1,107 karma · joined October 25, 2009
Those who have seen the movie and its plot device will know why this is a brilliant idea on so many levels.
Where you are also wrong: it is also not true that this purchasing power is created "by creating money". That's an all too common fallacy from Economics 101. Sure, you have more money; but wages and prices increase too, so in the medium term, and disregarding major crises such as hyperinflation, et c., it all balances out. It's a common argument from proponents of the gold standard, and it's also false.
Where you are wrong again: most governments of the developed world also have many, many things in which to spend money constructively. Social Security. Education. If the public budget being spent on Wars on Whatever is an specific issue of the US, not of countries that abandoned the gold standard, then it's safe to say it has nothing to do with the gold standard.
Before you ask: most governments haven't had an explosion of the state budget; they've mostly spent that money in a responsible fashion. The current crisis is mostly because of private debt, not public debt (except in Greece), mainly in the housing industry.
Imagine some crazy, hard-line politicians get elected and make a law that retroactively throws to jail women who get abortions. Or homosexuals. Or maybe it's a party that decides the 1% is due for some rich-shaming, who knows. Last century it was communists, and maybe the USA will feel nostalgia for that again[1] but, who knows who will paranoia strike tomorrow? This fellow at the NSA could be a very honest person that votes, say Remocratic, and you're a Depublican senator who's had an affair, so naturally this pious person decides to blow some whistles, should this pseudo-crime go unpunished.
Not to mention bullshit non-crimes like smoking pot, drug consumption, or possession of child pornography. They get your pot dealer, now they've got you, and so the government gets to enforce a ridiculous law much more tyrannically.
> If you think the problem is that the government could leak that information, anyone that is currently handling your data (e.g. Google) could.
Not everybody is okay with Google doing that either. That's why I, as an European, support stricter, better privacy laws at the European Union level.
[1] Don't laugh, it has happened. Some months ago, many Chinese nationals were fired from the NASA HQ in Virginia, then arrested, at the request of the Virginian senator. Their crime? Being Chinese, and thus suspects of espionage. Imagine what levels of paranoia this new technology could enable, if put in the wrong hands.
What his conclusions actually are have been stated many times before. Free software in every device, under the GPL. Free software in servers, under the AGPL. Being able to install open source firmware on those devices. Using free standards. Banning intrusive DRM, restrictions to second hand sale, et c. All very reasonable and implementable today, if there were the political will.
Well, maybe not all very reasonable, but reasonable to varying degrees. Still, I don't get why you are so worried about Stallman, when he actually wants what you want.
Al-Awlaki was murdered on suspicion that there was an imminent threat to US persons. No warrant obtained. Al-Awlaki's son was murdered, again without warrant, because of complicated reasons that boil down to his last name being Awlaki.
Any of those videos by themselves would be enough for you to be included on the kill list, and executed. No court would have to be involved. You could also be executed by mistake, like Awlaki's son, or many Yemeni children that were so. Or being kidnapped in Italy by CIA agents into a plane, and imprisoned without trial. Or you could be an Al-Jazeera journalist, being arrested by the Pakistani army, then imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay for six years without any crime charged against you, like Sami al-Hajj. It's all fair game.
Oh, don't forget that you could lose your job as a politician because you hired a prostitute, and the Mormon CIA doesn't like that. Definitely fair.
If a human life is an end in itself, then euthanasia is the worst crime. Killing in self-defense, something to be condemned. Contraception becomes immoral. Sex for pleasure, and homosexuality, sinful. Bear in mind that those are not moral dictates I just pulled out of my ass, for maximum effect. That's what Kant believed in.
Well, to be fair, the Chinaman (I prefer the term Confucianist) of Königsberg also believed in the death penalty. So much for human life as the end of morality.
Were the authors catholics, they'd be either hypothesizing the existence of a Prairie Dog Jesus, or contemplating whether to send missionaries. I can't decide on what would be funnier.
Not really. The problem with health care is that it works if it's socialized, and it doesn't if it's private, as shown by about all the entire developed world. And Saudi Arabia. No way to patch it to make it palatable to the right wing, but that shouldn't be a problem. There wasn't any way to make the USSR being a failure palatable to the left, either.
To clarify, health care is not a consumer product, it's a particular kind of insurance. It doesn't make sense to bring consumer choice into it. [1]
> if you are left-leaning, maybe you can support a universal minimum income
What are you talking about? Universal minimum income is a socialist proposal. It has been for a fairly long time. I suppose they'll be glad to see the libertarians also agree that it could work, but it's not like Hayek alone invented it.
> There is not a single exception. [of lack of economic freedom and economic prosperity]
Except China -- Mostly Unfree. And Brazil -- Mostly Unfree. And Argentina -- don't you know it's Repressed, of all things, according to Heritage's bullshit, yet still a G-15. And Russia -- Mostly Unfree.
You know, I just cannot fathom how someone could seriously say Bahrein is more free than Argentina, for any meaningful sense of the term. I mean, in Bahrein atheists are put to death, FFS. Just goes to show how intellectually bankrupt and self-deluded the Heritage Foundation is.
> a "class," in the Marxist sense: a bunch of people who all think alike. [...] I hope you don't justify punishing _me_ on the basis of your characterization of the "global business community."
I get you're a budding capitalist and all that, but you could at least read the philosophy of your enemies to criticize them. And stop victimizing yourself, while you're at it.
But I guess my main point is, congratulations, you took the noble, if largely unrealized, principles of the European forefathers, passed down since the Athenians through Robespierre, Paine, Marat, Jefferson, Bakunin, even Lenin... and then turned them in for the petty ideals of a shopkeeper.
Not really. Banks and corporations hold reserves, lend "money" that's actually debt between banks not backed by hard currency, pay debt directly to the central bank... it's not that easy. At a given time, there are many "amounts of currency" coexisting at the same time.
9/11 hijackers were mostly well educated, middle-class Saudi Arabians. Not Taliban, as you seem to imply.
If anything, what could be argued is that Afghanistan lacking a national police force makes it easy for terrorist groups to establish military training camps there. But that's a whole different thing.
Notice that Go, compiled with the Plan 9 compilers, performs as well as Java in 7 of 11 tests and uses as much as 1/15 of its memory. All in all, not that bad.
Second, compare quantum computing with fussion, which is of about the same level of difficulty. Some physicist thought he had cold fussion, and the response from the community was (rightfully!) to be skeptical. But even if it would have worked, no one would whine about how Evil Physicists were Keeping Cold Fussion Down. Instead, it would be understood as the appropiate reaction to very wild claims, and large scale entanglement is pretty out there.
First, the Keynesian/Monetarist Block does emphatically not claim that inflation is good, since last time I checked ethics was not a sub-field of economics. Inflation is a tool.
Second, deflation really is a big deal. Unless you're ready to argue that debt-deflation does not exist. Please spare us from such "deep" arguments such as found on the Bitcoin Wiki [2].
Third, the main problem of Bitcoin is not that it is deflationary, because it's not. Well, it is now, but not necessarily forever. The problem is that it imposes, through its fixed supply, a senseless corset on economic growth. It's neither central planning, which would have at least the possibility of being a somewhat enlightened planning, nor a rigorous market mechanism, that responds to shocks on the economy. It's just fixed because Satoshi said so. This lack of rigor in economic thought is what's really problematic in Bitcoin.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflationism#Political_debate
[2] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Deflationary_spiral . A sample from the well of deepness: "The key difference is that people don't foresee a fixed cost (unit amount) that they must pay with Bitcoin". Yes, they do, or will when lending in Bitcoins begins. It's called the principal. You should laugh now.
1. Both are Japanese. Or say they are.
2. Well, that's got to count for something, right?
3. Also, they're both smart. What more do you want?
LOL. Also, his impression of Sherlock Holmes and Watson is the shit. You know, for a comedic piece, it's a great achievement to have it published on Business Insider as serious. Mr. Nelson's a talented troll. Great laughs were had.
Well, to be really pedant, if you were spinning around yourself, you'd feel an acceleration.
Sussman also wrote a book, in his characteristic style, on Differential Geometry, that doubles as a possible introduction to special relativity, and bridge to the general theory.
http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/gjs/6946/calculus-inde...
You mean the assembly whose Wikipedia page has... ?
"Expected security expenditures reached $70 million, $50 million of which was funded by the federal government."
"The NYPD infiltrated and compiled dossiers on protest groups (most of whom were doing nothing illegal), leading to over 1,800 arrests and subsequent fingerprinting."
"Over 1800 individuals were arrested by the authorities, a record for a political convention in the U.S. However 90% of those charges were eventually dropped."
Wow! Indeed, a great failure of the right to peaceful assembly!
(Who were they protesting against, anyway? An illegal act of war? Their leaders, who had lied to them into said war? Minutiae.)
What that paper does argue is against "in the beginning, there was one language" theories, which is not the same thing at all.
Granted, the original submission goes a bit overboard. It's not "nearly every language", it's about 55% of all languages for "mama" as mother, and 55% for "papa"/"baba" as father, there's a lot of mixing m/p/b (the labial consonants) and so on. But both you, and the paper you link to, are supporting that position, essentially.
Frankly, I'm still more impressed by a monolithic kernel that did it better, before: Plan 9 (released in 1991). What use is for NT to be object-oriented, if it can't share its objects through a network like Plan?
Of course, let's start about some inflammatory comments about Mr. Leftwing Strawman, as per usual: did you know that hyperinflation is inevitable because ZIMBABWE!?
"I'll use a visual aid," says Mr. Andresen. "He opens his wallet and presents me with a gift: a 10-trillion-dollar bill once issued by the government of Zimbabwe."
Deflation is good, because SAVING! (Here the Calvinist roots of old-school good Flemish capitalism start showing again, with careless disregard to any theory of supply-demand equilibrium. How do I miss Schumpeter/Marx...)
"If prices are falling, he says, it does encourage people to save instead of spend, because the currency will be worth more later. It encourages people to lend instead of borrow. [and that's a good thing]" (Yeah, because as we know, in a given economy at a given time there can be more lending than borrowing. Or that saving > spending doesn't mean a contraction in the economy, by the magic of Austerian Economics. You people...)
A classic: fiat currency is a FAITH! Heathens!
"Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher calls the U.S. dollar a 'faith-based currency.'"
(Not pictured: other things based in "faith", like civil oversight over the military, the Constitution, the enforcement of laws, the concept of credit itself, the currently overpriced exchange value of gold... basically anything that isn't enforced by AK-47's, except of course those enforced by the promise of AK-47's)
"[...] what about a digital currency programmed to maintain stable prices, avoiding mischief by central bankers as well as the possibility of deflation? He says the engineer in him likes the simplicity of Bitcoin's fixed money supply."
Yeah, great engineering dude, let's disregard things like, you know, minimal acceptable performance for simplicity ;) You know, Unix was simple, but at least it didn't crash every five minutes. And the Apple II was simple, and it even had color!
Had many laughs. Would read again.
I mean, it would be very understandable, but from a game-theoretical point of view, there's the question of what you want to signal as an investor. If it's too costly to make mistakes, or worse, if you inadvertently signal it's fine to err given the company doesn't ever admit it publicly, then there's a variety of possible outcomes. The least worst is you end up with glorified, electrified, GM stock. The worst is, you end up with Enron. Which, incidentally, Wikipedia says was too "one of the most innovative companies" back then.
Of course, you probably already know that.
As for the accusation of "wild" exaggeration; granted, it's an exaggeration, and I should probably stop rabble-rousing someday. Still, nationalistic prejudice? Check. Paranoiac delusions of espionage/propaganda? Check. Lack of any reasonable oversight such as, you know, asking NASA by the phone? Check. Harassment of foreign nationals? Check. If anything is lacking, is scale.
"Jiang, a former contractor at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, had recently been let go by his employer because of pressure from Republican congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia. Wolf had claimed Jiang and other Chinese engineers employed by NASA contractors were a security risk."
"But it quickly became apparent that Jiang was at worst guilty of violating NASA policies. [...] Jiang had not had clearance to such projects at Langley as an employee of the National Institute of Aerospace"
"A press release issued by Wolf after the arrest and copy of Jiang's arrest warrant have since disappeared off the the congressman's website. In the release (cached by Google here), Wolf had said, 'I am particularly concerned that (the) information (on Jiang's laptop) may pertain to the source code for high-tech imaging technology that Jiang has been working on with NASA. This information could have significant military applications for the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army.'"
Confirmed, the USA has entered back into full McCarthyism. Request title change to 'Chinese contractor fired on suspicion by Republican senator'.
To begin with, there has been made the case that progressive taxation does, mostly, not mean a significant negative behavioral response in production. That is, taxes can in practice be increased a lot until the rich start fantasizing about going Galt. [D&S] estimate the optimal tax rate, for maximum social welfare, for the richest to be at 70%. It's now about, what, 20%? Citizen Romney paid 14%, and the Great Capitalist still behaves like a little bitch, whining about his being oppressed and all.
You also don't seem to take into account elasticity, the decreasing utility of money, or any notion of optimizing social utility. If I'm Bill Gates, I could not give enough of a shit that you taxed from me $5k dollars, or even $500k. But, use that to pay for nine or ten heart surgeries, and suddenly social utility is increased by, I would guesstimate, 100x (total lifetime earnings of those ten people, starting after surgery). Even if 20% of that is embezzled.
Also, there's not really any empirical support for a inverse relation between business taxes and economic growth. It's just one data point, granted, but we could take as an example Bush's years. Massive tax cuts, but very poor growth.
[D&S] http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.25.4.165
What I find missing is how entrepreneur-social culture in Spain is, basically, the least funny joke you'll hear in all Europe. 23.3% of GDP are black market operations. The European country with highest quantity of 500€ banknotes per briefcase. 10% unemployment for workers with tertiary education. Esperanza Aguirre wanting to exile the poor from Madrid (it's a long story). Widespread, also not very covert, abuse from employers. That sort of thing.
Fortunately, the country is sort of duct-taped together, so it all works fairly well in the end. Not at all as gloomy as pictured here.
[1] Like a chav, but Spaniard.
So that would've been counterproductive.