fatdogs12

I think it's definitely better to work with what people can understand. Trying to be the world's teach is difficult and of course it will make communicating difficult. It's unfortunate sometimes but the other option is for people to not understand you

I actually think this is a very interesting point. Give money to the rational people and help them take over. The Kurds seem to be much more rational than the best of the Islamic factions out there. I wonder what would have happended if we gave them a few billion dollars, even 30 or 40 billion... Not sure how it would have worked out but it's an interesting idea, because I think that the way things are now in Iraq it seems likely to have a long term (and def. not a short term) positive outcome.

Yup... I seriously doubt this topic will resolve itself.

Wow a military theme, never thought of that in a restaurant. I don't know but I would probably stake a lot of money that that idea will not be popular. Not to be discouraging because I could be wrong but I am willing to eat almost anywhere but that just seems really tacky. Considering also how unpopular the war on Iraq is and how in general it is a negative thing in the minds of the people I would think that it's something people would just rather not think about. A great book about business (IMO) is "No Cash, No Fear" which is a very misleading title because it really has nothing to do with the book, but this book shows tons and tons of concrete and real examples of starting different businesses and the typical problems that are faced. So far I have started 3 businesses (2 successful and one not very) but I have found that this book really shows what owning your own business is like on a day to day basis and how important low overhead is. Best of luck

TV is free, you just have to sit through commercials... that is pretty much a free lunch isn't it?

This is a very funny topic to me because I was thinking about it for a while now. My conclusion a while back was that it was a lack of context consideration on 2 fronts. First of all in my experience programmers generally don't look at things from a business perspective but rather from their own. A lot of times they are left to their own devices and are creating products from such a poorly conceived conceptual place that the software is just a mess. The second front is that again they don't consider the UI from the user's perspective but rather their own. So really they just have no hierarchy of knowledge and understanding when it comes to actually making a product. Another thing I have seen is a general apathy by developers/programmers to listen to the marketing or business side of it. A fair amount of developers just think they know what is right and that's it (again this is in my experience). It's really funny but I think I pretty much came to the exact same conclusions that you did Greedy. Your dissemination of it was absolutely terrific though :-). I think a lot of developers would really like to think they are smart (and some certainly are) but unfortunately they spend so much time on concretes that they can't work on an abstract level as well. Great topic.

If the money supply was finite then we would all be back in the stone age. This is why I said forget about paper money, focus on gold, otherwise you will get yourself screwed up. Right now you are putting the cart before the horse. Money is the servant not the dictator. Money is used by us it doesn't dictate to us. Again you are saying to me "see, if there is finite amount of gold we are all screwed because we need gold and we don't have it." But in reality as I said we can use something else. I have to research the actual issue of money supply and how values related to that but it's a secondary issue at best. You must understand how things work on a basic level before you get into the details. I would suggest reading the guy that Andrew mentioned on the first page. The book he mentioned is availible online for free, so you can google it, I think it has a section on currency. Meanwhile I will research the issue myself (which is really what you should be doing) and when I have the answer I will present it. I would easily stake my life on the fact that your entire theory is wrong because it would be a lot like my telling you that 2+2=5, it just doesn't make any sense. I can understand you not understanding how money works but the fact that you can believe what you do is just scary.

That depends on how much they have. Assuming we are talking about a situation where there is a gold standard and people put thier gold into banks they would earn some interest and the bank would earn some interest. If they didn't have much of course they wouldn't likely loan it out. That is a major service that banks provide actually. They make making money on your money easier and hastle free (of course you don't make much either). Well it would be borrowed to make more values and then traded for gold. Who is losing out? Why are they losing out? The person who puts thier money in the bank is losing out? Again, how and why? If you mean the borrowers, then I agree of course. You mean that the gold to pay for the interest is not around? That's silly though, of course it is. People create more values and sell them for gold or for another acceptable value. That is all gold is, it's a value. Again this is my point, the money supply is NEVER fixed in the same sense that the amount of values created is never fixed. Don't forget, you can you anything as currency, salt, peanuts, cheese, turkeys, monkeys, computer parts. A currency is just a value... So why don't we use salt instead of gold? Well salt is cheap as all get out. It's like a few pounds of the stuff for a dollar. If I wanted to buy a car I would have to haul in a few dumptrucks to pay for my car. What about peanuts? What about cheese? Well cheese is more expensive but not expensive enough, while at the same time it goes bad fast so it just won't work. That is why precious metals work well, they are very valuable PLUS they don't ever go bad. Yeah I mean that is true if the money supply is finite. I have explained the how and why of why this is wrong above. Everything you are stating is denying how economics works, which is people produce values. Before we go any further at all you need to understand that the money supply is not FINITE. This is the central issue that you are having a problem with. Forget the other stuff. You will ALWAYS be confused and no one will convince you otherwise until you address why money is not in finite supply. Do you understand now? If not, please tell me why the money supply is fixed? I believe I have already straighted things out but if not please explain why. Don't waste your time with other issues until you get this one down.

I answered this entire issue, did you read the top part of my post? I am trying to get you untie the mental knots you got yourself into but if you don't respond to my explination then I can't help :-(

See and right there lies the problem with your whole reasoning. Money is not fixed. Forget actual dollars, if you want to discuss that after then fine, but just assume a gold standard for now. Lets just say that through creating a lot of wealth over many years 1000 individuals obtain all the gold that was for sale in the world. So now they are the richest men alive right? Lets also say that they hoard it and don't ever sell it or us it. No one could ever become wealthy right? Wrong and here is why. So what if a few people accumulated all the gold. There are other metals and other goods that can act as means of trade. So lets say that all these people accumulate all the gold and here I am farming. Now I want to sell my crops, well silver has a high value and I will gladly still take that for my money. I understand that you point is "Hey money is in a finite supply so therefore economics is a zero sum game, Bill Gates gets rich and kids in Africa stave to death". Money is not finite, Money is a tool, that is all it is. Many things have been used as currency over time, besides gold and dollars. It's a great amazingly efficent tool but it only serves to exchange value. Does this explination clear up the confusion? If not please reply using only a gold standard system, I do not want things to get convoluted. If you want to discuss the dollar system than we can talk about that after. BTW I am fairly bothered that you choose to propound a theory which you yourself do not fully understand. It's one thing to defend it without you being aware that you do not know but in this case I think you are fully aware of the fact that you do not grasp the whole of the problem. It would be exactly similar to me coming to this same exact message board and telling everyone that Governement controls are a good thing. The only difference is that Ayn Rand EXPLICITLY showed why that was wrong many times. If you disagree with something or find a non integration please state what you do not understand and ask if someone could explain the difference. A man can hardly claim to follow Ayn Rand and then tout the logic of Plato's metaphysics, yet that is what you are doing. I hope you understand that I am not trying to be mean. If you do agree with Ayn Rand you will understand how insulting it would be if I were to come and tell you that she was a total idiot and didn't understand anything and then on the other hand turn around and say I was a big follower of her. You did not do this explicitly of course but through implication you have stated that Ayn Rand is wrong about an awful lot of things.

I agree that Russia and China are the concern, North Korea well I don't know about that. It's anyone's guess as to whether or not they could even hit us with nukes. Besides if the US nuked Iran I'm sure they would gladly do in North Korea at the same time, I mean what do you have to lose at that point?

Too bad for them. If they want to support killing us then they get get the same.

Yahoo News of his release I think this is the point I was waiting for, up till now I think a lot of the Muslims and even hard line ones have been hiding under this veil of "ohh we just want the US out of the Middle East that is why we are so radical". If this gains momentum I think that it will be made much more clear that Muslims are really opposed to anything but Islam (and well pretty much they are pitted against that too because there are so many different versions they all want to kill each other). At least we have enough nuclear weapons to wipe all 1.3 billion of them out of existance. That is good to know, just in case.

EDIT: Holy Cow I thought there were 3 pages to this thread but now I find that there are 36! I have not nearly read all of this so my post points may have been discussed already so feel free to ignore it. A man is capable of having sex with animals too, that of course doens't mean that he should. He also may want this but again does that mean he should? Where does one draw the line? I assume your point would be that a animal could not posses the values at all and therefore a person should not rationally be attracted to them. That I believe is the problem, the vast majority of homosexual men I have met are actively acting in a manner contrary to thier nature. Obviously we have all seen the homosexual man who is very feminine, is that really a rational way for a man to be? Now I can't say that there isn't a biological foundation involved in homosexuality but a lot of the homosexual men that I have talked to look up to the strength in thier partner. Having someone there to protect them in a sense. It's not nessasarily blatently obvious, sometimes it's very subtle but I tend to see that a lot. I certianly cannot see a person who is homosexual to have the same psychological make up of a normal man. Whenever you like anything there is always a reason most of the time it's a matter of introspection. If a man loves another man, why does he? What is it about that man that he loves? Why does he find it nessasary to find it in a man rather than a woman? I would love for someone who is homosexual to try to answer those questions. Not because I want to criticize at all, I'm just curious. Have you defined your values, if so what is it about men/women you find attractive? Personally I am a man and I find men attractive, not sexually, not like I would like to kiss them but I can say "okay that is a good looking guy there, he has developed his muscles well and looks healthy. " or "His facial structure is very even and is pleasant to look at". To me it's the same as looking at a work of art in the sense you have standards you are judging it by.

LOL okay. I mean I read a lot of your posts and I was wondering "why would he be asking this"? I really thought you knew the answer already, makes more sense now :-)

You are asking if a person/company has the right to do what they want with thier own property. It's immoral to ever use force to make someone do something with thier property. So yes defintely it's immoral and it should be. If Blizzard wanted to say in the liscense agreement that you must not wear green while playing the game or you must be a homosexual to play that is thier choice. The door is wide open there.

I haven't read Anthem so I can't comment on that specific situation, someone else surely could I'm sure. I got this quote from "The Ayn Rand Lexicon" on pg. 199 under Happiness. She writes: "Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values". If a man values productive work yet is coerced into being much more unproductive than he could be will he not therefore be very unhappy? What if his value was more fundamental? What if what he really valued was the abilitiy to be free, to speak his mind without fear of punishment, the ability to true think? He would meet a constant frustration of his values wouldn't he? The situation that you speak of from Anthem makes sense. He was able to create something and he felt happy, however how many things may a person do under those conditions that will make him happy? Very few espeically if the things he values the most are blocked to him, he would nessasarily be quite unhappy.

So what if you lived under a collectivist government but still held life as the standard of value. Arn't you virtually guarenteed to not be happy? I think that the original comment I quoted is a non-sequiter and a big one at that.

Yup I agree with that, also the fact that many many Islamic people have about the same knowledge and education as the Christians did in the Middle Ages doesn't help either

I have wanted to write on this thread but I have held back till now. If I understand what you mean (and I think I do after all the posts), I believe that your problem is akin to philosophising [sIC i'm sure] in mid stream. You are starting with a discussion of debt and money in relation to the creation of wealth without looking at what economics is, what values are and what their relationship is. The problem with economics and money is that you simply cannot start learning about economics by starting with money any more than you can start leaning about ethics before learning about man. (you can learn about it by memorization only) Money is used as a tool for efficiency which comes in later in an economy's growth, it's not needed initially because it's not very efficient if you have just a few people that make up an economy. Now in a capitalistic society everyone (in theory) can gain wealth at the expense of no one. Lets take an example to illustrate this point but first we must remember that the entire basis for any economic activity is the fact that human beings have values, they have things that they "act to keep or gain". Since there are few values that exist without effort (like food and clothing) we have to put out actual effort in order to gain these values. With that in mind lets start our example, lets say we have a group of 10 people who are taking a boat ride in the ocean but the boat they gets flooded and they have to ditch right onto a desert island. (like Gilligan's Island) Now they are all on this island and don't have a way to get off (assume that they reason that leaving the island is impossible for this example) They realize that they need to survive on a daily basis and this is indeed the start of thier economy. Now this island has a few variety of fruit and all pretty abundant so there is no real risk of going hungry. They could also go fishing if they wanted to. Of course none of this is a reality yet so they all have a choice of how they are going to survive individually. Now initally they start out just picking fruit off the trees each for himself. Now that lasts a week or so but then some people start getting tired of eating the same thing and they really want to eat some of that fish (a value now). They realize that they will first need to learn how to make a fire in order to cook that fish (another value). Now lets say a few of them try for a week or so and one of them named Jim finally learn how he can create fire by rubbing some sticks. Now he has something valueable that others want, he has created some wealth for himself. But of course he spent a lot of time achieving this fire skill and he doesn't want to just give his new skill away for free. He says that in return for giving him 2 fish he will cook both and give one back to the catcher of the fish. (so they both get 1 cooked fish to eat) Now lets say there are 4 other guys who want to eat fish, so they figure 'hey all I gotta do is catch 2 fish for myself and I can get myself a nice warm fish dinner'. So Jim sits back while 2 of the 4 guys go and catch 2 fish each. (the other 2 people were unsuccessful at catching fish) Jim cooks the fish and he and the other two guys enjoy the fruits of all thier labors. Now they have all benefited without anyone suffering or being stepped upon. Obviously this is not a zero sum game as everyone has indeed gained. Jim for his very valuable research and development (learning how to make fire) has benefited him the most as he has not had to work very hard since his discovery and everytime someone wants some fish cooked he will benefit by one fish. Okay so we have seen 3 economic gains so far, the discovery of fire, the two fisherman enjoying a dinner of fish and Jim who got a huge benefit of 1 fish for dinner and one left over. Now Jim realizes that by tomorrow that left over fish is gonna be fuuuuunky smelling and nasty but he just can't eat anymore. However he does have two people who very badly want to eat that fish, so he tells them, "I'll tell you guys what, I will be willing to trade this for whoever gets me the most mango's by the end of the day". Now one of the two remaining guys Palo was able to get 15 mango's while the other guy Tom only got 10. Now Jim gets 15 mango's to add to his pile of assets. Now lets say that for the average islander it takes an hour to pick 5 mangos (they are aplenty but hard to get a hold of). Jim knows the next morning that he can probably expect at least 4 fish he will have to cook and maybe more if more are caught. Because of this he figures that it would help if he had some sort of real type of cooking surface which is more permanant and bigger. Jim also knows that he can count on the fact that the other people on the island want mangos and that they will be glad to experiance a time savings in work if they could have an activity that yielded better results. (more mangos per hour) Jim sets up a deal he will give Bruce -- who doesn't like fish -- 6 mangos if he will get some rocks and make him a little cooking surface. Now here again both people benefit, Jim gets a bigger and more permanant cooking surface (a value) and Bruce gets a 6 mango's instead of his usual 5 for an hours work. Here again is a win / win situation. There is actually an economic expansion because Bruce is now gaining more than he usually would. DEBT TIME Now how does debt fit into this picture and is there nessasarily a loser in a debt situation? Lets continue with our story and see: If you recall from earlier Tom was one of our unsuccessful fisherman. Now a few weeks have gone by at this point and the two fisherman who know how to fish have been catching about 8 total fish a day. Enough that about once a day he can afford a fish, so he is happy but he is basically living mango to mango to get these daily fish. Tom had an idea though, he figured he could use some of the local plants to fashion a net so he could then catch fish at probably a more efficient rate than the other two. The only problem is that he figures it will take a week or more to fashion the net and during that time he really won't have an opportunity to gather mangos. So while he could just do a little bit of work on the net at a time then go gather mangos it could take him months to finish. A better possibility though is him getting a loan of food so he can finish the net in the week it would take. Based on this idea Tom approaches Jim, "Hey Jim, I noticed that you have accumulated a lot of fruit and everyday you have 4 fish that you either eat or sell. I have an idea that will likely get me to gain even more fish for you each day however what I need is a some food for a week so I can make my device". Jim thinks about it and thinks Tom to be an honest man so he agrees and sets his interest. "I will agree to that deal however in return I want 2 days worth of food for every day that I give you food" (100% interest). Tom agree's and he is off to start work on his net. Now at the end of the first week Tom is done and he takes it out to get some fish. On his first day he alone catches 7 fish. This brings up the total islands fish supply to 15 fish a day. He has now increased productivity in fish catching by almost double. It's a fantasic thing. Everday he eats 2 fish and gives 2 fish to Jim as the expense of cooking the first 2, the last 3 however goes to paying back his debt to Jim. In short order Tom has paid back Jim (less than a week) and now Tom has started to create wealth for himself. He now produces almost what the two other fisherman make combined. Getting this loan and therefore debt allowed him to go from just subsistance on fruit to being the next most wealthy guy to Jim. Was this situation beneficial to everyone? Certainly so! Everyone now can get fish at cheaper prices because there is more to go around. Without that loan that particular gain in productivity would not have happened. Now lets consider also that maybe the maximum demand for fish is about 11 fish a day on the island. So lets say that the other two fisherman are now where Tom once was, they are not really able to get to far ahead because Tom came in and increased the supply so much. So one of the fishermen Alex has decided there is no point in just making so little as far as food goes. He figures it's better to go and try to find something different to do, something that people will have a demand for. He comes up with an idea, "what if I created a small boat that could hold a reasonable weight? If I did I could go out deeper in the ocean and catch other fish, crabs, small octopus or possibly take some of that sea weed out there and trade that for something." Now Alex really wants to do the job but it's going to take quite a while. He figures it will probably take him a month and a half to make the boat, which of course will mean a lot of debt. So it's very risky, especially since he doesn't know for a fact that it will work. For him though the rewards could also be large, he could bring in many things which would be very valuable to many people on the island. While there are 5 who don't like fish they all would like to have some crab or octopus. This could make him very wealthy in the end. Of course if it fails he will have to try something else in order to make money in order to pay his loan back and it will take quite some time. At first he approaches Tom (our New Money man), Tom realizes that this would be a big investment on his part and if he lost his investment it would take a big toll on him. He says he will put up 2 weeks worth of food to fund the deal in return for a months worth of food (100% interest). Now all Alex needs is another months worth of a food loan and he can get started. He approaches Jim the BBQ man and Jim has some surprising news for him. He will give him a loan for the whole month and a half and he only wants 90% interest. At this point Jim has accumulated enough wealth that he can afford to easily take this risk and do it cheaper than Tom because he has such a greater supply of wealth. Even if it was a while before Alex paid him back he would be fine and could survive no problem. He realizes that the gains are reasonably likely and well worth it. Now again we have a win / win situation with no one getting hurt. Even Alex has gotten a cheaper interest rate because there is more wealth to go around! How fantasic! I hope this makes it reasonably clear that one person gaining wealth does not come at the expense of another person. If Alex is successful there will be three people who are now wealthy on the island. And maybe at some point they will figure out enough to get off that island :-)

The difference is that the Christians did this in spite of what thier book teaches. The Muslims do it because of it. This case really makes me sick to my stomach. They are so bad that they are furiously angry when someone chooses something other than what they want. It's sickening really. I think that Donald Rumsfeld said it best: "they" (al-qaida and the others) do a better job of PR. I think it would be much more adventageous to do constant PR for freedom, peace and what their economic possibilities could be. I think (though I could be wrong on this) that we went in and basically assumed that they were going to accept our idea of right and wrong and that they wanted what we want. I am sure that some do but obviously their most respected leaders do not. I really feel like the only hope is to do a lot of marketing of ourselves as a better way to live. All we really need to hammer home is freedom and it's importance and I think a lot of the rest will follow. This situation is sad. EDIT: Also what was that about the West respecting thier prophet and not printing pictures of him? Yeah I guess that makes sense, the Western world is evil for printing pictures but the Muslim world is just for executing dissenters... Maybe we ought to stop printing pictures and start killing dissenters (of the right to freedom that is).

me either

I want to say first that I certianly was not against the UAE owning the security because of any sort of racism. My main reason I didn't like it was because I was concerned that a Islamic State owned company would be in charge of providing security to American ports. I couldn't understand why people would not have a problem with Muslim people, many of which who not only dislike the United States but hate it, controlling what did and did not get into the country. However I was able to catch the CEO of the company in question on CNN and he cleared up a few misconceptions I had as far as security is concerned. From what he explained it seemed to be that the majority of the things I was concerned about were unlikely to come to fruition. So if that is indeed the case I don't have a problem with it.

I only mentioned the 'anti-free' ownership part simply because he was asking for the opinions of people who held that view. :-) Good point though, Just simply because it is a state owned company IS reason enough to block the deal

I'm no anti-free ownership advocate but I would like to comment / answer the questions you posed. 1) A greater interest in keeping the ports secure among other things. Having a British company is not anything like having a Musilm State run company in charge of our ports. 2) I don't support it being repatriated by law but at the same time I don't really know a whole lot about that situation. If a another governemnt did repatriate thier ports I wouldn't be surprised. A large part of the world consensus seems to be that being free and having rights is not a good thing. It doesn't seem to me that they truely have a good understand of right and wrong to begin with and therefore look at our actions as some sort of evil task. So would I be upset if they did repatriate? Not really, to me it just signifies the larger total issue involved. 3) I can't think of a much more secure place to invest personally. I am not sure about a negative economic impact. I feel in a way that it could be negative for the US simply because there is so much weight behind the hate of the united states right now that people could view this as a big deal and (possibly though probably unlikely) boycott some US products or services. So while it's possible I think it's unlikely.