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On November 01 2011 15:28 semantics wrote:
I've always found it amazing someone can say it's the governments fault and accept it's from corporate influence on the government and then say the solution would be less government as if the corporate influence bending the markets is apparently only possible with government.
Umm... But that's exactly true. If the government wasn't allowed to control the market through taxes, regulations, etc, the corporations would have nothing to influence. When there is a master (government) who controls all the slaves (businessmen), the slaves must beg favors from the master, which always gives them an advantage over all the other slaves. No masters, no slaves, no advantages. It's not that difficult to understand when you take -all- of the facts into account and not just your favorite ones.
On November 03 2011 00:44 semantics wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2011 19:09 Biff The Understudy wrote:On November 02 2011 10:00 semantics wrote:
Can't really argue with kiarip in his world everything bad is the governments fault. I'm sure if he could he would blame the triangle shirtwaist factory fire ,pemberton mill collapse, the great chicago fire and what happened during the homestead strike on the government as well. He runs off the idea that business is fully competent and government is completely incompetent eve when it's the same people running both sides of it, in which it's cronyism to which the business are not at fault for even though it takes two to tango. Isn't it the position of libertarianism itself? You read two pages of Ayn Rand and you realize that the world is divided between the good market and the bad government. What strikes me is both the blind faith in capitalism and the complete disbelief in democracy and politics in general. I can't help to consider it as just another completely extremist position. I'm not that interested by extremism in general. I never got this thing with the FED, but in France we used to have a central bank (BF) that was completely public, that didn't make profit and that was working very well. If I understand, the problem with the FED is precisely that it is owned / ruled by and in favor of certain private banks, right? But any extreme absolutist view is automatically wrong, as the world doesn't work off 100%'s always true. I believe in that a market does help pick winners and losers, but i also belief that people lie and are shit when it comes to money, and so business are to be questioned not trusted. Either you build an econ that runs off strong government to protect the people or weak government which benefits business. I believe strong government works better for the avg person, so there should be clear removals of conflicts of interest from those in government along with transparency. Frankly i just run off the idea that people are not to be trusted in general, i mean look at the bystander apathy effect, when in groups people will differ blame and responsibility so you can't trust them to do the right thing when it counts, so how can i expect government to work, force them to act. Religion used to shape US morality i don't think it does any longer and as people dissolve their responsibility to their fellow man. Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 00:34 BestZergOnEast wrote:
Wealth redistribution is incompatible with justice. The purpose of law is to protect property rights, and as bastiat pointed out it it has been perverted away from that function and turned into an instrument of plunder. Theft is not just. Nor do I hold that egalitarianism is an aesthetic ideal which should be aimed for. Personally I favour societies with a good measure of inequality. If someone is not massively rich, who then will construct sky scrapers, shopping malls, or other such necessary things? And of course we have seen what societies that valued equality over freedom have degenerated into. It wasn't pretty. who says the rich person had to pay for their shopping malls etc all by themselves. Often such projects are pitched to the city and then take public money to help fund the project. Again i don't trust people so to think of the wealthy as a savior baffles me. And what is justice? Union have to exist if government will not redistribute wealth, people who are wealthy cannot do so without the work from the bottom. No one is a completely self made man, we live in a society and we all interact and use each other to get ahead. If government will not heavily tax those who came out on top and use that money to funnel into education and training of the lower classes, then are locked into the group from which we are born. So either strong government or labor rights and strong unions who can be equals when negotiating with employers. As i don't see damming the lower classes as a legit option, esp built on occupy wallstreet.
To address your first paragraph:
Your rejection of absolutist views disqualifies you from logical conversation. You don't believe in objective truth, so there's no way to reach you with a logical argument based on facts. You can just call us extremists whenever you disagree with the truth.
If there is objective truth, then there is absolute truth. Humans are a certain type of being and we function a certain way and have certain requirements of life, thus there are absolutely true principles that can be applied to every human being. Such as the fact and principle that freedom is a requirement of human life. Since contradictions do not exist, if you take all facts into account and don't drop context, you can see that to the extent that human nations were free, they were also prosperous. (Anarchy doesn't count as free. There must be a government limited to the protection of individual rights of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Without this protection, an anarchistic society devolves into gang warfare.)
To address your second paragraph:
If the government were limited to the protection of individual rights, there would be no taking of public funds. The wealthy person -would- have to pay for it himself, or get a loan. And still pay for it himself as he pays off the loan.
I think it's disgusting that you have the balls to come out here and explicitly demand the redistribution of wealth. It's not your wealth to redistribute. You're ignoring the concepts of productivity and property. To the extent that the government didn't give the wealthy individual in question an advantage over his competitors, that wealthy man earned his money and has a right to keep it.
Like most socialists, you also attack the idea of an independent, self-made man. Just because our society has specialization doesn't mean that everyone is dependent. True dependence is parasitical, people who must rely on others to support their lives. True independence is someone who works to earn their money and supports themselves. Just because you have to trade, doesn't make you a dependent parasite. You earned something to offer for trade in the first place and thus you are independent.
While it is true that a wealthy businessman needs employees, your implication that the employees are the source of his wealth is false. The source of all human value is the mind, and thus the value of every individual job is the mental labor performed. Laborers in a factory are only using their muscles to repeat patterns that were taught to them by the people who created the processes. A single CEO has much more value to a company than a single laborer. The hierarchy in a company is similar to a logical hierarchy in a rational person's mind. The higher positions are like abstractions that integrate the lower concretes. A bunch of laborers are just performing labor. But a supervisor coordinates the labor so that every laborer is working for a single purpose, whether they know it or not. A manager coordinates the supervisors, so that all of the supervisors are coordinating all of the workers to a bigger yet purpose. A CEO coordinates and integrates every position in the entire company. Like a highly abstract concept subsumes an infinite upon infinite number of concretes, a CEO coordinates and integrates, in effect, thousands upon thousands of individuals through the company's hierarchy.
Thus you can see that the higher up positions in a company that do more mental labor are actually doing the laborers a favor: They make the physical laborers' time and muscular labor more productive than any single one of them would be on their own. If you were on a desert island, how productive could you be by making button pushing and lever pulling motions?
To the tread in general: I'm impressed by this forum. In any other community, I would see only Socialists and Keynesians. But here, there are actually Capitalists and Austrians posting in defense of the free market. It must be because Starcraft is a deep and strategic game, and thus attracts intelligent people who know how to think abstractly and validate their knowledge. At least implicitly.
I'm an Objectivist, by the way.  I've read more than just "two pages of Ayn Rand." I've read several books of hers. Non-fictions. Over the past four years.
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Easy. Slavery you are forced into. No one forces you to take on debt.
Tell that to all the people who are going bankrupt and losing their homes due to health care bills.
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United States5162 Posts
On November 03 2011 05:19 screamingpalm wrote:Tell that to all the people who are going bankrupt and losing their homes due to health care bills.
This is one place you have a point, and a reason I support socialized medicine. Medical bills are the only thing that 99% of the time you must take on debt to pay off.
Higher education has scholarships, cheaper alternatives, and it's not required in life despite what some people might say. Food/water is cheap enough that taking a loan for it LOLworthy to me. Apartments don't require debt, neither do used cars.
Had I not decided to buy a new car about 5 years ago(which will be payed off soon despite it being 'mathematically impossible' to pay off debt) I would have 0 debt right now. I also have an engineering degree, decent apartment, and live quite comfortably.
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United States41965 Posts
On November 03 2011 05:19 Amaroq64 wrote:
While it is true that a wealthy businessman needs employees, your implication that the employees are the source of his wealth is false. The source of all human value is the mind, and thus the value of every individual job is the mental labor performed. Laborers in a factory are only using their muscles to repeat patterns that were taught to them by the people who created the processes. A single CEO has much more value to a company than a single laborer. The hierarchy in a company is similar to a logical hierarchy in a rational person's mind. The higher positions are like abstractions that integrate the lower concretes. A bunch of laborers are just performing labor. But a supervisor coordinates the labor so that every laborer is working for a single purpose, whether they know it or not. A manager coordinates the supervisors, so that all of the supervisors are coordinating all of the workers to a bigger yet purpose. A CEO coordinates and integrates every position in the entire company. Like a highly abstract concept subsumes an infinite upon infinite number of concretes, a CEO coordinates and integrates, in effect, thousands upon thousands of individuals through the company's hierarchy.
This is such nonsense. The reason why a CEO is more valuable than a labourer has nothing to do with the comparative virtues of physical labour compared to the the mind.... Everything that exists required labour to identify/assemble/discover/move/define/assess. Labour, which can be both physical and mental exertion, is at the root of all value and saying that one is more virtuous than the other as a blanket statement is absurd. There is nothing unique, special or valuable about mental labour that isn't rooted in simple market forces. The market places value on people who can increase the productivity of others through management because they are sufficiently scarce that their skills are in demand. However if the productivity of management consultants could be massively increased by giving them massages, a form of physical labour, then they in turn would be more valuable.
The idea of ascribing virtue to an action a priori is absurd. I suspect you just want to feel like you're better than the plebs.
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How do you think the medical industry became so expensive. It's the most heavily regulated industry in America. Medical "consumers" are the most heavily subsidized group of people in America. It's basic supply and demand. Regulations artificially lower supply, and subsidies in the form of laws that force companies to provide benefits artificially raises demand. It's no wonder the prices are so high.
EDIT: And not to mention medicare and medicaid. Forgot about those when I was mentioning the subsidies for medical consumers.
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Every person must think to some degree to perform labor. Before you can identify/assemble/discover/move/define/assess, you must think. An arm and a hammer are both tools that the thinking mind uses for its own ends. True, you must perform physical actions in reality in order to create value, but the more thought you put into the process, the more value you can create.
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On November 03 2011 05:30 Amaroq64 wrote:
How do you think the medical industry became so expensive. It's the most heavily regulated industry in America. Medical "consumers" are the most heavily subsidized group of people in America. It's basic supply and demand. Regulations artificially lower supply, and subsidies in the form of laws that force companies to provide benefits artificially raises demand. It's no wonder the prices are so high.
There are many reasons, one of the largest being the administrative costs attached to the for-profit insurance industry:
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-resources
The lack of preventative care adds to this exponentially, in the form of emergency room care to the uninsured. There is also the issue and cost of unnecessary defensive medicene (which would also point to supply not being the issue at hand) and tort reform- which is a double edged sword in and of itself.
The problem with blaming regulations as a problem, is that regulations are only a tool. Do guns kill people, or do people kill people? Regulations can only be as ethical and just as the people who create and enforce them, and when you have the fox guarding the henhouse, regulations tend to not have the clout needed for the job.
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On November 03 2011 05:34 Amaroq64 wrote:
Every person must think to some degree to perform labor. Before you can identify/assemble/discover/move/define/assess, you must think. An arm and a hammer are both tools that the thinking mind uses for its own ends. True, you must perform physical actions in reality in order to create value, but the more thought you put into the process, the more value you can create.
I think your definition of thinking and using the mind is very broad and frankly I don't think the inclusion of muscle-memory is relevant to anything in this context. Even more so, you are rambling quite a bit without any logical cornerstones in your rant towards Semantics. If you are objectivist, then for gods sake provide reason for trusting your assumptions. What I read from you so far is very subjective.
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On November 03 2011 05:26 Myles wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 05:19 screamingpalm wrote:
Easy. Slavery you are forced into. No one forces you to take on debt.
Tell that to all the people who are going bankrupt and losing their homes due to health care bills. This is one place you have a point, and a reason I support socialized medicine. Medical bills are the only thing that 99% of the time you must take on debt to pay off. Higher education has scholarships, cheaper alternatives, and it's not required in life despite what some people might say. Food/water is cheap enough that taking a loan for it LOLworthy to me. Apartments don't require debt, neither do used cars. Had I not decided to buy a new car about 5 years ago(which will be payed off soon despite it being 'mathematically impossible' to pay off debt) I would have 0 debt right now. I also have an engineering degree, decent apartment, and live quite comfortably.
It is mathematically impossible to pay off debt in total. It is not impossible for a person to pay off his debt, but it is impossible for the amount of debt to be reduced with even like 10%, because the money supply is hundreds of times smaller than the debt and the "modern" way of making money makes it impossible to create money without creating the same amount, or actually MORE debt. Note the debt can be "removed" by performing labor but it is not really possible for people to perform more, and it will not make a huge difference, and the only party who has the ability to pay for this is the very same tiny group of people who own the banks, so to pay off the debt we would need to be slaves even more. Also again, this will contribute little because the amount of labor that needs to go in to eliminate the debt will increase exponentially based on the total amount of debt (as more debt = more interest = more debt etc). It will only decrease the speed of getting more debt slightly.
The mathematical impossibility means that there are always people and business going bankrupt, this is unavoidable, and it will also mean this minimum amount of bankruptcies every x period of time will grow bigger and bigger until the system is stopped and debt expelled or until everyone but a tiny amount of people (banks/owners) own everything even more than they do right now.
This essentially means the people don't own anything anymore and have to work a lot more for things that can be produced for nearly no cost. Imagine a few people owning all the houses and all the water supply companies. They didn't make them or contributed significantly but they own them because of how they influenced banking. Instead of paying the operating cost, you pay dozens or hundreds of times more, making having a house and drinking water being something you need to work for a lot. This is a form of slavery, is it not?
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On November 03 2011 06:00 H0i wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 05:26 Myles wrote:On November 03 2011 05:19 screamingpalm wrote:
Easy. Slavery you are forced into. No one forces you to take on debt.
Tell that to all the people who are going bankrupt and losing their homes due to health care bills. This is one place you have a point, and a reason I support socialized medicine. Medical bills are the only thing that 99% of the time you must take on debt to pay off. Higher education has scholarships, cheaper alternatives, and it's not required in life despite what some people might say. Food/water is cheap enough that taking a loan for it LOLworthy to me. Apartments don't require debt, neither do used cars. Had I not decided to buy a new car about 5 years ago(which will be payed off soon despite it being 'mathematically impossible' to pay off debt) I would have 0 debt right now. I also have an engineering degree, decent apartment, and live quite comfortably. It is mathematically impossible to pay off debt in total. It is not impossible for a person to pay off his debt, but it is impossible for the amount of debt to be reduced with even like 10%, because the money supply is hundreds of times smaller than the debt and the "modern" way of making money makes it impossible to create money without creating the same amount, or actually MORE debt. The mathematical impossibility means that there are always people and business going bankrupt, this is unavoidable, and it will also mean this minimum amount of bankruptcies every x period of time will grow bigger and bigger until the system is stopped and debt expelled or until everyone but a tiny amount of people (banks/owners) own everything even more than they do right now. This essentially means the people don't own anything anymore and have to work a lot more for things that can be produced for nearly no cost. Imagine a few people owning all the houses and all the water supply companies. They didn't make them or contributed significantly but they own them because of how they influenced banking. Instead of paying the operating cost, you pay dozens or hundreds of times more, making having a house and drinking water being something you need to work for a lot. This is a form of slavery, is it not?
Nope, not even close. Using your un-sourced opinion you could call it indentured servitude, but that would still probably be misuse. Also, it's not a mathematical impossibility to pay off debt in total. It's undesirable for most people, but it's certainly possible. I mean, I'm only $20k in debt with student loans right now. If I had $20k, there would be no remaining debt as I do not owe on my car and I don't have a mortgage. The whole idea of debt is that you could possibly pay it off - even if you never do.
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slavery is the wrong word it's closer to serfdom, indentured servitude or debt bondage, basically being owed to someone, but people wont don't read early colonialism or feudalism wont know the word. It's all just basically modified formed of slavery so people use slavery. The right words tend to move discussion to one point, how people feel about words is just as important as the meaning trying to be conveyed, the words "climate change" was used by republicans to make people think of less panicky about global warming so there is more disbelief in it. Using loaded language is just a part of politics.
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On November 03 2011 05:34 Amaroq64 wrote:
Every person must think to some degree to perform labor. Before you can identify/assemble/discover/move/define/assess, you must think. An arm and a hammer are both tools that the thinking mind uses for its own ends. True, you must perform physical actions in reality in order to create value, but the more thought you put into the process, the more value you can create.
You should maybe start studying the concept of thinking and maybe it will occur to you that for most practical activities, actual thinking is not needed before acting succesfully.
But even if you dont, the rest of the statement appears to be quite ideological. Just FYI there are lots of different simplistic "truths" of the category yours is in, and to decide which one is worth going for you just have to ask which one is beneficial to whom. In terms of logic they are either trivial or meaningless (read: wrong considering the expectations put into them), depending on how exactly you define the overly simplistic concepts used.
But anyway, claiming (or even worse: thinking for yourself) that you are right will not help in the end, the other people do it too, you know.
There is a difference between "creating" value and coming up with a nice rhetoric to let value that other people created appear as your own. And if shit gets too heavy they will protest, no matter if you bring up nice rhetoric or ideology. As someone who understood a lot already said, you cant fool all the people all the time.
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On November 03 2011 06:05 ShadowWolf wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 06:00 H0i wrote:On November 03 2011 05:26 Myles wrote:On November 03 2011 05:19 screamingpalm wrote:
Easy. Slavery you are forced into. No one forces you to take on debt.
Tell that to all the people who are going bankrupt and losing their homes due to health care bills. This is one place you have a point, and a reason I support socialized medicine. Medical bills are the only thing that 99% of the time you must take on debt to pay off. Higher education has scholarships, cheaper alternatives, and it's not required in life despite what some people might say. Food/water is cheap enough that taking a loan for it LOLworthy to me. Apartments don't require debt, neither do used cars. Had I not decided to buy a new car about 5 years ago(which will be payed off soon despite it being 'mathematically impossible' to pay off debt) I would have 0 debt right now. I also have an engineering degree, decent apartment, and live quite comfortably. It is mathematically impossible to pay off debt in total. It is not impossible for a person to pay off his debt, but it is impossible for the amount of debt to be reduced with even like 10%, because the money supply is hundreds of times smaller than the debt and the "modern" way of making money makes it impossible to create money without creating the same amount, or actually MORE debt. The mathematical impossibility means that there are always people and business going bankrupt, this is unavoidable, and it will also mean this minimum amount of bankruptcies every x period of time will grow bigger and bigger until the system is stopped and debt expelled or until everyone but a tiny amount of people (banks/owners) own everything even more than they do right now. This essentially means the people don't own anything anymore and have to work a lot more for things that can be produced for nearly no cost. Imagine a few people owning all the houses and all the water supply companies. They didn't make them or contributed significantly but they own them because of how they influenced banking. Instead of paying the operating cost, you pay dozens or hundreds of times more, making having a house and drinking water being something you need to work for a lot. This is a form of slavery, is it not? Nope, not even close. Using your un-sourced opinion you could call it indentured servitude, but that would still probably be misuse. Also, it's not a mathematical impossibility to pay off debt in total. It's undesirable for most people, but it's certainly possible. I mean, I'm only $20k in debt with student loans right now. If I had $20k, there would be no remaining debt as I do not owe on my car and I don't have a mortgage. The whole idea of debt is that you could possibly pay it off - even if you never do.
I don't think you are really reading thoroughly. It is not impossible for a person to pay off his debt, but it is mathematically impossible to reduce the total debt of everyone and everything with a significant amount.
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On November 03 2011 05:51 radiatoren wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 05:34 Amaroq64 wrote:
Every person must think to some degree to perform labor. Before you can identify/assemble/discover/move/define/assess, you must think. An arm and a hammer are both tools that the thinking mind uses for its own ends. True, you must perform physical actions in reality in order to create value, but the more thought you put into the process, the more value you can create. I think your definition of thinking and using the mind is very broad and frankly I don't think the inclusion of muscle-memory is relevant to anything in this context. Even more so, you are rambling quite a bit without any logical cornerstones in your rant towards Semantics. If you are objectivist, then for gods sake provide reason for trusting your assumptions. What I read from you so far is very subjective.
That's why i discount any extreme absolutist views, they aren't built on reality, ethics and philosophy aren't built on laws they are built on generalization with massive gray areas as the human experience is not limited to such simplicity as one way or the other, it's the same deal with just law, rules are built on the common, sentencing is built on the individual. So an absolutist view is just taking a part of something without proper context then extrapolating that to fit the argument often resulting in a straw man fallacy. So any legitimate view on governance and economic reform has to be built on cumulation of ideas, a mixture of what is perceived to work. To say business without the help of government wouldn't run amok is to not pay attention, how many cure alls were sold in America that were nothing more the opiates, forms of cocaine or often deadly blasts of x-rays. Why did google switched from buying out to expand, to buy out any start up that competes with their services now? Why have most of their buyouts have been not to acquire promising tech but to snuff out competition. Exploitation occurs this is why we have government, government must have reign over business to regulate their actions. To dam regulation is to assume everyone is as smart as every business out there selling you stuff, as it is improbable for a person working, living a life, to make every decision fully knowing everything before making that decision, esp when it comes to buying something is overly optimistic.
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Sanya12364 Posts
On November 03 2011 06:07 semantics wrote:
slavery is the wrong word it's closer to serfdom, indentured servitude or debt bondage, basically being owed to someone, but people wont don't read early colonialism or feudalism wont know the word. It's all just basically modified formed of slavery so people use slavery. The right words tend to move discussion to one point, how people feel about words is just as important as the meaning trying to be conveyed, the words "climate change" was used by republicans to make people think of less panicky about global warming so there is more disbelief in it. Using loaded language is just a part of politics.
Debt is a bond. That's the point. Only with the bond, does a lender trust the borrower enough to hand over money.
Bad debt is akin to bondage. Smart debt is opportunity. Bitch and moan about the bad debt, but there is a lot of very positive projects and activities made possible by debt. It's all a matter of learning to engage debt responsibly, and if people can't do that they have to learn or suffer the consequences. Blame the public school system perhaps.
Serfdom is a hell of a lot better than slavery and it's reason Europe came out of the middle ages with Renaissance and Trade instead of Roman proclivities to conquer all nearby civilizations for slaves.
Climate Change is an own creation of the Global Warming boosters because of its vagueness and difficulty to disprove.
"Use of right words" is to frame the discussion. It's a rhetorical tactic. Doing it much is use of the language in bad faith, and the discussion becomes an argument over semantics instead of substance.
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On November 03 2011 06:39 H0i wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 06:05 ShadowWolf wrote:On November 03 2011 06:00 H0i wrote:On November 03 2011 05:26 Myles wrote:On November 03 2011 05:19 screamingpalm wrote:
Easy. Slavery you are forced into. No one forces you to take on debt.
Tell that to all the people who are going bankrupt and losing their homes due to health care bills. This is one place you have a point, and a reason I support socialized medicine. Medical bills are the only thing that 99% of the time you must take on debt to pay off. Higher education has scholarships, cheaper alternatives, and it's not required in life despite what some people might say. Food/water is cheap enough that taking a loan for it LOLworthy to me. Apartments don't require debt, neither do used cars. Had I not decided to buy a new car about 5 years ago(which will be payed off soon despite it being 'mathematically impossible' to pay off debt) I would have 0 debt right now. I also have an engineering degree, decent apartment, and live quite comfortably. It is mathematically impossible to pay off debt in total. It is not impossible for a person to pay off his debt, but it is impossible for the amount of debt to be reduced with even like 10%, because the money supply is hundreds of times smaller than the debt and the "modern" way of making money makes it impossible to create money without creating the same amount, or actually MORE debt. The mathematical impossibility means that there are always people and business going bankrupt, this is unavoidable, and it will also mean this minimum amount of bankruptcies every x period of time will grow bigger and bigger until the system is stopped and debt expelled or until everyone but a tiny amount of people (banks/owners) own everything even more than they do right now. This essentially means the people don't own anything anymore and have to work a lot more for things that can be produced for nearly no cost. Imagine a few people owning all the houses and all the water supply companies. They didn't make them or contributed significantly but they own them because of how they influenced banking. Instead of paying the operating cost, you pay dozens or hundreds of times more, making having a house and drinking water being something you need to work for a lot. This is a form of slavery, is it not? Nope, not even close. Using your un-sourced opinion you could call it indentured servitude, but that would still probably be misuse. Also, it's not a mathematical impossibility to pay off debt in total. It's undesirable for most people, but it's certainly possible. I mean, I'm only $20k in debt with student loans right now. If I had $20k, there would be no remaining debt as I do not owe on my car and I don't have a mortgage. The whole idea of debt is that you could possibly pay it off - even if you never do. I don't think you are really reading thoroughly. It is not impossible for a person to pay off his debt, but it is mathematically impossible to reduce the total debt of everyone and everything with a significant amount.
I'm reading fine. Because it's not slavery on a smaller scale (i.e. I am not enslaved for my own debts) it therefore remains reasonable that it cannot be slavery on a larger scale (i.e. I am not enslaved for the debts of my neighbor). Under what premises can you conclude that mass slavery exists but individual slavery does not?
ed: To add indentured servitude, etc. are forms of debt or sale for which some material component is a human being. All of them are absolutely different from, say, bank loans or whatever because at no point are you the collateral for any of the debt. Similar to how the american people are not collateral for the US Government's debt, I am not collateral for my student loans. If I fail to pay them then my life will suck, but I won't ever be forced in to labor for the explicit purpose of satisfying the loan in some regard.
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On November 03 2011 06:42 TanGeng wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 06:07 semantics wrote:
slavery is the wrong word it's closer to serfdom, indentured servitude or debt bondage, basically being owed to someone, but people wont don't read early colonialism or feudalism wont know the word. It's all just basically modified formed of slavery so people use slavery. The right words tend to move discussion to one point, how people feel about words is just as important as the meaning trying to be conveyed, the words "climate change" was used by republicans to make people think of less panicky about global warming so there is more disbelief in it. Using loaded language is just a part of politics. Debt is a bond. That's the point. Only with the bond, does a lender trust the borrower enough to hand over money. Bad debt is akin to bondage. Smart debt is opportunity. Bitch and moan about the bad debt, but there is a lot of very positive projects and activities made possible by debt. It's all a matter of learning to engage debt responsibly, and if people can't do that they have to learn or suffer the consequences. Blame the public school system perhaps. Serfdom is a hell of a lot better than slavery and it's reason Europe came out of the middle ages with Renaissance and Trade instead of Roman proclivities to conquer all nearby civilizations for slaves. Climate Change is an own creation of the Global Warming boosters because of its vagueness and difficulty to disprove. "Use of right words" is to frame the discussion. It's a rhetorical tactic. Doing it much is use of the language in bad faith, and the discussion becomes an argument over semantics instead of substance.
Debt is an interesting construct, as we hold virtue to pay our debts yet we dam the debt collector, the lords prayer in a kings james version is something along the lines of "forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors." original Hebrew and sanskrit sin and debt were the same word. Our ideas of freedom comes from debt, to be free was meant to be free from debt it's why American dream was to disappear from your previous obligation and start anew, not necessarily that any one can make it but that your history will not hinder you, the idea that the American dream is to get rich was only after the guiled age, so i find the notion that America is a debt ran society quite funny. Historically people default on their debts esp in society in which the wealth is lopsided to a small percent.
Why we have government now could be said was to deal with debts, before democracy/republics often the church was the arbiter to settle and absolve debt. Which was often after a revolt against those who are the debtors which often would not change government but rather burn the proof of collection or kill the one who holds the papers.
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On November 03 2011 06:42 TanGeng wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 06:07 semantics wrote:
slavery is the wrong word it's closer to serfdom, indentured servitude or debt bondage, basically being owed to someone, but people wont don't read early colonialism or feudalism wont know the word. It's all just basically modified formed of slavery so people use slavery. The right words tend to move discussion to one point, how people feel about words is just as important as the meaning trying to be conveyed, the words "climate change" was used by republicans to make people think of less panicky about global warming so there is more disbelief in it. Using loaded language is just a part of politics. Debt is a bond. That's the point. Only with the bond, does a lender trust the borrower enough to hand over money. Bad debt is akin to bondage. Smart debt is opportunity. Bitch and moan about the bad debt, but there is a lot of very positive projects and activities made possible by debt. It's all a matter of learning to engage debt responsibly, and if people can't do that they have to learn or suffer the consequences. Blame the public school system perhaps. Serfdom is a hell of a lot better than slavery and it's reason Europe came out of the middle ages with Renaissance and Trade instead of Roman proclivities to conquer all nearby civilizations for slaves. Climate Change is an own creation of the Global Warming boosters because of its vagueness and difficulty to disprove. "Use of right words" is to frame the discussion. It's a rhetorical tactic. Doing it much is use of the language in bad faith, and the discussion becomes an argument over semantics instead of substance.
Ok
1. I agree with your definitions on debt and that personal responsibility is a virtue to some degree.
2. The removal of slavery in the US and the step away from serfdom in europe happened at about the same time. They are two sides of the same coin. Serfdom created slaves. If you could never pay your debt you were owned by the lender and could be given to the kings army if he needed people - thus they were slightly more priviledged slaves. I would not say either was any good nor one was better than the other. Serfdom is a constant hard work towards something that was almost impossible to achieve, while slaves doesn't have that feeling of constantly falling deeper and deeper into a hole. For that part I could prefere being a slave depending on the circumstances.
3. Climate change is indebateably happening. I need a few a4-pages of scientific rambling to prove it within reason and it doesn't lend itself well to this discussion. How exactly and to what extend can be discussed to the moon and back. Climate change is a better word than global warming since it is describing the effects of more energy in the atmosphere better. Global warming is just a sub-group of climate change.
4. Whatever you write has certain elements of rhetoric in it. However there are greyzones between conscious use of words and random synonyms.
5. I love the pun in the last sentense. 
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An FYI about the credit union switch
Switching to a credit union doesn't necessarily harm the big banks. Credit unions usually outsource their treasury and money management services to big banks or credit union partner companies who deal with the big banks as part of their business.
Say you put that 100,000 in a credit union. It gets deposited and then the credit union needs to earn a return on this money. This is done by lending to customers and by managing interest rate and foreign exchange risk through a partner company. The partner company is usually a corporation that offers franchises for credit unions (In Canada, Central1, Westminster Savings, etc) or it's just a "big bank" providing financial services. Either way, your money gets used by the same people to engage in the same sort of business.
Taking your business from big banks to credit unions will harm them in the short term and lower their retail income, but in the end the big players are the ones who deal with the money on the market. Even if you pick a local credit union, there's going to be a multi billion dollar corporation earning money off your banking.
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The idea is that a credit union responds to it's members a big bank responds to it's stock holders, so trying to cut ties is more symbolic then effectual.
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EPT
