SRL Archive - Discussions & Debates

I have never had a real political discussion with a democrat talking about our differences in views. The only democrats I've talked to are kids at school who mommy and daddy told them what side they should be on, or have been brainwashed by the news.

Anyways, I am going to be bashing some deomcratic views and listing some of my views, and I just wanted other people's perspective on it. No need to get offended if you don't agree with me; in fact, I want some of you to highly disagree with me so I can maybe see the other side of things.

Anyways, here it goes.


In what way is it okay for the government to take more money from people who worked hard to earn it to give it to people who are lazy and didn't earn it? Example: I got a great job for being smart and hard working, and I make $2000 a week (after normal taxes). You work at Mcdonalds because you decided not to do well in school and aspire for a better life, and you make $500 a week (after normal taxes). The government is now going to take $500 of my paycheck and give it to you because you need the money more than I do. How stupid is that? This country has never been pure capitalist, and it shouldn't be. But I think that we are moving closer and closer to pure socialism.

The government is going to pay to keep people in their homes that they couldn't afford in the first place. So pretty much what that means is if you screwed up financially, the government is going to reward you by helping you pay off your house. The rest of you are screwed. I live in a fairly small home with my siblings and parents, and it maybe a little small, but my parents bought what they could afford. If they knew that they were going to be rewarded for buying a bigger house than they could afford, I'm sure they would have bought a fricken mansion!

Government run health care. Oh joy. If it's free, people will use it more. Every time someone coughs or sneezes they will be going to the doctor because it's free, and that will clog up the lines. Then the people who are truly sick will have to wait 3 months for treatment and die before they make it there. Go over to Canada and see how you like health care there. They have people coming over here for our health care!

We have to sit down and talk with terrorists, and do things in a polite, sophisticated way. Maybe if we had done that with Hitler we could have stopped him from killing so many people. We could have sat down with him, talked with him about what he was doing is wrong, came to an agreement, signed a few contracts, had a cup of tea and lived happily ever after. I'm sure that would have went well… These terrorists are nut jobs! They aren't reasonable…

Obama recently announced that he wanted to cut the deficit for this year in half. When I first heard that, I thought "hey, maybe this guy is actually thinking?". But lets do some basic math. The current deficit is 1 trillion dollars. He cuts that in half, making it now only 500 billion dollars. Great! Oh yeah, we forgot to add the 800 billion dollar stimulus package into the equation. So lets see, that would mean…. *1..2..3..4…….." he is actually turning it into a 1.3 trillion deficit. So basic math tells us that he is increasing the deficit by 30%, not decreasing it. Cut the bull crap, you're putting this nation in debt at a faster rate then the old deficits and decreasing the value of the dollar by printing more money.

Spending got us into this economic crisis, right? So how are we going to get out of it? We are going to spend more! Lets just borrow and print more money out to pump up the economy… Maybe if you cut taxes on businesses instead of increasing taxes on them, people could keep their jobs! People always say "Tax the big businesses!". Well guess what? The "big businesses" are the ones writing your pay check. If they get taxed too much, they may decide to write a smaller figure on your paycheck, or stop writing you on all together!

But the democrats would never cut taxes on businesses… They hate businesses. Obama keeps saying his catch phrase "I'm going to create 3 million jobs". So instead of giving money to businesses to let them create the jobs, he's going to do it. Great. It's the people's job to create jobs for people, not yours. That completely goes against the flow of our economy and the invisible hand concept (invisible hand: wtf? :google: ) A government system where the government is the job creator for people. What category of country does that fall under? *Googles: define:communism*

Democrats sometimes say that the country would be better off without us conservatives. Wizzup? has even said that himself on IRC or in a post before (not to single Wizzup? out, people from both parties feel this way about the other party, I just remember you saying that). Without conservatives, there would be no businesses. Everybody would work for the government. Everybody works for the government = everybody gets the same benefits from working = waiting in line for your 1 daily loaf of bread (Communism 101). I'm not saying that there is not any liberalists in businesses, but there are few in proportion to conservatists.




Anyways, just my views everyone. I hope that nobody took my post too offensively and maybe you will say something that could change my views on certain topics if it makes sense to me. So just tell me why you think I'm wrong/right on whatever topics you choose to single out please!

~JAD

ok i will,
i should point out that i only lean towards the american democrat party because they are the lesser of two evils.

i only got to answer three of your points. The rest i wasnt sure were worth thinking about for various reasons i wont go into here.

From: JAD
The government is going to pay to keep people in their homes that they couldn't afford in the first place. So pretty much what that means is if you screwed up financially, the government is going to reward you by helping you pay off your house. The rest of you are screwed. I live in a fairly small home with my siblings and parents, and it maybe a little small, but my parents bought what they could afford. If they knew that they were going to be rewarded for buying a bigger house than they could afford, I'm sure they would have bought a fricken mansion!

i think the government has no choice.

obviously if people have nowhere to live, they will be unhappy.
same if they are hungry, thirsty or out of work.

if enough people become unhappy, there could be demonstations, perhaps they might turn violent.
Of course, the police will restore law and order, but what if the policemen also dont have anywhere to live and no food to eat?
they might ditch their uniforms and join the protesters.

before you know it, the government will lose control of their country, and be forced from power.


in hard times, people turn to the far right. Its likely that the democraticly-elected government would be replaced by a facist dictator strongman-type-person.


i know you will be sceptical, because america hasnt had a situation like this in a very long time, and its not in the public conciousness.

but people from other countries where this sort of thing has happened more recently will understand easier.

From: JAD
Government run health care. Oh joy. If it's free, people will use it more. Every time someone coughs or sneezes they will be going to the doctor because it's free, and that will clog up the lines. Then the people who are truly sick will have to wait 3 months for treatment and die before they make it there. Go over to Canada and see how you like health care there. They have people coming over here for our health care!

United States — Life Expectancy: 74.37 male, 80.05 female

Canada — Life Expectancy: 78 years (men), 83 years (women)

america source
canada source

enough said.

From: JAD
Spending got us into this economic crisis, right? So how are we going to get out of it? We are going to spend more! Lets just borrow and print more money out to pump up the economy… Maybe if you cut taxes on businesses instead of increasing taxes on them, people could keep their jobs! People always say "Tax the big businesses!". Well guess what? The "big businesses" are the ones writing your pay check. If they get taxed too much, they may decide to write a smaller figure on your paycheck, or stop writing you on all together!

with all due respect, you do not have any training in economics.
I mean proper training, where univercity lecturers make you solve differencial equations.

most of the governments from the world are following the work of an economist called Keynes.
the idea is to spend your way out of a recession. It works, but it seems illogical to a common voter.


I think ill take a potshot at the democratic election system now.

The problem here is that the majority of people are unknowledgable, unintelligent and ignorant.
what the masses vote for is not nessecerily the best solution.

this particular problem with democracy has been know since the time of the ancient greeks.

Thank you for your post Yakman. A couple things I just wanted to say:

Just because the average life expectancy in Canada is a little higher then the US isn't enough said. That doesn't define a better health care system. Our country is the most over weight country in the world. Better health care wouldn't solve that. We go to war more then Canada. That decreases average life expectancy because of the deaths from war.

I may be wrong about our health care being better then Canada's, but just looking at life expectancy isn't enough evidence alone to compare health care systems because there are other things that can cause death.


And with all due respect, I have taken 3 college level economic courses so far and am considering getting my degree in economics and/or business finance. Even though 3 courses isn't that much I do consider myself to have a good grasp on the topic.

Thanks again Yakman.

From: JAD
This country has never been pure capitalist, and it shouldn't be.

Why? And what do you mean by "pure capitalist"? I am a borderline anarchist, so pure capitalism makes sense to me, but I want to hear your views.

@yakman, I'd rather risk a violent overthrow instead of paying for some asshole's house. I think that if people don't get any help, they will stop trying to live beyond their means.

I wanted to respond to more, but I'm feeling lazy..

From: bullzeye95
Why? And what do you mean by "pure capitalist"? I am a borderline anarchist, so pure capitalism makes sense to me, but I want to hear your views.

@yakman, I'd rather risk a violent overthrow instead of paying for some asshole's house. I think that if people don't get any help, they will stop trying to live beyond their means.

I wanted to respond to more, but I'm feeling lazy..

Not everything can be personally owned. I think this country should be more capitalist, but it can't be purely. Welfare is a good example of something socialist that I think we need. It has been completely abused though, because well over 50% of the people on welfare are eligible to work… Which is ridiculous. It should be used to help the elderly and the war heroes and other people who actually can't work.

So if we cut out every single socialist thing in our country, people who can't work would die, or barely get by. And I have no problem paying a little extra tax money to help those people out. But like you said with the housing, people were living beyond their means, now they got screwed by the economy, so we're going to pay for them to continue living beyond their means? That's stupid… If you don't want to pay for your house then SELL IT BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO EITHER!


But you said that you're borderline anarchist. If we abolished government, who would pay for the roads? The police? Fire department? I think that government needs to be reduced dramatically, but not completely abolished.

Private businesses would install roads. If there is something people need, the free market will provide it. As for police, I think that private businesses would also provide protection. Sort of like private body-guards, but not as extreme. The fire department could be easily private: you pay monthly for fire protection.
Iceland was an example of an anarcho-capitalistic society. Law enforcement was private, firefighting was private, and care of the poor was private, as well as a lot of other things.

I am not a pure anarchist because I see a few major flaws in it, such as no organized army. I just thought I'd share that stuff though, because I find it interesting.

It is true that many people are getting money from welfare and other sources when they shouldn't, but what about the person who is working a McDonald's because they had to drop school to work so they could help pay for their family's mortgage?

There is already problems with housing. Many people are getting foreclosed on. Many new houses are empty while people live on the streets. It is (in my opinion) in our countries best interest to keep our people from starvation and homelessness.


As to the terrorism issue… do you think it is better that we start a war, causing the loss of thousands of lives? Are 'we' in the right killing them because we dislike them?

@bullzeye- The only problem with allowing everything to be privatized is that they then have the ability to be easily corrupted. If the police are just another business, do you think that they would act fairly, helping everybody. I believe that racial profiling would be rampantly out of control. - Just my view.

Yes, it is in their best interest to act fairly. If they do not, they lose customers. I think corruption is the last thing you'd find in any business in anarchy.

Your views are so full of right-wing bias it makes Ronald Regan seem like a socialist.

From: Bebe
Your views are so full of right-wing bias it makes Ronald Regan seem like a socialist.

lol'd INRL :)

From: Bebe
Your views are so full of right-wing bias it makes Ronald Regan seem like a socialist.

Mine or JAD's? Or both?

Regarding the health care issue…

I feel that if I need some sort of major surgery or treatment to go on living, I dont want money being an issue as I am near death. After the necessary treatment I dont want to be bankrupt either.

Yes. It may cause some inconveniences for minor things, such as your time in the waiting room, but I feel that is just a small price to pay so that I can receive all the treatment I need and not be flat broke afterwards.

From: gerauchert
Regarding the health care issue…

I feel that if I need some sort of major surgery or treatment to go on living, I dont want money being an issue as I am near death. After the necessary treatment I dont want to be bankrupt either.

Yes. It may cause some inconveniences for minor things, such as your time in the waiting room, but I feel that is just a small price to pay so that I can receive all the treatment I need and not be flat broke afterwards.

… free health care fails… im sorry, but you need competition so that you get the best treatment, and without competition they will just treat you to meet the standards set by the government(which won't be good).

From: mormonman
… free health care fails… im sorry, but you need competition so that you get the best treatment, and without competition they will just treat you to meet the standards set by the government(which won't be good).

You obviously don't know about Canada's health care system if you claim that.

From: senrath
You obviously don't know about Canada's health care system if you claim that.

well from what i have heard about it, i wouldn't like it… but that is just from my history/economics teacher that is pretty much anarchist(really anarchist), so its really biased.

Edit: my teacher is really outspoken… check out his website lol
http://www.strike-the-root.com/archive/goslin.html <— outdated because my school found it and told him to stop posting lol!

It was all clintons fault 15 years ago. When he moved all the factorizing, and industries to china. It didnt hurt in the short term, but it really did in the long term. I think the stimulus will kinda work well.

I think that the rich people need to calm down. Help the poor will actually help them! The more that the people have, the more money they can spend on you richies.


Bullzeye95 quit it, you sound like a snob and you seriously need to calm down.

From: JAD
In what way is it okay for the government to take more money from people who worked hard to earn it to give it to people who are lazy and didn't earn it? Example: I got a great job for being smart and hard working, and I make $2000 a week (after normal taxes). You work at Mcdonalds because you decided not to do well in school and aspire for a better life, and you make $500 a week (after normal taxes). The government is now going to take $500 of my paycheck and give it to you because you need the money more than I do. How stupid is that? This country has never been pure capitalist, and it shouldn't be. But I think that we are moving closer and closer to pure socialism.

You know that this "example" is a bit extreme. And you are talking like it's the McDonalds guy's fault in the first place. But some people just have less brains than others.
Let's take for example my grandfather. He worked 60 hours a week, construction work, just to pay for his family living and for the education of his children. He didn't make that much money, but he did work hard. Tell me: which one is fairer: let him work even more (it's tough work, construction. One of the reasons he got rheumatism now and can't work at all because of the pain), or let him work less, and take a bit off money of a lazy scum who's just lucky he got a nice job in which he does nothing but nose-picking the whole day.
I agree with you that the lazy people shouldn't get a single dollar/euro/shilling/whatever. But some people just got unlucky. Why you think the children of rich parents usually become rich themselves? Because they get more chances to get rich, those parents can pay college/university, the children of a poor family can't, so they will get a bad job (even though they did their best), so they won't make much money, so their children will also get less education etc.

The government is going to pay to keep people in their homes that they couldn't afford in the first place. So pretty much what that means is if you screwed up financially, the government is going to reward you by helping you pay off your house. The rest of you are screwed. I live in a fairly small home with my siblings and parents, and it maybe a little small, but my parents bought what they could afford. If they knew that they were going to be rewarded for buying a bigger house than they could afford, I'm sure they would have bought a fricken mansion!

You know that it were the banks who convinced the people that they could pay really expensive mortgages? Neither you nor me have the economic knowledge The interest was really low at first, and they let the people lend the max they could pay(at that interest rate. Ofcourse that rate was too low to profit at, so they raised it. BOOM, tons of people who can't afford their mortgage all at once. Result: credit crunch.

Government run health care. Oh joy. If it's free, people will use it more. Every time someone coughs or sneezes they will be going to the doctor because it's free, and that will clog up the lines. Then the people who are truly sick will have to wait 3 months for treatment and die before they make it there. Go over to Canada and see how you like health care there. They have people coming over here for our health care!

Lets take my grandfather for an example again. He worked hard is whole life (ever tell me he didn't, and I swear I come to your house and beat the shit out of you), and he got rheumatism as "reward". The threatment costs a lot, but thanks to it he can have a decent life. Do you wish the man to have tons of pain the last years of his life? Or do you want him to be able to live quite decent?
My father got cancer, twice now, in his bladder. First time was 6 years ago, second time around a year ago. You know, cancer threatment isn't cheap. We can't afford it ourselves. But do you want my father to die, just because he can't afford surgery?

We have to sit down and talk with terrorists, and do things in a polite, sophisticated way. Maybe if we had done that with Hitler we could have stopped him from killing so many people. We could have sat down with him, talked with him about what he was doing is wrong, came to an agreement, signed a few contracts, had a cup of tea and lived happily ever after. I'm sure that would have went well… These terrorists are nut jobs! They aren't reasonable…

You forget one small detail here: why people turn to terrorism. Usually that is because the talking didn't help.
And why are you saying talking doesn't help? You probably heard of the IRA in Ireland. Those were terrorists, you can't deny that. They went on for decades, but there is some kind of peace now. Why? Because they talked.

Spending got us into this economic crisis, right? So how are we going to get out of it? We are going to spend more! Lets just borrow and print more money out to pump up the economy… Maybe if you cut taxes on businesses instead of increasing taxes on them, people could keep their jobs! People always say "Tax the big businesses!". Well guess what? The "big businesses" are the ones writing your pay check. If they get taxed too much, they may decide to write a smaller figure on your paycheck, or stop writing you on all together!

If we don't spend, companies will make less revenue. If they make less revenue, they gotta fire people. If people get fired, they can spend less, so the revenues of the companies will go down even more, causing even more people to get fired etc.
The tax fable is bullshit. If Company X wants to produce Y products, they will need Z employees anyways. If the Z employees cost a bit more, they will make a little bit less profit, but the Z employees are still there. So now you gonna say 'omg we gonna move to China!!1!'. Well, most things that can be moved to China, are already there. And you can't move transportation and offices to China ofcourse.

But the democrats would never cut taxes on businesses… They hate businesses. Obama keeps saying his catch phrase "I'm going to create 3 million jobs". So instead of giving money to businesses to let them create the jobs, he's going to do it. Great. It's the people's job to create jobs for people, not yours. That completely goes against the flow of our economy and the invisible hand concept (invisible hand: wtf? :google: ) A government system where the government is the job creator for people. What category of country does that fall under? *Googles: define:communism*

You are interpreting some things clearly wrong I think (correct me if I'm wrong). "I'm going to create 3 million jobs" is usually meant as in "I gonna stimulate companies to take more employees, and make the economy even bigger, so there will be 3 million more jobs." (please note I'm not an Obama-expert, if he wants to expand the government to be really big, nvm then).

Democrats sometimes say that the country would be better off without us conservatives. Wizzup? has even said that himself on IRC or in a post before (not to single Wizzup? out, people from both parties feel this way about the other party, I just remember you saying that). Without conservatives, there would be no businesses. Everybody would work for the government. Everybody works for the government = everybody gets the same benefits from working = waiting in line for your 1 daily loaf of bread (Communism 101). I'm not saying that there is not any liberalists in businesses, but there are few in proportion to conservatists.

C'mon, democrats in the US don't even come close to communism. If they came to our nice place here in the Netherlands, it would be an extremely right party. They are relatively conservative compared to most other 'left' parties in the rest of the world. And no liberalists in businesses? Lol, maybe in the USA. but in lots of other countries (and no I'm not only talking about China/Russia and other commy fests), some people actually care about the society as a whole. You know, a company has social responsibilities, and it's good marketing for the company if they got a nice employee policy and take their responsibilities.

Just my point, might add some more later but I gtg now.

From: bullzeye95
Private businesses would install roads. If there is something people need, the free market will provide it.

My brother in law runs a construction company. He was telling us last week about a company he works with that was building a large housing development up on a plateau. They built all the houses, built all the roads, curbs, and gutters, installed all the sewer, power lines, etc. And they even built the road down to the city roads to connect it.

It turns out that the city government they were dealing with weren't "happy" with the roads this company built. So, they forced the company to drill over 100 holes in the road all the way up the hill to check it. Once the results came back, they said the company had to tear up the entire road, curb, and gutter, and start over, at a cost of over 2 million dollars.

According to the engineers that helped build the road in the first place, it was completely unnecessary. The builders were justifiably devastated.

There is a time and a place for government, but too often it seems to be more of a hindrance than a help. That city has gotten a bad reputation among builders for being jerks, and a lot of prime areas have gone undeveloped because nobody wants to be screwed over like these guys were.

So yes, private enterprise WILL build roads, if the government would let them.

@Markus, to answer you're points:

I was being extreme with my examples. Obviously this country isn't going to become communist over the next 4 years, and obviously my mcdonalds example was extreme. But taxes on the rich have been very high before as compared to the middle class. Did you know that before Ronald Reagan got into office, if you made over 1 million dollars a year, you would get a 80% income tax! 200k profit when you earned 1 million dollars… So the different tax classes have been pretty extreme before.

Your grandpa deserved welfare. Welfare was designed for the elderly and people who can't work very well anymore. Not for lazy people who just want a better life for themselves doing nothing, when they are completely capable of doing something.

The reason the banks gave out those ridiculous loans is because of Clinton's administration. They told the banks that they were going to back up every loan that they gave out, so the banks didn't care if the people paid it back or not, because they would profit either way.

No need for the violent threats… I wasn't about to say that your grandfather didn't work hard. But the health care wouln't be "free" markus. The money to run the health care system has to come from somewhere (your grandpa's pay check). There's no such thing as free.


Anyways, I was just pretty much thinking out loud in that post, and I may have said some things in ways that I didn't mean it. Just wanted to hear some democrats views.

Most people here on this forums are pretty young. That means when politicians talk about "generational theft", and "burdening our kids and grandkids", they're talking about YOU.

Everyone here should inform themselves about what they're talking about.

Here's a short video clip from Bill Clinton's Comptroller General, David Walker, and others talking about the problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp8ZmQMCtqA

Here's the 30 minute version.

http://blip.tv/file/1417453

The vast majority of that money is well meant promises designed to improve the lives of senior citizens and the poor. It's nice to want to help people, but to sell out our country, our future, and our kids to do it doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

From: bullzeye95
@yakman, I'd rather risk a violent overthrow instead of paying for some asshole's house. I think that if people don't get any help, they will stop trying to live beyond their means.

your opinion is not shared by almost everyone in governments around the world.
i dont think you've thought about it very much.


@JAD, i should probably apologise but i did say 'proper training'



I dont know why you all assert that if someone is out of work, its because they are lazy.
by your logic, the great depression was caused when millions of people simply decided to take the decade off work.


The capitalist idealogy says that everyone is equal because all can work hard and be rich if they wanted.
if someone is poor in a captailist society, it is their own fault for not working as hard as someone who is rich. (or so the idealogy says)
This has shown to be wrong, and i posted some evidence on another thread which i can repost if you want.


so far in this thread i've attacked democracy and capitalism. Next post will be freedom of speech, and after that, human rights. XD (heh look at me laughing at my own fail jokes)

From: kingarabian
Bullzeye95 quit it, you sound like a snob and you seriously need to calm down.

How? I'm just sharing my views. I'm not attacking anybody or anything =/
I just want to point out that YOU'RE the one calling ME a snob when I haven't said anything against anyone.

From: Yakman
your opinion is not shared by almost everyone in governments around the world.
i dont think you've thought about it very much.

I know that, and I don't like it. But their views are their views, and they are entitled to have them..
I have thought about it though, but I just see things happening differently than you do.

From: bullzeye95
How? I'm just sharing my views. I'm not attacking anybody or anything =/
I just want to point out that YOU'RE the one calling ME a snob when I haven't said anything against anyone.



I know that, and I don't like it. But their views are their views, and they are entitled to have them..
I have thought about it though, but I just see things happening differently than you do.

Well not everyone here is having a great time in this economy. And your bashing alot of people with that other comment. I know some people take the wrong road and its there faults, but some have huge families or elderly to take care of. =/. And anyways the reason for all this, is so the middle class peoples can have money in there pockets so they can spend. Its gonna benefit the high class mostly.

I dont mean anything personal, was having a bad day.

From: kingarabian
Well not everyone here is having a great time in this economy. And your bashing alot of people with that other comment. I know some people take the wrong road and its there faults, but some have huge families or elderly to take care of. =/. And anyways the reason for all this, is so the middle class peoples can have money in there pockets so they can spend. Its gonna benefit the high class mostly.

I dont mean anything personal, was having a bad day.

I just looked back at my posts, and I never said anything about our economy. Are you getting someone else's posts confused with mine? =/ Unless you're talking about "some asshole's house."

But anyways, I think that if rich people and businesses are allowed to keep the money they earn, they will invest in more employees, material, research, etc. instead of trying to conserve by laying people off and cutting research. I think that if the businesses have money, everyone will benefit. A bit opposite of your statement.

From: bullzeye95

But anyways, I think that if rich people and businesses are allowed to keep the money they earn, they will invest in more employees, material, research, etc. instead of trying to conserve by laying people off and cutting research. I think that if the businesses have money, everyone will benefit. A bit opposite of your statement.

The only problem is that the people who will benefit are the people that are being hired overseas to save money. I think you might be underestimating the greed of people just a little? For the idea of your post to work the United States would have to severely lower taxes and restrictions on business. That would be good except for the problem with the national debt.

In a more perfect world it would work like that. I certainly would want it to happen, but I don't believe that it will happen with the way that America is run today.

Still, if someone's out of work, why should they receive government money? I'm tired of people treating the government like a babysitting service: "oh you're out of work? You're too lazy to work? You were a fuck up and had a kid when you were 17? Okay here's some money." You just can't tell me that's what the government was designed to do. Let's just face it: Wherever the federal government has gotten its slimy tentacles into has failed. Example 1: Postal service. The postal service is not profitable and not a good investment.
Example 2: Railroads. The government used to have nationalized railways, and they were a disaster. Now we have AmTrak. That also is a money pit with no profitability.
Example 3: Communist countries across the world. I know it's a bit extreme, but wherever the government takes over businesses or meddles with the economy the outcome is a chokehold around profits and investments.

And about the economic thing: People should have been responsible and looked into what they could afford. I mean, you can't blame the banks for giving people the loans. The banks are a private company, therefore they can give lones to whomever they want. And if the person can't pay anymore, it's the person's fault for being irresponsible and not doing their homework, and the bank's fault for being greedy and giving out loans people couldn't pay back.

And for people who say the answer to this problem is just to regulate the loans the banks give… You think the banks are too stupid to realize this on their own? I mean, obviously the surviving banks aren't going to make the same mistake twice.

And here's another thing: What reward do the banks that survived get? I mean, if they were careful about who they loaned money to and tried not to give out loans people couldn't pay back, why should another bank who didn't do that get bailed out? I realize there are bigger issues here and that we need the banks to keep the economy moving but it just doesn't seem fair.

i suppose rabcarl thinks the great depression was caused by millions of people being lazy.

i very much doubt he understands unemployment at all.

(Haven't posted in a few weeks, was on vacation)

@Bullzeye,

But anyways, I think that if rich people and businesses are allowed to keep the money they earn, they will invest in more employees, material, research, etc. instead of trying to conserve by laying people off and cutting research. I think that if the businesses have money, everyone will benefit. A bit opposite of your statement.

Amen to that. I'm not an anarchy and I know that you aren't completely, but I do believe that government really needs to be cut.


@Yakman, you mentioned unemployment. In economics, three things that increase unemployment (agreed on by democrats AND republicans), are minimum wage laws, unions, and unemployment insurance. I am going to talk about all 3.


When minimum wage increases, it forces some businesses to pay their employees more. When this happens, it increases the demand for jobs, but the supply of jobs lowers. This prevents reaching the equilibrium wage between supply and demand of jobs. When supply falls but demand rises, more people are unemployed. Democrat and republican economists will agree on this, even though some think that even though it raises unemployment, it's still better for the country.

Unions do the same thing. They force businesses to pay more money to their workers or they will go on strike. Some states even have laws that when unions go on strike, the businesses are not allowed to hire full time workers to replace the union workers, so the businesses are controlled by the unions. Unions do the same thing as minimum wage laws, which screws all non-union people and people who want to get into unions. This increases unemployment.

Unemployment insurance. When people get fired from their jobs, and they start making roughly 50% of what they were making when they were working while doing nothing, they are not very motivated to go find a new job. Unemployment insurance increases the span between job switches, and raises unemployment. Once again, democrat and republican economists agree on this, but some people think that if people have more time to look for jobs like this, they will end up finding the right job and staying with it longer (and many other things are debated about this).


Forced unionized states vs non union states productivity levels and other things are in a ratio of rougly 2 to 1, non union states being 2 times more productive. The proof is in the numbers. Unionized states like the one I'm living in don't do close to as well as non unionized states do. Obama loves the unions, wants to raise minimum wage, and is all about taking care of/babying the unemployed. When he says that he is going to reduce unemployment in this country, that is complete bull. Whether it will be better for the country or worse, it's not a party thing, but an economics thing that tampering with these 3 things will either increase or decrease unemployment.




It was funny. When we were driving home from vacation this week, we saw a lot of construction. Many times we saw one guy working a piece of machinery and 4-5 guys staring at him doing nothing. That's called a government job. Government isn't supposed to create jobs, people are supposed to create jobs. The public education system would suck much less is people were allowed to choose a private school to go to. They could pay for it because taxes could be reduced tremendously if the government didn't need to pay for schools. Then teachers may start to care a little bit on how good of a job they do because they woulnd't have a 20 year contract with a fixed pay nomatter how well they teach. Where's the motivation being a teacher to do a good job? That's why communism fails. People respond to incentives (one of the rules of economics). If there is no incentive or reward to do better, then you are just going to do enough to get by.