Rostere

Obviously the fractional reserve banking system is a problem (at the very least indirectly, because it has forced governments into "corporate welfare"). Otherwise I don't think there are any real problems with corporations in general. Governments are to blame for not investing enough into education and not fostering a culture of adaptivity. Instead we get a dependence on low-skill industries and a strange sense of entitlement among workers. Some businesses are meant to fail during some economic circumstances, yet some people would portray this as a problem - highly irrational behaviour.

By the way, here is an article about how Claire McCaskill got elected Senator by helping a strictly religious conservative candidate get the Republican nomination to oppose her. Truly the two-party system at it's finest. Now just imagine if the Democrats managed to set up a strawman like Todd Akin for presidential nomination.

Obviously not, because no systemic change has ever led to any actual change, right? Arguments (if it can even be called an argument) like these are always the last resort for mediocre naysayers with nothing to offer themselves. When I say "gamism" I'm not referring to the whatever compromises a politician with a narrow base does when trying to appeal to 51% or more of national voters (which I wouldn't call "gamism" to begin with). The gamism I'm talking about is when you are voting for a less ideal candidate, or even a diametrically opposed candidate, in order to achieve your political goals. Some voting systems encourage rampant gamism, in others there is basically no gamism possible. Consider the case of a US state which applies the winner-takes-it-all rule of awarding electors to the electoral college. Opinion poll shows the three candidates' standings as far-right: 40% right: 40% and left: 20%. Now imagine you are a left-wing voter in this state. Since the left-wing candidate looks so unlikely to win, you might as well shove your vote up your ass for all it matters. However, if you can award electors for the far-right candidate, you will be stealing electors from the right-wing candidate. It is thus in this situation imperative that you go to the voting booth and vote for the far-right candidate. On a larger scale, it is also rational for political donors to fund extremists on the other side of the political spectrum, because they will only steal voters from viable opposing moderate candidates and not from candidates on your side of the spectrum. Ralph Nader is another recent example of gamism at work, in the election of 2000 (specifically in Florida). A switch from Democrat to Nader in effect equals one vote for Bush. Obviously, by game theory (assuming one political axis) this will always result in a competition between two parties (and don't even get me started on the disadvantages with regards to corruption of leaving all political power to two party organizations...). This will also result in a very low voter participation in states which lean heavily in one political direction. But of course that's only the beginning of the problems with the current system. The rigid, medieval way of assigning the number of electors to states has resulted in the fact that a vote in Washington DC is literally worth more than three votes in Texas: You are correct about the point of the powers of the president. Nevertheless, the importance of the role does not matter for the argument. As my argument goes, we could just as well assume that the role of the President is about, say, choosing a flag and a national anthem (and some other superficial stuff), and occasionally appearing on TV with vague motivational speeches. The argument is about how you best choose a person which maximizes some sort of index of political sympathy taken over all voters (which I would say is the point with democracy). But the point is that this can be done in a formal way. You could just say that sitting at home and not voting "forces the parties to change". That it is a fairly ****ing stupid way to try to achieve political change, compared to having your candidate give their votes/support to some other candidate in exchange for some concession. That way you can have concretely on paper the effect of your vote directly. Having a political system which requires you to award the opposing side with four years in power as soon as some fringe candidate decides for a quixotic campaign sucks, if you look at the alternatives. That's pretty undeniable.

Bernie Sanders running as an independent - yes please! It's the best thing which could happen to the US, with regards to raising the issue of reform. Bring forth the popcorn. the system is peculiar. if you thinks a scheme that favors a moderate President is a good thing, then am s'posing the current approach is a win. *shrug* nevertheless, ross perot didn't bring about change, so am doubting that trump will. HA! Good Fun! What I do not favour is a system which degenerates into a game, where it is typically never ideal to vote for the candidate which you agree with. A minimal change to the current system would be for presidential candidates to be able to offer their votes to another candidate (possibly with some threshold, say 5% of national votes). That would eliminate the idiocy of Trump being the Democrats' best political ally. If you have a political system where one of the best ways to win an election is to support fringe candidates on the other side, then you know you must reform it. The current US voting system was constructed in another era, if this would have been proposed in political science today, the idea would have been laughed all the way to the waste bin. Instead you have ****ing idiots like Cruz who, as soon as when they open their mouth, all I hear is the sound of Democrats getting more votes. In an alternative system, you would never risk fringe lunatics hijacking the nomination process. They would have a nomination process of their own for their own party, which would then enter into an agreement with the moderate right-wing party/parties. If these should be unable to secure an agreement on the policy of the president, you will have it very clear on paper what gave the victory to the other side - for example, "The Libertarian Party and the Republican Party were unable to agree on a consensus for defense spending, and would rather have left-wing rule than agree on the matter". Currently, candidates are instead forced to lie through their teeth to appeal to 51% or more of voters, of get people to vote at all, people who definitely do not have you as their ideal candidate. The compromises made are hard to put on paper, and the nomination process turns into a game of trying to guess who is really your candidate behind the mask he/she has put on to appeal to 51% of voters. The current system encourages gamist thinking from voters and campaign strategists, and lying/premature compromises from politicians.

Haha, Donald Trump is a true bro the way he is masterfully trolling the outdated American implementation of democracy. Him announcing a independent run would bar the door to the White House for any right-wing candidate. I bet right-leaning Americans are tearing their hair out right now. Time to reform the system, I guess.

The difference is actually astonishing. I try to explain EU to people and they are like "Sounds like Total War without tactical battles... Why would anyone want to play such a game?". It's hard to take Total War seriously after you have played EU, it's like the difference between Operation Flashpoint and Duke Nukem Forever or something.

It was my birthday yesterday, so I was invited to a surprise party where we had some beer - I had Westvleteren 8 and 12, Thomas Hardy's Ale from 2003 and some other nice beverages.

My thoughts exactly.

10/10, would read again.

The housing market here is absurd as well. I live in a place which costs about $450000 . It's simply a bet people make about urbanization and population growth/decline. Which in some places is made drastically worse by idiotic government policies. The bubble will only burst when you reinstate correct policies, so it's a vicious circle in that sense.

They don't say that though. Israel makes no claims at all on Gazan or Lebanese territory, and the only part of the West Bank that it considers Israeli territory is East Jerusalem. The rest of the West Bank is considered "disputed territory" by Israel; subject to the interim administration agreement I mentioned above, but not actually part of any country yet, and will only become so through proper peace negotiations. And the "world's other countries" sure aren't pushing Israel to consider those areas part of its territory, either. Israel considers the Gazan waters and Gazan airspace parts of Israel, because they police those as if it was such. Either that, or Gaza has been under constant Israeli military occupation. We are not talking about Lebanon right now, we are talking about Gaza (which evidently does not have sovereign access to its own fishing waters, nor its entire territory, nor its own airspace), we are talking about the occupied Golan Heights, and we are talking about the West Bank. You are completely wrong when you say that East Jerusalem is the only part of the West Bank that Israel considers part of its own territory. Depending on race, you are either judged by Israeli law (if you are an Israeli) or by Israeli military courts if you committed you crime outside area C. You might say that Area C is the only part Israel does not necessarily consider part of itself. If you live in Area A or B, you are in Israel in every thinkable way, except for if you belong to the wrong race - then you can't vote, and if you are accused of any crime, you are prosecuted by a military court (which is a complete farce). Muslims and Christians living outside Area C have been subjected to a continuous process of ethnic cleansing, as part of an effort by the government to "Judaize" the region (see current examples here and here). Now, obviously this is nothing compared to countries like North Korea. But you have to make truly absurd arguments as a democracy in order to consider a country like this your "greatest ally". There is no question about Israel's 1948 ethnic cleansing and the current occupation of the West Bank being worse than Apartheid South Africa, for example (which was for a very long time also considered a "great ally"). Suddenly it became un-cool to hate blacks, and that's when people turned on Apartheid South Africa. Sooner or later it will become un-cool to hate Arabs, and then the exact same will happen to Israel.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/republican-activists-primary-poll_55afd500e4b0a9b9485352ad Rubio and Walker (and Bush, if money trumps all other characteristics...). That's what I've been saying for over a year now. Which ones do you think are the most likely final contenders for the GOP nomination?

Are you really that obtuse, or do you simply not want to understand what Gromnir wrote? Constructing the actual warheads is just one part of a nuclear weapons program. Much of it is building up infrastructure, technology, human capital to be able to construct the warheads (and put them straight into missiles without delays). So yes, you can have a nuclear weapons program that prepares and optimises everything else first, and saves the warhead construction for last, so that - with everything optimized - it can be done much quicker. That's what the "Iran is x years/months away from nuclear weapons" reports from Western intelligence services mean: If Iran were to start the warhead construction now (which they aren't, yet) how long would it take them to finish? The more they prepare and optimize the infrastructure, the shorter that time becomes - at some point it may become so short that they can go ahead and do it without anyone being able to stop them anymore, and at that point they probably will do it. (Or why else go through all that trouble?) I think it is you who have missed the point about the nuclear program. The point is that a lot the Iranians do is indiscernible from what you would in a civil nuclear program. The reason they have much of the infrastructure themselves is largely in because they were frozen out of the global market in the first place. You cannot for any moral reason prevent a country from having a civilian nuclear programme. North Korea proves the point that sanctions have no impact on whether they actually could get nukes. Israel, Pakistan and India also obtained nuclear weapons without the aid of any other major power. It is not so hard to get nukes and if they want to they will get those anyway, the question is whether or not they will be under sanctions because people believe they have military intentions, when this is inherently unclear. I'm absolutely not saying I know they do not have a military nuclear program, I am saying that we can't know, if we do not have records of the Iranian army talking about it. The US and Israel have been spying on Iran all this time and they still do not have any official evidence of a military nuclear programme. Do you not think that if there was any incriminating evidence, that that evidence had been brought forth at this point? Sanctions had been more relevant if Iran were a credible threat to any of their neighbours, but they aren't. The only place Iran looks both likely and able to attack is the Islamic State. The benefits of trade outweigh the disadvantages. The only significant effect of an embargo is that that the Iranians get yet one more thing to blame on the US.

Read here about what one of the few Americans who visited Iran had to say about the deal. Perspectives like these are crucial for understanding which effects this agreement will have upon the social and political climate inside Iran.

It's also easier to create the necessary quantity of weapon grade uranium (~16 kg of 90% U-235) than it is to enrich all of the fuel necessary for a single reactor. It's a total function of the energy required for purification and the number of units you have for the process. By the time you've enriched to 4-5%, you already done around 2/3 of the work necessary. Further enrichment is actually easier and simpler once you've met certain economies of scale and Iran's program has long since met those requirements. With 9000 units, Iran can produce enough fissile material for a single warhead (assumed to be ~16 kg of material) in around 2 months. Their stockpiles are sufficient to produce ~8 warheads. Introducing the newer IR-2m centrifuges will shorten that. Some current figures on Iranian supplies and enrichment requirements: Approximate amount of low-enriched uranium needed annually to fuel Iran’s sole civilian power reactor at Bushehr:21 metric tons Percent of this uranium Russia will supply under a ten-year fuel contract:100 Number of years it would take the roughly 9,000 operating IR-1 centrifuges at Natanz to produce one year's worth of fuel for Bushehr:10.7 Approximate number of separative work units (amount of enrichment work) Iran would need to generate in order to produce one year's worth of fuel for Bushehr:100,000 Number of IR-1 centrifuges Iran would need to operate in order to produce this level of work annually:128,000 Iranian Stockpiles Total amount of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) enriched to approximately 3.5 percent U-235 produced as of May 2015:14,937 kg Amount of this material ready for further enrichment (i.e., stored in gaseous form) as of May 2015:8,715 kg Amount theoretically needed to produce a bomb's worth of weapon-grade uranium metal:1,053 kg Iranian Nuclear Breakout Times Under Different Scenarios If Iran feeds its IR-centrifuges with natural uranium and operates: 9,000 centrifuges (the number now running):6.8 months 6,104 centrifuges (the number allowed to be installed under the framework agreement):10.1 months 5,060 centrifuges (the number allowed to operate under the framework agreement):1 year If Iran feeds its IR-1 centrifuges with low-enriched uranium and operates: 9,000 centrifuges:1.6 months 6,104 centrifuges:2.4 months 5,060 centrifuges:2.9 months These numbers are all based on Iran IR-1 centrifuges. Their more advanced IR-2ms can enrich at 5 times the IR-1 rate. The existence of more advanced IR-5 units is suspected but as yet undocumented. The bottom line is that Iran's enrichment program is nowhere near sufficient to meet the requirements for peaceful use and depends totally on the deal with Russia to provide sufficient low-enriched U-235 supplies for civilian purposes. Iran was never going to agree to anything less than 5000 centrifuges anyway if only to save face internally. The current deal does nothing to lengthen the break-out time if Iran wishes to violate the agreement. (1000 IR-2ms and 5000 IR-1s can produce enough fissile material for a weapon in 1.5 months). Edit 1: This wasn't an attempt to cast a pall of doom over the conversation but simply to point out that the deal does squat to limit Iran's nuclear weapon program. That is interesting, can you quote a source for that information? I am convinced I am right, but my analysis is also dependent on a lot of things not happening: a right-wing US president (currently looks unlikely but could change quickly), Israel attacking Hezbollah, another big act of terrorism similar to 9/11, a sudden change in leadership in another country in the region like SA, Turkey or Pakistan... These are things which could possibly change the political climate, break the deal, or both. By the way, the moderates are the ones who are already in power and it is they who have been pushing this deal. They "toppled" the hard-liners when Ahmadinejad fell. The sole remaining hard-liner is the Ayatollah. Also remember we had a moderate leader in power during the start of the Bush years which gave a far "better" offer on nuclear energy - although obviously that was not the correct time for a deal with Iran. What we want is for the political climate to continuously shift in a more reformist direction. The days of the clerical establishment are numbered, and this period truly constitutes an anomaly in Iranian history which was mostly brought about by the charisma of Khomeini to begin with. Please read more about the Iranian revolution if you are interested. The only question is whether democrats or the IRGC will seize power in Iran next. I would give the current establishment 20 years at most, if things continue in this direction.

The British Conservatives are on board to commence constructive relations with Iran. "Britain wants to open an embassy in Iran by the end of the year, he said, and Brits have to start traveling to Iran and having the person-to-person interactions that will bring Iran back into the world. Iranian students have to be welcome in the west, so we will get to know one another."

What are you worried about? That Republicans if they win the election next year will change the negotiations terms...or something else ? http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-emerging-iran-nuclear-deal-raises-major-concerns-in-congress-and-beyond/2015/02/05/4b80fd92-abda-11e4-ad71-7b9eba0f87d6_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/arab-states-fear-dangerous-iranian-nuclear-deal-will-shake-up-region/2015/07/14/96d68ff3-7fce-4bf5-9170-6bcc9dfe46aa_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/israel-blasts-iran-deal-as-dark-day-in-history/2015/07/14/feba23ae-0018-403f-82f3-3cd54e87a23b_story.html so, a number o' arab nations is concerned about an emboldened and enriched iran in the middle-east, and israel, the only dependable US ally in the middle-east (ever) is also concerned and angry. but hey, at least obama got guarantees that iran would not develop its nuclear capacity, right? no? so, we got what amounts to a capitulation to demands by tehran while playing hardball with Congress? huh? but hey, before the next election, oil prices is likely to drop and a new market will be opened up for a multitude o' american businesses. HA! Good Fun! But in this argument you are completely missing the most important part about the deal. This deal is an investment in the Iranian youth. Iranians are an educated people with a large diaspora in Western countries - coming to a diplomatic agreement with Iran makes it far more difficult for radical elements to indoctrinate the new generations, who will eventually rule the country. This is a long-term effort to change the political climate and undermine the arguments of the anti-American groups. Currently, they could tell their next generation that "Americans are a vile people, who bomb wedding parties from remote-controlled drones, support ethnic cleansing at the UN and hate us so much that they would rather go to war than let us have have nuclear power". Even a skeptical Iranian who looks this up on the Internet finds out that this is true. However, compared to for example North Korea, Iran is a very open country. They would never be able to indoctrinate their population if the US was not constantly giving them very good arguments. People always generalize when talking about countries - "Iran" is not the enemy, the ultra-nationalists of the IRGC are, with the mullahs as their figurehead. Obama's Iran diplomacy is in effect equal to a slow an painful garrote for these movements. It will be the ultimate embarrassment, the final act which utterly discredits their world-view, when the US disengages from offensive military action in the ME and commences economic and cultural ties with Iran. I don't know how many Iranians you know and how informed you are of the situation, but urban Iran is a powder-keg with a lit fuse. When finally the mullahs can no longer claim a Western conspiracy against Muslims, their political relevance will fade into nothing. At that point, we want Iran to be as de-militarized as possible to avoid them lapsing back into a military dictatorship, and to achieve that, we must lower tensions. I'm not saying this will happen tomorrow, but look at how Communism ended in the Soviet Union. It´s not that difficult honstely. The gap between operating a power plant and being able to construct a bomb are huge. Not to mention they have been observed in the past and the new contract gives access to every sight, including secure military bases. I would be, and i am, more worried about Israle who clearly has nuclear bombs (illegaly) and no one does anything about it, despite their history of expansion with military means. Iran? Iran has not fought in an agressive war for hunderts of years, i´m not worried. Actually, it is probably easier to construct a primitive nuclear bomb than a functional nuclear power plant (assuming you already have the enriched materials). Everything depends on how good the American intelligence is, specifically in this case that they would know if Iran is hiding highly-enriched uranium somewhere.

The truth is that it is very hard to tell which parts of their nuclear program are civilian and which are not (if any). The international isolation of Iran only makes this worse. By securing this deal, we turn from a vicious circle of distrust towards a new beginning which will greatly empower a new generation of moderate Iranians, and indirectly Shia Iraqis and Lebanese, to renew their countries. Let us remember that cultural isolation plays into the hands of those who would subjugate their own population. A more wealthy and educated Iranian society is going to be a much better stabilizing force in the region than an isolated Iran which we keep giving ammunition to tell their own population about the crimes of the "west". The instant this deal was sealed it gave a severe blow to the future of Iranian hard-liners, whose entire world view has been turned upside down. They have been shouting for months that the US wants either war or for Iran to have no nuclear power. As the people of Tehran celebrate in the street, I'm sure they spend the evening in shameful contemplation at home.

Well yeah, exactly. If Germany wants Greece out then they should do so instead of waffling and vacillating, same as Tsipras and the Greeks should leave instead of prolonging the agony. That would be best for all parties- except perhaps those with political obsessions that trump reality (France, main sponsor of the Euro project). Money would be lost, but I think everybody accepts that that money is gone anyway, no need to throw good after bad. A parting, preferably with a minimum of bad blood, is now (though five years ago would be better) necessary and someone has to bite the bullet. If it's Germany doing so then at this point, good on them even if I think they're a bunch of self righteous hypocritical economic puritans. But they are already being accused of being Nazis because they are reluctant to borrow more money to Greece. You do realize that there is no way that Germany can be the party which effectively kicks Greece out of the euro, right? There is a pretty good understanding about the problems with the euro among some leaders of the EU. But they are lacking political capital for the reforms needed to counteract those problems, alternatively shrink the eurozone (as we have seen). The EU does not have the political power to control Greece's economy directly and set things right. Obviously it is not currently politically viable for the Greek leaders to give the EU that power, even if they should desire to do so. Then the only remaining option is to kick Greece out of the eurozone (but not the EU). I posted the figure previously, but Greece's black/ grey economy was actually only 5% worse than Germany's was at the same time. That isn't enough to make any significant difference and was better than many others. Apparently double the size of Germany's shadow economy. But it is not how much you work which is relevant. It is how productive you are, and whether you pay taxes or not. Greece has one of the largest public sectors as a share of the economy in Europe. Couple that with an abysmally awful productivity and you can begin to understand how bloated most of the Greek economy is, and how it is that they work so much for so little gain for the state. Start reading here. These problems cannot be solved from outside Greece - that will only turn out like it has now. Blah blah "Merkel is a Nazi", "humiliation" et cetera. To be honest, if anyone has been humiliated it is the Slovakians, who are poorer than the Greeks but with a far more lean economy, and the other people who keep giving Greece more and more of their money, even though only a madman would think at this point that Greece would eventually be able to reform their state to the point that they can pay back in a faster pace than they borrow. The entire discussion about "austerity" (running a balanced budget) has also been extremely idiotic as of late. Of course the state of the economy worsens when you decrease spending. But the point is that you cannot borrow other people's money indefinitely and never suffer for it. The alternative (outside the euro) would be inflation, which would literally also make everyone poorer. When ordinary people borrow money you offer a collateral for your loan. For some reason states do not do that, otherwise the Greeks would not have been surprised at what is demanded from them now. They are in no way being "humiliated", if anything they were humiliated by their own leaders who sold the future of the country's young to be able to feed the grossly inefficient and criminally mismanaged Greek state apparatus during the 00s.

But that is exactly what Varoufakis says that Germany has been doing all along - preventing a reasonable agreement. From an economical perspective, people have wanted Greece to get the **** out of the euro for a long time, it's just that nobody wants them to do so because of the political implications - especially not to be seen themselves advocating for Greece to **** off. Greece is a leaking sieve that must learn its lessons on it's own. If you have ever been to Greece you would have known that it's on a league of its own as far as tax evasion and corruption goes. It is never going to get better unless they improve the situation on their own, which they would have been forced to do a long time ago if they had been under the threat of inflation. The Finnish parliament has already voted against another bailout, I doubt they will change their minds now, never mind the sort of reverse Robin Hood-scheme the Greeks are pulling on the Slovakians, the Slovenes, the Lithuanians, the Latvians and the Estonians which faces a high probability of not getting through their parliaments.

Maybe certain American groups are not as far removed from the Taliban as they would like to think.

Indeed, the interest Greece pays on their loans from Germany is generous considering the situation. I was in Greece some years before the crisis, and I can hardly say I'm surprised. Greece is basically the global centre of tax evasion - it's truly absurd, I have never seen anything like it in my entire life. That said, I think the creditors should have accepted Varoufakis' last proposal. Essentially, the differences lie in how the Greek state should earn its money. No doubt the Greek economy has been worse off since the start of the SYRIZA-led government (if we compare to the other countries which were in a similar situation before), but it might still be better to let the Greeks decide themselves how to live up to their promises. I perfectly understand the criticism of Greek corruption, business-unfriendliness and inefficiency, but they should be more free to address those problems as they see fit themselves so that they can learn from their failures.

US strategy: Try to scare Sweden and Finland into joining NATO by underlining the Russian military threat. Russian strategy: Try to scare Sweden and Finland into not joining NATO by underlining the Russian military threat. OK, so one of these actors are obviously not acting in their own self-interest... The pro-NATO people get all giddy with excitement every time something like this happens. Presumably the Russians do as well, although I can say for sure that the politicians in Sweden and Finland who do not want to enter NATO are busy pulling their hair out.

But are you really sure? I'm sure there's a lot of people who disagree with Graham, but I think most of those who do vote Democratic anyway. Maybe you're right though. But I still think his opinions are perfect for winning the nomination - if John McCain could win the nomination in 2008, Graham can win it now. By the time he has won the nomination, he will tone down this aspect of his policies and just pray he can just sail into office as a "compassionate conservative". VP would be Carly Fiorina, probably. Why did John Bolton step down after announcing his interest in a candidacy? Maybe he is eyeing a post in the cabinet of some other candidate.

If you don't mind sharing what are the key reasons you will vote for him? Lack of acceptable alternatives to tell the truth. Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, & George Pataki are all democrats who think registering as a republican will fool the voters. It's funny you should say that - Bush, Rubio and Graham (if he can get his campaign going) plus Walker are the people I think are the most likely to clinch the nomination. I think that while Paul taking action against Patriot Act might have increased his national appeal, it's probably lowered his appeal among those who count in the Republican primary. I predict the Republican primary will be about who wants to bomb Iran, who wants more interventions in the ME, who supports Israel with the least amount of reservations (same point as the last one, I guess), who takes a "tough" stance on Russia and who supports the maximum amount of surveillance. Those are all points Paul can never win, as far as the Republican establishment is concerned. The Republicans already have Congress, so I predict that the most important questions will be those who are more central to the sphere of the executive branch. IMO Graham would be the perfect Republican candidate - he's moderate enough to not scare away voters dependent on government programs, and in foreign policy matters he just wants to bomb all Muslims. Think of him as GWB and **** Cheney merged into one person. The only thing that speaks against him is that Bush and Rubio would probably resonate better with minorities. The most interesting thing to see is probably if there is any as of yet unpublished scandal which will sink Hillary. Maybe strategically-minded Republicans are holding on to something, in order to snipe Hillary once she gets the Democratic nomination.