No doubt you have heard of the controversy surrounding Republican Congressman Todd Akin's comments about rape.
“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
But now another one has come out and made even more ignorant claims.
King told an Iowa reporter he’s never heard of a child getting pregnant from statutory rape or incest.
“Well I just haven’t heard of that being a circumstance that’s been brought to me in any personal way,” King told KMEG-TV Monday, “and I’d be open to discussion about that subject matter.”
"The views expressed were offensive," said Obama. "Rape is rape. And the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of rape we are talking about doesn't make sense to the American people and certainly doesn't make sense to me. So what I think these comments do underscore is why we shouldn't have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are men, making health care decisions on behalf of women."
King told an Iowa reporter he’s never heard of a child getting pregnant from statutory rape or incest.
“Well I just haven’t heard of that being a circumstance that’s been brought to me in any personal way,” King told KMEG-TV Monday, “and I’d be open to discussion about that subject matter.”
That sounds so seedy.
"Where did the bad man touch you?" "Oh yeah... that's hot"
It is degrading to society for people like this to have the potential to be in charge and decide how it is. These kinds of idiots have in the past made laws and decisions that make or break peoples lives. Millions of peoples lives!
The implication from Obama that men can't make the right decision for women is pretty poor. Suddenly to make a decision that affects a particular gender you need to be of that gender?
nah, pretty sure he is just saying that women should be able to make decisions on their own healthcare, rather than being told what they can and can't do
Also obama using the term 'health care decisions' when talking about pregnancy or rape is bound to shit some women.
Don't think it will be as bad as what these Republicans are saying. What I want to know is how do these people get into running positions with their clearly medieval thoughts and discussions. What makes someone vote for a person who believes rape is essentially okay, and that its the victims fault?
The only people who would take any offence to what Obama said are people who already hate him because he is black and wouldn't vote for him in the first place. Oh and on top of all this there was also a bill that was shot down that would of let doctors lie to their paitents if it stopped an abortion. Thing is about these hardcore pro-life people is once the baby actually comes out they don't give a fuck about it and won't help fun any type of program that the mother could use if she isn't filthy rich.
The republicans have done a masterful job at convincing people that they aren't poor, just temporally down-trodden and that their time to be millionaires is coming, and all they have to do is vote for their spoon fed rich prick of a nomination and he'll make everything better for them. Like Bill Maher says, I understand why republicans get 1% of the vote, but I can't understand the other 49%
American politics is more interesting because of all the stupid things they do and say. I like to think we are smarter than that. Sure we get our share of screw ups happen but I can't imagine someone getting up in parliament and saying that rape never results in pregnancy, therefore abortion should be illegal. That takes a special kind of stupid.
I dont think thermite mentioned any of Abbott's policies, but Abbott certainly has a pretty damning record on these issues
- he is "pro life" - he has tried to block the introduction of morning after pills - is opposed to stem cell research - makes creepy remarks about his daughters' virginity - is anti gay marriage - anti euthanasia
He has a record of being incredibly regressive when it comes to his stance on social issues relating to sexuality and health.
Ohhhh so touchy and defensive. Somebody say something bad about your little team and it make you all mad? :(
Not every conservative thinks like this, but you'd be hard pressed to find one that doesn't hold a similar backwards, anti-science belief somewhere in their list of ideals. I mean, you are okay with torturing people as long as they are brown and savage right infi?
So now you have extended your false quotation to include torture, fpot. You're poor memory and incompetence know no bounds! What a head.
- he is "pro life"
abbott funded abortions while he was health minister.
- he has tried to block the introduction of morning after pills
he approved the funding eventually.
- is opposed to stem cell research
so is labor afaik
- makes creepy remarks about his daughters' virginity
you're an idiot
- is anti gay marriage
so is gillard.
- anti euthanasia
so are most australians, so is gillard.
the hipster, social progressive brigade need to understand that even though they THINK they are extremely enlightened and know what's best for society, it is not determined by them but by the general populace who are essentially conservative.
Just because the majority of people are stupid doesn't mean that I'm not enlightened.
he approved the funding eventually.
And no he didnt actually approve the funding for the morning after abortion pill, because parliament voted away the health minister's rights to legislate on that issue because he was SO INSANE.
btw saying that Gillard also thinks the same way doesnt make it any less stupid, you should know that :P
HAY GUYS I THINK EVERYONE WHO VOTES A PARTICULAR WAY HOLDS THE SAME MORAL VIEW ON RAPE AND INCEST PREGNANCIES. BUT I AM NOT A BIGOT/RACIST - ALTHOUGH I LIKE TO DECRY BIGOTS AND RACISTS, AREN'T I COOL?
When asked by the Australian Women's Weekly in a wide-ranging interview published today what advice he would give his daughters on sex before marriage, Mr Abbott replied that he would advise them not to give away their virginity lightly.
"I think I would say to my daughters if they were to ask me this question ... it is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving, and don't give it to someone lightly," he said.
He really is the worst. If he lets little gems like this and the link I posted before slip publicly, imagine what crazy little thoughts run around in that private little mind of his?
You're right. That thing that happened to you that completely removes your ability to look at something objectively invalidates every other person's point of view on it.
At the expense of that objectivity though it does give you a different perspective. Whether that's for better or worse who can tell. The way I see it there is no such thing as 'whoring yourself out*' whether you are male or female. Do you really think the amount of sexual partners someone has is in any way tied to that person's morality or decency? What exactly do you define as whoring yourself out anyway?
*edit: heh, except for literally having sex with people for money of course :P
That's why I said that and not a Nerfy styled long response. Your perspective may very well change. Remember when you were 16, trying to fuck anything that moved, if it didn't move you kicked it? Those unlucky hundred or so ladies you reamed cried lots when you made them bleed but then left straight after. If I could turn back time I think I would stay back for breakfast a couple of times. My advice to my daughters will be pretty much the same as big ears, don't give it up lightly. Meh.
I just don't think that comment is that oooeer when he has said so much worse.
I think there's a difference between telling your daughters that their virginity is the greatest gift they can ever give and just warning them about total arseholes like you seem to have been in your teens!
Remember when you were 16, trying to fuck anything that moved, if it didn't move you kicked it? Those unlucky hundred or so ladies you reamed cried lots when you made them bleed but then left straight after.
The voice of experience?
Come on, it's ok, you can tell uncle ausgamers what happened to you. We don't judge.
Na I was pretty tame in my teens, was just making the point I don't think the comment was that bad. Plenty of other comments from him that you could paint a pretty picture with.
loutl you hit the nail there. I too wish to live in a world where imprisonment and torture of brown people is okay because they are savages, where science is nothing but a radical dogma producing conspiracy machine feeding the world lies to service a left-wing agenda, and where it's okay to condemn thousands of people to persecution/death for reasons no better than save the (white) children. And again, fuck brown people right?
When I reach this shiny utopia, I'll let you know.
sure fpot, now that you've repeated your absurd accusations for 10,000th time maybe I'll believe you. Oh no guess not. I'm sorry, you repeatedly come off looking like the deranged one whenever you engage infi, especially with your constant harping on about brown people.
dais, I know you're trolling, but in the off chance you have actually come to believe that all religious people are insane then might I suggest a break from your usual internet echo-chambers to regain some perspective?
No no, religious people are not insane at all. The Earth was created in six days 6-10,000 years ago. We were all born from one man and one woman. God flooded the Earth for 40 days and 40 nights after Noah gathered two of every animal on the entire planet in to a boat made of wood and pitch. Then we all descended from his family.
sure fpot, now that you've repeated your absurd accusations for 10,000th time maybe I'll believe you.
haha yeah DAMN I always go ahead and make absurd accusations. Thanks for letting me know about that. If only there was some way to access the comments he made using some sort of international network so people could see I am not just making shit up!
infi: unfortunately, savage treatment is all the savages understand. it is part of the middle-eastern culture which for some bizarre reason david hicks sought to ascribe to.
Oh there it is. In this thread. (hope I got that HTML right)
Now infi gets really mad whenever I post that and after changing a word in it, he will try to claim it was taken out of context. Now I am sure you will buy that because you could never turn your back on ol' 95% infi, so I am posting the link just to show others the accusation is not quite as absurd as faceman dazedandconfused door door's6millionalts sorry I get all these fuckwits mixed up, loutl may think.
No no, religious people are not insane at all. The Earth was created in six days 6-10,000 years ago.
Remember that not all religious people actually believe this. In Australia I reckon it would only be a small percentage that do. In the USA probably not lols
Who says they shouldn't be allowed to pick and choose?
Which in my book makes them nuts.
Well what is the general consensus (oh did that hurt loutl?) amongst mental health professionals? If you like science so much, shouldn't you be listening to their opinion on the matter? Oh you want to form your own opinion and pick and choose do you?
I suppose it is not really fair to say that all religious people have a form of insanity. Most were born in to it and stay with it without questioning it because of the social aspect.
There have always been religious influences in my life and as a child I assumed it was all real (without really knowing much about it) because the adults believed it. It was not until fairly recently that I actually put some thought in to it and started reading The Bible, turning me atheist. It is just so childish, I don't understand how anyone can truly believe it without having some sort of mental issue.
keep on with the bigotry stereotyping every voter's moral and religious beliefs. fpot is a racist/bigot just in another form. hypocrite nonetheless.
i repeat my version that you have deliberately taken that quote out of context as I was referring to the specific incident where taliban soldier executed a village police official in afghanistan. i object to you repeatedly and deliberately taking me out of context.
i do not think afghanistanis are savages. i do think taliban and alqada terrorists are.
The beliefs are not necessarily the problem infi, it is people who use them to wield power over others and oppress their basic rights. Bigotry has nothing to do with it.
Plenty of people have had crazy beliefs without harming others, but these two Republicans are dangerous because they're in a position of power.
You are full of it infi. Other quotes from the thread.
trog, have you ever considered that virtually everyone of the Gitmo detainees unashamedly wants to see America destroyed off the face of the earth? what luxuries does america owe them if they get captured? in war there is a winner and loser. sucks to be the loser.
What about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murat_Kurnaz? He was held in Gitmo for years on baseless charges. But I bet he was the only one right? The rest were all totally terrorists.
bullshit. an enemy combatant does not subscribe to the rule of law. they are not loyal to any country or uniform or flag. enemy combatants simply live to fight and destroy. therefore they have no right to the framework surrounding official war.
So if one party doesn't subscribe to the rule of law, that means all bets are off and it's torture and orange jumpsuits for all! Schoolyard stuff.
Now for the absurd accusations. Here is the exchange in full context. You were clearly responding to fade's post which had you quoted saying 'if they don't subscribe to the rule of law then we shouldn't have to then this -
fade: two wrongs make a right? normally I'm on board with you infi but here I think that just because we are fighting savages stuck in the dark ages who deserve to be exterminated, it doesn't mean we can suppress the rule of law and resort to extrajudicial tribunals which are heard in closed courts and the like.
Sure, lock them up. Charge them with offences. Try them in the open court like you would a common criminal.
Then in response you said -
infi: unfortunately, savage treatment is all the savages understand. it is part of the middle-eastern culture which for some bizarre reason david hicks sought to ascribe to.
for example, see the video on the front page of liveleak today. if you're a local police commander in afgahnistan and piss of the local taliban, they will blow you up with an RPG. they don't use law courts and slightly discomforting forms of coersion. THEY FUCKING BLOW YOU UP.
The enemy combatants are not nice people. they don't play by the rules. In many ways they remind of Wallace from Pulp Fiction. They just get medieval.
Now I have bolded the part where you labelled an entire culture savage infi so you wouldn't get confused again. Even you think your pathetic little example where criminals blow up someone with an RPG is going to justify you calling an entire culture savage but unfortunately it doesn't. It just means some person murdered another person which happens everyday and they get charged/a trial/convicted. Now I know they are just brown savages infi but they might just be capable of performing that without any voodoo magic or anything so let's give them a chance.
So there it is, in full context. Sorry about posting it all but I took your objection very seriously and I wanted to just clear the air between us. Just a question: why would you make comments on a public forum that you are so obviously ashamed of and willing to lie about?
so as you can see from your quotations, I was referring to lawless terrorists, engaged in terrorist acts who in the case of those detained at gitmo had been declared enemy combatants. i don't really care what sewer terrorists are locked in - as long as they are kept away from my family.
I have never used the term "brown savages" - that is an artifact of your own imagination, your warped memory suiting your own recollection of events. i referred to people engaged in terrorist activity, and these people subscribe to extremist philosophy of the taliban and alqaeda.
as a super progressive inner city hipster you support these terrorists in their freedom fights, you probably even bought david hick's book.
I am not ashamed of my post and I stand by it. Just read it in context instead of the way you would like it to read.
So even with the bolded bit, you still got confused.
:(
I was referring to lawless terrorists, engaged in terrorist acts who in the case of those detained at gitmo had been declared enemy combatants. i don't really care what sewer terrorists are locked in
This is what you want people to think after you blurted out the important bit which says 'savage treatment is all the savages understand it is part of the middle-eastern culture'. See? Not terrorists are savage, not taliban, but the middle-eastern culture.
And even if someone does grow up in a fucked up country where from birth they are indoctrinated with anti-western shit and they inevitably grow up to become a terrorist, they still deserve a fair trial and a just sentence. There are human rights that are unalienable and last time I checked we are on the side that is meant to be fighting for them. Plus a system like Gitmo leads to plenty of false imprisonments like the one I mentioned. What do you think about them? I suppose it's okay if a few people get falsely locked up if it's for our safety (and they're brown) right?
And to further add the irony of what you say. Boat people, the very people who are trying to flee conditions like this. Who want to embrace a western life which will provide healthcare and education for their families is something you are strongly against. Fuck 'em and send them back to Indo where they can die/continue to live in hellish conditions! And then they grow up to be terrorists it's time to upgrade them to a torture suite at Gitmo.
Your posts have a Poe's Law level of stupidity in them.
do you disagree that middle-eastern cultures (especially those subscribed to sharia law) tend to subscribe to belief and legal systems which involve retaliatory and corporal punishment? i.e. eye for an eye?
e.g. blow up your police commander with an RPG if he is not doing a good job?
- kill or rape your dughter if she sleeps with a man she is not married to?
do you disagree that middle-eastern cultures (especially those subscribed to sharia law) tend to subscribe to belief and legal systems which involve retaliatory and corporal punishment? i.e. eye for an eye?
Yes I do. Thanks for finally having the balls to admit that you think the middle-eastern culture is savage though even if it was in a roundabout way.
Why dont you two ask each other a direct and specific question rather than trying to outwit and requote sentences chosen purely because you can take them out of context. This is less about opinion and more about public defaming another while attempting to portray yourself as being a politically correct authority. Seems more like a war of ‘who can create a watertight sentence’ rather than a discussion. One person is displaying an opinion and the other is simply ridiculing it and arrogantly providing nothing. Objectively, one is on the defense and the other provides nothing and attacks.
One user is questioned specifically about sharia law and lacks the knowledge to separate idealism from fact. The user's only opnion is an example of attempting to obtain support from a community equipped only with grandiose idealisms whilst ignoring documentation. Politicians do this repetitively. They do this to gain support from the lesser educated and it’s merely an exercise in slander.
Your inspired little insight into the discussion so far was very invigorating. You even used the word whilst there to make it all smart sounding. Thank you for that. Now that's been said, we can get some real discussion done!
fpot gets off on making other people feel bad. he is the social progressive police. if one does not subscribe to his socially progressive and enlightened philosophy they are a bad person.
it's pretty much the standard tactic for the Greens. guilt others into handouts and making laws prohibiting things.
Well I probably wouldnt bother in future. The opinion is uneducated and is nothing but defamation. Only point he could have had an opinion on was factually wrong and there were way too many words of nothing to get to that.
do you disagree that middle-eastern cultures (especially those subscribed to sharia law) tend to subscribe to belief and legal systems which involve retaliatory and corporal punishment? i.e. eye for an eye?
infi you are seriously ignorant and blatantly racist. You sound like one of those stereotypical inbred redneck American soldiers (yes I realise the irony of that statement) saying "hyuk bubba, we gonna get us some towelheads".
It is not part of the middle-eastern culture, it is the policy of recent oppressive governments or dictatorships. That's like saying burning witches at the stake is part of British culture.
Just because everyone is forced to go along with it doesn't mean they ascribe to it. I doubt women being stoned because they looked at someone the wrong way agree with it.
Why dont you two ask each other a direct and specific question rather than trying to outwit and requote sentences chosen purely because you can take them out of context. This is less about opinion and more about public defaming another while attempting to portray yourself as being a politically correct authority. Seems more like a war of ‘who can create a watertight sentence’ rather than a discussion. One person is displaying an opinion and the other is simply ridiculing it and arrogantly providing nothing. Objectively, one is on the defense and the other provides nothing and attacks.
One user is questioned specifically about sharia law and lacks the knowledge to separate idealism from fact. The user's only opnion is an example of attempting to obtain support from a community equipped only with grandiose idealisms whilst ignoring documentation. Politicians do this repetitively. They do this to gain support from the lesser educated and it’s merely an exercise in slander.
fpot, lately you've become so obsessed with petty point scoring and lame one-upmanship that whatever legitimate points you may or may not have get lost in the same kind of hyperbole that you so enthusiastically point out in other posts.
so there is no convergence at all between taliban and alqaeda organisations and their geographical area of support? there is no basis for stating that the taliban and alqaeda are predominantly middle-eastern phenomenon?
i know there are other "freedom movements" for other countries should i say terrorist organisations. I am referring to those two.
God flooded the Earth for 40 days and 40 nights after Noah gathered two of every animal on the entire planet in to a boat made of wood and pitch.
Isn't it rather redundant to say that the Earth was flooded for 40 nights if you've already said it was flooded for 40 days? I'm not sure I know anyone stupid enough to believe that that amount of water would receed nightly and not just still be there the next day.
It is not part of the middle-eastern culture, it is the policy of recent oppressive governments or dictatorships. That's like saying burning witches at the stake is part of British culture.
Actually that's more of a Danish thing. And I'm not talking about pastry.
so there is no convergence at all between taliban and alqaeda organisations and their geographical area of support? there is no basis for stating that the taliban and alqaeda are predominantly middle-eastern phenomenon?
How are they any different to warlords in Africa or cartels in South America? Less developed nations with unstable or inadequate governments allow for the rise of militia who take control of the area through force.
Here’s the bottom line, according to Shadowbosses: government service is now more lucrative than the private sector. Federal government workers reportedly averaged more than twice the salary and benefits of an average private sector worker. Even more unbelievably, there are fully 459,016 federal workers who make over $100,000 in salary – one in five federal workers.
There's a difference between not wanting your daughter to be a whore and telling a national women's publication that "virginity is the greatest gift". It's not love that's the gift, it's an intact hymen.
edit - oh faceman, thank fuck that coked up idiot is dead.
Last week, Paul Ryan gave an interview in which, defending his position that there should be no excuses for abortion, he referred to rape as a "method of conception."
Last week, Paul Ryan gave an interview in which, defending his position that there should be no excuses for abortion, he referred to rape as a "method of conception."
Unlike Romney he believes abortion should still not be allowed in the case of rape and incest, therefore it is still a valid "method of conception".
It is an argument over semantics but that is not the problem. The problem is religious fundamentalists with power over a very large group of people and basing their decisions for an entire country on their insane beliefs.
It is an argument over semantics but that is not the problem. The problem is religious fundamentalists with power over a very large group of people and basing their decisions for an entire country on their insane beliefs.
This part I agree wholeheartedly with.
Yes I did. That quote is from the article.
Unlike Romney he believes abortion should still not be allowed in the case of rape and incest, therefore it is still a valid "method of conception".
Despite the fact I don't agree with his stance, it doesn't change the fact that what he said is completely correct ("The method of conception doesn't change the definition of life").
He means it doesn't change HIS (and the Republican/pro-lifers) definition of 'life'. I agree with you that his view is internally consistent with the rest of his worldview, so at least he's not just flipping coins mentally, but I still think anyone (particularly a male) that tries to tell a woman what she can or can't do with a couple of cells in her own body - especially after a traumatic incident like a rape) - can go fuck themselves.
at what point does it go from being "a couple of cells" to an individual awarded human rights? You're oversimplifying the debate Trog.
Well, that is the part that me and the Republicans, and everyone else in the world, disagree on, because it's not something that has a clear-cut answer.
This is a massive ethical landmine; I recently discovered (courtesy of TripleJ Hack) that there is an entire school of thought that has figured out a way to justify post-birth abortion (i.e., ending the life of a newborn child). Ethicist Peter Singer writes about it here: http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1993----.htm . Here is a quick snippet, but it is a fascinating read:
Some doctors closely connected with children suffering from severe spina bifida believe that the lives of the worst affected children are so miserable that it is wrong to resort to surgery to keep them alive. Published descriptions of the lives of these children support the judgment that these worst affected children will have lives filled with pain and discomfort. They need repeated major surgery to prevent curvature of the spine, due to the paralysis, and to correct other abnormalities. ... When the life of an infant will be so miserable as not to be worth living, from the internal perspective of the being who will lead that life, both the 'prior existence' and the 'total' version of utilitarianism entail that, if there are no 'extrinsic' reasons for keeping the infant alive - like the feelings of the parents - it is better that the child should be helped to die without further suffering.
I think you really have to oversimplify the debate because it's simply not possible to have a discussion about it that everyone is going to agree on. My opinion is that a woman should be in charge of her own body, and if that means letting them abort whenever they want then I guess I'm probably prepared to grant them that. I would find a late stage abortion very distasteful - I mean, shit, you've had more than six fucking months to sort your shit out - and certainly would prefer that they didn't do it. But I can't authoritatively say "well, a fetus that is 6 months old is now a full human life and should have its own rights". Maybe its 7 months? Maybe its 9? I certainly don't think when it is a handful of cells indistinguishable from a blob of flesh that it should.
In A Defense of Abortion, Thomson grants for the sake of argument that the fetus has a right to life, but defends the permissibility of abortion by appeal to a thought experiment:
You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.[4]
Thomson takes it that you may now permissibly unplug yourself from the violinist even though this will cause his death: the right to life, Thomson says, does not entail the right to use another person's body, and so by unplugging the violinist you do not violate his right to life but merely deprive him of something—the use of your body—to which he has no right. "[I]f you do allow him to go on using your kidneys, this is a kindness on your part, and not something he can claim from you as his due."[5]
For the same reason, Thomson says, abortion does not violate the fetus's right to life but merely deprives the fetus of something—the use of the pregnant woman's body—to which it has no right. Thus, it is not that by terminating her pregnancy a woman violates her moral obligations, but rather that a woman who carries the fetus to term is a 'Good Samaritan' who goes beyond her obligations.[6]
I don't see anything wrong with abortion until the fetus has a functioning brain and can experience pain. That said I don't think it should be done willy nilly out of convenience.
For the same reason, Thomson says, abortion does not violate the fetus's right to life but merely deprives the fetus of something—the use of the pregnant woman's body—to which it has no right.
I've heard similar, but it fails to account for the womens actions that lead to the incident.
in real life, the incident is much more likely that she knowingly agreed to help out the violinists doctor, knowing that the consequence of such an action could be that a violinist attached to the woman for 9 months but that it was much more likely to not match and you can go on your way feeling good because you tried to help(or just had a fuck), and then withdrawing the support when it becomes inconvenient, leaving the violinist to die.
also, you absolutely have a right to impose on others when its required for you to live. a mother can't starve a baby with impunity, just because its inconvenient. the poor impose on the rich to survive. etc.
IMO, the crux of the debate is when a collection of cells turns into a human with all the rights afforded to it... before hand its treated as a growth, after it should be given the rights to life that the rest of us enjoy.
also, we have access to the internet, its not hard to watch an abortion, it is absolutely killing something before removing it, they don't just "remove" the fetus. they kill it to remove it (or if its small enough, to let the body remove it) so obscuring the "killing" act is just a further removal from reality.
I don't see anything wrong with abortion until the fetus has a functioning brain and can experience pain. That said I don't think it should be done willy nilly out of convenience.
exactly how i feel really, I'm personally against abortion, i'd never reduce the spread of my seed deliberately. but i'm not against people aborting either in early stages, but after the first trimester it gets really messy really fast.
I've never really understood the difficulty on the definition of human life.
No neurons, no person. In the same way that a corpse isn't a person, and a mind transferred to machine would be a person in the way which matters. A fetus has no brain, no mind, and is no different than replicating skin cells. You cannot measure by potential any more than digging up a seed is destroying a potential ten thousand year old tree - things are what they currently are.
Of course, you have those people who get their answers from old jewish religions, some of who have evolved into that state of uber self deception where one claims that their source isn't their source, in the same way that a Jehovah's Witness happens to arrive at blood transfusions being bad, or a scientologist does with psychiatry.
If you believe in parts of the human body that can't be easily defined in scientific terms, ie soul, then it changes the argument some.
Especially if you're a Mormon. Unlike Christians Mormons believe we are God's spirit children and our spirits already exist in Heaven before we are born. We choose our parents and come to Earth to live our lives.
Romney is not anti-abortion in the case of incest and rape, but I wonder if that will last if he gets in.
For the same reason, Thomson says, abortion does not violate the fetus's right to life but merely deprives the fetus of something—the use of the pregnant woman's body—to which it has no right. Thus, it is not that by terminating her pregnancy a woman violates her moral obligations, but rather that a woman who carries the fetus to term is a 'Good Samaritan' who goes beyond her obligations.[6]
I hope that guy is in the shortlist for the Nobel Retarded Analogy Prize.
I hope that guy is in the shortlist for the Nobel Retarded Analogy Prize.
FWIW, Thomson is a woman. I think the analogy is apt in the case of pregnancy caused by rape.
These are ethical thought experiments that smarter people than I have been struggling with for many years. I don't have an answer but my default position is that the woman's body and everything in it belongs to her, and people (especially men) should probably stay out of their way.
These are ethical thought experiments that smarter people than I have been struggling with for many years. I don't have an answer but my default position is that the woman's body and everything in it belongs to her, and people (especially men) should probably stay out of their way.
Bravo. I agree. And with that everything that belongs to her, everything relating to that is also her problem.
I'm glad we finally cleared up the "child support payments for a kid the guy doesn't want" dilemma :)
That is what I've never understood, why are there men and woman out there that are so prevalent on telling woman what to do with their body? Are they unable to give birth (in the case of females) that seeing the destruction of what technically isn't "sentient" makes them angry because they can't/don't have the privilege?
Why are we so hungry for laws against abortion when they use to do it often in medieval times (and also biblical times) with herbs that would cause a miscarriage. Why do we shove beliefs down people's throats in order for them to see our way, instead of showcasing opinions and letting them choose?
Also Raven I wouldn't agree on that stance. It takes two to tango, so both parents are held accountable for the child that they seed.
Also Raven I wouldn't agree on that stance. It takes two to tango, so both parents are held accountable for the child that they seed.
So its fair to hold men accountable for the result of his actions, but its not fair to hold the woman accountable for the result of her actions?
In the same way that a corpse isn't a person
corpses have neurons? i'm assuming you're talking about neurological activity, which both fetuses and ants have. so again, not really simple.
why are there men and woman out there that are so prevalent on telling woman what to do with their body
its not about the women's body, its about the other human life that she's hosting.
pro life is about defending that "thing" as a human, pro choice is about defending the right to not consider that "thing" human and therefor is the responsibility of the woman alone.
last edited by Captain Lateral at 14:34:31 29/Aug/12
So its fair to hold men accountable for the result of his actions, but its not fair to hold the woman accountable for the result of her actions?
As I said, it takes two to tango, so both parties must be accountable for their results. When it comes to abortion it will ultimately be up to the female because they are the ones actually bearing it and pushing it out of a tight spot. If males were the one bearing the child then they would have the greater say because it is their body. Yes the male should have a say in whether they would like to keep it or not, but you should never pressure a women into having an abortion or not because it is not your body, and never will be.
As I said, it takes two to tango, so both parties must be accountable for their results. When it comes to abortion it will ultimately be up to the female because they are the ones actually bearing it and pushing it out of a tight spot.
Which is bullshit.
Let's evaluate shall we:
Male wants to keep child, Female wants to keep child: Child is born.
Male wants to keep child, Female doesn't want to keep child: Abortion
Male doesn't want to keep child, Female wants to keep child: Child is born
Male doesn't want to keep child, Female doesn't want to keep child: Abortion
Let's plot this a different way:
| M | M'|
F | B | B |
F'| A | A |
Hm, yes, perfectly fair system we have here.
Now while I'm not saying a woman should be forced to have an abortion, what I *am* saying is that she has the *choice* to keep it or not.
If a male indicates he has no indication of wanting to stick around, then the female should be making an informed decision with the understanding that ,em>she will be raising the child on her own - not with support of the male in any way - financial or otherwise.
When you're talking about it in the context of abortion, then yes, yes they do.
Interesting to note how much further to the right the GOP has shifted since Reagan came to power. Good NY Times article about it here.
One party platform stated that Hispanics and others should not “be barred from education or employment opportunities because English is not their first language.” It highlighted the need for “dependable and affordable” mass transit in cities, noting that “mass transportation offers the prospect for significant energy conservation.” And it prefaced its plank on abortion by saying that “we recognize differing views on this question among Americans in general — and in our own party.”
The other party platform said that “we support English as the nation’s official language.” It chided the Democratic administration for “replacing civil engineering with social engineering as it pursues an exclusively urban vision of dense housing and government transit.” And its abortion plank recognized no dissent, taking the position that “the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.”
No, they are not the platforms of the Democratic and Republican Parties. They are both Republican platforms: the first from 1980, at the dawn of the Reagan revolution, and the second the 2012 Republican platform that was approved on Tuesday afternoon in Tampa, Fla.
That is what I've never understood, why are there men and woman out there that are so prevalent on telling woman what to do with their body?
Abrahamic religion.
corpses have neurons? i'm assuming you're talking about neurological activity,
Not if it's had it's head blown off :P, but yes of course.
which both fetuses and ants have. so again, not really simple
Not initially where I expect most abortions would occur. Even up until birth I wouldn't care, because there is so not a person there that it's really a dull argument used to hide religious reasoning. I'd accept the argument if people were vegans, who didn't eat anything with much higher levels of brain activity than a fetus, but when it's only coming from Abrahamic religious people, eh. Waste of time when people can't be honest about their motivations.
Thomson says, abortion does not violate the fetus's right to life but merely deprives the fetus of something—the use of the pregnant woman's body—to which it has no right.
That is the most brilliantly concise way of looking at it that I've ever heard. I am not obligated to allow somebody else to hook themselves up to me to live.
Male wants to keep child, Female wants to keep child: Child is born. Male wants to keep child, Female doesn't want to keep child: Abortion Male doesn't want to keep child, Female wants to keep child: Child is born Male doesn't want to keep child, Female doesn't want to keep child: Abortion
Let's plot this a different way:
| M | M'| F | B | B | F'| A | A |
Hm, yes, perfectly fair system we have here.
Now while I'm not saying a woman should be forced to have an abortion, what I *am* saying is that she has the *choice* to keep it or not. If a male indicates he has no indication of wanting to stick around, then the female should be making an informed decision with the understanding that ,em>she will be raising the child on her own - not with support of the male in any way - financial or otherwise.
But no - men get no say.last edited by Raven at 14:59:50 29/Aug/12
that might be true in a world without stairs, but truth is if a man doesn't want a child, and the woman does, there is a chance the man can still get her to abort (just not by choice, or without injury)
I'm aware, but these aren't relevant for why people do it here, they get taught these concepts from these old primitive books and latch onto/propagate them because of it.
I'm not sure I understand why those arguments arent relevant here. To me it's exactly the same thing.
Some old book says some crap about the sanctity of life then all of a sudden we're having an argument about whether or not life begins at conception, and whether or not danger to a womans health or rape is a mitigating factor in the decision.
And its abortion plank recognized no dissent, taking the position that “the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.”
FWIW, Thomson is a woman. I think the analogy is apt in the case of pregnancy caused by rape.
A very small percentage of all abortions then?
These are ethical thought experiments that smarter people than I have been struggling with for many years. I don't have an answer but my default position is that the woman's body and everything in it belongs to her, and people (especially men) should probably stay out of their way.
Are these so called smart people struggling with these thought experiments because they are useful-but-difficult or because they are absurd-and-useless? Honestly, the "thought experiment" (it wrankles me when people try to lend credence to stupid-beyond-belief hypotheticals by naming them "thought experiments") is not only stupid but impossible ans I don't see how anyone can take anything useful from it all.
Remove the preposterous fiction from Thomson's screed and it seems her opinion boils down simply to her body her right. Not only has it not illuminated the debate a jot as far as I can tell, there are countless examples where someone has a duty of care to someone else, regardless of whatever "right" they have over their own body.
Honestly, I don't see much to defend the even-if-it's-human-I'm-still-allowed-to-abort-because-of-my-human-rights argument.
Which leads back to the when is it when isn't it debate. The 1 second religious answer is (almost) as retarded as the not-until-the-baby's-made-it-all-the-way-out Nerfy position.
Not initially where I expect most abortions would occur. Even up until birth I wouldn't care, because there is so not a person there that it's really a dull argument used to hide religious reasoning.
I think the only reasonable inference from this statement is that you are every bit as psychotic and retarded as religious fundamentalists who kill doctors/aborting mothers. Honestly, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say there's no person there "even up until birth". I think you need to read up a bit on this...
I'd accept the argument if people were vegans, who didn't eat anything with much higher levels of brain activity than a fetus, but when it's only coming from Abrahamic religious people, eh. Waste of time when people can't be honest about their motivations.
There are many people who are not religious at all (of any flavour) who don't share your extremist views on full-term abortion (the vast majority I would say).
That is the most brilliantly concise way of looking at it that I've ever heard. I am not obligated to allow somebody else to hook themselves up to me to live.
And what of the obligation to the baby immediately following birth? How far does your lack of obligation to anyone else extend? Baby can fend for itself, I have rights dammit! My body ffs!
Remove the preposterous fiction from Thomson's screed and it seems her opinion boils down simply to her body her right.
So what?
You are just being obnoxiously objectionable and not infusing anything new into the argument. Maybe if you explain your issues with the thought experiment instead of just foaming and frothing at the mouth I could take anything else you said on the matter seriously
A very small percentage of all abortions then?
That is the context of the entire discussion and why we're talking about it in the first place
You are just being obnoxiously objectionable and not infusing anything new into the argument. Maybe if you explain your issues with the thought experiment instead of just foaming and frothing at the mouth I could take anything else you said on the matter seriously
My issues with the analogy:
1) It simply asserts the conclusion that it purportedly supports, "Thomson takes it that you may now permissibly unplug yourself from the violinist even though this will cause his death: the right to life, Thomson says, does not entail the right to use another person's body". There is absolutely no need, and nothing is added, by constructing the violinist scenario in order to simply make this assertion. An assertion that applies directly the actual topic of the conversation - abortion.
2) It's a cheap emotive ploy, designed to somehow liken a gruesome Centipede style horror scenario with the state of a women being pregnant - a state for which it is actually designed (has evolved) to be in. The reality of the two situations is nothing alike, and the fact that a large majority might agree with the decision to unplug from the violinist is not informative of how those same people might consider the issue of abortion.
If I object obnoxiously it's no more than it deserves, just as I would object obnoxiously to a thought experiment that ran, "You are told that there is a classroom of children that will be hideously tortured to death unless every day for the next 9 months you must clap your hands softly at least. You will also be paid $1million dollars a day if you comply."
The same logic holds that there is nothing wrong by refusing to do this, as although the classroom has a right to not be hideously tortured to death, you are not violating their right by denying them the use of your body to which they have no right. Thus it is not by refusing to clap that you violate your moral obligation but rather if you do clap and keep the kids alive you are going beyond your obligations and are a good samaritan.
Sorry, I still think the whole thing deserves scorn.
loutl you can obviously look at the situation objectively and from points of view other than your own, but unfortunately there are a vast amount of people out there who seem to have a complete inability to put themselves in other people's shoes. I think the point of the story is to try to help people see the situation from the pregnant woman's position, rather than to just emotionally manipulate people.
Aside from that, though, you do come across as a terminally cynical, arrogant and argumentative person, perhaps trying to act less so would cause people to be more open to your ideas.
I thought they'd worked out foetus's generally aren't self-aware or able to feel pain until 20 weeks or even later? You can get abstract philosophical about it and argue it's still a human being - but I think the quality of life/situation argument counters that fairly well.
I have loutl down as a likely ultra right wing christian climate change denier, he fits right in my description of people who are painfully dishonest about their motivations for objecting to abortion. :P
there are countless examples where someone has a duty of care to someone else, regardless of whatever "right" they have over their own body.
I can't think of a single example where someone is legally bound by duty of care to put someone else's well-being ahead of their own. If that's what you were getting at of course. Sometimes it is hard to tell through all the flailing and froth.
While republicans do seem to have a monopoly (hell, the the modern right wing everywhere - I think that repeated investigations have actually shown a huge IQ difference), there are these...
Gay Marriage is important but not as important as having a Job.
If Americas economy ever turns around then that might happen.
People are going to vote for a better Economy.
Biden should have stepped down and someone with better economic credentials should have run with Obama.
Remember that Democrat resolution that didnt really get enough support but was declared to have passed ?
Well, the reason is that the person taking the vote/speaking was reading off a Teleprompter that had already been prepared.
The Republicans did the same thing when they took a vote to silence Ron Paul.
I can't really see how anyone could logically vote for Mitt. Then again most people in america believe the bible is literally true word for word and Obama wasn't even born in america. I guess logic isn't a big thing in the US anymore and has been replaced by blind hatred and racism.
EDIT - Oh on the whole race thing, last I heard Mitt is polling at 0% with black people. Seriously 0%? Even as a joke 1 or 2 people should of said yes to the person asking the questions.
nbc news quote Looking inside the numbers, Obama continues to lead Romney among key parts of his political base, including African Americans (94 percent to 0 percent), Latinos (by a 2-to-1 margin), voters under 35-years-old (52 percent to 41 percent) and women (51 percent to 41 percent).
Romney’s attack on the White House on Wednesday caused well-known Republicans to distance themselves from their presidential candidate, saying the U.S. political system always puts aside partisan politics when facing terrorist attacks. However on Thursday, Romney expanded his controversial criticism of Obama’s foreign policy in a speech in Virginia, where he sought to portray Obama as weak on foreign policy.
It’s worth remembering that the opposition research report prepared by John McCain’s campaign for the 2008 Republican primaries where he ran against Romney said that Romney had no substantive foreign policy experience.
I'm not entirely sure what the relevance of that post is FaceMan, but it is interesting data. Yet as an Australian I am much more interested in American foreign policy than I am in their unemployment statistics.
That poll (aqt the very end) was taken after what happened with the Islam rioting.
Obama seems to have two big weaknesses.
Gay Marriage and the perception he favors Islam and is soft on Iran.
Hes not soft on Iran he knows a War with Iran will be a catastrophe with unintended consequences. Im sure Romney does too but Foriegn Policy is easy when you are in Oppostition. The first time Romney sits down with the Brains Trust at the Military they will educate him or err... replace him.
"There are 47 per cent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it."
These are people who pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.
"These are people who pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect.
Socialism buys the support of the people.
How many Aussies are reliant on Government handouts ?
Arent paying Income Tax ?
"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic"
Why do people with a full time job in this Country need Centerlink Benefits ?
FTB a and B ?
If they are on Benefits would they vote for a Government that might scrap them ?
The Carbon Tax handout, the GFC handouts, Solar Rebates,
Governments job is not to give away Taxpayers money.
Its to create a fertile soil to grow Jobs.
Anyone getting money from Government is unlikely to vote against that continuing so where does that end up ?
Free HealthCare is not FREE
Its funded by Taxpayers who pay for a product that has no competition.
That means it will always be more expensive than it needs to be.
I do not understand how in 2012, we can say to a person, "I am not going to do this surgery unless you agree to work one full year entirely dedicated to paying me for doing this. And if you don't pay, I'm going to leave you unable to earn that as a living.".
That's effectively what it often comes down to - we're basically saying that when shit happens, you have to pay someone an amount equivalent, often, to half a years salary or more, just for the hospital to be willing to help you.
Guy gets stabbed in the leg, or drunk driver plows through a red light resulting in something where they have to either operate or amputate - nope, sorry, you don't have money. We're going to take the option that fucks up your life because of something that was completely not your fault.
This is how fucked up healthcare systems are. That for every patient, we need to pay the salary of about 13 caregivers. Plus the salarys of every board member that made every piece of medical equipment involved along the process.
There's so many people here in the US who never make a full recovery from an injury or surgery because they run out of ( or simply don't have ) the insurance to pay for proper rehab.
When there is no competition they can charge whatever they like.
Universal Healthcare is not Free, Taxpayers are paying for it and Taxpayers are paying for the bureaucratic system that runs it. A system that also has no competition.
The idea of UH is great but how its applied varies around the World.
Whats the best system ?
We are lucky to have a very good economy to fund ours,
so far...
Reckon we could re-dub that or put some kind of voiceover/audio track to it to turn it in to either a slasher flic trailer or something massively dramatic? :)
The healthcare situ in America does seem like a complete joke, what's it like in Aus?
For all it's problems and complaints, I think the NHS is great - I've used it a lot and always had a good experience and excellent medical treatment. I think it gets worse for more complex operations, but for min to medium healthcare it's a pretty solid system. Pretty much no-one will go without critical treatment.
Jump cuts hey. Interesting. Didnt know about that. I could see their appeal in horror movies but there are plenty of times i see what i think looks like shitty editing in TV shows/movies where they change camera shots and the person is in a different stance/facial expression etc. Just looks wrong to me.
EDIT: So i checked out that jumpcut link on wikipedia then got viewing on youtube. Im not a fan of the technique although id be interested to see if there was a video where i thought it was used well. Just makes the video seem choppy. If they wanna put together different takes dont they just change from person A then to person B then back to person A so you dont know that the shots of person A are different takes? Thanks for posting that eski, didnt know jumpcuts were a thing.
12 month wait for a knee reco or cancer treatment; 24 month wait for basic dental work. Dad was out of pocket 11k for prostate cancer surgery.
Says it all really.
Welfare isn't free, yet it might have been for Mitt Romney, who still hasn't released his tax returns because he is afraid of letting people see how much he has given to his cult.
itt, rich people who get million dollar handouts complaining about poor people getting handouts
not me ya broney. i won a bunch of licenses on a competitive application process to go $25m into debt. if you think aged care makes money you should read up a bit about it: start with the grant thornton review into the pricing and profitability of aged care, or have a read of the Productivity Commission's report into aged care published last year.
Aged care providers are the largest single industry employer in Australia, and they make a net return of approx 2% on assets deployed (less than the money in your savings account (not the fixed deposit one, the shitty everyday banking one).
Not to mention Spooky that the licenses that you say are worth a "million dollars" were actually undersubscribed for the last 3 years i.e. the govt couldn't give them away because aged care providers have figured out how unprofitable the current system is.
happy to talk all day how poorly paid aged care providers are and how in the next 25 years there is going to be a massive undersupply of aged care services for our ageing family members.
So anyways, who pays for welfare Spook, given you are so fond of free cashola?
Infi took a risk and it paid off ?
fpot didnt take a risk and got jealous ?
infi you didnt build that.
Why should Romney produce his tax returns ?
The man made a lot of money. so what ?
Hes prepared to give that up and lead America.
Id rather have a succesful businessman lead a Country than a jealous Socialist.
I just decided to research a little more detail re: the scandal with Santo and Infi and to be honest, appears to be very grubby business and Infi, I hate to say it but you come off rather opportunistic in the use of your political ties.
Whether that being the case I don't know but perceptions are everything.
BTW, get rid of the photo of Abbott's budgie smugglers, you come across weird with that in your crop of photos.
last edited by Some Fat Bastard at 19:58:41 18/Sep/12
I am very proud of having a pair of Tony's budgie smugglers. I am awaiting his coming as the remover of welfare, emancipating us from the socialist state. (I just hope he dumps his maternity leave policy.)
Did you research at all into the profitability of aged care SFB, it's not the same as digging holes in the ground - that's for sure. Research all you like, I have been raked over the coals by better investigators than you or fpot.
Id rather have a succesful businessman lead a Country than a jealous Socialist.
A successful businessman who has just thumbed his nose at half the country he plans to lead. Meanwhile Obama continues to talk about unity and bipartisanship.
Didn't say you were guilty of anything illegal, just a perception of using your political ties to your advantage. I don't approve of using politics to personally advantage oneself but I do acknowledge the fact each Political Party does the exact same thing.
One of the reasons I no longer bother with political debate and/or parties. They have become too self-indulgent for me.
All I'm about nowadays is gearing up for retirement and never giving another shit about work or politics. I'm going to pursue my hobbies; fishing, boating, archaeology, modern history, Astrophysics and most of all continuing to grow my vegetables.
The thing that we as Australians should be focusing on when it comes to the USA's imminent Presidential election is their foreign policy and desire to wage war (that we will no doubt commit to in some capacity).
Romney has blundered foreign policy repeatedly and is a warmonger.
The United States should restore the regular presence of aircraft carrier task forces in both the Eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf region simultaneously. The United States should repair relations with Israel, increase military coordination and assistance, and enhance intelligence sharing to ensure that our allied capabilities are robust and ready to deal with Iran. The United States should also increase military coordination with our Arab allies in the region and conduct more naval exercises as a demonstration of strength and resolve.
You don't need to threateningly and wastefully increase your military presence in an area to make it clear that you will go to war with them if they develop nukes. That is just yet more huffing and puffing to satisfy the racist, anti-Islamic right.
That welfare quote was the tip of the iceberg from that fundraiser. It gets so very much worse.
That's a satirical news site.. The best thing about it, though, is that evidently it's within the range of plausible expectation for something Romney would do.
"I'm begining to think that Romney might be a robot Democrats sent from the future to prevent anyone from ever voting Republican again. Its the only thing that makes sense at this point."
That's a satirical news site.. The best thing about it, though, is that evidently it's within the range of plausible expectation for something Romney would do.
The hilarious thing is that another even more gaff worthy video from that fundraiser has actually has surfaced
The Government shouldnt have to provide those things.
Jobs should, people who are capable of working shouldnt need to rely on Government.
More Jobs, less reliance on Government, more ppl are less at risk by voting against the Government. Surely none of you think higher unemployment and more ppl on foodstamps is a good way to run an Economy ?
The Government shouldnt have to provide those things.
So what's the model of free market national health care we should be looking to? Who out there in the world is doing it right? Green is countries with universal health care. Pink is those who are on the way.
Looks like you want us to have a shitcunt country health system?
When Australias worst Government ever is finally gone Ive no doubt ours will change too. Where will the money come from to fund the increased costs associated with an increasingly ageing population ?
They all do it differently though. Universal Healthcare in Britain is different to Australia.
Yes it is, but it is provided by the State, which is what you rejected. Lets be clear here, you want Government out of healthcare, so don't fucking dance about you mad cunt.
What I'm asking is where is the working example of a privately-run national health system that is equitable and accessible, delivering high quality outcomes at low cost?
If it doesn't exist, why should we rush out and change ours, when compared to other OECD nations it is quite cost-effective?
Universal Healthcare doesnt deliver that.
It delivers 'outcomes' based on a no competion funding model.
"the government is paying so who cares what it costs"
It will always be more expensive.
I like Universal Healthcare, i just think it needs more competition so the price remains competitive and most important of all, Sustainable.
Huh? Of course it does. Compare out universal health care to the health care burden of the united states. Is low cost comparative to other OECD nation's health costs.
Universal Healthcare doesnt deliver that. It delivers 'outcomes' based on a no competion funding model. "the government is paying so who cares what it costs" It will always be more expensive.
I give you that, it will be more expensive, but our combination of co-payment tends to reduce frivolous medical costs.
While it may be less efficient, the operation also doesn't need to yield a profit! Seems to me you either pay for a bit of inefficiency or you pay for a bit of profit. Or in the case of the USA, a lot of profit. Like, DOUBLING the healthcare burden even while providing shit coverage and outcomes for the nation.
The free market is NOT a magical panacea for all of society's needs. There is a role for the Government in delivery of essential services.
yes, it's role is pumping up profits of doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies.
What a complete load of shit infi, the above is MOST applicable to the USA, the most privatised health care system in the world, whose chilling example of inflated health care costs should be a stern warning to tread carefully.
And wtf, you work for the Government anyway lol, you lost any credibility to speak about the free market when it became apparent you are just on the public health system's tit.
Sometimes I think the reason a lot of people hate universal health care must just be selfishness – that they're absolutely terrified of even a cent of their own money ever going towards the benefit of someone besides themselves – or at least that's the impression I get when I hear about the healthcare debate in the US.
It seems like the same reason people do everything they can to pay as little tax as possible while happily using the infrastructure that taxes pay for. They don't particularly have any interest in being a constructive member of society, they just want to take as much from it as they can.
Maybe it's just me, but there's something very morbid about the concept of healthcare being run to make a profit. It makes me wonder how many people have been denied important treatment because they couldn't afford it, but could have afforded it if prices weren't set to make a profit.
I hope this isn't too hippy for taggs but healthcare is a right that should be afforded to anyone. Even if you are homeless you should be able to walk off the street, go into a hospital and get the treatment you need. The only reason to think otherwise is selfishness and tinfoil-hattery.
I would just insert 'essential necessary treatment' in fpot's statement to agree with it. I don't think everyone should have shiny, straight pearly whites for example.
It seems like the same reason people do everything they can to pay as little tax as possible while happily using the infrastructure that taxes pay for. They don't particularly have any interest in being a constructive member of society, they just want to take as much from it as they can.
I will admit its pretty tough going from earning naff-all and paying very little tax to paying half my income to the govt. My tax bill is now more than my annual paychecks pre-2006. I can see how people would start looking around for ways to avoid it. After all that's money that you can use to support your kids or other family members, its not necessarily done out of greed.
Gotta suck it up though, Australia is worth the price of admission.
Eski, I know what you mean. I pay a stack load in Tax, probably more than most earn as an annual income but I'm left wwith more than I need to support a wife and three kids and overall I accept it costs a considerable amount to have a decent society.
I dunno, I reckon every citizen is legitimately able to seek ways to minimise their tax obligations. Note, there is a BIG diff between minimimsing tax and avoiding it. You go to jail for avoidance, your account helps you to minimise your tax burden.
Its the Government's job to ensure the system is fair, equitable and that all breaks that exist are appropriate.
I dunno, I reckon every citizen is legitimately able to seek ways to minimise their tax obligations. Note, there is a BIG diff between minimimsing tax and avoiding it. You go to jail for avoidance, your account helps you to minimise your tax burden.
Its the Government's job to ensure the system is fair, equitable and that all breaks that exist are appropriate.
I agree that you should understand/have an accountant understand the tax system properly to get the breaks that apply to you, those breaks are almost always there to ensure that things are more fair, such as not being taxed on business expenses.
The problem is that it seems like many people do things that are not in the spirit of the tax breaks, like putting everything they can think of down as a business expense when it clearly isn't.
yes, it's role is pumping up profits of doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies.
wow infi, you are so far removed from the real world its not funny.
not everyone has grown up with a life of opportunity afforded to them by their old mans, old boy hookups bro
some families out there work shitty jobs just to get by. one of the most awesome things about australia is that a base level of heath care is provided to these working families so that they can be looked after.
"Nobody talks more of free enterprise and competition and of the best man winning than the man who inherited his father's store or farm." C. Wright Mills
I had to turn off my filter for a second because of you Spooky :(
Anyway I agree with the sentiment, but its not an all-encompassing definition. At the risk of doing a cool sob story bro, my background is childhood poverty but I'm still a big advocate of the free marketplace for appropriate industries.
The free market wrapped in the framework of basic social benefits like welfare, affordable education and healthcare is what has enabled me to succeed relative to my origins and hopefully continue! Without the welfare state I wouldn't now be running a business that supports several families, so IMO the system works and the benefits (especially for children) outweigh the odd bludger.
he free market wrapped in the framework of basic social benefits like welfare, affordable education and healthcare is what has enabled me to succeed relative to my origins and hopefully continue! Without the welfare state I wouldn't now be running a business that supports several families, so IMO the system works and the benefits (especially for children) outweigh the odd bludger.
hey, im not kidding anyone, ive had a pretty easy life, my parents both worked and we never went without anything. ive got a good job now and im making sure me and my family don't go without anything.
im 100% for my taxes to go into things like heathcare to ensure that familes that arent as lucky as i have been dont have to go without. (for lots of little hoggy's running around)
thats what makes infi super jerky, hes obviously never gone without anyhting, yet hes still angry that his hard earned tax dollars are helping poorer people.
Republican leaders teed up the Stop The War On Coal Act, H.R. 3409, as their last vote before lawmakers hit the campaign trail full time. It passed 233 to 175, with 19 Democrats joining nearly all House Republicans in voting for it.
Despite its title, the bill isn't just about the coal industry: it repackages four previously passed House GOP bills, plus adds in another one, aimed at blocking carbon pollution standards. Specifically, the package would eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency's clean car standards, nullify the EPA's mercury and air toxic standards, weaken the Clean Water Act and block efforts to reduce damage from coal mining.
geez you must be racked with so much whiteman guilt, spook and nerfy.
anyone who achieves more than simply collecting a mediocre paycheck everyweek for doing insignificant work, is a rich cunt who automatically has to share everything they just created with the lazy parasites feeding of our country.
while you go on hating people who take risks and create employment, you never did a single thing to help an unemployed person, as if judging people who create jobs somehow increase the number of jobs available.
its a mediocre envious attitude, and doesn't advance anyone.
Can you give me some tips on how to win fat Government contracts infi? My parents are working class poor so I can't inherit an advantage.
My books tell me that > 95% of our revenue is from offering services to the free market, constantly quoting against our competitor's offerings and seeking competitive advantage. Its really fucking hard, is taking ages to build relationships and get ahead. I reckon I'm dong it wrong.
Got any hookups? Wink wink, nudge nudge. PM me bro.
no hookups just hard work. there aint no shortcuts. aim big, dream to build something better than your competitors. there's no free rides, and no leeching allowed.
The irony which Faceman misses is that Obama is a genuine self made millionaire, unlike his predecessors and current opposition whose parents both either ran for or were president of the united states.
Regarding the crazy caricature of other people which infi has to create to not hear anything which he doesn't want to
I have started my own business, non inherited, and work more than anybody I know. Cry more about how I'm a communist for not agreeing with your crazy self glorifying bullshit.
no hookups just hard work. there aint no shortcuts. aim big, dream to build something better than your competitors. there's no free rides, and no leeching allowed.
haha, oh dear.
infi one day you should try posting something that isn't self-serving rhetoric drivel or a reddit meme that's as worn out as your Santo speed-dial button.
infi = Russell Egan. But I am pretty sure it's not true because infi totally denies it. I mean, what are the chances of Santo who was busted for corruption doing a mate a million dollar favour using a system with zero transparency and no chance of getting caught?
Though Ryan had already decided to distance himself from the floundering Romney campaign, he now feels totally uninhibited. Reportedly, he has been marching around his campaign bus, saying things like, “If Stench calls, take a message” and “Tell Stench I’m having finger sandwiches with Peggy Noonan and will text him later."
Health represented 16% of the Australian budget in 2011 - just shy of $60b. On average Australians are taxed 22% of their income. That chart would therefore imply that the average income in Australia is somewhere around the $99,430/pa, which it clearly is not.
Going on those figures, about $3000 of my salary went in to Health - plus >$1000 in private health insurance. Plus everything I paid on health services directly, mostly dental.
On average, you're paying about 3.5% of your annual salary towards our health services.
So my question is this:
How much of your annual wage would you be willing to have dedicated to health?
In 2008 Former Republican Secretary of State, General Colin Powell, endorsed Obama and spoke out about the bad behaviour of the changing Republican Party.
Who knew Powell was such a liberal and intelligent chap! Be interesting to see what he thinks of Obama now though.
Also, seen the latest, voter restriction laws passed into effect by Republicans, has triggered a Sarah Silverman led awareness campaign. Judging from the vid, it seems pretty ridiculous and designed specifically to restrict certain demographics.
It’s no surprise that Ralph Nader isn’t a fan of former President George W. Bush. After all, the longtime activist ran against him in both 2000 and 2004. But Nader’s even less a fan of President Barack Obama, if only because he thinks Obama was capable of so much more.
On issues related to the military and foreign policy, Obama’s worse than Bush, “in the sense that he’s more aggressive, more illegal worldwide,” Nader told POLITICO, going so far as to call Obama a “war criminal.”
The reality is that the drone strikes are part of the "War on Terror", a war that America's allies will always support to some degree. In a sense the terrorists have already declared war (or jihad) on the USA and it is retaliatory.
Health represented 16% of the Australian budget in 2011 - just shy of $60b. On average Australians are taxed 22% of their income. That chart would therefore imply that the average income in Australia is somewhere around the $99,430/pa, which it clearly is not.
I have no fucking idea what you are saying here. Your derivation is stupid, ignoring non-income tax revenue for the government. The final conclusion is so batshit crazy wonky I'm willing to give you a pass if you admit to being drunk or stoned when you came up with it.
Let's see, the graph claims health burden of $3,400 per capita. DOES IT CHECK OUT?!
$3,400 x 22,000,000 = $74.8B
Which is the graph's asserted total cost of healthcare in Australia, $US PPP. You say the Government picks up $60B? Seems dead on, with the rest being gap fees and private health insurance.
That video of Obama slipping up in his speech will be beaten worse than a dead horse that shits out gold nuggets when it's hit by the right. They've been trying to find something terrible on him and best they can find is an old tape from like 98 sop this'll be the new proof that he wants to ship jobs overseas.
Why does a post being on reddit make it any more good or bad than it is independently? :S
It's not a value judgement, but when referring to material that is posted elsewhere you should quote your sources, right?
Reddit is now the hip thing to hate on, even though it offers more originality now then 4chan.
I don't hate reddit at all, I recognised the posts because I read it way too much! But if you're going to blatantly rip shit off other websites and repost it, then it should be sourced.
PS. It's relevant and funny, therefore I don't give a shit Hoggy.
Repost content all you like mate, especially if its new on QGL. Just quote your fucking sources, otherwise we're just as bad as 9gag.
I made a Mormon meme and posted it on exmormon. It got a good response so I made an image version and put it on imgur for people to post on Facebook, etc. Who gives a fuck where it came from?
They're just simple jokes, you don't give credit to the author every time you tell a joke.
They're just simple jokes, you don't give credit to the author every time you tell a joke.
You should always give credit when you rip content off another website, especially if you lean on it as a source a lot. What does the nature of the content matter?
You might think they are just memes or jokes, but reddit is a business and its costs a lot of dev time and money to run. The reason there's lots of easily found, entertaining / funny content there (both original and aggregate) is that they've built a sophisticated rating engine and large community. You're not just pinching the joke.
Would you be happy if I set up a website and ripped the best tracks from danceblog without so much as a reference?
The internet is based on hyperlinks. If you want to know the source check the link, in this case the source is imgur.
As far as my site goes no I wouldn't care because the source of those tracks is usually SoundCloud. You are free to do what you want in that regard as long as you're not breaching copyright. Do you think the people who made those memes gave credit to whoever took the photos?
In no way did I suggest they were my creation. Are you going to have a go at everyone who does this (most people on the internet) or is it just me?
Furthermore, how can you be sure the people who posted it on reddit are the original creators of the meme if it's been uploaded on imgur? Maybe they even heard someone else say it.
Furthermore, how can you be sure the people who posted it on reddit are the original creators of the meme if it's been uploaded on imgur? Maybe they even heard someone else say it.
I didn't say they did, I said you reposted shit you found on reddit, and that you're doing it a lot.
Military suicides do constitute a crisis. President Obama has not been remiss in recognizing this, both in his appointment of Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki and his taking a personal interest in the subject. And then there is the budget. Under Obama, spending for dealing with PTSD and traumatic brain injury as well as mental health services has been increased significantly.
Paul Ryan, on the other hand, has actively sought cuts in veterans' health benefits. The proposed Romney-Ryan budget could cut nearly a fifth of the VA's budget, $11 billion axed. That's not the worst of it. Romney favors privatizing a portion of VA health coverage, replacing it with a voucher system, something even the very conservative Veterans of Foreign Wars oppose.
if low income earners/unemployed were given mobile phone subsidy that is fucking awesome. mobile phones change poorer economic areas
read a few bits on the indian gov introducing them to poor areas. did a quick search and found a piece by bill clinton. the article is apparently from the future Monday, Oct. 01, 2012 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2125031,00.html
I'm presuming Faceman that she was talking about some sort of phone they handout to those in dire needs, such as been kept on food stamps or centrelink like payments. I don't believe it would be as flashy as say the iPhone 5, but it would be a functional phone to use for communication purposes or for emergencies.
I think Obama came out pretty well in that export jobs gaff with his recovery - no doubt the republican media (fox *cough* news) will use the sound byte out of context.
Re: The military suicides, just another example of republican lies - they really do take it a bit too far! Still, I suppose it works with the average uneducated voter.
The video is drawing attention to the government program — Lifeline — as a national debate unfolds on entitlements and the growing percentage of Americans who pay no income taxes and get a long menu of government benefits. But even though some beneficiaries may credit President Obama for providing the phones, Lifeline is an extension of a program that has existed since 1985.
Still, critics including Rep. Tim Griffin, R-Ark., note the program has swelled from $772 million in 2008 to $1.6 billion.
In 2008, there were 7.1 million Lifeline accounts nationwide.
There are 12.5 million today, according to Bloomberg News.
About half of those are mobile phones sold by Miami-based TracFone, Sprint and hundreds of smaller regional companies. The government pays those carriers up to $10 per month for each program subscriber. Users, in turn, get free phones and 250 minutes of monthly airtime.
Big story is breaking about an Obama 2007 speech in which he claims Katrina victims werent helped because, unlike Sept 11 and Hurricane Andrew, Katrina victims were black.
The racially charged and at times angry speech undermines Obama’s carefully-crafted image as a leader eager to build bridges between ethnic groups. For nearly 40 minutes, using an accent he almost never adopts in public, Obama describes a racist, zero-sum society, in which the white majority profits by exploiting black America. The mostly black audience shouts in agreement. The effect is closer to an Al Sharpton rally than a conventional campaign event.
I don't think Tony Abbott will ever be prime minister. Support for Labor is steadily increasing as anger over the carbon tax subsides, meanwhile Abbott is still flogging it like a dead horse because he has nothing to offer but negativity.
Turnbull on the other hand is a possibility, though probably not next year.
I still wouldn't vote Liberal but it would do a lot of good for their party to have Turnbull at the helm. The political climate would certainly be more interesting.
This debate moderator is a pussy. They are talking all over him and keep going when he stops them to try and keep things moving. Grow some balls old man.
Romney is at his best on the Economy.
Obama looks like he is trying to get through without making a big error.
Romney could talk for the entire length of the Debate on the Economy.
Its a carve up.
I really can't bring myself to believe him when he starts talking about that he cares about middle and low income families
EDIT - I love how Romney says that both sides need to work together. Who is the side that has made it public that they plan on obstructing everything Obama wanted to do?
I'm no expert on this, but it feels like Romney has handled himself pretty well. Has been much more on the front foot, dictated terms, spun his way out of tricky situations, etc. Obama has been much more laid back and less forceful.
Agreed about the moderator - total pussy, has not taken control.
Islam, Judaism and Christianity (and bahai) all believe in the same god.
According to the Bible they all believe in the God of Abraham but I don't know if Muslims see it that way. Obviously Jews do not believe in the physical incarnation of God as Jesus Christ.
I was referring to the fact that Romney is a Mormon, Mormons believe in a literal Holy Trinity as three individuals, unlike Christians.
Mormons believe in a literal Holy Trinity as three individuals, unlike Christians.
I used to be a protestant and still couldn't figure that out, if I'd stayed religious and raised kids the same way, I'd probably have invariably created yet another new schism/evolution of that never ending fairy tail. :p
I also thought Romney seemed to do very well compared to Obama, unfortunately he was full of lies. For example Obama said that it is illegal for a board of doctors to decide on a patient's treatment, yet Romney still pushed the point that they will do so under Obamacare.
Like Obama said, Romney will not offer the details of his policies and many people will not vote for him based on that. Because of that it seems to be a Democrat vs Republican election, not a Democrat policy vs Republican policy election. The only details Romney has really given are about what he's going to repeal.
Romney did seem to do well, despite him walking all over the moderator and seemingly having verbal diarrhoea where he had so much stuff he wanted to say he just couldn't want for Obama to stop so he could ramble on some more.
Then again it's easy to do well against someone in a debate when your stand on issues changes every day and people expect you to lie out your arse. He just did a better job of not looking like he was thinking of something to say.
The only details Romney has really given are about what he's going to repeal
Because he has no plan or anything in mind. At least nothing that would get him elected because no doubt he would try something that would fuck over most of the country to give more money to the super rich. People would flip out if he came out with that.
Yeah my thoughts exactly. Although he did say his state of Massachusetts has the best schools in the country, he seemed to get Obama with that point. I wonder if it's true?
He kept going on about leaving major decisions such as healthcare and education to the states. So in other words as president of the entire nation those things will no longer be his responsibility. That leaves him with the economy, foreign policy and defense. All he's had to say about those are his plan of removing exemptions on tax and increasing the strength of the military. He wants to spend two trillion on military and that probably means gutting healthcare and education.
Although he did say his state of Massachusetts has the best schools in the country, he seemed to get Obama with that point. I wonder if it's true?
Not true. #1 4 years in a row was Maryland. Why lie about that? Unless your schooling system is ranked something like 40th why not just say what it really is?
I also thought that he kept saying over and over, I want to leave it to the states. yeah because when you do that things go so well like state laws which allow police to stop any non-white person and demand to see proof they aren't illegal, or letting bosses fire women if they use birth control. See? that kind of stuff makes america a great place!
There was a story out a few days before the debate where Romney visited a coal mine to do one of his rallies. The boss made it mandatory for all workers and those who refused would be fired. On top of being forced to sit on stage and listen to the wind bag, they got no pay for being forced off work for the few hours. That's pretty douche baggy.
Putting homeless people into homes wont help them pay the bills.
Jobs help ppl buy homes and pay bills and purchase products.
Not Welfare, food stamps and Obamacare.
Theres a story floating around about illegal obama fundraising that will hit the news on Monday.
Sources told Secrets that the Obama campaign has been trying to block the story. But a key source said it plans to publish the story Friday or, more likely, Monday.
According to the sources, a taxpayer watchdog group conducted a nine-month investigation into presidential and congressional fundraising and has uncovered thousands of cases of credit card solicitations and donations to Obama and Capitol Hill, allegedly from unsecure accounts, and many from overseas. That might be a violation of federal election laws.
There is a big difference between voting down what you believe is a bad piece of legislation and your entire party bombing every single proposal the president has because your party are sore losers and hate black people. The republicans were/are willing to destroy the entire economy, regardless of who it hurts just to make the president look bad.
I missed half of this thread sorry, but didn't see this posted anywhere. They seemed to both make a few mistakes (Stewart confusing deficit for debt?) but also seemed to both have decent ideas. It's not really relevant for Australia, but is hilarious.
Behind closed doors with his donors, Romney made clear he'd write off half of America -- including service members and veterans -- because, as he said "I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility for their lives." But there's no greater personal responsibility than to wear your country's uniform and defend the rights we all enjoy as Americans. We don't sow division between "us" versus "them." The Commander-in-Chief sets the bar for all to follow and fight for the entire country. Mitt Romney fails that test. As a veteran I feel written off.
For someone who sits on a key congressional science advisory committee, Rep. Paul C. Broun (R-Ga.) seems to take a pretty dim view of science.
In videotaped remarks made Sept. 27 before a church group, Broun called what he had been taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang theory "all lies straight from the pit of Hell," adding that the lies were intended to "keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior."
Mitt Romney’s commanding performance on the debate stage last week has generated a significant bounce for his presidential candidacy, according to national polls released Monday.
The Republican nominee opened up a 4-point lead over President Obama, 49% to 45% among likely voters, in the latest national opinion survey by the independent Pew Research Center. In mid-September, Obama led by 8 points, 51% to 43%, in a survey by Pew, which has tended to show the president with a bigger advantage over Romney than have other major national polls.
The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for rebellioius children is not something to be taken lightly. The guidelines for administering the death penalty to rebellious children are given in Deut 21:18-21: …
This passage does not give parents blanket authority to kill their children. They must follow the proper procedure in order to have the death penalty executed against their children. I cannot think of one instance in the Scripture where parents had their child put to death. Why is this so? Other than the love Christ has for us, there is no greater love then [sic] that of a parent for their child. The last people who would want to see a child put to death would be the parents of the child. Even so, the Scrpture provides a safe guard to protect children from parents who would wrongly exercise the death penalty against them. Parents are required to bring their children to the gate of the city. The gate of the city was the place where the elders of the city met and made judicial pronouncements. In other words, the parents were required to take their children to a court of law and lay out their case before the proper judicial authority, and let the judicial authority determine if the child should be put to death. I know of many cases of rebellious children, however, I cannot think of one case where I believe that a parent had given up on their child to the point that they would have taken their child to a court of law and asked the court to rule that the child be put to death. Even though this procedure would rarely be used, if it were the law of land, it would give parents authority. Children would know that their parents had authority and it would be a tremendous incentive for children to give proper respect to their parents.
If there is a genuine nationwide swing against Obama then I suspect I'll start to see Romney campaign ads here in Pennsylvania, because that'll be a big prize back in play for campaign with a lot of cash.
As I type this I'm watching an Obama ad and there have been 3 or 4 ads for local races, but nothing from Romney... yet.
I went to this reddit-land, came back with this, feel violated.
The head of a charity in Ohio is not pleased with Paul Ryan's photo op at a soup kitchen in Ohio, saying that the Romney campaign "ramrodded their way" into their facility unannounced.
He added: "The photo-op they did wasn't even accurate. He did nothing. He just came in here to get his picture taken at the dining hall."
The Post reports that Ryan made the unscheduled stop after an event at Youngstown State University, and was there for about 15 minutes. But though the pictures taken shows Ryan apparently doing dishes, the food had already been served and everything had already been cleaned before he got there.
"Had they asked for permission, it wouldn't have been granted. ... But I certainly wouldn't have let him wash clean pans and then take a picture," Antag said.
This one was a lot closer than the first. In all honesty, felt pretty even to me, but a lot of the commentary I've been reading so far is calling it as an Obama 'win'. I would note a lot of these media outlets have a perceived left wing/democrat bias, so probably no surprises there.
Who cares who claims which side these debates are a 'win' for. Inevitably Republican news sites are going to call it a Republican win, Democrat news sites will call it a Democrat win.
The only poll that matters is the November 6 poll.
because higher taxes are currently creating more jobs in America ?
plenty of companies are moving their businesses back to America because Taxes are higher ?
Romney wants to make it as cheap as possible for companies to create jobs.
Jobs are better than Government dependency.
A tipping point is coming where so many ppl will be relying on Government handouts that it will be impossible to throw out those who are 'buying' their votes. The fact that Obamas vote is still so high shows it may already be happening.
Income taxes for the wealthiest people in the US are near an all time low after the Bush tax cuts.
Romney wants to make it as cheap as possible for companies to create jobs.
So that's why he's focusing on making major cuts to things like the inheritance tax? Enhancing the least deserving and most unentrepreneurial way of gaining money is the GOP's new narrative for how you get entrepreneurial 'job creators'? Whereas Obama is cutting taxes to the people who actually do spend and save in the local economy, rather than shipping their money off overseas (as Romney himself does) or sitting on it because they have no outstanding entrepreneurial talents, when it was those who they inherited from who did. If you look at all the self-made business people who have any demonstrable ability to understand and succeed in the business world (rather than maintaining their inherited position, the same as any middle or lower class person who simply does what their parents did), they seemingly all support Obama's consumer driven approach. It's only these blood line inheritors who have drama'd up this narrative of 'anybody rich is an amazing hard worker being torn down by the lazy masses' bullshit to overcompensate for the fact that they simply do not have the talent or abilities to improve their wealth in this best time ever to be wealthy in the US.
The narrative of the 'anybody wealthy is a talented job creating individual' has to stop, it's killing opportunity for real entrepreneurs as more and more wealth is sucked out of the lower classes. Children of great people aren't going to possess the same natural gifts and life lessons, children of einstein aren't going to be successive great scientists, children of gates aren't going to be successive great programmers, children of great composers aren't going to be able to just do the same themselves, and one cannot claim their parents' successes and failures as their own. It takes working hard and being forged into a talented person to be an innovator, not simply 'having the money and investments already' end result, as these rinehart/koch/romney/jeb bush types would have the world believe.
A tipping point is coming where so many ppl will be relying on Government
But these people do rely on the government. They rely on the government to create roads and infrastructure, to police and put out fires, to educate workers, to protect their finances, and so on. If they hate government so much, why don't they piss off to somalia or some other government-free country, and show their amazing abilities to 'build it' from scratch without a government. No? Because it doesn't happen. Places with government programs are where all the successful people in the world come from.
Pretty cool to see actual statistical evidence of the old adage "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer".
Personally, I'll just be happy when the US is finally no longer a super power and we don't have to hear about all their political bullshit because it won't affect anyone but themselves. Shouldn't be too long now (fingers crossed)!
I'll just be happy when the US is finally no longer a super power and we don't have to hear about all their political bullshit because it won't affect anyone but themselves. Shouldn't be too long now (fingers crossed)!
What is "capital income"? As far as I am aware, this would normally equate to profits from operating a business, trust distributions, company dividends, or interest from other investments.
Workers (including professional sportspeople, musical artists and Hollywood actors) typically earn a salary i.e. payment for labour, which does not comprise this form of income - salary is never capital income. So I would make two points I guess:
1. This graph has absolutely no bearing on determining wealth breakdown.
2. Wealth has no bearing on quality of life. The creation of wealth that has been seen especially in America has been the result of technological breakthroughs and service delivery to consumers.
Nerfy is obsessive in his hatred of wealth accumulation.
1. This graph has absolutely no bearing on determining wealth breakdown.
It specifically shows that, because it shows the returns from capital, i.e. wealth.
Nerfy is obsessive in his hatred of wealth accumulation.
Bullshit. I am in business, and work very hard to accumulate wealth, and am much more focused on it than anybody who I know. When you lot can't answer the hard questions calling you out on your bullshit in recent decades, you just start attacking some imaginary communist class-warfare straw man and pat yourselves on the back.
infi, if you haven't picked up on it, you absolutely fit the profile which I mentioned. You're one of the the living breathing expressions of such overcompensating self-congratulatory madness. But I'm not going to convince you, you're still going to rock up to your next libs meeting and rant about how you evidently pulled yourself up by your bootstraps by inheriting a business and knowing other wealthy people in office. And everybody else will evidently just be lazy for not having done similar, in your crazy over the top world.
What I hate, are the fakes who try to claim my responsible lifestyle and sacrifices for themselves, despite never having done the same. And then go extremely nuts with it, making this whole crazy rinehart/koch brothers political cult out of it, when anybody who's been here knows that it's not that simple.
Wealth trickle down bullshit has proven not to be true, and is just an excuse for the rich to become richer. Share the wealthy's exploits of others. Vote socialism today.
The sitaution there is even worse than what the previous chart suggested:
But the narrative will be "the poor top 10% who holds nearly all the wealth doesn't have enough to make jobs" while sitting on essentially all of it in their bank accounts, or moving it offshore, while the bottom 90% is supposed to be able to innovate and make jobs with what exactly? Where are the crocodile tears for them? Real entrepreneurs have always risen from the normal people, rarely are they following in an amazing parent's footsteps. Yet the US is sucking the options dry of most of its working population, all for the inheritor-crowd's fantasy of being self-made. When actual self-made people such as Buffet weigh in, the fakes just call him a communist and continue on with their destructive and loud Randian cult.
You are fucking clueless. Capital is not wealth. Every person contains inside them wealth (or wealth potential) because money is an exchange for labor and production. Some people own real estate, some people own factories, some people perform labour or creative arts. They are all wealth producing activities.
read a first year book about economics you donkey.
secondly, if every person had wealth equally then how would anyone be allowed to accumulate wealth. if you are saying the current breakdown of wealth is not "fair" enough - then what breakdown is fair?
Should the government pass a law mandating the "fair" breakdown? What exactly is the point of the comment you are making?
You are in favour of wealth accumulation but you post statistics critically about its occurrence. The nature of the human endeavour will always be personal self-improvement. Some will be better at it than others.
You would have the State intervene and steal from individuals to alter the outcome of those competitive pursuits. Nerfy's a bigot towards wealth accumulation while he personally engages in it - just on hate on everyone else that does it though.
What exactly is the point of the comment you are making?
That you rand-cultists impersonating the self-made are out of control, when you are seemingly exclusively the types who just inherited your positions and never rise above wherever you were born into, but equate any wealth with evidence of worthiness. Whenever an actual self-made person comes along and disagrees with your political positions, built up from a heroic narrative of the way that you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps, you get even worse and start calling them communists who wouldn't know anything about wealth creation (when they're the ones who have actually done it, inheriting wealth is not creating wealth).
You are in favour of wealth accumulation but you post statistics critically about its occurrence.
I'm critical of your type's bullshit and tunnel vision, and attempts to paint anybody who doesn't share the crocodile tears for the extremely rich as an evil communist who is anti-capitalism or is your boogeyman lazy leech who lacks initiative.
Tell me, infi, where are the crocodile tears for the majority of the population and their ability to 'create jobs'? If it's so bad for the top few percent who hold nearly all the wealth already, then the situation for the rest of the population - the vast vast majority of people - must be an absolute crime against humanity right? By your type's logic that we should create opportunities for people to create jobs, shouldn't the goal be cutting taxes for those who have to spend all their income just to survive and trying to inject as much opportunity into there as possible? Shouldn't those who already have nearly all of the opportunity be the very last priority?
If somebody really has earned their way up the system, why would they need it to get easier as they go? That's the wrong way around for encouraging business, and only suits those who were born rich. If somebody can truly exceed during the hard part - where they're not wealthy, on equal footing with everybody else, and most of their wealth must be spent on surviving - then they don't need the help only after reaching the easy part when they're rich. As Buffet's pointed out, the very wealthy there pay a far lower effective tax rate than everybody else, and then don't have to essentially spend all of their money on local products which are taxed anyway just to live. Yet Romney comes along with his massive tax cuts for the very wealthy (specifically focusing on things like inheritance taxes), and you pretend-entrepreneurs who don't know the first thing about becoming self-made just lap it up with your self-congratulatory ideology.
If everyone was to create jobs then who would work in those jobs?
Secondly, not everyone wants to be a job creator - in fact most cannot put up with the various stresses of being an employer and more importantly do not wish to have the responsibility of being an employer.
Finally, your argument suggests for any person who ever took a base of capital they did not create themselves and then made it larger, it is impossible for them to credibly argue in favour of wealth creation.
You are filled with hatred and jealousy of people because of the way life is. I know it is your argument that every person's estate should be fully or largely donated to the state upon their death as a means of wiping the slate clean, but really what does that say about respect for property rights?
Tell me Nerfy, what is a fair breakdown? How much should everyone get?
Should the government pass a law for this and then steal from the wealthier to share it around (more than they do now).
You must surely have a tangible target to this general grumble. It's such a pathetic throwaway line that any god-fearing american Democrat trots out every election.
THE RICH GET RICHER AND THE POOR GET POORER. WE ARE THE 99%
I also love how because you are self-made from scratch you are some sort of poster boy because you also trumpet wealth equality.
1. You accumulate wealth.
2. You despise accumulating wealth and those who grow it from generation to generation.
Nerfy do you hope to endow something to your children? Do you hope to pay off your house? What actually is going on inside that kooky brain of yours???
Again, a million strawmans about wanting the government to do anything. It is those calling for tax cuts for the rich who are calling for the government to do something, they are the ones saying that the divide is not great enough. Going to throw in a 'you fuckwit' here for good measure.
If everyone was to create jobs then who would work in those jobs?
Yeah because that's the only outcome of not only pandering to the wealthy when talking about the opportunities required for potential job creators.
Secondly, not everyone wants to be a job creator - in fact most cannot put up with the various stresses of being an employer and more importantly do not wish to have the responsibility of being an employer.
This does not at all answer the question of why you only care about the job creating capabilities of the rich, and not the rest of society. In fact it only begs repeating it. Disturbingly, you seem to believe that people not born wealthy don't deserve an equal chance because they're not up to it, based on some sort of circle logic of 'well if they were up to it, they would be wealthy like me'. This is what's so infuriating about you inheritor types.
Finally, your argument suggests for any person who ever took a base of capital they did not create themselves and then made it larger, it is impossible for them to credibly argue in favour of wealth creation.
I specifically said otherwise, for those who never move higher. And it's dramatically easier to create more capital when you already have some, versus the vast majority who start with nothing. Where are you crocodile tears for them and their opportunities to create jobs?
You are filled with hatred
Correct, you guys are shitting all over whatever meritocracy we had with your crazy self-congratulatory bullshit for simply being born where you were. If things keep going your way, it will be back to blood line nobility and trapped working peasants.
and jealousy
Hahahaha, always the cop out for those who can't defend their bullshit politics. Your out of control fantasy attitudes affect people like myself in the real world. But I'm very proud of actual self made people, I think that they represent the best of humanity. It's you fakes who try to steal their thunder and twist it into a political cult who infuriate me.
I know it is your argument that every person's estate should be fully or largely donated to the state upon their death as a means of wiping the slate clean
Da fuck?
Tell me Nerfy, what is a fair breakdown? How much should everyone get?
Tell me infi, why are they arguing for more? I haven't argued for anything to change, only they are, and have been. As Warren Buffet said, “There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.”
I also love how because you are self-made from scratch you are some sort of poster boy
Nope. The point is that you fakes are not the self-made poster boys that you claim to be, and you discard the opinions of those who actually are. I'm not made yet, still trying.
Correct, you guys are shitting all over whatever meritocracy we had with your crazy self-congratulatory bullshit for simply being born where you were. If things keep going your way, it will be back to blood line nobility and trapped working peasants.
So respecting property law is now equivalent to medieval nobility.
If you don't want anything to change then what exactly if your point? I don't want anything to change either? I like being free to enter into any employment or business I choose and accumulate as much wealth as I choose, and then to give that money to whoever I choose when I am done with it.
What do you think should happen? Does it involve wealth redistribution of any sort?
Hah, there appears to be a big furore in the states now about how not only was the moderator not supposed to participate in the debate by doing a live fact check on when Obama was talking about his speech in the Rose Garden, but that she got it wrong and made Romney sound foolish when he was actually correct in his assertion.
Also, that and twitter exploded when Romney inadvertently implied gun violence was caused by single mothers.
Hah, there appears to be a big furore in the states now about how not only was the moderator not supposed to participate in the debate by doing a live fact check on when Obama was talking about his speech in the Rose Garden, but that she got it wrong and made Romney sound foolish when he was actually correct in his assertion.
No he wasn't correct? Obama in his speech referred to acts of terror in a generic sense, but didn't call the embassy attack an act of terrorism as the wording can have legal consequence. It was a relatively minor disagreement in the debate, but the point was that the moderator is supposed to moderate, not take sides.
The debates would be a lot better if the Moderators stopped them and called them on their bullshit rather than let it slide. This is just the right having a bitch fit.
Nah, in a one on one interview sure, when a candidate spins porkies go for gold on calling shenanigans.
In a debate though a moderator is simply there to keep a candidate on time and on topic, something Jim Lehrer and Candy Crowley did to somewhat marginal levels of success. It's not the role of the moderator to call either candidate on their bullshit, that's up to their opponent.
@Dazhel She fact-checking him on whether or not he said the day after that it was an 'act of terror' which he did say so Romney was wrong; in the same breath she told Romney he was correct on the wider point, that the administration had taken 14 days to confirm it was a terrorist attack.
It's hardly the fubar the Republicans are making it out to be; really just a good highlighted example of Romney twisting truthes to fit his pitch. Classic example of a lost debate, turn on the moderator.
Obama seems to be naturally and spontaneously funny, whereas you never really hear Romney telling jokes outside of an event like this where they've been written for him. Although he may loosen up if he gets the job and doesn't have to spend all of his time criticising Obama.
Romney does have excellent delivery (and speaking ability in general) and I liked his jokes about what he was wearing and about Clinton.
"You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.
Nonsense. The reason the military has fewer bayonets than 1916 is clearly because this president's policies have been working against bayonet creators.
Lulz, Trump's bombshell announcement was even dumber than the divorce papers rumour. He will pay $5 million to charity if Obama releases his college and passport transcripts. what a fucking idiot, i can't believe he had an announcement to announce this as an announcement
Eski that article just makes my brain hurt. How can a man really believe that rape is an intended feature of humanity and that God is all cool with it. Just..ahhh.
Probably because based of religious scripture god would be cool with it.
Has the far-right of politics ever been as batshit insane as it is right now? It is batshit in the states and here at the moment. Plus that Golden Dawn party over in Greece is literally Nazi Germany reincarnated. I know it sounds like I am invoking Godwin here but read up on them. Does their emblem look familiar to you?
People like fpot who see statements like that shit, then determine that his view represents what the right wing of politics thinks are just as dumb as right wingers who think the idioacy of Gillard and Swan represents the entire left wing of politics.
Anyone that is far left, or far right is batshit insane. Its really that simple.
In fact, anyone that is either left or right is insane imo - don't understand how people just vote 1 way their entire life, its bizarre.
Yeah man there certainly are a whole bunch of level headed Republicans over in the USA atm. Even Romney the best of the bunch is someone who literally believes that god created man and the universe and all that jazz. It's cool for the average Joe to think that kind of thing but for a leader of a superpower to devoutly believe such things just seems crazy to me.
But hell, Obama maybe believes in at all too. From a few quotes I have read from him it may just be possible he is just paying lip service to it so the White House doesn't get overrun by Southerners with pitchforks. Sure would suck living in America.
If Turnbull is leader of the opposition next election and there is no way that the NBN can be reversed I may just even vote for his party, but Abbott is pretty much as crazy as a Republican these days. You'd have to be a fucking drongo to support him.
Moderate Christians are one thing, but the fact that the leader of the Republicans is a Mormon pretty much sums it up. Not only does he believe in God, he believes God lives on a planet near a star called Kolob and fathers us as spirit children there before we choose our parents and inhabit mortal bodies. This is the best guy they could come up with.
Romney was given the equivalent of 1 million in today's dollars when he was a teenager, but describes himself as a self made man from humble beginnings. Guy's been drinking too much of the 'pulled myself up by my bootstraps' ideology koolaid, went and said that those not in the same situation as him are so for simply not taking responsibility in their lives. :/
And you are lucky enough to get to sneer about it because you received a business from your father, and have never had to prove your supposed superiority on equal footing. ;)
And you are lucky enough to get to sneer about it because you received a business from your father, and have never had to prove your supposed superiority on equal footing. ;)
I do not own my own business, I am but merely a paid employee Nerfy. I pay tax and pay for my own private health care - all the stuff workers do. But by all means continue to draw ASSumptions.
Way to miss the point infi, 'director' at your father's company, telling others that they're just lazy good for nothing leeches who clearly didn't work as hard as you.
Thats pretty rough Nerf, regardless of what you think its not cool to personally attack people like that.
Well, I disagree. Personal experience is everything in how we get to these views, and the very sheltered and very pampered seem to have the most ludicrous "self made" fantasies which are hurting our society (see: Rinehart vs Palmer, the modern American republican platform espoused by people like Romney), and need to be called out on their bullshit rather than left to build up their delusions.
The disturbing thing is that some people must actually believe that ridiculous anti-reality hysteria to go to the effort to make those kinds of images, as if that's the only way that they can conceptualise the issues being discussed.
NJ: Do you think climate change is causing the earth to become warmer?
Hall: I can't say it doesn't have a percentage of effects on it - one percent, three percent, five percent. But I don't think it's the cause. I don't think we can control what God controls.
It's doesn't really matter when someone like FaceMan denies climate change, but this absurdly deluded luddite is in a serious position of power.
The fact that do many people need centre link support and food stamps in the US is insane. That's around 32% of Australia's population, and 15% in the US that can't even afford food on their own!?
The fact that do many people need centre link support and food stamps in the US is insane. That's around 32% of Australia's population, and 15% in the US that can't even afford food on their own!?
Australia's Centrelink payments aren't generally for direct survival afaik, more like special rebates/bonuses/etc as mentioned above, or for those studying/skilling up.
The situation in the US is pretty nuts, the previous richest man Warren Buffet described it as class warfare by the rich (continuously lobbying to have their taxes lowered etc). Basically nearly all of the country's money has gone to a very small group, a few of who are now whining about the responsibility which they earned for themselves where somebody needs to pay for much of the working class's basic needs (as best I can tell).
the government tells community, it's ok even if you don't work or work in a low paid job, we will top you up.
don't bother aspiring for the higher paid job - just sign up for the handout.
Way to miss the point infi, 'director' at your father's company, telling others that they're just lazy good for nothing leeches who clearly didn't work as hard as you.
so my comments would have been valid while I was an employee in private sector or as a public servant - but it becomes invalid when I work in a family company. That's some breathtaking logic right there - your own employment status dictates the validity of your logic argument.
Keep the classics coming Nerfy - it all sounds like class envy - very bitter.
You post many of these wealth hating charts Nerfy. I am sure if you posted a chart by real estate ownership it would be similar. Have you ever thought that is the inherent nature of humans.
Are you suggesting that the chart you posted actually should be different? How should it be broken up? Who should determine this? Are you suggesting wealth should be stripped from high wealth individuals? What point are you exactly making from this chart?
I will keep asking you this because you have not once yet answered me properly.
Only on QGL could someone make a literal bootstraps argument with a straight face.
Only on QGL could the person making that argument be in a position where he inherited everything and been a part of murky little dealings to get there as well.
don't bother aspiring for the higher paid job - just sign up for the handout.
Hahahaha. Says the guy who got the handout of there being a family company which would hire him for a higher paid job. Yeah, I'm sure that you were totally hired for a directors position at your father's company on merit, that wasn't at all a 'handout'.
Newsflash you judgemental douche, I was helped via centrelink while aspiring for a better job and life when gaining my engineering degree. Being born less rich than you doesn't mean that I have any lower aspirations, it just means that it's a much steeper climb up, and that I will get almost no help along the way.
people who work subsidising people who don't.
And what about when they are working, while those such as Rinehart keep arguing to push the minimum wage down (on the 'earn your way like me' fantasy bullshit which you also espouse), even below a livable rate? In your theoretical imagination version of what real life careers are like for most people, do you actually imagine that you would out-compete everybody else if you started the same? That you wouldn't be with us being judged as not being good enough in every political discourse by those in your current position?
wealth hating charts
No. Try again. How many times do I have to tell you that I am in business and work a great deal towards building wealth, and respect those that do, before you will stop repeating the same hysterical straw man like a retarded child who can't understand what real world issues are being spoken about?
I'm not envious of you. If I had what you had I would turn out as shelteredly retarded as most of you rich kids and your insane self-serving randian egos, thinking that you actually earned your way while everybody else is just lazy.
I am bitter, but not out of envy, mostly due to the constant demeaning bullshit from your type who like to play pretend make believe at being what I actually am - a hard worker who is earning his own way - and continue to destroy the meritocracy not because you're greedy, but because you're just completely out of touch and actually believe that all anybody has to do to get to your position is whatever you did - i.e. be born into it.
Have you ever thought that is the inherent nature of humans.
What?
What point are you exactly making from this chart?
If you had actually read what I was responding to, you would know. Try again?
Please explain infi. Are you comparing Newstart Allowance to having a high paid job?
If you listen to people like infi/bill oreilly, you'd get the impression that being broke enough to qualify for government assistance is some glorious unearned lifestyle akin to their trust funds.
i'm not really, i've just watched you seeth at anything relating to someone with more money than you since you first signed up to this forum. it's quite hilarious
its a bit funny, that someone who has been given so much (by daddy) rages over the government doing the right/same thing and helping out less fortunate types.
i'm not really, i've just watched you seeth at anything relating to someone with more money than you since you first signed up to this forum. it's quite hilarious
It's always been over this same attitude, which I've been encountering for years. Though I'm preettty sure that I've watched you be an ass to me over a million issues for several years, so pretty much doubt that you're really motivated by just that now.
Can you explain your question in a way which is relevant to anything which I was talking about? It makes no sense.
You're railing against the wealthy but aspiring to grow your business and become wealthy yourself, yes? I was just wondering at what point the apparent jealousy streak would start to fade.
I don't mind if you don't answer my question because it was tongue in cheek, but you glossed over infi's more substantial questions - Should the chart be different? If yes, how should the percentages look? Who gets to decide how it looks? Should wealth be taken away, and if so then how much and who should get it and why?
In the case of the USA wealthy individuals paying a little more tax than they are now does sound like it's a bit overdue, but do you think that would change the percentages in your chart significantly? Simply pointing the finger at the wealthy and saying 'look how much they've got' also fails to address all of the other causes of income inequality such as reducing wasteful spending, investments in science, education, workforce participation and competitiveness.
You're railing against the wealthy but aspiring to grow your business and become wealthy yourself, yes?
Hahaha no. You obviously haven't read anything that I said, instead seeing what you wanted to be there.
I am not 'railing against the wealthy', I am railing against dangerous (and mostly insulting) ideologue bullshitters who make up a portion of the wealthy (the less meritable and more judgemental part), but also a lot of the non-wealthy (e.g. tea party'ists). In the same way that I rail against bullshitters in many areas. Again, my problem is with the derision of those not being born into money as being "obviously lazy and coddled by the government" when the people saying it are near exclusively those who were coddled and given freedom from ever having to compete. They're loud, insulting, and all around grade A fucking delusional morons.
How many times do I have to say that I admire many of the wealthy? You don't all get to hide under that banner, calling yourselves self-made hard workers, and screaming "an attack on me for my bullshit is an attack on the wealthy!", because many wealthy people share my point of view. I suppose you think that Clive Palmer was 'railing against the wealthy' when he offered Gina Rinehart a reality check? Are 'the wealthy' a class so fragile and special, that they need to resort to that kind of cheap conservation stopper?
you glossed over infi's more substantial questions
Because he also can't read and took a completely different meaning to why I brought it up, because he's also not able to discuss any issues relating to this in an honest way, and so tries to twist the conversation for cheap attacks about positions which I don't hold, as you just did.
Should the chart be different? If yes, how should the percentages look? Who gets to decide how it looks?
Well according to Greenspan, Buffett, etc, yes, but I don't really care. It's irrelevant to anything which I've talked about.
Simply pointing the finger at the wealthy and saying 'look how much they've got'
And guess what, I never did that, it's just an anti-capitalist/hippie/jealous characterture which you types summon up to avoid having to face any criticism of your fantasy which you don't want to hear (e.g. when the most successful investor and capitalist in the world Warren Buffett was screamed at as being a socialist when he began to discuss the problem).
I'm half agreeing with you, in America shit's fucked up yo and putting on the rose coloured glasses by going back to Reagan and Bush style policies is almost certainly a daft solution, though if anyone is summoning caricatures:
They're loud, insulting, and all around grade A fucking delusional morons.
the fakes just call him a communist and continue on with their destructive and loud Randian cult
That's not a caricature, if you paid attention you would see that it actually happens, and that there are many people noticing it (Buffet on that, Obama on that). You can look at Rinehart, or Romney, or infi, etc, they all actually believe their bullshit and say it with a straight face. That's the only way in which they can process their position in life, not by recognising their advantages and free gifts and freedom from having to compete, but by actively and viciously putting down everybody else as 'obviously lazy' and going on about how helping people will ruin them - despite these people having been helped more than anybody else on the planet. They actually believe that is how the world is, and not that those in the lower classes are also real people, with real aspirations, who face a dramatically tougher climb up with lower chances of ever succeeding.
Upper/Ruling Class 101 - Don't tell the poor how to live\spend or squeeze them too hard, haven't they learnt anything from the French revolution!?
I agree; it seems, mostly due to the republican party of late, that the fundamental balance of wealth dispersal, mostly through taxation, has become quite imbalanced in the USA. If you look at the core of Obama's platform it's all about removing that imbalance and getting it more proportionate. I agree with it, and I think most people here do. When you add all the other gross social and structure issues the US has (healthcare, offshoring, unemployment, etc), it really compounds their problems.
It doesn't seem like theres a similar state of affairs in Aus?
Nerfy; you're coming across pretty frothy mouthed atm. You do seem to have a inherent hatred or resentment of the rich, this isn't abnormal though, most non-rich people have it to some extent. It's also true that infi seems a bit too classically ill-judged rich person; it is wrong to assume everyone is lazy and welfare or a social safety net of some version does nothing but perpetuate that.
Upper/Ruling Class 102 - Understand the lower clases and the role they play! Or, keep the serfs occupied/happy.
As always the answer is in the middle somewhere innit.
Obama's platform it's all about removing that imbalance and getting it more proportionate. I agree with it
Whereas Romney is specifically looking to cut the inheritance tax, as a comparison.
Nerfy; you're coming across pretty frothy mouthed atm.
I know but don't care, I am passionate for good reason.
You do seem to have a inherent hatred or resentment of the rich
Well I don't, having listed many who I admire. I only have an inherent hatred and resentment of demeaning idiots who keep trying to steal away capitalistic opportunity for the majority under the guise of being pro-capitalism, where really they're pro-plutocracy (the exact same as the richest capitalist in the world Warren Buffett pointed out - he also got called a wealth hating socialist).
On a related note, Joss Whedon thinks that knowing about Parkour will be the sign of a survivor, and I've played a lot of Assassin's Creed II.
That's fair do's, I'm anti-plutocracy and am somewhat in favour of social capitalism from the little I've read so far.
I also agree the 'trickle down' theory doesn't seem to work that well in practise, and as we've seen in abundance, many of the wealthy people trusted with that responsibility act irresponsibly or in their own interests and further detriment the society/economy.
If you follow American politics you would have heard of Ann Coulter, a writer who is very right wing. Hear what she has to say about middle-eastern countries in this week old video with Bill Maher:
Jesus she really does just come across as someone who is angry and very confused, and tries to be aggressive in an attempt to cover up those flaws, much like how Bill O'Reilly often comes across.
It's OK to use 'retard' even though people use it in a wholly offensive way because... the word police... but not nigger? Great logic! Yeah she seems awesome FaceMan!!
Similarly the article you linked to makes almost as little sense, guys say to other guys to 'calm down' all the time, but if you say it to a woman then you're being sexist? And then in almost the same breath she apparently says that they should reconsider allowing young people and women to vote?
Infi is enjoying a cycle of Family Wealth, whilst most people are stuck on personal wealth.
Family wealth > personal wealth.
We should all be striving to build family wealth, so that following generations of family can have a wealthier lifestyle. Part of building family wealth is to be sure to teach your children (and thiers) the importance of it, so they continue on the building instead of blowing it all.
It will take many generations for the lowest income earners to build any kind of family wealth, however if they don't start it wont happen. I personally belive the government should be setting up systems to build this kind of wealth.
Pretty sure Tollaz0r is trolling, but can't quite tell :/
Boy do I get shitted off with the Christian "must be a family" attitude, like being an individual makes you a second-class citizen and having kids is a right.
I don't think so, I agree with what he said. There is nothing wrong with being self made, but for example you have a huge advantage if your parents can send you to uni without you getting in to debt and having to waste precious study time in a menial job. Family wealth doesn't just necessarily mean you have to take over the family business.
Nope, you have massively missed the point about what is wrong with the things which infi/rinehart/romney/bush/etc have said. That those pretend self-made entrepreneurs who were created from unimaginably massive handouts call everybody who is less advantaged as being evidently lazy handout-addicted bludgers without aspirations. It glorifies them for what they really haven't earned (on the false logic that all wealth is a sign of hard work in all cases), and insults everybody else (and looks to make dangerous political moves based on that broken logic). They even attack real and dramatically more successful entrepreneurs who don't play into their we-inheritors-are-heroes bullshit narrative, e.g. Buffett/Obama/Gates/etc - people who are actually self made.
It will take many generations for the lowest income earners to build any kind of family wealth, however if they don't start it wont happen.
Yeah because that's totally going to happen with the growing separation of wealth, and the political bullshit behind it.
Family wealth > personal wealth
I'm sorry, but after having seen the mess of recent decades*, some of us believe in simple things like a world built on some measure of merit and allowing our best to flourish, rather than returning back to peasants trapped under royalty. I for one believe in capitalism and entrepreneurialism, not classes and castes, it's led to some dramatically improving periods in human history.
*e.g. Romney who was gifted with at least a million dollars in today's money while in college, goes on about how people have no initiative because of handouts, when it would take multiple lifetimes on government handouts while barely surviving to match the first handout which he got just while in college - the dude is outright crazy and his success is a sham, in a way which is becoming increasingly evident to many people.
kos: Ann Coulter saying women shouldn't get the vote really has little do with women's rights, it's simply about her political agenda. If more women voted Republican and just accepted their transvaginal ultrasound without complaining about it she'd have no issue.
I agree with Faceman, she'd be a fantastic panelist on Q&A. :D
Family wealth doesn't just necessarily mean you have to take over the family business.
and this is where nerfy's very spiteful comment is totally off target. if not for me my family's company would need someone else to run it with exactly my qualifications.
i earn less than the industry average for my position. so i don't really get what nerfy's gettting at. i provide labour for money just like he does.
he just hates the idea that some people inherit stuff later in life when their parents die. it is such an offensive idea to him.
nerfy do you advocate death duties?
what is the point of posting all of your wealth inequality charts?
Nerfy are you suggesting we should have wealth equality? Are you suggesting that people go and earn a ton of dough and then be required give it to others (via the govt) so we can all have equal wealth? Should every person be given a house for example?
Nerfy if you are hateful of people who accumulate wealth over generations but not hateful of people who are self made can you please answer these two questions:
- are self-made people allowed to become "wealthy"?
- what are self-made wealthy people supposed to do with their wealth in your wealth hating world. I AM PARTICULARLY KEEN ON THIS ANSWER
I would be scared to live in Nerfy's world full of rules telling people what they can and cannot do with their own earned assets. Western civilisation developed out of a rule of law and respect for property rights.
Now Nerfy wants to just take assets from people who have earned them and give them to people who have not earned.
Nerfy also objects to the concept of hereditary assets. Nerfy are you saying that people cannot choose what they do with their assets? Do you suggest that on death they should all be forfeited to the government?
Your quite frankly bizarre outlook on life intrigues me so I want to be perfectly clear with it.
I don't know what the best bit of this thread is - hilarious comments made by far-right advocates, spidz occasional little sook about how we aren't being fair by mentioning far-left advocates as well, or infi's little 'me me me' tirades.
I think the worst part is where infi repeatedly tries to straw man me as holding positions which I don't, and have said so several times now, while completely avoiding the criticism of his bullshit political positions and judgements of other people.
infi, learn to read dude, for like the 9th time now.
Now Nerfy wants to just take assets from people who have earned them and give them to people who have not earned.
The inability of your type to face what other people have actually said and criticized you for is embarrassing. Show me where I said anything about that, you two dimensional ideological crazyface?
You can't answer very direct and simple questions.
Why do you want me to defend positions which aren't mine and have already told you a dozen times? Can your type really not stand up for your ideology and judgements without deflecting criticism to an interrogation of a two dimensional false characterture who was never here?
If they aren't your position then answer then questions accordingly. Plenty of users on this board perceive you as a jealous wealth hating socialist who wants the government to control all our assets like2 they somehow know best.
Hey think of it like this: by answering my questions you will have an opportunity to post most wealth inequality charts! :)
If they aren't your position then answer then questions accordingly.
... I did, by saying that those aren't my positions.
Plenty of users on this board perceive you as a jealous wealth hating socialist who wants the government to control all our assets like2 they somehow know best.
Yes, there are a few insane ideological morons on this forum who are very difficult to talk to about real world issues. I'm trying to understand how one of them possibly holds these positions in the face of criticism, but am just getting some extremely slippery hysterical bullshit. As expected really.
It is, unless you are confusing passion for idealogical ridiculousness such as responding to any criticism about the rubbish which they say with bullshit like "jealous wealth hating socialist who wants the government to control all our assets".
Nerfy, you keep saying to infi 'your type' - what exactly is that 'type' you seem to be so happy to make generalisations about?
The pushers of the flawed and vicious ideology are those such as Mitt Romney, Gina Rinehart, the Koch brothers, the Bush family, etc. C. Wright Mills summed it up - "Nobody talks more of free enterprise and competition and of the best man winning than the man who inherited his father's store or farm." - basically they're liars, going on about hard work and merit got them to where they are, which others therefore obviously lack (see how Rinehart thinks that her wealth comes from hard work and not being lazy like most Australians, impossibly conveniently skipping over that she was the only child of Australia's largest mining magnate who gave her the world's largest iron ore deposit, or how the Bush family members each describe themselves as self made men. If you agree with them, then you would be wrong, and probably naive to the real world).
Most of these people come from enormous handouts (in money and opportunity), yet go on about the evils of fractional sized equivalents to keep people off the street. They're a bunch of assholes who have pushed the political agenda in recent decades, and need to be told to stfu at every stop when they try to preach their bullshit philosophy and further their delusions about being better than everybody else. Or has been said about many of these people - "Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple."
The worst part though, is when self made men such as Obama, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, etc, disagree with them, these pretend capitalists/pretend entrepreneurs start screaming at the real ones (who are vastly more successful too) that they don't love capitalism, hate wealth, etc. (hell, infi pulled that right out of the hat today, calling me a 'wealth hater' (wtf?), because I don't agree with his classic inheritor's bullshit view of the world).
Boy do I get shitted off with the Christian "must be a family" attitude, like being an individual makes you a second-class citizen and having kids is a right.
Wow, what?
You have to be Christian to understand the benefits of a strong family unit across multiple generations???
Also, at what point did I say anything about second-class citizens.
All I said was that Family wealth is superior to individual wealth. I say this on the basis that with a well set up family trust (and a nurturing family upbringing) each generation will enjoy a stronger wealth position to the generation previous. Unless something stuffs it up, probably a greedy family member, hopefully the trust is set-up to mitigate any damages caused.
Another way to put it. A large, growing sum of money can benefit more than one person across multiple generations that just happen to be a family (maybe even Christian).
edit: Gees Nerf, you sound pretty pissed off you didn't get hand-me-down. Maybe instead of whinging about people who did, of which your whinging will fall on deaf uncaring ears, you setup your next-of-kin for when you pass. Seriously, you are not going to convince the Rhino of anything no matter how loud you shout or how angry you get. You best just get on with life and enjoy what it has to offer instead of getting so damn angry.
Nerfy's hatred for intergenerational wealth shows his complete disrespect for property rights.
He cites wealth inequality charts but doesn't suggest how it should be different.
Nerfy states he is working for himself obviously trying to get ahead in the world yet he resents others who have done it successfully then want to hand it onto their children to expand their endeavours again?
Are you suggesting that people go and earn a ton of dough and then be required give it to others (via the govt) so we can all have equal wealth? Should every person be given a house for example?
Just because you set up this bullshit argument, doesn't mean that the exact opposite is now the correct way things should be.
Western civilisation developed out of a rule of law and respect for property rights.
Thats the only thing it developed out of? I'd say a small thing called communismty came first.
why did you cite the wealth inequality charts? just to have a woe is me grumble?
You serious? I've answered this how many times now?
To a) Show that the whining about there not being enough capital opportunity for job creation by those who are already wealthy is laughibly rubbish compared to the opportunities which exist for everybody else, who's opportunities you lot never have a cry about.
and b) Explaining why even people who are working may need to be on food stamps in the US, when most of the nation's productive wealth is going to a very small group, to the point where they may have to be taxed so that the royalty feed their working peasants. It's disgusting and not a society for generating entrepreneurs from anybody but a very small (and often sheltered and less meritable) group - either those who are real entrepreneurs and saying that they don't need it, or those who inherited their way and giving this huge spiel about 'hating wealth' and 'hating merit' and all this other irrelevant bullshit which couldn't be further from the truth.
Romney's desire to dismantle FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) and make it state level (or possibly private) is coming back to bite him in the ass.
So Nerf, the tl;dr version is: A section of wealthy individuals are hoarding and are either self deluded or being intentionally deceptive. It's purportedly not a good state of affairs for the working class and 'real' entrepreneurs.
From what I can gather you have nothing against property rights and inter-generational wealth transfer so the first thing you'd propose to rectify the situation is ____________?
I hope you don't make too much money yourself that you leave any for your kids Nerfy.
Many of these 'trust fund' babies are nurtured and educated by their successful parents to understand the value of hard work, often while they are given every opportunity not neccessarily offered to everyone, they are still made to earn every dollar they ever get.
I work hard so I can provide opportunities for my kids that I may not have had, and thats not saying my own parents didn't do the same - but there is a tipping point somewhere in the generational line where someone hits the jackpot and generations to follow get more opportunity.
While Gina Rinehart for example, has been given a blessed life and opportunity, I don't think anyone with any knowledge of her business could say with a straight face that she doesn't work incredibly hard.
Success often breeds success, some people by nature love to work and to build things. Why the hell does Rupert Murdoch still go into the office every day? Why the hell does James Packer or Lachlan Murdoch work 12 hour days?
I'm not sure I can say categorically I would if I had been put in their positions, I probably would sit on my arse and do nothing. This is probably a sign that these guys have had the benefits of hard work instilled in them from a young age.
Gina Rinehart didn't need to turn $100m and her Iron Ore deposits into a fortune potentially greater than any other. Kerry Packer didn't need to turn his inherited wealth into billions and so on.
For every one of these people you despise so greatly for taking advantage of the opportunities they were afforded, there is probably 30 slackers who did inherit $100m, never worked a day in their life and may leave nothing for whatever unfortunate offspring they produce.
For every Gina Rinehart, there are probably 30 Tamara Ecclestones, so your hatred is probably misdirected a little.
It's right here, it's not that hard to understand what I'm talking about. Keep trying, eventually you will grasp it. :P
spidz, you're still not following what was being spoken about. Take all the two dimensional ideological attack characters out of it, read again with an unbiased mind. I can't answer most of that because it's got sfa to do with what I said that my problem with them was.
(And I'm sure that Rinehart worked very hard to make the price of iron go up after inheriting the largest iron ore deposit in the world and an established leading mining company, I should take tips from her when she calls people like me not wealthy like her due to my obvious laziness! If only we worked harder on the fantastic opportunities of each of our inherited largest iron ore deposits in the world, that's where she was so smart to not make our mistake, and her scathing advice is so informed and useful. The annoying bit is that you obviously discount the opinions of self made billionaires such as Clive Palmer who also agree with me on this, as I said that's how proponents of this fantastical reality-detachment ideology always operate)
It's right here, it's not that hard to understand what I'm talking about. Keep trying, eventually you will grasp it. :P
I've read the thread and myself and others have asked numerous clarifying questions on where you stand, but you tend to avoid the questions and then post another wall of text on a tangent. If you don't have ideas or want to put any forward on how to alleviate the worlds economic problems, it's ok. Complaining about the state of affairs can give the impression that you have proposals in mind.
If you simply want to indulge in a bit of whinging about entitled rich people Nerf, there's nothing to be ashamed about. Embrace it!
What is wrong with you? You keep sneering at me for not defending these two dimensional things which have nothing to do with what I've said? It seems that I may have upset the smug ideologues by pointing out how little their bullshit holds up to a little criticism from reality.
I keep clarifying what my position is, and then you guys keep going back to trying to say that I'm talking about something else (apparently saying that people like infi who are insulting many hard working people are full of shit leads to you interrogating me on why I haven't also put forward an economic policy? As if you're dodging the point and trying to pin me on something completely different?)
To a) Show that the whining about there not being enough capital opportunity for job creation by those who are already wealthy is laughibly rubbish compared to the opportunities which exist for everybody else, who's opportunities you lot never have a cry about.
and b) Explaining why even people who are working may need to be on food stamps in the US, when most of the nation's productive wealth is going to a very small group, to the point where they may have to be taxed so that the royalty feed their working peasants. It's disgusting and not a society for generating entrepreneurs from anybody but a very small (and often sheltered and less meritable) group
a) Rich people are spruiking bullshit, got it. b) Poor people are having to rely on rich people more and that's bad for everyone, got it. If you're not just having a whinge, then what do you propose we as a society do about these two problems? I'm not trying to pin you, I'm just asking a question.
Well that was about why I had posted the graph as infi kept trying to claim was about something annoyingly ridiculous, not what I was talking about in the rest of the thread, in relation to Romney-like views built on delusions, and the people who vote for them.
If you're not just having a whinge, then what do you propose we as a society do about these two problems? I'm not trying to pin you, I'm just asking a question.
I've already said, stand up to their delusional bullshit and call it out every time that they try to preach it, it's a huge political movement which just needs some dissenting voices. They've been misleading tons of people with their propaganda, I'd bet that half the of the passionate people in the tea party movement would switch the direction of their rage if they understood the breakdown of merit and handouts as I have come to.
Nerfy's view of the world reminds me a lot of Michael Moore: he loves to hate on people who are in his eyes making too much money. He doesn't mind making a bit of cashola himself though.
Nerfy still hasn't answered his views on hereditary passing of wealth. Since it is so offensive should it be legislated against? Should is be redistributed to more "needy" people?
Nerfy's view of the world reminds me a lot of Michael Moore: he loves to hate on people who are in his eyes making too much money. He doesn't mind making a bit of cashola himself though.
Nerfy still hasn't answered his views on hereditary passing of wealth. Since it is so offensive should it be legislated against? Should is be redistributed to more "needy" people?
It's pretty funny watching infi completely ignore everything Nerf says and just repeating the same bullshit over and over. Though I suspect that's partly Nerf's fault for being so long winded and emotional all the time.
As far as I understand it infi: - he doesn't have a problem with people making money at all, even fuckloads of it!
- he has a problem with people who make money from a privileged starting position of unearned capital claiming that people who haven't had the same privileged start are just lazy or haven't tried hard enough
(whereas it's entirely possible that less privileged people have worked as hard or harder and just not had the capital to back it up).
Or at least that's how I understand it from the vague skimming I've been doing.
- he has a problem with people who make money from a privileged starting position of unearned capital claiming that people who haven't had the same privileged start are just lazy or haven't tried hard enough
1. that's a very specific point that has nothing to do with the graphs he has being posting. those cite an inequality which by implication he is alluding needs to be addressed.
2. it is a logically flawed point because its truth is reliant on the financial position of the subject. the laziness or otherwise of someone is not dependent on the wealth of the subject.
Totally unsurprising video showing how children – by far the most selfish of people with no concern for the affairs of anyone but themselves – act in a very similar way to the Republican point of view.
Yeah that's kind of the conclusion I came to from Nerfy's points.
Agree Infi is being a bit of illogical debater, oh you!
he has a problem with people who make money from a privileged starting position of unearned capital claiming that people who haven't had the same privileged start are just lazy or haven't tried hard enough
I think what he's really against is the people who do this and also abuse their position of privilege, e.g. being trusted with the 'trickle down' theory responsibility and waste it by furthering their own interests and not the economy/society at large. People that don't do this, and instead work hard with their privilege and don't actively seek to push the poor further into poverty are fantastic.
At least this is how I see it and I agree with this; rich people who just increase their own wealth and actively detriment the economy/society are the problem, certainly when we're applying a 'trickle down' theory en-mass!!
2. it is a logically flawed point because its truth is reliant on the financial position of the subject. the laziness or otherwise of someone is not dependent on the wealth of the subject.
Isn't that his exact point though? That it is logically flawed?
I think what he's really against is the people who do this and also abuse their position of privilege, e.g. being trusted with the 'trickle down' theory responsibility and waste it by furthering their own interests and not the economy/society at large. People that don't do this, and instead work hard with their privilege and don't actively seek to push the poor further into poverty are fantastic.
Ah, that makes more sense, I don't think I read far enough into the thread to get to that.
spidz, you're still not following what was being spoken about. Take all the two dimensional ideological attack characters out of it, read again with an unbiased mind. I can't answer most of that because it's got sfa to do with what I said that my problem with them was.
OK Nerf Lord (lol Lord, you know what the word means right? irony++) Anyway, Spidz mentioned a very well balanced point. These people did work hard. Rhino didn't need to do any work what-so-ever to live a lavish lifestyle. She chose to work and build her fortune up. Sure she didn't have to break ground with a pick axe, instead she did other stuff. Stuff you and I probably have no idea how to do.
Yes the iron ore prices went up nicely. She jumped on the opportunity afforded to her, Lazy people tend not to do that.
Anyway, your opinion is obviously set in stone and nothing will change it at all. So good day to you sir, may fortune prick you and you be open minded enough to see it.
Yes the iron ore prices went up nicely. She jumped on the opportunity afforded to her
How clever of her! To have the largest iron deposit in the world and sell it when iron ore prices went up. We should take notes, since we're all clearly such impossibly moronic people to not do that.
Lazy people tend not to do that.
You've drank too much of the ideological koolaid dude. 'Lazy people' all had the equivalent of the world's largest iron ore deposit and leading australian mining company which they just failed to make use of, am I right? All those teachers, doctors, nurses, engineers, cleaners, small business owners, etc, don't work as hard as Gina, that's the significant explanation for the difference in their outcomes. /s
Why is it so hard for some of you to grasp the simple reality that the world is not fair? Why do you have to pretend that it is and put down so many people?
instead she did other stuff. Stuff you and I probably have no idea how to do.
Worship her 'rich therefore obviously better' nature more. You'll notice that real self made innovators never stop creating new companies in a huge number of areas, e.g. Elon Musk with PayPal/SpaceX/Tesla, Steven Jobs with Apple/Pixer/Smart Phones/etc, Richard Branson with his line from music to space, Bill Gates from Software to Vaccines to Nuclear Energy, Clive Palmer from Real Estate to Coal Mining. Now Gina, who had a full company given to her with the largest iron deposit in the world already owned, who may have had some work to do (don't we all?), with a fleet of advisers, capital, and top notch education, still has never founded a single company. Yeah, she's a shining example of entrepreneurialism, innovation, and hard work.
You've drank too much of the ideological koolaid dude. 'Lazy people' all had the equivalent of the world's largest iron ore deposit and leading australian mining company which they just failed to make use of, am I right? All those teachers, doctors, nurses, engineers, cleaners, small business owners, etc, don't work as hard as Gina, that's the significant explanation for the difference in their outcomes. /s
Why is it so hard for some of you to grasp the simple reality that the world is not fair? Why do you have to pretend that it is and put down so many people?
Teachers, doctors, nurses and engineers would find it hard to get through their degree if they are lazy. Cleaners are certainly not lazy, in fact most people pale in comparison to those that do night shift cleaning everyone's filthy workplaces. Small business owners cant afford to be lazy. ETC.
When did I ever say the world is fair? The only thing fair about it is that you have just as much capacity as Gina to allow what thoughts pass through your mind (and thus shape your reality).
You have assumed, more then once, incorrect information about supposedly derived from what I have written. You have inserted, incorrectly, entire philosophical points such as
Why is it so hard for some of you to grasp the simple reality that the world is not fair?
Again, I stress I never said it was fair, nor implied it. In fact the whole idea of Family wealth is to get an 'unfair' advantage over those that don't do it.
My question to you is (and more for you to think on then answer);
If you so easily made incorrect and very large assumptions about what I believe, what other assumptions have you made about people and what they have done with their life?
Just to get you started, you have made an awful lot of assumptions about Gina of which you seem to take as truth. Those assumptions you probably don't have the facts available to judge correctly.
Yer Gina said some rubbish, stuff I don't agree on. However I would say she has worked plenty to build her fortune up from what was well kick started for her.
So stop your whinging and get on with life, play the cards you have been dealt to their maximum. As I would hazard a guess that people in 3rd world countries look at people like you, like you look at people like Gina.
O also,
Worship her 'rich therefore obviously better' nature more.
Again, a false assumption, I never said she is better than anyone. Building up and keeping her fortunes doing whatever it is she does would certainly take skills that I do not have, just as much as she would have no clue how to do my job.
If you think you can do the job of a CEO's of major multi-billion company than why the hell are you not doing that, it certainly pays better?
I've already said, stand up to their delusional bullshit and call it out every time that they try to preach it, it's a huge political movement which just needs some dissenting voices. They've been misleading tons of people with their propaganda, I'd bet that half the of the passionate people in the tea party movement would switch the direction of their rage if they understood the breakdown of merit and handouts as I have come to.
What delusional bullshit? Rinehart is probably a dumb example, because she really does say some stupid shit, but as I said earlier there are thousands of mega wealthy people who haven't lifted a finger in their lives that we never hear from, yet you choose to point out the flaws of the very few who are politically active, happened to be extremely wealthy (often from a good capital starting point) and think their opinion is of no value.
As obscene to you as Rinehart, or Twiggy Forrest, or even self made men like Clive Palmer and Nathan Tinkler are - their opinions are very relevant. These people control private enterprise that is currently driving an economy that would otherwise be in recession, they are not just creating wealth for themselves, they are also some of Australia's largest job creators and employers who are making average joes who can drive a truck very very wealthy, more specifically, those average joes are are prepared to work boody hard.
Your narrow minded and niaive view of Rinehart is mind boggling. If it was so easy, everyone else would have done it. Nathan Tinkler started with nothing, yet he apparently made 'easy money' by buying mining leases? Rinehart didn't just inherit a bunch of iron ore deposits, sit there waiting for the price to go up and then start mining them. They involved in exploration, maintenance and negotiation of mining leases that could possibly be worth nothing, raising of capital to actually dig the stuff out of the ground, turning tenous leases into revenue producing mines rather than captial intensive leases.
some of her mining tenements in Roy Hill were actually secured by her, not her father or anyone else. She personally negotiated the Hope Downs exploration agreeement with the WA state Govt, she applied for the Roy Hill tenement after Lang Hancock died and it was secured 2 years after his death. Same goes for the Alpha Coal Tenements in the Gaillee Basin, secured in 1996, 4 years after he fathers death.
She is also Australia's largest charity donor, which would be expected given she is the wealthiest person by some margin.
All those teachers, doctors, nurses, engineers, cleaners, small business owners, etc, don't work as hard as Gina, that's the significant explanation for the difference in their outcomes. /s
I highly doubt Rinehart or other billionaires have a problem with doctors, nurses, engineers, cleaners or successful small business operators. I think people have a problem with people sitting on the couch collecting the dole watching Foxtel on their 50" plasma, then whining about how much money the bloke enxt door has.
Sometimes working hard does not equal success. You start a small business, work as hard as you like, but if its a dumb idea it aint going to fly. You should own that, no handouts for you.
Teachers, doctors, nurses and engineers would find it hard to get through their degree if they are lazy. Cleaners are certainly not lazy, in fact most people pale in comparison to those that do night shift cleaning everyone's filthy workplaces. Small business owners cant afford to be lazy. ETC.
Yer Gina said some rubbish, stuff I don't agree on.
Good, so we agree.
However I would say she has worked plenty to build her fortune up from what was well kick started for her.
Here's where you're missing the point. Most everybody works hard, yet people like infi/rinehart/romney/etc are trying to build a political platform on the assumption that most people are lazy scum, on the assumption that their position is a reflection of their superior hard work over everybody else. To say that hard work is the main factor in gina rinehart's position, or even one worth mentioning, is delusional. You may disagree, but you'd be wrong.
If you think you can do the job of a CEO's of major multi-billion company than why the hell are you not doing that, it certainly pays better?
Hey I'm trying to work towards just that. Are you now saying that people like Gina get to their positions by merit? :P
re: Spidz
As obscene to you as Rinehart, or Twiggy Forrest, or even self made men like Clive Palmer and Nathan Tinkler are - their opinions are very relevant.
You haven't really been reading haven't you? I've specifically been quoting Palmer who agrees with me on this, and don't find him obscene for his wealth.
The rest of your ideological spiel is so far off the point that I don't know how to deal with your reading comprehension.
Nerf are you still feeling insulted by Gina Rinhart's poorly conceived and poorly worded talking head rant about Australia's global competitiveness from a few months back? She was discredited at the time for making stupid comparisons so we've all moved on.
Nerf are you still feeling insulted by Gina Rinhart's poorly conceived and poorly worded talking head rant about Australia's global competitiveness from a few months back. She was discredited at the time for making stupid comparisons so we've all moved on.
Oh look, it's Dazhel thinking that he's being clever again while having no idea what anybody is talking about.
Romney said his role "is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
The best quote which I've seen on this is "Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple."
All I'm asking is that people start listening to the real entrepreneurs, not the fakes who are ridiculously spiteful out of their naive fantasies of being self made, confusing their being wealthy with necessarily having been better and more hard working than everybody else, failing to recognise that they were born into it and have never done anything particularly outstanding themselves for their enormous opportunities.
To say that hard work is the main factor in gina rinehart's position, or even one worth mentioning, is delusional. You may disagree, but you'd be wrong.
Again, the assumptions. I didn't say it was a main factor, I simply said she probably does work hard.
Are you now saying that people like Gina get to their positions by merit
No, instead they maintain their positions by merit. Plenty of rich people have lost their entire wealth because they were stupid.
edit:
All I'm asking is that people start listening to the real entrepreneurs, not the fakes who are ridiculously spiteful out of their naive fantasies of being self made, confusing their being wealthy with necessarily having been better and more hard working than everybody else
Have you not seen the reaction by the majority of people who hear what is said about these 'fakes'? Particularly the stuff you have highlighted? The majority point and laugh, then move on. The media plays it up a bit because it sells.
In fact, people like you who keep harping on about month old, stupid quotes keep those stories in headlines further increasing the unlikely chance that some more people will take it seriously. When if you just let it go, the quotes will fade into obscurity rather quickly.
Are you now saying that people like Gina get to their positions by merit
No, instead they maintain their positions by merit. Plenty of rich people have lost their entire wealth because they were stupid.
That's not what you said. You challenged me to just go out and get the same, implying that these things are obtained on superior merit and non-laziness, not that many are born into the family who owns the company (the ones who I'm complaining about due to what they've been saying in public - as I've said a million times, I'm fine with the guys who get there on merit! Hell, they could lecture me if they started with a similar background, but they don't, because they're not naive and delusional about the real world).
In fact, people like you who keep harping on about month old, stupid quotes keep those stories in headlines further increasing the unlikely chance that some more people will take it seriously. When if you just let it go, the quotes will fade into obscurity rather quickly.
Da fuck? Have you seen the US polls? Romney is a viable candidate for some unholy reason, when he has no grasp of reality or real wealth creation, and holds opposing views to seemingly all major entrepreneurs.
I fail to understand why any one individual needs that much wealth. What possible good does it serve to society to have one person earning the same income as 50,000 people?
Here's where you're missing the point. Most everybody works hard, yet people like infi/rinehart/romney/etc are trying to build a political platform on the assumption that most people are lazy scum, on the assumption that their position is a reflection of their superior hard work over everybody else.
Are they?
I don't believe they are at all, which is probably why I find it hard to follow your rants.
Thats like saying that crazy republican senator is building a political platform based on the assumption that rape is ok and women shouldn't abort pregnancies that are a result of rape. He isn't doing anything of the sort, he's just a crazy fucking idiot sho should be laughed at. It's not a political platform, it's his personal (and reprehensible) view.
Mate, I'm quite able to understand what everyone is talking about. I hope that you claiming I have no idea makes you feel superior though.
So why did you post what you did? Not superior, just frustrated with the always-irrelevant sneering from a few on this board, and bored enough to ask you to stop.
Are they?
I don't believe they are at all, which is probably why I find it hard to follow your rants.
Thats like saying that crazy republican senator is building a political platform based on the assumption that rape is ok and women shouldn't abort pregnancies that are a result of rape. He isn't doing anything of the sort, he's just a crazy fucking idiot sho should be laughed at. It's not a political platform, it's his personal (and reprehensible) view.
You serious? The difference is that he's not the presidential candidate representing the party's platform...
All I'm asking is that people start listening to the real entrepreneurs, not the fakes who are ridiculously spiteful out of their naive fantasies of being self made, confusing their being wealthy with necessarily having been better and more hard working than everybody else
implying that someone that inherited a capital base cannot be an entrepreneur. lol
you do realise that if you become wealthy and gift your wealth to your children they will not (by your logic) be able to carry on your moral crusade.
the merit of the argument has nothing to do with the wealth of the person putting the point.
I'm trying to get to the crux of your argument. I understand to be a political argument: "don't listen to or vote for parties or individuals to the right of centre because they're uncaring/evil/insulting/crazy or any mix, listen to and vote for parties or individuals to the left of centre instead".
The message is mixed in amongst a bunch of verbose replies and tangents filled with assumptions and generalisations and you keep telling me I'm wrong so I can't be sure.
implying that someone that inherited a capital base cannot be an entrepreneur. lol
I did not. Bill Gates is a child of multi millionaires, and is in my list of top real entrepreneurs, because he's a real entrepreneur.
I understand to be a political argument: "don't listen to or vote for parties or individuals to the right of centre because they're uncaring/evil/insulting/crazy or any mix, listen to and vote for parties or individuals to the left of centre instead".
Nope, it's listen to the right wing, just not the naive pretenders, they're useless and harmful. Do you think that Barack Obama is not right wing? The self made capitalist trying to invest in entrepreneurial opportunities and move back towards merit instead of inheritance, as supported by most of the top capitalists? As I've said, you guys have drank too much the ideological koolaid, and are embarrassing the rest of us in 'the right wing'.
So it's not a political argument, simply "don't listen to these influential individuals because they're uncaring/evil/insulting/crazy or any mix".
I'm intrigued by your distinction between so called 'real entrepreneurs' and 'fake entrepreneurs' - is it their level of arrogance for the little people that demarcates the fake from the real? All of those mentioned in your lists are risking capital in order to build it. How do I spot the real ones from the fake ones?
So it's not a political argument, simply "don't listen to these influential individuals because they're uncaring/evil/insulting/crazy or any mix".
I keep getting false hope that you're not going to straw man me with some position which I don't hold.
I'm throwing me hands up, you guys are amazingly slippery. So keen to defend the viciously judgemental lying inheritors who claim that hard work and not their inheritance or protection from competing in the real world is the notable reason for them being where they are, and ignore all those who have actually built businesses from scratch and done amazingly well for it, such as Palmer, Gates, Buffett, Obama, etc.
Oops I'm wrong again. Did you not effectively say earlier in the thread "don't listen to Romney, Rinehart, the Koch brothers and the Bush family because they're uncaring/evil/insulting/crazy or any mix"? I'm paraphrasing from the various charts and youtube videos but you did refer to them as being delusional, liars and Ayn Rand cultists.
"Uncaring/evil/insulting" is not a paraphrasing of "delusional, liars", and you know that. I'm uncaring/evil/insulting sometimes, but that has no effect on the value of my opinions, as opposed to those of delusional liars.
I'd have the exact same problem with lovey-dovey hippies who base their political assertions on some untruth about them having cured cancer with some herbal powder.
one thing nerfy, you can just write 'drank too much of the koolaid' you don't need the 'ideological' in there because your meaning is obvious from the context of your sentences/argument.
the metaphor of 'drinking the koolaid' itself refers to the holding of beliefs without critically questioning them anyway, so you don't need the superfluous adjective.
to be honest, you could simplify your language a HELL of a lot and maybe then you wouldn't have so many people 'misunderstanding' you.
A lot of people are understanding me and have said so, seems clear as day to me that the ideological ones are just being difficult and trying to find a way to pin me rather than answering the criticism of their ideology put forward. I've seen it before, criticizing religious assertions gets "you just hate god", it's ridiculous.
I wasn't aware of your crticism of me, or any concerns?
The criticism wasn't of you, it was of the people who you're rushing to defend. As I said, my criticism isn't aimed at wealthy people or anybody who has inherited (Bill Gates is an inheritor for example), it's those who hold these raging judgemental inheritors up as examples of entrepreneurs while ignoring the definitely real entrepreneurs.
Ah fuck it, you know this, and I don't know why I'm trying.
this encapsulates Obama for me. businesspeople don't create business, government creates business.
Way to miss the point. What he's saying is that if you are successful it is partly because other people helped you get there. He's stressing the importance of people of all classes and how we help each other as a community.
If you were successful somebody along the line gave you some help
this encapsulates Obama for me. businesspeople don't create business, government creates business.
He didn't say government creates businesses, he said businesses make use of government infrastructure and services, so a business' success is not a result of an individual effort.
Obama says that without the government infrastructure there would be no business in America. The infrastructure governments build is for the enjoyment of every individual whether they own a business or not. And more often than not business are being taxed up to their eyeballs, and also indu
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