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1 point

I'm gonna go bold point by bold point here:

1. I'm not quite sure I understand, but what you are talking about there would be quantitative easing, the act of buying government bonds by the Fed. The Fed, under Woodrow, was seen to the business community as a welcome asset to assist in stabilizing the market place.

2. The social contract theory, as afore mentioned, is social, not singular, one man cannot have his own government, otherwise, that would be anarchy. Where each man governs himself by his own rules. No one LIKES taxes, but, when we think about it, it is for the best, most of the time.

3. And maybe we should have a middle state of a mixed economy? Human motives cannot be clearly defined, what makes China prosper so greatly as of late? It is mostly culture, culture has a lot to do with it, but also the liberalization of markets, as China has permitted, however small, after all, China will soon exceed the number of research papers published in the US per annum. Something must drive the Chinese to work so fervently, and, without the proper capital motive, there must be a cultural motive. Basically what I'm trying to say is, there is no perfect system, only one that is best for a certain people, fi the pursuit of wealth is frowned upon, a society will be poor, yes, and will not develop a highly competitive market place or capitalist system, sort of like Feudal Japan.

4. I think that when companies fail of no fault of their own they should most often fall, no matter what, creative destruction. But, in times like these, letting them fail would create a worse economic recession. There are very few times these interventionist policies should be pursued.

5. JP fucking Morgan. Bailed out the economy TWICE! I always get weak (laugh) at that, its a funny thought to me that a single individual can do that, but he did. Gilded Age of American history. Horizontal and Vertical consolidation in cutthroat competition in a highly unregulated market place created so many trusts and such, that the Sherman Antitrust act was put into place. It led to the Gospel of Wealth (by rockefellar?) which advocated the rich "nannying" the poor by establishing libraries and other public or private institutions that would help the poor education themselves for personal betterment, but not for the increase in their personal livelihood.

6. I'm pretty sure thats the same thing as 4, right?

7. This is where we go awry, Reagan led to greatest deregulation movement, a counter to the Great society movement, the most important piece of legislation, in my opinion, the Glass-Stegall Act, was removed and other union busting and deregulatory moves were made, and guess what, after that we had our first major economic recessions since the GD.

8. I'm lazy right now and I'm not bothering to figure what the other poster meant by "it" XD

1 point

I cannot discern whether I am being trolled or not... O.o

2 points

As intelligent and sentient beings that can morph their surroundings, I think there is a subconscious desire for natural simplicity, such that we find it to be aesthetically pleasing. The diversity of nature is simply caused by natural selection and evolution.

1 point

I would also like to point out that McCain was born on a military base in the Panama, but congress waved that and said, sure you can still run, and there hasn't been a peep about that.

1 point

Have you looked at the economic data at all? The businesses are literally sitting on cash, waiting for demand to kick up! Besides, who spends more of their money, those on welfare, or the rich? The rich have what they need, my family is part of them, the poor, they don't, the spend every last dime attempting to procure the necessities.

1 point

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

Hey! Its your wacky story book, not mine!

Tell me, how has reforming people gone? For the last two Millennia, you've sure been doing a shitty job of it!

Clearly Christianity does not support giving to your fellow man and helping those who cannot help themselves! Or does it? I wonder how you reconcile those two?

1 point

I love when people pull this one.

FDR launched the single greatest government initiative for the American Economy. EVER. That was turning America into, basically, a command economy, during WWII. Unemployment was nearly non existent. Then post war demobilization occurred and we suffered a minor bout before returning to normal unemployment.

Also, if spending more doesn't help the economy, then why did our economy grow so much during WWII as the government created massive demand for things?

Don't tell me it was free enterprise, because what they needed was demand, something that the market can't supply by itself.

AD=C+I+G+(X-M) baby!

1 point

The right to keep what you earn is incumbent upon the state which insures the general welfare of its citizens, the definition of freedom to an American fundamentally changed in the great depression, freedom to live at a certain standard. Look at the Gilded Age, there was so much pain in that era as the rich literally could bail out America single handedly, JP Morgan did it TWICE!, the point is, we don't want to go backwards to the gilded age, we won't to make progress and forge ahead to future where the sweets of wealth don't manage to concentrate at the top, where the net worth of the top 5% is almost half of that of the bottom 95%, statistic vary depending on what you count as "wealth" I use the most reasonable one, in my opinion.

If they could, they would use slave labour to export their goods to enrich themselves, but the system of free labour was established after the Civil War in America for good.

1 point

What basically you have the Conservatives trying to do is apply the Laffer Curve, God's most awful mistake XD, the idea of the Laffer Curve is that there is an ideal tax range to increase the disposable income of all citizens while increasing the real income of the government. If it sounds like bull, don't worry it is. We all know that the stimulus was too small, it didn't cover the loss in potential GDP and the loss in demand. When we look at China, their stimulus was about as big as ours and bigger in relation to GDP, and guess what, they're doing far better than the rest of the austerity cult of the west. The Economy is not some beast that you can't predict, it is, more or less, rational, unless you refer to Stiglitz work on Market irrationality, but that is only a small component. The Economy works by the laws that govern it and the models which define it. We can recognize this downturn as a demand side issue because of the deflationary spiral of the dollar and the liquidity trap we're in. If it were a supply side problem, the wage cuts would work, and the anti inflationary policy of the fed would help, but that is not the issue, the dollar can hardly inflate any more because of the lack of demand, all the fed can do is buy government bonds, I.E quantitative easing, right now to keep inflation rising to combat deflation, a greater evil.

1 point

Tell me what would have been better? To let things sit like Herbert Hoover did, do nothing at all? What is the rationale behind doing nothing? The belief that the market will fix it? I hate to tell you, but the market says that, right now, the lack of demand is the biggest problem.

1 point

No, it should be legal for people over the age of 21 for certain drugs, others are just too dangerous to the person and to others around that person.

1 point

Evolution comes in two forms

One as a fact, scientists do not dispute that evolution HAPPENS.

Two as a theory, natural selection, which experienced large backlash from religious communities because it made intelligent design seem more like a blind man using building blocks, rather than truly "intelligent design"

God as a theory has no scientific backing and thus should not be taught unless at private schools. Who would pay money to go to that school? Who knows XD

0 points

Socially acceptable? No.

Able to be said? Yes. On television, no. Only on certain channels, comedy could be one.

1 point

Didn't I already say that the business cycle has dominated the world since the industrial Revolution? Basically what that means is that, in every country, no matter the presence of a central bank or not, they experienced the boom bust cycle.

Hmm... Dunno why the graph didn't work, try this:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?bgcolor=#B3CDE7&chart;_type=scatter&drp;=0&fo;=ve&graph;_bgcolor=#FFFFFF&height;=378&mode;=fred&preserve;_ratio=checked&recession;_ bars=On&txtcolor;=#000000&ts;=8&width;=630&id;=CPILFESL,UNRATE&scale;=Left,Bottom⦥=Custom,Max&cosd;=2006-11-01,2006-11-01&coed;=2010-11-01,2010-11-01&line;_color=#0000FF,#FF0000&link;_values=true,true&mark;_type=MARK_FILLEDCIRCLE,MARK_FILLEDCIRCLE&mw;=4,4&lw;=1,1&ost;=-99999,-99999&oet;=99999,99999&mma;=0,0&fml;=a,a&fq;=Monthly,Monthly&fam;=avg,avg&fgst;=lin,lin&transformation;=pc1,lin&vintage;_date=2011-01-13,2011-01-13&revision;_date=2011-01-13,2011-01-13&nd;=2007-12-01,

Ya, it is long lol, why i bring that up, the graph, is to prove that we aren't facing inflation, rather, we face deflation, a side effect of a demand side slack.

Why I bring up Milton Friedman is because, if anyone knew anything about money and monetary policy, it was Friedman, he is like the father of modern monetary policy.

1 point

The best government is a strong central federalist government that represents the ultimate will of the people but is lightly insulated from fluctuating popular will to allow for hard decisions.

1 point

Of course not, the person was obviously mentally ill. However, it does not mean that there are serious repercussions for the rhetoric out there.

2 points

three words

Arizona Prison breaks.

That should be enough.

Prisons aren't out for profit, thus, they should not be run in a for profit manner, such as a private establishment would unless heavily regulated.

1 point

the government is part of us as much as we are part of it. That is one of the major reasons we, in the US, have a republican form of government, because it insulates leaders from the popular and often brief emotional whims of the public, which is why senators were not elected as in the "people's house".

Obtaining more power is simply a referendum from the people in most cases. Maintaining power and ensuring order, that is what a government desires.

1 point

But that is exactly the problem! If the constitution was supposed to be followed to verbatim, then it wouldn't survive into the modern age. The elastic clause, for instance, what do you think the framers believed about that? It obviously left it open to interpretation, not just the enumerated powers. Much of the language is actually left ambiguous to allow for contingencies.

1 point

Milton Friedman also disputes what you put forth there, the idea of malinvestment.

Also, right now, here is the graph I made

http://preview.tinyurl.com/Fredgraph1

notice the clockwise spiral, that is called deflation, it is incredibly dangerous compared to normal inflation.

Also, the natural phenomenon known as the business cycle has been around ever since the industrial revolution, I don't think that is going to change, and, in fact, it hasn't.

1 point

A problem with monopolies is that they own so much market share that they can literally "buy out" other businesses, and it may take time to find a true competitor, because prior wealth would be needed in this case because a monopoly can suffer heavy losses to shut out another competitor, predatory pricing.

Lets say that the internet was run as a monopoly, a single service provider. What then? What if electricity was the same?

Obviously patent barriers respect an individuals right to their own discovery for a certain amount of years, but after that, there is one significant natural barrier, like I said, startup costs.

1 point

If you want to play at that game, we can.

The Constitution states "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

It does not explicitly imply the ability to keep firearms, but that the right to bear arms as a prerequisite of a free state for security shall not be infringed.

Or we could say that the Fed and the IRS are implied by several statements:

"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States"

"to borrow money on the credit of the United States"

"To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin"

"To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."

The constitutional Grey zone goes on. It always turns out to be pyrrhic victory for one of the belligerents as the other walks away leaving the issue, ultimately, unresolved, but, nominally, a victory for one after much pointless discourse.

2 points

Murder is still a "really big deal" but does that mean you execute a 13 year old who is not done mentally developing.

The reason we don't let minors drink is because it is harmful to developing bodies, driving is a meticulous task that requires the responsibility and mental capacity that developing children tend not to have. I might want to have a drink, but I'm not of legal drinking age, I respect that, you say people tend to follow the law, and then you directly contradict yourself by saying if a child wants to have a drink, they will pursue it. You can't have it both ways. Laws set up the way we as a society agree to handle ourselves for the common good with respect for rights observed.

You say that parents know best, but tell me, how many parents would you trust to allow a child a firearm in Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati Ohio? Ya, I don't even feel safe there as it is! Lest a parent trust their children to bare arms in a poverty ridden hole of crime! A child's passions are more easily flared than an adults, crime rates would shoot up for a period of time before falling down to a level higher if not much higher than the current one.

Yes that is justice, if your idea of justice is imprisoning a 7 year old for life or executing him/her for murdering?

http://www.wtkr.com/news/wtkr-poertner-update-dec22,0,7803416.story

OH! Lethal injection time for children? Goody! You want your government to kill children? Imprison them for life? This is justice? Apparently. Good Game Gentlemen.

3 points

Juveniles are developing individuals, a 10 year old can appreciate the sanctity of life as well as an 50 year old. Juveniles are also developing individuals, they have not developed, mentally or physically, enough to be considered adults.


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