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On December 11 2013 12:58 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2013 12:18 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 11:34 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 07:31 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 05:50 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 03:24 KwarK wrote:
American exceptionalism. They're too free to be constrained by facts. Our current president marks a departure from the belief in American exceptionalism. He'll mince words, all right, but the point is clear. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
President Barack Obama I'm not the best guy to sell the principles of liberty and freedom (really, individual sovereignty) to a society increasingly disillusioned with them. I want opportunity for all, but hold the minority view of how to achieve this in this forum. The majority holds that some liberties and some freedoms specifically must be forfeited to an extent with the goal of achieving societal goods. The primary ones coming up here are an improvement in the plight of the poor, the environment, a sense of fairness, and a notion of equality. Simultaneously, big businesses are subject to distrust, and suppose levels of federal government and government bureaucrats to largely have trustworthy aims (subjected to analysis, I have no doubt a reasonable reader will find this to be true. See posts Walmart/Pharmaceutical Company evils followed by others governed by the generalized supposition that bureaucrats are not just throwing money at the problem.) The heralds of American Unexceptionalism have a firm grasp on government right now, if you ask me. Not a very popular government at all, either. Equality of opportunity is nothing but a fiction in a society with vast wealth inequality. As I said, forfeit freedoms in pursuit of a notion of equality. Because On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:On December 09 2013 14:04 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 12:29 jellyjello wrote:On December 09 2013 07:41 KwarK wrote:On December 09 2013 07:34 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
You are missing the point. We are only talking about replacing $300 per week in unemployment benefits. Getting a job that does that is pretty easy.
An awful lot of the kind of jobs you're suggesting they get will give irregular part time hours that demand total availability (so if you need to pick kids up from school or whatever daily then you can't just work 8 hour evening shifts after that) and will hire on 16 or so hour contracts and then give extra hours as required. It's not as simple as you're suggesting, the jobs that are easy to pick up for the unskilled tend to take advantage of them because they know they can get away with doing all sorts of bullshit. I know from personal experience how shitty employers can be if they think you're replaceable and that you need the job. Oh FFS, there is always something or some sort of an excuse. If you think you are qualified but can't find a job for two freaking years, then maybe the problem is with you and not the system. Unless you're talking about seriously depressed regions, anyone who is a hard worker can get a job if they want one. Hell, people who are really good at whatever they do professionally will always find work one way or another. And I'm not talking about shit jobs at McDonald's or Walmart, either. Part of my job is to deal with people who have shit happen to them. Without exception, those who are legitimately hard workers and who aren't completely compromised (like some of my brain injured clients) have no problem finding work and getting hired. On the other hand, I also have clients who are lazy, and they, unsurprisingly, have trouble getting employment or staying employed. Things aren't so bad that determined people can't find work. Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. Seniors and On December 09 2013 15:04 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 12:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 12:40 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 12:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 11:51 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 11:24 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 09:00 Gorsameth wrote:
Gee who would think that the rest of the world doesn't like increased costs, less control of banks and more power to corporations. Its almost like they have a brain...
At the end of the day if they want to sell things to the US they need to be willing to buy things in return, and that means willing to pay for IP as well. If there is no international support then the US is not in any position of power to dictate that that needs to be the case. So if the US wants to buy things from Europe then that means they need to accept they won't get paid for IP. What does Europe have to do with the TPP? Regardless, I don't see how your argument makes sense. We pay countries for the things we buy from them. They don't deserve extras like free IP on top of it. Meant TPP, my apologies. You made it seem like the US has leverage to dictate the agreement, but I don't see how they do. So your ultimatum makes no sense. I don't think we can dictate an agreement, but we do have lots of leverage. We're a great customer, and they have to buy dollar assets anyways. IP is silly. Rent-seeking capitalists trying to propertize ideas. evil capitalists. You have a penchant for dismissing things out of hand and quickly too. I suppose you have your own theory about how to preserve a level of opportunity in society, or do you say that none should exist? Dismissing you quickly has little to do with my own internal critical method does it? Are you saying something I've never heard before? Or do you want me to put words in your mouth and then shoot it down so you can scream "straw man" at me? I'm simply replying to your inane comment that you idolize "freedom" so long as "freedom" is defined as being stuck with whatever random lot you drew in the birth lottery. What an empty yarn you spin. Freedom for those born in poverty is hardly freedom at all. But god forbid everyone be given a base standard of living, because that would harm their delicate "will to succeed" and act as an anchor on "freedom." You have so much criticism for anything and everything about letting individuals pursue their separate interests. I expand on American exceptionalism and the ideas running contrary to it. You retort by embodying every stereotype of the everlasting critic. Who are these angels that will stand up to your ... As long as these are governments made up of humans to govern humans, I'll settle for less than utopia. And you'll settle for what, exactly? The days when you can no longer pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Show nested quote +On December 11 2013 12:31 IgnE wrote:
Let's do a thought experiment:
Let's assume everyone is born and raised with the strong, sensible work ethic of Danglars and xDaunt. Everyone avoids crime, graduates from high school (goes to college? not sure if you guys think everyone has to go to college to succeed or not), works hard, and shows up early to whatever job they can get (McDonalds or equivalent for the bottom 20%).
1) can everyone find full time employment?
2) can everyone find a fulfilling job?
3) can everyone eventually find financial security (how do you want to define this? house? family? debt?)
4) can every single person work their way up from mcdonalds to something like high-level management (i'm not really sure what you two aspire to do with your life or what you think is worthwhile, other than accumulating things and being free from taxes)?
5) will there be less inequality or will the floor of the bottom quintile somehow reach what we would consider "middle class" today?
I get the feeling that you two don't really understand that implicit in your system is the damnation of a large percentage of people to toil, poverty, and unhappiness, and that this is an always already condition of the system. What do you really think would happen if everyone took advantage of the (meagre) opportunities you both assume exist for every single person? The moral of the story is you can't trust the system. I'm sure you have in mind something that outperforms what you deem "meagre opportunities." I mean, even as you ignore that what was middle class luxuries yesterday are reachable by the bottom quintile today.
I have nothing against freedom. I highly value personal sovereignty. I value it so highly that I want to maximize it for every individual by removing liberty-reducing factors like poverty and disadvantage. Yes, this comes at the cost of disproportionate, unearned, and unjust, wealth disparities that are largely a product of inherited advantages, luck, and/or systemic force multipliers.
But your criticism is that I am only a critic. I have no answers for you. As Badiou would say: "better to do nothing than to contribute to the invention of formal ways of rendering visible that which Empire already recognizes as existent." If your best argument is that I don't have all the answers, then so be it. Your continued participation and advocacy for the current system sustains the immense systemic violence inherent in the current neoliberal, free-market capitalist world order. What do you expect of me, really? Either I have a roadmap to utopia, or I must be complicit in your violent regime?
On December 11 2013 13:19 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2013 12:31 IgnE wrote:
Let's do a thought experiment:
Let's assume everyone is born and raised with the strong, sensible work ethic of Danglars and xDaunt. Everyone avoids crime, graduates from high school (goes to college? not sure if you guys think everyone has to go to college to succeed or not), works hard, and shows up early to whatever job they can get (McDonalds or equivalent for the bottom 20%).
1) can everyone find full time employment?
2) can everyone find a fulfilling job?
3) can everyone eventually find financial security (how do you want to define this? house? family? debt?)
4) can every single person work their way up from mcdonalds to something like high-level management (i'm not really sure what you two aspire to do with your life or what you think is worthwhile, other than accumulating things and being free from taxes)?
5) will there be less inequality or will the floor of the bottom quintile somehow reach what we would consider "middle class" today?
I get the feeling that you two don't really understand that implicit in your system is the damnation of a large percentage of people to toil, poverty, and unhappiness, and that this is an always already condition of the system. The whole premise here is retarded. Inequality in outcome doesn't necessarily mean that there will be a "damnation" of a large percentage of people as you describe. Hell, being "poor" in this country certainly is a far cry from whatever you're intending to describe. Where else are poor people fat and have flat screen TVs? Show nested quote +What do you really think would happen if everyone took advantage of the (meagre) opportunities you both assume exist for every single person? This will never happen because most people lack either the brains or the work ethic to be anything more than peons in the system. That doesn't mean that they won't live happily and be able to provide for themselves and their families.
Wow, do both you and Danglars really think that it's not so bad to be poor in America today? Really? Is that your response?:
"It's not so bad to be poor, at least you can have a flat screen television (well, I think you can, at least that's what they tell me)."
You are so disconnected from reality. "Fat poor people clearly have enough food, otherwise they wouldn't be fat, therefore their life can't be so bad." You are caricaturing yourself.
So the hypothetical is a hypothetical. What is your point? You seem to be saying, "this will never happen, and moreover, it doesn't matter what kind of a world would result, because people suck and deserve their lot." Your refusals to answer aren't really that surprising. You would rather not think about the surplus labor force, worldwide, that you are condemning to wage slavery in the name of capital accumulation. That disintegrates the fairy tale.
On the one hand you say that not everyone will be damned to poverty. On the other hand you say that "most" people lack the brains or the work ethic to be anything more than peons (implicitly: therefore, they deserve to live in shitty housing, eat shitty food, rack up debt, and always be on the verge of financial disaster, while watching reality tv on their flat screen). But! you say. But! they can still live "happily and provide for themselves and their families." This is simply untrue.
![[image loading]](http://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/pgjqtvytj02vwwjjpgduvw.gif)
You both seem to lack serious empathy and understanding about what it actually means to be poor in this country if you don't think it is unjust that one of the single most important factors in determining someone's earnings is the income of his or her parents.
All this may sound a bit impressionistic. But more and more evidence from social scientists suggests that American society is much “stickier” than most Americans assume. Some researchers claim that social mobility is actually declining. A classic social survey in 1978 found that 23% of adult men who had been born in the bottom fifth of the population (as ranked by social and economic status) had made it into the top fifth. Earl Wysong of Indiana University and two colleagues recently decided to update the study. They compared the incomes of 2,749 father-and-son pairs from 1979 to 1998 and found that few sons had moved up the class ladder. Nearly 70% of the sons in 1998 had remained either at the same level or were doing worse than their fathers in 1979. The biggest increase in mobility had been at the top of society, with affluent sons moving upwards more often than their fathers had. They found that only 10% of the adult men born in the bottom quarter had made it to the top quarter.
Source.
If you think it's gotten better since 2004, you are living in a dream world.
![[image loading]](http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/131209100348-economic-mobility-620xa.png) Source.
In 2001, Bhashkar Mazumder, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, recalculated income heritability matching census data to Social Security data, which allowed him to compare parent-child incomes over a greater number of years. He found that income heritability was more like 50 to 60 percent. Mazumder later recalculated Solon’s PSID-based findings applying a more sophisticated statistical model and found that income heritability was about 60 percent. Then, in a 2004 study, Mazumder approached the question from a different angle, examining the correlation in incomes among siblings, using longitudinal survey data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That put income heritability at about 50 percent. “The sibling correlation in economic outcomes and human capital are larger than the sibling correlation in a variety of other outcomes including some measures of physical attributes,” Mazumder wrote. Most strikingly, he found that income among brothers actually correlated more closely than height and weight. I am less the master of my fate than I am of my body mass index.
Source.
Maybe you guys are just uninformed. Or maybe you think that this incredible heritability, an attribute totally out of someone's control, is alright, so long as we preserve the freedom to hold onto the wealth you have accumulated and are free in the future to continue accumulating more wealth. At least, that is, if you are the privileged minority with the wealth to begin with.
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On December 11 2013 11:34 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2013 07:31 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 05:50 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 03:24 KwarK wrote:
American exceptionalism. They're too free to be constrained by facts. Our current president marks a departure from the belief in American exceptionalism. He'll mince words, all right, but the point is clear. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
President Barack Obama I'm not the best guy to sell the principles of liberty and freedom (really, individual sovereignty) to a society increasingly disillusioned with them. I want opportunity for all, but hold the minority view of how to achieve this in this forum. The majority holds that some liberties and some freedoms specifically must be forfeited to an extent with the goal of achieving societal goods. The primary ones coming up here are an improvement in the plight of the poor, the environment, a sense of fairness, and a notion of equality. Simultaneously, big businesses are subject to distrust, and suppose levels of federal government and government bureaucrats to largely have trustworthy aims (subjected to analysis, I have no doubt a reasonable reader will find this to be true. See posts Walmart/Pharmaceutical Company evils followed by others governed by the generalized supposition that bureaucrats are not just throwing money at the problem.) The heralds of American Unexceptionalism have a firm grasp on government right now, if you ask me. Not a very popular government at all, either. Equality of opportunity is nothing but a fiction in a society with vast wealth inequality. As I said, forfeit freedoms in pursuit of a notion of equality. Because Show nested quote +On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:On December 09 2013 14:04 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 12:29 jellyjello wrote:On December 09 2013 07:41 KwarK wrote:On December 09 2013 07:34 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 07:11 sam!zdat wrote:On December 09 2013 07:04 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
Yeah, and people can go earn that on their feet working somewhere instead of just collecting it on their couch.
ah but there's the rub let's just wave our hands in the air and say that structural unemployment is due to the laziness of individuals and that it would all go away if people would just get up off their couches. that will all make us feel much better the problem is that americans can't compete with southeast asians in special economic zone police state factory compounds. but YOU try to tell americans that they're worth about 1.50/hr and enjoy yr revolution You are missing the point. We are only talking about replacing $300 per week in unemployment benefits. Getting a job that does that is pretty easy. An awful lot of the kind of jobs you're suggesting they get will give irregular part time hours that demand total availability (so if you need to pick kids up from school or whatever daily then you can't just work 8 hour evening shifts after that) and will hire on 16 or so hour contracts and then give extra hours as required. It's not as simple as you're suggesting, the jobs that are easy to pick up for the unskilled tend to take advantage of them because they know they can get away with doing all sorts of bullshit. I know from personal experience how shitty employers can be if they think you're replaceable and that you need the job. Oh FFS, there is always something or some sort of an excuse. If you think you are qualified but can't find a job for two freaking years, then maybe the problem is with you and not the system. Unless you're talking about seriously depressed regions, anyone who is a hard worker can get a job if they want one. Hell, people who are really good at whatever they do professionally will always find work one way or another. And I'm not talking about shit jobs at McDonald's or Walmart, either. Part of my job is to deal with people who have shit happen to them. Without exception, those who are legitimately hard workers and who aren't completely compromised (like some of my brain injured clients) have no problem finding work and getting hired. On the other hand, I also have clients who are lazy, and they, unsurprisingly, have trouble getting employment or staying employed. Things aren't so bad that determined people can't find work. Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. Seniors and Show nested quote +On December 09 2013 15:04 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 12:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 12:40 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 12:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 11:51 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 11:24 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 09:00 Gorsameth wrote:
Gee who would think that the rest of the world doesn't like increased costs, less control of banks and more power to corporations. Its almost like they have a brain...
At the end of the day if they want to sell things to the US they need to be willing to buy things in return, and that means willing to pay for IP as well. If there is no international support then the US is not in any position of power to dictate that that needs to be the case. So if the US wants to buy things from Europe then that means they need to accept they won't get paid for IP. What does Europe have to do with the TPP? Regardless, I don't see how your argument makes sense. We pay countries for the things we buy from them. They don't deserve extras like free IP on top of it. Meant TPP, my apologies. You made it seem like the US has leverage to dictate the agreement, but I don't see how they do. So your ultimatum makes no sense. I don't think we can dictate an agreement, but we do have lots of leverage. We're a great customer, and they have to buy dollar assets anyways. IP is silly. Rent-seeking capitalists trying to propertize ideas. evil capitalists. You have a penchant for dismissing things out of hand and quickly too. I suppose you have your own theory about how to preserve a level of opportunity in society, or do you say that none should exist?
Removing freedom from some can create a more free society in general. Unless you feel that freedom to be coerced is in fact freedom.
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On December 11 2013 14:42 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2013 12:58 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 12:18 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 11:34 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 07:31 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 05:50 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 03:24 KwarK wrote:
American exceptionalism. They're too free to be constrained by facts. Our current president marks a departure from the belief in American exceptionalism. He'll mince words, all right, but the point is clear. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
President Barack Obama I'm not the best guy to sell the principles of liberty and freedom (really, individual sovereignty) to a society increasingly disillusioned with them. I want opportunity for all, but hold the minority view of how to achieve this in this forum. The majority holds that some liberties and some freedoms specifically must be forfeited to an extent with the goal of achieving societal goods. The primary ones coming up here are an improvement in the plight of the poor, the environment, a sense of fairness, and a notion of equality. Simultaneously, big businesses are subject to distrust, and suppose levels of federal government and government bureaucrats to largely have trustworthy aims (subjected to analysis, I have no doubt a reasonable reader will find this to be true. See posts Walmart/Pharmaceutical Company evils followed by others governed by the generalized supposition that bureaucrats are not just throwing money at the problem.) The heralds of American Unexceptionalism have a firm grasp on government right now, if you ask me. Not a very popular government at all, either. Equality of opportunity is nothing but a fiction in a society with vast wealth inequality. As I said, forfeit freedoms in pursuit of a notion of equality. Because On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:On December 09 2013 14:04 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 12:29 jellyjello wrote:On December 09 2013 07:41 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
An awful lot of the kind of jobs you're suggesting they get will give irregular part time hours that demand total availability (so if you need to pick kids up from school or whatever daily then you can't just work 8 hour evening shifts after that) and will hire on 16 or so hour contracts and then give extra hours as required. It's not as simple as you're suggesting, the jobs that are easy to pick up for the unskilled tend to take advantage of them because they know they can get away with doing all sorts of bullshit. I know from personal experience how shitty employers can be if they think you're replaceable and that you need the job. Oh FFS, there is always something or some sort of an excuse. If you think you are qualified but can't find a job for two freaking years, then maybe the problem is with you and not the system. Unless you're talking about seriously depressed regions, anyone who is a hard worker can get a job if they want one. Hell, people who are really good at whatever they do professionally will always find work one way or another. And I'm not talking about shit jobs at McDonald's or Walmart, either. Part of my job is to deal with people who have shit happen to them. Without exception, those who are legitimately hard workers and who aren't completely compromised (like some of my brain injured clients) have no problem finding work and getting hired. On the other hand, I also have clients who are lazy, and they, unsurprisingly, have trouble getting employment or staying employed. Things aren't so bad that determined people can't find work. Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. Seniors and On December 09 2013 15:04 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 12:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 12:40 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 12:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 11:51 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 11:24 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
At the end of the day if they want to sell things to the US they need to be willing to buy things in return, and that means willing to pay for IP as well. If there is no international support then the US is not in any position of power to dictate that that needs to be the case. So if the US wants to buy things from Europe then that means they need to accept they won't get paid for IP. What does Europe have to do with the TPP? Regardless, I don't see how your argument makes sense. We pay countries for the things we buy from them. They don't deserve extras like free IP on top of it. Meant TPP, my apologies. You made it seem like the US has leverage to dictate the agreement, but I don't see how they do. So your ultimatum makes no sense. I don't think we can dictate an agreement, but we do have lots of leverage. We're a great customer, and they have to buy dollar assets anyways. IP is silly. Rent-seeking capitalists trying to propertize ideas. evil capitalists. You have a penchant for dismissing things out of hand and quickly too. I suppose you have your own theory about how to preserve a level of opportunity in society, or do you say that none should exist? Dismissing you quickly has little to do with my own internal critical method does it? Are you saying something I've never heard before? Or do you want me to put words in your mouth and then shoot it down so you can scream "straw man" at me? I'm simply replying to your inane comment that you idolize "freedom" so long as "freedom" is defined as being stuck with whatever random lot you drew in the birth lottery. What an empty yarn you spin. Freedom for those born in poverty is hardly freedom at all. But god forbid everyone be given a base standard of living, because that would harm their delicate "will to succeed" and act as an anchor on "freedom." You have so much criticism for anything and everything about letting individuals pursue their separate interests. I expand on American exceptionalism and the ideas running contrary to it. You retort by embodying every stereotype of the everlasting critic. Who are these angels that will stand up to your ... but seniors
but evil capitalists
but inequality? As long as these are governments made up of humans to govern humans, I'll settle for less than utopia. And you'll settle for what, exactly? The days when you can no longer pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. On December 11 2013 12:31 IgnE wrote:
Let's do a thought experiment:
Let's assume everyone is born and raised with the strong, sensible work ethic of Danglars and xDaunt. Everyone avoids crime, graduates from high school (goes to college? not sure if you guys think everyone has to go to college to succeed or not), works hard, and shows up early to whatever job they can get (McDonalds or equivalent for the bottom 20%).
1) can everyone find full time employment?
2) can everyone find a fulfilling job?
3) can everyone eventually find financial security (how do you want to define this? house? family? debt?)
4) can every single person work their way up from mcdonalds to something like high-level management (i'm not really sure what you two aspire to do with your life or what you think is worthwhile, other than accumulating things and being free from taxes)?
5) will there be less inequality or will the floor of the bottom quintile somehow reach what we would consider "middle class" today?
I get the feeling that you two don't really understand that implicit in your system is the damnation of a large percentage of people to toil, poverty, and unhappiness, and that this is an always already condition of the system. What do you really think would happen if everyone took advantage of the (meagre) opportunities you both assume exist for every single person? The moral of the story is you can't trust the system. I'm sure you have in mind something that outperforms what you deem "meagre opportunities." I mean, even as you ignore that what was middle class luxuries yesterday are reachable by the bottom quintile today. I have nothing against freedom. I highly value personal sovereignty. I value it so highly that I want to maximize it for every individual by removing liberty-reducing factors like poverty and disadvantage. Yes, this comes at the cost of disproportionate, unearned, and unjust, wealth disparities that are largely a product of inherited advantages, luck, and/or systemic force multipliers. But your criticism is that I am only a critic. I have no answers for you. As Badiou would say: "better to do nothing than to contribute to the invention of formal ways of rendering visible that which Empire already recognizes as existent." If your best argument is that I don't have all the answers, then so be it. Your continued participation and advocacy for the current system sustains the immense systemic violence inherent in the current neoliberal, free-market capitalist world order. What do you expect of me, really? Either I have a roadmap to utopia, or I must be complicit in your violent regime? Show nested quote +On December 11 2013 13:19 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2013 12:31 IgnE wrote:
Let's do a thought experiment:
Let's assume everyone is born and raised with the strong, sensible work ethic of Danglars and xDaunt. Everyone avoids crime, graduates from high school (goes to college? not sure if you guys think everyone has to go to college to succeed or not), works hard, and shows up early to whatever job they can get (McDonalds or equivalent for the bottom 20%).
1) can everyone find full time employment?
2) can everyone find a fulfilling job?
3) can everyone eventually find financial security (how do you want to define this? house? family? debt?)
4) can every single person work their way up from mcdonalds to something like high-level management (i'm not really sure what you two aspire to do with your life or what you think is worthwhile, other than accumulating things and being free from taxes)?
5) will there be less inequality or will the floor of the bottom quintile somehow reach what we would consider "middle class" today?
I get the feeling that you two don't really understand that implicit in your system is the damnation of a large percentage of people to toil, poverty, and unhappiness, and that this is an always already condition of the system. The whole premise here is retarded. Inequality in outcome doesn't necessarily mean that there will be a "damnation" of a large percentage of people as you describe. Hell, being "poor" in this country certainly is a far cry from whatever you're intending to describe. Where else are poor people fat and have flat screen TVs? What do you really think would happen if everyone took advantage of the (meagre) opportunities you both assume exist for every single person? This will never happen because most people lack either the brains or the work ethic to be anything more than peons in the system. That doesn't mean that they won't live happily and be able to provide for themselves and their families. Wow, do both you and Danglars really think that it's not so bad to be poor in America today? Really? Is that your response?: "It's not so bad to be poor, at least you can have a flat screen television (well, I think you can, at least that's what they tell me)." You are so disconnected from reality. "Fat poor people clearly have enough food, otherwise they wouldn't be fat, therefore their life can't be so bad." You are caricaturing yourself. So the hypothetical is a hypothetical. What is your point? You seem to be saying, "this will never happen, and moreover, it doesn't matter what kind of a world would result, because people suck and deserve their lot." Your refusals to answer aren't really that surprising. You would rather not think about the surplus labor force, worldwide, that you are condemning to wage slavery in the name of capital accumulation. That disintegrates the fairy tale. On the one hand you say that not everyone will be damned to poverty. On the other hand you say that "most" people lack the brains or the work ethic to be anything more than peons (implicitly: therefore, they deserve to live in shitty housing, eat shitty food, rack up debt, and always be on the verge of financial disaster, while watching reality tv on their flat screen). But! you say. But! they can still live "happily and provide for themselves and their families." This is simply untrue. You both seem to lack serious empathy and understanding about what it actually means to be poor in this country if you don't think it is unjust that one of the single most important factors in determining someone's earnings is the income of his or her parents. Show nested quote +All this may sound a bit impressionistic. But more and more evidence from social scientists suggests that American society is much “stickier” than most Americans assume. Some researchers claim that social mobility is actually declining. A classic social survey in 1978 found that 23% of adult men who had been born in the bottom fifth of the population (as ranked by social and economic status) had made it into the top fifth. Earl Wysong of Indiana University and two colleagues recently decided to update the study. They compared the incomes of 2,749 father-and-son pairs from 1979 to 1998 and found that few sons had moved up the class ladder. Nearly 70% of the sons in 1998 had remained either at the same level or were doing worse than their fathers in 1979. The biggest increase in mobility had been at the top of society, with affluent sons moving upwards more often than their fathers had. They found that only 10% of the adult men born in the bottom quarter had made it to the top quarter. Source.If you think it's gotten better since 2004, you are living in a dream world. Source.Show nested quote +
In 2001, Bhashkar Mazumder, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, recalculated income heritability matching census data to Social Security data, which allowed him to compare parent-child incomes over a greater number of years. He found that income heritability was more like 50 to 60 percent. Mazumder later recalculated Solon’s PSID-based findings applying a more sophisticated statistical model and found that income heritability was about 60 percent. Then, in a 2004 study, Mazumder approached the question from a different angle, examining the correlation in incomes among siblings, using longitudinal survey data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That put income heritability at about 50 percent. “The sibling correlation in economic outcomes and human capital are larger than the sibling correlation in a variety of other outcomes including some measures of physical attributes,” Mazumder wrote. Most strikingly, he found that income among brothers actually correlated more closely than height and weight. I am less the master of my fate than I am of my body mass index.
Source.Maybe you guys are just uninformed. Or maybe you think that this incredible heritability, an attribute totally out of someone's control, is alright, so long as we preserve the freedom to hold onto the wealth you have accumulated and are free in the future to continue accumulating more wealth. At least, that is, if you are the privileged minority with the wealth to begin with.
You can't value individual sovereignty and try to both lift some people up, and take some people down. That's not individuals making choices, that's the state coming in and saying "you've done too much, let me take some." What is free about that? What's free about you deciding when someone has too much? What's wrong with children getting their parents money? What's free about taking private property from people and telling them "no, you can't decide where that goes, we do." You assume that all wealth comes at the expense of someone else. That the rich are only rich because everyone else is a sucker or unable to overcome their own circumstances. This is of course historically false, but climbing to the top is rare. Do people do easy things or hard things? Easy, obviously. So why are you surprised it's so unbalanced? Do you actually think if everyone started off even that they would all end even?
+ Show Spoiler +The whole thing is good, but is really relevant around 1:50.
Moreover, I don't understand the view that more bureaucrats or laws help anyone. Government collusion with large corporations is one reason we are where we are. The fewer people in control, the worse it gets. They will, as you seem to desire, impose their morality on everyone else. It is wrong for you to have this much!
Things will never be fully equal, they may not even be close to equal. But let the cream rise to the crop, don't squash some so that others are brought up. Don't subsidize those who are not willing to do the work. Some are in very deep ruts, it's true. But don't tinker with the whole society just for that. No "fundamental transformation" is necessary.
This is why no one here will ever agree. The values are different. You clearly don't value individual sovereignty as much as you value the ever elusive state of "equality." This is why no one will change their mind.
Edit: I obviously support some rules, don't get the idea that I want nothing but cave men running around.
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On December 11 2013 14:42 Livelovedie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2013 11:34 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 07:31 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 05:50 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 03:24 KwarK wrote:
American exceptionalism. They're too free to be constrained by facts. Our current president marks a departure from the belief in American exceptionalism. He'll mince words, all right, but the point is clear. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
President Barack Obama I'm not the best guy to sell the principles of liberty and freedom (really, individual sovereignty) to a society increasingly disillusioned with them. I want opportunity for all, but hold the minority view of how to achieve this in this forum. The majority holds that some liberties and some freedoms specifically must be forfeited to an extent with the goal of achieving societal goods. The primary ones coming up here are an improvement in the plight of the poor, the environment, a sense of fairness, and a notion of equality. Simultaneously, big businesses are subject to distrust, and suppose levels of federal government and government bureaucrats to largely have trustworthy aims (subjected to analysis, I have no doubt a reasonable reader will find this to be true. See posts Walmart/Pharmaceutical Company evils followed by others governed by the generalized supposition that bureaucrats are not just throwing money at the problem.) The heralds of American Unexceptionalism have a firm grasp on government right now, if you ask me. Not a very popular government at all, either. Equality of opportunity is nothing but a fiction in a society with vast wealth inequality. As I said, forfeit freedoms in pursuit of a notion of equality. Because On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:On December 09 2013 14:04 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 12:29 jellyjello wrote:On December 09 2013 07:41 KwarK wrote:On December 09 2013 07:34 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 07:11 sam!zdat wrote:
[quote]
ah but there's the rub
let's just wave our hands in the air and say that structural unemployment is due to the laziness of individuals and that it would all go away if people would just get up off their couches. that will all make us feel much better
the problem is that americans can't compete with southeast asians in special economic zone police state factory compounds. but YOU try to tell americans that they're worth about 1.50/hr and enjoy yr revolution You are missing the point. We are only talking about replacing $300 per week in unemployment benefits. Getting a job that does that is pretty easy. An awful lot of the kind of jobs you're suggesting they get will give irregular part time hours that demand total availability (so if you need to pick kids up from school or whatever daily then you can't just work 8 hour evening shifts after that) and will hire on 16 or so hour contracts and then give extra hours as required. It's not as simple as you're suggesting, the jobs that are easy to pick up for the unskilled tend to take advantage of them because they know they can get away with doing all sorts of bullshit. I know from personal experience how shitty employers can be if they think you're replaceable and that you need the job. Oh FFS, there is always something or some sort of an excuse. If you think you are qualified but can't find a job for two freaking years, then maybe the problem is with you and not the system. Unless you're talking about seriously depressed regions, anyone who is a hard worker can get a job if they want one. Hell, people who are really good at whatever they do professionally will always find work one way or another. And I'm not talking about shit jobs at McDonald's or Walmart, either. Part of my job is to deal with people who have shit happen to them. Without exception, those who are legitimately hard workers and who aren't completely compromised (like some of my brain injured clients) have no problem finding work and getting hired. On the other hand, I also have clients who are lazy, and they, unsurprisingly, have trouble getting employment or staying employed. Things aren't so bad that determined people can't find work. Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. Seniors and On December 09 2013 15:04 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 12:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 12:40 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 12:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 11:51 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 11:24 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 09:00 Gorsameth wrote:
Gee who would think that the rest of the world doesn't like increased costs, less control of banks and more power to corporations. Its almost like they have a brain...
At the end of the day if they want to sell things to the US they need to be willing to buy things in return, and that means willing to pay for IP as well. If there is no international support then the US is not in any position of power to dictate that that needs to be the case. So if the US wants to buy things from Europe then that means they need to accept they won't get paid for IP. What does Europe have to do with the TPP? Regardless, I don't see how your argument makes sense. We pay countries for the things we buy from them. They don't deserve extras like free IP on top of it. Meant TPP, my apologies. You made it seem like the US has leverage to dictate the agreement, but I don't see how they do. So your ultimatum makes no sense. I don't think we can dictate an agreement, but we do have lots of leverage. We're a great customer, and they have to buy dollar assets anyways. IP is silly. Rent-seeking capitalists trying to propertize ideas. evil capitalists. You have a penchant for dismissing things out of hand and quickly too. I suppose you have your own theory about how to preserve a level of opportunity in society, or do you say that none should exist? Removing freedom from some can create a more free society in general. Unless you feel that freedom to be coerced is in fact freedom.
The devil's in the details when you speak of a "more free society in general." I mean, let's appoint angels that will deem which of society need sacrifice their freedom for the whole. Otherwise, I'm more concerned that the ruling class will pick based on political considerations. (May I also suggest slightly tongue-in-cheek that every person here would stand at attention and say, "I am not the one that needs to sacrifice freedom")
On December 11 2013 14:42 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2013 12:58 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 12:18 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 11:34 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 07:31 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 05:50 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 03:24 KwarK wrote:
American exceptionalism. They're too free to be constrained by facts. Our current president marks a departure from the belief in American exceptionalism. He'll mince words, all right, but the point is clear. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
President Barack Obama I'm not the best guy to sell the principles of liberty and freedom (really, individual sovereignty) to a society increasingly disillusioned with them. I want opportunity for all, but hold the minority view of how to achieve this in this forum. The majority holds that some liberties and some freedoms specifically must be forfeited to an extent with the goal of achieving societal goods. The primary ones coming up here are an improvement in the plight of the poor, the environment, a sense of fairness, and a notion of equality. Simultaneously, big businesses are subject to distrust, and suppose levels of federal government and government bureaucrats to largely have trustworthy aims (subjected to analysis, I have no doubt a reasonable reader will find this to be true. See posts Walmart/Pharmaceutical Company evils followed by others governed by the generalized supposition that bureaucrats are not just throwing money at the problem.) The heralds of American Unexceptionalism have a firm grasp on government right now, if you ask me. Not a very popular government at all, either. Equality of opportunity is nothing but a fiction in a society with vast wealth inequality. As I said, forfeit freedoms in pursuit of a notion of equality. Because On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:On December 09 2013 14:04 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 12:29 jellyjello wrote:On December 09 2013 07:41 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
An awful lot of the kind of jobs you're suggesting they get will give irregular part time hours that demand total availability (so if you need to pick kids up from school or whatever daily then you can't just work 8 hour evening shifts after that) and will hire on 16 or so hour contracts and then give extra hours as required. It's not as simple as you're suggesting, the jobs that are easy to pick up for the unskilled tend to take advantage of them because they know they can get away with doing all sorts of bullshit. I know from personal experience how shitty employers can be if they think you're replaceable and that you need the job. Oh FFS, there is always something or some sort of an excuse. If you think you are qualified but can't find a job for two freaking years, then maybe the problem is with you and not the system. Unless you're talking about seriously depressed regions, anyone who is a hard worker can get a job if they want one. Hell, people who are really good at whatever they do professionally will always find work one way or another. And I'm not talking about shit jobs at McDonald's or Walmart, either. Part of my job is to deal with people who have shit happen to them. Without exception, those who are legitimately hard workers and who aren't completely compromised (like some of my brain injured clients) have no problem finding work and getting hired. On the other hand, I also have clients who are lazy, and they, unsurprisingly, have trouble getting employment or staying employed. Things aren't so bad that determined people can't find work. Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. Seniors and On December 09 2013 15:04 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 12:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 12:40 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 12:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 11:51 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 11:24 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
At the end of the day if they want to sell things to the US they need to be willing to buy things in return, and that means willing to pay for IP as well. If there is no international support then the US is not in any position of power to dictate that that needs to be the case. So if the US wants to buy things from Europe then that means they need to accept they won't get paid for IP. What does Europe have to do with the TPP? Regardless, I don't see how your argument makes sense. We pay countries for the things we buy from them. They don't deserve extras like free IP on top of it. Meant TPP, my apologies. You made it seem like the US has leverage to dictate the agreement, but I don't see how they do. So your ultimatum makes no sense. I don't think we can dictate an agreement, but we do have lots of leverage. We're a great customer, and they have to buy dollar assets anyways. IP is silly. Rent-seeking capitalists trying to propertize ideas. evil capitalists. You have a penchant for dismissing things out of hand and quickly too. I suppose you have your own theory about how to preserve a level of opportunity in society, or do you say that none should exist? Dismissing you quickly has little to do with my own internal critical method does it? Are you saying something I've never heard before? Or do you want me to put words in your mouth and then shoot it down so you can scream "straw man" at me? I'm simply replying to your inane comment that you idolize "freedom" so long as "freedom" is defined as being stuck with whatever random lot you drew in the birth lottery. What an empty yarn you spin. Freedom for those born in poverty is hardly freedom at all. But god forbid everyone be given a base standard of living, because that would harm their delicate "will to succeed" and act as an anchor on "freedom." You have so much criticism for anything and everything about letting individuals pursue their separate interests. I expand on American exceptionalism and the ideas running contrary to it. You retort by embodying every stereotype of the everlasting critic. Who are these angels that will stand up to your ... but seniors
but evil capitalists
but inequality? As long as these are governments made up of humans to govern humans, I'll settle for less than utopia. And you'll settle for what, exactly? The days when you can no longer pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. On December 11 2013 12:31 IgnE wrote:
Let's do a thought experiment:
Let's assume everyone is born and raised with the strong, sensible work ethic of Danglars and xDaunt. Everyone avoids crime, graduates from high school (goes to college? not sure if you guys think everyone has to go to college to succeed or not), works hard, and shows up early to whatever job they can get (McDonalds or equivalent for the bottom 20%).
1) can everyone find full time employment?
2) can everyone find a fulfilling job?
3) can everyone eventually find financial security (how do you want to define this? house? family? debt?)
4) can every single person work their way up from mcdonalds to something like high-level management (i'm not really sure what you two aspire to do with your life or what you think is worthwhile, other than accumulating things and being free from taxes)?
5) will there be less inequality or will the floor of the bottom quintile somehow reach what we would consider "middle class" today?
I get the feeling that you two don't really understand that implicit in your system is the damnation of a large percentage of people to toil, poverty, and unhappiness, and that this is an always already condition of the system. What do you really think would happen if everyone took advantage of the (meagre) opportunities you both assume exist for every single person? The moral of the story is you can't trust the system. I'm sure you have in mind something that outperforms what you deem "meagre opportunities." I mean, even as you ignore that what was middle class luxuries yesterday are reachable by the bottom quintile today. I have nothing against freedom. I highly value personal sovereignty. I value it so highly that I want to maximize it for every individual by removing liberty-reducing factors like poverty and disadvantage. Yes, this comes at the cost of disproportionate, unearned, and unjust, wealth disparities that are largely a product of inherited advantages, luck, and/or systemic force multipliers. But your criticism is that I am only a critic. I have no answers for you. As Badiou would say: "better to do nothing than to contribute to the invention of formal ways of rendering visible that which Empire already recognizes as existent." If your best argument is that I don't have all the answers, then so be it. Your continued participation and advocacy for the current system sustains the immense systemic violence inherent in the current neoliberal, free-market capitalist world order. What do you expect of me, really? Either I have a roadmap to utopia, or I must be complicit in your violent regime? Surely, you must realize that being for "removing poverty and disadvantage" is like saying you're for apple pies and motherhood. It's your views on how this should be accomplished and by whom that will make or break your views on personal liberties. If you'll pardon me, but many presidents and political parties of all stripes and colors have said exactly what you say now. I'm against injustice and for freedom. It's their means of achieving this that's in question.
The question is if utopia is unachievable (your chief gripe about equality of opportunity), and my preference is meager in this or impossible in that, then what structures would you erect to outperform what I have just described? Criticism is fine and dandy in my book, provided deep down that critic has thought through his own positions and believes them superior, and is furthermore willing to defend them.
I can't go much farther in the other issues. You reject the proposed causes, and you deny your opponents any empathy with the poor (as has echoed from leftist demagogues from one generation to the next). Maybe I may side with Franklin, who wrote In fine, we have the most sensible Concern for the poor distressed Inhabitants of the Frontiers. We have taken every Step in our Power, consistent with the just Rights of the Freemen of Pennsylvania, for their Relief, and we have Reason to believe, that in the Midst of their Distresses they themselves do not wish us to go farther. Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety .
Please link your sources from the United Kingdom Gallup-Heathways so we know this is not a poll conducted of UK Income Groups -- particularly when it divides up income groups in pounds
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On December 11 2013 15:12 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2013 14:42 Livelovedie wrote:On December 11 2013 11:34 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 07:31 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 05:50 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 03:24 KwarK wrote:
American exceptionalism. They're too free to be constrained by facts. Our current president marks a departure from the belief in American exceptionalism. He'll mince words, all right, but the point is clear. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
President Barack Obama I'm not the best guy to sell the principles of liberty and freedom (really, individual sovereignty) to a society increasingly disillusioned with them. I want opportunity for all, but hold the minority view of how to achieve this in this forum. The majority holds that some liberties and some freedoms specifically must be forfeited to an extent with the goal of achieving societal goods. The primary ones coming up here are an improvement in the plight of the poor, the environment, a sense of fairness, and a notion of equality. Simultaneously, big businesses are subject to distrust, and suppose levels of federal government and government bureaucrats to largely have trustworthy aims (subjected to analysis, I have no doubt a reasonable reader will find this to be true. See posts Walmart/Pharmaceutical Company evils followed by others governed by the generalized supposition that bureaucrats are not just throwing money at the problem.) The heralds of American Unexceptionalism have a firm grasp on government right now, if you ask me. Not a very popular government at all, either. Equality of opportunity is nothing but a fiction in a society with vast wealth inequality. As I said, forfeit freedoms in pursuit of a notion of equality. Because On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:On December 09 2013 14:04 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 12:29 jellyjello wrote:On December 09 2013 07:41 KwarK wrote:On December 09 2013 07:34 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
You are missing the point. We are only talking about replacing $300 per week in unemployment benefits. Getting a job that does that is pretty easy.
An awful lot of the kind of jobs you're suggesting they get will give irregular part time hours that demand total availability (so if you need to pick kids up from school or whatever daily then you can't just work 8 hour evening shifts after that) and will hire on 16 or so hour contracts and then give extra hours as required. It's not as simple as you're suggesting, the jobs that are easy to pick up for the unskilled tend to take advantage of them because they know they can get away with doing all sorts of bullshit. I know from personal experience how shitty employers can be if they think you're replaceable and that you need the job. Oh FFS, there is always something or some sort of an excuse. If you think you are qualified but can't find a job for two freaking years, then maybe the problem is with you and not the system. Unless you're talking about seriously depressed regions, anyone who is a hard worker can get a job if they want one. Hell, people who are really good at whatever they do professionally will always find work one way or another. And I'm not talking about shit jobs at McDonald's or Walmart, either. Part of my job is to deal with people who have shit happen to them. Without exception, those who are legitimately hard workers and who aren't completely compromised (like some of my brain injured clients) have no problem finding work and getting hired. On the other hand, I also have clients who are lazy, and they, unsurprisingly, have trouble getting employment or staying employed. Things aren't so bad that determined people can't find work. Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. Seniors and On December 09 2013 15:04 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 12:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 12:40 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 12:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 11:51 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 11:24 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 09:00 Gorsameth wrote:
Gee who would think that the rest of the world doesn't like increased costs, less control of banks and more power to corporations. Its almost like they have a brain...
At the end of the day if they want to sell things to the US they need to be willing to buy things in return, and that means willing to pay for IP as well. If there is no international support then the US is not in any position of power to dictate that that needs to be the case. So if the US wants to buy things from Europe then that means they need to accept they won't get paid for IP. What does Europe have to do with the TPP? Regardless, I don't see how your argument makes sense. We pay countries for the things we buy from them. They don't deserve extras like free IP on top of it. Meant TPP, my apologies. You made it seem like the US has leverage to dictate the agreement, but I don't see how they do. So your ultimatum makes no sense. I don't think we can dictate an agreement, but we do have lots of leverage. We're a great customer, and they have to buy dollar assets anyways. IP is silly. Rent-seeking capitalists trying to propertize ideas. evil capitalists. You have a penchant for dismissing things out of hand and quickly too. I suppose you have your own theory about how to preserve a level of opportunity in society, or do you say that none should exist? Removing freedom from some can create a more free society in general. Unless you feel that freedom to be coerced is in fact freedom. The devil's in the details when you speak of a "more free society in general." I mean, let's appoint angels that will deem which of society need sacrifice their freedom for the whole. Otherwise, I'm more concerned that the ruling class will pick based on political considerations. (May I also suggest slightly tongue-in-cheek that every person here would stand at attention and say, "I am not the one that needs to sacrifice freedom") Show nested quote +On December 11 2013 14:42 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 12:58 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 12:18 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 11:34 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 07:31 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 05:50 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 03:24 KwarK wrote:
American exceptionalism. They're too free to be constrained by facts. Our current president marks a departure from the belief in American exceptionalism. He'll mince words, all right, but the point is clear. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
President Barack Obama I'm not the best guy to sell the principles of liberty and freedom (really, individual sovereignty) to a society increasingly disillusioned with them. I want opportunity for all, but hold the minority view of how to achieve this in this forum. The majority holds that some liberties and some freedoms specifically must be forfeited to an extent with the goal of achieving societal goods. The primary ones coming up here are an improvement in the plight of the poor, the environment, a sense of fairness, and a notion of equality. Simultaneously, big businesses are subject to distrust, and suppose levels of federal government and government bureaucrats to largely have trustworthy aims (subjected to analysis, I have no doubt a reasonable reader will find this to be true. See posts Walmart/Pharmaceutical Company evils followed by others governed by the generalized supposition that bureaucrats are not just throwing money at the problem.) The heralds of American Unexceptionalism have a firm grasp on government right now, if you ask me. Not a very popular government at all, either. Equality of opportunity is nothing but a fiction in a society with vast wealth inequality. As I said, forfeit freedoms in pursuit of a notion of equality. Because On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:On December 09 2013 14:04 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 12:29 jellyjello wrote:
[quote]
Oh FFS, there is always something or some sort of an excuse. If you think you are qualified but can't find a job for two freaking years, then maybe the problem is with you and not the system. Unless you're talking about seriously depressed regions, anyone who is a hard worker can get a job if they want one. Hell, people who are really good at whatever they do professionally will always find work one way or another. And I'm not talking about shit jobs at McDonald's or Walmart, either. Part of my job is to deal with people who have shit happen to them. Without exception, those who are legitimately hard workers and who aren't completely compromised (like some of my brain injured clients) have no problem finding work and getting hired. On the other hand, I also have clients who are lazy, and they, unsurprisingly, have trouble getting employment or staying employed. Things aren't so bad that determined people can't find work. Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. Seniors and On December 09 2013 15:04 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 12:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 12:40 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 12:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 11:51 Livelovedie wrote:
[quote]
If there is no international support then the US is not in any position of power to dictate that that needs to be the case. So if the US wants to buy things from Europe then that means they need to accept they won't get paid for IP. What does Europe have to do with the TPP? Regardless, I don't see how your argument makes sense. We pay countries for the things we buy from them. They don't deserve extras like free IP on top of it. Meant TPP, my apologies. You made it seem like the US has leverage to dictate the agreement, but I don't see how they do. So your ultimatum makes no sense. I don't think we can dictate an agreement, but we do have lots of leverage. We're a great customer, and they have to buy dollar assets anyways. IP is silly. Rent-seeking capitalists trying to propertize ideas. evil capitalists. You have a penchant for dismissing things out of hand and quickly too. I suppose you have your own theory about how to preserve a level of opportunity in society, or do you say that none should exist? Dismissing you quickly has little to do with my own internal critical method does it? Are you saying something I've never heard before? Or do you want me to put words in your mouth and then shoot it down so you can scream "straw man" at me? I'm simply replying to your inane comment that you idolize "freedom" so long as "freedom" is defined as being stuck with whatever random lot you drew in the birth lottery. What an empty yarn you spin. Freedom for those born in poverty is hardly freedom at all. But god forbid everyone be given a base standard of living, because that would harm their delicate "will to succeed" and act as an anchor on "freedom." You have so much criticism for anything and everything about letting individuals pursue their separate interests. I expand on American exceptionalism and the ideas running contrary to it. You retort by embodying every stereotype of the everlasting critic. Who are these angels that will stand up to your ... but seniors
but evil capitalists
but inequality? As long as these are governments made up of humans to govern humans, I'll settle for less than utopia. And you'll settle for what, exactly? The days when you can no longer pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. On December 11 2013 12:31 IgnE wrote:
Let's do a thought experiment:
Let's assume everyone is born and raised with the strong, sensible work ethic of Danglars and xDaunt. Everyone avoids crime, graduates from high school (goes to college? not sure if you guys think everyone has to go to college to succeed or not), works hard, and shows up early to whatever job they can get (McDonalds or equivalent for the bottom 20%).
1) can everyone find full time employment?
2) can everyone find a fulfilling job?
3) can everyone eventually find financial security (how do you want to define this? house? family? debt?)
4) can every single person work their way up from mcdonalds to something like high-level management (i'm not really sure what you two aspire to do with your life or what you think is worthwhile, other than accumulating things and being free from taxes)?
5) will there be less inequality or will the floor of the bottom quintile somehow reach what we would consider "middle class" today?
I get the feeling that you two don't really understand that implicit in your system is the damnation of a large percentage of people to toil, poverty, and unhappiness, and that this is an always already condition of the system. What do you really think would happen if everyone took advantage of the (meagre) opportunities you both assume exist for every single person? The moral of the story is you can't trust the system. I'm sure you have in mind something that outperforms what you deem "meagre opportunities." I mean, even as you ignore that what was middle class luxuries yesterday are reachable by the bottom quintile today. I have nothing against freedom. I highly value personal sovereignty. I value it so highly that I want to maximize it for every individual by removing liberty-reducing factors like poverty and disadvantage. Yes, this comes at the cost of disproportionate, unearned, and unjust, wealth disparities that are largely a product of inherited advantages, luck, and/or systemic force multipliers. But your criticism is that I am only a critic. I have no answers for you. As Badiou would say: "better to do nothing than to contribute to the invention of formal ways of rendering visible that which Empire already recognizes as existent." If your best argument is that I don't have all the answers, then so be it. Your continued participation and advocacy for the current system sustains the immense systemic violence inherent in the current neoliberal, free-market capitalist world order. What do you expect of me, really? Either I have a roadmap to utopia, or I must be complicit in your violent regime? Surely, you must realize that being for "removing poverty and disadvantage" is like saying you're for apple pies and motherhood. It's your views on how this should be accomplished and by whom that will make or break your views on personal liberties. If you'll pardon me, but many presidents and political parties of all stripes and colors have said exactly what you say now. I'm against injustice and for freedom. It's their means of achieving this that's in question. The question is if utopia is unachievable (your chief gripe about equality of opportunity), and my preference is meager in this or impossible in that, then what structures would you erect to outperform what I have just described? Criticism is fine and dandy in my book, provided deep down that critic has thought through his own positions and believes them superior, and is furthermore willing to defend them. I can't go much farther in the other issues. You reject the proposed causes, and you deny your opponents any empathy with the poor (as has echoed from leftist demagogues from one generation to the next). Maybe I may side with Franklin, who wrote Show nested quote +In fine, we have the most sensible Concern for the poor distressed Inhabitants of the Frontiers. We have taken every Step in our Power, consistent with the just Rights of the Freemen of Pennsylvania, for their Relief, and we have Reason to believe, that in the Midst of their Distresses they themselves do not wish us to go farther. Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety . Please link your sources from the United Kingdom Gallup-Heathways so we know this is not a poll conducted of UK Income Groups -- particularly when it divides up income groups in pounds
There are already rationale things that we apply to this... an example of this is organ selling. We don't allow organ selling because it takes advantage of vulnerable populations by coercing people into making a decision that is exploiting their disadvantageous position. By allowing such freedom in instances it changes the nature of the choices available to people. Things like loans could be harder to secure for those not willing to use an organ (kidney as collateral). Allowing more freedom in this sense will exasperate inequalities leading to a less free society.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9264.2008.00246.x/pdf
|
On December 11 2013 15:37 Livelovedie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2013 15:12 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 14:42 Livelovedie wrote:On December 11 2013 11:34 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 07:31 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 05:50 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 03:24 KwarK wrote:
American exceptionalism. They're too free to be constrained by facts. Our current president marks a departure from the belief in American exceptionalism. He'll mince words, all right, but the point is clear. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
President Barack Obama I'm not the best guy to sell the principles of liberty and freedom (really, individual sovereignty) to a society increasingly disillusioned with them. I want opportunity for all, but hold the minority view of how to achieve this in this forum. The majority holds that some liberties and some freedoms specifically must be forfeited to an extent with the goal of achieving societal goods. The primary ones coming up here are an improvement in the plight of the poor, the environment, a sense of fairness, and a notion of equality. Simultaneously, big businesses are subject to distrust, and suppose levels of federal government and government bureaucrats to largely have trustworthy aims (subjected to analysis, I have no doubt a reasonable reader will find this to be true. See posts Walmart/Pharmaceutical Company evils followed by others governed by the generalized supposition that bureaucrats are not just throwing money at the problem.) The heralds of American Unexceptionalism have a firm grasp on government right now, if you ask me. Not a very popular government at all, either. Equality of opportunity is nothing but a fiction in a society with vast wealth inequality. As I said, forfeit freedoms in pursuit of a notion of equality. Because On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:On December 09 2013 14:04 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 12:29 jellyjello wrote:On December 09 2013 07:41 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
An awful lot of the kind of jobs you're suggesting they get will give irregular part time hours that demand total availability (so if you need to pick kids up from school or whatever daily then you can't just work 8 hour evening shifts after that) and will hire on 16 or so hour contracts and then give extra hours as required. It's not as simple as you're suggesting, the jobs that are easy to pick up for the unskilled tend to take advantage of them because they know they can get away with doing all sorts of bullshit. I know from personal experience how shitty employers can be if they think you're replaceable and that you need the job. Oh FFS, there is always something or some sort of an excuse. If you think you are qualified but can't find a job for two freaking years, then maybe the problem is with you and not the system. Unless you're talking about seriously depressed regions, anyone who is a hard worker can get a job if they want one. Hell, people who are really good at whatever they do professionally will always find work one way or another. And I'm not talking about shit jobs at McDonald's or Walmart, either. Part of my job is to deal with people who have shit happen to them. Without exception, those who are legitimately hard workers and who aren't completely compromised (like some of my brain injured clients) have no problem finding work and getting hired. On the other hand, I also have clients who are lazy, and they, unsurprisingly, have trouble getting employment or staying employed. Things aren't so bad that determined people can't find work. Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. Seniors and On December 09 2013 15:04 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 12:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 12:40 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 12:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 11:51 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 11:24 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
At the end of the day if they want to sell things to the US they need to be willing to buy things in return, and that means willing to pay for IP as well. If there is no international support then the US is not in any position of power to dictate that that needs to be the case. So if the US wants to buy things from Europe then that means they need to accept they won't get paid for IP. What does Europe have to do with the TPP? Regardless, I don't see how your argument makes sense. We pay countries for the things we buy from them. They don't deserve extras like free IP on top of it. Meant TPP, my apologies. You made it seem like the US has leverage to dictate the agreement, but I don't see how they do. So your ultimatum makes no sense. I don't think we can dictate an agreement, but we do have lots of leverage. We're a great customer, and they have to buy dollar assets anyways. IP is silly. Rent-seeking capitalists trying to propertize ideas. evil capitalists. You have a penchant for dismissing things out of hand and quickly too. I suppose you have your own theory about how to preserve a level of opportunity in society, or do you say that none should exist? Removing freedom from some can create a more free society in general. Unless you feel that freedom to be coerced is in fact freedom. The devil's in the details when you speak of a "more free society in general." I mean, let's appoint angels that will deem which of society need sacrifice their freedom for the whole. Otherwise, I'm more concerned that the ruling class will pick based on political considerations. (May I also suggest slightly tongue-in-cheek that every person here would stand at attention and say, "I am not the one that needs to sacrifice freedom") On December 11 2013 14:42 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 12:58 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 12:18 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 11:34 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 07:31 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 05:50 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 03:24 KwarK wrote:
American exceptionalism. They're too free to be constrained by facts. Our current president marks a departure from the belief in American exceptionalism. He'll mince words, all right, but the point is clear. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
President Barack Obama I'm not the best guy to sell the principles of liberty and freedom (really, individual sovereignty) to a society increasingly disillusioned with them. I want opportunity for all, but hold the minority view of how to achieve this in this forum. The majority holds that some liberties and some freedoms specifically must be forfeited to an extent with the goal of achieving societal goods. The primary ones coming up here are an improvement in the plight of the poor, the environment, a sense of fairness, and a notion of equality. Simultaneously, big businesses are subject to distrust, and suppose levels of federal government and government bureaucrats to largely have trustworthy aims (subjected to analysis, I have no doubt a reasonable reader will find this to be true. See posts Walmart/Pharmaceutical Company evils followed by others governed by the generalized supposition that bureaucrats are not just throwing money at the problem.) The heralds of American Unexceptionalism have a firm grasp on government right now, if you ask me. Not a very popular government at all, either. Equality of opportunity is nothing but a fiction in a society with vast wealth inequality. As I said, forfeit freedoms in pursuit of a notion of equality. Because On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:On December 09 2013 14:04 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
Unless you're talking about seriously depressed regions, anyone who is a hard worker can get a job if they want one. Hell, people who are really good at whatever they do professionally will always find work one way or another. And I'm not talking about shit jobs at McDonald's or Walmart, either. Part of my job is to deal with people who have shit happen to them. Without exception, those who are legitimately hard workers and who aren't completely compromised (like some of my brain injured clients) have no problem finding work and getting hired. On the other hand, I also have clients who are lazy, and they, unsurprisingly, have trouble getting employment or staying employed. Things aren't so bad that determined people can't find work. Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. Seniors and On December 09 2013 15:04 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 12:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 12:40 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 12:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
What does Europe have to do with the TPP? Regardless, I don't see how your argument makes sense. We pay countries for the things we buy from them. They don't deserve extras like free IP on top of it. Meant TPP, my apologies. You made it seem like the US has leverage to dictate the agreement, but I don't see how they do. So your ultimatum makes no sense. I don't think we can dictate an agreement, but we do have lots of leverage. We're a great customer, and they have to buy dollar assets anyways. IP is silly. Rent-seeking capitalists trying to propertize ideas. evil capitalists. You have a penchant for dismissing things out of hand and quickly too. I suppose you have your own theory about how to preserve a level of opportunity in society, or do you say that none should exist? Dismissing you quickly has little to do with my own internal critical method does it? Are you saying something I've never heard before? Or do you want me to put words in your mouth and then shoot it down so you can scream "straw man" at me? I'm simply replying to your inane comment that you idolize "freedom" so long as "freedom" is defined as being stuck with whatever random lot you drew in the birth lottery. What an empty yarn you spin. Freedom for those born in poverty is hardly freedom at all. But god forbid everyone be given a base standard of living, because that would harm their delicate "will to succeed" and act as an anchor on "freedom." You have so much criticism for anything and everything about letting individuals pursue their separate interests. I expand on American exceptionalism and the ideas running contrary to it. You retort by embodying every stereotype of the everlasting critic. Who are these angels that will stand up to your ... but seniors
but evil capitalists
but inequality? As long as these are governments made up of humans to govern humans, I'll settle for less than utopia. And you'll settle for what, exactly? The days when you can no longer pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. On December 11 2013 12:31 IgnE wrote:
Let's do a thought experiment:
Let's assume everyone is born and raised with the strong, sensible work ethic of Danglars and xDaunt. Everyone avoids crime, graduates from high school (goes to college? not sure if you guys think everyone has to go to college to succeed or not), works hard, and shows up early to whatever job they can get (McDonalds or equivalent for the bottom 20%).
1) can everyone find full time employment?
2) can everyone find a fulfilling job?
3) can everyone eventually find financial security (how do you want to define this? house? family? debt?)
4) can every single person work their way up from mcdonalds to something like high-level management (i'm not really sure what you two aspire to do with your life or what you think is worthwhile, other than accumulating things and being free from taxes)?
5) will there be less inequality or will the floor of the bottom quintile somehow reach what we would consider "middle class" today?
I get the feeling that you two don't really understand that implicit in your system is the damnation of a large percentage of people to toil, poverty, and unhappiness, and that this is an always already condition of the system. What do you really think would happen if everyone took advantage of the (meagre) opportunities you both assume exist for every single person? The moral of the story is you can't trust the system. I'm sure you have in mind something that outperforms what you deem "meagre opportunities." I mean, even as you ignore that what was middle class luxuries yesterday are reachable by the bottom quintile today. I have nothing against freedom. I highly value personal sovereignty. I value it so highly that I want to maximize it for every individual by removing liberty-reducing factors like poverty and disadvantage. Yes, this comes at the cost of disproportionate, unearned, and unjust, wealth disparities that are largely a product of inherited advantages, luck, and/or systemic force multipliers. But your criticism is that I am only a critic. I have no answers for you. As Badiou would say: "better to do nothing than to contribute to the invention of formal ways of rendering visible that which Empire already recognizes as existent." If your best argument is that I don't have all the answers, then so be it. Your continued participation and advocacy for the current system sustains the immense systemic violence inherent in the current neoliberal, free-market capitalist world order. What do you expect of me, really? Either I have a roadmap to utopia, or I must be complicit in your violent regime? Surely, you must realize that being for "removing poverty and disadvantage" is like saying you're for apple pies and motherhood. It's your views on how this should be accomplished and by whom that will make or break your views on personal liberties. If you'll pardon me, but many presidents and political parties of all stripes and colors have said exactly what you say now. I'm against injustice and for freedom. It's their means of achieving this that's in question. The question is if utopia is unachievable (your chief gripe about equality of opportunity), and my preference is meager in this or impossible in that, then what structures would you erect to outperform what I have just described? Criticism is fine and dandy in my book, provided deep down that critic has thought through his own positions and believes them superior, and is furthermore willing to defend them. I can't go much farther in the other issues. You reject the proposed causes, and you deny your opponents any empathy with the poor (as has echoed from leftist demagogues from one generation to the next). Maybe I may side with Franklin, who wrote In fine, we have the most sensible Concern for the poor distressed Inhabitants of the Frontiers. We have taken every Step in our Power, consistent with the just Rights of the Freemen of Pennsylvania, for their Relief, and we have Reason to believe, that in the Midst of their Distresses they themselves do not wish us to go farther. Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety . Please link your sources from the United Kingdom Gallup-Heathways so we know this is not a poll conducted of UK Income Groups -- particularly when it divides up income groups in pounds There are already rationale things that we apply to this... an example of this is organ selling. We don't allow organ selling because it takes advantage of vulnerable populations by coercing people into making a decision that is exploiting their disadvantageous position. By allowing such freedom in instances it changes the nature of the choices available to people. Things like loans could be harder to secure for those not willing to use an organ (kidney as collateral). Allowing more freedom in this sense will exasperate inequalities leading to a less free society. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9264.2008.00246.x/pdf
As much as you enjoy saying it, I'm not exactly seeing your angle here. You take away somebody's right to sell their own organs for moral reasons (exploitation). It hardly "exasperate[s] inequalities." If the price is such to tempt the sale of the organ, may we not assume the seller has profited and reduced his distance from the rich? The same argument can be used against cigarettes, alcohol, living arrangements. I don't suppose you wish to ban every bad decision somebody might make presuming to ask in their best interest now.
Maybe you missed it, but I responded to you earlier as well. You have not connected your final leap from inequality to a less free society.
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On December 11 2013 15:03 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2013 14:42 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 12:58 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 12:18 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 11:34 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 07:31 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 05:50 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 03:24 KwarK wrote:
American exceptionalism. They're too free to be constrained by facts. Our current president marks a departure from the belief in American exceptionalism. He'll mince words, all right, but the point is clear. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
President Barack Obama I'm not the best guy to sell the principles of liberty and freedom (really, individual sovereignty) to a society increasingly disillusioned with them. I want opportunity for all, but hold the minority view of how to achieve this in this forum. The majority holds that some liberties and some freedoms specifically must be forfeited to an extent with the goal of achieving societal goods. The primary ones coming up here are an improvement in the plight of the poor, the environment, a sense of fairness, and a notion of equality. Simultaneously, big businesses are subject to distrust, and suppose levels of federal government and government bureaucrats to largely have trustworthy aims (subjected to analysis, I have no doubt a reasonable reader will find this to be true. See posts Walmart/Pharmaceutical Company evils followed by others governed by the generalized supposition that bureaucrats are not just throwing money at the problem.) The heralds of American Unexceptionalism have a firm grasp on government right now, if you ask me. Not a very popular government at all, either. Equality of opportunity is nothing but a fiction in a society with vast wealth inequality. As I said, forfeit freedoms in pursuit of a notion of equality. Because On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:On December 09 2013 14:04 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 12:29 jellyjello wrote:
[quote]
Oh FFS, there is always something or some sort of an excuse. If you think you are qualified but can't find a job for two freaking years, then maybe the problem is with you and not the system. Unless you're talking about seriously depressed regions, anyone who is a hard worker can get a job if they want one. Hell, people who are really good at whatever they do professionally will always find work one way or another. And I'm not talking about shit jobs at McDonald's or Walmart, either. Part of my job is to deal with people who have shit happen to them. Without exception, those who are legitimately hard workers and who aren't completely compromised (like some of my brain injured clients) have no problem finding work and getting hired. On the other hand, I also have clients who are lazy, and they, unsurprisingly, have trouble getting employment or staying employed. Things aren't so bad that determined people can't find work. Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. Seniors and On December 09 2013 15:04 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 12:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 12:40 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 12:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 11:51 Livelovedie wrote:
[quote]
If there is no international support then the US is not in any position of power to dictate that that needs to be the case. So if the US wants to buy things from Europe then that means they need to accept they won't get paid for IP. What does Europe have to do with the TPP? Regardless, I don't see how your argument makes sense. We pay countries for the things we buy from them. They don't deserve extras like free IP on top of it. Meant TPP, my apologies. You made it seem like the US has leverage to dictate the agreement, but I don't see how they do. So your ultimatum makes no sense. I don't think we can dictate an agreement, but we do have lots of leverage. We're a great customer, and they have to buy dollar assets anyways. IP is silly. Rent-seeking capitalists trying to propertize ideas. evil capitalists. You have a penchant for dismissing things out of hand and quickly too. I suppose you have your own theory about how to preserve a level of opportunity in society, or do you say that none should exist? Dismissing you quickly has little to do with my own internal critical method does it? Are you saying something I've never heard before? Or do you want me to put words in your mouth and then shoot it down so you can scream "straw man" at me? I'm simply replying to your inane comment that you idolize "freedom" so long as "freedom" is defined as being stuck with whatever random lot you drew in the birth lottery. What an empty yarn you spin. Freedom for those born in poverty is hardly freedom at all. But god forbid everyone be given a base standard of living, because that would harm their delicate "will to succeed" and act as an anchor on "freedom." You have so much criticism for anything and everything about letting individuals pursue their separate interests. I expand on American exceptionalism and the ideas running contrary to it. You retort by embodying every stereotype of the everlasting critic. Who are these angels that will stand up to your ... but seniors
but evil capitalists
but inequality? As long as these are governments made up of humans to govern humans, I'll settle for less than utopia. And you'll settle for what, exactly? The days when you can no longer pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. On December 11 2013 12:31 IgnE wrote:
Let's do a thought experiment:
Let's assume everyone is born and raised with the strong, sensible work ethic of Danglars and xDaunt. Everyone avoids crime, graduates from high school (goes to college? not sure if you guys think everyone has to go to college to succeed or not), works hard, and shows up early to whatever job they can get (McDonalds or equivalent for the bottom 20%).
1) can everyone find full time employment?
2) can everyone find a fulfilling job?
3) can everyone eventually find financial security (how do you want to define this? house? family? debt?)
4) can every single person work their way up from mcdonalds to something like high-level management (i'm not really sure what you two aspire to do with your life or what you think is worthwhile, other than accumulating things and being free from taxes)?
5) will there be less inequality or will the floor of the bottom quintile somehow reach what we would consider "middle class" today?
I get the feeling that you two don't really understand that implicit in your system is the damnation of a large percentage of people to toil, poverty, and unhappiness, and that this is an always already condition of the system. What do you really think would happen if everyone took advantage of the (meagre) opportunities you both assume exist for every single person? The moral of the story is you can't trust the system. I'm sure you have in mind something that outperforms what you deem "meagre opportunities." I mean, even as you ignore that what was middle class luxuries yesterday are reachable by the bottom quintile today. I have nothing against freedom. I highly value personal sovereignty. I value it so highly that I want to maximize it for every individual by removing liberty-reducing factors like poverty and disadvantage. Yes, this comes at the cost of disproportionate, unearned, and unjust, wealth disparities that are largely a product of inherited advantages, luck, and/or systemic force multipliers. But your criticism is that I am only a critic. I have no answers for you. As Badiou would say: "better to do nothing than to contribute to the invention of formal ways of rendering visible that which Empire already recognizes as existent." If your best argument is that I don't have all the answers, then so be it. Your continued participation and advocacy for the current system sustains the immense systemic violence inherent in the current neoliberal, free-market capitalist world order. What do you expect of me, really? Either I have a roadmap to utopia, or I must be complicit in your violent regime? On December 11 2013 13:19 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2013 12:31 IgnE wrote:
Let's do a thought experiment:
Let's assume everyone is born and raised with the strong, sensible work ethic of Danglars and xDaunt. Everyone avoids crime, graduates from high school (goes to college? not sure if you guys think everyone has to go to college to succeed or not), works hard, and shows up early to whatever job they can get (McDonalds or equivalent for the bottom 20%).
1) can everyone find full time employment?
2) can everyone find a fulfilling job?
3) can everyone eventually find financial security (how do you want to define this? house? family? debt?)
4) can every single person work their way up from mcdonalds to something like high-level management (i'm not really sure what you two aspire to do with your life or what you think is worthwhile, other than accumulating things and being free from taxes)?
5) will there be less inequality or will the floor of the bottom quintile somehow reach what we would consider "middle class" today?
I get the feeling that you two don't really understand that implicit in your system is the damnation of a large percentage of people to toil, poverty, and unhappiness, and that this is an always already condition of the system. The whole premise here is retarded. Inequality in outcome doesn't necessarily mean that there will be a "damnation" of a large percentage of people as you describe. Hell, being "poor" in this country certainly is a far cry from whatever you're intending to describe. Where else are poor people fat and have flat screen TVs? What do you really think would happen if everyone took advantage of the (meagre) opportunities you both assume exist for every single person? This will never happen because most people lack either the brains or the work ethic to be anything more than peons in the system. That doesn't mean that they won't live happily and be able to provide for themselves and their families. Wow, do both you and Danglars really think that it's not so bad to be poor in America today? Really? Is that your response?: "It's not so bad to be poor, at least you can have a flat screen television (well, I think you can, at least that's what they tell me)." You are so disconnected from reality. "Fat poor people clearly have enough food, otherwise they wouldn't be fat, therefore their life can't be so bad." You are caricaturing yourself. So the hypothetical is a hypothetical. What is your point? You seem to be saying, "this will never happen, and moreover, it doesn't matter what kind of a world would result, because people suck and deserve their lot." Your refusals to answer aren't really that surprising. You would rather not think about the surplus labor force, worldwide, that you are condemning to wage slavery in the name of capital accumulation. That disintegrates the fairy tale. On the one hand you say that not everyone will be damned to poverty. On the other hand you say that "most" people lack the brains or the work ethic to be anything more than peons (implicitly: therefore, they deserve to live in shitty housing, eat shitty food, rack up debt, and always be on the verge of financial disaster, while watching reality tv on their flat screen). But! you say. But! they can still live "happily and provide for themselves and their families." This is simply untrue. You both seem to lack serious empathy and understanding about what it actually means to be poor in this country if you don't think it is unjust that one of the single most important factors in determining someone's earnings is the income of his or her parents. All this may sound a bit impressionistic. But more and more evidence from social scientists suggests that American society is much “stickier” than most Americans assume. Some researchers claim that social mobility is actually declining. A classic social survey in 1978 found that 23% of adult men who had been born in the bottom fifth of the population (as ranked by social and economic status) had made it into the top fifth. Earl Wysong of Indiana University and two colleagues recently decided to update the study. They compared the incomes of 2,749 father-and-son pairs from 1979 to 1998 and found that few sons had moved up the class ladder. Nearly 70% of the sons in 1998 had remained either at the same level or were doing worse than their fathers in 1979. The biggest increase in mobility had been at the top of society, with affluent sons moving upwards more often than their fathers had. They found that only 10% of the adult men born in the bottom quarter had made it to the top quarter. Source.If you think it's gotten better since 2004, you are living in a dream world. Source.
In 2001, Bhashkar Mazumder, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, recalculated income heritability matching census data to Social Security data, which allowed him to compare parent-child incomes over a greater number of years. He found that income heritability was more like 50 to 60 percent. Mazumder later recalculated Solon’s PSID-based findings applying a more sophisticated statistical model and found that income heritability was about 60 percent. Then, in a 2004 study, Mazumder approached the question from a different angle, examining the correlation in incomes among siblings, using longitudinal survey data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That put income heritability at about 50 percent. “The sibling correlation in economic outcomes and human capital are larger than the sibling correlation in a variety of other outcomes including some measures of physical attributes,” Mazumder wrote. Most strikingly, he found that income among brothers actually correlated more closely than height and weight. I am less the master of my fate than I am of my body mass index.
Source.Maybe you guys are just uninformed. Or maybe you think that this incredible heritability, an attribute totally out of someone's control, is alright, so long as we preserve the freedom to hold onto the wealth you have accumulated and are free in the future to continue accumulating more wealth. At least, that is, if you are the privileged minority with the wealth to begin with. You can't value individual sovereignty and try to both lift some people up, and take some people down. That's not individuals making choices, that's the state coming in and saying "you've done too much, let me take some." What is free about that? What's free about you deciding when someone has too much? What's wrong with children getting their parents money? What's free about taking private property from people and telling them "no, you can't decide where that goes, we do." You assume that all wealth comes at the expense of someone else. That the rich are only rich because everyone else is a sucker or unable to overcome their own circumstances. This is of course historically false, but climbing to the top is rare. Do people do easy things or hard things? Easy, obviously. So why are you surprised it's so unbalanced? Do you actually think if everyone started off even that they would all end even? + Show Spoiler +Moreover, I don't understand the view that more bureaucrats or laws help anyone. Government collusion with large corporations is one reason we are where we are. The fewer people in control, the worse it gets. They will, as you seem to desire, impose their morality on everyone else. It is wrong for you to have this much! Things will never be fully equal, they may not even be close to equal. But let the cream rise to the crop, don't squash some so that others are brought up. Don't subsidize those who are not willing to do the work. Some are in very deep ruts, it's true. But don't tinker with the whole society just for that. No "fundamental transformation" is necessary. This is why no one here will ever agree. The values are different. You clearly don't value individual sovereignty as much as you value the ever elusive state of "equality." This is why no one will change their mind. Edit: I obviously support some rules, don't get the idea that I want nothing but cave men running around.
You are jumping to a false conclusion. It's not like I'm advocating a society that forcibly takes from the rich and gives to the poor, at regular intervals, in an on-going and continuous fashion by some Big Brother, bureaucrat-laden government. I'm advocating a system wherein the actual socio-economic starting point for everyone maximizes their personal sovereignty by providing an equitable, solid base (I'm not inclined to put a number on it, but let's just say a middle-class position). That is the only way to actually ensure a kind of equality of opportunity that matters.
I do not think everyone will "end even." But the object of life is not to have the highest wealth accumulation score. No one is worth a billion other people, even if those people are Somalis, rural Chinese, or whatever. Likewise, I am advocating a system that makes it difficult or impossible to accumulate as much wealth as the 300 richest Americans have accumulated. Despite what you think, the planet is finite, and there are a finite amount of resources. It's unethical and obscene that the richest people in this world have as much as they do, while the poorest people in this world start with nothing. Starting with nothing is equivalent to an economic, intellectual, and social maiming. And the butcher is the liberal regime. You are sacrificing billions of people to the meat grinder, now, and in the future, and your argument is, "well they aren't being productive enough, they just need to tighten their belts and work harder at FoxConn."
On December 11 2013 15:12 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2013 14:42 Livelovedie wrote:On December 11 2013 11:34 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 07:31 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 05:50 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 03:24 KwarK wrote:
American exceptionalism. They're too free to be constrained by facts. Our current president marks a departure from the belief in American exceptionalism. He'll mince words, all right, but the point is clear. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
President Barack Obama I'm not the best guy to sell the principles of liberty and freedom (really, individual sovereignty) to a society increasingly disillusioned with them. I want opportunity for all, but hold the minority view of how to achieve this in this forum. The majority holds that some liberties and some freedoms specifically must be forfeited to an extent with the goal of achieving societal goods. The primary ones coming up here are an improvement in the plight of the poor, the environment, a sense of fairness, and a notion of equality. Simultaneously, big businesses are subject to distrust, and suppose levels of federal government and government bureaucrats to largely have trustworthy aims (subjected to analysis, I have no doubt a reasonable reader will find this to be true. See posts Walmart/Pharmaceutical Company evils followed by others governed by the generalized supposition that bureaucrats are not just throwing money at the problem.) The heralds of American Unexceptionalism have a firm grasp on government right now, if you ask me. Not a very popular government at all, either. Equality of opportunity is nothing but a fiction in a society with vast wealth inequality. As I said, forfeit freedoms in pursuit of a notion of equality. Because On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:On December 09 2013 14:04 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 12:29 jellyjello wrote:On December 09 2013 07:41 KwarK wrote:On December 09 2013 07:34 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
You are missing the point. We are only talking about replacing $300 per week in unemployment benefits. Getting a job that does that is pretty easy.
An awful lot of the kind of jobs you're suggesting they get will give irregular part time hours that demand total availability (so if you need to pick kids up from school or whatever daily then you can't just work 8 hour evening shifts after that) and will hire on 16 or so hour contracts and then give extra hours as required. It's not as simple as you're suggesting, the jobs that are easy to pick up for the unskilled tend to take advantage of them because they know they can get away with doing all sorts of bullshit. I know from personal experience how shitty employers can be if they think you're replaceable and that you need the job. Oh FFS, there is always something or some sort of an excuse. If you think you are qualified but can't find a job for two freaking years, then maybe the problem is with you and not the system. Unless you're talking about seriously depressed regions, anyone who is a hard worker can get a job if they want one. Hell, people who are really good at whatever they do professionally will always find work one way or another. And I'm not talking about shit jobs at McDonald's or Walmart, either. Part of my job is to deal with people who have shit happen to them. Without exception, those who are legitimately hard workers and who aren't completely compromised (like some of my brain injured clients) have no problem finding work and getting hired. On the other hand, I also have clients who are lazy, and they, unsurprisingly, have trouble getting employment or staying employed. Things aren't so bad that determined people can't find work. Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. Seniors and On December 09 2013 15:04 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 12:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 12:40 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 12:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 11:51 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 11:24 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 09:00 Gorsameth wrote:
Gee who would think that the rest of the world doesn't like increased costs, less control of banks and more power to corporations. Its almost like they have a brain...
At the end of the day if they want to sell things to the US they need to be willing to buy things in return, and that means willing to pay for IP as well. If there is no international support then the US is not in any position of power to dictate that that needs to be the case. So if the US wants to buy things from Europe then that means they need to accept they won't get paid for IP. What does Europe have to do with the TPP? Regardless, I don't see how your argument makes sense. We pay countries for the things we buy from them. They don't deserve extras like free IP on top of it. Meant TPP, my apologies. You made it seem like the US has leverage to dictate the agreement, but I don't see how they do. So your ultimatum makes no sense. I don't think we can dictate an agreement, but we do have lots of leverage. We're a great customer, and they have to buy dollar assets anyways. IP is silly. Rent-seeking capitalists trying to propertize ideas. evil capitalists. You have a penchant for dismissing things out of hand and quickly too. I suppose you have your own theory about how to preserve a level of opportunity in society, or do you say that none should exist? Removing freedom from some can create a more free society in general. Unless you feel that freedom to be coerced is in fact freedom. The devil's in the details when you speak of a "more free society in general." I mean, let's appoint angels that will deem which of society need sacrifice their freedom for the whole. Otherwise, I'm more concerned that the ruling class will pick based on political considerations. (May I also suggest slightly tongue-in-cheek that every person here would stand at attention and say, "I am not the one that needs to sacrifice freedom") Show nested quote +On December 11 2013 14:42 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 12:58 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 12:18 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 11:34 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 07:31 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 05:50 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 03:24 KwarK wrote:
American exceptionalism. They're too free to be constrained by facts. Our current president marks a departure from the belief in American exceptionalism. He'll mince words, all right, but the point is clear. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
President Barack Obama I'm not the best guy to sell the principles of liberty and freedom (really, individual sovereignty) to a society increasingly disillusioned with them. I want opportunity for all, but hold the minority view of how to achieve this in this forum. The majority holds that some liberties and some freedoms specifically must be forfeited to an extent with the goal of achieving societal goods. The primary ones coming up here are an improvement in the plight of the poor, the environment, a sense of fairness, and a notion of equality. Simultaneously, big businesses are subject to distrust, and suppose levels of federal government and government bureaucrats to largely have trustworthy aims (subjected to analysis, I have no doubt a reasonable reader will find this to be true. See posts Walmart/Pharmaceutical Company evils followed by others governed by the generalized supposition that bureaucrats are not just throwing money at the problem.) The heralds of American Unexceptionalism have a firm grasp on government right now, if you ask me. Not a very popular government at all, either. Equality of opportunity is nothing but a fiction in a society with vast wealth inequality. As I said, forfeit freedoms in pursuit of a notion of equality. Because On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:On December 09 2013 14:04 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 12:29 jellyjello wrote:
[quote]
Oh FFS, there is always something or some sort of an excuse. If you think you are qualified but can't find a job for two freaking years, then maybe the problem is with you and not the system. Unless you're talking about seriously depressed regions, anyone who is a hard worker can get a job if they want one. Hell, people who are really good at whatever they do professionally will always find work one way or another. And I'm not talking about shit jobs at McDonald's or Walmart, either. Part of my job is to deal with people who have shit happen to them. Without exception, those who are legitimately hard workers and who aren't completely compromised (like some of my brain injured clients) have no problem finding work and getting hired. On the other hand, I also have clients who are lazy, and they, unsurprisingly, have trouble getting employment or staying employed. Things aren't so bad that determined people can't find work. Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. Seniors and On December 09 2013 15:04 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 12:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 12:40 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 12:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 11:51 Livelovedie wrote:
[quote]
If there is no international support then the US is not in any position of power to dictate that that needs to be the case. So if the US wants to buy things from Europe then that means they need to accept they won't get paid for IP. What does Europe have to do with the TPP? Regardless, I don't see how your argument makes sense. We pay countries for the things we buy from them. They don't deserve extras like free IP on top of it. Meant TPP, my apologies. You made it seem like the US has leverage to dictate the agreement, but I don't see how they do. So your ultimatum makes no sense. I don't think we can dictate an agreement, but we do have lots of leverage. We're a great customer, and they have to buy dollar assets anyways. IP is silly. Rent-seeking capitalists trying to propertize ideas. evil capitalists. You have a penchant for dismissing things out of hand and quickly too. I suppose you have your own theory about how to preserve a level of opportunity in society, or do you say that none should exist? Dismissing you quickly has little to do with my own internal critical method does it? Are you saying something I've never heard before? Or do you want me to put words in your mouth and then shoot it down so you can scream "straw man" at me? I'm simply replying to your inane comment that you idolize "freedom" so long as "freedom" is defined as being stuck with whatever random lot you drew in the birth lottery. What an empty yarn you spin. Freedom for those born in poverty is hardly freedom at all. But god forbid everyone be given a base standard of living, because that would harm their delicate "will to succeed" and act as an anchor on "freedom." You have so much criticism for anything and everything about letting individuals pursue their separate interests. I expand on American exceptionalism and the ideas running contrary to it. You retort by embodying every stereotype of the everlasting critic. Who are these angels that will stand up to your ... but seniors
but evil capitalists
but inequality? As long as these are governments made up of humans to govern humans, I'll settle for less than utopia. And you'll settle for what, exactly? The days when you can no longer pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. On December 11 2013 12:31 IgnE wrote:
Let's do a thought experiment:
Let's assume everyone is born and raised with the strong, sensible work ethic of Danglars and xDaunt. Everyone avoids crime, graduates from high school (goes to college? not sure if you guys think everyone has to go to college to succeed or not), works hard, and shows up early to whatever job they can get (McDonalds or equivalent for the bottom 20%).
1) can everyone find full time employment?
2) can everyone find a fulfilling job?
3) can everyone eventually find financial security (how do you want to define this? house? family? debt?)
4) can every single person work their way up from mcdonalds to something like high-level management (i'm not really sure what you two aspire to do with your life or what you think is worthwhile, other than accumulating things and being free from taxes)?
5) will there be less inequality or will the floor of the bottom quintile somehow reach what we would consider "middle class" today?
I get the feeling that you two don't really understand that implicit in your system is the damnation of a large percentage of people to toil, poverty, and unhappiness, and that this is an always already condition of the system. What do you really think would happen if everyone took advantage of the (meagre) opportunities you both assume exist for every single person? The moral of the story is you can't trust the system. I'm sure you have in mind something that outperforms what you deem "meagre opportunities." I mean, even as you ignore that what was middle class luxuries yesterday are reachable by the bottom quintile today. I have nothing against freedom. I highly value personal sovereignty. I value it so highly that I want to maximize it for every individual by removing liberty-reducing factors like poverty and disadvantage. Yes, this comes at the cost of disproportionate, unearned, and unjust, wealth disparities that are largely a product of inherited advantages, luck, and/or systemic force multipliers. But your criticism is that I am only a critic. I have no answers for you. As Badiou would say: "better to do nothing than to contribute to the invention of formal ways of rendering visible that which Empire already recognizes as existent." If your best argument is that I don't have all the answers, then so be it. Your continued participation and advocacy for the current system sustains the immense systemic violence inherent in the current neoliberal, free-market capitalist world order. What do you expect of me, really? Either I have a roadmap to utopia, or I must be complicit in your violent regime? Surely, you must realize that being for "removing poverty and disadvantage" is like saying you're for apple pies and motherhood. It's your views on how this should be accomplished and by whom that will make or break your views on personal liberties. If you'll pardon me, but many presidents and political parties of all stripes and colors have said exactly what you say now. I'm against injustice and for freedom. It's their means of achieving this that's in question. The question is if utopia is unachievable (your chief gripe about equality of opportunity), and my preference is meager in this or impossible in that, then what structures would you erect to outperform what I have just described? Criticism is fine and dandy in my book, provided deep down that critic has thought through his own positions and believes them superior, and is furthermore willing to defend them. I can't go much farther in the other issues. You reject the proposed causes, and you deny your opponents any empathy with the poor (as has echoed from leftist demagogues from one generation to the next). Maybe I may side with Franklin, who wrote In fine, we have the most sensible Concern for the poor distressed Inhabitants of the Frontiers. We have taken every Step in our Power, consistent with the just Rights of the Freemen of Pennsylvania, for their Relief, and we have Reason to believe, that in the Midst of their Distresses they themselves do not wish us to go farther. Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety .Please link your sources from the United Kingdom Gallup-Heathways so we know this is not a poll conducted of UK Income Groups -- particularly when it divides up income groups in pounds
As I said, sometimes doing nothing is the appropriate answer to a system of ongoing violence. A Bartlebian repudiation can have more effect than reactionary outbursts of irrational violence, especially when the direction out is not clear.
But you believe in magic and fairy tales, while rejecting other solutions out of naked greed. The evidence of the last 30 years shows that the current system leads to more of the same. Worsening inequality. Lower socio-economic mobility. Decreasing freedom.
One starting point would be providing a minimum income to people that would lower the floor and improve opportunities for the bottom quintile or quartile. Instead you say that that would disincentivize people from working at Arby's. You willingly throw away the brains of millions, if not billions of people, by having them spend their days doing menial tasks for pennies, because it's more efficient for the accumulation of capital (at least in the short term). Liberalism is a meatgrinder that chews up individual subjective experiences of life and spits out profit for the capitalist. What might happen if we truly offered equality of opportunity to as many people as possible by ridding them of the extreme stresses and strains of wage slavery, where people's labor is simply a commodity to be bought and sold for the lowest price possible? If you think this is the best there is, you lack imagination.
As a side note, the American colonies in the 18th century were much more egalitarian than now. I know you love the sacred Founding Fathers but it's a bit ridiculous to take it seriously when they violently took land from the indigenous peoples here before them. It's nice to talk about freedom for the white man when you are plundering resources and turning land you found into your own property. Please tell me how circumstances back then, where you had a thousands miles of continent to steal to your west, are in any way applicable to now? But yes, I concede the indigenous folks weren't efficiently using their resources and land for the accumulation of capital.
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On December 11 2013 16:10 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2013 15:37 Livelovedie wrote:On December 11 2013 15:12 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 14:42 Livelovedie wrote:On December 11 2013 11:34 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 07:31 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 05:50 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 03:24 KwarK wrote:
American exceptionalism. They're too free to be constrained by facts. Our current president marks a departure from the belief in American exceptionalism. He'll mince words, all right, but the point is clear. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
President Barack Obama I'm not the best guy to sell the principles of liberty and freedom (really, individual sovereignty) to a society increasingly disillusioned with them. I want opportunity for all, but hold the minority view of how to achieve this in this forum. The majority holds that some liberties and some freedoms specifically must be forfeited to an extent with the goal of achieving societal goods. The primary ones coming up here are an improvement in the plight of the poor, the environment, a sense of fairness, and a notion of equality. Simultaneously, big businesses are subject to distrust, and suppose levels of federal government and government bureaucrats to largely have trustworthy aims (subjected to analysis, I have no doubt a reasonable reader will find this to be true. See posts Walmart/Pharmaceutical Company evils followed by others governed by the generalized supposition that bureaucrats are not just throwing money at the problem.) The heralds of American Unexceptionalism have a firm grasp on government right now, if you ask me. Not a very popular government at all, either. Equality of opportunity is nothing but a fiction in a society with vast wealth inequality. As I said, forfeit freedoms in pursuit of a notion of equality. Because On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:On December 09 2013 14:04 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 12:29 jellyjello wrote:
[quote]
Oh FFS, there is always something or some sort of an excuse. If you think you are qualified but can't find a job for two freaking years, then maybe the problem is with you and not the system. Unless you're talking about seriously depressed regions, anyone who is a hard worker can get a job if they want one. Hell, people who are really good at whatever they do professionally will always find work one way or another. And I'm not talking about shit jobs at McDonald's or Walmart, either. Part of my job is to deal with people who have shit happen to them. Without exception, those who are legitimately hard workers and who aren't completely compromised (like some of my brain injured clients) have no problem finding work and getting hired. On the other hand, I also have clients who are lazy, and they, unsurprisingly, have trouble getting employment or staying employed. Things aren't so bad that determined people can't find work. Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. Seniors and On December 09 2013 15:04 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 12:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 12:40 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 12:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 11:51 Livelovedie wrote:
[quote]
If there is no international support then the US is not in any position of power to dictate that that needs to be the case. So if the US wants to buy things from Europe then that means they need to accept they won't get paid for IP. What does Europe have to do with the TPP? Regardless, I don't see how your argument makes sense. We pay countries for the things we buy from them. They don't deserve extras like free IP on top of it. Meant TPP, my apologies. You made it seem like the US has leverage to dictate the agreement, but I don't see how they do. So your ultimatum makes no sense. I don't think we can dictate an agreement, but we do have lots of leverage. We're a great customer, and they have to buy dollar assets anyways. IP is silly. Rent-seeking capitalists trying to propertize ideas. evil capitalists. You have a penchant for dismissing things out of hand and quickly too. I suppose you have your own theory about how to preserve a level of opportunity in society, or do you say that none should exist? Removing freedom from some can create a more free society in general. Unless you feel that freedom to be coerced is in fact freedom. The devil's in the details when you speak of a "more free society in general." I mean, let's appoint angels that will deem which of society need sacrifice their freedom for the whole. Otherwise, I'm more concerned that the ruling class will pick based on political considerations. (May I also suggest slightly tongue-in-cheek that every person here would stand at attention and say, "I am not the one that needs to sacrifice freedom") On December 11 2013 14:42 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 12:58 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 12:18 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 11:34 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 07:31 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 05:50 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 03:24 KwarK wrote:
American exceptionalism. They're too free to be constrained by facts. Our current president marks a departure from the belief in American exceptionalism. He'll mince words, all right, but the point is clear. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
President Barack Obama I'm not the best guy to sell the principles of liberty and freedom (really, individual sovereignty) to a society increasingly disillusioned with them. I want opportunity for all, but hold the minority view of how to achieve this in this forum. The majority holds that some liberties and some freedoms specifically must be forfeited to an extent with the goal of achieving societal goods. The primary ones coming up here are an improvement in the plight of the poor, the environment, a sense of fairness, and a notion of equality. Simultaneously, big businesses are subject to distrust, and suppose levels of federal government and government bureaucrats to largely have trustworthy aims (subjected to analysis, I have no doubt a reasonable reader will find this to be true. See posts Walmart/Pharmaceutical Company evils followed by others governed by the generalized supposition that bureaucrats are not just throwing money at the problem.) The heralds of American Unexceptionalism have a firm grasp on government right now, if you ask me. Not a very popular government at all, either. Equality of opportunity is nothing but a fiction in a society with vast wealth inequality. As I said, forfeit freedoms in pursuit of a notion of equality. Because On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:
[quote]
Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. Seniors and On December 09 2013 15:04 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 12:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 12:40 Livelovedie wrote:
[quote]
Meant TPP, my apologies. You made it seem like the US has leverage to dictate the agreement, but I don't see how they do. So your ultimatum makes no sense. I don't think we can dictate an agreement, but we do have lots of leverage. We're a great customer, and they have to buy dollar assets anyways. IP is silly. Rent-seeking capitalists trying to propertize ideas. evil capitalists. You have a penchant for dismissing things out of hand and quickly too. I suppose you have your own theory about how to preserve a level of opportunity in society, or do you say that none should exist? Dismissing you quickly has little to do with my own internal critical method does it? Are you saying something I've never heard before? Or do you want me to put words in your mouth and then shoot it down so you can scream "straw man" at me? I'm simply replying to your inane comment that you idolize "freedom" so long as "freedom" is defined as being stuck with whatever random lot you drew in the birth lottery. What an empty yarn you spin. Freedom for those born in poverty is hardly freedom at all. But god forbid everyone be given a base standard of living, because that would harm their delicate "will to succeed" and act as an anchor on "freedom." You have so much criticism for anything and everything about letting individuals pursue their separate interests. I expand on American exceptionalism and the ideas running contrary to it. You retort by embodying every stereotype of the everlasting critic. Who are these angels that will stand up to your ... but seniors
but evil capitalists
but inequality? As long as these are governments made up of humans to govern humans, I'll settle for less than utopia. And you'll settle for what, exactly? The days when you can no longer pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. On December 11 2013 12:31 IgnE wrote:
Let's do a thought experiment:
Let's assume everyone is born and raised with the strong, sensible work ethic of Danglars and xDaunt. Everyone avoids crime, graduates from high school (goes to college? not sure if you guys think everyone has to go to college to succeed or not), works hard, and shows up early to whatever job they can get (McDonalds or equivalent for the bottom 20%).
1) can everyone find full time employment?
2) can everyone find a fulfilling job?
3) can everyone eventually find financial security (how do you want to define this? house? family? debt?)
4) can every single person work their way up from mcdonalds to something like high-level management (i'm not really sure what you two aspire to do with your life or what you think is worthwhile, other than accumulating things and being free from taxes)?
5) will there be less inequality or will the floor of the bottom quintile somehow reach what we would consider "middle class" today?
I get the feeling that you two don't really understand that implicit in your system is the damnation of a large percentage of people to toil, poverty, and unhappiness, and that this is an always already condition of the system. What do you really think would happen if everyone took advantage of the (meagre) opportunities you both assume exist for every single person? The moral of the story is you can't trust the system. I'm sure you have in mind something that outperforms what you deem "meagre opportunities." I mean, even as you ignore that what was middle class luxuries yesterday are reachable by the bottom quintile today. I have nothing against freedom. I highly value personal sovereignty. I value it so highly that I want to maximize it for every individual by removing liberty-reducing factors like poverty and disadvantage. Yes, this comes at the cost of disproportionate, unearned, and unjust, wealth disparities that are largely a product of inherited advantages, luck, and/or systemic force multipliers. But your criticism is that I am only a critic. I have no answers for you. As Badiou would say: "better to do nothing than to contribute to the invention of formal ways of rendering visible that which Empire already recognizes as existent." If your best argument is that I don't have all the answers, then so be it. Your continued participation and advocacy for the current system sustains the immense systemic violence inherent in the current neoliberal, free-market capitalist world order. What do you expect of me, really? Either I have a roadmap to utopia, or I must be complicit in your violent regime? Surely, you must realize that being for "removing poverty and disadvantage" is like saying you're for apple pies and motherhood. It's your views on how this should be accomplished and by whom that will make or break your views on personal liberties. If you'll pardon me, but many presidents and political parties of all stripes and colors have said exactly what you say now. I'm against injustice and for freedom. It's their means of achieving this that's in question. The question is if utopia is unachievable (your chief gripe about equality of opportunity), and my preference is meager in this or impossible in that, then what structures would you erect to outperform what I have just described? Criticism is fine and dandy in my book, provided deep down that critic has thought through his own positions and believes them superior, and is furthermore willing to defend them. I can't go much farther in the other issues. You reject the proposed causes, and you deny your opponents any empathy with the poor (as has echoed from leftist demagogues from one generation to the next). Maybe I may side with Franklin, who wrote In fine, we have the most sensible Concern for the poor distressed Inhabitants of the Frontiers. We have taken every Step in our Power, consistent with the just Rights of the Freemen of Pennsylvania, for their Relief, and we have Reason to believe, that in the Midst of their Distresses they themselves do not wish us to go farther. Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety . Please link your sources from the United Kingdom Gallup-Heathways so we know this is not a poll conducted of UK Income Groups -- particularly when it divides up income groups in pounds There are already rationale things that we apply to this... an example of this is organ selling. We don't allow organ selling because it takes advantage of vulnerable populations by coercing people into making a decision that is exploiting their disadvantageous position. By allowing such freedom in instances it changes the nature of the choices available to people. Things like loans could be harder to secure for those not willing to use an organ (kidney as collateral). Allowing more freedom in this sense will exasperate inequalities leading to a less free society. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9264.2008.00246.x/pdf As much as you enjoy saying it, I'm not exactly seeing your angle here. You take away somebody's right to sell their own organs for moral reasons (exploitation). It hardly "exasperate[s] inequalities." If the price is such to tempt the sale of the organ, may we not assume the seller has profited and reduced his distance from the rich? The same argument can be used against cigarettes, alcohol, living arrangements. I don't suppose you wish to ban every bad decision somebody might make presuming to ask in their best interest now. Maybe you missed it, but I responded to you earlier as well. You have not connected your final leap from inequality to a less free society.
Ah well. For you, I guess, if you aren't born with enough money and opportunity to get a level playing field, at least you can sell your kidney.
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Show nested quote +On December 11 2013 16:52 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 15:03 Introvert wrote:On December 11 2013 14:42 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 12:58 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 12:18 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 11:34 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 07:31 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 05:50 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 03:24 KwarK wrote:
American exceptionalism. They're too free to be constrained by facts. Our current president marks a departure from the belief in American exceptionalism. He'll mince words, all right, but the point is clear. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
President Barack Obama I'm not the best guy to sell the principles of liberty and freedom (really, individual sovereignty) to a society increasingly disillusioned with them. I want opportunity for all, but hold the minority view of how to achieve this in this forum. The majority holds that some liberties and some freedoms specifically must be forfeited to an extent with the goal of achieving societal goods. The primary ones coming up here are an improvement in the plight of the poor, the environment, a sense of fairness, and a notion of equality. Simultaneously, big businesses are subject to distrust, and suppose levels of federal government and government bureaucrats to largely have trustworthy aims (subjected to analysis, I have no doubt a reasonable reader will find this to be true. See posts Walmart/Pharmaceutical Company evils followed by others governed by the generalized supposition that bureaucrats are not just throwing money at the problem.) The heralds of American Unexceptionalism have a firm grasp on government right now, if you ask me. Not a very popular government at all, either. Equality of opportunity is nothing but a fiction in a society with vast wealth inequality. As I said, forfeit freedoms in pursuit of a notion of equality. Because On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:
[quote]
Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. Seniors and On December 09 2013 15:04 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 12:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 12:40 Livelovedie wrote:
[quote]
Meant TPP, my apologies. You made it seem like the US has leverage to dictate the agreement, but I don't see how they do. So your ultimatum makes no sense. I don't think we can dictate an agreement, but we do have lots of leverage. We're a great customer, and they have to buy dollar assets anyways. IP is silly. Rent-seeking capitalists trying to propertize ideas. evil capitalists. You have a penchant for dismissing things out of hand and quickly too. I suppose you have your own theory about how to preserve a level of opportunity in society, or do you say that none should exist? Dismissing you quickly has little to do with my own internal critical method does it? Are you saying something I've never heard before? Or do you want me to put words in your mouth and then shoot it down so you can scream "straw man" at me? I'm simply replying to your inane comment that you idolize "freedom" so long as "freedom" is defined as being stuck with whatever random lot you drew in the birth lottery. What an empty yarn you spin. Freedom for those born in poverty is hardly freedom at all. But god forbid everyone be given a base standard of living, because that would harm their delicate "will to succeed" and act as an anchor on "freedom." You have so much criticism for anything and everything about letting individuals pursue their separate interests. I expand on American exceptionalism and the ideas running contrary to it. You retort by embodying every stereotype of the everlasting critic. Who are these angels that will stand up to your ... but seniors
but evil capitalists
but inequality? As long as these are governments made up of humans to govern humans, I'll settle for less than utopia. And you'll settle for what, exactly? The days when you can no longer pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. On December 11 2013 12:31 IgnE wrote:
Let's do a thought experiment:
Let's assume everyone is born and raised with the strong, sensible work ethic of Danglars and xDaunt. Everyone avoids crime, graduates from high school (goes to college? not sure if you guys think everyone has to go to college to succeed or not), works hard, and shows up early to whatever job they can get (McDonalds or equivalent for the bottom 20%).
1) can everyone find full time employment?
2) can everyone find a fulfilling job?
3) can everyone eventually find financial security (how do you want to define this? house? family? debt?)
4) can every single person work their way up from mcdonalds to something like high-level management (i'm not really sure what you two aspire to do with your life or what you think is worthwhile, other than accumulating things and being free from taxes)?
5) will there be less inequality or will the floor of the bottom quintile somehow reach what we would consider "middle class" today?
I get the feeling that you two don't really understand that implicit in your system is the damnation of a large percentage of people to toil, poverty, and unhappiness, and that this is an always already condition of the system. What do you really think would happen if everyone took advantage of the (meagre) opportunities you both assume exist for every single person? The moral of the story is you can't trust the system. I'm sure you have in mind something that outperforms what you deem "meagre opportunities." I mean, even as you ignore that what was middle class luxuries yesterday are reachable by the bottom quintile today. I have nothing against freedom. I highly value personal sovereignty. I value it so highly that I want to maximize it for every individual by removing liberty-reducing factors like poverty and disadvantage. Yes, this comes at the cost of disproportionate, unearned, and unjust, wealth disparities that are largely a product of inherited advantages, luck, and/or systemic force multipliers. But your criticism is that I am only a critic. I have no answers for you. As Badiou would say: "better to do nothing than to contribute to the invention of formal ways of rendering visible that which Empire already recognizes as existent." If your best argument is that I don't have all the answers, then so be it. Your continued participation and advocacy for the current system sustains the immense systemic violence inherent in the current neoliberal, free-market capitalist world order. What do you expect of me, really? Either I have a roadmap to utopia, or I must be complicit in your violent regime? On December 11 2013 13:19 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2013 12:31 IgnE wrote:
Let's do a thought experiment:
Let's assume everyone is born and raised with the strong, sensible work ethic of Danglars and xDaunt. Everyone avoids crime, graduates from high school (goes to college? not sure if you guys think everyone has to go to college to succeed or not), works hard, and shows up early to whatever job they can get (McDonalds or equivalent for the bottom 20%).
1) can everyone find full time employment?
2) can everyone find a fulfilling job?
3) can everyone eventually find financial security (how do you want to define this? house? family? debt?)
4) can every single person work their way up from mcdonalds to something like high-level management (i'm not really sure what you two aspire to do with your life or what you think is worthwhile, other than accumulating things and being free from taxes)?
5) will there be less inequality or will the floor of the bottom quintile somehow reach what we would consider "middle class" today?
I get the feeling that you two don't really understand that implicit in your system is the damnation of a large percentage of people to toil, poverty, and unhappiness, and that this is an always already condition of the system. The whole premise here is retarded. Inequality in outcome doesn't necessarily mean that there will be a "damnation" of a large percentage of people as you describe. Hell, being "poor" in this country certainly is a far cry from whatever you're intending to describe. Where else are poor people fat and have flat screen TVs? What do you really think would happen if everyone took advantage of the (meagre) opportunities you both assume exist for every single person? This will never happen because most people lack either the brains or the work ethic to be anything more than peons in the system. That doesn't mean that they won't live happily and be able to provide for themselves and their families. Wow, do both you and Danglars really think that it's not so bad to be poor in America today? Really? Is that your response?: "It's not so bad to be poor, at least you can have a flat screen television (well, I think you can, at least that's what they tell me)." You are so disconnected from reality. "Fat poor people clearly have enough food, otherwise they wouldn't be fat, therefore their life can't be so bad." You are caricaturing yourself. So the hypothetical is a hypothetical. What is your point? You seem to be saying, "this will never happen, and moreover, it doesn't matter what kind of a world would result, because people suck and deserve their lot." Your refusals to answer aren't really that surprising. You would rather not think about the surplus labor force, worldwide, that you are condemning to wage slavery in the name of capital accumulation. That disintegrates the fairy tale. On the one hand you say that not everyone will be damned to poverty. On the other hand you say that "most" people lack the brains or the work ethic to be anything more than peons (implicitly: therefore, they deserve to live in shitty housing, eat shitty food, rack up debt, and always be on the verge of financial disaster, while watching reality tv on their flat screen). But! you say. But! they can still live "happily and provide for themselves and their families." This is simply untrue. You both seem to lack serious empathy and understanding about what it actually means to be poor in this country if you don't think it is unjust that one of the single most important factors in determining someone's earnings is the income of his or her parents. All this may sound a bit impressionistic. But more and more evidence from social scientists suggests that American society is much “stickier” than most Americans assume. Some researchers claim that social mobility is actually declining. A classic social survey in 1978 found that 23% of adult men who had been born in the bottom fifth of the population (as ranked by social and economic status) had made it into the top fifth. Earl Wysong of Indiana University and two colleagues recently decided to update the study. They compared the incomes of 2,749 father-and-son pairs from 1979 to 1998 and found that few sons had moved up the class ladder. Nearly 70% of the sons in 1998 had remained either at the same level or were doing worse than their fathers in 1979. The biggest increase in mobility had been at the top of society, with affluent sons moving upwards more often than their fathers had. They found that only 10% of the adult men born in the bottom quarter had made it to the top quarter. Source.If you think it's gotten better since 2004, you are living in a dream world. Source.
In 2001, Bhashkar Mazumder, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, recalculated income heritability matching census data to Social Security data, which allowed him to compare parent-child incomes over a greater number of years. He found that income heritability was more like 50 to 60 percent. Mazumder later recalculated Solon’s PSID-based findings applying a more sophisticated statistical model and found that income heritability was about 60 percent. Then, in a 2004 study, Mazumder approached the question from a different angle, examining the correlation in incomes among siblings, using longitudinal survey data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That put income heritability at about 50 percent. “The sibling correlation in economic outcomes and human capital are larger than the sibling correlation in a variety of other outcomes including some measures of physical attributes,” Mazumder wrote. Most strikingly, he found that income among brothers actually correlated more closely than height and weight. I am less the master of my fate than I am of my body mass index.
Source.Maybe you guys are just uninformed. Or maybe you think that this incredible heritability, an attribute totally out of someone's control, is alright, so long as we preserve the freedom to hold onto the wealth you have accumulated and are free in the future to continue accumulating more wealth. At least, that is, if you are the privileged minority with the wealth to begin with. You can't value individual sovereignty and try to both lift some people up, and take some people down. That's not individuals making choices, that's the state coming in and saying "you've done too much, let me take some." What is free about that? What's free about you deciding when someone has too much? What's wrong with children getting their parents money? What's free about taking private property from people and telling them "no, you can't decide where that goes, we do." You assume that all wealth comes at the expense of someone else. That the rich are only rich because everyone else is a sucker or unable to overcome their own circumstances. This is of course historically false, but climbing to the top is rare. Do people do easy things or hard things? Easy, obviously. So why are you surprised it's so unbalanced? Do you actually think if everyone started off even that they would all end even? + Show Spoiler +Moreover, I don't understand the view that more bureaucrats or laws help anyone. Government collusion with large corporations is one reason we are where we are. The fewer people in control, the worse it gets. They will, as you seem to desire, impose their morality on everyone else. It is wrong for you to have this much! Things will never be fully equal, they may not even be close to equal. But let the cream rise to the crop, don't squash some so that others are brought up. Don't subsidize those who are not willing to do the work. Some are in very deep ruts, it's true. But don't tinker with the whole society just for that. No "fundamental transformation" is necessary. This is why no one here will ever agree. The values are different. You clearly don't value individual sovereignty as much as you value the ever elusive state of "equality." This is why no one will change their mind. Edit: I obviously support some rules, don't get the idea that I want nothing but cave men running around. You are jumping to a false conclusion. It's not like I'm advocating a society that forcibly takes from the rich and gives to the poor, at regular intervals, in an on-going and continuous fashion by some Big Brother, bureaucrat-laden government. I'm advocating a system wherein the actual socio-economic starting point for everyone maximizes their personal sovereignty by providing an equitable, solid base (I'm not inclined to put a number on it, but let's just say a middle-class position). That is the only way to actually ensure a kind of equality of opportunity that matters. I do not think everyone will "end even." But the object of life is not to have the highest wealth accumulation score. No one is worth a billion other people, even if those people are Somalis, rural Chinese, or whatever. Likewise, I am advocating a system that makes it difficult or impossible to accumulate as much wealth as the 300 richest Americans have accumulated. Despite what you think, the planet is finite, and there are a finite amount of resources. It's unethical and obscene that the richest people in this world have as much as they do, while the poorest people in this world start with nothing. Starting with nothing is equivalent to an economic, intellectual, and social maiming. And the butcher is the liberal regime. You are sacrificing billions of people to the meat grinder, now, and in the future, and your argument is, "well they aren't being productive enough, they just need to tighten their belts and work harder at FoxConn." On December 11 2013 15:12 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 14:42 Livelovedie wrote:On December 11 2013 11:34 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 07:31 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 05:50 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 03:24 KwarK wrote:
American exceptionalism. They're too free to be constrained by facts. Our current president marks a departure from the belief in American exceptionalism. He'll mince words, all right, but the point is clear. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
President Barack Obama I'm not the best guy to sell the principles of liberty and freedom (really, individual sovereignty) to a society increasingly disillusioned with them. I want opportunity for all, but hold the minority view of how to achieve this in this forum. The majority holds that some liberties and some freedoms specifically must be forfeited to an extent with the goal of achieving societal goods. The primary ones coming up here are an improvement in the plight of the poor, the environment, a sense of fairness, and a notion of equality. Simultaneously, big businesses are subject to distrust, and suppose levels of federal government and government bureaucrats to largely have trustworthy aims (subjected to analysis, I have no doubt a reasonable reader will find this to be true. See posts Walmart/Pharmaceutical Company evils followed by others governed by the generalized supposition that bureaucrats are not just throwing money at the problem.) The heralds of American Unexceptionalism have a firm grasp on government right now, if you ask me. Not a very popular government at all, either. Equality of opportunity is nothing but a fiction in a society with vast wealth inequality. As I said, forfeit freedoms in pursuit of a notion of equality. Because On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:On December 09 2013 14:04 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 12:29 jellyjello wrote:
[quote]
Oh FFS, there is always something or some sort of an excuse. If you think you are qualified but can't find a job for two freaking years, then maybe the problem is with you and not the system. Unless you're talking about seriously depressed regions, anyone who is a hard worker can get a job if they want one. Hell, people who are really good at whatever they do professionally will always find work one way or another. And I'm not talking about shit jobs at McDonald's or Walmart, either. Part of my job is to deal with people who have shit happen to them. Without exception, those who are legitimately hard workers and who aren't completely compromised (like some of my brain injured clients) have no problem finding work and getting hired. On the other hand, I also have clients who are lazy, and they, unsurprisingly, have trouble getting employment or staying employed. Things aren't so bad that determined people can't find work. Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. Seniors and On December 09 2013 15:04 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 12:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 12:40 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 12:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 11:51 Livelovedie wrote:
[quote]
If there is no international support then the US is not in any position of power to dictate that that needs to be the case. So if the US wants to buy things from Europe then that means they need to accept they won't get paid for IP. What does Europe have to do with the TPP? Regardless, I don't see how your argument makes sense. We pay countries for the things we buy from them. They don't deserve extras like free IP on top of it. Meant TPP, my apologies. You made it seem like the US has leverage to dictate the agreement, but I don't see how they do. So your ultimatum makes no sense. I don't think we can dictate an agreement, but we do have lots of leverage. We're a great customer, and they have to buy dollar assets anyways. IP is silly. Rent-seeking capitalists trying to propertize ideas. evil capitalists. You have a penchant for dismissing things out of hand and quickly too. I suppose you have your own theory about how to preserve a level of opportunity in society, or do you say that none should exist? Removing freedom from some can create a more free society in general. Unless you feel that freedom to be coerced is in fact freedom. The devil's in the details when you speak of a "more free society in general." I mean, let's appoint angels that will deem which of society need sacrifice their freedom for the whole. Otherwise, I'm more concerned that the ruling class will pick based on political considerations. (May I also suggest slightly tongue-in-cheek that every person here would stand at attention and say, "I am not the one that needs to sacrifice freedom") On December 11 2013 14:42 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 12:58 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 12:18 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 11:34 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 07:31 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 05:50 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 03:24 KwarK wrote:
American exceptionalism. They're too free to be constrained by facts. Our current president marks a departure from the belief in American exceptionalism. He'll mince words, all right, but the point is clear. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
President Barack Obama I'm not the best guy to sell the principles of liberty and freedom (really, individual sovereignty) to a society increasingly disillusioned with them. I want opportunity for all, but hold the minority view of how to achieve this in this forum. The majority holds that some liberties and some freedoms specifically must be forfeited to an extent with the goal of achieving societal goods. The primary ones coming up here are an improvement in the plight of the poor, the environment, a sense of fairness, and a notion of equality. Simultaneously, big businesses are subject to distrust, and suppose levels of federal government and government bureaucrats to largely have trustworthy aims (subjected to analysis, I have no doubt a reasonable reader will find this to be true. See posts Walmart/Pharmaceutical Company evils followed by others governed by the generalized supposition that bureaucrats are not just throwing money at the problem.) The heralds of American Unexceptionalism have a firm grasp on government right now, if you ask me. Not a very popular government at all, either. Equality of opportunity is nothing but a fiction in a society with vast wealth inequality. As I said, forfeit freedoms in pursuit of a notion of equality. Because On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:
[quote]
Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. Seniors and On December 09 2013 15:04 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 12:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 12:40 Livelovedie wrote:
[quote]
Meant TPP, my apologies. You made it seem like the US has leverage to dictate the agreement, but I don't see how they do. So your ultimatum makes no sense. I don't think we can dictate an agreement, but we do have lots of leverage. We're a great customer, and they have to buy dollar assets anyways. IP is silly. Rent-seeking capitalists trying to propertize ideas. evil capitalists. You have a penchant for dismissing things out of hand and quickly too. I suppose you have your own theory about how to preserve a level of opportunity in society, or do you say that none should exist? Dismissing you quickly has little to do with my own internal critical method does it? Are you saying something I've never heard before? Or do you want me to put words in your mouth and then shoot it down so you can scream "straw man" at me? I'm simply replying to your inane comment that you idolize "freedom" so long as "freedom" is defined as being stuck with whatever random lot you drew in the birth lottery. What an empty yarn you spin. Freedom for those born in poverty is hardly freedom at all. But god forbid everyone be given a base standard of living, because that would harm their delicate "will to succeed" and act as an anchor on "freedom." You have so much criticism for anything and everything about letting individuals pursue their separate interests. I expand on American exceptionalism and the ideas running contrary to it. You retort by embodying every stereotype of the everlasting critic. Who are these angels that will stand up to your ... but seniors
but evil capitalists
but inequality? As long as these are governments made up of humans to govern humans, I'll settle for less than utopia. And you'll settle for what, exactly? The days when you can no longer pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. On December 11 2013 12:31 IgnE wrote:
Let's do a thought experiment:
Let's assume everyone is born and raised with the strong, sensible work ethic of Danglars and xDaunt. Everyone avoids crime, graduates from high school (goes to college? not sure if you guys think everyone has to go to college to succeed or not), works hard, and shows up early to whatever job they can get (McDonalds or equivalent for the bottom 20%).
1) can everyone find full time employment?
2) can everyone find a fulfilling job?
3) can everyone eventually find financial security (how do you want to define this? house? family? debt?)
4) can every single person work their way up from mcdonalds to something like high-level management (i'm not really sure what you two aspire to do with your life or what you think is worthwhile, other than accumulating things and being free from taxes)?
5) will there be less inequality or will the floor of the bottom quintile somehow reach what we would consider "middle class" today?
I get the feeling that you two don't really understand that implicit in your system is the damnation of a large percentage of people to toil, poverty, and unhappiness, and that this is an always already condition of the system. What do you really think would happen if everyone took advantage of the (meagre) opportunities you both assume exist for every single person? The moral of the story is you can't trust the system. I'm sure you have in mind something that outperforms what you deem "meagre opportunities." I mean, even as you ignore that what was middle class luxuries yesterday are reachable by the bottom quintile today. I have nothing against freedom. I highly value personal sovereignty. I value it so highly that I want to maximize it for every individual by removing liberty-reducing factors like poverty and disadvantage. Yes, this comes at the cost of disproportionate, unearned, and unjust, wealth disparities that are largely a product of inherited advantages, luck, and/or systemic force multipliers. But your criticism is that I am only a critic. I have no answers for you. As Badiou would say: "better to do nothing than to contribute to the invention of formal ways of rendering visible that which Empire already recognizes as existent." If your best argument is that I don't have all the answers, then so be it. Your continued participation and advocacy for the current system sustains the immense systemic violence inherent in the current neoliberal, free-market capitalist world order. What do you expect of me, really? Either I have a roadmap to utopia, or I must be complicit in your violent regime? Surely, you must realize that being for "removing poverty and disadvantage" is like saying you're for apple pies and motherhood. It's your views on how this should be accomplished and by whom that will make or break your views on personal liberties. If you'll pardon me, but many presidents and political parties of all stripes and colors have said exactly what you say now. I'm against injustice and for freedom. It's their means of achieving this that's in question. The question is if utopia is unachievable (your chief gripe about equality of opportunity), and my preference is meager in this or impossible in that, then what structures would you erect to outperform what I have just described? Criticism is fine and dandy in my book, provided deep down that critic has thought through his own positions and believes them superior, and is furthermore willing to defend them. I can't go much farther in the other issues. You reject the proposed causes, and you deny your opponents any empathy with the poor (as has echoed from leftist demagogues from one generation to the next). Maybe I may side with Franklin, who wrote In fine, we have the most sensible Concern for the poor distressed Inhabitants of the Frontiers. We have taken every Step in our Power, consistent with the just Rights of the Freemen of Pennsylvania, for their Relief, and we have Reason to believe, that in the Midst of their Distresses they themselves do not wish us to go farther. Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety .Please link your sources from the United Kingdom Gallup-Heathways so we know this is not a poll conducted of UK Income Groups -- particularly when it divides up income groups in pounds As I said, sometimes doing nothing is the appropriate answer to a system of ongoing violence. A Bartlebian repudiation can have more effect than reactionary outbursts of irrational violence, especially when the direction out is not clear. But you believe in magic and fairy tales, while rejecting other solutions out of naked greed. The evidence of the last 30 years shows that the current system leads to more of the same. Worsening inequality. Lower socio-economic mobility. Decreasing freedom. One starting point would be providing a minimum income to people that would lower the floor and improve opportunities for the bottom quintile or quartile. Instead you say that that would disincentivize people from working at Arby's. You willingly throw away the brains of millions, if not billions of people, by having them spend their days doing menial tasks for pennies, because it's more efficient for the accumulation of capital (at least in the short term). Liberalism is a meatgrinder that chews up individual subjective experiences of life and spits out profit for the capitalist. What might happen if we truly offered equality of opportunity to as many people as possible by ridding them of the extreme stresses and strains of wage slavery, where people's labor is simply a commodity to be bought and sold for the lowest price possible? If you think this is the best there is, you lack imagination. As a side note, the American colonies in the 18th century were much more egalitarian than now. I know you love the sacred Founding Fathers but it's a bit ridiculous to take it seriously when they violently took land from the indigenous peoples here before them. It's nice to talk about freedom for the white man when you are plundering resources and turning land you found into your own property. Please tell me how circumstances back then, where you had a thousands miles of continent to steal to your west, are in any way applicable to now? But yes, I concede the indigenous folks weren't efficiently using their resources and land for the accumulation of capital.
I'm about to go to sleep, so I am not going to argue particulars with you. Moreover, I contend that you do advocate "a society that forcibly takes from the rich and gives to the poor, at regular intervals, in an on-going and continuous fashion by some Big Brother, bureaucrat-laden government.
The latter portion is simply a requirement of the former part. People will naturally acquire wealth and power, thus it is necessary for such an "ideal" society to regularly do these things and maintain equilibrium (most likely through their government, no?).
"The only type of opportunity that matters." Your view is that it simply isn't fair that some people start off better. It's best that some be brought down so everyone can start with 5k in the bank upon their 18th birthday, free education, and maybe even a house. This planet contains billions of people, and unless you keep everyone regular and the same, no one should be successful. You can't force that type of equality. If person A uses this opportunity and makes a fortune (but not "too much," whatever that means) and person B takes it and gambles it away, then I would expect person A to do better, for their children to do better, for their community to do better, etc. Your view forces a big fat "RESET" button for every new person while trying to split the (now limited) cash/assets among everyone (this is the limiting you fear, ironically enough). If you limited profits, you limit the will of a company/person to hire more and spread more wealth, as well as improve the quality of life. If Microsoft was limited to 1 billion in profits every year, than what is their incentive to innovate, to expand, to provide more jobs? They hit the cap and will be like "well, if we make more, we have it taken from us. We'll just sit on our hands until something changes." If you just put a cap on it (either officially having an $X amount or by raising taxes absurdly high), you kill incentive. No one will go to the heights, except to gain power they hope to use later, to influence those setting the rules (which is currently happening). You seem to expect everyone who works for something do it because they are passionate about it and care about the good of humanity. Oh, if only it were possible!
Some people just ARE harder workers, some just ARE more driven.
The object of life for most is not the have as much $$$ as possible. I agree. But for those who value such things, why do you get to shut them down? Why is it up to you to decide "obscene?" Variants of capitalism have rapidly decreased poverty across the entire world.
The problem with the progressive idea is that they are trying to change human nature. People are so radically different, and life is so complex, that you cannot organize this society you desire. There is too much to manage, and it is too prone to abuse, not by the greedy fat cats that you hate, but by the busybody, life-planning bureaucrats who thirst for power, in whatever form- monetary or otherwise.
Moreover, I don't want this type of society. I don't value ease and a level starting ground. life isn't a chess set, and how boring would it be if your life consisted of NOTHING outside the game? Only a few in the world like any one thing that much.
Your view sounds nice to you I'm sure, but it's not practicable. Maybe a small scale, but the more people you have, the more entropy you introduce.
As to your little note about the Founding fathers/framers- What about stealing Indian land was egalitarian? It certainly wasn't in the way you are advocating. I can admit this country has done some pretty bad things. But I don't see the relevance.
Sorry if I was kind of all over the place, trying to get this out before bed.
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Show nested quote +On December 11 2013 15:12 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 14:42 Livelovedie wrote:On December 11 2013 11:34 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 07:31 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 05:50 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 03:24 KwarK wrote:
American exceptionalism. They're too free to be constrained by facts. Our current president marks a departure from the belief in American exceptionalism. He'll mince words, all right, but the point is clear. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
President Barack Obama I'm not the best guy to sell the principles of liberty and freedom (really, individual sovereignty) to a society increasingly disillusioned with them. I want opportunity for all, but hold the minority view of how to achieve this in this forum. The majority holds that some liberties and some freedoms specifically must be forfeited to an extent with the goal of achieving societal goods. The primary ones coming up here are an improvement in the plight of the poor, the environment, a sense of fairness, and a notion of equality. Simultaneously, big businesses are subject to distrust, and suppose levels of federal government and government bureaucrats to largely have trustworthy aims (subjected to analysis, I have no doubt a reasonable reader will find this to be true. See posts Walmart/Pharmaceutical Company evils followed by others governed by the generalized supposition that bureaucrats are not just throwing money at the problem.) The heralds of American Unexceptionalism have a firm grasp on government right now, if you ask me. Not a very popular government at all, either. Equality of opportunity is nothing but a fiction in a society with vast wealth inequality. As I said, forfeit freedoms in pursuit of a notion of equality. Because On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:On December 09 2013 14:04 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 12:29 jellyjello wrote:On December 09 2013 07:41 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
An awful lot of the kind of jobs you're suggesting they get will give irregular part time hours that demand total availability (so if you need to pick kids up from school or whatever daily then you can't just work 8 hour evening shifts after that) and will hire on 16 or so hour contracts and then give extra hours as required. It's not as simple as you're suggesting, the jobs that are easy to pick up for the unskilled tend to take advantage of them because they know they can get away with doing all sorts of bullshit. I know from personal experience how shitty employers can be if they think you're replaceable and that you need the job. Oh FFS, there is always something or some sort of an excuse. If you think you are qualified but can't find a job for two freaking years, then maybe the problem is with you and not the system. Unless you're talking about seriously depressed regions, anyone who is a hard worker can get a job if they want one. Hell, people who are really good at whatever they do professionally will always find work one way or another. And I'm not talking about shit jobs at McDonald's or Walmart, either. Part of my job is to deal with people who have shit happen to them. Without exception, those who are legitimately hard workers and who aren't completely compromised (like some of my brain injured clients) have no problem finding work and getting hired. On the other hand, I also have clients who are lazy, and they, unsurprisingly, have trouble getting employment or staying employed. Things aren't so bad that determined people can't find work. Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. Seniors and On December 09 2013 15:04 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 12:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 12:40 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 12:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 11:51 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 11:24 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
At the end of the day if they want to sell things to the US they need to be willing to buy things in return, and that means willing to pay for IP as well. If there is no international support then the US is not in any position of power to dictate that that needs to be the case. So if the US wants to buy things from Europe then that means they need to accept they won't get paid for IP. What does Europe have to do with the TPP? Regardless, I don't see how your argument makes sense. We pay countries for the things we buy from them. They don't deserve extras like free IP on top of it. Meant TPP, my apologies. You made it seem like the US has leverage to dictate the agreement, but I don't see how they do. So your ultimatum makes no sense. I don't think we can dictate an agreement, but we do have lots of leverage. We're a great customer, and they have to buy dollar assets anyways. IP is silly. Rent-seeking capitalists trying to propertize ideas. evil capitalists. You have a penchant for dismissing things out of hand and quickly too. I suppose you have your own theory about how to preserve a level of opportunity in society, or do you say that none should exist? Removing freedom from some can create a more free society in general. Unless you feel that freedom to be coerced is in fact freedom. The devil's in the details when you speak of a "more free society in general." I mean, let's appoint angels that will deem which of society need sacrifice their freedom for the whole. Otherwise, I'm more concerned that the ruling class will pick based on political considerations. (May I also suggest slightly tongue-in-cheek that every person here would stand at attention and say, "I am not the one that needs to sacrifice freedom") On December 11 2013 14:42 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 12:58 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 12:18 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 11:34 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 07:31 IgnE wrote:On December 11 2013 05:50 Danglars wrote:On December 11 2013 03:24 KwarK wrote:
American exceptionalism. They're too free to be constrained by facts. Our current president marks a departure from the belief in American exceptionalism. He'll mince words, all right, but the point is clear. I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
President Barack Obama I'm not the best guy to sell the principles of liberty and freedom (really, individual sovereignty) to a society increasingly disillusioned with them. I want opportunity for all, but hold the minority view of how to achieve this in this forum. The majority holds that some liberties and some freedoms specifically must be forfeited to an extent with the goal of achieving societal goods. The primary ones coming up here are an improvement in the plight of the poor, the environment, a sense of fairness, and a notion of equality. Simultaneously, big businesses are subject to distrust, and suppose levels of federal government and government bureaucrats to largely have trustworthy aims (subjected to analysis, I have no doubt a reasonable reader will find this to be true. See posts Walmart/Pharmaceutical Company evils followed by others governed by the generalized supposition that bureaucrats are not just throwing money at the problem.) The heralds of American Unexceptionalism have a firm grasp on government right now, if you ask me. Not a very popular government at all, either. Equality of opportunity is nothing but a fiction in a society with vast wealth inequality. As I said, forfeit freedoms in pursuit of a notion of equality. Because On December 09 2013 15:08 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 14:37 xDaunt wrote:On December 09 2013 14:18 HunterX11 wrote:On December 09 2013 14:04 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
Unless you're talking about seriously depressed regions, anyone who is a hard worker can get a job if they want one. Hell, people who are really good at whatever they do professionally will always find work one way or another. And I'm not talking about shit jobs at McDonald's or Walmart, either. Part of my job is to deal with people who have shit happen to them. Without exception, those who are legitimately hard workers and who aren't completely compromised (like some of my brain injured clients) have no problem finding work and getting hired. On the other hand, I also have clients who are lazy, and they, unsurprisingly, have trouble getting employment or staying employed. Things aren't so bad that determined people can't find work. Are you saying then that increases in structural unemployment are caused by a mass increase in laziness? Even if they were, shouldn't we do something about that more than just telling people to get tougher? Who says that there has been an increase in structural unemployment since 2008 when the market turned? This report to Congress says that the current high rate of unemployment is predominantly cyclical. And no, I'm not saying that "laziness" is what resulted in people losing their jobs to begin with. What I am saying is that people who legitimately are good workers (and want to work) seem to have no trouble getting employed when they lose their jobs for reasons outside of their control. How many of you have actually had to hire a new employee or otherwise dealt with these issues from the perspective of the employer? It's a real pain in the ass. There are so many people out there who are just lousy workers. The good ones are really hard to find, because they all have jobs. It's fine for you to say that about professionals with "marketable" skills but when was the last time you were an aging senior who lost his job and pension trying to find some new employment? Or a young recent college grad trying to get experience and develop the expertise you say will find determined individuals a living wage? It's news to me that most people on UI for 90 weeks are established professionals with expertise who are just too lazy to get a new job. Seniors and On December 09 2013 15:04 IgnE wrote:On December 09 2013 12:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 09 2013 12:40 Livelovedie wrote:On December 09 2013 12:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
What does Europe have to do with the TPP? Regardless, I don't see how your argument makes sense. We pay countries for the things we buy from them. They don't deserve extras like free IP on top of it. Meant TPP, my apologies. You made it seem like the US has leverage to dictate the agreement, but I don't see how they do. So your ultimatum makes no sense. I don't think we can dictate an agreement, but we do have lots of leverage. We're a great customer, and they have to buy dollar assets anyways. IP is silly. Rent-seeking capitalists trying to propertize ideas. evil capitalists. You have a penchant for dismissing things out of hand and quickly too. I suppose you have your own theory about how to preserve a level of opportunity in society, or do you say that none should exist? Dismissing you quickly has little to do with my own internal critical method does it? Are you saying something I've never heard before? Or do you want me to put words in your mouth and then shoot it down so you can scream "straw man" at me? I'm simply replying to your inane comment that you idolize "freedom" so long as "freedom" is defined as being stuck with whatever random lot you drew in the birth lottery. What an empty yarn you spin. Freedom for those born in poverty is hardly freedom at all. But god forbid everyone be given a base standard of living, because that would harm their delicate "will to succeed" and act as an anchor on "freedom." You have so much criticism for anything and everything about letting individuals pursue their separate interests. I expand on American exceptionalism and the ideas running contrary to it. You retort by embodying every stereotype of the everlasting critic. Who are these angels that will stand up to your ... but seniors
but evil capitalists
but inequality? As long as these are governments made up of humans to govern humans, I'll settle for less than utopia. And you'll settle for what, exactly? The days when you can no longer pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. On December 11 2013 12:31 IgnE wrote:
Let's do a thought experiment:
Let's assume everyone is born and raised with the strong, sensible work ethic of Danglars and xDaunt. Everyone avoids crime, graduates from high school (goes to college? not sure if you guys think everyone has to go to college to succeed or not), works hard, and shows up early to whatever job they can get (McDonalds or equivalent for the bottom 20%).
1) can everyone find full time employment?
2) can everyone find a fulfilling job?
3) can everyone eventually find financial security (how do you want to define this? house? family? debt?)
4) can every single person work their way up from mcdonalds to something like high-level management (i'm not really sure what you two aspire to do with your life or what you think is worthwhile, other than accumulating things and being free from taxes)?
5) will there be less inequality or will the floor of the bottom quintile somehow reach what we would consider "middle class" today?
I get the feeling that you two don't really understand that implicit in your system is the damnation of a large percentage of people to toil, poverty, and unhappiness, and that this is an always already condition of the system. What do you really think would happen if everyone took advantage of the (meagre) opportunities you both assume exist for every single person? The moral of the story is you can't trust the system. I'm sure you have in mind something that outperforms what you deem "meagre opportunities." I mean, even as you ignore that what was middle class luxuries yesterday are reachable by the bottom quintile today. I have nothing against freedom. I highly value personal sovereignty. I value it so highly that I want to maximize it for every individual by removing liberty-reducing factors like poverty and disadvantage. Yes, this comes at the cost of disproportionate, unearned, and unjust, wealth disparities that are largely a product of inherited advantages, luck, and/or systemic force multipliers. But your criticism is that I am only a critic. I have no answers for you. As Badiou would say: "better to do nothing than to contribute to the invention of formal ways of rendering visible that which Empire already recognizes as existent." If your best argument is that I don't have all the answers, then so be it. Your continued participation and advocacy for the current system sustains the immense systemic violence inherent in the current neoliberal, free-market capitalist world order. What do you expect of me, really? Either I have a roadmap to utopia, or I must be complicit in your violent regime? Surely, you must realize that being for "removing poverty and disadvantage" is like saying you're for apple pies and motherhood. It's your views on how this should be accomplished and by whom that will make or break your views on personal liberties. If you'll pardon me, but many presidents and political parties of all stripes and colors have said exactly what you say now. I'm against injustice and for freedom. It's their means of achieving this that's in question. The question is if utopia is unachievable (your chief gripe about equality of opportunity), and my preference is meager in this or impossible in that, then what structures would you erect to outperform what I have just described? Criticism is fine and dandy in my book, provided deep down that critic has thought through his own positions and believes them superior, and is furthermore willing to defend them. I can't go much farther in the other issues. You reject the proposed causes, and you deny your opponents any empathy with the poor (as has echoed from leftist demagogues from one generation to the next). Maybe I may side with Franklin, who wrote In fine, we have the most sensible Concern for the poor distressed Inhabitants of the Frontiers. We have taken every Step in our Power, consistent with the just Rights of the Freemen of Pennsylvania, for their Relief, and we have Reason to believe, that in the Midst of their Distresses they themselves do not wish us to go farther. Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety .Please link your sources from the United Kingdom Gallup-Heathways so we know this is not a poll conducted of UK Income Groups -- particularly when it divides up income groups in pounds As I said, sometimes doing nothing is the appropriate answer to a system of ongoing violence. A Bartlebian repudiation can have more effect than reactionary outbursts of irrational violence, especially when the direction out is not clear. But you believe in magic and fairy tales, while rejecting other solutions out of naked greed. The evidence of the last 30 years shows that the current system leads to more of the same. Worsening inequality. Lower socio-economic mobility. Decreasing freedom. One starting point would be providing a minimum income to people that would lower the floor and improve opportunities for the bottom quintile or quartile. Instead you say that that would disincentivize people from working at Arby's. You willingly throw away the brains of millions, if not billions of people, by having them spend their days doing menial tasks for pennies, because it's more efficient for the accumulation of capital (at least in the short term). Liberalism is a meatgrinder that chews up individual subjective experiences of life and spits out profit for the capitalist. What might happen if we truly offered equality of opportunity to as many people as possible by ridding them of the extreme stresses and strains of wage slavery, where people's labor is simply a commodity to be bought and sold for the lowest price possible? If you think this is the best there is, you lack imagination. As a side note, the American colonies in the 18th century were much more egalitarian than now. I know you love the sacred Founding Fathers but it's a bit ridiculous to take it seriously when they violently took land from the indigenous peoples here before them. It's nice to talk about freedom for the white man when you are plundering resources and turning land you found into your own property. Please tell me how circumstances back then, where you had a thousands miles of continent to steal to your west, are in any way applicable to now? But yes, I concede the indigenous folks weren't efficiently using their resources and land for the accumulation of capital. fairy tale system meatgrinder plunder system, we have a minimum income to everyone. How's this different in your view from the minimum wage, or is this a minimum income whether or not you work? I'm confused. I mean, we already have this in the society your criticize. Yet, that's the starting point for your brave new foray into a more egalitarian society.
Okay, continue on. You have to address our miserable lack of opportunities, apathy towards seniors, mobility from bottom quintile to middle three for starters. I don't want to go all crazy putting words in your mouth on these topics too.
It's also pretty nice that all the greedy things of history can be laid at the feed of the system of governance. By God, if those settlers don't buck every period trend the second they set things up, we might as well throw the whole lot out! I think you've demonstrated at least a familiarity of the time, so you can go a tiny bit further understanding the import of the Franklin quote I used. It particularly concerns your previous tack that us conservatives are devoid of empathy.
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A bit late to the party... Here is where I am politically according to that funny quiz. Even though some answers were rather unsatisfactory.
Socialist : 76%
Green Party : 74%
Democrats : 71%
Libertarians : 53% (foreign policy, domestic and immigration)
Republicans : 19% (no major issues - who would have thought)
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This John Wayne video is so dumb.
"If you give 1 dollars to every bastards in a room, and come one year later, one of the bastards will have most of the money..." YES AND THAT S WHY THE MARKET CAN T WORK WITHOUT THE STATE.
Just don't leave the room and make sure the wealth is equally distributed.
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WASHINGTON -- More than two months after Obamacare's ugly debut, the number of Americans using the system is starting to grow: Nearly 1.2 million people are on track to have health coverage in place next year from the law's health insurance exchanges, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday.
From Oct. 1 through Nov. 30, almost 365,000 people enrolled into private health insurance via the federal and state marketplaces and more than 803,000 were deemed eligible for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program, according to the department.
The federally run exchanges in more than 30 states accounted for 137,000 of the enrollments in private coverage, and the remaining states signed up 227,000. About 1.9 million more people had been determined eligible for coverage through the marketplaces, but hadn't yet chosen a health plan. The new data don't include an apparent flurry of enrollments in the early days of December.
HealthCare.gov, the federal portal to health coverage in more than 30 states, still has problems, but appears to doing what it's supposed to do: enabling consumers to do shop and sign up for health benefits for next year.
Source
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Whatever thoughts Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) had of fending off a teaparty challenger in the primary for the 2014 Senate race just went out the window. http://www.alexander.senate.gov/public/
“I was just informed by the United States Senate legal counsel’s office that law enforcement agents are conducting a search of the personal residence of Ryan Loskarn, the chief of staff of my Washington, D.C., office regarding allegations involving child pornography,” Alexander said in a statement posted to his website. “I am stunned, surprised and disappointed by what I have learned. Based on this information, I immediately placed Mr. Loskarn on administrative leave without pay. The office is fully cooperating with the investigation.”
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Damn, Igne. Instead of posting those nigh-incomprehensible walls of text, you should just come out of the closet and just advocate global communism. I don't even know if you're fully aware of what you're arguing.
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On December 12 2013 02:23 RCMDVA wrote:Whatever thoughts Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) had of fending off a teaparty challenger in the primary for the 2014 Senate race just went out the window. http://www.alexander.senate.gov/public/Show nested quote +“I was just informed by the United States Senate legal counsel’s office that law enforcement agents are conducting a search of the personal residence of Ryan Loskarn, the chief of staff of my Washington, D.C., office regarding allegations involving child pornography,” Alexander said in a statement posted to his website. “I am stunned, surprised and disappointed by what I have learned. Based on this information, I immediately placed Mr. Loskarn on administrative leave without pay. The office is fully cooperating with the investigation.”
Why is he responsible for that? I'm sure his staff member took every precaution to hide the child pornography from his employer...
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On December 12 2013 02:32 xDaunt wrote:
Damn, Igne. Instead of posting those nigh-incomprehensible walls of text, you should just come out of the closet and just advocate global communism. I don't even know if you're fully aware of what you're arguing.
You're still the best one when it comes to voluntary deafness.
As Philippe Noiret brilliantly said in Coup de torchon "Ce qui est bien avec lui, c'est qu'on est jamais déçu".
And while we're at relevant movies, you guys should all go watch Heaven's Gate. Let him who has ears hear.
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On December 12 2013 02:51 corumjhaelen wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2013 02:32 xDaunt wrote:
Damn, Igne. Instead of posting those nigh-incomprehensible walls of text, you should just come out of the closet and just advocate global communism. I don't even know if you're fully aware of what you're arguing.
You're still the best one when it comes to voluntary deafness. As Philippe Noiret brilliantly said in Coup de torchon "Ce qui est bien avec lui, c'est qu'on est jamais déçu". And while we're at relevant movies, you guys should all go watch Heaven's Gate. Let him who has ears hear.
Can't help myself:
![[image loading]](http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1268/4696782504_a99e29fd57_z.jpg)
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On December 12 2013 02:44 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2013 02:23 RCMDVA wrote:Whatever thoughts Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) had of fending off a teaparty challenger in the primary for the 2014 Senate race just went out the window. http://www.alexander.senate.gov/public/“I was just informed by the United States Senate legal counsel’s office that law enforcement agents are conducting a search of the personal residence of Ryan Loskarn, the chief of staff of my Washington, D.C., office regarding allegations involving child pornography,” Alexander said in a statement posted to his website. “I am stunned, surprised and disappointed by what I have learned. Based on this information, I immediately placed Mr. Loskarn on administrative leave without pay. The office is fully cooperating with the investigation.”
Why is he responsible for that? I'm sure his staff member took every precaution to hide the child pornography from his employer...
That's not just a "staff member". It's the $169,000 a year Chief of Staff. It's the #2 guy in the office right behind Lamar Alexander himself. And it's the guy who's probably doing all the real work in the office. Responsibility might matter in a legal sense. But this is politics. It wouldn't take a political genius to be able to draw comparisons to Paterno-Sandusky. (which is was orders of magnitude worse, but if it can stick, it can stick).
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On December 12 2013 03:11 RCMDVA wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2013 02:44 Acrofales wrote:On December 12 2013 02:23 RCMDVA wrote:Whatever thoughts Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) had of fending off a teaparty challenger in the primary for the 2014 Senate race just went out the window. http://www.alexander.senate.gov/public/“I was just informed by the United States Senate legal counsel’s office that law enforcement agents are conducting a search of the personal residence of Ryan Loskarn, the chief of staff of my Washington, D.C., office regarding allegations involving child pornography,” Alexander said in a statement posted to his website. “I am stunned, surprised and disappointed by what I have learned. Based on this information, I immediately placed Mr. Loskarn on administrative leave without pay. The office is fully cooperating with the investigation.”
Why is he responsible for that? I'm sure his staff member took every precaution to hide the child pornography from his employer... That's not just a "staff member". It's the $169,000 a year Chief of Staff. It's the #2 guy in the office right behind Lamar Alexander himself. And it's the guy who's probably doing all the real work in the office. Resposiblity might matter in a legal sense. But this is politics. It wouldn't take a political genius to be able to draw comparisons to Paterno-Sandusky. (which is was orders of magnitued worse, but if it can stick, it can stick).
I dunno. I can also see it backfiring miserably on anybody trying to take advantage of this by running a smear campaign. Any small business owner or independent contractor can relate to him. If you can prove negligence in vetting him, or somehow being complicit in the whole thing, then sure, but otherwise...
Also, I'm not sure anybody wants to be the first to bring up pedophiles in a political campaign... ever.
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EPT
