Proof that Americans are closet homosexuals

[wufwugy]

How else can you explain their insistence on voting for a corporate ass-pounding?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/op...t.html?_r=2&hp

Not only are we technically out of recession, but we should be in a rather nice boom right now. But we're not because everything is being siphoned into corporate profits, and these corporations are doing everything they can to make sure they don't rehire and squeeze current employees as much as possible

This is a sad, sad, sad state of affairs. Will right-wing and 'moderate' voters ever wake up and pull the dick out of their ass?

[bigred]

Hi, I'm Wufwugy

[boost]

Hi Wufwugy, I believe you have mistaken the flopturnriver.com commune forum for a soap box.

[UG]

I actually like when wufwugy stands on his soap box

[UG]

stirs the pot, gets me thinking

he is way taller when he does so too









not hating on you, jabu, hope life is treating you well booooooooost <3

[kfaess]

I really don't want to read that article, F that.

When I saw the thread title I thought this was going to be something funny.........

Maybe I should have also taken into consideration the thread starter

[BennyLaRue]

I actually like when wufwugy stands on his soap box

I wish he'd do more than just stand on it.

[ensign_lee]

What are you talking about wufugy? Basically efficiency across the board increased, so fewer workers are needed for the same output.

Efficiency is the driving force behind increased productivity, which is the main way that economies expand. Why would you be against increased efficiency?

[wufwugy]

What are you talking about wufugy? Basically efficiency across the board increased, so fewer workers are needed for the same output.

Efficiency is the driving force behind increased productivity, which is the main way that economies expand. Why would you be against increased efficiency?

That's not the entire story. Also, efficiency isn't the end all be all. If it was we would require enormous social subsidies, which we're not getting because the corporate business model runs the place. We would also be subject to major human rights abuses

Corporatism does not run an economy well at all, yet that's what we're doing. In fact, corporatism doesn't even run a corporation optimally, which is supposed to be a primary function.

[Ash256]

wuf, whilst I agree with what you say, and agree that it's an inherently disgusting system, a clueless naive sheltered trust fund idealist was completely the wrong guy to back you up.

I mean, I'm sure he's spot on about a lot of issues, but that article sucked.

[wufwugy]

I wasn't able to give it any kind of perusal. Posted it for the numbers representing a rather important situation

[wufwugy]

What are you talking about wufugy? Basically efficiency across the board increased, so fewer workers are needed for the same output.

Efficiency is the driving force behind increased productivity, which is the main way that economies expand. Why would you be against increased efficiency?

I'd like to add an example about problems of letting efficiency rule

I don't recall the numbers exactly, but this is close. For every employee Amazon hires, Barnes & Noble fires nine. This is due to efficiency, but the labor force/middle class sees a whopping decrease in purchasing power which results in overall decrease economic activity and production/consumption alike.

If we don't protect labor, we must provide social subsidies. If we then fail to prop up social living standards, we then lose the middle class and we then regress from first-world to second-world status with enormous human rights abuses. Which is the direction we're heading

Reagan was the first figurehead to usher in an era of pro-big business and labor force destruction. We have not altered course since. We have the economic potential to have a middle class that stomps the hell out of everybody, but our corporate favored policy will not allow it. That's what this is about. Corporatism robs labor blind, and they know it, but because they're paid by those who benefit from corporatism they lie to us and get us to not support our own interests.

The entire crisis and recession is a red herring. Labor has been getting ass raped for forty years. The Wall Street turmoil was just another sliver of the pie of stealing your money and convincing you it's a good idea.

The one and only difference between un-checked Capitalism and Monarchy is means.

[kevster]

I almost always side with Wuf and might do here (I haven't read the thread). He's very lucid and I feel his posts definitely add greatly to the commune.

However, I have an incredibly intelligent right wing friend (he's not Hitler obv but he's certainly a capitalist) and it'd be interesting to see them in an argument. I've seen him shoot down plenty of lefties in pub debates purely for shit and giggles.

[wufwugy]

Do you remember any of his talking points?

[kevster]

Do you remember any of his talking points?

Nope but I'll be seeing him on Saturday. If I remember I'll get a general thesis off him on Capitalism in general or anything else if you want specifics.

I may not remember though as it's my birthday weekend and alcohol will be consumed.

Hey, we're going to watch soccer too!! Hope that doesn't invalidate his opinions jk

[Hawk]

I almost always side with Wuf and might do here (I haven't read the thread). He's very lucid and I feel his posts definitely add greatly to the commune.

However, I have an incredibly intelligent right wing friend (he's not Hitler obv but he's certainly a capitalist) and it'd be interesting to see them in an argument. I've seen him shoot down plenty of lefties in pub debates purely for shit and giggles.

get him in here!! most right wingers i know are just parroting what they heard on fox or talk radio.

of course i tend to do the same with the daily show. i'm no debater but i'd be interested in watching from the sidelines.

[wufwugy]

Just keep in mind that there's a difference between winning an argument due to being right and knowing how to debate.

Republicans have been winning the debate for decades. Not on the merits, but because they actually hired a debate coach

[a500lbgorilla]

wuf's already hedging his bets.

Get this guy in here!

[Ash256]

Do you have any ideas for fixing the problem then wuf? Legislate for extra layoff compensation?

edit: wuf vs. tory einstein would be epic

[wufwugy]

get him in here!! all right wingers i know are just parroting what they heard on fox or talk radio.

of course i tend to do the same with the daily show. i'm no debater but i'd be interested in watching from the sidelines.

Some just don't know it.

There is no real debate about different economic theories, only illusions. The data has shown very clearly for a very long time that theories like monetarism, Austrianism, and supply-side are hogwash. The only reason 'economists' of these persuasions exist is because of propaganda machines including the ones you mentioned

Claiming that there are well-reasoned right-wing economists is like claiming there are well-reasoned creationists. It's an illusion that most people buy into. If the top 1% of earners wanted to defeat evolution by shoveling money into creationism, they could. They're already doing this in economics, and winning.

[wufwugy]

wuf's already hedging his bets.

Get this guy in here!

Peter Schiff and Alan Greenspan would lose to a monkey who once watched Elizabeth Warren lecture

[a500lbgorilla]

Peter Schiff and Alan Greenspan would lose to a monkey who once watched Elizabeth Warren lecture

Greenspan wants to see the Bush Tax cuts lapse; let's see a monkey say that!

Greenspan Was For the Bush Tax Cut…Before He Was Against It - Deal Journal - WSJ

[Hawk]

a gorrilla said it. thats enough for me!

[wufwugy]

Do you have any ideas for fixing the problem then wuf? Legislate for extra layoff compensation?

Which problem? The whole thing? Or just labor?

1. Campaign finance and lobby reform. Things like all lobby and ad funds must be openly disclosed, no lobbyist/politician can come from or go into public office/lobby, and no politician can later work for campaign or lobby donors. Or increase public service pay and eliminate or equalize financial incentive based on vote distribution. This alone would effectually solve nearly every problem in the books, and it is about a million times more important than just about any other legislation you could support simply due to it being the one way to change how Washington works. Political private financing is bribery

2. Clarify that the Supreme Court never actually ruled that corporations have personhood. It's just a big fat unconstitutional lie first started by a court clerk in corporate pocketbooks, and the bribery has flowed enough since that what is arguably illegal is commonplace and protected

3. Return to Roosevelt and Eisenhower era economic regulation. Things like strong progressive taxes, especially on capital gains, and add in upper upper brackets like 1 MM 10MM 100MM. This will push money into median circulation instead of sitting in big-ass bank accounts and being used to speculate and rob, cause crashes, etc. Repeal Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and bring back separation of commercial and investment banking. Merging real banks and gambling banks is corporate welfare, capitalism for the successes, socialism of the losses

4. Blast trillions into domestic energy infrastructure. As we begin to decrease dependency on oil, gradually draw down overseas militarism. Also add tons of funds into education and tech R&D. Convert military-industrial-complex into humanitarian-industrial complex. We can still make money by feeding the poor and building schools instead of bombing shacks

5. Make China to float their currency. Taxing the rich and boosting labor by energy infrastructure to pay for inflation and draw down debt will quite nicely put China in a scramble by not letting them buy up extreme levels of USD, and they will be forced to open up their markets and no longer run a slave economy

6. Bring back unions to the point that if you have a job you are involved in a union. Currently, corporations have virtual autonomy over its employees other than civil abuses protected by government. Unions is simply a form of civil rights and taxation with representation. The purpose of unions is to regulate labor where government doesn't get intricate enough or isn't as incentivized.

7. Subsidize standard of living necessities based on real and potential income. There are many ways to do this, and they effect into un-subsidies since they're distributed across the board. This is basic human rights stuff

8. Tax imports based on their workers pay relative to US median standard. This would also force China to stop pillaging their populace, as well as do nothing to hinder imports from civil countries like Sweden, France, etc


There's more, but these all address labor more specifically. I know I'm kinda long-winded here, but it really all just boils down to promoting policy that reduces wealth gap.

[wufwugy]

Greenspan wants to see the Bush Tax cuts lapse; let's see a monkey say that!

Greenspan Was For the Bush Tax Cut…Before He Was Against It - Deal Journal - WSJ

Politicians/public servants nearly always change their tune when they're out of office.

[Ash256]

That was an awesome post. I definitely agree with the whole of what you wrote, especially separating big business from government. It's pretty obscene that a politician can glide out of office into a 6-figure "work from home" salary on the board of whichever company whose interests they represented. I can certainly see this period of politics being viewed in the same way as the Rotten Borough period in 200 years time.

Energy infrastructure is definitely a massive thing. Energy self sufficiency would remove so much of the conflict in the world.

Out of interest does the USA have a solid investigative journalism magazine, kinda like Private Eye?

P.S. offtopic: Is the consensus in your land that Al Megrahi was 100% the Lockerbie bomber?

[wufwugy]

Thanks, I might add more, maybe

6-figure work from home salary is only the beginning. Some of these guys make that look like pig feed. Take Bob Rubin for example. He started out working for Goldman Sachs, then become Treasury Secretary, then after his public service he became an advisor and lobbyist for Citigroup, making over a reported 126MM in eight years. He only got that job because he did everything Citi wanted of him during his tenure 'serving the public'

It is a complete joke. People think they represent us. They don't, they represent their pocketbooks


I'm not sure what qualifies as investigative journalism these days. All I can say is, yes, we have very solid journalism, but no, it's not popular in the slightest. This brings me to an important point though. Even though I may appear very doomsy, I am only in a couple ways. One way in which I'm a bit positive is journalism in the US. I believe that we're nearing a peak in power of organizations like Fox, and that as the younger generations grow further, liberalism in media will return. One of the most important things about the "old days" was that the media wasn't bought like it is today, and guys like Ed Murrow smacked the shit out of propaganda. IMO, it's because of people like him that we have many of our freedoms today.

Anyways, I think this era will return, to some degree. Studies show that lifelong voter opinion tends to mold after how things were when they were brand new young voters. As our youth arise from the Bush years, Obama/internet years, and such I think we're going to see a leftward shift. One of the pioneers of this will be Cenk Uyger and TheYoungTurks. I know some of the posters here have claimed they don't like him or the show (I didn't either at first), but that's just wrong. The show is awesome, he's surprisingly very well-versed in policy/politics/media, and IMO will be the new Ed Murrow. His show is rising in popularity very quickly, mainly from internet and young audience, he's currently being 'groomed' for MSNBC because he brings them great ratings when he's on, and he knows how to bring it, call bitches on their lying.

The internet is bringing liberalism back. If we keep at it strong, then things will change in decades and on.


I know nothing about lockerbie. Not a fan of domestic terrorism issues, I only assume I've heard lockerbie and domestic terrorism in the same sentence....

[Vinland]

you seem to equate corporatism with capitalism....they are not the same.
Corporatism sucks b/c government meddles in the affairs of business, capitalism allows consumers and sellers to set the tone, not government for the goals of big business. I would like to see a country with true capitalism.....there probably isnt one.

[wufwugy]

you seem to equate corporatism with capitalism....they are not the same.
Corporatism sucks b/c government meddles in the affairs of business, capitalism allows consumers and sellers to set the tone, not government for the goals of big business. I would like to see a country with true capitalism.....there probably isnt one.

I am using them interchangeably, and correctly so. It is important to note that political vernacular is jumbled and overlapping to such a degree that you would have as easy a time breaking it down into precise denotations as you would an elaborate mythology i.e. you can't. I am using the terminology in their contemporary, colloquial, and connotative form.

The meaning behind the words of corporatism and capitalism, even in their rigid denotations, are essentially the same. The elaborate wording is merely fluff that allows people to feel like they're doing something unique. They're not. Corporatism and capitalism and monarchism and communism and all sorts of authoritarian/totalitarian forms of economic governance are ultimately no different from each other, only in the means.

When evaluating economics (and all politics as well as possibly all social sciences), your baseline of understanding the system is how it affects median living standards. That is it. Poverty under capitalism is no different than poverty under monarchism. Upper class under corporatism is no different than upper class under communism. People don't seem to grasp this basic tenet, and forget that rule by one type of special interest group isn't magically different than another special interest

Do this, take the jargon of words like 'government intervention', 'free market', 'private enterprise', and throw them out. They are words with great value, but until you understand how economics is about the play between special interests and public interests, and that's it, you will misuse them.

[kevster]

get him in here!! most right wingers i know are just parroting what they heard on fox or talk radio.

He won't post here simply because I don't think he's that way inclined and also very busy getting married.

Also, we're in the UK so Fox won't have an affect. When I said incredibly intelligent I wasn't joking. Whilst getting a first in his University degree (economics related - he has others), he disproved some of the standard texts and his final paper is now taught as part of the course.

Anyway, I'm going to send him some of Wuf's stuff from this thread. He may well agree with it. Politicians don't necessarily have to believe what they're feeding the populice. ldo.

[wufwugy]

FWIW, a whole bunch of really smart public servants sincerely believe in wrong policy.

Just yesterday, Robert Reich (one of the main people you should listen to) stated that a big yet veiled factor in why Washington is so pro-big business is because the culture of everybody involved revolves around big business. They come from and go into big business, they know nothing else, and they sincerely believe that the most well-oiled economy revolves around strength of big business.

I really don't like Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, but it is quite probable that they're super intelligent and sincerely believe the foundation of economics is big business, therefore that's what they push for. Unfortunately, they couldn't be more wrong. The foundation of economics is how wealth/product/goods/etc flows through the median. Washington has disregarded this for decades, yet still not learned the lesson.

On a related note, a close friend of mine just finished an econ course at a pretty solid university. I mention this because what he's told me about his professor is a little striking. Apparently, this dumbshit with a Ph D in economics taught his class retarded shit like capital gains taxes should be zero, Austrianism is Jesus (FYI Austrian econ is a complete joke among real econ professionals simply due to their inability to publish data and scientific literature, yet so many people take their out-of-ass rationalizing seriously), and he basically sounds like he's repeating Glenn Beck.

Economics is a strong science with demonstrable correct/incorrect, but because it can be manipulated to alter peoples' social/financial status, it's waterlogged in fairy tales and lies.

[boost]

good thing you didn't take my jab too seriously and kept posting. Some really interesting reading ITT. My favorite snippet is where you pretty much broke down how capitalism, communism, monarchism, etc are all essentially the same.

[bigred]

my favorite post is this one

[a500lbgorilla]

my favorite post is this one

lol it should be engraved below a statue of you on a horse.

[wufwugy]

good thing you didn't take my jab too seriously and kept posting. Some really interesting reading ITT. My favorite snippet is where you pretty much broke down how capitalism, communism, monarchism, etc are all essentially the same.

I love this topic so I could go all day. In a slightly different life I would probably be an econ professor and social scientist/author, so I quite enjoy the hobby of it.


As always, just follow the money. The flow of wealth/goods in all different kinds of governments like capitalism and monarchy don't really look that different. When the flow is different and you find stronger median classes it's always due to socialistic attributes. Public infrastructure and service like roads, police, court, etc are socialist inasmuch as they're publicly owned via proxy, and their primary purpose is to suit the commons, not the special.

On top of that, if you look at the entire globe, instead of just ignoring billions, you'll see that whatever corporatist/capitalist paradigm under which we operate isn't what it's cut out to be, and the amount of class disparity mimics many dictatorial regimes.

The health of a society correlates with median civil liberties and wealth. Unless, of course, you subscribe to the premise that only the special matter, which is actually what most people inadvertently do.


I should add that there is a pretty important conflation that people make in socioeconomic ideologies. What I'm getting at specifically is the idea that capitalism drives invention. This is something that pretty much everybody believes, yet it's not true. The best analysis we have right now is that ownership of an idea is what drives invention, but that doesn't mean that 'owning and idea' means it's a free-for-all or that the only way to do so is capitalistic. We can promote invention and patents in societies much different than the one we have now just fine. Not to mention that our capitalism has changed quite a bit over time. We didn't use to have such a corporate favored interpretation of things like patents and speech. Keep in mind, that this change is predicted without socialistic intervention, which is why there is no essential difference between any socioeconomic paradigm that doesn't go out of its way to support the median i.e. socialism/liberalism


Also, an interesting semantic tidbit: if what we have is called 'capitalism' how is monarchy also not 'capitalism' since monarchies operate under effective capital-ism (he who has the gold makes the rules). Monarchic nobility is based on birth, as well as capitalistic nobility. People confuse themselves into thinking this isn't true by thinking that capitalistic success stories aren't pretty much the same as monarchic success stories.

[a500lbgorilla]

Politicians/public servants nearly always change their tune when they're out of office.

GOP Politician Confirms What Was Long Suspected: Republicans Intentionally Feed the Racism, Anger, and Paranoia of the Far Right | | AlterNet

Bob Inglis was ousted by a Tea Party candidate. Here he admits to the GOP strategy to sabotage Obama by exploiting the base fears of the far right.

[Hawk]

good article!

[bigred]

lol it should be engraved below a statue of you on a horse.

I only ride ligers