Random Politics & Religion #00

Let's not forget that the reason we have a two-party system is because this is not how it was originally meant to be and gradually, over time, the people who were in power took steps to consolidate their power and perpetuate their system.

And now here we, where you get to decide if you want to vote for the sock puppet on the Left hand, or the sock puppet on the Right hand.

I mean, after all the fingers decide which of them is gonna run the sock puppet.

Perhaps, but isn't it worth fighting for the sock puppet that's going to annoy me the least?

We originally didnt have parties at all, but the tribalism of the common human being was taken advantage of and then used in the us vs. them mentality.

Originally the country was set up to be partially in the style of Greek government, which full blown city state ran country probably wouldntve worked in the end cause we'd be fighting amongst ourselves even more then (Since states would recognize themselves as individual countries ).

That's the thing, though. There is only the illusion that the socket puppets have and serve different interests. There was a paper recently put out that examined government policy choices, and compared them to the desires of the electorate versus the desires of corporations, wealthy individuals and interests, and other groups with large amounts of money. Turns out the peoples' desires are never taken into account. It's the people with the money that run the country.

And they spend a lot of money on making the muck think they have a say in things, while giving them their bread and circuses -- sorry, hot pockets and reality TV -- so that they never realize how they're being manipulated.

Our government is a joke. Our standard of living is really high, though, compared to pretty much everywhere else, so we put up with it. But as soon as the food shortages start, and the power companies have to do rolling brownouts, as soon as the 300/+ million people in this country can't be distracted anymore, there is going to be more blood than even the people who want blood will want to see.

Somewhere in the past during the founding of this country, they said that Banks will also destroy the economy too.

Please elaborate about when our economy was great without banks.

So tell us again about how great real GDP growth was prior to 1913?



If we continued down the path we were going before the Federal Reserve Act, our real GDP would be ~$15k per capita. You know who else has real GDP per capita at ~15k currently? Iran, Iraq, and Brazil

That also means that we wouldn't even come close to the type of technology we have today. Real GDP not only spurs production, but also innovation.

Then learn. If you don't have a degree in something, while it is ok to make opinions, by ignoring people who do have degrees in related fields because you don't agree with them is a sign of ignorance. This is not the first time you made this assertion and certainly not the first time I told you facts about it.

And before anyone can try to decry correlation between the FRA/centralized banking and real GDP, consider this:

Centralized banking gave banks the power to take risks. It also gave investors the power to take equal risks, which lead to innovation and invention. It also gave banks and consumers assurance that their money is safe in the bank and not in mattresses. It also helped create a way for people to borrow and repay money to better their lives.

Yes, risks always comes with downfalls. The Great Depression showed that. The Great Recession also did that too. But risks also create upward mobility, as there are just as many success stories out there are there are failures. And we are all human, we learn constantly from our mistakes. And we also create ways to prevent these mistakes from happening again....

Time to put on my big girl panties and dive right into P&R. lol

The free spending and carefree lifestyle/attitude of the roaring 20's led to The Great Depression, at least that's what I was taught, and the Great Depression was caused by the stock market crash in late 1929 and the cause for stock market crash was because when a few of the stocks fell, all of the investors became paranoid and suddenly took their stock out at the same time. Then again that's all that I was taught back in high school.

Welcome to P&R, I'll pray for your soul.

Those are effects actually.

But I'm talking about during the Great Depression where banks were failing left and right, failing enough for there to be an insurance federally mandated to protect such banks and investments from falling again.

The prosperity created in the '20s were partly created by the increased innovation made by banks lending money a whole lot more freely than before, now that they (the banks) can borrow against a central bank to keep running. Which is why most of the regulations in place dated in the '30s to correct the mistakes we made in the '20s and prevent them from occurring again (except it did in 1990's when banks were forced to make loans to people who, under any other circumstance, would not be approved of such loans, and the defaults started happening in 2005-2008).

Oh okay, I see what you mean now.


Thank you!

They were incentivised to make credit more available, but they were allowed to choose the terms and requirements based on the loans. The real issue came from them awarding loans they knew would default and betting against them for profit. Effectively, when investment banks got back in bed with savings banks, they started playing both ends of the equation. That's what gave rise to ARM loans, nearly unchecked credit availability cause housing prices to inflate, the rapid expansion gave rise to interest only loans, and the banks started packaging bad loans as investments knowing the bubble wasn't going to last.

It was a case of people denying the obvious truth that they were taking bad loans they couldn't repay and banks making a cash grab to offload the bad loans before they started to spoil.

Eh, nothing to be scared of here. Just come up for air once in a while, you'll do fine.

Anyone who questions the central banking system is Lordgrim. He just assigns a persona to a topic and responds that way.

I swear I remember you arguing against the centralized banking system once before. If you didn't, then I'm sorry.

Interestingly enough, that graph actually correlates better with the introduction of Social Security in 1935, unless there was a significant policy change during the great depression.
The slope from 1871 to 1929 is pretty linear, unless the argument is that it took at least 16 years and a severe economic crash to act as a gravity slingshot for the economy.
Which would be an interesting argument, but somewhat hard to credit (at least from the information in the graph).

Now, you could easily argue that Social Security is only feasible due to the establishment of the Federal Reserve, and that would be a credible point.

I think a better argument can be that WWII helped shaped and accelerated our economy more than any other single factor.

Any war helps accelerate our economy. Well, any war that we win helps to kick start our economy.

WWII had the effect it did because we stayed out of it for a long time and sold arms to our allies.

Seriously, though, Eisenhower warned us of the growing military industrial complex after wartime policies poured so much money into it. He said that continual war was the only way it could support itself. Funny how we've only had a handful of years since WWII when we weren't engaged somewhere.

KN, I'm pretty sure wars are evil and only liberal wet dream programs like SS are responsible for prosperity.

Of course I could point out that severe boost in the positive direction right around when "reaganomics" kicked in but I guess that's none of my business.

Almost looks like "tax cuts" are just as prosperous for GDP as war. Lets not kid ourselves though, war is better for global warming as it kills off more human population. (yes that's sarcasm)

No, liberals are saying that the GDP growth under Reagan's policies went almost exclusively to the richest of the rich and the middle class has suffered unbelievably. Essentially, what you're saying is "The cake has gotten bigger, can't you just be happy that SOMEONE is getting it all?"

On point, you really have to learn to differentiate between political parties and ideologies. Very few Republicans are actually conservative and very few Democrats are actually liberal. In fact, the caricature liberal you refer to constantly is one election from instituting the purge on the 1%, while real liberals just want to be able to see a doctor without going broke.

Now if only they can prove that...

Sure, they can point out the shrinking middle class that has been happening for the past 6 years as the cause, but Reagan's policies have been in place for a whole lot longer than 6 years....

So, they support legislation that increases both the cost of insurance and the cost to see the doctor. Brilliant idea guys!

Oh yeah, I forgot, a law that had zero Republican votes is a Republican-championed plan....

No, liberals in large hate ACA just as much as the pseudo-conservatives do but for completely opposite reasons. Liberals what a single payer system.

I wasn't making the point that they are correct, though single payer works better than our system in a lot of countries, I was making the point that the people Nausi was pointing at when using the word "liberal" aren't liberals, they are just democrats or left leaning moderates.