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Journal by fustakrakich
... and hands Afghanistan over to the CIA, he is sabotaging Social Security...
The coronavirus pandemic will cause the main U.S. Social Security trust fund reserves to be depleted in 2033, a year sooner than an estimate made a year ago
They could undo the payroll tax cuts and cap, and cut the bailouts, but, you know, blaming the pandemic (and the "other" side) sells more tickets.
And while Biden engorges Wall Street with 120 bil a month
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Do not use if foil seal is broken.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday September 01 2021, @05:14AM (74 children)
Also known as "reality". These entitlement programs' fates are just a classic example of what happens when politicians promise stuff that can't be delivered.
And if you just spend plenty of money without creating value, you create plenty of inflation. There's no easy out. We have to reduce benefits rather than rely on the finance unicorns to save our asses.
Let's consider what heavy lifting needs to be done. For the Social Security program, going to zero by 2033, means losing a net $3 trillion dollars in 12 years. The same projection [wikipedia.org] loses an additional $10 trillion by 2089 , 56 years later. That's in present value dollars not future, inflated dollars. So rich people and their finance industry has to come up with $13 trillion in cash (not financial instruments, cash) just to keep the Social Security fund at its current imaginary level.
Moving on, we now get to the even worse problem of Medicare. In 2016, the 75 year projection was that there would be roughly $32 trillion in unfunded obligations. So roughly by 2090, the US would have sucked up and redistributed $45 trillion in present day assets. That's somewhere around 50% of all present day stocks, real estate, and other wealth in the US, as I understand it.
Here's where the fusty delusion is strongest. Somehow he thinks that when assets are grabbed on that scale, that they will hold their value. Protip: a heavily taxed asset is nowhere near the value it would have, if it weren't so taxed. Halve the income, you've halved the value of the asset. Seize the whole income of the asset and it's worth nothing at all.
We can blather about how mean the neoliberal propaganda is, or we can start thinking about how to make the programs sane rather than a huge, looming threat to the US's future. The number one step will be to cut benefits.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 01 2021, @05:15AM (9 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 01 2021, @04:07PM (8 children)
It's a serious question in macroeconomics and public policy, how much a nation can afford in public services. There can't be a hard answer, because it's necessarily related to the availability of a surplus, and the needs of the population. However, we are looking at realtime experiments on large scales with the aging of many nations, especially high profile ones like South Korea, Japan and China.
Part of the problem is that the more people have surpluses that could be taxed, the more mobile they are. Unless you want to treat your wealthy like serfs, you're balancing your generosity to the poor with your hostility to the wealthy. It's all very well to tell the wealthy how they owe all sorts of money for having the privilege of ... whatever the reason is this week, but they're not obliged to believe you, or act as if they believe you. Killing geese that lay golden eggs is still very much a favourite occupation for governments - until they realise that geese are migratory. Just look at NY's two-faced: "C'mere, fat goose!" followed by: "Hey, wait, we love you, where you going?"
A UBI is actually a defensible response, or you could also have various social programmes (food, medicine and so on) that are strongly capped. The open-ended promise of programmes such as Medicare is a huge problem. If Medicare only covered treatments that had been approved as of 1960, it would be a hell of a lot cheaper.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 01 2021, @06:17PM (7 children)
The idea that the rich are the ones "laying the golden eggs" is laughably bad. Prosperity gospel is the dumbest shit since nailing people up on crosses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 01 2021, @06:35PM (5 children)
In tax terms, they are. Who did you plan to tax? The great state of New York sure wants to tax the rich, but will of course cheerfully tax the crap out of anyone in reach.
As a general rule of thumb, when you want to tax someone, you have to start from a position of them having something to tax. If they don't, you're trying to tax the broke and that doesn't work well. Because they're broke, see?
Countries such as Denmark and Sweden that have big, fat, padded social safety nets have heavy taxes much further down the income scale than the US does. Is that how you plan to tax? Please, I want to see you stand up in front of an american audience and say: "People who earn thirty dollars an hour need to pay major income taxes!" Of course, it may be wise to make sure that your audience has nothing sharp first.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 01 2021, @09:09PM (4 children)
I'm all about hitting the low hanging fruit first: simply enforcing the existing tax code would bring in about 700 billion.
Take a wild guess at who's opposed to the plan. [washingtonpost.com]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday September 01 2021, @09:29PM
Can't.. Paywalled... Didn't you know that [paraphrasing] *democracy dies behind paywalls*?
But there must be some democrats opposed to that plan, or it would be executed by now.
Solution for funding is in the journal.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 01 2021, @10:53PM (2 children)
You know what else would bring in lots more money, and reduce the expense of enforcement?
Reform the whole shitpuddle. Do away with individual incomes, and tax things at the source. Straight-up taxation on payroll and/or revenue at the business level. Joe employee never files another thing declaring how many kids and mortgage insurance payments and medical expenses he's had, ever again, and Jane IRS never even bothers trying to check up on Joe's assets. It simply comes down to business accounting, which is a much, much smaller number of places to look for data and a lot easier, on balance, to audit. If a company's not hiring nor selling in the USA? No tax liability. If they are? Boom, tax 'em.
If you want to get cute by giving companies a break on having lots of low-income employees so that they don't just shove them out on the street to replacement with robots, or whatever other social engineering plan sounds good, it's still easier doing so at this aggregated level.
Trying to use the current, broken, biased system as a fix for a problem that people have spent decades working around? Hah. Hahhahah. Sure. That's a smart plan. Right.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 02 2021, @02:04AM (1 child)
Sure. But it's not going to happen overnight. So now, is DeathMonkey's suggestion a good step towards that reform?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 02 2021, @03:44PM
No.
a) it's completely speculative
b) even if it weren't, it's open to a lot of challenges that will cost a lot, and drag it out forever in court
c) while all the fights are fought, it will drive the affluent to be even more stand-offish than they already are
d) The costs of recovery are expected to be a substantial proportion of the funds recovered (not counting the court costs)
It's a symptom of the current, overcomplicated, loophole-riddled swiss cheese of a system that we have now. Even if you went through the motions, it wouldn't help much but it would hurt a lot. The smart move is to do a heelturn. It'd even be politically popular: "Joe and Jane America, your income is now going straight to your bank account, no tax extraction involved, and you don't have to file a damn thing! Businesses, you file anyway, here's the new schedule, by the way it's simplified."
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 02 2021, @02:02AM
They're laying a lot more golden eggs than you are and as the AC noted, paying a lot more taxes too.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 01 2021, @04:08PM (1 child)
Taxes are part of reality too. The government can use them to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. [cornell.edu]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 01 2021, @05:25PM
Now, rather than partially fix these programs to at least return them to revenue neutral territory, I see proposals that we grab more tax revenue and throw it at these programs. This is called digging the hole deeper. That money could be used for a bunch of other purposes including not being taken as taxes in the first place.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday September 01 2021, @04:12PM (59 children)
Yes there is. Just shift the money from the financial industry into the working economy. It's that simple. There is plenty for all, especially if you remove your usury
Ah, exactly.. as you "understand" it, there ya go...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Wednesday September 01 2021, @05:28PM (58 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 01 2021, @08:31PM (43 children)
You are truly a nutbar capitalist that thinks the rich deserve their billions while paying less taxes than the average citizen. There is something deeply deeply wrong with you, and I wonder what cultural phenomena contributes to such thinking.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 01 2021, @09:57PM (41 children)
It's "temporarily-embarrassed millionaire syndrome" with a bit of "I do accounting when I'm not hawking questionable tubes of boiled pig assholes in Yellowstone."
He thinks he's "in the club." He thinks he's a capitalist. No, unless he owns substantial assets that are generating income for him without his own direct labor, he is not a capitalist, he is *living in a capitalist system.* Understanding the difference it crucial, and he refuses to because he thinks aaaaaany day now he'll be in the yacht club with the big boys.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 02 2021, @02:01AM (40 children)
Because hawking questionable tubes of boiled pig assholes in Yellowstone is the path to that bling! Couldn't you have fired a couple of neurons and come up with a narrative that wasn't pants-wetting stupid?
Well, buttercup, I'm a capitalist by your definition. So fuck off with your idiotic narratives.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 02 2021, @03:35PM (34 children)
No :) Eat shit (you have to scrape it off the pig assholes) and die. You show us over and over what you are and then you get annoyed when people call you out on it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Troll) by khallow on Friday September 03 2021, @02:36AM (33 children)
You're the only one flipping out. I can't say whether that's "get annoyed" or not.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 03 2021, @04:49PM (32 children)
...my God, do you not understand what the phrase "temporarily-embarrassed millionaire syndrome" means? Wow. Just...wow.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 03 2021, @05:51PM (31 children)
It means someone who believes that they'll get a million dollars and acts like they already have it..
(Score: 3, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday September 04 2021, @05:57PM (30 children)
No. Good Lord, no. It means someone who acts like they're part of the big boys' club in the hope of someday being in it, someone who simps for the very financial and social policies that are eating them alive because they think they either are or deserve to be part of the in-group. Very common among self-described libertarians and "conservatives," this mindset.
It's a form of blame-shifting at the root, because it attempts to explain why the believe himself (and it's almost always a guy!) is not currently rich and prosperous like those his idolizes with "well I deserve it but I'm being kept down by $REGULATION and $ETHNIC_MINORITY and $CIVIL_RIGHTS_LAW! The system works fine, it's these internal traitors gumming it up!"
You know how your kind like to throw "cuck" around a lot? Y'all "temporarily-embarrassed millionaires" are cucks, in financial and policy terms.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by khallow on Sunday September 05 2021, @01:48AM (27 children)
In other words, "It means someone who believes that they'll get a million dollars and acts like they already have it." - perhaps with more explicit schmoozing, perhaps not. Moving on:
Well, if that's what it supposedly means (and really, it doesn't), then why are you accusing me of it? I haven't tried for said rich and prosperous state, nor have I blamed anyone for not achieving what I have not tried. There's this enormous cognitive dissonance where you accuse me of sucking up to The Man while simultaneously accuse me of a lifestyle that inherently demonstrates a lack of interest in such. You're not even trying for a coherent narrative, much less one that actually describes me.
This is a classic, religious dysfunction where critics are accused merely for their criticism of having serious personal failings ("You doubt because you aren't listening to God"). Here, it doesn't take a "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" to notice that the US entitlement programs are deeply flawed with more expenditures than revenue with a huge increase over the decades, if we don't do something about it - namely, cut benefits. If we instead tax rich people (or more accurately tax anyone who can't run), it just delays the failure a little bit while throwing more of the economy into this morass first.
There's a saying that applies here: good money after bad. There is a remarkable disinterest in creating a functional entitlement or an economy capable of sustaining such. Similarly, the tilting at the usury windmill that's driven much of this thread ignores that lending with interest is a very useful tool, and not actually usury in the usual connotation (abusive interest rates). It's a pointless effort.
What should be considered usury here though is the creation of massive obligations on people who had no choice in the creation of those obligations. Social Security, Medicare, and many other such programs (not just in the US) create massive obligations on future generations without doing much in the present. For example, Social Security has redirected trillions of dollars of tax revenue into the US general fund over the last 80 years for the cause of making sure Grannie doesn't eat catfood. That's a remarkable, vast lack of ROI.
And who benefits from the usury? I think we all know that answer.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday September 07 2021, @12:56AM (26 children)
Your ideas about creating such an economy don't work, and they don't work for the same reason both Communism and laissez-faire approaches to capitalism don't work: human nature. You're really not suggesting anything new, either; it's basically just more laissez-faire apologia. I shouldn't have to explain to you that social programs are an investment in one's citizenry and that it costs less in the long term to take a preventive and harm-reduction approach to problems like drug abuse, homelessness, and poverty than to let them fester, ruin peoples' lives, and try to clean up afterwards.
You're not unintelligent, in the sense that you clearly have at least an average IQ and ability to think logically. Your problem is, as you put it, religious. You have Ideas (TM) about what meritocracy means, about who deserves what, and any actual economic concerns you may have are subordinate to these. However, in the interest of appearing to be logical, rational, and coolheaded, you attempt to hide this by speaking in purely economic terms and hoping people won't notice that your ideas amount to "I am willing to pay more and make everyone else pay more so $THOSE_PEOPLE suffer."
We've all got your number, Hallow. I don't understand why you think you're fooling anyone here.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Tuesday September 07 2021, @05:40AM (25 children)
The bizarre thing about your post is that the first sentence is wrong in the tense. Not can you create such an economy that works, we already did. In this journal [soylentnews.org], I go over a bit of that remarkable progress (some big ones, like more peace, less poverty, and huge environmental improvements).
I think what's going on here is that you have a bad case of a hermetically sealed meme system that won't let reality in. Your brain is starving for knowledge because your self-imposed filters keep it out. Let's consider this example:
Pay more for what? It's definitely not Social Security or Medicare. I guess you're thinking single payer or something, maybe. Looking at the VA and Medicaid, I think that is a forlorn hope.
I also find this statement odd given that you're the one bashing rich people (where $THOSE_PEOPLE = rich people). But if there's anything we can learn from you, it's that you can project quite the straw man.
Here's my take: don't leave food out for the rats. All these entitlements and social programs provide protection for the corruption at the core of this mess. But if we greatly reduced everything, then the rats, those who are siphoning off so much of the US's future, wouldn't have so many places to hide and wouldn't have so many voters on their side either.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday September 07 2021, @05:33PM (24 children)
Your indifference/antipathy in service to finance confirms your psychoses
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 07 2021, @07:21PM (23 children)
We still don't care what you can say, but what you can prove empirically. In this journal discussion, we have the three most dishonest posters all plying their trade (you, Azuma, and aristarchus). None of you bother with even the flimsiest attempt at providing evidence.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 07 2021, @07:26PM
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday September 07 2021, @07:54PM (21 children)
:-) Ah yes, the Pablo Escobar defense, after all he built hospitals and schools for the poor, right?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 07 2021, @08:22PM (20 children)
And if the cocaine industry was legal like it is for alcohol and nicotine, the Columbian cocaine industry wouldn't have been led by a mass murderer. Your pathetic moralizing won't bring back any of Escobar's victims, but a legal industry would have insured that those people wouldn't have died in the first place. Economics >> feigned morality.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday September 07 2021, @08:43PM (19 children)
What "moralizing"? Ironic that you bring it up.. Your entire global financial system is led by mass murderers profiting from war and chaos, and cocaine and opium (twenty years of war over that, the coke wars are not so "centralized"). Escobar is just a tiny example of their world
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 07 2021, @09:19PM (18 children)
The "Pablo Escobar defense" indicated the moralizing in that post. The "led by mass murderers profiting from war and chaos, and cocaine and opium" indicates the moralizing in your present post.
A "tiny" example that would be fixed in "their world" by simply making cocaine manufacture, use, and sales legal.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday September 07 2021, @09:44PM (5 children)
The only reason you don't like "moralizing" (and only when it's in ways you disagree with...yes, we noticed that!) is your concepts of how to run an economy and why are themselves immoral. Not *a*moral, *im*moral.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 07 2021, @11:46PM (4 children)
In the real world, when you have a zillion people with different moral codes and such, your economy can't have a lot of baked in morality and still function well.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 08 2021, @12:11AM (3 children)
Wrong again!
It's a question of reasoning, of why we do X with aim Y in mind. Normal people would, if asked, say something like "the point of economic activity is to promote human flourishing. We can live better and have more stuff this way." Far from being moralizing, I'm simply pointing out that your ideas are self-destructive and counterproductive. In other words, while you are immoral because of the harm to people you advocate, you're *also* stupid because your ideas don't work and would quickly lead to economic cannibalism and feudal stagnation.
Basically, you're an ignoranus, both stupid *and* an asshole.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 08 2021, @12:44AM (2 children)
Indeed. The real problem here is that you and many others don't have a clue how to do that. Morality is useless without an understanding of how your decisions manifest.
A huge thing missed here by both you and fusty is that the present economy promotes a great deal of human flourishing. Meanwhile a lot of the centralized schemes like Social Security are squandering that.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 08 2021, @01:48AM (1 child)
You don't get to walk that shit back, Hallow. That comment about "prey," and the other one about cutting "subsidies to old people." Who do you think you're fooling?
The absolute most charitable interpretation of your position is that you're looking at this as a running average of utilitarian human happiness; that's how you end up with an Omelas (possibly, given the story's ambiguity). In the same way 9 broke people and 1 billionaire have "on average" 100 million dollars each. And the most charitable thing that can be said about THAT approach is that it's dangerously naive and inexcusably stupid.
No, we know what your agenda is. You've broken cover a few times too many to fool people any longer. I just thank my lucky stars you are nowhere near the levers of power and never ever will be.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday September 08 2021, @04:48AM
Watch me, Azuma!
You for starters. This is the difference between morality in a vacuum and morality in reality. Those comments, such as they are, are moral statements about real problems in the real world. Consider instead what I was replying to. Let's start with the comment about "prey".
fustakrakich started by quoting some Aristotle:
and then followed it up with
Sorry, this shows some of the weakness of ancient Greek philosophy - opinions not based on reality. There is no birth of money from money with interest. As with retail trade, it is merely a trade some money now for more money later. And Aristotle is completely ignorant of the benefits of lending, at least in the modern era. Thus, my quip which vexed poor Azuma so:
Funny how use of scare words like "prey" is more important to you, Azuma than thought and reason!
Moving on, let's see about this use of "subsidies to old people." First, I didn't say that - it's an abusive use of quotes, a small reminder of the sloppy intellectual dishonesty you bring to the forum all the time. Here's what I actually say [soylentnews.org]:
Sure, there's a huge wealth transfer from young people who are trying to raise families and build a life to the elderly and that this situation is solely due to the will of the elderly. I'd call it more "theft" or "rent seeking" rather than a "subsidy". Social Security and Medicare are notorious for promising considerably more than you put in. It remains time to match the promises to reality.
I get that my viewpoint is offensive to old people in the US, but how are we to cover the obligations of the young as dutifully as we're covering the obligations of the present day elderly? Where will that money come from?
Way back when, a promise was made that Social Security would be revenue neutral, that its benefits could be covered by selling bonds to the US government who would invest that money in the US economy and pay back the debt. Well, the US government spent it, but not as investments.
Now we see that the imaginary fund that was supposed to justify all this payout will be depleted in 12 years unless we either find new revenue sources or cut benefits. Promises have been broken no matter how we act. fustakrakich's clueless concern of this journal about usury means nothing since he doesn't even acknowledge the real problems the US faces here. This is the worst sort of usury - creating huge obligations for people who haven't even been born yet.
My take is that the just way here is to penalize the people who believed the promises and voted for the con men who made Social Security what it is today. We had 85 years to fix this and each year we continue to fail to do so makes the final reckoning even more of a shitshow. It's time to hold accountable the voters who were responsible.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday September 07 2021, @10:35PM (11 children)
"Legality" is irrelevant, and a distraction. The product is the product. The law is written to increase profit. The only relation to "morality" is that you and he share the same, love of pueblo and family. But for you and he both, business is business.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 08 2021, @12:09AM (10 children)
Here, that irrelevant distraction has resulted in somewhere around 10k deaths in wars between the various drug cartels at the time that Escobar was at war (a period of increased violence in the 1990s - not counting deaths before or since) - there was a multi-faction war between the various cartels, the government, and FARC. Just like Azuma, your narrative is utter nonsense and misses the big picture - that a lot of people died because cocaine production was made illegal.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday September 08 2021, @12:28AM (9 children)
Prohibition is for profit. Your business community is quite pleased, doesn't care about dead people. And whaddya mean "misses the big picture"? You're full of it...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 08 2021, @12:47AM (8 children)
This is example of why you are one of the most dishonest posters here. It's not my business community any more than it is yours. And I stand by "misses the big picture". You blew off killing thousands of people as an irrelevant distraction - and still do above.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday September 08 2021, @01:03AM (7 children)
No I didn't. That's just you making shit up again. Guess I better get used to it, it's your MO. I said illegality is irrelevant, not its consequences. You trying to get all "moral" and stuff now?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 08 2021, @04:50AM (6 children)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday September 09 2021, @12:47AM (5 children)
I did. Your imagination just distorts what was written into some sort of strawman of yours.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 09 2021, @05:03AM (4 children)
Notice the game played here. Escobar was brought up in the first place because he was allegedly a symbol of the evil business model I am alleged to espouse, including those murders I immediately pointed out. You then declared the criminalization of cocaine as "irrelevant, and a distraction", but it is the criminalization of cocaine which is the entire reason Escobar was enabled as your mass murdering, evil businessman example! It's not irrelevant, it's the whole story! And said criminalization is a heavy-handed imposition of state power, not evil businessmen being evil.
In your last quote, we see the traditional, notorious fusty blame deflection where his critics are blamed for the faults of the system ("your business community") even though I had already outlined a solution that would have solved that problem! As I noted, it's no more my business community than it is yours.
Finally, I'll note no actual evidence to support your assertion that you didn't mean to dismiss the murder of thousands as some irrelevant distraction or to faultily blame me for a ridiculous conflict that need not exist. You haven't actually corrected my words except to merely claim that they are somehow wrong. I think the reason you never state an alternate explanation or elaboration is because there is no such thing. It's just you digging that hole deeper with more flimflam.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday September 09 2021, @05:28PM (3 children)
Nah, it's you, stuck in your neoliberal monkey trap. You should use that imagination of yours to do something good instead of lying about what people say. Your "morality" and that of your banking system is the same as Escobar's, just putting profits first. Legal or not makes no difference. Business is business
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 10 2021, @05:15PM (2 children)
I see the pretense about not moralizing has ended. Yet another example of how consequences >> morality. Bankers can have the morality of a prince of Hell, but they don't want to end up in jail. Thus, the lack of bankers murdering thousands.
I find it interesting how both you and Azuma engage in vacuous moralizing while ignoring the most important accomplishment of our civilization - getting immoral people to contribute to the greater good.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday September 10 2021, @05:43PM (1 child)
Just pointing out your similarities, that far outweigh your minor differences (only by degree, not character), in a way you may or may not comprehend
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 11 2021, @01:33AM
This marks the third time that you’ve trivialized the murder of thousands of people by Escobar, here terming it as a “minor difference” (I assure you, I haven’t murdered thousands of people). I wonder what you think a major difference is? And of course, this alleged minor difference is the sole reason you picked Escobar over other choices.
There is a bit of smudge, a moral blurriness that I find you share with many of the other usual suspects though it manifests in you to a greater degree than anyone else here. If thousands of murders don’t matter to you, then what would? Seems to me, almost nothing.
I’ve been relatively gentle with you this time and yet, you still repeatedly insist on these bizarre evasions and lies. I have a simple suggestion. How about instead of talking about all the imaginary things you allegedly did, like “just pointing out your similarities” you actually do those things? For example, I have yet to hear of a credible similarity between me and Mr. Escobar. Perhaps there is some other seedy businessman or banker I’d be a better fit for?
And maybe get a clue about how morally bad killing thousands of people is? Those optics need cleaning.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Sunday September 05 2021, @01:50AM
No, because "my kind" doesn't throw "cuck" around at all.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Wednesday September 08 2021, @06:54AM
from http://www.temporarilyembarrassedmillionaires.org/ [temporarilyembarrassedmillionaires.org]
It appears to be nothing at all to do with a 'big boys club', unless you can produce a link arguing otherwise.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 02 2021, @03:59PM (4 children)
Don't be too hard on Azuma. She's delusional.
- she believes that the democrats now are to the right of Reagan's position, despite obviously not having a clue of what Reagan's positions were, nor having lived through the Reagan era. I don't know where she got this; I've seen the same ignorance-based meme floating from the likes of the Huffington Post and Mother Jones, so I'm assuming Maddow said it at some point and it sounded good.
- she thinks that she understands economics, but keeps misusing the words in ways that show she clearly doesn't even understand the definitions. Remember, this is the person who decided that the degenerate case of capitalism is feudalism, in the teeth of thousands of years of recorded history
- in addition to the above, she keeps confusing capitalism with anything involving money and financial instruments, as well as a capitalist system with a market economy
- She also has some sort of fascination with hell, karma and a moral code that, as far as I can tell, springs from her own biases
- She has a weird combination of a victim complex with self-righteous denunciation, declaring that her adversaries are not merely wrong but actually evil. Incipient religious mania? I have no idea.
What I'm saying is: don't take her assertions seriously. I don't. If the government of Canada were to hear of her pursuits I couldn't see them indulging her fantasy of emigrating thence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 02 2021, @07:17PM (2 children)
Aww triggered fundie thinks sanity is insane. You must watch Fox!
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Friday September 03 2021, @02:22AM (1 child)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @03:28PM
At a guess, she does.
Then she imagines that all sorts of people she hates watch Fox, and believe every word spewed from that sewer.
And then she works herself up into a steaming, snorting lather, and signs on to soylent for some Class A venting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 03 2021, @04:51AM
Look up "dharma", it's big steaming heap of "cosmik debris"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 02 2021, @01:48AM
What does "less" mean here? Because it doesn't mean [foxbusiness.com] less taxes.
Moving on:
I blame the millennia of human thought about economics and philosophy, for starters.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday September 01 2021, @09:12PM (13 children)
Kill the banks' usury first, and it won't be needed anywhere else.
:-) Very funny
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 02 2021, @01:50AM (11 children)
Except, of course, in the rest of the economy which no longer has the ability to borrow for big projects any more. Ursury (which in the civilized world, is called "lending" these days) is vastly more useful than its absence.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday September 02 2021, @02:20AM (10 children)
Usury is interest (and vice versa), not lending. Most debt payments are serving the interest, not the principal. Money can be lent without usury. It has to be eliminated.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 02 2021, @02:26AM (9 children)
Usury is lending with interest, usually at exorbitant rates.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday September 02 2021, @03:03AM (8 children)
interest is usury, always...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 02 2021, @03:21AM (7 children)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday September 02 2021, @03:29AM (6 children)
Your personal business is personal, free to conduct as you wish. Banks must be made to serve the public's interest. Usury should not be allowed
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 02 2021, @04:36AM (5 children)
My personal business with banks is also personal.
Because?
Well, how are we going to get more usury, if we ban it? I've negotiated several usury contracts with banks. There was no need for banning. In return, I got assets more valuable than some modest future income.
My take here is that you neither understand what the public interest is or how banks and their lending with interest furthers that public interest.
Rather than getting into another pointless "usury is bad" assertion complex, let's consider what's good about it:
Ursury is a key dynamic of our world and what makes that world superior to the frail and stilted economies of the past. Further, I'm unapologetically deeply involved. When I invest in a company's stock, I'm contributing to an act of ursury (often initiated by a bank). When I put something on a credit card because it was more convenient than carrying around thousands of dollars in cash, I' contributing to usury too.
I'm not going to take orders from an economic ignoramus.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 02 2021, @04:06PM
It's interesting to note how useful money lending is, on the fringes where there are limits today. Start with islamic banking. They end up faking interest, by taking a slice of the returns on an investment. The limits (prescribed by islamic law, by the way, hence the test case) end up illustrating the increased pace of economic activity when money can move more easily to where it is wanted.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday September 02 2021, @10:40PM (3 children)
though I wouldn't call it unnatural. It's perfectly normal predatory behavior of the strong over the weak
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Thursday September 02 2021, @11:35PM (2 children)
Sounds like we need to get our economics philosophy from someone who isn't prey!
I'll note the obvious. Lending is an exchange. Someone provides money or other resources now in exchange for money or resources later. Because of the risk and burden on the lender, interest is a natural payment to compensate for that. No money is created through that interest - that is merely a flawed understanding of the system.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday September 07 2021, @09:51PM (1 child)
"Someone who isn't prey" he says.
You know how I've said every now and then one of you sociopaths lets your mask slip and just casually blurts something absolutely horrifying like that out, without even thinking "hey maybe this is gonna scare the normies?" This is one of those times. Those few words are probably the best capsule summary of your character (or lack thereof) I've seen out of your own mouth yet.
Get a clue, Hallow! A system based on pure consumption and conversion of resources, time, and yes, PEOPLE, into capital, is not sustainable! All you're doing is fine-tuning this shark of a system to produce the maximum amount of sharkshit per unit time!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by khallow on Thursday September 09 2021, @05:29AM
I find it interesting how much psychobabble you get out of a single line of prose. I doubt any "normies" are scared by that particular line. Instead, this is just a sarcastic rejoinder to fusty's ridiculous comparison to a predator-prey ecosystem.
Then it's a good thing we don't have such a system, right? There's not much point to paying attention to you, when you're ignoring reality again.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 03 2021, @02:25AM
What's missed is that when you create pension programs that pay out more than the participants pay in, it's naturally a wealth transfer from the young to the elderly. And well, the elderly are considerably richer so it's not making a lot of sense either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 01 2021, @09:36PM (1 child)
More correctly known as "khallow reality", or complete libertarian fantasy, and fiscal reification. You think that is money you're breathing?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 02 2021, @01:53AM