bmdrocks21

Yeah, but leaving for good and deleting accomplish the same thing. I understand club wanting to get a better Win/Loss ratio without violating the multiple account policy. I just never was able to get an explanation on what "ban by request" meant, and the wording made it sound like another member requested it. Perhaps "voluntary account deletion" would be a better name.

The point about temporary bans still stands.

Why would someone ask for a ban instead of just leaving? That doesn't make sense

I would like to conduct a poll on the current enforcement of bans. PinkFreud was just banned "by request". There is no information as to why a respected member of the community has been banned. I'm not his biggest fan, but I certainly would like him on the site to keep things interesting. Dr. Franklin seems to get a temporary ban about every two weeks. This makes the site border line-objectively less enjoyable when people I enjoy talking to are removed from the site permanently or for over a week. It is also less enjoyable having to walk on egg shells when talking to people here.

I believe we need more transparency on why temporary bans occur, as well as information on either who requested a "ban by request" or at least some reasoning.

Permanent bans should not be shrouded in mystery. 

Let me know your thoughts on how a reform to banning should look or why it should stay the same.

Thank You! :)

Ever heard the phrase "Hate the sin, not the sinner"? He hasn't said he hates any Chinese, just their governmental policies. 

China is losing its market share? 

All I have heard is them gaining infrastructure around the world with predatory loans to 3rd world nations.

I have, fortunately. :)

I will say, I do think they will try to stall to see what happens in our next election. If Trump wins, the tariffs will likely continue (as he seems to be the only one advocating for them) and if he loses, they have no worries. They do know what we want. They aren't stupid. We want them to take their tariffs off our goods and allow us to export there.

No doubt it should have. There are some people who think tariffs will just escalate things, but I would much rather that than have them continue to gut our domestic industries.

Yeah, we definitely need to stop them from stealing our intellectual property. That is a big thing. We do all of the research, they reverse engineer it, and they get to sell it back us and undercut on prices. 

I personally believe in fair trade. I would like it to be as free as possible. It is best for consumers that way. However, China has historically used protectionist policies which hurt us at their benefit. I think it is best to threaten to use and potentially use high tariffs on Chinese goods until they agree to practice freer trade with the US. Using free trade with them give us no leverage with which to negotiate better trade deals. 

Do you guys believe that we should use tariffs to make China make a better trade deal with us, or do you believe there is a better way to accomplish that goal?

Oh my gosh! I'm growing up in clown world ;(

:O) *honk* *honk*

So, a leftist activist who heard about this second-hand is the source on this one?

Kinda reminds me of a certain "doctor" who campaigns for the democrat party that couldn't remember the year, place, or attendees of the party where Kavanaugh """raped""" her....

Wouldn't that be your fault for not instigating and accepting enough debates?

More of a McCarthy man myself.

But based on the disproportionate payment of taxes, do you think the story has at least some realistic application?

Yes, Freud?

I was almost definitely going to vote Trump anyway. Gabbard was the only Democrat that actually had a brain, but now that she is gone, there is no doubt who I am voting for :)

I am trying to be respectful, but that comment about the makers not paying is super ignorant. 

Everyone demonizes the 1%, but guess what percent they pay of total taxes. It is 37.32%! They are disproportionately paying taxes.

Guess how much the entire bottom 50% is paying. 3.04%!

How is it fair that 1% pays over 10x more than the bottom 50% combined???

Count this as my example.

I'm a student. So, from my parents, I'm a taker. I don't make everyone else pay for everything I could need or want, though. That isn't my right. 

Tulsi was the only Democrat that I would have considered. Looks like I'm probably voting for Trump.

Wunderbar!

I mean, they have more social services and less disposable income/less purchasing power. Take your pick. I would choose freedom over what my money is spent on.

It seems we have reached a standstill.

Do Germans own all of those things?

I see you. Neglect the heat in the winter point I made (when their average winter temperatures are 0 Celcius). 

Well, if you look at any remaining Democrat candidate, you'll see what I mean(Poor Tulsi. :/). They are promising darn near free everything. Free healthcare, free college, etc. How do they pay for that? By raising taxes. Who pays a disproportionate amount of taxes? The makers. I'm not saying that we are anywhere near the convoluted reality of the book. But a few terms of candidates like that would sure get us close. I don't live in the fantasy world of a book. I want to stay as far away from it as possible.

Ok, just curious. I think she is a little too idealistic, myself.

Have you read her works or read what people said about them?

You could look at it that way. However, we bailed out GM, the banks, etc. We subsidize thousands of companies and impose strong regulations. It helps big companies, but it hurts the smaller ones that can't afford to comply or hire accountants to avoid taxes. It is by no means as extreme as what I have heard from the book. That is because, like 1984, it is a cautionary tale. It shows how bad things can end up if you aren't careful. 

In terms of the makers stopping. Think of that like how we outsource hundreds of thousands of jobs because of high taxes and fairly strict environmental policies that make it super expensive to set up business here. Those taxes go to our ever-increasing welfare state (takers). So, while the book may seem a bit extreme, it is somewhat accurate and should be considered. 

Glad I could help with the mental block. We all get that way occasionally. Let me know what you think when you're done. I will certainly try to read it myself when college grants me some free time. :)   

It seems their definitions of poverty do vary, so perhaps that was a little unfair.

However, cost of living is still better in America than Germany. They have lower average monthly incomes and less purchasing power.

Having electricity for your household is a fairly basic necessity. It obviously isn't the only measure, but having to spend almost three time as much for electricity means they will also have less money to spend on other goods and necessities. I'd say that being stuck in a house without cooling during the summer or heat during the winter is a pretty big problem.

This says that 16.7% of Germans are below the poverty line, while only 15.1% of Americans are below it.

Aren't people going through energy poverty over there since they switched to mostly renewable energy

Essentially the message is that the government will expand, they will give preferential treatment to certain businesses(corporatism), and there will be an ever-growing number of takers and less producers from what I am seeing. That seems to be fairly accurate.

Probably because not a lot of us have read it. It is over 1100 pages. On my to-read list, but I think it is more of a libertarian thing to be fair.

First, let me just mention that FDR became president in 1933. Did you know that 1937-1938 there was a recession? Until the onset of WWII, the private sector didn't recover. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession_of_1937%E2%80%9338

I mean, your source points to artificial decreases in unemployment caused by job works programs. I don't believe I have to cite a source saying that this money must come from somewhere, yes? He continuously raised the corporate tax rate throughout the Depression https://www.thebalance.com/corporate-income-tax-definition-history-effective-rate-3306024 which means less disposable income with which to hire people. So, he essentially shifted money away from the private sector.

The social security tax also made it more expensive to hire people. The minimum wage made it more expensive to hire people. Not to mention that the minimum wage was a tool to crowd out black employees since they undercut white employees. That is probably why their unemployment rates tripled those of whites https://www.history.com/news/last-hired-first-fired-how-the-great-depression-affected-african-americans . They often had less education, which made their labor worth less. 

Again, the AAA made food products more expensive. I don't see how destroying food is a good idea, especially when poor consumers are already struggling.

I asked for Obama policies, but I will check these out when possible.

Let's not feed the military-industrial complex, eh? Our soldiers' lives are more important than North Koreans'.

The Foundation for Economic Education thoroughly lays out how higher taxes, fixed prices, etc prolonged the Great Depression.

He made the AAA, which paid farmers to produce less, kill their cattle, etc to artificially inflate agricultural product prices. This obviously hurts consumers who were already struggling.

I feel that we will have to disagree on social safety net, but he made no article in SS that would adjust retirement age based on life expectancy. As a result, it will bankrupt us.

I had a whole debate trashing his economic policy. He allowed for the creation of business cartels, he changed the tax code multiple times while in office, which made the business environment unstable.

Economists Thomas E. Hall and J.David Ferguson found that his four tax code changes during his presidency drastically decreased private firms' investment.

Not quite the broken window fallacy since none of our assets were destroyed. Other countries' assets were destroyed(war) which gave incentive for us to build weapons, which in turn caused employment. 

I agree with most of the rest of what you said. War is a bad way to fix standard of living. I was more referring to factories creating tanks, guns, bullets, etc as what helped, not military employment. 

There are almost no economists that will say that FDR's trash economic policies got us out of the Great Depression. Most say that he prolonged it. The only thing that helped us out was the war, which put everyone to work.

Just for fun, I'll add a quote from Henry Morgenthau, FDR's Secretary of Treasury: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work."

Now, please tell me a few specific Obama policies that ended the Great Recession, and I will evaluate those. 

I will admit, I wasn't entirely pleased with his economic decisions. Some were okay, some(like the price controls you mentioned) didn't really help. 

Would love to have me play? I did nothing lol. I know I can still play, but again, I likely won't have enough time to actually contribute.

While I agree not to put the entire weight of success or failure at the foot of one president, I think you are wrong. Obama had eight years to fix the economy. He did so very slowly, the slowest recovery from a recession since the Great Depression. Trump inherited an economy that just got out of a recession, so we cannot judge them directly. However, he is setting record highs. Trump is rather pro business, with low taxes and low regulation. I think that strategy beats Obama's high taxes, high regulation, and subsidies. 

Nixon won 520 electoral votes.

I can't be active enough. Also, I apparently broke rules, which I wasn't even aware of.

Um false, Johnson refused to change interest rates and the result was rising inflation as he came in to office. Not to mention the relatively huge deficits that Johnson ran, which Nixon got under control. You think that creating medicare and medicaid had no effect on the incoming president? 

Lol, I'm gonna pull an "Trump inherited Obama's economy" on you. Nixon inherited the Great Society programs and Vietnam War from Johnson, so therefore it wasn't Nixon's fault that his economy was as bad as it was. :)

(Except this actually has a little merit to it)

The only evidence was me being AFK. That is because I'm in college

Fair enough. I was just saying that about 90% of the people have threatened me with lynching thus far.

I mean, it was the slowest recovery since the Great Depression. Not sure it was the worst recession since then.

It is how I used it

Got some hyper-aggressive lynchers in here lol