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Forums - Politics Discussion - If I Wanted America to Fail....

If I wanted America to fail, I'd let environment-polluting companies spend millions of dollars on a video campaign that cleverly plays with people's subconscious fears.
If I wanted America to fail, I'd place lots of american flags in that video and ensure that blue, red and white are dominant colors in the video and use a melancholic sound track.

In my opinion, the only way for the video to be even more obviously manipulative was if the words "freedom" and "democracy" had been used frequently.

Nobody is going to stop you from believing that there is no environment crisis, that it's all just a strange kind of conspiracy theory made up of environmental extremists. But at least be so rational to accept that the rest of the world is more and more thinking different, even if you believe them all to be manipulated idiots. If they believe that american companies, products like cars etc. are environment-unfriendly, using way too much gasoline etc., they will more and more stop buying them, and THAT's what's really going to cost jobs etc., not some rather irrelevant government policies. So better start becoming more green now, or China and other countries will soon be years ahead when green technology, being "environment-friendly" becomes more and more important to customers.



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ArnoldRimmer said:
If I wanted America to fail, I'd let environment-polluting companies spend millions of dollars on a video campaign that cleverly plays with people's subconscious fears.
If I wanted America to fail, I'd place lots of american flags in that video and ensure that blue, red and white are dominant colors in the video and use a melancholic sound track.

In my opinion, the only way for the video to be even more obviously manipulative was if the words "freedom" and "democracy" had been used frequently.

Nobody is going to stop you from believing that there is no environment crisis, that it's all just a strange kind of conspiracy theory made up of environmental extremists. But at least be so rational to accept that the rest of the world is more and more thinking different, even if you believe them all to be manipulated idiots. If they believe that american companies, products like cars etc. are environment-unfriendly, using way too much gasoline etc., they will more and more stop buying them, and THAT's what's really going to cost jobs etc., not some rather irrelevant government policies. So better start becoming more green now, or China and other countries will soon be years ahead when green technology, being "environment-friendly" becomes more and more important to customers.

forward thinking for more than 4 years or so ? you can't expect that!

i jsut wonder thinking about all these patent wars atm between electronic companies, if we will see huge patent wars in the futire for "green products". and if we will see them it would be better to be one with the patents.



killerzX said:
richardhutnik said:
killerzX said:
fordy said:
killerzX said:

 



I believe Paul Krugman, who has a Nobel Prize in economics, 

i stopped reading after that. if you want your arguments to be taken seriously, you cant use an example of someone who nobody takes seriously

As wrong as Krugman is on a number of things, particularly him being Keynsian economically, the fact is that he won a Nobel Prize in economics and knows more about economics than people who post on forums like this.  The reason I brought up Krugman is because someone goes off and speaks how economics has nothing to do with liberalism.  The reality is that someone can be well versed in economics and argue for liberal views politically, as Krugman does.  

How about, if people want their arguments to be taken seriously, they drop this partisan bull on how Liberalism is totally divorced from economics.



fordy said:
SamuelRSmith said:
fordy said:
This video proves one thing. Check out one of the highly rated comments:

YouTube has purposely screwed up the "Closed Caption" text on this video. That way all those who are hearing impaired or don't speak English (around the world), won't understand this video at all! It's insidious what YouTube (owned by Google) is doing to America!

While it's hilarious that the original poster doesn't realise that ALL Closed Captions don't work properly, the fact that it's been thumbed up so many times gives everyone the impression that it's nothing but conspiracy theorists that take this video seriously.


No (sane) person believes it's the intent of Government to destroy the economy and our civil liberties. Rather, there is always unitended consequences from either well-meaning activist legislation (in regards to environmental, welfare, taxation), pork (subsidies, defense contracts), or just plain-old corruption. It's the aggregate of decades of unintended consequences that have got us in the situation that we are in today.


There is one major difference with both sides in my country. The left wing implements good sounding ideas, and does get things wrong occasionally. The right-wing do not have the balls to make changes, only make cuts (I call them the Jenga players, since they pull pieces away and hope the whole pile doesn't tumble). Either way, it seems like each party's turn to power only make things worse.

There is a belief pitched by those who only speak of cuts, that if you cut, then somehow, there will be Jenga pieces that will materialize in an alternative structure and we will be fine.  You see, markets in and of themselves magically take care of every issue, if left alone.  A market is like a genie in that you can get anything you want from it, just let it alone.



richardhutnik said:
killerzX said:
richardhutnik said:
killerzX said:
fordy said:
killerzX said:

 



I believe Paul Krugman, who has a Nobel Prize in economics, 

i stopped reading after that. if you want your arguments to be taken seriously, you cant use an example of someone who nobody takes seriously

As wrong as Krugman is on a number of things, particularly him being Keynsian economically, the fact is that he won a Nobel Prize in economics and knows more about economics than people who post on forums like this.  The reason I brought up Krugman is because someone goes off and speaks how economics has nothing to do with liberalism.  The reality is that someone can be well versed in economics and argue for liberal views politically, as Krugman does.  

How about, if people want their arguments to be taken seriously, they drop this partisan bull on how Liberalism is totally divorced from economics.

Well to be fair.  Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.  How well did that work out?  You could argue that he's been more warlike then bush. It's probably why so few republicans have tried to attack him on national security.

The problem with Krugman is that when argueing for Liberal ideals he seems to forget eveyrthing he talks about economically.

There are a LOT of great arguements for liberalism, the problem lies in people trying to make economic arguements for it... which are pretty awful.

 

It's very much like the conversation with Prof.  I could come up with a number of good reasons for why you'd fund green jobs and GOOD ways to do it.

However it'd still more likely then not economically be a sink.



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SamuelRSmith said:
fordy said:
This video proves one thing. Check out one of the highly rated comments:

YouTube has purposely screwed up the "Closed Caption" text on this video. That way all those who are hearing impaired or don't speak English (around the world), won't understand this video at all! It's insidious what YouTube (owned by Google) is doing to America!

While it's hilarious that the original poster doesn't realise that ALL Closed Captions don't work properly, the fact that it's been thumbed up so many times gives everyone the impression that it's nothing but conspiracy theorists that take this video seriously.


No (sane) person believes it's the intent of Government to destroy the economy and our civil liberties. Rather, there is always unitended consequences from either well-meaning activist legislation (in regards to environmental, welfare, taxation), pork (subsidies, defense contracts), or just plain-old corruption. It's the aggregate of decades of unintended consequences that have got us in the situation that we are in today.

If that is true, then the amount of insane people may be increasing, because you see increasingly individuals whose party is out of power will end up making the current administration the spawn of Satan.  In this most recent round, look at the talk regarding Obama and people saying he is intentionally trying to destroy America.  After all, what else would one expect from a "secret Muslim".  And so it goes...



richardhutnik said:
killerzX said:
richardhutnik said:
killerzX said:
fordy said:
killerzX said:

 



I believe Paul Krugman, who has a Nobel Prize in economics, 

i stopped reading after that. if you want your arguments to be taken seriously, you cant use an example of someone who nobody takes seriously

As wrong as Krugman is on a number of things, particularly him being Keynsian economically, the fact is that he won a Nobel Prize in economics and knows more about economics than people who post on forums like this.  The reason I brought up Krugman is because someone goes off and speaks how economics has nothing to do with liberalism.  The reality is that someone can be well versed in economics and argue for liberal views politically, as Krugman does.  

How about, if people want their arguments to be taken seriously, they drop this partisan bull on how Liberalism is totally divorced from economics.

that mean absolutely nothing, and you know it. that prize is meaningless now. that award is complete bogus, and nothing but partison. its compltely about politic. even obama got a nobel peace prize.



richardhutnik said:
SamuelRSmith said:
fordy said:
This video proves one thing. Check out one of the highly rated comments:

YouTube has purposely screwed up the "Closed Caption" text on this video. That way all those who are hearing impaired or don't speak English (around the world), won't understand this video at all! It's insidious what YouTube (owned by Google) is doing to America!

While it's hilarious that the original poster doesn't realise that ALL Closed Captions don't work properly, the fact that it's been thumbed up so many times gives everyone the impression that it's nothing but conspiracy theorists that take this video seriously.


No (sane) person believes it's the intent of Government to destroy the economy and our civil liberties. Rather, there is always unitended consequences from either well-meaning activist legislation (in regards to environmental, welfare, taxation), pork (subsidies, defense contracts), or just plain-old corruption. It's the aggregate of decades of unintended consequences that have got us in the situation that we are in today.

If that is true, then the amount of insane people may be increasing, because you see increasingly individuals whose party is out of power will end up making the current administration the spawn of Satan.  In this most recent round, look at the talk regarding Obama and people saying he is intentionally trying to destroy America.  After all, what else would one expect from a "secret Muslim".  And so it goes...


The hyper-partisanship of the American people is odd, especially when the parties are so similar nowadays. Clearly the work of the media.



Kasz216 said:
richardhutnik said:
killerzX said:
richardhutnik said:
killerzX said:
fordy said:
killerzX said:

 



I believe Paul Krugman, who has a Nobel Prize in economics, 

i stopped reading after that. if you want your arguments to be taken seriously, you cant use an example of someone who nobody takes seriously

As wrong as Krugman is on a number of things, particularly him being Keynsian economically, the fact is that he won a Nobel Prize in economics and knows more about economics than people who post on forums like this.  The reason I brought up Krugman is because someone goes off and speaks how economics has nothing to do with liberalism.  The reality is that someone can be well versed in economics and argue for liberal views politically, as Krugman does.  

How about, if people want their arguments to be taken seriously, they drop this partisan bull on how Liberalism is totally divorced from economics.

Well to be fair.  Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.  How well did that work out? 

The problem with Krugman is that when argueing for Liberal ideals he seems to forget eveyrthing he talks about economically.

There are a LOT of great arguements for liberalism, the problem lies in people trying to make economic arguements for it... which are pretty awful.

It's very much like the conversation with Prof.  I could come up with a number of good reasons for why you'd fund green jobs and GOOD ways to do it.

However it'd still more likely then not economically be a sink.

 

Obama won the prize for not being Bush.   Unlike the Peace Prize, other disciplines have something behind them.  It is still political, but people get it for usually more sound reasons.  Hayek won it also, so I wouldn't go and discount the prize for economics.

The thing about economics is that it ends up more times than not, justifying one's biases.  One can lie with statistics also, and makie it say a lot of things.  One can argue for the Laffer curve, as a reason to cut taxes, and then forget that it could also be used to justify raising taxes.  Of course, this is presuming one can figure out what the heck the optimal tax rate is.  No one knows at all.

On the "it is good for jobs" front, I find this is a whole pile of B.S at this point.  It seems any politician wanting their pork will argue about job creation.  Industries also argue this, as now, non-renewable resource production needs to be pushed through for jobs.  Yes, you see the coal industry arguing it would create jobs.  Al Gore argues that green creates jobs.  What the heck does any of this really have to do with jobs?  Well, nothing, but it is nice to argue it to get your agenda through.

And then, when you end up running everything through the filter of economics, you end you not figuring out how to deal with externalities.  Economic models only work when you get rid of externalities.  Economics also doesn't inform regarding the end a society would want to have, or the direction it heads.  And then, on a predictive side, look how abysmal things get when they end up either doing centralized planning with interest rates, or Wall Street goes off and develops formulas for quantitivate analysis and ends up leveraging like mad with it.

Then you have economists who can't even agree on base premises on things, and starting points either.  To worship economics like it is some sort of holy device that can inform properly on political ideology is folly.



SamuelRSmith said:
richardhutnik said:
SamuelRSmith said:
fordy said:
This video proves one thing. Check out one of the highly rated comments:

YouTube has purposely screwed up the "Closed Caption" text on this video. That way all those who are hearing impaired or don't speak English (around the world), won't understand this video at all! It's insidious what YouTube (owned by Google) is doing to America!

While it's hilarious that the original poster doesn't realise that ALL Closed Captions don't work properly, the fact that it's been thumbed up so many times gives everyone the impression that it's nothing but conspiracy theorists that take this video seriously.


No (sane) person believes it's the intent of Government to destroy the economy and our civil liberties. Rather, there is always unitended consequences from either well-meaning activist legislation (in regards to environmental, welfare, taxation), pork (subsidies, defense contracts), or just plain-old corruption. It's the aggregate of decades of unintended consequences that have got us in the situation that we are in today.

If that is true, then the amount of insane people may be increasing, because you see increasingly individuals whose party is out of power will end up making the current administration the spawn of Satan.  In this most recent round, look at the talk regarding Obama and people saying he is intentionally trying to destroy America.  After all, what else would one expect from a "secret Muslim".  And so it goes...


The hyper-partisanship of the American people is odd, especially when the parties are so similar nowadays. Clearly the work of the media.

The media milks it to get ratings.  The political parties engage in it, in order to get votes, and keep their base active.  Need to get people scared of the other sides.  It is like the closer they get, and the less they can actively come up with solutions, they more negative they get.  Spook your side, and drive your opponents away.  Win with a smaller and smaller percentage of the vote, and also market voting as cool, even if the options suck.  The current system is like a place where a town only has two burger places in it that only serve burgers, and the town runs a campaign you are supposed to go out and eat burgers regularly, because soldiers died for your right to eat burgers.  Do you like how the burgers are?  No?  Well, tough, you aren't patriotic unless you eat burgers.  Should the burger places improve their burgers?  No, because they don't know how to, and it is easier to just make the other guy's burgers seen as bringing about the end of the world, and pressure people they must go out and eat burgers regularly.