>> ^marbles:

>> ^crotchflame:
There's nothing about inflation or speculation that requires fiat money.

Huh? That's what inflation is--the expansion of the fiat monetary base. WTF are you talking about?
Without a system built on fractional reserve debt, there is no method to engage in fraudulent speculation. There is no bubble, there is no artificial expansion in debt.


Inflation is a rise in general price levels. Just because the price of gold is fixed with a gold standard doesn't mean everything else is. But to be fair, inflation did tend to be lower under fixed currencies with little threat of runaway inflation and the long-run prices determined by gold mining activity. BUT this came at the cost of a more serious threat of deflation and bank runs, which you can easily argue is much worse.

What's the difference between speculation and investment? It seems people are always certain which is which after the fact, but a full reserve banking system would reduce both activities. It's a matter of degree, there are no magic bullets.

Even the St. Petersburg Times, proto-typical liberal rag-in-denial, has noted that His Earness's "Buffett Tax" will only bring in a couple of hundred billion over 10 years, nary a drop in the bucket. Runaway spending is still the problem.

Taxocrats pretend they want to tax "only millionaires" but it's the "common man" the left claims it's defending that will be taking it in the ass from the federal mafia, both in trickle-down higher taxes AND direct higher taxes.

As for The Bignose and Fatso Vaudeville Hour, I've never been offered a job by a poor man.

Treat them nice...it's not a big deal. Girls aren't precious little flowers needing protection they're their own beings that can make their own decisions. Just be nice to them just like if you were bringing back some vagrant or runaway to fuck.

4 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

>> ^eric3579:

http://videosift.com/video/Race-car-wheel-amazing


*wheels *dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Race-car-wheel-amazing

This video has been seconded as a duplicate; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof seconded with isdupe by bareboards2.

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Runaway-Truck-Tire-Smashes-Taxi

This video has been nominated as a duplicate of this video by critical_d. If this nomination is seconded with *isdupe, the video will be killed and its votes transferred to the original.

>> ^Trancecoach:

http://videosift.com/video/Rubber-a-story-about-a-tire-that-s
-going-to-murder-you


damned copyright material crapola.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G5pyFhmAqE

Your video, Runaway Truck Tire Smashes Taxi, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Don't mean to single you out, Truck.
2-10%? Assuming you mean those evil wealth-hoarders, you do know that 42% of Americans identify as being either "conservative" or "very conservative"?
Maybe the "big boys" don't deserve everything they have, but typically their fortunes are a by-product of providing something valued by consumers.
Modern Liberalism is more concerned with rich versus poor instead of right versus wrong. And ignoring the role of runaway spending on a leviathan welfare state in devastating the economy doesn't help the left's case either.


>> ^Truckchase:
>> ^Boise_Lib:
Is it really is non-partisan? Or just spoilers for someone? I've seen this on Colbert and PBS--has this been on Faux News?

The difference is that Faux programming=a megaphone for the rich. They have no interest in a level playing field. The concept of democracy is frightening to a group that represents between 2-10% of the population.



Hey QM! I did phrase that incorrectly; it's another case of me taking a paragraph to say what I should probably say in 2 or 3.

I don't think Fox viewers represent 2-10% of the overall populous; I'm right with you there. When I say 2-10 I'm referring to the sector of the population that determines the "flavor" of the channel. They're highly influential by way of the money they throw around to make their viewpoint heard. I'm not saying that this isn't the same with most major media outlets... they're almost all beholden to sponsors of some sort. My point is that Fox is the lone popular media voice for the ultra-rich, and in a vacuum of any media coverage whatsoever the ultra rich wouldn't have the amount of popular acceptance that they currently enjoy. In a democracy free of influence from corporations, unions, and enormous individual wealth I believe we would be free to make better choices for the actual majority.

Be you "conservative" or "liberal", I think we all can agree that we need to get our democracy back in the hands of people free from the influence of financially backed interests.

Edit: and let me just say that I don't mean to infer that this in particular is the answer; it hasn't been thoroughly vetted enough yet. Just working to get there eventually...

Don't mean to single you out, Truck.

2-10%? Assuming you mean those evil wealth-hoarders, you do know that 42% of Americans identify as being either "conservative" or "very conservative"?

Maybe the "big boys" don't deserve everything they have, but typically their fortunes are a by-product of providing something valued by consumers.

Modern Liberalism is more concerned with rich versus poor instead of right versus wrong. And ignoring the role of runaway spending on a leviathan welfare state in devastating the economy doesn't help the left's case either.





>> ^Truckchase:

>> ^Boise_Lib:
Is it really is non-partisan? Or just spoilers for someone? I've seen this on Colbert and PBS--has this been on Faux News?

The difference is that Faux programming=a megaphone for the rich. They have no interest in a level playing field. The concept of democracy is frightening to a group that represents between 2-10% of the population.

A Pyrrhic 'Victory'
By Thomas Sowell
8/10/2011

In Don Marquis' classic satirical book, "Archy and Mehitabel," Mehitabel the alley cat asks plaintively, "What have I done to deserve all these kittens?"

That seems to be the pained reaction of the Obama administration to the financial woes that led to the downgrading of America's credit rating, for the first time in history.

There are people who see no connection between what they have done and the consequences that follow. But Barack Obama is not likely to be one of them. He is a savvy politician who will undoubtedly be satisfied if enough voters fail to see a connection between what he has done and the consequences that followed.

To a remarkable extent, he has succeeded, with the help of his friends in the media and the Republicans' failure to articulate their case. Polls find more people blaming the Republicans for the financial crisis than are blaming the President.

Why was there a financial crisis in the first place? Because of runaway spending that sent the national debt up against the legal limit. But when all the big spending bills were being rushed through Congress, the Democrats had such an overwhelming majority in both houses of Congress that nothing the Republicans could do made the slightest difference.

Yet polls show that many people today are blaming the Republicans for the country's financial problems. But, by the time Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives, and thus became involved in negotiations over raising the national debt ceiling, the spending which caused that crisis in the first place had already been done -- and done by Democrats.

Had the Republicans gone along with President Obama's original request for a "clean" bill -- one simply raising the debt ceiling without any provisions about controlling federal spending -- would that have spared the country the embarrassment of having its government bonds downgraded by Standard & Poor's credit-rating agency?

To believe that would be to believe that it was the debt ceiling, rather than the runaway spending, that made Standard & Poor's think that we were no longer as good a credit risk for buyers of U.S. government bonds. In other words, to believe that is to believe that a Congressional blank check for continued record spending would have made Standard & Poor's think that we were a better credit risk.

If that is true, then why is Standard & Poor's still warning that it might have to downgrade America's credit rating yet again? Is that because of the national debt ceiling or because of the likelihood of continued runaway spending?

The national debt ceiling is just one of the many false assurances that the government gives the voting public. The national debt ceiling has never actually stopped the spending that causes the national debt to rise to the point where it is getting near that ceiling. The ceiling simply gets raised when that happens.

Just a week before the budget deal was made at the eleventh hour, it looked like the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives had scored a victory by getting the President and the Congressional Democrats to give up the idea of raising the tax rates -- and to cut spending instead. But now that the details are coming out, that "victory" looks very temporary, if not illusory.

The price of getting that deal has been having the Republicans agree to sitting on a special bipartisan Congressional committee that will either come to an agreement on spending cuts before Thanksgiving or have the budgets of both the Defense Department and Medicare cut drastically.

Since neither side can afford to be blamed for a disaster like that, this virtually guarantees that the Republicans will have to either go along with whatever new spending and taxing that the Democrats demand or risk losing the 2012 election by sharing the blame for another financial disaster.

In short, the Republicans have now been maneuvered into being held responsible for the spending orgy that Democrats alone had the votes to create. Republicans have been had -- and so has the country. The recent, short-lived budget deal turns out to be not even a Pyrrhic victory for the Republicans. It has the earmarks of a Pyrrhic defeat.

The real focus here is the antics of "your" imperial senator. Since he's on "your" side, do ya think he doesn't have to answer questions or be accountable? You'd think he'd be better prepared to defend himself since he's a big mouth crap talker.

Sure, you can attack the journalist and suggest Reverend Moon is whispering in his ear, even though the man's identified himself as an independent social journalist at (an) event sponsored by (the) City Club of Chicago and open to media and the public.

As for the other thing, what else can the left do but flip the script and blame Republicans for the debt crisis? Saint Obama is infallible as long as you ignore the effects of his runaway spending. While the Right isn't innocent, this debt crisis is the baby of this clueless administration. Or did the Tea Party cause Greece, Portugal and Ireland's economic meltdowns?


>> ^shuac:

Anyone who works for the Reverend Sun Myung Moon (publisher of the Washington Times who proclaimed himself the second coming of Jesus Christ) is immediately suspect.
I mean, you can see this reporter's not unstable at all. <- sarcasm.
Another stellar clip, Roomie. Thumbs up, buddy.

>> ^newtboy:

I think debt is a bigger problem in Europe because they have much larger debts (per capita).

I'd say per capita isn't as important as debt/GDP ratios. By that measure, Greece is in terrible shape (148% of GDP), while places like Sweeden and Denmark and Finland are all in the 30-40% range. The US is at about 60%, which isn't great, but it's not terrible, and definitely nothing like Greece.

>> ^newtboy:
They do all have soverign currency still, don't they? I thought they all just added the euro, not replaced their currency. If you're right, YIKES!

It's true. Not every EU nation has given up their own currency, but all of the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) have.

>> ^newtboy:
I disagree that we have control of our currency since we left the gold standard, but that's a different discussion althogether. We certainly do have the control to devalue it, just maybe not re-value it.

Well, Fed policies can reduce the money supply too. Any time the Fed raises interest rates, that's what it's doing.

>> ^newtboy:
You say 'at worst, inflation' as if that's just fine, but remember Germany after WW1, they 'just' had inflation to pay their crushing debt, it started with them needing a wheelbarrow full of deutchmarks to buy a loaf of bread, and ended with the creation of the Nazi's and WW2.

That's hyperinflation, i.e. a process where inflation doesn't just rise, but starts exponentially increasing. That's why central banks in modern times have explicit, stable inflation targets that they communicate publicly.

Adopting a higher inflation target definitely helps a government's long term fiscal position, at the cost of weakening its exchange rate, without risking any sort of runaway inflation.

Sometimes that's a worthwhile trade to make, especially if the alternative (default) is worse.

>> ^newtboy:
There's no need to focus solely on taxes either, it's a ballance thing.
...
Our 'friends across the pond' will shortly not be supplying these programs to their citizens either, they bankrupted themselves with these kinds of programs and lack of revenue, and now their bankrupting their partners in the EU. That's why it doesn't make sense to compare our social programs to theirs and say 'they can, why can't we?'...theirs bankrupted them.

That's the thing, you say it's the programs that "bankrupted them", I'm saying "no it didn't, they went bankrupt because they didn't ask people to pay the taxes to pay for the safety net they had".

You can balance the government budget at 18% of GDP or 50% of GDP. Having paid maternity leave doesn't bankrupt you. It's having paid maternity leave, and then cutting the taxes that pay for it that bankrupts you.

>> ^newtboy:
If we had the money, I would be all for it, and 3 months paid vacation, guaranteed retirement benifits, low or no taxes, etc.,

Well, having the money is a choice we make as a society. Our GDP, even in this crisis, is $14 trillion a year. I suspect maternity leave wouldn't even cost a thousandth of one percent of that.

Again, the size of government has nothing to do with your fiscal discipline. Fiscal discipline is saying that you want to be taxed at a rate that will pay for the government as it exists. Demanding other people sacrifice so that you don't have to pay higher taxes is the height of fiscal irresponsibility.