patrick.net

SEC is, reportedly, going after auditors of some Chinese companies that are traded on American exchanges (through reverse mergers).

"No nation has become richer from devaluing its currency."

How do you explain China?

You're probably right.

However, for those who understand, let them be wary of the Best Ayn Rand synopsis ever:

"Atlas Shrugged: Part 2 - One hour later"

Chinese are famous for their "get rich quick" schemes.

Name a Chinese company lasts 10 years. None.

shrekgrinch says

You just said we are going to become the “Islamic Republic of America”

I did not say that nor did I write it.

Your declining demographic trend is being offset by children of immigrants who probably don't look like you. But not by a surge of children of Islamic immigrants.
That's Europe.

thunderlips11 says

the elites are not only getting their share of productivity gains, they are keeping ALL the productivity gains.

Except the amount of the "rent" they permit siphoned off for nonproductive sectors of our society (like realtors, etc.)

This thread has been on the main forum page on and off for more than a week. Everyone has their limit. Mine has been reached.

*Ahem*

For the love of all that is holy; in the name of Zeus, Buddah, and Quetzalcoatl; and by Satan's terrible red testicles: "Entitlements" is plural! They are entitlements. Stop Calling *them* "Entitlements." Putting quotes around it doesn't change anything, because the entities --plural-- you're *not* calling "entitlements" are at least three: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Those are what you're not calling "entitlements." Them.

Plural!

I have no idea what the discussion on this thread is about. Sincerely: apologies for barging in like this. It just had to be said. As you were.

Taxpayer says

That is not true. In 1910, there was very less demand for cars; while there was a huge demand for horses and buggies. What Henry ford did was to make people realize that they needed a car. While I agree that there are currents and trends, not everyone realizes them in the moment or shapes the currents themselves.

Yes, he accomplished a lot, and was a great salesman, selling his ideas to America and investors. But things would have happened in a very similar way without him. Somebody else would have figured out the idea of cars for regular folk. VW repeated the idea 40 years later.

I actually think cars are a great example of what I said. It was inevitable, Ford just happened to be the first one to pull off mass production. If not for him, someone else would have done it, very close to the same time. Maybe they would have been better.

This guy must have a bias against ford. Interesting though.
http://www.ausbcomp.com/~bbott/cars/carhist.htm

@ChrisLA

Is traffic getting somewhat less in LA due to the high cost of gasoline (more ridesharing, etc.)? Just curious. I don't miss the LA traffic from when I lived there.

American in Japan says

@ChrisLA
Is traffic getting somewhat less in LA due to the high cost of gasoline (more ridesharing, etc.)? Just curious. I don’t miss the LA traffic from when I lived there.

not that I can tell. Maybe on weekends, but we don't drive anywhere on weekends to save on gas, so speculating that others do the same.

During week it seems there are more people driving further out for jobs so traffic is very very congested during peak times since most companies are moving further out. A lot of people seem to skip on maintenance so there is at least one stalled car a week lately.

Clearly if we cut taxes on rich people, they will give us well-paying jobs right?

"I got a bigger boat than I used to have," said Dennis Mehiel, the founder and chairman of cardboard box manufacturer U.S. Corrugated, Inc. He lamented that the construction of his 150-foot sloop didn't create any jobs for American workers. "The problem is, it was built in Italy."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/06/patriotic-millionaires-bush-tax-cuts_n_871840.html

Obviously we did not cut them enough. The top bracket should receive negative rates.

Taxpayer says

@Patrick
“Especially the capital gains tax. Why do the ultra rich pay only 15% on capital gains created by their workers, when the workers themselves pay 28%? WTF?”
Now you are lying outright. Capital gains taxes is 15% for everyone. Workers and CEOs pay the same capital gains taxes.
If you feel that you should get more of your pay in the form of stocks, then go and ask your company. if they refuse, then go and start a company yourselves and award yourselves stock options.

Just a point of interest. I wonder how many of these well-paid CEOs could actualy start up a company from scratch like Bill Gates (few I would guess). We (as Americans) tend to glorify all of them like superheroes. I tend to think that the vast majority are of the "Paris Hilton" wealth/opportunity inherited class.

I'll say it one more time, I demand to be referred to as a Gemorran. The label "Sodomite" is just so common.

Copy that Sim. lol. That's too hard to spell, bro!

@state, I'm not the droid you seek

"Each state is sovereign and business with a presence in a state only fall under the laws of the states they have a presence in."

Excuse me? Have you never heard of the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution?

After what they saw what happened with Suharto in Indonesia, the Chinese Communist Party decided they would never be victims of the IMF.

So every time the US devalues the dollar, they peg the Yuan accordingly, and keep sending over more goods, and use the proceeds to buy more US Treasuries.

The Chinese are very clever, willing to take a short term hit to achieve long term goals, and are too savvy and united at the top levels to get done like Thailand or Malaysia or Argentina. Note that unlike other developing nations, China is exchanging finished goods, not mostly raw materials, for dollars.

Khruschev may have been on to something, but he got the timing and some details wrong. The Chinese are beating us at our own game, burying us in trash of our own design.

News: "China warns against even a brief default on US debt."
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-debt-default-unimaginable-rb-544637721.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=2&asset=&ccode

It sounds like what the US tells African and South American nations all the time.

You think the SWAT team is President?
Now you're just being silly.

The tv station has retracted the story and issued a new one. The IG was pursuing a criminal case, not student loans. They screwed up on the address of the warrant.

Much ado about absolutely nothing.

We busted down your door, dragged you out in underpants and kept you in a car for 6 hours in full view of your neighbors, kept your kids in the house for 2 hours without supervision.

"Whoopsie".

They couldn't knock on the door and speak with the ex-husband?

This still looks like a fraud case, probably she took the loans and ran. Doesn't merit a military-style assault in any case. I doubt she's got grenades and a Gatling Gun where-ever she is hiding. Pretty sad when you need a dozen guys in body armor to arrest a female check-bouncer type.

I wonder if it has more to do with the idea that the moment they don their SWAT trappings, their pay goes up 300% an hour. Then they lollygag around and add 150% to that in overtime. "Hazard Pay". Thanks Taxpayer!

state says

Bap33 says

Copy that Sim. lol. That’s too hard to spell, bro!
@state, I’m not the droid you seek

what is wrong with anal sex?

Oh there isn't anything wrong with anal sex. You just have to be sure to clean up the santorum when you're done.

@state,
I am pretty sure you can read my post and not find anything negative about personal sexual perversion. I have my own personal sexual perversions too. This subject may be just too sensitive. (the puns run on and on, ,,,, where's Mikey?)

To answer the question posed about the correctness of buggering, one need only look to The Bible and one will find that it plainly says - paraphrase a bit here - "if you are married and she digs it and he digs it, then it's all good". As Rodney Carrington rightly suggests to males, "if your wife wants you to dress like a chicken, hang from the cieling fan and cluck, with a beer bottle stuffed up your butt .. you do it!!" .... the key to a happy marriage~

Infrequently in my life I have been the subject of prejudice overtly and not so overtly. That uncomfortable mental pause of… really… did they just say/do that because of my race…? My wife has had racially directed insults yelled at her by a passing car. Does it suck… yes… Do I wish that I had been there to throw a brick through their back window as they passed… yes…

Having had a son I was faced with this decision, and did quite a bit of research before coming to a conclusion.

@thunderlips11
I am not sure where you are getting you data, but at best you appear to be very selective choosing sources that support your already made-up mind.

The connection between circumcision and your listed benefits is miniscule at best, and in some studies may have the opposite effect. The evidence is just not there to support the idea that this is akin to a vaccine, and doctors should recommend it to all.

However, we do know that in about 1 in a million circumcisions the penis is lost, and in some number greater (sorry I did not look up a source for that) than that it is mutilated. Also, some (granted very few) babies die from this procedure.

Risk vs. Reward – I did not feel that the probably zero (perhaps negative) reward was worth the small risk that I would one day have to explain to my son, why as an infant he needed sexual reassignment surgery, and was raised as a girl (yes this does happen).

I have no problem with an adult man or woman (in sound mind) who wants to cut a part of their body off, or a child when suffering from a (they are very rare) condition gets it corrected through circumcision.

However, I don’t think that it is a 1st amendment right for parents to be able to put their kids at that kind of life altering risk for zero gain.

Are there anti-semites who support this measure? Sure there are.

Are there non-anti-semites who support there measure? Sure there are.

Is this measure by nature anti-Semitic?

Is being a proponent of gay marriage by nature anti-christian? Some christians claim that it is.

Is being against polygamy by nature anti-mormon? Some mormons claim that it is.

Is requiring parents to give their children life saving medical care anti-christian scientist? Some christian scientists claim that it is.

Should we give every baby an appendectomy because they might get appendicitis in the future?

Should the first amendment protect the right of a parent to kill a child because they dishonored the family, and the religion says it is the correct response?

Bap33 says

I am pretty sure you can read my post and not find anything negative about personal sexual perversion. I have my own personal sexual perversions too. This subject may be just too sensitive. (the puns run on and on, ,,,, where’s Mikey?)

On of my favorite made-up statistics:
90% of people are shocked and disgusted, buy what 90% of people do in bed.

thunderlips11 says

the Penile Cancer alone is reason to proceed.

"In weighing the risks and benefits of circumcision, doctors consider the fact that penile cancer is very uncommon in the United States, even among uncircumcised men. Neither the American Academy of Pediatrics nor the Canadian Academy of Pediatrics recommends routine circumcision of newborns. In the end, decisions about circumcision are highly personal and depend more on social and religious factors than on medical evidence. "

http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/PenileCancer/DetailedGuide/penile-cancer-prevention

Then why is it not recommended for that purpose?

thunderlips11 says

And the hygienic benefits are undeniable.

Yes, they are deniable.

"Circumcision has been suggested as an effective method of maintaining penile hygiene since the time of the Egyptian dynasties, but there is little evidence to affirm the association between circumcision status and optimal penile hygiene."

http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics;103/3/686

thunderlips11 says

Good question. Why is the varicella vaccine recommended by the same authorities when it has little utility vs. the risk of nerve issues like GBS?

Yeah, that is a good question, but I imagine that we both think that there are different answers :)

thunderlips11 says

I imagine RX companies have invested a lot in the Association and offered lots of grants and convention tickets to members.

Yeah they probably do, but even if that is the case there is not any "big" money in rare conditions. That is one of the problems with our "for profit" medical system. There is much more money in charging every boy $100 to be born.

thunderlips11 says

Now, let’s take the typical household, where parents aren’t participating in a study and looking out constantly for their child’s penis based on a checklist?

Well, you have to do that for a study, but the cancer rates between countries that do lots of circumcision, and those that do little, is very slight to the point of being negligible.

thunderlips11 says

How many boys you think are reporting to mommy regularly on the cleanliness of their penis? Is mommy and daddy actually inspecting the penises of 7, 9, 11 year old boys outside of a study? Bizarre if they do.

You have a lot more faith than I do in the cleanliness habits of boys and teens.

Haha, yeah little boys certainly can be filthy, but most learn by 7 to wipe their own ass well enough that they can avoid going to school smelling like poo.

One might think the oil companies should pay higher taxes considering the wars that we wage, at least in part in their interest. Or maybe their benefit from said wars is coincidental. Still, shouldn't they pay ?

Taxpayer says

I do agree that without workers a company will not exist. But that does not mean that a worker is more important than the entrepreneur.

Again, you aren't really arguing the point. I am not opposed to CEOs making 50 times what the worker does. I never said the low level workers skills are equal to the CEOs. What I am arguing is why the CEO should pay a higher % of his pay in taxes, rather than a lower % than the workers.

That's what I thought this was about. Remember ? Ford,... his taxes ? His employees using the roads ? His customers using the roads ?

Would it be unreasonable to ask Ford to pay A LOT toward the roads ?

Okay, now, please change the subject again...

May I predict your answer ?

The ceo, who makes 20 million/yr is already paying so much more with his 17%, than the 55K employee pays with his 35%, why should he have to pay EVEN more?

IT's noteworthy, that if right wingers on this site tried to predict my point of view, they would have to contort in to some straw man silliness about corrupt unions, idealistic and naive utopian fantasies etc., or other twisted notions of what a "liberal" is.

Whereas when I predict your answer above I can state it without any hyperbole or contortion, and still, I see right through it.

I say I'm a true conservative.

I don't have a problem with the fees, but the banks should be honest and make the users pay the fees. Then maybe they'd understand that their "free checking" isn't so free.

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year-old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

thunderlips11 says

Unless China dumps them on the market. They would do so if war with the US was imminent or sell a nice piece of them to “send a warning shot.” Any dumping by China of US Treasuries would panic both the bond AND stock market. The pressure on the US to back off would be intense, as would be the pressure to raise the interest rates.

There is absolutely nothing preventing the treasury from deciding to sieze only chinese debt and invalidate it. You can't dump a worthless asset.

China's only real weapon would be withholding shipment of goods. When people can't get a new ipod, they'll riot.

Is it only me who finds it odd that a leftminded group will demand that a baby boy not be harmed after birth ... but also demands that the mom can have the baby murdered, dismembered and discarded at-will, at any time between conception and birth? They want to protect the peepee, but ripping the kid apart is ok? The same group wants the boy punished for saying faggot or the N word in school, unless the boy acts and says he is queer (in the case of "faggot"), or has dark enough skin and negro features to "look" Negro (in the case of "N" word). Those on the left/progressive/liberal side of things will want him in prison for life if he kills a person of color breaking into his house, but will demand he be kept alive if he murders an average white male. The same group will demand that the boy be told that tabacco use is evil and that there is no god while in school, but smoking dope, snorting crank, doing acid, performing unnatural sexual acts, being socially disruptive, are all ok.

I know I am simple minded, and I accept that. But, I really struggle to follow the liberal/left/progressive mind. Am I the only one?

Bap33 says

I know I am simple minded, and I accept that. But, I really struggle to follow the liberal/left/progressive mind. Am I the only one?

Come on don't sell yourself short. You can't be that simple minded if you were able to pack that many straw men together in a paragraph.

Oh, and if you flip on FOX "news" you will find you are not alone.

Kevin says

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year-old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”

LOL.

Here's a sad story about a girl and her Objectivist fanatic father:
http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/04/04/my_father_the_objectivist

"I would argue that the crown jewel of the US economy is Tech."

And yet all of the smart kids coming out of Harvard and Wharton want to work on Wall St., not Silicon Valley. Sillicon Valley is their back up if they don't get a job on Wall St. Without Wall St., there would be no Silicon Valley. Without Silicon Valley, there still woudl be a Wall St.

thunderlips11 says

The child is rescued from dark featured big nosed Jews to safely end up in the hands of “Light and Delightsome” Blondes and Redheads. There’s a freakin’ Trident in the background, which is a symbol used by several White Supremacist groups.

Well… if you are going to have a hero that fights circumcision one of his arches is going to be a Mohel. I believe (I have not read it) that in the first comic the arch-enemy was a doctor. There are only so many people that specialize in the removal of foreskin. So the Mohel “bad guy” kind of gets a “meh” from me.

What actually is much more disturbing to me is that Foreskin Man steals the baby and gives it to people he deems as “appropriate” to raise the child. This is very reminiscent of Edgardo Mortara:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgardo_Mortara

It is not as if parents that have their boys circumcised don’t love their children, and one of the worst/abusive things you can do is rip a child out of a loving family. Far worse than circumcision. Christ, we let some meth addicts keep their kids in this country.

I wonder if in the first comic, where the arch was a doctor, was the baby stolen then? Presumably the parents were not jewish. To me it would be a big anti-semitic flag if only the jewish baby were stolen, but the non-jews got to keep their kid.

Hmmm… trident… I am not up on my symbols of white supremacy. I think about the swastika and cross. Trident makes me think of pagan ocean gods, and gladiators. A quick image search did not give any trident symbols. I am curious what groups use that symbol?

BTW, nice mormon reference with the “light and delightsome”. I think that removing that from the book of mormon may have been one of the changes to their “perfect translation”.

thunderlips11 says

I see about needing a Mohel, but the display of the physical characteristics of him was very “1936 Der Stumer” like.

Yeah... yeah, it is.

I just looked it up and it appears that the 1830 book of mormon said, "white and delightsome", but now it says "pure and delightsome".

This is of course in reference to lamanites (read: native americans) when they turn "good" they get rewarded with god turning their skin white, thus removing the "mark of cain"...

but, yes I digress as well.

shrekgrinch says

That’s why the ultimate decider on who gets the last of the oil will be military might. Period.

Oh, and if China isn’t getting enough oil because we will be blocking/redirecting shipping of oil to us means they won’t be producing anything for export, let alone be able to ship it even if they could produce export goods. Think people. Think.

China could just as easily deny the US oil. The US gets over 25% of it's oil imports from the middle east. There isn't enough capacity in the rest of the world to even begin to make that up. The Straight of Hormuz could be easily closed by the current Chinese sub fleet as well as being well within range of China's current generation of missiles. All the military might in the US inventory can't change that simple fact.

Declared 2012 Republican Presidential Candidate

Don't forget...

Jimmy McMillan

Presidential Candidate Jimmy McMillan

The former mayoral, gubernatorial and senatorial candidate for the Rent Is Too Damn High Party announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on December last year. Explaining his decision not to contest the Democratic nomination, a party he was formerly registered with, karate expert McMillan was quoted as saying "the rent is too damn high." The flamboyant Vietnam veteran also gave some words of advice to President Obama, “If you don’t do your job right, I am coming at you!"