INTERNET POLITICAL BULLSHIT THREAD

[PeregrinFig]

I hate how angry some of this game's players are. I'm just minding my own business trying to grow some crops and make some leather when some fellow in a bear mask and cape comes by. He first goes into my house and I assume he took anything of slight use. He then proceeded to chase me down and try to kill me. I guess I need to find a more isolated spot to settle next time.

[Zampfeo]

But the point is that you can't paint all government regulation with one brush.

Maybe not, but you can have an idea about how government regulations generally work and be against them because of that, as would be the case here. I am not saying that there aren't cases where one could perhaps argue that government regulation fills a purpose, but my observation is that they are usually abused as a tool for social engineering rather than used for benign purposes. Demagoguery or not.

I do agree that the ways regulation are used are usually horrible, but I'm talking about in an idealistic world.

[PeregrinFig]

Well, I'm the baby quitting the game now. The guy killed me and yelled POLAND KING as he ended the life of my character, and I was so close to finally being able to claim that land I was on. I got my new character to use the old's hearth secret and end up on the same land, but I have no motivation to level up my skills again.

[sabinati]

dying sucks man, but it's really not as bad as you think. you know more about the game than you did before you started. you may or may not have some tools, equipment or crops at your place. these things will make it faster to get back to where you were than it took to get there the first time. if you choose to continue playing, great, but if you quit, nobody really cares.

[Ferinex]

Apologies. I found the idea that giving taxpayers' money to failing corporate giants was an essential task of government -- without which we would be in deep shit -- to be funny, as we are obviously in deep shit precisely because the government insists on doing that. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yipV_pK6HXw

the bailouts would not have been necessary had better regulations on the free market been in place in the first place. then again, the whole system is fucked from the get-go as it is based on a fiat/debt dollar. ...well, that, and the fact that it is a free market. :) (not implying that I supported the bank bailouts; I didn't and don't. the aristocracy on wall street needs no more of the people's money.)

my hunch is that you can agree: our ethos is not compatible with an unregulated free market, jorb. what we have now, even with our regulations, is dreck.

[Canaris]

Actually, had it been a free market, the economy would have crashed and recovered all the stronger.

Unfortunately, we have controls in place which prevent this, exacerbating the problem over the long term.

The bailouts helped nothing, but neither would any kind of central planning (because that's like living in a permanently crashed economy - think about it).

[jorb]

the bailouts would not have been necessary had better regulations on the free market been in place in the first place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Mae
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_Mac

Ah, yes. Those shining symbols of free enterprise who by government decree issued housing loans to people who could not afford them. Observe the word 'federal' in their respective names. Big government *caused* the housing bubble and the crash of -08 by proudly declaring that everyone should have a home of their own, and that no one would have to pay for it. Much like it caused the great depression, and much like it is now inflating a new bubble -- which might just make the last one look small in comparison -- by issuing more federal reserve monopoly money through the ponzi-counterfeiting scheme known as "quantitative easing", keeping interest rates artificially low and causing yet more people to take on new loans that they -- unsurprisingly -- still cannot afford. By bailing out failed corpo-cleptocratic entities that on any sort of free market -- deprived of the government support which is the necromancy that today instills an unnatural life beyond life in them -- would have died a gruesome death a long, long time ago. All this to maintain the false illusion that the welfare state is not doomed to fail, and that its bills need not be footed by anyone ever. So that we can continue to enjoy our false sense of prosperity -- and avoid taking responsibility for the last century's terrible experiment with welfare statism -- for another year, month or day, whichever seems expedient.

Sound money and free enterprise *prevents* the boom-bust cycle, the root of which is, was and always will be government issued fiat money.

How can you seriously propose to blame the free market for the market crash when all the key organizations responsible for it -- The Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- were government or pseudo-government entities? In what world does that make any sense what so ever? The U.S taxcode is long enough to fill up several football fields, and the Swedish is not far behind it, yet you claim we need *more* laws!?

Have you ever tried running a business? I have, and it is not a pleasant experience. Seatribe has about 5 or 6 transactions to account for each month -- you'd think we'd just have to send the government goons a check -- yet loftar and I are apparently supposed to have to read through little novels (I shit you not) of government red-tape and regulations in order to run our piss-small little company. The system is so complex that we *cannot* hope to fill out our forms correctly. We have spent hours upon hours dealing with their bullshit, and we still don't have much of a clue if we're doing what they want us to, or if we are setting ourselves up for getting slam-dunked by the Swedish IRS (Skatteverket). There are currently so many exceptions in the tax code that it is unclear if there was ever a rule in it. And you want *more* regulations?

Do you know how high government regulation raises the bar of entry into a market? Do you understand that all government regulation accomplishes is to prevent or hinder good people like loftar and I (or loftar, at least) from starting companies, while protecting the vested interests of the entrenched elites? The people who already have power, money and influence? The apparatchiks of the bailed-out banks and the financial cleptocracy?

I am sorry if I scream at you or engage in my usual demagoguery, but this affects me personally in so many ways that disturb the living daylights out of me. Wake up from your little hippie day-dream and take a deep breath of reality. It smells like shit.

Over and out.

[jorb]

ps. Sweden is a good example of a functioning semi-dem-soc nation; you should know all about it (I enjoy dem soc above most alternatives.)

Also, in response to this nonsense, Sweden is actually a relatively free country in economic terms (which says more about the rest of the world, unfortunately). Here is a recent article in the Wall Street Journal by Johnny Munkhammar explaining exactly why Sweden is a successful country. Hint: It is not because of socialism, but in spite of it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 43468.html

[Ferinex]

@the wall of text that you posted which I have yet to finish reading:

please note I said 'better' and not 'more'. i agree with many of the things i have read so far.


edit: the ad hominems are uncalled for, danke.

edit2: again, I did not say 'more'.

[Nicator]

The government has to intervene on the 'free' market in every market. Without government intervention things would go to shit reaaaalll fast.
From simple things, like banning elephant tusk trade, to big things like giving banks shittons of cash to make sure people's life-savings don't go up in the air.

@ Nicator, don't you see, I am amazed by your knowledge, why are you angry at me? Maybe it's because you confused sarcasm, with sarcasm.

Or it's because you think that using irony and sarcasm you can masquerade your stupidity and ignorance.
You really got no idea how things work, do you?