US's economy has fully recovered?

How do you suppose the North Korean leadership see their Citizens? When they drag those trying to flee into China back into forced labour... do you think its because they care about them?

NO.
They see them as Cattle.

Just as I'd argue the Plutocrats running the USA see you and I. Cattle to be milked and slaughtered for meat.

OK, I agree it's not your money if you have purchased something. Then it's someone else's money.

But, don't tell me you think that IF you just so happen to be born in the USA and use a road - you're owned by the State? It's not like you had a choice in the mater. Just because someone is born into Slavery, doens't mean Slavery is by default "right". Hey you there boy, you were born a Slave and look at all these things the State has provided you: A hut, rows of cotton, a job picking it, and some gruel. That that's worth more than a lifetime worth of your productivity.

Believe it or not, the State is selling you into a type of debt Slavery - right now, as we speak. The Goldies are getting richer and you, whether you know it or not, ARE getting poorer.

I don't "Hate America". What? I hate the dirt? The trees?

When Arthur uses metaphor it's fine, yet when I use it then it's not fine.

Our society IS becoming more immoral. Most Americans are obese and they are ignorant.

Do I HATE them for it? No. I worry about it TTYTT.

WMD in Iraq?
WMD in Libya?
Afghanistan? Syria? Iran? .... yeah, there's a problem in the USA.

Bailing out the Too Big Too Fail was the last straw. There's no turning it around now. You think the Economy is recovered? No way. Not even by a LOOOOONG shot. Our deficit rose at the same time (which means we were less productive) and thus the types of jobs were unproductive service. We went much deeper into debt.

Hey, that's good for my camp - it's one step closer to Ending the Federal Reserve monetary system. It doesn't make me happy to watch the collapse of the USA. Like a slow motion train wreck. This one will take generations...

 

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And yet we can leave any time we want to.

No, clearly our laws over the last century or so indicate we are more moral, not less.

No, most Americans are not obese.

No, more Americans have higher degrees than ever before.

No, trade balance is not an indication of productivity, we are more productive than ever.

It's your perceptions which are off.

 

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If your personal philosophy includes respect for physical fact and sound argument,

and you have the gumption as well as the ability to check on the claims and reasoning of the "two" sides,

then you can discover that side #1 is correct, and side #2 is full of shit.

Likewise, you can deal with this kind of juvenilia in a couple o sentences:

1) Money is not wholly "your property" - look at the picture on the bill: do you see your own face? The guy who pointed out that what is Ceasar's may be legitimately claimed by Ceasar was not blowing smoke.

2) Initiating force against someone who has taken from the common kitty and reneged on the standing agreement to pay the kitty back is perfectly moral - some say that societal punishment of betrayal is the foundation of morality.

3) The role of my government is as follows:

 

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The Census Bureau? What a politicized inaccurate piece of political propaganda. That's about as inaccurate as a blind man pissing at a urinal. The government will make it say what ever it wants to say. I have a dozen friends that never even saw a census form or a worker. Get real. Hell, neither did I.

Didn't you know? The last census was taken away from the congressional oversight, and put directly under the authority of the administrative branch for political purposes.

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http://www.discovery.org/a/9071

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/census-2010-constitutional-coup/

 

. . . and yet . . . how is that "common kitty" created? Is it created by the inputs of it's citizens voluntarily? Or is it created by the use of force at the end of the barrel of a gun? :wtf: Morality my ass. Compulsory State education has conditioned your mind to its' own ends methinks.

And where did the funds for that indoctrination come from? Voluntary contributions? :shrug: I think not. That too was forcibly removed from citizens. What a neat scheme. Force citizens to pay for their own indoctrination. Yuck yuck yuck yuck.

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That no government, so called, can reasonably be trusted, or reasonably be supposed to have honest purposes in view, any longer than it depends wholly upon voluntary support.
~Lysander Spooner

 

(I'm guessing that public schools never taught you who Lysander Spooner was or why he was famous?

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Not exactly what the STATE/financial/corporate establishment would call your great American founding hero, eh?)

"Spooner also believed that government restrictions on issuance of private money made it inordinately difficult for individuals to obtain the capital on credit to start their own businesses, thereby putting them in a situation where "a very large portion of them, to save themselves from starvation, have no alternative but to sell their labor to others" and those who do employ others are only able to afford to pay "far below what the laborers could produce, [than] if they themselves had the necessary capital to work with."[26] Spooner said that there was "a prohibitory tax --- a tax of ten per cent. --- on all notes issued for circulation as money, other than the notes of the United States and the national banks" which he argued caused an artificial shortage of credit, and that eliminating this tax would result in making plenty of money available for lending[26] such that: "All the great establishments, of every kind, now in the hands of a few proprietors, but employing a great number of wage labourers, would be broken up; for few or no persons, who could hire capital and do business for themselves would consent to labour for wages for another."[27]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander_Spooner

 

Laws don't mean shit. We have more of them than we ever have. More to repress, more to restrict freedom. The only ones that are ever really enforced are the ones to lock up and punish the poor. More now than ever, the rich and the powerful are looting and destroying the nation as its trustees turn a blind eye because of their corruption.

http://www.gata.org/node/11159

 

Has Greece overcome its financial crisis?
Now it seems that the media is silent about the crisis of Greece.

 

A couple of minor points, one Greece was never the problem. The problem was a potential European liquidity trap (i.e. banking collapse) triggered by a Greek default or a default by any of the other distressed EU nations.

The problem was the European banking system not Greece. Two, Greece is working through it's problems and has defaulted on some of its debt and will likely default again. But in spite of that, the world still exists; goods and services are still being rendered; and global financial collapse has been avoided because the European central bank has reversed course and is now adopting monetary policies/strategies similar to those implemented by the US Federal Reserve during our liquidity crisis.

 

Will Greece be able to pay back all its "discounted" debt?

 

I doubt it.

 

Leave where exactly? The entire world is run by plutocrats each milking their respective Cattle's labor while creating "money" out of their arses and trading it with one another.

You MIGHT be able to leave the USA - or you might not. It's not as easy as it seems.


I agree that SOME individuals are more productive. But as a nation we are relatively LESS productive. Which is why we now run trade deficits with Asia.

I've read making a hamburger at McDonalds is tallied in as "Production". As if putting a patty on bread is the same as making a car :bugeye: Which is why I'd be a bit dubious when looking at official figures.

 

Do you know what money is? That USD you're holding on to is a Promissory Note. It's a promise to be paid "money" at some point in the future. Which you of course never are - and why when you redeem it for something in 10 years time it's worth 25% LESS then when it was given to you.

Money holds an account of your labor. Your labor is YOUR LABOR. Got it? We don't own slaves anymore. You own your own body and it's labor. No one has a right to your labor. No one can force you to work. It's that simple.

So, yes, money is YOUR money as it accounts your labor of which is YOURS.

Tell me how living on a Farm and growing apples YOURSELF is "taking from the common 'Kitty'? No. You do NOT get to avail yourself of the farmers apples when he trades it for oranges. If you want an apple you must trade for it. Sneaking onto the Farm and stealing apples is stealing. Voting yourself the Farmers apples is stealing. Stealing IS immoral as I'm sure your mother taught you growing up.

When you take a quote out of context you loose all meaning. A flowery line from the US Constitution can just as easily have come anywhere and mean, literally anything, to anyone at anytime. Here's a section from the Communist Manifesto I wonder with how much of it your agree?

 

So iceaura? How many ticks on the Communist Manifesto sound good to you? How do you go about deciding which are moral and which are not moral? You said you have a "Philosophy". OK, which one of those items fit in your life Philosophy? As I take initiation of violence as being immoral (a central tenant to my world view) many of these items are immoral. While admirable, they will have to be tackled using a system that doesn't involve the initiation of violence against innocent people.

You like Apples. Either freely trade for them or grow your own. No, you don't get to steal them. That's immoral - as I'm sure your mother and/or others taught you as a child.

 

I suggest you look at your currency again. It is not a promissory note. It is a Federal Reserve Note. There is no implicit or explicit promise of future payment.

Two, you exchange labor for money. So the labor rendered for pay is no longer yours.

I don't see how this is relevant or what you are trying to say.

Not necessarily.

 

A bank note is a promissory note. Which is part of the problem with using a purely debt-based monetary system backed by labor. One could think of it as a kind of slavery, debt slavery.

What does China get in return for buying American bonds? I mean, what ultimately backs up the worth in those bonds?

Oh, it looks like you answered it here. Labor. The Chinese are getting your children's and probably your grandchildren's labor. I personally find this repugnant. It's called stealing.

But you don't see it that way do you Joe? Which is why that second part makes no sense to you. You don't see how taking from the future's production is stealing from them. How selling their labor is slavery.

Don't worry, you have the system you wanted. We're nearing $20 Trillion in debt and, unless the Federal Reserve starts charging negative interest and really ratchets up the thievery, the party will end and people will be poorer.


I'm sure if you were to tick off things in the Communist Manifesto you agreed with, there'd be more there you agree with than disagree with. You don't really 'get it'. You're still stuck thinking Democrats are Angels and Republicans are Devils and the Nanny State is Good and, gee, now that Obama does it, maybe the War Welfare is too.

Two completely different ways of seeing humanity and the role of government. One treats the Citizens like dumb beasts, sells their future labor to other nations, and generally like to rule from the top and the other sees Citizens as above the government, the government as (at best) civil servants to be trusted with as little power as possible given their access to initiation of force against fellow Citizens. When you have a douche bag at the Federal Reserve setting interest rates, you can not know the true value of money. On a whim they can raise them or lower them, they can monetize debt or dry up credit.

That's called a Farm Joe, you live on it - apparently happily so. As they say: Ignorant is Bliss.

 

Here is the inflation adjusted NYSE chart from 1966 to present:

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We seem to have gone from a fairly stable period, from 1966 to 1995.
Then Boom-Bust, Boom-Bust, start of Boom. This graph goes up to 2011, and there has been a good rise since.

If things proceed along the lines of the two previous boom-busts, then we are now in the biggest boom ever, perhaps another 2000 points to go, which will be followed by an enormous bust.

When will we stop leaving our futures in the hands of greedy speculators?

 

A banknote is currency. It is not debt. Please Michael explain how holding a banknote/currency is a debt. In the case of the US, a dollar is only worth what individuals are willing to pay for it. It has nothing at all to do with debt.

It gets interest which is determined by free market forces as US debt is auctioned and traded on free markets.

No, this is just right wing hype/nonsense. Additionally, you don't seem to be able to understand the difference between an individual with a finite life span and a nation with an indefinate lifespan. Government is an ongoing enterprise.

No I don't see things through eyeglasses of ignorance, fear and hype. As previously mentioned, you don't seem to understand the differences between individuals and states.

Additionally, we are not stealing anything from anyone if we appropriately manage our resources.

Nice hype for the ignorant, but not much it theway of truth.

More fear and nonsense Michael. No, I am stuck in this thing called responsible fiscal management.

I think you have summed up the "conservative" position quite nicely.

 

How does a Federal Bank Note come into existence? Debt.

And just what does this mean? Is a farmer YOUR resources? This country wasn't founded to 'manage' OUR resources - it was founded to stay the hell out of people's private business and off their private property. THAT was the role of government. It most certainly was NOT to 'manage our resources'. See, this is what pisses me off. You're so far gone you don't even realize it. Seriously, you really have no clue.

Income Tax IS immoral.

Oh, and I'm Liberal Joe. A real liberal. I may not be progressive but I AM liberal. Unlike other so-called Liberals around that turn into conservative chicken-hawks as soon as someone from their team gets in office - I still protest the wars. I still think it should be perfectly fine for homosexuals to serve their country openly and to marry. I may find public 'education' thick and mostly useless propagandizing, however, I do support NO prayer and NO national anthem in the schools funded with our millage.

That's not the role of government Joe. This is what you just don't seem to get. I mean, you totally don't get it. You think the governments' role is to manage people - it's not. See, the only way ANY government can manage people effectively is to reduce their freedoms and monitor them more. That's NOT our culture. Or it wasn't. If it is now, then I promise you, thing are going to get much shittier. When they do, look in the mirror, you'll know who to blame.

 

Wrong again Michael.

Wrong again Michael. If you go back and do your history, you will learn that the Constitution was created to form a more perfect union (preamble US Constitution). It was not founded to "stay the hell out of people's private business".

Two, where are you getting this "country wasn't founded to manage our resources" nonsense? That was never the issue. This is you creating a straw man.

And you still do not understand the differences between a state and an individual.

That is your opinion. But there is this thing called government that exists to serve our collective interests. And it produces goods and services which costs money. Therefore you should be required to pay for those goods and services in my view.

Good for you, it matters little what you want to call yourself. You and I both know you are a devoted Ron Paul supporter who is a "conservative" and running for POTUS on the Republican ticket.

As stated earlier the roll of government is to manage our collective interests - that does include managing people. Government has always managed people. Since the inception of this country we have had laws and thrown people in jail or executed them for failure to follow the rules set by government. Our first president, George Washington, formed an army to get people to pay their taxes.