Former Texas Agriculture Commissioner, creator of the Doug Jones Average, and perennially witty guy Jim Hightower writes via The Union Democrat of Sonora, California:
If tiny groups of Wall Street bankers, billionaires, and their political puppets are allowed to write the rules that govern our economy and elections, guess what? Only bankers, billionaires, and puppets will profit from those rules.
[...] They've rigged the rules to let them feast freely on our jobs, devour our country's wealth, and impoverish the middle class.
"Take On Wall Street" is both the name and the feisty attitude of a nationwide campaign that a coalition of grassroots groups has launched to do just that: Take on Wall Street. The coalition, spearheaded by the Communication Workers of America, points out that there is nothing natural or sacred about today's money-grabbing financial complex. Far from sacrosanct, the system of finance that now rules over us has been designed by and for Wall Street speculators, money managers, and big bank flim flammers. So--big surprise--rather than serving our common good, the system is corrupt, routinely serving their uncommon greed at everyone else's expense.
[...] A growing grassroots coalition of churches, unions, civil rights groups, citizen activists, and many others are organizing and mobilizing us to crash through those closed doors, write our own rules, and reverse America's plunge into plutocracy. The "Take On" campaign has the guts and gumption to say enough!
[...] The campaign has laid out a five-point [sic] people's reform agenda and are now taking it to the countryside to rally the voices, anger, and grassroots power of workers, consumers, communities of color, Main Street, the poor, people of faith... and just plain folks.
- Getting the corrupting cash of corporations and the superrich out of our politics by repealing Citizens United and providing a public system for financing America's elections.
- Stopping "too big to fail" banks from subsidizing their high-risk speculative gambling with the deposits of us ordinary customers--make them choose to be a consumer bank or a casino, but not both.
- Institute a tiny "Robin Hood Tax" on Wall Street speculators to discourage their computerized gaming of the system, while also generating hundreds of billions of tax dollars to invest in America's real economy.
- Restore low-cost, convenient "postal banking" in our Post Offices to serve millions of Americans who're now at the mercy of predatory payday lenders and check-cashing chains.
There's an old truism about negotiating that says: "If you're not at the table, you're on the menu". The "Take On Wall Street" campaign intends to put you and me--the People--at the table for a change.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @07:34AM
(Score: 1) by fritsd on Thursday September 01 2016, @10:18AM
¿Qué? [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @07:47AM
It is good to have it, people need awareness. The system is not political, though, so you also need the common people to acquire more independence through technology. The one percent is not about money only, but land, energy, knowledge, culture. Every breakthrough that frees people (solar power, free software) is a blow to the incumbent. Unfortunately, all of the political spectrum consider the system more important than the persons who make it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @07:49AM
WTF?
I think the problem being described by "perennially witty guy Jim Hightower" is central banking; as Wilson put it after signing the Federal Reserve Act in 1913:
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 01 2016, @07:55AM
So, one must wonder, why the haemorrhaging fuck did he sign the thing in the first place? I'm glad to see some conscience here, and never knew he said this, but it's a day late and trillions of dollars short...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday September 01 2016, @08:15AM
For the same reason a lot of us do really stupid things.
Its hard to resist a man all dressed up in suit and tie, hand outstretched for a shake, and only thing needed to bring a smile to his face is to sign his papers.
We are trained from children not to disappoint.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 01 2016, @07:49AM
...incoming BAWWWWW from the usual suspects (The Shitey Uzzard, J-Mo, Kyuubey, etc) in 3...2...1...don't salt your snacks, they'll be providing plenty in their ongoing search for a philosophical justification for self-serving egoism!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @08:00AM
Mmmmm, soy sauce on popcorn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:28PM
Kyuubey
Who was this again? Did we have somebody here who had a habit of respawning after being killed and eating their own corpse?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:39PM
Never mind. Used the search to answer my question. cubancigar11 is the winner.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:56PM
Yyyyup.
Like the "real" Kyuubey, he thinks he's incredibly edgy for being all "hurr hurr emotions are for the weak I am a being of pure logic wololol I trol u," he's arrogant, he's soulless...aaaaand made the mistake of crossing the wrong dyke one too many times :D
Jeez, I even *look* a bit like a late-20s, Caucasian Homura. I've never actually watched that series, because I'm depressed enough already, but the internet has exposed enough of it to give me the general outline. Which is basically "Sailor Moon meets The Damnation of Faustus and does an entire sheet of brown blotter acid."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @05:50PM
Sailor Moon meets The Damnation of Faustus and does an entire sheet of brown blotter acid.
Haha! Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:32PM
You should really learn to troll better. We have a pretty high standard for trolling around here and you're not even getting close to meeting it. Our trolls are usually proficient with both wit and humor and are quite competent at making people actually feel what they want them to feel. You fail on all of the above; all you have are playground-level insults.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:54PM
And yet he provoked an entirely in-character, smugly superior, egotistic response from you. So looks like he hooked the exact fish he was trolling for. He even named you as first on the list of trophies and you took the bait anyway.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:53PM
I'm a woman, but yes, you nailed it otherwise :)
Actually, I wasn't trolling, or not intentionally, but it occurred to me a little while later that "the usual suspects" probably WOULD see that as bait and bite the line. I wasn't disapp--well, I *am* disappointed, but in them, not in the response :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 01 2016, @09:57PM
Wistfully superior, not smugly. I genuinely wish she would up her game and rise at least to the level of Ethanol Fueled.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @10:12PM
Wistful or smug, neither are actually superior.
But you sure can't resist the bait.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 02 2016, @02:22AM
Are you actually trying to troll me, silly little person? My grandmother craps better trolls than that. Bring your A game or go back to your safe space.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 02 2016, @05:43AM
You sure do waste a lot of virtual ink letting me, and everyone else, know how much you don't care and how ineffective you find me. You're not foolin' anyone but you, sweetie, and *everyone* can see it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 02 2016, @10:24AM
And a big ole sloppy tongue kiss back at ya, sweety.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 02 2016, @05:05PM
Sorry, I'm not done with your mother, your wife, and your daughter yet. Wait your turn.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 03 2016, @02:51AM
Nevermind. On further reflection I've decided I do not in fact care to have herpes.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday September 04 2016, @04:20AM
You already do, Uzzard. You've got herpes of the mind. I call 'em herp-de-derpes.
Wow, look at you. You are fucking PISSED. Down to sexual insults now, even! You're regressing to the schoolyard! ...or maybe progressing, I dunno.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday September 04 2016, @01:09PM
Dude, mouth herpes are not sexual, just disgusting. I don't expect you to know the difference though. You're quite lacking in the brain department.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday September 05 2016, @12:09AM
You are mad as hell, Uzzard :) Keep crying; your tears are bitter and delicious, and I've karma to burn, Mr. Self-Admitted Staff Troll. Like all your kind, you can dish it out but you sure can't take it!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 05 2016, @12:53AM
Mad? Over a weak-shit troll on the Internet? You'd have to come to my house and spill my beer to get me mad. You simply do not have the skills to anger anyone over the Internet.
Now how about you? You reply to everything I say, antagonistically. You're like a little girl chasing around the boy she likes on the playground and harassing him. Do you want to be my special friend or something? Well, maybe. Send tits. Good tits and a ball gag and we might could make something work for a night.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday September 05 2016, @02:50AM
Good Lord, *so* mad! And now you're down to pornographic harassment...this is most unbecoming from a staff member of a well-respected (*snerk*) internet forum of free and open discourse. :D Keep going; this is a Trump-level cascade of escalating self-destruction!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 05 2016, @10:37AM
Harassment? Funny, that's exactly what the snowflakes over in the SJW camp always claim when they hear something they don't like. I knew you weren't just any old liberal retard. No, you gotta go full on SJW and claim your fee-fees got hurt and someone must pay. Thank you for so perfectly illustrating that nobody should ever take you seriously.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday September 06 2016, @04:30PM
Oh, don't get the wrong impression; I think you're hilarious :D In fact that one *was* a mild troll; I was checking to see if you were going to respond the way I thought you would (and further damage your credibility...) and lo and behold, you did it.
This is actually getting a bit boring now...still funny though.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 06 2016, @08:59PM
Bzzzt, you must make a different argument than I made in the post you are responding to. You are fined 500 Internets and your trolling license is suspended for a week. Please try to be semi-original next time.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 07 2016, @03:53AM
Would heaven you were actually funny...that's the worst part of this, you can't even be witty while you're being a perambulating trashfire of a human being :(
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 07 2016, @10:22AM
See, that wasn't that difficult, was it? Now if you'd just learn to troll at a level above what my nephews in grade school can manage...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:27PM
Why do I need to troll? You seem to think anyone calling you out for your complete lack of basic human decency is a troll. No, honey, that's not how it works. Besides which, you go abso-frackin'-lutely nuclear when someone points out the obvious (that you're a shameless oxygen thief), so you do all the work for me anyway :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 07 2016, @09:20PM
You seem to not even know what you are. That's just sad. Own it. Hell, take pride in it. Trolls are the only ones demanding objectionable speech be kept free right now. Ah, I almost forgot you're doing this in some sad, misguided attempt to get people not to pay any attention when I say something relevant. Good luck with that. All you're managing to this point is the opposite.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 08 2016, @03:43AM
...this isn't even funny any more. I'm trying to imagine your state of mind and it's making me throw underflow and div/0 errors. How can you be this completely un-self-aware, especially at your age?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 08 2016, @04:00AM
Well, that was a given. You were never going to win with your utter lack of style and talent. Thankfully I am a graceful winner and shall allow you to continue practicing your trollcraft here in my house on the lesser talents. You really should consider an apprenticeship with aristarchus or Ethanol-Fueled.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 08 2016, @04:29AM
Uh...wow. You're just proving my point all the harder every time you reply. I guess Dunning and Kruger were right: incompetents are not competent to know they're incompetent :/
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 08 2016, @10:24AM
No, I said practice on other people. We've already established you're not yet ready to play in the big leagues. I mean it's kinda cute watching you try but it's also sad watching you fail every single time.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 08 2016, @06:27PM
I am still morbidly curious as to how long this level of projection can be kept up. Not to mention, for the--what, fifth, sixth?-- time here, I'm not trolling. Calling you out for your utter sociopathy isn't a troll, and the fact that you think it is only underscores my point.
How long are you going to keep digging yourself into that hole? You've gotta be most of the way to China by now.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 09 2016, @01:09AM
Awe, don't be sad. So you're not as good as me at trolling (or anything else), that just means you have a goal to work towards!
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 09 2016, @04:22PM
You don't read so good, do ya, boy...? Or spell so good either. That's okay, I've had experience dealing with the learning-disabled before. Just...uh, keep doing what you're doing I guess?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 10 2016, @01:28AM
Are you still going on? Haven't you had enough of a thrashing yet? Take the loss, go have a good cry, and try again another time.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday September 01 2016, @11:51PM
Mightly Buzzaired, you are in error. Ethanol_fueled does not troll, that is just who he is. He cannot pretend, or dissemble, or prevaricate. If you want to brag up the quality of trolling here on SoylentNews, you should choose better role models.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 02 2016, @02:20AM
Well there's now way she'll ever manage anything approaching your level of skill. I didn't want to falsely get her hopes up.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Friday September 02 2016, @04:34AM
So you are admitting you are an easy catch? Perhaps you do not realize that I spent a significant part of my life teaching on the isle of Lesbos. And Azumi is probably a dude. She is a very convincing dyke, whether a dude or not, but that does not take away from the fact that you cannot resist. MMMMmmmm. Bait! Minimum wage increases!!! Free speech for gamers! Milo! C'mon, Buzz, you are lowering the reputation of our trolls by being so easy and predictable! Man up, man, if you really are a man!
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 02 2016, @05:51AM
I am very much a woman, thank you. This body just got done forcefully reminding me of that not even a week ago. If it helps, I have what I suspect are past-life memories that seem to indicate I was male last time, and have heard theories to the effect that gays are people who switched genders between incarnations and didn't fully make the transition. It makes as much sense as anything else, right? My own mother says she could tell at age 4 I was going to be into girls, somehow.
And, yeah, Uzzard is so completely easy. I wasn't even *trying* to troll him up there and he bit anyway. He's just such a rotten person i can't help but slap him around for it, and he neeeeeever knows when to cut his losses and shut up, which means the longer any exchange goes on between us, the more likely he is to let his guard down and say something that makes *everyone* look side-eyed at him.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Friday September 02 2016, @06:31AM
So you see, Azuma, that you are equally easily trolled? I am on your side in all battles, but as little as it takes to bait the Utter Lizzard, it only takes slightly more to get a response from you. Of course, I am well beyond the age of ever being reminded of what gender I might once have been. This is a perspective that I encourage others to take. Equality, that is the main thing, we are all human.
And I seem to recall the ancient myth, was it of Aesclepius, the ancestor of all healers? You will notice that on the Caduceus there is a pair of intertwining snakes. You can find this on the badges of EMTs, for example. Sign of medicine, or healers. Why? Did early physicians only treat snake bite? OK, here is the story.
Aesclepius, walking down a road, come across two snakes intertwined. (For the children among us, and jmorris, they were copulating. Oh, for jmorris, that means they were having sex. Are we good on that?) He struck the snakes with his staff, because, you know, they might be SJWs! Snakes, it turns out, are sacred to Hera, the Queen of the Gods, wife to Zeus (do you remember the whole "Heracles in the crib" episode? No? Is your degree from ITT?). So Hera turns Aesclepius into a woman. He lives as a woman for a long time, I think it was seven years, and then Hera relents, and turns him back.
So later, people as Aesclepius, "who enjoys sex more, the man or the woman?" I mean, he should know, right? His response: "The woman enjoys it nine times more than the man." So there is that. Now I feel sorry for the Buzzard, because birds, you know, like Catholics, only have sex to reproduce, and to create a libertarian paradise by having relations with Ayn Rand, who is dead, and whom we are not really sure was actually female.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 02 2016, @06:43AM
Uh...that was the blind seer Tiresias in that story, not Aesclepios. And the doctor wand is supposed to be a single snake; the double-snake wand is the symbol of Hermes, specifically of Hermes in his aspect of a sneak-thieving son of a bitch =P
The rest of this post...is Kurenai-off-her-meds-level WTF.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Friday September 02 2016, @06:51AM
See? Easily trolled! Which means, thanks for the corrections, as they were what I meant for you to find. Now if only the Mightly Condor were so easy to direct! And you may be right about Hermes. But I always thought he was kind of a metro-sexual.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 02 2016, @07:00AM
That was a troll? I couldn't tell. You're known for posting quirky stuff, though usually more coherent than that. I actually like your posts.
Uzzard's very easy to direct: he only goes in one direction, that being straight to Hell riding on a flaming exhaust plume of his own sociopathic flatulence.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday September 02 2016, @07:25AM
That was a troll? I couldn't tell. You're known for posting quirky stuff, though usually more coherent than that. I actually like your posts.
Like yours, too! So compliment returned. But that is the point, real trolls are not seen to be trolls. Trolling is the art of putting out bait, but the main quality of bait is that it not be seen as bait. So you bit. No harm, no foul. But if we can get people to bite who have to change their ideas as a result of being hooked and dragged through waters unfamiliar to them, that is what trolling is all about. So here we are, in a thread about shared prosperity, trying to share the prosperity by hooking up the libertarian chum, and pointing out that there is a a world beyond their myopic vision. We are agreed?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 02 2016, @07:32AM
I thought the point of trolling was to be a useless jackoff who delights in the pain and misery of others...?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday September 02 2016, @07:45AM
Common misconception! Trolling is to hook someone in a way that they know they have been hooked, after the fact, of course, in order to educate them about the error of their ways. You may remember a FA a while ago, allegedly by the philosopher Aristotle? https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=16/05/09/0326228 [soylentnews.org] It came to me when someone suggested that Socrates was just a pre-internet troll. It rang true.
Now most of our neo-con, alt-right trolls fit your description, but I never thought the pain and misery of others is something one should delight in, unless it led to greater wisdom, self-awareness, and less need to be to be trolled. So I appreciate this, Azuma, very infrequently I can catch you in a troll! And even better, I have learned in the process.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 02 2016, @10:27AM
You should change your sig to make sure everyone knows that's what you are. Your trolling skills aren't up to the job.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 02 2016, @05:04PM
You seem upset.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 03 2016, @02:42AM
So you can neither troll nor read people over the Internet? Noted. You want to see me upset, get some Python included in the codebase. Silly comments playing doesn't even come close to evoking any emotion from me besides a very mild amusement.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday September 04 2016, @04:22AM
If you weren't upset, you wouldn't continue replying to every...single...post. And you wouldn't be devolving into crude sexual insults, either.
You let your guard down, AGAIN, and did something that's making everyone reading your posts give you the side-eye, AGAIN. God, you suck so hard at the internet.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday September 04 2016, @01:06PM
Really? Had you paid attention you'd have seen by now that I pretty much reply to every comment here directed remotely my way, regardless of source. You're not special, snowflake.
As for saying you're a cunt? Well, stop being a cunt and I'll stop saying it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday September 05 2016, @12:13AM
Nope, you're madder than hell, and every response gives it away. It's not THAT you're responding alone; it's HOW you respond, what words you choose to use, and the intent behind them. You're making yourself look worse and worse every time, and the best part is, I don't need to do a thing but exist! You're burning from the inside.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 05 2016, @12:42AM
Ya, I'm all foaming at the mouth here. Watch me foam. No, not yet, that foam was from my beer. I'll start any minute.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 02 2016, @10:24AM
That would be because he's good at it. Unlike you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 02 2016, @05:07PM
You reply to eeeeeeevery siiiiiingle oooooone of my posts. You're mad as hell. You can't hide it. And yet you're going to insist I don't get to you?
I *am* a poor troll in the sense that *that's not what I'm fucking doing.* And yet...you're getting so upset still. It's like some kind of autoimmune disease of the mind. Or have you gone insane like J-Mo? Are we gonna see a news story about you going up a clock tower and sniping random people?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 03 2016, @02:47AM
Nah, your skills aren't up to making me feel anything. I've no doubt I'm not even close to the first person to say those words to you either.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 02 2016, @10:21AM
Eh, there's a big difference between getting a response from me and getting me to actually care about the subject in question. I just talk a lot. You're fined two Internets for forgetting the difference.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Friday September 02 2016, @04:21PM
Yeah, always seemed like the Mightering Buzz was more catch and release! :)j
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 03 2016, @02:48AM
Oooh, you right bastard. You earned your Internets back for that one.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 02 2016, @05:11PM
And now you opened up a war on TWO fronts, one of whom (aristarchus) actually DOES seem to be trying to troll, unlike me.
That's...positively Republican. "Oh hey, we're losing an unnecessary, pointless, and ill-equipped war of aggression! Let's get involved in another one!" Dumbass. And you're staff, that's the hell of it. Is there a Stupid Evil alignment? Because if there isn't, they should make one for you.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 03 2016, @02:39AM
Okay, that was just stupid. I demand you troll better or I'm going to have to break out "I'm rubber, you're glue".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday September 04 2016, @04:21AM
That's what you're doing already, I thought...?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday September 04 2016, @01:08PM
That's because you're not very smart. Were you remotely intelligent you would have better troll game.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday September 05 2016, @12:11AM
I'm not trolling, though; think of it like internet aikido, where the aikido-ka allows the opponent's haste, anger, and force to be used against him. Remember, the fulcrum does not resist the load, rather it merely pivots with it. You're doing it all for me, and a million times better than I ever could :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 05 2016, @12:44AM
You're pivoting alright. Enough that it's got you dizzy as hell. Or is that ditzy? Oh well, either works I suppose.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday September 05 2016, @02:51AM
0/10, try harder. I'm going to have to start marking your failed trolls as Spam, since they're not successful enough to count as -1 Flamebait mods either.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 05 2016, @10:31AM
You go right ahead with that, big'un. You'll have a month of no moderating to cool down the first time and six months the second. Spam is not to be played with.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday September 06 2016, @04:32PM
Okay, Troll and Flamebait it is then. Still, I could probably write a shell script and hook it up to a Markov generator, then train it on your post history, and it would be indistinguishable from the real deal; what does that say about the quality of your posts?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 06 2016, @08:57PM
Yours would be easier. You have very little in the way of unique thought between posts. As long as the comment were insulting someone, poorly, nobody would ever know it wasn't you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by FatPhil on Thursday September 01 2016, @08:47AM
The funny thing was that even though I could easily contrive p<0.001 results (which are actually significant in the face of a ~2000-possibility p-hack attempt, which provides a p-value leverage of about 45 (please correct me if I'm wrong, it is a sqrt ratio, isn't it?)), if I ever decided to use "stock market prices" as the indicator of prosperity I got a p=0.5 flat line zero-correlation.
Of course, I wasn't correlating measures of prosperity against each other, but the fact that certain political inputs could be chosen to lead to a clear (statistically significant, pfft) prosperity trend, but those same inputs didn't even show the tiniest of blips when it came to influencing (yes, CinC) stock market prices, it was easy for me to speculate that stock market price would in no way be correlated with the meaningful measures of prosperity.
However, if you look at the press as the Dow powers past 10K - "D10K" - you'll see it all presented as if it was a measure of the prosperity of the country. I remember the news reports well. It was all bald eagles and shit. Explosions and pussy!! Touchdownnnnnnn
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @08:57AM
This rather depends upon whose prosperity is being considered.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Thursday September 01 2016, @10:22AM
A large number of suckers/speculators means higher profits for the owners of the stock market, that's for sure.
Could you discover a constellation [xkcd.com] in the scatterplot?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Thursday September 01 2016, @05:52PM
Actually, I would say that's very much the crux of the topic. All that concern for the Dow in the news and in our government is exactly the system being rigged to provide prosperity for the very few while not giving a damn about the vast majority. You're looking right at the smoking gun.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Thursday September 01 2016, @09:14AM
The key insight, as always: If you subsidize something, you get more of it; if you penalize something, you get less of it.
- Corporate cronyism is currently subsidized by revolving doors and outright political corruption. Election finances are only a small part of this. There are a lot of pieces to this puzzle, for example, eliminating the Congressional exemption for insider trading. We need a general "no tolerance" policy for political corruption and self-enrichment of any sort.
- Banks used to be forced to make this choice. Reinstating it makes absolute sense.
- "Robin hood" tax is a stupid name. Remember: subsidize what you want, penalize what you don't want. We don't want HFT parasites, but we do want long-term, thoughtful investments? Impose a transaction fee that is inversely proportional to how long you hold a position: 1 second or less = 100% of the transaction value, 1 day = 50% of the transaction value, 1 year = 1%, 10 years = 0%.
- No, creating a nationalized bank is as dumb as it gets. Just like TSA for airport security: there is essentially no business that the government can't screw up and make inefficient. The problems in this area will already be solved by separating banking from investment houses.
The hardest problem is the corporate cronyism and political corruption. Frankly, I think the USA is too far gone. Look at the re-election rates for Congress: people say they want change, but change just isn't happening. It may come down to ropes and lamp posts.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Dr Spin on Thursday September 01 2016, @10:09AM
Historically, the answer to this is mass murder - obvious examples being Haiti and the French Revolution, but the tradition started far earlier, and is still going on (Da Esh, Boko Haram, etc)
A large part of the American Body Politic has been taught "there is a natural balance between rich and poor" but not taught that the balance is typically maintained by beheading the rich.
"Removing the Capo brings reform to Capitalism" (Mme La Guillotine, 1794).
Smart capitalists see this coming. Unfortunately bankers are not as smart as they think they are.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by timbim on Thursday September 01 2016, @12:09PM
Banking services by the post office is the right thing to do. You only think it's dumb because you've never been denied a bank account. Put yourself in the shoes of a poor person. The banks can reject whoever they want and separating banking and investment houses wont fix that.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by curunir_wolf on Thursday September 01 2016, @02:19PM
The only reason I've ever heard of for someone being denied a bank account is that they overdrew a bank account and never paid back the money. Sure, it sucks to be in that position where you can't open a bank account because you owe some bank a few hundred dollars you don't have, but it's a situation you created for yourself. If you can't be responsible with a bank account you can't have one.
The answer is not the post office. The answer is to deny banks the ability to charge a check-cashing fee for a check drawn on one of their own accounts. That should be illegal. If the check is from "Bank of America" or "Wells Fargo", they absolutely should NOT be allowed to charge you a fee to cash it.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 5, Touché) by tibman on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:28PM
Banks also did that to themselves. If you ask for an account that can't go below zero they will just give you an odd stare like you are a pod person. A lot of (poor) people moved to pre-paid like cards for just that reason. There are no hidden fees or ways to end up owing money to the bank for a mistake.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:03PM
If you overdraw an account, and the bank closes it, you're at their mercy if you pay it back. Often they don't remove you from Chexsystems. Found that out the hard way with somebody I knew. Once a bank closes an overdrawn account (usually after adding a couple hundred dollars of fees, to boot), there's no point in trying to settle with them. The few hundred dollars they could have by settling the account is a drop in the bucket, and they don't care.
Of course, standard advice applies. Don't overdraw your account!
As simple as all that is really, I still have trouble being ok with a vital system that effectively banhammers you if you make a mistake while you're down on your luck. It seems to be part of the phenomenon that being poor is expensive. I like your idea of forbidding banks from charging check cashing fees for checks they issued.
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Thursday September 01 2016, @07:24PM
It's actually pretty easy to be overdrawn even if you carefully account for every penny and never float a check. All it takes is a surprise fee (as noted in 4 pt. font in the last paragraph of page 45 of the agreement we meant to mail you but never got around to).
Another way is if they decide well after the fact that the check you deposited wasn't any good after all. As far as the bank is concerned, no check deposit is ever final and irrevocable.
.
My bank once tried to take a paycheck back after 2 years. Based on the processing stamps, it looks like they managed to drop it on the floor during the check exchange and were more than willing to palm the cost of their mistake off on me (former employer was out of business). It wasn't until I quoted the specific federal law disallowing them from taking it back after 180 days that the manager admitted that it was their error and their problem.
That caused me an afternoon pain in the ass, but had I been living paycheck to paycheck, it would have meant a cascade of bounced checks and overdraft fees complete with knock on fees from the various companies where my checks bounced. Had I not known banking law and had the wherewithal to go credibly threaten the bank manager with legal action in person, I would have joined the ranks of the un-banked.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday September 02 2016, @06:44AM
I have have had an account over-drawn because the bank took the money out of the wrong account: in a foreign currency even.
I had opened that second account to save on currency conversion, not pay $100 in over-draft fees.
Half of the fees were because the first overdraft fee hit the account after I have closed it (paid in full) as a result of the first over-draft fee. I had caught it before receiving mail about it.
I now refuse to open more than one account if the fine print says they may draw money from any account.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @06:11PM
The only reason I've ever heard of for someone being denied a bank account is that they overdrew a bank account and never paid back the money
Your life experience is very limited or your vision is very narrow (a very comfortable "Middle Class" existence?).
You don't seem to have ever encountered any poor people in your life and you've never been exposed to the concept of "minimum initial deposit".
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Saturday September 03 2016, @05:44AM
Actually, my "very limited" life experience includes living without a bank account for almost 2 years because I couldn't afford to pay the $153 in charges I owed to the bank. Back then it wasn't as much of a problem cashing a payroll check, but I did pay fees for it. Luckily my part-time job at K-mart paid cash.
Of course, I didn't grow up all entitled, I didn't blame my situation on someone else, and I didn't go crying about how unfair it was and begging government to do anything to help me, either.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday September 01 2016, @06:15PM
It would need to go one step further than just not allowing fees on their own checks. Many employers bank with a commercial bank that may not have a physical location anywhere near where the employees live (possibly not even in the same state).
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday September 02 2016, @06:38AM
I have been denied a (checking) account at a credit union because I had no recent credit history.
They treat no credit history as worse than a bankruptcy.
(Score: 2) by quintessence on Thursday September 01 2016, @12:54PM
Eh, kinda. You also have the idea of perverse incentives and with increased complexity, it gets harder to dial in without detrimentally affecting something else. The tax code is a pretty good example of this.
The libertarians have the insight of reducing government power to minimize the affects of corruption. Another approach is increasing the size and scope of representation to where it becomes cost ineffective to buy favors.
The current mantra is increased transparency, but that only serves to draw attention to corruption after it has happened. It plays out like a prisoners dilemma- you'll certainly catch some guilty parties, but not all, and it's worth a roll of the dice to see where you'll land.
Public banks (or more importantly public money) aren't as dumb of an idea as it sounds. The Bank of North Dakota weathered the last financial crisis better than most, and you dismantle the machinations of the Fed, which will always be the convergence of investment and other banking.
Most of the proposals seem to want to address systemic corruption, but without addressing the causes. Elections have proven to be insufficient oversight to the mess, and without new structures, all that changes is the form corruption will take.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:58PM
Impose a transaction fee that is inversely proportional to how long you hold a position: 1 second or less = 100% of the transaction value, 1 day = 50% of the transaction value, 1 year = 1%, 10 years = 0%.
There are a few problems with this. The first is that all of these systems are run by computer scientists now, and if there's one thing that we're good at it's inspecting a set of rules and working out how to get around them. If you make it advantageous to hold stocks for a long time, then you just create a market for derivatives. People don't trade the stocks, they trade tokens that can be redeemed in 10 years for the stock. Goldman Sachs makes a huge amount of money from creating this kind of thing. For example, before Facebook went public, they had a fund that owned a percentage of Facebook (a single entity owning private shares, not pushing Facebook over the number of shareholders that would have forced it to go public). The terms of this fund allowed the shares in the fund to be traded privately, and in the event that Facebook went public the fund would be dissolved and the owners would be given shares in Facebook in proportion to their ownership of the fund. If you try to regulate this kind of thing, then people create derivatives of these derivatives and you end up trying to enforce regulations on almost completely abstract transactions that, after you follow a few dozen contracts, eventually translate into trading something of value.
The second problem is working out where to draw the line. Trading in stocks and shares increases liquidity, which is a good thing. It's also fairly obvious that the increase in liquidity from trades happening every millisecond vs every second is of little or no value. It's probably true that having trades take place every second, vs every minute is not really valuable. It's possibly true, but less obvious, that having trades take place every five minutes vs every hour is advantageous. It's almost certainly true that having trades require a month would be very bad. Working out the exact place where you want to draw the line is difficult, and if you draw it in the wrong place then you crash your economy.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:02PM
> No, creating a nationalized bank is as dumb as it gets. Just like TSA for airport security
That's a false equivalency. You are forced to endure the TSA. A nationalized bank would provide a floor for minimum quality service. The two are entirely different things. Just like the Post Office provides a minimum level service below which UPS, Fedex, etc absolutely can not descend and still maintain customers.
> there is essentially no business that the government can't screw up and make inefficient.
There is essentially no business that anyone can't screw up and make inefficient. Despite reagan-quality sound-bites to the contrary the government does a ton of things better than private business because not all markets are naturally free enough to be efficient on their own. We are all familiar with the immense suck of internet service because of the natural monopoly effects of costly cable plants and geographic distribution.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:45PM
I'll grant your point that some services are most appropriate for a government to assume. Transportation infrastructure (i.e., roads) comes to mind.
On the other hand, many markets are only lousy due to government regulation giving someone a monopoly position. Just as an example: You write "We are all familiar with the immense suck of internet service because of the natural monopoly effects of costly cable plants and geographic distribution.". Where I live, there is no natural monopoly. We have redundant internet connections (because we have a business in the house), one over the telephone connection, and one via cable TV. In the case of the telephone connection, we could choose at least 3-4 different providers, all of whom are allowed to rent that last mile of copper.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday September 01 2016, @07:42PM
So you DO have a natural monopoly situation. Those phone lines didn't install themselves, that happened under the old Bell monopoly. The cable lines probably happened initially under a franchise agreement with a single cable provider (THE cable company for your area). There may still be a de-facto monopoly for cable services. The internet was bolted on to both, and the phone lines were opened up for being rented.
Without those granted monopolies, it would have been up to your local government to install the phone and cable lines and then open them up for use by various providers.
(Score: 2) by danaris on Friday September 02 2016, @12:19PM
In the case of the telephone connection, we could choose at least 3-4 different providers, all of whom are allowed to rent that last mile of copper.
OK...so, you do have a natural monopoly. It's on the last mile. One entity owns the last mile, and must rent it to providers for some regulated price. That is precisely government regulation used correctly, to mitigate the natural monopoly effect (which is inherent in the fact that you can only have so many wires running to your house; that's what "natural monopoly" means).
Here, we can only buy service from the company that owns the last mile. They are not required to rent it to other providers. That's why we have terrible monopoly service: because the government refuses to step in and require competition at the point where it actually matters (mainly because the cable/telecom industry has a huge, incredibly high-paid army of lobbyists making sure it continues to refuse to do so).
Dan Aris
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @06:03PM
You didn't say why specifically.
Yeah, the old proving-a-negative thing can be tough.
The reason it's an apt name is because the mythical character (who may not have even existed or might be a composite of several people) was said to take from the rich and give to the poor.
During the Great Depression, FDR got a 94 percent marginal tax rate applied to the billionaire class of his day.
He redistributed that money as wages among The Working Class who he was putting on the public payroll--because the Capitalists were not hiring.
Those folks actually SPENT the money into the economy and got it back on its feet again.
(25 percent of USAians were unemployed when Republican Herbert Hoover handed over the economy to FDR.)
There are already instances of the paradigm--even if that term wasn't used specifically to describe it.
.
subsidize what you want, penalize what you don't want
Now, that part gets top marks from me.
.
a transaction fee that is inversely proportional to how long you hold [an investment]
While I like the sentiment, TheRaven shredded that one pretty thoroughly below.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday September 01 2016, @06:09PM
Postal banking is not the same as a nationalized bank, Basically it's a way to cash a paycheck without having to pay 5% (or more) to a check casher for people who can't get a bank account. Many national systems also offer savings accounts. No loans or other "financial services". Just cashing checks and a simple savings account. It's just trying to alleviate one aspect of the observation that being poor is expensive.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Friday September 09 2016, @02:13AM
Ummm... there is no one standard for efficiency. For instance, you can assume the most efficent health care system is the one that saves the most lives for the least money. Or you can assume the most efficent helth care system is the one that saves the most lives with the budget it has. One that rewards individual savings, because it causes second order efficencies (people working hard to get rich), or one that prioritizes people with the greatest need.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @10:06AM
Even if you brought the jobs back from _________, they will soon get automated. The first self-driving cars are hitting the roads in Pennsylvania. A whole change to society is needed.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @06:23PM
There are two ways we can do it. We can come together now, realize that what we have is about to collapse in a completely unprecedented way, and begin to transition to a post-scarcity society in an intentional, controlled way by way of a citizen's dividend or a basic income. The basic income doesn't even need to be a living wage to begin with.
I'm looking over Take On Wall Street, and I see similar things to the TEA Party 8 years ago (before it got co-opted by the early alt-right). Perhaps also Sanders' political revolution. Try, try again?
The second way I think is more likely. The current society will be cleansed in fire. I only hope that on the other side of that, we can recover.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Justin Case on Thursday September 01 2016, @11:17AM
Too Big to Fail equals Too Big to Exist
But let's remember it is government that gives these corporations permission to form (and dodge liabilities) in the first place. Don't go thinking government is your friend in fighting BigCorp.com. Every time you hear a politician saying "public-private partnership" you should mentally translate it to the sound of the handcuffs clicking one notch tighter.
After all, why would the people in control of the rules allow the rules to change in any way that causes them to lose their power?
But go ahead, keep wishing if it makes you feel better.
(Score: 4, Informative) by curunir_wolf on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:08PM
Every time you hear a politician saying "public-private partnership" you should mentally translate it to the sound of the handcuffs clicking one notch tighter.
The term (public-private partnership or PPP), is fairly new, but the concept has been around a long time. In the 1930's, they called it "Fascism".
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:53PM
To me, too big to fail means monopoly position: if it is soooo big that they can't let it fail, maybe the rules that have allowed this to happen need to be changed.
Example: when i was a kid, there were allllllll kinds of little mom and pop stores. Now there are few, because the BIG guys have had the rules written in their favour.
Example: the auto business. If Ford alone is too big to fail, maybe Ford needs MORE competition. Maybe all the big auto makers need MORE competition. Instead, the rules have been written in a way so that your "Tesla's" have a real hard time coming into the business (as in competition has almost no way of coming to the point where they can compete).
If more auto makers were allowed to compete, the Big auto makers wouldn't be so big and could fail without too much disruption.
Too big to fail means government failure to regulate the business... OR STAY OUT OF THEIR WAY ALTOGETHER, AND IF THEY FAIL, THEY FAIL: there is nooooo bailout, no saving.
Either get in their way completely so that failure is an option because their competition will pick up the slack/business or get out of the way completely and let them fail.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:36PM
Ironically, Ford was the one (and only one iirc) who wasn't too big to fail.
Around 2007/2008, I was saying "let it all just fucking fail." I still think this is the only correct option. Sure, it would have been hard on many people. My hope is that two major changes would happen:
- People would realize that stocks and debt are not money and money is not air or food or houses. Air and food and houses are wealth.
- Responsible companies like Ford would be rewarded essentially.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:56PM
I'd venture that "too big to fail" should automatically equal to "nationalized", followed by either "public" or "broken apart".
You should never get to privatize any profits, if the taxpayers have to barge in to save you from losses.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by gidds on Thursday September 01 2016, @12:54PM
That sounds great — just as long as no-one calls it 'socialist'.
Of course, it is: very much so. And in some places you can even use that word in public, without being arrested! But the moment you apply that word in the US, 90% of citizens will have an immediate, instinctive reaction against it, short-circuiting any attempt at rational thought.
(Or at least, that's how it appears from outside the US. I hope that's not an unfair impression.)
[sig redacted]
(Score: 3, Informative) by curunir_wolf on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:11PM
I think it was true once, but not any more. Many people in the US are quite fond of socialism. On contender for the nomination of a major party called himself a "Democratic Socialist" and he came very close to winning the nomination (in fact, probably would have, if not for the corrupt elements in the party leadership).
I am a crackpot
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @08:53PM
Socialist == Democracy EVERYWHERE
("Democratic Socialist" is redundant.)
If there isn't a democracy in every WORKPLACE, what you have is NOT Socialism.
This movement is an attempt to return USA to the Liberal Democracy|Social Democracy of the New Deal|Great Society (FDR|LBJ).
Slightly little less Oligarchy != Socialism.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @11:56PM
You mean, "Economic Democracy"? One person, one vote? Even about money? Hayden, that you?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by curunir_wolf on Thursday September 01 2016, @02:09PM
Getting the corrupting cash of corporations and the superrich out of our politics by repealing Citizens United and providing a public system for financing America's elections.
No. Citizen's United is not a law that can be repealed. It was a SCOTUS decision regarding the Constitutional right to Free Speech. So this whole thing starts by proclaiming they want a Constitutional Amendment to repeal Free Speech in the US.
No.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Thursday September 01 2016, @02:42PM
I'm not sure why you think that a Supreme Court decision can't be reversed, there are plenty of examples [wikipedia.org].
Now, free speech. You have to realize that corporations are legal fictions (I know, I'm a lawyer) and should not be understood as having the same rights as a natural person. For example, you can't throw in jail a corporation, why should it have a right to free speech?
Now, they are using their "free speech" to unduly influence elections, the latest example is George Soros attempt to influence the election of district attorneys [politico.com]. Think for a moment, a rich guy who does not live in your community is trying to get elected a district attorney he likes, is this the way democracy should work? Regardless of his aims (good or bad), I think election of local public officials should be in the hands of local citizens and not some rich guy whose primary residence is in New York.
We the people reads the constitutiion, and by "the people" they mean natural persons and not legal fictions, should have the power to elect our form of government and any and all public servants. Corporations should be banned from contributing in any way to candidates; this does not preclude the offiicials and shareholders of said corporations from personally contributing, but as natural persons.
This way, we the people get to keep and enjoy our rights.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by curunir_wolf on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:24PM
You misunderstand the issues, the campaign finance laws, and the interpretations of contributions, contributions-in-kind, and advocacy as defined by the FEC, as well as the categories of committees, disconnected committees, PACs, and "Super PACs".
Corporations cannot contribute to campaigns. The Citizens United decision did nothing to change that. From the FEC:
Rules for organization's PACs did not change based on Citizens United either.
Citizens United simply said that the FEC cannot ban the publication of books, magazines, newspapers and movies based on the content of the publication. I find it hard to believe that you think there are enough people that can make movies out of their personal funds without forming some sort of organization to do it. I'm also not sure why you think that the New York Times and the Washington Post should be free to publish anything they want, but movie studios should not be allowed that same freedom...
I am a crackpot
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jelizondo on Thursday September 01 2016, @08:55PM
Let’s see if we can find common ground here.
At Soylent (and in other venues of life), you and I are peers, enjoying the same rights and freedoms. You are free to post as many comments as you like and rebuke any comment you happen to disagree with and I have the same access.
Now suppose one of the admins, take NCommander (sorry buddy), decides to exercise his freedom of speech but instead of posting a comment, he “promotes” your comment by featuring it in the main page and in a special sidebar on the comments page.
Given the above situation, most people would agree that now the playing field at Soylent is uneven. A small minority (I hope) might argue that since they own Soylent, they can do whatever they want.
Moving from analogy to real life, this is what happens when you and I decide to contribute to a candidate or a party, but in the other side they have the Koch brothers, the Walton family, George Soros, Goldman Sachs or Citi, each worth billions of dollars, against our combined paycheck.
You see, you are wrong. The Citizen’s United, Emily’s List and SpechNow cases lifted the restrictions on the amount of money a legal entity (corporation, union or non-profit) can spend towards advocating for or against a candidate or party.
In essence the Supreme Court ruled that money equals speech, meaning those with more money can make their voices heard louder, which is contrary to democratic principles.
In order not to make this comment longer, I invite you to read the following material:
Cheers
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gravis on Thursday September 01 2016, @05:02PM
incorrect. what they want is to say that corporations are composed of people but corporations themselves are not a person. this would mean that corporations do not get the same rights as people which includes the freedom of speech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @06:06PM
There is nothing in the Constitution that says corporations have all the same rights as people. That interpretation was gradually added over time, probably via corporate pressure on the courts.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Friday September 02 2016, @07:27PM
There is nothing in the Constitution that says corporations have all the same rights as people. That interpretation was gradually added over time, probably via corporate pressure on the courts.
Actually, the opposite was the case, originally. Some one else may know the history better, but as I recall, corporations were first classed as persons so that they could be taxed. As a non-person, corporations were able to retain vast sums of capital that did not show up as income for the stockholders, so the government granted (forced?) a limited person-hood on corporations in order to tax that wealth.
Citizens United has expanded that limited notion of being a limited "person" under the law for tax purposes, and has started to claim that corporations are natural persons, rather than artificial, and so due natural human rights, like freedom of speech. And the "religious freedom" stuff going around now will probably establish freedom of religion for corporations, so that Catholic corporations can refuse public accommodations to heretics and apostates, for example. And just wait until corporations go all ammosexual*second amendment*moron labia on us. Blackwater was only the beginning. Private corporate armies?
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Thursday September 01 2016, @07:28PM
Have you ever tried to watch a movie that was produced entirely out of one individual's personal funds? It's not pretty. It's not good.
A corporation is just a way to organize a group of people. Should we ban ALL legal entities from being allowed to produce opinion pieces? Labor Unions? Churches? Non-profits (501c4, 501c3)?
Please explain why newspapers and TV stations can say whatever they want, but other corporations have their content censored?
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday September 02 2016, @07:05AM
Does this count?
New Mexico is Beautiful [youtube.com] (Allie Knight)
Computers are amazingly powerful these days.
(Score: 2) by julian on Thursday September 01 2016, @05:25PM
SCOTUS gets things wrong from time to time, Citizen's United is one recent example. Their decisions are neither perfect nor permanent. Money isn't speech. Our current laws and precedents say it is. Our current laws are wrong.
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Thursday September 01 2016, @07:22PM
SCOTUS did not say money is speech. They said a movie is speech. And it is.
There are 6 corporations that control 90% of the media in the US. They all have political biases. How do you decide what to censor?
Besides, it doesn't matter. It turns out that money for messaging doesn't really do much for politicians. If it did, Trump would not be the Republican nominee - he was way outspent. He's being outspent 10-to-1 against Hillary, and not losing by much. Even the Koch brother's money could not stop him.
There are many, many examples that prove that the money isn't making much of a difference in campaigns. Dave Brat was outspent 100x over, but he still beat Eric Cantor. The entire thing is a tempest in a teapot. It's irrelevant. It's just a rallying cry used for fund-raising.
Meanwhile, the influence peddling of the Clintons and their "non-profits" continues unabated.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @05:37PM
Here is a good (and long) article about our current troubles with asset bubbles, rent seeking, and debt deflation.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/08/finance-is-not-the-economy.html [washingtonsblog.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @06:02PM
The viewpoints on this can generally be classified as such:
1. Redistribution (socialism) is okay if there's too much inequality
2. Trickle down works if it's done right, and current admin/gov't is doing it wrong
3. Social Darwinism is a good thing, let the poor suffer and die
If a conservative or libertarian holds view #3, there's not much debate. They believe in the importance of "culling the herd" and that's a valid perspective because science doesn't "dictate" behavior, only predict results at best. They believe a dog-eat-dog world improves the human species via evolutionary pressure.
Those conservative or libertarians who hold view #2 generally believe that less regulation would unleash the economy to expand. However, the current bottleneck is that consumers don't have enough money to spend, NOT lack of product or services provided. Many companies don't expand because they don't believe there are enough consumers to partake in their expansion, NOT because these businesses cannot get investment money or because regulations are holding them back. (Actually they often cannot get investment money because investors don't predict consumers either.)
Conservative or libertarians generally believe #1 will take away incentives. However, many incentives are relative to peers. It's how wolves rank themselves and humans. Taxing won't change the position. Many are so rich they don't even know how many houses they own so that they don't measure themselves by their stuff, but their wealth compared to peers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @08:50PM
Let's have a Greater East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere!