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[Itnetlolor]

In regards to 002: I agree about it, but it can easily, or quickly, get shot down by the Supreme Court; like with the example that "corporations = people" earlier.

If anything, we can at least curb their spending and influence it big time by providing a maximum limit to how much they can be allowed to "influence" politics with their spending, and how much of it has to come straight out of their pockets, rather than the companies they own, and any cash leftover is not returned to them, but instead put into federal taxes to fund everything else necessary to keep this country running.

Make them a little more responsible with the money they so frivolously spend to get someone into office (or control the New World Order). They win, they get a new jackass into office to attempt to shut this down (guarded by Supreme Court if they support it), they lose, our country runs for another term. And just to make sure they can't cop out of helping the people out, they will have a required minimum investment they must provide for basic funding campaigns. Either way, they're paying their part. They don't want to support someone, too bad, that money (at least at minimal value) is still being put into taxes, and used for a greater good; but if you're going to support another jackass that'll run this country into the ground, then what remains (which should be pretty much close to equal minimal at least, unless they know how to spend every last cent) will still provide buffer.

Re-reading all that, I'm not certain all the mechanics of it, but what I intend to have done is either discourage their spending, or at least put their frivolty to good use, whether they like it or not. Take advantage of them at a federal level, legally, for once. There has to be a way something like this can be done. A cancel-out can be canceled out, but re-routing the flow of things can be more possible. It's easier to make an adjustment like that, rather than put it to a full stop.

I'd like to think of it as thinking ethically equivalent to them, and using that against them, or playing their game in return, with at least some understanding of how they play it. They cheat, we take advantage of it

[Luke_Prowler]

005): This.

I read to "anarchist communist" and I immediately zoned out. Nevermind the fact that those two idiologies simply don't work together, but both of them hinge entirely on everybody working together and the history of mankind has shown that there's a snowball's chance in hell of that happening

[Levi]

In regards to 002: I agree about it, but it can easily, or quickly, get shot down by the Supreme Court; like with the example that "corporations = people" earlier.

No problem.  Just make a rule that people can't make political donations.  Mwahaha!

This stuff reminds me of Jennifer Government, in particular this reminds me of this bit of it:

I loved that book so much. 

[Itnetlolor]

In regards to 002: I agree about it, but it can easily, or quickly, get shot down by the Supreme Court; like with the example that "corporations = people" earlier.

No problem.  Just make a rule that people can't make political donations.  Mwahaha!

I think that'll just piss off more "Do-gooders" that have a good cause they want to support, than the bring in cheers from anti-political types like myself.

EDIT:
Personally, I just don't want our political system to represent Highschool Politics. You know, only the popular kids that have friends that have their parents running the local donut shop or something funding the kid's campaigns, and manages to buy off all the votes with several dozen donuts. I hate those kind of people. They never play fair, and this is how they win votes. It's not too different from our current political structure.

[Duuvian]

Can I suggest an adaption to 003?

Perhaps have a scaling tariff that's based upon the income the manufacturing employees make in the other country. If their base pay is roughly in line with ours, then the tariff is low, or even non-existant. But if the overseas employees (manufacturing employees, specifically.) are being paid signficiantly less than, just for example, the minimum wage here, then the tariff goes up. That way overseas companies are given incentive to pay people reasonable wages.

I do realize I haven't thought this all out. One of many possible consequences is the potential to completely wreck a developing economy if suddenly you have a lot of people making 8 currencies an hour when they used to get 1 or 2.

But if anyone can further refine this, feel free.

That's not a terrible idea actually. It wouldn't force them to raise wages (which is potentially economy destroying) while if they do so they would have a market in the US to sell what their now wealthier citizenry can't buy.

One thing to think about though is what I will call for my lack of knowing the correct term the monetary standard. I'm not sure how countries compare their currencies, but if they compare to the dollar that's silly because it's kind of like Monopoly money

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://boardgames.about.com/od/monopolyfaq/f/bank_runs_out.htm

in that it's not really tied to anything other than being a part of the value of the collective dollars and the banker can call the printer for more if they run low. (this happened in some long competitive monopoly game somewhere, Milton Bradley was informed and supplied an armored truck normally used to transport real money for banks packed with Monopoly cash[really happened as long as Uncle John's bathroom Reader doesn't make stuff up]) If they tie it to gold/silver reserves which is the classic way of making sure your money has value, then if your country already sold it all to the US sometime in the 1800ish-now period so we can use monopoly money then well, you have not as much gold or silver.

So how the currency inflates when wages rise I suppose would be affected differently by that, but I haven't read anything or seen much to make my own conclusions about that.

Basically some economies right now are in a state where they couldn't function with their wages higher than they are so trying to help them might just make them lose what low paying job they might be able to get now for the next ten years or so until the economy and the people in it have had time to adjust. It's one of several reasons why tariffs are incredibly unwieldy and thus must be handled with extreme care. That isn't to say I don't want tariffs; I'd just like it to be as well planned as possible rather than everyone spending their time trying to gridlock the other instead of thinking of ways to avoid or lessen the detrimental side effects to both ourselves and our trade partner as best we could otherwise.

In addition I'm sure there are other significant roadblocks but a tariff that scales in such a fashion would be a good idea to affect the import/export balance (I think that's the correct term) and the problems that arise from it.

Another thing to think about is that removing youself as the most lucrative world market will be highly frowned upon by the international merchants from just about the whole world. This means that in our desire to reduce imports the various plutocratic organizations each country has will possibly lean on their respective governments to impose counter-tarriffs. Instant communication being what it is, it's not hard to presume that an alliance of exporters to the US would form an economic alliance of sorts and begin their own anti-US tariffs.

This is why I think it would take something similar to a 5 year plan (or maybe 4 years with the election cycle here) to not only give the trade partners time to react and express their grievances, but also for us to point out why it's necessary if they want a stable market for the next 20 years.

[Dwarf]

005): This.

I've never heard of this book; thanks for the link. With the power of Project Gutenburg it is on my phone, to be read during my daily commute. Thanks.

Can you summarize it to a sentence or two, to fit our 10 edicts format?

Hm.

1. Abolish capitalism.
2. Base the economy off voluntary cooperation.

005): This.

I read to "anarchist communist" and I immediately zoned out. Nevermind the fact that those two idiologies simply don't work together, but both of them hinge entirely on everybody working together and the history of mankind has shown that there's a snowball's chance in hell of that happening

Oh, I see. Well, that's not changing if you refuse to even inform yourself about another opinion. Such as by, you know, reading a book.

[Luke_Prowler]

005): This.

I read to "anarchist communist" and I immediately zoned out. Nevermind the fact that those two idiologies simply don't work together, but both of them hinge entirely on everybody working together and the history of mankind has shown that there's a snowball's chance in hell of that happening

Oh, I see. Well, that's not changing if you refuse to even inform yourself about another opinion. Such as by, you know, reading a book.

Well for one thing, don't make me look like a jackass. I have looked into other opinions and that's why I don't think it works, not because of some kneejerk reaction like you expected.
Second, I can barely afford stuff as is, and I doubt my local library has this.

[timotheus]

Second, I can barely afford stuff as is, and I doubt my local library has this.

Here you go:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23428

Hm.

1. Abolish capitalism.
2. Base the economy off voluntary cooperation.

I've never heard of a situation where #2 works, unless we are talking in a small commune environment.

[Dwarf]

I don't know how you came to the conclusion that anarchism and communism are mutually exclusive, though.
Anarchist communism and Marxist-Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist communism which is the widely known communism are quite different.

Also, the book is for free. You can read it on the Internet, or as a .pdf or whatever.

[Dwarf]

I've never heard of a situation where #2 works, unless we are talking in a small commune environment.

In a nutshell, one of the points of anarchist communism is that society replaces nations with small federations which govern themselves by means of direct democracy.

[Luke_Prowler]

Second, I can barely afford stuff as is, and I doubt my local library has this.

Here you go:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23428

Thanks man.

I don't know how you came to the conclusion that anarchism and communism are mutually exclusive, though.
Anarchist communism and Marxist-Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist communism which is the widely known communism are quite different.

Communism is an economy in which all forms of production is held and run by a single  large governing body. Anarchism is the opposition of large governing bodies. combinding them you have production held and run by the people. Which is pretty much capitalism. Or maybe I'm missing something.

[Dwarf]

Second, I can barely afford stuff as is, and I doubt my local library has this.

Here you go:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23428

Thanks man.

I don't know how you came to the conclusion that anarchism and communism are mutually exclusive, though.
Anarchist communism and Marxist-Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist communism which is the widely known communism are quite different.

Communism is an economy in which all forms of production is held and run by a single  large governing body. Anarchism is the opposition of large governing bodies. combinding them you have production held and run by the people. Which is pretty much capitalism. Or maybe I'm missing something.

What you're describing is the Soviet Union-style transitional state in which the state own everything. This is known as state capitalism, and is basically another form of capitalism, since an entity that is not the proletariat owns the means of production.

EDIT: To clarify, communism and anarchism actually overlap quite a bit. One could say that communism is the economical aspect, i.e., ownership of the means of production by the people, and anarchism the social aspect, i.e. doing away with hierachy and authority.

[Luke_Prowler]

Ah okay, thanks for clearing that up.

[nenjin]

I have an idea to fix corrupt corruption.

Put every sitting member of the SEC in jail along with the worst offenders on Wall Street, gut the SEC's rules and regulations and rebuild them with more oversight and more coordination with criminal investigators.

Seriously. I just read this: http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/28/news/companies/citigroup_settlement_rejected/index.htm?hpt=hp_t2

And it's the reason nothing ever changes. The SEC simply takes its bribe money from offenders, they get to walk away without ever admitting guilt of any kind, and go on to cook up the next, greatest way to defraud investors. Meanwhile the SEC simply fills its coffers and ensures that it has the money and the clout to defend the financial markets. Just like bad mortgages, it's a cyclic blackhole designed to take money from investors and put it in the pockets of traders and stock brokers.

So yeah. The SEC has been under agency capture for so long, it no longer represents the interests of the American people and barely represents the interests of the market itself. They are literally there to whitewash financial malfeasance so banks and traders can go back to work with a clean record. And all it costs is $30 million to $150 million worth of money defrauded from investors.

[Eagle_eye]

Just link the value of money to that of time. If $x is an hour's pay, it should be able to buy an hour of someone else's work.