Every 12 year old loves the idea of anarchy.

"**** you, mom. You don't get to tell me when to go to bed anymore."

Adults who support anarchy (including anarcho-capitalism) are also 12 years old, but just in the brain.

FYI, I'm talking about Wookie06.

I miss wookie

ultimate 14 year old song

HA! That is an awesome idea! I think JM needs to start a petition. Ill be the first to give it the ole john Hancock. JM for president and Alan can be your vice. Hes like a little anarchistic Chaney.

Really though, all joking aside, imagin a world where Ron Paul was president.......

I don't need to imagine it. It is prophesied:

When Her Chosen Vessel ascends to the throne of thrones, the sky shall tear and the stars shall weep, and Her Glory Ayn Rand will emerge once again from the deepest sea. There, at the end of days, she will do battle with the Great Nietzsche - not the actual Nietzsche, but Nietzsche as read by English majors - for the fate of the Universe. Should the Great Nietzsche be victorious, we will have a thousand year Golden Age of enlightened self-interest. Should Her Glory be victorious, we will have a thousand year Silver Age of unenlightened self-interest.

As it is written, so may it be.

I want to think you're attempting to insult through sarcasm, but, you're just so bad at it..
See, I'm not an anarchist, so I don't know why you would think 'Alan' would be a good choice for my VP. (Honestly, I would pick someone awful, like Palin, so everyone would be afraid to assassinate me.)
I'm somewhere between 'classically-liberal' and '**** the corporations', and the classically-liberal (aka 'libertarians' or 'anarchists') don't support corporations. Corporations can only exist when the Government grants them the 'right' of limited liability, so without government, how can there be corporations?
You just don't seem to know what you're talking about, for example, when you imagined a world where Ron Paul was president, you didn't mention the fact that Ron Paul wants to end our middle eastern wars immediately.

Actually I almost never support more government regulation, but not because I'm some sort of 'anarcho-capitalist' (Never mind that an anarchy would tend to produce communes.). I oppose further regulation in most cases because the problem we are trying to solve was caused by the government in the first place.

My personal belief, which I immediately developed when I first learned what a corporation actually is, back in middle school, and which I've held to ever since but rarely share because it goes beyond the level of cheerful "soft socialist" leanings, is that I'd like to abolish the corporation as a legal entity. It would cause a total shutdown in of the legislative branch from top to bottom as 100 years of tax law suddenly became gibberish, but maybe the sudden drop in private campaign funding and stress of a huge increase in worktime would kill off some of the slower, weaker, and older congressmen and thus produce a superior legislative branch.

-Like I said, I rarely share it because it's one of those "man, in a perfect world" or "man, if I was installed as dictator for life of the US" fantasies, which generally are unpalatable for polite company. That said, a few months back I was hearing very similar murmurings around the grapevines, due to the Supreme Court ruling corporations' right to free speech could not be impaired, and they should thus be allowed to support politicians as much as they please.

It's okay. My personal belief is that all personal debt should be outlawed. Credit cards, credit lines, layaway plans, car loans, student loans, home mortgages,... all of it. Why? Because artificially increasing the supply of money is the same thing as artificially increasing prices. Compare the inflation rate on houses, tuition and cars - all traditionally purchased with credit - to other household goods and commodities. It's insane. The proliferation of debt has increased prices to the point where it is impossible for many people to ever satisfy their obligations during their lifetime. This is indentured servitude.

Did you know debtor's prisons are legal in 1/3 of U.S. states?

And also that private, for-profit slave-labor prisons have seen a ~125% increase in prisoners in the past decade?

Funnnnn combination

i agree with you that the inflation rate on things like houses have been stupidly high. a good example is the house my parents bought. they were lucky and got it for 150,000. its now worth over 300,000, awesome for them... but really kind of ridiculous. however, what would be the alternative? you cant own a home unless you can pay for the entire thing up front? rent? isn't that the same deal only you never actually own any equity in the property?

Yes. Don't forget that demand for a good depends on three factors: interest in ownership, willingness to pay, and ability to pay. That means housing prices will rapidly decrease if the supply of money (i.e. mortgages) is decreased.

Long-term mortgages were not prolific until the US government started financing and guaranteeing home mortgages under the New Deal (National Housing Act of 1934.) This early government interference saw the inflation-adjusted median house price increase from $38,350 to $81,840 between 1940 and 1970 (in 2010 dollars.)

Mortgages were still relatively sensible until the US government privatized Fannie Mae and created Freddie Mac to further increase the supply of money for housing (1970.) The housing bubble that started this depression was directly and indisputably caused by the widespread availability of high-risk mortgages, which inflated the median house price to around $263,000 (in 2010 dollars.)

It's not immediately clear what housing prices would be if mortgages were illegal. It is clear, however, that the prices would be much lower than they are today. If mortgages were made illegal, I sincerely believe that housing would be just as affordable in the short-term, and much more affordable in the long-term.

You also have no obligations beyond the terms of your lease. Renting is paying a fee for the use of a good. The fee you pay is based on utility, not the market value of the property.

So it's another example of government ****ing everything up?

[/COLOR][/COLOR]No, it's another example of your government ****ing everything up. Make no mistake about this: it is perfectly possible for a responsible government to intercede in an industry without seriously damaging the economy.

The US government has a uniquely terrible track record because your government half-asses everything.
Your officials are too timid, incompetent and corrupt to make any significant decisions or settle on a guiding philosophy, so you end up with mutt legislation. Stuff like the stimulus package which tried to be Keynesian by spending a lot of money, but taking a supply-side tack by focusing on industry and corporate tax incentives, and not being able to decide between fixing c-m-c' for consumers or m-c-m' for corporations so they fixed c-m-c' for corporations instead.
Many US intervention policies are also literally fascist: FDR was a great admirer of Benito Mussolini; New Deal policies were so strongly inspired by command economy fascism that even Hitler praised the US for adopting National Socialist philosophy. Ouch!
Your intervention policies are also much stronger than most other countries', including those you label as 'socialist.' For example, in a historical sense your agriculture price fixing program is pretty much second only to Soviet collective farming for the level of government intervention and the amount of effect it has on your national economy.

Edit: Setting the quote to white. I think something is wrong with the stylesheet.

Disregard. Hitting back after posting causes a double post now.

A responsible government is seeming like a bit like a unicorn right now. I actually couldnt agree more! Politicians are so obsessed with re-election they do not want to be tied to ANY solid legislation lest it end up being unpopular.

Which reminds me, if we're talking sweeping changes to our economic and political landscape, another Big Idea:
Term limits for Congress.

-I was gonna suggest an age cap as well, but term limits solves that problem on its own.

"I could end the deficit in five minutes. You just pass a law that says that any time there's a deficit of more than three percent of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election."

-Warren "Jimmy" Buffet

So what's in this crummy "Debt Deal" that's supposed to be passed today?

I'm guessing more halfassedness (as Jon'C alluded to earlier).

I like to call it the procrastination deal. Everyone agrees on the deal, and we come back and do it all over again later.

It'd be more appropriate if that was a bucket.

wow! this is almost comedic. DOW Jones is down 192 pts and gold is up 34$ an oz.

...let me revise that DOW is now down 232 and gold is up 39$ an oz. ...thats crazy gold just went up 5$ in about 30 minutes.

Ugh. This. These moronic compromises end up being far worse then if they would just pick a plan and stay with it.

What we need is a strong leader who has the charisma to tell the voting public that they are unqualified morons and get away with it.

Yeah, that's great, but it's not Obama that runs the country, it's congress.

yes! someone like... emperor palpatine!

The Empire was a fine place to live as long as you were human and vaguely British. And not on Alderan. A dictatorship is the best form of government if you're the right sort of person.

You had them: they were called the Founding Fathers. The whole point of the constitution is to prevent the people from abusing the government into infringing upon the rights of a dissenting minority.

I'm just completely baffled that the Republicans will get to go on pretending to be the party of fiscal responsibility after this fiasco. Tax expenditures are still expenditures, morons.

Actually, the Tea Party has a way around this. I was reading Michelle Bachmann's opinion the other day, and she basically said that the US is on the right side of the Laffer curve so closing loopholes won't accomplish anything (she didn't use those terms, but nobody who has ever heard of a Laffer curve outside of an internet forum is voting Republican.)

Of course, her claim is certainly false based on comparisons with other countries.

It's obvious that Bachmann has at least some formal education, but none of her ideas withstand even the smallest amount of scrutiny. It's almost like she - and the rest of the Tea Party leaders - are lying for personal gain. Hmmmmmm.

The only one who knows better is Ron Paul, who seems to be the only republican in favor of ending wars.

He also thinks it's a great idea to legalize all drugs and prostitution.

Wow, the no-personal-debt argument is really awesome when I think about it. It unifies and satisfies a lot of the frustrations I've had in the last couple of days and didn't have a way to express. Is there a source for this theory that I can read more about, Jon`C?

The Bible.

Too bad that would totally demolish the economy without fundamentally overhauling how it works.

I always found that fascinating but never really understood why debtors are so hated in the bible. Your post made it seem pretty obvious, and I was actually looking for a source that discusses particular arguments in favor of it that might be within reading comprehension?

I'm all for this

It's kind of scary just how many of the tea partiers believe that **** specifically because of the name drop. "OMG Laffer Curve, what's that!!!". They get told the thoery, and accept it. All they had to do was scroll down a BIT more on Wikipedia to see the empirical evidence strongly supporting the notion of high marginal tax for high income brackets, even upwards up to 70% in highly developed nations.

I think I'm finally getting to that point where I'm beginning to respond to Republicans (or at least ones who would support this recent bill) with indifference. I feel more strongly towards the Tea Party because it almost seems like borderline fraud with the kind of stuff they put out.

That's basically what libertarianism is. The government shouldn't be telling you you can't sell your genitals for cash. Now, if they wanted to offer prostitutes std screenings and treatments in exchange for a licensing fee, that would be fine. It's sort of like paving the roads in exchange for a gasoline tax (And a driving license fee, and property taxes, and etc...)