Saffire

Hah, I'm happy you saw this Bart! I'm not advocating right-wing solutions, either. The conservatives are often as bad as the socialists... The solution is a small government without the power to borrow and print money. I only hope people can learn this fast, and in large numbers.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/8jUU3yCy3uI?rel=0 http://www.youtube.com/embed/aDFdwUY2Oks http://www.youtube.com/embed/laZUjLe6exE?rel=0 Here's a thread to post similar videos in the near future, as "austerity" ramps up. To all my Canadian, European, etc friends: Please remember that these riots and police brutality are the endgame of all experiments in socialism. Because the incentive to produce is reduced, and the total consumption of resources is increased, socialism inevitably leads to shortages and reduction of quality-of-life. In America, we are quite familiar with socialism - it is a myth this country is more capitalist than others. Misunderstanding economics, denigrating capitalism, and questioning the efficacy and morality of voluntary exchange leads to these breakdowns in society. And it will only get worse, as Western governments are united both in debt and their commitment to squelching any dissent. They will call all who don't comply "hippies" or "radicals" (even "terrorists") in an effort to make you turn against your own. The reality is, these people are the ones who are beginning to wake up to the fact that the restaurant is serving last week's soup.

Funny you should say that. Here's a good example of socialism: But I guess they're "crying like babies" over there, too. ;) Like what? Be specific. You must be under the impression the banks are somehow different or separated from the governments. They're on the same team. Canada has its own troubles, too...

But I thought socialism means free things for everyone? What's going on here? Don't you have enough rich people to tax?

Sucks when your socialist paradise runs out of money to give away. Time to raise taxes on the rich again? ;)

This is the inevitable endgame of all socialist regimes. Consumption outpaces production.

You were both amazing. Thanks for a wonderful night.

Chill out? You yourself speculated it would cause a debate. I'm hardly even debating, just making a point. The reason the price of commodities has been rising is because of central banks easing monetary policy. But that's too complex for most people to wrap their brains around (printing money = higher prices) so we instead have a villain, speculators.

If you are jealous of our cheap gas, why don't you come live in America? Why do you complain about expensive food, when food is far more expensive in sub-Saharan African countries?

Often I think the problem with people misunderstanding capitalism is that the word has become so maligned... which is why many libertarians have taken to calling it "Voluntaryism". Any force (including government interference) instantly destroys the price signal system, by creating imbalances that ripple throughout the economy.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eP6iujgeWI]YouTube - Capitalism In One Lesson[/ame]

1. Who owns the river? What do you do if a river is flowing through two countries, and one country (upstream) is dumping toxic waste into the river so it flows downstream into the other country? Do those countries go to war? Kill hundreds of thousands of people? Or do they make an agreement? Think about this. Child labor only exists because it is necessary for the survival of the family unit. Children aren't forced to work unless the economy is so technologically-primitive that it can barely produce enough to feed them. As an economy progresses, child labor becomes unnecessary. Discrimination will occur, sure. Customers can discriminate, too. A law is not going to magically make people love each other. That's a cultural thing. 2. I'm not sure. What can we do about those things now? Not much. Do you think Obama will build a time machine? Does he have a magic formula for preventing Earthquakes? 3. We start by spending $7,000,000,000,000 on a couple of wars in the middle east. Oh wait, nevermind. 4. How would a government respond to September 11? Wasn't there a government around when that happened? What did it do to prevent it? Oh, right: nothing. Hitler... we have nukes now.

Your fear is quite common (in fact I'd say 90 to 98% of adults think like you do). It's simply a matter of not thinking things through. It's similar to "Of course the earth is round, but only in certain places (where there are hills). On the whole, the earth is still flat!" Think about what a government is: It is a monopoly security corporation. Think about how you (and your fellow citizens) "control" the government: You drop slips of paper into boxes, hoping they'll be counted. Then you hope whoever wins the most slips of paper will do something you wanted him to do. Think about what a law is: It's a threat. If the citizen chooses to ignore it, he will be punished. If he refuses to be punished, he will be killed. Corporations, businesses, etc... sure they do bad things on occasion. But they don't start wars that end up killing hundreds of millions of innocent people. They don't create man-made famines and gas ethnic groups. They don't steal 33%+ of your money every year. If you don't like a corporation, you can shop somewhere else. If you don't like a government... you're dead.

I was an economics minor, political science major. But most of what I know is self-taught, I just think the subject is fascinating and I'm in a minority that believes we're living in historic times. Most people think the status quo will continue in some form or another.

Oh but debt does vanish when you don't pay it. Just like if you stopped paying your bills, your debts vanish - the downside is, nobody will ever lend you money again! When you lend someone money, that's taking a risk (just like buying a stock). The risk exists whether you want it to or not. So if China lends the US trillions of dollars, and they don't get it back... too bad for them. But also too bad for us - they'll never buy our debt again (at least not until there's another government in the US). So in the same way an individual has a "credit score", so do the governments of the world. Credit ratings agencies have been downgrading countries like Ireland and Iceland and Spain, etc. Soon they'll downgrade US debt. But they really don't have to - we've reached a turning point where people aren't buying US debt in such large quantities anymore. Instead, they are buying gold and silver and other commodities (because they view this as safer than the bond market). Think about what happens when the market drives the interest rate higher (and that WILL happen... soon). Say something insignificant, like a move from 0.25% to 0.50% Suddenly that $80 billion/month will become $160 billion/month payment. That's huge. So we're sitting on the knife's edge. All that matters when you're thinking about national debt is that monthly interest payment. We pay the bare minimum every month. But soon even this will get out of control, that's the point. As for the bailouts - think about what a bank is. It's just a business whose job it is to connect lenders with borrowers. That's all. Nothing more complex (in principle) than that. So when a bank (or a currency) goes kaput... people don't die. Factories don't explode. Homes don't burn down. The productive capacity of the economy doesn't cease to exist. In the same way, when you break a thermometer, the temperature doesn't suddenly go haywire in the room you're in - you just get a new thermometer. In this situation, we would just get a new currency and new banks. Banks, unlike car companies, electronics manufacturers, etc, don't require a lot of capital goods to start up. All you need is a few nerds and an empty office space and some paper to have a bank. So a lack of bailouts wouldn't have been the end of the world, as you've been led to believe.

It's more than a few tenths of a percent difference, it's usually around 5 or 6% (lately). If you look at the number of people who are "underemployed" (working part time) and people who just dropped out of the labor market altogether (discouraged workers), the real number is around 17% now. This is actually the number the government used to report, back before Bill Clinton was in office. Gallup's latest poll said the unemployment rate was around 10.2% if I recall correctly. You can look it up if you're interested. As for solutions, we sort of reached the "point of no return" back in 2002 or so. That's when interest payments on the national debt became so unmanageable that a natural interest rate was impossible, so the Federal Reserve had painted itself into a corner. Ever since then a policy of low rates has been the norm. Real interest rates are around 0.25% now, so they can't go much lower. Most of these bonds the Fed is selling, it buys itself. So recently China dropped from the #1 holder of US debt (bonds) and now the Federal Reserve is #1. What does it mean when you make a bond, and then buy it from yourself? It's just a fancy way of printing money. So this is called "monetizing the debt" and we've been doing it for a little over a year now. The policy is referred to as "Quantitative Easing" to make it sound haughty and complex. The new money is spent by the government and government employees (as they earn their paychecks). Every month the US spends about 80 billion dollars on interest payments on the national debt (that's not cutting into the principle at all). To give you an idea of how much this is, Google is worth about 194 billion dollars now. So we lose a Google every two and a half months. We lose an Apple every 4 months. So yes, I'm rooting for a collapse of the bond market. I don't think the American people agreed to this debt, and therefore we shouldn't pay for it (either by taxes or a devalued dollar). The solution will be a return to bimetallism (gold and silver backed currency) and a disbanding of the Federal Reserve. That won't come easy. It's very possible we will see violence in the US (a la Egypt and Libya) as cost of living continues to spiral out of control, unemployment rises, and the government can no longer pay out the welfare checks. But I am an optimist in this way - the continuation of this system we currently have is inefficient and steals from the public to enrich a few. Any new system that replaces it will likely create a much higher standard of living for us. Think: only one parent having to work, cheaper college and healthcare, easier to save for retirement without having to risk it all in the stock market, cheaper homes, more disposable income, etc.

Well keep in mind the stock market isn't indicative of quality-of-life. Most people think of it as being "the economy", but the stock market is very different from things like home prices, unemployment rate, cost of health insurance, disposable income, etc. What I see now is evidence of severe inflation. Oil is soaring, and food prices are as well (generally the whole commodities complex). The price of health insurance has skyrocketed recently (especially since the passage of the Obama bill). And finally you see inflation in the price of stocks. All this is being brought about by the Federal Reserve's policies of QE and POMO. Unemployment is actually higher. What the media reports are the government's numbers, but if you look at Gallup's numbers and include birth/death changes, you see the job losses are getting steeper. We're still well in double-digits. (I mentioned birth/death because the economy must create a certain number of jobs every month just to keep up with population growth). EDIT: Let me add this, the price of cotton recently - So you'll see fewer clothing sales and more expensive clothes generally. Up over 200% in the past couple years. Whoever claims there isn't inflation is lying.

It'll likely be Romney or some other "tough talking" Republican who wants to cut a whopping 0.2% of the total government spending and who will continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan until the end of time. I'm not sure the economy will last until that election, though. The % chance of a deflationary collapse is getting higher all the time.

At least Natalie Portman isn't seeking ultimate power in the Presidency of the United States. By comparison I'd say she's pretty humble.

"Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure."

1. China's economy will have a crash, taking down many smaller Asian economies with it. 2. One or more countries will drop out of the Euro, putting its future in question. The EU will be criticized as Europe's economy continues to deteriorate. Portugal and Spain will both require massive bailouts. 3. The dollar will be replaced as the reserve currency of the world. Hyperinflation will hit America. 4. US unemployment will skyrocket past 20%, there will be riots. 2011 is the year the world will discover that printing more money doesn't bring prosperity. It only delays the disaster.

You can't force people to work. That's called "slavery".

Assange is sitting on some seriously dangerous information, considering the CIA hasn't killed him yet. That "insurance" file must be killer. Assange has opened the door to dozens of copycat sites that use similar techniques to upload leaked information in an untraceable way. So even shutting down Wikileaks and killing him won't end this revolution. For the first time in history, the people are able to see how the elites operate - and it isn't pretty.

Assange is sitting on some seriously dangerous information, considering the CIA hasn't killed him yet. That "insurance" file must be killer. Assange has opened the door to dozens of copycat sites that use similar techniques to upload leaked information in an untraceable way. So even shutting down Wikileaks and killing him won't end this revolution. For the first time in history, the people are able to see how the elites operate - and it isn't pretty.

Exactly. I tried to teach myself to be attracted to girls. I gave it my best shot, honestly. Didn't work.