flipper:

Interesting. What office did he hold prior?

Elected as senator (no big deal, we have 315 of them), he was nominated
sub-secretary (don't laugh as I'm doing while writing it, it's the position
of the 2-4 people directly reporting to the minister) of, guess what,
Finance.

They'll ignore it, of course, but the sentiment is there.

Not here. I just reported to the judiciary the head of the local ACI (it's
a weird cross between AAA and DMV, private, but with public powers and
capital, one of the *******s that are plaguing this country, those
"privatized" agencies, I mean) for a rather severe offence. I know it will
cost me a few hundred of bucks and lead to nowhere, but I'm trying to do
something.

That's the problem with government being operated by people: some of
them are bound to be jerks.

That one particularly. I won't disclose her weight or color.

Even worse ****er if the jerk is 'king'.

Have you ever heard of the "meter attendant syndrome"?
The less power you have, the more you tend to abuse it.

That's funny. In another thread I am accused of being the ultimate
political pessimist.

I think I understand their point (excuse those "I"s. In most Latin
languages "I" is never uttered, the conjugation of the verb implies it).

Yes, if you have a liberal-Jeffersonian (as opposed to liberal-socialist)
point of view, today's occidental world is gone awry. On the other hand, so
far, it's still standing. How this happens is a mistery, for me, and
probably for you too.

I just love 'experts'.

The "social sciences" ones are invariably a crack.

I skimmed it and already have some issues. Like, if the 'dumb folk'
don't think it's funny then maybe it ain't funny despite the 'expert'
analysis. It is, after all, a matter of opinion.

By all means. I was of your same advice, and puzzled about the reason why
they included such a test. But I realized that the point is that dumb
people is often violent and (or because?) they don't have any sense of
humour.

My colloquial experience finds a similar 'miscalibration' among the
'knowledgeable' as well.

Just take a close look at figure 2. That is the real point.
But also fig. 3 (same questions, but after having graded other
participant's tests) is rather interesting.

I didn't find the last sentence of the summary 'paradoxical' at all.
As the saying goes "the more one knows the more they know they don't
know." Or the more common "ignorance is bliss'."

Socrates' most important quotation is "I only know that I know nothing".
It made me laugh, at school. Kruger proved just that he was a Philosopher.

deleted a law about private company financial reports.

I'm not informed enough to follow what you're saying here, though.

No big deal. The "felony" deleted was just a proxy to be used by lazy or
biased judges to draw a sentence without proving the real crime. But this
allowed Berlusconi to be acquitted one more time.

The point is that the trial was about something the previous socialistoid
government had done, but not in an unlisted company, but in Government
accounts, and a million times bigger.

I believe that you make politicians smarter and meaner than they are.

Perhaps meaner but I can't figure out where I implied 'smart'.

LOL.
Well, if somebody achieves his goal he must be either lucky or smart.
Or he's just doing what people wants him to.

Senator Harry Reid went on national television and actually argued
with the commentator that the Federal Income Tax is voluntary. And
that idiot is not 'just' a Senator, he's the blooming Senate Majority
Leader.

Gosh.

Well, our socialistoid former minister of Finances famously said that payng
taxes is wonderful. But I must admit Sen. Reid beats him.

Maybe not a 'grand plot' by all but it doesn't take a genius to figure
out that bribing the constituency with 'free things' might make you
popular and it's only a small step from there to delude yourself it's
'for their own good'.

Right. But the constituency must be willing to be taken for a ride.

flipper:

I thought you were saying that not paying VAT on exports was, itself,
the 'scam'.

No, it's the fact that their suppliers don't put any VAT on their invoices.

The only good thing done by our government in the last 10 years is a form
where you state how much you owe for VAT, Social Security, personal income,
injury fund, helthcare. You sum up all the dues and pay the total.

Sounds surprisingly logical and fair for government to have thought of
it.

Well, the person I told you about (formerly promoter of the only "anti-tax
march" ever made in Italy) has a lot to deal with it.

LOL. I believe (and am pretty sure) if they make most of their income by
expoerting stuff.

I gathered it was those who make 'most' income that way but it almost
seemed as if the term is meant to imply some kind of pejorative.

May be a cultural thing as, like in the so called 'drug war', we tend
to speak of 'casual' vs 'habitual' drug users, with the later being
'worse'. 'Habitual' criminal, 'habitual' offender, 'habitual' liar,
etc.

'Habitual' exporter.

Well, I'm afraid that you may be close to it. Habitual evader.

To be more precise, governments should exist just for managing the
"monopoly of violence".

Not sure I want to put it that way as it's a bit of a loaded term that
almost implies government has a 'duty of violence' rather than, say, a
duty to 'protect' *from* violence. And I would argue the Jeffersonian
logic that this is one of the 'mutual benefits' the people consider in
forming the government: mutual security balanced against the necessary
restriction to unlimited freedom.

That was my first reaction when I heard that phrase.
But, if you think about it, it's perfect. Plus, it's apparently scandalous.
Great conversation point!

'Elitism' is a pejorative.

So far. I liked the Bushes much more that the current an pre-previous
president, but the fact that one was the father of the other, and this
after already having had the Kennedy dynasty, should ring some bells.

Because 'conservatives' tend to vote on the principle that, as the
saying goes, "elections have consequences," so if that's who they want
then, barring a blatant disqualification, even if they don't like
their politics they should be confirmed. Or, put more simply,
'politics' of the candidate should not be a consideration. And,
secondly, they tend to accept 'ratings' by prominent legal
associations.

The left, on the other hand, demand adherence to their political
positions and since the Senate requires a 2/3's vote for cloture of
anything they can block anyone who doesn't comply, even when in the
minority.

So your left is completely different from ours. Yeah, sure.

This began most blatantly with the 1987 nomination of Robert Bork, who
was viciously attacked and blocked by the left. Since then it's been
called 'borking' a nominee or a nominee getting 'borked'.

Ironically, conservatives would not like many of his opinions either.

Well, so maybe he was caught in the middle. but, from when I was there
(89-94), I have a reminescence of cans of Coke and pubic hair.

The 'tradition' has become to nominate candidates with no record to
view, and so 'attack', and for them to say essentially nothing of
substance, that could then be attacked. The required 'talent' is the
ability to talk without saying anything.

My deepest condolescences. An important institution has been sabotaged.

On 23/11/2010 04:57, flipper wrote:
On Tue, 23 Nov 2010 04:53:14 +0100, "F. Bertolazzi"
wrote:

flipper:

I thought you were saying that not paying VAT on exports was, itself,
the 'scam'.

No, it's the fact that their suppliers don't put any VAT on their invoices.

I'm lost. Who's supplying to whom that's exporting from to where?

It is a cross border fraud that relies on building a series of import,
internal and export transactions that disguise what is going on and then
the company vanishes into thin air leaving all its VAT liabilities
unpaid. There have been some very sophisticated carousel frauds where
some layers were actually genuine businesses caught up in a scam.

Wiki explains it roughly below. Prosecutions are rare since catching the
clever ones after they have vanished tends to be rather tricky.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_trader_fraud

Carbon credits offer some really lucrative opportunities for the
unscrupulous provided they don't get caught. Recent prosecution details:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...carousel-fraud

(nothing physical actually moves in this variant of the scam)

Regards,
Martin Brown

flipper:

Too bad that isn't a 'sub'marine, he'd get to travel. hehe

Okay, pathetic joke.

I cannot disagree.

'Private' agencies' with public powers? What's the logic behind that?

ACI is a strange thing. It also manages the F1 races in Italy.
It used to be just like the AAA, but since our DMV has byzantine
"interfaces", it has, in time, become it's only "front-end".
Pratically, if you have to pay the taxes on you car, sell it or renew your
driving license, you have to go through them.

When you think that, until recently, a car property transfer costed about
$900 (Berlusconi brought it down to "only" $600), you can imagine the
amount of money they handle.

But here we have thousands of such private/public companies: each town has
its own for public transport, water, gas, sometimes electricity; roads,
parks and lighting maintenance and so on.

Then there are the national railways, the telephones, the electric grid,
are all owned by "privapublic" companies.

Those are regular corporations, but the capital is public and hence all
losses are repaid by the State or local council.

What's the logic? Easy: they're private companies, so they can hire (fire
does not exist for public or privapublic employees, even the Brigate Rosse
terrorist that has been in jail 10 years has been reintegrated in his job
in railways and paid 10 years of past wages because of "unjust layoff") who
they want, without a public entrance examination, at the wage they decide,
since they cannot be compared to a public servant of similar
responsibility.

It's normal that the head of the water company (that, being ex-public, has
no competitor) earns more than the mayor. And often there is one manager
each two employees. And maybe half of a member of the board!

But, since the president of those companies is, clearly, a politician (the
mayor or one ot his staff), it's very likely that the CEO will be a
politician of the same party, that was not elected or brought a lot of
votes for the mayor, and the managers the retarded sons of other
politicians. Since we are talking about private companies, the CEO of water
can (and often will) also be on the board of public transport.

So, whenever some politician will talk you about the merits of
privatization of public services, BEWARE, BEWARE, BEWARE.

You have to pay to complain?

Complain? What for? When the watchman is the same as the offender, to whom
you complain?

Yes, if you have a liberal-Jeffersonian (as opposed to liberal-socialist)

You hit on one of my bugaboos: 'liberal'. In particular, the left's co
opting of the word when their philosophy is in direct opposition to
it's political meaning.

The individual subordinate to a 'common good', or the 'good of
society', or 'the state', or the 'collective', depending on the
socialist flavor, is not 'liberty', the root of the word.

My mother used to be a smart and honest person, one of the 2% of Italians
voting for the Republican Party (yes, we had one, guess who elected the
mentioned professor), but now she is getting old and, because of an
undeniable but frustrated sexual attraction for Berlusconi (this phrase
drives her mad ), communist.

So she listens to one of the communist radios and TVs and reads a communist
newspaper (most of the media, including several ones owned by Berlusconi,
are leftist). The other day she told me that she heard a philosopher
(probably the usual high school professor of Philosophy) that explained
that the main difference between left and right is that the left is based
upon the individual, the right upon the masses.

No way I can make her come back to reality.

Can you believe it? I'm afraid you do.

Yes, however the 'test' is taught knowledge. By that I mean they're
comparing people unknowledgeable of the environment with those who are
so some are predicting their performance on foreign soil, if you get
my drift, while the others are estimating their performance with the
familiar.

Ok, but the result is that the former are overconfident and the latter
insecure.

Put the 'educated' in an environment different than the 'education'
and I'll wager you'll get similar mismatch between self evaluation and
performance.

In the sense that they will pick up a fight with someone that looks shorter
but, being more accustomed to fists, will maim them?

I'm not sure that's expressed very well but I can think of other
'interpretations' too.

I'm afraid you have misinterpreted the whole thing, and I understand why: I
am getting more and more alergic to "culture", with some friends (most are
still leftist) I refer jokingly (but not too much) to contemporary art as
"degenerated" or, while listening to some "highly cultured" jerks, that my
hand runs to the revolver [both cit., Goebbles].

But here they are talking about skills, like humour (ok, questionable
topic) or logical reasoning for which there is not a particular "major".

All the tests were submitted to Cornell University undergraduates, not an
average sample of the populace.

Even funnier is when people don't know, and know they don't know, but
feel compelled to give an answer anyway rather than simply admit they
don't know.

Well, that's already better than jocks (usenet is filled with such types)
that don't know, don't know that they don't know, that answer and, if you
dare to tell them they're wrong, raise hell.

Right. But the constituency must be willing to be taken for a ride.

Well, that's what a con artist says too but it's not a legal defense.

See, I'm trying to be optimistic because if you're right then it's
dern near hopeless.

That's it.

flipper:

I'm lost. Who's supplying to whom that's exporting from to where?

Also our IRS gets lost. See Martin Brown's answer.

Ah, hah!. One of them trouble maker types

Did I mention that he was not allowed to run again? ;-)

Well, as I also mentioned, the Republican Party, in the meanwhile,
disappeared for a scandal. They had accepted $120.000 for their "campaign
fund" by the same guy that, in the meanwhile, distributed $150 million to
*all* the parties.

Some $110M were traced by the judges, and that lead to the destruction of
almost all italian parties, except for the ex-fascists (because they never
ever had the slightest power) and the communist party (at the time it was
still named so) because they are honest.

Right. But what about the missing $40M (roughly proportional to PCI's
representativity in Parliament)?

Don't get me wrong. While I concentrate on the 'problems' and 'dopes'
we occasionally luck out and elect someone with sense.

But smart politicians never make the same mistake twice. ;-)
And if the voters are short-sighted and spoiled...

Well, I'm afraid that you may be close to it. Habitual evader.

I see. Well, that gets back to my comment that you *need* exports so I
don't get why that's 'bad'.

1) A "regular" company sums up all the VAT it has added to its invoices,
detracts the VAT that was added on the invoices from its suppliers and pays
the difference to the State.

2) If a company exports something, "she" does not add VAT on the invoice
for the exported goods, so she pays less to the State.

3) If a company exports most of "her" products, the amout to be paid to the
State becomes negative (because of the VAT she paid to suppliers), so she
has the right to a refund, a cumbersome and "scam-prone" procedure.

So the solution, for "habitual exporters" (case 3), was to have them not to
be charget VAT at all, because, statistically, their suppliers had more
"non exporting" customers than "exporting" (VAT exempt) ones, so they would
pay a little less VAT (as in case 2) and nobody would ask for a refund.

But, since it is more than 10 years that we have the F24 (the smart form I
talked about), and that the "abitual exporter" will have to pay the income
taxes and retirement for his employees (that, as we've seen, make 2/3 of
government income, while VAT and levies are just 1/3), they could be
charged full VAT and still have 1/3 of taxes to pay, without any need for
refunds.

Well, more or less. If the exporting company is just a "box mover" whith
high revenues but relatively low profit and few employees (= little added
value), it will need a refund, but such companies are a more and more rare
exception.

But, despite F24, we still have VAT exempt "habitual exporters".

Go figure...

And, if you are a very high added value (I design and build trivial
embedded systems) "company" with mostly "habitual exporters" (mostly to
perfectly italian ships) customers, you're screwed.

So far. I liked the Bushes much more that the current an pre-previous
president, but the fact that one was the father of the other, and this
after already having had the Kennedy dynasty, should ring some bells.

Yes. Although, I don't think anyone voted for the second 'because' of
the first.

Yes, but he was able to run (= collect donations and receive political
endorsements) mostly because of his father. Well, you may say, better
because of a father that was a President than an alcohol smuggler.

That was Clarence Thomas and the 59'th minute of the eleventh hour
Anita Hill 'sexual harassment' accusation.

Right.

Maybe I'm culturally deprived but I never heard of dropping pubic
hairs around, much less on a drink lid, as a 'come on'. That is, I
never heard of it till Anita Hill explained it to us.

LOL. I missed that explaination, since I did not have a TV, but not much,
since, when I got one, I only watched the newborn Comedy Central.

flipper:

Zowie!. Is that a flat rate per transaction or are you giving an
'average'. I mean, what if the damn (used) car is only worth $600 to
begin with?

Huh. I promised myself that I was going to just look who would eventually
answer. But your fascist provocation is too much.

No, dear, it's not like there, where you get a kind letter from the DMV
asking to give them some money by personal check, enclosed prestamped
envelope, or phone your CC number, and, after 10 years (yes, I bought a car
almost that old) they send you a letter that does not tell you "if you are
so poor that you still drive that jalopee (is it the correct spelling? I
got the word from "cuars tuolk" from the NPR, to whom I gave $100 every 6
months) it's ok, but we are not going to harrass you any longer, loser",
but something infinitely more polite.

No, here, even if the car is 30 years old, you still pay exactly the same
(well, almost, let's say 10 times more) than when it was new. Because, if
you have a jalopee, you're still a capitalist, Enemy of The People.

So, if you barter that luxury jalopee for an amount of even lousyer money
you still have to pay the same fraction of your crime against The People,
even if that's twice as much as the car's value.

In general, private is private here and they take the profit/loss.
They're also highly regulated.

The Public regulates the Private, and there's nothing Jefferson (I lived
less than 20 miles from Monticello) would say against it.

Much worse is when the Public should regulate a privapublica that's head
and shoulder (practically, certainly not morally) above "him".

Thanks, too late, I will mark your post as "not yet read".


And yes, the fact that the State has the monopoly of violence implies that
no violence can be done against the trustees of that monopoly.

flipper:

Wouldn't it be simpler if everyone were simply required to divulge up
front where the money comes from?

They were. That's why they ended up in jail.

Politics seems to consist mainly of promising a wonderful world and
don't bother your pretty head with the details.

Yes, aversion to responsibilities is a form of lazyness.

And, if you are a very high added value (I design and build trivial
embedded systems) "company" with mostly "habitual exporters" (mostly to
perfectly italian ships) customers, you're screwed.

Sounds to me like maybe another argument against FAT.

FAT in the sense of VAT?

Yes, but he was able to run (= collect donations and receive political
endorsements) mostly because of his father. Well, you may say, better
because of a father that was a President than an alcohol smuggler.

Maybe but I don't recall that being an issue and I would have thought
that would have been an 'accusation' if there were much of it.

That's the problem. If even you were not disturbed by this, well, there's
something wrong. Or maybe not.

I watched the hearings on C-SPAN, which simply sticks a camera in the
room. There is no 'commentary' or pinheads 'explaining' what you just
heard for yourself.

I did watch it a couple of times, but, besides the legendary boredom, they
spoke about problems that I did not know and care enough.
But I believe that's an essential service. Even if, without proper
explaination of some non-trivial points it can be "dangerous".

But the disparity between what I watched live and what was 'reported'
made me wonder what country's Congress they were listening to.

They were listening to what their whips ordered.

flipper:

In general, private is private here and they take the profit/loss.
They're also highly regulated.

By whom? By it's owner?

There are some notable exceptions like Amtrak, Corporation for Public
Broadcasting, The Tennessee Valley Authority, FDIC, etc. Those are
(federal) 'government companies'.

Well, PBS is tightly regulated by its public: no donations, no "matching
gift". Are the other ones as well managed?

Of particular notoriety are the GSEs (government sponsored enterprise)
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac of the sub prime loan crisis. They are, by
law, 'private' and obliged to take the profit/loss but operate under
an unwritten and legally unsubstantiated expectation that government
will, nevertheless, 'guarantee' them, an expectation that proved to be
valid in the bailout.

And, before, in the reckless management of FNMA and FHLMC.
Which, maybe, was, as all the "madness" of financial markets, just a
by-product of Mr. Greenspan's policies.

Fair warning but the kind of cronyism and "conflict of interest" you
speak of is automatic scandal material over here.

Here is so common that nobody cares anymore.
Unless there's Berlusconi involved, even allegedly.

Corruption can and does exist, of course, but I think we're generally
working in the right direction.

That's the difference.

The big problem you have is that Mr. Greenspan bribed the whole country.

I recently did a property 'tax protest' (actual name on the form)
challenging the city's appraisal and the 'hearing' was a surprisingly
pleasant, cost free, and successful experience.

The only such experience I had was when they stole my moped for a ride, a
local policeman found it and sent it to the local police's depot, where it
was partially dismantled for stealing half of the parts.

They replaced the stolen parts with new ones, but all was done, apart from
my initial report to the national police, "privately". So it was a
completely different affair, more "cosa nostra" style.

Is that a typo, the left and right reversed from us over there, or is
he nuts?

No, it's just the fact that we ran out of money, so the socialists are, as
their custom, re-writing History for showing that not only they had nothing
to do with the disaster they provoked, but also that they are the only ones
capable of pulling us out of it.

And, as you can see from my mother's reaction, they can do it.

I wasn't really arguing against the paper so much as saying I didn't
find it a stunning revelation and presented 'quotes' similar to the
one they, themselves, brought up with Jefferson's "he who knows best
best knows how little he knows.”

Or Socrates.
But they did not stress the opposite, thing that this paper does.

Ignorance is bliss.

For the ignorant maybe. But not for the others.

People are almost fanatically averse to the admission "I don't know"
and infinitely more averse to "I was mistaken."

Personally, I'm happier when I'm wrong than when I'm right, because I
learnt something new, so I'm the one that "winned" something.

Well, cheer me up some more, why don't you? LOL

You don't live in Europe, much less in Africa or South America.
What else do you want?

I still cling to the faith that reason eventually wins. I have to
because the other choice is back to the jungle.

That's exacly were Muslims (almost all of them, not only the talibans) want
all the word to go.

Talking abouy talibans, do you know the best documentary ever made,
Connections? I saw it on the other channel I used to watch while in Va.

Take a look at its first installment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcSxL8GUn-g

Creepy coincidences, huh?

"F. Bertolazzi" wrote:

flipper:

In general, private is private here and they take the profit/loss.
They're also highly regulated.

By whom? By it's owner?

There are some notable exceptions like Amtrak, Corporation for Public
Broadcasting, The Tennessee Valley Authority, FDIC, etc. Those are
(federal) 'government companies'.

Well, PBS is tightly regulated by its public: no donations, no "matching
gift". Are the other ones as well managed?


PBS runs telethons for donations.


--
For the last time: I am not a mad scientist, I'm just a very ticked off
scientist!!!

flipper wrote:
On Wed, 24 Nov 2010 15:56:29 +0100, "F. Bertolazzi"

E.g. President Obama's 2008 campaign was predominately based on "hope
and change" punctuated by "yes we can!" None of which means a blessed
thing unless one has some idea what the alleged 'change' is to be.

Well, now we know. The change, as always, has been from bad to worse.

Or maybe he's talking about the pocket change that's left to feed yourself
(and your family, if you have one) after they finish raping your paycheck.

Thanks,
Rich

flipper:

Ah, I see. So literally everybody was taking money and not disclosing,
as required by law?

Exactly. That's because the briber wanted to (I cannot be very precise,
because, at the time, I was living there) have a... VAT exemption (not
exactly, there is also a 10% VAT, he wanted his wares to be classified in a
lower "bracket") for basic chemicals and incentives for grain alcohol. He
later committed suicide with a revolver whose hammer was allegedly still in
firing position.

I agree but was speaking from the politicians' perspective, or some of
them anyway. People then seem to 'fill in the blanks' with whatever
they 'think' the politician means by the flowery horse manure. Plus
there are plenty of pundits with their fanciful interpretations.

Moreover.

E.g. President Obama's 2008 campaign was predominately based on "hope
and change" punctuated by "yes we can!" None of which means a blessed
thing unless one has some idea what the alleged 'change' is to be.

Blair won elections three times in the UK with his "third way".
I don't think anybody still knows what that means.

President Clinton's re election motto was "a bridge to the 21'st
century," as if the planetary clock wouldn't tick past midnight 1999
unless he was elected.

2000. The 21st century began in 2001. ;-)
Now I understand where the folly of the "millennium bug" originated.

He was right: with his accomplice Greenspan he abridged one recession and
consequent layoffs, as Bush, freshly elected, did again. How?
By printing money and lowering interest rates until they become negative
(lower than inflation). If you sabotage the basic tenet of capitalism, i.e.
that when you borrow money you must return a bigger sum, everything can
happen. And it did.

Quid pro quo only works if one has a quid and the other had a quo but
Daddy was not in office (8 years out) nor was he rich enough to 'buy'
votes and I'm not sure his endorsement meant any more than if he had
endorsed anyone else (although I don't recall him making public
endorsements), or the endorsement of the son by others.

Sure, he did not have to say anything, just being the father of a, pardon
me, less than average smart guy meant he was going to be the real president
(or, at least, that the President would have had a well staffed cabinet).

And, let me say, get the second term he (the father) deserved. I was there,
at the time, communist like an idiot, and I still cannot understand why you
elected Clinton. Just good looks and velvet tongue, as this one?

Btw, the Kennedy thing you referenced was more an accusation that rich
illegal rum running daddy was buying the presidency, trying to fulfill
his own failed aspirations through the sons, and that, later, a
'Kennedy' vote was little more than a sympathy vote for JFK.

Do you think he was a great (I don't mean just good) president?

But it highlighted that I could not take 'the news' as either factual
or 'unbiased', despite their daily assurances.

Dunno, things are often much more complicate (that does not mean "complex")
than they look.

Michael A. Terrell:

"F. Bertolazzi" wrote:

Well, PBS is tightly regulated by its public: no donations, no "matching
gift". Are the other ones as well managed?

PBS runs telethons for donations.

Was I saying anything different?

F. Bertolazzi wrote:

2000. The 21st century began in 2001. ;-)

So, you bailed on all the Odometer whing-dings? Sitting at home, pouting,
saying. "It's NOT the new century, it's NOT the new century."?

Last time you got a new car, did you ignore when the odometer went from
1999.9 to 2000.0 miles, then call the kids over to watch the odometer
change from 2000.9 to 2001.0? :-

Thanks,
Rich

flipper:

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 03:10:45 +0100, "F. Bertolazzi"
wrote:

Exactly. That's because the briber wanted to (I cannot be very precise,
because, at the time, I was living there) have a... VAT exemption (not
exactly, there is also a 10% VAT, he wanted his wares to be classified in a
lower "bracket") for basic chemicals and incentives for grain alcohol. He
later committed suicide with a revolver whose hammer was allegedly still in
firing position.

I'm just surprised 'everyone' went along.

Sorry, can you rephrase the above? I can't understand what you mean.

Blair won elections three times in the UK with his "third way".
I don't think anybody still knows what that means.

The 'third way' goes back to the collapse of the Eastern Block and
Soviet Union with some socialist elements concluding that managed
economies don't work. So the 'third way' is meant to employ
'entrepreneurship' and the 'free market' as tools in implementing
socialist policy.

Well, here nobody dared to say it that plainly. There are no more
Communists in Italy. Well, you may say that there are, but they're lying.
The sad truth is that Europe is already so socialist that a commie may look
as a mildly progressive bloke.

This is not entirely new. Fascism was also touted as a 'third way' and
favored 'private enterprise', subject to the good of the state, vs
communism which extols state ownership.

It's not a case that Mussolini, before being expelled from the socialist
party, was a "maximalist socialist", as opposed to "reformist socialist".
The two factions split in, if I remember well, 1924, forming the communist
and the socialist party.

After all Catholicism is not too different from fascism: you are allowed to
own your home and personal belongings, provided tey're nott too much.

Fascism, however, directly controlled private enterprise when the need
arose

Or if the enterprise was sufficiently powerful. The IRI (lauded by, guess
who, Keynes) was made for that.

The only difference between fascism and communism is the respect for small
property. Communism deletes also that.


An example would be "cap and trade" where the government sets up caps,

Yea, "crap and trade the manure".

Some argue this is akin to a mugger claiming you 'voluntarily' handed
over your wallet and the gun poked in your chest was merely an
'incentive' for you to decide on the proper behavior.

LOL

2000. The 21st century began in 2001. ;-)

Now I understand where the folly of the "millennium bug" originated.

No, that was software and had to do with various methods 'old'
software used for year calculations like, as one example, using only
the last 2 digits.

Yes, at the time I was still a "softwarist" and made good money in doing
rather useless maintenance. I mean, a single line would have sufficed, i.e.
if(dateend-datebegin) 0 then result = result + 100
while everybody insisted to bring the year field to four digits, so the
solution will be perfect for the next 8k years to came.

He was right: with his accomplice Greenspan he abridged one recession and
consequent layoffs, as Bush, freshly elected, did again. How?
By printing money and lowering interest rates until they become negative
(lower than inflation). If you sabotage the basic tenet of capitalism, i.e.
that when you borrow money you must return a bigger sum, everything can
happen. And it did.

That sounds good but upon inspection it doesn't explain the crisis.

It does: if you skip the "bad" effects of three crises, you end up with a
triple crisis.

Government, however, is not a 'profit enterprise'.

Even if it was, at least as far as the enterprises and people under its
jurisdiction, it would be an unbeatable competitor, because your money is
its money, the more you make, the more it taxes you.

Clinton, btw, is a 'third wayer'.

Right, pals also with mr. D'alema, the former senior member of PCI, that
bombed Serbia without even consulting the Parliament.

When Berlusconi sent some troops *after* the war in Iraq was won (you can't
imagine the deluded faces of almost half of the italian population whe you
won in about a month), his party voted against it and continues to claim
that that's an illegal war initiative, even if, this time, the Parliament
voted on it.

But, paraphasing you, Berlusconi wears horrible socks. ;-)

Depends on how you measure it. Conservatives love to point to
Kennedy's tax cuts.

A good start.

Probably the most famous, both here and abroad, aspect of his
presidency was the Cuban missile crisis, a crisis he induced by the,
so called, "missile gap" he campaigned on. Once in office he
discovered the falsehood of it but decided to begin a buildup anyway,
which panicked the Soviet Union into retaliating with missiles in
Cuba.

Well, it's also true that you had missiles in Turkey, which is in a similar
geographical position relative to Russia, and probably Iran.

But no, here he is maily the young progressive president killed by an
obscure conservative plot just before the US briefly become a really free
country (hippies, flower power and all that crap).

Only my mother once told me of the 1963(?) scare. Once every while there is
a documentary about it, but it's not a commonly known fact. That's the
magic of leftist propaganta: the benevolent USSR would have never dared to
menace the US. Only the fascist yankees do that.

But in most towns there is a big street or a place named after him. Maybe
because, at the time, we were in our "chinese era" (Italy was the first to
repay the Marshall loan) and we were building the country.

I know there can be 'behind the scenes' issues and unobvious
historical context but that wasn't the case in the things I saw.

It often happens.

flipper:

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 03:10:45 +0100, "F. Bertolazzi"
wrote:

Exactly. That's because the briber wanted to (I cannot be very precise,
because, at the time, I was living there) have a... VAT exemption (not
exactly, there is also a 10% VAT, he wanted his wares to be classified in a
lower "bracket") for basic chemicals and incentives for grain alcohol. He
later committed suicide with a revolver whose hammer was allegedly still in
firing position.

I'm just surprised 'everyone' went along.

Sorry, can you rephrase the above? I can't understand what you mean.

Blair won elections three times in the UK with his "third way".
I don't think anybody still knows what that means.

The 'third way' goes back to the collapse of the Eastern Block and
Soviet Union with some socialist elements concluding that managed
economies don't work. So the 'third way' is meant to employ
'entrepreneurship' and the 'free market' as tools in implementing
socialist policy.

Well, here nobody dared to say it that plainly. There are no more
Communists in Italy. Well, you may say that there are, but they're lying.
The sad truth is that Europe is already so socialist that a commie may look
as a mildly progressive bloke.

This is not entirely new. Fascism was also touted as a 'third way' and
favored 'private enterprise', subject to the good of the state, vs
communism which extols state ownership.

It's not a case that Mussolini, before being expelled from the socialist
party, was a "maximalist socialist", as opposed to "reformist socialist".
The two factions split in, if I remember well, 1924, forming the communist
and the socialist party.

After all Catholicism is not too different from fascism: you are allowed to
own your home and personal belongings, provided tey're nott too much.

Fascism, however, directly controlled private enterprise when the need
arose

Or if the enterprise was sufficiently powerful. The IRI (lauded by, guess
who, Keynes) was made for that.

The only difference between fascism and communism is the respect for small
property. Communism deletes also that.


An example would be "cap and trade" where the government sets up caps,

Yea, "crap and trade the manure".

Some argue this is akin to a mugger claiming you 'voluntarily' handed
over your wallet and the gun poked in your chest was merely an
'incentive' for you to decide on the proper behavior.

LOL

2000. The 21st century began in 2001. ;-)

Now I understand where the folly of the "millennium bug" originated.

No, that was software and had to do with various methods 'old'
software used for year calculations like, as one example, using only
the last 2 digits.

Yes, at the time I was still a "softwarist" and made good money in doing
rather useless maintenance. I mean, a single line would have sufficed, i.e.
if(dateend-datebegin) 0 then result = result + 100
while everybody insisted to bring the year field to four digits, so the
solution will be perfect for the next 8k years to came.

He was right: with his accomplice Greenspan he abridged one recession and
consequent layoffs, as Bush, freshly elected, did again. How?
By printing money and lowering interest rates until they become negative
(lower than inflation). If you sabotage the basic tenet of capitalism, i.e.
that when you borrow money you must return a bigger sum, everything can
happen. And it did.

That sounds good but upon inspection it doesn't explain the crisis.

It does: if you skip the "bad" effects of three crises, you end up with a
triple crisis.

Government, however, is not a 'profit enterprise'.

Even if it was, at least as far as the enterprises and people under its
jurisdiction, it would be an unbeatable competitor, because your money is
its money, the more you make, the more it taxes you.

Clinton, btw, is a 'third wayer'.

Right, pals also with mr. D'alema, the former senior member of PCI, that
bombed Serbia without even consulting the Parliament.

When Berlusconi sent some troops *after* the war in Iraq was won (you can't
imagine the deluded faces of almost half of the italian population whe you
won in about a month), his party voted against it and continues to claim
that that's an illegal war initiative, even if, this time, the Parliament
voted on it.

But, paraphasing you, Berlusconi wears horrible socks. ;-)

Depends on how you measure it. Conservatives love to point to
Kennedy's tax cuts.

A good start.

Probably the most famous, both here and abroad, aspect of his
presidency was the Cuban missile crisis, a crisis he induced by the,
so called, "missile gap" he campaigned on. Once in office he
discovered the falsehood of it but decided to begin a buildup anyway,
which panicked the Soviet Union into retaliating with missiles in
Cuba.

Well, it's also true that you had missiles in Turkey, which is in a similar
geographical position relative to Russia, and probably Iran.

But no, here he is maily the young progressive president killed by an
obscure conservative plot just before the US briefly become a really free
country (hippies, flower power and all that crap).

Only my mother once told me of the 1963(?) scare. Once every while there is
a documentary about it, but it's not a commonly known fact. That's the
magic of leftist propaganta: the benevolent USSR would have never dared to
menace the US. Only the fascist yankees do that.

But in most towns there is a big street or a place named after him. Maybe
because, at the time, we were in our "chinese era" (Italy was the first to
repay the Marshall loan) and we were building the country.

I know there can be 'behind the scenes' issues and unobvious
historical context but that wasn't the case in the things I saw.

It often happens.

flipper:

On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 20:10:07 +0100, "F. Bertolazzi"
wrote:

I thought you said *all* the parties were caught up in that scandal

Except for powerless fascists and honest communists.

and I'm surprised every one of them would break the law just because
that donor wanted them to.

No, they broke the law routinely, that donor, as all the other donors,
could not care less.

I thought the Catholic tithe was 10%, but I'm not Catholic so I don't
know.

Neither I ever paid it. ;-)

10% was not peanuts, when the disposable income was almost nonexistent.
And the services given to the population were no big deal. That's why
Luther had such a following.

Anyway, kings and emperors were crowned by the Pope, it was the Pope that
organized the Lepanto fleet.

Believe it or not, many 'intellectuals' like to bandy that sophistry.

I do, I do. :-(

Yes, at the time I was still a "softwarist" and made good money in doing
rather useless maintenance. I mean, a single line would have sufficed, i.e.
if(dateend-datebegin) 0 then result = result + 100

Yes, well, that doesn't work if all the routines are passing 2 digit
dates around.

In which case(s)?

One of the most insightful comments on the impending 'y2k crisis' came
from a banker who said "it's not as if we haven't known for quite some
time now that the year 2000 was coming."

LOL

It does: if you skip the "bad" effects of three crises, you end up with a
triple crisis.

Pardon me but that's still a generality that doesn't necessarily hold
true. It would depend on what the 'crisis' was and what you did.

The economic cycles are all the same. People buys stuff, the more they buy
the more other people buy their services, and the more they are able to buy
more goods and services from others. The more stuff is bought, the more it
makes sense to invest money to produce goods and services at a lower cost
than competitor's. So entrepreneurs go to banks and borrow money to invest
in a new production plant or ERP software. This way the price of goods
falls until it goes below its cost. So the enterprises go bankrupt and they
don't give back the money to the banks. So the banks run into red and ask
the other debitors to give them back the capital lent. So more enterprises
go bankrupt and the unemplyment rate rises.

Unless the FED gives the banks plenty of money at extraordinary rates, in
which case they spare the debtors and, voilà, you avoided the downturn.

But you are still overproducing and are loaded with rotten companies.
So, sooner or later, the manure will hit the ventilator, and it will be
well matured manure, with an icing of financial horrors.

That was my point about Obama's patent absurdity in claiming his
government healthcare plan would 'compete' with private enterprise.

Ludicrous.

That's like claiming a 'fair fight' between a boxer and an M1A1 tank.

Exactly. But the tank, once flattened the boxer, will flatten everything
else.

They claim the authorization to use military force, duly passed by
both houses with the requisite votes, is 'unconstitutional' because
the text didn't use the word "war."

LOL, even better than our commies.

I guess Oswald being a flaming communist is sort of passed over, eh?

I had no idea about that. I only know "for sure" that the real killers were
from mafia, CIA and FBI. And some nasty multinational too.

How do they reconcile "Ich bin ein Berliner" and his anti-communist
stance?

What? Anti-communist? He only wanted to make peace with Russia.

Holy cow, you cannot imagine what is like to live in a country with a
communist party that had 35% of the votes, extra money from Russia, all the
"intellectuals" and 90% of the newspapers.

flipper:

This administration has knocked it down a notch or two but I figure
plain statistics say not everyone can be a crook.

This is true. That's my argument against the leftists that accuse nasty
multinationals, the CIA & the like of the worst conspirations. I even
retaliate with "if you think that there is people able to do similar
horrors it means that you yourself would be willing to do the same".

But in this case we are talking about people doing shady business.
Shady because they they are buying something that does not have a real
market value (unless you are doing auctions, but even in this case, given
the low number of participants, they could form a cartel) from a seller
that is not interested in getting as much money from the deal as possible
(I mean, money that goes to the Government, not kickbacks).

And most of those are living in Europe snicker (Not really but it makes
me feel better.)

Very likely.

I used to have a theory, borrowed from physics, that I called
"conservation of insanity," meaning if you think things are going well
'here' then things are equally bad 'there' and vice versa.

Sorry, my English is very rusty. Cah you please rephrase?

It's true that some nets, like railways, make little sense nowadays, but
I'd like to get running water and electricity. When those networks will
collapse, Government will be forced to step in.

Well, my experience has been that government is worse than the
exploiting 'well connected investors'.

From a global perspective it's true, but from the point of view of the
network is not, for exactly the same reason: if there is a maintenance
problem the State will pour money to fix the problem (by taking money out
taxpayer pockets thus causing a global problem), while the private
investor, that does not have a practically infinite pile of money to spill,
will do nothing. And, as you know, the cost of "skipped maintenance",
depending on the type of network, may grow exponentially.

The no ask, no down, deferred interest loans were not promulgated
because of FED interest rates, that was deliberate social engineering
policy.

How did they accomplished this task, if not by letting banks have all the
credit they wanted from the FED at such a *real* rate that would justify an
higher investment risk ?

What's the difference between a house that is not rented and a
company that cannot even repay "regular" interests?

There was no spike in interests rates to create a 'repay' crisis.

Exactly. That's because the prime rate was below zero.

The sub prime crisis was two fold. First was the issuance of suspect
loans compounded by hidden risk because there was ZERO information
about the buyer's ability to pay. But the issuer, Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac, nevertheless guaranteed the securities.

Because the government guaranteed Fannie and Freddie, so the private
investors in those funds had nothing to risk and plenty to earn from
reckless lending.
Why should you care about the borrower's ability to repay the debt, if you
already know that the debt will be anyway repaid?

But, again, that's not a 'low interest' issue.

Yes it is. If you find out that a mortgage on the house you live in costs
less than the rent you're paying, you would be stupid not to buy it.

Unless, as I was saying, the interests are so high, for the bank that has
accesss to negative-rate FED funds, that it is so profitable that the bank
will accept a higher, not "natural", risk for higher, "not natural"
profits.

You have that potential problem no matter what the interest rates are.
The 'high risk' simply has to pay correspondingly more.

Exactly. If, because of below-zero prime rate, the 3% interest you apply to
the loan becomes a 5%, you are prepared to take more risks.

There is yet another effect: if the other banks are taking advantage of
this weird situation and you don't, they will earn money that will became
dividends that will attract investors and/or they will attract more
customers with better conditions and you will be left without investors
and/or customers.

IMO the problem wasn't 'high risk', per see, but unrealistic 'no
information' loans backed by unrealistic guarantees that made accurate
risk analysis impossible and, to make matters worse, with no means to
know the stated risk is invalid.

Not all mortgages were for buiyng the house. A lot of them was initiated on
already paid houses by owners that realized tat, by borrowing money at a
low interest and betting it on a dotcom, they could double (or more) the
invested capital with no effort and minimal risk, as long as others would
do the same.

For instance a tenure of 19 years against an average of 7, plus being
revered as a god for the whole period. What else would you desire?

LOL. Well, it could be because he was good.

Wait, I made the calculation including him.
Previously the average was 6 years.
Have you eber heard the saying "too much of a good thing"?

Seriously, the *purpose* of the FED is to keep the economy 'humming'
at the right level and, while we could debate whether its even
possible for the FED to do the job it was created for, you're
essentially 'accusing' him of doing what he was hired to do.

Yes, you're right. It's not the FED job to puncture dotcom or housing
bubbles, nor to avoid them, nevertheless actively inflating speculation
bubbles is not what I would describe as a responsible and commendable
conduct.

Well, but it tells you a lot about quantum mechanics.

I meant I disagree with the 'logic'. I.E. It does not follow that just
because one doesn't know, or even can't know, does not mean 'it
isn't'.

That's exactly the point you're missing.
Quantum world is even weirder than communists'.

Was it a muslim living in a muslim country or in the US?

US.

QED.

Remember, religious fanatics are identical to communists: they lie, because
they know an higher Truth, so even what may seen a lie about something
fundamental to you and me, is just a little white lie that they use to
enlighten us.

Uh, well, if they think it truth then it isn't a lie.

No, as you confirm below, they know it is a lie, but, since they know
better, because they are enlighted by The Faith (or Communism, it's the
same situation and mechanism), their duty is to lie in order to help you to
achieve enlightment.

That's not the case with radical Islam because, according to their
understanding, lying is a Muhammad approved tactic for dealing with
infidels.

So the "moderate" islamist leader that leaves in the US is an infidel
(since he does not lie to infidels)? C'mon, be realistic: he's lying.

Of course, most societies allow some degree of 'lying' to 'the enemy',
like in time of war.

Well, during war time it's more likely that governments are going to lye to
their own subjects.

I suspect there's an even larger percentage who essentially agree with
the basic principle but don't agree 'that's the way to achieve it'.

So what's the way?

Well, you and I would probably approve of by intellectual persuasion.

By "intellectual persuasion" you mean islam-communist style, i.e. blatant
lies or communist brainwash?

So, the best way to achieve world domination is to destroy our technology.

From the Islamists I've read it's more a tactic of using our
technology against us

Sure, but that' only a mean, while their ultimate goal is to bring us back
to their primitive level.

but there is also a thread that 'wealth' (as in
oil) and technology has corrupted Islam.

Whi do you think Mr. Bush removed Saddam from power. True, he finacied
terrorism, but only in Israel. True, the two bllodier palestinese terrorist
found shelter in Iraq. True, he had weapons of mass distruction, has used
them and for 12 years avoided the UN inspections. True, he planned to
control all mid-eastern oil (after Iran and Yemen the next sould have been
Saudi Arabia), but I beleive that the real reason for attacking Iraq was to
destabilize the area and make a sandbox where terrorist could play their
favourite game, sparing Europe, the US and Saudi Arabia.

Nice! Yes BP deserves that, they were drilling to find oil that they were
going to drink, not to provide energy to you, me and, unluckily, to your
"libersocials" and my communists.

Drink?

What else they can do with it, if they don't extract it for fuelling our
civilization?

There's not much you can do to a magnitudo 9,5 earthquake

No but you can ship, drive and fly food, water, temporary shelter, and
medical supplies in a hell of a lot faster than you can tote 'em in by
cart. That is, if the Romans had had any medical supplies to tote.

That is, if Romans had anything vital that an earthquake could destroy.
Apart fro acqueducts, that could be repaired in few months with minor
inconvenience to the population.

The muslims.

Oh. Well, yeah. At least not till they 'win'.

No, from what I hear from them, they don't want any form of technology that
a blacksmith cannot build.

After all technology is the proof that science works, and science and
religious fondamentalism don't get along very well.

I don't recall the whole episode but I don't think he claimed 'that
one' was that way but used it as a building block for his 'disaster'
scenario. Or he may have conflated 1977 with 1965.

I'll watch it again, but I' pretty sure I've seen a short footage of shop
pillaging in New York in that that same episode.

Maybe, due to the FED's politics, not high employment, but financial crisis
definitely.

I said UNemployment.

That's what I meant to write.

Anyway, the point was the blackout let the lid off an already boiling
pot.

The same pot, in 2001 was boiling again. The financial crisis attributed to
the attack on the Towers was already present and due to the burst of the
dotcom bubble.


Maybe. It might be interesting if someone did a study along those
lines of bombed to hell and back Europe during WWII.

Back then, at least in Italy, electric power distribution was limited only
to the bigger towns and electicity basically used only for illumination,
not for food conservation, accounting and inventory, communication
(telephone exchanges had treir own generators), heathing (a modern gas
furnace does not work without electricity), you name it.

"Just a year?" Ain't no 'faulty relay' going to destroy the entire
electrical grid for a year.

Yes, but there could have been be some tens of liners or rockets to destroy
power plants.

IMO 'disaster' scenarios grossly underestimate the ability of people
(society) to adapt and respond to a crisis.

Yes, adapt and go back to the stone age or thereabouts.

flipper:

On Sat, 27 Nov 2010 02:26:38 +0100, "F. Bertolazzi"
wrote:

Except for powerless fascists and honest communists.

Ok

Honest just because the prosecutors were communist.
Those $40 M are still missing...

In which case(s)?

It depends on what you're presuming and I gather you're presuming
nothing past 1950 is of interest and the 'future' ends in 2050.

With that code snippet you can handle correctly any date in the past 100
years. When you need to handle a date that is more than 100 years old, the
year field would have already been four digits long anyway.

And then there's the problem of historical records in the 'old' format.

When you archive old records you simply add the two digits. Or don't do
anything, the context and the chronology of archiviation will suffice.

The economic cycles are all the same.

Methinks that an overstatement be.

If they were then economists would not be so routinely befuddled.

They are not, ex post. Economics, as all "social sciences", cannot be
predictive, because it deals with a complex and cahotic universe inherently
unpredictable, like weather.

That's akin to the classical theory but there are some problems with
it. For one, not everyone is an 'entrepreneur' and not everyone is
borrowing from the banks. As but one example, large corporations often
fund their own 'ventures' and if it fails they take a loss but don't
go belly up.

It all depends on the relative size of the investment and of the company.
And, see Motorola with Iridium, sometimes government steps in.

At any rate, the 'market' is not one product in one industry so the
fluctuations of one does not necessarily crash the entire economy. And
if you lose your job making widget A then hopefully you find another
making widget B.

The various industries tend to synchronize pecause the producers are also
consumers, so if widget A sells a lot his producers earn a lot and spend
the earnings buying also widget B.

Unless the FED gives the banks plenty of money at extraordinary rates, in
which case they spare the debtors and, voilà, you avoided the downturn.

That isn't the theory as the debtors still owe the money they can't
pay and those who went bankrupt are still bankrupt.

But, if the lender has plenty of money that needs to give away to avoid
losing its rank, you can borrow more money and survive longer.

That until the interest rates are below zero. When the interest rates
became zero because also inflation has gone down, the banks raise their
interest rates (and this alone is often sufficient to finish off a moribund
business) and, since the yield of their investment is now lower they also
want a lower risk on the investment. At that point they will ask the money
back from the less promising enterprises.

At that point some of the debtors go belly up, the bank writes down the
uncollectable credit as a loss and needs therefore to replenish its capital
reserves. So the bank asks the capital back from another enterprise that
goes belly up, further raising the need for capital of the bank.

And, in theory, the bank who took a bath funding widget A is making a
killing on their widget B investment.

Provided that widget A supply and demand cycle is not synchronized wiyh
widet B's.

The classical 'business cycle' is what the FED is supposed to
ameliorate and was part of the original theory for creating the thing.

But we kow that every time you try to mess with the economy, it will bite
you.

During 'frenzied run up' they supposedly tighten credit and money
supply to dampen the frenzy and during slumps they ease credit and
money supply to stimulate growth. But it isn't to 'save the doomed'.

But that is an unavoidable side effect (the one sought by politicians), as
well as speculation bubbles. You can't have one without the other two.

Now, it's arguable that the basic theory just plain doesn't work but I
don't attribute that to Greenspan as he didn't invent the FED and was
simply doing what the job description says.

True, in strict terms. But he did it a little too well.

I had no idea about that.

Yeah. He even defected to the Soviet Union and lived there for a while

My mother told me that yesterday. I did not know.

We, of course, get all those conspiracy theories too. Oliver Stone's
movie JFK, in which just about the only things resembling reality are
character names and the fact JFK got shot, is an example. (you can be
pretty much assured that whatever Stone claims to be fact isn't)

I'm surprised (so to speak), after having seen "persona non grata", a
sanctification of one of the worse assasins of last century, Arafat.

Psychologists theorize that conspiracists simply can't accept that
'big disasters' can be caused by 'little things'. I.E. A 'big problem'
should have an equally impressive cause.

They don't only theorize, the ran actual tests. They told the same story of
a real but relatively obscure or bizzarre fatal accident to a group of
people, to half of them they told the victim was Jon Doe, to the other half
they said he was somebody famous.

The stories were more than one and the famous/anonymous version evenly
distributed among the interviewed. Well, the "conspiration rate" was much
higher with famous names, while almost everybody thought that John Doe was
simply unlucky.

What? Anti-communist? He only wanted to make peace with Russia.

Well, no one wanted war, which leaves making peace, but the Left over
here, especially at the time, had a more realistic view of him.

Yes, but here we are told that he wanted to make peace just because he was
a good guy and that he was one of the few that understood that the USSR was
a good thing.

Ever see the movie "Dr. Stranglove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying
and Love the Bomb?" The "doomsday gap" and "mine shaft gap" jokes are
aimed straight at JFK's "missile gap" rhetoric.

I've seen it at least ten times, but in Italian, so I had to google it. No,
I did not know about the missile gap.

JFK began the "missile gap" claims during his 1958 Senate campaign and
continued the theme in his 1960 Presidential bid, sometimes
exaggerating Soviet missile counts by as much as 1,000 times what
actually existed

Unbelievable, if you believe, as I did, the leftist legends that we are
taught here.

(oh yeah, how do you know? Because we got the pictures, dummy.)

This is from "Our man in Havana"?

flipper:

On Sun, 28 Nov 2010 16:35:34 +0100, "F. Bertolazzi"
wrote:
But in this case we are talking about people doing shady business.
Shady because they they are buying something that does not have a real
market value (unless you are doing auctions, but even in this case, given
the low number of participants, they could form a cartel) from a seller
that is not interested in getting as much money from the deal as possible
(I mean, money that goes to the Government, not kickbacks).

I'm not sure what you mean by 'this case' since the discussion here
was my 'optimism', or lack thereof, depending on the observer.

Sorry, for "this case" I meant buyng a public asset.
Your optimism is indisputable.

That doesn't explain the US, mostly government run, so called,
'crumbling infrastructure'

You don't have any idea of what a really crumbling infrastructure is.
Came visit Italy.

I don't agree that a mismanaged government arranged 'deal' with
privatization of one net means all business, in general, favors
destroying their source of revenue for short term gain.

Neither do I. In fact our Autostrade (
http://www.autostrade.it/en/index.html ), which is now owned by Benetton
(the guy that invented white sweaters) is an almost perfectly maintained
infrastructure.

By the way, just to let you know what politicians are able to do to finance
socialist plans, our highways were built by privates that had a 25 years
concession to recoup their investment. Then they become public and should
have been free, while, in fact, we continue to pay them at exactly the same
price as before (roughly as much as the gas consumed to travel it), because
Benetton forked out as much money as the original investors. That's why our
public debt is much worse that it seems (we are talking about 2.000 miles
of highways mostly built though mountains). We sold the crown jewels.

I.e. You have to show x% investment in 'poor communities' whether
there's any merit to the investment.

I could not imagine such a thing. I don't believe that even here they ever
done anything similar.

And there is where your risk vanishes for the banks. As long as Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac buy the loan then it's of no matter to the bank.

Geez, that's much worse than what I thought. I could not dream anything
that perverse.

No, because things keep humming along with low interest rates. What
causes the 'crash'?

The fact that there is a general overproduction, so the price of goods is
too low to repay the investments, becase there has been no recession to
weed out poorly performing enterprises.

That's because the prime rate was below zero.

Prime was never below zero.

You mean that, when the prime rate was 1% you did not have 2% or more
inflation?

By the way, how is measured inflation there? In our "basket" the house rent
"weights" 20%, a ludicrous amount, since most people I know pay, for it or
the mortgage, well more than 60% of their income. Here houses are all made
in concrete, no wood, and the dimension of a lot of items (piping, doors &
windows) is not standardized, the soil is scarce thus expensive, so they
are, on the average, more expensive that yours.

I don't know how much it "weights", but we even have a "equipment and
consumables for digital photography" in our "basket". Is there any reason
to have a similar item if not for showing an inflation rate lower than the
real one?

Because the government guaranteed Fannie and Freddie,

By law they did not. That was simply an 'expectation'.

That was fully fulfilled.

With a conventional loan you'd put, say, 20% down (so you have a stake
in the property) and there'd be an income and credit check to asses
your ability to reliably service the debt.

Here, up to 20 years ago, it was more like 40%. Now some banks advertize
0%, but I don't know wether it's true and which checks are done.

Prime was never below zero.

I found an US prime rate chart, but the inflation chart I found is from1650
to today, so it's not readable.

the 3% interest you apply to
the loan becomes a 5%, you are prepared to take more risks.

I don't know who 'you' is nor how 3% turns into 5%.

"You" is the bank and 3% turns into 5% if you add a 3% of inflation and
subtract 1% of prime rate.

Mortgage rates to the buyer dropped along with prime.

That's the point. On top of the socialistic directives.

There is yet another effect: if the other banks are taking advantage of
this weird situation and you don't, they will earn money that will became
dividends that will attract investors and/or they will attract more
customers with better conditions and you will be left without investors
and/or customers.

That's an argument made about derivatives, a related but not
equivalent issue.

Not only derivatives. Even well managed enterprises, like our Parmalat,
went bust because, for attracting capital from dotcom and derivatives, had
to give huge dividends that they did not earn.

I.E. A speculative investment, like 'dotcoms', will always pay more
than the going interest rate or else they can't attract money at all,
so 'low interest' isn't required for your scenario.

It is. If money is not readily available at low interest rates there are
not enough *amateur investors* to form a speculative bubble.

Because only amateurs without any knowledge of what they are investing on
would buy a dotcom share. I, for instance, invested $20.000 through a
famous site whose name I don't remember, iwas e-something and almost
doubled it in a few of months.
But I invested on Nokia (when that doubled I sold it because I thought was
immoral to gain that much money that way. A couple of weeks later Nokia
made an unsubstantiated profit warning for "cooling" its shares, that lost
3/4 of their value. It was more the satisfaction for the avoided loss than
for the gain), Celestica and Heinz (I love baked beans), that was, in the
meanwhile bought by, if I remember well, Del Monte.

Then, as any sane gambler should, I collected the cash and left the casino.

The topic was Greenspan's 'motive' and I'm simply saying that him
doing his job doesn't make it a 'bribe'.

Again, he adhered strictly to the job description, but making a lot of
collateral damage.

Yes, you're right. It's not the FED job to puncture dotcom or housing
bubbles, nor to avoid them,

In a way it is.

So Greenspan, in that way, did very badly his job.

nevertheless actively inflating speculation bubbles is not what I would
describe as a responsible and commendable conduct.

Targeting a specific segment would be an entirely new level of
interference and begins to smell a bit like fascism.

No, he could not target a segment, he only had to raise the prime rate and
reduce the money supply to the banks. After all, it is all he could do,
apart from sayng things in his reports. Or does the FED chairman have other
powers?

QED what? Being in the US automatically means they're lying?

Yes. As I said, a muslim living in an occidental country will lie in order
to reassure the poulation and avoid problems.

No, as you confirm below, they know it is a lie,

You're mixing two things and then drawing an unsupported conclusion.

The first issue is, a person is not a liar if they believe what they
say.

Ok, but I did'nt say anything about that. I don't believe that they believe
in the lies they are telling us.

The second is whether lying is an acceptable tactic.

I never meant to touch this topic too. I only said that muslims living in
muslim countries neve ever condemned Al Quaeda, muslims living in
occidental countries sort of condemn Al Quaeda, but they are lying.

And therein lies the problem with seemingly mediocre professions by
the so called 'moderate Muslim community'. The pronouncements usually
dance around what would seem to be a rather simple thing to say.

Moreover.

but, since they know better, because they are enlighted by The Faith (or
Communism, it's the same situation and mechanism), their duty is to lie
in order to help you to achieve enlightment.

The acceptability of lying is not to 'enlighten' but to defeat the
enemy.

Defeat and then convert to the right religion/ideology or kill.

But when it comes to professions of the Faith I assure you they
believe it.

Never had any doubt about it.

You seem to believe that all Muslims think as one monolithic block but
their propensity to kill each other 10 times more often than an
'infidel' should disparage that notion.

True. Luckily the smart move in Iraq made them kill each other, distracting
them from us. The only thing that keeps them together is the hate towards
us. So the ones living among us hate us, the ones living among other
muslims hate the other muslims.

Of course, most societies allow some degree of 'lying' to 'the enemy',
like in time of war.

Well, during war time it's more likely that governments are going to lye to
their own subjects.

More likely than what?

Than lying to the enemy.

By "intellectual persuasion" you mean islam-communist style, i.e. blatant
lies or communist brainwash?

Oh come on. Is that what you think an appropriate means?

No, it's the way it is done here, and there too, by leftists.

Fact is the sanctions were falling apart and it was put up or shut up
time.

Yes, but there was no need to dissolve the army and the public buraucracy.
When you arrived in Italy, you left the public employees you found, even if
80% or more was enrolled in the PNF (fascist party).

Why would you come to that conclusion rather than the traditional
capitalist pig presumption the '*******s only care about making a
profit'?

Because the profit they make on oil is a tiny fraction of the benefits we
gain from using it.

That is, if Romans had anything vital that an earthquake could destroy.

How about PEOPLE?

People don't get killed by earthquakes, but by bricks falling on their
heads. Most of the inhabitants of imperial Rome lived in wooden shacks.

That was 'high tech' and not so simple as you seem to think.

Yes and not. It was at the time, but it can be easly understood with the
knowledge of most contemporary graduates.

After all technology is the proof that science works, and science and
religious fondamentalism don't get along very well.

12'th century Islam didn't think so.

12th century science and technology (and medicine) were still so primitive
that could not pose any threat to God.

The same pot, in 2001 was boiling again.

It may seem so from an outside view looking at, say, the stock market
but the domestic situation was really quite different.

The stock market's job is to predict the near future.

Back then, at least in Italy, electric power distribution was limited only
to the bigger towns and electicity basically used only for illumination,
not for food conservation, accounting and inventory, communication
(telephone exchanges had treir own generators), heathing (a modern gas
furnace does not work without electricity), you name it.

Italy did have a society, didn't it?

Yes, one that could live without electricity. Now we can't.

"Just a year?" Ain't no 'faulty relay' going to destroy the entire
electrical grid for a year.

Yes, but there could have been be some tens of liners or rockets to destroy
power plants.

That's a whole different matter than living in eternal fear a random 2
buck relay is going to destroy civilization.

Never had such fear. The "crrepy" thing is that Osama Bin Laden seems to
have seen that documentary and acted accordingly. On the other hand it's
also true that 911 is a very significative number for US citizens and that
the targets were the easiest ones to spot and hit.

Yes, adapt and go back to the stone age or thereabouts.

No, like rerouting power lines from unaffected power stations to basic
services, as but one example, and a host of other things people can
think of when the chips are down.

Yes, basic. Telephone and food processing. But what about, for instance,
computers and cash registers?

flipper:


Well, not quite.The code, as it stood, could handle, as of 2000, the
"past 100 years." That was the problem, there was no 'future' to it
after 2000.

There is. Suppose a mortgage has been started in 1993 and finishes in 2013.
It will last for 13-93=-80. It's negative, so you add 100. -80+100=20
years.

Another mortgage starts in 2001 and ends in 2021. 21-1=20, it is positive
so you don't add anything, and that's your mortgage duration.

The only problem is for events lasting more than 100 years (maybe there's
still somebody around born in the XIX century), but in that case the year
would have been 4 digits long anyway.

Economics, as all "social sciences", cannot be
predictive, because it deals with a complex and cahotic universe inherently
unpredictable, like weather.

Then it's useless.

As all "social sciences" and weather forecasting 10 days from now (let
alone global warming).

It all depends on the relative size of the investment and of the company.
And, see Motorola with Iridium, sometimes government steps in.

The point is "it depends." I.E. the generalization is not a
generalization.

I did not mean to generalize, but to show how a sizeable quantity of
companies goes belly up. Not all of the companies that invested, neither
none of them.

The "avalance effect" triggered by the worst companies going belly up and
the consequent need for the banks to recapitalize by asking immediately the
money back from companies that could have done it given some more time does
the rest.

The various industries tend to synchronize pecause the producers are also
consumers, so if widget A sells a lot his producers earn a lot and spend
the earnings buying also widget B.

There is interaction, yes, but the market tends to be anti-synchronous
as capital moves from the lesser to more profitable sectors.

That's exactly how it goes. But the fact that a sector is more profitable
than another means that the demand exceeds the supply. The reason the more
profitable sector requires investments is that it needs to produce more to
earn more, but this will, sooner or later, make the supply exceed the
demand, with the consequent drop in prices below what's needed to run the
factory *and* repay the capital.

But, if the lender has plenty of money that needs to give away to avoid
losing its rank,

Loosing rank? What rank is that?

It's revenues compared to the competitors'.

you can borrow more money and survive longer.

Perhaps but that isn't the purpose of the FED and that screwed up
company will still have problems because the 'cheap interest' will
still want to go to the better performing sectors.

If you are an investor you can sell the shares. But, if you are a bank, you
can't. The only wat to get part of the capital back is get all the money
you can by selling the company assets, if any.

That until the interest rates are below zero.

We've never 'paid' people to take the money.

So why did they take so much money? To invest in the NASDAQ on companies
that did not make a dime of dividends. When there is a lot of demand (money
to be invested because it did cost little and there was plenty), the price
of the good (dotcom shares) is bound to rise, even if it's crap.

The scenario doesn't make sense to me.

Ok. So which scenario makes sense to you?

Your scenario presumes everyone is in the same upside down financial
crisis but that isn't generally the case. You 'lose' some here and
'win' some there.

As I said the economy tends to synchronize. As a matter of fact, prior to
Greenspan there were economic cycles. He removed two downturns (one at the
end of the first mandate of Clinton and another one at the beginning of
GWB's first) and *therefore* now we get a "triple downturn".

And I argue it generally isn't.

So were the economic cycles came from?

But we kow that every time you try to mess with the economy, it will bite
you.

This gets to the matter of whether the underlying theory of the FED
just plain doesn't work.

Right.

On the other hand, there has to be *some* means of handling the money
supply

I'm not sure about that.
I mean that I don't have a definite position on that.

Even if I accept your assertion it's a 'side effect' then so what?
They'll die on the down cycle.

Provided you let the down cycle happen and don't avoid it by injecting tons
of cheap money, otherwise, for instance, the dotcom bubble migrates to
housing.

As I said, though, I don't fully buy the assertion because even 'easy
money' wants to invest in the better return.

When the market is awash with money the best return is already taken and
you still have a lot of cheap (or with negative real rate, factoring in
inflation) money to invest, you turn to riskier investments.

True, in strict terms. But he did it a little too well.

Isn't that the fault of whoever wrote the job description?

Maybe. But, again, even if that really was ouside the scope of his job he
has been a little too much let's say "focused".

I'm surprised (so to speak), after having seen "persona non grata", a
sanctification of one of the worse assasins of last century, Arafat.

I don't know. Haven't seen nor know anything of it.

About Oliver Stone's "documentary" about Arafat?
You don't miss anything, trust me.

Of course, there may be some merit to imagining a politician might
have 'made enemies'.

Right. But, generally, this tends to be overestimated.

What's amazing is how they could think things so diametrically
opposite to what was virtually universal US sentiment at the time.

I told you about my mather being convinced by a "philosopher" on the radio
that the left cares more about the individual then the right.

Ah, I forgot to say that no history book said how many Kulaks and
intellectuals were killed by Stalin and Mao and that the fact that Russians
had to queue for bread was just a capitalistic invention, since the quality
of life in the soviet union was better than in Europe.

Sputnik (1957) scared the living daylights out of everyone because if
they could put that thing up they could send a warhead too and
"THERE'S NO DEFENSE!"

Clearly.

Every school had a 'civil defense' siren that would blare in case of
attack (which never happened). A big ass **LOUD** rotating horn on a
tall pole, it was 'tested' every week, like clockwork, on Friday at
noon

Gosh. I did'nt know that.

and I can remember as a kid thinking, "if I were the Russians
we'd attack on Friday at noon," because everyone ignored the damn
thing on Fridays at noon.

LOL

This is from "Our man in Havana"?

Hehe. You're thinking Cuban Missile Crisis

No, I'm talking about a vacuum cleaners salesman that, for making a few
bucks, sells to the CIA the drawings of a vacuum cleaner sayin that those
are the plans for a secret soviet missile base.

The film taken from Graham Greene's novel was as good as the book.

On 29/11/2010 15:16, F. Bertolazzi wrote:
flipper:


Well, not quite.The code, as it stood, could handle, as of 2000, the
"past 100 years." That was the problem, there was no 'future' to it
after 2000.

There is. Suppose a mortgage has been started in 1993 and finishes in 2013.
It will last for 13-93=-80. It's negative, so you add 100. -80+100=20
years.

That works OK for mortgage intervals, but leaves you with an ambiguity
where absolute dates are concerned. In particular the lazy habit of
concatenating the string "19" in front of YY goes badly wrong when YY
becomes 100. USNO website scripts had this problem showing the rather
bizarre leap into the future "19100" instead of "2000".

Such things occurring in an embedded system where the destination buffer
is 4 bytes long can have very unpredictable results.

Another mortgage starts in 2001 and ends in 2021. 21-1=20, it is positive
so you don't add anything, and that's your mortgage duration.

The only problem is for events lasting more than 100 years (maybe there's
still somebody around born in the XIX century), but in that case the year
would have been 4 digits long anyway.

Not true. It may be the only part of the problem that you understand,
but there were a whole raft of other things capable of going wrong.
Mostly to do with datestamps on historical data and making sure that
programs could cope with all the original data and the revised post Y2k
format as well. Stuff that was mission critical was done and tested in
good time, but they still kept key engineers dry and on standby for the
Y2k rollover. It was the fact that 2000 *is* a leap year whereas 1900 is
not that caused the most grief to bank customers when some banks got it
right and others did not. Japan took quite a hit on Y2k2.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asi...fic/660953.stm

There was a lot of damage to NZ aluminium smelters due to leap year
incompatibility. It beggars belief that anyone could get it so wrong.

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/18.74.html#subj5

Also look at the next one down for an example of daft Y2k faults that
banks were happy to keep running with.

Regards,
Martin Brown

Martin Brown:

That works OK for mortgage intervals, but leaves you with an ambiguity
where absolute dates are concerned. In particular the lazy habit of
concatenating the string "19" in front of YY goes badly wrong when YY
becomes 100. USNO website scripts had this problem showing the rather
bizarre leap into the future "19100" instead of "2000".

LOL. But, if you don't add the "19", thing that I would avoid anyway,
pretending you have an information you don't is a real crime, everything
works fine.

Such things occurring in an embedded system where the destination buffer
is 4 bytes long can have very unpredictable results.

Sure The interface between the various parts of a system is the most
critical point.

Not true. It may be the only part of the problem that you understand,
but there were a whole raft of other things capable of going wrong.

Murphy rules!

Mostly to do with datestamps on historical data and making sure that
programs could cope with all the original data and the revised post Y2k
format as well. Stuff that was mission critical was done and tested in
good time, but they still kept key engineers dry and on standby for the
Y2k rollover. It was the fact that 2000 *is* a leap year whereas 1900 is
not that caused the most grief to bank customers when some banks got it
right and others did not. Japan took quite a hit on Y2k2.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asi...fic/660953.stm

I can't believe it! I learnt in school that every four years there is a
leap year unless it is the beginning of a century, but not a millennium.

Martin Brown:

That works OK for mortgage intervals, but leaves you with an ambiguity
where absolute dates are concerned. In particular the lazy habit of
concatenating the string "19" in front of YY goes badly wrong when YY
becomes 100. USNO website scripts had this problem showing the rather
bizarre leap into the future "19100" instead of "2000".

LOL. But, if you don't add the "19", thing that I would avoid anyway,
pretending you have an information you don't is a real crime, everything
works fine.

Such things occurring in an embedded system where the destination buffer
is 4 bytes long can have very unpredictable results.

Sure The interface between the various parts of a system is the most
critical point.

Not true. It may be the only part of the problem that you understand,
but there were a whole raft of other things capable of going wrong.

Murphy rules!

Mostly to do with datestamps on historical data and making sure that
programs could cope with all the original data and the revised post Y2k
format as well. Stuff that was mission critical was done and tested in
good time, but they still kept key engineers dry and on standby for the
Y2k rollover. It was the fact that 2000 *is* a leap year whereas 1900 is
not that caused the most grief to bank customers when some banks got it
right and others did not. Japan took quite a hit on Y2k2.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asi...fic/660953.stm

I can't believe it! I learnt in school that every four years there is a
leap year unless it is the beginning of a century, but not a millennium.

flipper:

I'm not sure how they calculate the whole thing

http://www.bls.gov/cpi/home.htm ?

flipper:

I'm not sure how they calculate the whole thing

http://www.bls.gov/cpi/home.htm ?

flipper:

No, you're manufacturing a convenient scenario and then claiming it's
'the only problem' but it isn't.

So you only need to provide a couple of examples to demonstrate that I'm
wrong.

Global warming is a fraud.

Really?

It has only two merits. First of all, it was invented by Maggie (Thatcher,
not Simpson) herself, therefore it must be good.

Secondly, it is a myth, but much more founded (so to speak) than the
superstition that nuclear power (the only real alternative to fossil fuels)
is more dangerous than fossil. And, since nuclear power does not produce
greenhouse gases...

But 'easy money' would prevent the avalanche because re capitalization
is easier.

Exactly. That's how two recessions were averted by the FED.
Then, when the easy money made the dollar sink from the initial 0.8 for one
Euro, to the current 1,3 and you start to pay too dearly feedstock, you
have to stop printing dollars, thus starting a bigger and meaner avalanche.

Your scenario swings both ways.

It swings where is is pushed to. For as long as you can push it.
Then, as we say here, "the comb gets to the knots".
Or, if you like it better, the pendulum swings back.

That's exactly how it goes. But the fact that a sector is more profitable
than another means that the demand exceeds the supply.

Not necessarily. They may simply be more efficient.

No way. That is the case of competitors in the same sector, not of a whole
sector.

The reason the more
profitable sector requires investments is that it needs to produce more to
earn more,

It doesn't necessarily 'require investment as a rising stock price is
how companies can pay off the investment already made.

They can provided demand exceeds supply. Otherwise they will reduce the
price to keep their numbers high so they can continue to take advantage of
their investments, up to the point where they cannot repay the investments.

but this will, sooner or later, make the supply exceed the
demand, with the consequent drop in prices below what's needed to run the
factory *and* repay the capital.

Or the price eventually settles to the minimum necessary to cover
costs, repay capital, and earn a competitive profit margin.

This would be true if all the competitors made the same investment at the
same time. But there will always, luckily, be an enterprise that will spoil
the party with a bigger (ore more technologically advanced) investment
designed to gain market share.

It just isn't the case that everyone goes from gangbusters to bust.

The gangbusters can also gain market share and make competitors go bust.

Well, you don't get impressive revenues by losing money, no matter how
'easy' you got it to begin with.

Who can lose money, while dotcom shares' value continues to senselessly
climb and house prices go up?

Which was the most succesful US bank, 1995-2005? How is it doing now?
Can you believe that the Economist search does not return anything for
"Citybank" nor "Citygroup"??

If you are an investor you can sell the shares. But, if you are a bank, you
can't.

Actually, they can and do. That's part of the derivatives market.

You're right.

So why did they take so much money?

People like money, that's what

I assume you meant "why", not "what", otherwise I did not understand what
you meant to say.

you don't have to 'pay' them to take it.

And what do they do with that money? They bathe in it as Scrooge McDuck?

To invest in the NASDAQ on companies
that did not make a dime of dividends.

Someone obviously had an expectation they would... some day.

Because they did not have the faintest idea of what they were "investing
about".

When there is a lot of demand (money
to be invested because it did cost little and there was plenty), the price
of the good (dotcom shares) is bound to rise, even if it's crap.

People don't bid up things they think are worthless, even if the money
they have was 'cheap'.

They do, yes, they do it by all means all of the time. Not only naive
investors, but even financial institutions. Have you ever heard of
stock-tracking software, like the one that caused the financial crisis of
1987? It does not know anything about the company, only records the
"resistances" and the "supports", as a lot of low-level brokers do. And
that kind of software is still being studied and improved.

I think we share the opinion they're probably related to government
policy but maybe not the same ones.

Exactly. Do you have an alternative scenario or you simply don't buy mine?

So were the economic cycles came from?

I think they come from sudden market perturbations. Making waves, so
to speak.

Waves decay, if there's no wind.

Take a generally accepted classic case: war. There is a sudden shift
from one mode of operation to another and then the war is over.

I can't see the similitude.

I think many are government induced, like the 1970's oil crisis
(whether you consider that induced by foreign governments or, in the
US, deliberate policy suppressing gasoline prices till the embargo
burst the bubble).

"Yom Kippur", "Camp David" and "retaliation" don't mean anything to you?
;-)

'Money' these days is not tied to any particular asset (as in gold) so
how does one know how much to print? It's all based on 'the economy'.

Including macroscopic bubbles.

Provided you let the down cycle happen and don't avoid it by injecting tons
of cheap money, otherwise, for instance, the dotcom bubble migrates to
housing.

It's my opinion the housing 'problem' would not have happened had it
not been for government sponsorship of 'liar loans'.

That, and the injection of excessive liquidity. Or, maybe, the "liar loans"
were theirselves the injection of excess money, if they entailed also
"governmental insurance" of the loan.

After all, money is just a soemthing (coin, bill, fund transfer from a bank
"guaranteed by government" and the seller of the house) worth what
government decides.

When the market is awash with money the best return is already taken and
you still have a lot of cheap (or with negative real rate, factoring in
inflation) money to invest, you turn to riskier investments.

Or you drive up the price of the good ones.

Thus turning them to bad (low return) ones.

That may be why I've never seen it because, knowing he's either a liar
or propagandist, I avoid Oliver Stone movies. I had not intended to
watch JFK either and only did because it became a 'national topic'.

Well, The Arafat stuff was probably (I haven't seen that JFK) much
"better", since he had even more a free hand at making up "facts".

I told you about my mather being convinced by a "philosopher" on the radio
that the left cares more about the individual then the right.

Well, the left always makes that claim

Yeah, that's why they are named "socialists".

Sounds like Michael Moore making 'documentaries' on how 'superior'
Cuba's medical system is to that in the US.

I missed that, for the same reason you missed Arafat.

Utter crap.

Really?

flipper:

No, you're manufacturing a convenient scenario and then claiming it's
'the only problem' but it isn't.

So you only need to provide a couple of examples to demonstrate that I'm
wrong.

Global warming is a fraud.

Really?

It has only two merits. First of all, it was invented by Maggie (Thatcher,
not Simpson) herself, therefore it must be good.

Secondly, it is a myth, but much more founded (so to speak) than the
superstition that nuclear power (the only real alternative to fossil fuels)
is more dangerous than fossil. And, since nuclear power does not produce
greenhouse gases...

But 'easy money' would prevent the avalanche because re capitalization
is easier.

Exactly. That's how two recessions were averted by the FED.
Then, when the easy money made the dollar sink from the initial 0.8 for one
Euro, to the current 1,3 and you start to pay too dearly feedstock, you
have to stop printing dollars, thus starting a bigger and meaner avalanche.

Your scenario swings both ways.

It swings where is is pushed to. For as long as you can push it.
Then, as we say here, "the comb gets to the knots".
Or, if you like it better, the pendulum swings back.

That's exactly how it goes. But the fact that a sector is more profitable
than another means that the demand exceeds the supply.

Not necessarily. They may simply be more efficient.

No way. That is the case of competitors in the same sector, not of a whole
sector.

The reason the more
profitable sector requires investments is that it needs to produce more to
earn more,

It doesn't necessarily 'require investment as a rising stock price is
how companies can pay off the investment already made.

They can provided demand exceeds supply. Otherwise they will reduce the
price to keep their numbers high so they can continue to take advantage of
their investments, up to the point where they cannot repay the investments.

but this will, sooner or later, make the supply exceed the
demand, with the consequent drop in prices below what's needed to run the
factory *and* repay the capital.

Or the price eventually settles to the minimum necessary to cover
costs, repay capital, and earn a competitive profit margin.

This would be true if all the competitors made the same investment at the
same time. But there will always, luckily, be an enterprise that will spoil
the party with a bigger (ore more technologically advanced) investment
designed to gain market share.

It just isn't the case that everyone goes from gangbusters to bust.

The gangbusters can also gain market share and make competitors go bust.

Well, you don't get impressive revenues by losing money, no matter how
'easy' you got it to begin with.

Who can lose money, while dotcom shares' value continues to senselessly
climb and house prices go up?

Which was the most succesful US bank, 1995-2005? How is it doing now?
Can you believe that the Economist search does not return anything for
"Citybank" nor "Citygroup"??

If you are an investor you can sell the shares. But, if you are a bank, you
can't.

Actually, they can and do. That's part of the derivatives market.

You're right.

So why did they take so much money?

People like money, that's what

I assume you meant "why", not "what", otherwise I did not understand what
you meant to say.

you don't have to 'pay' them to take it.

And what do they do with that money? They bathe in it as Scrooge McDuck?

To invest in the NASDAQ on companies
that did not make a dime of dividends.

Someone obviously had an expectation they would... some day.

Because they did not have the faintest idea of what they were "investing
about".

When there is a lot of demand (money
to be invested because it did cost little and there was plenty), the price
of the good (dotcom shares) is bound to rise, even if it's crap.

People don't bid up things they think are worthless, even if the money
they have was 'cheap'.

They do, yes, they do it by all means all of the time. Not only naive
investors, but even financial institutions. Have you ever heard of
stock-tracking software, like the one that caused the financial crisis of
1987? It does not know anything about the company, only records the
"resistances" and the "supports", as a lot of low-level brokers do. And
that kind of software is still being studied and improved.

I think we share the opinion they're probably related to government
policy but maybe not the same ones.

Exactly. Do you have an alternative scenario or you simply don't buy mine?

So were the economic cycles came from?

I think they come from sudden market perturbations. Making waves, so
to speak.

Waves decay, if there's no wind.

Take a generally accepted classic case: war. There is a sudden shift
from one mode of operation to another and then the war is over.

I can't see the similitude.

I think many are government induced, like the 1970's oil crisis
(whether you consider that induced by foreign governments or, in the
US, deliberate policy suppressing gasoline prices till the embargo
burst the bubble).

"Yom Kippur", "Camp David" and "retaliation" don't mean anything to you?
;-)

'Money' these days is not tied to any particular asset (as in gold) so
how does one know how much to print? It's all based on 'the economy'.

Including macroscopic bubbles.

Provided you let the down cycle happen and don't avoid it by injecting tons
of cheap money, otherwise, for instance, the dotcom bubble migrates to
housing.

It's my opinion the housing 'problem' would not have happened had it
not been for government sponsorship of 'liar loans'.

That, and the injection of excessive liquidity. Or, maybe, the "liar loans"
were theirselves the injection of excess money, if they entailed also
"governmental insurance" of the loan.

After all, money is just a soemthing (coin, bill, fund transfer from a bank
"guaranteed by government" and the seller of the house) worth what
government decides.

When the market is awash with money the best return is already taken and
you still have a lot of cheap (or with negative real rate, factoring in
inflation) money to invest, you turn to riskier investments.

Or you drive up the price of the good ones.

Thus turning them to bad (low return) ones.

That may be why I've never seen it because, knowing he's either a liar
or propagandist, I avoid Oliver Stone movies. I had not intended to
watch JFK either and only did because it became a 'national topic'.

Well, The Arafat stuff was probably (I haven't seen that JFK) much
"better", since he had even more a free hand at making up "facts".

I told you about my mather being convinced by a "philosopher" on the radio
that the left cares more about the individual then the right.

Well, the left always makes that claim

Yeah, that's why they are named "socialists".

Sounds like Michael Moore making 'documentaries' on how 'superior'
Cuba's medical system is to that in the US.

I missed that, for the same reason you missed Arafat.

Utter crap.

Really?

anti religious are you ?


"Jim Thompson" wrote in
message ...
On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:06:03 -0500, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


hamilton wrote:

On 11/18/2010 9:43 AM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Too far for me to travel. They are located at: 3701 West 12th
Street, Topeka, Kansas so if any of you are ever in Kansas on
business,
you know where to stay away from.


Google maps shows this to be in a residential area.

I wonder how the neighbors like having them there ?



That was my thought, too.

Not much that can be done. Most cities don't have the brains to
impose zoning laws on churches, misconscrewing the intent of
"separation of church and state".

Personally, though, I believe in "balance": Any time a church is
allowed on a corner, it should be mandatory that the other three
corners are occupied by a Circle-K, a gas station, and an adult book
and "toy" store with an XXX-theater :-)

And churches should be taxed like any other retail business.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

"I have a dream that [we] will one day live in a nation where
[Obama] will not be judged by the color of [his] skin but by the
content of [his] character."

Obama will then be impeached.

"Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we [will be] free
at last!"

On 4/5/2011 2:37 AM, no one wrote:
anti religious are you ?


"Jim wrote in
message ...
On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:06:03 -0500, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


hamilton wrote:

On 11/18/2010 9:43 AM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Too far for me to travel. They are located at: 3701 West 12th
Street, Topeka, Kansas so if any of you are ever in Kansas on
business,
you know where to stay away from.


Google maps shows this to be in a residential area.

I wonder how the neighbors like having them there ?



That was my thought, too.

Not much that can be done. Most cities don't have the brains to
impose zoning laws on churches, misconscrewing the intent of
"separation of church and state".

Personally, though, I believe in "balance": Any time a church is
allowed on a corner, it should be mandatory that the other three
corners are occupied by a Circle-K, a gas station, and an adult book
and "toy" store with an XXX-theater :-)

And churches should be taxed like any other retail business.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

"I have a dream that [we] will one day live in a nation where
[Obama] will not be judged by the color of [his] skin but by the
content of [his] character."

Obama will then be impeached.

"Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we [will be] free
at last!"



No, he's stating the truth: churches SHOULD be taxed as they are a
business. After all, why should others be forced to subsidize any
church? Granting churches tax free status means that the government is
supporting them... If this is 'right' then I'm starting my own religion...

--
I'm never going to grow up.

On 4/5/2011 2:37 AM, no one wrote:
anti religious are you ?


"Jim wrote in
message ...
On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:06:03 -0500, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


hamilton wrote:

On 11/18/2010 9:43 AM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Too far for me to travel. They are located at: 3701 West 12th
Street, Topeka, Kansas so if any of you are ever in Kansas on
business,
you know where to stay away from.


Google maps shows this to be in a residential area.

I wonder how the neighbors like having them there ?



That was my thought, too.

Not much that can be done. Most cities don't have the brains to
impose zoning laws on churches, misconscrewing the intent of
"separation of church and state".

Personally, though, I believe in "balance": Any time a church is
allowed on a corner, it should be mandatory that the other three
corners are occupied by a Circle-K, a gas station, and an adult book
and "toy" store with an XXX-theater :-)

And churches should be taxed like any other retail business.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

"I have a dream that [we] will one day live in a nation where
[Obama] will not be judged by the color of [his] skin but by the
content of [his] character."

Obama will then be impeached.

"Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we [will be] free
at last!"



No, he's stating the truth: churches SHOULD be taxed as they are a
business. After all, why should others be forced to subsidize any
church? Granting churches tax free status means that the government is
supporting them... If this is 'right' then I'm starting my own religion...

--
I'm never going to grow up.

On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 16:07:18 +0930, "no one"
wrote:

anti religious are you ?

No. I could care less what people want to worship or salute. I just
have two rules...

(1) Don't try to do it in my face

(2) I shouldn't have to pay for your ignorance and intolerance by
giving you tax breaks.

(You're just a wee bit late to the game... my post was in November
2010 :-)



"Jim Thompson" wrote in
message ...
On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:06:03 -0500, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


hamilton wrote:

On 11/18/2010 9:43 AM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Too far for me to travel. They are located at: 3701 West 12th
Street, Topeka, Kansas so if any of you are ever in Kansas on
business,
you know where to stay away from.


Google maps shows this to be in a residential area.

I wonder how the neighbors like having them there ?



That was my thought, too.

Not much that can be done. Most cities don't have the brains to
impose zoning laws on churches, misconscrewing the intent of
"separation of church and state".

Personally, though, I believe in "balance": Any time a church is
allowed on a corner, it should be mandatory that the other three
corners are occupied by a Circle-K, a gas station, and an adult book
and "toy" store with an XXX-theater :-)

And churches should be taxed like any other retail business.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

"I have a dream that [we] will one day live in a nation where
[Obama] will not be judged by the color of [his] skin but by the
content of [his] character."

Obama will then be impeached.

"Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we [will be] free
at last!"


...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

Remember: Once you go over the hill, you pick up speed

On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:23:18 -0500, flipper wrote:

On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 08:34:36 -0700, Jim Thompson
wrote:

On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 16:07:18 +0930, "no one"
wrote:

anti religious are you ?

No. I could care less what people want to worship or salute. I just
have two rules...

(1) Don't try to do it in my face

(2) I shouldn't have to pay

You don't 'pay' a thing.

for your ignorance and intolerance

So much for your feint of "could care less what people want to worship
or salute."

I could care less that you're ignorant and intolerant ;-)


by
giving you tax breaks.

Not paying what isn't owed is not a 'break'.

Property taxes?

"Non-profit" Businesses operated under the guise of religion?

Pastor's housing (and cars) provided free and not taxed as income?

And generally little or no income tax.?

Vatican Bank ?:-)

[snip]

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

Scrape Obama off the sole of your shoe in 2012

On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 14:06:43 -0500, flipper wrote:

On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:45:56 -0700, Jim Thompson
wrote:

On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:23:18 -0500, flipper wrote:

On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 08:34:36 -0700, Jim Thompson
wrote:

On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 16:07:18 +0930, "no one"
wrote:

anti religious are you ?

No. I could care less what people want to worship or salute. I just
have two rules...

(1) Don't try to do it in my face

(2) I shouldn't have to pay

You don't 'pay' a thing.

for your ignorance and intolerance

So much for your feint of "could care less what people want to worship
or salute."

I could care less that you're ignorant and intolerant ;-)

My favorite is "I just can't STAND people who are intolerant."

As for ignorance, "Know it alls" are damn irritating to those of us
who do.

Of course ;-)


by
giving you tax breaks.

Not paying what isn't owed is not a 'break'.

Property taxes?

"Non-profit" Businesses operated under the guise of religion?

Pastor's housing (and cars) provided free and not taxed as income?

And generally little or no income tax.?

Vatican Bank ?:-)

Pointing to what you imagine to be 'fakery' has no bearing on the
legitimate.

The fact of that matter is 'religion' is a matter of conscience and we
don't 'tax' immortal souls whether you believe they exist or not.


[snip]

You're missing/dodging the issue. We're giving tax breaks because we
misconscrew what separation of religion and state means... the
original intent was to avoid a state-sanctioned religion, specifically
like the Church of England. Now we sanction many "state religions".

We even give tax breaks for those that practice witchcraft... not that
I can really discern any difference between that practice and any
other religion. Religion is the balm for the self-insufficient.

We need to stop tax breaks... period!

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

Remember: Once you go over the hill, you pick up speed

In article ,
says...
On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 07:14:17 -0400, PeterD wrote:

On 4/5/2011 2:37 AM, no one wrote:
anti religious are you ?


"Jim wrote in
message ...
On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:06:03 -0500, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


hamilton wrote:

On 11/18/2010 9:43 AM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Too far for me to travel. They are located at: 3701 West 12th
Street, Topeka, Kansas so if any of you are ever in Kansas on
business,
you know where to stay away from.


Google maps shows this to be in a residential area.

I wonder how the neighbors like having them there ?



That was my thought, too.

Not much that can be done. Most cities don't have the brains to
impose zoning laws on churches, misconscrewing the intent of
"separation of church and state".

Personally, though, I believe in "balance": Any time a church is
allowed on a corner, it should be mandatory that the other three
corners are occupied by a Circle-K, a gas station, and an adult book
and "toy" store with an XXX-theater :-)

And churches should be taxed like any other retail business.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

"I have a dream that [we] will one day live in a nation where
[Obama] will not be judged by the color of [his] skin but by the
content of [his] character."

Obama will then be impeached.

"Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we [will be] free
at last!"



No, he's stating the truth: churches SHOULD be taxed as they are a
business.

No, Churches are not a for profit business.
REALLY???
I guess you haven't seen how most big churches are run.
Plenty of profit.


After all, why should others be forced to subsidize any
church?

You aren't.
Sure *I* am, what they DON'T pay other have to make up.


Granting churches tax free status means that the government is
supporting them...

Not extorting money is not 'support'.
So, it is OK that they "extort" from others?
Doesn't really matter, churches have gotten a free ride for too long.


If this is 'right' then I'm starting my own religion...

Which is why there are standards to exclude tax evaders inventing
'fake' religions
Umm, ALL religions are fake.

On 4/5/2011 9:34 AM, Jim Thompson wrote:
On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 16:07:18 +0930, "no
wrote:

anti religious are you ?

No. I could care less what people want to worship or salute. I just
have two rules...

(1) Don't try to do it in my face

(2) I shouldn't have to pay for your ignorance and intolerance by
giving you tax breaks.


Now this is a good question.

If religion did not get tax breaks, would religious people stop being
religious ??

hamilton


PS: I agree 100% with Jims 2 rules.

hamilton wrote:

If religion did not get tax breaks, would religious people stop being
religious ??

Most wouldn't. Some definitely would.


--

Reply in group, but if emailing add one more
zero, and remove the last word.

On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 14:55:14 -0500, flipper wrote:

On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:22:03 -0700, Jim Thompson
wrote:

[snip]

Leaving people alone to do as they please is not a 'sanction',

If you give tax breaks for a practice, it's a "sanction"

which
can be illustrated by your claim to "could care less what people want
to worship or salute" when you clearly do not 'sanction' it.

I presume you mean "couldn't" care less, although it does seem you
could care a little less.

That's one of those double negatives, with two views, that cobble up
our language ;-)


We even give tax breaks for those that practice witchcraft... not that
I can really discern any difference between that practice and any
other religion. Religion is the balm for the self-insufficient.

I am not going to argue about 'religion' vs your personal ego.

That's not my "ego", it's my "religion". Are you challenging my right
to practice mine ?:-)


We need to stop tax breaks... period!

It would be more productive to stop taxes... period!

[snip]

Indeed! but you'd need to kill all folks with a propensity to prey on
the populace by becoming politicians ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

Remember: Once you go over the hill, you pick up speed

On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 15:22:35 -0500, flipper wrote:

On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 14:18:38 -0600, hamilton
wrote:

On 4/5/2011 9:34 AM, Jim Thompson wrote:
On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 16:07:18 +0930, "no
wrote:

anti religious are you ?

No. I could care less what people want to worship or salute. I just
have two rules...

(1) Don't try to do it in my face

(2) I shouldn't have to pay for your ignorance and intolerance by
giving you tax breaks.


Now this is a good question.

If religion did not get tax breaks, would religious people stop being
religious ??

Are you seriously trying to propose that religion spontaneously sprang
forth upon passage of the 16'th Amendment?

That's why I say tax'em :-)



hamilton


PS: I agree 100% with Jims 2 rules.

Flipper can claim whatever he wants, but we non-believers SUBSIDIZE
religions not of our choice.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

Remember: Once you go over the hill, you pick up speed

On 4/5/2011 2:22 PM, flipper wrote:
On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 14:18:38 -0600,
wrote:

Now this is a good question.

If religion did not get tax breaks, would religious people stop being
religious ??

Are you seriously trying to propose that religion spontaneously sprang
forth upon passage of the 16'th Amendment?

No, just answer the question as proposed.

How many people would stop giving to religion if they could not get a
tax writeoff ?

How many religions would die off without the handouts of others ?

If religion stopped getting money from its followers because they could
not get a tax write off AND the religions would be taxed on the money
they did receive, how many would die off ??

hamilton





hamilton


PS: I agree 100% with Jims 2 rules.

In article ,
says...
On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 15:29:34 -0400, WangoTango
wrote:

In article ,
says...
On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 07:14:17 -0400, PeterD wrote:

On 4/5/2011 2:37 AM, no one wrote:
anti religious are you ?


"Jim wrote in
message ...
On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:06:03 -0500, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


hamilton wrote:

On 11/18/2010 9:43 AM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Too far for me to travel. They are located at: 3701 West 12th
Street, Topeka, Kansas so if any of you are ever in Kansas on
business,
you know where to stay away from.


Google maps shows this to be in a residential area.

I wonder how the neighbors like having them there ?



That was my thought, too.

Not much that can be done. Most cities don't have the brains to
impose zoning laws on churches, misconscrewing the intent of
"separation of church and state".

Personally, though, I believe in "balance": Any time a church is
allowed on a corner, it should be mandatory that the other three
corners are occupied by a Circle-K, a gas station, and an adult book
and "toy" store with an XXX-theater :-)

And churches should be taxed like any other retail business.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

"I have a dream that [we] will one day live in a nation where
[Obama] will not be judged by the color of [his] skin but by the
content of [his] character."

Obama will then be impeached.

"Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we [will be] free
at last!"



No, he's stating the truth: churches SHOULD be taxed as they are a
business.

No, Churches are not a for profit business.
REALLY???
I guess you haven't seen how most big churches are run.
Plenty of profit.

Really? Great. Where can I buy stock in these profitable enterprises?
Ah, you have to be one of the insiders that get all the church paid
perks.


Out of curiosity, if I send 5 bucks to one what have I bought? Can I
sell a used one?
You have bought a bunch of bull****.
If you can peddle bull****, more power to ya', if you can get the
government to let you do it tax free, you must have started another
bull**** religion.


After all, why should others be forced to subsidize any
church?

You aren't.

Sure *I* am, what they DON'T pay other have to make up.

"Subsidize" is the paying of money to some person or entity (usually
to produce a thing)..
You can play with your Popeil Pocket Hair Splitter all you want, but
when a church gets to pay no taxes, the general population have to make
up the difference. Call that what you want.


You are not paying the church, or any of it's members, a blessed, or
cursed, thing.
Yes, I am, I'm covering the money they don't pay.


Granting churches tax free status means that the government is
supporting them...

Not extorting money is not 'support'.

So, it is OK that they "extort" from others?

"Extortion" is the obtaining of property (including money) from
another induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force.
Yep, glad you have caught on.


The church does not threaten to beat you up, or send you to jail.
Nope, but it gets the government to do its' dirty work by forcing ME to
pay for taxes the church didn't.
This isn't that hard to understand.


The term is closer to government taxation except they throw in the
qualification of "illegal use of" before force to make it 'ok'.
Uh huh...


Doesn't really matter, churches have gotten a free ride for too long.

Which proves the point, since the founding fathers had a demonstrably
clearer view of what's Constitutional than current demagogues.
Freedom OF religion includes freedom FROM religion too.
So, why do I have to cover they taxes they don't pay on all that land
and money they rake in?



If this is 'right' then I'm starting my own religion...

Which is why there are standards to exclude tax evaders inventing
'fake' religions

Umm, ALL religions are fake.

Speaking of demagoguery.

Just how many other words in the Constitution do you deem 'fake'?
The words are real, it is the religions that are false.