ralis

The pathogens are unregulated free markets, Citizens United ruling by SCOTUS, bubble markets created by Wall Street and worthless derivatives. In regards to bubble markets, Wall Street speculators drive the price of commodities for their own benefit and don't give a damn if children starve due to shortages of basic food stuffs! High commodity prices create shortages, Joe! Futures contracts are only traded on paper and delivery of the commodity is not required. That parasitic greed must stop!

I can always tell when someone is reading Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead'. Obviously, you are having an existential crisis since your existence is entirely focused on the deterioration of capitalism. Read some history Joe! Every ideology and civilization crumbles into the dust heap of history.

This is downright freaky! With the new 'National Defense Authorization Act' waiting to be signed by Obama, could this be the future? 1984? Was Orwell a visionary? http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/us/beyond-guantanamo-bay-a-web-of-federal-prisons.html?_r=2&hp

Currently I am in the Mojave desert and last week was in the Sonora desert. The weather is unusually cold. Freezing my ass off at night! :lol:

Does this apply to any other mantras? Recently I have been considering the classical Hebrew that was spoken without vowel points before the fall of the temple and diaspora. Any comments?

Joe and the global warming denier crowd are irrelevant to this conversation! The deniers are paid shills by the petroleum industry. Further, Joe's TV weatherman who by the way, has no scientific background or credentials, knows nothing of the science of dynamic systems and specifically, a complex biosphere. Yet this TV weatherman parades partial data and non sequiters as if his conclusions were truth. It is this misuse of partial data, reframed by Frank Luntz et aliae, which is paraded as truth. Luntz famously reframed "global warming" to "climate change" to appease the masses into believing that the earth is just having a different cycle which happens periodically. This pseudo scientific inquisition combined with reframing semantics and age old propaganda techniques, opposes rigorous scientific inquiry. The new inquisitors do not have access to the data accumulated nor the computational power only available at a few labs in the world. Only with extremely high speed teraflop computing power that can model a complex system i.e, a system with more than two variables, are scientists able to reach precise approximations. Anti-intellectualism and the pursuit of pseudo-science as truth, are the fault of a poorly funded and second rate educational system. E.g, high school students in Japan are learning advanced math that is not taught until the second year at MIT. Anthony Watts the TV weatherman that passes pseudoscience as factual. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Watts_%28blogger%29 http://wattsupwiththat.com/ http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2009/07/29/204427/the-video-that-anthony-watts-does-not-want-you-to-see-the-sinclair-climate-denial-crock-of-the-week/ http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts

This is nothing new and I wanted to point out that these are the type of politicians that lead the "Tea Bagger" movement. Single minded politicians such as Michelle Bachmann are extremely dangerous!!! http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/30/bachmann-suggests-intelligent-design-is-a-scientific-fact/

Joe, Your narrative is composed of opinions, anti-government propaganda and sweeping generalizations. How about some links to back up your opinions. For starters, compare and contrast what the economy was before Reagan i.e, post WWII and the present. Of course, you wouldn't remember that anyway given your present age.

Wall Street speculation on farm commodities has created shortages of basics such as rice in the middle east and parts further East. The CFTC was given a mandate by Congress to put limits on farm commodities and oil speculation. So far they have done nothing. Excess money in the markets due to tax cuts for the 1%, create bubble markets which have nothing to do with the simplistic notion of supply and demand. It is the greed of Wall Street bankers who don't give a damn about anyone!

Excellent post! Historical documents are replete with people who buy into propaganda and then promote it as an absolute single minded truth.

To all the free market scrooges or is it conservatives? Sometimes I get confused between the two. Happy holidays! :lol: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO9fgKsMz0w

I am still convinced you know nothing of history and how single minded autocratic individuals such as yourself, create disastrous consequences for others! Further, you are not an economist and neither am I. The simplistic notion that the markets are just supply and demand with all participants as rational decision makers is just another propaganda campaign. When I was studying for my degree in the early 80's, I took a core of classes (finance, economics and marketing) at one of the finest business schools in the country. The hero at the time was Dr. Milton Friedman who was a promoter of so called free markets. The free market BS sold by him with the filming of sweat shops in Hong Kong and proceeding from the conclusion that the Hong Kong model was what was best for all. What was offensive about the film, is that he re-framed sweatshop to free market enterprise. That is bogus propaganda.

I mentioned the practice of naked short selling that investment firms use against their own clients. The rest of the piece is at this link. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2397918 I would assume the free market advocates that post here believe that banks should be free to trade against their own investors?

This is another grave concern!! Dear AMERICAN CITIZENS, Tell your senators to respect the Constitution and say NO to indefinite detention without charge or trial. The Senate is about to vote on an amendment that goes to the very heart of who we are as Americans, and your senators need to hear from you now. Either tonight or tomorrow, there will be a vote on whether Congress will give this president — and every future president — the power to order the military to indefinitely imprison people anywhere in the world without charging them or trying them. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens, within our own country's borders, could be swept up by the military. The National Defense Authorization Act bill, which is on the Senate floor now, was drafted in secret and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, and includes this dangerous provision allowing worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial. But there is a way to stop this craziness. Senator Mark Udall is offering the Udall Amendment that will delete the harmful provisions and replace them with a requirement for an orderly review of detention power. The Udall Amendment will make sure that the bill matches up with American values. Now is the time to act. Please urge your senators to vote YES on the Udall Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. It seems almost unimaginable that the Senate would even consider passing a provision that is such a deep affront to human rights and to American values. But, this outrageous measure could be voted on at any moment. And because this bill is so dangerous and fast-moving, once you've petitioned your senators, please ask your friends and relatives to do the same. The only way to stop this outrage is for as many Americans as possible to contact their senators immediately. Thank you for taking action. Sincerely, Chris Anders, ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel More info on this bill that will authorize indefinite detention of U.S. citizens and allow American combat troops on U.S. soil which is a violation of posse comitatus. http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/defense-bill-includes-authorization-for-indefinite/

I might add that the quantum mechanics deity was recently brought into the discussion as being somehow responsible for the human dilemma.

I just wanted to add a point. Inner city and areas that are impoverished do not have the business infrastructure and therefor have a lower tax base due to income inequality to support a quality education. Many inner city inhabitants suffer from poor nutrition and inadequate medical care. Recent studies prove that children's brains do not develop well when fed a diet of poor quality food, that lacks fresh vegetables, fruit and is primarily composed of junk food. The McDonald's junk food commercials that markets primarily to minorities is one case in point. Further, chronic unemployment, low wages create an environment with very little opportunity for upward mobility, except sports and the occasional success story that Republicans use for propaganda purposes. Vortex with his single minded ideology that everyone without limit has optimum choices as to how much money to earn and spend is ludicrous. Thanks for your participation in discussing this serious matter!

Most of the jobs have been outsourced to China and other countries. HP shut down U.S. operations and sent 50,000 jobs to China. Further, the Koch bros. are behind the Tea Bagger party and are very anti-union. http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2011/02/18/koch-brothers-behind-wisconsin-effort-to-kill-public-unions/

I said nothing about government spending! Please read my post! My proposals are nothing new and any reasonable person can see where the current problems started. E.g. The overturning of Glass-Steagall by the Gramm Leach Bliley bill denotes the problems with the banking system in the U.S. and by extension Europe. I am not interested in your Tea Bagger right wing narrative propaganda and single minded BS. The problem with your mindset is a lack of rational cooperation!

Here are a number of solutions that can begin to restore economic sanity to the U.S. economy. 1. Re-institute Glass-Steagall. This law was overturned by a Republican move to deregulate the banking system and allow commercial banks and investment houses to no longer be separate entities. Therefor, banks began taking unnecessary risks with derivative trading and other high risk investment schemes. 2. Naked short selling must be made illegal. E.g. Goldman Sachs, can borrow billions short term from the Federal Reserve, at very low interest rates and with the use of HFT (high frequency trading) manipulate the market to it's advantage. See Matt Taibbi's investigative work on this. 3. Place a tax on commodities trading while limiting the contract size by any given entity so that bubble markets never occur. Margin trading should be well below 5-1 and re-institute "take delivery" when the contract expires. This will prevent Wall Street banks from manipulating the oil futures and farm commodities market. 4. Stop tax breaks to corporations that outsource jobs abroad. 5. Import taxes from goods made in China to equal the cost of manufacturing in the U.S. 6. Enforce the Sherman anti-trust act. Reagan's advisors advised stopping enforcement through a belief that markets were efficient at large scales. Markets are not and are predatory by nature at economies of scale. 7. Make lobbying in the Congress and Senate illegal.

Why not read my posts more carefully. He speaks for a political right wing movement which is a conservative ideology. A shill is a promoter of an ideology.

The surveillance state was predicted by Orwell in "1984". The current surveillance apparatus which is becoming more intrusive reminds me of the panaopticon as defined and visualized by Jeremy Bentham. What makes the surveillance state work is to create perpetual war, enemies to hate such as the Goldstein character and relentless propaganda.

Free markets are not free. Environmental impact laws to criminal behavior are under the venue of law enforcement and government regulators. So called free markets are not self regulating as you so desperately want to believe. Participants in any market are not always rational and honest.

I guess you are the superior intellect and no one in the entire world can refute your non sequiturs. :lol: You show your willingness to follow the ideological herd. The Tea Bagger party that you shill for, which by the way is funded by the Koch Bros. will crash and burn!