Warren Buffett - "I could end the deficit in 5 minutes."

[wehateporn]

Buffett:

?I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection.?

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/07...-in-5-minutes/

[Deej]

old news... like 3 years ago old

[baddog]

Just as stupid now as is was then.

[DamageX]

The old news aside... How do you pass a law without congress having your back?

[Sunny Day]

Originally Posted by JohnnyClips

Take it one step further--- end the government

Remember this next time you need the police or have a fire or want clean food. Or use the Internet created by the United States Government.

You don't need no stinking government. Read Lord of the Flies.

Next time you post, just post "I am the stupidest motherfucker on the planet."

[Voodoo]

Originally Posted by Sunny Day

Remember this next time you need the police or have a fire or want clean food. Or use the Internet created by the United States Government.

You don't need no stinking government. Read Lord of the Flies.

Next time you post, just post "I am the stupidest motherfucker on the planet."

Clearly you know what's going on.

[DWB]

Originally Posted by JohnnyClips

Take it one step further--- end the government

They don't need to end the government, just follow The Constitution, end the Fed, and get rid of fiat currency.

[Mutt]

Originally Posted by DWB

They don't need to end the government, just follow The Constitution, end the Fed, and get rid of fiat currency.

exactly - of course it will never happen.

[Sunny Day]

Originally Posted by DWB

They don't need to end the government, just follow The Constitution, end the Fed, and get rid of fiat currency.

Always love people who say, "just follow The Constitution."

Read a little fucking history & read The Constitution. Following in the fashion of the Scottish & French revolutions. The framers of The Constitution wrote a basic framework, knowing Congress would have to write laws to cover specific acts, The President would have to approve and the Supreme Court would have to ratify. Hell if you read The Constitution says nothing of murder. But it's illegal either by state law or by US law if it's on federal property. Since a majority of the laws passed by Congress have been approved by the Supreme Court, then by fiat, they are part of The Constitution.

Since The Constitution doesn't cover people ripping off your web sites or using your lost ATM card DON'T FUCKING BITCH AS IT'S NOT IN THE CONSTITUTION!!

[ThunderBalls]

Originally Posted by baddog

Just as stupid now as is was then.

What does your intelligence level have to do with this thread?

[galleryseek]

Originally Posted by Sunny Day

Remember this next time you need the police or have a fire or want clean food. Or use the Internet created by the United States Government.

You don't need no stinking government. Read Lord of the Flies.

Next time you post, just post "I am the stupidest motherfucker on the planet."

Yeah, because "the government" exists. /s.

The government is just an arbitrary label placed upon a specific set of individuals. Same thing with nationalism, and also the same thing with the police force, fire fighters, and any other public service industry that people believe can only be handled through the state.

So it's easy to respond to your very common, very weak statist consequentialist argument. In the absence of "government", or rather a certain group of individuals we give special privileges to, people would continue to exist and solve social problems. It's people who build roads, it's people who fight fires, people who provide security. In a voluntary society, they would continue to exist only in a much better and efficient system; because it's based on a free market which lives and dies by competition. Competition that the state doesn't worry about, as it has a constant flow of money derived through annual theft.

In the end it comes down to whether or not you believe aggression is the best path to solve social problems. If you believe so, then our current system is a perfect fit.

[Sunny Day]

Originally Posted by galleryseek

Yeah, because "the government" exists. /s.
So it's easy to respond to your very common, very weak statist consequentialist argument. In the absence of "government", or rather a certain group of individuals we give special privileges to, people would continue to exist and solve social problems. It's people who build roads, it's people who fight fires, people who provide security. In a voluntary society, they would continue to exist only in a much better and efficient system; because it's based on a free market which lives and dies by competition.
fit.

I live where there are volunteer fire departments and "government run' fire departments. Difference is night & day. I'll gladly pay for professionals here in under 2 minutes in a fully equipped pumper as opposed to guys, who might be 30 minutes away at their job, trying to race through traffic in their pickup trucks.

The FDA sucks but it's better than a few volunteers trying to make sure my food is safe. Competition sure didn't give us clean food. Read The Jungle.

With out regulation, just competition every bank was failing in the early '30's. Took FDR, a Bank Holiday and the creation of the FDIC & the Glass-Steagall Act to make sure our deposits were safe.

My local government supplies my water & electricity at a rate 1/2 of my neighbors who are supplied by for profit companies. And these amazing part is, I know my local government run utility is run by guys robbing us blind. But they are still cheaper.

Face it, life is more complicated than the days of the Founding Fathers and "The Constitution." Somebody has to regulate the radio/tv/cell airways or there would be total chaos. Same with so many things Franklin & Jefferson never would have dreamed of. The more complicated life gets, unfortunately the more complex government will get. And with that comes more proof that we're stuck with an ever growing example of The Peter Principle.

[galleryseek]

Originally Posted by Sunny Day

I live where there are volunteer fire departments and "government run' fire departments. Difference is night & day. I'll gladly pay for professionals here in under 2 minutes in a fully equipped pumper as opposed to guys, who might be 30 minutes away at their job, trying to race through traffic in their pickup trucks.

When I said voluntary, I did not mean volunteer fire fighters lol or volunteer services lol.
In a voluntary society, you still pay for services, but it's voluntarily as opposed to the coercive nature of taxation. It's a better system because opposed to having a single business with a government sponsored monopoly over geographic locations (police force, fire fighters), you have multiple businesses that compete for customers. Imagine for a second if there were government sponsored monopolies of porn, or car maintenance, or grocery shopping. Sounds ridiculous right? There's no difference between those examples and security services or fire fighters.

Originally Posted by Sunny Day

The FDA sucks but it's better than a few volunteers trying to make sure my food is safe. Competition sure didn't give us clean food. Read The Jungle.

Again, you completely confused my use of voluntary here.

Originally Posted by Sunny Day

With out regulation, just competition every bank was failing in the early '30's. Took FDR, a Bank Holiday and the creation of the FDIC & the Glass-Steagall Act to make sure our deposits were safe.

Wrong. The great depression was caused by the monetary policies set forth by the newly created federal reserve. They're the same culprit for the housing bubble. Their easy credit policy (tampering with the free market) lead to an unsustainable credit-driven boom.

Originally Posted by Sunny Day

My local government supplies my water & electricity at a rate 1/2 of my neighbors who are supplied by for profit companies. And these amazing part is, I know my local government run utility is run by guys robbing us blind. But they are still cheaper.

Face it, life is more complicated than the days of the Founding Fathers and "The Constitution." Somebody has to regulate the radio/tv/cell airways or there would be total chaos. Same with so many things Franklin & Jefferson never would have dreamed of. The more complicated life gets, unfortunately the more complex government will get. And with that comes more proof that we're stuck with an ever growing example of The Peter Principle.

Life does not get more complex. It may appear to get more complex but that's only because government becomes more complex, as you correctly pointed out. Why does government become more complex? Because it's inherently flawed. 40,000 new laws are introduced each year.

As the video below points out, early astrologers had to build insanely complex diagrams in order to illustrate the earth is at the center of the solar system; but once they figured out the sun is the actual center, those diagrams became much more logical and simplistic. In the same way, people currently believe state sponsored aggression is at the center of solving social problems. But just like those complex diagrams were made to justify a falsity, governments follow the same path. Instead the non-aggression principle is what needs to take place of the government, and that will only happen when people on a mass scale begin to wake up to that idea. Just as they did with slavery and the subjugation of women.



Edit: I'm not a huge fan of the constitution either. While the idea of states rights is definitely preferable over broad federal rights, laws backed by force are still illegitimate.

[Sunny Day]

Originally Posted by galleryseek

Wrong. The great depression was caused by the monetary policies set forth by the newly created federal reserve. They're the same culprit for the housing bubble. Their easy credit policy (tampering with the free market) lead to an unsustainable credit-driven boom.

The Fed was created in 1913 not 1929. The Depression was caused by bankers who took every dollar and invested in Wall Street, other hair-brained schemes or just plain stole the money. The trouble in 1929 was like every other investment bubble.
Same damn thing happened when Regan deregulated the savings & loans. Instead of investing in mortgages they started investing in strip joints and any con man claiming to own a gold mine or oil well. System worked from the '30s until deregulation in the '80s. Same thing with banks.

If your theory of the Fed is to blame, we would have had the disaster before WW I.

[Sunny Day]

The problem boils down to which services should be government functions? Kansas liquor laws are bad enough, but from what I heard those state run stores in PA are Hell. But we can't seem to trust private biz to keep food safe. But then on the other hand, the FDA fucks up big time.
There seems to be no magic answer. Everybody says close the Post Office. But FedEx is now a chain of franchises, that hire their own drivers. Read The Consumerist and you see daily complaints of "FEDEX" drivers and what they do to your shipments.

Yeah the Post Office sucks too. But you steal from the mail you'll get busted big time. Steal from FEDEX and no one cares.

[galleryseek]

Originally Posted by Sunny Day

The Fed was created in 1913 not 1929. The Depression was caused by bankers who took every dollar and invested in Wall Street, other hair-brained schemes or just plain stole the money. The trouble in 1929 was like every other investment bubble.
Same damn thing happened when Regan deregulated the savings & loans. Instead of investing in mortgages they started investing in strip joints and any con man claiming to own a gold mine or oil well. System worked from the '30s until deregulation in the '80s. Same thing with banks.

If your theory of the Fed is to blame, we would have had the disaster before WW I.

The fed didn't start tampering with the interest rates until the mid 20's. There's a quote from Peter Schiff that described the recent housing bubble, and it goes something like this, "The bankers were just drinking the alcohol that the fed was pouring". In other words, the artificial economic environment created from the federal reserve with unrealistically low interest rates provided the ability for bad decisions/investments to occur. It wasn't ever stable, same thing applies for the great depression. People just didn't go ape shit and make bad decisions for no reason at all, it's because of the federal reserve distorting the market.

Here's a good/short read about it:
http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/...epression.html

In the mid 1920s, the Federal Reserve used its cartel power to set interest rates at a really low level. This caused inflation and an economic boom. Politically-connected insiders knew that an economic boom was being created. At the start of the boom, they loaded up and debt and bought assets before inflation set in.

The Great Depression is blamed on "greedy speculators". With artificially low interest rates, it made sense to borrow and buy assets. If interest rates are 2% and inflation is 10%, then borrowing to invest is sensible. Many farmers and small business owners were forced to borrow to expand, to keep up with their competition.

The "greedy speculators" were acting independently in the "free market". The Federal Reserve and negative interest rates were the real culprit. The speculators were following the false signal the Federal Reserve was sending via artificially cheap interest rates.

In 1929, the Federal Reserve insiders decided to jack up interest rates worldwide, causing a depression. The insiders knew what was coming. They stopped issuing loans and converted all their holding to cash.

At that time, the Federal Reserve did not publish its interest rate target to the general public. The Federal Reserve did not publicly state in advance whether it was planning to raise or lower interest rates. Even in the present, someone who knew in advance about a Federal Reserve move could profit immensely.

The insiders had converted their holdings to cash before the crash. After the crash, they were able to buy assets at a huge discount. Since they were unleveraged, they were able to borrow and buy up even more assets at the bottom of the Great Depression.

In 1933, President Roosevelt confiscated everyone's gold, defaulted on the dollar, and declared the USA bankrupt. The dollar was devalued relative to gold, from $20/oz to $35/oz. Since the dollar was no longer redeemable in gold, this allowed a further increase in the money supply. The insiders who borrowed to buy assets at the bottom of the Great Depression were allowed to default on their loans, repaying their debts with devalued dollars. Many loan contracts contained "gold clauses" requiring payment to be increased if the dollar were devalued relative to gold. Congress declared these "gold clauses" invalid, ripping off creditors and providing a massive subsidy to debtors.

In this way, politically connected insiders profited from all three legs of the Great Depression. They profited by borrowing and buying assets at the start of the boom. They were first in line to buy assets with the newly printed money, so they were the primary beneficiaries of inflation. Due to their political connections, they were able to foresee the crash coming. They converted their holdings to cash before the crash. At the bottom of the Depression, they were able to borrow and buy assets at a discount. Later, they were able to default on these loans via inflation; inflation meant these loans could be repaid with devalued dollars.

Insiders profit in this manner EVERY TIME there is a boom/bust cycle. The Compound Interest Paradox means that boom/bust cycles are an inevitable consequence of debt-based money. No matter what the Federal Reserve does, there will be boom/bust cycles. Insiders who know what the Federal Reserve is going to do have the opportunity to profit immensely.

The Great Depression accomplished several goals. It forced small farmers off their land when they were unable to repay their mortgages. It forced many small businesses to close. It caused the cartelization of many industries. Conditions of great poverty enabled the welfare state apparatus to be put into place. The Great Depression converted the USA from a nation of farmers and small business owners into a nation of wage slaves.

Nowadays, boom/bust cycles as severe as the Great Depression are no longer needed. The independence of the average American was permanently broken during the Great Depression.

[galleryseek]

Originally Posted by Sunny Day

The problem boils down to which services should be government functions?

That's not the right question.. The question is, should services be voluntary or not? Should people be forced to purchase services (public based) vs. having voluntary private based options?

When the question is presented properly, the answer is easy.

[baddog]

Originally Posted by galleryseek

That's not the right question.. The question is, should services be voluntary or not? Should people be forced to purchase services (public based) vs. having voluntary private based options?

When the question is presented properly, the answer is easy.

Not to point out what should be obvious; but what do you think the mortgage holder is going to say? Believe me, if your utopia came to pass, your bank would force you to go with the city services or pay a much higher premium; I am sure.

[Paul Markham]

Many economies in the West are on life support. The borrowed cash is pumped into the system to keep it going.

Take it out and watch all your incomes drop by the same amount. Or maybe more.

[pornmasta]

Buffet, the Paul Markham of the economy

[pornmasta]

Remember that we are liberals because our business is technologically not important (so nobody needs to feed us to develop our technologies)