Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Real estate. Specifically, huge tracts of land. The buildings on the land can be more trouble than they're worth, but unless you live in Holland they ain't making any more land.
Good point. They stopped making land in NYC many decades ago. (My boss has a photo of downtown Manhattan from the mid 30's complete with a zepolin overhead. He compared it to a modern map trying to locate as many points of reference he could. It was amazing how much the island "grew" (mostly because of fill) towards the Husdon River in just the 20th century alone. Here is an interactive map form 1660 to 2004 of just lower Manhattan
Last edited by tzor on Sun Sep 04, 2011 2:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Yikes. No. As long as there's a FDIC, a bank makes more sense than a mattress.
Yes, that's rather the point. A bank is going to make more sense than a mattress basically until the collapse of civilization as we know it, but a mattress will still be a better idea than something as volatile and expensive as gold.
I don't know, I don't think money is going to be valuable after the collapse either way.
Then again, I don't think gold is going to be worth much either. It's pretty, but you can't eat it. A turnip farmer would be the richest guy in town.
In this moment, I am Ur-phoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my int score.
I tried, but I really don't understand the desire by some people to return to the gold standard, except possibly for selfish reasons because they own gold and would profit thereby. Or how it would effectively be accomplished.
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Somalia has been at that level for my entire adult life...
How do libertarians or free market evangelicals explain Somalia? It's a situation where the power of the government has largely disappeared, why isn't it a utopia?
Oh thank God, finally a thread about how Fighters in D&D suck. This was a long time coming. - Schwarzkopf
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Somalia has been at that level for my entire adult life...
How do libertarians or free market evangelicals explain Somalia? It's a situation where the power of the government has largely disappeared, why isn't it a utopia?
"It's largely influenced by government sources, they are just governments outside the country. IE, all the random governments of neighbors and colonial powers are screwing it up."
Straight from the horses mouth. Feel free to point out how retarded it is, but know that it's not me you are criticizing.
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Somalia has tons of government. That government just consists of dudes with guns who shoot you when you stop giving them your stuff. "Government" is just whoever currently holds a monopoly on violence.
Vnonymous wrote:Somalia has tons of government. That government just consists of dudes with guns who shoot you when you stop giving them your stuff. "Government" is just whoever currently holds a monopoly on violence.
Can you explain why if anyone with a gun constitutes a government I have to keep hearing people whine at me about how if we just didn't have a mean old government keeping us down everything would be okay?
How do libertarians or free market evangelicals explain Somalia? It's a situation where the power of the government has largely disappeared, why isn't it a utopia?
whenever large populations of blacks congregate, disaster entails. it has nothing to do with government or lack thereof. africans are on average one standard deviation below whites on IQ tests and as much as this truth is uncomfortable to those of us raised in an egalitarian culture, it is nonetheless true, and I believe it is the reason that african civilization has never taken root. (in before guns, germs, and steel and the empire of mali and how I think that blacks are animals and why don't we just go back to the 1800s bloo-bloo)
sufficiently homogeneous western populations can make almost any system of government work, as evidenced by the success of the western powers. it's only when cultural marxism takes root that society falters, hampered by a deluge of immigrants unaligned to the nation's interests and a group of disaffected bourgeois dissidents who strive to undermine a strong national identity.
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Count Arioch wrote:I'm not sure how discussions on whether PR is a terrible person or not is on-topic.
Ant wrote:
Chamomile wrote:Ant, what do we do about Psychic Robot?
News flash: Doom does not understand economics, and he doesn't understand the positions of the people he is criticizing. If the only thing you can think of to say about Krugman is to attempt to make fun of him for his alien invasion parable, then you probably don't have an argument.
This is a consistent problem with political discourse among the the right wing. They actually don't know what progressives believe or what the arguments for progressive policies are. The information is certainly available, but they never check primary sources and have no clue what the others sides believe.
By contrast, I actually do know what Ricardian Equivalence is, and I do know how Austrians model recessions and so on and so forth. Progressives believe in facts and empiricism, which means that we actually go out and look at our opponents' claims and check them against the real world. Ron Paul is wrong because his economic system makes testable claims that we have actually tested. His ideas are wrong, but I actually do know what they are.
Doom on the flip side, is only able to make barbs at a straw man of Krugman, because he has no idea what Krugman's real arguments are or what the models are that compel him to make them.
Fuchs wrote:Since the right wing generally thinks the bible is the word of god it's no surprise they detest facts and reason.
Ironically (if you believe Karen Armstrong and a few others with similar notions), it was the Renaissance and Enlightenment that led to the movement to interpret the Bible literally because they were interested in what the words actually said, instead of what [they were told] the words meant.
Juton wrote:That's a much more honest version of Tzor's 'If you don't know I can't explain it too you'.
Actually I haven't commented yet on this topic. But since you asked.
Vnonymous wrote:Somalia has tons of government. That government just consists of dudes with guns who shoot you when you stop giving them your stuff. "Government" is just whoever currently holds a monopoly on violence.
What Vnonymous just said. It would be incorrect to suggest that libertarians want "no government" because nature abhors a vaccuum and someone will form a government and the odds are it will be despotic. What they want is a government that prevents all possible parties, including themselves, from getting the necessary power to become despotic.
Libertarianism is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the organizing principle of society. Libertarianism includes diverse beliefs, all advocating minimization of the state and sharing the goal of maximizing individual liberty and political freedom.
They seek the minimial level of government that can still function. ZERO is well below that level. Such situations cannot be sustained and result in someone else creating a maximum level of government.
Fuchs wrote:Since the right wing generally thinks the bible is the word of god it's no surprise they detest facts and reason.
Ironically (if you believe Karen Armstrong and a few others with similar notions), it was the Renaissance and Enlightenment that led to the movement to interpret the Bible literally because they were interested in what the words actually said, instead of what [they were told] the words meant.
I am not talking about those complete and utter idiots who want to take the bible literally. I am talking about people who think the bible is the word of god, who think the bible is anything else but a book written by often sad, sick men trying to control and oppress their sect.
Whatever good people see in the bible is stuff they are projecting into it, not something gained from reading that trite stuff of propaganda.
Fuchs wrote:I am not talking about those complete and utter idiots who want to take the bible literally. I am talking about people who think the bible is the word of god, who think the bible is anything else but a book written by often sad, sick men trying to control and oppress their sect.
Wow, that is deep. I mean deep as in the interstate highway to Nilhism deep. I mean it could apply to everything. All printed material, all is vanity, all is delusion, all is propaganda. All writen by sad, sick men trying to control and oppress their sect of athiesm.
Fuchs wrote:Whatever good people see in the bible is stuff they are projecting into it, not something gained from reading that trite stuff of propaganda.
Nope, no problems at all...apparently I missed the memo reverting standards. No biggie.
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Kaelik, to Tzor wrote:
And you aren't shot in the face?
Frank Trollman wrote:A government is also immortal ...On the plus side, once the United Kingdom is no longer united, the United States of America will be the oldest country in the world. USA!
