The end is in sight

[Jon Kirwan]

On Sat, 02 May 2009 01:42:11 +0100, Eeyore
<rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:
Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:
James Arthur wrote:
Might that help catch criminals and prevent crime?
The only thing the state can do is respond to crime scenes and clean
up the mess, and hope they'll catch the perp sometime.
CCTV in UK town centres has already shown that to be false. At last the
police here can and do now act proactively.

So, when you're being mugged, do you ask the mugger to wait a sec while
you call the cops? Or turn over your cash, while you're waiting for
somebody to observe the crime remotely and dispatch your "protector"?

It happens so rarely that I wouldn't know. Unless you are sure you can
win the advice is generally to give the attacker what they ask for.
Insurance can replace material goods - life is more important.

Yeah! Then when he's walking away, shoot him in the back! >;-

Martin lives in a civilised country where carrying firearms is almost unknown
and certainly not by any ordinary citizen.

Well, there is that. I forget how many guns are in the US, at times.

My neighbor, 2nd door over, has fully automatic weapons as well as a
regular arsenal of who knows what. When I first moved in, after
listening to 12-15 rounds per second at times, for weeks on end, I
called up the police department and let them know where I lived. "Uh,
my wife feels a little uncomfortable with my neighbor using fully
automatic weapons in his back yard, day and night," I then said. They
responded, "Well, if you actually hear the bullets whizzing overhead
or see any impacts on your property, let us know."

I guess I will.

Jon

 

[James Arthur]

Bob Larter wrote:

James Arthur wrote:
Bob Larter wrote:
James Arthur wrote:
Bob Larter wrote:
James Arthur wrote:
Eeyore wrote:

James Arthur wrote:

I favor Bastiat's formulation: if one man steals from another, even
though he uses the government to do it for him, it's still theft.

Who builds the roads and bridges etc in this world ?

Graham


There's a difference between a common good, and taking one man's
money to give to another.

When a government builds a road, it's taking the taxpayers' money &
giving to the guy who own the construction company. Either way,
somebody is having their money taken away from them & given to
someone else.

But one way a road was built, for all to use.

Absolutely. That's the upside to taxation. But either way, the money
ends up in the economy, benefiting someone.


Are you saying that giving booze money to winos or gambling money to
gamblers would be equally good to society because "the money ends up
in the economy, benefiting someone"?

Economically speaking, yes. Whether or not it's socially good is a
different question.

So a drunk swigging a bottle of booze creates as much value as a
road that thousands of people can commute on for years?

That's bizarre.

I once lived in New Orleans. They set up a bunch of casinos
that were to be their economic salvation--crowds would stream
in, money would flow, tax coffers would fill, and good works
would follow. Lots of support jobs would be "created" serving
the gamblers food and maintaining the casions. "Let the good
times roll."

What actually happened was that a bunch of people passed money
back and forth between themselves with a ~5% net loss per
pass, of which the state got a chunk. It became the
entertainment of poor people. They were entertained, but
poorer. Nothing lasting was built, no wealth was created,
only reshuffled & consumed.

I submit the one is good, the other isn't. The difference matters.

Of course, but the question *who* it's good for? To use the example of
building a road, you might be perfectly happy to help pay for a road you
expect to use yourself, but how would you feel about paying for one in
the next state? Economically, there's no difference, but socially
there's a difference, at least for you.

Who benefits most is a different issue. The first, fundamental test
is making the distinction of whether a project is truly for a common
good--whether it creates something of lasting value for society at
large--or merely robs one man of his hard-won savings and gives those
to another man.

_That's_ what Bastiat was talking about.

Making Graham pay the town boozer's bar tab is great for the boozer
but it's not fair to Graham, creates negative lasting value for
society, and is a disincentive for Graham's productivity.

Totally different to building a road that Graham and the boozer
and the rest of the town can all use.


Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[Bob Larter]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2009 02:32:53 +0100, Eeyore wrote:
Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:
On Thu, 30 Apr 2009 05:17:34 +0100, Eeyore wrote:

Caps on salaries,
So, now you show your true stripe as a dyed-in-the-wool Communist.

The caps we need are on government spending, but unfortunately, it
seems that none of the sheeple have the balls to even try.
Well .... if we take your recent cite http://zfacts.com/p/318.html Na
follow some of the advice "Of course there's also the problem of the
banks. Obama should stop saving the bankers, and just take over the bad
banks.

Shades of the Communist Manifesto.

He should have let the bad banks tank; maybe then they'd have got a clue.

After all, it was only the ones who wrote impossible loans to people whom
everyone _knew_ they couldn't pay off - they were all betting on the
bubble.

The real losers have been the financial institutions who were dumb
enough to buy high-risk securitised mortgages from the original lenders,
& the ones who were dumb enough to guarantee those securities. Their
dumbness was in betting the farm that the real estate bubble would never
burst.

When someone goes to Monte Carlo and loses the family's life savings at
the baccrat table, do you use tax money to reimburse their gambling
losses?

The problem was that the crash wiped out all the liquidity in the money
markets, threatening to strangle vast numbers of totally unrelated
businesses in a domino effect that would've brought on another great
depression. The stimulus package will, hopefully, restore liquidity &
prevent that.


--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Robert Baer]

Bob Larter wrote:

James Arthur wrote:

Eeyore wrote:


James Arthur wrote:

I favor Bastiat's formulation: if one man steals from another, even
though he uses the government to do it for him, it's still theft.


Who builds the roads and bridges etc in this world ?

Graham


There's a difference between a common good, and taking one man's
money to give to another.


When a government builds a road, it's taking the taxpayers' money &
giving to the guy who own the construction company. Either way,
somebody is having their money taken away from them & given to someone
else.


Hmmm...yes, but....the taxpayers then get to use that road for 30-100

years; an extremely good ROI even if that investment was not exactly
voluntary.

 

[James Arthur]

James Arthur wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

James Arthur wrote:

d) After WWII--the ultimate Keynesian exercise--the
economy immediately fell into a doldrums that lasted
years.

Look at the numbers and you'll see that's very wrong.

Graham


Ah, right...the Korean War first--more Keynes--then the recession.

Thanks for the prod.

Cheers,
James Arthur

You might want to look at the bar-graph on this page:
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/JubaksJournal/5-rules-for-post-recovery-investing.aspx

There was a post WWII recession too.

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[Bob Larter]

Charlie E. wrote:

On Thu, 30 Apr 2009 05:17:34 +0100, Eeyore
rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:


James Arthur wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
Bob Larter wrote:
snip
It will indeed. He's been left a heck of a mess to sort out.

Graham
Some, but not much different from what Bush inherited from Clinton.
I thought Clinton left the economy in decent shape.


snip
Graham

Actually, the dot.com bubble was already breaking in 1999, which was
one of the reasons Bush was elected instead of Gore.

I did quite well out of working for a dot.com, because I knew damn well
that the bubble would burst, so I cashed out at regular intervals & put
the money into my mortgage. If the bubble had lasted only six months
longer, I would've been able to retire.

I saw once that the dot.com bubble burst could be traced to a single
transaction. A backbone company was going to expand service with a
huge purchase of equipment from L3, when their (government sponsored)
financing was pulled. This caused L3 to restate some expectations,
that dominoed throughout the industry to cause everyone to say "it is
now OVER" and plop! the bubble burst...

That wouldn't surprise me. The dot.com I worked for was rolling out
megabucks worth of Cisco networking gear bought with borrowed money, (as
were many other dot.coms), & when the money dried up, bang! Game over.



--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Bob Larter]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2009 16:25:04 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:
James Arthur wrote:

Obama wants to go a-conquering in Afghanistan--I'm not sure why.
You don't want to go after Bin Laden, et al?

If we hadn't been mercilessly bullying the mideast for hundreds of
years, there wouldn't even have _been_ a Bin Laden.

I couldn't agree more.

Remember the Crusades?

And the Zionists didn't help much - bunch of ungrateful louts! We bothered
to rescue them from the death camps, and Palestine graciously offered up
a piece of their own terriory to give them a home, and the first thing the
child-mutilating bastards do is bite the hand that feeds them, attacking
their neighbors on the American taxpayers' dime.

Ayup. And then Americans act all shocked & surprised that people in the
Middle East consider America to be the great Satan.


--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Bob Larter]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2009 19:26:13 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:
James Arthur wrote:
Bob Larter wrote:
Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:
On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:46:56 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:
It'll be interesting to see if all the wingnut paranoia about Obama
ends up being justified.
What, haven't you been paying attention?
He whines about the deficit he's "inherited", then proceeds to triple
it?
He had to do that to fend off a depression.
He said that, but he's clueless.
Historically speaking, it makes perfect sense.

The history of what planet?

Another convincing argument from you, Rich.

--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Bob Larter]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2009 08:16:01 -0700, Bob Eld wrote:
"Bob Larter" <bobbylarter@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:gte5ru$o3$1@blackhelicopter.databasix.com...
bill.sloman@ieee.org wrote:
On Apr 29, 12:43 am, James Arthur <bogusabd...@verizon.net> wrote:
[...]
"Progressive" Great Society programs drove the financial bubble,
which frankly pales compared to the Social Security and Medicare
fiascoes.
The US social security and medicare systems are fiascos - not because
the ideas are impracticable, since they work fine in other countries -
because American politicians don't understand the social contract
underlying the ideas, and won't implement them in a way that benefits
society as a whole.
Well said. That's exactly the problem. In the real world, it actually
costs more to make sure that the 'undeserving' are excluded than it does
to just pay out & accept that there's going to be some wastage. Per
capita, the USA spends more money on health care than countries with
free universal health care that excludes nobody. I suspect that the same
is also true of the Social Security system.
The US spends 14% of GDP on health care while most countries with universal
care spend about 10% of GNP. The US system is inefficient and very wasteful
plus insurance companies rake profit right off of the top without actually
doing any of the health care.

The whole problem was initiated by the Income Tax <Spit!>.

I guess it's time for a little history lesson:

Instead of offering incentive payments to their employees, which would
essentially end up being confiscated by Da Gubmint, they offered medical
insurance (which wasn't taxed). IOW, employee-provided medical insurance
was self-defense against the income tax.

Over the years, it evolved into an "entitlement".

There was no control on the price of care - you'd just turn the bill over
to the insurance company, who'd rubber-stamp it and pay the bill, without
it affecting you at all.

So the medical industry came up with more and more expensive crap, a
billion tests for the sniffles and so on, and the insurance company
would pick up the tab and raise the cost to your employer.

This lack of Free Market medical care caused prices to skyrocket, since
nobody knew or cared how much it was actually cost them. "Oh, the
insurance will cover it!"

If, when Latisha took little Mobutu to the ER for a skinned knee or so,
If they billed her the three grand or so, she might be motivated to invest
in a first-aid kit and learn how to use it.

As usual, the problem is socialism.

You seem to have missed the point that "socialised medicine" is actually
cheaper than what you have in the USA.

--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Bob Larter]

Jim Thompson wrote:

On Fri, 1 May 2009 13:34:37 -0700, "Bob Eld" <nsmontassoc@yahoo.com
wrote:

[snip]
Socialism is not an evil it does some things very well and works for health
care for most of the developed world. The US pays more and gets less.

[snip]

Poor ignorant basturd. Why do Canadians hasten to the US when in dire
need of medical care?

Got any numbers to support that argument?


--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Bob Larter]

Eeyore wrote:

Bob Eld wrote:

Socialism is not an evil it does some things very well and works for health
care for most of the developed world. The US pays more and gets less.

In the US our fire departments work on a "socialism" model. That is, they
are tax supported and come put out your fires on an as needed basis without
cost. You don't haggle with them, bargain with them, have some doofus claim
he can't put out this or that fire nor are they tied to your employment.
This model has served us very well for 250 years. Why should a sick person
be any different than a sick, on fire house?

Nice analogy.

Yes. And the same logic applies to schools, police, libraries & nation
defense. All of them benefit from economies of scale that make them
cheaper & more effective than a free market "solution".

--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Bob Larter]

Joel Koltner wrote:

"Richard the Dreaded Libertarian" <freedom_guy@example.net> wrote in message
[...]
If, when Latisha took little Mobutu to the ER for a skinned knee or so,
If they billed her the three grand or so, she might be motivated to invest
in a first-aid kit and learn how to use it.

In a more sensible world, the triage nurse at the ER would tell Latisha,
"look, there doesn't appear to be any problem here -- you might go home, clean
it up and cover it with gauze, and it'll be fine; we'd do the same thing but
it's just going to cost you more money." In the real world, this doesn't
happen due to liability concerns -- if it turns out the nurse is wrong, and
Mobutu's knee gets infected and he eventually loses his leg, guess who's going
to have to pay millions of dollars? There's a non-negligible component of
U.S. health care that can be directly attributed to "defensive medicine" like
this.

I'm told that US doctors routinely shotgun-test patients with expensive
diagnostics for exactly this reason.

--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Bob Larter]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

bill.sloman@ieee.org wrote:
On Apr 29, 12:43 am, James Arthur <bogusabd...@verizon.net> wrote:
[...]
"Progressive" Great Society programs drove the financial bubble,
which frankly pales compared to the Social Security and Medicare
fiascoes.
The US social security and medicare systems are fiascos...

That's odd. I thought you _loved_ socialism.

The US health system would be greatly improved by being socialised.

--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Bob Larter]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2009 16:47:27 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:

free universal health care that excludes nobody.

But it does confiscate the wages of the productive.

You're *already* paying more for your crappy health system than we do in
countries with free, universal healthcare. Don't take my word it - look
it up yourself.


--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Bob Larter]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2009 16:50:21 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:
You're forgetting that when the economy turns to shit, /everyone/ gets
hurt, not just the people you don't like.

You make a lot of sense - you're not a warmingist, are you?

I'm afraid so. ;^)

--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Bob Larter]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2009 16:59:21 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:
Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:
On Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:54:13 -0700, Bob Eld wrote:
"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
And Clinton was pushing for bank deregulation even before he was
elected President. I wonder why.
I doubt that most people believe you that make it out to be Clinton's fault.
In truth Democrats are about 20% culpable and Republicans 80% culpable.
Deregulation was primarily a republican thing you cannot spin it any other
way.
Democrats and Republicans are essentially indistinguishable these days -
they're just the two wings of the same Statist bird.
To someone outside the USA, they both look very right-wing.

Try the World's Smallest Political Quiz:
http://www.theadvocates.org/quizp/index.html

According to it, I'm a Libertarian, leaning towards the left.

--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Martin Brown]

Eeyore wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:

News123 wrote:

The guy or gal doing the watching doesn't get to see the person in real
life. And most people are not readily identified by their genitalia.
There may be a few notable exceptions among the porn stars, but I can't
imagine that they would be especially bothered by it.

They can just walk away from their screen, out to the check point and
'grin' directly in the real face of the person.
The monitor displays are deliberately out of range of the scanner (or so
they tell me). And the image is more like a cylindrical projection of
the body rather than a photograph. They are looking for hidden weapons
and bombs.

The setup is way more sophisticated than basic X-ray or metal detector
grids. I always test those to see how good they are (and the standard is
still pretty rubbish except in a few airports like Heathrow).

Either people have to accept being 'pseudo-naked' in front of the
security team or this new system shouldn't be installed
Blurring the face is 'just a joke'
I honestly don't care. I would prefer to have a security system that
worked. In the US it was almost trivial to defeat domestic airport
security prior to 9/11.

Does it avoid having to take your shoes off ? I always thought that was stupid.
Visual inspection will identify shoes than can or cannot contain any explosive
from the thickness of the sole and heel.

Yes. But you are supposed to remove everything from your pockets not
just metal stuff. The rate for picking up small objects people had
forgotten like glasses hooked on a shirt pocket was impressive. The guy
on the upside always made an accurate challenge.

Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Bob Larter]

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:

On Fri, 01 May 2009 17:01:32 +1000, Bob Larter wrote:
Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote:
Why are you so addicted to regulation? What makes you think that some
Washington bureaucrat can manage _your_ money better than you can?
Without negative feedback in the form of regulation, the amplifier of
capitalism tends to oscillate destructively.

Oh, feh! You refuse to acknowledte that this destructive oscillation is
CAUSED by government overregulation - it interferes with the natural
"invisible hand" of the Free Market, which naturally has negative feedback.

Rubbish. Market bubbles are a perfect example of positive feedback
occurring in the Free Market, & when they collapse, everyone suffers to
some degree.

"In this passage, taken from his 1776 book "An Inquiry into the Nature
and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" Adam Smith set out the mechanism by
which he felt economic society operated. Each individual strives to
become wealthy "intending only his own gain" but to this end he must
exchange what he owns or produces with others who sufficiently value what
he has to offer; in this way, by division of labour and a free market,
public interest is advanced..."
---http://plus.maths.org/issue14/features/smith/

Sure, with the Free Market, some people will go broke - that's the nature
of Freedom - you make your choices and if you're wrong, you take your
knocks and try something else.

I guess this concept is incomprehensible to socialists, who want cradle-to-
grave nannying.

You think? I'm firmly opposed to Nanny States.

--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

On Sat, 02 May 2009 18:01:53 +1000, the renowned Bob Larter
<bobbylarter@gmail.com> wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
On Fri, 1 May 2009 13:34:37 -0700, "Bob Eld" <nsmontassoc@yahoo.com
wrote:

[snip]
Socialism is not an evil it does some things very well and works for health
care for most of the developed world. The US pays more and gets less.

[snip]

Poor ignorant basturd. Why do Canadians hasten to the US when in dire
need of medical care?

Got any numbers to support that argument?

The numbers are almost zero:
http://cthealth.server101.com/myth_canadians%27_use_of_healthcare_in_the_u_s_.htm

Surprisingly low, in fact, considering there are usually about 20% of
people who are outliers. But you can always find anecdotes to support
anything you like.

I don't know a single Canadian who went to the US *for* medical care
(as opposed to falling ill or being the victim of accident or violence
on a visit). I do personally know one American family (originally from
SoCal) who drove up from CT (a 9-10 hour drive) a couple of weeks ago
partly to take advantage of their not-yet-expired Ontario health
cards, as unfortunately their business has gone to sh*t. And good
teaching hospitals get international patients all the time, whether
funded by insurance, self-funded, or by charity (eg. the Herbie Fund).

It's hardly worth arguing though, there is far too much well-funded
reactionary propaganda floating around, and it will only get even
thicker and yet more tedious if there is any serious possibility of a
change.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

 

[Eeyore]

qrus19@mindspring.com wrote:

Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:
qrus19@mindspring.com wrote:

Try pre crusades Spain and the Moores, Islamic terrorists

No, not terrorists, they were just seeking to widen their influence. Spain has
adopted much Moorish architecture btw.

By your measure, the USA is currently a terrorist nation.


They murdered Christians in a Christian land. Not just soldiers
either.

And what do you think the 'Crusades' were about, or don't they teach you that in
the USA ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade
" The Crusades were a series of religion-driven military campaigns waged by much of
Latin Christian Europe against external and internal opponents. They were fought
mainly against Muslims "

Yes and No, The US had no business going into Iraq but once
there we have to TRY and get it right. Personally I blame most of the
present problems in the middle east on the alied forces in WWI.
Destroying the central government of the region and then carving out
new borders rather like the Europeans did in Affrica and the Americas.

Africa and the Middle East had no central governments at that time. You know little
history clearly.

Graham