Election 2012 Darkness Descends on America Part One

Self-loathing and pride are diametrically opposed attributes.

Go with the "proud" and throw in a "misguided":

A proud, guilty white Liberal who is misguidedly focused on race and race-baiting as a means of personal reparation.

I actually meant what I said. His self-loathing of his "white" heritage drives him to the extreme end of the affirmative action polity and manner of thought and of that he is extraordinarily proud of his well-honed and developed ability to find racism in each and every thread and poster not consistently with the, as Amicus would put it, the subjective consensus.

But I do appreciate that you put some time and thought into your critique.
 
~~~

Well said, Gump, well said...I would like to see an essay on just that last bit about the state making the perfect husband...I understand and agree, but I think the little ladies might need some help...

smiles...

thanks

amicus

There was also the more subtle aspect of taking a kick to the collectivists' hornet's nest to see what I could stir up in the way of pure emotive, and reflexive, hate.


;) ;)
 
Amicus post is the typical blather, and it is such a run of literary diarrhea that the only thing you can do is use massive amounts of bleach and paper towels, very hard to give retorts to something all over the place.

If you look at demographics, you will realize something about the presidential election, that the angry people Amicus claims are 'real Americans" are primarily white, older voters from the south and Farm belt, and men, mostly from that region as well.

I loved how he clams that the free market produced jobs and houses galore, that socialized countries cannot do. Germany is a social democratic country, and it is one of the strongest economies in the world, they have national health care, and they are often seen as a model of a modern state run well. Canada has national health care, and their people are healthier then in the US, and their economy for the most part is in better shape then ours..and need I say, our economy was taken down by "Capitalists", we were told the people in the banking and financial sector knew what they were doing, that as Ayn Rand would tell you (or her disciple, Allen Greenspan), that they act rationally, and they laid an egg that stank up the stratosphere and is still crippling us.

More importantly, people like Amicus love to talk about how capitalism and free markets made the milk and honey flow, that the 1950's were so great because of laissez faire capitalism, and that is a load of shit. For one thing, the prosperity of the 1950's in no small part was thanks to the government, the GI Bill and VA mortgages meant that for the first time, millions of millions of people could go to college or trade school and improve their lot in life (before WWII, going to college was a luxury that relatively few could afford, less then 10% of the population had a college degree). Houses likewise were out of range of many people in the working and middle class, VA mortgages made that happen as well. The building of the interstate highway system and spending on research, thanks to the cold war, led to the later tech boom, most high tech things we take for granted, the transistor, the integrated circuit, you name it, were paid for by government spending. Not to mention that thanks to government recognition, unions helped people move into the middle class, unionized Blue collar workers for the first time in history could expect living wages, that would allow them to have a house and such, and an education for their kids, including college. He also leaves out, of course, because it is hard to claim otherwise, that many of the benefits we take for granted like health insurance, 8 hour work day, 5 day workweek, vacation and sick time, workers compensation and disability insurance, came out of collective bargaining, not from the goodness of GM 's heart (hint, they don't have one, despite what Mitt ROmney said)

More importantly, it leaves out that for the 1950s, the US had no competition, we were the only country left standing, after the devastation of WWII, so workers could demand and get decent wages as well, easy to have a boom when there is no competition.

What we have been seeing is the same capitalism at work, only this time the conservatives can't admit that. They love to talk about high taxes, regulation as what costs jobs, but in reality, it is what it always has, cheap labor. Jobs moved from the woolen mills up north down south to take advantage of a third world labor market (no unions, crooked politicians, no regulation, no environmental markets= dirt cheap labor and looking the other way at abuses). Well, guess what, it happened again, only now it is China, India, Vietnam, Malaysia et all. Republicans can yell until they are blue in the face, but the typical worker overseas makes 50c an hour, working 12 hour days, 6 or 7 days a week, no benefits, no time off, nothing, I heard one drawling idiot rep from down south saying how Chinese workers made a 'living wage' and how it was that american workers didn't want to work any more (hopefully he will get out of his nice,, cushy job and find out reality out there).

What is even more funny is that people like Amicus are the world's biggest hypocrites, because they live off the government, but claim it is others. Those solid fsrmers, who get 10's of billions subsidies and crop insurance or the 30 billion we spend subsidizing ethanol? The block grants and other transfers from the federal government, without which they couldnt' afford to do squat (one little fact: government spending accounts for about 9% of all education spending; in South Carolina and much of the south, it is about 25% federal, my state, about 2%). The 'red states', all these hardy individuals who get nothing from the federal government according to them, average almost 2 bucks back from Uncle Sam for every buck they send in my area? 65c......

Want an even better one? If Obama had half a brain, he would propose selling off all federally run power plants like the TVA and Washington Power authority to private power companies..wanns watch Mitch Mconnel turn red in the face? If it weren't for the TVA, the whole 'economic miracle ' down in the district with the auto firms probably would never have happened, under federal law those plants and much of that region gets power at the cost of production, which is a major federal subsidy, same with areas in Washington state and oregon (often represented by tea party types, go figure).

Then we have the old farts, who hold up their pathetic signs saying "no socialized medicine" and on the other side holding up "government, hands off my medicare" and bitch about freezes in SS COLA payments, while seeing that few other people are getting raises these days, and claiming that if we just cut welfare to those people, we could balance the budget.

notice another interesting one? Mitt Romney, despite what the military themselves say, wanted to increase defense spending (already at 700+ billion a year, more then the rest of the world combined).....want to know a dirty little secret? Has nothing to do with national security, and everything to do with politics. The military is a big, big booster to the economy in red states, especially down south and in the midwest, and a large portion of the defense bill is spending on things the military thinks we don't need. Military asks for 10 transports? They get 20, thanks to congressmen in the districts that build it. We are building large scale weapons systems for a war not likely to happen...some estimates of defense spending estimate that as much as 50% of the defense budget is political pork, and look at where those plants are..you got it, tea party/GOP base territory. We have some ridiculous number of bases in this country, that were built to house and train a standing army and so forth of many millions, today the military is a fraction of what it was, but the bases remain. Why? Cause in many places, those bases are the economic lifeblood of the area, without it, they would be poorer then poor. They closed Fort Monmouth in NJ, meanwhile, and it is being turned partially into a park, and part of it is becoming new housing and new businesses, economically losing the base is causing the economy to grow; do that in Biloxi, Mississippi and all you would see is a ghost town.

Put it this way, claiming the only people who vote for Obama are people dependent on the government is bogus. The whole northeast, that in general gets back a lot less from the feds then we pay, went for Obama, and even in my county, where the GOP could count on getting 80% of the vote, Romney got a little over half the voters, and most of those who voter for him were older white males......

Your type are grasping at straws, trying to promote an ideology that will soon be as dead as you are, once the older generations die out that ayn rand foolishness will be gone, because you have to be pretty bloody blind, uneducated and stupid to think it ever had any basis in reality. The relationship between government, the people and business is quite complicated, and claims that business alone can do everything or necessarily the right thing, is ludicrous. We had two major economic disasters in this century, both of them promulgated by people who claimed business knew best, that government should get out of the way.

The glaring fallacy in your critique is that common-made error of conflating a small culturally-united nation with that of a huge polyglot of peoples and competing cultures. In fact, since 1880, Socialist Germany has already run the cycle once, having already had the Socialist experiment end in tyranny once.

The other facet is the idea that they have a strong economy, which compared to those around them, they do, but they also enjoy a lower standard of living and a severe limitation on actual progress, they are contented with doing the known a little bit better than anyone else, but of most all the paradigm-changing inventions, you find them coming out of an evil place that is not yet fully Socialized which means its people still have a small amount of independence, choice and the inclination that they might fairly rise above the level of their fellow citizens without being punished over the effort.
 
~~~

First off, you can not base a statement on a poll, as you stated in your opening.

However, I do appreciate the time and effort you put into this piece even though you are totally wrong about almost everythng and exagerrated the rest.

I would and have, happily discuss or debate in a pleasant mannered atmosphere, but most of the GB people do not perform that way.

I don't know where you got your inormatin about pnp and npn transistors but it was private enterprise, not governemtn that made the transition from vacuum tubes to transistors and solid state electronics.

Your CCC and WPA, instead of making matters better, made them worse, the depression continued right up until december 7, 1941 when Pearl Harbor was bombed...the war economy finally put people to work. Unemployment in 1939-40 remained as high as it was from '32 to on, following the government caused stock market crash. CCC having men dig holes and fill them in again...as work..

Had you mentioned a few classical economists from Austrian school, I would give your opinions, and that is all they are, on free market mechanics, a bit more weight.

Almost every excuse you gave to criticize the free market comes from the Keynesian school of tinkering and meddling in the market which has always led to diaster and poor performance.

The recent financial and housing crisis is a direct result of government interventing in the mortgage industry as Uncle Sam wanted poor and minortiy buyers to get into the market so they created sub par loans which, just as predicted, failed and were not paid back.

Financial institutions tried to cover the government caused losses by 'bundling' mortgages in all kids of creative ways to counter government edicts concerning the banks and the market.

Labor uniions destroyed the automobile industry in the rust belt,just as it did in the textile industry and electronics. With such high labor costs, American products could not compete on the open market, thus the rush to find cheaper labor overseas.

You may hate Walmart, but it serves the vast majority of buyers with limited budgets who cannot afford union made, high price producs.

Greenspan got blind sided by government agencies and bureaus that wanted no part of deregulation and thus countered his every move. Secondly, the market does not operate in a vacuum, one part of the finacial market cannot be deregulated without the entire sector and those sectors dependent upon it, are deregulated at the same time.

There are no monopolies in a free market if property laws and rights are protected. The crux of the matter is not greedy businesses and corporations, but corrupt public officials, judges and courts, who, like in the middle east, demand, baksheesh, or bribes for business and corportations to function. In addition the rapid increase of license fees, rules and regulations, especially since the sixties and the environmentalists that saddled industry with tremondous costs, destroyed the timber and mining industry, stopped the constructin of electric power plants and all exploration and development of petroleum products.

Darepa, the internet, began at Stanford University, not under a government grant. Yor are clever enough to realize that government creates nothing, but can steal from some and give to others and come up with the IPCC and the global warming hoax of bought and paid for scientists and researchers.

Government woprkers are people just like everyone else, no better than people in business and industry and even less dependable as they are forbidden to use their intellect and forced to functin according the instructions in the books they must follow.

The WPA and the Rural Electification Program, both were and are abject failures in the market place, requiring subsidies from government, money stolen from those profitable utilities and given to those that do no make a profit, to continue in business. They also require union wages be paid which drives the cost of the product even highter making them less and less profitable.

Your Keynsian mixed market economy simply does not work even on paper. and, if you truly studied ecomomics in college and comprehend the economic models they teach by, you kknow that the end result is higher cost, and lower quality.

We could exchange anecdotes about the market place for days and never agree, been there done that with some of the best...not here, of course.

So, I usually set aside the statistical fight and move to the moral aspects of the market place, free or forced....ah, you erred early on, it is not a 'demand' market, but a 'command' market you intended to refer to/ A command market is a controlled market as in Fascism or National Socialism or Communism, all birds of the same feather, jsut different flavors.

A free market can only exist in a nation that guantees the freedom of the people and the right to own and dispose of property as the indivudal or the association of individuals,, corporations, see fit.

It must also be a country of laws, where contract law is upheld as well as property rights and intellectual rights, none of which exist in a command market.

The moral imperative for a free market is a free people. Even the tinkering Keynesian concepts begin to limit freedom to act in the market place and as such, change the market for the worse, not the better.

If your history includes a study of the National bank system as it developed you might recall the battle that went on before and during a Presidential election in which the entire banking system was shut down.

The true difficulty in the financial system is rooted in the fiat money that replaced the gold standard and a precious metal monetary system.

I understand and criticize the 'bean counters' that are necessary to wade through the thousands of laws and reguluations before business can be conducted. That maze also adds cost to the final product and the public pays more.

There are some inventrions and discoveries funded by government, but not the ones you point out. Those that produced military weapons and technology in secret and confidence, keeping the market out of the loop, are considered essential to the protectin of the natin and that is authorzed by the Constitution.

Your fiddling with the market, even though you believe it works, is not authorized, in fact is forbidden by our basic laws.

I am pleased to carry on a converstatin at any level you wish on any subject you choose, but this is way over the heads of the pornsters on this board and not worth my time or effort.

It is the obscene philosophy of socialism, parading as liberalism that I detest and will fight every inch of the way.

Thank you for a mannered response...

I remain...


amicus

As Hülsmann pointed out in his biography of Mises journey from Socialist Economist to Praxeology (The Last Knight of Liberalism), there was a conceit in Germany, very strong in Vienna, that because of all the technological advances that their generation enjoyed, it followed that their society had evolved and with that evolution came the abrogation of basic human nature. This led to thinking sophism such as, government spending is equal to private sector spending and this led to a large, intrusive government workforce, and that was just the beginning of the pattern...

;) ;)

"We know that the number of government jobs has been increasing steadily, and that the number of applicants is increasing still more rapidly than the number of jobs. … Is this scourge about to come to an end? How can we believe it, when we see that public opinion itself wants to have everything done by that fictitious being, the state, which signifies a collection of salaried bureaucrats? … Very soon there will be two or three of these bureaucrats around every Frenchman, one to prevent him from working too much, another to give him an education, a third to furnish him credit, a fourth to interfere with his business transactions, etc., etc. Where will we be led by the illusion that impels us to believe that the state is a person who has an inexhaustible fortune independent of ours?
Frédéric Bastiat
 
Oh, you mean the country with privatized social security, charter schools, no estate tax and no minimum wage?

~~~

And jsut what country might that be, Liar, that one might confirm your assertions?

amicus
 
LOL - yeah, like that makes sense.



Butthurt...



More butthurt.

I don't think any one of these geezers has ever attempted to counter an argument I've made. All they can do is troll, flame, troll. Keep playing in the minor leagues, boys. :cool:

~~~

Browsing back a few pages shows that you have Posted nothing?

You thnk that is clever, saying no one countered your argument when you never offered one?

Or don't you know how to scan back?

dipshit

amicus
 
~~~

You are so sorry assed fucking stupid it amazes me...in socialist engoland the free enterprise system has any power at all?

It is all in your fucking community planners, rules and regulations, let the market system work and you will have affordable housing...keep it as it is and only the bureaucrats profit...

double dumb ass...


amicus
It's the market that has priced houses out of the reach of the working classes. It's the market's fuck up that made mortgages pretty much impossible to get for the last few years. You remind me of Ishtard, he always looks like a fucking idiot when he tries to pontificate on matters British, too.
 
It's the market that has priced houses out of the reach of the working classes. It's the market's fuck up that made mortgages pretty much impossible to get for the last few years. You remind me of Ishtard, he always looks like a fucking idiot when he tries to pontificate on matters British, too.

amicus manages to look like a fucking idiot when he pontificates about anything. it's a skill.
 
"It's the market that has priced houses out of the reach of the working classes. It's the market's fuck up that made mortgages pretty much impossible to get for the last few years. You remind me of Ishtard, he always looks like a fucking idiot when he tries to pontificate on matters British, too."

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

You and most of post FDR America have never known a market. What you have known in Interventionalism, a brand of Socialism in which the markets are thwarted by good in intention and regulated into maintenance and decay rather than growth which creates artificial shortage and rising prices. In short, it has nothing to do with market forces, but government pressures.

It is popular today to blame capitalism for everything that displeases. Indeed, who is still aware of what he would have to forego if there were no "capitalism?" When great dreams do not come true, capitalism is charged immediately. This may be a proper procedure for party politics, but in Scientific discussion, it should be avoided.
Ludwig von Mises
A Critique of Interventionalism (1929)
 
"It's the market that has priced houses out of the reach of the working classes. It's the market's fuck up that made mortgages pretty much impossible to get for the last few years. You remind me of Ishtard, he always looks like a fucking idiot when he tries to pontificate on matters British, too."

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

You and most of post FDR America have never known a market. What you have known in Interventionalism, a brand of Socialism in which the markets are thwarted by good in intention and regulated into maintenance and decay rather than growth which creates artificial shortage and rising prices. In short, it has nothing to do with market forces, but government pressures.

It is popular today to blame capitalism for everything that displeases. Indeed, who is still aware of what he would have to forego if there were no "capitalism?" When great dreams do not come true, capitalism is charged immediately. This may be a proper procedure for party politics, but in Scientific discussion, it should be avoided.
Ludwig von Mises
A Critique of Interventionalism (1929)

So it was too much regulation that led to the financial crash? Do fuck off.
 
~~~

Browsing back a few pages shows that you have Posted nothing?

You thnk that is clever, saying no one countered your argument when you never offered one?

Or don't you know how to scan back?

dipshit

amicus

why did you sign your post twice?
 
So it was too much regulation that led to the financial crash? Do fuck off.

~~~

Yes, to much regulation stifles anything....regulate you to chains hand and foot and in a padded cell...you be regulated and unable to do much...quite the same with any enterprise...

even you could see that if you opened ur peepers...

amicus
 
~~~

And jsut what country might that be, Liar, that one might confirm your assertions?

amicus
First you run your mouth about the "diseased little country" I live in, and now you don't even know which country that is?

May I humbly suggest you shut the fuck up about things you know nothing about?


Anyway, to humor you:
http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2005/0905miller.html
http://www.aarp.org/work/social-security/info-2005/private_accounts_in_sweden_1.html
http://www.economist.com/node/11535645
http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/emire/SWEDEN/ANCHOR-MINIMIL-Ouml-N-SE.htm
 
~~~

Yes, to much regulation stifles anything....regulate you to chains hand and foot and in a padded cell...you be regulated and unable to do much...quite the same with any enterprise...

even you could see that if you opened ur peepers...

amicus

Which regulation led to the casino banking that fucked the world economic system?
 
Which regulation led to the casino banking that fucked the world economic system?
Apparently it was all the legal restrictions against traditional gambling that led to the financial world creating new and riskier ways to gamble.
 
~~~

Yes, to much regulation stifles anything....regulate you to chains hand and foot and in a padded cell...you be regulated and unable to do much...quite the same with any enterprise...

even you could see that if you opened ur peepers...

amicus

Amicus how is your poorly written book selling? What's it called Dickless Wonder: A Story of Idiocy, an Autobiography?

You literally don't even understand the basics of macroeconomics. Perhaps you should try going back to 10th grade.
 
Any advocate of socialistic measures is looked upon as the friend of the Good, the Noble, and the Moral, as a disinterested pioneer of necessary reforms, in short, as a man who unselfishly serves his own people and all humanity, and above all as a zealous and courageous seeker after truth. But let anyone measure Socialism by the standards of scientific reasoning, and he at once becomes a champion of the evil principle, a mercenary serving the egotistical interests of a class, a menace to the welfare of the community, an ignoramus outside the pale. For the most curious thing about this way of thinking is that it regards the question of whether Socialism or Capitalism will better serve the public welfare, as settled in advance -- to the effect, naturally, that Socialism is considered good and Capitalism as evil -- whereas in fact of course only by a scientific inquiry could the matter be decided. The results of economic investigations are met, not with arguments, but with …"moral pathos" …and on which Socialists and (Statists) always fall back, because they find no answer to the criticism to which science subjects their doctrines.
Ludwig von Mises

The technique of these parties is based on the division of society into producers and consumers. They are also wont to make use of the usual hypostasis of the state in questions of fiscal policy that enables them to advocate new expenditures to be paid out of the public treasury without any particular concern on their part over how such expenses are to be defrayed, and at the same time to complain about the heavy burden of taxes.
The other basic defect of these parties is that the demands they raise for each particular group are limitless. There is, in their eyes, only one limit to the quantity to be demanded: the resistance put up by the other side. This is entirely keeping with their character as parties striving for privileges on behalf of special interests. Yet parties that follow no definite program, but come into conflict in the pursuit of unlimited desires for privileges on behalf of some and for legal disabilities for others, must bring about the destruction of every political system.

Ludwig von Mises

But it is precisely in this form that the principle of equality [as verses Equality before the law] is most acclaimed by those who expect to gain more than they would lose under an equal distribution of goods. Here is a fertile field for the demagogue. Whoever stirs up the resentment of the poor against the rich can count on securing a large audience. Democracy creates the most favorable preliminary conditions for the development of this spirit, which is always and everywhere present, though concealed. So far all democratic states have foundered on this point. The democracy of our own time is hastening towards that same end.
Ludwig von Mises

But the notion that a capitalist form of government can prevent people from hurting themselves by controlling their consumption is false. The idea of government as a paternal authority, as a guardian for everybody, is the idea of those who favor socialism.

And, as you know, for many hundreds of years governments and authorities believed that this really was their duty. Nor did this happen in far distant ages only; not long ago, there was a government in Germany that considered it a governmental duty to distinguish between good and bad paintings — which of course meant good and bad from the point of view of a man who, in his youth, had failed the entrance examination at the Academy of Art in Vienna; good and bad from the point of view of a picture-postcard painter, Adolf Hitler. And it became illegal for people to utter other views about art and paintings than his, the Supreme Führer's.

Ludwig Elder von Mises
 
Back
Top