magekillr

Libyan rebels round up black Africans I hope to be wrong in opposing this military adventure, but according to some sources, over 50,000 people have died so far. In my more honest assessment, rather than the [cabbage] Dennis Ross was peddling, that is more people than would have died had Gaddafi just snuffed the rebellion from the get-go (purely speculative, of course). I don't buy that he was going to massacre hundreds of thousands, nor do I believe a genocide was imminent. This doesn't even include the people who might die if civil war breaks out among the tribes.

But you're missing the whole point behind these seemingly gluttonous complex financial instruments - it was all done with good intention. They did it to make the world as a whole stronger and less dependent on monetary possessions. And that is why I would like to give a big thanks to Satan for letting humanity shine at its darkest of times. Heh, I lol'd. Oh, maybe our leaders can haz economix lesson? Is austerity killing Europe's recovery? Truly, idiots. You know the question "are they stupid or evil?" The answer is probably 10% are both, 25% are evil, and 65% are stupid as [cabbage]. These are the kids who went to your high school and you were like, "Man that person is stupid," yet somehow through connections they end up ruling the world. Meanwhile, Iceland is on its way to steady growth after they told their bankers to go f**k themselves: IMF report Also, 0 jobs created in the month of August in America. The answer is obviously austerity and tax cuts for rich people. Also, raise interest rates for good measure! Edit: A little bit of non-snark commentary: This "recovery" is extremely ironic in the United States because this is precisely the policy prescription that the Cons say they want. 17,000 private sector jobs created, 17,000 public sector jobs lost. Over the entirety of Obama's presidency, we've seen the government shrinking in terms of employees. Conservatives complain about the results because the President is a Democrat named Barack Obama. But the policy result is what conservatives say they want. Steady cuts to the government sector, offset somewhat by private sector growth. The result in the liquidity trap is exactly what we're getting: stagnation.

Neighbor's house below. Well, I wouldn't call this "splitting the house in half," but it did destroy the one half of the house in the back. It still shouldn't cost that much money. [hide] [/hide]

A tree fell on my neighbor's house and split it in half. Pics tomorrow. edit: I'm just relaying words from a friend of mine who works with the fire department. She said members of her team described it as thus. Not sure what they mean by "split it in half" though.

Well, sure, but I posted that because: a.) It just came out recently b.) It's produced by PBS

http://watch.montanapbs.org/video/1825223761

Heh, wow, Toronto.

Hmmmm, Also, according to Dominion Power, it was only built to withstand a range of 5.9-6.1. Of course, a long, sustained shaking can be more destructive than a short, but more energetic quake...and the Richter scale doesn't tell us that sort of stuff. But after Japan, this doesn't exactly make me feel good (especially because the North Anna Power Plant is 20 minutes from my house, prolly like 10 miles in terms of distance).

I enjoyed this:

The epicenter is 20 miles from my house, actually. It's not a big deal. Just a 5.9. Strongest earthquake on record for VA, but nothing to really worry about. As you can see, most people will feel something closer to a 2-3 than a 5.9 like I did...and all it did was shake the walls. edit: awww man, the picture changed. Wtf.

Under his leadership, he's overseen the NDP going from a small minority to the second strongest party in Canada. He was a great man, and he will be missed.

Just to let you know (if you're too slow to figure it out), you're on my ignore list. It's posts like this where you take everything I write as a personal insult to you and your beliefs. I'll debate issues and ideas, but I refuse to argue at a personal level, something you haven't quite figured out how to do yet. I can agree to disagree, you may have noticed in other threads that I disagree with others all the time; we're not at each other's throats. In case you've missed it, I don't encompass everything the GOP stands for in the past 100 years; I disagree with quite a few of their policies. The fact that you can't separate me and the RNC is particularly frustrating, and it's part of the reason why I'm not going to respond to you. I can't stand how you repeatedly attack me. Each time you call me a hack only goes to show that you can't separate your emotion from an intellectual discussion. Have a nice life, -sees_all1 But you are a hack. When you bring in a link to divert all attention away from Republican presidents "because Democrats controlled Congress and write the budget" (something I even already said earlier to prove that Republicans have little experience in governing), it's called being a hack for that party to take away the blame. To a certain point, I'm a hack for Democrats. I'm not going to criticize the health care bill as much as I would if a Republican passed it, for example, because it harms my own party -- even though I really didn't like the bill at all (the bill has also kept me from losing my health insurance). I'll criticize it more in certain company, but not in public when I'm trying to convince people (because in arguing it's not about convincing, but about dominance...and that involves mockery in a lot of cases). That's called being a hack. Why can't you just accept it? Activists, partisans, and hacks all have a role to play in politics; accept your role and carry on. Back to the thread: More: Spend Now, Save Later, Bond Fund Leaders Say

Well I don't know what would take its place, but it's not hard to imagine the masses of the people getting so pissed with our financial elites and challenging the system. But consider this: That provides the tinder to all sorts of chaos. I'm not sure what provides the match, but we could be heading for a double-dip recession -- perhaps that's it. edit: [cabbage], just look at this crap from my governor: The last thing you'd want to do is "lessen the pain" of the American people. Makes 'em weak. Maybe we could institute a prospective tax for these lazy malcontents, in which we bill them later for taxes they should have been paying when they were unemployed.

Oh, so am I. Although you cannot ban Sharia/Jewish/Canon law without discrimination, imo -- especially in America, I feel that any bans violate the First Amendment. It also poses a problem for all other private means to settle such disputes. You can certainly regulate it, though. However, it's always funny to hear people screaming about Sharia, when Jewish law is used to solve civil suits all of the time in the US. It's driven by xenophobic racism, mostly, which is what I was getting at with Gabe.

Yes, indeed it is. However, breaking up the banks might sound good in theory, but I know of no one person who has provided a legal and feasible way to accomplish this. It's the same discussion that happened during the bailout debate. A lot of leftists said nationalization would be better, as it would clean up the mess immediately, even though it would be more expensive. Well, I agree, nationalization would have been better. But there was no legal mechanism for doing so. Outside of receivership, conservatorship, or bankruptcy, there is no legal mechanism for unilaterally imposing losses on creditors of bank holding companies. No one advocating for that could give me a reasonable solution, so I therefore supported Geithner's plan. So as to big banks and breaking them up. Warren Buffet recently in an interview said, "No, no, no" to the question. I agree with him. I think the idea that "too big to fail, too big to exist" idea is just sillyit betrays a fundamental lack of knowledge about the way modern financial markets work. As for capitalism, it could possibly destroy itself, just as Marx predicted. As a principle matter, Marx had it mostly right. What he did not anticipate however is just how well capitalists could sell their ideas to the underclass: hegemony. Capitalists have never had a proper intellectual response to the working surplus. That and exchange value are two of the most brilliant concepts ever configured. If this crisis is allowed to continue, capitalism itself might again be threatened just as it was during the Great Depression.

I fail to see quite which country you are referring to with your point. I don't know of an Islamic country that combines the church and the state. Maybe once we've cleared that up we can proceed. Any country, really. Gabe mentioned Sharia, so I'm just curious as to what he thinks of Jewish or canon law being enforced as it is in Israel -- if the people involved in such a private matter choose to use it to settle civil disputes, they can do so. Why does he bring up Sharia but fail to mention those?

What's all this crap about Sharia Law? I'm waiting for all you legal experts to present me with a way of "banning Sharia Law" in a country that doesn't have separation of church and state without banning all private arbitration. No matter how popular the banning of Sharia courts may become, the only non-discriminatory way to accomplish such a ban would be to ban all private mitigation of civil cases, because that's all that the "sharia courts" are: private mitigation of civil cases. It is utilized the same way as Jewish law or canon law or any other law.

I agree that for the most part, republican financial policy is garbage. But how long can we keep increasing spending for? I can't see it having a big enough effect on the economy. The President does not write the budget, the House of Representatives does. During Reagan's, Bush Sr's, and the first half of Clinton's administration, democrats controlled the house. During the second half of Clinton's administration, republicans controlled both the House and the Senate. More detail here: http://uspolitics.about.com/od/usgovernment/l/bl_party_division_2.htm Oh, ok, so I get it now. All the spending is the Democrats fault! And then, the presidents can't take responsibility for it at all (except for when Democrats are president). Whatever, dude. The president submits a budget, and the Congress changes it and passes it. Fact. If the spending is too much, the president can veto it. Fact. Reagan wanted more spending than was actually allotted by Tip O'Neill. Fact. [bleep] Cheney: "Reagan proved deficits don't matter." Fact. Just admit it: your political party is always completely and totally fiscally irresponsible. They never pay for [cabbage]. During Republican presidents, they raise spending, and they cut taxes. They bring in new programs and new wars, and refuse to raise taxes to pay for them. And then Democrats are forced to clean up their mess. We never hear about the deficit until a Democrat is president. Stop being a hack. I was charitable to George Bush I: even though the deficit and debt increased under him, I give him credit for raising taxes and beginning tackling the deficit that continued under Clinton. In reality, what happened is that he presided over a recession and the necessary bailout from the Savings and Loan crisis, which bloated the deficit despite his (eventually successful) efforts to tame it. You've been reading too much Megan McArdle. “I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.” ~Ronald Reagan

Heh, I think I can blame about 80% on them. Clinton had budget surpluses upon leaving office, Alan Greenspan: Translation: "We're projected to pay off the debt and deficit too fast, so I support Bush's tax cuts." He's since admitted that he was wrong on this issue, as well as being wrong on financial deregulation issues and the free market. The only blame that lies with Clinton was the continued banking deregulation that happened under his watch and his neoliberal agenda; however, it all started with Saint Ronnie Reagan. It's not really going into more debt when interest rates are negative. It might amount to more physical debt, but thanks to inflation it's actually not. But I find it odd that you disagree with Bill Gross, someone who knows more about government debt and deficits than pretty much everyone -- someone who has the ability, if he so chose, to plunge countries into forced austerity through bond markets. Debt is actually a good thing for countries to take on. Now, I agree that our debt is too large, but it will only exacerbate the problem if we cut spending right now. In fact, the entire reason the United States is such a power house is because of the creation of public debt, thanks to Alexander Hamilton's program "Assumption." All countries take on debt for growth, it's part of doing business in a globalized economy. But you're only getting part of the macroeconomics right. You spend during a recession, save during a boom. We were saving during a boom, but Republicans believe in constant tax cuts to starve the government. Taxes are at their lowest point since the 1950's. Anyway, because of the political dogma of Republicans, they believe spending is ALWAYS bad, and we should ALWAYS cut spending (well, they say this, but they never actually do it with a Republican president...see below). This is ludicrous, and goes against everything you learn in Econ 101. I don't actually entirely blame all of Reagan's deficits on him. He had a recession, so spending was expected to go up. But he also prescribed to voodoo economics (lowering taxes increases revenue...lol). Also, George Bush I was fairly fiscally responsible, as he started deficit reduction that continued under Clinton. Canada also didn't suffer from banking deregulation like the rest of the world, and you have the soundest banks in the world. Your model is based off of Alexander Hamilton's original plan (it didn't pass through our Congress). I wish we had your system of banking. we wouldn't be in this mess at all. Local governments are also quite different than national governments. Of course, but i doesn't make sense to cut off the spigot right now when bond traders are screaming with their heads on fire SPEND MONEY! I saved, too. But US schools are very expensive. I saved $15,000 from ages 15 to when I graduated at age 18. That was enough to pay for one year of school. If you don't think it makes sense to take on loans for investment, well, I don't know what to tell you. Of course I'm not looking forward to it, but I have a choice: a.) go to college and take out loans, or b.) don't go to college at all. It's not that much more debt over a 10 year period. $25,000 in interest over 10 years is definitely worth it when I get an advanced degree in a technical field with high pay-off. This graph shows long-term budget projections for the United States and then adjusts these projections under the assumption that it has the same per capita health care costs of Germany, Canada, Spain, and the United Kingdom. As can be seen in all of these cases, the United States is projected to run enormous surpluses. For example, if the United States had the same per capita health care costs as Canada, its budget surplus would be equal to 0.13 percent of GDP by 2050. By 2080, its budget surplus would be 2.52 percent of GDP. In short, the budget problem facing the United States is almost entirely an issue of dealing with an out of control health care system. I'll go read it now :) Edit: Read it, and I had to stomach my way through it because its author is Mark Steyn. In sum, I think a lot of it is rubbish. He seems to deny the need for economic stimulus whatsoever. Hey, let's just forget everything we've learned and go back to the days of Andrew Mellon! Apparently he also opposed "Obamacare," which actually lowers the deficit (and there's evidence that it's lowering the cost of Medicare, too). It wasn't something I particularly liked -- it was, after all, the Republican health care bill of the 1990's that was pimped by the Heritage Foundation. But it was better than nothing. Sure, the deficits are "unsustainable," but no one is talking about continuing them into the next millennium. In sum, it's standard Mark Steyn: when Democrats spend money, it's bad.

The US came within a week of defaulting on their debt - and you're saying there's no debt/deficit problem in the short term? Do you know why it came within a week of defaulting? It's because Republicans are bat[cabbage] crazy and held it ransom. We only came within a week of defaulting because of the debt ceiling. In effect, it's making Congress appropriate money they've already appropriated. It should be eliminated. There's a short-term political problem, and that's having Republicans control any branch of Congress. Republicans are pretty new to governing -- from 1931 to 1995, the Republicans had control of the House of Representatives only twice, and both times they had it for only a single two-year cycle. The history of the Senate is much the same. The Democrats took over the Senate in 1932 and held it with the same two brief interruptions (1946-47 and 1953-54) until the Reagan Revolution swept them into power in 1981. They lost their majority after the 1986 midterms and gained it back in 1994. Moreover, if it came down to it, there were methods to go around Congress and the debt ceiling. We weren't going to default. When interest rates are this low, it makes a lot of sense. It's cheaper to spend now on infrastructure and investment than it has ever been (I think interest rates are at their lowest levels since WWII). When we have 9% unemployment and negative interest rates, there is no better time than now to spend money. Bill Gross says the same thing: Bill Gross: Deficit reduction can — and should — wait It's maybe what got Greece into this mess in the first place, but what got us into this mess into the first place was a global financial bubble combined with banking deregulation. Spain and Ireland were running sound budgets in 2007. And now all of the sudden they're in trouble? It's not because they took on too much debt, it's because of a global financial meltdown due to a collapsed housing bubble. It has [bleep] all to do with debt and deficits (again, except for maybe in Greece, which frankly shouldn't have been admitted into the Eurozone in the first place). If someone offered you a negative interest loan over a 10 year period -- they are paying you to spend money -- you wouldn't do it? Even with the prospect of future growth? Every business spends money that they "don't have" because of the prospect of future growth and profits. I just spent money I didn't have to attend college. Are you saying I should have paid cash? Fixing the short and medium term deficit is such small potatoes when compared with Medicare; it will slow growth and make the crisis worse. I don't think you realize just how crushing America's health care system is. If we had England's level of health care spending per capita, we would be running long-term budget SURPLUSES. Not to mention that the best way to reduce the deficit is to create jobs. This is why investors are pouring into US Treasuries: they fear lack of growth more than debt.

Before reading any posts, here's my two cents: USA The USA doesn't have a debt/deficit problem in the short or medium term. We are in a deflationary spiral. I've said it since 2009: the stimulus we passed was entirely too small to fill the gap in demand that has eroded since the housing bubble busted. Thus unemployment is still high, demand is still low, and growth is anemic and weak (and could possibly go back to recession). This will continue until the housing market is fixed (which Treasury's HAMP program has been an abysmal failure). Moreover, despite the downgrade -- which in my opinion was entirely political, and it was because the DoJ was planning to investigate the agency -- US debt has been getting cheaper and cheaper. In fact, people are practically paying the US to borrow. Interest rates are NEGATIVE: We should be spending money until the bond market tells us to stop. And even if you dislike spending money on -- in addition to trains -- roads and water pipes and bridges and the electrical grid, presumably you don't dislike money in your pocket. So, relative to baseline taxation and borrowing, the federal government right now should cut taxes by $X billion and increase borrowing by $X billion, and then later raise taxes by $X billion and decrease borrowing by $X billion. This amounts to buyers of Treasury notes giving taxpayers a negative-interest loan. I'm finding it really hard to come up with a coherent and non-sociopathic political orientation that would disapprove of this plan, but I've only been trying for about two minutes. The stimulus and discretionary spending are a drop in the bucket compared with our structural deficit in Medicare. When we fix our health care system, we fix our long-term debt crisis. It's only a crisis in the long-term. The market has been telling us this since forever. But the conservatives keep telling me that runaway inflation and Bond Vigilantes are right around the corner...any day now...any day...(not). A few conservatives, like Bush's speech writer David Frum, have been coming around to seeing that they were wrong, but the GOP is a religious organization, not a political party. If the last debate didn't tell you that, nothing will (when asked if they would accept an agreement to raise taxes $1 for every $10 in spending cuts, every presidential candidate said "no"). But we can't expect to get much stimulus or economic growth while Republicans control any branch of government. It is absolutely vital that they're defeated, and badly. Europe Thanks to the recent actions by the ECB, Italy and Spain have started to avert disaster. But now we're learning that both France AND Germany are starting to face weak growth themselves (when the rest of the world is sucking, what else can you guys expect?) They seemed to think that inflation in Germany would be far worse than staving off financial collapse everywhere else; wrong answer, fellas. The Euro as a currency can be saved, but only if there's a way to make it workable. Right now it's acting like a defacto Gold Standard, where Ireland, Portugal and Greece are forced to bear the brunt of high interest rates and default when they instead could have devalued their currency and endured high inflation. Neither would have been ideal, but controlling your own currency is absolutely vital in a crisis like this. In fact, if the UK joined the Euro, they'd be in some deep [cabbage] right now. Speaking of the UK: austerity? A disaster, just as I said it would be. There was no bond market forcing it on you Brits, either. George Osborne and his ilk can talk about ice storms and nuclear meltdowns as being the fault of flatlined growth, but the reason is due to austerity. Oh sure, it hasn't even totally kicked in yet (which is what really worries me), but that's just it. Investors don't see any growth in the future, so why risk their money with such [cabbage] demand? A good sign, though: Posen’s BOE Stimulus Push Shapes Debate as European Debt Crisis Persists It's good to see at least someone in charge has some sense. The UK should not have committed to austerity measures. It was and continues to be a mistake. I just hope the US doesn't enact such immediate cuts ourselves. In the end, I'd like the Euro gone. I just don't see any way to make it workable. Also, Merkel and Sarkozy are talking about balanced budgets being forced on any Eurozone members. Are they out of their bloody minds? Look, as with our states which mostly require kind of fake balanced budgets, it isn't necessarily (though I still think wrong) horrible as long as there is a central government which can step in. But absent automatic regional transfers during recessions, this is just a horrible horrible policy. The Euro (the entity, not the currency) should hold up and keep trade as free as it possibly can, but many economists predicted that it (the currency) wouldn't survive its first crisis because of how ill-thought out it was. Big edit: it looks like I'm going to have a lot of fun showing how wrong sees_all1 is, but I'll save that for later. I'm too tired right now.

Saudi Arabia is also Israel's best friend.

Bump. This is obstruction of justice, it seems to me. Read the Embarrassing Hacking Allegations That News Corp. Redacted

I don't think it would be unreasonable to have people pay the difference (call it a fine or a tax) in their risk categories. Or just have the tax built into the product that puts them at a higher risk... We have that. It's called a cigarette tax. Taxes on addictive things are pretty inelastic -- as in, they're not very effective at deterring people from using those products. They also adversely affect the poor. I'm not saying we should remove those taxes entirely, but they're not effective at deterring use, and increasing them will hurt the poor. If you want to reduce use, you increase education. That's had a far better effect than taxing. This isn't to say that taxing something doesn't always work. There's evidence that taxing fatty foods removes incentives from purchasing those foods, and that taxing things like carbon for its negative externalities puts alternative energy on an equal playing field. But for drugs? It's just not the case due to an inelastic marketplace. As stated, when you have a clear record of recklessness -- such as for car insurance -- you should pay more. But health insurance is a different ballgame. It's not fair, and it harms everyone else with high health care costs (France has a higher percentage of smoking than the US, and pays a lot less for health care, btw). Anyway, this is getting off-topic.

I don't give a flying [bleep] what it's called. I don't think anyone should care, so long as Arabs are not treated as second-class citizens. As to the question of war, I believe that war is preventable. War is a failure of politics. Speaking of which, FP has an article out for their Sept/Oct 2011 edition: Think Again: War; World peace could be closer than you think