Lurker > red sox 777

Operation Twist extended aw yeah.

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I would guess that an energybender could restore one's bending just as he can take it away.

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I would think dereliction of duty is exactly what high crimes and misdemeanors is supposed to refer to. But as a practical matter, it's not going to happen unless one party holds 2/3 of the Senate. There's no case law on this, because only 2 Presidents have been impeached, so the court that would try a President has only been convened twice.

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Well, there's the famous Andrew Jackson quote: "The Supreme Court has made its decision, now let them enforce it." This quote is generally understood by both the left AND right to be a disgusting attack on the judicial branch and a completely unconstitutional usurpation of powers. Are you saying you agree with Jackson here?

The Supreme Court developed all the doctrine about branches of government not giving orders to each other (or to states). But naturally it doesn't like the same doctrine being applied to itself.

Though there is still a distinction here based on action/inaction. Court orders are obviously dominant when telling the executive that he cannot do something, or to stop doing something. But it's not so clear when/if there is a court order telling the executive affirmatively to do something. For example, if a court rules that you do not owe the IRS money, the IRS has to stop collective from you. But if a court rules you do owe the IRS more money, can they order the IRS to collect it from you? What if due to budget cuts from an RP presidency, the whole IRS was dismantled? Could a court order the President to go out and hire people? Seems to me, probably not.

For the record though, the federal government is CURRENTLY suing the state of Arizona for making its own immigration law, under the logic that immigration is the federal government's business and therefore the state cannot enforce it. Arizona's defense is "we are only helping you enforce the law you already have on the books." It would be interesting for the federal government to simultaneously declare that they can choose not to enforce immigration laws AND that the states cannot get involved in any way whatsoever.

It's certainly ironic. I wouldn't say without merit though, either legally or for giving the people as much protection from government as possible.

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It's something that would have made a lot more sense back before FDR and the extreme expansion of the size of government. For most of our history, most enforcement of the laws was not carried out by the federal government but rather by private citizens (through civil lawsuits) or state or local governments. Laws are not meaningless even if the President chooses to ignore them as long as those people can still enforce them.

As far as constitutionality goes, my understanding is that it is and has been held to be legitimate. Refusal to prosecute, for instance, is always okay. If you selectively prosecute (say, you charge minority kids with felonies for cheating in school but not white kids), that can be grounds for voiding all the prosecutions. Refusal to file a civil suit is similarly okay- I don't have to sue even if I have a valid cause of action. So at least as far as the President's refusal to enforce amounts to "we will not file any cases in court" it's legitimate.

Your example with Ron Paul dismantling the income tax by executive fiat is interesting. I could be wrong, but I don't think that's really been tested in court before. The fundamental principle of separation of powers is that branches of governments cannot issue orders to each other. It's like how Congress cannot order states to serve as tax collectors for the federal government, but Congress can pass laws banning states from interfering with the IRS.

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If enforcing the law means nothing more than "do whatever Congress says" then the framers need not have attached any importance to the office of President at all. The way I see it, as long as the President is not enforcing laws that don't exist, everything is fine.

The Constitution seeks to protect the citizens from the government. It does this by requiring all 3 branches of government to do something before the government can do something to a citizen. The legislature must pass a law, the president must enforce it, and the courts must agree with the president. We get extra protection that way.

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That article about Obama not enforcing the law: I thought that's been done for ages? That's the power the Constitution gives the president, to enforce the laws. If the framers wanted Congress to enforce the law, they would have given Congress that power instead.

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Im saying , as foolmo has pointed out, that the current system is DAMN entrenched and short of some fairly heavy handed government interference theres nothing to do BUT try to make it work a little better.

That's not the change we can believe in. And Obamacare is already about as heavy-handed as we can get.....the thing is literally thousands of pages long, filled with regulations that impact healthcare at all stages of delivery.

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Hmm, I suppose you're right. But for stuff that I would actually order, I find In-N-Out gives me more calories per dollar. Either that or I'm just not visiting the right McDonald's that have these dollar menu deals.

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McDonald's still has a dollar menu, doesn't it? Any please with a dollar menu is less expensive than a more "premium" fast food joint like In-N-Out. Depending on your appetite, you can stuff yourself at McD's for like three bucks.

I've been to one McDonald's in the past.....10 years or so where I could actually stuff myself with food off the dollar menu. It was this place on the west side of the Cascades in Washington. In general, it seems, for the same number of calories, In-N-Out is cheaper.

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Great company that exemplifies capitalism, decent food. Food should be cheaper as it's more expensive and tastes far worse than places like In-N-Out, but McDonald's is definitely the easiest to find fast food place no matter where you are in the world.

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Professional licensing is plain horrible and really ought to be abolished. It exists to protect existing members of the profession, not the public.

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Even a public option could work wonders. Private companies are supposed to do things more efficiently than the government right? Well if that's true, they should be able to run the public option out of business pretty quickly- and if they can't, it shows how badly the health insurance industry is flawed right now. And a public option competitor can be its cure.

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Right, and we're paying a bigger share of GDP for healthcare than for any other comparable country because of it. Furthermore, people who are not so concerned with getting top of the line treatment have very little ability to opt out. You can't have a system where you get something for nothing- someone always has to bear the real costs.

And regardless, Obamacare only reinforces the current system. So if you like the current system, then sure, you'd like Obamacare- your bandaid depiction is pretty accurate. If you don't like the current system, then you don't want to put a bandaid on it.

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What about the fact that medicine at the highest level costs a ton, and in order to pay for the procedures and such that are super costly, the price increases get spread around all over the place.

Plus I mean a bag of IV fluids may only cost X amount, but paying the doctor, the nurse, the support staff, etc. comes at a premium too, which I am certain gets factored into what hospitals charge insurance companies. I dont know that for sure, but I'd like to think with something like medicine we arent all completely motivated by the bottom line.

Those things all cost that much because the customer (patient) has no choice but to pay what is asked, because there is no market competition.

Of course, it's true that medicine at the highest level does cost a ton, and that's why super rich from all over the world come to the US to get medical treatment of the highest level. We have that. But it's impossible to provide such treatment to everyone at an affordable price- at least until years down the line when those treatments are no longer the cutting edge. It's impossible because those things are intrinsically expensive.

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I don't think that's the only reason. surely you can come up with more, no?

The only important, structural, one.

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I never said it was a game we could win. But I you'll agree that healthcare is basically unaffordable without insurance. Demand is already high only the working poor and the very rare person who can afford to pay their medical bills out of pocket are without it before obamacare. Obamacare only marginally increases it while increasing the ability of people to afford that insurance.

Why is healthcare so unaffordable? Because the insurance companies want it that way. Because there is currently no market for paying medical bills to doctors/hospitals directly without going through the middleman of the insurance companies. Because there is very little market for health insurance in which consumers are able to choose.

With car insurance, you can easily compare rates from 5 different companies within an hour online, and pick the one you like best. The insurance companies have to keep their prices down, or else you'll just go to the competition. You can't do that with health insurance, so there's no incentive for insurance companies to keep prices down.

Now think about what happens when you subsidize healthcare. We are subsidizing the insurance companies so they can make even more money. Will prices go down? No, because there's still no incentive- why not just take the federal subsidies and still charge the same rates as before? And now there is increased demand from the people who didn't have health insurance before, so if anything the insurance rates will go up. That's why Obamacare is in many ways the worst of both worlds. We end up paying the insurance companies more on both ends, through our own health insurance and again through government funding.

The one thing that will help is competition- and the only reason healthcare is so expensive in this country is the extreme lack of competition.

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No shut up. Obamacare isnt perfect and not as good as it could be, but having it is ABSOLUTELY better than not having it. Its subsidized healthcare, which is nice any way you cut it. The costs of medicine are growing far faster than wages, it was a NECESSARY bill.

What do you think will happen to the cost of healthcare under Obamacare?

Private companies still provide health insurance. Now people are ordered by the government to buy it. Demand will go up, supply stays the same..........It looks to me like healthcare costs are going UP.

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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
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Just remember that if you actually are the deciding vote, you are electing the leader of 300 million people and as the most important world leader, impacting about 7 billion people.

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That 'aint my definition. It only matters if it's close.

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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
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What? I thought that was the most common definition. It's certainly the one I've always used and that makes the most sense to me. Your definition on the other hand is completely illogical and is close to a logical fallacy on its face. I've heard it before, but it's completely terrible and no one should take it seriously.

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No, that's not the way worth is measured. Worth is measured by the probability that your vote will influence the outcome of the election times the importance of the election. Since Obama/Romney looks close, a vote in it is worth something.

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To give my opinion on the topic: Voting for Romney isn't appeasement. It's not appeasement because we're not giving up anything. No one is required to pledge votes for mainstream Republicans in future elections or anything. Only Romney or Obama will be elected this year, so a vote for anyone else is worthless.

On another note, libertarians are way too small a group to even start thinking about using the term "libertarians in name only." IMO "republicans in name only" was a terrible idea for the GOP too, because the whole point of it is to drive people out. You use this kind of thing when you are trying to force people out, like when the Communist elite wanted to consolidate its power and needed to get rid of other party members from the days of the revolution. You don't do this when you are trying to win more people to your party.

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Yeah, in that case the propaganda isn't really equal- it's very heavy from two parties and nonexistent from everyone else.

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Yeah, in that case it doesn't matter how they vote.

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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
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The reason I can intelligently discuss these issues with you isn't because I was born a genius and it isn't because I have some fancy degree (I don't) but it's because I make the effort.

It's because you're not stupid and you make an effort. Not stupid applies to a majority of the population, makes an effort to a minority. People who have both represent a substantial minority.

However, the genius of large groups making decisions is that it doesn't matter how stupid people vote, as long as their votes are random. It will cancel out. But if they are being deceived by propaganda, then their votes are no longer random, and can hurt. So if you have done absolutely zero research and don't know who's on the ballot- vote or don't vote, you're not doing or harming your civic duty by doing so. But if you only know about candidates through propaganda, stay away from the polls.

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Just because people think they understand the issues, doesn't mean they actually understand the issues.

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If Nader endorsed Romney in a Romney vs. Santorum contest, it wouldn't be surprising though.

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If you people are so upset at Rand Paul endorsing a candidate, then you are just like Occupy Wall Street/socialists. People who demand others agree with them on all particulars, and cannot tolerate dissent. Rand Paul can endorse whomever he chooses, just as you or I can.

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21k could be possible as the tuition at state schools in some states. But even that would ignore cost of living expenses. At the cheapest schools, once you factor in cost of living, a 4-year college education is probably more in the range of 100k, and that's not even factoring in opportunity cost. At most schools, it's more like 200k cost.

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Show me the law that says we can only have two candidates.

There isn't, and there also isn't any law that says Rand Paul can't support whomever he likes for whatever reason he likes. In this case, he thinks there are only 2 candidates who can win at this point, and he prefers one of them to the other. Doesn't mean he has to agree with that candidate on most issues.

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Self-regulation still has the problems of normal regulation. Only no regulation except for competition will produce the results we want.

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The most positive way I can see this is that the RP campaign hopes that if Rand endorses Romney, then Romney might actually implement some liberty policies. It's a moot point, though, because Romney can't win. Will be interesting seeing what comes from this.

It is a moot point, but Romney can definitely win. It's moot because Romney won't implement liberty policies under any circumstances.

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I don't see any problem- the Republican race is over, there are two candidates left. He prefers Romney to Obama.

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I suppose the two biggest problems with homeschooling are that it's harder for kids to form social ties with their peers, and that they won't have real grades for when they apply to college. I'm not sure how colleges deal with that- do they just give your SAT scores more weight? If so, I could have gotten a big advantage out of being homeschooled, being naturally good at taking standardized tests.

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As far as quality of education goes, I would hope I could do a better job than the public school system. I'd kind of feel I should, because I'm better educated than most of my teachers. Though I suppose that doesn't mean much as far as teaching ability goes.

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Speaking as someone who participated in the National Geography Bee, I always thought that homeschoolers had an unfair advantage, since their parents could obviously divert entire lesson plans to help them study for the event. Plus the National Geographic Society had a backwards system where they would pay for teachers' hotel rooms, but not the kids' parents, so the homeschoolers' parents got to come for free, while everyone else's parents had to pay (in my case at least, my teachers had jack **** to do with my successes there, which made this rule infuriating for my parents.)

Another Geobee participant here! I don't think my parents ever told me about who was paying for hotel rooms, but homeschoolers were definitely represented to a much larger degree than in the general population. I always thought it was because parents could devote large amounts of time at home to geography study (at the expense other things naturally). And the same applies to other kinds of academic competition- if you get to pursue a specialized course of study, you'll have an advantage in these types of events.

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By "connections" I assume you mean bribes. Which in many ways is simply a more honest form of the bureaucratic nightmare we have here.

If you think China is a more honest market than ours, you are simply naive. At the end of the day, we have laws in the US that allow you to enforce contracts.

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Profits will definitely go to the Chinese company though... and be taxed and spent in China.

Dunno. I think you guys are wrong on this one.

While that's true, it's offset by the one-time transfer of money from the Chinese corporation to AMC's former owners (presumably American).

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MGM has posted a couple of excellent days- up 10%.

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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
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And yet, the only reason that Chinese goods are of lower cost than American goods is that America institutes statist anti-market policies, such as the minimum wage.

Economically speaking, China in many ways is freer than the United States. If you want to support free markets, buying American seems like a silly choice.

The reason behind 95% of China's cost advantage over the US is that it is a poorer country. 4.5 times the population, a bit over 1/3 the GDP. 12 average Chinese people together earn as much as the average American.

This is an advantage unlikely to change anytime in the foreseeable future. Even if China equalizes with the US in GDP 20 years in the future, the average Chinese person would still be earning only 25% what the average American earns. As the most prosperous large country in the world, the US simply cannot compete with poorer countries on low costs.

And China is a freer market in some ways, but also much less free in other ways- go try building a business there without "connections" and see how far you get.

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http://www.georgesoros.com/interviews-speeches/entry/remarks_at_the_festival_of_economics_trento_italy/

An interesting George Soros speech about the future of the Euro. His claim: The Eurozone will inevitably break up unless Germany is willing to abandon imposing austerity on the peripheral Eurozone countries.

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http://krugman-in-wonderland.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/krugman-solves-another-mystery-and.html

A great post that lays out the basics of the Austrian argument for austerity.

Excellent post. I wonder if Krugman would agree with the statement: "money is fiction." Bernanke has already come out and said gold is not money, so I think he would agree with that statement also.

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Bernanke coming to the rescue of the entire market. Is there an asset class QE is bearish for?

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up

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Obama - 11
Romney - 3

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Mittens

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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
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Who gets your vote at this time?

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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick
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Yikes. Actually, are you talking about single deck games or six/eight deck games? Single deck is basically always 6-5 in Vegas, but casinos usually have both 3-2 and 6-5 or only 3-2 for six deck.

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At least in the past, Excalibur was full of 6-5, but the higher end MGM properties were not. Though, generally the higher limits you're willing the play the better rules you get, so perhaps on a busy holiday weekend, the minimum to get decent rules was $15. Which sucks for players, yeah.

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