As if I would have to deal with politicians. No, I think that politicians are liars because this is extremely helpful for them in their jobs. So, in some sense you are correct - the point is about pre-selection, the pre-selection by the democratic process, where you have to say some guys with a lot of money which they may spend to your election campaign one thing and the sheeple during the election campaign other things to become elected. Same for journalists. This is also about pre-selection. Only if they have good abilities to lie, and no moral scruples about this, one will read them in the mass media. The same, of course, also for some particular businesses, like selling used cars, and door-to-door sale, where permanent customers are unimportant, so that to cheat customers makes sense. And you think people who do such things are a majority? The problem is that it is not rational to care, given that your vote is unimportant. So, this is something some people do, as a hobby (where we do not care about rationality) but most people don't. This is known as "rational ignorance" in economic theory.
That's what I am saying. You are from Russia, where there is no tradition of democracy or self-government. Here in the US, I deal with politicians fairly regularly. I know the local ones and have met several of the ones working at the state and national level. That's why you think all politicians are liars - because you don't know any, and all your information comes from the sensationalist media. You are correct that there is a lot of pre-selection going on. But it is going on in the information you are fed; you are only fed sensationalist stories that the media thinks will sell click-throughs or advertising time. Again incorrect. You only READ the ones that are good at lying, because you are fed popular media. Yes. Just as most gun owners are responsible, and most airline flights are very safe. But if you read nothing but CNN you would think that gun owners regularly go on shooting rampages, and most airliners have spectacular problems. That sort of apathy explains why you don't bother to educate yourself. Your "rational ignorance" makes sense for a Russian, I suppose.
As if I would believe the media. LOL. I don't even read them, most of the time. I have, BTW, no problem admitting that among some local policians, on the village or neighbourhood level, there may be honest politicians. My argument is based on what one needs to become a successful politician. The honest ones will remain local politicians. Same for journalists. There may be some honest ones, in some irrelevant local newspapers. But hardly on the top, in the leading mainstream papers. And, BTW, I'm not from Russia, and not a Russian. Been there, but already a long time ago, and do not plan to live there. No posting without a personal defamation, together with anti-Russian defamation. So you have deserved joepistole's like.
Well, he can do more than try. He can issue an executive order as Kennedy did which created the embargo on Cuba, and that order would be enforced by US banking regulators and any other relevant party. No additional laws are required. It won't affect US banks, because US banks are not involved in these transfers because illegal aliens don't have the documents necessary to establish US banking accounts. Illegal aliens use shadow banks like Western Union to transfer money. Stopping banking transfers is easy - much easier than a Cuban like embargo. And it's done routinely, and no laws would need to be changed. Stopping the banks is the easy part. Illegal aliens don't use banks to transfer money because they don't have bank accounts. Illegal aliens don't have the documents needed to create bank accounts. That's why illegal aliens use shadow banks like Western Union to transfer funds to transfer money out of the country. But, shadow banks too could be shut down with an executive order. And there would be no "knock on effect", much less a terrible one. It wouldn't affect all international cash transfers, only transfers to Mexico. Instead of transferring money directly to Mexico, illegal aliens could transfer cash to an intermediary in another country and then transfer it to Mexico via another entity. Stopping these cash transfers will be difficult, not because the POTUS doesn't have the ability stop direct US cash transfers, but because of human ingenuity. And then there is Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, in order to stop these transfers, Trump would need to do more than just issue a single executive order. Making cryptocurrencies illegal would require a new law. But here is the problem, while the POTUS could easily shut down electronic wire transfers. But the US has not been able to stop humans, drugs, and arms from passing illegally through the border, so what is there to stop them from also illegally transporting cash across the border? And then there is the good old US mail. Illegal aliens could mail cash across the border. There are a number of ways to move money across the border. So while the POTUS could stop wire transfers, that's not the only way to move money across the border. Those "other ways" would be more difficult, slower, and more expensive, but they could be done and would be done if the US POTUS issued said executive order. It's difficult to shut down illegal trade because the border is long and expensive to patrol and easy to cross. That's why the US has been unable to stop the illegal transport of drugs, people, and arms across the border even have after many decades and billions of dollars in the attempt to do so. We have had walls, and they haven't worked. People go over, under and around walls. That's one of the problems with Trump's wall. Actually, it's the Republican wall as Republicans have long advocated the wall as the ultimate solution. And there is no reason to believe Trump's new wall will be any more successful than previous walls. But it plays well with the Republican base. No they won't. Because as previously stated, illegal aliens do not use banks. They use shadow banks like Western Union. What it would do, is cause a serious recession in Mexico which would lead to more illegal aliens attempting to cross the border. Ironically, it would exacerbate the illegal alien problem. Yes, if Trump attempts to implement any part of his program, it would be ugly. But Republican could care less. It could cause a trade war. I think Trump understands who is receiving the money. But it really isn't relevant to Trump's case. Trump knows his threat would cause a Mexican depression. He's playing hardball. He's betting Mexico would rather pay for his wall rather than suffer the economic consequences of his actions. Trump's actions would be criticized domestically and internationally. They have been. But neither he nor his followers care. A Trump or a Cruz presidency would have negative economic consequences across the globe if they should actually have the opportunity and do implement them. As previously mentioned the only body capable of overriding the POTUS would be the US Congress, but that likely wouldn't be quick, if it at all, especially if Republicans retain control of Congress. There is legitimate reason to be fearful of a Trump or Cruz presidency. On the good side, I don't think the majority of Americans are that stupid and I don't think either Trump or Cruz will be elected. Ironically, Trump's plan would likely exacerbate the illegal alien problem. It would cause a depression in Mexico which would be a huge incentive for illegal immigration. It would also cause a recession in the US. The economic disruption of rounding up 11 million illegal aliens, the costs of deporting 11 million illegal aliens, all while eliminating the entire US debt in 8 years, and lowering tax rates....it just doesn't add up. Trump cannot possibly deliver the goods he is selling. Remember, what we are seeing in the Republican primaries represents just a sliver of the US electorate. The Republican Party at best represents only a third of the US voters.
Followed by: Thank you for proving my point. You are correct, there are few honest politicians in the "leading mainstream papers" you read (and also claim to not read.) Those are a small fraction of the politicians in the world.
Nice try, but learn to read. Or stop to defame by distorting quotes by deleting the context. Here is what I have said: Here is what you have quoted: So, I have not written anything about politicians in this quote. But, ok, I see you behave in full agreement with the quality standards of quoting used by the Western mainstream media, so it makes no sense for you to change this, you would have to be "more Catholic than the Pope".
Except of course for all that hiding money from the tax man, that you say they all do so easily that a progressive income tax cannot even be applied to them - or is cheating on one's taxes a form of honesty on your planet? Businessmen can lie and succeed for much longer than the average politician's political career. Generations. Businessmen lie often, deliberately and elaborately, as a matter of policy and skill - deliberately cultivated policy and skill - for the same reason poker players and military commanders lie: because one can win through deception, in their field. Long term victory. Many dozens, hundreds,of large scale and hugely successful commercial enterprises that passed family fortunes unto generations of heirs have been built on dishonesty. From tobacco and gasoline to munitions and high finance, the proverb that great fortunes are built on great crimes is one of the best founded proverbs we have. Businessmen are secretive by necessity, competitive by circumstance, and often greedy by nature. Lying is born in such circumstances. I have no problem finding honest journalists to read, and honest politicians to vote for, at all levels of both professions. I wonder why you do? Probably a lot of Trump voters are counting on him not actually doing such things.
First of all, honesty relative to the state is, indeed, of lower importance than honesty to business partners. Nobody expects you are honest about your money if robberers or the mafia ask you where you have hidden them. So, this is a different issue. Then, we have already clarified that the superrich do not even have to violate the law to minimize taxes down to a effectively regressive income tax. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/b...vate-tax-system-saves-them-billions.html?_r=0 contains a nice description of some of the possibilities to do this. Different quality criteria.
Says the mafia. How about business competitors? Employees? Customers? One's partners are few, and like family. The larger world is the better measure of the honest man. And businessmen quite often and regularly cheat even their partners. In any event, dishonesty to the State is often held in low regard in my State - even if the State is not among the business partners, as it often is. Cheating one's neighbors and fellow citizens is held to be important, in my neighborhood. Which is why businessmen deceiving each other for profit is held to be a lesser moral offense than other forms of dishonesty, in my town. It's the same issue even if it's less important to you for some reason. Whether you prefer being deceived and cheated by businessmen rather than politicians is a matter of personal circumstance. Irrelevant, except as an illustration of the nearly universal and fundamental amorality and dishonesty of wealthy businessmen. They bribe politicians as a matter of course, automatically, without shame. The political circumstances surrounding this - corruption of politicians and other dishonest behaviors by the superrich prominent among them - are matters of historical record, and not only fairly recent in my region but reversible at political will. There are none, in the case of journalists and politicians. We differ only in the matter of businessmen - you seem to think politicians who take bribes are dishonest, but the businessmen who bribe them are not; supposed journalists who tell lies for a living are dishonest but businessmen who hire only liars to pretend to be journalists are not, and so forth. That is a matter of theoretical criteria. I have no problem finding honest journalists and politicians at all levels, and rampant dishonesty among wealthy businessmen especially. But the difference is not in theoretical criteria for the journalists and politicians. It is because I evaluate the honesty of journalists, politicians, and businessmen, on a combination of mutually corrective empirical and theoretical grounds, rather than theoretical speculation only. As Karl Popper recommends.
OK, then. You just go on both reading and not reading mainstream media for all your information. It will likely confirm your biases, and you can rest easy. Ignorance is bliss.
The main source of information for me are certainly not mainstream media, but the internet. Of course, the mainstream media have usually also an internet presence, and sometimes there are links from the internet sources I prefer to mainstream media, and sometimes I follow these links. For example, if some joepistole or so claims some article contains some proof of something which appears, usually, to be a propaganda lie. And I, btw, often read things which do not confirm my biases. Depends on your choice of a larger world. Given that I'm an anarchist, and do not hide that I despise the state, my personal "larger world" may differ from the "larger world" of an etatist like you. Some of them do this, of course. But my thesis remains that those businessmen who cheat will be less successful - except some businesses where one does not depend on long term customers - while, instead, politicians who cheat and journalists who have no problem to lie have good chances. These are two very different things - cheating the state, and cheating one's neighbors and fellow citizens. But, of course, the state wants to hide this difference, and there are, indeed, a lot of people who don't get the difference. These are those I name sheeple. I prefer not to be cheated at all. The question is how to reach this. This depends on a good choice of personal criteria for trusting other people. In similar circumstances, one has to pay. There have been exceptions of firms, like Walmart and Microsoft, which have not had a lobby. The result was that their competitors, together with politicians they have bribed, have created them some problems. They have understood the lesson, now they also have a lobby and the problems have been solved. This is the main application of anti-trust regulations - to force all big firms to pay bribes. No. Once you are able to find a lot of honest politicians and journalist even on the top level, our criteria are obviously quite different. Then, of course, a dishonesty is also a dishonesty if the victim is a robber or mafiosi or a policeman or a taxman. But such dishonesty may, in these cases, be justified by self-defense and defense of others. Some bribes are simply self-defense. There are also other, despicable bribes, say, those given with the intention to harm competitors via some "regulation" or application of anti-trust legislation. In fact, I have already mentioned some typical businesses with a high percentage of cheaters, like selling used cars. The superrich one can add here too. Many of them have a long history of cooperation with politicians. And such a cooperation, if not pure self-defense, is morally despicable in itself. Fine, feel happy with your own criteria of evaluation. I have my own. They are obviously different. But your guess about the nature of the difference is wrong. Because my problem with finding honest journalists started with empirical grounds - with the identification of obvious, clear, provable lies, which have been repeated in all the mainstream media, without a single exception of a honest journalists who had written the truth. One example I have given here: http://www.sciforums.com/threads/sh...that-lie-for-money.151895/page-3#post-3315870 You also seem to confuse the description of my position on the role of empirical evidence in economics with the criteria for evaluating politicians and journalists. Don't forget also that, even if I accept some arguments of von Mises as reasonable, I do not accept the Austrian methodology as a whole, and support the Popperian scientific method in economics too. Which means, btw, priority of theory.
Well comrade, not surprisingly, you are not being honest again. You believe whatever Mother Putina tells you to believe and you believe it without question. And you summarily and without merit dismiss everything else as NATO propaganda even though you have zero evidence the facts you find unpleasant are in any way false or linked to NATO. That's not true either. Here is one of your problems, you don't know what you are. But it's very apparent from your posts, you are a fascist. You unquestionably support, believe and preach whatever Mother Putina tells you. You are a fascist advocate. You have also advocated for child porn, but that's another story. The bottom line here is your beliefs and your assertions are just not consistent with reality. Funny, the biggest "sheeple" I have ever known are those who like to call others "sheeple". There are none so blind as those who will not see. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! No it depends on access to good information. It requires people to be informed and educated. It requires transparency. All of which are sorely lacking in your beloved Mother Russia. You keep conflating the rest of the world with Mother Russia. Mother Russia isn't representative of the rest of the world. As has been repeatedly pointed out to you, your beloved Mother Russia has been repeatedly found to be one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
You are clearly not capable of evaluating internet sources. You don't have enough factual information from your own experience, and your theoretical approach cripples your ability to gather more from others. My choice of the larger world was perfectly concordant. You could have learned that by simply reading the description of the larger world I chose, with examples, that I included in the same paragraph. But that would mean recognizing that your "anarchism" is actually a level of ignorance and naivety in these matters so profound that it invalidates in advance all of your theoretical speculations. Once again: You really need to gather information, before posting like that. Both Walmart and Microsoft are and have always been prime examples of exactly the kind of dishonesty in business I refer to, and your little fairy tale there is bizarrely disconnected from the events of the real world and the history of either of those corporations. No wonder you think businessmen are honest. (Except for all those dozens, even hundreds, of competitors of Microsoft and Walmart?). And no wonder when you see the wealthy - and not just the superrich, but essentially all of them - bribing and lobbying and "cooperating" with politicians, you presume the self-defense motive in the businessman, and the threat from the journalist or politician. Your theory does not have room for the standard American pattern of the rich and powerful cowing the journalist and threatening the politician. And so a dominant pattern of US public life is invisible to you. But that is empirical evidence of the existence of dishonest mainstream journalism, which has never been at issue. Mainstream journalism is big business, and big business is a prime source of dishonesty and corruption. Our criteria are identical. I have more and better information, is all. You are (once again) denying the existence of things that are part of my daily life and experience, because you have a theory that says they don't exist. No, I was obviously, as so often before, referring to your consistent criteria for evaluating all political and economic issues, visible throughout this forum and your posting. There was no "seeming" such as you pretend. Speculating theoretically in avowed (and obvious) ignorance, and then refusing to correct your theory or speculative conclusions when confronted with contradictory facts, even to the point of explicit denial of the role of evidence in reference to your theoretical speculations, is the very antithesis of Popper's philosophy. You could not be less of an adherent to Popper's theories.
Ahem. The recent interest in Donald Trump on the net is now waning apparently. This makes sense, given it's like watching the same episode over and over. It's getting boring. For the first time in many days, his name doesn't appear in the Google World News. Maybe the show is over? Or not.
If Trump or Cruz are elected the country will be placed on a better path. The fear of both parties is connected to the good ole boys network which benefits Washington, more than the people, will be at risk. It also means the ways of the liberal Democrats will be made obsolete. I read surveys that say that most Millennials think the best of times in the USA are behind it. They assume the current lower state of the union is the new norm. They have been trained by liberal education to accept mediocrity, since that is the best one can expect from mediocre leadership. Trump and Cruz see the best of times still in the future. That will come from old time values, connected to historical times when America was at its best. Conservative is about looking at the past and present to see what worked and what does not work. Liberalism is about progressive which means change for the sake of change, even if untested in the field. The last tests have led to the decline. Immigration is part of this change. Immigration is useful if there is assimilation. The liberal welcome immigrants, but instead of stressing assimilation, they keep them segregated in their own cultures. This is reflected in teaching students in their native language, thereby making it harder for them to assimilate nationally. This approach has never been part of America, when the country was running on all cylinders. All the liberal approach does is average the country into a 2nd world country. The decline reflects this new average. America was at its best when all immigrant cultures, seeked being American first. Once that happens nobody minds if everyone retains their heritage as a secondary. The liberal approach is to make the heritage the primary thereby creating division. Controlling the border allows you to control assimilation. This who wish to be part of the country, first, will be welcome. One thing both Trump and Cruz will both do is dissolve the department of education. This will get rid of a wasteful middleman bureaucracy. It also gets rid of the liberal dominate influence that has made education in America decline to a low international level, while raising costs. Protecting the jobs of the incompetent is not worth the poor services, students gets. Trump is not afraid to cut off the bad limb. This loss of influence on the young people is upsetting to the liberals. One reason so many companies go over seas, taking jobs along with them, is America has about one of the highest corporate tax rates. It has a higher cooperate tax than most socialist countries. If you lower the cooperate tax, there is less need for many business to move, meaning more jobs stay here. The democrats like to tax and spend and see business as their scapegoat and golden goose. But their approach leads to higher prices, lost jobs and business moving over seas. You need Trump to Cruz to reverse this. When you lower taxes, the economy grows. There is $trillions in off shore accounts, going unused because the Democrats want to tax this money for their own waste and mediocrity needs. Trump and Cruz both see this money as a good primer jumpstart the economy. They will make it easier for the money to return without much taxes, if it is invested. This will trigger the economy.
Oh, and just what will Trump or Cruz do to end the power of the "good ole boys network" and please do be specific? They don't have a plan. At least, Democrats have a plan. And where are your sources? Well, that's interesting. But as with almost all of your posts, it's just not consistent with the facts. Trump and Cruz, in fact Republicans in general, have been heavily dependent upon fear mongering in order to advance their political prospects. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-idUSKCN0WZ0SV http://crooksandliars.com/2016/02/cruz-fear-north-koreas-impending And ... you have any evidence of this? Hmm...while I don't doubt Trump and Cruz would dissolve the Department of Education or at least try to. How would they do it? My bet is you don't even know what the Department of Education does. You might want to do a quick google on that one. The US Department of Education doesn't control education in the US. In the US all public education is controlled by local school boards and states. They are the ones who determine the curriculum. They are the ones who hire the teachers. They are the ones who determine what will be said, in the classroom - not the US Department of Education...oops. Facts are not liberal conspiracies. They are just facts. So, zero is too high? Many American companies pay zero income taxes while making very big profits. The problem is an overly complicated tax code. While nominal US corporate tax rates are high, effective tax rates, the tax rates companies actually pay is much less. Two, businesses don't move overseas to avoid income taxes. That's absurd. They are not leaving their profitable US markets just so they can avoid paying US income taxes. That's analogous to throwing the baby out with the dishwater. It doesn't happen. What "they do" is called a corporate inversion. On paper, they relocate their headquarters to a low tax country like Ireland. They don't move any jobs. It's all done on paper. No jobs are lost. Well that's the meme Republicans, like yourself, have been taught. But like many of the other things you have been taught, it just doesn't stand up in the light of facts. The only budget surplus this nation has seen in many decades was achieved by a Democratic president. And other data has shown, and you have seen this data, that the economy does better under Democrats than it does under Republicans. Democrats are also more fiscally prudent. Except, like your other assertions, this isn't true either. Obama has been calling for tax code reforms with this one being chief among them. If Republicans want this, all they have to do is pass a bill and send it to the POTUS. But it won't jump-start the economy for several reasons. One of which: the economy is already moving and has been growing modestly since Obama assumed office and Democrats passed economic stimulus measures. Two, just repatriating the cash does nothing to create jobs. What creates jobs is people spending money. Companies will not spend money building factories and stores if there are no people who are willing and able to purchase their products. It really is that simple.
The internet gives factual information as well as propaganda from all sides. I have a very good education in "reading between the lines" - the art of extracting information from one-sided propaganda sources which you learn if you live in states where no other information is available, as I have during communist time. In comparison, to find and evaluate information in the internet today is very simple. Again, simple name-calling, "ignorance", "naivety". The interesting point, which makes worth to cite it, is the nice try to justify that you should not have to answer the theoretical arguments. They are, somehow, invalidated by your name-calling. Why do you ask? Gather the information who has started this. And this after I have clarified that I consider the cooperation with politicians, as long as not justified by self-defense, as despicable. LOL. One can clearly identify the left ideological pattern. Left politicians are beyond doubt, but everything the bourgeoisie is doing is evil. A state-owned mainstream journalism, which is not business, but lives on government money would be much better, not? But, no, they distribute the same lies. At least this is what empirical observation tells me. Yet another lie, and a quite primitive one because everybody reading the thread can easily identify it. The whole argument I have made does not tell at all that such things do not exist, it was only that lying businessmen are less probable than lying politicians and journalists. This does not exclude nor honest politicians and journalists, nor cheating businessmen. Moreover, I have also given several times more specific information about whole groups of businessmen where the argument is not applicable. And that you have more and better information is a possibility. But for those who claim to have more and better information there are some proverbs like "A man's praise in his own mouth stinks" , "Self-praise is no recommendation", or "He that praises himself spatters himself". This is what the translator suggests for the German "Eigenlob stinkt". Of course, such an openly polemical strawman can be easily beaten. It seems, repeating primitive personal attacks is considered to be argumentation in America. I have not seen a single argument about the content, say, of Popper's interpretation of probability theory, which you have claimed to be compatible with Bayesian probability, obviously without even knowing that Popper has explicitly rejected it and proposed his own propensity interpretation.
You usually blunder on this forum, by assuming something is propaganda when it is instead factual information, and "reading between the lines" based on that false presumption. Are you sure you don't do that in other venues as well? You were the one referring to their competitors as dishonest, Microsoft and Walmart forced to lobby in some fantasy of self defense. But there were dozens of such competitors, - so - - - - -- - . ? Wrong as always. Now what? All I did was point out that the mainstream news was big business in my part of the world. So when you say big and successful businessmen are honest, and mainstream journalists are dishonest, you have a discordance to deal with. It's the same problem you have when faced with the fact that most wealthy business people put time and effort into corrupting politicians both local and national, and sometimes fail. You have forgotten what you posted above. Allow me to remind you of posts such as 51, where you declare that it is impossible that I could easily find honest politicians and journalists at a high level in my region, and likewise impossible that dishonesty would be found rampant among long term successful businessmen. Both of these impossibilities declared on theoretical grounds. Both of them silly. I linked you to one of the several proofs of my contention. Actual proofs - formal logic. The bottom line is: Trump is bringing his business standards of honesty to his political campaign, and they fit right in. Trump is nothing new. But he is not a Sanders either - or even a Clinton type. He is a standard Reagan Republican politician; a bit less extreme than most, a bit more vulgar than is common, but not at all unusual in his ideology. Which is fascism, just like Reagan's and W's and Romney's. The problem the Republican Party faces with him is not that he is fooling anyone, but that he is not fooling enough people - he is presenting to the world the Republican Party ideology and electoral base, it's core voting support without the normal lipstick and code words and dog whistles.
I name propaganda what you name factual information. Who is right, one would have to find out in a discussion. The discussion does not happen, because most of your contributions are simple, unsupported accusations and unbased claims. Nothing. Learn to read, and find the place where I have explicitly mentioned the superrich, those who like to cooperate with politicians, as despicable. Nothing to add. I have not made any claims about how much of them show such despicable behavior, because it is not relevant. Nothing. An unbased claim does not need to be answered. Not really. Let's start with the point that I have not said this. I have explicitly named those who cooperate with politicians - and these are, essentially, the superrich, simply because usual businessmen have not enough money to have an own lobby - as doing despicable things. Now, an easy exercise for you, find out something about the concentration of power in the mass media. It is highly concentrated, with only a few very big players. Which all cooperate with politicians. This is, btw, not an accident, not a consequence of some necessity to have a big organization to provide information. The very point of controlling mass media is to get political influence. Berlusconi is a nice example for this - his political power in Italy, over years, has been based on his control over a lot of Italian mass media. First, I see no similarity, second, I do not even see a problem. There is, in fact, an economic argument that spending money for political influence will not give much, simply because competitors want to reach the same aims, so, the competition ends with the superrich spending as much for bribes as receiving advantages. Yes, I allow you. Please remind me, with an explicit quote. I have searched for the word "impossible", the two first occurrences of this word are your claim about what I have claimed. The closest thing to your claim seems which is quite far away. Note also that "high level" and "in my region" are in some conflict. I have no problem to concede that in your village or county there may be some honest politicians in power, and that in your local newspaper there may be some honest journalists. Of course, because above are strawmen. Strawmen, which you continue to deploy despite explicit clarifications that the argument is, and can be, only about probabilities, and not about impossibility. I was unable to find such a link, so, please repeat.
