department has to be fed with money that otherwise would have gone to the people themselves. The funny thing is that even if you support some kind of socialized education, libertarians have proposed a voucher system where the money is going to parents to make choices instead of to the providers directly. The latter strategy is what we currently do and it's the equivalent of giving food stamps to the grocery stores.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxeP-krUrdU&feature=related

>> ^jwray:
You presume that the price of food isn't going to go through the roof when the shit hits the fan. An average house could easily hold 20 cubic meters of grain, or other foodstuffs. In the worst case scenario, nearly everyone's top priority would be acquiring essential housing and food. Everything else is just a luxury.


No, I'm pretty sure he's accounting for that. When the dollar unit gets inflated and made less scarce, the price measured in those dollar units goes up by that debasement, including gold. That gold/oil chart I showed you earlier should have convinced you of that. The value of oil relative to gold never changed much, but both went up relative to dollars because that was what was being debased. Gold CAN'T be debased. You can't print 1 billion ounces of gold in a back room at the drop of a hat. You can do that with a fiat monetary unit. You can't do it with an inherently rare physical product which has to be mined from the Earth.

You're also not understanding what a depression is. It isn't armageddon in a vacuum. People are still employing each other and needing to pay each other, and trading with each other for a variety of products and services. Barter is ridiculously inefficient and cannot lead you back to the modern economy you once knew and stay there, you have to have money, a common means of exchange. In the Weimar hyperinflation of the 20s, many people were using cigarettes as money. Lastly, I tried to point out to you that food spoils, livestock requires upkeep and can die (lol, how'd you like to have your life savings in chickens wiped out by foxes, or a tornado, or disease), both are difficult to transport and have very high weight to value ratios, and frankly you can't hide them very well. If you hadn't paid someone to store it (provided you had what they wanted), someone could easily see you had craploads of wheat in your house (provided you had one) and raid it, killing you and your family. It is, after all, a depression full of desperate poor people. Not a smart idea. Or hey, what if there was a fire? Gold would survive it. Paper wouldn't, food wouldn't, oil wouldn't.

And imstellar, I appreciate your response and I generally think you have a good argument, but I think we need to focus on getting rid of the obvious first. It's a bit early to argue for voluntary taxation when we can't get rid of inflation and mandatory social programs for what should be market services. I find them unpalatable and dishonest relative to taxes.

>> ^jwray:
The point is that gold has insufficient actual USES to fall back on as a basis for its high value.

It doesn't have to be useful for consumption, it is useful as money. Do you understand what money is and why it's an important good in a modern economy. Do you understand that people can demand and want something for this purpose rather than to consume it or play with it? Do you understand that that's exactly what happened with gold when people were left to their own devices?

>> ^jwray:
The price of gold is subject to the volatile whims of the people, and has fluctuated a great deal over the last 100 years.

The value of the dollar relative to other currencies has fallen 70% in the last ten years, and 300% relative to gold. That's not volatile? See, your mistake is you're looking at the value relationship in the wrong way. You see the dollar maintaining its value and everything else flailing wildly against it. Instead, the dollar and people's confidence in it is what's flailing wildly. Look at a chart comparing gold to oil (both priced in dollars) the last thirty years - almost completely flat. If gold was money, gas prices would have gone nowhere.

http://www.kitco.com/ind/saville/may022006.html

Also interesting to note from this chart is what the price for both was in ~1971. Guess what happened in 1971 that caused the chart to start moving up for thirty years? Nixon scratched the bretton woods semi-gold standard, removing the last link of the dollar to gold. A nation that built its country on gold and became the reserve currency of the world on gold, inflated heavily in the 60s to finance pointless activities like Vietnam, The War on Poverty, the Great Society. It got to a point where gold reserves were far less than the debt owed to foreigners by 1971, the equivalent of an fractional reserve bank run. Those foreigners began calling in the debt, and rather than stop inflating and cutting a deal, Nixon got on a podium and broke the contract because it wasn't in "our best interest." Just like that. It later became permanent. Full fiat. Now there was NOTHING backing the dollar but confidence in its scarcity which is controlled by government.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRzr1QU6K1o

We currently lie about inflation and pay foreigners back in devalued dollars, probably more devalued than the interest return on those bonds, but the CPI hides it with hedonics adjustment, substitution, and geometric weighting added during the Clinton years. The bond market is the last major bubble in the U.S. economy.

But since we libertarians understand human behavior and the nature of government, it meant inevitable hyperinflationary collapse. Because like every other fiat currency in history, it will be debased by its spendthrift government and the citizens will stand by and let it happen because they are exactly like you: ignorant of economics and eternally trustful of government. That's why our forefathers tried to illegalize fiat in the constitution after they saw the continental dollar hyperinflated.

http://www.safehaven.com/article-9534.htm

>> ^jwray:
Platinum, Iridium, and Silver would work just as well as gold. But if a great depression comes I would rather have a stockpile of wheat than a stockpile of gold.

How long is that wheat going to last before spoiling? Where are you going to store it? How are you going to carry it around and pay people with it? What if someone already has enough wheat and they want berries, and the guy who has berries doesn't want wheat either, he wants leather? You're reducing yourself to barter. You can't run a modern economy that way.

>> ^jwray:
Under the current federal reserve system, if they set interest rates properly and avoid excess printing, inflation can be kept below 2%. Theoretically, if the fiat money system is done properly, it can be more stable in value than a gold-backed currency.

Welcome to today's powerful neo-Keynesian economic circles. Centralized control curriculums, a sexy interventionist theory financed by the benefactors of inflation, overrides history, human behavior, and all rational skepticism. The benevolent dictator argument, in its truest form. The fallacy that because its possible to have a benevolent dictator more efficient than any system that divides powers and makes it impossible for one man to destroy a country, that we should institute that system. No different than the Federal Reserve, in my opinion. They are THE ROOT CAUSE of most of our problems today. Right down to health care costs, another victim of inflation and HMO legislation, which the socialists are again trying to blame the free market on to build up more socialism. It all comes back to what system preserves wealth, and this ain't it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYZM58dulPE

>> ^jwray:
The Euro is doing just fine with an inflation rate of 1.8%.

Measured by whom, and for how long? We could have said the same thing years ago. Will hyperinflation occur under you or your children or your grandchildren? Who knows, right? All you know is it's happened before in Europe, now it's just more centralized so all countries will be affected when it happens. Congrats.

Do you understand why we're fucked now? Why it's hopeless, why I bury my head every time someone calls Ron Paul a kook. You are just one of 200 million people I have to convince in this country, and it took me five hours with you and I probably still didn't make a dent.

In fact, here's the hilarious trickery of Keynesian economics. China holds over 1 trillion U.S. dollars in their reserves. That's right, we borrow from them, they're the largest creditor nation and we're the largest debtor (we actually used to be the largest creditor, that's how far we've fallen). But the reason they do it: they falsely believe that Americans consuming their products is driving their economy. In the beginning, this was true because they did have a legitimately weak currency relative to ours. But now things are different. They're INTENTIONALLY debasing their money to keep trying to grow this way even though they don't need to: currency appreciation would allow them to consume their own products without us. So they are intentionally devaluing their currency by inflating and buying up our bonds, on a grand scale, essentially paying Americans to consume their exports even though they can only afford them because of these payments. Insanity! If they ever figured this out, the bond bubble will pop. Even the ECB is not hiking rates when they should be. The world has been fooled into thinking that the American consumer is responsible for all their growth and is fearful of letting it collapse. Consumption over production, putting the cart before the horse, the mainstay of Keynesian thinking.

>> ^jwray:
Gold is the oldest fiat currency.

Technically, a gold standard is not fiat, only symbolically. Fiat is generally defined as anything which is forced for use as money. In "declaring" gold as money, governments were merely adopting what people were already using. You see, gold won in the free market as a common means of exchange. Not paper. Of all things on earth, it is especially suited for this task. It is rare, easily divisible, indestructible, has few industrial uses, and requires no upkeep. Since it has to be mined from the earth, a natural limit is placed on government. They are restricted to asking (taxing) its citizens when they want to finance something! They can't just print new money will-nilly, lie about how much they're doing it with flawed CPI measurements, and make its citizens pay higher prices! Imagine that! And our highest rates of real growth were in the late 19th century, a period of no slavery, no income tax, no central bank, and gold-based money. It hasn't been matched since.

>> ^jwray
Its value is an arbitrary function of how much faith people have in it as a currency. Its price is being propped up by that faith alone.

That is the case for ALL things. Value is entirely subjective and depends on the human situation surrounding it, and the scarcity of that good relative to others. If you're alone on a mountain and you're starving, a cow is worth a hell of a lot more than gold or paper. If you're in a massive society where barter is inefficient and you need a common means of exchange and placeholder for wealth, gold fills that role nicely. If your government has done this to your money so that it's worth less than firewood, all faith in it will be lost relative to actual goods, including gold, which CAN'T EVER be made as common as dirt. The possibility doesn't EXIST:

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/c/ca/Inflation-1923.jpg

>> ^jwray
As an industrial material, the demand for gold is very low compared to the amount available.


Which is exactly why this particular precious metal made such a good monetary asset. Why would you want your money to have volatility from the supply and demand of complex industry products?

>> ^jwray
By the way, imposing the gold standard would shrink the money supply so dramatically as to cause deflation, and then deflation would cause loan defaults, and loan defaults would cascade to another great depression.


Nobody said it would be easy. Remember, depressions can be inflationary, too. Once that happens, people are in bad shape any way looking for a way out. I was afraid you were going to argue that there was a quantitative limit, which there isn't. In a move to monetize gold, it's demand and price will rise substantially to meet those figures, and the people who convert early will be better off than those converting last. But it can be done, particularly in a scenario when the paper money is made worthless anyway. Look at Zimbabwe. In their present situation, if every citizen immediately converted their money to gold, and used gold thenceforth, their long-term situation would improve dramatically as their money could no longer be debased.

>> ^NetRunner:
^ I actually agree with you on most of the actions you're recommending, if not your total rejection of "socialism" (which you seem to define as "anything that restricts businesses from doing as they please")

No, I define socialism for what it is: any government which controls over 50% of its capital. We are extremely close to that and it's a major problem. Do you understand that in a libertarian society, it is illegal to infringe on a person's rights, whether you're a company or an individual? How do you interpret my post as wanting to let companies do ANYTHING they please? Gimme a break, companies in a truly free market are forced to follow the law and compete in a fair environment or be taken to court. The enablements of inflation, subsidies, and specialized tax breaks erode that fairness. Without that, companies would have only one legitimate way to make money: to convince you to buy their product over their competitor's. And to pay its workers by outbidding its competition and getting you to agree on a price. Oh, the horror! And not even the highest paid lawyers in the world can win cases on outright false advertising and malpractice.


>> ^NetRunner:
^There is always an implied (and in your case directly stated) belief that anyone who believes in regulating markets doesn't understand economics, and I heartily disagree. If that were the case, all PhD economists would all be endorsing the Libertarian party...and yet, they've got a political spectrum that leans left of the average populace.

"Economics" is too vague. There are many different branches, the dominant philosophy changes with time. Currently, it is neo-Keynesian, but that will change after its collapse. It matters not that 90% of current economics doctorates are in this manner of thinking. The Austrians were already proven right from the FIRST great depression, do we really need another one to figure out that the Federal Reserve is the equivalent of the benevolent dictator argument?

>> ^NetRunner:
^My favorite "market regulation" is a ban on slavery. If you follow the Libertarian/market fundamentalist argument -- slavery should be legal. People should be able to sell themselves into permanent servitude, and then be resold by their owners.

I don't think that's going to fly, because no one would know if you were voluntarily doing it or somehow coerced or tricked into doing it. But fundamentally, you're right, people own their own bodies, and that means they are free to inflict themselves with drugs, kill themselves, whatever. If our technology comes to a point where the government is capable of manipulating your body into not doing something with some kind of field under the pretense of protecting you, will you allow them this ability? Or are you smart enough to realize that the power will be abused and incur ultimate costs far greater than the benefits?

>> ^NetRunner
Fraud should also be legalized -- if I'm smart enough to dupe a person or corporation out of their money, I should get to keep it.

Wrong, misrepresentation or not honoring a verbal or contractual agreement is the equivalent of theft. The transaction is not complete until both parties receive what they contractually agreed upon. If some person in Negeria tells you you won a prize and you pay them the collection fee, and they give you no prize, that is an unlawful appropriation of property and an infringement of rights. Not a freely acceptable activity under a libertarian free market, because the federal government has legitimate duties to protect people from infringements of rights and offer a means of recourse through the courts. See, this is the problem. You don't even understand the few government powers that ARE justified, you're so wrapped up in its "regulatory" extensions!

>> ^NetRunner:
^Violent intimidation should also be legalized. If my competitors think they can open a store in my neighborhood, they better be able to protect it from my guys burning it down.

Ummm, arson is destruction property you don't own. Rights derive from property, if you don't own it, you can't take or break it with impunity in a system that protects from such infringements.

>> ^NetRunnerAfter all, only a socialist would think we should interfere with the free market.

The market is millions of people making mutually agreeable transactions. The government is not the market, they're just suppose to protect people's property and settle disputes on a national and domestic level. And it isn't black and white anyway. For example, I disagree with fellow libertarians in that I want to keep the FDA for information, labelling, and enforcement of what constitutes terms like "organic" and "free range," but remove their ability to ban products. That power is currently used for collusive anti-competitive reasons. Go on wikipedia and look up Stevia for one example, the artificial sweetener lobby bribed officials to block its use in products because it was a natural, no-patent substitute to crap like "Aspartame" which would have cost them billions.

>> ^NetRunnerThose sound silly, but they're along your line of thinking. When us "socialists" talk about regulating the mortgage market, most of us are thinking that the law should require lending companies be upfront about the risks and costs involved in loans to the customer. It shouldn't be "caveat emptor" at all times, and buying a home shouldn't mean you need to hire a lawyer, just to hear the truth about what your obligations will be.


I'm not entirely sure what such a law would say, there are risks everywhere to everything. You can't slam your finger in the car door and sue the automaker for not explaining the risks of doors to you. Likewise, if you are speculating on home appreciation and taking a non-standard loan, I have ZERO sympathy for you if you didn't read the paperwork and ask questions beforehand. Many of these people lied about their incomes to get mortgages on homes they knew they couldn't afford, but thought would pay for themselves.

Ultimately, though, their only loss will be their credit and the home they couldn't afford because they can walk away and leave their bank or lender with the unpaid loan and depreciating house. That's what the government is trying to bail out with honest taxpayer money. Instead of letting the chips fall where they may, we're trying to delay a necessary recession AGAIN with inflation. Prices want to come down from these artificial levels, and have those jobs reallocate to manufacturing exports because exports are the only thing a the weak dollar is good for. Yes, that's a painful process, just like a junkie from a high, but you have to come down from it, not shoot up with more heroin until you kill the dollar.See, that's the market's automatic way of healing itself. BUT IT ISN'T BEING ALLOWED TO HAPPEN. We're getting more intervention, full of moral hazard from socialized losses and a systemic destruction of natural deterrents (why would I keep saving prudently if I lose and a speculator wins? Why would banks stop being taking risks if the government will always spare them true consequence?).

But tell me, how many politicians are going to win an election saying that pain is necessary? Zero. They're going to play to people's ignorance and gravy train optimism and propose an easy government solution. And it will be a replay of the FDR administration with Obama, but pretty effing bad under McCain as well.

And I just want to say thank god that you didn't know any myths about gold, because I'm tired of writing today, but I see jwray made up for that. *sigh*

>> ^jwray:
Good luck getting enough money to build roads, put out fires, and catch murderers with only voluntary donations. Governments exist to moderate individual selfishness for the greatest good of the greatest number of people.


Sorry to interrupt your pointless argument with anarchists, but government does have a legitimate duty. A voluntary system works on paper for these things, the problem is that it can't last because other nations won't do the same. If you have ZERO taxation for national defense, you will be bowled over by a country that does. Charity can work for minor problems, but you can't privatize nuclear warheads and so forth. Libertarians like myself understand this and recognize that the government has legitimate duties for protecting the infringement of rights (police/fire/environment), non-preemptive national defense (some roads, military), and offering recourse for disputes (courts).

Most of the people on this site are soft socialists. Where socialists (called liberals or neo-cons today) go wrong, is the belief in policies going beyond this, particularly when it comes to the markets. Good intentions but terrible results because they're not fully understood by the people enacting them. A socialist might say allowing government to bail out bankruptcy is a good thing. A libertarian would say that by sparing true consequence and rewarding risky behavior, you get more of it: that the fear of bankruptcy is one of the pillars of an efficient economy. And the socialist will say: but look, we never bailed them out before and they still took insane risk, therefore we need regulation. And the libertarian will say: the market got drunk, yes, but it was BECAUSE of another socialist policy, thus you cannot justify further socialism based on problems other socialist policies create. Central banking is a socialist policy. If the market got drunk, it was The Federal Reserve that provided the liquor and egged them on. Because of their ability to set interest rates far lower than where the market wanted them, they sent a false signal to profit-driven markets that created enormous artificial demand for housing during what was supposed to be an interest-hiking recession/correction in 2000 when the last bubble they birthed collapsed, the NASDAQ bubble.

Thus, you can see how socialism builds on itself until eventual all-out collapse. Since no one understands economics, and no one wants the pain of a recession, they don't see how a socialist enablement (the central bank) under either party and not the free market was the actual root cause of the problem. So a politician gets on a pedestal and promises to make this impossible by abolishing the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and returning to a full gold standard (Paul), and loses, while a person who promises to bail everyone out with inflation and ease people's fears with even more Federal Reserve powers wins. People want the easy answer, and it will result in hyperinflationary collapse like every other fiat currency before it. It's inevitable, the powers you gave these benevolent dictators can't help but be abused.

Let's try another one: subsidies. I hear it all the time, "big bad corporations. It's the corporations. Their greed is the problem and we need to regulate it through government." And yet, these same people support subsidies. What is a subsidy? A subsidy is forced payment (tax) by government, which is then dished out by a politician who didn't earn it, to whichever company financed his/her campaign the most. Since it's a bidding contest, the largest companies always beat the smaller ones. The end result is that individuals and small businesses are effectively subsidizing larger ones, eroding the competitive pillar that makes free markets produce better and cheaper products. The idealist objective behind this is, of course, the academic argument that intellectuals in government can decide a product better than the market. In reality, politicians are just as greedy if not moreso than regular individuals, and when given the opportunity to make such a choice, it rarely gets made with any logic or thrift, because it wasn't their hard-earned money being spent. Why would you be thrifty with stolen money? It's true that the companies are doing some bribing here, but it's made possible by subsidies. You can't bribe a politician for a special privilege if that power is made illegal.

Let's try another one: Social Security. The flaws are endless in this one. It started at 2% of wages and has worked its way up to 12%. The retirement age has continually been increased so that more people are dying before they can get anything back. People from one generation were made to pay for existing recipients, creating a weird dependency gap reminiscent of ponzi schemes now that the trust fund annually raided. I'll just post a few videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh-NqdmEDq4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS2fI2p9iVs

Enough said. And again, Ron Paul in one of the debates said that the problem gets worse as time goes on, and it should be phased out immediately in favor of private savings not controlled by government. But no, that would be the "radical" thing to do, say the socialists. Meanwhile, they commit their grandchildren to possibly 30% of wages and a recipient age of 80 as a way of keeping it "solvent."

The wrong thing to take away from this is that McCain being an idiot neo-con automatically makes the Democrats being the right answer. The fact is, both parties have blocked nuclear for thirty years, and the bulk of Democrats voted AGAINST drilling for the past ten. If they HAD voted back then, we would be experiencing lower prices NOW. You can't perpetually use the "we only take seriously immediate answers" strategy with peak oil around the corner and no practical immediate solution. Last time I checked, we still need gas, deisel, and jet fuel in the interim. It's kind of impossible to run an airplane on solar panels. Government's best idea this whole time? Appropriate money from its citizens and give that money to big corn companies under idealist socialist subsidy bills for ethanol. That made people less able to afford investments in alternatives, it raised the price of corn and everything that eats corn negating fuel savings, and lastly did nothing to reduce emissions since it takes almost as much energy to create ethanol as you get from it. BRILLIANT! And you idiots keep electing these people to intervene in the market. Why? Elect a libertarian or something this time for christ's sake, neither of these parties knows how to do anything but collude with big businesses and sling mud at each other for political power.

And even though I freaking hate McCain, the stupid lady in this video has no idea how markets work. The market is very emotional, it prices in what it thinks politicians are going to do in the future. Just the ANNOUNCEMENT of drilling would be enough to alleviate prices a certain amount, you don't necessarily have to wait years for an effect. And yes, stupid woman, that oil shouldn't necessarily go to Americans. It's called free trade. We import 70% of our oil right now, how would we like it if other countries nationalized theirs you stupid bitch? We'd have chaos. The way you win the global bidding contest for this finite resource is to preserve the value of your currency. You can't do that with a central bank, no gold standard, and bunch of spendthrift socialists under any part name who can't resist the temptation to inflate. Even now, they're trying to prop up an artificially high market (created by the central bank, btw) that needs to collapse and reallocate to something that's actually exportable (unlike housing and services), because that's the only thing a weak currency is good for. It's the equivalent of giving someone who's high more shots instead of letting them go through withdrawal. We're going to kill the patient (the dollar) with either option. Pick your poison, they'll both do it.

>> ^qualm:
Nine month old fetuses are never aborted, except in extreme cases where the mother's life is gravely threatened by the impending birth. Abortions occur in the first trimester.


Okay, so explain why a first trimester fetus has no rights and a third trimester fetus does. Because it "looks" more human at that point? This is where your argument that life can be defined at some subjective point between development stages is going to fall apart.

Something tells me this guy would rail against a game that was heavily text-laden and well-written for not being "exciting" enough. One of my favorite games of all time with a pace and quality that will never become popular again is Betrayal at Krondor. This generation just won't stand for it, but to me there is no golden rule that says a video game has to be go-go-go-kill-kill-kill 100% of the time. I rather enjoy the interactive book genre back when it was popular. Now there is no narration, we expect voice acted dialogue and no text to read. Usually, the voice acting is shitty and ruins an otherwise good script. Meh...

Not trying to trample on Carlin's grave or anything, but... how can something 1 minute before exiting the womb and one minute after be the difference between having no rights and having rights? Life has to be defined at conception. Obviously, killing doctors is stupid extremism, but there's a good argument against abortion and it has nothing to do with "crazed religious people." It's kind of like saying free speech should be abolished because the KKK in the USA is a huge advocate of it. Guilt by association is a terrible debate tactic. I'm atheist and I happen to think it's murder out of inconvenience. Didn't want the kid? Why did you have unprotected sex?

Oh, and as for the argument that conservatives are the only warmongers and want to keep the children so they can send them to pointless wars and die, remind me: what party started the interventions in Korea, Vietnam, and Kosovo? Oh yeah, it was the Democrats. Too bad we have the long-term memory of drugged up lemmings in this country or we'd have a libertarian president by now.

By the way, I still love some of Carlin's rantings against religious stupidity and tax-exempt churches, but this one doesn't have much rationality behind it.