This is the first member of the GOP I've listened to in a longtime that doesn't seem like a total joke.

On 10/1/2014 1:45 AM, jon_banquer wrote:
This is the first member of the GOP I've listened to in a longtime that doesn't seem like a total joke.


He's a bulldog, I wouldn't want him on my tail.
You might want to be careful.
Mikek

---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
http://www.avast.com

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

The best antidote for that kind of thing is an understanding of what
money is, in a modern society, and how the supply of it is
constrained. I don't know of anything to recommend that gets right
to
the heart of it, but the primary insight about what money is was
explained in 1776 by Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations. My
edition
is 1072 pages of 18th century English, and I don't recommend it.
However, the satirist P.J. O'Rourke has written an excellent (no
kidding), readable, condensed version:

http://tinyurl.com/pmm7vfw
...
Ed Huntress

What do you thnk of Wiki's synopsis?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations
This was a remarkable prediction of the Internet:

...."the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily
formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is
spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are
perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to
exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out
expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally
loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as
stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.
The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or
bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any
generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any
just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private
life... But in every improved and civilized society this is the state
into which the laboring poor, that is, the great body of the people,
must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent
it."

On Wed, 1 Oct 2014 20:30:50 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .

The best antidote for that kind of thing is an understanding of what
money is, in a modern society, and how the supply of it is
constrained. I don't know of anything to recommend that gets right
to
the heart of it, but the primary insight about what money is was
explained in 1776 by Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations. My
edition
is 1072 pages of 18th century English, and I don't recommend it.
However, the satirist P.J. O'Rourke has written an excellent (no
kidding), readable, condensed version:

http://tinyurl.com/pmm7vfw
...
Ed Huntress

What do you thnk of Wiki's synopsis?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations

Eh, I think it's too reductionist and too hard to follow.

The central point of the whole treatise is that the wealth of a nation
is the value of the goods and services it produces in a given amount
of time, not how much gold (or pots, in the example he used) it has.
From theories about money supply and our last century or so of
experience, we know that the amount of money that should be in
circulation, in order to avoid inflation or deflation, is some
multiple of that value of goods and services.

The multiple is a function of the "velocity factor," or a measure of
how many times money changes hands in a given amount of time.

The latter points were not stated explicitly by Smith, but are
consequences of his other theories.


This was a remarkable prediction of the Internet:

..."the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily
formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is
spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are
perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to
exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out
expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally
loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as
stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.
The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or
bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any
generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any
just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private
life... But in every improved and civilized society this is the state
into which the laboring poor, that is, the great body of the people,
must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent
it."

On Wed, 1 Oct 2014 13:15:09 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

snip
If it weren't for leftists, where would America be? Pretty dangerous thought.
/snip

FWIW

It appears that the entire European/NA
sociopolitical/economic structure has reached a dead end.
The major political parties have all become clubs for
individual advancement and personal enrichment, with
majority of citizens excluded, from other than scut work
every 2 years (phone banks/envelope stuffing), with no
meaningful input.

While you may disagree with the politics, the observations
about the lack of any *REAL* citizen participation ring
true, for the UK, the US and France.
http://tinyurl.com/mkt9qe2

Who speaks for you? Who speaks for me? Who speaks for the
mass of people, existing and yet to be born, in this and
the other countries?






--
Unka' George

"Gold is the money of kings,
silver is the money of gentlemen,
barter is the money of peasants,
but debt is the money of slaves"

-Norm Franz, "Money and Wealth in the New Millenium"

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

...
National debt is one of the strangest aspects of the whole thing.
There is no way to sort it out by common sense because common sense
has proven to be wrong, time after time. Common sense is based on
experience and we have little experience with the amounts of debt
that
we're talking about here. It's like the old story about personal
debt:
If you owe the bank $10,000, you have a problem. If you owe the bank
$10 million, the bank has a problem....
--
Ed Huntress

Do you agree with this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory

It seems a logical and well written explanation to me, though I don't
know enough to find flaws in its speculations.

-jsw

On Thursday, October 2, 2014 10:58:52 AM UTC-7, F. George McDuffee wrote:

Just because one is not pro Israel does not mean one is

antisemitic.



The correctness of Star Trek's Prime Directive about non

interference is becoming increasingly clear. The U.S. and

indeed the "West" have no business attempting to impose our

"developed" values on the MidEast. We have managed to

topple the secular Ba'athist Arab regimes* because of their

nationalism, particularly regarding oil, thus removing the

barriers these regimes provided against Islamic

fundamentalism, such as ISIS/ISIL (and if it was not

ISIS/ISIL it would be something similar).



*Ba'athist regimes are/were no models of 21st century

progressive democratic thinking, but then 19th century

America [slavery, property qualification for the franchise,

male only franchise] and Europe until the 1950's wasn't

either.

http://tinyurl.com/m7tjm7w

http://tinyurl.com/yh6s8ud



Alternate history is always interesting, but consider how

things would have been different if rather than sabotaging

Nasser's efforts to create a United Arab Republic

http://tinyurl.com/pj3qd , the west had supported his

efforts, thus creating an Arab common market, and

suppressing reactionary Islamic "fundamentalism" which in

point of fact, actually attempts to reintroduce many

pre-Islamic social customs/structures. We would not have

driven the Arab societies to seek aid/advice from the

Communist bloc. While not an Arab country, we would have

not become involved in the British coup to overthrow the

legitimate Mossedegh government in Iran to restore the Shah

http://tinyurl.com/augerb, thus avoiding the current

instability. While the western oil companies would have

long ago been "shown the door," for everyone in both the

MidEast and Europe/America (except for a few oil company

executives and insider stockholders), this most likely would

have been a good outcome. http://tinyurl.com/lzg64eb





--

Unka' George



"Gold is the money of kings,

silver is the money of gentlemen,

barter is the money of peasants,

but debt is the money of slaves"



-Norm Franz, "Money and Wealth in the New Millenium"



Frequently criticism of Israel is a way to delegitimize Israel and attempt to hide hatred for Jews.

Why anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic:

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-t...-anti-zionism/

On Thu, 2 Oct 2014 13:11:43 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .

...
National debt is one of the strangest aspects of the whole thing.
There is no way to sort it out by common sense because common sense
has proven to be wrong, time after time. Common sense is based on
experience and we have little experience with the amounts of debt
that
we're talking about here. It's like the old story about personal
debt:
If you owe the bank $10,000, you have a problem. If you owe the bank
$10 million, the bank has a problem....
--
Ed Huntress

Do you agree with this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory

It seems a logical and well written explanation to me, though I don't
know enough to find flaws in its speculations.

I'm not sure anyone can judge the theory about how money is controlled
(circuitism is a competing theory, and there are others). Most of the
theories that underlie all of these systems are over my head.

However, this modern version of "chartalism" does explain the
*mechanisms* by which money is created, as do other modern theories.
They all seem to agree that it's really a system of credit. Between
chartalism and circuitism, as well as others, there are disagreements
about *whose* credit is controlling the system. And where they
substantially differ, it seems to me, is in explaining what keeps it
under control.

But the basic thing that most of us have to learn is what money really
represents today. Adam Smith might argue that it's always been the
same thing, but I'm not qualified to get into that. The fact is that
when we went from the last remnants of "metalism" to outright fiat
money, very little changed in terms of how the economy functions.

So, obviously, gold or silver are not important. Providing liquidity
for growth is important. Avoiding deflation, and limiting inflation to
low levels, are important -- but the latter sometimes seems
disconnected from economic activity and growth. Deflation, however, is
an economy-killer, as most economists would agree.

So the MMT as desribed doesn't disagree with other theories in that
regard -- at least, those of the last 80 years or so. I can't judge
its veracity beyond that.

--
Ed Huntress

On Wednesday, October 1, 2014 5:04:24 PM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Wed, 1 Oct 2014 13:15:09 -0700 (PDT),

wrote:

On Wednesday, October 1, 2014 2:45:44 AM UTC-4, jon_banquer wrote:

This is the first member of the GOP I've listened

to in a longtime that doesn't seem like a total joke.



Well sadly jon, there are no-brainers on both sides of the aisle, yes. But repubs continue to outshine. The problem is with today's worship-stupidity orthodoxy in the GOP. Forget about the Tea Party.



Repub establishment House speaker Johnny Boehner actually said: "...carbon dioxide can't be bad for you because we breath it out" in the Global Warming fight.



That's not quite fair to Boehner, and it's not quite what he said.

That's not what this says: -- http://imincorrigible.wordpress.com/tag/daily-show/

On Thu, 2 Oct 2014 12:17:26 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Wednesday, October 1, 2014 5:04:24 PM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Wed, 1 Oct 2014 13:15:09 -0700 (PDT),

wrote:

On Wednesday, October 1, 2014 2:45:44 AM UTC-4, jon_banquer wrote:

This is the first member of the GOP I've listened

to in a longtime that doesn't seem like a total joke.



Well sadly jon, there are no-brainers on both sides of the aisle, yes. But repubs continue to outshine. The problem is with today's worship-stupidity orthodoxy in the GOP. Forget about the Tea Party.



Repub establishment House speaker Johnny Boehner actually said: "...carbon dioxide can't be bad for you because we breath it out" in the Global Warming fight.



That's not quite fair to Boehner, and it's not quite what he said.

That's not what this says: -- http://imincorrigible.wordpress.com/tag/daily-show/

I posted the complete quote from Politico. There is a video of the
interview of Boehner by George Stephanopoulus on ABC that is down the
page on the same site.

You've repeated a pull-quote by some moron who posts a blog called "I
Am Incorrigible."

Go look at my link again -- assuming you bothered to check it in the
first place:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/politi...t_comical.html

Watch the video. It's only 22 seconds long. You'll see that what I
posted is exactly correct.

--
Ed Huntress

On Thursday, October 2, 2014 4:23:56 PM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Thu, 2 Oct 2014 12:17:26 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Wednesday, October 1, 2014 5:04:24 PM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:

On Wed, 1 Oct 2014 13:15:09 -0700 (PDT),

wrote:

On Wednesday, October 1, 2014 2:45:44 AM UTC-4, jon_banquer wrote:

This is the first member of the GOP I've listened

to in a longtime that doesn't seem like a total joke.

Well sadly jon, there are no-brainers on both sides of the
aisle, yes. But repubs continue to outshine. The problem is with today's worship-stupidity orthodoxy in the GOP. Forget about the Tea Party.

Repub establishment House speaker Johnny Boehner actually said: "...carbon dioxide can't be bad for you because we breath it out" in the Global Warming fight.

That's not quite fair to Boehner, and it's not quite what he said.

That's not what this says: -- http://imincorrigible.wordpress.com/tag/daily-show/

I posted the complete quote from Politico. There is a video of the

interview of Boehner by George Stephanopoulus on ABC that is down the

page on the same site.

You've repeated a pull-quote by some moron who posts a blog called "I

Am Incorrigible."

Go look at my link again -- assuming you bothered to check it in the

first place:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/politi...t_comical.html

Watch the video. It's only 22 seconds long. You'll see that what I

posted is exactly correct.

There is still no difference in the meaning of "...carbon dioxide can't be bad for you because we breath it out"
-- and --
"The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment, it is almost comical," Boehner said. "Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide."

None at all. Boehner is trying to make carbon dioxide look harmless in the Global Warming process. And you are taking up for this non-sense.

How can you call yourself even a moderate republican? Only the far right would defend this bull.

On Thu, 2 Oct 2014 11:41:33 -0700 (PDT), jon_banquer
wrote:

snip

Frequently criticism of Israel is a way to delegitimize Israel and attempt to hide hatred for Jews.

Why anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic:

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-t...-anti-zionism/

So those who are not for me are against me?

Salaam, Shalom, and Adieu ...


--
Unka' George

"Gold is the money of kings,
silver is the money of gentlemen,
barter is the money of peasants,
but debt is the money of slaves"

-Norm Franz, "Money and Wealth in the New Millenium"

wrote in
:

[...]

Now Ed, I thought that if you were going to stoop to the level
of a few others in the efforts to defend the right (however
moderate or not), you'd at least be truthful.

And now you know why I killfiled Ed six or seven years ago.

On Thursday, October 2, 2014 2:22:31 PM UTC-7, slow Eddy tried to tell an adult who can think for himself what to do and made a fool out of himself once again.

Snipped typical slow Eddy bull****

Nothing to respond to.

On Thu, 2 Oct 2014 13:30:59 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

On Thursday, October 2, 2014 4:23:56 PM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Thu, 2 Oct 2014 12:17:26 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Wednesday, October 1, 2014 5:04:24 PM UTC-4, Ed Huntress wrote:

On Wed, 1 Oct 2014 13:15:09 -0700 (PDT),

wrote:

On Wednesday, October 1, 2014 2:45:44 AM UTC-4, jon_banquer wrote:

This is the first member of the GOP I've listened

to in a longtime that doesn't seem like a total joke.

Well sadly jon, there are no-brainers on both sides of the
aisle, yes. But repubs continue to outshine. The problem is with today's worship-stupidity orthodoxy in the GOP. Forget about the Tea Party.

Repub establishment House speaker Johnny Boehner actually said: "...carbon dioxide can't be bad for you because we breath it out" in the Global Warming fight.

That's not quite fair to Boehner, and it's not quite what he said.

That's not what this says: -- http://imincorrigible.wordpress.com/tag/daily-show/

I posted the complete quote from Politico. There is a video of the

interview of Boehner by George Stephanopoulus on ABC that is down the

page on the same site.

You've repeated a pull-quote by some moron who posts a blog called "I

Am Incorrigible."

Go look at my link again -- assuming you bothered to check it in the

first place:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/politi...t_comical.html

Watch the video. It's only 22 seconds long. You'll see that what I

posted is exactly correct.

There is still no difference in the meaning of "...carbon dioxide can't be bad for you because we breath it out"
-- and --
"The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment, it is almost comical," Boehner said. "Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide."

The difference is that he was talking about "carcinogens." As I said,
the quote is "not quite what he said."

I also said that science obviously was not his best subject. g But
he was half right. Until 2007, in the Massachusetts v. EPA Supreme
Court case, CO2 wasn't considered to be a "pollutant" under the law,
because the definitions then in force involved sources that had
direct, negative effects on life, especially humans. CO2 has an
indirect effect. Many people still adhere to that distinction, whether
or not they believe that human-produced CO2 creates global warming.


None at all. Boehner is trying to make carbon dioxide look harmless in the Global Warming process. And you are taking up for this non-sense.

No, I'm doing what I always do: calling out people who misrepresent
the facts -- in this case, what Star Chief Boehner and McConnell said,
and the context in which they said it.


How can you call yourself even a moderate republican? Only the far right would defend this bull.

I'n not defending it. I'm correcting the dishonest statements that
were (mis)quoted.

If you don't start with the facts, but start twisting them to suit
your purpose, you're part of the problem.

I have no love for Star Chief or Old McConnell. But if I'm going to
argue with them, I'm going to do it honestly -- unlike several people
involved in this thread.

--
Ed Huntress

--
Ed Huntress

On Thursday, October 2, 2014 1:42:20 PM UTC-7, slow Eddy wrote:

As for stooping: One thing that any of the honest denizens of this NG

will tell you is that I don't dissemble the truth. You, on the other

hand, are ready to buy a made-up quote from a college kid who writes

for a lark. I write for a living.


slow Eddy writes worthless ad copy for a living.

slow Eddy lies frequently.

slow Eddy likes to build himself up while tearing others down. He doesn't realize how transparent he is when he's playing this sick game.

I've busted slow Eddy for lying frequently for at least a decade.

I've called slow Eddy out for being a pompous jerk for at least a decade.

slow Eddy makes excuses for those who refuse to think for themselves (iggy is an example) if they are willing to stoke his fragile ego.

slow Eddy more often than not isn't able to learn form others and frequently gives up on tasks such as forming aluminum.

slow Eddy often favors book knowledge over those with years of practical, hands on, experience that he doesn't have.

slow Eddy can best be described as a lying, blowhard that hasn't accomplished very much in his lifetime.

On Thursday, October 2, 2014 2:43:56 PM UTC-7, Doug Miller wrote:
wrote in

:



[...]



Now Ed, I thought that if you were going to stoop to the level

of a few others in the efforts to defend the right (however

moderate or not), you'd at least be truthful.



And now you know why I killfiled Ed six or seven years ago.

Kill files are for pussies. Doug Miller is a major pussy who is often totally clueless.

On Thursday, October 2, 2014 1:51:30 PM UTC-7, F. George McDuffee wrote:
On Thu, 2 Oct 2014 11:41:33 -0700 (PDT), jon_banquer

wrote:



snip



Frequently criticism of Israel is a way to delegitimize Israel and attempt to hide hatred for Jews.



Why anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic:



http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-t...-anti-zionism/



So those who are not for me are against me?



Salaam, Shalom, and Adieu ...





--

Unka' George



"Gold is the money of kings,

silver is the money of gentlemen,

barter is the money of peasants,

but debt is the money of slaves"



-Norm Franz, "Money and Wealth in the New Millenium"


You have very little understanding of the growing hatred for Israel/Jews and it often shows in what you post. I would not want to be a Jew and live in many parts of Europe right now. Safest place for a Jew is Israel.

On Thursday, October 2, 2014 2:43:56 PM UTC-7, Doug Miller wrote:
wrote in

:



[...]



Now Ed, I thought that if you were going to stoop to the level

of a few others in the efforts to defend the right (however

moderate or not), you'd at least be truthful.



And now you know why I killfiled Ed six or seven years ago.



Further:

People like Doug Miller that brag who is in their killfile are extremely weak.

There is many ways to be pro-Israel. They all involve wishing that
Israel is a prosperous and respected country, that is militarily safe
and economically developed. But being pro-Israel does not mean
supporting just one particular Israeli faction, hating all neighbors
of Israel, being pro-war, and so on. Some people who support Israeli
hardliners, tend to imply that anyone who does not support hardliners
are anti-Israel. I find that to be distateful.

i

On Thu, 02 Oct 2014 18:12:46 -0500, Ignoramus19864
wrote:

There is many ways to be pro-Israel. They all involve wishing that
Israel is a prosperous and respected country, that is militarily safe
and economically developed. But being pro-Israel does not mean
supporting just one particular Israeli faction, hating all neighbors
of Israel, being pro-war, and so on. Some people who support Israeli
hardliners, tend to imply that anyone who does not support hardliners
are anti-Israel. I find that to be distateful.

i

So do I.

--
Ed Huntress

On Thursday, October 2, 2014 4:12:46 PM UTC-7, Ignoramus19864 wrote:
There is many ways to be pro-Israel. They all involve wishing that

Israel is a prosperous and respected country, that is militarily safe

and economically developed. But being pro-Israel does not mean

supporting just one particular Israeli faction, hating all neighbors

of Israel, being pro-war, and so on. Some people who support Israeli

hardliners, tend to imply that anyone who does not support hardliners

are anti-Israel. I find that to be distateful.



i


Who is iggy responding to?

I'm suppose to guess?

I find lack of Usenet protocol to be distasteful in this case.

On 10/2/2014 12:11 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

...
National debt is one of the strangest aspects of the whole thing.
There is no way to sort it out by common sense because common sense
has proven to be wrong, time after time. Common sense is based on
experience and we have little experience with the amounts of debt
that
we're talking about here. It's like the old story about personal
debt:
If you owe the bank $10,000, you have a problem. If you owe the bank
$10 million, the bank has a problem....
--
Ed Huntress

Do you agree with this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory

It seems a logical and well written explanation to me, though I don't
know enough to find flaws in its speculations.

-jsw


hocus pocus is a lot of it - this is a massively changed document that
is in flux as I type.
(I'm an editor / corrector on one of wiki's pages. )
Look at the page and then see the TALK button on top - flip open that
page. Discussions that are still on-going beating it up and trying to
get it changed. Eco college page. Then look at the view history -
wow a lot of changes - and whoa - a lot by one ?? Back on the main
page, there are a lot of good (quality unknown) end-notes.

Tricky - might be a page of a doctoral student who is taking inputs
from professors, students, you, me, self proclaimed...

It is only one of many theories. See the bottom of the page - hyperlinks.

Martin Eastburn

"Martin Eastburn" wrote in message
...
On 10/2/2014 12:11 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

...
National debt is one of the strangest aspects of the whole thing.
There is no way to sort it out by common sense because common
sense
has proven to be wrong, time after time. Common sense is based on
experience and we have little experience with the amounts of debt
that
we're talking about here. It's like the old story about personal
debt:
If you owe the bank $10,000, you have a problem. If you owe the
bank
$10 million, the bank has a problem....
--
Ed Huntress

Do you agree with this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory

It seems a logical and well written explanation to me, though I
don't
know enough to find flaws in its speculations.

-jsw


hocus pocus is a lot of it - this is a massively changed document
that is in flux as I type.
(I'm an editor / corrector on one of wiki's pages. )
Look at the page and then see the TALK button on top - flip open
that page. Discussions that are still on-going beating it up and
trying to
get it changed. Eco college page. Then look at the view history -
wow a lot of changes - and whoa - a lot by one ?? Back on the main
page, there are a lot of good (quality unknown) end-notes.

Tricky - might be a page of a doctoral student who is taking inputs
from professors, students, you, me, self proclaimed...

It is only one of many theories. See the bottom of the page -
hyperlinks.

Martin Eastburn

I do realize that Economics has no more solid theoretical basis than
Climatology and that both arrogantly demand the respect they envy in
the hard sciences, which their results do not justify.

When I was in school Biology was just emerging from the level of
collecting data into successfully interpreting, integrating and
extrapolating from it, and Geology was still mired in myths to avoid
association with Nazi Science. Economics hasn't yet found its DNA or
Plate Tectonics foundation.

I accept that we have inflated the size of our economy by borrowing
from the future, and that the system is based on faith in future
productivity or the continuing value of precious metals. Faith in the
future value of real estate, plus American loans, rescued Weimar
Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Rentenmark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Plan
"5. Germany would be loaned 800 Million Marks from the USA"

So far the useful examples of peacetime economic failures have been in
less powerful nations like Greece, Brazil and Argentina where they
don't play the game as well as we think we do.
http://countrystudies.us/brazil/68.htm

-jsw

On Fri, 3 Oct 2014 08:29:57 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"Martin Eastburn" wrote in message
...
On 10/2/2014 12:11 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

...
National debt is one of the strangest aspects of the whole thing.
There is no way to sort it out by common sense because common
sense
has proven to be wrong, time after time. Common sense is based on
experience and we have little experience with the amounts of debt
that
we're talking about here. It's like the old story about personal
debt:
If you owe the bank $10,000, you have a problem. If you owe the
bank
$10 million, the bank has a problem....
--
Ed Huntress

Do you agree with this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory

It seems a logical and well written explanation to me, though I
don't
know enough to find flaws in its speculations.

-jsw


hocus pocus is a lot of it - this is a massively changed document
that is in flux as I type.
(I'm an editor / corrector on one of wiki's pages. )
Look at the page and then see the TALK button on top - flip open
that page. Discussions that are still on-going beating it up and
trying to
get it changed. Eco college page. Then look at the view history -
wow a lot of changes - and whoa - a lot by one ?? Back on the main
page, there are a lot of good (quality unknown) end-notes.

Tricky - might be a page of a doctoral student who is taking inputs
from professors, students, you, me, self proclaimed...

It is only one of many theories. See the bottom of the page -
hyperlinks.

Martin Eastburn

I do realize that Economics has no more solid theoretical basis than
Climatology and that both arrogantly demand the respect they envy in
the hard sciences, which their results do not justify.

The strength of economics is in its empirical studies, not in theory.
As for the hard sciences: when physics figures out "dark energy" and
integrates general relativity with quantum mechanics, they, too, will
actually have a sound theoretical basis. g


When I was in school Biology was just emerging from the level of
collecting data into successfully interpreting, integrating and
extrapolating from it, and Geology was still mired in myths to avoid
association with Nazi Science. Economics hasn't yet found its DNA or
Plate Tectonics foundation.

I accept that we have inflated the size of our economy by borrowing
from the future, and that the system is based on faith in future
productivity or the continuing value of precious metals. Faith in the
future value of real estate, plus American loans, rescued Weimar
Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Rentenmark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Plan
"5. Germany would be loaned 800 Million Marks from the USA"

So far the useful examples of peacetime economic failures have been in
less powerful nations like Greece, Brazil and Argentina where they
don't play the game as well as we think we do.
http://countrystudies.us/brazil/68.htm

-jsw

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 3 Oct 2014 08:29:57 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"Martin Eastburn" wrote in message
...
On 10/2/2014 12:11 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

...
National debt is one of the strangest aspects of the whole
thing.
There is no way to sort it out by common sense because common
sense
has proven to be wrong, time after time. Common sense is based
on
experience and we have little experience with the amounts of
debt
that
we're talking about here. It's like the old story about personal
debt:
If you owe the bank $10,000, you have a problem. If you owe the
bank
$10 million, the bank has a problem....
--
Ed Huntress

Do you agree with this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory

It seems a logical and well written explanation to me, though I
don't
know enough to find flaws in its speculations.

-jsw


hocus pocus is a lot of it - this is a massively changed document
that is in flux as I type.
(I'm an editor / corrector on one of wiki's pages. )
Look at the page and then see the TALK button on top - flip open
that page. Discussions that are still on-going beating it up and
trying to
get it changed. Eco college page. Then look at the view
history -
wow a lot of changes - and whoa - a lot by one ?? Back on the
main
page, there are a lot of good (quality unknown) end-notes.

Tricky - might be a page of a doctoral student who is taking
inputs
from professors, students, you, me, self proclaimed...

It is only one of many theories. See the bottom of the page -
hyperlinks.

Martin Eastburn

I do realize that Economics has no more solid theoretical basis than
Climatology and that both arrogantly demand the respect they envy in
the hard sciences, which their results do not justify.

The strength of economics is in its empirical studies, not in
theory.
As for the hard sciences: when physics figures out "dark energy" and
integrates general relativity with quantum mechanics, they, too,
will
actually have a sound theoretical basis. g

"Empirical studies" were the state of metallurgy when statistical
analysis showed that the urine of red-headed boys or fern-fed goats
were best for hardening steel. Smiths could sometimes make excellent
swords by following procedures but didn't understand why they worked.

Now we understand the effects alloying ingredients have on the rate of
recrystallization and can control hardness with cooling rate, or
design an alloy to have predicted properties. Successful extrapolation
is the ultimate confirmation of a theory, and the reason we still use
both Relativity and Quantum Mechanics although we know they disagree
at the extremes.

Your fringe counterexamples apply to places and scales we can't reach
to collect data. I realize we may not have the final answers, only
ones that adequately explain all experimental observations in
practical physics and engineering on planet Earth.

Climatology can't reconstruct the known past, I don't know that
Economics even dares to try. I silenced an Elliot Wave proponent by
challenging him to reconstruct the last 10 years with it. He couldn't
snow me with NASA signal processing theory that I understood better
than he did.

The deviation between mainstream climate models run backwards is
around three times larger than the warming from observed data.
Projected hurricane tracks are called "spaghetti models" because our
understanding of energy flow in the atmosphere is inadequate to
accurately predict two days into the future.
http://stormfacts.net/models.htm

The difference between a hard and a soft science is that a hard
science has a fundamental understanding of underlying cause and effect
and doesn't rely on statistics beyond correcting for random noise.

Biology is a good current example of how a field of science matures.
We know for example how DNA codes for proteins but not all its other
regulatory functions. It's maturing as we watch.

-jsw

On Thu, 02 Oct 2014 18:12:46 -0500, Ignoramus19864
wrote:

There is many ways to be pro-Israel. They all involve wishing that
Israel is a prosperous and respected country, that is militarily safe
and economically developed. But being pro-Israel does not mean
supporting just one particular Israeli faction, hating all neighbors
of Israel, being pro-war, and so on. Some people who support Israeli
hardliners, tend to imply that anyone who does not support hardliners
are anti-Israel. I find that to be distateful.

i

On the other hand...the Islamic world is the chief enemy of both
Israel and the Western World. There is NO question about that
factoid.

While 95% of the Islamic world is peaceful, they
support/encourage/mule for the 5% who want you, me, the Jews either
dead or as part of their Sharia world..or dead.

The enemies of the Jews back in in the 40s-70s dont hold a candle to
those enemies today. And as we have been cast as the big brother to
the Israelies....shrug

As a matter of fact..they hate the Great Satan more today than they do
the jews. Simply because we are the single greatest opponent of their
goal/desire to establish the Third Caliphate across the planet.

The Left simply has no grasp of that goal, have done all that they can
do to allow it to happen and provide propaganda support to the Islamic
talking heads. As the very same Left did to the Soviets and their
version of Communism.

Its obvious that the Left simply hates whatever political structure
they were raised in..and in their utter stupidity..will support
anything that is NOT that which they were raised under.

They simply refuse to look, refuse to think, refuse to understand that
while Democracy or our very special Constutional Republic may not be
perfect..it damned well is perfect when one looks across the world at
the rest of the "isms".

They are obviously mentally ill, or indeed traitors and should be
rounded up and disposed of via machine gun/mass graves so the thinking
people can take care of the Islamic issue that has replaced Universal
Communism after the USSR fell and China became quasi capitalistic.

Anyone note that Hong Kong wants free from mainland China? Seems as
though the failed experiment Karl Marx painted a good portion of the
planet with still isnt dead yet..though the death rattles are clear to
any who listen.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...0HN03Q20141003

Gunner

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child,
miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied,
demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless.
Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats."
PJ O'Rourke

On Thu, 2 Oct 2014 21:43:56 +0000 (UTC), Doug Miller
wrote:

wrote in
:

[...]

Now Ed, I thought that if you were going to stoop to the level
of a few others in the efforts to defend the right (however
moderate or not), you'd at least be truthful.

And now you know why I killfiled Ed six or seven years ago.

Same here.


"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child,
miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied,
demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless.
Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats."
PJ O'Rourke

On Fri, 03 Oct 2014 11:01:48 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

On Thu, 2 Oct 2014 21:43:56 +0000 (UTC), Doug Miller
wrote:

wrote in
:

[...]

Now Ed, I thought that if you were going to stoop to the level
of a few others in the efforts to defend the right (however
moderate or not), you'd at least be truthful.

And now you know why I killfiled Ed six or seven years ago.

Same here.

No, you did it because you got buried in a flash-flood of facts that
turned your idiotic copypasta into a scrap pile of bits and bytes.
d8-)

Doug's comment above, in which he defends a couple of distortions that
I just corrected with documented quotations from the sources, explains
his problem.

It's curious, though, Gunner, that what Doug just said I was being
untruthful about in "defending the right" is something that you'd find
objectionable. Hell, that's what you do for a living.

d8-)

--
Ed Huntress

On Fri, 03 Oct 2014 08:52:04 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

snip
The strength of economics is in its empirical studies, not in theory.
/snip

For some schools see http://tinyurl.com/om4jecr
"If you carry the popular impression that data-hungry
economists are always busy with complex formulas and not
with outside-the-box thinking then you should take a look at
the Austrian school. Just like monks living in their
monastery, the economists of this school strive to solve
complex economic issues by conducting "thought experiments."
The Austrian school believes that it is possible to discover
the truth simply by thinking aloud."

FWIW -- many of our more reactionary/libertarian posters
closely follow the Austrian school even if they are not
aware of this.

One item that should be considered is that "money" as a
measure and store of value, is "radioactive" in the sense
that it decays over time. Even money nominally based on
gold and silver become debased, and worth less and less over
time. http://tinyurl.com/2vg47a http://tinyurl.com/oyw6y7j

It is a difficult "science" where the primary unit of
measure continually shrinks.

Another problem with "empirical studies" is these frequently
do not support the ascendent socioeconomic
theology/mythology/ideology. Currently in the US,
iconoclastic "empirical studies" may mean denial of tenure,
but in many areas it can mean heavy fines, prison or death.
http://tinyurl.com/3vyh9ch
"Even as a private citizen, Bevacqua still is subject to
action from the authorities. In March, she was among a group
of private researchers who were fined 500,000 pesos each for
producing statistics the government said didn’t comply with
“appropriate methodological requirements.” "

What is clear is that with the decline in the importance of
the nation-state, the rise of the supranational corporation,
and the "brave new world order" of globalization, the old
schools of economics are "valid" for increasingly smaller
segments of "the economy," and "Mr. Market" is becoming
increasingly capricious, e.g. where does human trafficking,
drugs, derivatives and gun running show up in the GDP, and
should these be debits or credits?


--
Unka' George

"Gold is the money of kings,
silver is the money of gentlemen,
barter is the money of peasants,
but debt is the money of slaves"

-Norm Franz, "Money and Wealth in the New Millenium"

On Fri, 3 Oct 2014 08:29:57 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

snip
I accept that we have inflated the size of our economy by borrowing
from the future, and that the system is based on faith in future
productivity or the continuing value of precious metals. Faith in the
future value of real estate, plus American loans, rescued Weimar
Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Rentenmark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Plan
"5. Germany would be loaned 800 Million Marks from the USA"

So far the useful examples of peacetime economic failures have been in
less powerful nations like Greece, Brazil and Argentina where they
don't play the game as well as we think we do.
http://countrystudies.us/brazil/68.htm
/snip

Much depends on what the debt was used for. It is one thing
to build a Hoover Dam on credit (which is self liquidating,
given the power generation and irrigation), and quite
another to build an athletic stadium, casino, bridges to
nowhere http://tinyurl.com/2s6jpk http://tinyurl.com/25n84h
or wage wars on credit, especially credit guaranteed by the
"full faith and credit of the government," i.e. the
taxpayers.
http://tinyurl.com/ak8r8dl
http://tinyurl.com/ksn3bgl
http://tinyurl.com/kvoz35j


--
Unka' George

"Gold is the money of kings,
silver is the money of gentlemen,
barter is the money of peasants,
but debt is the money of slaves"

-Norm Franz, "Money and Wealth in the New Millenium"

On Fri, 03 Oct 2014 17:37:44 -0500, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

On Fri, 03 Oct 2014 08:52:04 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

snip
The strength of economics is in its empirical studies, not in theory.
/snip

For some schools see http://tinyurl.com/om4jecr
"If you carry the popular impression that data-hungry
economists are always busy with complex formulas and not
with outside-the-box thinking then you should take a look at
the Austrian school. Just like monks living in their
monastery, the economists of this school strive to solve
complex economic issues by conducting "thought experiments."
The Austrian school believes that it is possible to discover
the truth simply by thinking aloud."

Ideologues of the mid-20th century, full of wacky ideas that have
little or no basis in experiece.

-
Ed Huntress


FWIW -- many of our more reactionary/libertarian posters
closely follow the Austrian school even if they are not
aware of this.

One item that should be considered is that "money" as a
measure and store of value, is "radioactive" in the sense
that it decays over time. Even money nominally based on
gold and silver become debased, and worth less and less over
time. http://tinyurl.com/2vg47a http://tinyurl.com/oyw6y7j

It is a difficult "science" where the primary unit of
measure continually shrinks.

Another problem with "empirical studies" is these frequently
do not support the ascendent socioeconomic
theology/mythology/ideology. Currently in the US,
iconoclastic "empirical studies" may mean denial of tenure,
but in many areas it can mean heavy fines, prison or death.
http://tinyurl.com/3vyh9ch
"Even as a private citizen, Bevacqua still is subject to
action from the authorities. In March, she was among a group
of private researchers who were fined 500,000 pesos each for
producing statistics the government said didn’t comply with
“appropriate methodological requirements.” "

What is clear is that with the decline in the importance of
the nation-state, the rise of the supranational corporation,
and the "brave new world order" of globalization, the old
schools of economics are "valid" for increasingly smaller
segments of "the economy," and "Mr. Market" is becoming
increasingly capricious, e.g. where does human trafficking,
drugs, derivatives and gun running show up in the GDP, and
should these be debits or credits?

On Fri, 03 Oct 2014 19:30:06 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

snip
Ideologues of the mid-20th century, full of wacky ideas that have
little or no basis in experiece.
/snip

With the following results:
http://tinyurl.com/kxt29cz
"Paris (AFP) - The gap between the haves and the have-nots
globally is now at the same level as in the 1820s, the OECD
said Thursday, warning it was one of the most "worrying"
developments over the past 200 years.

In a major report on global well-being over the past two
centuries, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development noted inequality shot up after globalisation
took root in the 1980s. http://tinyurl.com/k66vu8l

Researchers studied income levels in 25 countries, charted
them back in time to 1820 and then collated them as if the
world were a single country.

The results showed that income inequality dropped sharply in
the middle of the 20th century -- which the OECD put down to
what it called an "egalitarian revolution", notably with the
rise of Communism in Eastern Europe -- but then spiked more
recently."


--
Unka' George

"Gold is the money of kings,
silver is the money of gentlemen,
barter is the money of peasants,
but debt is the money of slaves"

-Norm Franz, "Money and Wealth in the New Millenium"

"jon_banquer" wrote in message
...

This is the first member of the GOP I've listened to in a longtime that
doesn't seem like a total joke.

Here's a total joke:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spVHSjWeZDo

RogerN

"F. George McDuffee" wrote in
message ...
On Fri, 03 Oct 2014 19:30:06 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:


Researchers studied income levels in 25 countries, charted
them back in time to 1820 and then collated them as if the
world were a single country.

The results showed that income inequality dropped sharply in
the middle of the 20th century -- which the OECD put down to
what it called an "egalitarian revolution", notably with the
rise of Communism in Eastern Europe -- but then spiked more
recently."
--
Unka' George

Those unwilling or unqualified to participate in manufacturing go to
great lengths to discredit its contribution to the Middle Class and
adequate family income.
http://hive.slate.com/hive/made-amer...ollar-industry
"[T]here is such strong bias against manufacturing work among adults
who advise young people about career choices, and skilled workers are
in such short supply."

What we really have is achievement inequality, but admitting that
won't get you elected.

-jsw

On Fri, 3 Oct 2014 10:38:52 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 3 Oct 2014 08:29:57 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"Martin Eastburn" wrote in message
...
On 10/2/2014 12:11 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

...
National debt is one of the strangest aspects of the whole
thing.
There is no way to sort it out by common sense because common
sense
has proven to be wrong, time after time. Common sense is based
on
experience and we have little experience with the amounts of
debt
that
we're talking about here. It's like the old story about personal
debt:
If you owe the bank $10,000, you have a problem. If you owe the
bank
$10 million, the bank has a problem....
--
Ed Huntress

Do you agree with this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory

It seems a logical and well written explanation to me, though I
don't
know enough to find flaws in its speculations.

-jsw


hocus pocus is a lot of it - this is a massively changed document
that is in flux as I type.
(I'm an editor / corrector on one of wiki's pages. )
Look at the page and then see the TALK button on top - flip open
that page. Discussions that are still on-going beating it up and
trying to
get it changed. Eco college page. Then look at the view
history -
wow a lot of changes - and whoa - a lot by one ?? Back on the
main
page, there are a lot of good (quality unknown) end-notes.

Tricky - might be a page of a doctoral student who is taking
inputs
from professors, students, you, me, self proclaimed...

It is only one of many theories. See the bottom of the page -
hyperlinks.

Martin Eastburn

I do realize that Economics has no more solid theoretical basis than
Climatology and that both arrogantly demand the respect they envy in
the hard sciences, which their results do not justify.

The strength of economics is in its empirical studies, not in
theory.
As for the hard sciences: when physics figures out "dark energy" and
integrates general relativity with quantum mechanics, they, too,
will
actually have a sound theoretical basis. g

"Empirical studies" were the state of metallurgy when statistical
analysis showed that the urine of red-headed boys or fern-fed goats
were best for hardening steel.

That wasn't "statistical analysis." That was anecdotal old-wives'
tales.

Smiths could sometimes make excellent
swords by following procedures but didn't understand why they worked.

Now we understand the effects alloying ingredients have on the rate of
recrystallization and can control hardness with cooling rate, or
design an alloy to have predicted properties. Successful extrapolation
is the ultimate confirmation of a theory, and the reason we still use
both Relativity and Quantum Mechanics although we know they disagree
at the extremes.

You're talking about engineering more than science. No amount of
deductive theorizing or undirected observation would produce Special
Relativity. It depended, first, on a great insight; and then was
proven by highly-directed observation based on that insight.

That's common in the modern history of science. Less so in
engineering.


Your fringe counterexamples apply to places and scales we can't reach
to collect data. I realize we may not have the final answers, only
ones that adequately explain all experimental observations in
practical physics and engineering on planet Earth.

Climatology can't reconstruct the known past, I don't know that
Economics even dares to try. I silenced an Elliot Wave proponent by
challenging him to reconstruct the last 10 years with it. He couldn't
snow me with NASA signal processing theory that I understood better
than he did.

The Elliot Wave theory is a form of religion used primarily by
financial people. After 75 years or so, it remains controversial. Like
any religion, it has its casuists and apologists.


The deviation between mainstream climate models run backwards is
around three times larger than the warming from observed data.
Projected hurricane tracks are called "spaghetti models" because our
understanding of energy flow in the atmosphere is inadequate to
accurately predict two days into the future.
http://stormfacts.net/models.htm

That's not climate models. That's weather models.


The difference between a hard and a soft science is that a hard
science has a fundamental understanding of underlying cause and effect
and doesn't rely on statistics beyond correcting for random noise.

That's one definition, but it doesn't say much about *why* one has an
understanding of those causes and effects and the other is limited in
that regard. Examining that issue is far more revealing about sciences
that we practice today.


Biology is a good current example of how a field of science matures.
We know for example how DNA codes for proteins but not all its other
regulatory functions. It's maturing as we watch.

-jsw

This, of course, is part of a long-running discussion between the
physical sciences and the social sciences, with a couple of examples
that are -- in terms of their characteristics as science -- in
between.

The physical sciences are strictly deterministic (don't start with me
about Schrodinger's cat, please g). Advances in those sciences comes
primarily from finding out what the determinants are, and how they
relate. Once those are revealed, the relationships prove to be mostly
extremely simple and consistent.

Economics may be deterministic but, at the fundamental level, it may
be impossible ever to uncover all of the determinants. Or there may be
a randomness for which it is mathematically, scientifically,
improssible to uncover the determinants. In other words, there may be
no intellectual distinction between randomness and the finest-grained
determination. In the case of economics, that's largely because it
depends on the actions of people -- often hundreds of millions of them
-- and neither biology nor psychology is anywhere near determining the
causes of behavior behind any single one of those people. That is, at
the level of weather prediction: predicting an individual, local
event.

So mainstream economics today proceeds mostly along two paths:
statistical modelling, and the recent field called "Behavioral
Economics." The former is the basis of econometrics. Depending on what
results are desired and who wants them, it may be practiced in an
attempt to build theories, or it may be looking for patterns in which
nobody gives a damn about why. My son just finished such a project for
a car manufacturer. They didn't want theories; they wanted patterns
that would produce a better result in their pricing. The model says he
just made over $5 million for them. It's probably true; those types of
models typically have such effects. This past summer, his teamed saved
us taxpayers an estimated $2 Billion by modelling and improving
aspects of the supply chain for a well-known piece of military
hardwre. They weren't looking for a theory. They were looking for
money.

Among practicing, commercial economists and economic analysts, that's
what most of them do today. It's more like engineering than science.
It requires powerful insights to boil millions of variables down to
something that's manageable with analytic tools.

The other economics field that's hot, mostly in academia, is
Behavioral Economics. They're applying the knowledge of psychology and
social pyschology to human economic behavior.

The two may come together, like the hope for Quantum Mechanics and
General Relativity, to produce comprehensive theories. But they still
will produce probablistic, statistical results. That's science, just
as much as a numerical result that's accurate to ten decimal places.
Because "science" is the method and the discipline, not the specific
result.

Now, about those "in-betweens," such as biology and climatology.
They're sciences, too. Biology, like economics, may never be strictly
deterministic. At the finest-grain level, mutations may prove to be
random in the extreme, or indistinguishable from randomness. There
will be statistical values for their likelihood, and that may be the
end of the line.

Climatology is somewhat in the same boat. There's no denying that it's
likely deterministic, but the variables and the data may be, again,
indistinguishable from randomness. Progress will come from more
accurate insights into the determinants that can be managed with
models that can be run and employed in the real world, and that can
produce useful, statistical results.

One final comment on the value of such results. When we think of
statistics, and the discomfort we engineering-inclined people feel by
not knowing things absolutely, consider this: When we have a
statistical result that predicts a 48% likelihood of something, at a
90% confidence level and a confidence interval of +/-5, our result is
not very useful. But a 75% likelihood with a level of 90% and an
interval of +/- 10 is actionable. Bet the farm. Economic modelling is
solid to the degree it predicts results in the latter category. At
that point, it's good as gold. That is, if it's done intelligently.

--
Ed Huntress

On Saturday, October 4, 2014 2:54:54 AM UTC-7, RogerN wrote:
"jon_banquer" wrote in message

...



This is the first member of the GOP I've listened to in a longtime that

doesn't seem like a total joke.



Here's a total joke:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spVHSjWeZDo



RogerN

It's time to get big money out of politics. Both parties candidates are corrupted by it.

We need serious campaign finance reform that ends these PAC's once and for all.

On Saturday, October 4, 2014 1:35:35 PM UTC-4, jon_banquer wrote:
On Saturday, October 4, 2014 2:54:54 AM UTC-7, RogerN wrote:

"jon_banquer" wrote in message
...







This is the first member of the GOP I've listened to in a longtime that



doesn't seem like a total joke.







Here's a total joke:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spVHSjWeZDo







RogerN



It's time to get big money out of politics. Both parties candidates are corrupted by it.

That's the problem. There is no way to get millionaires and billionaire heirs and heiresses out of politics other than to force mass immigration.

That will give you a strong leftist government that will have the sense to govern according to pure stats, not mob-style whim.


We need serious campaign finance reform that ends these PAC's once and for all.

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 3 Oct 2014 10:38:52 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:


You're talking about engineering more than science. No amount of
deductive theorizing or undirected observation would produce Special
Relativity. It depended, first, on a great insight; and then was
proven by highly-directed observation based on that insight.


You have it backwards.
This is the sequence that produced Special Relativity:
http://www.everythingimportant.org/r...1964_scrib.pdf
"The first stage in the evolution of the Special Theory of Relativity
is generally recognized as beginning with the failure to detect
experimentally the motion of the earth through the ether."

Michelson - Poincare' / Fitzgerald / Lorentz - Einstein

Theory is "correct" only when it can explain all observations.

-jsw

On Sat, 4 Oct 2014 08:53:59 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

snip

Those unwilling or unqualified to participate in manufacturing go to
great lengths to discredit its contribution to the Middle Class and
adequate family income.
http://hive.slate.com/hive/made-amer...ollar-industry
While the end result is the same, i.e. loss of high-pay high
value added jobs and local tax base, this may well be due to
an incorrect theory/ideology. A clean, safe, post
industrial economy where everyone works in an air
conditioned office designing web sites is sooooooooo
appealing.

"[T]here is such strong bias against manufacturing work among adults
who advise young people about career choices, and skilled workers are
in such short supply."
Even though I spent the first half of my working life in
manufacturing [automotive and HD truck components], as a
educator I advised students against a career in
manufacturing because of the limited future. When you are
giving career advise, ethically you must advise the student
on the basis of what is most likely beneficial to them
individually, and what is, not what ought.

IS(r)I or Import Substitution and (re)Industrialization
appears to be *THE* key for the few nations pulling
themselves out of the debt trap in which they were mired as
a result of the various global "get rich quick schemes," and
international debt consolidation/refi scams. This is
particularly true where the export of raw materials are also
being progressively limited to "encourage" domestic
processing/fabrication, and the jobs/tax base and facilities
this produces.

Two examples are Lithium battery production in Argentina and
Nickel refining in Indonesia http://tinyurl.com/okgc4fv.


This raises the question "why is the U.S. exporting shale
gas/ethelene to make polyethylene which we them re import."


What we really have is achievement inequality, but admitting that
won't get you elected.
Sounds good, but what specific quantifiable and measurable
achievements are we talking about? No matter how hard they
try, the vast majority of people will never be able to play
golf as well as Tiger Woods (and if golf were not currently
a popular sport, and integrated, Tiger would be on food
stamps too).

-jsw


--
Unka' George

"Gold is the money of kings,
silver is the money of gentlemen,
barter is the money of peasants,
but debt is the money of slaves"

-Norm Franz, "Money and Wealth in the New Millenium"