http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DEBT_SHOWDOWN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-07-31-21-05-43

Quote :

"The agreement would slice at least $2.2 trillion from federal spending over a decade, a steep price for many Democrats, too little for many Republicans. The Treasury's authority to borrow would be extended beyond the 2012 elections, a key objective for Obama, though the president had to give up his insistence on raising taxes on wealthy Americans to reduce deficits."

If we're still alive in the morning, we'll know we're not dead.

8/1/2011 1:09:25 AM

Seems like it could work out as long as the realize the importance of funding research and education and anti-poverty programs.

8/1/2011 1:54:11 AM

anti-poverty program?

you mean a job?

8/1/2011 2:01:27 AM

Nancy Pelosi hates this deal, so I'm ok with it.

Expect more bitchy political fighting in 4 months when the Congressional "super-committee" fails to come to an agreement on how to come up with $1.5 trillion in debt reduction over the next decade.

We need tax reform. Republicans know it and Dems know it, but nobody will agree on how to go about it.

8/1/2011 2:18:39 AM

Quote :

" anti-poverty program? you mean a job? "

Reagan coined that term.

And go to the lounge thread with people looking for jobs and tell them they should just get a job. Tell the father in grad school that has a kid to stop using WIC and get a job. Tell the mother whose husband left her to stop taking food stamps and get a job.

(the former situation was a good personal friend-- who came from a middle class white family-- the latter situation was the President of the US)

The programs have been helping Americans for decades, and has helped make us the global powerhouse we are and will continue to provide traction to pull out of the current recession, assuming we can keep innovating ( which we will only do by making higher Ed more easily affordable to students that want to go that route). A balanced budget is a good thing but is the TINIEST aspect of a thriving society, despite the whining by certain elements of the political population.

And just because I know someone is thinking it, but social security needs to be substantially curtailed because it's a flat tax that everyone hates.

8/1/2011 2:35:19 AM

Just a bunch of nonsense.

There will be no cuts to pretty much anything. They might, however, increase spending on some things less than they had previously planned. To a politician, though, that is a 'cut.'

They're are fake in the first place, and they won't happen anyway because future sessions of Congress can simply choose not to obey it.

8/1/2011 4:31:55 AM

hurp durp durp durp JUS GIT A JAWRB dun mattur how hawrd dey r 2 git UR LAZY

8/1/2011 4:45:03 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hBg80CZMJ4&feature=player_detailpage#t=23s

8/1/2011 7:14:35 AM

Quote :

"And go to the lounge thread with people looking for jobs and tell them they should just get a job. Tell the father in grad school that has a kid to stop using WIC and get a job. Tell the mother whose husband left her to stop taking food stamps and get a job."

There is plenty of work out there. Most of it is just beneath those who think that having a degree entitles them to something better that just isn't available at the time. So rather than bide their time and pull in a little bit of money at a lesser job, they elect to pull in no money and just bitch about it.

8/1/2011 7:32:39 AM

Oh shit you cracked the case

8/1/2011 7:47:19 AM

Quote :

"The programs have been helping Americans for decades, and has helped make us the global powerhouse we are and will continue to provide traction to pull out of the current recession, assuming we can keep innovating ( which we will only do by making higher Ed more easily affordable to students that want to go that route). "

Right...so how about when NC keeps the entitlement programs (I'm assuming) but cuts Teaching Fellows

message_topic.aspx?topic=616331

[Edited on August 1, 2011 at 8:29 AM. Reason : lkj]

8/1/2011 8:29:25 AM

8/1/2011 8:35:50 AM

Quote :

"The programs have been helping Americans for decades, and has helped make us the global powerhouse we are and will continue to provide traction to pull out of the current recession"

Welfare programs may be a good idea because they are the moral thing to do, but there is no mechanism for them to improve the U.S. economy. If anything, the malincentives produced by such programs (payments for non-production and taxes for production) harm the economy, we merely choose to accept the costs because they are outweighed by the good feelings.

8/1/2011 8:58:59 AM

Congressional Approval is the literally the LOWEST ever, estimated to be around 6%.

I think it's time for a States Convention.

8/1/2011 9:20:48 AM

Glad that Bachmann is providing a voice of reason here.

Quote :

"Mr. President... It was you that got us into this mess"

8/1/2011 9:54:29 AM

Oh great, it wasn't a debt deal they made it was a Satan Sandwich.




But where did they find 666 different meats from an animal with maggots for blood?

8/1/2011 10:18:25 AM

This "deal" is only the begginning of the stale mate. Whose going to pick the committee? I imagine it will be chalk full of tea party freshmen and the most liberal democrats out there. EVERYTHING IS SURELY SOLVED.

This is the worst excuse for a "deal" ever. We will be right back in a worse situation come November, no real cuts or revenue have been made.

8/1/2011 10:27:22 AM

CRISIS AVERTED!

...for a couple months. We just need a little "fix" to get us through, man. Now we're golden. We're on top of the world again!

8/1/2011 11:50:47 AM

Eh, I see this committee route as a pretty good idea. For all it's flaws, it's a way to work around a completely broken-down Congress.

8/1/2011 12:03:30 PM

^Congress will still have to pass what the committee comes up with and the committee will only be made up of congress. How exactly does it "bypass a broken down congress"?

8/1/2011 12:16:42 PM

That's what I'm thinking. Committee is where good bills go to die.

8/1/2011 12:23:45 PM

Quote :

"Congress will still have to pass what the committee comes up with and the committee will only be made up of congress. How exactly does it "bypass a broken down congress"?"

I read that if Congress doesn't approve of the committee's recommendation, then automatic, draconian cuts take effect.

So Congress isn't going to decide whether they like the committee's recommendation or not-- they're going to decide if it's better than the awful alternative.

If my understanding is correct, this is a good way to take care of business.

8/1/2011 12:39:36 PM

SOS

8/1/2011 12:52:12 PM

^^ correct. Across the board cuts split between miltary and social programs.

8/1/2011 1:57:49 PM

Now that would be a sight to see. If their hand was forced, would they stop sending checks to granny, or scale back our various nation building exercises?

8/1/2011 2:00:22 PM

Quote :

"correct. Across the board cuts split between miltary and social programs."

Awesome. So now the question is: how many significant problems can we send to committees before our dysfunctional congress starts blocking stuff like this?

Quote :

"would they stop sending checks to granny, or scale back our various nation building exercises?"

You're speaking as if they're equal items on the budget. To paraphrase Falkner, old ladies' checks are worth any number of nations.

8/1/2011 2:07:21 PM

They're within striking distance, at least. It goes Medicare, Social Security, Military Spending...nothing else comes close.

8/1/2011 2:13:10 PM

You sound way to positive, don't you remember? The world is going to end, the system never works, the elite play the average american for fools, the game is rigged so only the super rich win, etc. etc. etc.

8/1/2011 2:50:51 PM

1) The world is not going to end. Humanity will be better off for overcoming this debt-based system, assuming that we don't get nuked to death first.
2) The system usually works, but it works by fucking over common people/foreigners. You're one of the people being fucked, you just suffer from an advanced case of Stockholm Syndrome
3) The average American is foolish
4) The game is still rigged so that only the super rich win

I'm not even sure what your point was.

8/1/2011 3:37:30 PM

I think it's funny destroyer's a socialist right up until he draws his conclusions

Cheers for agreeing about some things though

8/1/2011 4:34:33 PM

Quote :

"I think it's funny destroyer's a socialist right up until he draws his conclusions"

That's what I was just thinking. But still, d357r0y3r just made it into my post-apocalyptic TWW top five. He'll be a great addition.

8/1/2011 4:43:15 PM

I think we may have a fundamental disagreement on human nature and which systems are likely to take hold (or collapse) in the future. I'm definitely a cynic. I show empathy, but not everyone does, and I believe that humans are inherently self-interested. Altruism is the exception, not the rule. A progressive, free society must acknowledge that.

I won't claim to know how things will play out in the long-run, but I'm in agreement with the "real" Adam Smith: with perfect liberty comes perfect equality. What a world with perfect liberty looks like is up for debate, but I'm not overly concerned as long as we're rowing in the same direction, i.e. away from authoritarianism.

[Edited on August 1, 2011 at 4:48 PM. Reason : ]

8/1/2011 4:45:44 PM

Quote :

"Humanity will be better off for overcoming this debt-based system"

You realize that businesses generally operate in a similar "debt based system" right?

Quote :

"You're one of the people"

Really? Doesn't feel like it. I've got a good job, a good wage, car, house and the like.

Quote :

"The game is still rigged so that only the super rich win"

The problem is that you work backwards from this view, just like any good conspiracy theorist. You look at all of the times that normal people have won, and continue to win, and simply ignore them or try and twist them into somehow fitting into the conclusion that you force yourself to come to.
It's classical conspiracy theorist thinking.

Quote :

"I'm not even sure what your point was."

I was just sad to see moderately sane viewpoints coming from you considering the precedent you've set for zaniness.

Quote :

"But still, d357r0y3r just made it into my post-apocalyptic TWW top five. He'll be a great addition."

Doesn't hold a candle to face

Quote :

"Altruism is the exception, not the rule."

Again, you start from this conclusion and then work backwards from it. Such a statement would fly in the face of the sociality of creatures, purely self interested creatures would have no interest in society. You claim everything in nature is self interested and then completely ignore eusocial animals, or any level of sociality which every animal has.

The fact is that we are what we are made to be nothing more, nothing less. Animals are born with these tendencies, but just like a human doesn't need centuries of generations to evolve a way to crack open a nut, we can learn how to flourish in any environment and exhibt sociality or antisociality in order to best fit the environment.

8/2/2011 10:01:16 AM

Quote :

"You realize that businesses generally operate in a similar "debt based system" right?"

You don't know shit about how businesses generally operate.

Quote :

"Really? Doesn't feel like it. I've got a good job, a good wage, car, house and the like."

This is the same point that Chance makes all the time. It doesn't change the fact that there does exist a virtual oligarchy that is fleecing the public of wealth that would be there otherwise. Yes, it's still possible to be successful. I consider myself a relative success. It doesn't make what's going on at the highest levels of government/corporations any less immoral. The fact that you feel the need to defend the oligarchy confirms that you are suffering from "Stockholm Syndrome."

Quote :

"I was just sad to see moderately sane viewpoints coming from you considering the precedent you've set for zaniness."

Are you referring to this?

Quote :

"CRISIS AVERTED! ...for a couple months. We just need a little "fix" to get us through, man. Now we're golden. We're on top of the world again!"

I was being facetious. The whole point was that the crisis wasn't averted, and we're going to have a "do or die" situation in a few months, only this time, the debt will be a trillion dollars higher.

Quote :

"Again, you start from this conclusion and then work backwards from it. Such a statement would fly in the face of the sociality of creatures, purely self interested creatures would have no interest in society. You claim everything in nature is self interested and then completely ignore eusocial animals, or any level of sociality which every animal has."

Just because you are able to work with society doesn't mean you're altruistic. Individuals benefit personally by learning to work well with others. They are still primarily self-interested, or at the very least interested in ensuring the survival of their genes. Richard Dawkins elaborates on this concept in The Selfish Gene.

[Edited on August 2, 2011 at 11:55 AM. Reason : ]

8/2/2011 11:51:34 AM

Just because you can reduce everything, even "altruism", to a foundation of "selfishness" if you want doesn't mean that you are on the hook to defend greed. Just because people act according to stimuli that, necessarily, must enter their brain (making it about them), doesn't mean our previous concept of altruism doesn't correspond to anything.

If you think The Selfish Gene is establishing some continuum of theory that can ascend to economics, you are misreading biology.

8/2/2011 2:24:35 PM

Quote :

"The programs have been helping Americans for decades, and has helped make us the global powerhouse we are"

It's had nothing to do w/ making us a powerhouse. jesus, I hate this hyperbole.

8/2/2011 2:28:55 PM

What do you imagine it was, burro?

8/2/2011 2:33:39 PM

It was unicorns and tire-pressure gauges

8/2/2011 2:35:18 PM

I honestly want to know what you think accounted for it all

I'll even accept 2 factors you think were in the top 10

8/2/2011 2:36:09 PM

hopes and dreams, man. oh, and CHANGE. forgot that one

8/2/2011 2:53:47 PM

Quote :

"Just because you can reduce everything, even "altruism", to a foundation of "selfishness" if you want doesn't mean that you are on the hook to defend greed. Just because people act according to stimuli that, necessarily, must enter their brain (making it about them), doesn't mean our previous concept of altruism doesn't correspond to anything."

Sorry, I don't really understand what you're saying here. I thought we agreed in another thread that greed is natural and not even necessarily wrong. Very few people want to live on the bare minimum - we like things that spice up our life.

Quote :

"If you think The Selfish Gene is establishing some continuum of theory that can ascend to economics, you are misreading biology."

I think economics very tightly integrates with evolutionary theory, actually. Depending on various factors, people form "priorities" in their mind, and shape their behavior to achieve those ends. Each person's priorities are different, which is why prices must be subjective. The economy is really just an advanced "spontaneous order" that arises from civilization.

8/2/2011 3:22:38 PM

Quote :

"Sorry, I don't really understand what you're saying here. I thought we agreed in another thread that greed is natural and not even necessarily wrong. Very few people want to live on the bare minimum - we like things that spice up our life."

Yeah I agree with that. I guess I'm just of the opinion that people try to cast selfishness too widely. It's okay to talk about human "altruism"; even if it boils down to the fulfillment of what turns out to be "selfish" motives, it's not useful to call this selfish and to ditch the other word, because they refer to useful, distinct sets of things that are worth talking about separately.

Quote :

"I think economics very tightly integrates with evolutionary theory, actually."

You're not the first to think this; they both can use very similar formal methods. It's important to distinguish evolution from learning, however, and to realize that large-scale learned behaviors and sets of behavior-preferences (aspects of personalities in flux depending on culture) have, quite likely, little to do with straight-forward evolutionary forces. Cultural adaptation may occur according to similar principles, but it's important to realize what we're talking about here is a formal analog and not the same process in every respect. It's not even something that's had a lot of time for "evolution" to act upon.

Quote :

"Depending on various factors, people form "priorities" in their mind, and shape their behavior to achieve those ends. Each person's priorities are different, which is why prices must be subjective. The economy is really just an advanced "spontaneous order" that arises from civilization."

Your first sentence refers to learning strategies; there's a general computational theory of this sort of thing. It's not evolution, although there are evolutionary learning algorithms.

Surely our cultural aspects "evolved" in some sense, but to assume that say, our large scale economic behaviors, have "evolved" and are as such "optimal" is a misunderstanding of science. It's an attempt to apply Darwinism to a justification of capitalism, in many cases, and it was just as wrong in the 18th century as it is now.

8/2/2011 3:48:14 PM

Quote :

"It doesn't change the fact that there does exist a virtual oligarchy that is fleecing the public of wealth that would be there otherwise."

Proof? Well I know you don't have any, no good conspiracy theory does.

Quote :

"The fact that you feel the need to defend the oligarchy confirms that you are suffering from "Stockholm Syndrome.""

This is a common response when a conspiracy theorist is confronted with a skeptic. They tend to state that a skeptic is so blinded by the conspiracy that they are ignorant to what is "really" going on.

Quote :

"I thought we agreed in another thread that greed is natural and not even necessarily wrong. Very few people want to live on the bare minimum - we like things that spice up our life."

Why? You seem to think it's natural. "Wants" are not natural, they are a learned response. You want a bigger TV because you have learned you enjoy watching it. Animals don't want a bigger tv, they don't even want a lot of food if they aren't trained to. "The Selfish Gene" is about environments and their interaction with their evolution, not about human nature or economics.

For example, you would state that a dog is always self interested, the truth, however, is that the dog is just as much what I want to make him. I could train him to run off a cliff, I could train him to starve to death, I could train him to do any number of things that are at odds with self-interest, most natural environments would train him to be self interested, but that has nothing to do with anything that innate in him. In the same way humans are trained by their environments to do things that are self interested and things that are not self interested.

Quote :

"I think economics very tightly integrates with evolutionary theory, actually."

Well then that's stupid. Evolution doesn't matter any more. If I need to crack open a nut, I don't have to wait generations for my children's children's...children to randomly mutate a kind of tooth that could open this nut, I just make a tool to do it. Hyper-intelligence and society render evolution meaningless to us as a species.

Quote :

"It's okay to talk about human "altruism"; even if it boils down to the fulfillment of what turns out to be "selfish" motives, it's not useful to call this selfish and to ditch the other word, because they refer to useful, distinct sets of things that are worth talking about separately."

That begs the question, it answers a question by assuming the very premise the question is meant to be about.

8/2/2011 5:33:01 PM

Quote :

"Proof? Well I know you don't have any, no good conspiracy theory does."

What part of virtual don't you get? We had a fucking Republican president say he had to destroy the free market to save it. You think he thought of that shit himself? No...Paulson the Puppet, former Wall Streeter, taking marching orders from his new/old Wall Street masters with cries of tanks in the streets pushed that line. What else other than an oligarchy would you like to call that?

Quote :

""Wants" are not natural, they are a learned response."

I don't hardly see how this is the case. We want what makes the chemicals in our brains make us feel better. The two of you waxing prosaic about how this is divorced from evolution is amusing.

Quote :

"You want a bigger TV because you have learned you enjoy watching it"

Who taught me?

Quote :

"Well then that's stupid. Evolution doesn't matter any more. If I need to crack open a nut, I don't have to wait generations for my children's children's...children to randomly mutate a kind of tooth that could open this nut, I just make a tool to do it. Hyper-intelligence and society render evolution meaningless to us as a species"

Speaking of stupid. We don't have nearly enough data to know whether evolution is meaningless or not.

8/2/2011 5:48:08 PM

Quote :

"That begs the question, it answers a question by assuming the very premise the question is meant to be about."

It's a definition; I'm not arguing for it so much as I'm making a semantic decision which I believe conforms with prior intuition, rather than this morphed notion of "selfishness" and "altruism" that makes it appear as if altruism can never "really" exist (whatever that means). There's a sense in which we mean the word. That sense refers to a clear, real set of cases in the world, and so I wish to establish that as the meaning, believing it to conform to prior notions for reasons stated.

Quote :

"Why? You seem to think it's natural. "Wants" are not natural, they are a learned response. You want a bigger TV because you have learned you enjoy watching it. Animals don't want a bigger tv, they don't even want a lot of food if they aren't trained to. "The Selfish Gene" is about environments and their interaction with their evolution, not about human nature or economics. For example, you would state that a dog is always self interested, the truth, however, is that the dog is just as much what I want to make him. I could train him to run off a cliff, I could train him to starve to death, I could train him to do any number of things that are at odds with self-interest, most natural environments would train him to be self interested, but that has nothing to do with anything that innate in him. In the same way humans are trained by their environments to do things that are self interested and things that are not self interested."

Yes and authoritarian bullshit aside, don't you agree that the whole point of human economy is to support happy lifespans? Not just baseline, but happy? Not to say this requires vast amounts of consumption, but to treat all luxury consumption this way, a priori, is missing the point of specialized economies in my opinion.

Quote :

"Speaking of stupid. We don't have nearly enough data to know whether evolution is meaningless or not."

You're missing his point. He's saying that we have better methods of learning than brute force these days; it's one of the reasons why nervous systems developed in the first place. It's why we can learn as individuals within the span of a lifetime.

8/2/2011 6:09:41 PM

No one is arguing we can't learn. I suppose the argument is "because we can learn, our genetics don't mean anything" but I can't quite tell because it hasn't been stated as such. You guys need to park the pedantry at the REPLY TO TOPIC link and save us all the trouble of wading through the bullshit.

8/2/2011 7:02:04 PM

Quote :

"I suppose the argument is "because we can learn, our genetics don't mean anything" but I can't quite tell because it hasn't been stated as such. "

Of course they mean something. The question is whether or not changes we've seen in humans over a really short course of time are "evolutionary" or simply "learned". To think that man "evolved" with a sense of selfishness/greed that can easily extend to a world-wide, unplanned economic system, and that this also corresponds to the ultimate/best organizational system for humans globally, is a hell of a stretch.

Quote :

"You guys need to park the pedantry at the REPLY TO TOPIC link and save us all the trouble of wading through the bullshit."

You need to stop having a whinefest/panic attack every time somebody goes into necessary depth on an issue. Not everything can be boiled down to twitter posts for you, and since you flatly refuse to google anything on your own, here we are.

8/3/2011 7:55:31 AM

Quote :

"You think he thought of that shit himself? No...Paulson the Puppet, former Wall Streeter, taking marching orders from his new/old Wall Street masters with cries of tanks in the streets pushed that line. What else other than an oligarchy would you like to call that? "

Proof of this grand conspiracy? Mainly the "they're trying to steal from the average americans", that's the conspiracy part.

Quote :

"We want what makes the chemicals in our brains make us feel better."

Like cocaine? It seems many people are able to forgo that want alone, so there must be something else at work, right?

Quote :

"Who taught me?"

I guess you could credit the first person or thing to expose you to a tv.

Quote :

"Speaking of stupid. We don't have nearly enough data to know whether evolution is meaningless or not."

It's the algorithm that evolution uses that is meaningless, we know there are better ways to do things now, and the ability to learn gives us the tools we need to use those better ways.

Quote :

"There's a sense in which we mean the word. That sense refers to a clear, real set of cases in the world, and so I wish to establish that as the meaning, believing it to conform to prior notions for reasons stated."

I agree, and that's why I was encouraging you to shrug off the circular logic that allows others to deny the existence of the concept. Here's how this argument was logically going:
a:"everyone always serves their own interest"
b:"but what about this instance of altruism?"
a:"altruism doesn't exist"
b:"why"
a:"everyone always serves their own interest"

Quote :

"Yes and authoritarian bullshit aside, don't you agree that the whole point of human economy is to support happy lifespans? Not just baseline, but happy?"

Kind of. I think happy lives are an outcome, not a driver. I think the point of human life is to get better. Do things better, make more stuff, make better stuff, just become better. Happier lives will be an outcome of this.

Quote :

"You're missing his point. He's saying that we have better methods of learning than brute force these days; it's one of the reasons why nervous systems developed in the first place. "

Exactly. Chance always half reads things I write and then blames me for being unclear, it was nice to see someone actually read and understand a post.

8/3/2011 1:54:15 PM

Quote :

"a:"everyone always serves their own interest" b:"but what about this instance of altruism?" a:"altruism doesn't exist" b:"why" a:"everyone always serves their own interest""

Wrong again, buddy.

My contention is that humans are inherently self-interested, but this does not mean that they always serve only their own interests, it simply means that they prioritize ends and work to achieve those ends. Those ends could be, and often are, beneficial to others, or even self-destructive.

The incredibly stupid assumption of socialism is that people will, at some point, for some reason, act on behalf of the "greater good" and stop worrying about what will enrich their individual lives. No one has explained why that would happen, or how it would come about; TWW "socialists" have tactfully evaded this reality every time, to my knowledge.

8/3/2011 3:48:30 PM

Quote :

"The incredibly stupid assumption of socialism is that people will, at some point, for some reason, act on behalf of the "greater good" and stop worrying about what will enrich their individual lives."

Funny thing is most socialist systems do not want people to create the greater good, they just want people to subscribe economically. A friend of mine in Norway knew a woman who had received free health care, subsidized by the gov't, she was a immigrant worker so she wanted to give back and volunteer at the hospital to thank them. They told her she could not do it, because that's not how they did things there.


I'm not sure how people can say socialism involves good will, when good will is considered to be against the system.

8/3/2011 3:55:49 PM