taks

i should have put a Q.E.D. after that. ahem. taks

uh, your words: "or prove your claim that the free market is always right." i never said this, therefore you and noob misrepresented me. strawman. wow, you're easy. taks

gimme a break noob. you said: "you still have to provide convincing arguments that a fully unregulated market is a perfectly self-balancing system and is preferable to the alternatives." no, i don't. i only have to prove that regulation doesn't work. that's been done to death. you misrepresent me when you assume i think that a "fully unregulated market is a perfectly self-balancing system." i never said that at all. what assumption? you said that explicitly. my ideas are comments about what is not working, and i have. taks

i read it. how is this contrary to what i said? i could care less what sarkozy thinks. he's merely putting forth an opinion, an opinion i think is not only incorrect, but based on flawed assumptions that the current failures are due to capitalism itself. did i say he was? there you go misrepresenting my position, again. really, have you read and understood the definition of strawman, you know, the one you quoted? again, the misrepresentation is this: "prove your claim that the free market is always right." i never made that claim, only that the free market is the only way that can work. it has its own problems, which i have noted repeatedly. it is only the most right possible. we cannot get to any of the utopian ways, not ever, and should give up trying. taks

i know exactly what a strawman is, and i have also read the wiki definition. apparently, though you read it, you did not understand it completely. from the definition: as i said, he assumed that i must have proof that pure unfettered capitalism works. he misrepresented my position by assuming as such and the argument goes "if you don't have proof, then your criticism is flawed." lack of proof that it will work in no way refutes my argument that the contrary is true. this is actually similar to an affirmation of the consequent: since i can't prove that pure capitalism will work, then some form of regulation must work. yes, he did, though not necessarily intentionally: "taks must be wrong because he has not proven the alternative," was implied. again, that's not my claim. again, that's the misrepresentation that you just don't understand. my claim is that the free market is the only way to go simply because no other means of regulating the free market have worked, and it is easy to prove this true. you mean lightly, and i just proved that you don't even understand why your own argument is false. taks

That sure is a comfy stance from which to take your shots, eh taks? that's the nice thing about auditing what is implemented. to heck it hasn't. as noted, the 19th century was sort of minimalist, and communist regimes such as the USSR, NK and china are probably the limits at the other end. in the middle is rampant and failing as well. i'm not an idealist at all, i simply believe in rights actually existing as inalienable, not something granted by the government. as soon as government intervenes, they take away somebody's rights. if the government can take away one person's rights to favor another, they are no longer rights. capitalism is NOT ideal, nor will it solve all problems. it is merely moral, and results in the best possible solution. there is NO perfect solution, it cannot happen, THAT would be idealist. taks

yeah, right. uh, nice try, but no. you need to read up on what a strawman is yourself. a strawman is building up a weaker argument, then attacking it. it is a "strawman" since it is weaker, and easier to defeat, but does not actually address the actual argument it is attempting to defeat. misrepresenting my position is only part of the strawman. when you accuse someone of not understanding, you should be certain that you in fact understand yourself. his argument is a strawman because he chose not to address what i claim, i.e., that government intervention is bad, but to address a weaker position that i should prove unfettered capitalism will work (i've never stated that it can be proven, which is the misrepresentation). that is impossible, not unlike proving a negative which i also stated. it can't be proved because it has never been done. we don't have history on our side with that one, but we do have history on our side for intervention. immaterial. i was commenting on chomsky. taks

two years ago maybe? we discussed it pretty heavily in here somewhere. big deal. many states are passing their own constitutional amendments to prevent such happenings, but some are using it to their advantage. bad, bad decision, IMO. taks

they upheld a decision in NH in which some people had land confiscated to make way for some commercial development. the "public use" clause was interpreted to mean "raises more taxes therefore is good for the community" rather than "public park or roadway, etc." it is decisions like these, those that favor some sector of the business world, that are an affront to "rights," and create the environment we have, which i hate, allowing special interests to ultimately decide our fate. the government is in the pocket of big business, and we're screwed as long as we allow this to happen. taks

not really features, but quality. that may be changing, of course, as new players are introduced. but back in march, when you had the option to get a blu-ray player for $400, or a PS3 for $400, it didn't make much sense to get a player. i got the PS3. taks

i'm not misinterpreting at all. i don't have to prove the alternative. we know that intervention does not work. not at any level. that's why your argument, that i should prove the alternative, is a strawman. chomsky: yet another idealist hoping that some utopian scheme that ultimately results in collectivism will pay off. marx, as well recall, wanted something similar. taks

other than domestic financial policy, i'd agree 100%. not much changes. domestic financial policy see-saws, and overall, except for taxes, is really driven by congress and the fed more than anything (really, by the fed, since they determine the amount of money available to the system). i.e., the president really doesn't set "domestic financial policy" in any meaningful way (even with taxes, the president only recommends the changes). the only problem that i ever see is when there is control over legislation and its approval by one party. we spend ourselves into oblivion. the balance with SCOTUS is really immaterial. they don't decide much that impacts the average joe. even the kelo decision, as bad as i think it is, will rarely have any effect on most in the US (like, 99.9999% of us will never notice). taks

ah, there's the bait and switch argument that is so often made - it is akin to asking that i prove a negative. the regulated system has problems (i'd go so far as to say it is broken), and these problems always get blamed on capitalism, but the fact that any regulation exists renders that blame falsely directed. the solution is NOT more regulation, since that only creates a bigger problem, and we do have evidence that this is true. nay, we have proof that this is true. taks

the problem with blu-ray isn't the format, it is the cost of the players and tvs. still prohibitive. in fact, the best blu-ray player on the market is still the sony playstation 3, and you can get 'em for the same price as the regular players. you just get a gaming platform to boot! add in the cost of an hd-tv and it gets ugly, fast. standard def DVD doesn't hold a candle to blu-ray (or any HD for that matter). in fact, i watch standard def DVDs on my blu-ray player just to get the up-conversion (though it still lacks in quality) to fill the screen. i understand you can get up-conversion DVD players, too, but still, they don't look as good as a blu-ray. i think we'll better be able to see what is going to happen in the market after all of the broadcast tvs go digital in february. the one comment (in your link) about blu-ray being superseded was interesting. the samsung guy wouldn't speculate as to what, just that it would happen. personally, i think we'll end up with flash-based systems in the future. no moving parts leads to much higher reliability, faster transfer rates and fewer bit errors plus it all comes in a smaller package and the replication process will be cheaper to implement (have you ever watched the "how it's made" episode on how they make DVD products? silly complicated). either way, i think this is more than 5 years off. as i recall, similar predictions were made when we went to CDs from tape... 20+ years ago or so? taks

exactly how do sarkozy's comments support your point that the market does not know best? none of these abuses or scandals could exist if it were not for the government intervening. yet again, blaming the system for something that isn't even part of the system. it's a strawman argument. taks

again, these aren't disadvantages of capitalism, but complications due to the state of our country at the time... labor: you cannot make any valid comparisons given the state of the nation during the 1800s (and early 1900s). we were growing by leaps and bounds, far greater than simple internal growth would have allowed. apples and oranges. monopoly: when? where? not without government intervention can monopoly exist. depressions: given the other problems, hard to make any valid claims blaming capitalism. first of all, just because i acknowledge economies are complicated creatures does not mean in any way that there can't be one root cause to some bubble or panic. flawed logic on your part. second of all, while the current problem is probably the result of a lot of things, the issues with freddie and fannie are easily tied to the regulations requiring them to take on bad loans (which i understood, but stated incorrectly). this is why it is called the "subprime" problem. subprime refers to the fact that these loans were going out to people that had bad credit. they were backed by freddie and fannie in a government attempt to get home ownership levels up (which was a very bad idea, IMO). without that backing, the loans wouldn't have been available in the first place. agreed on the first, and nothing on the rest is contrary to what i've stated. uh, it is called a subprime lending crisis for a reason. sure, all these things were factors, but the regulation had a major, if not majority, impact on the process. i've never said, either, that the government was the sole problem. yes, the bankers and other decision makers made bad decisions. but the bankers knew the loans had the backing of freddie and fannie, and they damn well knew they'd get bailed out if they defaulted. take away the backing and they don't do the lending. they were also making money hand over fist. take government control out of the process, and this can't happen. the banks will make loans based on ability to repay, because the statistics say subprime borrowers are more likely to default. here you have yet another case of somebody blaming the capitalist system after the government went in and tinkered with it. once the government put these regulations in place, it was no longer capitalist. it was nothing more than a money generating scheme that line the pockets of the bankers and politicians alike. it burst, and yet again the taxpayers get to pick up the tab. of course they are, and i never said the problems weren't deeper. but it is a rigged game. whether you like it or not, we've (our government) have tried so hard to put the reigns on capitalism that they've broken all of the self-adjustment mechanisms that otherwise exist. you can't tinker in one area and expect that there won't be repercussions in another (not that they haven't tinkered in the others, too). taks

hotu is pretty good, but sou is kinda sucky like the OC. taks

not really. it does mention that the bar is state/region dependent, which i already knew, but nothing on what happens if you are disbarred in one region and apply to the bar in another (obviously somewhere you don't already have a license for). taks

yeah, i don't know how it works. with a driver's license, you can't get one in another state if you have been revoked (or even suspended) in your current state. you'd THINK something similar, probably more stringent, would apply to law and medical licenses... right? taks

sure, sure, that's how it always starts. next thing you know you're trying to chew your arm off to get out of the predicament you've gotten into, and even if you manage to escape with that arm, it's probably useless as an appendage any more. taks

we had a pong machine. i used to go to the mall with my friend and line up quarters on the donkey kong machine. somewhere around 300k was my record. never got into pac man, however, but i was around when it came out. galaga was my other fav... we knew how to trick it to play forever without the baddies shooting at you (after a million or so points, it was hard even without shooting). i'm going to get myself an original DK machine and see if i can't break a million. taks

oh.my.garage. karaoke: the ultimate evil. well, it is second only the the "s" one in my book. the bar i used to manage did karaoke on thursday nights. the problem was that it was my decision to do it. i also had a line dance instructor coming in on tuesday for happy hour. the two things about the bar business i hate the most. at least the line dance instructor was a good <censored>. taks

well, does he even have a license in other states? once you get disbarred in one state, i would think the likelihood of getting a license in another is probably reduced. enoch is a lawyer... how does that work? taks

i write too, and i've got half a dozen publications as well. none of it is interesting stuff, however, as it is all technical. i'd much rather publish something kewl that other people might actually read. my problem is actually what you state in that last bit... i'm never happy with what i write. i agonize over a sentence, sometimes even a single word. i don't know how i got my dissertation done. i could easily have spent a week on a single paragraph if i had had the time. taks

what??? i didn't put these idiots into power and i certainly didn't authorize the unconstitutional meddling into my economy. these socialist politicians are raping us, knowing full well what the consequences were before-hand, not caring what it was doing to all of the people in this country. what again? not even close to any of the above. not sure what part of "congress passed laws that forced fannie mae and freddie mac to take on loans with high-risk clients" you don't get, but that's certainly a socialist problem, and those are certainly the "bad loans" that are now being taken over by the tax payers. this is the largest redistribution of wealth EVER. again, what part of "there are those that would argue the cycles of inflation" indicates i agree with the conspiracies? maybe if i had said "including me" you'd have a point, but lets keep the discussion to what i said, not what you think i said. taks