Liberal Forum

Cannonpointer » 25 Jul 2014 8:06 am » wrote:
I used their gross product, because I was comparing it to the nation's gross product. But I also used their gross profits in another calculation - and their net profits, when comparison to total government expenditures required it.

I used their own reported figures for their gross product, their gross profits and their net profits. In each case, I picked the one that seemed to represent apple to apples for the particular comparison being made. If I erred, I suspect the error did not cause an over-statement of Temasek's market share - though even if it did, the principle of my argument is not affected by that error.

I knew what you did before I asked. The thing is you can't add up all of the total sales in an economy and get your GDP. You can only add up final sales. It doesn't matter. If it was 1% or 30%, the Singapore government still owns a company.

Cannonpointer » 25 Jul 2014 8:06 am » wrote: Thank you for that acknowledgement. Imagine those hacks putting a slave pit above their own country this way - might as well endorse Nazi Germany. After all, National Socialism was such an effective economic model that it turned a bankrupt nation on its knees into a world super-power in a single decade, making it possible for a nation the size of Oregon, with very few natural resources, to hold the entire capitalist world AND the Soviet Union at bay for years.

National Socialism, both in Germany and in Italy, was extremely business friendly, with low taxes, easy credit, low interest rates and very light regulations (you could even murder your workers - a handy option and good for discipline, if not morale). And National Socialism spawned a great many inventions and innovations - including jet planes and the V2 rocket - even made Italy's trains run on time, where free market capitalism had failed miserably. The National Socialists also invented the atom bomb, though we managed to grab their scientists and complete the work before they had it off paper and in production. So clearly, if it's a dynamic business environment and predictable markets you want, along with low taxes, low regulations and ease of doing business, Nazi Germany is better than Singapore, hands down. Heritage would have LOVED them (well, if they were paying them to).

Italy was a free market with an authoritarian government. The Krauts nationalized everything and it was hardly free market. Hitler combined tariffs with price controls(why interest rates were kept low) that essentially stopped agriculture, and any imported raw material was spent on rearming the country. You're trying to draw a line between the two. The Italians didn't create anything. They were just along for the ride. The Krauts are really smart people thouh. Their innovation had nothing to do with their politics. Great minds like Heisenberg, Planck,and Einstein all laid the groundwork for atomic theory in the 20's before Hitler even came to power.

tharock220 » 25 Jul 2014 3:27 pm » wrote:
I knew what you did before I asked. The thing is you can't add up all of the total sales in an economy and get your GDP. You can only add up final sales. It doesn't matter. If it was 1% or 30%, the Singapore government still owns a company.

Italy was a free market with an authoritarian government. The Krauts nationalized everything and it was hardly free market. Hitler combined tariffs with price controls(why interest rates were kept low) that essentially stopped agriculture, and any imported raw material was spent on rearming the country. You're trying to draw a line between the two. The Italians didn't create anything. They were just along for the ride. The Krauts are really smart people thouh. Their innovation had nothing to do with their politics. Great minds like Heisenberg, Planck,and Einstein all laid the groundwork for atomic theory in the 20's before Hitler even came to power.

I could not agree more that inventions are not reliant on a capitalist economy. But I will not be disadvantaged by letting my antagonists pretend otherwise when it suits them, and not have that false meme shoved up their girl parts when the opportunity presents.

That clown guy, str8t, has been prattling about how no innovations or inventions can arise in a socialist economy. Well, I'm pretty sure the Germans were innovators, and I'm pretty sure they were socialist - though God only knows what Glory Hole Clem or Gooey or Str8t will say about that, as they redefine socialism within individual posts, quite shamelessly.

As to my math, I am not a mathematorian. I do my best with what I've got. If I could rail at an equation to solve it, I am certain I would excel.

Cannonpointer » 25 Jul 2014 3:17 pm » wrote: I count as cheap the "humanitarianism" that is reserved for people whose farts you will never have to smell and whose differing opinions you will never have to tolerate, while that same "humanitarianism" is withheld from your neighbors and kinsmen who have the first and rightful claim to your natural affection. "Bootstraps" is your answer to their distress. "Take ours," is the answer you are happy - eager - to give people who are really just a vague concept of humanity - not humanity itself, up close and in your life.

Yours is the humanitarianism of show, of theater. Your sympathies lack the authenticity to be sustained in the world of face to face contact. But you can have nice "feelings" for a bunch of **** chinamen you'll never meet -and that makes you a regular Albert Schweitzer, a very liberal fellow in doling out your shallow affections and your nation's treasure.

Selling your birthright for a bowl of gruel is shameful. But selling your CHILDREN'S birthright?

Pathetic.

.

I would like to express my sincere thanks for allowing the truly ugly nature of the moonbat left to be expressed so clearly and so well.

I honestly believe that most of the hard left is mentally ill, if not outright psychotic, no kidding.

You've toned down the ugliest of your sexual and personal insults, but I and many others remember them.

The ugliness contained in them and in the rant above reveals your true character.

Cannonpointer » 25 Jul 2014 3:09 pm » wrote: If a capitalist government builds factories for them, and gives them unfettered access to the worlds largest consumer market, and allows them to exploit an endless supply of virtual slave labor, and exempts them from any of the environmental or safety standards which it imposes on factories at home, and provides them with a fleet to ship their slave-made goods, how in the name of Zeus and Thor could they AVOID growing their economy?

Well gosh, let's put it to a simple test. Did the Soviets have a thriving economy? Goods including those reasonably difficult to manufacture that could compete with ours?

No, they made junk that even Soviets didn't want, but bought only because there was nothing else.

Have you told the Premier of the Communist Party that you have designated the People's Republic an emerging capitalist utopia

I'm truly sorry your hallucinations prevent you from reading what I actually write.

- and has he thanked you for applauding the destruction of our own manufacturing base in order to make that happen?

In your glee and satisfaction over "capitalist" China's burgeoning middle class, have you ever felt a fleeting bit of remorse at the decline of our own - and that of our working class as well, in order for that to happen?

Spare me the moonbat-onomics, imbecile.

The US has been hurt almost entirely through our own bad policies; the expansion of government, particularly federal law and regulations.

Most of which was done by Democrats, especially Obama.

Cannonpointer » 25 Jul 2014 3:34 pm » wrote:
I could not agree more that inventions are not reliant on a capitalist economy. But I will not be disadvantaged by letting my antagonists pretend otherwise when it suits them, and not have that false meme shoved up their girl parts when the opportunity presents.

That clown guy, str8t, has been prattling about how no innovations or inventions can arise in a socialist economy. Well, I'm pretty sure the Germans were innovators, and I'm pretty sure they were socialist - though God only knows what Glory Hole Clem or Gooey or Str8t will say about that, as they redefine socialism within individual posts, quite shamelessly.

As to my math, I am not a mathematorian. I do my best with what I've got. If I could rail at an equation to solve it, I am certain I would excel.

Technically Germany was still capitalist when those guys were doing their best work. Inventions can arise from socialist economies. The Soviets were the first into space. Still, you get more when you have the profit motive. The US blew the Soviets away because research was directed by necessity during the 50's and 60's. The Reds had a victory here and there, but they were never able to catch up. By the 1980's they were buying IBM computers because they didn't fully understand integrated circuits.

RichClem » 25 Jul 2014 3:42 pm » wrote:
.

I would like to express my sincere thanks for allowing the truly ugly nature of the moonbat left to be expressed so clearly and so well.

I honestly believe that most of the hard left is mentally ill, if not outright psychotic, no kidding.

You've toned down the ugliest of your sexual and personal insults, but I and many others remember them.

The ugliness contained in them and in the rant above reveals your true character.

Whatever gets you off the hook, kid.

Cannonpointer » 25 Jul 2014 4:03 pm » wrote: Whatever gets you off the hook, kid.

The ugliness of your character are in black and white for everyone to see.

Cheap rhetoric and bulls*** won't cover it up.

Cannonpointer » 25 Jul 2014 3:17 pm » wrote: I count as cheap the "humanitarianism" that is reserved for people whose farts you will never have to smell and whose differing opinions you will never have to tolerate, while that same "humanitarianism" is withheld from your neighbors and kinsmen who have the first and rightful claim to your natural affection. "Bootstraps" is your answer to their distress. "Take ours," is the answer you are happy - eager - to give people who are really just a vague concept of humanity - not humanity itself, up close and in your life.

Yours is the humanitarianism of show, of theater. Your sympathies lack the authenticity to be sustained in the world of face to face contact. But you can have nice "feelings" for a bunch of **** chinamen you'll never meet -and that makes you a regular Albert Schweitzer, a very liberal fellow in doling out your shallow affections and your nation's treasure.

Not that reality ever gets in the way of a psychotic, I did business for almost 20 years in 3rd World countries and at least once traveled on a bus with their kids, chickens and goats.

And I sat across from struggling business people of modest income and drove a moderately hard but fair bargain. I could have squeezed a lot harder, but didn't.

I never once in eighteen years drove such a hard bargain that they were unhappy. I always left room for them to make a decent margin.

That's what you claim is "humanitarianism of show, of theater...about people you'll never meet."

That lacks the authenticity to be sustained in the world of face to face contact."

So once again, your deep,twisted psychosis is stronger than factual reality.

RichClem » 25 Jul 2014 3:48 pm » wrote: Well gosh, let's put it to a simple test. Did the Soviets have a thriving economy? Goods including those reasonably difficult to manufacture that could compete with ours?

Did we build them factories? Provide them a fleet to ship their goods? Welcome their slave made goods into our market without taxes and with no regard for the advantage of slave labor and zero environmental standards or workplace safety regulations?

I don't think we did - or they would still be a thorn in our sides. Of course, you disagree. In your world, all we had to do was sacrifice our own economy for theirs, and they would see the light about capitalism - as you imagine China to have done.

RichClem » 25 Jul 2014 3:48 pm » wrote:
The US has been hurt almost entirely through our own bad policies; the expansion of government, particularly federal law and regulations.

Bad policies like helping our next global antagonist? Expansion of federal power like torture chambers and whim-wars without congressional declaration as required by the Constitution that you ballyhoo while ignoring?

RichClem » 25 Jul 2014 3:48 pm » wrote:Most of which was done by Democrats, especially Obama.

Yeah - we'll have to visit the memory hole and purge our memories of Bush kid. I seem to remember him asserting the right to arrest Americans on mere suspicion, hold them in secret locations subject to torture, deprive them of counsel or a day in court or the opportunity to face their accuser or the right to remain silent and not give evidence against themselves. That SEEMS like a slight growth in federal power - one I can remember you defending, but never disavowing.

Would you like to disavow those actions here, now?

Bush was the first person I ever heard use the term, "unitary executive." In essence, the phrase means, "I'm the decider. If I do it, that makes it legal. If you don't like it, blow me."

That might have sounded dashing and heroic to you, coming from Bush. But he passed the unitary torch, and suddenly your seem less sanguine, kid.

Rights are ceded with excuses and populist rhetoric, but regained only with blood. Go ahead and cry for the rights you so willingly tossed like so many stones to slow the threat of terrorism. You won't get them back in your lifetime. They are gone.

tharock220 » 25 Jul 2014 3:52 pm » wrote:
Technically Germany was still capitalist when those guys were doing their best work. Inventions can arise from socialist economies. The Soviets were the first into space. Still, you get more when you have the profit motive. The US blew the Soviets away because research was directed by necessity during the 50's and 60's. The Reds had a victory here and there, but they were never able to catch up. By the 1980's they were buying IBM computers because they didn't fully understand integrated circuits.

I would argue that the profit motive is as present and ubiquitous under socialism as it is under capitalism. It might suffer perfunctory camouflage here and there, but it never goes away - it's attached to the getting ****** bone, which is attached to the actual bone bone.

And I would argue that the soviets were a pathetic adversary against which to measure our innovative muscle, considering they went from an agrarian despotism directly into a fascist despotism with a top-down, utterly inorganic communist economic model. We had a healthy free enterprise economy which had spawned a massive and very competent and well regulated (at that time) capitalist economy. That the Russians managed as well as they did is a testament to the ruggedness of the Russian character. They're tough people.

Cannonpointer » 25 Jul 2014 4:23 pm » wrote: Did we build them factories? Provide them a fleet to ship their goods? Welcome their slave made goods into our market without taxes and with no regard for the advantage of slave labor and zero environmental standards or workplace safety regulations?

You think that the only quality goods coming out of China are in US-made factories?

You have no freaking clue what's going on in China, obviously or the size of its thriving, innovative private sector.

Go do a few years homework and get back to me.

And few factories in China are slave labor, which I doubt ever produces anything more complex than sneakers or something else rudimentary.

your world, all we had to do was sacrifice our own economy for theirs, and they would see the light about capitalism - as you imagine China to have done.

Spare me any more of your ignorant psychotic ranting.

RichClem » 25 Jul 2014 4:40 pm » wrote: You think that the only quality goods coming out of China are in US-made factories?

Not any more, no. We provided them with our tool and die technology and trained them to use it. Individual human beings can learn things that they are shown, regardless who sits in government or what system they preside over, dummy.

RichClem » 25 Jul 2014 4:40 pm » wrote:You have no freaking clue what's going on in China, obviously or the size of its thriving, innovative private sector.

I have a clue at whose expense they thrive and innovate, kid. I have a clue whose market is propelling their war machine in its quest to achieve global platform reach. I have a clue whose jobs they took, and how little of your warm and fuzzy feelings for anonymous chinamen is reserved for your out of work neighbors, Clem.

RichClem » 25 Jul 2014 4:40 pm » wrote:Go do a few years homework and get back to me.

And few factories in China are slave labor, which I doubt ever produces anything more complex than sneakers or something else rudimentary.

Well, if it's only a few, I guess it's okay - kind of like the public beatings in Singapore. I assume the balance are paid American union scale, yeah?

RichClem » 25 Jul 2014 4:40 pm » wrote: Spare me any more of your ignorant psychotic ranting.

Spare me your school girl histrionics over various brutal dictatorships that make your panties wet, you silly, infatuated little progressive leftist.

RichClem » 25 Jul 2014 4:06 pm » wrote: The ugliness of your character are in black and white for everyone to see.

That's something we share in common, Clem.

But the ugliness of a dissection is rarely as extreme or poignant as the ugliness of being dissected - so don't be too sure people will see what you see.

I believe they'll see a partisan spewbot brought down and righteously read - right down to his counterfeit humanitarianism. Your coin rings false at every turn, because your investment is in winning, not in getting to the truth, whatever it may be.

I am an honest man, Clem - and that is why you cannot cheat me. Your huffing and puffing and parlor tricks are poor chaff against the truth seeking missile that took you apart in several threads these many hours, son.

.

RichClem » 25 Jul 2014 4:16 pm » wrote:
Not that reality ever gets in the way of a psychotic, I did business for almost 20 years in 3rd World countries and at least once traveled on a bus with their kids, chickens and goats.

And I sat across from struggling business people of modest income and drove a moderately hard but fair bargain. I could have squeezed a lot harder, but didn't.

I never once in eighteen years drove such a hard bargain that they were unhappy. I always left room for them to make a decent margin.

That's what you claim is "humanitarianism of show, of theater...about people you'll never meet."

That lacks the authenticity to be sustained in the world of face to face contact."

So once again, your deep,twisted psychosis is stronger than factual reality.

Gosh, Clem. That tale makes me doubt my many memories of you cavalierly dismissing the hopeless condition of your fellow citizens, brought about by the very largess to our communist foe which you support. I ask myself, can a man who cares so deeply about strangers on a bus really laugh off his own neighbors' distress?

And then I remember what a committed liar you are - how you are willing to defend a police state rather than admit an error. And I think, "Yeah - riiiiiight..."

Cannonpointer » 25 Jul 2014 12:25 pm » wrote: The one with the good benefits and higher pay scale that everyone has their app in at?

Yeah - I think I heard of that one. But you're doing fine without all that stupid pay and stuff. You've got your midnight bedpan rounds to give meaning to your life, Devry. That online trade schoole certificate was a smart move, considering you **** off yur opportunity to go to college and be a real professional like your siblings and your parents and grand parents.

Who cares - the trust fund will save you. That trust fund is better than boot straps, when ya really think about it.

You can pull yourself up by your trust fund, Devry.

Actually, NO. That hospital is the ONLY hospital in the area giving out 10K signing bonuses because they can't keep people....

The nurses agreed to the union because they didn't want to work weekends. Now they're mandated weekends and making less on weekends than most other RN's.

**** morons..... What's the **** is a union going to do for a high skill, high wage job?

Cannonpointer » 25 Jul 2014 11:40 am » wrote: I was unaware that you, gooey and glory hole were economists.

Oh wait. Is this one of those global warming things, where you just SAY that all the experts are with you, and pretend the poll happened on my day off?

Y'know, I gotta tell ya, I might need some help from YOU on plumbing the motives of economists - even granting that your unsourced claim is accurate.

Let us say that it is - that the overwhelming majority of economists agree on Singapore being capitalist - and ignoring that I have already conceded the issue, many times, happily crediting capitalism with Singapore's every virtue and flaw. Tell me, would these be the SAME economists who look upon the federal reserve bank and see, rather than a naked emperor, a regal being in splendid attire?

I think that it would - which rather puts their reliability into question, doncha think?

Now, as to Heritage: Heritage is paid to create narratives favorable to the interests of their sponsors. It's called a "think tank," but the employees are not paid so much for "thinking" as they are for producing thoughts that steer the public narrative in the way their sponsors want.

Now, since the peasants in Singapore have not pooled their resources and hired Heritage, their circumstances don't figure in Heritage's rankings. But me and you - we value freedom and human dignity - right? So how the average guy gets treated by government - that matters to US, even if Heritage doesn't take it into account, right?

Now, if your position is - as mine - that laissez faire capitalism leads to violent exploitation and enormous underclasses, then I can see why it's important to you that I fully acknowledge Singapore's status as a purely (or very nearly purely) CAPITALIST nation.

Rest assured that I do, kid. I truly do agree that Singapore is the second purest laissez faire capitalist nation on earth.

http://www.heritage.org/index/

Str8tEdge » 25 Jul 2014 5:13 pm » wrote:
Actually, NO. That hospital is the ONLY hospital in the area giving out 10K signing bonuses because they can't keep people....

The nurses agreed to the union because they didn't want to work weekends. Now they're mandated weekends and making less on weekends than most other RN's.

**** morons..... What's the **** is a union going to do for a high skill, high wage job?

Gosh, lemee see. My brother's A card in the sheet metal union testifies to his high level of skill. And the 42 bucks per hours NOT including bennies - which are significant. - probably put him in the high wage category.

What did the union do for him? It trained him how to do the job the RIGHT way - the UNION way - the way that the folks with money want it done and will pay top dollar to have it done. And it negotiated a pretty decent wage for his labor.

Of course, Nurses have already paid for their OWN training, and a house union is not the same as a trade union. But I'm just sayin.

Str8tEdge » 25 Jul 2014 5:15 pm » wrote:
http://www.heritage.org/index/

That link was amazing. It took me to all the economists in the world.

Okay, it took me to some ad men - but still, impressive. I learned that police states are actually freedomy.

Cannonpointer » 25 Jul 2014 5:17 pm » wrote: Gosh, lemee see. My brother's A card in the sheet metal union testifies to his high level of skill. And the 42 bucks per hours NOT including bennies - which are significant. - probably put him in the high wage category.

What did the union do for him? It trained him how to do the job the RIGHT way - the UNION way - the way that the folks with money want it done and will pay top dollar to have it done. And it negotiated a pretty decent wage for his labor.

Of course, Nurses have already paid for their OWN training, and a house union is not the same as a trade union. But I'm just sayin.

Cannonpointer, making his union handlers proud since 1978.