Hello everybody

[Kidlicious]

Paying taxes isn't slavery. Bill Gates pays a whole lot of taxes. Does that mean he's a slave? No, but he has some people working for him that feel like slaves, I'm sure. You better drop this one Ben.

[MrFun]

You don't have to have sex if you don't want babies.

You can have sex even if you do not want to have babies. It's called contraception.

And, heterosexual couples where one of two is incapable of successful reproduction, or gay couples, obviously have sex without any chance of having babies.

[MikeH]

Last I checked Poly is running like ****, and is still broken.

Are you blaming Apolyton for not allowing you to see posts to respond to or is that meant to be a dig at me?

[Ben Kenobi]

Are you blaming Apolyton for not allowing you to see posts to respond to or is that meant to be a dig at me?

Hmm? I attempted to post, saw that it gave me an error message, and since threads aren't getting bumped, didn't think it went through.

[Ben Kenobi]

Paying taxes isn't slavery.

Yeah, it is. It's really no different then if you were to require everyone to work for the government six months out of the year.

Does that mean he's a slave?

Same as anyone else, really.

You better drop this one Ben.

Why? There are plenty of folks who agree with me here, who disagree with me on plenty of other topics. Ever read Hayek? It's all right there. "Road to Serfdom"?

[Ben Kenobi]

This may come as a surprise to you, but people do in fact own houses and land in the US. The only reason land/house prices are higher in the US is because people can/will pay that much to own them. If they can't afford it, or nobody wanted to pay that much, the price would drop.

Median housing prices vs Median income ratios have drastically risen. The reason for this is cheap loans. Obama's easy money policies and bailing out the bad loan issuers isn't helping anything.

Demand is dropping, but Obama's policies are desperately trying to maintain housing prices rather then letting them fall to what the market will bear, and let the market recover. He's not going to be able to do it forever though, eventually the US bond interest is going to rise to what we see in europe. It's not there yet, but all the warning signs are there. 10 percent year over year deficits are amazingly destructive in a short period of time. It took Canada 15 years to recover, and Canada is still not as well off as they were before Trudeau (and is unlikely to ever get back to that point again).

[Ben Kenobi]

Well, Ben, I see that your predilection for assigning bizarrely irrelevant, contradictory and obviously unfounded meaning to the statements of others, and drawing just as obviously false conclusions, remains intact.

The only argument I ever made is that the net balance over the last 100 years has been negative. That's a far cry from saying that there were no positive social developments in that time. What's so difficult to understand about this position?

Your response, (and your subsequent reply), cites the last positive social chance as the Civil Rights act of 1964, close to 50 years ago now.

Are there any positive social changes over the last 50 years? Any at all? 50 years is a long time, JR.

Of course, the fact that you are incapable of admitting that your blanket suggestion that "changing rules damages society as a whole" is reactionary and obviously false, is not surprising in the least.

Labelling an opinion as 'reactionary', is not the same as marking it false. All it simply means is that I support going back to the way things used to be done in some cases. I agree with you that some changes are in fact positive, but there have been many, many negative changes, that have had a profound effect on American society. Yes, I think America would be better off reversing the negative changes. If that makes me an evil 'reactionary' then so be it.

But you should notice something. I'm not labelling your opinions as 'false', or 'incorrect', or 'bad' or 'evil' or even 'liberal'. Why? Because there's no point to assigning labels. I'm not interested in the labels of your ideas, I'm interested in the ideas themselves. End stop.

It's just a waste of time to me to throw out all these labels that are supposed to mean 'bad' or 'wrong', rather than actually discussing the points at hand.

intellectual dishonesty. Interesting concept of how to treat the people who welcomed your return.

You've already forgotten how I replied to you already. Short memory.

I said that our disagreements were most certainly not personal and I would like to move beyond that.

I see it as an intellectual issue, you believe X and I believe Y.

Your reaction and your response to the olive branch is entirely yours, JR, not mine. You want to carry a grudge, you carry it alone.

[dannubis]

The only argument I ever made is that the net balance over the last 100 years has been negative. That's a far cry from saying that there were no positive social developments in that time. What's so difficult to understand about this position?

Your response, (and your subsequent reply), cites the last positive social chance as the Civil Rights act of 1964, close to 50 years ago now.

Are there any positive social changes over the last 50 years? Any at all? 50 years is a long time, JR.




Labelling an opinion as 'reactionary', is not the same as marking it false. All it simply means is that I support going back to the way things used to be done in some cases. I agree with you that some changes are in fact positive, but there have been many, many negative changes, that have had a profound effect on American society. Yes, I think America would be better off reversing the negative changes. If that makes me an evil 'reactionary' then so be it.

But you should notice something. I'm not labelling your opinions as 'false', or 'incorrect', or 'bad' or 'evil' or even 'liberal'. Why? Because there's no point to assigning labels. I'm not interested in the labels of your ideas, I'm interested in the ideas themselves. End stop.

It's just a waste of time to me to throw out all these labels that are supposed to mean 'bad' or 'wrong', rather than actually discussing the points at hand.



You've already forgotten how I replied to you already. Short memory.

I said that our disagreements were most certainly not personal and I would like to move beyond that.

I see it as an intellectual issue, you believe X and I believe Y.

Your reaction and your response to the olive branch is entirely yours, JR, not mine. You want to carry a grudge, you carry it alone.

Go join a convent. Then you don't need to see the world change.

PS: preferably one that takes a vow of silence.

[MikeH]

Are there any positive social changes over the last 50 years? Any at all? 50 years is a long time, JR.

Yes. Further strides in race and gender relations. eg. anti-miscegenation laws finally shut down in the late 60s in the US, moved to the position where a black president is electable.

Women now have much more ability to gain senior positions in companies, and hold higher offices. They have better access to financial products, mortgages etc. In the early 1970s my mother wasn't allowed to be the main signee on a joint mortgage with my dad because she was a woman! Gender pay gaps have improved (still some way to go).

There have been huge strides in the acceptance of homosexuality despite pockets of intollerance. In the 60s being gay was still hugely shameful, but these days it's much easier for people to be open about their sexuality. Gay marriage has been widely accepted across the developed world. Transgender individuals are starting to get better help/recognition.

It's hugely better. The 50s/60s/70s were horrible if you were female, non-white, non-straight. There's a long way to go but things have improved hugely in the last 50 years. Let's hope it continues.

[Ben Kenobi]

Real gdp per capita is not where it was in the 70s, idiot.

Well, that's actually an interesting discussion.

Using the pre-1980's methodology, the inflation rate since 1980 onwards is about double what the CPI states. I'll have to run the numbers, but that affects the 'real' incomes, since those are directly tied to the true inflation rate, not whatever the CPI states.

Since I'm interested in these numbers, I'll run the data if I can't find someone who's already ran the numbers 'pre-Volker' inflation measurements vis-a-vis real incomes.

Yeah, I'm sure the stimulus went into Obama's secret Swiss bank account nobody knows about.

It's called his 2012 campaign fund. There's quite a bit of the stimulus that's unaccounted for. Apparently not enough 'shovel-ready' jobs.

Claiming that labor force participation has decreased among the young does not address the fact that the population is aging

That young people are disproportionately affected does. Your argument is that we can explain the lower workforce participation to aging ignores the fact that the largest changes are happening to the under 30's, and that the numbers for the older people are actually better, not worse. The workforce participation numbers for the under 30s are grim.

Obama did offer tax relief as part of his stimulus but apparently lowering taxes doesn't automatically make everything rosy again.

What 'tax relief' did he offer? The 10 cent payroll tax reduction, that was easily outshadowed by the increase in medical expenses associated with Obamacare? The loss of coverage for folks who were covered by their job, but were dropped? Obamacare has actually increased, not decreased the number of uninsured.

[Ben Kenobi]

You can have sex even if you do not want to have babies. It's called contraception.

And your point is? You have to take active steps to prevent having children with sex. Is that the same for gay people? Why or why not?

[Ben Kenobi]

Go join a convent. Then you don't need to see the world change.

The word you're looking for is a monastery. That would involve taking vows.

I've thought about it and some folks that I care about greatly have suggested it, but I know that my vocation isn't there.

PS: preferably one that takes a vow of silence.

Well, that wouldn't exclude typing.

I've actually been on a monastic retreat with a Benedictine order, that does practice it. It was an interesting weekend. Some of my friends found it hard to adjust, but I talk very little anyways, so it wasn't that hard.

I probably write about 10x what I talk in the average day, and most days go by where I don't have to speak to anyone at all.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yes. Further strides in race and gender relations.

Which is just blather. I want some concrete statements, events, actual things that occurred, not platitudes.

moved to the position where a black president is electable.

That 95 percent of black people voted for Obama suggests to me that racial barriers are still very much alive and well in America.

When the most reliable indicator of political affiliation is the color of your skin, we've come a long way backwards from what Martin Luther King talked about the idea of a colorblind america.

What is going to happen now, is that people will be elected because they are the novelty, not because of their political experience or capability, or the content of their character. Obama citing his race as a reason why people should support him, is a gigantic step backwards not forwards. Giving people a pass 'because they are black', and having lower expectations for them, because of who they are, isn't going to help the issues, it's going to make them harder.

Women now have much more ability to gain senior positions in companies

But that's not been accomplished through legislation.

Gender pay gaps have improved (still some way to go).

Actually, it's the reverse. If you're a woman you'll make more than a man with the same education and experience.

It's hugely better. The 50s/60s/70s were horrible if you were female, non-white, non-straight. There's a long way to go but things have improved hugely in the last 50 years. Let's hope it continues.

I'm not so sure about that. Black illegitimacy is close to 75 percent these days in the US, and it was only about 10 percent in the 50's. That means you are much less likely to live with both your mother and your father in the same house, and have a close relationship with both, more likely to be in poverty, less likely to get an advanced education, be more dependent on the social system, etc. The list goes on.

Does the increase in work opportunities offset this negative? The ones who do have a solid family, I'm sure are the ones that are benefitting most from the increase, but what about the others? Shouldn't we be concerned about them too? Having the door open isn't going to help you if you can't find the door in the first place.

[MikeH]

Actually, it's the reverse. If you're a woman you'll make more than a man with the same education and experience.

That's not true in the UK. Had to check the US and of course it's a lie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male%E2%80%93female_income_disparity_in_the_United_States#Explaining_the_gender_pay_gap

It's 5% overall once normalised for education etc. and even if you take children out of the equation women without kids only earn 98% of what a man does.

Either way, it's a clear positive. In 1963 they only earned 59% of what a man did. (http://www.infoplease.com/spot/equalpayact1.html)

[dannubis]

Mike. Not only it is not true, it is a blatant lie. I can't be bothered to look up the study since our resident closet inquisitor will ignore the facts yet again but a few months ago there was a fuss about gender inequality in pays.