gags
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Posts posted by gags
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Every sophisticated economy needs a manufacturing base before it can begin any focus on service-sector industries. If your service-sector economy collapses, then you need a springboard of manufactured goods industries, which have intrinsic value (versus a service which is valuated in non-physical properties).
....But a country like the United States, which does not have much of a manufacturing base anymore, does not have anything to leverage against big government...
Andrew, this claim that the US doesn't manufacture anything anymore is a common misconception. In fact, the real value of US manufactured goods has generally grown. I don't doubt that this most recent recession has caused declines (as recessions in the past have done), but prior to that, 2006 was the peak year of US manufacturing output in real terms. However, this output is being created more efficiently so that manufacturing employment in the US continues to decline. Of course, this is what tends to get media coverage and public attention.
"Remarkable increases in American productivity due to technology, capital investment (in no small part because we run merchandise trade deficits), and entrepreneurialism mean that “America” can produce far more goods today with far fewer people than at any point in its history. To wit, American manufacturing output reached an all time high last year, as did revenues, profits and worker compensation."
http://www.aier.org/research/commentaries/...f-manufacturing
http://www.uschina.org/public/documents/20...nufacturing.pdf
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For an Objectivist forum, some of the members here have a disgusting lack of knowledge of macro economics and fiscal policy.
Rather than making this sort of blanket statement, why don't you point out specific examples where people have displayed a "disgusting lack of knowledge" and challenge those statements? From what I've seen, there are a lot of members on this site who have forgotten more about economics than most people will ever know.
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Before I read what you've pasted, I should ask: are you permitted to copy-paste their whole article somewhere else? Perhaps there's something they want to gain by requiring subscription to read their articles?
That was my mistake, the article is available publicly through this link:
http://www.detnews.com/article/20090918/EN...est-documentary
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To the rotting piece of swine's credit, Capitalism is very anti-Christian.
It's really the other way around. The morality of Christianity is very anti-capitalist.
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A couple of recent online articles about Schiff:
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/artic...set=&ccode=
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Let me get this straight. For months and months, the government has been pushing banks to resume lending to overleveraged businesses and individuals. Now, our government, which is itself extremely overleveraged, is going to compete with those private businesses and individuals for the funds that the government was pushing the banks to lend. Yep, that makes sense.
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Attacks on the man's appearance have no bearing on the discussion his philosophy. Comments like this remind of a time I heard Ayn Rand described as, "that haggard, shriveled [REDACTED]". I'm sure most here would agree that her appearance has had no impact on your understanding of Objectivism, or your willingness to accept that A is A.
I would agree with you if Moore were a serious character attempting to conduct a serious discussion about Capitalism, or any other topic for that matter. To the contrary, he's a fool and a liar who deserves every bit of criticism he receives, whether in good taste or not. His tactics are dishonest and I wholeheartedly agree with all atempts to marginalize and make fun of him and his views.
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I thought that this was interesting:
"There’s certainly a lot of that uncovered in “Capitalism,” from the glaringly obvious — the bailout and mortgage debacles — to lesserknown evils, including a widely used, little-known program in which corporations take out life insurance policies on their employees, listing the company as the beneficiary, essentially hoping a good number of them will die so the company can cash in." (emphasis added)Obviously Moore knows little or nothing about the businesses he's so quick to criticize. Companies frequently take out life insurance policies on key employees because they are difficult and expensive to replace. If a key person passes away, the insurance policy is meant to mitigate the risk associated with losing that person and to help defray the cost of the search for a new employee (anywhere from 20% to 50% of the person's salary for some executives). To make the absurd claim that businesses are hoping a good number of their employees will die reveals Moore to be both an unintelligent buffoon and a disingenuous purveyor of sleazy propaganda (as if that wasn't already abundantly clear).
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I can understand this from Churchill's perspective and the perspective of those who got to survive or were born after. But if you are the one who dies, what does it matter to you that civilization is saved?
I'd much rather take my chances fighting against Hitler than hoping to survive as a slave in a Nazi concentration camp.
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Moore, who is from Michigan, is having a series of "private screenings" (likely attending by his wealthy liberal friends) at a theater in Detroit today. Given that Detroit is the least capitalist, most corrupt major city in the US, I'd say it's a pretty fitting place for the movie to be shown.
Here's an article from the Detroit News on Moore. Just like everything I read about him, it's full of ridiculous statements and contradictions. I'll post the whole thing because I think you have to be a subscriber to access their articles.
Moore takes on capitalism, greed
BY TOM LONG
Detroit News Film Critic
TORONTO
Say you want a revolution?
Michael Moore says you might get one.
“The revolution is already simmering right beneath the surface here,” says Moore, the always-controversial Michigan filmmaker whose latest movie, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” will have its Michigan premiere Saturday in tiny Bellaire, near Moore’s home.
“I don’t know what the tipping point would be; but if you’ve got one-in-eight homes in delinquency or foreclosure, you’ve got an agitated public at that point,” Moore says, sitting in a posh hotel room last week at the Toronto International Film Festival. “Nervous. Full of fear and anxiety. Ripped off. Conned.”
“Capitalism” is classic Moore, a canny and entertaining mix of commentary and commando theatrics— he storms Wall Street, trying to get the bailout money back — mixed with orchestrated historic footage and pop-culture reflections of a seemingly more stable world.
It has one simple point: The overwhelming majority of Americans are not reaping the benefits of our current economic system.
“This is wrong, this system is wrong. Any system that operates where it’s all about the few benefiting at the expense of the many is a wrong system,” Moore says.
“The number one cause of bankruptcy, remember, is medical bills. So people are being asked to choose between having a roof over their head or their health,” Moore says.
Moore himself has no such problems, of course. Far and away the most successful documentary filmmaker of all time, his movies have brought in more than $172 million over the past 20 years. Right now he’s staying at The Hazelton, the only five-star hotel in Toronto.
How can such a wealthy man question capitalism?
Moore breaks into a radio announcer’s voice: “We’re here today with Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.
Hey, you guys are wealthy landowners, the British system is very good to you. What are you doing talking about revolution? What are you whining about?”
Moore continues. “I’m not complaining about money. I have nothing against people making money, doing well, starting a business, selling shoes. I’m talking about exploitation, greed,” he says.
There’s certainly a lot of that uncovered in “Capitalism,” from the glaringly obvious — the bailout and mortgage debacles — to lesserknown evils, including a widely used, little-known program in which corporations take out life insurance policies on their employees, listing the company as the beneficiary, essentially hoping a good number of them will die so the company can cash in.
Say what you will about Moore, he is an expert at digging up revealing footage. His true coup in this movie is a newsreel that was never shown in public, in which President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes a second bill of rights that would protect the middle class.
“The Roosevelt footage, no one’s ever seen that, it was lost. The Roosevelt family told us it didn’t exist,” Moore says. “We found it in South Carolina, buried, totally buried. Now they have it in the presidential library.”
Moore says “Capitalism,” with its broad subject matter, was his most difficult movie to make.
“I’m dealing with economic theory, but this is a movie I’m asking people to go see on a Friday night,” Moore says. “And instead of the easy way of having the boo-hiss villain— the Roger Smith or Charlton Heston — there’s no one personified character that is the villain.
“So (the audience) is going to have to work a little bit, and I’m going to have to work at making this really compelling. A lot of thought goes into this,” he says.
Moore also says this is his most personal film. It includes home movie footage from his childhood, and a walk through his hometown of Flint with his father. And it spends a lot of time looking at the fiscal woes of the Detroit area. He even tries to talk with execs at General Motors again, just as he did in his first film, “Roger and Me.”
He’s hoping it changes perceptions about him.
“I’m pretty darn tired of reading and hearing about a fictional character created by the Fox News channel and Rush Limbaugh and others, a fictional character named Michael Moore that they’ve invented, who hates America and is Godless,” he says.
“I’m the opposite of all those things and I’m going to (bleeping) straighten it out,” he says.
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Yogi is right on target. Pretty good stuff.
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I wonder, if the deal had been completed and the economy went into the tank say a month after the closing, would Dow be asking for a refund of its purchase price? Better yet, if the deal had closed and the economy had soared beyond everyone's wildest expectations, would Dow volunteer to pay Rohm & Haas more than was contemplated by the original purchase price?
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I nominate Babs (or is it Butch?) Mikulski for Sex Czar.
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This is how most modern politicians view the Constitution:
"Last week, I asked South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, where in the Constitution it authorizes the federal government to regulate the delivery of health care. He replied: "There's nothing in the Constitution that says that the federal government has anything to do with most of the stuff we do." Then he shot back: "How about [you] show me where in the Constitution it prohibits the federal government from doing this?"
Rep. Clyburn, like many of his colleagues, seems to have conveniently forgotten that the federal government has only specific enumerated powers. He also seems to have overlooked the Ninth and 10th Amendments, which limit Congress's powers only to those granted in the Constitution."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...3406386548.html
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Granted, it does give a company a huge boost in capital if they go public and sell their stock for a good amount of money; but at the same time I have to wonder if it really is worth that when you consider the autonomy they lose?
Unless I am missing something it seems as if a private company would far outperform a publicly traded company in the longer-term because they don't have to sacrifice long-term gains for short term gains. That might be an oversimplification in many cases, but has anyone else noticed this particular trend?
One of the primary advantages of going public is that it reduces the company's cost of capital. Investors are willing to accept a lower return on investments that are liquid, i.e. easily traded. Studies have shown that lack of marketability for a period as short as two years or less can result in discounts of 30% or 40%. Of course, the increasing cost of complying with government regulations detracts from the advantages of being a public company. In recent years, taking a publc company private has become a more attractive option.
I don't think you're necessarily correct in assuming that investors in public companies are always more short-term oriented than those in private firms. It really depends more on the industry, the type of company, and its stage of development. If you have a drug development company that has some promising technology that might cure cancer, you're going to draw in a group of public investors who understand that this is a long-term project and that it requires an extended investment horizon. On the other hand, that doesn't mean that your investors are going to write you a check and ask you to tell them how things are going in 10 years. They're going to want to see indications along the way that there are real signs of success. For example, they'll want to know the outcome of your clinical trials and they'll want to be informed when you pass certain milestones for FDA approval, etc...
There is no doub that a lack of marketability requires one to have a longer investment horizon when you are choosing between investing in a public company and a private one. However, that inability to sell your investment quickly also increases your required rate of return on that investment, making the cost of capital higher for a private company compared to a public one, all other things being equal.
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I cannot give any credence to the idea that McCain would be doing the same thing as Obama. Obama is a Harvard trained ideologue, McCain is an Annapolis traditionalist/pragmatist. Obama is a headlong lurch toward the abyss, McCain just adrift with the current. Despise him all you want, McCain would definitely have been the lesser evil.
Obama, for example, is more consistent with altruistic religiosity in his 'share the wealth' policies than McCain ever was (or would have been, IMO).
Voting for Obama was a mistake. I knew that most O'ist's automatic rejection of religion would lead us in to disaster. This man and the leadership of the Democratic party has led us to the brink of disaster. I seriously doubt that under McCain, we would have seen things as bad as they are now.I agree with both of you. McCain was a pragmatist and many of his policies would have been bad. As you say Grames, with McCain we would have been fumbling and stumbling on a slow stroll toward the edge of the cliff. With Obama we're headed toward the edge like a rocket ship. What rational people need in this fight for the future is more time. We need time in order to educate and convince people to embrace Objectivism and the ideas upon which it is based. With Obama, we've reduced the time available to avoid the inevitable disaster that is directly ahead of us.
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Van Jones was given the job of "diversity czar", clearly with the idea of eliminating any opposition to Obama on the airwaves.
I thought the self-proclaimed Communist Van Jones was appointed as the "Green Jobs" Czar. Mark Lloyd is the new FCC "Chief Diversity Officer" and just the fact that such a person exists makes me suspicious of this Administration's motives. I doubt he had anything to do with Savage leaving his 'Frisco station, but radio station owners are not living in a vacuum. They can feel the way the regulatory winds are blowing and it wouldn't surprise me if some weaker stations were to change formats, just to avoid the possibility of confrontation with the regulators.
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Thank you for posting that Linda.
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Perhaps this is the essential difference, and the fact that sets Objectivism apart from other philosophies methodologically. The method of Objectivism is to identify fundamental facts, and then elaborate consequences by adding a nuance (as Smith and Peikoff, especially, have done). Thus Objectivism starts at the level of broad generalizations. It seems to me that the dominant method, followed by other philosophies, is to start at the nit-picky level. This means that many fundamental concepts must be simply taken for granted.
Yes, I think you've nailed it. When other philosophers start with for example, a moral question, one needs to back all the way up to the metaphysical assumptions that underlie the conclusion, in order to properly evaluate the original moral question. Usually this is no simple task, but Rand and Peikoff were/are quite good at boiling complex questions down to their fundamental, understandable level.
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But seriously? Obama has not waltzed around apologizing for anything.
You’re not really serious, are you? The first few months of Obama’s presidency was nothing more than an apology tour. For example, he told the French that the US "has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive" toward Europe. He said in Prague that America has "a moral responsibility to act" on arms control because only the U.S. has "used a nuclear weapon." Maybe you forgot that when he was in London, he said that decisions about the world financial system were no longer made by "just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy". While he was in Latin America, Obama said the U.S. had not "pursued and sustained engagement with our neighbors" because we "failed to see that our own progress is tied directly to progress throughout the Americas." If you don’t call that an apology tour, then I don’t know what it should be called.
I think we need clarification as well, however these prosecutions will inevitably make us less safe and our intelligence agencies less effective. The protections of the US Constitution don’t apply to enemy combatants in a war situation.And I'm happy that Obama's department is trying to prosecute the CIA agents who were involved in the torture scandal. Perhaps, once and for all, we will have a definite Supreme Court ruling on what the CIA is allowed to do. It's not as if the Supreme Court isn't on your side right now as it is! Bush appointed two cronies who will certainly defend a very loose interpretation of the Constitution, where suddenly, the eighth amendment is meaningless.
It would be great if Schiff wins, but he’s only one of 535 representatives in the House and Senate. Until we can radically change the way Americans think, I’d prefer to see nothing happen, i.e. gridlock.I too support gridlock, but I think change is coming, in some amount. Look out for Peter Schiff, a republican running for the 2010 Senate seat currently occupied by Chris Dodd. All Objectivists should be standing behind this man, and if he wins, he will be an absolutely fresh voice in Washington DC. -
So far we've had a massive spending binge (admittedly, we may have gotten something similar under a McCain administration) and socialized healthcare is about to be shoved down our throats. Our President even did a conference call to 1,000 ministers where he invoked the god card to help pass a government takeover of the healthcare system. Internationally, Obama has waltzed around the world apologizing for all of the evil things America has done in the last century or so. Now his justice department is going to prosecute CIA agents who were attempting to defend this country. The man is an extremely hardcore leftist who surrounds himself with radicals and racists.
I'd like to see big victories for Republicans in the 2010 midterm elections. The Republicans are a feckless lot, but I continue to support gridlock as the best possible situation under these generally bad circumstances.
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Frankly, with the sound fidelity of radio broadcast mediums, it would not be possible to hear the difference between the various older remasters of the Beatles catalog and the new remasters that were put out recently... especially if they played the stereo remasters!
I've heard many of the mono and stereo remasters, and while they sound better, what you're writing about is nothing more than placebo.
Would what you're saying still be true, even if you had digital radio? My ear for music is prety weak so I couldn't tell the difference, but I wonder if someone else could with the proper equipment.
Peter Schiff For Senate!
in Current Events
Posted
I don't know what CATO has said about this, but more sources than CATO make similar claims. In fact, the graphs from the St Louis Fed show the same trend of generally increasing output except during recessions when manufacturing output declines.