Karl

You should try researching the current problems experienced by the San people. When I was in Peru we visited a tribal village deep in the heart of the Amazon. There were no youth in the village. They told us that the young wanted the modern world and left the village as soon as they could. The old people were paid to stay in the village and give a show for tourists, but had long ago adopted the modern way of life. The modern world isn't a monster, but it does present a threat to village life. It's difficult for these tribes to adapt, but if that cannot they are quickly overwhelmed. It may well be your view that we should have stayed in the Stone Age and been happy with it, but this really does mean that you have an inability to grasp the need for every human to improve their circumstances with respect to survival and happiness. Despite all the talk of poverty being good, the reality is that as soon as people get the opportunity they will migrate rapidly to areas which have capitalism. There is a reason we have large cities, because people are attracted to the potential of improving their lives. They move from rural poor areas because living in poverty is clearly not attractive.

Which tribes ? And what do you consider 'living wonderfully' when compared to your current standard of living ?

The question that haunts me is whether I should wait in the sitting room or sit in the waiting room, or why time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana ? There are some mysteries even the Gubermint cannot solve.

As they say in Hawaii 5 O "Give me the facts damn it, just the facts" the perceptual concretes. Then we must think, put these perceptions into a conceptual framework drawing on all the other concepts we hold and making an inductive conceptual leap in order to solve the problem. We cannot fully test the hypothesis, but given the facts are good and sufficient, that our own store of knowledge is sufficient - though we may have to add to it through collaboration with other specialist, eventually we can draw an accurate conclusion of the causes of the events.

It's all in balance to me. I've spent most of my adult life in the outdoors for leisure, either walking, climbing, cycling or caving. Natural things are impressive, but I find the ingenuity of man to be more so. I'm one of the few I think that gets excited at the prospect of a hot meal in a passenger aircraft. I marvel how people complain whilst I'm in deep joy at the thought of eating a meal whilst travelling through sub zero air, at several hundred knots, flying several miles high.....its just 'effin mental. Take a telescope for instance. A fantastic invention. The skill, innovation and thought required to produce something that allows me to see the 'effin rings of Saturn, the moon of Juipiter and the Orion Nebula. This thing cost me a couple of hundred quid all in and is of a standard that the first astronomers would have killed for. They still have to hand finish the mirrors because humans are the only thing capable of the random movement required to shape it perfectly. Then the mirroring process is like a magic trick. I can see the most incredible things that are impossible with the naked eye and see them in real time as if they are alive. I'm as happy in a city as I am on a mountain ridge. I'm stunned even more by Las Vegas than by the Grand Canyon. I love the juxtaposition with man spanning it. Raw and transformed nature. Did you know that iron oxide on steel is the return to its base form. Something taken out of the ground, heated to terrific temperatures in blast furnaces then formed into tube, is in the process of shrugging off all that effort. Here is something that looks hard and impermeable slowly falling back to its previous state despite all the effort and energy required to make it. This is nature, which, for a while we can forge and fashion something we can use, but it's always returning. We can love it with coatings, films, additives and grease to extend its life and usefulness, but eventually time will reclaim it. Nothing lasts, we must keep making, always bailing out the water from the bilges to keep the boat afloat. Here's a weird thing. When I'm stuck in traffic on the motorway I get to looking at all the junk thrown onto the verge. It's like a secret life. Mixed amongst smashed car parts, broken bottles, cans, condoms and cardboard take away boxes are wild flowers that the traffic protects and no one tramples. There are birds, hedgehogs, foxes and voles hunting about amongst it all, oblivious to the humans sat in their little bubbles of miraculous technology. All the detritus tells me stories. I wonder at the broken bits of car, an accident occured here, where are the people ? what happened to the cars ? did this change their lives ? Then the cans and bottles, make me wonder at nights out to gigs, or football matches, late dashes to emergencies, workmen off to lay roads, build houses, bridges and factories. Everyone sees it as a mess, but not me, I see stories and histories, tales of traversty and triumph. I'm a land based beach comber looking for the driftwood of life woven into the tapestry of nature. I live in the North East so grime, pollution, noise and coal are well known to me. Im old enough to remember very clearly what it was like. We used to travel to Newcastle along roads that were black from the pit heaps the seemed as tall as mountains and blocked out the winter Sun leaving the road in twilight even during daylight hours. We played amongst the rotten bricks and open sewers of the bomb sites as kids.

Malthus is dead, let's not resurrect any more of that kind of nonsense. It was wrong then and proven wrong now. It can't be any more right because some idiot dragged it out of a dumpster and applied some coloured charts. It's still Malthus and it's still wrong.

I've been there as well. I don't pretend anything, I see amazing things, not necessarily pretty things, nor aesthetic things. The world presents a pretty face to you but only because you see it from the comfort of your modern life. I know that I could not live without the modern world that these pictures represent, they are literally life savers. Have none of you ever worked in places like refinery storage, nuclear waste disposal, sewage plants, refineries, chemical plants, steel plants, coal mines, quarries, factories, waste disposal ? I've worked in industries like that all my life. I see an industrial estates and get excited. I could spend the rest of my life seeing businesses, the men who built them and the men that run them. I love the bits others turn their noses up. On holiday in Italy the discovery of factories in the mountain areas is the equivalent of finding a rose in a dry desert.

I see amazing things, cars, roads, buildings and mining, but portrayed in the worst possible way.

Now what are you trying to say Sionnach ? Autarky is a grand mistake. I have nothing against globalism from the perspective of global trade. We don't need Governments planning our economies, just let them grow and flourish naturally.

"Can't we just drone this guy" because at this point "what does it matter"

FOS

You can put glitter on it if you wish.

Magic beans, magic beans, who will buy my magic beans ? It's good to see the snake oil is flowing as well as ever but has crossed into the IT space. It didn't take long for the faith to morph into all those important little charms and embrocations that the faithful must buy. :-/

Which, whist accusing me, you have managed to confirm the same is true of yourself. I don't know why you feel it necessary to point out what is obvious. We climb in a ring to discover the truth, we come here with gloves of our own preconceptions and beliefs. Here we slug it out verbally revealing weaknesses in both our ourselves and our opponents. If I feint and parry then this is not cheating, which you refer to as intellectual dishonesty, it is simply part of the art of fighting. I don't come here to make friends, nor to gain prizes or heap praise on others. I come here to do what I do, in my own style, the best way I know. Would you rather a liar ? Or someone who believes nothing-a troll ? Or someone one who comes here to join a clique, to gain prestige ?

Except girls in UK schools are outperforming boys. You won't have me arguing against a Trivium style education delivered across a range of totally independent, private schools. It's impossible to take bias out of education because the catchment area creates a mix of widely different potentials and back grounds. The only way to avoid this is to allow parents to choose whatever school fits their own bias. Indeed, it is clear that private schools have delivered the most successful people in the UK.

Inciting violence is most certainly a serious offence. It's time she was in court.

Good find.

Because monetary expansion is defined as inflation by all economists. Monetary expansion (inflation) devalues the currency. Money is a commodity, a good, the more there is of it, the lower its value -supply/demand curve. Anyway, you haven't presented your argument because you are so bound up in claims of counterfeiting that you aren't functioning objectively. Your entire thought process is riddled with ideas of cabals of evil globalists instead of sticking with the facts. Try and take the emotion out of your argument and it will be better for it. Stick to the facts.

There is no 'legal' barrier to it. Correct. As I am being accused of unfair presumption, let me ask you a direct question and please give me a direct honest answer: How and who exactly, would you eliminate these barriers ?

I want to see how you explain wage compression in relation to monetary expansion. I have shown that it is not the case, but please convince me that I'm wrong as I'm genuinely curious how you can get there. I might well say 'yeah good one, never considered that'. The floor is yours.

Not a proper box then. You are basically living on the street and calling it a window :-) Seriously though, instead of your ad hominems why don't you refute my argument, or failing that, why don't you show how central bank money expansion compresses wages ? I mean you have made no attempt to explain it. All you appear to do is to blame everything on banks of which the central banks appear to you as the apex. I don't disagree with a lot of what you say, but you don't appear to connect the dots. You surely understand the basics that monetary expansion is called inflation ? You know that generally more money chasing fewer good causes price inflation either generally, or specifically ? So, as wages are linked to prices, employers are forced to drive up wages in certain sectors or risk losing their employees. Indeed Jim Callaghan did a great speech on it. Funnily enough we have another kind of inflation caused by asset bubbles and that is job inflation. This is where inflation creates a demand for services in an area and jobs are created as a result-as these jobs are based around wealthy asset holders they tend to be low skilled service sector jobs.

Or......I do. A word is enough. I haven't time, or space to tease out exactly what philosophy people hold from their own lips and generally when getting close to illustrating a philosophical conflict they will withdraw faster than turtles heads. So, I just put the lettuce out and then they can attack it. I admit freely that it is a technique I employ, but many here do the same without knowing it. In attack mode people reveal themselves far more than in defence. I think this is common to martial arts fighters too. Draw out the opponent and get them to commit to a move. It's better than posturing.

I will never leave the box, I have taped it closed and I will remain here for ever. It's a lovely box and I've decorated it very tastefully. One day you will find a box of your own-God willing.

You do have a very liberal kind of whimsical view of things. If you are contracted to work 9 hours you should be working 9 hours and not cheating your employer out of his money. If that should be 6 or 24 the same thing applies.

Not hardly. It's implicit in how people answer. From the general direction of the argument it's easy to uncover the fundamentals. It shouldn't be a suprise, anyone can do it if they learn to explore their own philosophies.