Lurker > red sox 777

Nintendo > Sony restored.

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There are immigration checkpoints on I-5 and I-15 going north out of San Diego County at night. From what I've seen, they mostly just wave you through without stopping.

It's ridiculous though. Internal checkpoints are the hallmark of countries like the USSR and DPRK. And I can't imagine they actually catch illegal immigrants this way.

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I dunno, Google is just way more diversified than facebook. If one of their businesses slumps there are hundreds of other services picking up the slack. And it would take a gigantic paradigm shift to overtake their core search engine service.

Google wasn't diversified when they had their IPO though. Facebook will of course try to expand their business beyond the core site in the future.

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Also, as a practical matter, consider what property Wall Street banks even have:

1. US Dollars- without the US government and the Fed, these would be worthless. Certainly not enough gold in Fort Knox to cover more than a small fraction of their value!
2. Treasury bills, notes, etc.- utterly worthless without the government
3. Instruments of debt- worthless if they are denominated in dollars. And even if they are not, they're still worthless without a system to force people to pay up, which requires.....government!
4. Stocks- This is better, because we finally have something that isn't made completely worthless by the loss of dollars. Companies can do business in any currency. But they'll still lose a lot of value as all their dollar-denominated assets become worthless. And there may be a problem with the CEO or someone seizing control of the company- with no government to enforce US laws, there is little to protect shareholders from this. Who's going to stop the CEO if he pays all the company's profits to himself?
5. Derivatives- LOL good luck seeing a dime back on one of these without enforcement of laws.
6. Real Estate- They'll keep this.

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Not really. They only become governments if they use their private armies to impose their will upon unwilling outsiders. If the Wall Street Banker orders his private army to do nothing but protect himself and his property, they are not a government. Furthermore, we assume that everyone in this private army is there voluntarily because of the salary provided and free to come and go as they please. Also unlike government.

What will the banker's army do if a horde of protesters comes onto their land? Attack them? Then they are imposing their will upon hostile outsiders. The same as if France would, by defending its land, be imposing its will on Germany if the German army invaded France. (assuming the French don't just surrender anyway!)

What is an army for but to impose one's will upon others? Consider the feudal state: you can say using your argument that the king is not a government, because all he is doing is employing people to defend his land, which just happens to be the entire kingdom. But why is it his land? Kings in the Middle Ages usually answered that it was theirs by divine right.

In the USA today, property is ours because of transactions that have been made, contracts that have been made, governed by law. What law you ask? American law. If by property you mean physical possession, then we don't need laws for it to exist. But then the thief becomes the rightful owner of property as soon as he has stolen it, if property means no more than physical possession. If by property you mean a legal right, then you need a system of law obviously. And to decide what belongs to whom, you need to choose which system of law.

In your example, suppose each bank on Wall Street forms its own kingdom by hiring private armies. Further north in the rest of Manhattan, Occupy Wall Street and associated movements set up the Soviet Socialist Republic of New York. They immediately pass a law saying that all of New York is under their jurisdiction, and another law abolishing private property. Now, whose law should govern? It can't be US law, or New York State law, because both of those entities no longer exist.

On another note, I think it's hilarious that leftists are arguing with me that rich people benefit most from government. Usually I spend all of my time refuting charges that in the absence of government, the rich people would take over and rule over us like tyrants. Both of these things cannot be true. If you honestly believe that government benefits the rich more than the poor, and you see the rich as having too much influence and you desire things to be more "equal" then you should be in favor of less (or no) government, right?

Well, I'm not a leftist, so maybe that would explain things! I thought it was well known libertarian thought that government is the defender of property. That's one of the primary purposes of good government, to create an orderly rule of law that protects property.

It's true that government does not necessarily achieve its purpose, but if you think that the current system in the US is worse for private property than having no government whatsoever.......well, you're just wrong. That would have been true in the USSR, or in China under Mao, or in North Korea.

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And we decided that if rich people create private armies, they become governments. That's precisely what a feudal state is, actually.

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Hmm? I was saying that laws are enforced because governments are not overthrown. Not the other way around.

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Well, perhaps not those people, or not all of those people. But remove the government, and there will be people who would do just that. That's why the rich need the government to enforce the laws that protect their property.

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They would literally occupy Wall Street of course. Occupy as in take over by force. Occupy as in conquer. Occupy as in take all the property.

It's what happened in Russia in 1917 and China in 1949. Who's going to stop them?

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Application of force is what makes a government. China doesn't follow its laws, but it's a government. The USSR under Stalin didn't follow its laws, but it was a government.

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My point is more along the lines of that bubble status isn't determined by market cap, it's determined by P/E ratio. If the earnings are crap, the P/E ratio is going to be huge (which is quite likely given the ratios of similar companies). That's when you'll know it's in a bubble.

There's 2 ways for P/E ratio to change though. One is for the stock price to change. The other is for the earnings to change. If stock price changing was the only way, investing would be easy and we would all just buy companies with low P/E ratios.

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Probably get killed in the streets by all the PMC soldiers that the rich people would hire to defend their property

If they hire soldiers, then they are.......forming a government! If you have an army, you are a ruler, you are a government.

Though in this case, it wouldn't be so easy. Why would people rather fight for the rich than for the Communist mob that will also pay them once they have looted the wealth of the rich? Either way though, the most likely scenario based on history is we'll end up with someone like Stalin or Mao ruling the whole country.

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First of all, everyone has an equal amount to lose. Their lives. Unless you're about to argue that money is more important than life, which I'm VERY interested in seeing leftists argue.

Life + Money is obviously worth more than Life alone. Property is also more at risk in a state of anarchy (or a Communist mob) than life.

Secondly, rich people depend less on the government for protection because they have the resources to supply their own. Do you honestly think the average ultra-rich person relies entirely (or even primarily) upon the government to protect their wealth and their persons?

If the government disappeared overnight, would your first reaction tomorrow morning be, "Hey, now that there aren't any cops, I'm sure I can just walk over to Bill Gates' house and steal all his stuff." Good luck with that.

What do you think Occupy Wall Street would do if the US and state governments disbanded? The bankers had better hope they've already got their wealth stashed away in Switzerland or another country with a government that protects property if that happens.

Rich people in general rely on contracts. Contracts are enforced by courts. The judgments of courts are enforced by the government. Without someone to apply force, a contract is worth no more than the word of parties.

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Not if you're short!

If you want to make a lot of money shorting it, you've got to short it when the bubble is still inflated. Meaning when we don't know what the earnings will be in the long run yet. Waiting until the market has decided what the company is actually worth is too late.

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Well, even if we do cut spending by a lot.....you're still going to have a hard time squeezing a tax out of people with no income and no assets. 25% of the country has 0 or negative net worth, and for most of them, it's not just a case of debt but also a lack of income or assets that makes it impossible for them to pay a tax.

As far as fairness goes, it's obvious that a rich person gets a lot more out of the government than a poor person does. The government protects property. A rich person has more property to protect.

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Forget market cap though, do we have any idea what Facebook's earnings will be?

No. But by the time that we do, there won't be any more opportunity for a huge bubble, so all the massive profit potential will already be gone anyway.

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Paul > Romney > Obama > Gingrich/Santorum for me, in terms of who I want to win. The only thing I'm afraid of with Paul is that taking a country off the central government support system can lead to massive withdrawal in the short run......or even the not-so short run. The Soviet Union lost a third of its GDP when it broke up, and people are still poorer there now than they were in 1991.

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Facebook can still go much higher. $100B is half Google's valuation, no reason why Facebook couldn't settle down there. But in the near run, FB could easily turn into a massive bubble where the stock goes much, much, higher- like Netflix last summer.

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Perhaps the Patriots have more fans than the Giants?

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No one said people were being smart or reasonable!

Also, of course the AL is better. That's why it wins the interleague games every year.

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3 championships, and AL >>> NL

Yes, this is football, but AL >>> NL matters yes it does.

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I assume by flat-rate you mean a true flat tax, with the same absolute amount, not rate, for everyone. It's efficient in incentivizing the population and all, but is practically impossible. Because 50%+ of the country literally could not pay such a tax without starving, unless we cut government spending a lot.

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If I could, I'd buy at the offering price and sell on the first day. But that's probably not going to be possible for the public.

I also think SMuffin makes a good point. Facebook reported 2011 profits of $1 billion on $3.7 billion in revenue. That's a nice margin no doubt, but how does that justify the $100 billion valuation that's been floating around? Maybe I need to retake some of those finance courses, but something seems off there

Hype hype hype. It doesn't matter how much the company is actually worth as long as you can sell the stock to someone else for a higher price in the future. Facebook's valuation probably wouldn't be too much lower if it wasn't making any profit (yet) at all.

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Complains to self: you have made a mockery of the regular season!

*sobs in a corner*

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Indeed, but we never expected much of a showing for Dr. Paul in that state and neither did he, which is why he didn't really campaign there.

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Though CC beating CT in the regular season softens the blow considerably. I can tell myself there was some basis for the Melee result in the regular season.

Note: In anticipation of the argument, contests like this are supposed to be predetermined based on the preference distributions of the users. The actual results are just random snapshots that help us figure out what the underlying probability distribution is. SPORTS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THIS TOO. AND IT'S WRONG THAT THEY ARE NOT.

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Melee beating CT, we're going to say this result makes a mockery of the regular season?

Yes. Yes it does. Anything beating CT except maybe RE4 makes a mockery of the regular season.

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Well, it's all about expected value. Let's take lawyers as an example. Entry salaries for lawyers are bimodal- there is one peak at $160,000/yr, and below that, very little until you get to $80,000 and below. All you need to get a $2,000/yr expected loss out of this (in line with the $73,000 figure) is for gaming to reduce your chances of getting the higher peak by 2.5%. That's 1 in 40. Not a very high hurdle at all for 10 years' worth of gaming.

Now, most professions won't have as sharp a divide as that, but you can see how we could easily breach that 73k figure even if it makes 0 difference to a majority of people. Concentration of wealth in the hands of the top 1% and all.

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It's just an arbitrary guess that seemed in the right ballpark. It's obviously very different from person to person, and even for the same person at different times in his life.

And for how it would actually work, suppose that because of the 3650 hours you have put into gaming over 10 years, your salary is $5,000 less than what it would be otherwise. $5,000*40 years = $200,000 right there. We're dealing with expected values at every stage of course, so for any given person the actual results could diverge wildly from the expected (meaning average, weighted by probability) results.

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Not to mention the fact that you don't necessarily even have the opportunity to work more hours.

When you are in school, you do have the chance to "work" more hours to get better grades. Working, you get the chance to put in more time/effort to get a promotion faster. If you start a business, that's obviously true again. It's not really about hourly wages, which don't contribute much to expected lifetime income anyway.

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If you start including opportunity costs, you really start going down a slippery slope. Reading (for leisure), movies, TV, sports, hanging out with friends all have the same opportunity costs as gaming. So yeah, you could trade off all fun in your life for an extra $7,300/14,600/21,900/etc. a year, but it's obviously not worth it.

It's obviously not worth it because those things are worth more than the money. It's fine if people think gaming is worth a lot of money too, and I think people really do, despite what they claim, given how much time they put into it.

It's true that there's some amount of work time that maximizes wealth- for example, if you do nothing but work and study, you might actually do less well because you'll be missing important components of life that also help build wealth. And as we get closer to that point, the marginal value of another hour spend working goes down.

But either way, the real cost of being a video gamer is a lot more than what's in that article.

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It is pretty serious, yeah. Though we do have a sort of hysteria against sex offenders in the country right now.

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No one is excited about Mitt's Florida victory?

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I think I like that $73,000 figure, actually. That'd cover gaming from roughly 15 to 25, for an average of an hour a day. Before that, gaming probably has minimal opportunity cost.

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When I hear the term used in the news, I tend to assume it does not mean "brutally gang-raped" because if that were the case, the media would usually say so. I don't really see the problem with this phrase......not very precise, yeah, but there are loads of phrases that aren't precise.

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While obviously gamers do not need to spend anywhere near that much money buying stuff, the real cost of gaming may be accurate, or even low. They did not include the opportunity cost of gaming, and that should be the biggest cost by far. If the cost of each hour of gaming is $20, for example, and you average an hour a day, that's $7300 per year. After 10 years that's $73,000.

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I didn't see one on the board, so let's discuss here.

Republican Delegate Count:

Mitt Romney - 66
Newt Gingrich - 25
Ron Paul - 10
Rick Santorum - 8

1144 needed to win.

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Actually, in a way a court's role is, upon review of the evidence and arguments, to take a side by issuing a verdict. They're only supposed to not have already taken a side beforehand.

Courts often rule that they cannot act, or will not act, actually. For example, in Marbury v. Madison, the Court ruled that it lacked the power to order Madison to deliver Marbury's commission as a judge, even though Marbury was in the right, because the law Congress had passed giving the Supreme Court that power was unconstitutional.

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I've heard it attributed to Martin Luther (don't know if he really said it or not) that there were 3 major enemies of Christianity in the world: Jews, Muslims, and Catholics. Jews could be converted, Muslims could be conquered, but Catholics were the worst because they were utterly incorrigible. The closest to Protestant Christianity, and that made it the worst!

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The two groups who don't play sports are the same in that they both don't play sports, but they're also quite different.

Does that kind of make sense?

Yes, it makes sense. Keep in mind though, that it's often a worse sin to worship a false god than merely not to worship any god. Followers of each religion very naturally resent being grouped with other religions for that reason, because most religions consider false religion to be less than worthless.

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It is necessary to believe things don't exist even though you can't conclusively prove it, because it's utterly impossible to function if you had to believe every single thing you ever did or did not do was going to kill you.

It is absolutely not necessary to believe that things don't exist to function. We can get along perfectly fine by merely not believing they do exist.

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No, this is stupid. You are now saying it is unreasonable to not be a theist, because obviously you can conceive of how a god could exist.

You're not getting it. Not believing that something does exist =/= believing that something doesn't exist. Understand this!

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I don't call hard atheists unreasonable, but they are acting on faith. Faith is not unreasonable but rather extra-reasonal, as in, not related to reason.

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You're unreasonable if you can conceive of a way in which God exists but you nonetheless conclude that he does not exist in fact. You are unreasonable if you use the reasoning that lack of proof for a statement is proof for the negative of that statement.

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The risk is basically negligible without proof.

But why? What's the difference between:

1. The universe is infinite.
2. There is a giant hippo that's going to eat you if you post in this topic.
3. Snow exists (and you are a Polynesian islander before Magellan)
4. The earth is at the center of the universe.

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There is absolutely no way of demonstrating a lack of a very pissed off intangible hippo that will eat you if you reply to me, but you're going to reply anyway because you realize that assuming things don't exist unless you see a reason to believe in them is not only smart, but necessary to actually function as a human being (since otherwise, you'd have to believe you can't ever do anything or not do anything because there could be something out there stopping it)

Or he recognizes the risk of the hippo, and decided to take the chance anyway.

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Yes. $100/hr just for reading posts is a great deal.

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