Board 8 > The Official Topic of Freedom and Liberty (Ron Paul 2012)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Defense spending is great if it's used for the benefit of our technology and security

Military spending is a different thing, which involves sending troops all around the world and building and maintaining all this equipment and these pointless bases that do nothing but kill innocents and get our politicians get richer.

Agreed. My friend and I argue about this a lot. He says he likes my Libertarian views on military/defense spending, but he comes from a military family and doesn't want tons of people to lose their jobs and be dropped on their asses. What should I tell him?

--
Genesis does what Nintendon't
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7nsBoqJ6s8

You can lower the amount in defense spending and still keep most of your active personnel. Lower the budget for recruiting, bring the troops home, and that will eliminate a ton of costs. You stop advertising and recruiting, and you'll see a decrease in military personnel naturally.

Having troops stationed at home will also stimulate the local economies, and create construction contracts for new posts in the homeland.

--
http://img.imgcake.com/nio/bokbokbokpngur.png
Ok everyone this is Bartz so just remember.

thanks!

--
Genesis does what Nintendon't
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7nsBoqJ6s8

You shouldn't need to put yourself at risk of being killed by a suicide bomber just to have a job in the military.

--
_foolmo_
'and out of the blue and completely unprovoked came foolmo and his insult' - Anagram

When you take away military jobs, the resources don't just vanish into thin air. They'd be spent in other areas of the economy providing OTHER jobs, presumably ones that involve goods and services people actually want rather than flying death robots.

--
SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/

From: SmartMuffin | #306
rather than flying death robots.

Woah, speak for yourself smuffin; flying death robots are why I got into the aerospace business.

--
[witty phrase including the guru champ SuperNiceDog]
If there is one thing I know, it is that I know nothing.

--
SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/brics-sign-two-currency-pacts-to-set-up-joint-bank/articleshow/12455093.cms

Damn, there goes the dollar-real conversion rate, not that it was great recently anyways. Visiting Brazil is gonna be expensive as hell now.

--
_foolmo_
'To be foolmo'd is to be better opinion'd.' - Blairville

Is there a particularly well explored reason why the government spends more than it makes? Does nobody care or what? I don't get it. Obama, Romney, Santorum etc don't even ADDRESS the issue.

--
Genesis does what Nintendon't
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7nsBoqJ6s8

Cutting programs doesn't get you votes, because the people whose program you cut hate you and most other people won't care. Since there is little or no incentive for the government to reduce spending, and little incentive to raise taxes, you get deficits. One of the big problems with democracy is rule by the ignorant masses.

--
http://img.imgcake.com/nio/bokbokbokpngur.png
Ok everyone this is Bartz so just remember.

this is my favorite topic series ever

--
Genesis does what Nintendon't
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7nsBoqJ6s8

From: foolm0ron | #309
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/brics-sign-two-currency-pacts-to-set-up-joint-bank/articleshow/12455093.cms

Damn, there goes the dollar-real conversion rate, not that it was great recently anyways. Visiting Brazil is gonna be expensive as hell now.

So which will we declare war on first, India or Brazil?

--
SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/

From: SmartMuffin | #313
So which will we declare war on first, India or Brazil?

Probably Brazil. Politicians love to vacation there, but India is just too good of a source of cheap technical labor. They can always find a new place to vacation.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politicsnorthwest/2017877068_republican_delegate_feud_santo.html
Also it seems like everyone is having their turn trying to get help from the RP campaign. I guess they don't realize how much they are helping RP in trying to destroy their opponent.

--
_foolmo_
'Illegal activities is a slight misnomer, most of it is not related to material that is actually illegal.' - nintendogrl1

TomNook7 posted...
Is there a particularly well explored reason why the government spends more than it makes? Does nobody care or what? I don't get it. Obama, Romney, Santorum etc don't even ADDRESS the issue.

There's actually no problem in principle with a government spending more than it makes, if it spends the money well. Income goes up with GDP, so if you're doing smart things like investing in the development of new technology, GDP goes up and future tax income will increase as well; this is the exact same reasoning for why it makes sense for companies to borrow.

Now, that's not to say it makes sense to overspend revenues by as much as we are currently.

--
No I'm not a damn furry. Looney Tunes are different. - Guiga
I wanted Sonic/Shadow romance at that time, not sex. - MWE

Yeah, there's a pretty big difference between making an investment and hoping for a return... and spending more than 2x what you make every year for decades with no sign of slowing down.

But you're right, if you look at it like a business, overspending just makes sense. That's the fundamental problem with a candidate like Romney, even if you look at the "optimal Romney" (the Romney whose set of opinions is the collection of the best opinions he has had over the entirety of his political carreer) -- he wants to treat government like a business. The trick is that businesses are out to profit, while the government isn't.

Really, the government is a machine. There's a reason most of the founding fathers were engineers -- they were building a system, and a system needs to be engineered. I guess the big difference is a business can have a wide range of success, from breaking even to doing really well, while the best a machine can do is work correctly. There can be glitches that make it perform worse or not at all, but the most anyone wants is for it to work. That's a much better model for government, and the critical insight that it provides is that, like any engineered system, every benefit comes with a downside, and like any solution to an engineering problem, the simplest answer is the best. Occam's Razor, right? And what could be simpler than "read the Constitution"?

--
_foolmo_
'Most people at least try to say something funny. See foolmo's post as an example.' - The Real Truth

Well I'm certainly not saying the primary purpose of government is to make money, but assuming a growth in GDP (in real terms) is correlated with a higher standard of living, I think GDP growth should be one of government's goals.

Really though I think the biggest problem is he unwillingness of Congress to compromise, which is being seriously exacerbated by increased media focus. The public wants every every special interest funded (or at least all the ones that affect them personally, which is collectively all of them!), and no one wants their taxes raised to pay for them. That doesn't work, but nowadays a politician who suggests that choices have to be made isn't going to get reelected.

--
No I'm not a damn furry. Looney Tunes are different. - Guiga
I wanted Sonic/Shadow romance at that time, not sex. - MWE

From: LordoftheMorons | #317
Really though I think the biggest problem is he unwillingness of Congress to compromise

I think the government already has a pretty good way to deal with this, though. It's called the 10th amendment. If the federal government is too incompetent to make a decision on something, then obviously they don't deserve the power to even make that decision (because what they eventually settle upon will definitely be terrible). Let the people do it themselves if it really matters.

--
_foolmo_
'and out of the blue and completely unprovoked came foolmo and his insult' - Anagram

Well I mean, if they didn't pass anything at all (or only essential things) I guess that would work? What they end up doing is passing all of the things that sound good (until you realize these things all cost money), and then pass no tax increases or spending cuts.

--
No I'm not a damn furry. Looney Tunes are different. - Guiga
I wanted Sonic/Shadow romance at that time, not sex. - MWE

If you are a big player who bought a stock that is looking to be a bad decision, there is a way to keep the price from going down in the short run: buy more of the stock. A lot more. Your buying, if in large enough volumes, will prop up the stock. Eventually, you'll end up owning a huge stake in a company that is worth much less than the propped up stock price, and you will lose much more money than you would have if you'd just sold instead of trying to prop up your initial investment. Unless of course, you are able to create demand from others for the stock through your operations. Then you can sell out your holdings to them before the fall comes.

We can look at government spending as an example of investing in the economy to stop it from going down. Is it a good investment at the margin? Probably not. But we already have so much capital invested in it that we are going to spend more to stop the original investment from going down.

--
Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.

And yes, that is usually a colossally stupid mistake. Our government has a big advantage over everyone else who buys a stock to prop it up though- it's not spending its own capital. Or the taxpayer's capital. It's spending borrowed money that was borrowed at a rate lower than inflation and can be repaid with a piece of paper printed by the borrower. As long as those conditions remain, the sucker is not our government but the people who gladly lend it money at less than the inflation rate.

--
Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.

From: LordoftheMorons | #319
What they end up doing is passing all of the things that sound good (until you realize these things all cost money), and then pass no tax increases or spending cuts.

Oh gotcha... yeah, I guess there really isn't any way to stop that other than just having smarter people in office (lol)

--
_foolmo_
'nice comma splice' - TomNook7

Really though I think the biggest problem is he unwillingness of Congress to compromise,

I challenge you to really REALLY rethink this. I think we have the exact opposite problem, actually. We have TOO MUCH compromise. Leftists want massive spending on welfare. Neocons want tax cuts and wars. So they compromise and do both.

I challenge you to come up with the last "bipartisan" thing Congress did that was unquestionably good. Any time Congress passes any bill with sweeping bipartisan support, THAT'S when your radar should pick up and you should immediately suspect that they are up to something designed to screw over the public at large.

--
SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/

From: SmartMuffin | #323
I challenge you to really REALLY rethink this. I think we have the exact opposite problem, actually. We have TOO MUCH compromise. Leftists want massive spending on welfare. Neocons want tax cuts and wars. So they compromise and do both.

Yeah, he clarified himself later in post 319 to say exactly that

--
_foolmo_
'It's easy to get yourself in trouble if you start quoting people who don't like you in your signature' - Mods

LordoftheMorons posted...
Well I'm certainly not saying the primary purpose of government is to make money, but assuming a growth in GDP (in real terms) is correlated with a higher standard of living, I think GDP growth should be one of government's goals.

You have to be careful using GDP as a metric of prosperity. GDP in the USA went down over 10% in 1946, worse than every year of the depression save for 1932. Despite this, personal prosperity actually increased significantly, perhaps more so that the 20-30 years that came before it.

So what was going on? We'd just gotten out of WW2, and government spending dropped like a rock, which brought GDP down with it. However, with all the soldiers back home and going to work, private spending actually went up, though not quite as much as what government spending went down by.

Even though people were better off economically, the drop in government spending brought GDP down. That's the problem with GDP; it lumps together both private and public expenditures into one metric. Using GDP alone as a metric of prosperity is effectively a form of the broken window fallacy.

--
There never was a post. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and refracted the light from Venus.

Oh I'm not saying it's a perfect indicator, just that on average it will be positively correlated with quality of life. My main point was that investing in new technology is probably one of the better possible uses of our money.

--
No I'm not a damn furry. Looney Tunes are different. - Guiga
I wanted Sonic/Shadow romance at that time, not sex. - MWE

My main point was that investing in new technology is probably one of the better possible uses of our money.

Not if government does it.

--
SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/

http://projects.wsj.com/campaign2012/delegates



--
Genesis does what Nintendon't
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7nsBoqJ6s8

--
SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/

From: TomNook7 | #328
http://projects.wsj.com/campaign2012/delegates

Hey I heard Paul and Romney are forming an alliance

--
_foolmo_
'nice comma splice' - TomNook7

So I just saw a movie in Los Angeles, and it was $13.50. This is more expensive than it was in Manhattan a year ago. Since everything is usually more expensive in Manhattan than anywhere else in the USA, I'm going to assume that this was the result of inflation. Hurray! Inflate that dollar away.

--
Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.

Also, what is up with shopping malls in LA charging for parking if you stay more than 2-3 hours? Don't they want you to spend lots of time at their stores?

--
Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.

2-3 hours is plenty of time to shop! Any longer and you're probably loitering!

--
SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/

Man I park in those 1-hour spots all the time for like 2-3 hours without paying. F*** DA POLICE.

Also movies here are $10.50, and I thought that was ludicrous enough. 3D is $14 I think. And people saying gaming is an expensive hobby.

--
_foolmo_
'To be foolmo'd is to be better opinion'd.' - Blairville

True, but spending time to pull the ticket, get it validated inside the mall, and then insert it in the machine on the way out, is annoying.

On a loosely related note, $5 blackjack is great, but I can understand why casinos are reluctant to offer it (with decent rules at least).

Assuming 100 hands an hour (typical with 4 players at the table), that's $500 bet per hour. House edge with typical decent rules is 0.48%, so that's $2.40 per hour per player. With 4 players, that's $9.60 per hour. Then you've got to pay for free drinks for all the players, for the dealer's wages, for the casino operations people's wages, and for all the upfront capital expenditure.

Pretty hard to turn a profit at all if players are actually betting $5/hand, and are playing basic strategy. I suppose in practice people don't play basic strategy, so the realistic edge is more like 1-2%, but even with $40/hr coming in, the profit probably still is pretty low.

--
Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.

Gaming is really really cheap. What other hobby can you do for $3 an hour these days? That's assuming you play a $60 game for 20 hours, so it's probably actually a really high estimate- $1/hr is probably more realistic for what people actually pay.

I want to see some game developers start charging $100 (okay, $95 for the psychological effect) for their premium games. It offends my sense of justice that game prices have not inflated since the mid-90s. All prices must go up. The Fed printed too much money for it not to do so. Roar.

--
Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.

I want to see some game developers start charging $100 (okay, $95 for the psychological effect) for their premium games. It offends my sense of justice that game prices have not inflated since the mid-90s. All prices must go up. The Fed printed too much money for it not to do so. Roar.

Console prices have inflated! Isn't that enough?

--
SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/

No. All prices must go up. Game prices have not- they defy logic, reason, and the mighty Federal Reserve. Their defiance cannot be tolerated.

--
Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.

All prices must go up

Not really!

The natural trend, especially when you're dealing with technologically sensitive areas, is for prices to go down!

Compare the price of RAM today to in 1995 <_<

--
SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg
http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/

But today's technology is better than technology from the mid-90s- that's why computers are more expensive today. Of course the exact same computer is much cheaper today- but the typical computer that consumers buy is more expensive.

Oh wait......video games haven't actually improved since the 90s. Ok then I guess!

--
Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.

That's only because transistors have been getting exponentially smaller for years, which makes them both faster and cheaper; it's definitely an atypical trend. They're currently hitting the point where quantum effects are getting really relevant, so I doubt they'll improve at the usual rate for very much longer.

--
No I'm not a damn furry. Looney Tunes are different. - Guiga
I wanted Sonic/Shadow romance at that time, not sex. - MWE

A look at the biggest casino companies (a look at how insane Macau is):

1. Las Vegas Sands - $42.26 Billion Market Cap

Casinos:

Venetian Las Vegas
Palazzo Las Vegas
Sands Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Venetian Macau
Sands Macau
Marina Bay Sands Singapore

Just 6 properties (a 7th opening this year), but this is biggest (by gaming revenue) and most profitable casino company in the world. 80% of the revenue comes from the Asia properties. Total projected gaming revenue for 2012 is around $11B, or more than 1.5 times that of the whole Las Vegas Strip. China evidently has tons of new rich who have no better place to put their money than Macau casinos.

Perhaps we should be happy that China is funneling upwards of $10B a year to American casino companies- makes a slight dent in the trade deficit.

The Venetian in LV is very high class and an enjoyable place to be. Blackjack rules are not the best, but decent.

2. Wynn Resorts - $15.61B Market Cap

Casinos:

Wynn Las Vegas
Encore Las Vegas
Wynn Macau
Encore Macau

Again, the key to success is Macau. Only place to gamble in China, and loads of nouveau riche.

Again, Wynn in LV is high class. Rules are not bad, though worse than at some of the MGM properties.

3. MGM Resorts International - $6.658B Market Cap

Casinos:

Bellagio
Aria
MGM Grand Las Vegas
Mirage
Mandalay Bay
Monte Carlo
New York New York
Luxor
Excalibur
Circus Circus
MGM Grand Macau
MGM Grand Detroit
10 others

It seems strange that MGM's market cap is so much less than LVS and WYNN consider that it has so many more casinos. And these are big, high-end, casinos too, including the iconic Bellagio. But the problem is that they only own half of one casino in Macau, and that is the key market now. Meanwhile they have a crushing (more crushing than LVS and Wynn, less than Caesar's) debt load from construction prior to the recession.

Probably the best casino chain to play blackjack at in Vegas, if you're not betting large amounts of money (in which it's a lot easier to find good rules). Stick to the mid to high end MGM places though- those are where you find the good rules.

4. Caesar's Entertainment - $1.85B Market Cap

Casinos:

Caesar's Palace
Harrah's
Paris
Flamingo
Bally's
Planet Hollywood
Rio
Many others

Some people took this company private in 2007 for $18B. Well, they got what they deserved, it seems, for paying a large sum of money to buy a hyperleveraged company at the market peak that gets by by ripping off customers. It was once the biggest casino company in the world, but lost its place due to crippling levels of debt and lack of a casino in Macau. And I want to say because customers realized how terrible their rules are, but I'm not sure how significant a reason that was for their problems.

Don't gamble at any Caesar's property. Their rules are terrible almost across the board, and you can find a better game elsewhere.

--
Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.

So I just saw a movie in Los Angeles, and it was $13.50. This is more expensive than it was in Manhattan a year ago. Since everything is usually more expensive in Manhattan than anywhere else in the USA, I'm going to assume that this was the result of inflation. Hurray! Inflate that dollar away.

Movie tickets are unfortunately $13.50 in Manhattan as well. Movie studios/theaters should really have scaled pricing. It's silly that all movies cost the same to go see, 3-D aside. $13.50 is Ok for something like The Hunger Games or a major prestige picture, but for B-level movies, and movies that have been out for several weeks, I think prices should be down to $10 or lower (with proportional changes for prices in different parts of the country.) This is the way films used to be priced back in the 50's. A major roadshow film release like Oklahoma! or Around the World in 80 Days would cost $30* in a prime New York theater, while you could see a B-movie double feature for less than what you would pay* to see a single one of them now.

*Adjusted for inflation

--
My bracket wasn't good enough to beat SuperNiceDog's in the GameFAQS Rivalry Rumble. Congrats!
This is Yesmar.

Well that's like saying games should be scaled as well. AAA titles should be $60, and B-level games should be less. Lots of games ARE less than $60, but there is still tons of crap at $60.

--
_foolmo_
'nice comma splice' - TomNook7

Well that's like saying games should be scaled as well. AAA titles should be $60, and B-level games should be less. Lots of games ARE less than $60, but there is still tons of crap at $60.

Video games are scaled. Portable games, downloadable, and budget titles all cost less. AAA titles make up a much bigger proportion of video game discussion than AAA films do for film discussion, so the scaling of video games is not that obvious. And much of the crap that gets originally budgeted at $60 goes down in price after a while, or if it's not selling well, like the most recent Rayman game (not that it's crap except in terms of sales). This would obviously happen on a faster pace with films, as video game sales have a much longer tail than box office numbers do.

--
My bracket wasn't good enough to beat SuperNiceDog's in the GameFAQS Rivalry Rumble. Congrats!
This is Yesmar.

Games aren't scaled enough I think. And same with films.

--
Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.

So apparently the Department of Education is planning to force kids to buy fruits and vegetables for lunch at school. And people think Justice Scalia's broccoli argument is irrelevant? There are so many unconstitutional laws, strike 'em down!

--
Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.

I almost always got a salad with my FREE SCHOOL LUNCH (suck it taxpayers) because it was the only thing that was decent. Everything else was nasty and crusty as hell, but the salads were packaged and refrigerated so they were quite fresh.

Way better than those pizzas... though I guess pizzas are vegetables so...

--
_foolmo_
'Most people at least try to say something funny. See foolmo's post as an example.' - The Real Truth

So apparently the Department of Education is planning to force kids to buy fruits and vegetables for lunch at school. And people think Justice Scalia's broccoli argument is irrelevant? There are so many unconstitutional laws, strike 'em down!

Does this cost extra? If not how is it different than saying schools are making kids buy a tray for lunch. It's not like they're making anyone eat them (even though they should obviously be encouraging kids to do so.)

--
My bracket wasn't good enough to beat SuperNiceDog's in the GameFAQS Rivalry Rumble. Congrats!
This is Yesmar.

Does this cost extra? If not how is it different than saying schools are making kids buy a tray for lunch. It's not like they're making anyone eat them (even though they should obviously be encouraging kids to do so.)

Forcing kids to buy lunch from the school should be unconstitutional too.

--
Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
your 7 time champion, Link.