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[Truean]

Are you guys shitting me? People think that? That's the same thing they've been doing since Eisenhower and arguably FDR. Basically:

If the Soviet Union or Communists China or Terrorists start something and it's for real, then we ramp up the military industrial complex....

[Euld]

And why would Obama go to war with Iran for the sake of Israel exactly?  Isn't that what the conservatives want to pull off someday anyway to protect Israel?

[Nadaka]

And why would Obama go to war with Iran for the sake of Israel exactly?  Isn't that what the conservatives want to pull off someday anyway to protect Israel?

Yea... I thought they were blasting Obama for not unilaterally and unconditionally endorsing Israel attacking Iran by any means necessary up to and including a nuclear strike on Iran?

[penguinofhonor]

God, Obama. He hates Israel so much that the only thing that would make him support it is if he could manipulate it to gain more power.

Also, that lying discussion was dropped precisely when I was about to tell you guys to drop it. Good job there.

[Luke_Prowler]

So my insane Tea Party fundamentalist co-worker (who doesn't have a clue as to my political leanings) breathlessly regales me this morning with stories of how Obama has passed a new executive order that makes him God-Emperor for Life.

*Insert mandatory Warhammer 40k joke*

[Truean]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-host-call-monday-morning-002450673.html

Slave labor made products.
Expensive products.
Overpaid executives.
$600/share stock price.
$98 Billion cash on hand surplus....
....

I've said it once and I'll say it again, somehow, tax the shit out of these corporations already. Tax cuts won't do anything but give them even larger piles of money that they admittedly don't need. Regulate away some of that slave labor. Raise working wages. Bring down the cost of the products, reform some of the more egregious and unnecessary contract provisions, something.... Anything....

I'm sorry; you have enough. This is asinine. "Give them even more money," isn't the answer. People, real... real... people, living beings, need money in order to buy all that crap companies produce. <--- This is the cause for sluggish sales and thus the recession. Home prices, student loan debt, none of it would be an issue, if everyone were making a decent wage, because then, they could afford it....

[Bauglir]

"But Truean," opponents will reason, "what if they don't deserve that money? What if they haven't worked hard for it? Truth be told, most Westerners live a life of incomparable luxury. Complaining about that is just self-centered whining!"

Completely failing to see the hypocrisy there, or question why the use of slave labor is apparently morally right if it justifies obscene profit margins because of the invisible hand's infallibility, or that hardship is necessarily relative due to that whole human psychology thing.

[Nadaka]

98 billion could give 1 million people 98 thousand dollars. That is something like 4 to 10 years wages at the US poverty line depending on size of household and local cost of living. *Note that this is a very rough estimate.

And it could be used to set up their hundred thousand + Chinese laborers an solid middle class income (by Chinese standards) for the several decades, possibly their entire lives.

[Capntastic]

Give every person in the world 10 dollars.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

People often say this about Western nations, but I think that the true collapse of the global economy will come when China's workforce starts to retire. Assuming the PRC has not internally collapsed by then, anyway.

Come on, post-scarcity nanofabrication....

[Truean]

"But Truean," opponents will reason, "what if they don't deserve that money? What if they haven't worked hard for it? Truth be told, most Westerners live a life of incomparable luxury. Complaining about that is just self-centered whining!"

Completely failing to see the hypocrisy there, or question why the use of slave labor is apparently morally right if it justifies obscene profit margins because of the invisible hand's infallibility, or that hardship is necessarily relative due to that whole human psychology thing.

If "most Westerners live a life of incomparable luxury," then give it to their third world factory slave labor.... What's that, o corporate tool? You don't ... want... to give it to your third world slave labor factory workers? I thought something was said about "working hard" for it...?" [Note: I know Bauglir isn't the aforementioned corporate tool]

[Bauglir]

"Well, sure, but they don't have that kind of luxury so obviously they don't deserve it."

There's no mental dissonance here at all, I'm sure. Clearly, the belief that hard work is all you need to succeed (and therefore if you haven't succeeded, you aren't working hard enoguh) is consistent with the belief that some people have it too easy when compared to all those people who work hard and still haven't succeeded.

[Truean]

"Well, sure, but they don't have that kind of luxury so obviously they don't deserve it."

There's no mental dissonance here at all, I'm sure. Clearly, the belief that hard work is all you need to succeed (and therefore if you haven't succeeded, you aren't working hard enough) is consistent with the belief that some people have it too easy when compared to all those people who work hard and still haven't succeeded.

Thinking the world is fair and just lets us do our two most favorite things: look down at other people, and praise ourselves. Simply, "we worked hard; they didn't, so screw them."

It's all crap. Yeah, there's clearly something to be said for merit, but people have no idea how much luck really factors into it. Did you graduate college or high school in a good or bad economy? In an area with plenty of jobs around? Was your dad an alcoholic who beat the living shit out of you every chance he got? Was your mom addicted to meth? Was your high school's funding cut denying you a decent education? Did you or your parents get sick and have to declare medical bankruptcy? Were your parents able to help pay for college and reduce or eliminate that student loan debt you'll be paying for at least 10 years, if not many more than that...? There's a lot of stuff.

Should you be rewarded for merit: absolutely.
Should you look down on people: not normally.

[penguinofhonor]

In that discussion I had with my dad/uncle, I brought up that the free market was flawed because people don't care about things like slave labor in china. To which they responded, "Those people wouldn't have jobs at all otherwise." This is stupid, so of course I said there would be someone else to make use of the available labor and their response was that it was the government's fault for being corrupt and making it really hard for businesses to start up in China, requiring bribes and stuff. I have no clue why that justifies sweatshops, but apparently it does.

[Reelya]

I hope that's your dad AND your uncle not your "dad/uncle". J/K