SRL Archive - Discussions & Debates

I think capitalism is bad, and heres why.

1. The failure of the invisible hand.

The invisible hand of the market, as Adam Smith remarked, is the power of a free market to self-regulate. As long as consumers are free to choose what to buy, and producers are free to choose what to sell and how to produce it, everyone will win because the consumer will get the cheapest possible product, the producer will end up with the most efficent method of production.

The free market is a major pillar of capitalism, it forces competition between people to produce the best product. A simple choice, compete or go bankrupt.
Or at least, free market idealists say it produces the best product. In reality, it produces the most money making product, and there is a subtle but important differance.

If we look at the example of the monopoly that Microsoft holds on the operating system market.
Every half-baked retarded first year computer science student will tell you Linux is better (and hopefully some people on this forum will too), but Microsoft Windows still reigns suprime over OS land. why? surely the invisible hand of the market would cause everyone to use the cheaper, more efficent Linux.

Microsoft uses merciless vendor lock-in tactics, spreads FUD (fear, uncertatinty, doubt), donates computers to schools and libraries to get the kids hooked, leads aggressive advertising campaigns.

All this keeps Microsoft in its monopoly, keeps an inferior product alive and lines the pockets of a small number of CEOs.

In the case of Operating Systems, the invisible hand of the market has failed us…



The next example I will look at is the case of the Dvorak keyboard layout.

The standard keyboard that almost everyone uses is called the qwerty keyboard layout.
This layout was developed for typewriters, the keys are like this because it forces you to type slowly and makes it much less likely that the keys will jam.

However, now we use plastic keyboards with much less moving parts that will never jam, why do we continue to use qwerty when it was designed to be inefficent?

There exists an alternative, called the Dvorak keyboard layout, users find they are less likely to get RSI (repetitive strain injury) and type faster, (In fact the world record holder of typing speed is a dvorak user)


But since almost everyone is locked into qwerty through no fault of their own, they are unable to take advantage of dvorak. The costs of swapping are simply too large, and that is why the dinosaur we call qwerty is still alive.

In the case of keyboard layouts, the invisible hand of the market has failed us…



Please dont get me wrong, I actually really like the concept of the invisible hand, it has applications outside economics.

For example, in Evolution by Natural Selection, that process is remarkably similar to the invisible hand of the market.
And similarly to the free market version, natural selection does not produce the most efficent solutions.

Why do men have nipples? why does the eye use four muscles to rotate them when two is enough? why are human wrists made of two bones built in such a way that its easy to break? why does the eye have a blind spot?

The answer is that the invisible hand of evolution (natural selection) wont produce the best/most efficent/kindest/justest solution, instead it will produce the solution that survives.

Evolution by natural selection tell us how we got here, its not a basis of how we should behave. Or to put it another way, we are intelligent enough to rebel against our selfish genes.

For example, evolution built our bodies to enjoy sugar and eat a lot of it, but now we know that eating sugar will make us fat, which actually makes us live shorter, unhealther lives.


The invisible hand can also be used for engineering complex solutions.

For example, there was once a very complicated traffic light system, too complicated for many engineers to understand enough to bring down waiting times.
So they made the system regulate itself, a computer controlled all traffic lights and slowly learned which combinations made for the best waiting times.
After a few weeks of being in the wild, the computer was found to have learned what appeared to be the best solution, the waiting times of traffic lower then anything the engineers could have managed with traditional approches.

Engineers are finding that their task is not so much to find solutions as to design systems that can discover their own.


So in conclusion, the invisible hand is awesome for finding solutions, but it will ignore and compromise all things that are not part of its 'mission statement', and that is why I think it should not be used to regular markets, the cost to people is far too high.



2. Cycles of boom and bust

This point is about the oscillating nature of capitalism.

One example of this cycle is the current economic crisis, caused by the collapse of the subprime mortgages.

To make a long story short, the invisible hand of the market gave bankers a choice, lend money to poor people or go bankrupt.
So thats what the bankers did, they made these subprime mortgages, built up a massive bubble which then burst, and now everyone will pay for it with large unemployment, loss of productivity and overall massive suffering for people.

I dont blame the bankers for this crisis, they were forced into it by the invisible hand.


So in conclusion, capitalism is bad.

The reason most people don't use Linux/Mac is because Windows is the standard to which most programs are built for. It's just easier and convenient.

Even if they were giving the dvorak keyboards out on the street for free, I wouldn't take one because I have become so used to this one. I can type over 110 words a minute on it… Why would I switch?

The reason we are in this economic crisis isn't because of the banks, you're right. It's because of the government (the one you think should be completely controlling our lives). The government told the banks that they would back every single loan that they gave out, so it didn't matter if the people could pay them back or not, because the banks would profit either way. The government wanted everybody in a house; all you needed was a pen to sign your name to get one. Look where that got us now?


Capitalism works; America is still the #1 country in the world. Taking a look at history, we can see that communism does not work. That's what economists are supposed to look at Yakman, right? It's hard to test and repeatedly implement new economic policies, so we need to look at history. History shows communism equals the biggest of all fails. Just because we are using the second best operating system and a keyboard where the keys are jumbled means capitalism fails? Doesn't sound like too big of a deal to me considering everything that is good about capitalism.

tl;dr


also window > ubuntu for some things, windows < ubuntu for others.

in my opinion, capitalism has its ups and downs. in actuality, all governments do.

I find it interesting looking through history though. the USA spent a long time in south-east Asia to try and prevent the spread communism. obviously, to many people, communism seemed to work. but in today's age, we see more and more countries turning to capitalism. Even china is slowly developing a free market economy.

so why is there a massive switch between going to communism to suddenly going to capitalism?

Hello, Yakman.

IMO, you should see difference between different things, mathemathics is like 1 = 1, 2 = 2, 2 apples + 1 apple = 3.
The stuff you are talking about are not apples, but other things than apples, every subject has it own kind of way of being. Everything depends on where you talk about.
You probably think this doesn't make sense.
I agree the Microsoft Monopoly is gay as nothing else? I used the exact same words this morning(GM+1) in the IRC.
But that doesn't means it is bad. There has to be a balance between capitalism and communism, a balance between freedom and equality.

It is useless that you make these kind of threads because you are always ignorant.
You will always keep your statement; what so ever someone says.
Even with religious threads why state something and ignore everything that gets stated in the posts below?
I probably won't read you reply since I don't care if YOU are right or wrong.
Why? You won't listen to others, others won't listen to you.
It's always a nice read those statements, but always when I read it you kind of force me to accept it.

~Hermpie

The current crisis tells us that misguidedly trying to impose morality onto the free market ends in failure.

What if I decided that bunny rabbits are too cute to be eaten? Every other animal that depends on rabbits in the food chain would go extinct. That's essentially what happened here. Someone came up with an idea about how the world SHOULD be, and didn't consider the consequences.

For centuries banks has made loans to people, and the solvency of the bank depended entirely on those people repaying the loans as promised. That led to strict lending guidelines that many people viewed as immoral, due to the exclusion of poor people that had a bad track record of repaying their loans. The way some banks avoided entire areas of cities due to the borrowers' poverty AND the risk of asset depreciation in bad areas was viewed as unfair by Democrats.

So, they did two things. First they created a program that forced banks to lend to impoverished areas. Second, they created Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy loans from banks and inject more money into the mortgage market. This was the so-called "secondary mortgage market". The overall effect of these two policies was to increase lending to people that traditionally would not have gotten loans. Fannie and Freddie alone now hold over $5 trillion in mortgages. They're the biggest mortgage bundlers on the planet. Instead of a targeted program to help responsible people, it has become a behemoth that impacts every area of the world financial system.

Of course, those two policies have now blown up in our faces. The secondary mortgage market allowed banks to make loans, make an instant profit on fees, and then hand off the loan to the secondary market. This made it so that making bad loans was highly profitable, when that was never the case in the past.

The well-meaning people that tried to impose morality onto the market broke the link between selling loans and servicing those loans. Now one of the reasons that credit lines have frozen up is because banks don't trust each other. They don't know who was exploiting the system and who wasn't. They don't know who made good loans and who didn't. So, they all hang onto their own cash and their own assets, and refuse to participate in the secondary markets.

Meanwhile, credit unions, who were always holding their own loans all along, are doing just fine.

There's still no telling how this will play out. We will probably all be grappling with this fundamental problem for years to come. At some point, perhaps someone will realize that an economic system should be based on sound economics, not just morality or ethics.

So I read the first post, and found no evidence.

You got any evidence that Dorvak > Qwerty?
And the bit about Linux vs Windows seems like stereotypical linux fanboy chat to me.

If we look at the example of the monopoly that Microsoft holds on the operating system market.
Every half-baked retarded first year computer science student will tell you Linux is better (and hopefully some people on this forum will too), but Microsoft Windows still reigns suprime over OS land. why? surely the invisible hand of the market would cause everyone to use the cheaper, more efficent Linux.

Firstly, windows has been out longer. It has had a longer time to become popular, and people became familiar with it during the five or six year difference.. Secondly, because of that, people started making programs for it much earlier. Now that windows has such a large program base, its much harder for linux to catch up, so people go to the OS that has a bigger variety of uses. Then there's capitalism. (i would attribute this to your problem with capitalism instead of finding it as a flaw in the invisible hand behind OS'es.) One of linux's good points for programmers, yet not necessarily great for the end user…open source. If somethings opensource you can't really pay for it, so people that are out to make money cannot make it so easily on linux.

Why do men have nipples?

Not a very good example. IMO, it makes things easier to do uniformly. The choice between female and male isnt made right away, it happens later in the growth. So, when a baby is first developing it doesnt need to worry about whether or not to give male or female parts, it just keeps that decision for later when its a more pressing matter. It seems more efficient and has less room for error.

The next example I will look at is the case of the Dvorak keyboard layout.

Great point. I think that this is just another case of whats familiar. People get used to typing on one keyboard then when a new technology comes out, everyone has to relearn everything again. Then again, it could also be the same question as, why are there many different programming languages if one is so surely better? why are there different brand for the same product?

For example, evolution built our bodies to enjoy sugar and eat a lot of it, but now we know that eating sugar will make us fat, which actually makes us live shorter, unhealther lives.

Sugar doesnt make you fat, eating too much sugar will make you fat because your body is tricked into thinking that you are going through a famine. Anything in excess is bad for you.

I dont blame the bankers for this crisis, they were forced into it by the invisible hand.

That's kind of silly. They weren't given a choice between lend to poor people or go bankrupt. It was either lend money to people they knew could pay them back and lend money to people that will. The grass looked greener on the side of forcing people into bankruptcy. But that's not capitalism's fault, people will still go on wanting to make money in a non capitalistic society.

I'm not really necessarily saying that capitalism is the best. But, you can't really go pointing out why capitalism is horrible if you're not going to give a better alternative that fixes all of its problems.

The reason most people don't use Linux/Mac is because Windows is the standard to which most programs are built for. It's just easier and convenient.

You sound like someone who doesn't know Linux, and only windows. :)

From: JAD
Even if they were giving the dvorak keyboards out on the street for free, I wouldn't take one because I have become so used to this one. I can type over 110 words a minute on it… Why would I switch?

I don't think think you really mean this - how can you say you don't want to switch to something better?

What you said can basically be applied on just about every statement in life…

• Hey… Nuclear energy works… Why should I switch to Green Energy??? Makes no sense to me zomg!!11
• My xBox works - why do I want xBox 360? Why would I switch?
• I have an old car - it still works. Why would I switch?
• Everyone likes rap - why shouldn't I??
• My old computer still works - why would I get a new one?

Anyway,

The reason we are in this economic crisis isn't because of the banks, you're right. It's because of the government (the one you think should be completely controlling our lives). The government told the banks that they would back every single loan that they gave out, so it didn't matter if the people could pay them back or not, because the banks would profit either way. The government wanted everybody in a house; all you needed was a pen to sign your name to get one. Look where that got us now?

I do believe that corruption in banks, and investing in a risky manner has definitely 'helped' in getting us into this so called crisis.
And yea - the previous American government was one of the worst so far - so that has definitely helped - the #1 country with a total moron in control of the country. ;)

Capitalism works; America is still the #1 country in the world. Taking a look at history, we can see that communism does not work. That's what economists are supposed to look at Yakman, right? It's hard to test and repeatedly implement new economic policies, so we need to look at history. History shows communism equals the biggest of all fails. Just because we are using the second best operating system and a keyboard where the keys are jumbled means capitalism fails? Doesn't sound like too big of a deal to me considering everything that is good about capitalism.

Yakman never said communism was the best alternative; he simply stated Capitalism isn't the answer. Also - 'Second Best Operating System?', more like the last I would ever use. Mac, Open/FreeBSD, Solaris and Linux are all far superior to any Windows operating system. I feel that in this case you lack the experience to debate about this subject.

From: bobng
So I read the first post, and found no evidence.

You got any evidence that Dorvak > Qwerty?
And the bit about Linux vs Windows seems like stereotypical linux fanboy chat to me.

1482073 Apr 14 18:13:33 <bobng> The best bit of Ubuntu is the ease of installing programs

Courtesy of Jason2gs. :p
It shows how Ubuntu actually is much easier to use - especially when installing applications. (JAD claimed otherwise.)

You sound like someone who doesn't know Linux, and only windows. :)

Lemme know when you can get Crysis, and many other high quality games to run on Linux ;)

From: Harry
Lemme know when you can get Crysis, and many other high quality games to run on Linux ;)

Okay Windows uses lots of resources so use it for gaming.
Ubuntu less and can use a lot but it doesn't because you use it for the other stuff.
It just like every game has punkbuster which uses some gay windows format encryption who can't be send on linux thus we can't play those games.

eg. a apple has a lot of C vitamin and a banana a lot of B vitamin
Person 1 has some lack of C so Apple is better for him
Person 2 has some lack of B so the banana is better for him.
Get the point?
Since I probably will stop gaming I will switch to ubuntu and continue programming C#/C++ or something in mono if it works 100% and buy a laptop.
I think Ubuntu fits me the best.

Enjoy having to WINE all your C#, .NET, etc. programs……

Mono. If I got informed right. I can use Mono on all Os's

Remember guys, stay on topic. This is about capitalism, not Linux vs. Windows.

[Off topic]
First it goes like:

Yakman: evolution p0wnz.
god: Own'd!
MS: Windows.
Wizzup: Ubuntu Headshot* pwned!

Thus everything where it all started is Linux.
Thus every discussion will lead to linux IS better than windows(I just never installed it :p)

nah, actually God.(I really mean that)
[Off topic]
Al right :)

From: Wizzup?
I don't think think you really mean this - how can you say you don't want to switch to something better?

What you said can basically be applied on just about every statement in life…

• Hey… Nuclear energy works… Why should I switch to Green Energy??? Makes no sense to me zomg!!11
• My xBox works - why do I want xBox 360? Why would I switch?
• I have an old car - it still works. Why would I switch?
• Everyone likes rap - why shouldn't I??
• My old computer still works - why would I get a new one?

Those aren't fair comparisons in any way at all. Rearranging the keys after getting used to them in certain positions is stupid. How is it better to change which finger presses what key? I'm used to pressing the Q A and the Z key with my left pinky. Why would I want to change? Neither of the keyboards is really better IMO, It's just which one you're used to…

The reason it slowed people down by changing the order is because people got used to it one way. If I came over to your house and changed your keyboard with one where the letters are all in random positioning, would you type slower?

Anyway,

I do believe that corruption in banks, and investing in a risky manner has definitely 'helped' in getting us into this so called crisis.
And yea - the previous American government was one of the worst so far - so that has definitely helped - the #1 country with a total moron in control of the country. ;)

The policy I was referring to was Bill Clintons, but that's your opinion. Bush was a decent president in my opinion. Definitely not the best ever, but given the circumstances he was average. You have said yourself that you think the world would be better off without republicans (without republicans everyone would work for the government (communism)) so I am not going to even try to argue your view on this.

Yakman never said communism was the best alternative; he simply stated Capitalism isn't the answer.

Yakman is a self proclaimed communist. I just assumed he's a communist because he believes communism is the best form of government.

Also - 'Second Best Operating System?', more like the last I would ever use. Mac, Open/FreeBSD, Solaris and Linux are all far superior to any Windows operating system.

You say that like it's fact.

I feel that in this case you lack the experience to debate about this subject.

I agree. I shouldn't have made that statement. This is a political science debate though, not a computer science debate :)

From: JAD
Those aren't fair comparisons in any way at all. Rearranging the keys after getting used to them in certain positions is stupid. How is it better to change which finger presses what key? I'm used to pressing the Q A and the Z key with my left pinky. Why would I want to change? Neither of the keyboards is really better IMO, It's just which one you're used to…

Dvorak has scientifically been proven to be better than Qwerty, if I recall correctly. It just is not very practical to use in this case - because no one has a dvorak keyboard these days.

The reason it slowed people down by changing the order is because people got used to it one way. If I came over to your house and changed your keyboard with one where the letters are all in random positioning, would you type slower?

Yes, I would type slower. But I would at first also drive slower on my new bike, because I have to get used to it. It doesn't withhold me from getting a new one, though. :)

The policy I was referring to was Bill Clintons, but that's your opinion. Bush was a decent president in my opinion. Definitely not the best ever, but given the circumstances he was average. You have said yourself that you think the world would be better off without republicans (without republicans everyone would work for the government (communism)) so I am not going to even try to argue your view on this.

What circumstances, the war that he has started? :)

Yakman is a self proclaimed communist. I just assumed he's a communist because he believes communism is the best form of government.

I spoke to yakman about this, since I thought the same as you did at first. He told me he wasn't suggestion communism in this specific case.

You say that like it's fact.

It is, in every possible aspect. The edge windows current has it that most games use DirectX, and thus only run on windows. (Although WINE does it nicely, most of the time.) :)

I agree. I shouldn't have made that statement. This is a political science debate though, not a computer science debate :)

I think the two Operating Systems actually are capable of reflecting political views.
However, I would see Linux not so much as communism, but more as a an example of Open Source.

i must disagree with linux vs windows being offtopic, i mentioned it in my first post, its part of my point and it is very much on topic.



to all of you saying the subprime crisis was the governments fail.

I really dont understand it, first you say America is so successful because of its almost-unregulated capitalism, next moment you say America is burdened by government regulation which caused the credit crunch.

I first started seeing these "government did credit crunch" theories during the American election, I suppose it was an attempt to try to pass the blame onto Barack Obama, instead of the ruling Republican party…


To me, what makes much more sense is that American banks found they could make profit by inventing complicated financial devices with names asset-backed securities (ABS), special purpose vehicles (SPV), special purpose entity (SPE), special purpose company (SPC) and credit derivative.

Banks didnt have a problem loaning with a 1% deposit because the house prices kept rising, so if the creditee defaulted, the bank could just sell the house and get its money back.
This worked as long as house prices continued to rise, and this builds up a massive bubble which inevitably bursts.

The only reason the banks came up with all this stuff is so they could make profits.




bobng I've got a lot of evidence for dvorak > qwerty, i wont post it all at once because thats overkill, but this is one of my favourite.

this goes for you too JAD, i suppose you simply dont know (no shame in that)

type this with a qwerty keyboard, you'll see what i mean

Fraser Street was in West Everett. Westward of Fraser Street the great vast sea. Awed, we gazed seawards, attracted by crested waves which raced and ebbed. Children were scattered on the beach edged and strewed with seaweed. They waded in water as the sea surged in and retreated. They bagged crabs as eagerly as beavers saw trees. Brave crews, seafarers in fact, steered sea craft far away. The site of Fraser Street was not overrated.

Few vegetated in Fraser Street. Nobody wasted time abed. "Acts test the breed," was ever the sacred adage. Varied crafts and trades were represented. There was a caterer, a barber, a weaver, a cabaret, and a garage. Attracted, we started to see several scenes. We were greeted as friends.

The barber catered to a varied trade, representing diverse careers and different creeds. Saturday drew the best crowd. All were seated, relaxed, aware of fewer cares, less fagged. There we saw a few starved tattered beggars who bragged of "bracers" served at cafes after a wee meal of beef stew and cabbage. A better fare was reserved for those reared on earth's greater awards.

From: Wizzup?
What circumstances, the war that he has started? :)

Hurricane Kartina, a democratic congress, the time bomb Bill Clinton created for him with the housing market…etc.

I spoke to yakman about this, since I thought the same as you did at first. He told me he wasn't suggestion communism in this specific case.

What was he suggesting then/what are you suggesting then Yakman?

From: Yakman
I really dont understand it, first you say America is so successful because of its almost-unregulated capitalism, next moment you say America is burdened by government regulation which caused the credit crunch.

The democrats are pulling America towards a socialist country, the republicans are trying to keep us capitalists. America is burdened by government regulation/taxes right now.

I first started seeing these "government did credit crunch" theories during the American election, I suppose it was an attempt to try to pass the blame onto Barack Obama, instead of the ruling Republican party…

Everyone in congress combined has more power than the president (not passing all of the blame onto congress). There wasn't a "ruling Republican party" too recently.

bobng I've got a lot of evidence for dvorak > qwerty, i wont post it all at once because thats overkill, but this is one of my favourite.

this goes for you too JAD, i suppose you simply dont know (no shame in that)

type this with a qwerty keyboard, you'll see what i mean

I'm sure you could make a paragraph that would be harder to type with a dvorak keyboard than a qwerty one too… Some people might be better with one keyboard than the other? Just like some people hit a golf ball further with different drivers then others; I just don't see how you can prove that in 100% of instances with 100% of people one keyboard is better than the other. It's just different key positioning…

D:< People talk to much. I wanted to read this thread but people say so much stuff :( Ha ha I love your arguments though Yakman :D (For anything :p)

From: JAD
I'm sure you could make a paragraph that would be harder to type with a dvorak keyboard than a qwerty one too… Some people might be better with one keyboard than the other? Just like some people hit a golf ball further with different drivers then others; I just don't see how you can prove that in 100% of instances with 100% of people one keyboard is better than the other. It's just different key positioning…

not likely, that paragraph shows how many simple common words are typed inefficently with qwerty, it would be almost impossible to make a paragraph like that for dvorak, you'd probably have to use some wierd unfamiliar words that dont have any vowels, if they even exist that is.


sure, Some people might be better with a bow and arrow than an AK-47, but they are very very few.


no-one said 100%, you'll never get 100% in anything except mathematics (probably)
you're right, in some cases it might be better to leave someone alone instead of giving them medicine, but in 99.9% of cases, giving medicine is better.


the thing with qwerty is that its designed to be inefficent, somebody actually sat down and said "I need to make a keyboard layout that makes people type slowly"




This is nothing new of course, the dvorak and qwerty situation has made many free market idealists uncomfortable for many years now.
If you google, you're likely to find some half-baked studies that show qwerty is actually better…

From: Yakman
not likely, that paragraph shows how many simple common words are typed inefficently with qwerty, it would be almost impossible to make a paragraph like that for dvorak, you'd probably have to use some wierd unfamiliar words that dont have any vowels, if they even exist that is.


sure, Some people might be better with a bow and arrow than an AK-47, but they are very very few.


no-one said 100%, you'll never get 100% in anything except mathematics (probably)
you're right, in some cases it might be better to leave someone alone instead of giving them medicine, but in 99.9% of cases, giving medicine is better.


the thing with qwerty is that its designed to be inefficent, somebody actually sat down and said "I need to make a keyboard layout that makes people type slowly"




This is nothing new of course, the dvorak and qwerty situation has made many free market idealists uncomfortable for many years now.
If you google, you're likely to find some half-baked studies that show qwerty is actually better…

Well argued. You comparing a bow and arrow to a AK-47, then comparing that to the difference between a qwerty and dvorak is slightly over dramatic in my opinion, but you have yours :)

From: Wizzup?

The reason we are in this economic crisis isn't because of the banks, you're right. It's because of the government (the one you think should be completely controlling our lives). The government told the banks that they would back every single loan that they gave out, so it didn't matter if the people could pay them back or not, because the banks would profit either way. The government wanted everybody in a house; all you needed was a pen to sign your name to get one. Look where that got us now?

I do believe that corruption in banks, and investing in a risky manner has definitely 'helped' in getting us into this so called crisis.
And yea - the previous American government was one of the worst so far - so that has definitely helped - the #1 country with a total moron in control of the country. ;)

Aww, you know that makes me sad to hear you insult ex-President George Bush, like that :mad:

I definitely wouldn't call him a moron. Perhaps poor with words, not the greatest public speaker, etcetera… But just like any other man. I doubt President Obama, if forced to speak without a teleprompter, would do so well himself…

The same arguments will be always been flung. "Bush got us into this war," "Bush got us into this crisis," etcetera… Somehow it seems that even into the Obama administration, it's still always Pelosi - with a sweeping gesture of her hand - cleaning up after the Bush administration…

Somebody tell the Democrats that their transparent antics are getting old.

From: Wizzup?

From: bobng
So I read the first post, and found no evidence.

You got any evidence that Dorvak > Qwerty?
And the bit about Linux vs Windows seems like stereotypical linux fanboy chat to me.

1482073 Apr 14 18:13:33 <bobng> The best bit of Ubuntu is the ease of installing programs

Courtesy of Jason2gs. :p
It shows how Ubuntu actually is much easier to use - especially when installing applications. (JAD claimed otherwise.)

1555200 Apr 26 11:50:23 <Bobng> I am beginning to dislike Ubuntu
1555395 Apr 26 12:09:22 <Bobng> Right - fuck ubuntu
1564455 Apr 27 14:14:55 <Bobng> vista > linux

Your selection of my logs don't show the true story. If you read the logs carefully (not posted) you'll see that Bobng starts off being a fan of Vista, is then persuaded to try Ubuntu Linux, and fines out he likes it. Then something happens, which causes him to stop liking it, and thus, the above quote.

My quote was just a portion of the entire story, but enough to show that your quote was chosen selectively.

Pretty please don't use my quotes for bad things. It makes me feel all sad inside.

From: Jason2gs
I definitely wouldn't call him a moron. Perhaps poor with words, not the greatest public speaker, etcetera… But just like any other man. I doubt President Obama, if forced to speak without a teleprompter, would do so well himself…

Lol, when Obama doesn't have someone to put the words in his mouth (write the speech for him), half of the words he says have an uh after them. "Well, uhhhh, lets be clear. Uhh, my economic policies have been, uhhh, critisized as being, uhhhh socialist…..etc." Bush wasn't a good speaker, but he was better than Obama without something prepared (not that speaking really matters. Just because someone got an A+ in speech class in school doesn't make them a better president)

From: Jason2gs
Aww, you know that makes me sad to hear you insult ex-President George Bush, like that :mad:

I definitely wouldn't call him a moron. Perhaps poor with words, not the greatest public speaker, etcetera… But just like any other man. I doubt President Obama, if forced to speak without a teleprompter, would do so well himself…

The same arguments will be always been flung. "Bush got us into this war," "Bush got us into this crisis," etcetera… Somehow it seems that even into the Obama administration, it's still always Pelosi - with a sweeping gesture of her hand - cleaning up after the Bush administration…

Somebody tell the Democrats that their transparent antics are getting old.

The arguments are facts. Obama would not have started this war. Bush did.
Bush may not have been the greatest speaker…
I have seldom seen people speak worse than Bush, he always made me laugh. You should google for some compilations of him speaking. It is a true disaster, forgetting what he was saying, and always looking on a paper, if any (if he has none you can just stop listening already). I don't watch that much news, but from what I have seen, Obama seldom make a slip whilst making an official speech.

Your selection of my logs don't show the true story. If you read the logs carefully (not posted) you'll see that Bobng starts off being a fan of Vista, is then persuaded to try Ubuntu Linux, and fines out he likes it. Then something happens, which causes him to stop liking it, and thus, the above quote.

My quote was just a portion of the entire story, but enough to show that your quote was chosen selectively.

Pretty please don't use my quotes for bad things. It makes me feel all sad inside.

I only picked one quote out of the 60 you pastebinned for me - the one that showed Bobng's first reaction, impression. You know just as well as I do that his Vista > Ubuntu quote was only because he said IDLE doesn't work that well on Ubuntu as it does on Vista, according to him. The reason I quoted him was merely to show one of his first reactions. And I am pretty confident he still uses Ubuntu, he just doesn't use it for gaming and such. (Off topic much)

From: JAD
Lol, when Obama doesn't have someone to put the words in his mouth (write the speech for him), half of the words he says have an uh after them. "Well, uhhhh, lets be clear. Uhh, my economic policies have been, uhhh, critisized as being, uhhhh socialist…..etc." Bush wasn't a good speaker, but he was better than Obama without something prepared (not that speaking really matters. Just because someone got an A+ in speech class in school doesn't make them a better president)

I have seen Bush speak unprepared as well, and it was just worse.

Obama hasn't been drunk in public either, as far as I know.
I heard there are rumours on the internets that Bush has been drunk in public though.
Once again, there are lots of video's on youtube… I won't link you though, I think you can find some yourself. I have seen at least 5 videos of Bush being drunk, where at least one was not faked. (Some are, I think.)

I'll link you anyway: This one makes me laugh: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgPShicCCTA

I know SRL and fish can exist peacefully together, and I am looking forward to your pigs tonight. Eh, posts.

From: Wizzup?
The arguments are facts. Obama would not have started this war. Bush did.
Bush may not have been the greatest speaker…
I have seldom seen people speak worse than Bush, he always made me laugh. You should google for some compilations of him speaking. It is a true disaster, forgetting what he was saying, and always looking on a paper, if any (if he has none you can just stop listening already). I don't watch that much news, but from what I have seen, Obama seldom make a slip whilst making an official speech.



I only picked one quote out of the 60 you pastebinned for me - the one that showed Bobng's first reaction, impression. You know just as well as I do that his Vista > Ubuntu quote was only because he said IDLE doesn't work that well on Ubuntu as it does on Vista, according to him. The reason I quoted him was merely to show one of his first reactions. And I am pretty confident he still uses Ubuntu, he just doesn't use it for gaming and such. (Off topic much)



I have seen Bush speak unprepared as well, and it was just worse.

Obama hasn't been drunk in public either, as far as I know.
I heard there are rumours on the internets that Bush has been drunk in public though.
Once again, there are lots of video's on youtube… I won't link you though, I think you can find some yourself. I have seen at least 5 videos of Bush being drunk, where at least one was not faked. (Some are, I think.)

I'll link you anyway: This one makes me laugh: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgPShicCCTA

I know SRL and fish can exist peacefully together, and I am looking forward to your pigs tonight. Eh, posts.

Obama killed 12 kids before randomly, then robbed a bank.

There, now there's a rumor going around about Obama (not too hard to start a rumor about someone you don't like…). The media ripped apart George Bush and the whole republican party. I think that the republican party has taken a turn for the worse since the Reagan days, but I still believe in them more then the democratic party.

Anyways, you have your views (which are wrong in my eyes), and I have my views (which are wrong in your eyes). None of those views are going to change from any discussion we have right now.

But like I said above, I really don't think it makes you a good president if you speak well, it just makes you look like one. You will admit though, there have been much better speakers then both Bush and Obama, right?

For all those who believe that Bush and Republicans were for NO regulation, you need to read your history books.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes-Oxley_Act

Bush and the Republican Congress passed the most far reaching, most invasive package of new business reforms in over 50 years.

It was so harsh that a lot of critics complained it was forcing financial services companies to relocate from New York to London. Do you think it's a big coincidence that 90% of AIG was solvent, while the London branch lost tens of billions gambling on derivatives?

Those who complain about Republicans wanting no regulation are either intentionally glossing over the facts, or ignorant of them.

I would just like to say it seems to be derailing from capitalism.

Capitalism has failed society also though - just saying communism fails is unfair. Zimbabwe with Robert Mugabe turning it into a hell of a place to live while he lives in luxury isn't exactly the idea of a great system to live in to me. You may say this is because he is corrupt, but is he in fact not more capitalist? The ideal capitalist makes the most money possible from their situation - he seems to be doing quite well at that.
Likewise, communism hasn't always failed - Cuba is still sitting there all communist. It may not be the perfect image of country, but it is still a current reminder that communism isn't purely discussion.
Another point is that communism doesn't have to lead to economic stunting and the like. The USSR under Stalin allowed Russia to catch up in power and technology with the USA in a very short space of time. This was done under harsh conditions, but it does show that communism doesn't equal fail economy.
Lastly, don't get democracy and capitalism so closely linked - democracy only refers to fair representation, while capitalism only refers to making as much money as you can. You can have a democratic communist country just as you can have a capitalist dictatorship. Funnily enough it's these capitalist dictatorships that seem to cause a lot more trouble though.

You think Mugabe is a capitalist?

He's the one that had a somewhat functioning economy, with farms owned predominantly by white people. He decided that an African country should have farms run by black Africans, and had the government seize the farmland and distribute it to black folks. The economy collapsed as agricultural output plummeted.

You see the same thing with Hugo Chavez, voiding long-standing contracts with Oil companies to develop and produce Venezuelan oil. He nationalized the oil industry in his own country to return it to the people. The only reason his country functions is due to the oil wealth it has. When the oil price was climbing last year, he was getting louder and louder in his denunciation of America. Now that the price of oil crashed, he's suddenly faced with insolvency again, and all of his grand Socialist plans are in question. He's also the one putting price controls on bread and grain and other food staples. He decides that wheat costs too much, and imposes a government mandated price. So, any farmer that grows wheat loses money on it. Every acre of wheat they grow costs them more than the goverment allows them to sell it for. So, most farmers have wised up and decided that they simply won't plant any wheat. They'll plant corn, or soybeans, or anything else. That creates even more scarcity in the marketplace, so that people have to go stand in line for an hour to buy a loaf of bread, and they are strictly rationed.

There's nothing at all Capitalist about any of that. It's injecting social justice into the economic system. Mugabe is the perfect example of someone that will go to any length to maintain his own power and wealth through government abuse of their economy. It's the antithesis of free markets. Hugo Chavez is another great example of why mandating social justice in the economic system creates a cure worse than the disease.

Capitalism encourages greed - it is an economic theory that strives on people wanting more money to live better lives. In this surrounding, is it not only natural that people become greedier? An abuser of power to gain money is a capitalist - if they were not, then they wouldn't want the money. Also, as Zimbabwe is a capitalist state and he had supreme rule for a while, if he were not capitalist I am sure he would've changed the way the economy was run passed his campaign promise that secured him the power.

I don't know anything at all other than what you wrote about Hugo Chavez, but to me it seems that you agree with my reasoning that you can't say that the failing of an economic system in a real life example means that it is a failure of a system. That was my primary point for mentioning Mugabe though - the factor of people make any result invalid for determining the success or failure of a system when used in real life.

Power and wealth are concentrated under both Capitalism and Socialism. The only difference is that Socialism concentrates that power under the government in order to encourage social justice, while under Capitalism power is concentrated into wealthy individuals who are motivated by a wide variety of goals. Some are motivated only by greed. Some are philanthropists. Some are environmentalists, etc.

The only way to break the link between wealth and power is to implement a communist system, like Cuba.

Venezeula really likes Hugo Chavez, because they seem to agree with his social agenda. They would rather have Chavez have all the money and all the power than individuals.

Some people would rather have Barack Obama run the US economy, to make sure that union workers don't lose their jobs, to make sure that corporations are environmentally friendly, etc. That's not really the case, though. Since Congress controls all the taxation and spending, they really would hold all the power. I don't see handing Congress all the money and all the power to buy re-election by catering to special interests as better than having wealthy people decide.

Businesses are able to make tough decisions. They are able to look a worker in the eye and tell them they are being layed off so that their co-workers will still have a job. A politician can't do that. Everything is a political choice to them. And it's far easier to pretend like you can make everyone happy all the time than make a tough decision.

The one thing that America needs now more than anything is a Constitutional Amendment to mandate a balanced budget. Every state has that rule. It's the only thing that keeps politicians honest. Without it, you end up spending like Barack Obama has over the last 100 days.

From: JAD
Obama killed 12 kids before randomly, then robbed a bank.

There, now there's a rumor going around about Obama (not too hard to start a rumor about someone you don't like…). The media ripped apart George Bush and the whole republican party.

Bush made is very easy for them to do so, wouldn't you agree?

From: tarajunky
Power and wealth are concentrated under both Capitalism and Socialism. The only difference is that Socialism concentrates that power under the government in order to encourage social justice, while under Capitalism power is concentrated into wealthy individuals who are motivated by a wide variety of goals. Some are motivated only by greed. Some are philanthropists. Some are environmentalists, etc.

The only way to break the link between wealth and power is to implement a communist system, like Cuba.

Venezeula really likes Hugo Chavez, because they seem to agree with his social agenda. They would rather have Chavez have all the money and all the power than individuals.

Some people would rather have Barack Obama run the US economy, to make sure that union workers don't lose their jobs, to make sure that corporations are environmentally friendly, etc. That's not really the case, though. Since Congress controls all the taxation and spending, they really would hold all the power. I don't see handing Congress all the money and all the power to buy re-election by catering to special interests as better than having wealthy people decide.

Businesses are able to make tough decisions. They are able to look a worker in the eye and tell them they are being layed off so that their co-workers will still have a job. A politician can't do that. Everything is a political choice to them. And it's far easier to pretend like you can make everyone happy all the time than make a tough decision.

The one thing that America needs now more than anything is a Constitutional Amendment to mandate a balanced budget. Every state has that rule. It's the only thing that keeps politicians honest. Without it, you end up spending like Barack Obama has over the last 100 days.

A Balanced budget is impossible to uphold. There is too much need for money in our world now that if a budget was put in place stuff would fall to shit, because some areas rely on overspending to stay operational, in the UK anyway, like the NHS and shit.

Businesses are able to make tough decisions but I cant see what that has to do with a politition. A cleaning company laying off a worker is alot different to being a Politician. A politician is attacked by people whatever way he sways, because there will always be people to disagree, and maybe politicians just dont want people to hate them for a decision that they have made.

I'm not gonna pull up quotes as there have been several people saying the same thing.

First, its annoying as hell to me that y'all say Bush started the "War on Terror" (Or whatever bullshit Obama is calling it now). Did 9/11 never happen? Did Bush not say that he would go after anyone harboring terrorists? Bush told the American people to be ready for the long haul, the majority of people wanted to do it anyway.

The sub-prime mortgage crisis was caused by Clinton, I have (along with several others) posted this lots of places, with proof. You simply ignore our arguments and go on spouting your viewpoints.

You can make anything work on paper, as you can put it into any situation you want, do not have the parameters of real life at all on it. Communism is a failed system, I thought that case was closed 20+ years ago. You call people such as myself ones who "Hold onto the past" and "Do not change"? When I am the one trying to do things that WORK and y'all are looking at failed Utopian ideals and trying to implement them into an unbroken system (Aka The United States 1992-2008). When you (Not really YOU but more the Socialist/Communist idealists) finally break the unbroken system because of your "fixing" of imaginary problems. You blame people much like myself.

This brings me to my next point. Over-exaggeration of so-called "Crises". Look at the most recent issue, Swine flu. Just watch, Obama and Congress will use this as an opportunity to get socialized medicine. The "Economic crisis", sure it is bad, but it is simply the market fixing itself after an artificial expansion. Unemployment is nothing like the Great Depression, hell, it is nothing like the Carter years. The Democrats (Most of which are Liberals) blow "Crises" way out of proportion to get what they want, to get their policies implemented, and to gain more power.

Capitalism is far from a failed economic system. Partially because we have never been truly "Capitalist". America has been very protectionist in its policies. Government subsidies, and Unions (Not the government per-se but they have been propagated by it) are two big examples of such protectionist policies. If there is no "Invisible Hand" then why do we ever have times of "Bust"? There is no need to "fix" the markets and people don't take that responsibility upon themselves. Hopefully y'all dont just skim over what I said, actually let it sink in and do some of that "Free Thinking" that you always talk about.

first, I really dont know why people are bringing up communism, I have not mentioned, implied or insinuated anything to do with communism.
Its only you guys who're talking about it.

actually it was Bush who came up with the phrase "War on Terror", just after 9/11.

Brushing off the economic crisis by saying its only the "market fixing itself" doesnt actually answer anything.
people still feel the effects, they still dont have a job, still see their bills rise and still see suffer. Its little comfort to them that the market is "fixing" itself.

you've made a grave misunderstanding, I've never said that the invisible hand doesnt exist.
it exists alright, and it makes promises which dont come true, as i elaborated in my first post.

<3 sirlaughsalot! Nice post :)

From: Yakman
first, I really dont know why people are bringing up communism, I have not mentioned, implied or insinuated anything to do with communism.
Its only you guys who're talking about it.

actually it was Bush who came up with the phrase "War on Terror", just after 9/11.

Brushing off the economic crisis by saying its only the "market fixing itself" doesnt actually answer anything.
people still feel the effects, they still dont have a job, still see their bills rise and still see suffer. Its little comfort to them that the market is "fixing" itself.

you've made a grave misunderstanding, I've never said that the invisible hand doesnt exist.
it exists alright, and it makes promises which dont come true, as i elaborated in my first post.

You're a communist, right Yakman? Self proclaimed. So you're saying capitalism sucks, and since you didn't offer a solution, we assumed that your solution is what you believe in, which is communism/socialism.

I really wish you would have responded to more points of sirlaughsalots. You say that the democratic party is the lesser of two evils (because they are more socialist), but as we've seen from Clinton being a big cause of this recession, maybe they aren't?

We are still the number 1 country in the world. Ask almost anyone living under any other system than capitalism (including socialist and communist countries) and they would pay to come live here. Capitalism works. It's like saying Tiger Woods golf clubs suck, even though he is the number one golfer in the world. Don't change what's working.


Bringing the democratic party up isn't off topic either. The democratic party creates more socialist programs than the republican party, which moves away from capitalism and IMO is what is ruining what has been working for over 200 years with the US. America was founded because we were running away from unfair taxes, but now our tax code book is over 10,000 pages long? Self employed people being taxed over 60% of their income (the government profits more then you do for working)? Capitalism works, although we do need some socialist programs. Too many socialist programs causes problems.

From: Yakman

actually it was Bush who came up with the phrase "War on Terror", just after 9/11.

I realize that, Obama has basically declared there is no such thing as a "Terrorist" anymore. Instead the people commonly referred to as "Terrorists" are "Freedom Fighters", "Insurgents", ect, and people like me in the United States are "Potential Terrorists". And the "War on Terror" is now "Overseas Contingency Operation".

From: Yakman
Brushing off the economic crisis by saying its only the "market fixing itself" doesnt actually answer anything.
people still feel the effects, they still dont have a job, still see their bills rise and still see suffer. Its little comfort to them that the market is "fixing" itself.

It actually does. The government doesnt need to "fix" everything. Some things will take care of themselves. We are not completely reliant on the government. For instance, hurricane Ike when it hit the gulf coast of Texas, people took care of it themselves, sure there were some things done by the government (Mainly as a safeguard against another Katrina), but once it was clear to go back to their homes, people took care of clearing roads in neighborhoods, helping neighbors, helping the community. You take a city like New Orleans, a lot of the citizens there have lived off welfare for a long long time. Are used to government handouts, and generally dont take care of themselves (granted it is a city beneath the sea level which is incredibly stupid in the first place). People in New Orleans didn't take the opportunities given to them to leave the city. Instead they stayed, when it was all clear, they looted, and generally were saps on the general populous. There are still to this day, some people in the "Temporary" housing given by the government.

From: Yakman

you've made a grave misunderstanding, I've never said that the invisible hand doesnt exist.
it exists alright, and it makes promises which dont come true, as i elaborated in my first post.

I apologize for the misunderstanding, I would appreciate it if you took the time and refuted what I have said.

You've got it all wrong, Yakman. Capitalism doesn't promise anything.

However, history has shown that capitalism is the best economic system available in many ways. It allows poor people upward mobility. It rewards brilliance and innovation. And it generates far more wealth than a non-capitalist system would.

If you really think the boom and bust cycle is too harsh, there are alternatives. You can forgo the booms and go live in the 50 year bust they're having in Cuba, for instance.

The problem with allowing people to impose social justice on the economic system is that it drives everyone DOWN to the lowest common denominator, it doesn't lift everyone up together, because it undermines the system that best drives wealth creation in the first place.

To say that Microsoft is a monopoly isn't entirely true, though it's pretty damn close to becoming one. For those of you who don't watch tv, Mac has released a collection of aggresive advertisements openly criticizing Windows. I have a theory that most people choose Windows simply because it's EASY TO USE. If someone who has never had a computer before is given a Linux operating system, do you really expect them to fully grasp the in's and out's of the software?

Regarding Dvorak and Qwerty keyboards… Are keyboard layouts even a market? Unless there are companies based entirely off of the patent of the Dvorak and Qwerty concepts how would these two ideas compete against eachother? If no such companies exist, then the failure of the "Invisible Hand" would merely be the reluctance of computer companies to try and promote a new and unknown product to the public.

You lost me when you started rambling about the concept of the Invisible Hand being used in Natural Selection.

I dont blame the bankers for this crisis, they were forced into it by the invisible hand.

That statement alone reflects your vast array of knowledge regarding the current situation we have here on Earth. *sarcastic*

http://www.trilateral.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilateral_Commission
Just to give you guys an idea of what a group of extremely wealthy bankers looks like. The "about Trilateral" section fails to mention the extreme wealth and power the group carries.

Most of you have heard of semi-illegal "Stock Pools" right? Imagine those times 100. A group of bankers could easily (frighteningly easily, no rhyme intended) sell ALL of their positions in the Stock market, the Currency market, the Bonds market, and the Commodities market and watch the prices plummet. Why would they do this? They go short. For those of you not-so familiar with instrument trading, there is a method of making money called "going short". Going short is a type of trading where you make money from price declines. I'm not going to get into the concept of going short, but if you still don't get it here's a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_short


I hate to break it to you, but bankers aren't the people's side, and you shouldn't feel sorry for them.

From: metalanca

You lost me when you started rambling about the concept of the Invisible Hand being used in Natural Selection.

This is just assuming you believe in natural selection. But what he is saying is that "Natural Selection" is Nature's "Invisible Hand".

From: metalanca

http://www.trilateral.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilateral_Commission
Just to give you guys an idea of what a group of extremely wealthy bankers looks like. The "about Trilateral" section fails to mention the extreme wealth and power the group carries.

Most of you have heard of semi-illegal "Stock Pools" right? Imagine those times 100. A group of bankers could easily (frighteningly easily, no rhyme intended) sell ALL of their positions in the Stock market, the Currency market, the Bonds market, and the Commodities market and watch the prices plummet. Why would they do this? They go short. For those of you not-so familiar with instrument trading, there is a method of making money called "going short". Going short is a type of trading where you make money from price declines. I'm not going to get into the concept of going short, but if you still don't get it here's a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_short

I hate to break it to you, but bankers aren't the people's side, and you shouldn't feel sorry for them.

"Going short" Is more about getting assets and Capital than actual money. I suppose it could work, but it is not in the best interest of the bankers. If the stock market tanks, their banks tank as well. They have a vested interest in the well being of the market and the people.

Bankers or any other rich people for that matter wont just screw over the people to make a quick buck. The thing about money is, you can never get enough of it, the longer prosperity endures, the more money they make.

Big business people aren't "evil" and they are demonized frequently, often unjustly, sure there are some big business people who are in it for themselves and don't care who suffers, but the majority are hardworking people who busted their ass to the top (sure some inherited it, but it is still a minority).

ok, my favorite video about the economic crisis in the USA and Obama.
the video :)

now, communism is AMAZING, IF everyone was an angel and were hard honest workers. then communism would work well. but thats not humanity. at the bottom of everything, we are greedy and selfish. you can never be 0% selfish, no matter how hard u try. so since we are corrupt from the get-go, communism wont work.

now onto socialism. is it a good form or government?? idk, but the USA will sure be experiencing many new changes that might seem socialist (thank you democrats -.- ). so i really cant say whether socialism can work or not.

but, we have seen in history how capitalism has prevailed and is still prevailing. almost all major exporting countries are converting to a free market (which ends up converting the country into capitalism in most cases).

we need to realize that it is pointless to try and argue about this topic. people wont change their minds on this. but we need to use history to show how your type of government is favored over the others. if you cant prove that your government is best through out the worlds history, then you cant even think of proving it is the best in todays world

From: x[Warrior]x3500
ok, my favorite video about the economic crisis in the USA and Obama.
the video :)

now, communism is AMAZING, IF everyone was an angel and were hard honest workers. then communism would work well. but thats not humanity. at the bottom of everything, we are greedy and selfish. you can never be 0% selfish, no matter how hard u try. so since we are corrupt from the get-go, communism wont work.

now onto socialism. is it a good form or government?? idk, but the USA will sure be experiencing many new changes that might seem socialist (thank you democrats -.- ). so i really cant say whether socialism can work or not.

but, we have seen in history how capitalism has prevailed and is still prevailing. almost all major exporting countries are converting to a free market (which ends up converting the country into capitalism in most cases).

we need to realize that it is pointless to try and argue about this topic. people wont change their minds on this. but we need to use history to show how your type of government is favored over the others. if you cant prove that your government is best through out the worlds history, then you cant even think of proving it is the best in todays world

I just watched a few minutes of the Obama video, I'll check it out later. Though I've heard some things about Obama (which I'm not sure are true or not) that are pretty f**ked up.

"We've got to have a civilian national security force"
A mandatory millitary enrollment of civilians? That kind of scares the crap out of me lol.

I agree with your view on Communism. Capitalism promotes the idea of survival of the fittest, where Communism promotes the idea that the wealth is shared between everyone, so why work harder then the others?

we need to realize that it is pointless to try and argue about this topic. people wont change their minds on this.

Touche sir. Touche.

You seem to have misunderstood this area of the forum - this is the debate section not the change the world section. The point is to argue a case even if it is a completely controversial or if it is the most commonly held opinion ever.

Also, how can you look back in history? Well, I am fairly sure before money and bartering was used, humans would have lived in small tribes where they would work together to gather food and produce weapons. There was no crime during that time. The economy of the small tribe would increase vastly as they produced better weapons and the like, which allowed them to hunt larger or more animals, thus gathering more food. I assume you can take this system, where there is no money and all produce is shared amongst all the populace, as an early form of communism.

Communism can work in a modern society, but it struggles to do so when it comes to large populations. Poorer areas of the world where people still live in isolation still live in similar systems as mentioned above and it works great for them. Money only lubricates the system when it becomes too big for everyone to know each other, because it is when there is no peer pressure to work hard that communism and similar systems start to fail because of the human element.

From: tarajunky
However, history has shown that capitalism is the best economic system available in many ways. It allows poor people upward mobility. It rewards brilliance and innovation. And it generates far more wealth than a non-capitalist system would.

I would like to reply to this part of your post, because I believe that science and infrastructure would have been much better/further in a non Capitalistic system. If scientists bundled their knowledge and "strength" rather than work parallel on the same project over the world science would have been much more advanced, but it is slowed down because they lack knowledge that other labs/countries have, or just generally need more scientists, more areas to test it on.
Furthermore, in this current system, few people can withhold and delay the interests of many lots of roads being build are stopped, because the few people who live in a village don't want it to be built, because they think the cars will make too much noise, green energy (windmills) being build on water rather than on ground, because they think it will cause a few people hindrance.

Taking a look at the last Olympic Games, we can easily state that Communism puts a good focus on talents. If someone is epically good at swimming, he will go a school for swimming once he is 12, and will then exercise for the Olympic games, or whatever.
I am not stating this is a good thing, because maybe the person in question did not want to become a swimmer, but rather a smith, but that's not the point in this case. Communism is more effective when it comes to assigning people a job they are more suited for.

Personally I believe that Communism is not the right political system, and that the system we currently hold isn't the best either, because

From: Wizzup?
I would like to reply to this part of your post, because I believe that science and infrastructure would have been much better/further in a non Capitalistic system. If scientists bundled their knowledge and "strength" rather than work parallel on the same project over the world science would have been much more advanced, but it is slowed down because they lack knowledge that other labs/countries have, or just generally need more scientists, more areas to test it on.
Furthermore, in this current system, few people can withhold and delay the interests of many lots of roads being build are stopped, because the few people who live in a village don't want it to be built, because they think the cars will make too much noise, green energy (windmills) being build on water rather than on ground, because they think it will cause a few people hindrance.

Taking a look at the last Olympic Games, we can easily state that Communism puts a good focus on talents. If someone is epically good at swimming, he will go a school for swimming once he is 12, and will then exercise for the Olympic games, or whatever.
I am not stating this is a good thing, because maybe the person in question did not want to become a swimmer, but rather a smith, but that's not the point in this case. Communism is more effective when it comes to assigning people a job they are more suited for.

Personally I believe that Communism is not the right political system, and that the system we currently hold isn't the best either, because

He did say best economic system available in many ways (and most ways IMO).

I don't think that your reference to swimming was a very good example, since someone from a capitalist country (US) won a record breaking amount of medals swimming, when he wasn't being forced to.

I think you're right, and you're wrong.

You're right because we COULD put much more money and resources into science than we currently do by further empowering the government. However, you have to remember the current situation, which is that America spends FAR more on science and research than other countries do around the world, both when you consider total money spent, and total money spent per person.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/62785/RD-Spending-Worldwide

According to that, the US pays for 35% of all research worldwide, and all the developed countries combined only account for 78%, so we're spending gobs more than anyone else. Even when you consider the percentage of total GDP spent on research, the US is right near the top of the list at 2.8%. Meanwhile, the EU is at 1.8%.

So, although in theory a stronger Socialist government CAN choose to invest a lot in research, the reality is that it is often pushed aside for more mundane big ticket concerns, like welfare, retirement, and health insurance.

It's one of those things that everyone supports, but is one of the lowest priorities for politicians when it comes time to making tough budgetary decisions. That's why I think it's better to allow individuals and corporations to play a larger role in driving science and technology.

There was no crime during that time.

lol?

From: mixster

Also, how can you look back in history? Well, I am fairly sure before money and bartering was used, humans would have lived in small tribes where they would work together to gather food and produce weapons. There was no crime during that time. The economy of the small tribe would increase vastly as they produced better weapons and the like, which allowed them to hunt larger or more animals, thus gathering more food. I assume you can take this system, where there is no money and all produce is shared amongst all the populace, as an early form of communism.

Communism can work in a modern society, but it struggles to do so when it comes to large populations. Poorer areas of the world where people still live in isolation still live in similar systems as mentioned above and it works great for them. Money only lubricates the system when it becomes too big for everyone to know each other, because it is when there is no peer pressure to work hard that communism and similar systems start to fail because of the human element.

It has to be in very small societies, otherwise it does not work. A family is a commune of sorts, but when you get a society with the population over a couple thousand (If that) the system falls apart.

The fact is, people are naturally competitive. Most people want to be better than the person next to them, and have a higher social, and economic standing. Capitalism utilizes this natural desire and uses it for the better of the whole.

Communism/Socialism, take the people who work and give their money to the people who don't (can't, w/e). Instead of people voluntarily giving out of the goodness of their heart, the government knows what is best with what to do with your money, better than you do. The government knows your goals and dreams better than you do. You should work and give half of what you make to someone who doesn't do anything. It is a dream killer, people will refuse to work at that point, if you can do nothing and get to the same place as working and doing something, what is the point of working?

From: sirlaughsalot
It has to be in very small societies, otherwise it does not work. A family is a commune of sorts, but when you get a society with the population over a couple thousand (If that) the system falls apart.

The fact is, people are naturally competitive. Most people want to be better than the person next to them, and have a higher social, and economic standing. Capitalism utilizes this natural desire and uses it for the better of the whole.

Communism/Socialism, take the people who work and give their money to the people who don't (can't, w/e). Instead of people voluntarily giving out of the goodness of their heart, the government knows what is best with what to do with your money, better than you do. The government knows your goals and dreams better than you do. You should work and give half of what you make to someone who doesn't do anything. It is a dream killer, people will refuse to work at that point, if you can do nothing and get to the same place as working and doing something, what is the point of working?

Exactly. There's no motivation in a communist society to do anything, because it doesn't really matter. That's what's screwed up with the public education system in the US right now. All the teachers are given 20 year contracts, and unless they do something terrible, they will not lose their job. It doesn't matter if they are great at teaching kids or terrible, because they will always get paid the same amount.

If education was taken private, there could be a TON of tax reduction that goes to pay for the schools, and then people could use that money to send their kids to a private school. Private schools have good teachers because the teachers have to be good, or else they will be fired or will not get rewarded with raises. Just like capitalist countries have good workers because the workers have to be good, or else they wouldn't survive or wouln't get rewarded (this was before anyone could hop on board with welfare and unemployment insurance. And the higher tax brackets makes there less of an incentive to work hard.).

From: JAD
If education was taken private, there could be a TON of tax reduction that goes to pay for the schools, and then people could use that money to send their kids to a private school. Private schools have good teachers because the teachers have to be good, or else they will be fired or will not get rewarded with raises. Just like capitalist countries have good workers because the workers have to be good, or else they wouldn't survive or wouln't get rewarded (this was before anyone could hop on board with welfare and unemployment insurance. And the higher tax brackets makes there less of an incentive to work hard.).

School is a tricky subject. Some people couldn't afford to put their kids in school if it wasn't free. It would be better education wise, but in America we try to give everyone equal opportunity. It really depends how much it would cost though, big schools would be cheaper, smaller rural schools would cost much more. It just really depends. Although one thing that we could do is something like I do with my school. I am "homeschooled" and I go to classes once a week and get homework for that week and turn it in the next week.

From: JAD
Exactly. There's no motivation in a communist society to do anything, because it doesn't really matter. That's what's screwed up with the public education system in the US right now. All the teachers are given 20 year contracts, and unless they do something terrible, they will not lose their job. It doesn't matter if they are great at teaching kids or terrible, because they will always get paid the same amount.

Yeah, it's a mess. My friend was talking to a lady that worked as a high school science teacher. She was the only teacher in the high school that had passed the competency exams. All the other teachers took the exams 4 times and failed 4 times. Do you think they lost their jobs? Of course not. They were kept on as "permanent substitute teachers". They kept the same salary, and taught the same subjects. The only downside was that they lose their health insurance plan. For any teacher that can get health insurance through their spouse's work, there's no downside at all. If we implemented universal health insurance in the US, there would never be any downside.

I looked at the pay scales last month. A college graduate earns $40,000, someone with a Master degree earns $42,000, and someone with a PhD earns $44,000. So, the difference between someone with a generic teaching degree with no competency in teaching science earns $4,000 less than someone with a doctorate in the field they're teaching.

Yeah, that makes sense…

Is it fair that then the children of poorer families that can't afford to send a child to school will have no future, because who would employ someone with no qualifications in anything other than a minimum wage job, in which case they would also have to compete with immigrants who are in the same boat. How can one rise from nothing to riches if they can't even get a job that has a future?

Competition doesn't fuel everyone though. Charity workers don't get paid, but does that mean they do hardly anything? If people are in jobs they like, then they can be self motivated. SRL is a community that bases itself around no monetary gain, yet it flourishes. The competition exists despite there being no gain as reputation as a scripter replaces money. In the real world, the same can apply.

From: mixster
Is it fair that then the children of poorer families that can't afford to send a child to school will have no future, because who would employ someone with no qualifications in anything other than a minimum wage job, in which case they would also have to compete with immigrants who are in the same boat. How can one rise from nothing to riches if they can't even get a job that has a future?

The family doesn't have to send their child to school… And isn't supposed to. My mom worked her way through college. She worked as a waitress over 30 hours a week to do it. There's always a way to go to college. You're just lazy if you're going to use your parents being poor and not being able to pay for it as an excuse.

I have to pay my way through college.

Another thing you can do to get yourself through college is scholarships. If you really cared and weren't lazy, you have the potential to get an academic or athletic scholarship. Since majority of people who don't go to college are black (that's fact, I'm not racist) black people actually have a reduced rate for going to college too. There's tons of things that can help put you through college; you just can't be lazy.

The post was based on the idea of privatising the education sector to show how great capitalism was by improving education for under 16's.

From: mixster
The post was based on the idea of privatising the education sector to show how great capitalism was by improving education for under 16's.

In the US its under 18 ;). We should have public schools but there is much reforming that could be done. All we do is throw money at a problem when it comes to schools, instead of actually looking at what is wrong.

From: mixster
The post was based on the idea of privatising the education sector to show how great capitalism was by improving education for under 16's.

Whoops. Misunderstood.

@sirlaughsalot and mixster, if we are being given the money that was taken from us back (taken by the gov for public education purposes), then we should easily be able to pay to go to a private school. A lot more schools would open up then, and there would be some cheaper ones that still had a MUCH better system then the public one we have now. They keep saying that we need more money thrown at our public education system to make it better. That's not the problem at all. You don't learn better from having a nice building. People in africa are doing math problems in the sand with a stick, and not far off learning what the kids in our schools learn now.

private schools = tons of money out of your taxes which can be used to pay (with some left over probably) for a private school. The government could have a program to help kids who really couldn't afford it. Even with a program like that, it would still take so much money out of our taxes (because we pay for schools for life, no matter if you have kids going to school or not).


Edit: sirlaughsalot, that's it. We do just throw money at the problem. What we need is better teachers, right? So that means we need to create an incentive for teachers to work better or fire them if they suck. The government would never do this though; they want to employ as many people as possible and give them job security. I was driving the other day and saw 5 guys at one area of road construction. 1 guy was digging, the other 4 were staring at him being paid to watch him dig…

From: JAD

@sirlaughsalot and mixster, if we are being given the money that was taken from us back (taken by the gov for public education purposes), then we should easily be able to pay to go to a private school. A lot more schools would open up then, and there would be some cheaper ones that still had a MUCH better system then the public one we have now. They keep saying that we need more money thrown at our public education system to make it better. That's not the problem at all. You don't learn better from having a nice building. People in africa are doing math problems in the sand with a stick, and not far off learning what the kids in our schools learn now.

private schools = tons of money out of your taxes which can be used to pay (with some left over probably) for a private school. The government could have a program to help kids who really couldn't afford it. Even with a program like that, it would still take so much money out of our taxes (because we pay for schools for life, no matter if you have kids going to school or not).


Edit: sirlaughsalot, that's it. We do just throw money at the problem. What we need is better teachers, right? So that means we need to create an incentive for teachers to work better or fire them if they suck. The government would never do this though; they want to employ as many people as possible and give them job security. I was driving the other day and saw 5 guys at one area of road construction. 1 guy was digging, the other 4 were staring at him being paid to watch him dig…

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA ROFLROFLROFLMAO! Wait, you want the government to give us money back?! To stop a tax permanently?! That is hilarious! I really wish the government would do that, but sadly it wont happen. The government does not decrease in size, ever. It is a shame, but it wont and doesn't happen.

From: JAD
We do just throw money at the problem. What we need is better teachers, right? So that means we need to create an incentive for teachers to work better or fire them if they suck. The government would never do this though; they want to employ as many people as possible and give them job security.

There was a story about this, but having to do with health care reform.

http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2009/04/obama_administration_concerned.html

There's already a doctor shortage, and Obama thinks he can nationalize the system and slash their salaries to keep it affordable. The only problem is that people decide they're not going to work for nothing, and student decide not to go to medical school.

Why be a competent teacher when your salary is dictated by incompetent teachers?

Every time the government tries to mandate something and put price caps on, it causes shortages. I already talked about with with Hugo Chavez and wheat earlier in the thread. It's a cause/effect relationship, but people like to pretend like everything will work out.

You, You, You
Me, Me, Me
————-
Now for less interesting stuff.
High school sucks. College should start just after 8th or ninth grade.
Now, if you aren't in college but in highschool maybe you should try getting grants,
talk to the college. If nothing else get your GED and go to college.

mixster posted:

Is it fair that then the children of poorer families that can't afford to send a child to school will have no future, because who would employ…

If you are not a child of a poor family this may be difficult to understand.

… How can one rise from nothing to riches if they can't even get a job that has a future?

Entrepreneurship's mother.
You, you, you
me, me, me

From: Aesheron>Mut>Styks>AMS
College should start just after 8th or ninth grade.

I was homeschooled up to 8th grade, went to public school in 9th grade, it sucked. It wasn't a social problem, because I have a lot of friends there, but you don't learn anything; public school is a baby sitting service. You could go to school from 8 to noon and learn just as much if they made the slightest effort to fill the time where you sit there doing nothing. So sophomore year I left high school and started to go to community college. The material itself isn't that much more advanced than high school. I love it; I will have my degree 3 years early and I can do this because the classes count as high school and college credit (dual credit).

@sirlaughsalot, you really do laugh a lot :p I completely understand that this will never happen, but I am just stating that it is the solution in my opinion. Government is the most inefficiently run business. They don't make a budget, they just tax more if they need more money (which actually gives them less money because less people can open businesses = more unemployment = less incomes to tax, but that's a different topic). I want the government in the least amount of my life as possible; that includes health care, education, banks…etc. Government's purpose originally was just for infostructure, military, and law enforcement/fire/paramedic, and not much more then that. Government is only on the increase; from what I've heard just about every democrat say, they do not think capitalism is the best economic system, so right now we are on the road to socialism.

@tara, tarajunky for president! :p

Edit: @Aesheron (I seem to be posting too slowly these days :()
I don't see how any of the first half of your post is relevant.
Regarding your second half, I don't see how it is hard to understand. A person with no qualifications or experience has a very little chance to get a decent job. That's not hard to grasp.
With the second bit, entrepreneurship is easier said than done. For starters, near all business ventures require starting capital and a fairly decent amount of it. With no job and the like, there's a high chance the banks would be unlikely to lend you money to start it up. As you come from a poor family, you don't have enough money available to you from family loans to start up anything larger than a lemonade stand.

Look to the past for the impact of this. Lack of education leads to racism, sexism and other forms of prejudice. Removing the education of children is not the solution, but improving it is.

Also, we have possibly led ourselves astray a bit. Commenting on education is not completely offtopic, but relating it to the flaws of capitalism isn't :)

The US has dabbled in Socialism. Social Security is hailed as a great, successful program. But if you look at what it's actually providing, it's kind of sad. The US government sets an arbitrary "poverty line", which is currently $10,830 for 1 person.

If you are a lower class worker and retire at 62, your annual SS benefit is $7308. If you retire at 66, you get $10,004. Either way, you're retiring in poverty. Such programs haven't eliminated poverty, they've institutionalized it.

So, the natural reaction is to say "Our seniors deserve better, so let's raise the benefits". The problem is that SS is already facing permanent structural deficits, and raising benefits will only make the program more unsustainable than it already is.

You end up trapped in a situation where the benefits you offer are inadequate, but the expense of offering them is already so overwhelming that you can't make it any better.

You can see the same problems unfolding with other socialist programs, like Medicare/Medicaid, and education. Everyone ends up stuck in a system that is either wildly unsustainable, or horribly inadequate, or a combination of the two.

Capitalism allows you to break out of that box. A lot of the best universities on the planet have huge endowments worth tens of billions of dollars. Instead of raiding the piggy bank and spending all that money today, they invest it and use it to fuel the future growth of the university. What if we were to run our elementary, middle, and high schools that way? Instead of taking out bonds to build schools, and pay interest on that development, what if we had a large endowment for every school that was generating tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars every year? It can't happen, because these socialized schools are already so starved for money that it would be raided immediately.

There has been a lot of discussion about vouchers that would allow taxpayers to take a small portion of the money spent to educate their child at the local public school, and use it to send their child to a different public or private school. Of course the Socialists are against that, because they know that parents see the schools are failing, and value their children more than they value "the system". They have to obstruct vouchers because to them the system must remain supreme, and if your child gets a lesser education along the way, that's the price that must be paid. The system is supreme, and the individual is suppressed.

Capitalism is about allocating money in the most efficient, most effective way possible, irrespective of ideology. The public schools have demonstrated over and over again that they are not efficient. They love giving students tests, but refuse to have their system tested by competition.

/declares sirlaughsalot a winner.

From: Torrent of Flame
/declares sirlaughsalot a winner.

<3 More Tara/JAD/Me, dont forget the real winner here, humanity. As you know our debates on this forum are highly regarded in the real world.

/shares the winnins with Jad and Tara too :P

Arguments on SRL do normally change the tone between people a little bit :p

Okay so whoever is backing Bush, WHAT DID HE DO CORRECT in the white house? How come the economy started to flatter in his second term? Irony?

Bush is happy because his legacy issue, the war on terror, is intact. No matter that in march 2008 the Pentagon was forced to release a report conducted over the last five years that concluded, after surveying 600,000 official Iraqi documents captured by U.S. forces, that there is &#8220;no smoking gun&#8221; establishing any connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.
And there was no nukes found in iraq. So he wasted aloooot of money just on the war. He made a whole mess, and now the blame is on Obama.

I also find it funny, how on the news the republicans are making campaigns, to show the public there new side so they can try to get more support.

Face it: Bush wasnt poplular. He did fail. He was not suitable to become a president. He helped create this mess.

This has nothing to do with Bush. It's about capitalism. Huge difference.

From: kingarabian
Okay so whoever is backing Bush, WHAT DID HE DO CORRECT in the white house? How come the economy started to flatter in his second term? Irony?

Bush is happy because his legacy issue, the war on terror, is intact. No matter that in march 2008 the Pentagon was forced to release a report conducted over the last five years that concluded, after surveying 600,000 official Iraqi documents captured by U.S. forces, that there is &#8220;no smoking gun&#8221; establishing any connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.
And there was no nukes found in iraq. So he wasted aloooot of money just on the war. He made a whole mess, and now the blame is on Obama.

I also find it funny, how on the news the republicans are making campaigns, to show the public there new side so they can try to get more support.

Face it: Bush wasnt poplular. He did fail. He was not suitable to become a president. He helped create this mess.

As Bullzeye said, this is about capitalism. Your question isn't really about the republican party in relation to capitalism, and it's not even related to economics, which is what this whole discussion is about. But I will answer it in offtopic tags (this is not about war though, this is about economics, so I will at least stay on that topic)

[offtopic]
One man never does anything single handedly. Clinton put people in homes when they shouldn't have been, which was done under a socialist policy, and the housing market was what caused this recession. There was also a democratic congress in control for a while, which combined has more power then the president himself (although that did have less to do with it then Clinton).

I am a conservative thinker, not necessarily a republican, so I was not highly in favor of Bush. But he was definitely not at fault for all of this, although I'm not saying that he wasn't at fault for any of it. He was an ok president, not great, not awful. Bush was a liberal republican (that's more fact based then opinion based), and I don't believe in liberalism. You notice how Obama does not like to talk about the last recession we had; well that's because we got out of that mess with tax cuts, not through inflation, credit, and increased taxes.
[/offtopic]

From: JAD

[offtopic]
One man never does anything single handedly. Clinton put people in homes when they shouldn't have been, which was done under a socialist policy, and the housing market was what caused this recession. There was also a democratic congress in control for a while, which combined has more power then the president himself (although that did have less to do with it then Clinton).

I am a conservative thinker, not necessarily a republican, so I was not highly in favor of Bush. But he was definitely not at fault for all of this, although I'm not saying that he wasn't at fault for any of it. He was an ok president, not great, not awful. Bush was a liberal republican (that's more fact based then opinion based), and I don't believe in liberalism. You notice how Obama does not like to talk about the last recession we had; well that's because we got out of that mess with tax cuts, not through inflation, credit, and increased taxes.
[/offtopic]

Why does noone listen to us when we say Clinton caused this whole ordeal? Things take time in economics, there are delays (generally) before your actions come to fruition. Clinton basically gave Bush a ticking time bomb. Not to mention it is also at the very least, a little bit of Clinton's fault. We had Osama and let him go.

[OFFTOPIC]
I suppose I love Bush too much, and am perhaps a bit biased; but in Washington, you have to make compromises to get what you want done, done. Bush made those compromises even though that made him look somewhat bad to both parties. I dont think Bush was in favor of all the things he did, but rather had an end justify the means.
[/OFFTOPIC]

From: sirlaughsalot
Why does noone listen to us when we say Clinton caused this whole ordeal? Things take time in economics, there are delays (generally) before your actions come to fruition. Clinton basically gave Bush a ticking time bomb. Not to mention it is also at the very least, a little bit of Clinton's fault. We had Osama and let him go.

[OFFTOPIC]
I suppose I love Bush too much, and am perhaps a bit biased; but in Washington, you have to make compromises to get what you want done, done. Bush made those compromises even though that made him look somewhat bad to both parties. I dont think Bush was in favor of all the things he did, but rather had an end justify the means.
[/OFFTOPIC]

You can't put thousands of people in homes who can't afford them and expect nothing bad to come of it… Clinton got the highest approval rating ever, because he built a fake economy that had to eventually come crashing down. Of course, he didn't care, because it crashed during the Bush administration. And now Obama wants to pay for these people to stay in their homes… When they couldn't afford them in the first place! If I knew that he was going to do that, I would have been stupid and bought a mansion. Some people's standards of living are going to have to come down, because they're higher then they can afford already.

The biggest of problems in a capitalist country come from too many socialist programs.

From: bullzeye95
This has nothing to do with Bush. It's about capitalism. Huge difference.

No, well they were chatting about bush in the earlier posts. I dont see why not. Plus im just trying to point out to Yakman that capitalism aint that bad. The reason why it looks bad, is cause from the last administration.

From: kingarabian
No, well they were chatting about bush in the earlier posts. I dont see why not. Plus im just trying to point out to Yakman that capitalism aint that bad. The reason why it looks bad, is cause from the last administration.

The problem is, that is not even close to being true. What do I have to pull out for you to understand that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4 That should explain it

From: sirlaughsalot
The problem is, that is not even close to being true. What do I have to pull out for you to understand that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4 That should explain it

What do I have to pull out to make you understand that people's opinions differ? And that it sometimes makes no sense to further discuss something because some people just look at the reality through different eyes? Most people make up their own reality.

Don't feel offended, but that is the reason I stopped posting here, and for the same reason did I stop posting in threads about religion.

From: Wizzup?
What do I have to pull out to make you understand that people's opinions differ? And that it sometimes makes no sense to further discuss something because some people just look at the reality through different eyes? Most people make up their own reality.

Don't feel offended, but that is the reason I stopped posting here, and for the same reason did I stop posting in threads about religion.

The goal isn't to change people's minds, or to convince them they're wrong, it's to further our own…changing people's minds and making them realise they're wrong is just a happy consequence that occurs sometimes

From: Wizzup?
What do I have to pull out to make you understand that people's opinions differ? And that it sometimes makes no sense to further discuss something because some people just look at the reality through different eyes? Most people make up their own reality.

Don't feel offended, but that is the reason I stopped posting here, and for the same reason did I stop posting in threads about religion.

Some of the things me and sir pointed out but nobody will respond to are more fact based than opinion based, and maybe that's why people refuse to respond to these points. Clintons goal was to put as many people in houses as possible. He enabled banks to profit by giving out loans that the banks knew people wouldn't be able to pay back by backing every loan they gave out. You would not deny this far right? Because that is what he did. It's not what me or you saw him do, it's what he did with his policy. And if you ask any economist or financial adviser, they will tell you that the main reason we are in this recession is because of the banks giving out bad loans (which the government (Clinton) enabled the banks to do).

Any time I have said this in a discussion with anyone, not just on these forums, but even in real life, nobody has had anything to say to that. They just say "We are in this economic crisis because bush sucks". Then they go off on some reasons for him sucking that don't even relate to causing this recession.

Not to attack your views, but in my life time I just want to see 1 person respond to this point.

From: JAD
Clintons goal was to put as many people in houses as possible. He enabled banks to profit by giving out loans that the banks knew people wouldn't be able to pay back by backing every loan they gave out.

That's right. And so did Bush. The difference is that when Clinton did it, it was consistent with his generally leftist philosophy, while when Bush did it it was contrary to his generally rightist philosophy.

Bush dabbled in quite a few liberal/socialist programs. He passed the new Medicare prescription drug program that was insolvent the day it was passed, and will cost future generations over 8 trillion dollars. He passed education reform with No Child Left Behind, which has primarily benefited the lowest performers and done essentially nothing for competent students. I do think he gets too much criticism for that, though, since it has accomplished what he set out to do. And of course, he did the same stuff Clinton did with Fannie and Freddie and pushing home ownership.

From: Wizzup?
What do I have to pull out to make you understand that people's opinions differ? And that it sometimes makes no sense to further discuss something because some people just look at the reality through different eyes? Most people make up their own reality.

Don't feel offended, but that is the reason I stopped posting here, and for the same reason did I stop posting in threads about religion.

Of course they do. My point is, it is a fact that can change someones opinion. People's opinion's are based on past experiences and what they have heard. If they hear something from a reliable source then they should change their opinion. My problem is, there are lots of misnomers floating around that people assume are true.

I stopped posting on religious threads as well. Religion and Economics are different though, quite different. Economics is very fact-based, Religion has to do with beliefs and opinions. While it is true there are different economic opinions, some work and others don't. With religion it is not this way, we will only find out when it is too late.

Edit:
Also Clinton didnt just enable banks to give bad loans, as banks are smarter than that. He forced them to by having stark penalties if they didnt reach a quota

To get back to the socialized education system, here's another glaring failure…

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-teachers6-2009may06,0,6604006.story?track=rss

"L.A. schools pay teachers millions not to teach…"

"The housed are accused, among other things, of sexual contact with students, harassment, theft or drug possession. Nearly all are being paid. All told, they collect about $10 million in salaries per year – even as the district is contemplating widespread layoffs of teachers because of a financial shortfall."

…

"In New York City public schools, which make up the country's largest district, teachers are confined to "rubber rooms." About 550 of the district's 80,000 teachers spend school hours "literally just doing crossword puzzles, waiting for the end of the day" until their cases are resolved, spokeswoman Ann Forte said. Some have been there for years."


"It's a glaring example of how hard it is to remove someone from the classroom and how the process is tilted toward teachers," said school board member Marlene Canter, who recently proposed – unsuccessfully – to revamp the disciplinary process."

Unions + government = epic socialist fail.

I saw this headline today and it reminded me of this thread.

http://www.wpri.com/dpp/news/local_news/local_wpri_massachusetts_aspiring_school_teachers_fail_in_math20090519

"Aspiring school teachers fail in math
Only 27 percent of the teaching candidates pass"

Ugh.