I’m sure you want me to descend to your level, and it’s fun for a while, but it really isn’t where I want to go. Yes we do need the government to require the “radical” changes I propose. There is no argument there; that’s exactly what I said and what I advocate. I am saying we need a progressive movement, yes. Those who don’t agree, such as yourself, won’t join, but criticize instead. Only to be expected. Par for the course. Beat away.
A lot of conservatives and libertarians answer requests to support progressive action with, well, why don’t YOU do it in your life PERSONALLY. Fine, but personal actions won’t solve the problem. That is just a fact, if you care to recognize it. My own personal decision is complicated by personal factors I won’t go into.
I won’t go to any of your cites until you learn from me how to spell the word. Sorry
You can cite your sources, and I’ll cite mine. So that’s what we each have done. In this day and age, people choose which side they believe, and all they read is what supports their belief. So conservatives, have fun. We progressives will stay the course, and I hope we sway enough open-minded young people to get to that 51% and defeat you laggards with your excuses about why the market didn’t do such and such. It won’t convince us, because we think that relying on the market is the problem to begin with. It’s just a different philosophy. So you can keep yours and I’ll keep mine. But at least our side is based on facts. Yours is based on religion, the religion of the free market.
No, cite is a verb. Citation is a noun.
I already posted what I know. I will just defer to that “cite.”
I have heard it on the news; it’s common knowledge that China is building more solar panels, and that’s what is bringing the price down.
There are always people who have other facts that I don’t have. I am not as ignorant as you say, but if you want to believe so, be my guest. Until then, have a nice trip.
This is the problem that people are having with you, in microcosm. You make an assertion (someone is spelling “site” incorrectly), do so in an extremely arrogant and patronizing manner (refusing to deal with the person until they correct their spelling, even though you understand what they meant), someone offers information contrary to your statement (“cite” is board shorthand for “citation”), and you just say they’re wrong (the quote above).
The word “cite” is, in fact, board shorthand for citation. It’s also in the dictionary as a noun, used in this exact way. Here it is in Bing Dictionary
You really need to try to be open to information that other people bring to the discussion. By “open” I don’t mean “accept unconditionally”. I mean to consider what they said, and do some research to see if they are correct or if you can refute it. Just flat out saying that they’re wrong isn’t refuting anything, like this “cite” incident.
This is assuming that you’re arguing in good faith. Up until now I thought you have been, but just doing so in a very abrasive manner. After this “cite” thing, I’m not so sure anymore. It’s that bad.
Eric the Green, natural gas prices have fallen off a cliff. Speculators are and have been heavily short natural gas in the futures market. They are making large profits as the price decreases and people everywhere benefit from lower gas bills. How do these speculators fit into your narrative?
I agree with Eric’s general point that “middle-men” as he’s referring to them are superfluous, and, in some cases, detrimental to either the buyer, seller, or both. Your example isn’t fair because no one is objecting to transporting goods from one place to the next. IMO, Banks are superfluous middle-men. The Fed loans the people’s money to Banks at 0.25% interest , whom, in turn, charges the people an average interest rate of around 18.99%. In this case, the banks are an unncessary middle-man. There ought to be a way to open an account directly with the Fed so that every citizen can benefit from the low interest rates.
As I read this thread, I think I’m more progressive than liberal. It’s not that I think private companies are bad, I don’t; it’s just that I don’t think government is as inefficient as everyone thinks it is. While I don’t think government would do well in running a Wal-Mart or a Kroger, they’d likely do well in finance, research and development, as well as utilizing and mining for natural resources. I’d like to see a movement toward a mixed economy: more government-owned enterprises to compete with private companies. I imagine many conservatives are laughing at that last point, but Mexico’s government-owned oil company pulls over $80 billion a year that can be reinvested into education and infrastructure. That’s a lot of dough, especially over long-term.
I don’t have as much a problem with natural gas; it is a transition fuel, having about half the carbon footprint of oil (or is it coal, I forget). But speculators making a profit fits into the general narrative of people in this society making a lot of money gambling instead of producing. I mean, some is inevitable, but as many have said, it has become too great a piece of our economy.
I’d like to see a cite that that is the “average interest rate”, especially since mortgage rates are about 4%. Everyone thinks they can cut out the middle man, and sometimes you can. But none of us is an expert in all things, and middle men provide that expertise that all of us lack.
Yeah, because politics couldn’t possibly get in the way of wise investing.
I’m not a conservative, but I’m laughing at the idea of our government aspiring to be like Mexico’s.
It’s not normally a big deal…every board has it’s own idiosyncratic language and custom, and this one is no different. Usually newbies are cut some slack as they spin up…and I was trying to cut YOU some slack on this whole ridiculous side issue as well by pointing out how we use the term. You then went off the deep end about something that was trivially ridiculous.
The only up side is that it was you who made yourself look so silly, especially with your followup post. Hopefully you’ll take what Jilaad was trying to tell you there to heart, though considering your tone in this thread I’m not exactly sanguine about that. For the most part I’m done here…there is nothing to be gained by further dialogue with you, since I also suspect you aren’t discussing this stuff in good faith (nothing to do with the ‘cite’ lashup…other things indicate that to me), and there isn’t a lot of point in trying to talk to someone about this stuff when it’s obvious they don’t want to discuss…they merely want to assert. I was going to ask you why you are surprised that Ford is developing and producing electrical cars, but really, you wouldn’t get the lead in, wouldn’t understand the question, and there wouldn’t be anything interesting in your response, unfortunately, to further the discussion.
Besides, Mythbusters is coming on and for a change my hotel room actually gets Discovery, so that seems more important at this stage of my day than continued fruitless discussion. Ado.
“I went to law school at Berkeley, and I paid about $1,000, maybe a little less, a year. I think it was about $900. That same education, law school at Berkeley, is over $40,000, now. It would have been impossible for me to access it. We have allowed educational costs to just get out of hand.”
People who deny the loss of social mobility in America since Reaganomics came in, are not paying attention.
I started by making a list of issues that need to be addressed. Right away I was assaulted by a barrage of what you accuse me of. Jilaad is way off base. People just assume I am ignorant because they disagree with me. But I don’t want to dwell on this tone.
I was surprised about Ford, because until now I had not heard about any efforts by them along this line. Less than a year ago I did a thorough web search for all the electric cars being made, what their costs and mileage were, etc., and I did not see any Ford entry into the EV market. So why would you ask me why I am surprised?
This is what I mean by the tone you have tried to drag me into. The issue is the skepticism about whether enough electric cars can be built, whether people can buy them, and whether they can replace oil-driven cars and help curb the climate crisis. Those are the issues, not why I am surprised. I hope people watch the PBS show about this issue tomorrow.
I think people here want to evade the issue, so they ask why I am so “ignorant” just because I question why the free market system should not just be left alone, and will just solve the problem by itself. If I say it needs to be supplemented by government, you just say it already is, or someone else here will say I am totalitarian. I am sorry about the tone of this debate, but to attribute it all to me is not very accurate, to say the least. Don’t just keep contradicting what I say XT. Don’t expect me to agree that “we have choice because we decide what to buy,” when it’s clear I’m not going to agree, and that I have explained my position. Just let it go and move on to another issue. I’m sorry that I don’t agree with you. But going in circles forever is not useful.
I think we all need to consider more the fact that we are all a part of this country, and that we need to care about it. We need to support policies that move us all forward, not just allow a few rich people to win-- as Romney wants. We don’t care enough. Too many don’t feel connected to people who are having a tougher time than themselves. The wealthy people are the most disconnected, as Angela Blackwell pointed out on Bill Moyers’ program. I am not the only one who sees things as I do. And we who think like me are not all college freshmen; as people like Blake, who brought down the tone for this thread, think we are.
Yul Kwon, the Survivor show winner, is doing a show on PBS that presents the facts that prove that the success we’ve had as a nation is due to the investments we have made in the past in collective infrastructure. He has a lot of other credentials, so don’t jump on me because I cite a Survivor show winner. Most people here on this Straight Dope thread can only recite the line that America’s success is due to free enterprising entrepreneurs. That is not a sufficient explanation for America’s success. People also succeed here because investments were made in higher education, transportation, and new industries like the space program. We need to pay taxes at rates we were paying before GW Bush, and get the wealthy to pay enough so that we can make these investments again.
And Angela Blackwell made the good point today that it will not do for the wealthy and powerful to invest only in rich white communities. They are not the future of an America that is becoming multi-ethnic. We can’t use free market slogans to keep America separated into black and white, rich and poor, and hope to succeed as a nation. Do you care about our nation, XT? Or do you just care about protecting free enterprise from attacks by liberals on their tax rates?
I will be as patient and polite as I can be, given the environment here. I will do what I can. I hope there’s something you can do too. If not, take care, and keep the spirit alive.
It’s not a big deal, but it is strange that a board has its own language. There are new people here all the time. I think people would do better just to speak English and use the term reference like everyone else. It would facilitate communication. But I was mainly being sarcastic; I won’t ignore your points.
ANGELA GLOVER BLACKWELL: We are not post-racial. We’re not even close. Because race still controls everything in America. That when you think about part of what’s causing so many people to be left behind, and in trouble, it’s because they live in communities that don’t support them. And those communities don’t support them because of race.
We have black people, and Latino people living in inner-city, abandoned communities, because people moved away. So you have places like Detroit, were almost abandoned in terms of the people who were moving, and fleeing away from Detroit.
So race completely controls our settlement patterns, as a nation. Education. It used to be that education was the pride of the United States. And it was certainly the pride of many states, like California. I was recently talking to someone who was a leader of a state. And we were talking about poverty. And as he listed the safety net programs, for the poor, he mentioned public schools. It really caught me. I said, “Public schools, that’s become a safety net program?” I thought public schools were for everybody. But as they have become associated with people who were poor, and of color. We are abandoning the public school education. That is about race.
And we have taken men, who are important for community, and we’ve created basically a legacy of absence in communities, by pulling the men out, and putting them in prison, in numbers that are unprecedented. Our incarceration rate in this country is the largest in the entire world. And the disproportionate incarceration of black men, in particular, but a growing number of Latino men, absolutely makes the point that race is a driver, there.
Race has become so embedded, and baked in, that people can walk around feeling that they’re not carrying racism in their heart. But so long as they’re okay with disproportionate incarceration, communities being left behind, children given no chance, this continues to be a society that is plagued by the legacy of the continuing impact of racism, right into today.
No, we assume you are ignorant because you make a whole bunch of unfounded statements and then won’t back them up.
Your statements appear to show that you have not the slightest understanding of economics. And therefore it is difficult to believe that your suggestions are going to work.
Since you have been factually refuted, more than once, it is not up to you to tell other posters to stop disagreeing with you.
If you don’t like going in circles, don’t keep posting the same stupid shit over and over.
Here, I think, is the crux of the problem. This kind of arrogant, self-righteous bullshit is not likely to win a lot of support except among those who are eager to be bamboozled with the idea that there are easy, quick, simple answers that won’t cost them any trouble or money.
What you suggest is not self-evidently right, and those who refuse to fall in line are not automatically selfish or uncaring. That’s bullshit, and it remains bullshit no matter how many times you repeat it.
If you post the kind of thing you did, even on as liberal a board as the SDMB is, you are going to get challenged on it. If your posts cannot survive even a little bit of scrutiny, then guess what? They aren’t going to get any more traction in the real world, where people want more than vague-sounding twaddle about how the government can make everything wonderful if we just outlaw oil companies and force everyone to buy $40K electric cars.
People have been blowing your rhetoric out of the water on economics, and now (as Absolute notices) you are trying to change the subject to race. Imagine my surprise.
Better bring more to the table than you have so far.
When you concentrate on debating against your weakest opponent, something’s wrong.
Eric the Green is wrong in almost every detail here, but still got the big picture right! When people are served crap in a restaurant they know it’s crap even if they lack the culinary expertise to describe what’s wrong.
If Eric the Green had simply posted links to the columns of Paul Krugman, the detractors in this thread would have had no answer, or resorted to snark about how worthless Nobel Prizes are.
Yes, I think some of us would be able to find some areas of agreement.
