# I hate Conservatives. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 4, 2010, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059 "2010-10-04T23:06:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 23
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/441 "2011-01-02T07:14:45Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > You keep thinking, **Shit-for-Brains**. That’s what you’re good at! And thinking is what you’re absolutely terrible at, Blockhead boypussy. LOL I can spend all year insulting you… or better yet, watching you insult yourself. How many decades have you spent trying to graduate from kindergarten anyway? Is it going on three now? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/442 "2011-01-02T07:33:37Z")
> [@Lord\_Ashtar](#): > > As one who lurks in most of the GD threads that you guys are talking about, I would love to see you cite an example of **gonzomax** pwning **John Mace** , because I sure as hell haven’t seen it happen. Don’t hold your breath. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/443 "2011-01-02T07:33:58Z")
I’d say Blockhead Johnpussy just got his balls cut off by getting put on ignore, but the error in THAT statement would be that he ever had any to begin with. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/444 "2011-01-04T10:02:35Z")
Again with the balls. Seriously, dude, get help. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/445 "2011-01-04T15:21:44Z")
Oh shit, someone just dropped a BOMB in the GD forums. If John Headcase had even 1/100th the IQ that he thinks he has he would be panicking right now. I’m thoroughly _embarrassed_ that I didn’t say it as concisely as this from the start: > **[Is the American way of life either directly or indirectly a hindrance to...](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=591548)** > > I posed the above question in the title to my parents recently and was rather stunned to hear how they rejected outright any such possibility. They almost seemed offended that I could posit forth such a notion, that is was unfathomable to them that... “Is the American way of life directly (or indirectly) a hindrance to other countries’ ways of life?” Why is the answer YES? Because of… you guessed it… the principles behind _offshoring_. If all third world nations became prosperous that would mean their standard of living would increase. In fact, this is a historical fact. Workers in Japan are a _classic_ example. China and India are emerging examples, as is Latin America. Their GDP is going up and so is the average amount of wealth being held by their citizens. The oft-made claim that there are 900 million desperately poor people in China does not negate the fact that China has a growing middle class. Growing, folks, as in growing in numbers. So does India. Their GDP is going up and so is the collective wealth of their citizens. History also shows that the cost of labor in these countries has risen as their standard of living has improved. Japan is a classic example. China and India are emerging examples. They’re even looking at offshoring to places like Eastern Europe and Vietnam _as a direct result of their improving standards of living_. So let’s do some induction here. If the standards of living increase around the entire Third World such that they rise to the level of the First World, their wages will also approach the levels of the First World. History has already demonstrated this with individual countries like Japan. When Third World wages approach First World wages it will become too expensive for offshoring to continue. Emacknight has rigorously argued that this would have a profound effect on the cost of goods. If you cannot find labor priced much below American labor anymore the cost of an iPod will in fact bounce back from $300 to $1500: because when the Third World reaches First World standards of living, you will not be able to find labor anywhere that is cheap enough to keep iPods at $300. Of course I pointed this out to him in a roundabout way but that’s about when he gave up-er, I mean, declared spank. Of course the alternative is that these other countries remain quite poor so the cost of their labor remains very low. Which means that if you accept the pro-offshoring argument… first world living standards cannot survive without the third world having low standards of living. If we are to maintain our standard of living, according to the pro-offshoring argument, we MUST interfere with the third world’s rising standard of living… or things will become QUITE expensive here _because we cannot find cheap labor anymore_. RickJay? Msmith? John Mace? Emacknight? Got any more “shit for brains” insults now? Yup, that pretty much buries the pro-offshoring argument. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/446 "2011-01-04T15:27:15Z")
I am in awe of your cluelessness. I note with not a little amusement that you didn’t post these pearls of wisdom in the actual thread, but instead put them in your own Pit Thread instead…which indicated that deep inside you know it’s crap and you didn’t want to get your ass handed to you by posting in the GD thread. Either that or you were afraid that if someone saw your writing style compared to the other OP they might start thinking about socks and puppets and such… -XT ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/447 "2011-01-04T15:47:14Z")
That’s bizarre. **Jacq** ’s argument seems to be that if we offshore, we will have to pay higher prices for the goods **eventually** as third-world wages normalize with the first world. But by that argument, if we don’t offshore, we will have to pay the higher prices for the goods **now**. So since paying more for goods is bad, he thinks we shouldn’t offshore, even though offshoring means that we’ll pay higher prices now rather than later? He am in Bizarro World, me think. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/448 "2011-01-04T20:05:38Z")
I thought I was on ignore. Now that it appears I am not, I fee so _ **powerful!** _ ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/449 "2011-01-04T20:08:40Z")
Yeah, I’m supposedly on ignore as well, though I’ve noticed some of the things I’ve said and some of my turns of phrase slipping into LeAss’s posts from time to time. Purely coincidence, no doubt. 😛 -XT ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/450 "2011-01-04T20:11:13Z")
If you want to see **Shit-for-Brains’** track record, google his username, and you’ll be taken to some other boards where he as a longer posting record, and where he is routinely flamed much worse than here. This is just his new playground. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/451 "2011-01-04T20:12:50Z")
I did that last week and I noticed with interest that he’s been routinely accused of using sock puppets. Things that make you go hmmmm… -XT ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/452 "2011-01-04T20:40:36Z")
**Shit-for-Brains** doesn’t understand that right now, people in poor countries can’t buy much from the US because… they don’t have much money! As they get richer, they can buy more from us because… they have more money! More money for us, means a bigger economy, and an improving lifestyle. Part of **Shit-for-Brains** problem is that he thinks the US doesn’t make anything anymore. But we do. And as the Chinese and Indians get richer, they’ll buy more of the things we do make. I mean, think about his example of Japan. Japan got a lot richer, and the US didn’t get poorer as a result. That’s how trade works. The pie grows. Now, of course it’s a little more complicated when we’re talking about resources that are literally finite. But there are always alternatives to scarce items. It’s just that those alternatives don’t become feasible until the original items are so scarce that their price increases sufficiently. After all, the US was dirt poor just a few hundred years ago. We got rich by selling shit we made to richer countries who couldn’t get enough at home. We didn’t make Europe poor by becoming rich ourselves. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/453 "2011-01-05T18:51:03Z")
Just to kick emacknight while his entire iPod argument is down and coughing up blood: Bringing back iPod making jobs to America won’t drive up iPod prices to $300 because Americans are MORE PRODUCTIVE. We can produce more iPods per work hour. I was hoping John Headcase or one of his uneducated grade school dropout flunkies would bring that up but apparently I vastly overestimated your knowledge of economics. AGAIN. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/454 "2011-01-05T18:54:48Z")
Oh and the latest hoot from the pro-offshoring crowd: > [@Third World contributions to First World living standards](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/third-world-contributions-to-first-world-living-standards/566358/19): > > They would improve. > > A change in labour rates would be far offset by the fact that Americans would suddenly have billions more consumers ready to use American products. The same would be true of everyone; the entire world would be much richer. > > Competitive advantage isn’t comparative advantage. Someone would make affordable iPods. What the price would be you can’t say for sure, but if they’re, say, $600 in this amazing new world, nobody will care if their income triples - which is something it might if everyone else in the world was as rich as we are now. Yeah, they would use American products abroad when their productivity matches ours and they can produce it for the same costs domestically. They’d use American products despite the fact that the quality would become the same and there would be the added cost of international shipping (especially overseas). Hey, don’t get mad at me. RickJay sank his own argument; all I did was explain how his torpedo exploded in its own launch tube. ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/455 "2011-01-05T19:34:50Z")
> [@Le\_Jacquelope](#): > > Bringing back iPod making jobs to America won’t drive up iPod prices to $300 because Americans are MORE PRODUCTIVE. We can produce more iPods per work hour. Hrmmm. Greater American productivity may be true, but I don’t think you have a good foundation for claiming that moving production to the US would not greatly influence prices. First: Clearly firms believe that outsorcing production lowers costs. To the extent that they are rational (greedy?) and have done the requisite research, I see no reason to doubt them. Second: American workers may be more productive. But can you make any concrete statement about _how much_ more productive, or specifically how much better at iPod production such workers would be? When the work is rote and itself uninteresting, as it often is on a factory assembly line, how much could we really expect an American advantage to come into play? Are we that much more manually dexterous? An American worker must be paid greater wages than a Chinese worker by an order of magnitude; it is doubtful that we are so much more productive as that. Third: How dependent on the time it takes to produce an iPod is the machinery involved? Will it matter much that an American worker can go faster than a Chinese worker if the process is largely (or even partially) automated? Fourth: Capital may be significantly pricier in the US. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/456 "2011-01-05T19:39:22Z")
[QUOTE=Le Jacquelope] Just to kick emacknight while his entire iPod argument is down and coughing up blood: [/QUOTE] Only in your deluded fantasies. My guess is that the only one who would agree with you that you are winning these little arguments is Gonzo. You can take whatever comfort from that you can. > [@](#): > > Bringing back iPod making jobs to America won’t drive up iPod prices to $300 because Americans are MORE PRODUCTIVE. We can produce more iPods per work hour. 😛 Let’s see…first off, how many more iPods do you presume an American worker will be able to churn out compared to a Chinese worker? Secondly, where do you suppose the new Apple manufacturing facilities will come from? Magic? Do you know what ‘capital costs’ are? No…of course you don’t because you are a clueless idiot. Third, while it might have slipped your mind, iPods are not the only product that will be effected if you got your idiotic vision put into effect…it would be EVERY good and service we import. Forth, do you not realize that it would take time (as well as large amounts of capital) to put something like this into effect? Again, do you suppose they will build all this stuff by magic? Hell, and on and on. There are so many issues that one could write an entire white paper on them and still leave stuff out. But you are a clueless fuck who just handwaves this sort of stuff away and then declares victory. It’s simply hilarious how you keep declaring victory in these debates and then trolling the people you supposedly beat with the same stupid bullshit. The REALLY funny thing is that you look so stupid and ignorant, but you THINK you are looking good and throwing down all opposition. It’s rather like debating with any CT nutball or religious fanatic about their faith. > [@](#): > > I was hoping John Headcase or one of his uneducated grade school dropout flunkies would bring that up but apparently I vastly overestimated your knowledge of economics. AGAIN. ‘I was rather hoping that you idiots would mention the fact that the WTC didn’t fall over like a tree when the explosives were set off, but apparently I vastly overestimated your collective knowledge of physics and explosives. AGAIN.’. 😛 Yeah man…you vastly overestimated John’s ability to think of crazy and stupid shit as if he were a clueless fuck like you are, instead of the knowledgeable poster he is. That’s got to smart! > [@](#): > > Hey, don’t get mad at me. RickJay sank his own argument; all I did was explain how his torpedo exploded in its own launch tube. Who would get mad at you? If your back was on fire you wouldn’t be worth the piss to put it out. I think that most people are stunned by your arrogant stupidity and sheer cluelessness. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/457 "2011-01-05T19:54:00Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > Hrmmm. Greater American productivity may be true, but I don’t think you have a good foundation for claiming that moving production to the US would not greatly influence prices. > > First: Clearly firms believe that outsorcing production lowers costs. To the extent that they are rational (greedy?) and have done the requisite research, I see no reason to doubt them. Ah yes, appeal to authority. Appeal to tradition. And the one I get accused of a lot, appeal to the majority! (It’s only ok to do that if I’m not the one accused of it, eh?) There’s a fallacy named after all of that, is there not? Companies - lots of them at a time - have been known to make disastrous mistakes. See: the American auto industry and gas guzzling, unreliable vehicles, the financial industry and the subprime craze, the real estate industry and its mass move to use Chinese drywall, and so on. If I am historically wrong about these instances where many companies believed wrongly, please, tell me. In short: you had “greedy” right - however, rational, many firms are clearly not. Disastrous, they in fact were. [/Yoda] On the other hand why don’t you ask Toyota why they put a thousand Americans to work in a domestic car production factory and why they’re _killing_ the Big Three. > [@](#): > > Second: American workers may be more productive. But can you make any concrete statement about _how much_ more productive, or specifically how much better at iPod production such workers would be? When the work is rote and itself uninteresting, as it often is on a factory assembly line, how much could we really expect an American advantage to come into play? Are we that much more manually dexterous? No, we’re that much more innovative. In 2005 ([http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20572828/](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20572828/)), American workers were productive to the tune of $104,606 in the industrial sector and $52,585 in the agro sector. China? $12,642 and $910, respectively. Roughly speaking if you brought iPod production back home it would go from $300 to $1500 according to emacknight’s superficial projections, but factoring in American productivity on an equally superficial level would reduce the price to 1/8 to 1/9th of $1500. $150 iPods given American productivity is not science fiction. > [@](#): > > An American worker must be paid greater wages than a Chinese worker by an order of magnitude; it is doubtful that we are so much more productive as that. How does $104K vs $12K bite ya? > [@](#): > > Third: How dependent on the time it takes to produce an iPod is the machinery involved? Will it matter much that an American worker can go faster than a Chinese worker if the process is largely (or even partially) automated? Where can anyone get facts on that? That’s an interesting question. > [@](#): > > Fourth: Capital may be significantly pricier in the US. How much more? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/458 "2011-01-05T23:29:43Z")
**Shit-For-Brains** doesn’t realize that he can’t use the \*\*average \*\*productivity from 5 fucking years ago to compare the productivity difference for a specific product like the iPod today. Besides, there are so many other business decisions that go into where a company builds its manufacturing plants than just worker productivity. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2011, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/459 "2011-01-06T11:05:46Z")
John Headcase do you ever get a headache from banging your face into the keyboard like that? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2011, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059/460 "2011-01-06T11:28:08Z")
Just fighting ignorance, **Shit-for-Brains**. Just fighting ignorance. Do you know what the average productivity number is? Probably not, because you typically don’t read your won cites. Here, from your cite: > [@](#): > > The productivity figure is found by dividing the country’s gross domestic product by the number of people employed. So, to determine the productivity of American vs Chinese wrt iPod manufacturing, you use a number which includes farm workers in China. Farm workers. That’s about 2/3 of their workers vs about 1/100 of ours. Do you think that might skew the number just a wee bit? Do you think that has any relevance to the discussion? My God, you’re stupid. I can has ignore now? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059.md?page=22) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-conservatives/556059.md?page=24)