>> ^bobknight33:

Whats a Country to do when it is out of money? Cut services and keep law an order.
This is what is happening. Lots of pissed off , unemployed people receiving less government benefits, along with higher prices for goods and services due to the government deflating the currency to ease the country's debt.

In America many states and local government are on the edge of bankruptcy. These states and cities will have to do the same as Spain and Greece. Much bloodshed is yet to come.
The Federal government is printing money and borrowing like there is no tomorrow. Tomorrow will surly come and the pied piper will be paid, but only after we collapse.
With little moral fiber left in our leadership, it is easier to spend our self into a depression then face the awful truth and sell the hard sell to the people.


Or it could become a democracy and actually take the peoples votes into account rather than doing whatever it pleases and being ruled by the rich. America is not a poor country it's outstandingly rich, yet the public doesn't get that money...it's not ours but it's our rulers. Our Education and Healthcare could be free, but that doesn't help the rich, so it's not.

Whats a Country to do when it is out of money? Cut services and keep law an order.

This is what is happening. Lots of pissed off , unemployed people receiving less government benefits, along with higher prices for goods and services due to the government deflating the currency to ease the country's debt.


In America many states and local government are on the edge of bankruptcy. These states and cities will have to do the same as Spain and Greece. Much bloodshed is yet to come.

The Federal government is printing money and borrowing like there is no tomorrow. Tomorrow will surly come and the pied piper will be paid, but only after we collapse.

With little moral fiber left in our leadership, it is easier to spend our self into a depression then face the awful truth and sell the hard sell to the people.

Syria needs to serve as a lesson to Spain's leadership. If you continue to meet the peaceful assembly of your own people with force, a breaking point will be reached. Eventually the people will fight back with force and things will very quickly devolve into chaos and civil war.

I agree with showing our solidarity with Spain, but I must insist we not neglect those even worse off in Syria as so many seem eager to do.

4. cut the deficit... ACH!!!!

Enough with the Austerity Club talking points. There is nothing wrong with running a deficit, that is how government sparks an economic recovery. Wanna see what it looks like when you run zero deficit during an economic crisis? Just take a look at Spain and Greece with the German noose around their necks and pocketbooks. Or for a less extreme example, see Britain's very, very modest recovery since the Tories put in their deficit reduction plans in the middle of a crisis.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'The Tyler Group Working in Barcelona, the tyler group barcelona spain' to 'i am a filthy scumbag scammer and the tyler group is a bunch of assholes' - edited by lucky760

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Business in Barcelona, the tyler group barcelona spain' to 'i am a scumbag spammer who cant find anything better to do in life' - edited by lucky760

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/world/europe/botched-restoration-of-ecce-homo-fresco-shocks-spain.html?_r=1

Despite the comically bad end result, I find it a bit depressing when old works are destroyed. I'm just glad this wasn't especially old.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'tyt, young turks, spain, church' to 'tyt, young turks, spain, church, ecce homo, fresco, santuario de la misericordia' - edited by xxovercastxx

@rbar Spain is at most a mixed economy, with a monetary system controlled by the European Central Bank, that is very far from what a free market ought to be. It's another galaxy.

To me, coercion is the difference between bad and no choice. I never said it was arbitrary, so stop agreeing with what I didn't say, please? I have a feeling you are silently ignoring or reading something entirely different whenever I say the word "coercion". I won't dispute for now your impossible standards of what a choice is supposed to be, I think we have more pressing issues.

If by "powerful" you mean the rich, they can only set rules as much as government lets them, because unless they're criminals, they have no power to coerce in any way. Again, that goes back to the definition of coercion.

"all people always want to improve themselves"... have you ever heard of laziness?

Whether a person doing charity is asking for anything in return is irrelevant to the fact that the receiver of charity can be as dependent on the charity as an employee is to his wage. You are pointing out differences that are inconsequential to the analogy I made between charity and employment.

It's as absurd to accuse an employer of "coercing" an employee based on the fact that he needs the money to survive as much as it is to make you responsible for someone dependent on charity to survive.

In both cases, they are not being denied anything that they are entitled to, so there is no coercion.

No one is entitled to a job, or to charity, or even money to survive. Your right to your life doesn't impose any requirements on others around you to provide for your survival. Maybe if it's an emergency.

I don't understand your question about how to implement the free market on 4 products and 10 companies. A free market is not supposed to be tailored to a certain market, just as free speech is not meant to adjust itself based on how many broadcasting companies and TV shows we currently have.

@renatojj The distinction between no and bad choice or even good choice depends on the point of view and in that regard I agree with you, it is arbitrary in both directions. I argue that 0 or 1 choice (good or bad) = no choice. I argue that sometimes even more choices are no choice. Would the ability to vote for 3 presidential candidates be no choice, a choice or multiple choices if all 3 are extreme right and there is no other option? I argue that 3 x extreme right = same choice = 1 choice = no choice. Without any good choices, if all options are bad, there really isnt any choice, even if there are many bad choices. If employers were to offer 1 euro per hour in Spain to those unemployed, that is below the minimum required to live. You can say that is a good choice in economical terms as it is more than 0, but I doubt the employees would agree. It is the same as not offering salary so again not an option. Now the question is which viewpoint should you take? I would say the idea is to protect the less powerful against the more powerful and maximize the total amount of choices for the total group.

There is something interesting to note here: Where government makes laws protecting employees from certain hardships (against unfair dismissal, discrimination, too low pay etc) arguable limiting the choices of employers, it also makes laws that limit the employees (for instance setting higher pension ages.)

"When will that someone or a group ever be satisfied with their choices if we give them the choice of removing the choices of others forcefully? "
Exactly! In a world where the powerful can set their own rules with no one there to stop them, what incentive have they to do the right thing? That is exactly what we have seen go wrong time and again in fully free markets. There are so many examples of this. You believe government is the one removing choice? Look at monopoly markets and see what happens to prices there.
You believe government only sets rules one way, always against a group. That is not the case. The idea is that policy makers try to find a middle ground between the freedom of one group vs the freedom of another group. That is a fine line to walk and continually needs to be adjusted but it is a much more ethical line than simply giving a group with power full control in the hope that they will do well because of "the market".

"If you mess with the incentives for people to get out of their own undesirable situations, people end up imposing their costs on those who instead made an effort of having more choices, thus establishing a moral hazard (good being punished, evil being rewarded)."

Do you have an example? Maybe I am missing your point. In my mind, its not about the incentives as all people always want to improve themselves. Its about the amount of choices they can have. If you leave it to a part of the people who have reason to take control and coerce another group, they will.

"It's easy to see any economic problem being directly solved with laws, but not so easy to see the consequences. Even worse, the moral hazard leads to people misbehaving, and that ends up being invariably blamed on the concept of a free market, specially where there is no actual free market to speak of, like when you talk about Spain."

Spain is not a free market? In what way?

About the charity: No I dont think charity is pointless You cant compare charity to employment because in employment there is an exchange, hours work for pay, which creates mutual dependence and a relationship. In the case of charity there is none. Though the person in the unfortunate situation may depend on charity, he or she is not giving anything in return. Without this exchange, there is no relationship between giver and taker, which means no power over anything as there is no economic reason to give. If the giver demanded something for it, it is pay and not charity and a true mutual dependence with possible coercion would appear.

@rbar I think I made a fair distinction between no choice and a bad choice. Yet, you argue that the line is arbitrary. So, when we say someone has no choices, aren't we being arbitrary as well?

When will that someone or a group ever be satisfied with their choices if we give them the choice of removing the choices of others forcefully? More importantly, What will be their incentive to increase their own choices through other means if they can just rely on increasing them through force?

If you mess with the incentives for people to get out of their own undesirable situations, people end up imposing their costs on those who instead made an effort of having more choices, thus establishing a moral hazard (good being punished, evil being rewarded).

It's easy to see any economic problem being directly solved with laws, but not so easy to see the consequences. Even worse, the moral hazard leads to people misbehaving, and that ends up being invariably blamed on the concept of a free market, specially where there is no actual free market to speak of, like when you talk about Spain.

One other thing, if I can't compare charity to employment because you say there is no economic reason to do charity, I can't tell whether you're saying that a charity is pointless or if people who receive charity don't need it. Probably neither, but I wanted to understand your statement. Can't a person in an unfortunate situation have her life depend on charity just as much as a desperate man who needs a certain job to survive?

@renatojj making a distinction between bad and no choice is a very fine line to walk on. It will always be arbitrary, as what for one is only bad, for another is no choice. An example: our Spanish friends have the option to work for a shitty fee (the bad choice) or not work at all (and possibly starve, arguably no choice). As there is only 1 choice (work for a shitty fee) is that a choice? Even if that choice was good, 1 choice means there is no choice. And in most cases, due to the same principles as apply to free markets, if there is only 1 choice (or less) that choice will be bad. Is this a case of free markets or should we have done something about the lack of choice? You can argue that policy makers did not do anything in Spain, and you are right. But again, they had their chance (and have a chance every day) to do the right thing. Having an opportunity to make things better is better than knowing 100% that things will go wrong in the end (total free market) even if in some cases human stupidity still F$^&& up the chances.

BTW, in your examples on Uganda and the homeless man, both are not situations of power. As in the giver has no power (or relation) over the receiver or vice versa. It is charity. There is no real economic reason to do it. An employer however does have power over a worker in various ways. You cant compare those examples. Coercion only happens in cases where there is an imbalance of power. Student to teacher, employee to employer, citizen to police. Those are exactly the moments when you need to make sure the ones with more power are scrutinized and can be stopped.

I agree that a free market wants to reduce "the choice remover" aka rules. The rules are however making sure there is balance and that the ones in power cannot remove all the choice from the ones without power. Creating good options for one side in free markets, can lead to bad options in the other, again, no choice. Rules can do the same, however the entire idea of the rules is to balance it and make sure the amount of good options for everyone is maximized.

I just read a great parable. Ill copy it in the next post as it says a lot about free market policies.

@renatojj I agree with you! Coerced into transactions they dont want is indeed the only definition important. I just dont agree free market policies are about making transactions as voluntary as possible. Free market policies only do that in some cases, namely where you have optimal competition. In most markets that is not the case. That is what I mean with right.

I live in Europe. Spain currently has an official unemployment of 25%, 50% for those under 25. Do you think in that situation the unemployed have a choice? You will and do get coercion. People dont want to work for wages that are so low they cannot afford their homes and barely have enough to eat. But the other option is starvation, so they have to. I know the free market people argue that that is still a choice. It is not. If it where up to companies, they would pay even less. Thats why you need for instance minimum wages. If companies would be allowed to go below that minimum all kinds of nastyness would happen. Not for the companies, but for the country, which is bad also for the companies in the end.

Free markets rules are set to minimize government intervention. In some cases that also leads to maximum choices, which you call economic freedom. The issue here is that if all the choices are bad, you are still better off with more rules as lots of bad choices is another form of coercion. The entire idea is to maximize economic freedom while making sure there are good choices. I am not advocating government take full control, which would be the other side of the spectrum. I am advocating a middle road. Use free markets when you can, regulate when you need to.

You could tax the rich out the ass, take all corporate profits and still not be even close to solving the debt issue. You are a fool to believe otherwise.

Comparing the USA to other counties is a moot point. Who cares about other countries. Each country solves its own issues. What look towards Greece and Spain as model socialized societies? Fuck that they are a sinking ship. Germany is the most financially secure country and that's because of their thrift.


Obama is the most leftest liberal this country has ever had. To make his presidency worse he has turned his back on Israel and given the wink and nod to the radical Muslim brotherhood to rise up and take over some countries in the middle east.

Domestically had has done shit except given everyone a large personal tax called healthcare. Everyone will have to pay up. Employers will bail out of providing insurance and we will have to pay it all.

Jobs What jobs The US is running negative. More jobs are lost than created. His policies have failed.

The unemployment would be a lot higher if they counted those who have stopped looking altogether.

A lot the money he has given out were to state labor unions and to useless failed green jobs.


>> ^RFlagg:

This. No matter what Fox and Rush and all the other screw over the working class so 1 or 2% of the population doesn't have to pay an extra 3% tax people say, Obama isn't a Liberal. He campaigned as one, but aside from bringing this country in line with every other country in the world except the communists and Islamic ones by ending Don't Ask Don't Tell (which even McCain said he would support when the military said it wanted to end it, but then didn't support it when they asked), he hasn't really done anything liberal.
I love how some on the right say even Liberals don't like Obama... yes, because he isn't the liberal people voted for, he's a centralist/left leaning Republican, at best a far right leaning Democrat. Now how much is Obama's fault is hard to tell. It could be he is a far right leaning Democrat, or he could just lack the balls to stand up the Republicans (likely), or he could be a victim of the promise the Republicans made when he won in that they would never negotiate and never give in and never let him win, that they would do everything they could do make sure his Presidency was a failure (even more likely).
I.

Not sure why the goals are show as replays and after the celebrations...

Still well done Spain, bloody amazing performance. They made a good Italian team look ordinary.