Saffire

Quote from the video: "...because whoever grew my food or made my clothes or built my house, well, if they died, or I alienate them, they don't like me. That's okay. I can just pay somebody else to do it. It's really hard to create community if the underlying knowledge is 'we don't need each other'." Let's think about this. If I don't need someone, I have a choice - I can either be friendly to them or mean to them. If I do need someone, I have no choice - I must pretend to be friendly to them, even if I can't stand them. Capitalism is choice. When you have choice, all of your relationships are real. They are what you want them to be. People shouldn't love you because of what you can give them, they should love you because of who you are as a person. "An economist says that, essentially more for you is less for me." He's never studied economics. Economics is not a zero-sum game. Wealth increases with each trade, because trades don't occur unless both people benefit from them in some way. "There's no evil to fight." Whoa. Who made this video, the central banks?

Chuck, if you have a choice, which would you choose: 1. Get corporate money out of politics. 2. Set strict term limits for all politicians.

Forgive me for not taking very seriously a government that defines "interstate commerce" to include a farmer growing wheat on his own property for his own personal consumption: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn And my point still stands. Unless you're a blind statist, the vast majority of the laws and institutions in America are technically unconstitutional. You can go into the details of the laws, jurisprudence, all that jazz. I've taken courses on it all before. It's just for show. Kind of like your post. “A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.” ~H. L. Mencken EDIT: You also didn't address the second part of my post.

The vast majority of our laws and institutions are "unconstitutional", technically speaking. So it really wouldn't be a big deal if Obama's healthcare law stayed on the books. Also, calling it a "healthcare" law is a bit misleading. It has nothing to do with increasing the number of doctors or hospitals. It's just a law that forces people to buy health insurance (from private insurance companies).

I'm more optimistic long-term, I think things will be much better in 6 years or so. In the short-term I'm more pessimistic than most people, though. I think there will be a total economic collapse.

Well I think "Los Indignatos" (not sure of the spelling) was a reaction to government spending cuts on welfare, not corporatism. OWS is more a reaction to corporatism and job losses, as well as inflation. But it will soon be exacerbated once politicians are forced to cut spending here in the US.

That elude my am reasoning? Dude, hit the hay.

Reilly, you're assuming a "normal person" would want to continue a petty, pointless argument with you on a forum, which has nothing to do with the topic. You really need to get outside once in a while. Or maybe get to bed. Isn't it 4:00AM where you are? Yeesh.

Damn, Reilly, you really want to continue this?

Actually you brought it up again here: There are so many fallacies wrapped up into this one paragraph that I tried to dissect it for you, but then you started complaining that I had an inferiority complex. Let's get to the bottom of this: was your contention that everyone could have jobs if they went to "top 20" schools? I'm trying to figure out what your point is.

That was very man of you to say. I love you, too. The reason I called him "Yale" was because it's easier to type out than "Parrotdies". If Mr Parrot wants to chime on about the economics of the situation (rather than poll numbers and police brutality), then he's more than welcome to. But the "top 20" schools argument is a pointless aside. Education doesn't create jobs.

Reilly, you've got over 30,000 posts on this forum alone. I might be a dick to you, but at least I don't spend all my waking hours posting to a Coldplay forum.

Thankfully my self esteem isn't derived from the diploma I got. I'm not ashamed of the school I went to at all, or what I graduated with. You, on the other hand, seem to be intent on letting other people know you went to Yale (which I'm seriously doubting, by the way). My 7th grade English teacher was a graduate of Harvard. He was an overweight, single, balding man who probably only makes 30k a year. And he was known for being an asshole who was always flaunting his Harvard degree.

Look at this crap. I mean seriously, there's nothing here that's substantive whatsoever. No meat. How could anyone disagree with it? It's the most middle-of-the-road, meaningless, yellow position you could possibly take on the subject.

Yale, I'm not even sure what your argument here is. If it's that polling data shows support for OWS is declining, then sure. How can I debate those numbers? What's your point? But if it's that OWS isn't borne out of a serious and real problem with systemic unemployment, then I disagree. And I can refute that assertion with numbers. You seem to be saying that unemployed people just need to go to Yale or a "top 20" school in order to get a job. Frankly, that's idiotic. That's because they're cherry picking the smartest students. I already pointed this out to you. And I never said Ivy League schools were the most expensive in the nation, just that they're expensive to attend generally. Look who's making straw men. Okay. I guess that makes me naive. Now show me empirical evidence the "top 20" schools contribute to students' success. In order to do this, you'll need to control for all these factors: 1. That the students attending these schools tend to come from wealthier families. 2. That the students attending these schools are already the best students in their graduating high school classes. 3. That the name-brand recognition associated with these schools enables them access to better jobs upon graduation, giving them access to more capital to be productive with. That's a tall order! I stand by my position that these schools *don't* in fact imbue students with any special skills or knowledge that you couldn't learn on the internet or at a community college. And then you go on to name-drop a bunch of law firms you're familiar with. I didn't bother to read the rest of your post because you and Reilly are just going to drag me into some mindless pit of "Aha! I caught you in a logical fallacy!" and "Check out my amazing credentials." and "I'm arguing something that's corroborated by polling data! I'm SUBSTANTIVE." It's old. And the funny thing is, Reilly himself thinks he's some sort of badass. As far as I know, he's a 17 year old in the UK.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/11/video-oakland-police-strike-army-ranger-with-nightsticks-on-his-back-ribs-shoulders-and-hands-lacerating-his-spleen-and-causing-internal-bleeding.html

I don't think public support is relevant. Most of the public are brainwashed idiots. They believe the economy has natural periods of stagnation, and many believe inflation is a natural effect of capitalism. Public support for a movement only becomes important when things start to get really violent. I give it another year, max. There are actually a lot of libertarians and "Tea Party" people who participate in and support it. Ah the old "I attended Yale and did a stint with a Bloomberg terminal" argument. 1. Ivy League schools like Yale charge very high tuition, which allows them to weed out low-income students. Students from low-income families tend to not do as well in school generally. 2. Ivy League school select the best and brightest students from high schools, so naturally they will still be "the best and brightest" when they graduate. The university itself has little to no effect on their curiosity, work ethic, and intelligence. 3. Have you paid attention to which sectors of the economy are growing and shrinking lately? Hint: manufacturing isn't growing. Hint 2: Non-productive sectors are growing, such as government positions and legal positions at firms that specialize in bankruptcy. These are positions filled by nonskilled workers who scored high on their SATs and graduated from a school that has a lot of government connections - like Yale. I'm glad you learned about p-value in your Intro to Stats course, but any buffoon at a community college learns that. If you can start a substantive conversation with me about central bank interventions in the Japanese bond market and how it affects the carry trade, I might be slightly more impressed.

I think you're confusing democratic popularity with substantive concerns. You'll never have a protest with a leader that all members accept as their representative, and you'll never have a protest with people who are 100% ethical/restrained/"normal". OWS is just a vent, a way for the uneducated youth to show their frustration with how tough their lives are. Currently young people have the highest unemployment rate seen since the Great Depression, and are the poorest among us. They've been taught in Government schools that economic problems arise from too few regulations and "capitalism run amok". So they are petitioning the government for greater interventions, which will of course lead to further economic ruin. If OWS could be boiled down to one thing, it's an uneducated reaction to corporatism (fascism). It really reminds me of this: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMeXGE_a8Gg]Louis CK Punches Dog In The Face To Save Her Life - Conan On TBS - YouTube[/ame] Like Louis CK's dog, the OWS crowd will hate the "medicine" needed to fix the problem. And the same could be said of Americans generally. They want change... but they're afraid of it. So anyone who comes out for significant changes in government policy/spending is vilified as "out of the mainstream" or "too extreme". Democracy is prom king politics. And when the jocks are in charge, society collapses.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/17/monti-prepares-italy-for-more-pain Ahh, socialism. What a high price to pay for "free" services.

Bah, false economics. Wealth doesn't come from "cash". If someone hoards money, that only serves to increase the value of the money remaining in circulation. Goods and services are real value, money is only representative of value. EDIT: Also, if someone has money they legitimately earned (voluntarily traded to get), it means they must have created something of greater value than the money they earned. Otherwise, nobody would have made that trade with them.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTnWfZ4izEU]The Euro Crisis - Debt By Design - YouTube[/ame] [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdob6QRLRJU]Farage: What gives you the right to dictate to the Italian people? - YouTube[/ame]

http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/17/patriotic-millionaires-demand-higher-taxes-but-unwilling-to-pay-up-video/#ooid=9qcG4wMzqAYp0d-USgHvosm1FKEyxk0t

He is! Anybody who buys government bonds is a bad guy, because they are buying the future productivity of taxpayers, and in the process loaning money to governments so they can continue their nefarious activities around the world. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjDHQ16MyKY]Shooting Cops - YouTube[/ame]

Isn't MoveOn.org the organization that tried to get Democrats elected? Aren't the Democrats receiving campaign donations from Wall Street banks, and didn't they bail out the banks using taxpayer money? Until MoveOn.org and other leftist groups explicitly state they are against all bailouts, they are merely a tool of the elite to control opposition.