Politics thread (USA Elections 2016) - Page 95

The increase of tax has proven to be a ridiculous measure in our current social structure. You're essentially getting money from people that have higher efficiency and put it into the hands of bureaucrats to do with it as they please. Do you guys realize how ridiculous that sounds? You don't reshape a structure by remodeling its roof first do you?

On January 29 2019 17:24 Stroggoz wrote: Piketty probably received more media coverage than any other economist in the liberal media a few years ago, if you don't know who he is it's because you don't read the news. His book was praised as some kind of amazing discovery by people like Krugman, which was like a sick joke to any radical, who already knew the books conclusions, and had been making stronger conclusions than Piketty for years. The book unintentionally exposed (to me) that the liberal media do not read the news sites of radical left at all. Everyone's in their own bubble it seems. I didn't read his book but based on reviews it seemed pretty apolitical to me and very moderate in it's claims, like it was just a huge amount of empirical data arguing that when the rate of return on capital is greater than the rate of economic growth over the long term there will be increased inequality. One obvious solution is higher tax on the rich. Baal your response was so ignorant and ideological, your just going to dismiss someone's work automatically based on someone's political leanings.

For fucks sake I've already clarified it twice.

I didn't disregard anyone for being a leftist, I meant anyone who says "debts don't have to be paid" in the spirit in which Loco said it if they can just get scratched off is either an idiot, disingenious (or being misinterpreted which is most likely what is happening when Loco quotes him).

I also said "he is probably a leftist" because Loco has never adressed any economics and only happens to name drop when their theories overlap with their ideology.

On January 29 2019 23:21 Spitfiree wrote: The increase of tax has proven to be a ridiculous measure in our current social structure. You're essentially getting money from people that have higher efficiency and put it into the hands of bureaucrats to do with it as they please. Do you guys realize how ridiculous that sounds? You don't reshape a structure by remodeling its roof first do you?

The vast majority of the money that is paid in taxes is lost to the inefficiency of the government machine and what dunces purpose is to pour more cash into this grinder that is 99% friction maybe then a couple of drops will fall into the right people.

You obviously don't know what name-dropping is. Name-dropping is unnecessarily mentioning the names of people of high status to appear to be a cultured individual. Now, remind me why I mentioned Piketty again? Because you forced me to. You decided to avoid dealing with the historical evidence that I gave for debt removal, and the possibility of creating an European Assembly and freeze the debt, and where I did not mention Piketty, but the ideas came directly from him. I was doing the exact opposite of name-dropping. It's only when you said that these ideas were beyond stupid that I had to tell you they came from one of the leading economists working today on these problems. (Also people keep talking about him like he did this on his own...no, he worked with dozens of other economists to get the data. And he admits that they're just scratching the surface.)

It's so fun to always have to go back and explain what has happened to correct misrepresentations if not straight up dishonesty. Also, his ideas have absolutely nothing to do with "my ideology". He is not an anarchist, and I don't even think he's radical. He's trying to regulate capitalism for it to work for more people. The irony of course is obvious to anyone who is paying attention: this entire tangent was based on your ad hominem attacks and refusal to deal with historical evidence because it goes against your ideology. And this is the criticism that an-caps get the most: they are ahistorical and constantly work backwards from their idealized view of reality, trying to make it map onto reality. Historical and material analysis means nothing to someone who just knows things. How hard would it have been for your fragile ego to simply say "I don't know about this, I'll have to look into it"?

On January 30 2019 01:13 Loco wrote: You obviously don't know what name-dropping is. Name-dropping is unnecessarily mentioning the names of people of high status to appear to be a cultured individual. Now, remind me why I mentioned Piketty again? Because you forced me to. You decided to avoid dealing with the historical evidence that I gave for debt removal, and the possibility of creating an an European Assembly and freeze the debt, and where I did not mention Piketty, but the ideas came directly from him. I was doing the exact opposite of name-dropping. It's only when you said that these ideas were beyond stupid that I had to tell you they came from one of the most leading economists working today on these problems. It's so fun to always have to go back and explain what has happened to correct misrepresentations if not straight up dishonesty.

well yeah I used name-dropping wrong, obv-ious-ly my english is flawed.

Of couse you can make an accord and do whatever the fuck you want with debt, you can create a new currency and declare 1 euro is worth 1,000 dollars, (Venezuela style) but the market will react in accordance .

Your "historical evidence" were post-war treaties where foreigners scratched off debts to allow a country rebuilt iself to avoid what happened with Germany post 1st world war that led to the 2nd, oh you also used Mesopotamia as an example you mad man lol. With that as "evidence" you said that debts dont have to be paid back which is an idiotic statement in the context you wrote it, but you think that since its a word by word quote then its not stupid but its simply the case that you are simply misunderstanding what it means or deliberatly tergiverzing it.

Also, his ideas have absolutely nothing to do with "my ideology". He is not an anarchist, he's trying to regulate capitalism for it to work for more people.

oh absolutely nothing to do... so he eats oysters too? lol

Why would his ideas have anything to do with mine? He's a top lobster. Rich and famous, doing what he loves. The system in place has worked well for him. He has no reason to want to dismantle it now does he? It's only when you are terribly dissatisfied with life as it is that you can be a revolutionary.

On January 30 2019 01:40 Loco wrote: Why would his ideas have anything to do with mine? He's a top lobster. Rich and famous, doing what he loves. The system in place has worked well for him. He has no reason to want to dismantle it now does he? It's only when you are terribly dissatisfied with life as it is that you can be a revolutionary.

This was posted by Loco in the movie thread and to not derail the thread I will respond here because its such an idiotic post I just have to.

Its beyond me how someone can use Cuba as a positive example of socialism, Cuba is a shithole, its incredibly poor and the living conditions are terrible... "oh but 85% own homes"



As I mentioned before there are Cuban's who fled the country in my family, they were running away from the extreme poverty and fled to Mexico.. because even a shithole like Mexico offers them much better living conditions as illegal immigrants with no contacts here that staying in Cuba.

The intellectual dishonesty of people who praise these places where people flee by the millions and trash the places they migrate to is beyond the scale.

Its just infurating that a champaign socialist in Canada says things like "I rather have expropiation of factories and them blowing up than -insert article about human trafficking in US prisons", seriously buy a ticket to Cuba, go outside of the tourist areas (despise warnings from the locals) and watch it by yourself, until then shut the fuck up.

On January 29 2019 23:21 Spitfiree wrote: The increase of tax has proven to be a ridiculous measure in our current social structure. You're essentially getting money from people that have higher efficiency and put it into the hands of bureaucrats to do with it as they please. Do you guys realize how ridiculous that sounds? You don't reshape a structure by remodeling its roof first do you?

there is obviously innefficiencies with that system, but private industry has been studied a lot and there is huge inefficiency there as well, imo far more in many cases. so for example GE pays its ceo's more when performance is bad, you could probably pay them 1/10th of what they get paid and get a similar performance out of them in a nationalized system. The word efficiency is ideological as well, if it makes money for company but imposes cost somewhere else it is often still called efficient.

There are many cases where it would be efficient overall for the public if you ran a business at a loss of profit, if it provdided a public service. clean energy for example.

On January 31 2019 00:01 Stroggoz wrote: There are many cases where it would be efficient overall for the public if you ran a business at a loss of profit, if it provdided a public service. clean energy for example.

That is supposed to be the job of the government but as usual they do an absolute shit job and it would be better to not have them interfere.

Instead of subsidizing nuclear energy (which is the only economically viable clean energy source we have right now) what do most governments do? The opposite, they hinder it or right out ban it because the public is ignorant and they fear it so its extremely unpopular as a politicians to support nuclear power and since elections are popularity contests there is no incentive for any career politician to do what is right.

In theory many things would work better managed by the government, in pratice it almost never does.

Any problems in Cuba are just the result of the US imperialism bullying innocent little socialist states for not conforming

And anyway so you think people running away from Cuba makes it bad? People also skip school, does that mean education is bad?

On January 30 2019 21:50 Baalim wrote: This was posted by Loco in the movie thread and to not derail the thread I will respond here because its such an idiotic post I just have to. Its beyond me how someone can use Cuba as a positive example of socialism, Cuba is a shithole, its incredibly poor and the living conditions are terrible... "oh but 85% own homes" The intellectual dishonesty of people who praise these places where people flee by the millions and trash the places they migrate to is beyond the scale. Its just infurating that a champaign socialist in Canada says things like "I rather have expropiation of factories and them blowing up than -insert article about human trafficking in US prisons".

I love how you take a screenshot and upload it instead of just quoting it and moving the quote here... lol. Way to screw up the formatting of the page.

You're making a straw man argument. I didn't argue that Cuba was the best place to live in or that it had no poverty at all. I made a very clear comparison and pointed to data. Yes, there are indisputable positives in spite of US intervention, and there are no better examples of socialism because the US has never allowed it and will never allow it to exist and function any better than that. Cuba was in a particularly fortunate position for their revolutionary project. The human trafficking documentary is absolutely dreadful. You can see that these girls are systematically recruited because they have no home and no where to go when they get out of prison. That is the precondition. They are lured by pimps and will become someone's literal sex slave and/or commercialized for sexual exploitation and most will be caught in that cycle until they die. One of the girls has been in and out of prison 20+ times, because, of course, prostitution is criminalized. You can see the letters she receives from people preying on her situation. By all evidence this is the predatory system that you encourage, literal slave ownership, things like incarcerated black people working for $1 an hour as firefighters (fires caused by climate change/neoliberal capitalist economies) and commercialized sexual exploitation, but I don't make asinine posts about it while ignoring your arguments. I will indulge in kind now:

"We must face the fact that the purely free society will have a flourishing free market in children." -Murray Rothbard

As I mentioned before there are Cuban's who fled the country in my family, they were running away from the extreme poverty and fled to Mexico.. because even a shithole like Mexico offers them much better living conditions as illegal immigrants with no contacts here that staying in Cuba.

(plus Nicaragua, Panama, Uruguay, Paraguay, El Salvador, Haiti, Costa Rica, and Argentina)

Operation Northwoods:
"The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or other U.S. government operatives to commit acts of terrorism against American civilians and military targets, blaming it on the Cuban government, and using it to justify a war against Cuba." "The U.S. Department of Defense report even suggested covertly paying a person in the Castro government to attack the United States: "The only area remaining for consideration then would be to bribe one of Castro's subordinate commanders to initiate an attack on [the U.S. Navy base at] Guantanamo."

Sounds a bit like what they did in Venuezuela against Chavez in the 2002 failed coup/kidnapping. But America is the land of integrity and freedom and everything is socialism's fault isn't it?

seriously buy a ticket to Cuba, go outside of the tourist areas (despise warnings from the locals) and watch it by yourself, until then shut the fuck up

Because there are no poor areas in the rich Western world... lol. 30% of children live in poverty in this riding in Montreal. I lived in one of the poorest areas in Montreal for many years. People shooting up and prostitutes were at the corner of my street. Homeless shelter on the other side of my street literally 30 seconds away from my apartment, with mentally ill people walking outside like zombies not knowing what the fuck to do with their lives. I have a recording of my neighbor on the other side of the street who often went outside and yelled obscenities at everyone. She had someone come and pick her up -- no doubt for prostitution, nearly every day, and they would fight outside. She was like 50+. Resident buildings were all infested with bed bugs. But I have no idea what poverty is... never seen it before.

Downtown Vancouver, Eastside. Canadian Paradise! Full of champagne socialists. Good thing is, if you share the same genes and work ethic as Baal and his family, you will never find yourself in this situation!

On January 30 2019 03:08 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On January 30 2019 01:40 Loco wrote: Why would his ideas have anything to do with mine? He's a top lobster. Rich and famous, doing what he loves. The system in place has worked well for him. He has no reason to want to dismantle it now does he? It's only when you are terribly dissatisfied with life as it is that you can be a revolutionary.

Goddamn, can you believe that lazy bitch? Rent inflation in Toronto has only increased by 105% in the last ten years. Bitch needs to stop complaining and realize how easy life is for her compared to people in Yemen.

On January 31 2019 13:45 Santafairy wrote: Any problems in Cuba are just the result of the US imperialism bullying innocent little socialist states for not conforming

No one is claiming that is the source of all their problems. Still, can you imagine being so disconnected as to say this ironically. A 55 year US embargo has had little to no impact on the Cubans huh? Goddamn. It reminds me of people who say "the American Empire" ironically. One more picture for good measure...

I'm just agreeing with you. Like you said Montreal has poor areas so what's the difference between Cuba and Canada really? And I love to drink rum, we wouldn't have an internationally renowned rum company like Bacardi without Marxism.

I'm saying obviously without US interference Cuba would've been able to take its rightful place next to Switzerland as one of the best places to live. It's the same thing with North Korea. Conservatives like to criticize North Korea. Concentration camps, famine, blahblah. That old saw. They don't realize everything is the fault of imperialist UN sanctions. I mean just take for example, North Korea has NO issues with obesity, and 100% of its residents don't have to deal with the debt of an expensive mortgage on a modern apartment building with things like "internet" and "an elevator" and "reliable electricity" and "the ability to heat their loved ones to keep from freezing to death in winter." People act like the US has "freedom" and "democracy" and "capitalism" and "due process of law" but I saw poor people and Asians in San Francisco. Is it really that different from the DPRK?

Notice how the post that I made which began this discussion started with "there are no perfect people and therefore there is no perfect system" (i.e. they have pros and cons) and how The Rationality Squad ™ of Liquidpoker's central argument quickly became that I'm stupid because I don't realize there are problems with Cuban socialism or that there is poverty there. Because I don't wholeheartedly denigrate it, I must think it's a perfect system and I also have never seen poverty before. The binary all-or-nothing logic of a child. Strangely enough, this same squad knows that I am an anarchist and I don't support a state at all. It's just a lot more convenient to misrepresent what people say and build straw men arguments than deal with difficult issues like you know, the blooming business of homelessness-fueled human trafficking, despite the fact there are enough vacant homes to house every single homeless person in the US.

People act like the US has "freedom"

FREEDOM!!!!

On January 31 2019 14:47 Loco wrote:

Do you not understand anything about how the government functions?
He should be asking if she beats up another student with food, eats 3/4 of it, and gives 1/4 of that to the student with no food. Keeps all of her own food.

Communism is a stateless ideology/movement.

What's the motive of arguing for some utopian stateless communist society where everyone is willing to share, nobody is greedy, nobody wants to rise to power, etc. when you know full well that such a thing can never exist because humans are humans? I'm fully prepared to agree that your idealistic communist society is the best possible society if you're willing to concede that it's not practical.