StrangeSox

It's never going to stop. I'd like to distinguish between negative campaigning and dishonest, dumb campaigning, though. There's nothing wrong with describing negative impacts of your opponents' policies or past votes etc., but that's different from "put you in chains" or "blood on your hands."

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 15, 2012 -> 09:30 AM) I enjoy the fact too that this was a proposed budget that would obviously be ripped apart and tweaked through the legislative process, but now both Ryan and Romney are 100% locked-in on that plan no matter what. It's become an all or nothing proposition. I'm fulling willing to discuss the Romney proposal if he actually puts something forward. While Ryan's plan contains a bunch of vague bulls*** as well, it at least had more detail than Romney's policy to make bad things stop happening and instead good things will happen. He's got a bunch of bullet points on his website, but that's it.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Aug 15, 2012 -> 09:27 AM) They all do, so it's not a "play". For a guy that's been treated as a "very serious" policy wonk, you aren't taking him very seriously...meaning a lot of others aren't either. So you just contradicted your own attempt to refute what I said. That doesn't make any sense. My complaint that he's been treated as Very Serious by Very Serious People (in the media) isn't diminished because I realize he's a joke. I'm telling you that his plan is a joke and doesn't deserve serious consideration. That Ryan does not deserve his reputation as a "deficit hawk" or someone who is some big intellectual budget wonk truly concerned about balancing the budget. You're making some silly, broad excuses instead of addressing the direct concerns about the budget plans put forward by the new VP candidate. I'm not being unfair in my characterizations of Ryan and his plan. Polite about it? No, but fair.

Ok, but being wrong about that policy doesn't discredit everything else someone could possibly say.

No, don't play that "they all do it" s***. Ryan's been treated as a Very Serious policy wonk with a real plan to reduce the deficit. He's not and he doesn't have one. The criticisms of his plan aren't about unintended or hidden consequences. They're either about the intended consequences and why they're terrible policy or about how the thing just doesn't make any damn sense at all and is filled with magic numbers and unspecified trillions in cuts to make it quasi-workable.

I liked the parts that mocked Ryan's plan for what it is: an incoherent joke. That doesn't mean I have to agree with every alternative policy he proposes. edit: I excerpted part with the means-testing, not sure why you say I only picked the parts I liked? Also plenty of left-leaning economists have been exasperated by Bernanke focusing solely on one part of his dual mandate and not giving a s*** about unemployment so long as he can suppress interest rates. I also didn't excerpt other parts I did like, like this part about the banks:

David Stockman, Reagan budget czar: Paul Ryan’s Fairy-Tale Budget Plan Ryan and his "plan" are a complete joke and so is anyone who takes is seriously.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 14, 2012 -> 08:48 PM) It is. But presenting it as one sided is a joke. On the other hand, I am on record as saying that our elected officials should be held to the same reporting and trading standards as they hold employees of trading companies to when it comes to insider trading in personal accounts. Complete disclosure and monitoring of all trades, self-reporting of insider information, and auditing oversight through an independent agency with the power to level charges against offenders. What about the stock act?

To be fair it's all indefensible.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Aug 14, 2012 -> 04:49 PM) No, but she is 16/4000ths Indian. Simplify your fractions.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Aug 14, 2012 -> 04:52 PM) You don't just tumble onto a stage 3 or 4 feet off the floor. Tumble off, yes. Look at the video. She literally rolled onto it.

This is where i am drawing my claims from. http://p2pfoundation.net/First_Five_Thousa...ther_way_around Don't start by saying I've never heard of barter and then complain that I'm the one being snide.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Aug 14, 2012 -> 04:36 PM) You claimed markets do not exist without states. And that the first markets sprang up from taxation. You didn't quantify it, just stated it as fact. Whereas bartering has existed without the state for quite a long time. Your snide insistence that bartering was an immediate quid pro quo is just more you trying to be snippy. If you needed new shoes for your horse and you were a farmer, you got them from the blacksmith in return for some of your crops when they came up. And you example of holding a ladder is just f-ing stupid. Do you refuse to hold a ladder for a neighbor unless he pays you? If so then you are truly a tool. When I interact with friends and neighbors, I don't demand payment to be a nice person. There was not a "market" to trade goods and services like this in pre-state societies. My ladder example and your response is an excellent example of this because almost all interactions were between friends and neighbors until relatively recently. Daily interactions were based around moral relations exactly like being "a nice person" and you wouldn't want to be seen in the community as the asshole who never helps out--when your time comes to need help, you'll find less helpful hands. There wasn't something like a big bazaar with people trading chickens for goats in stateless societies. This is backed up by the historical and anthropological record; did you read the link I posted that detailed quite a bit of this? The records support the contention that the first actual markets sprang from taxation. That doesn't mean that there weren't personal trading relationships in local communities, but they weren't in any sense a market. That was a mis-statement on my part. What I said later and more accurately is that this sort of barter economy only forms in places with people who are already aware of and understand the concept of money and are numerate. After all, how can you barter if you cannot count and establish equivalent values?

Just finished the classic novel Lolita. Man what a creepy story, but probably one of the best examples of first-person narrative I've read.

They're already running on an "Obama cut Medicare!" campaign. A candidacy with Paul Ryan on the ticket is running against Medicare cuts. It's not true, but Mitt is already simultaneously embracing and running. from Ryan's Medicare plan, which includes an identical part to Obamacare.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Aug 14, 2012 -> 02:20 PM) Nice tangent, although in some rural areas people DO pay for medical services that way. Bartering existed before states were even a concept. That is not how people interacted historically. You lived in small communities and things were not handled with one-for-one spot trades of "I need 1 cow, here's 20 chickens." Think of how you interact with your friends and neighbors. Do you demand immediate recompense if you lend them a hand? Do you say "sure, I can hold that ladder for you, but it'll cost you 3 eggs and a cup of flour!" That's not to say that barter never happens, but it never formed the basis for a market economy. to quote from my link I posted earlier:

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 14, 2012 -> 02:20 PM) Considering they don't really advertise the President is going to be somewhere like they used to do, I would tend to agree. still...ewwww...

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 14, 2012 -> 01:08 PM) oops, pardon me. Back to the regularly scheduled talking points. I'd like to discuss Ryan's budget proposal in this thread. I'd be happy to discuss this other topic in another thread, but it would obscure discussion relevant to the presidential campaign.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Aug 14, 2012 -> 12:59 PM) You have apparently never heard of bartering. That was a story constructed by Adam Smith to explain the origin of money but it doesn't stand up to historical data. Barter economies only form from failed or restricted economies that are already numerate and understand money (e.g. prisoners). http://archive.mises.org/18301/david-graeb...-to-my-article/

I was relying on the Fox News video, which was shot from a different angle. I wouldn't describe one woman tumbling onto the stage as "rushing" the stage.

I'm interested in supposed "budget wonk" Paul Ryan's plan and the numbers and analysis contained therein, not your philosophical preference for a propertarian minarchy. Do you want to talk about the numbers in Ryan's budget? You don't have to talk about policy preferences one way or the other to dispassionately exam in the math.

I'm interested in supposed "budget wonk" Paul Ryan's plan and the numbers and analysis contained therein, not your philosophical preference for a propertarian minarchy. eta: you can't "divorce government from economy." That's an incoherent statement.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Aug 14, 2012 -> 11:44 AM) An innocent drive by horn honking is not the same as jumping on stage and attempting to attack the speaker Perhaps Ryan should have been armed. Then this horrible tragedy could have been averted.

Markets don't really exist absent states. The first markets sprouted up as a result of taxation: soldiers are paid in coin, taxes must be paid in coin, ergo citizens must trade goods and services with soldiers to acquire the necessary coinage to pay their head tax. That doesn't imply state-control over the economy or central planning or any of that, but the notion of a "free market" independent of government is ahistorical. Anyway, that's not relevant to Ryan's hilarious "plan."