Crazy talk

[kevbone]

A very conservative friend just sent this to me. Please discuss.

 

 

To:

 

WILL USA SURVIVE?

 

The folks who are getting the free stuff, don't like the folks who are paying for the free stuff, because the folks who are paying for the free stuff can no longer afford to pay for both the free stuff and their own stuff.

 

The folks who are paying for the free stuff want the free stuff to stop, and the folks who are getting the free stuff want even more free stuff on top of the free stuff they are already getting!

 

Now... The people who are forcing the people who pay for the free stuff have told the people who are RECEIVING the free stuff, that the people who are PAYING for the free stuff, are being mean, prejudiced, and racist.

 

So... The people who are GETTING the free stuff have been convinced they need to hate the people who are paying for the free stuff by the people who are forcing some people to pay for their free stuff, and giving them the free stuff in the first place.

 

We have let the free stuff giving go on for so long that there are now more people getting free stuff than paying for the free stuff.

 

Now understand this. All great democracies have committed financial suicide somewhere between 200 and 250 years after being founded. The reason? The voters figured out they could vote themselves money from the treasury by electing people who promised to give them money from the treasury in exchange for electing them.

 

The United States officially became a Republic in 1776, 235 years ago. The number of people now getting free stuff outnumbers the people paying for the free stuff. We have one chance to change that. In 2012. Failure to change that spells the end of the United States as we know it.

 

ELECTION 2012 IS COMING

A Nation of Sheep Breeds a Government of Wolves!

 

 

Let’s take a stand!!!

Obama: Gone!

Borders: Closed!

Language: English only

Culture: Constitution, and the Bill of Rights!

Drug Free: Mandatory Drug Screening before Welfare!

NO freebies to: Non-Citizens!

 

We the people are coming

Only 86% will send this on. Should be 100%. What will you do?

 

[kevbone]

The recession is so bad...

 

...How bad is it?

 

I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.

 

CEOs are now playing miniature golf.

 

Exxon-Mobil laid off 25 Congressmen.

 

If the bank returns your check marked "Insufficient Funds," you call them and ask if they meant you or them.

 

McDonald's is selling the 1/4 ouncer.

 

Angelina Jolie adopted a child from America .

 

Parents in Beverly Hills fired their nannies and learned their children's names.

 

My cousin had an exorcism but couldn't afford to pay for it, and they re-possessed her!

 

A truckload of Americans was caught sneaking into Mexico.

 

A picture is now only worth 200 words.

 

The Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas is now managed by Somali pirates.

 

Congress says they are looking into this Bernard Madoff scandal. Oh Great! The guy who made $50 Billion disappear is being investigated by the people who made $1.5 Trillion disappear!

 

And, finally...

 

I was so depressed last night thinking about the economy, wars, jobs, my savings, Social Security, retirement funds, etc., I called the Suicide Hotline. I got a call center in Pakistan , and when I told them I was suicidal, they got all excited, and asked if I could drive a truck.

 

[ivan]

it's always nice when grandparents figure out how email works

[kevbone]

it's always nice when grandparents figure out how email works

 

[murraysovereign]

All great democracies have committed financial suicide somewhere between 200 and 250 years after being founded.

 

Ummm... can I see that list? You know, the list of all the "great democracies" that "committed financial suicide somewhere between 200 and 250 years after being founded"?

 

I mean, right now there's, let's see, how many "great democracies" more than 200 years old? The US and, uhhh, who else? Oh, and Iceland, I guess. So that means that all of the older "great democracies" completely collapsed and just disappeared? Wow. I'd like to learn about some of those events - it must make for some pretty compelling reading. Any idea where I can go to read about all these 250-year-old "great democracies" committing "financial suicide" to the point where they vanished from the earth without a trace?

 

Or is that assertion just a pile of completely fabricated bullshit?

[Off_White]

C'mon Murray, one can be "all" if its a very small sample. Though I'd have to say I'm going with your second hypothesis...

[ivan]

All great democracies have committed financial suicide somewhere between 200 and 250 years after being founded.

 

Ummm... can I see that list? You know, the list of all the "great democracies" that "committed financial suicide somewhere between 200 and 250 years after being founded"?

 

I mean, right now there's, let's see, how many "great democracies" more than 200 years old? The US and, uhhh, who else? Oh, and Iceland, I guess. So that means that all of the older "great democracies" completely collapsed and just disappeared? Wow. I'd like to learn about some of those events - it must make for some pretty compelling reading. Any idea where I can go to read about all these 250-year-old "great democracies" committing "financial suicide" to the point where they vanished from the earth without a trace?

 

Or is that assertion just a pile of completely fabricated bullshit?

attempting to reason folks out of a position they were never reasoned into is the first step on a long, long road to unhappiness

[pink]

it's always nice when grandparents figure out how email works

 

 

always nice when parents figure out how a power drill werks

[ivan]

it's always nice when grandparents figure out how email works

 

 

always nice when parents figure out how a power drill werks

dunno - based on my results, i don't appear to have learned shit yet

[JayB]

I can think of at least one country with a political system that has imploded to varying degrees for both fiscal and political reasons for ~2500 years and still makes world-class Ouzo.

 

Having said that - the modern welfare state is a fairly recent innovation (patented by Otto von Bismark if I'm not mistaken)in the chronicle of civiliation and it's first big fiscal/demographic stress-test is just getting under way. The states and the people in them will persist, but whether or not the fiscal transfer mechanisms will go completely unmodified is much less certain.

 

 

[ivan]

Having said that - the modern welfare state is a fairly recent innovation (patented by Otto von Bismark if I'm not mistaken)in the chronicle of civiliation and it's first big fiscal/demographic stress-test is just getting under way.

reckon you could argue the roman empire was a welfare state, not that the results were always so encouraging

[prole]

Having said that - the modern welfare state is a fairly recent innovation (patented by Otto von Bismark if I'm not mistaken)in the chronicle of civiliation and it's first big fiscal/demographic stress-test is just getting under way. The states and the people in them will persist, but whether or not the fiscal transfer mechanisms will go completely unmodified is much less certain.

 

Yeah, keep blaming the "welfare state" when your chosen brand of "modification" has been well underway since the 70's. Haven't we already been over this?

 

[jon]

Your friend forgot about hanging Ben Bernanke for being the most inflationary Fed Chief ever.

[JayB]

Having said that - the modern welfare state is a fairly recent innovation (patented by Otto von Bismark if I'm not mistaken)in the chronicle of civiliation and it's first big fiscal/demographic stress-test is just getting under way. The states and the people in them will persist, but whether or not the fiscal transfer mechanisms will go completely unmodified is much less certain.

 

Yeah, keep blaming the "welfare state" when your chosen brand of "modification" has been well underway since the 70's. Haven't we already been over this?

 

 

Yup.

 

Where's the chart that says that you can collectively consume more than you produce indefinitely with no consequences?

 

 

[prole]

As the charts show above, global capitalism is actually producing a tremendous amount of wealth and that it isn't being consumed collectively.

[ivan]

As the charts show above, global capitalism is actually producing a tremendous amount of wealth and that it isn't being consumed collectively.

x2

 

but, to be sure, this is true on a bigger level too - as the american upper class squashes the lower class, so do western nations vis a vis africa/central america/etc.

 

global gdp divided by world population doesn't result in a particuliar good average for all...

[JayB]

As the charts show above, global capitalism is actually producing a tremendous amount of wealth and that it isn't being consumed collectively.

 

Global wealth equality is probably higher now than at any time since the stone age.

[video:youtube]

 

Global median wealth is also higher than it has ever been.

 

Neither of the above has any meaningful connection with the rich world's debt crisis, other than making it possible for them to go begging to the likes of China, India, and Brazil for the first time in history.

[prole]

The debt crisis is a direct result of the financial collapse and reliance on bubbles to maintain economic growth while the corporate elite have dine-and-dashed enabled by corrupt politicians and their useful idiot electoral base. There wasn't a "crisis of the welfare state" until the neoliberal project, more specifically financial liberalization and "tax freedom", predictably shit the bed.

 

And hey, if you need to show clips from the opening scene of 2001 to show how far we've come as a result of Reaganomics, knock yourself out.

[j_b]

As the charts show above, global capitalism is actually producing a tremendous amount of wealth and that it isn't being consumed collectively.

 

Global wealth equality is probably higher now than at any time since the stone age.

 

Probably not true and definitely not true over the 200 years pictured in the animation you posted: in 1800, Cape Verde had the lowest GDP/capita ($340) and the UK had the highest at $2717 (less than order of magnitude difference between lowest and highest). Today, Congo has the lowest at $359 while Qatar has the most at $74,138/capita (more than 2 orders of magnitude difference). The spread of mean $GDP/capita is ~20 times greater today than 200 years ago.

 

data

[JayB]

As the charts show above, global capitalism is actually producing a tremendous amount of wealth and that it isn't being consumed collectively.

 

Global wealth equality is probably higher now than at any time since the stone age.

 

Probably not true and definitely not true over the 200 years pictured in the animation you posted: in 1800, Cape Verde had the lowest GDP/capita ($340) and the UK had the highest at $2717 (less than order of magnitude difference between lowest and highest). Today, Congo has the lowest at $359 while Qatar has the most at $74,138/capita (more than 2 orders of magnitude difference). The spread of mean $GDP/capita is ~20 times greater today than 200 years ago.

 

data

 

Global. Not outlier vs outlier.

[JayB]

The debt crisis is a direct result of the financial collapse and reliance on bubbles to maintain economic growth while the corporate elite have dine-and-dashed enabled by corrupt politicians and their useful idiot electoral base. There wasn't a "crisis of the welfare state" until the neoliberal project, more specifically financial liberalization and "tax freedom", predictably shit the bed.

 

And hey, if you need to show clips from the opening scene of 2001 to show how far we've come as a result of Reaganomics, knock yourself out.

 

There's been a mathematical crisis at the heart of the transfer mechanisms used to fund the welfare state ever since people started living longer and having dramatically fewer children.

 

For the past forty years even actuaries with traumatic brain injuries have looked at the data and been able to conclude that gap between inbound payments and outbound spending would grow too large to finance at some point, even under assumptions of healthy, uninterupted economic growth. Take away the latter and you arrive at that point sooner, but the destination has always been the same. Once you get there - it's too late to do much other than default and try to get by on what you can actually afford to pay for.

 

 

 

 

 

[j_b]

Global wealth equality is probably higher now than at any time since the stone age.

 

Probably not true and definitely not true over the 200 years pictured in the animation you posted: in 1800, Cape Verde had the lowest GDP/capita ($340) and the UK had the highest at $2717 (less than order of magnitude difference between lowest and highest). Today, Congo has the lowest at $359 while Qatar has the most at $74,138/capita (more than 2 orders of magnitude difference). The spread of mean $GDP/capita is ~20 times greater today than 200 years ago.

 

data

Global. Not outlier vs outlier.

 

Huh? what the hell are you talking about?

 

As the plot I linked shows, the only outlier may be Qatar. If you substitute Norway (at $47k/capita), you still have a spread of GDP/capita that is over an order of magnitude greater than 200 years ago.

[j_b]

JayB is playing games about "state debt" in Greece as in he ignores exploding private debt in neoliberal countries where the upper 1% of the income bracket has taken 60% of productivity gains over the last 30 years.

[Off_White]

So what do you think, is the West Face of SEWS overrated at 5.11a? I didn't fall, therefore I think it can't be 5.11.

[j_b]

It'd be soft at Index or similar crag but it isn't quite a road side crag. Did you have a point or was your post misplaced?