Political discussion thread

HarbouringTheSoul wrote: King of Loss wrote: HarbouringTheSoul wrote: JJLehto wrote: I say tend because often, like bailouts, massive outcry still won't do anything..but yeah! The outcry wasn't massive enough. That's the main flaw of democracy: Status quo is god. To actually change something via the grassroots method, you need to have a very sizable portion of the population to be willing to go to extreme measures to fight for their positions. The easier way is of course bribery or, as it is called in the US, campaign donations. What democracy? The one that exists in the US even though it has become cool to deny that it does.

The United States isn't a democracy.  It's primarily a republic, and is best described as a democratic republic.

HarbouringTheSoul wrote: JJLehto wrote: Now I see that the real economy is pretty much a shadow, and the fake one drives this country. Which is even scarier that this economy is all lies and willing stupidity All economy is lies and willing stupidity. That lies in its very nature. Economics is a social science, and as such it involves people. People are fundamentally stupid, especially when they're uninformed and come together in large groups. Whenever we subject ourselves to herd mentality (and we do it all the time), we lose our ability to think rationally as if it never existed and become gullible, selfish idiots. This is why economics is full of make-believe and self-fulfilling prophecies.

Your confounding of economics and economy along with your opinion tirade is very amusing.

How can an economy be a lie and stupidity? 

HarbouringTheSoul wrote: I phrased that sentence really terribly, didn't I? Let me try again:JJLehto said that "this economy is all [i.e. full of] lies and willing stupidity". What I meant to say is that the same can be said of every other economy as well. Any economist will tell you that the actions of an economy's participants will often not be influenced by the facts, but rather by their (often false) impressions of the facts.

Edited by King of Loss - January 09 2013 at 14:40

Edited by Slartibartfast - January 10 2013 at 14:43

I guess I really do live under a rock, I never got the whole corporation is a person thing. People throw it around a lot, and liberals usually are angry over it. I don't get why...don't you want a corporation to be a person? You can tax and try to control a person....can't really do that to a non real entity.

Which is correct btw, a corporation isn't a person, neither is the government, unions, etc It's a collection of people.
Which is why government is always doomed to failure IMO. May want to elevate it to super human status, but it's not. Its just people...individual people who want to use its authority to steal an cheat others. Hell, working up the corporate ladder is hard! Starting a business and becoming a billionaire, that's real hard! It's easy to get in the government gut and live off the masses.
Robber Barrons do indeed exist and they never had it so easy.

Pffft preaching to the choir, I think Romney is the scumiest scum there is. Well...maybe not but way high up on the list.
Still doesn't change the fact being a corrupt government person is the sweeeeet life. Don't even run for office, be a behind the scenes guy. No publicity or sh*t you have to deal with, you work with whichever party is there and just line your pockets!

Keep it at the local level too. I speak from experience, a "friend" of ours lives like a king off being a worthless sack and jumping between parties

Usually hard to argue with you Dean but that's just not my experience....when I think of almost every man I know in my business circle and personal life, they have started out of school pretty small potatoes and worked their way up the ladder of success.  Our CEO started as a dock worker in our shipping dept.  Certainly there are the guys like Romney too, the inherited legacies, but there are a lot more "smaller fish" who do it the hard way.  At least around here that's the case.   Maybe I misunderstood the line of conversation, I just popped in now. 

HarbouringTheSoul wrote: King of Loss wrote: Then in your opinion, people can be infallible and perfect? Absolutely not. Where did you get that from?

Dean wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: Dean wrote: Point being - very few  business men started with nothing, most don't climb the corporate ladder, they are born nearer the top. Similarily not all politicans are corrupt. I assume you mean very few multimillionaire businessmen since clearly most business men must start from the bottom. And yeah. They all are. Yeah - sorry I assumed that was implied as Brian and I were talking about billionaries (and the corporate heads of multimillion dollar corps).   Do most business men really start from the bottom? - even in an egalitarian society there are haves and have nots and most professional businessmen on a career path begin at graduate level.

For every chain store I walk by there's 2 people with stands on street corners. For every large restaurant there's 10 food carts. I understand that a lot is hereditary even or especially with small businesses, but I would be surprised to think that it outnumbers from scratch startups.