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RichardAwesome wrote:MarioMario wrote:RichardAwesome wrote:MarioMario wrote:RichardAwesome wrote:MarioMario wrote:If you want to discuss "the source," it should be obvious that there would be no need for subprime mortgages if the wealth in this country wasn't so poorly distributed. The housing bubble wouldn't have happened if greedy little realtors understood the point of subprime mortgages and made price changes according to inflation, and not what they thought they could squeeze out of money that didn't exist.
The government can pass any number of laws to regulate the economy and still see it get bent, broken, and even turned upside down by greed. Blaming Obama for everyone else's greed is like saying that it's McCain's fault that our nation still depends on oil. Both are mere puppets until they get a shot at the presidency.
My vote goes out to the candidate that has the most solid plan for putting real money back into the pockets of the poor, and who expresses the greatest desire to explore solutions for the energy crisis.
You want to see the economy do better? Give these people fucking jobs in building solar, wind, and hydroelectric energy plants. Poorly distributed? What, pray tell, would you do to fix distribution? Expand and increase the number of government subsidized institutions and heavily tax the rich. So...increase the size of the government... What would you socialize? The government itself doesn't play a part except to govern such institutions. It will still be regular people running and maintaining everything. Increasing the size of the government and increasing the influence of the government are two different things. Solar and wind power would be first priority. Carbon scrubbers might also be a good idea, but those won't do much good without the decrease in oil dependency. Items that need expansion include the education system, public transportation, and agriculture. I'd like to live in a system where renewable electricity powers the bus that my children take to a college provided completely free of charge, where they eat off of plates made from corn in the cafeteria that burns on biofuel. It's not free. You're simply passing on the charges/responsibilities for your child on to someone else. I'm talking free in the sense that public school of today is free. It's paid for by tax money, and I don't see why colleges can't be paid for by tax money as well. Sweden can do it, so why can't we?
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endyss wrote:I'd like to join Starfleet, where everyone works their hardest and risks their lives daily with social harmony as the only reward.
There is more than social harmony as a reward, they live with the ability to fulfill every desire Starfleet enculturates. Not to mention they can go jerk off in a holodeck or conjure up whatever food they crave. endyss wrote:
Government can't defeat human nature.
Ultimately it will be conquered scientifically (assuming we are "naughty by nature" rather than it being purely cultural, which seems to be the case). In the short-term, most people are greedy selfish fucks. I've yet to figure out why something so axiomatic always gets brought up by people of your political inclinations, it always leads to the same unresolvable arguments. endyss wrote:Give people things they could otherwise earn, they won't work as hard. Take things from people for the benefit of others, they'll have less incentive to work. In both cases, lower productivity is the result. Well great, lets privatize everything - it will boost worker productivity and I guess that's the most important thing? Wait a second... isn't France our evil Socialist step-sister? How come French worker productivity is higher than the US? Razor wrote:Killing people is good therapy.  
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MarioMario wrote:RichardAwesome wrote:MarioMario wrote:RichardAwesome wrote:MarioMario wrote:RichardAwesome wrote:MarioMario wrote:If you want to discuss "the source," it should be obvious that there would be no need for subprime mortgages if the wealth in this country wasn't so poorly distributed. The housing bubble wouldn't have happened if greedy little realtors understood the point of subprime mortgages and made price changes according to inflation, and not what they thought they could squeeze out of money that didn't exist.
The government can pass any number of laws to regulate the economy and still see it get bent, broken, and even turned upside down by greed. Blaming Obama for everyone else's greed is like saying that it's McCain's fault that our nation still depends on oil. Both are mere puppets until they get a shot at the presidency.
My vote goes out to the candidate that has the most solid plan for putting real money back into the pockets of the poor, and who expresses the greatest desire to explore solutions for the energy crisis.
You want to see the economy do better? Give these people fucking jobs in building solar, wind, and hydroelectric energy plants. Poorly distributed? What, pray tell, would you do to fix distribution? Expand and increase the number of government subsidized institutions and heavily tax the rich. So...increase the size of the government... What would you socialize? The government itself doesn't play a part except to govern such institutions. It will still be regular people running and maintaining everything. Increasing the size of the government and increasing the influence of the government are two different things. Solar and wind power would be first priority. Carbon scrubbers might also be a good idea, but those won't do much good without the decrease in oil dependency. Items that need expansion include the education system, public transportation, and agriculture. I'd like to live in a system where renewable electricity powers the bus that my children take to a college provided completely free of charge, where they eat off of plates made from corn in the cafeteria that burns on biofuel. It's not free. You're simply passing on the charges/responsibilities for your child on to someone else. I'm talking free in the sense that public school of today is free. It's paid for by tax money, and I don't see why colleges can't be paid for by tax money as well. Sweden can do it, so why can't we? The US isn't Sweden. I'd rather not pay the extreme taxes that come with that. I've also seen how well the government runs public schools as it is, which isn't well at all.
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Dick Cheney's Mechanical Heart wrote:endyss wrote:I'd like to join Starfleet, where everyone works their hardest and risks their lives daily with social harmony as the only reward.
There is more than social harmony as a reward, they live with the ability to fulfill every desire Starfleet enculturates. Not to mention they can go jerk off in a holodeck or conjure up whatever food they crave. endyss wrote:
Government can't defeat human nature.
Ultimately it will be conquered scientifically (assuming we are "naughty by nature" rather than it being purely cultural, which seems to be the case). In the short-term, most people are greedy selfish fucks. I've yet to figure out why something so axiomatic always gets brought up by people of your political inclinations, it always leads to the same unresolvable arguments. endyss wrote:Give people things they could otherwise earn, they won't work as hard. Take things from people for the benefit of others, they'll have less incentive to work. In both cases, lower productivity is the result. Well great, lets privatize everything - it will boost worker productivity and I guess that's the most important thing? Wait a second... isn't France our evil Socialist step-sister? How come French worker productivity is higher than the US? How come France has riots over employment?
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Rank: You're gonna stick that where?
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RichardAwesome wrote:The US isn't Sweden. I'd rather not pay the extreme taxes that come with that. Nobody says the common man has to foot the bill for something like that. Considering that the poorest of the poor don't pay taxes anyway, why not tax someone who can afford to part with the money, like the top 25 percent? RichardAwesome wrote:I've also seen how well the government runs public schools as it is, which isn't well at all. Then perhaps it's time for  McCain is still standing by the No Child Left Behind Act.
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That video gave me a headache. Also, anything that uses wikipedia to prove a point about anything isn't worth watching.
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MarioMario wrote:RichardAwesome wrote:The US isn't Sweden. I'd rather not pay the extreme taxes that come with that. Nobody says the common man has to foot the bill for something like that. Considering that the poorest of the poor don't pay taxes anyway, why not tax someone who can afford to part with the money, like the top 25 percent? RichardAwesome wrote:I've also seen how well the government runs public schools as it is, which isn't well at all. Then perhaps it's time for McCain is still standing by the No Child Left Behind Act. The top 25% already pays most of the taxes. How much do you want to take from them? I don't buy ambiguous campaign slogans like "change."
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RichardAwesome wrote:
How come France has riots over employment?
That's a long complicated answer, your question implicitly biases the explanation, perhaps unintentionally since Americans seem to be so gullible when it comes to anti-French propaganda. The riots in France were not really over employment in and of itself. Even assuming they were about employment, the question is a non sequitur and the answer even moreso. Razor wrote:Killing people is good therapy.
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Dick Cheney's Mechanical Heart wrote:RichardAwesome wrote:
How come France has riots over employment?
That's a long complicated answer, your question implicitly biases the explanation, perhaps unintentionally since Americans seem to be so gullible when it comes to anti-French propaganda. The riots in France were not really over employment in and of itself. Even assuming they were about employment, the question is a non sequitur and the answer even moreso. How does France have a higher productivity when their economy is dwarfed by California's alone?
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RichardAwesome wrote:Dick Cheney's Mechanical Heart wrote:RichardAwesome wrote:
How come France has riots over employment?
That's a long complicated answer, your question implicitly biases the explanation, perhaps unintentionally since Americans seem to be so gullible when it comes to anti-French propaganda. The riots in France were not really over employment in and of itself. Even assuming they were about employment, the question is a non sequitur and the answer even moreso. How does France have a higher productivity when their economy is dwarfed by California's alone? A) France has a larger economy than California, I believe by somewhere around 40%. B) Worker productivity has nothing to do with the size of an economy. Razor wrote:Killing people is good therapy.
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endyss wrote:I'd like to join Starfleet, where everyone works their hardest and risks their lives daily with social harmony as the only reward.
Government can't defeat human nature. Give people things they could otherwise earn, they won't work as hard. Take things from people for the benefit of others, they'll have less incentive to work. In both cases, lower productivity is the result. We already have money taken for the benefit of others. I don't complain that others are benefited by it. What I would complain about is it going to waste in an inefficient management system. Maybe I'm the exception to the rule but I don't go to work every day simply to make money; I go to work every day because I enjoy it. I enjoy the excitement of the environment, the challenges I overcome, and the responsibilities I have. Maybe employers need to look at making jobs enjoyable a little bit more. The $10k/year raise I just got was certainly nice, but in my life I've never asked for one. I've simply sought to do a good job and that's plenty of reward. And you know what my "afterlife" is? It's the effects that ripple out from what I did in life. I'd rather not have the echoes of my existence be based around acts of greed and selfishness, and the more our way of life revolves around such things, the more people will have to exhibit those to survive.
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RichardAwesome wrote:MarioMario wrote:RichardAwesome wrote:The US isn't Sweden. I'd rather not pay the extreme taxes that come with that. Nobody says the common man has to foot the bill for something like that. Considering that the poorest of the poor don't pay taxes anyway, why not tax someone who can afford to part with the money, like the top 25 percent? RichardAwesome wrote:I've also seen how well the government runs public schools as it is, which isn't well at all. Then perhaps it's time for McCain is still standing by the No Child Left Behind Act. The top 25% already pays most of the taxes. How much do you want to take from them? I don't buy ambiguous campaign slogans like "change." Enough to make the wealth gap decrease instead of increase, or make the dollar worth more than just a chicken sandwich. It may not be fair, but neither is the current state of the economy. The point of the slogan is that when you sit down to either scrutinize or praise the ambiguity of the word, it makes you think about what kinds of changes you yourself want or could make. Regardless of who you vote for, Obama has made his point by at least causing you to think.
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I want to live in a world of equal opportunity and a world based on the principle of one paying for one's own mistakes. endyss wrote:I'd like to join Starfleet, where everyone works their hardest and risks their lives daily with social harmony as the only reward. So.. you support world government? And, ultimately, interstellar government? Doesn't sound Libertarian to me
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MarioMario wrote:RichardAwesome wrote:MarioMario wrote:RichardAwesome wrote:The US isn't Sweden. I'd rather not pay the extreme taxes that come with that. Nobody says the common man has to foot the bill for something like that. Considering that the poorest of the poor don't pay taxes anyway, why not tax someone who can afford to part with the money, like the top 25 percent? RichardAwesome wrote:I've also seen how well the government runs public schools as it is, which isn't well at all. Then perhaps it's time for McCain is still standing by the No Child Left Behind Act. The top 25% already pays most of the taxes. How much do you want to take from them? I don't buy ambiguous campaign slogans like "change." Enough to make the wealth gap decrease instead of increase, or make the dollar worth more than just a chicken sandwich. It may not be fair, but neither is the current state of the economy. The point of the slogan is that when you sit down to either scrutinize or praise the ambiguity of the word, it makes you think about what kinds of changes you yourself want or could make. Regardless of who you vote for, Obama has made his point by at least causing you to think. In other words, Obama stands for whatever fantasy the word "change" spawns in your mind which ultimately means he stands for nothing and promises you everything. I'm weary of anyone that promises me the world and asks for nothing in return. And life isn't fair. How is it fair that someone has to pay more than someone else simply because they happen to be more successful? The freedom of the US isn't just to be successful but also to fail. It's supposed to be an open system.
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By the way were those soviet-esque posters made by a third party or his own campaign?
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