Welcome to the new form of slavery

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Bookworm · #31 Post by **Bookworm** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 7:58 pm

It's amazing, the questions that never get asked.

*Why* do you want to unite Europe or the world?

Do you think political unity would end wars? Have you already forgotten the racial/ethnic and civil wars of the last century?

*Why* do you want more government?

When has telling people what to do, in detail, ever solved any of their problems? Of course some things need to be illegal. That's why God gave us Ten Commandments. But what government obeys or enforces them?

Socialism - stealing money and giving some of it to the "poor" - only pays the "poor" to stay poor. If they make too much they'll lose their hand-out. I have personally seen this many times. It also promotes class prejudice. The poor are encouraged to hate the rich and want what they have, and how are the "rich"(or usualy "middle class") supposed to like the lazy bums their money is wasted on?

ajkula66 · #32 Post by **ajkula66** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 8:18 pm

killer wrote:

There is an alternative to free markets. Karl Marx wrote about it and a few countries tried variations of it; USSR, Peoples Republic of China, North Korea, Cuba, etc. Would you prefer that?

I was born and raised in one of those "experimental" systems. It was far from perfect and very oppressive in many respects. Having said that, fact of the matter is that people didn't have to work three jobs to survive like millions of them have to around here...

In the mid-to-late 1980s I lived in UK and remember labour laws that were in effect at the time, along with many other things, quite fondly. One could come in and legally work as long as they were not taking away a job from a Briton, which sounds pretty fair in my book.

There is also a high level of reference to slavery in this thread. How acceptable is it to compare modern economics with slavery?

Once you've seen the illegal sweatshops that I walked into over the past decade, it becomes very acceptable. It's the dark side of modern economics. And government is doing absolutely nothing about them.

Once you've seen how many people in this country work several jobs and still can't make ends meet, it becomes very acceptable.

Under EU rules it acceptable for a member state to elect a communist, fascist, or whatever government. The elections have to fulfill EU rules, not be conducted by a select few. Universal suffrage is a requirement of EU membership.

Here is where we come to the countries that are more equal than the others. Of course that UK will have free elections in the truest of forms. Good luck to any newcomers trying to elect anything but pro-EU government.

Slave trade was illegal in Britain from 1807 and slavery was kicked into touch by Britain in 1833. We were one of the first countries to do this.

Britain of that time also had a quarter (or thereabouts) of the world as its colony, so it really didn't need slave labour whatsoever...and I wasn't referring to Britain when I was talking about bidding on slaves to begin with...when I said "around here" I meant USA...

Please don't mention slavery or slaves in this topic unless you have good cause. It is nauseus.

Sorry, but although I had no intention of messing with your digestion, the word was mentioned again. And for a good reason. Almost two centuries of labour movement (which had initially started in Britain if memory serves me) and quality of life that came as a result of that (along with a couple of other things) is eventually going to be thrown down the drain in the name of "free labour market"...

Unless one is very well-off, or has an extremely rare and desirable profession, there are very good reasons to be upset, at the very least...

Bookworm · #33 Post by **Bookworm** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 8:39 pm

> Having said that, fact of the matter is that people didn't have to work three jobs to
> survive like millions of them have to around here...

Imagine how many jobs you would have to work if you *didn't* have to pay income taxes, there were no sales taxes, no "hidden" taxes on everything you buy (taxes on ingredients, fuel to transport it, business taxes, etc., etc., etc., are passed on to the consumer.)

Inflation (increasing the amount of money in circulation) is like another tax. If money was made of gold and silver, as required by law in the united states, the government would not be able to keep printing more.

Before we had all those taxes, one man had to work just one job to support his entire family. People were so wealthy they bought houses, cars, furniture, etc., instead of owing money on them.

Marin85 · #34 Post by **Marin85** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 9:09 pm

Bookworm wrote:Inflation (increasing the amount of money in circulation) is like another tax. If money was made of gold and silver, as required by law in the united states, the government would not be able to keep printing more.

Inflation is NOT increasing the amount of money in circulation! Inflation is increase of the general price level, including price of labor. Ideal inflation (i.e. equal increase in all prices) has no impact whatsoever. Increasing the amount of money in circulation is a reason for 'imperfect' inflation (not all prices increase at the same rates, in particular labor price vs. goods). Inflation doesn´t mean necessarily something 'evil' as some inflation is basically inevitable in growing or wealthy economies. (Similarly, deflation is not necessarily something good, e.g. Japan 1991-2006).

Printing money as part of the monetary policy of every country is crucial to the stability of its economy. An oversimplified example would be: since the accumulated product is in general an increasing value, you need increasing total amount of money to pay for it. So, you either have to print money in some time intervals, or you need to burn all the money and move on to subsistence economy/barter...

dsvochak · #35 Post by **dsvochak** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 9:32 pm

Regarding Inflation and “printing money”:
The amount of "money" in circulation bears little relationship to the amount of currency that has been printed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_requirement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking

ajkula66 · #36 Post by **ajkula66** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 9:52 pm

A must-read regarding the issue(s) at hand...

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/865

Marin85 · #37 Post by **Marin85** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 10:05 pm

dsvochak wrote:Regarding Inflation and “printing money”:
The amount of "money" in circulation bears little relationship to the amount of currency that has been printed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_requirement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking

I haven´t looked at those wiki articles, but I agree, there is a difference and there was some abuse of the word "money". I was referring to currency in circulation, not to the money supply. I assume Bookworm was referring to the same thing. The keyword was in circulation. Moreover, I don´t see the need for this distinction for the purposes of the discussion here, not to mention that whichever word one may take, all the statements made so far remain equally correct/wrong. In mid and long term increasing money supply leads to inflation (thus increasing amount of currency in circulation leading to inflation is a special case of that). But this became now way too specific for an offtopic section in a computer forum and is besides the point.

My point was only that the 'feature' of the government to "print money" and the existence of inflation as economic phenomenon do not imply the need of stronger decentralization (there are, of course, other more complex arguments related to these that can go both in favor of and against strong decentralization, at least as far as this is possible in theory).

#38 Post by **bill bolton** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 12:19 am

ajkula66 wrote:I understand the concept that you're referring to very well, and the word "free" should be under quotation marks in the given context.

Which confirms that you don't understand it all then.

Cheers,

Bill B.

ajkula66 · #39 Post by **ajkula66** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 12:57 am

bill bolton wrote:

Which confirms that you don't understand it all then.

Understanding a concept and agreeing with it are two entirely different matters, at least in my book.

Unknown_K · #40 Post by **Unknown_K** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 10:06 am

The problem with work these days is most items are manufactured by robots with few people being needed.

Look at the food supply, we would have a billion people starving right now if we used the old (pre corperate farms, non engineered crops, tons of pretro fertilizer) small farm system that used to take up the vast majority of the populations work force. It used to be wars ground to a stop when it was time for the harvest because we needed people. Today under 3% I think work on farms. One thing that came out of the great depression was the loss of most of the family farming system as people could not pay their loans off, some people got VERY rich buying those farms up for pennies on the dollar. This current depression is also causing people to lose their only major asset, their homes.

Next we have globalization where some kid in a foreign country can slave away making my NIKE shoes for pennies a day so I can buy them at $80 a pair. Anything low tech is done overseas, anything high tech with little labor is done here. That leaves millions of people with no jobs other then service jobs that have always payed little. The people who own the factories and hence the capital pretty much own everything.

killer · #41 Post by **killer** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 11:06 am

ajkula66 wrote:A must-read regarding the issue(s) at hand...

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/865

Let's attempt to bring this back to the topic of the EU.

I read the article and, while waiting for the EU to become a totalitarian state I am also waiting to see pigs on the wing.

The chap is nothing but a right-wing nutter ... he must be to be involved with the UK Independence Party.

ajkula66 · #42 Post by **ajkula66** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 2:54 pm

killer wrote:

The chap is nothing but a right-wing nutter ... he must be to be involved with the UK Independence Party.

OK, so this guy is a right-wing nut, while Daniel Hannan is a buffoon (as per your statement in now-deleted thread about healthcare) ...how about debating some of the arguments/statements presented instead of ad hominem attacks, and the ancient-and-oh-so-boring "first deny then deride" tactics so popular amongst leftists worldwide over the last 150 years...

#43 Post by **bill bolton** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 5:58 pm

ajkula66 wrote:instead of ad hominem attacks, and the ancient-and-oh-so-boring "first deny then deride" tactics so popular amongst leftists worldwide over the last 150 years...

Pot calls kettle black!

Bookworm · #44 Post by **Bookworm** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 6:27 pm

> The chap is nothing but a right-wing nutter ...

Isn't name calling a wonderful substitute for facts and logic? You act like being "right wing" automatically makes him insane. Prove it. I have seen less logic and knowledge of political and economic history in what is popularly called "left wing", not that I consider such terms relevant. The (U.S.) Republican party is almost pure socialist and people call it "right wing".

> he must be to be involved with the UK Independence Party.

What's wrong with independence? Why should the UK (or the US, or any other country) be controlled by a foreign government?

#45 Post by **Kyocera** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 6:33 pm

george wrote:OK, so this guy is a right-wing nut, while Daniel Hannan is a buffoon (as per your statement in now-deleted thread about healthcare) ...how about debating some of the arguments/statements presented instead of ad hominem attacks, and the ancient-and-oh-so-boring "first deny then deride" tactics so popular amongst leftists worldwide over the last 150 years...

George be careful, this killer guy will start crying

and write a PM to bill claiming you are attacking him for no reason, at least that's what happened to me. Didn' t work though.

Seriously.

ajkula66 · #46 Post by **ajkula66** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 8:47 pm

Mike,

Thanks for the warning...

I'm actually quite grateful to our fellow forum member, for inadvertently getting me to visit UKIP's website and check out for myself how much of a right-wing-nut-gang they really are...

My two thoughts would be:

a) If I still lived in the UK, I'd be a member of the party in question

b) We could very well use some of the same common sense approaches here in the U.S.

Check it out for yourself...

http://www.ukip.org/content/ukip-polici ... brief-2009

#47 Post by **GomJabbar** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 9:12 pm

It seems a refresher of these are the RULES of this ROAD - READ ME NOW is in order.

BillMorrow wrote:General Comments
...

2. The primary purpose of this Forum is to act as an educational forum for the exchange of information for all things Thinkpad. All are encouraged to participate in this information exchange in the spirit of openness and fun. Keeping this place a comfortable and enjoyable place on the Internet to spend your time is strongly encouraged. Emotional outbursts and personal attacks are not.

...
------------------------
Cardinal Rules
screw-up here and you COULD be banned..
...

2. No trolling. Don't make posts that are inflammatory just to get people riled up. Substance is a key to not being labeled a troll, but substance alone cannot prevent you from being considered a troll. Substance with a dash of personal attacks will get you labeled as a troll.

3. Ad hominem and personal attacks are not permitted. Criticize the ideas, not the people. An ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy describing the attempt to discredit an argument by merely attacking the credibility of the arguer. Excessive flaming will not be tolerated. Users who verbally assault the character or person of other posters on a regular basis will be banned. Moderator's judgment applies here. "You are wrong" is not a personal attack; "You wrong because you are an idiot" is.
...

Edited for brevity.

Bookworm · #48 Post by **Bookworm** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 9:35 pm

> An ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy describing the attempt to discredit an argument
> by merely attacking the credibility of the arguer.

I hate that kind of thing. (Not the people who do it, although they do annoy me a little.)

> "You are wrong" is not a personal attack; " you are an idiot" is.

An important difference. Let's concentrate on "You wrong because...[insert facts here]"

> We could very well use some of the same common sense approaches here in the U.S.

http://www.constitutionparty.com/

#49 Post by **BillMorrow** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 5:28 am

HOW did i miss THIS thread when it started..

as you all know by now, i would probably support the brit independance party, should i have sufficient fiat currency to do so and still remain solvent..

i never thought there was as much distress over the EU and the lisbon treaty as there seems to be..
reading the brusselsjournal commentary, it seems to give an answer to a lot of what is going on here in the USA, now..
very interesting..

so, gentlemen, please keep an orderly house..
no shouting or other rowdyness..

to quote, "for me, give me liberty or give me death"..

killer · #50 Post by **killer** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 7:20 am

It appears that the tag of "nutter" which I applied to Vladamir Bukovsky has upset a few people.The word nutter (if you look it up) is humourous British slang for someone who is mad (in an obsessive sense) or eccentric. Britain is full of nutters; football nutters, cricket nutters (the barmy army), car nutters (petrol heads), etc.
Bukovsky lives in Cambridge. He is patron of UKIP. UKIP are referendum nutters with very few other policies. They have MPs in neither Westminster, Cardiff, Edinburgh, nor Stormont. They do have a handful of MEPs, elected through proportional representation. They have a couple of peers in the House of Lords; both of whom who defected from the Conservative party. Their politics are to the right of the right-wing of the Conservative party. When it comes to elections they take votes from the Conservative party. The leader of the Conservative party is very unhappy about this.

For the record, the UK has only had one referendum. Labour, Conservative, and Liberal Democrat parties agree that referenda do not make for sensible government.

My aim was to mock Bukovsky who seems obsessed with destroying everything and handing out accusations of conspiracy at any opportunity. It was never my intention to make a personal attack on any forum member, although, sadly, I note that one forum member has cast aspersions about me.

beGi · #51 Post by **beGi** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 8:29 am

Bookworm wrote:Socialism - stealing money and giving some of it to the "poor"...

Well yes, if you look at things in black/white manner...

IMO this is an insult to everybody who made it out of nothing...sure some people abuse that, but not everybody (far from it)...what do you suggest we do with people in trouble? Should we let them all die, just because they ran out of luck or had a bad year/investment?

Also when talking about "black/white perspective", you know, taxes could be understanded like form of SHARING you know, you could read a book in your signature to get the idea...

And I'm not right or left oriented, I'm bit of both I guess...

I've seen communism, I've seen transition combined with brutal war and now I'm looking at capitalism at it's worst...and let me tell you, they ALL suck...

#52 Post by **GomJabbar** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 9:00 am

Good points beGi!

I must say I concur.

Bookworm · #53 Post by **Bookworm** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 10:47 am

> Well yes, if you look at things in black/white manner...

That's what right and wrong are.

> IMO this is an insult to everybody who made it out of nothing...

I don't see any connection.

> what do you suggest we do with people in trouble?

Help them. You and I can help people who really need it ourselves and do a better job than any government.

> you could read a book in your signature to get the idea...

I t say the *I*, not the government, should help the poor. It also says "You will not steal". If you had read it yourself you would know that.

> and now I'm looking at capitalism at it's worst...

Capitalism is not free enterprise. It's simply the practice of making money. When controlled by the government it's called fascism. This is actually the meaning of fascism, not government prejudice. People confuse the two because the Nazis and Italian fascists were allied.

The U.S. used to have free enterprise. We were allowed to practice capitalism if we wanted to. There were consequences for abusing capitalism. Now it seems we have rewards for abusing it.

> My aim was to mock Bukovsky

That is the problem. You are mocking him instead of proving him wrong. Why don't you investigate some of those conspiracy theories? I've heard some pretty ridiculous ones myself, but conspiracy is the nature of politics. In the news here (U.S.) we here about vote trading, political favors, and bribery all the time.

dsvochak · #54 Post by **dsvochak** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 1:49 pm

I suppose its possible the Trilateral Commission, the Elders of Zion, the Rosicrucians, the Knights Templar, the Masons, Microsoft, the UAW, Acorn, the Dogon People, the Soylent Corporation, the Trystero, GOP, BBC, KGB, FBI, CIA, Doris Day, Matt Busby and others are part of a conspiracy to impose “a new form of slavery” on Europe.

Why is it those who apparently believe governments are generally incompetent often also believe in government conspiracies which the incompetent governments are capable of keeping secret?

Marin85 · #55 Post by **Marin85** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 2:00 pm

dsvochak wrote:Why is it those who apparently believe governments are generally incompetent often also believe in government conspiracies which the incompetent governments are capable of keeping secret?

Because it is not the governments that keep all the secrets, but it is the shadow governments that are responsible for the conspiracies. You see, there is a conspiracy to create conspiracies, plain and simply outrageous... (sorry, but I couldn´t resist)

killer · #56 Post by **killer** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 2:30 pm

LMAO ... thank you dsvochak and Marin85 for bringing some much needed light to a dull day.

#57 Post by **bill bolton** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 8:32 pm

Bookworm wrote:When controlled by the government it's called fascism."

I don't know where you got that form but it does not come even remotely close to any of the commonly accepted concepts of (the much debated term) fascism.

Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote:The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.

Cheers,

Bill B.

Bookworm · #58 Post by **Bookworm** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 9:20 pm

> Trilateral Commission

An American organization that does promote globalism, but is not secret.

> Elders of Zion

Completely discredited by those who actually look into these things.

> the Rosicrucians, the Knights Templar, the Masons

Add the Skull & Bones to the list. These clubs operate in complete secrecy. They should know better. Naturally people are going to be suspicious and some will spread gossip.

I understand the Illuminati was a real conspiracy. An ex priest was using one king's plot against another for his own purposes.

During the French revolution the Jacobins (predecessors of the organized communist movement) used some Masonic lodges to promote their propaganda. Other lodges call those "rogue" or "renegade" and claim not to be connected with them. But with all that silly secrecy, it's hard to tell what their politics really are.

> Microsoft, the UAW

Big bad capitalists. How dare they create all those jobs and invent new technology.

> Acorn

Under investigation for vote fraud. Nothing secret about that.

> the Dogon People, the Soylent Corporation, the Trystero,...Matt Busby

Who?

> KGB, FBI, CIA,

Isn't spying, by definition, a type of government conspiracy? It's *supposed* to be secret.

> Why is it those who apparently believe governments are generally incompetent often
> also believe in government conspiracies which the incompetent governments are
> capable of keeping secret?

Part of it has to do with a realistic understanding of human nature. People naturally tend to be most concerned with what's in it for themselves. That's why the founders put so many restrictions on the US government. But we do not believe in many silly theories that we are accused of believing. Much of this nonsense is the same kind of mockery I've been trying to discourage here. Calling people "nuts", "conspiracy theorists", etc., falsely accusing Creationists of believing the earth is flat, non-interventionists of isolationism, anti-communists of nazism, etc., changes the subject, makes your opponent look bad, and proves nothing, except possibly that you can't prove your point and are trying to distract people from your own lack of knowledge. If you don't know what you're talking about, be quiet, listen, study, and learn.

#59 Post by **BillMorrow** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 5:01 am

Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote:The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.

i'm not so sure that i agree with this on several levels..

for FDR to call someone ELSE a fascist, if this was his definition of that term, seems to be a little disingenuous..

but for now lets just focus on the term "fascism"..

(later, if pressed, i will try to enlighten about the current trends toward a ruling "elite" which all progressives yearn for and FDR as well as uncle teddy worked to inflict upon america..
thus his attack on "private power" by calling "it" fascist..)

apparently, when i researched this term some months ago, the best definition was that there WAS no definition which could be agreed upon..
the consensus was that it was a perjorative attached to anyone the speaker wished to denigrate..

FDR was, IMO, as given to distorting true facts with misleading words as the current group of yahoo's in "DC".. now its called "spin", then it was called lying..

so i suggest to all that you NOT use the words "fascist" or "fascism"..

if you wish to rebut some argument, then do so without the diversion of mocking the other fellow..
leave alinsky's rules for radicals in the trash, please..

#60 Post by **GomJabbar** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 6:21 am

(later, if pressed, i will try to enlighten about the current trends toward a ruling "elite" which all progressives yearn for and FDR as well as uncle teddy worked to inflict upon america..
thus his attack on "private power" by calling "it" fascist..)

Oh yes, there is a ruling "elite" that has been in power for some time, but it is not the one any progressives pine for. It is the "elite" Arthur Jensen so aptly elucidated to Howard Beale.

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