Quoi_Tu

What a horrible, horrible site. Erase it from your brain, it serves no purpose here! Seriously, the guy who took "IQ" was measuring what appears to be education level. And it should be noted that there were lower "IQ" scores in countries like Angola and Nigeria, which should make you think it is because not many people there receive a proper education. Nothing on that site can be correlated.

You either smoke, have never known a chain smoker, or are constantly around chain smokers if you think that intrusive stale smoke smell is only a tiny irritation. And thank you, I love my ego too; I recently got it a hat. Considering the majority of people are not spending most of their time with chain smokers, I do have to agree with Shin. And I'll bring up my argument from before. If we ban cigarettes based on smell I want cars that smell bad and factories banned as well because I hate driving behind someone who's car smells like it's going to kill me or driving past a factory and wondering what they're killing inside. In the same sense, I only have to deal with these smells in short periods of time as most people have to deal with smokers who smell to the point of it being irritating. Also, what size of hat does your ego wear? I'm thinking of getting it a hat for Christmas :-k Oh, I was just point out that the smell is quite bad, not that it should be banned because of it. Sorry, I was just commenting not arguing or really making a point. Extra large. And don't get it a cowboy hat either; it already has one, and if we had a repeat incident like last Christmas, I think it might leave me. :(

You either smoke, have never known a chain smoker, or are constantly around chain smokers if you think that intrusive stale smoke smell is only a tiny irritation. And thank you, I love my ego too; I recently got it a hat.

Why exactly would you hold your breath if they weren't smoking? I would assume he's talking about the bad smell of some smokers, particulary heavy smokers. That stale smoke smell is very unpleasant.

I say buy her a teddy bear with the same jacket that she's wearing in the photo. Everyone loves teddy bears in stylish jackets.

A causal effect has not yet been shown, even in large samples. http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7059 Correlation does not imply causation I would more likely think depressed people (clinically and self diagnosed) would turn to marijuana as a method of self-medication. What makes you think this? Right now many teens find it as easier (if not easier) to get ahold weed than alcohol or cigarettes (two very legal drugs). It would, however, remove the criminal element of purchasing weed. i.e. Users would no longer need to purchase it from criminals in the cover of a dark alley. :lol: Order of obtainability of drugs at my high school: 1. Marijuana 2. Amphetamines (including Ritalin, Adderall, etc.) 3. Alcohol 4. All others excluding (to my knowledge) heroin and meth. It kind of scares me sometimes how easy any of those were to get.

Fat kids do deserve those privileges, for they have the amazing privilege of being the first to be eaten when the apocalypse happens. After all, we have to make sure our first meals on apocalptic Earth are tender.

1)I don't understand the dislike and general rejection of nuclear energy. It's a good method of energy producing. 2)America has the unfortunate reality of being way too big. We're just made up of acres upon acres of suburbias. If we could condense a bit, we could cut down our car use significantly. Not to mention 1 mile is considered driving distance, not walking distance. :( If the government needs money, they can just sell bonds. People love government bonds.

Your name is actually one of my favourites here on TIF. Too bad you can't put a question mark behind nicknames, yours would've been perfect. One of the odder things about my name is that I've had people ask if it was vietnamese. I've yet to receive an explanation though, so I don't know how it relates to vietnamese.

This is the point I'm always torn on because there are people who need the help, but at the same time the wealthy deserve to keep their money. It's a point I haven't really made a finalized opinion on, although I do think that the current tax rates are for the above $100k income is just about right.

Hey, they can't be sick if they're dead. I guess so ends any more response I'll ever give to you. Either shut-up or grow up, your responses are commonly inappropriate and you should probably take a step back and re-evaluate your thinking. I say this to honestly make you reflect on what you're saying because it's very immature.

Would... would y-you make me a hat? :oops:

Heh, same here neighbor. :P

http://forum.tip.it/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=770606

You don't have to be 13 to see a PG 13 movie. They only check id for rated R, unless you are obviously too young to see a PG 13 (as in look under 10).

The elite eat glass? I guess I have some catching up to do... *grabs snapple bottle*

We could all become Buddhists! Where the only thing that is real and isn't real is the limitless oneness of enlightenment.

What I'm confused about is, according to that study (source?), communist states should have optimal GDP, as the rich and poor are given more equality, as in your example. But somewhere that trend must break down, because the former statement is not true. It's from a text book called Macroeconomics by Paul Krugman and Robin Wells, published 2006. The table displaying the information can be found on page 303 in the chapter on Fiscal Policy. The original source is from economy.com (although it could be quite hard to find it on there). What you're saying is if everyone had the same marginal propensity to consume because they had equal incomes (and were communist). However, those findings only apply to economies that have different levels of income. Small note: I wrote marginal propensity to save when I meant consume, fixed up now. Just picking on this one statement since I already responded to a similar one. In different words, there is a natural rate of unemployment as long as there is job mobility.

If you seriously think that the fact that the rich "save" their money means they hurt the economy, I really don't know what to tell you other than you need to take an econ class. Or google the word "stock" at the very least. Brief lesson: The rich understand that keeping their money in saving's accounts hurts them in the long run because of inflation. That's where things like bonds and stocks come in. These investments support the economy in both the private and public sector. Saving doesn't hurt the economy, and I never said it did... Stocks don't help the economy either. After they've been sold by the company, there is no addition to GDP through stock trading. I guess I haven't been very clear, or coherent. I'm refering to what is called the marginal propensity to consume, which is the increase in consumer spending when disposable income rises by $1. The higher it is the higher consumer spending increases per $1 of disposable income. Its been found that fiscal policies benefiting lower income individuals gives a greater increase in real GDP. Such as reducing the tax rate from 15% to 10% (for those that apply). However, policies such as reducing dividends and capital gains shows little to no increase in real GDP. If I was confusing, I apologize, but I hope this sheds some light on where I was coming from. I'll sign up for that econ class now :D

They pay a lot because they have a lot. 35% (the going $350k tax rate) of $350,000 is still ~$225,000. It's quite easy to live luxuriously on $225k (or lets say $200k after state), but not so easy to live comfortably on $25,000. Also, when stimulating the economy, you want to give the poor more money because they will spend more of it instead of saving it. In other words, less taxes on the poor increases their spending, boosting the economy. Less taxes on the rich don't do much.

I think the question that should be posed is: How far should the government go towards protecting people from themselves? And that same arguement is used for things like heroin. What do you suggest in place of democracy?

A better idea than that doesn't exist. Unfortunately, I don't think we're ever going to be able to get rid of it :wall: . What's wrong with money? It causes individual greed, but there's no equivalent system out there that doesn't. So given that, the monetary system is the best we've got short of denouncing all material things. Also, people are greedy for attention and things of nonmaterial worth, such as knowledge. So really, we should just get rid of people.

Well, that takes all the fun out of stereotyping. Sure they are different points of a bell curve, but their proximity to others on the bell curve is what allows us to group them together. Thus, we have the group called normal. It's understood people will be different, but their major aspects of how they behave and what they look like can be caterogized.

I dislike pure socialism, but also dislike pure capitalism. The best mix involves a fairly capitalist market with social programs to support the lower income part of the population. The US is currently lopsided favoring the wealthy over the poor and I think that as soon as that is switched we will have a much better system. Edit: To explain that last sentence, the tax structure and some other laws favor the wealthy when allowing them to have more money doesn't help the economy as much as allowing lower income individuals to have more money. In short, people who make less spend a larger part of what they make than people who make more. Wealthy individuals save a lot of their money. However, you don't really talk about businesses within a socialist economy, which is a big part of the ideal. Do you prefer the government to own the majority of business or for private enterprise? I favor less government owned business because the government then acts like a monopoly, keeping the private sector from starting businesses of a similar nature. No unemployment is not necessarily a good thing because that would lead one to believe there is little job mobility. If I quit my job at the university, then it could be a few weeks or maybe a month before I get hired at another job. During that time I'm unemployed, but that's not a bad thing (in this case).

A better idea than that doesn't exist. Unfortunately, I don't think we're ever going to be able to get rid of it :wall: . What's wrong with money? Just because they won't pay it back "soon" doesn't mean they won't pay it back. When I buy a house, I don't pay back the mortgage soon after, I pay it back over the course of 30 years or 15 years at a fixed rate if I'm smart ;) . And banks are finding it hard to loan to people with good credit anyway.