CNN has a short interview with Gary Johnson, polling at 11%, on being the 'possible alternative to T - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Dayzofwinter;50295693]Of course you are confused. You are under the influence of false consciousness due to having being conditioned in a society that encourages "us vs them" thinking. You are unconsciously intolerant. If you were not, you would understand me and agree right away.[/QUOTE] At this point, even I'm thinking :what:

[QUOTE=Dayzofwinter;50295693]Of course you are confused. You are under the influence of false consciousness due to having being conditioned in a society that encourages "us vs them" thinking. You are unconsciously intolerant. If you were not, you would understand me and agree right away.[/QUOTE] Is this satire or are you actually retarded, I really can't tell.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;50295492]Libertarians generally are not a fan of government bail-outs of banks that did all that dirty shit in 2008 if that's an consolation.[/QUOTE] Global recession is better than a global depression. The banks (by a product of deregulation and free market policies) fucked up, but if we hadnt done anything we would have been in a full depression

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;50295727]At this point, even I'm thinking :what:[/QUOTE] [url]http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/False_consciousness[/url] Not the best source but it gives you a feel. The only reason people keep supporting the same ideals over and over again that have been co-opted by the capitalists (such as goldman sachs who control people both sides of the aisle) is because they been conditioned to do so. This is why they keep voting in the same shit parties and shit leaders over and over. Cargo still does not get it. Their views has been co adopted by the system, and thus are being used as a means for thus who buy up both sides of the aisle to gain further control to further exploit those not of the 1 percent. Thus as long cargo holds the views that have been co adopted, will remain a puppet voter to further schemes of capitalists who own both parties that will lead to another 2008 collapse. If cargo truly cares about preventing another collapse, the correct response is abandon all views being used and co adopted by the establishment as a means of control over voters. Create new ones. Did I mention I am not a libertarian?

[QUOTE=Dayzofwinter;50295782][URL]http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/False_consciousness[/URL] Not the best source but it gives you a feel. The only reason people keep supporting the same ideals over and over again that have been co-opted by the capitalists (such as goldman sachs who control people both sides of the aisle) is because they been conditioned to do so. Cargo still does not get it. Their views has been co adopted by the system, and thus are being used as a means for thus who buy up both sides of the aisle to gain further control to further exploit those not of the 1 percent. Thus as long cargo holds the views that have been co adopted, will remain a puppet voter to further schemes that will lead to another 2008 collapse. If cargo truly cares about preventing another collapse, the correct response is abandon all views being used and co adopted by the establishment as a means of control over voters. Did I mention I am not a libertarian?[/QUOTE] You realise goldman sachs would absolutely love less regulation don't you? It's why people like the Koch brothers are libertarians, because it means they don't have to take any real responsibility any more, they know the population won't be able to successfully oppose them so they'd because new authorities in their own right due to their control of major resources. I mean I can't even tell what side you're on any more, I'm guessing some weird socialist branch, you certainly have the usual iamverysmart attitude that comes with that kind of thinking.

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;50295857]You realise goldman sachs would absolutely love less regulation don't you? It's why people like the Koch brothers are libertarians, because it means they don't have to take any real responsibility any more, they know the population won't be able to successfully oppose them so they'd because new authorities in their own right due to their control of major resources.[/QUOTE] You still not getting it. Tell me, if you could vote in the 2016 POTUS election, who would you vote for? If it came down to Trump vs Clintoon? [QUOTE]I mean I can't even tell what side you're on any more, I'm guessing some weird socialist branch, .[/QUOTE] Your first mistake is to assume I am "on a side". The need to pigeon hole is part of the problem. I am trying to create my own unique view. By having a back and forth, I seek to give it more clarity. [QUOTE]you certainly have the usual iamverysmart attitude that comes with that kind of thinking[/QUOTE] That how alot of the left sounds like to me. What I am doing is twisting the operative logic of the left and using it on you. The right got the holier then thou attitude. Both sides are pretentious cunts.

[QUOTE=Dayzofwinter;50295867]You still not getting it. Tell me, if you could vote in the 2016 POTUS election, who would you vote for? If it came down to Trump vs Clintoon?[/QUOTE] If I absolutely had to Hillary, because despite being god awful she's still better than the other candidates, including the third party ones.

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;50295878]If I absolutely had to Hillary, because despite being god awful she's still better than the other candidates, including the third party ones.[/QUOTE] And you fell for Goldman sachs trap. They own both parties. Hence once again, you're a puppet for their schemes. Hence by keep voting in the same parties and leaders out of fear of the "wrong tribe" is why the collapse happened. The like of Goldman sachs do not share your prejudices. They do know like clock work you will vote in the establishment parties, thus increase their hold on power. They find people who can be bought and thus deregulate to their content. Picking one party over another and making that the only reason to vote for a person (despite having been bought or not) is what leads to trouble. The better answer is stop voting in people and parties who were bought by the corporations who created the collapse in the first place. Despite what side they are on or ideals they hold.

They should put sanders on there as well, just to see what happens.

[QUOTE=Dayzofwinter;50295902]And you fell for Goldman sachs trap. They own both parties. Hence once again, you're a puppet for their schemes. Hence by keep voting in the same parties and leaders out of fear of the "wrong tribe" is why the collapse happened. The like of Goldman sachs do not share your prejudices. They do know like clock work you will vote in the establishment parties, thus increase their hold on power. They find people who can be bought and thus deregulate to their content. Picking one party over another and making that the only reason to vote for a person (despite having been bought or not) is what leads to trouble. The better answer is stop voting in people and parties who were bought by the corporations who created the collapse in the first place. Despite what side they are on or ideals they hold.[/QUOTE] The libertarians also have corporate interests involved, I'm not sure what your point is really.

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;50295975]The libertarians also have corporate interests involved, I'm not sure what your point is really.[/QUOTE] I consider myself a libertarian but I despise corporate lobbying, rampant corruption and everything they do involving the government. But go ahead, generalize us all under one specific doctrine.

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;50295391][B]2008 would never have happened with proper regulation, this is why the government is required, its the neoliberal obsession with deregulation that caused it.[/B] I don't see how on earth you can argue less regulation would lead to less corruption, that literally makes no sense other than in the idea that things that would have been considered corruption would be classes as totally legal in your system, but I wouldn't really call that a good thing. More freedom to companies = more abuse of customers, it's impossible to expect the average person to make a totally informed decision on every purchase since that would require people to be experts in literally every topic known to man, which is why we have governments regulate things for them.[/QUOTE] 2 points on why you're just flat out wrong: 1) The 2008 collapse wouldn't have happened without specific government policies and interventions. Government action is so rediculously intertwined with everything that happened in the recession that you can't make a simple statement like that and be serious. 2) One of the entire points of free market ideology is that government doesn't act properly. It's easy to come back afterwards and say, "Hey, if we had just done it right, then there wouldn't have been a problem," but after the 100th time it gets old. Eventually you come to the conclusion that the government doesn't get it right and will probably never get it right. This comes down to two basic facts. The first is that government officials aren't saints. They are just as bad and corrupt, often more so, than the companies that you hate. The second is the problem of information. It's just impossible for a few government officials to have enough information to accurately control the economy. [editline]10th May 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;50295987]I consider myself a libertarian but I despise corporate lobbying, rampant corruption and everything they do involving the government. But go ahead, generalize us all under one specific doctrine.[/QUOTE] Every libertarian hates those things.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;50284590]I think the argument is, we don't need the government to intervene any longer. The past is done and gone, but there's still a potential future with big government.[/QUOTE] I disagree. I think if we dismantled the civil rights act or voting rights act, then we'd see literacy and civics tests pop up again for voter registration in the South.

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;50295975]The libertarians also have corporate interests involved, I'm not sure what your point is really.[/QUOTE] Point out exactly where I am a libertarian. My point is the 2008 collapse was a result of tribalism. That the root of all our problems. [QUOTE]I consider myself a libertarian but I despise corporate lobbying, rampant corruption and everything they do involving the government. But go ahead, generalize us all under one specific doctrine.[/QUOTE] cargo is confusing cronyism with capitalism.

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;50295391]2008 would never have happened with proper regulation, this is why the government is required, its the neoliberal obsession with deregulation that caused it. I don't see how on earth you can argue less regulation would lead to less corruption, that literally makes no sense other than in the idea that things that would have been considered corruption would be classes as totally legal in your system, but I wouldn't really call that a good thing. More freedom to companies = more abuse of customers, it's impossible to expect the average person to make a totally informed decision on every purchase since that would require people to be experts in literally every topic known to man, which is why we have governments regulate things for them.[/QUOTE] Depends. Regulations go both ways. One can argue that the fair housing act amendments of 1988 essentially encouraged banks to give subprime mortgages to poor, black communities to avoid accusations of descrimination based on race. In reality, poor black communities had low income and poor credit, and thus required higher interest rates for the bank to justify the risk. What happened as a result, was banks started to [I]target[/I] poor black communities because they knew that the opportunity for a good home was too good to pass up, and these communities were likely not educated on the intricacies of interest rates. They offer them ARMs and only later do they find out that their interest rates skyrocket in later years. Regulation caused an incentive for banks to go after poor black communities with predatory loans. Now, here's where the LACK of regulation contributed: this wouldn't have been any worse than a payday loan, IF we hadn't repealed the Glass-steagal act. Because banks were now being encouraged to prey on those who they [I]knew[/I] couldn't afford the loans AND banks could now gobble each other up and become as huge as they want, it became a massive industry. The [B]real[/B] trouble came when one bank decided to sell shitty mortgages to other banks. They'd get a buttload of securities valuated at x billion dollars over 30 years and sell them to other banks for short term income (kind of like those commercials where they say "it's my money, and I need it now!"). The problem was, a lot of these mortgages weren't actually worth what they said they were worth. A lot of these mortgages were subprime ARMs which were about the explode. The poor black communities that get fucked in the 90s were now having their rates jacked up and could no longer afford their mortgage. They declare bankruptcy, and the bank loses money or breaks even, at best. Multiply this by however many millions of mortgages the bank thought was worth [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howie_Hubler]9 Billion Dollars[/url], and it turns out they're worth absolutely nothing, and JP Morgan loses 9 Billion dollars on a single trade. Had the glass-steagal act not been repealed, and all these banks stayed small, or regional, then perhaps the predatory loans wouldn't have grown to be as large of a bubble, and fewer banks would have crashed, and fewer people would have been evicted. However, if the fair housing act hadn't encouraged such risky loan-giving, then perhaps the subprime mortgages wouldn't have existed in the first place. However, if the government had the foresight to think that the greediest people in the world would reverse-redline poor communities, the Fed may have set regulations on max interest rates for some bracket and minimum income required for some principle in mortgages. However, had Ronald Reagan not appointed a literal [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Greenspan]Ayn Rand objectivist[/url] as Chairman of the fed, then those regulations may have occurred. It's a delicate balance, we can't just say "WE NEED REGULATIONS", and we also can't say "LAISSEZ-FAIRE FOR ALL!"

[QUOTE=proboardslol;50297676]Depends. Regulations go both ways. One can argue that the fair housing act amendments of 1988 essentially encouraged banks to give subprime mortgages to poor, black communities to avoid accusations of descrimination based on race. In reality, poor black communities had low income and poor credit, and thus required higher interest rates for the bank to justify the risk. What happened as a result, was banks started to [I]target[/I] poor black communities because they knew that the opportunity for a good home was too good to pass up, and these communities were likely not educated on the intricacies of interest rates. They offer them ARMs and only later do they find out that their interest rates skyrocket in later years. Regulation caused an incentive for banks to go after poor black communities with predatory loans. Now, here's where the LACK of regulation contributed: this wouldn't have been any worse than a payday loan, IF we hadn't repealed the Glass-steagal act. Because banks were now being encouraged to prey on those who they [I]knew[/I] couldn't afford the loans AND banks could now gobble each other up and become as huge as they want, it became a massive industry. The [B]real[/B] trouble came when one bank decided to sell shitty mortgages to other banks. They'd get a buttload of securities valuated at x billion dollars over 30 years and sell them to other banks for short term income (kind of like those commercials where they say "it's my money, and I need it now!"). The problem was, a lot of these mortgages weren't actually worth what they said they were worth. A lot of these mortgages were subprime ARMs which were about the explode. The poor black communities that get fucked in the 90s were now having their rates jacked up and could no longer afford their mortgage. They declare bankruptcy, and the bank loses money or breaks even, at best. Multiply this by however many millions of mortgages the bank thought was worth [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howie_Hubler"]9 Billion Dollars[/URL], and it turns out they're worth absolutely nothing, and JP Morgan loses 9 Billion dollars on a single trade. Had the glass-steagal act not been repealed, and all these banks stayed small, or regional, then perhaps the predatory loans wouldn't have grown to be as large of a bubble, and fewer banks would have crashed, and fewer people would have been evicted. However, if the fair housing act hadn't encouraged such risky loan-giving, then perhaps the subprime mortgages wouldn't have existed in the first place. However, if the government had the foresight to think that the greediest people in the world would reverse-redline poor communities, the Fed may have set regulations on max interest rates for some bracket and minimum income required for some principle in mortgages. However, had Ronald Reagan not appointed a literal [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Greenspan"]Ayn Rand objectivist[/URL] as Chairman of the fed, then those regulations may have occurred. It's a delicate balance, we can't just say "WE NEED REGULATIONS", and we also can't say "LAISSEZ-FAIRE FOR ALL!"[/QUOTE] I don't think you understand what Glass-Steagall actually did. It didn't have any regulation that prevented banks from becoming big. All it did was force a separation between commercial and investment banks. It's not even clear if the act would have done anything at all stop the banking problems of 2008 for a whole lot of reasons, no matter how much Bernie likes to prattle on about it. The bad mortgage loan investments, for example, would have still been totally legal under Glass-Steagall.

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;50295975]The libertarians also have corporate interests involved, I'm not sure what your point is really.[/QUOTE] No, we have small business interests. Not every group of people who pays people to work is a corporation you know.

I'm against libertarian economic policies because they seek to reduce regulations and that's not terrible but lowering regulations on health safety and the environment is a bad idea. I don't see why companies should be trusted, though I understand the argument about not trusting regulators either. I'm not sure what the answer is but I can't say I trust companies on those 3 fronts. Historically it doesn't seem true.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;50298256]r. I'm not sure what the answer is but I can't say I trust companies on those 3 fronts. .[/QUOTE] When an option is lacking, create a new one.

[QUOTE=proboardslol;50297676]Depends. Regulations go both ways. One can argue that the fair housing act amendments of 1988 essentially encouraged banks to give subprime mortgages to poor, black communities to avoid accusations of descrimination based on race. In reality, poor black communities had low income and poor credit, and thus required higher interest rates for the bank to justify the risk. What happened as a result, was banks started to [I]target[/I] poor black communities because they knew that the opportunity for a good home was too good to pass up, and these communities were likely not educated on the intricacies of interest rates. They offer them ARMs and only later do they find out that their interest rates skyrocket in later years. Regulation caused an incentive for banks to go after poor black communities with predatory loans. Now, here's where the LACK of regulation contributed: this wouldn't have been any worse than a payday loan, IF we hadn't repealed the Glass-steagal act. Because banks were now being encouraged to prey on those who they [I]knew[/I] couldn't afford the loans AND banks could now gobble each other up and become as huge as they want, it became a massive industry. The [B]real[/B] trouble came when one bank decided to sell shitty mortgages to other banks. They'd get a buttload of securities valuated at x billion dollars over 30 years and sell them to other banks for short term income (kind of like those commercials where they say "it's my money, and I need it now!"). The problem was, a lot of these mortgages weren't actually worth what they said they were worth. A lot of these mortgages were subprime ARMs which were about the explode. The poor black communities that get fucked in the 90s were now having their rates jacked up and could no longer afford their mortgage. They declare bankruptcy, and the bank loses money or breaks even, at best. Multiply this by however many millions of mortgages the bank thought was worth [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howie_Hubler]9 Billion Dollars[/url], and it turns out they're worth absolutely nothing, and JP Morgan loses 9 Billion dollars on a single trade. Had the glass-steagal act not been repealed, and all these banks stayed small, or regional, then perhaps the predatory loans wouldn't have grown to be as large of a bubble, and fewer banks would have crashed, and fewer people would have been evicted. However, if the fair housing act hadn't encouraged such risky loan-giving, then perhaps the subprime mortgages wouldn't have existed in the first place. However, if the government had the foresight to think that the greediest people in the world would reverse-redline poor communities, the Fed may have set regulations on max interest rates for some bracket and minimum income required for some principle in mortgages. However, had Ronald Reagan not appointed a literal [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Greenspan]Ayn Rand objectivist[/url] as Chairman of the fed, then those regulations may have occurred. It's a delicate balance, we can't just say "WE NEED REGULATIONS", and we also can't say "LAISSEZ-FAIRE FOR ALL!"[/QUOTE] This is from my understanding of what happened: The Glass-Steagal act would not have stopped banks from accepting sub-prime mortgages, which is what started the bubble in the first place. It's not uncommon for your bank to sell your mortgage to the "secondary market" (institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). If the bank didn't do this, they wouldn't be able to issue loans past what was being deposited in their bank from customers. They work with lenders to make sure they don't run out of money for mortgages, so that people can buy houses. This has always been the norm since Fannie Mae was created by congress in 1938 (to help encourage home ownership). There would be very few extremely large financial institutions controlling the housing finance market without this system. The reason I'm pointing this out is because if it were not for this system, MORE banks would actually have crashed (the small local/regional banks that initially give out the loan), which would have been felt harder, faster, and more deeply by the general public as even their checking and savings accounts they use day to day would have been in jeopardy. In order for the secondary market to have money to buy these mortgages,they borrow money from places like the federal reserve. They then buy a whole bunch of mortgages and group mortgages into CDOs, and then sells the CDO in parts to investors. A CDO is basically (simplistically) like combining the total monthly income from the payments of all the mortgages in the group, then slicing it into 3 sections. As people pay their mortgage each month, the money first goes into the first portion until it's full, then the second, then the third. People can invest in any of the 3 portions, and get a percentage return based off of how much money gets put in that portion each month. So instead of having to get the entire group of mortgages rated all together (which could end up as any rating), they can get one AAA rated investment portion, one BBB rated investment portion, and one unrated investment portion so that people can choose how risky of an investment in these mortgages they want to make. People invest in these CDO portions, allowing these organizations to re-pay their debt and of course make a little money. In a normal market, this usually goes off without a hitch. However, the government was trying to mitigate economic downturn at the end of the dot com bubble, and decided to promote home ownership for lower to middle income families. The federal reserve lowers interest rates, making it cheaper and less risky for lenders to borrow money to satisfy loan demands. Credit becomes cheaper, and people are able to borrow more money than they would before. People start buying houses, and as the demand for houses goes up, so does the value. This is where the trouble starts. The secondary market is designed to handle liquid assets such as money, and turn mortgages into a liquid asset. It isn't designed to make use of solid assets such as the actual house the mortgage represents. However, with home values going nowhere but up, and demand high, it appeared that sub-prime mortgages were a no-lose situation at the time, because best case is the family pays their bills, and in the worst case, they took ownership of the home and had a hard asset with a value that would only go up and could be quickly re-sold. So they started accepting sub-prime mortgages and that's where they fucked up. It opened the gate for predatory practices on the part of the mortgage broker because the banks would accept sub-prime mortgages because they knew that the responsibility and liability would be passed to the secondary market. The sub-prime mortgages prevented the market from stagnating or declining, giving the illusion to investors that the market was still strong. But once sub-prime mortgages were mixed into the CDOs, people started defaulting. When the defaults started, the secondary market took possession of the houses as hard assets intending to unload them as planned, but the market had dried up. As more families defaulted, demand dropped, causing values to drop, and people with houses worth less than their mortgage walk away. So now the CDOs are worthless because they aren't generating money, which means nobody will invest in them, which means that the secondary market can't repay the loans it took out to buy the mortgages that it used to create the CDOs. But the investors have already invested in some of these worthless CDOs, and because it doesn't have enough liquid assets to pay back it's debt, the secondary market can't buy more mortgages from the banks. And of course we all know the effect on the lay man when his retirement portfolio includes some investments in these areas. The Glass-Steagall act would not have stopped any of this (besides citigroup). The consumer banking side and the investment banking side were always separated, which is what the glass-steagall act was designed to do. It may have softened some of the damage by preventing some banks from getting large, but it would not have stopped it, and especially would not have stopped predatory loans, which in my opinion, was the biggest contributor to the entire situation.

[QUOTE=gman003-main;50278601]Sales taxes are flat out of practical necessity. To do a progressive sales tax rate, you'd have to find someone's tax bracket during checkout, which is just too cumbersome to work in practice. FairTax eliminates pretty much every current federal tax (income, corporate, etc.) and replaces it with a consumption tax on new goods/services.[/QUOTE] So, the more things your purchase and use, the more tax you pay. Period. Full-stop. While this would work in theory, wouldn't this just encourage people to save their money and not spend it? Which is already a problem?