Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Prismatic Sphere]

Cruel pranksters dye cat bright pink




...

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4r-jnHJt0o&feature=player_embedded[/ame]

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

I say end the FED and get the gov't the hell out of economics; let banks freely compete, fuck up and fail, and go out of business when they default on promises to their customers. A bank that is "too big to fail" is a bank that takes way too many risks.

You seriously don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

The free market does not have the public's best interest at heart.Eventually it tilts more and more toward the wealthy which is why history is filled with the wealthy and the peasants. The US escaped this during its early years of unlimited expansion but the negative effects of the free market caught up with us during the industrialization.

If returning to a true free market was possible, i do not think it is, the balance of economic power would slide toward the very wealthy at the expense of the new peasants.

Loose credit standards may not be the perfect solution but it gives the average Joe a better chance at the brass ring than if the monetary system is controlled only by those who can afford the unregulated interest rates.

Without monetary policy the government has no real tools to fight unemployment spikes. While the free market will eventually self regulate it does so at the expense of the unemployed workers and to the benefit of the wealthy.

One purpose of government is to try and protect the average person from the excesses of those able to manipulate the unregulated free market. I only suggest to those who disparage all goverment regulation that without it we risk being at the mercy of those who have no interest in what is good for the common people, only for what is good for their short-term interest.

 

[mutantllama]

Cruel pranksters dye cat bright pink




...

poor kittie.

although, I doubt he notices.

 

[Einherjar86]

One purpose of government is to try and protect the average person from the excesses of those able to manipulate the unregulated free market. I only suggest to those who disparage all goverment regulation that without it we risk being at the mercy of those who have no interest in what is good for the common people, only for what is good for their short-term interest.

You seem to believe that an unregulated free market will result in a system that favors the extremely wealthy; but Prismatic Sphere wasn't just blowing smoke out of his ass when he said that government regulation has actually benefitted corporate monopoly in the past.

 

[Dak]

You seriously don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

The free market does not have the public's best interest at heart.Eventually it tilts more and more toward the wealthy which is why history is filled with the wealthy and the peasants. The US escaped this during its early years of unlimited expansion but the negative effects of the free market caught up with us during the industrialization.

If returning to a true free market was possible, i do not think it is, the balance of economic power would slide toward the very wealthy at the expense of the new peasants.

Loose credit standards may not be the perfect solution but it gives the average Joe a better chance at the brass ring than if the monetary system is controlled only by those who can afford the unregulated interest rates.

Without monetary policy the government has no real tools to fight unemployment spikes. While the free market will eventually self regulate it does so at the expense of the unemployed workers and to the benefit of the wealthy.

One purpose of government is to try and protect the average person from the excesses of those able to manipulate the unregulated free market. I only suggest to those who disparage all goverment regulation that without it we risk being at the mercy of those who have no interest in what is good for the common people, only for what is good for their short-term interest.

You are basically submitting the same arguement that global economic history has proven wrong since the advent of central banks.

Government involvement will invariably be to give in to the highest paying interest group, which will never be the common worker, all the while telling the average person it's for their own good. Look at the "free trade" agreements for instance.

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

If you don't believe me and want to give me the same tired, lame, dead wrong cliched arguments; hear it from the horse's mouth:





And if you want something to cheer you up, this will have some of you pissing yourself(I did).


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua2EE6Uil40&feature=player_embedded[/ame]

 

[Saparmurat_Niyazov]

 

[Kara-Shehr]

The news today of a Republican "Pledge To America" -- a deliberate evocation of Newt Gingrich's egregious "Contract With America" in 1994 -- sickens me. I'm reminded of Karl Marx's famous dictum, that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.

We're heading for the tragedy part! It isn't that we've forgotten the past -- and its consequences -- it's just that we seem unable to reverse the historical tide. The political philosopher Hegel had pointed out in 1837 that "a coup d'état is sanctioned as it were in the opinion of the people if it is repeated... Through repetition, what at the beginning seemed to be merely accidental and possible, becomes real and established." Marx hated that idea -- and his famous dictum was, in fact, a historian's protest against human nature.

We, too, can protest -- but can we fight the evil tide of Know-Nothingness that is sweeping the country and potentially handing congressional power over to a group of dimwits, determined to ruin the American empire?

It may be instructive, if sad, to re-read what I wrote about September 1994 in the second volume of my Clinton biography, published three years ago.

****
Why did Bill Clinton, possessed with such supersensitive antennae to political danger, not appreciate the WMD that Newt Gingrich was preparing throughout the summer of 1994?

Newt Gingrich was, in the summer of 1994, simply a firebrand in Clinton's eyes: a controversial, attention-seeking, "confrontational activist" congressman; a clever man who understood the sea-change that had taken place in media coverage of politics since Watergate, and with the help of moguls such as Rupert Murdoch had made his Faustian bargain with it. "You have to give them confrontations," Gingrich told a group of conservative activists. "When you give them confrontations, you get attention; when you get attention, you can educate." It was a feisty approach to self-promotion, but hardly the stirrings, in the President's eyes, of a real threat to the Democratic Party's hold on the House of Representatives.

How wrong he was, he would now discover.

Confrontation was certainly the key to Gingrich's strangely aggressive behavior. For years he'd made a name for himself as a lecturer and speaker, without ever getting significant press coverage. Then, one day, he'd deliberately crossed swords with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Congressman "Tip" O'Neill, and had won the national attention he craved. "In the minute Tip O'Neill attacked me," Gingrich later boasted, he and I got 90 seconds at the close of all three network news shows."

From there, Gingrich had gone on to achieve further television-grabbing notoriety on the Hill by charging O'Neill's successor, distinguished World War II-veteran and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Jim Wright, with ethics violations in 1988 over a vanity book he'd published. (These soon rebounded, however, onto "bomb-thrower" Gingrich - indeed reduced him to a sobbing wreck when Democrats attacked him the following year as a neo-McCarthyite, and countercharged him with no less than 84 ethics violations of his own. A special prosecutor had to be appointed to investigate the charges -- a process which would eventually cost American taxpayers $1 million.)

Such had been the opening salvos in a series of bitter new, internecine, profoundly partisan uncivil civil warfare in Congress that could only bring dishonor to the House.

Gingrich had only himself to blame. Drying his eyes, the Georgian Republican congressman had merely continued his antics. If that was the only way he could get his ideas written about, mentioned on television and radio, and debated in modern, tabloid America, then so be it, he reasoned - content to be considered in his own words, "just about the most disliked member of Congress."

This was the very opposite of Bill Clinton - who wanted everybody to like him, and would go to almost any pains to elicit approval. What President Clinton failed to acknowledge, however, was Gingrich's relentless if subversive generalship, compared with his own. Newt Gingrich's private life might be a mess, and his insensitivity to real people - especially ailing people - heartless, but his political drive and dogged

organizing capacity were extraordinary. Clearly there was a messianic quality to the teachings of radical-conservative Congressman Newt Gingrich -- something skeptics dismissed as psychologically inspired by his rootless background as the son of a manic-depressive mother and tyrant military stepfather: an attempt to create order out of disorder -- disorder he himself was intent upon creating!

Trust was not a quality that Gingrich's behavior inspired in Congress, but there was certainly sincerity in his belief in a revitalization of the American economy and society by promoting a Reagan/Thatcher-like cultural shift from dependence on welfare to freedom of economic opportunity....

It was in the context of his "Renewing American Civilization" lectures that Congressman Newt Gingrich - bookworm, lecturer and proseletyzer -- had decided to go one step further in his long campaign to convert younger people to Republican opportunity-led values and wrest the House of Representatives from Democratic control. There was a chance for Gingrich not only to succeed Michel as minority leader but, if the Republicans could win enough seats in Congress in the 1994 mid-term elections, for Gingrich to become Speaker of the House.

For Republicans to win back control of the House after some 41 years, however, they would need a document, a solemn declaration, a manifesto, Gingrich reasoned: a clearly defined agenda of political goals that would distinguish them from their opponents. Traditionally, mid-term elections were fought locally, not nationally. In a step that would put Newton LeRoy Gingrich into the political history books, he decided to reverse that approach. In the 1994 gubernatorial, senate and congressional election campaigns he would wage war as a national revolutionary army, controlled from a central headquarters, not as guerrilla warriors fighting in penny packets.

As a student of military history, the stepson of a colonel, an "army brat" who'd visited the battlefields of Normandy, the Somme and Verdun, and who'd probed the battles of the Revolution and the Civil War for their lessons at home, Gingrich thus presented himself as a new kind of Republican general. A man of ideas. And an inspiring, if insensitive, trainer of troops.

Bill Clinton, though ex officio Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America's military, had perilously few forces to face insurrection at home. Indeed the problem for General Clinton in America was his Party... His brand of Democratic centrism, as a New Democrat, had appealed to many voters tired of liberal-versus-conservative ideology and gridlock, and responsive to the promise of a new, middle-of-the-way forward. But his subsequent administration hadn't cured gridlock, despite a three-way lock on the White House and the Capitol....

Amid the national lamentations [over the death of the health care reform bill] there were, inevitably, doomsday prognostications about its likely effect on the Democratic Party's performance in the November elections. But, before Dee Dee Myers could try to pin the defeat of health care reform on Republican obstructionism, the Democrats in Congress and the White House found themselves completely outflanked. On Tuesday, September 27, 1994 - one day after the final, official announcement of the death of health care reform in the 103rd Congress - Newt Gingrich launched his Scud missile. Standing on the steps of the Capitol's West Front beneath a vast banner rippling in the late summer breeze, and accompanied by a brass band, Congressman Gingrich stepped forward to face the banks of assembled cameras. He was there, he declared, to make a solemn promise to the nation, along with no fewer than 375 other congressional and would-be congressional signatories. The American welfare state was over; the era of opportunity was about to unfold. And to kick it off, the signatories were putting their names to a sort of Bill of Rights for Conservatives, based on ten bills that Republicans would present in the House of Representatives, if they defeated the Democrats in November 1994....

The legislative program was, as Gingrich later admitted, poorly received by the press, and soon trashed by the White House. But - as the House Republican Party whip knew from a prior, four-day flight around the country - it was exactly, emphatically what Republican candidates and voters had longed for: a blue-print for the neo-Reaganite future: a renewed "morning in America."

well I just wasted about 5 minutes of my life reading that

 

[Saparmurat_Niyazov]

BTW, Ayn Rand is right. She's basically advocating a form of anarchy, which is something I can support.

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

That is what these altruist-collectivists fail to embrace. Sure, maybe a few things would get scrambled once all the controls were released. But think of how much FUN it would be. You'd be free. And I would actually have some real positive incentive to produce something with my life instead of tinkering on metal forums and having bitchfests with Brooklynites.


EDIT: Also notice how accurate, no PRECISE her predictions were. She could probably pick tomorrow's lottery numbers if she were alive today.

 

[Kara-Shehr]

..I would actually have some real positive incentive to produce something with my life instead of tinkering on metal forums and having bitchfests with Brooklynites

thank you for sharing that from the bottom of my heart

 

[Pessimism]

God, Ayn Rand looks like an ugly version of Steve Buscemi.

The one thing I can appreciate from that video is the quality of questioning on behalf of the reporter. Also, smoking looks kickass in black and white.

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

thank you for sharing that from the bottom of my heart

Don't be a goof.

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

God, Ayn Rand looks like an ugly version of Steve Buscemi.

She may not have been the ultimate piece of ass, but when she was younger, I'd say she was definitely fuckable(although maybe fitting into the category of "practice girl").

The one thing I can appreciate from that video is the quality of questioning on behalf of the reporter. Also, smoking looks kickass in black and white.

Yeah, I was at the bar the night this high profile reporter "flipped out". It was quite a show.

CBS' Mike Wallace cited for disorderly conduct


August 11, 2004|From Dalit Herdoon CNN

CBS News veteran Mike Wallace, 86, was arrested Tuesday evening outside a New York City restaurant and issued a summons for disorderly conduct.
Alan Fromberg, deputy commissioner for public affairs at the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC), told CNN that Wallace allegedly lunged at a TLC inspector about 8:30 p.m. ET.
Two TLC inspectors saw that Wallace's vehicle, registered with the commission, was double-parked and approached the driver. According to Fromberg, while the two inspectors were questioning the driver and checking the vehicle, Wallace came out of Luke's Bar and Grill on Manhattan's Upper East side carrying a take-out order.

Wallace then approached the two inspectors, Fromberg said, in an "overtly assertive and disrespectful manner." Wallace was asked to step away three times by the inspectors. Wallace did not comply.
After the third request to step aside, Wallace "[lunged] at one of the inspectors," Fromberg said.
The second inspector handcuffed Wallace and placed him in an unmarked TLC vehicle. Wallace was then escorted to the 19th precinct and "issued a summons for disorderly conduct," Fromberg said.
He was released soon afterward.
Luigi Militello, owner of Luke's Bar and Grill, told CNN that Wallace is a regular customer at his restaurant and "anyone that knows him can tell you he doesn't behave wildly."
Militello said he observed the incident from inside the restaurant. Although Militello could not hear what was said, he said the inspector acted unprofessionally.
"One of the officers was totally out of line," Militello said. "He manhandled him [Wallace] as if he was a common criminal."
Wallace called Militello after he was released from the precinct to let him know he was home "eating his meatloaf."
Calls to CBS News for comment were not immediately returned.
The Taxi and Limousine Commission receives applications and distributes limousine and taxi licenses in New York.

On top of that, Mr. Wallace suffers from a pretty severe case of OCD.

 

[Cythraul]

Took me a minute to realize that you were using the actual definition of liberal, instead of the typical usage of it (associative). Then I read you thought it was unobjectionable, so then I thought you were being facetious. Then I just stopped wondering and went on to answer Krampus' last post.

Yeah, I'm not sure what you're talking about but I definitely wasn't being facetious. I don't know what you mean by 'the actual definition of liberal.' I was talking about classical liberal rhetoric, which I find entirely unobjectionable.

A world without fractional reserve banking is not going to work.

Free banking does not entail the absence of fractional reserve banking.

banks could just charge whatever they want - the consumer gets screwed in other words.

Why? That's not generally how markets work. It's not the case that banks could just charge whatever they want. Their ability to charge whatever they want would be mitigated by competition. I see no obvious economic reason to think otherwise.

The free market does not have the public's best interest at heart.

Well, one obvious reason for that is that markets aren't sentient beings, so in one sense you're right, but trivially so. But even if I were to concede that you are right in a non-trivial sense, your point is only compelling depending on what's true of policy makers and the political process. Am I supposed to believe that policy makers have the public's best interest at heart? Why? Presumably they are self-interested individuals just like market actors are. Should I assume greed and self-interest for market actors and give policy makers a free pass? Remember, you were the one who suggested that my views are naive.

Eventually it tilts more and more toward the wealthy which is why history is filled with the wealthy and the peasants.

In what sense does it "tilt more and more toward the wealthy"? It is impossible to evaluate such a vague statement. And what connection does that have with the claim that history has been filled with the wealthy and the peasants?

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

As I posted in another thread:

The much touted claim that capitalism exploits the poor to serve the interests of the rich is historically backward. In the alleged good ol' days of Medieval Europe(idealized by thinkers like John Ruskin and Hillaire Belloc), the overwhelming majority of people either toiled in the fields to which they were bound or they worked at a craft heavily regulated by a guild. All the while, the elite aristocracy had a virtual monopoly on luxury goods.
This all changed with the rise of modern capitalism. Instead of trying to entice a few rich clients, emerging businessmen catered to the newly empowered working class. Think about it, it's silly to build a factory unless you plan on having thousands of customers. The huge increase in production allowed more and more families the luxury of keeping their kids out of the labor force. During this "terrible" transition into the capitalist era, infant mortality dropped and life expectancy rose. An average blue collar worker under capitalism was/is immensely wealthy compared to the kings of the feudal period.

 

[Einherjar86]

Why? That's not generally how markets work. It's not the case that banks could just charge whatever they want. Their ability to charge whatever they want would be mitigated by competition. I see no obvious economic reason to think otherwise.

Plain and simple.

In fact, government regulation in this case could only serve to limit competition.

 

[Badbird]

The hicks in texas are at it again.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/24/texas-board-of-education-islam-references_n_738930.html

 

[Matt]

That's not generally how markets work. It's not the case that banks could just charge whatever they want. Their ability to charge whatever they want would be mitigated by competition. I see no obvious economic reason to think otherwise.

In a perfect world, yes. But, how about in areas where there is little to no competition? Or what if the banks get together and decide to fix prices at higher rates to make more money?

 

[Dak]

/facepalm