- On 21 May 2013
in
The 9 Most Obese Countries in the World,
futuresmc said:
proper diet and exercise will not work for everyone
I'm pretty sure that eating less calories while burning more calories works for everyone.
Well that didn't take long LOL
Fat storage is regulated by hormones
Excess fat storage is a result of poor quality calories, not high quantity of calories.
Calories as a metric for body weight as it pertains to food consumption, is one of the main reasons everyone is so gotdamned confused about why people get fat.
Precisely, but I would add that the government subsidizes poor quality calories. Market forces then take over, especially for the very poor who have no room in their food budgets to choose more expensive high quality calories over less expensive but poorer quality calories.
If the government was serious about pushing healthier eating, it would either stop subsidizing the poorer choices or give even greater subsidies to the healthier alternatives.
- On 19 May 2013
in
Crony capitalism = both a corruption of capitalism and a corruption of morals,
futuresmc said:
You do realize that the very standard of living we have today depends on this?
Exploitation of near slave labor is not a competitive advantage. You misuse the term.
Exactly. The idea of comparative advantage stems from a time when people thought different ethnic and racial groups had unique advantages and disadvantages in the marketplace. Today we know that's a bunch of bull pucky. A person's ability is based on their genetics, upbringing, and the opportunities their society gives them. Near slave labor working conditions in China are a function of an authoritarian political regime with a large population they can exploit, not an innate part of being Chinese.
- On 19 May 2013
in
Robots/AI future, we need a full blown welfare state but not state socialism,
futuresmc said:
As for the rest of the original post, I would suggest that an economy based on the principle that all rents are paid to the government and used to provide equal distribution of wealth to all citizens is the ultimate solution to a fully automated economy. In such an economy, there would be little to not wealth disparity as few if any persons are actually producing any wealth.
Equal redistribution gives no incentive to better oneself. Humans need that or we rebel. Like I said before, we're not herd animals. We need unequal redistribution based on merit, as well as a social safety net for all.
- On 17 May 2013
in
Robots/AI future, we need a full blown welfare state but not state socialism,
futuresmc said:
I need proof. In fact the only examples I can think of off hand in the modern, but pre-welfare society where a machine replaced people was when the cotton gin was invented. And that resulted in increased demand for labor! Presumably nobody starved to death because if the invention of the cotton gin
Your useless segway into the cotton gin aside, a world without social welfare programs kills and impoverishes a lot of people. You don't need to starve to death to die from poverty. You can go hungry enough so that a night out in cold weather or a simple infection that a healthy, well fed person could easily fend off, takes your life. You can be so desperate that you take work that is hazardous to your health or work in unsafe conditions that get you killed. We have health and safety regulation and social welfare programs because of the misery that preceded them.
Industrialization did create new jobs and new opportunities for wealth, but many didn't survive to see it, not because they were lazy or otherwise undeserving, but because they didn't have the resources to make the transition without dying first.
Thankfully we don't have to live like that anymore. When we do live like that it's because our governments have been coopted by those who put economic gains above the survival of their fellow citizens, not because it's some inevitable force of nature.
- On 10 May 2013
in
Robots/AI future, we need a full blown welfare state but not state socialism,
futuresmc said:
What are the odds that, out of hundreds of millions of years history of life on earth, we are born exactly at the cusp of when the fleshy kind is about to be replaced by machines?
It seems to me, the priority kill list for any killer drone would be other killer drones! The fleshy kind is harmless to them.
This assumes ambition and value judgment on behalf of the drones themselves. We fleshy folks (or if you read Asimov, the politically correct term is 'meat') have conflicting programming due to our coder, that being the processes of evolution, changing our function and design over time. That is why we are ambitious and greedy, but also bind ourselves to morals and ethical standards of a group. Don't even get me started on the number of bugs the last ice age inserted into our program. But the end result is a chaos of behavior that drones and AI's won't have. Look at how we are already attempting to use artificial reproductive technology to remove harmful or deadly illnesses from our fleshy offspring's genome. Do you really think we'll program drones and AI's with the same issues evolution left us with?
- On 10 May 2013
in
Robots/AI future, we need a full blown welfare state but not state socialism,
futuresmc said:
Just another liberal trying to justify more taxpayer funded giveaway programs. It's not like we haven't had major technological innovations that put people out of work in the past and we somehow managed to survive without welfare then.
Many didn't survive without welfare in the past. They died, usually from disease that took advantage of their emaciated states and wiped them out. Many went to work houses where they were worked to death for nothing but rotten food and rat infested living conditions. Some died of exposure or starvation outright, but that was the exception. You may like to return to this Darwinian nightmare. I'd prefer a social safety net.
In addition, the OP is suggesting we PLAN for this outcome as it seems likely, not that we raise taxes immediately or capriciously like your imaginary 'liberal' boogie man. In the past we had displacement of workers, but there was ultimately work that needed people to do it. People just transitioned from one type of work to another. With robots, we're quickly reaching a point unheard of in human history where there are literally more people of working age than there is work to be done, or at least that can't be done better and more efficiently by robots.
However, a permanent welfare society would turn the majority of the human race into livestock. Humans didn't evolve to be livestock. We're a species of scavengers, opportunists, and tricksters, not herd animals. We could evolve to be more willing to be herded, but that would require dozens of generations, with our best tricksters and their private robots working against that system.
No, there are only two solutions. Firstly, mass extermination. With robots we need to get rid of all but a half billion humans. How we pick and choose who lives and who dies, how we kill off the excess, how we maintain the ones who live so that they don't over or under populate, etc. All these issues would have to be resolved and considering the majority would be threatened with death, this could lead to all out revolution, followed by a level of socialism that would make the most strident Commie blush.
The second option is to redefine meritocracy. The problem most of us see in socialism is its lack of concern with rewarding hard work and innovation, while punishing laziness. The solution would be to have high, Nanny State-like taxation on the unproductive rich (remember, most of them won't work either, their jobs being done more efficiently by robots as well), with an unequal redistribution based on some other criteria than productivity.
While I'm not the one to define that criteria, the best case scenario would be an algorithm that is democratically constructed online, that weights human virtue based on a person's actions. Someone who writes a well received novel every year or rushes into a burning building to save a life will become richer. Someone who does nothing special with their lives will be provided with the means to attain a comfortable standard of living and nothing more. Someone who is convicted of attempting to steal cars or abusing a child will live in miserable poverty in prison, receiving only enough to keep them alive unless they rehabilitate and start doing better. Again, this is just an idea for the metric, but the important part is that we human animals would retain our systems of reward and punishment based on effort and action, while at the same time, keeping out of the robot sphere of life where the work we used to do is done.
- On 7 May 2013
in
Conservative "economist" calls Keynes a fag,
futuresmc said:
It's because they are incomplete. Keynes doesn't really speak to long term wealth concentration and the point at which an economy breaks. (end of the Monopoly game) It is assumed that government spending will revive demand which will drag in capital investment and lead to a recovery.
Actually Keynes did speak to this, particularly towards the end of his life. He was very concerned about international capital flows and the need for governments to maintain control in this area. He hated the way the Americans like White went about it, but he agreed it was necessary to ensure that the multiplier effect of spending wouldn't be suppressed by money leaving the economy it was supposed to be stimulating. In Nicholas Shaxson's 'Treasure Islands', about half way through the book, he goes into Keynes' concerns on the subject. Stimulus spending doesn't work if it's syphoned out of the productive economy before it can spur private demand. Keynes knew this and he went to his grave worried about it.
- On 7 May 2013
in
Hedge Fund Obtains $2.1 B Loan to Buy SFRs Investors Pay Attention!,
futuresmc said:
I don't think so. I suppose these are state laws, not federal laws. However, I would not count on my renters to do all the maintenance when I plan to sell them in a few years.
Firstly, it's easier to undo state laws than federal laws. The cost in campaign donations is far less, and when you bring in nationally bundled money to fight a local fight, it's nearly impossible for local actors to derail.
As for your assumption that selling down the line is their objective, I disagree. Wages are in the toilet. Organized labor or a sudden halt to immigration or pretty much anything else that could raise incomes and give buyers money to save for homes is DOA in Washington, and the SCOTUS and federal judiciary b$tchslap anyone who attempts to claim they have a right to protect their wages from any threat whatsoever. Younger potential buyers are the hardest hit and have the added burden of student loan debt so family formation and home ownership is pretty much a pipe dream for them. In short, the natural buyers have been crushed and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight to the misery. These private equity people intend to become slum lords for the duration. Once renter protection and property tax laws are fixed to ensure they don't have to deal with obligations to their renters or the community they own in, it's all income, with a desperate population that will pay to keep themselves under a roof even if they're now legally required to fix that roof should damage appear.
- On 7 May 2013
in
Hedge Fund Obtains $2.1 B Loan to Buy SFRs Investors Pay Attention!,
futuresmc said:
However, if they do it right, it is not as bad as some people would think. First, they can get very competitive prices through bulk purchases. Second, sell the houses right away for those harder to manage/repair. Third, keep the more profitable ones and hire good property management teams to do the right things. Last, long flip, sell them all when the prices increase enough.
You're forgetting the most important part, lobby to get renter protection laws repealed so that maintenance and repair costs fall on renters and these private equity landlords no longer face fines or other legal sanction when they fail to keep the properties in safe, livable condition.
- On 5 May 2013
in
The cost of hand-to-mouth living,
futuresmc said:
Because of Keynesian policies where the banks are the first in line to receive all the freshly printed money, lend it out for a nice profit and by the time it trickled down the amount left for joe schmoe is completely eaten up by the devaluation due to the printing. In an economy where only the goods/services would count that have actual value, cunts like Krugman would be out of work and the whole parasitic financial sector would be much much smaller, siphoning far less money off the economy. You don't want austerity? Fine, then use your grand powers and take the money from the super rich away via taxation and give it to the middle class/poor without the printing presses - as we all know and hear everyday, there is enough on the sidelines ;)
You do realize that other than your crude metaphor for Mr. Krugman, everything you ascribed to Keynesianism is really a function of Monetarism. Blame Milton Friedman and his Chicago Boys, not Keynes or Krugman.
- On 4 May 2013
in
American haves don't care if have-nots live or die,
futuresmc said:
I don't think most of the American haves don't care. I believe they've been brainwashed into viewing any reports that the have-nots are dying due to lack of medical care is 'liberal' propaganda. They believe that the social safety-net is more robust than it's ever been and is growing in benefits offered, not growing due to massive numbers of people slipping into poverty. Only a tiny number of the haves truly don't care. The rest buy into these Heritage Foundation-inspired fairytales because they shield them from the hard choices true personal responsibility forces us to make.
- On 3 May 2013
in
Food inflation: Forget it,
futuresmc said:
You don't say. BTW the total cost of buying a house over 30 years has never been lower. You may not believe that, however with interest rates in the 3% range, it's absolutely true. Compare it with a 12% mortgage in the 1980's and you'll figure out why.
Keynesian Kool Aid at it's strongest
That's MONETARIST Kool Aid. Keynesianism is often blamed for the failings of monetarism by those who learn their economics from political spin. Direct manipulation of interest rates and the market distortions such machinations cause weren't part of Keynes' plan. It's belongs to that whole Milton Friedman, Chicago Boys, Supply Side, Voodoo economics takeover. They let Keynesians take the fall when their theories wreck the economy, but make no mistake, it's still a frame job.
- On 2 May 2013
in
Austerity discredited,
futuresmc said:
The problem with austerity is that it's directed at the Middle Class rather than the bankers and other idiots who fucked up the economy. I'm sure that imposing austerity on the capital class will motivate them to not fuck things up.
Exactly. Austerity should mean plugging loopholes in the tax code, such as deductions for carried interest and not taxing overseas corporate profits until they're repatriated. We also need to ensure that all taxes that are owed get paid. Offshoring to prevent taxation must be stopped and the guilty parties must be made an example of. Finally, we need a small transaction tax that would be set aside for future financial collapses. Markets are too large and too integrated not to have a back up that doesn't require taxpayers to pay for losses.
Unfortunately those that run our government are bought and paid for by those who like the status quo just fine, so none of this will ever get done. Instead, they'll use chained CPI to ensure Social Security doesn't keep up with inflation.
- On 29 Apr 2013
in
Chasing $32 trillion hidden off shore,
futuresmc said:
Good. I hope the stupid twat gets nothing in the end and finds that prostitution is a piss poor way to make a living.
They were married. If she were a prostitute, she wouldn't have legal standing. He chose to marry her and not to financially protect himself with a pre-nup. He made a stupid move for whatever reason. Name calling with dirty words is beneath you Iwog.
- On 29 Apr 2013
in
Why Occupy Wall Street Failed,
futuresmc said:
Wall street is just a smokescreen. It is the govt that holds the reins-not wall street. Now our congress critters are bought and paid for-but anger must be against the govt for permititng all this -not against the players . There has to be a separation between corproate and state.
Please tell me you're joking. International finance runs our government. The government may technically have more power, but the people in government are bought and paid for by Wall Street and their foreign counterparts.
- On 29 Apr 2013
in
How to Fix the Great Real Estate After-Bubble,
futuresmc said:
Landlording is real work. It's hands-on hard, irritating, difficult work. I think they'll run for the hills as soon as they get a whif. Plus real estate has very high holding costs: property taxes, maintenance, insurance... They'll lose their shirts.
All these can be fixed by lobbying for changes in property taxation and renter protection laws, and being that these laws are local, they'll get the policians far more cheaply than they would at the federal level. Then they won't have to worry about property taxes, maintenance, insurance, etc, as these things won't be legally mandated any more, at least not for large holders of real estate.
- On 24 Apr 2013
in
Time for an Internet tax,
futuresmc said:
It's simple. This is how the right wing finds its news. People like CaptainShuddup post made up info like this on popular forums. Others pick it up and post it as if it came out of legislation.
Fuck I give them permission to publish it as STUDY!
Then you're incouraging false information to be spread around and used as the basis for public policy. So much for your patriotism.
- On 23 Apr 2013
in
Time for an Internet tax,
futuresmc said:
Sure I did, IF the article states clearly that any business doing over a
million dollars in sales, will then have to set up a store in each state it does
business in.
It doesn't say that, and how you got to that wild assumption, is beyond me.
It's simple. This is how the right wing finds its news. People like CaptainShuddup post made up info like this on popular forums. Others pick it up and post it as if it came out of legislation. Most people don't read legislation, so right wing bloggers never need to fact check. Pretty soon, FOX News is reporting on rallies of small business owners against the real legislation who hold up signs with quotations from the phony legislation. This is how memes like death panels take off. It's quite effective in generating rage against ideas the majority of Americans don't consider major issues, or might even support, but are extremely important to special interest groups that want those ideas quashed.
- On 21 Apr 2013
in
Lower The Minimum Wage,
futuresmc said:
Now the problem with minimum wage is it essentially another form of taxation on companies. They are obligated to pay a employee minimum wage when they feel that the employee should be pay for something less. Why? because the job maybe something simple and easy and it maybe something that a new kid from school who still live with mom and dad or relatives can get into and eventually work his way up. But the problem is minimum wage eliminates this, in fact it eliminates job apprenticeships. You know starting out as a bottom feeder with low pay learning the ropes and working your way up?
And what happens to the kids out of high school that don't have mommy's and daddy's who can help them out? Who feeds them after they work 50 hours a week for $3.50 an hour because there's no minimum wage? Who keeps a roof over their heads that doesn't involve 12 strangers to a room and a bucket to poop in? How do they pay the taxes they have to pay after you libertarians manage to 'widen the tax base' to catch them? We live in a globalized world where there are 7 billion human souls, most of them still in abject poverty. When it was difficult to get labor, as it was in the early and mid 20th century, standards of living might have been stablized on a Fed-less dollar, but today there is an oversuppy of labor, so all you would do in destroying the minimum wage would be to impoverish more people. The minimum wage doesn't exist for the free market. It exists as humanitarian aide for the person willing to put in full time work. If employers can't afford to pay it, then they don't need the help, do they?
- On 21 Apr 2013
in
Netherlands on Edge of Economic Crisis; Unemployment Surges as Home Prices Sink,
futuresmc said:
The normal state of human affairs is abject poverty. Occasionally, through heroic efforts of will and work and genius, the standard will be raised to something better. But sooner or later the vultures swoop in, strangle the young, steal the wealth, and the whole society slips back to a "normal" state of affairs.
We're heading back there again.
The beauty of evolution is that there is no such thing as a 'normal state' for any species. We're shaped by our environment and either adapt or perish when great change pushes us. Humans are fortunate enough to have brains that allow us some measure for deliberate participation in our own developement. While we may slip back to a feudal world, I don't believe the situation is as hopeless and absolute as you make it out to be.
- On 20 Apr 2013
in
U.s. economy starting to sputter, and the sequestration is just starting,
futuresmc said:
This country is experiencing the burden of austerity economics and the continued scourge of widening inequality. Both are squeezing the average working class citizen. It’s IMPOSSIBLE to have a buoyant and sustained recovery without a large and growing middle class...
The problem in getting traction on this is that the real productive companies, the ones based on creating value and not on rent seeking, have been sold this neoliberal BS that a BRIC-based middle class can pick up the slack that the developed world leaves as inequity grows in those societies. Once they realize that the BRIC nations have rigged their internal game so that a middle class capable of massive consumer spending can't form and shore itself up due to high price inflation and unyielding wages resulting from an excessive population of cheap labor in China and India, we might see some substantial progress to fixing the developed world's purchasing power problems. In short, our best hope is in the real economy fighting back against the rentiers. Until the the average person in any given developed nation is a sitting duck.
- On 19 Apr 2013
in
Lower The Minimum Wage,
futuresmc said:
It's just as ridiculous as all the thread on raising the minimum wage
All of your arguments assume that when a company has higher profits, they hire more people. I would hope that you agree that is NOT the case. Companies hire when they need to in order to increase production.
His arguements are also predicated on the idea that when costs (which includes wages) rise, they are automatically passed onto the consumer. This concept only works if a given market is completely inelastic, where consumers will pay whatever price is necesarily to obtain the goods and services provided. In most markets there is a price ceiling, where raising prices will cause people to stop buying the product, reduce consumption, or switch to cheaper substitutes. In those markets, which coincidentally are usually the ones that the poor and working class folks consume in, prices can't rise or demand will drop. In short, companies would have to eat the loss taking a bit less profit. That's not good for company stock, but enough profit would remain that the companies could still produce and come out in the black each quarter. In time the increased wages would drive up consumption, particularly at the lower end of the economic spectrum where people spend every penny to survive.
- On 19 Apr 2013
in
Lower The Minimum Wage,
futuresmc said:
Working a register or a fry cooker isn't a form of social punishement for being lazy in school.
Sure it is, but it's also a gauge on a failed Presidency when those are the bulk of the Jobs.
You name it, I've done it. It was a social beatdown every minute I worked those jobs.
I'm sorry you had such a difficult life. However, I assure you that the owners of those fast food joints would disagree with you. They need people to cook the food and sell it at the register. From their perspective the purpose of a cashier or fry cook is to do the work they need done. No employer is going to hire someone and pay them ANY wage merely to punish them for not working hard in school.
- On 18 Apr 2013
in
Lower The Minimum Wage,
futuresmc said:
Let's just stop trying to pretend Burger flippers are in the same class of people as Automobile assemblers.
I mean the whole point of low wage jobs, is to educate the people that thought they were too cool for school. A few months/years of low wage jobs, would be enough to send people back to school or on a quest to seek a more lucrative career.
No, the whole point of low wage jobs is to do the labor those jobs entail. Working a register or a fry cooker isn't a form of social punishement for being lazy in school. It's about creating french fries and delivering them to customers across a counter after receiving payment for them. Some people will never be more than fry cooks and cashiers. That doesn't mean they should live in abject poverty their entire lives. Minimum wage is supposed to allow a decent standard of living for full time work. If someone puts in 50 or 60 hours a week at a job (or collectively at multiple jobs), they should at least be able to eat 3 meals a day, heat their homes in the winter, and go to the doctor when they're sick. Government has to hold the line on certain things for the good of society and one of those things is the minimum wage. Otherwise, there is no floor that can't be pulled out from under workers to squeeze more profit and productivity out of them.
- On 18 Apr 2013
in
Lower The Minimum Wage,
futuresmc said:
I am in favor of eliminating the federal minimum wage since almost every state already has it's own. The federal minimum wage is essentially useless.
Oh this is a states rights issue? so what states would "benefit" from having no federal minimum wage?
It's much harder to repeal a federal law than a state law. If you get rid of federal minimum wage, it's only a matter of time till enough campaign contributions by big box realtors and other payers of minimum wage start lobbying the states. No, we need the federal minimum wage as a form of safetynet. Otherwise, people become indentured servants, worked hard for barely subsistance existance.