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[Reelya]

It's also the height of hypocrisy - a "think for yourself" philosophy that also contends that without the boss to "hold your hand", nobody would be able to do their jobs properly. So, the same people saying the country as a whole doesn't need any planning, also tells you that without the bosses' top-down direction, the workplace will collapse into anarchic chaos.

so you can see that Randianism is classist, since enlightened self-interest is only moral for the rich. "doing what you're told" is moral for the poor. If the poor form a union to petition for higher wages - which they believe is in their own best interest - Randianism says "they didn't know their own best interests", so they'd be better off doing as they are told.

So you can see "enlightened self-interest" isn't for you and me, it's for the rich.

[Nadaka]

After all, the rich have proven they know what is in their best interest by becoming rich. The poor are obviously stupid and weak as proven by their poverty, so they should listen to the rich man. The rich man who is acting in his best interest, by exploiting the stupidity and weakness of the poor. It makes perfect sense!

 

[Reelya]

Nicely put Nadaka

In other news:

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/11/30/hard-authoritative-evidence-of-climate-change-b/191610

FOX News climate denialist accepts latest devastating data on melting ice, and accepts it's a huge problem. But, from his perspective the sole "problem" is that conclusive data gives the climate lobby ammunition to get politicians to actually do something about the problem.

"Don't tell me there's massive climate disruption!?"

"There's massive climate disruption"

"I told you not to tell me that"

His fear is that the government will get a carbon tax through on the basis of this data and get a "huge cash windfall". Well, let's hope they do a flat carbon tax rather than carbon credits. A huge cash windfall like that would really crimp the national debt.

Also, "tax evasion", normally seen as a bad thing, is actually a good thing with the carbon tax. Avoiding the carbon tax by not doing the activities that cause carbon emissions. Any money raised through the tax can be funneled into incentives for further reduction.

[Pnx]

In the UK I think it's mainly used to make your trip into London more miserable than it usually is.

[kaijyuu]

Following a debate on IRC, I was given these links concerning child custody issues (specifically if there's a bias against men).

http://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1454&context=wlulr
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/cust_myths.html


Thoughts? Is the "men get screwed in child custody cases" thing a myth?

[Reelya]

I'm not sure you can draw that conclusion either way from the articles. In the HTML, under the heading "Myth 3:  Custody transfers to abusive parents are rare" they talk about abusers being able to "play the system" often, saying that " an abusive man is more likely than a nonviolent father to seek sole physical custody of his children ...70% of the time an abuser who requests custody is able to convince the court to give it to him."

But they go on to say that men get custody 9-10% of the time. Which means women get custody 90-91% of the time. Assuming that more men are not abusers than are abusers (and that women are not abusers), that means no more that 5% of custody transfers are to an abusive father. How "rare" is "rare"?

so these sociopathic abusers who are able to "play the system" actually represent a small portion of the male population.
And men are VERY rarely granted custody, unless you count 10% of the time as fair.

They also talk about child-abuse allegations:

Of female-initiated allegations, just 1.3% were deemed intentionally false by civil courts, compared with 21% when the man in the failed relationship brought similar allegations.

Which could be looked at several ways. Either men are 15 times more likely to lie, or the court is much more likely to believe a man was an abuser, and to disbelieve that a female was an abuser. Gays and lesbians have about a 30% chance of some domestic violence. Kind of makes you think if 30% of lesbians are beating each other, female abuse can't be all that rare.

And other data which could have double meanings:

In other words, fathers who were violent were just as likely to receive custody when they asked for it as fathers who were not violent. Only 17% of fathers with a known history of domestic violence were denied child visitation and they were no more likely than other fathers to be required by the court to have a third party supervise child visitations.

^ this could mean the court turns a blind eye towards abusers, or it views all men potential abusers.

Let me go through the PDF and get some data:

The  statistics  from 1995  showed  that
courts  granted  physical  custody,  whether  contested  or uncontested  by  the
parties,  to  fathers  in eight percent of the cases  and  to mothers  in fifty-nine
percent ofthe cases.

Then, they claim it's improved, but give everything except the latest data, opting instead to give every other possible stat they can, to make it sound "unbiased" - i.e. that the non-custodial parent gets the same visitation rights etc - but they skirt around giving the updated custody stats. Didn't fit the theory they were pushing, is my guess.

In the area of  child support awards and enforcement there were, generally
speaking, no major concerns regarding gender bias.  However,  two items bear
noting.  First,  although we  heard much  from members  of  the  fathers'  rights
movement, our data showed that  the courts granted  requests for child support
reductions  seventy-five  percent of  the time when a father asked that  the court
modify an  award because  of a negative  change  of circumstances  in his  em-
ployment.
Second,  testimony  in public hearings,  as well as responses  from
family  law attorneys,  suggest  that child  support  orders  are not enforced  as
consistently against women as they are against men.

Ok...that's fair, if the guy loses his job they reduce his child support payments. Doesn't say much about who got custody though. And they don't hold women to the same standard of payment.

[Truean]

This is not legal advice and if you try to take it as such, then you are stupid.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9682263/Occupy-Wall-St-protesters-wipe-5m-off-Americas-debt.html

Pure, god damn brilliance.

"If we raise $50,000, then we can get rid of $1,000,000 in debt." Yup. And that sounds like it might work actually. Pennies on the dollar will purchase "bad debt." That is, debt that nobody really thinks is collectable. The whole point here is, these people aren't trying to collect it, it's being forgiven, expressly not collected and expressly canceled. Even if the numbers are a bit off, and it's $1,000,000 for every $100,000 raised, that's still not bad at all.

There are some drawbacks, like having the forgiven debt counted as "income," under IRS code 64(a) (4-5) and IRS Code 108. That is the IRS doesn't count the money you get given to you as a loan as "income," because you're allegedly going to pay it back. If it comes up that you get so you are never going to pay it back (bankruptcy, etc), then it can be included as income in your tax return. <--- This is a pitfall. However, especially if you are in a low tax bracket or have legitimate deductions, you'd much rather pay 25% of all that debt you owe to the IRS and thus the government, than some debt collector. That's absolutely right, if you had say... $100,000 of debt discharged and/or forgiven this way, you'd owe the IRS income taxes on that amount. I'd still rather pay the IRS $35,000 rather than some debt collector $100,000. The IRS has payment plans....

So basically our country has been sold out from under us, but the good news is, we could buy it back. It doesn't matter that we shouldn't have to buy it back, the point is that we can and it might be a legit way to actually make something happen.

Let's use the $100,000 per $1,000,000 figure (10 cents on the dollar to purchase bad debt). Do you realize what that means? If somehow these or otherwise legit people could purchase all the defaulted student loan debt, medical bills facing bankruptcy possibility, credit card debt, etc. and they could raise $1,000,000 in funding to purchase that debt that somehow got classified as "bad debt," then they'd wipe out $10,000,000 in debt to give real people a start over....

Now let's say they raised $100,000,000 (One Hundred Million Dollars) in donations, that would be about $0.33 (Thirty-Three cents) for just about every man woman and child in the United States (actually less today). If you use that ratio, then $100,000,000 wipes out $1,000,000,000 (One Trillion Dollars).

That would basically wipe out all the student loan, credit card, medical bill, and perhaps various other types of debt that currently can't be realistically paid back in the US.

The problems and reasons why this wouldn't work: a.) people won't part with the $0.33, b.) it's hard to find somebody to trust with all that money, c.) the debt collectors might wise up to the plan and screw it over, d.) you'd still have approximately 1/3 of the amount owed to the IRS as tax income (but that is actually a better outcome), and e.) cynicism.

This is why the government should nationalize the bad debt collection industry and buy it up.... $0.33 per every person in the country.... Bad debt goes poof, tax revenue goes up. Problem freaking solved.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

This is not legal advice and if you try to take it as such, then you are stupid.

Best disclaimer. Reminds me of the small penis rule.

[Truean]

It also really helps to view Jesus as the ultimate bankruptcy attorney. Instead of debt in the world, he got rid of all the sin in the world....

This is not a new idea http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s13e03-margaritaville

[Reelya]

That site's really unfriendly if you're not in America, Truean. I could read the text for a about 2 second before a big "you're not American" thing came up, covering everything, with no way to close it.

Oh: and was the other person who said Jesus was a lawyer, a lawyer too ?

[Darvi]

Instead of debt in the world, he got rid of all the sin in the world....

Fun fact: in German, sin and debt are one and the same word.

[Euld]

This is not legal advice and if you try to take it as such, then you are stupid.

Best disclaimer. Reminds me of the small penis rule.

I... I... wow.  I don't even... XD

[Sheb]

Instead of debt in the world, he got rid of all the sin in the world....

Fun fact: in German, sin and debt are one and the same word.

And then we get surprised about why Merkel is screwing the Eurozone.

Also, there is a movement growing over here in Belgium to audit the debt and see exactly where it came from and what part of it are "legitimate" (aka, do not come from bailing out banks and such).

[lorb]

This is not legal advice and if you try to take it as such, then you are stupid.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9682263/Occupy-Wall-St-protesters-wipe-5m-off-Americas-debt.html

Pure, god damn brilliance.

"If we raise $50,000, then we can get rid of $1,000,000 in debt." Yup. And that sounds like it might work actually. Pennies on the dollar will purchase "bad debt." That is, debt that nobody really thinks is collectable. The whole point here is, these people aren't trying to collect it, it's being forgiven, expressly not collected and expressly canceled. Even if the numbers are a bit off, and it's $1,000,000 for every $100,000 raised, that's still not bad at all.

If I can buy $10 of your debt with 1$ why can't you do so yourself. That is: If they are willing to sell the debt at a tenth of it's nominal worth why don't the just tell the debtors: "hey, you know what. just pay 10% of your debt and we forget about the rest. ok?"

Besides that I don't think it's such a brilliant idea because the money they are using to buy the bad debt goes directly to the most evil loan sharks.

[Sheb]

Well banks, don't want to create a so-called "moral hazard" by fogiving even part of the debt. What they do is sell it to debts collectors that then collect them. That way they still make some money without creating the "moral" hazard.

As for the debts they're buying, well that debt would have been sold to debts collectors. Better have it bought by Occupy Wall Street.