|
DieCommie

Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: Silversoul]
#5324824 - 02/21/06 05:06 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Paradigm said:
Quote:
MisterMyco said: Liberals hate Western values.
No, they hate conservative values. Tolerance, equality, and open-mindedness have always been valued in the West(or at least ever since the Dark Ages ended).
I would amend MisterMyco's statement to - "Liberals hate exporting western values"
|
bukkake


Registered: 05/28/05
Posts: 2,764
Loc: Classified
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: lonestar2004]
#5324828 - 02/21/06 05:07 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
lonestar2004 said: For example: Living and travailing throughout Latin America i would frequently come across huge projects that the the US Army Corps of Engineers had completed. Huge irrigation projects and flood control. lots of infrastructure projects, that truly benefited the people.
That is the least they can do after training assassins on US soil to commit atrocities and run wild all over that region. There are no reparations that can be paid to rectify the slaughters and starvations they supported. The US still to this day believes they did nothing wrong in inflicting chaos in Central America and the great neocon god Reagan was doing something noble.
|
Silversoul
Rhizome


Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: MisterMyco]
#5324832 - 02/21/06 05:08 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
MisterMyco said: Oh? Lynching blacks in the South was part of the tolerance package, or the equality?
I never said that such things were universally valued in the West. But ever since the Renaissance, there has been an intellectual movement towards such enlightened values.
Quote:
Western values have been about working hard, producing things, using your intellect and honest, hardworking people being given a minimal amount of government to protect and ensure everyones rights. When non-Western influences, and people who aren't honest and hardworking, come into the picture, it begins to falter. Thats why America is going so far down hill now, the Constitution was framed by people who assumed that most Americans would be white people who were hard-working and respectful of others rights. Now, thats changing rapidly and we 'need' more and more laws to deal with it.
What you have pointed out is simply a part of Western values, and most of it is not in conflict with liberal values. However, I find it laughable that you talk about hard-working whites when the founding fathers knew damn well that half the country mooched off the forced labor from non-whites at the time.
PS: You wouldn't happen to post at Stormfront, would you?
--------------------
|
lonestar2004
Live to party,work to affordit.


Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 8,978
Loc: South Texas
Last seen: 12 years, 9 months
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: Silversoul]
#5324835 - 02/21/06 05:10 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Paradigm said: "The "left" is a broad category, which includes groups that don't get along with each other. For example, my father is a liberal who is also rather anti-communist. There are also many socialists and communists who show disdain for liberals. Don't think that just because two groups are left of center that they necessarily admire one another."
how ironic, remember when you said this?
"This guy lonestar is the right-wing Annapurna, totally immersed in rhetoric and blind to logic."
Practice What You Preach.....
-------------------- America's debt problem is a "sign of leadership failure" We have "reckless fiscal policies" America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better Barack Obama
|
MisterMyco
Myco-fanatic


Registered: 12/08/05
Posts: 636
Last seen: 17 years, 10 months
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: Silversoul]
#5324840 - 02/21/06 05:12 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Paradigm said: What you have pointed out is simply a part of Western values, and most of it is not in conflict with liberal values. However, I find it laughable that you talk about hard-working whites when the founding fathers knew damn well that half the country mooched off the forced labor from non-whites at the time.
Liberal values of stealing money from people to help "underprivleged" people is part of western values? Fuckin' hardly. Also, a lot of the slaves weren't white. Also, I'd say more labor was extracted from horses or other stock than black slaves, but you don't credit them with the work. The "work" that built America was the curiosity to explore, the ingenuity to build firearms, boats, medicines and the intellectual ability of people of that time who respected freedom. Not some mammy out swinging a shovel.
Quote:
PS: You wouldn't happen to post at Stormfront, would you?
Ad hom attack, pretty cool. Did mommy make you a nice healthy supper tonight? Or did you get a job as a Sociologist that pays more than 9.50$/hour and doesn't involve offering people french fries with their value meals?
-------------------- "I have never, in all my life, not for one moment, been tempted toward religion of any kind. The fact is that I feel no spiritual void. I have my philosophy of life, which does not include any aspect of the supernatural." Isaac Asimov
|
Alex213
Stranger
Registered: 08/22/05
Posts: 1,839
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: MisterMyco]
#5327107 - 02/22/06 03:37 AM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Western values have been about working hard, producing things, using your intellect and honest, hardworking people being given a minimal amount of government to protect and ensure everyones rights.
Bullshit. Without massive government inteference from the thirties to the seventies America would be nowhere near the economic power it is today. Not some mammy out swinging a shovel.
Those darn nigras eh
|
Skeptikos
GeneticallyEngineeredBonobo

Registered: 01/15/06
Posts: 145
Loc: Rome, west side
Last seen: 15 years, 2 months
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: Alex213]
#5328714 - 02/22/06 05:23 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Alex213 said: Without massive government interference from the thirties to the seventies America would be nowhere near the economic power it is today.
Correction: In spite of government interference from the thirties to the present day, America has become the preeminent economic power in the world today because of people who are more willing to pull up there sleeves and get to work, than they are to complain about inequities, either real or imagined, either the result of government intervention or the natural order of existence. I will concede that the destruction of the infrastructure of almost the entire industrial world in WWII did place the people of North America in a better competitive position vs. Europe and Asia. That inequity however, has been remedied by time and the hard work of others.
-------------------- Sincerely, Skeptikos
|
Alex213
Stranger
Registered: 08/22/05
Posts: 1,839
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: Skeptikos]
#5330492 - 02/23/06 02:24 AM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Correction: In spite of government interference from the thirties to the present day
No, history shows that less government intervention in the 20's resulted in the economy ending up in the shit in the 30's. With massive government intervention it recovered.
|
Skeptikos
GeneticallyEngineeredBonobo

Registered: 01/15/06
Posts: 145
Loc: Rome, west side
Last seen: 15 years, 2 months
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: Alex213]
#5330913 - 02/23/06 09:02 AM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890
In 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment permitted Congress to levy a national income tax.
The Federal Reserve act was passed in 1913. As Alan Greenspan tells it, Quote:
If banks can continue to loan money indefinitely ? it was claimed ? there need never be any slumps in business. And so the Federal Reserve System was organized in 1913. It consisted of twelve regional Federal Reserve banks nominally owned by private bankers, but in fact government sponsored, controlled, and supported. Credit extended by these banks is in practice (though not legally) backed by the taxing power of the federal government. Technically, we remained on the gold standard; individuals were still free to own gold, and gold continued to be used as bank reserves. But now, in addition to gold, credit extended by the Federal Reserve banks ("paper reserves") could serve as legal tender to pay depositors....
When business in the United States underwent a mild contraction in 1927, the Federal Reserve created more paper reserves in the hope of forestalling any possible bank reserve shortage. More disastrous, however, was the Federal Reserve's attempt to assist Great Britain who had been losing gold to us because the Bank of England refused to allow interest rates to rise when market forces dictated (it was politically unpalatable). . . . The excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economy spilled over into the stock market-triggering a fantastic speculative boom. Belatedly, Federal Reserve officials attempted to sop up the excess reserves and finally succeeded in braking the boom. But it was too late: by 1929 the speculative imbalances had become so overwhelming that the attempt precipitated a sharp retrenching and a consequent demoralizing of business confidence. As a result, the American economy collapsed. Great Britain fared even worse, and rather than absorb the full consequences of her previous folly, she abandoned the gold standard completely in 1931, tearing asunder what remained of the fabric of confidence and inducing a world-wide series of bank failures. The world economies plunged into the Great Depression of the 1930's.
The Clayton Act of 1914.
Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley tariff in 1930, increasing the costs of goods coming into the country. Congress doubled tax rates in 1932, increasing business costs. Other new laws and proposals such as the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) attempted to force up commodity prices and reduce output in an attempt to create an economic recovery. Shortly after Roosevelt took office he pursued a deliberate policy of inflation. To keep a run on gold reserves from happening while he devalued the dollar, Roosevelt invoked the Trading with the Enemy Act to justify the confiscation of almost all gold owned by private individuals. The government raised the price of gold from $20 an ounce to $35 an ounce and then paid individuals with cheaper dollars.
Through the NIRA, the government attempted to organize the entire U.S. economy into a series of cartels ranging from forest and wood products to the dog-food industry. Industry groups were required to set minimum wages and minimum prices, hold back production, and prevent new entrants from starting businesses. Through the AAA, the government attempted to increase the incomes of farmers by setting limits on crops and even had agents from the Agricultural Adjustment Administration destroy commodities and animals in order to achieve goals.
It seems to anyone looking at the facts objectively, that in fact the period leading up to the great depression had the most significant government intervention (a government created cartel to control the nation's banking and money supply) since the civil war. After the stock market crash (brought about as the aftermath of a Fed induced credit expansion and speculative bubble), the government increased intervention, unemployment remained high and the economy continued to languish throughout the period until WWII.
-------------------- Sincerely, Skeptikos
|
seeker
Curator ofBarbaricRefinery

Registered: 03/22/02
Posts: 128
Loc: between Here and There
Last seen: 17 years, 4 months
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: Skeptikos]
#5331316 - 02/23/06 11:28 AM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Belatedly, Federal Reserve officials attempted to sop up the excess reserves and finally succeeded in braking the boom.
That sound like they created and artificial debt on the manufactured credit and killed the momentum. If they had been thinking like citizens rather than bankers and business men, they would have distributed the credit debt free through grants to individual citizens, and there wouldn't have been a "speculative boom". Instead they tried to play Investment Banker and shot themselves in the foot.
-------------------- In a state of anarchy every individual is their own kingdom. Thou art God (but so am i )
|
Skeptikos
GeneticallyEngineeredBonobo

Registered: 01/15/06
Posts: 145
Loc: Rome, west side
Last seen: 15 years, 2 months
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: seeker]
#5331814 - 02/23/06 01:57 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
seeker said: If they had been thinking like citizens rather than bankers and business men, they would have distributed the credit debt free through grants to individual citizens,
If you're distributing credit 'debt free through grants to individual citizens' you are not distributing credit, you are just pumping more money into the economy. The extra money would still have worked it's way through the system, distorting demand and the allocation of resources in response to the increased supply of money. Look at the Wiemar Republic and the effect of hyperinflation, is that the result you would have liked?
Quote:
and there wouldn't have been a "speculative boom".
How do you figure? They would have still been increasing the money supply that way as well. The extra dollars would still have lowered the value of the dollar and caused prices to rise. The commodities effected first and most would be those that the recipients of the money decided to buy. Investors seeing the rising prices would have tried to ride the wave of higher prices with speculation on higher prices in those types of things. You are still promoting an economic bubble.
-------------------- Sincerely, Skeptikos
Edited by Skeptikos (02/23/06 02:06 PM)
|
zappaisgod
horrid asshole

Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 7 months
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: Skeptikos]
#5332079 - 02/23/06 03:21 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Nice job Skeptikos
--------------------
|
seeker
Curator ofBarbaricRefinery

Registered: 03/22/02
Posts: 128
Loc: between Here and There
Last seen: 17 years, 4 months
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: Skeptikos]
#5332124 - 02/23/06 03:37 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
If you're distributing credit 'debt free through grants to individual citizens' you are not distributing credit, you are just pumping more money into the economy.
As opposed to what?
Quote:
You are still promoting an economic bubble.
If the money is not being pulled back out of the economy through artificial debt then "bubble" has substance that gets redistributed. Besides, if the money isn't being given directly to the investors than the growth is gradual and not upsetting.
-------------------- In a state of anarchy every individual is their own kingdom. Thou art God (but so am i )
|
Skeptikos
GeneticallyEngineeredBonobo

Registered: 01/15/06
Posts: 145
Loc: Rome, west side
Last seen: 15 years, 2 months
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: seeker]
#5332184 - 02/23/06 04:03 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
seeker said: As opposed to what?
As opposed to lending money which the borrowers agree to pay back. Money created out of debt at least has some strings attached. This is not to say that this is an ideal situation, just that those benefitting from it have an obligation to give something back.
Quote:
If the money is not being pulled back out of the economy through artificial debt then "bubble" has substance that gets redistributed.
There is no more substance to a bubble created out of printing unbacked money than there is to one created from printing money tied to a promise to pay it back. Monetary inflation, whether created through debt monetization, or the creation of unbacked bills hurts those on the lower end of the economic scale the most. Monetary units become worth less as the supply increases, those with limited incomes are the least likely to save or to have any extra disposable income. They cannot cut back on luxuries which they cannot afford in the first place, usually their monetary existence is hand-to-mouth. Look at your history books about the Wiemar Republic and the Great Depression and how hyper inflation affected the common man.
Quote:
Besides, if the money isn't being given directly to the investors than the growth is gradual and not upsetting.
Not true. Giving counterfeit bills to paupers has at least the same deleterious effects on the economy's health as if you were to give it to the wealthy. At least giving it to people who know how to manage money and make profitable investments involves the chance of a greater productive return, such as the creation of jobs or the investment in production capacity (meaning jobs for those who build the machinery). However, do not take this as an endorsement of handouts to the wealthy. I am advocating no such thing.
-------------------- Sincerely, Skeptikos
|
seeker
Curator ofBarbaricRefinery

Registered: 03/22/02
Posts: 128
Loc: between Here and There
Last seen: 17 years, 4 months
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: Skeptikos]
#5332229 - 02/23/06 04:31 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
There isn't a dollar in circulation today that isn't "unbacked".
Or if I'm wrong, where do I go to get my gold?
-------------------- In a state of anarchy every individual is their own kingdom. Thou art God (but so am i )
|
Skeptikos
GeneticallyEngineeredBonobo

Registered: 01/15/06
Posts: 145
Loc: Rome, west side
Last seen: 15 years, 2 months
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: seeker]
#5332288 - 02/23/06 04:58 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Richard Nixon removed the final ties to the gold standard, I think in 1971. Since then, large portions of the gold reserves of most major countries have been 'leased' out, presumably in order keep the price of gold from betraying the extent of monetary inflation. These leased reserves (although not in the possession of the central banks) are counted as part of the banks' gold reserves though they are in the hands of others. The central banks of course are playing these cards 'close to the chest' making it difficult to determine what exactly they are up to. Our own Federal reserve is this year discontinuing the publishing of the M3 money supply indicator, also because it shows monetary inflation to be very high (though that's not the official reason).
-------------------- Sincerely, Skeptikos
|
Alex213
Stranger
Registered: 08/22/05
Posts: 1,839
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: Skeptikos]
#5333782 - 02/24/06 12:21 AM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
You can't deny the 20's were a period of hands-off government which resulted in absolute economic catastrophe. That's the reason laissez-faire/free market ideas went out of fashion for 50 years. Whilst it proved effective in it's main goal of making the rich massively richer it was a complete economic disaster for the country.
|
zappaisgod
horrid asshole

Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 7 months
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: Alex213]
#5335108 - 02/24/06 02:40 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Alex213 said: That's the reason laissez-faire/free market ideas went out of fashion for 50 years.
They did?
--------------------
|
Skeptikos
GeneticallyEngineeredBonobo

Registered: 01/15/06
Posts: 145
Loc: Rome, west side
Last seen: 15 years, 2 months
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: Alex213]
#5336020 - 02/24/06 08:45 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Alex213 said: You can't deny the 20's were a period of hands-off government which resulted in absolute economic catastrophe.
So a government charted banking cartel which was granted rights to control the U.S. money supply, credit and standards to thousands of banks all over the country is hands off? The largest intervention in the economy since the Civil War was hands off? I think you should read this post, as I mentioned this and other things.
-------------------- Sincerely, Skeptikos
|
Alex213
Stranger
Registered: 08/22/05
Posts: 1,839
|
Re: Noam Chomsky: Venezuela is an Example of True Solidarity [Re: Skeptikos]
#5336573 - 02/24/06 11:58 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Events of the 1920s
The Roaring Twenties were an era dominated by Republican presidents: Warren Harding (1920-1923), Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929) and Herbert Hoover (1929-1933). Under their conservative economic philosophy of laissez-faire ("leave it alone"), markets were allowed to operate without government interference. Taxes and regulation were slashed dramatically, monopolies were allowed to form, and inequality of wealth and income reached record levels. The country was on the conservative's preferred gold standard, and the Federal Reserve was not allowed to significantly change the money supply.
The fact that the Great Depression began in 1929, then, on the Republicans' watch, is a great embarrassment to conservative economists. Many try to blame the worsening of the Depression on Hoover, for supposedly betraying the laissez-faire ideology. As the time line in the next section will show, however, almost all of Hoover's government action occurred during his last year in office, long after the worst of the Depression had hit. In fact, he was voted out of office for doing "too little too late." The only notable exception to his earlier idleness was the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930, whose minor impact we shall explore in more detail later on.
But much more importantly, the economy was clearly turning downward even before Hoover took office in 1929. Entire sectors of the economy were depressed throughout the decade, like agriculture, energy and mining. Even the two industries with the most spectacular growth -- construction and automobile manufacturing -- were contracting in the year before the stock market crash of 1929. About 600 banks a year were failing. Half the American people lived at or below the minimum subsistence level. By the time the stock market crashed, there was a major glut of goods on the market, with inventories three times their normal size.
The fact that all this occurred even before the first act of government intervention is a major refutation of laissez-faire ideology.
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Causes.htm
|
|