Prediction Markets and the 2008 Electoral Map 813
Electionwatch submitted a predicted electoral map of the 2008 US Presidential election, based on the bets made by the intrade prediction markets. I'm always interested in these markets and how accurate they end up being. This one calls it for Obama, but then again you probably could guess that by just watching 10 minutes of any TV "News" channel.
Called if for Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pretty close to CNN (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why McCain? (Score:1, Insightful)
This map isn't as interesting as... (Score:2, Insightful)
Cool Wired Article on the Problems w/ Predictions (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-06/st_essay [wired.com]
It's a good piece on some of the challenges prediction markets have: small trading populations, mostly community insiders trading on things they care/know a lot about, small stakes. It's an interesting read!
Re:Called if for Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
People are easily swayed. Another terrorist attack in the USA I think could sway the elections.
Re:Go Obama!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Called if for Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
Never underestimate the power of fear, doubt, and money.
Re:This map isn't as interesting as... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Called if for Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
6. Teh ghey marriage!
Re:Called if for Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
People are easily swayed. Another terrorist attack in the USA I think could sway the elections.
Dolt (Score:4, Insightful)
And how exactly is printing more money (in the form of "tax rebate" checks funded through deficit spending) going to increase the value of the dollar? (Source [clarionledger.com]) Doesn't it do the exact opposite?
"4. Percentage of bankruptcies caused by lack of health care coverage"
And Obama would replace that number with the "percentage of Americans completely losing their property rights to socialism", which of course would be 100%. McCain is of course doing the same thing, though possibly to a lesser degree (or maybe he's just better at hiding it).
"5. Number of houses lost to predatory lenders."
I have no sympathy for people who sign contracts without reading them, nor for banks that associate with such shady sources. Companies and individuals that purposely do not investigate the risk of such endeavors will fall. It is not our responsibility to provide a safety net for bad practices - doing so brings the whole system down, because everyone starts thinking they can make mistakes and someone will protect them from the consequences (for free at that!)
As for Iraq, all I see is a lot of empty talk from the candidates. I doubt either has a viable plan that is without dangerous consequences; they will instead elect to do nothing.
Re:Called if for Obama (Score:1, Insightful)
Please. Poor innocent borrowers that had loans forced down their throat. Give me a break. The majority of the problem loans are people who took loans that shouldn't have. Nobody wants to take responsibility for their own actions. They'd rather blame some big evil bank.
Re:Why McCain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully we can avoid disco this time.
Re:Dolt (Score:3, Insightful)
Its people like this that lending laws are designed to protect. As uninformed as they may be, most/many of them are productive members of society.
Re:Called if for Obama (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem isn't so much that these greedy wankers decided to
ingore old and well established rules just to make a little more
money. The implications of their avarice don't just stop at the
people who were given a false impression of their means.
When magnified across the whole population, this had a whole
range of consequences including accelerating urban sprawl,
escalating the size of cars, increasing energy usage, escalating
home size, escalating home prices, causing a real estate
speculation bubble, causing a mortgate resale bubble and
ultimately trashing the entire economy.
Nevermind the poor schmucks in Oakland that never should have
ever gotten a home loan, this is effecting how companies do
business on a global scale. The entire credit system has been
fouled up.
No, You. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, but consider the difference between a one time stimulous check, and an occupation of a foreign country that costs us $341 Million per day and has left us less safe. That is $341 Million of printed money per day. Convenient you would forget about that
4) And Obama would replace that number with the "percentage of Americans completely losing their property rights to socialism", which of course would be 100%. McCain is of course doing the same thing, though possibly to a lesser degree (or maybe he's just better at hiding it).
The only alternative to letting people bankrupt themselves until they die broke, their illness untreated is to scare people with the idea of socialism. If you want to pay through the nose for health "coverage" that specifically excludes the pre-existing conditions you need it for, I support your right to do that.
It is immoral to bankrupt people for getting sick and any society that has the ability to prevent this has a moral duty to. All other industrialized nations provide a health care system to their citizens that actually treats their conditions rather than just extracting as much money while providing as little healthcare as possible.
5) have no sympathy for people who sign contracts without reading them, nor for banks that associate with such shady sources. Companies and individuals that purposely do not investigate the risk of such endeavors will fall.
Falling home prices hurt everyone, not just people who took out bad loans - often while being tricked in to thinking they were agreeing to different terms. If you need to move for a job and find that your home is now worth significantly less than you paid for it, you are screwed.
At that point do you give thanks to a regulatory system that let some slimey, deceptive, piece of shit make a buck at everyone else's expense?
Re:Why McCain? (Score:2, Insightful)
Then again I spose a lot of people don't have the ability to do what I like to call take two facts and create a third fact.
Fact 1: War is costly
Fact 2: Taxes pay for war
Fact 3 (created from the first two facts): If we decrease taxes and still spend on a war we won't have money to pay for anything but the war without borrowing more money.
Re:Dolt (Score:3, Insightful)
What "bullet points" are these. I'm going simply on the definition of socialism. Take a service, prevent private organizations from providing it, and have the government provide it instead, funded through forced taxation. That is what Obama wants to do with healthcare, and I'm sure McCain will support it when it's politically profitable too.
"Just a matter of values, oh, and McCain is devoid of them."
Agreed. Obama's only value is altruism, which he puts higher than all of our rights - to property, to privacy, and so on.
Re:Dolt (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Called if for Obama (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Dolt (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but I don't think that's such a swell idea. Now, I don't want to link Mr. Perot to any criminal acts, but imagine some organized crime ring declaring they'll pay the national debt when elected, do you think they should be?
Re:Dolt (Score:3, Insightful)
So why do they sign the contract? Why do they not ask any questions about what is meant by the text they don't understand?
"As uninformed as they may be, most/many of them are productive members of society."
It's fine that they are still productive. But members of the public should not be forced to give up some of their own productivity (in the form of money) to support such individuals when they become unproductive.
Re:Dolt (Score:5, Insightful)
If socialism is so evil, I'm sure you'd like to do away with socialized armed forces, police, fire departments, roads, sewers, electric companies and all the other evil socialist practices America currently has?
Where is Obama against privacy? Where is he against personal, as opposed to corporate property rights? You are simply scare mongering, not presenting a rational position.
Re:Dolt (Score:5, Insightful)
On the one side, you have people who believe that social safety nets bring down the whole system--because they are a burden to everyone (even those who are able to do without), and they allow people to be lazy.
On the other side, you have people who believe that social safety nets bring up the whole system--because they limit the formation of a highly disenfranchised class (who then turn to crime, etc.), protect everyone (even those who have, so far, been lucky enough to not need them), and they allow people to take "risks" (like getting an education), which often leads to progress.
Both viewpoints have some merit. On the balance, I think that a well-run social program can lift society more than the distributed burden it engenders (e.g. I think libraries do more good in educating than the cost we must communally bear to fund them). I do, however, agree that people need to take responsibility for their actions (e.g. irresponsible borrowing of money).
Re:Why McCain? (Score:4, Insightful)
Last time I checked, Obama doesn't want American soldiers in Iraq to hold up white flags and then allow themselves to be help captive by insurgents. If you have legitimate reasons for not voting for Obama, then be my guest and vote for the candidate that will continue the policies that have brought the U.S. to where it's at now. However, you look like a complete, biased idiot when you use inaccurate and sensationalist words like "surrender" to describe a candidates policies.
Re:Some of those predictions seem overly confident (Score:3, Insightful)
Unsurprising, really -- these markets are populated by people who read the same news as everyone else. There's no "insiders" in politics that control voting, so the polls showing Obama with a slight edge nation-wide influences the "market."
Re:Dolt (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dolt (Score:3, Insightful)
The only people hurt by that are the ones that work for/invest in the predatory lending companies. But, they're the ones I don't have any sympathy for. If I were to start up a company that sends out emails from Nigeria, the people investing in my company are much more to blame than the people that send me their bank account info in hopes of becoming rich.
Re:Pretty close to CNN (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that the giant, sucking gap that you're noticing is a vacuous, superficial, talking-point centered discussion of *policy*.
Re:Dolt (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Called if for Obama (Score:3, Insightful)
"don't change the leader during war time"
"democrats are soft on terrorism"
"we have the experience"
etc etc...
Re:This map isn't as interesting as... (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh no! The dreaded 'E' word! Cuz lord knows there are no rich snobs in rural parts of the country.... only in the urban centers.
Re:Why McCain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about what "lower taxes" basically means. Lower taxes means less money in governmental pockets. Thus less governmental spending (or increasing the national debt, either way you're fu..ed). Less fed spending means less money for public schools, less money for roads, less money for wellfare, less...
Wait, you don't care about wellfare you say? Doesn't affect you? It does.
Allow me to tell you something about my country, in Europe. We pay taxes that would make your head spin. All in all, when my buck is spent, only about 30 cents thereof go to some sort of good or service, the rest is siphoned away in taxes, directly or indirectly. Wage tax, healthcare tax, VAT... pretty much the only thing not taxed is taxes. And you pay extra tax on alcohole, fuel, housing, you name it.
In other words, my country has quite a bit of cash to spend. And they do. Wellfare checks are about a thousand bucks a month. You can easily live on that. If you have family, you get more. And your rent is paid as well.
Why does that affect me, when I have to work so that moocher can sit on his lazy ass and get fat? Because people have something to lose. People who don't have anything to lose don't care if they have to bash your head in for the 20 bucks you have on you.
Our crime rate is low. Incredibly low. I live in the capital, still a murder makes the evening news, and is certainly the headline of tomorrow's papers. It happens once a year, so it's quite some event!
What I want to say is that you have to pay for what you want, one way or another. When you're done paying for healthcare, security (which includes living in a "good" neighborhood, buying some alarm system and maybe even hiring security goons), retirement and other insurances, you're probably where I am.
Though I'd guess, you have less money on your hands than I do. Despite paying about 30% of my income directly in taxes, and another 50% indirectly.
Re:Called if for Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
And never underestimate the power of election tampering by directing poor urban voters to the wrong site... or by undersupplying voting machines in poor urban districts...
Re:Obama will win! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:"Predatory" lending??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Obviously, you do not own a house.
When that house down the block sells for 30% less than it was purchased, that then becomes a 'comparable' for judging the value of YOUR house. Even though you have made perfect on-time payments, and have never been late with any bill ever in your life.
Now your bank is calling in your home equity loan, that you have also never been late on, all because the bank now has to write down its balance sheet. When that happens, the results spread to EVERY member of the bank, not just the 'dumb' people, as you seem to like to call them.
This bullshit of blaming the victim needs to be stopped. Or do you live on an island, all by yourself, with no connection to the outside world?
Cry you a river? How about the anger you are going to feel when you realize that your local government has been raising your property taxes in lockstep with the increasing home prices, but try to get them to lower them when the values fall.(unless you live in CA where this is law) When your property taxes go up 30% or more, but your property value has also fallen 30% simply because of all these 'dumb' people, are you still going to run around saying 'cry me a river'.
So you rent, you say. It doesnt affect me, you say. Well, do you know the financial position of your landlord? Do you know what will happen if they are unable to meet their funding responsibilities on the property you are renting because the near collapse and now tightening of the credit markets are requiring higher capital to get the same loan amounts? Will they sell it to the 'lowest bidder' who will then neglect it simply because they are looking to make a buck, and arent really into caring about your standard of living?
If you have managed to avoid any negative ramifications of what has been happening the past 12 months, you should count yourself lucky. Within the next 3-4 weeks however, we will all find out just how much this will spread when the fed comes face-to-face with having to make the choice of letting the dollar collapse, or fixing the housing market. Sitting on that precipice is where we are RIGHT NOW.
Hopefully that wont happen, but if it does, I honestly hope the people you come in contact with afterwords have a more human attitude with regard to your situation, and dont just say 'cry me a river' to your face.
Re:No, You. (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Pay for expensive treatments that your insurance has decided (arbitrarily) are not covered
2) Die
That's the very definition of "under duress".
You pretend that there is a continuum of medical care available at varying prices and efficacies. That's simply not true.
Re:Dolt (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes. Everyone has a right to property they freely acquired from other freely-acting individual. When the government (or anyone else) starts forcefully taking away that property, that right is being violated. Whether or not some service "works" (according to its own definitions, mind you) for some period of time does not justify a rights violation of any kind.
"If socialism is so evil, I'm sure you'd like to do away with socialized armed forces, police"
The government is charged with upholding rights. That is done through the courts and by force through through the executive branch. So of course we need armed forced and police to uphold our rights. I'm just saying that such taxation is only justified if it is voluntary. Just as you freely choose to pay some amount for insurance against emergencies, you would also freely choose to pay toward upholding your rights (and the rights of everyone else).
"fire departments, roads, sewers, electric companies and all the other evil socialist practices America currently has"
Yes, there is no reason why these services could not be provided by private organizations, and in fact all of these services are and have been provided by private organizations. The only differences between the two situations (private, public) are:
1. The public services are funded through an unjustifiable rights violation.
2. Competition among private services gives private companies an incentive to provide the best possible service at the lowest price. Because there is only one provider for a public service (and no competing providers are permitted to exist), there is no incentive for public services to provide the best service or the cheapest service.
"Where is Obama against privacy?"
Do you think you will have any control over your personal records (medical, financial, etc) under a system where an entity backed by force is controlling the service that is utilizing those records? You would be incorrect to assume that.
"Where is he against personal, as opposed to corporate property rights?"
Both he and his wife have spoken very openly about altruism, which by definition must require the curbing (read: abolition) of property rights.
"You are simply scare mongering, not presenting a rational position."
A pithy characterization backed up by no rationale whatsoever.
Re:Called if for Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
So when you pit an individual with a 100 IQ, working a full-time job, who has had one, maybe two mortgages before in his/her life, against an army of investors, lenders, brokers, lawyers, etc., whose only job is to create create and tweak these "instruments", that is a level playing field? At the very least, the borrower should have been able to trust that the lenders were looking out for their (the lenders) own best interest. Even that safeguard didn't exist.
When I closed on my loan, I had a stack of about 400 pages of documents to be signed and initialed in a few dozen places. These papers were not given to me until the hour of the actual closing. The language (much of it) was legalese. I checked the interest rate and the length of the loan. Most of the rest was taken on faith (this is just how it's done). Note: I have a simple, fixed-rate, 30-year loan; I'm not complaining because I got bit (I didn't), but don't feel disdain for people who got screwed by predatory lending practices.
Re:Go Obama!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, of course, and Ron Paul hasn't studied, for example, Ludwig Von Mises, Frederik Hayek, and other noted economists...
Just because he doesn't subscribe to your Keynesian theories (or whatever other current fad they taught you) doesn't mean he's wrong.
I think you'll find that many people who've actually studied economics seriously also agree with much of what he says - it's not as if he's invented a new economic theory, he is an advocate of the Austrian school of economics. Nothing to do with Ayn Rand (although there are similarities.)
But, looking at it that way might make a little harder to blindly dismiss him as trivial, wouldn't it? So, let's not do that.
Re:Go Obama!! (Score:1, Insightful)
Congradulations, in one sentence you have completely discredited free market economics! Incidentally, how's that high school economics class going?
Re:No, You. (Score:5, Insightful)
Who is "bankrupting" who? If people opt for expensive treatments, then they should pay for that treatment. Or, if they can't afford it, they should choose a less expensive treatment. If the government is preventing less expensive treatments from being available to the public (which is at the root of your concern), then such laws should be overturned, allowing less expensive treatments to exist.
How much would you pay to alleviate your own suffering and avert your own death?
For most people the answer is, "Everything I have."
And also, for most people, the response to that is, "That's a good start, but it still isn't enough."
Money is just a tool. It's an abstract representation of a civilization's capacity to solve problems, and only an indirect symbol of Liberty, not Liberty itself. There's only a small subset of society such as yourself who treat it as the Ultimate Goal. Keeping people alive is the ultimate goal.
Re:Dolt (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dolt (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason for the current "crisis" (that's what they call everything now) is that people over-bought. They weren't exactly discouraged by the lenders from taking out loans that would have kept them living in poverty, but there was nothing fraudulent about it.
I'm a good example... when I bought my house 10 years ago, the lender looked at my credit history (since vastly cleaned up) and said "With your income, we'd normally approve you up to $300,000, but you look like you have some debt..."
To which I got all bug eyed and said "WHAT? That's ridiculous! I'm looking for, like, HALF that!"
"Oh, OK then."
But how many people would be like "$300k? Really? Wow, I could get a GREAT house for that!" I said that if I bought a house for that much (at the time), there'd be nothing left to buy things to put in it. I'd be a slave to the mortgage company. And it's not like I was experienced in the matter, it was my first house... I don't think it takes much brainpower to realistically figure out what you can pay.
Meh (Score:2, Insightful)
THe Free Market when it exists is HIGHLY destructive to PEOPLE, yeah profits for a few skyrocket but monopolies(some subtle) are created and they damage everything they touch until some radical comes along and breaks it up(for a time).
So for your attack on Keynes please show me a BETTER example of economic thought where ALL hard working people are rewarded, and not just a few at the top. Regulation is blunt against greed(its not perfect but what is).
As to Hayek forgive me if the economist who bent over backwards to support Pinochet in Argentina ranks fairly low on my Useful Human Scale and we know how well THEIR economy did after implementing the Free Market.
Maybe the "invisble hand" will save us all
Re:Go Obama!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Dolt (Score:3, Insightful)
2. Competition among private services gives private companies an incentive to provide the best possible service at the lowest price. Because there is only one provider for a public service (and no competing providers are permitted to exist), there is no incentive for public services to provide the best service or the cheapest service.
Some things should be socialized.
Re:Dolt (Score:3, Insightful)
Would you be kind enough to explain how compulsory (but not necessarily universal) healthcare implies losing property rights? AFAIK, pretty much the rest of the first world has publicly funded universal health care, and yet people still own homes, cars, and other possessions.
As for the rest of the first world having universal health care, maybe you heard about this thing called the American Revolutionary War, where our country decided that we wanted to determine our own future and government, rather than relying on Europe to do it for us. I'm not going to tell you how to live your life, but as, presumably a freedom loving liberal, you're going to tell me how to live mine.
While you are at it, please explain why you believe that publicly funded healthcare == socialism. Maybe it's just me, but I do not see the connection.
dictionary.com: 1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
American Heritage: Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
wordnet: 1. a political theory advocating state ownership of industry
American Heritage New Dictionary: An economic system in which the production and distribution of goods are controlled substantially by the government rather than by private enterprise, and in which cooperation rather than competition guides economic activity. There are many varieties of socialism. Some socialists tolerate capitalism, as long as the government maintains the dominant influence over the economy; others insist on an abolition of private enterprise. All communists are socialists, but not all socialists are communists.
Are you still failing to understand why the government controlling an industry does not equate to socialism?
Re:Dolt (Score:1, Insightful)
Except that private insurance would still be available under Obama's plan. As it was under Hillary/Edward's plan. As it is in England.
Nice try, though.
Re:Dolt (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine you are a wealthy landowner in a country where law enforcement is funded voluntarily. Do you get more bang for your buck doing your civic duty by contributing to the police force and national military, or hiring a private army to protect your interests?
Re:Dolt (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dolt (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course we have responsibilities to collective society. But that doesn't mean that we don't have rights.
What you are confusing is not wanting our rights trampled is not the same as not wanting to help people. Is it OK for me to rob someone take their money and give it to someone else? Is the person being robbed being selfish for not wanting to be robbed?
Just help people yourself.
Re:Dolt (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose you could have a private interstate that you could charge toll on, but how the fuck would private roads operate? If you own the downtown roads, there's no way to build more without tearing down city blocks, not to mention the insane amounts of overpasses it would require to have separate road networks.
Private sewage might work in rural areas, but try patching up a few city blocks with multiple independant sewage systems, particularly if some of them are asshats and won't let you pipe through even if you don't want their service all while keeping a downward flow in all pipes.
None of these are going to happen, instead you'll create private mini-monopolies where there's no competition whatsoever. That is if you seriously want to privatize all that, not have the government hire private companies to run it (which would mean competition, but still paid for by tax dollars).
Re:Dolt (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Called if for Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Called if for Obama (Score:4, Insightful)
You must be a *very* successful person, to be able to say that.
How is it that you find time to post on slashdot?
Re:Dolt (Score:3, Insightful)
When the government (or anyone else) starts forcefully taking away that property, that right is being violated.
No, that's called Taxation. It's why you have Representation in the Government. If you don't like the Government's taxation of you, contact your house and senate members and lobby them to introduce new legislation or vote on legislation that better suits your desires. This is a common practice most of us here in America call "Democracy", you might want to try it some time.
I'm just saying that such taxation is only justified if it is voluntary.
I can see that argument, but it only has to be voluntary by society as a whole, not by each and every individual. Individuals have the option to not pay US taxes and to not enjoy the benefits the US government offers. That options is called "To Leave". If you live in the US, even if you don't go to any form of educational center (as even private schools receive federal aide), ever use a road, or a side walk, or build anything, or drink the tap water... you are enjoying the benefits of taxation. You might not agree with all of the taxation, but you are enjoying a lot of your neighbor's hard earned income every day.
2. Competition among private services gives private companies an incentive to provide the best possible service at the lowest price. Because there is only one provider for a public service (and no competing providers are permitted to exist), there is no incentive for public services to provide the best service or the cheapest service.
Contracts for everything except corrupt war profiteering contracts in the government are handled through a bidding process. I'm sure there are plenty of examples of corruption out side of Iraq as well, but the roads you drive on are not built by State employees, they are being built by construction companies that won the bidding process for the contract to build the road.
If road construction were privatized and no longer received federal/state funding, who would pay the construction companies to build the roads? If you lived in a suburb you might be able to get a couple of your neighbors to chip in and pave your road (thus taxing yourself) but seeing as how none of you are likely contractors you would be hard pressed to negotiate a fair contract. Especially if we continue down the road of de-regulation. And what about Jim Bob the dairy farmer who lives on a farm 25 miles from the closest major city. He needs to have big rigs pulling in every day to keep the milk flowing. There is no way a dairy farmer is going to be able to afford the cost of maintaining 25 miles of an improved road to support semi traffic. So what's your big idea? Toll booths at every single drive way and intersection where a road changes ownership? Talk about absurd...
Do you think you will have any control over your personal records (medical, financial, etc) under a system where an entity backed by force is controlling the service that is utilizing those records? You would be incorrect to assume that.
Do you think you have any control over your personal records now? Especially medical? I'll give you a hint, the 'P' in HIPAA stands for "Portability" not privacy or protection. And as that privacy continues to erode and more and more studies link hereditary traits to higher health care costs, Insurance companies are going to look to slamming some people with significantly higher premiums or to deny them coverage all together. By switching to a socialized health care plan, you spread the risk far wider than any single insurance company ever could and can run an over all lower average premium rate. Not only that, but you scratch the 45 million un-insured people list. With a fully socialized plan you can significantly reduce overall spending by early detection and reducing unnecessary emergency room trips. That is one of the things I'm not so excited about with Obama, both Clinton and Edwards had much better plans for health care reform IMO.
Re:Go Obama!! (Score:1, Insightful)
A 70-year strong fad is one hell of a fad.
Re:Dolt (Score:3, Insightful)
The current crisis is because someone who doesn't know what they're doing hears about this great new way to make money, so they tried to do it themselves. Instead of seeking out sound financial advice, they bought a video off of an infomercial on at 3am. They were blinded by the promise of lots of money and didn't look after themselves and didn't thing for themselves.
I, on the other hand, stayed out of the mess. My brother stayed out of the mess, my whole family stayed out of the mess with the exception of my aunt. She didn't take subprime loans, she just bought houses that were undervalued anyway, fixed them up and sold them for a profit. She was doing the same general thing as the people who need to be bailed out, but she did it properly so that everyone benefited. Why should we have to pay for the mistakes of people who didn't take the time and the effort to do it right?
I believe the government should look out for the people, and I believe that it shouldn't line the pockets of the big corporations, but I don't think that there's anything inherently evil about big corporations any more than there's anything inherently evil about government. I just believe that people are benefited more by the freedom of choice than by people who think they're superior to the average person making that choice for them.
Externalities (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, you're not thinking clearly. Commercial transactions don't capture all value.
I live in a city. When there are a ton of desperate poor around, it affects my quality of life. I can't go outside at night.
By myself, I cannot do a damn thing to change this: I do not have the resources. If we want to change the city, we require collective action. Government is the means by which collective action is achieved.
If an epidemic spreads through the city, simply having enough money to pay for my own medical bills isn't enough. No: What was really needed was for the first poor schmuck who caught the disease to begin with and started spreading it around to have received adequate medical care before the situation ballooned out of control.
Libertarianism is dogs eating dogs. You might win, but it won't have been very pleasant for you even if you do.
Re:No, You. (Score:4, Insightful)
The start voting against God. Life's a bitch. People get sick and it can take a tremendous amount of resources to even mitigate that, and even that isn't reliable.
No society (yet) has the ability to keep illness from happening or from being expensive. But maybe some day we'll be able to climb into our autodocs. I'm all for encouraging technological development, and making government stop actively doing things that cause health care to be even more expensive than it would naturally be.
But shuffling around who pays for what, doesn't fix anything. All that indirection can accomplish, is create opportunities and incentives for irresponsibility and fraud. You can't have billions of dollars filtered through the government without having a lot of it disappear, and you can't have government encode how it will be spent, without removing human judgement.
If you say other governments have done it successfully, fine. I'm very skeptical, but even if I accept that, I know my government (USA) is too irresponsible and corrupt to do it. Show me they can handle a small project where the stakes are small, and maybe I'll trust them with something more important. Every time a Democrat criticizes the war in Iraq, they need to realize they are also criticizing universal health care. They're talking about having the exact same kind of people who handled one situation, handle the other.
I don't own a house. Personall, falling prices are the best news I've ever heard. The price of houses are starting to approach the value of houses. What's wrong with that?
Re:Dolt (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Called if for Obama (Score:3, Insightful)
Good thing we have groundless conspiracy theories and paranoid speculation to counter the administration's own dire predictions.
We all remember 4 years ago when partisan fanatics were predicting that Bush would declare some kind of national emergency and cancel the election in order to maintain power, right? How did that prediction turn out?
Re:Can't afford to, can't afford not to (Score:3, Insightful)
I certainly hope there's an option #5 out there...
Re:Called if for Obama (Score:3, Insightful)
My guess is no, in at least one of the two cases.
Re:Why McCain? (Score:3, Insightful)
alleged elections (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why McCain? (Score:3, Insightful)
will have a strong negative effect on the economy, on quality of life, military preparedness, and job growth.
I'm curious why we need "military preparedness." Who is going to invade the US? We have had a huge standing military for years, and haven't ever had to use it for defense, and probably never will. Yet, I see that touted as one of the problems with Democrats is that they aren't willing to increase spending to defend us from some unidentified invading force, when even if we cut spending in half, no country in the world could successfully invade. As it stands now, if we were given about 2 weeks notice (good intelligence or such), the rest of the world could try to invade and would be unsuccessful. And, if they succeeded, a couple cheap nukes aimed at their capital would at least make us feel better, which is a reason why no one would ever try.
McCain is a relatively weak candidate from the conservative perspective however he is the only choice when considering the big government collectivist policy changes that would be implemented by an Obama presidency.
What was the growth of spending of Clinton compared to Bush? Both will have had two full terms, and let me know what the total increase in spending was for both 8-year reigns. I'm guessing the big-spending Democrat spent a hell of a lot less than the "conservative" Republican. And that has always been the case. Compare Carter's term with either of Reagans. You'll find the same thing. Recent Democrats *always* spend less. Yet there are people like you that assert the opposite, and then will claim things like "Clinton had a bubble" or "Carter had a resession" or whatever. Tear away the lies and Democrats spend less. Period. A vote for McCain is a vote for more taxes and increased spending. The only real choice in candidates is whether you'd prefer your money spent on bullets or bandages, and we can tell where you stand. Screw the poor and sick, there are "terrorists" to be killed.
Re:Classic Rookie mistake. People are not logical. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, we should NEVER reason with people, only chop their heads off. Perhaps understanding WHY 9/11 happened would have been a good thing, it would have probably have been better to do that before ensuring that more people want to blow us up.
snakes != collections of people
I might remind you that the "intellectual classes" are the FIRST people who are off'd after a military coup. Not because of their intelligence, but because they are quick and easy prey who only realize their mistake when it's too late. Stalin called them "useful idiots." OTOH, those so-called "reptilian flight or fight" instincts have a lot to be said for and have kept our butts alive for millions of years.
Anti-intellectual movements FTW! Look what electing a moron (which is the opposite of intellectual) got us. I don't want "folk" running our country, folk are ignorant, superstitious, illiterate, yokels, with no ability to reason in advance, or ponder consequences of their actions.
No one in power should be common. My experience with the common, non-educated, man is not encouraging.
Re:Rock and hard place (Score:4, Insightful)
People should always come first, period.
Granted I don't think we should elevate the poor to the level of the rich, or topple the rich to the middle class or below, achievement does have some worth, but there comes a point where too much is too much. Eventually greed begins to cost civilization as a whole, and at that point society should demand it fixed.
Often times libertarianism comes across as sociopathy. I have meet some sane libertarians, but they seem to be the exception, and not the rule.
Re:Obama will win! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Called if for Obama (Score:3, Insightful)
My (former, schizophrenic, ex-con) roommate once accused me of poising him. His proof: he'd been sick more than usual lately. Ironically, he had more proof than you have!
Do you people just congregate here to convince yourselves that you aren't crazy? You need a serious reality check.
Re:Dolt (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Obama will win! (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, I'm kind of hoping Obama will spend most of his term putting in a lot of public appearances and giving a lot of speeches. He's really good at that stuff, better than Reagan, even.
What we *need*, economically speaking, is for the federal budget to be balanced, but I'll be quite shocked if Obama manages that, somewhat surprised if he even seriously attempts it.