That's bullshit dude. If the government subsidizes an industry it is NOT hands off. Politicians have ALWAYS blamed the free market, even after we've adopted several planks of the communist manifesto. I think we can all agree that this crisis was triggered by the collapse of the housing market... and housing finance is a government sponsored enterprise! If we had 'hands off' economy the interest rates would be set by the market and not bureaucrats... You think 0% is a realistic representation of the risk of lending right now? Rates would have soared years ago and people wouldn't have been able to buy all these McMansions. The Federal Reserve wouldn't be allowed to print up money for their industry of choice. The housing boom is a direct result of easy access to credit made available by the Federal Reserve, and the private banks lending all this money were operating under the moral hazard of being a federally insured institution, therefore they did not give a shit what asshole they were lending money to. We are riding an inflationary boom that really started in 1971 with the ending of bretton woods, but this monetary standard is coming to a close. This is history repeating itself. The saddest part is the economic schools that predict these collapses continue to be ignored for Keynesian buffoons.
I didn't realize that housing finance was sponsored by the government, but I do agree with you about that triggering our current economic state. I'm sure there were large loans given out for reasons other than housing which never got paid back either. I think what it really boils down to is irresponible spending, kind of what you were getting at with the stimulus.
Didn't they share a great-great-great grandmother who like lived during the Civil War? I don't think it's a big deal. The simple fact of the matter is that if your family lives in this country long enough, a couple of funny genealogical coincidences will crop up here or there. There are branches of my family that have been here since the Colonies and there's all kinds of distant relations there, Joseph Smith and Emily Dickinson off the top of my head. There were all kinds of others but those are the only two I can remember atm- there's a big book somewhere with all the family trees.
Here is a good article on Housing GSEs. Look at how cracked out these banks were acting: These bailouts (or is it 'stimulus' now?) are trying to preserve these periods of excess, essentially fixing prices with debt and inflation. The only thing keeping our countries credit rating at AAA (when it should be junk) is the fact that we have a massive military. Moodys Report: This is one of the reasons you will never see Obama decrease the military budget, or stop foreign expansion.
Can we all agree at least that we hope he runs the economy with far better suave than he does giving gifts? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/wor...classic-movies-Lets-hope-likes-Wizard-Oz.html Also, let us hope his understanding of economic data is better than whomever they have that is supposed to translate Russian for the State Department. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19719.html One positive thing about these arguments and threads is that it proves the diversity of people who fancy weed. Right, Left, foolish, brilliant...my hopes for legalization are improved greatly seeing the diversity of opinions and people who can at least agree on one thing - we all love to toke
Can we let this thread die already? Sheesh. I'm not even going to respond to any more of the "typical ignorant monkey" posts that addressed me because if someone is blind it doesn't matter how strong the prescription glasses you put on them are - they're still blind, and they still won't see. I didn't really make this thread to be the end-all "Here's the proof that Obama is..." thread. I made it to lightly touch upon what is often overlooked. He is a politician. He lies. He embellishes the truth and quite frankly I think it's appalling that so many otherwise smart people are SERIOUSLY riding the man's nuts. Get off his dick. Sure he's black, and he's cool (I'm black, we really are cool), but also take into consideration that anything essentially governmentally controlled probably has a lot of things going on behind the scenes that the general population is not aware of. Hence me calling America (and life in general really) an illusion. So it's kind of lame when you guys tell me shit like "Oh, you don't have factual information to back your claims up!" and make equally retarded statements because I'M NOT GOING TO SPOON FEED YOU EVERYTHING I HAVE LEARNED REGARDING THIS SUBJECT. Does that make sense? I love it when people INSIST that there aren't facts to back something up when there are but they're too lazy to find those facts themselves. I'm not your mommy or your daddy. Do your own homework kiddies. Uh, so I guess we can let this thread die now. Thanks to the few of you that weren't complete idiots.
I only read the first and last lines of your post. That alone was full of enough hypocrisy for me. The thread has been dead for almost 5 days, and you resurrect it for that?
^^^Idiot. That isn't hypocrisy. That's called me overlooking the date on the last post. lol I just saw that this thread had 40 something posts and impulsively said that. Whoops. My bad. Dick.
Hey OP. What did you think about the chapter on mushrooms and evolution in The Invisible Landscape? I found it very relevant to many of our current political issues. Personally, I think it should be required for an incoming President to smoke tryptamines at his/her inauguration. We the people should demand it. I think voters should be required to as well.
^^^Haha I believe that a President smoking tryptamines at his inauguration would be pretty close the the ideal psychedelic society that Mckenna envisioned for the future of humanity. That would be a lucid dream come true for me. I'm really interested in DMT. We produce it naturally in our brains when we sleep. If I could get ahold of that I'd be a very happy psychonaut.
That was a setup. Some smartass Israeli mistranslated it on purpose to cause trouble. People at that level of government do not make translation mistakes.
Haha yea... Like this? [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sudCmrAsF4"]YouTube - Hillary Clinton presents misspelled gift to Russian foreign minister[/ame]
Dood. You need to learn about political conversations. There are people out there who act stupid on purpose. They make you or anyone like you explain every single word you say on purpose. Their goal is to make you tired. After you explain every single word that you write to these people that seem like morons, you will get frustrated just like you did, and you will leave the conversation, just like you are saying you will. They win. Their political position is shit, but they will win because they chased you, the guy that could expose them, away. No one will ever hear your opinions or your information. If someone acts like a moron and wants you to explain every word, they are probably purposefully screwing with you to make you frustrated and drive you away. Don't let them manipulate you like that. Just ignore them. When they realize you won't play the game anymore, they will go away and find someone else to screw with.
Just because every political debate on CNN and FOX goes like that doesn't mean something gets accomplished in the debate. Oh, and debating relies heavily on presenting facts to back your argument.
You mean a disinfo agent? Yeah I forgot about those guys. I usually don't do the whole political/intellectual thing on forums too much anymore nowadays due to what you mentioned. Meh. I guess I'll keep conversations like this on a face to face basis again.