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[2009-02-13 08:55:07] - http://www.reason.com/news/show/131672.html Maybe a bit of a cheap shot, but I found it amusing.
-Paul[2009-02-12 17:42:59] - Paul: I'm just glad the thing is doomed to failure, because, in case you couldn't tell, the concept of it pisses me off. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-12 17:25:53] - Xpovos: Sorry, you weren't irresponsible enough before. -Paul
[2009-02-12 17:20:35] - 5 years is a long time to try to predict what will happen by then. -Paul
[2009-02-12 17:20:18] - aba: Maybe, but how do you determine if they can afford the reset? Maybe they plan to sell the house before 5 years are up or maybe they will refinance or maybe rates will go down or maybe the breadwinner will get a promotion. -Paul
[2009-02-12 17:15:14] - Hey! Fucker! Where's my free house? -- Xpovos
[2009-02-12 16:13:50] - paul: ARMs are a bad idea because they earn loan officers quick commissions on large loans that really shouldn't be given because the people can't necessarily afford the reset. - aba
[2009-02-12 16:02:15] - aba: Very true, and I definitely agree that a large portion of people don't fall into those categories, but I think it's unfair to ARMs to call them bad ideas just because stupid people can misuse them.
-Paul[2009-02-12 15:48:10] - paul: two big assumptions there: 1) people understand what they are doing and 2) they are not over-reaching.
- aba[2009-02-12 15:36:51] - edit: "as long as you KNOW a little bit". -Paul
[2009-02-12 15:36:29] - In fact, I would say that as long as you now a little bit about what you're doing, the 5/1 isn't bad at all. Interest rate increases are usually capped at a certain amount and you can always refinance if things get out of hand (again, assuming you didn't over-reach). -Paul
[2009-02-12 15:34:18] - aba: I dunno, I don't think that historically the 5/1 ARM has been that bad. It certainly can be a useful mortgage for those who know what they're doing (ie, not short-sighted people over-reaching). -Paul
[2009-02-12 15:27:16] - aba: The banks never really made money on the mortgages anyway. They make the money on the fees. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-12 15:23:04] - aaron: Max Tundra coming to DC in May!! playing with the Junior Boys too!
- vinnie[2009-02-12 15:13:53] - xpovos: it's not that housing prices are too high.... it's that people want to live in homes or neighbourhoods that they can't afford and thus are easily enticed by loans such as the 5/1 ARM. i don't understand why this is still beneficial for the banks considering how many foreclosures they've had to take on in recent months. - aba
[2009-02-12 15:03:34] - aba: Because low monthly payments are still an affordability tool because house prices are still too high for most people to buy. Particularly if they're strung out on credit card debt. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-12 14:55:27] - aaron: I just noticed I answer you pretty much the same way each week because the textbox prompted exactly what I was going to write. yay routine - vinnie
[2009-02-12 14:53:39] - aaron: I'll be there - vinnie
[2009-02-12 14:40:13] - gurkie: xpovos answered mostly for me.
the 5/1 is such a bad idea because your interest rate may reset at a time when rates are high and then all of a sudden you won't be able to afford your mortgage anymore. it happened to sooooo many people that i don't understand why these mortgages are even being advertised anymore. - aba[2009-02-12 14:11:23] - ddr_people: pump it up! - aaron
[2009-02-12 13:38:31] - gurkie: Low for that price. If you have the 20% for the downpayment, it is about right for a 30-year fixed at 6%. But as Paul noted, that fluctuates a lot. The 5/1 ARM makes it more affordable initially. Without the 20% down though, it's more like $2100 for P&I. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-12 13:21:14] - aba: I didn't even look at the financing info. Those things probably get out of date real quick, especially with the wild interest fluctuations these days. -Paul
[2009-02-12 13:10:50] - gurkie: any of these friends looking for an entourage member? - pierce
[2009-02-12 12:51:45] - I realized something depressing... I have friends who pay more in taxes than I make in a year... ~gurkie
[2009-02-12 12:39:20] - gurkie: i don't want to move again!!! but otherwise it's tempting - aaron
[2009-02-12 12:15:33] - aaron: u could sell yours and buy in the neighborhood with paul! ~gurkie
[2009-02-12 12:14:57] - aba: is 1860 high or low? ~gurkie
[2009-02-12 12:00:43] - paul: i clicked the link, saw an estimated monthly of 1860, was very confused and then noticed it was for a 5/1 ARM. /facepalm - aba
[2009-02-12 11:40:21] - aaron: Well, I'm hoping a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's a short sale. As I understand it, that would seem to lend itself to a cheaper price. -Paul
[2009-02-12 11:28:37] - Paul: Seriously. Check these out: $110,000 TH across the street from where I live now. $135,900 SFH in my parent's subdivision. Neither is perfect, but I could afford to buy either one, if I ignore Katie's student loan debt. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-12 11:25:38] - paul: why is it so inexpensive??? - aaron
[2009-02-12 11:15:37] - Xpovos: Just wait a few more months. You never know... -Paul
[2009-02-12 11:04:12] - Paul: Maybe if it were $200K cheaper. I drove in via I-66 this morning. Ugh. It has to be very cheap to make that worthwhile. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-12 09:16:59] - http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/12527-N-Lake-Ct-Fairfax-VA-22033/51794005_zpid/ If anybody is looking to buy a townhouse close to me, it looks like there is one for sale about a 30 second walk away.
-Paul[2009-02-12 09:15:37] - a: Thanks, you don't need to put a lot of effort into this. I was just wondering if it was something obvious that I was missing. I'll run those commands tonight. -Paul
[2009-02-11 21:41:38] - aba: All my rage is directed at the political and non-political, but with very political jobs, elite up the street. I don't have much left over for somewhat rational individuals whom I dsiagree with on other maters. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-11 20:19:25] - aba: rage is something you need to participate in. you can't just ask for it, you need to earn it. ~a
[2009-02-11 20:18:54] - paul: hmmm. i could investigate if you'd like. try running "df -h" and "du -sm /usr /var /home 2>/dev/null" and "lsof" and email me the results (the second command will take a while to run). ~a
[2009-02-11 18:26:31] - aw, man. i visit like 6 hours later and see no rage. i'm disappointed.
- aba[2009-02-11 16:14:42] - Paul: I'm pretty sure that getting elected won't help you find the missing 6GBs. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-11 14:57:03] - a: I should probably work on getting elected first. -Paul
[2009-02-11 14:57:01] - Anybody know why these numbers don't seem to be adding up? -Paul
[2009-02-11 14:56:27] - So my netbook should have a 16gb HD. When I run the disk space analyzer tool, it says I have something like 13gb total and 12 gb used. The only problem is that the lower section (where the amount of space used is broken down by directory) only seems to be showing 6gb used. -Paul
[2009-02-11 14:50:37] - paul: no, if you want to be considered a great president, you better get us involved in some war of historic magnitude or unprecedentedly expand government powers. ~a
[2009-02-11 13:30:06] - Xpovos: If you want to be considered a great president, you better get us involved in some war of historic magnitude or unprecedentally expand government powers.
-Paul[2009-02-11 13:25:53] - Xpovos: I am totally in agreement with you. For the most part, the list of the generally agreed upon "greatest" presidents are people who either were in power during a war or just found ways to hugely increase government spending. -Paul
[2009-02-11 13:22:41] - If Paul is right, it reinforces my longstanding position that our 'best' presidents are the ones we know the least about. We know about the presidents who greatly expanded presidential powers or government spending. That's a negative reinforcement too for current and future presidents who want a historical 'legacy'. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-11 13:13:55] - So we're all just going along with this insane thought that something is better than nothing, even if it means the country goes even more incredibly in debt (which I think we can all agree is a bad thing). -Paul
[2009-02-11 13:12:42] - So what this boils down to is that the people in power desperately want to do SOMETHING because they feel like it shows that they are working on a solution even if there's no indication that said solution is working or will work. -Paul
[2009-02-11 13:11:16] - In fact, it almost sounds like the Obama administration is resigned to the fact that it won't work, since they're already laying the groundwork for future stimulus packages too. -Paul
[2009-02-11 13:10:43] - aba: I don't know if I have any rage with regards to that link, but I think if anything, it reinforces what I've been saying: Nobody knows if the stimulus will work or if it will make things worse. -Paul
[2009-02-11 12:58:30] - aba: I find it interesting how the economic issues like this really bring out the similarities between the extreme right and extreme left. Even on Daily KOS, which that article links to, there's some of that kind of talk going on. The 1988 You Tube video is awesome. But the poll shows the majority disagree with both of us. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-11 12:49:26] - xpovos: i moved some of the signature logic to the css file. your browser needs to have the css file loaded. ~a
[2009-02-11 12:49:09] - And now they're all better. Yay! -- Xpovos
[2009-02-11 12:48:55] - Sigs sort of work in I.E. but mostly they're all teal. Also Ctrl-Shift-R still does nothing. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-11 12:48:29] - message board rage GO! http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/02/give-geithner-break.html - aba
[2009-02-11 12:47:45] - a: That doesn't appear to do anything in Chrome. Let me load the page in I.E. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-11 12:47:10] - OK, now even fewer sigs are working. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-11 12:46:53] - xpovos: it should work if you hit control-shift-r. ~a
[2009-02-11 12:46:32] - Hmm. Some sigs aren't working anymore, but they still are in the title. Odd. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-11 12:04:53] - $3-$3.5 trillion that is. - mig
[2009-02-11 12:04:41] - for a frame of reference during the Bush years the entire federal budget was in the $3-$3.5 range (don't remember if that was at the beginning or the end, could have easily been in the $4 trillion range over the last few years). - mig
[2009-02-11 12:03:49] - just read from glancing at a newspaper while getting lunch that the entire stimlus package could in total amount to almost $2 trillion. They claim there's some "private" money invovled in this spending but I don't see how this could possibly be true. - mig
[2009-02-11 09:18:55] - Xpovos: Yeah, my best learned lesson was from AMD. Larger loss in terms of dollars but nothing close in terms of percentages. For that, I have Xybernaut, which also went bankrupt.
-Paul[2009-02-11 08:46:36] - More financial fun for us all to peruse. I can't think any of us would perceive this as being a good thing. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-11 08:33:27] - mig: Someone set us up the bomb. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-11 08:33:13] - Paul: Yeah. But really, so what if I lose my last $50? They've already got the $1450. And this is the thing that makes the most sense for the company. A very painful lesson learned for me in investing. But the painful ones tend to be the best, in some ways. We remember them. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-10 19:19:15] - gurkie: my favorite is the mega double stuff oreo. ~a
[2009-02-10 17:48:08] - it was so lively yesterday. what happen? - mig
[2009-02-10 17:45:29] - Xpovos: http://www.cnbc.com/id/29126444 Ouch. -Paul
[2009-02-10 15:37:43] - http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/ ~gurkie
[2009-02-10 13:52:34] - a: I think mig was referring to Pierce's comment about Alan Greenspan not being Captain Socialist. I don't think he was replying to my link. -Paul
[2009-02-10 11:39:05] - mig: clinton was a socialist? i thought that clinton . . . presided over the longest economic expansion in u.s. history and he reduced the percentage of americans on welfare to it's lowest level in 33 years! (quote was from a very reliable source) ~a
[2009-02-10 10:50:57] - and I consider the fed to be really another part of the government. In theory it's supposed to be "independant" and impartial to government interests. In practice not so much. - mig
[2009-02-10 10:42:07] - pierce: captain socialism? no. he was certainly not a free market advocate either. - mig
[2009-02-10 10:34:37] - Something that I don't think was mentioned here is that there was also a strong push under Clinton towards affordable housing which very well could've been the start of the housing bubble. -Paul
[2009-02-10 10:31:26] - Pierce: After all, this was the same man who gave us the tech bubble as well. -Paul
[2009-02-10 10:31:08] - Pierce: Although I tend to agree that linking to a specific study would be nice, I'm not sure one is necessary here. It seems fairly obvious that the housing bubble and bust played a huge role in the current meltdown and it's hard to imagine that the insanely low interest rates by Greenspan had nothing to do with the bubble. -Paul
[2009-02-10 08:19:55] - Don't worry. I'm likely way off base. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-10 08:14:11] - Ugh
~Dee[2009-02-10 08:01:36] - Dee: When I last upgraded my wireless cards, the new card made a huge improvement on my reception. So what spec is it running? 802.11.x? The mobo upgrade shouldn't affect it at all, AFAIK, but two factors might be insufficient power supply to the card for better reception (try your power options?) or they bumped it while they replaced the mobo.(time to replace) -- Xpovos
[2009-02-10 07:55:12] - Thats annoying enter button... my laptop's ability to find and connect to wireless networks now sucks. It can barely pick up the signal from the upstairs wi-fi... and it doesn't pick up the other 5 random neighbors signals now. Any suggestions? ~Dee
[2009-02-10 07:53:45] - I had to have a new motherboard installed on my Dell Laptop-Inspiron 1525 yesterday because the computer stopped recognizing the AC adapter to charge the battery. Anywho my laptop
[2009-02-09 19:48:38] - also, quoting from it... "Keeping interest rates on the track that worked well in the past two decades, rather than keeping rates so low, would have prevented the boom and the bust" [citation needed]. that's one honking big claim to make without linking to a specific study. - pierce
[2009-02-09 19:44:17] - mig: that's not really what that op-ed says. it blames the fed (a quasigovernmental institution at most) for the current situation, particularly its actions during a period when alan greenspan was its chair -- not exactly captain socialism, I hope you'd agree. it does blame the government for mishandling the situation, but "mostly responsible" is an overstatement. - pierce
[2009-02-09 19:09:42] - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123414310280561945.html yet another wsj article on why government is mostly responsible for this mess. - mig
[2009-02-09 17:27:36] - mig: Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised at all if China had a freer economy than the US, which is pretty sad, if you ask me. -Paul
[2009-02-09 17:26:23] - Pierce: Epic shame over your stealthy refutation. -Paul
[2009-02-09 17:14:15] - Paul: stealthy refutation of your last word! - pierce
[2009-02-09 17:13:46] - paul: going back to examples of a free market, ironically China's economy may be a better example of a free market economy than U.S. at the moment. - mig
[2009-02-09 17:04:08] - Pierce: Last word! -Paul
[2009-02-09 17:02:56] - alright, I gotta take off for a bit. invigorating argument though! I'll check in again later in case you want to get in the last word now. - pierce
[2009-02-09 17:02:18] - paul: fully recognized as a flaw in our system of government. not, however, a dealbreaking one as far as I'm concerned. - pierce
[2009-02-09 16:59:49] - Pierce: That's true, there's a certain amount of money that those industries have to have donated to politicians before we give them a nice bailout. -Paul
[2009-02-09 16:57:03] - paul: in fairness, larry flynt didn't manage to get government support for his proposed bailout of the porn industry. obviously that was a stunt, but just because we've given out lots of bailout money doesn't mean we're giving it to everyone with no rhyme or reason. look at lehman brothers. - pierce
[2009-02-09 16:55:16] - Pierce: Perhaps I mispoke, I meant that the borrowing itself was a bad idea even though it can be paired with smart spending which might make the whole package a good idea. -Paul
[2009-02-09 16:55:02] - you can say it's wrongheaded, and you may be right... just like borrowing 100k for a degree in 19th century french poetry from harvard isn't necessarily a good manifestation of a generally good idea. but we can wag our tongues all day without any sort of authority to support or disprove it. - pierce
[2009-02-09 16:54:28] - Pierce: Or I could argue for an economy which doesn't consider billions of dollers in bailouts to be the common cure for every potentially struggling company. That would only require looking back about a year or two. -Paul
[2009-02-09 16:53:10] - and that is, of course, the reasoning. even borrowing the money for tax cuts is based on that logic, that even if we don't necessarily invest in infrastructure it'll end up revitalizing the economy so that we can invest in infrastructure. - pierce
[2009-02-09 16:48:16] - paul: I don't think we can all agree on that. if those hundreds of billions now allow our economy to be trillions of dollars larger in the future, then I don't think that's generally a bad idea. it's like student loans, they're generally a good idea because they're predicated on the assumption that your income will be increased beyond the value of the loan. - pierce
[2009-02-09 16:45:43] - paul: right, exactly. however, arguing for an unregulated society is like speculating that a creme made from moonrock dust and dodo yolk would cure your illness. since we can't practicably test it you can make any assertions you want and we can do fuckall to counter. - pierce
[2009-02-09 16:43:45] - Because I think we can all agree that borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars more is generally a bad idea, even if we spend it on something that might be good. -Paul
[2009-02-09 16:43:22] - pierce: I can make mathematical formulas... but I doubt I can get people to agree with them. Hence my simulations are without value. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-09 16:42:58] - Pierce: I just feel like if there is no way of knowing whether or not a stimulus will help (and if half of us think it's a bad idea), maybe we shouldn't spend billions of dollars on "medicine". -Paul
[2009-02-09 16:41:03] - It's like being sick and buying some expensive medicine. Even if you feel worse a day or two after taking the medicine, if you eventually get better you're probably praising the medicine for helping even though it could be a total placebo. -Paul
[2009-02-09 16:40:51] - until xpovos comes up with those mathematical formulas he's promising we'll just have to live with those possibilities and make our arguments based on the best logic and economic theory available to us. - pierce
[2009-02-09 16:40:19] - paul: exactly. it's possible that the stimulus will keep us from complete disaster, but things will still end up worse, in which case it will probably be considered ineffective. or it might be terrible for the economy but we manage to succeed despite it, and then it will get credit. - pierce
[2009-02-09 16:38:30] - so yeah, as I stated, we may screw up correlation and causation. FDR got reelected three times, maybe that was the american public shooting themselves in the foot, but things changed for the better and democracy is the closest thing we have to a practical means of reenforcing that. - pierce
[2009-02-09 16:38:30] - pierce: Unless we can make mathematical formulas we can all agree on and simulate. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-09 16:38:14] - Pierce: I probably know about as much as you do. Your equation is what worries me, though, because whether the stimulus ends up hurting or helping, it will probably get all the credit when (if?) the economy eventually turns around. -Paul
[2009-02-09 16:36:42] - maybe time_x wasn't enough to correct the depression, and since we can't go back and rerun the experiment without time_x overlapping time_y we'll never really know with 100% certainty. - pierce
[2009-02-09 16:35:28] - paul: and I'm sure you think the new deal prolonged the depression, but what the hell do you know about it? I certainly am no expert, all I see is { depression + time_x } => { depression }, and { depression + new deal + time_y } => { no depression } - pierce
[2009-02-09 16:32:10] - if we elect stimulus-happy politicians, and a few years later everything is worse, then the electorate may replace them with stimulus-averse politicians. that doesn't even mean the stimulus wasn't working, it's entirely possible for the electorate to confuse correlation with causation, but it's the best we can do until the insect overlords get here. - pierce
[2009-02-09 16:31:19] - Pierce: I don't know if looking at the results down the line would help at all. After all, I'm sure you think that FDR's new deal saved us all from the great depression.
-paul[2009-02-09 16:28:52] - paul: well, more accurately, there's no way for us to prove to each other that it is or isn't working, and I'd accept that the math of it is probably to complex to be proved one way or the other even by the world's best economists. we can, however, look at the results down the line a bit. - pierce
[2009-02-09 16:28:24] - Pierce: I'll take a little of B and C. Glad you can easily find the faults of your arguments.
-Paul[2009-02-09 16:27:30] - Pierce: The United States also had a democracy. I find slavery to be a wholly unacceptable, basically dealbreaking counterpoint to democracy.
-Paul[2009-02-09 16:26:17] - pierce: I disagree, but you expected that. So, I'll switch topics slightly to one that I think will help. There's a thing called a 'market failure', and I don't mean the stock market crash. I mean things like the tragedy of the commons, or pollution. Those are useful subjects for debate between free-market believers and government interventionalists. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-09 16:25:36] - this would, I think, be your cue to chalk slavery up to a form of "over-regulation" in itself, or blame it on the fact that it was supported by the government, or undisprovably assert that it's not a necessary consequence of strictly-free markets. - pierce
[2009-02-09 16:25:13] - Pierce: I'm a little confused, I thought I was arguing that the stimulus might not be helping out current system (that exists) and that there is no way to prove to anybody that it's not working. -Paul
[2009-02-09 16:23:32] - paul: okay, well if you're accepting gradiated versions of "free" for the purposes of this argument, then you have to recognize that the less-regulated fledgling US had slavery. I find that a wholly unacceptable, basically dealbreaking counterpoint to the more-free market. - pierce
[2009-02-09 16:20:59] - xpovos: right on, precisely. that's, however, where I think I have the high horse here... I'm arguing the merits (and faults) of a system that already exists and has observable behaviors (albeit ones that often defy simple explanation). you guys argue for a system that has never existed on the relevant scale, so your positions have no accountability. - pierce
[2009-02-09 16:20:14] - Pierce: Hong Kong is another tumorous growth of the British Empire which supposedly also had/has a fairly free market. -Paul
[2009-02-09 16:18:44] - Pierce: Religious beliefs aside, I think it's possible for a fairly free market to emerge outside the confines of the forehead of a certain thunder god. The United States itself had a fair approximation of a free market when it sprung forth from the forehead of the British Empire. -Paul
[2009-02-09 16:17:53] - to that point, the multinational corporation thing was me trying to put this on a realistic scale. multinational corporations have absolutely succeeded in behaving outside certain levels of regulation to which they would be subject if they were only in the US. in some ways that's been beneficial, but in others it's gone terribly wrong. - pierce
[2009-02-09 16:15:38] - Pierce: Pardon my ignorance, but why couldn't it occur on the scale it would need to for this argument? -Paul
[2009-02-09 16:15:21] - Both laissez-faire and governement interventionalist markets will fair better than a control over a sufficiently short period of time because of placebo effect, new innovation under new rules, and other intangibles. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-09 16:14:39] - p&P: Part of the problem with this is that we're not capable of performing rigorous scientific tests. That is take three economies, a government-interventionist one, a laissez-faire-free-market one, and a control to see who performs better or worse over a set period of time. And part of that is the scale of time involved. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-09 16:14:32] - ...so you can only be technically disproven by a complete anarcho-capitalist society springing forth fully formed from the forehead of zeus, and then being unable to survive. - pierce
[2009-02-09 16:14:21] - Pierce: You're right that there's "no functional A-C society to use as a control group", which is probably more frustrating to me than it is to you.
I do think, however, that you can look at the experiences with foreign economies and learn some lessons from them (like the Japanese economy in the 90s). -Paul[2009-02-09 16:13:34] - paul: I hope you recognize that, in real terms, your example can never occur on the scale it would need to for this argument. what's more, it doesn't allow for gradiated thinking... a market with less, but not zero regulation can simply be accused of worse regulations... - pierce
[2009-02-09 16:09:06] - Pierce: I'm not sure where the theory of multinational corporations getting more powerful fits in, but I would definitely take exception to anybody saying that we've had a free market for the past few decades. The entire function of the Fed is to muck around with the economy. -Paul
[2009-02-09 16:06:06] - Pierce: Whereas I look at the economy and say: See? This is what happens when the government screws around with a free market. -Paul
[2009-02-09 16:05:27] - Pierce: I think one of the stumbling blocks between us is (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that you see our economy and say: Look, the free market is failing, we obviously need to introduce government regulation/stimulus/oversight/etc. -Paul
[2009-02-09 16:03:43] - Pierce: In order to be convinced that a free market is a bad idea? I guess I would have to see one "fail" in terms of it noticeably underforming a similar (in terms of size and composition) but far more regulated market. -Paul
[2009-02-09 15:57:38] - tag, you're it. - pierce
[2009-02-09 15:55:57] - as to what convinces me of the merit of one form of spending versus another? ummm, I have a leprechaun that lives in my old tennis sneaker, he tells me what to think. - pierce
[2009-02-09 15:54:16] - I certainly do think I can be convinced that a particular stimulus or form of spending is a bad idea. Case in point, tax cuts, which I've already stated I'm against as a form of "stimulus" spending. - pierce
[2009-02-09 15:52:53] - so to answer your question more directly, I'm not sure I can be convinced that government spending (including bailouts and stimuli) is always a bad thing... just as I've made my peace with the fact that you possibly can't be convinced that a totally free market is the ideal sociopolitical structure. - pierce
[2009-02-09 15:49:20] - and for the record, I entirely suspect you feel the same way arguing with me sometimes. - pierce
[2009-02-09 15:48:56] - over the years I've often felt like I was arguing with a brick wall with you. I'm all like, "look, there's a big hole in the wall, right there!" and you respond "well since there's no wall there, that's outside the scope of the wall." - pierce
[2009-02-09 15:46:23] - I know that makes me sound like a self-righteous prick, and maybe I am. I'm not trying to be, for what it's worth. - pierce
[2009-02-09 15:45:35] - however, and maybe I've just been ungenerously reading your statements, you don't ever seem to find fault with the free market concept in general (unless we badger you into it) whereas I feel I'm able to recognize and volunteer the flaws in my worldview. - pierce
[2009-02-09 15:43:10] - I think if we weren't spending this money, both back in the fall and now, we'd be in a much worse situation than we currently are. I haven't done the math to prove it and neither of you, and that is the chasm between our assumptions and I fully recognize it as such. - pierce
[2009-02-09 15:41:05] - I believe borrowing from the future is a moral hazard, but one that is justified if we simultaneously use that money to stimulate a failing economy and invest in infrastructure so that the future people we borrowed it from get some return on their investment. - pierce
[2009-02-09 15:39:51] - whereas I feel I recognize that government spending is a necessary evil, but evil nonetheless. I recognize that spending is out of control and wasteful in many ways, but I also believe it can be applied to beneficial ends. - pierce
[2009-02-09 15:38:08] - my point being, you have your assumptions and I have mine. however, your assumptions give overwhelming amounts of credibility to the free market... if there's any regulation at all, you seem to blame it for anything that goes wrong, and since there's no functional A-C society to use as a control group there's no way to disprove that conclusively. - pierce
[2009-02-09 15:35:00] - of course, the question is kinda faulty because expanding the powers of multinational corporations isn't all we do, and some things have gotten better, and some things have gotten worse. Just like "throwing money at the economy" isn't all the government does and some things have gotten better while others have gotten worse. - pierce
[2009-02-09 15:33:34] - paul: well let me turn your question around on you... what would have to happen for you to consider an unregulated, untaxed free market a bad idea? because so far we just keep expanding the powers of multinational corporations (in fact, if not in law) and nothing gets better, and the only lesson you've "learned" is that we're not free marketing hard enough. - pierce
[2009-02-09 14:31:33] - paul: it doesn't seem reasonable when we easily and often confuse bad guys with good guys. or when our algorithm for computing which guys are good and which are bad is subjective. or when it's possible that killing bad guys quickly turns us into bad guys and isn't the only way to solve our conflicts anyways. ~a
[2009-02-09 14:25:24] - Xpovos: Actually, when you put it that way, it almost seems reasonable.
-Paul[2009-02-09 14:11:21] - It's ok to provide weapons to the bad guys, as long as they're fighting the worse guys, and as long as we keep the 'best' weapons for ourselves so that when the worst guys are done, we can kill the bad guys with our better weapons. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-09 13:58:12] - But again, that's because we made a mistake before and we learned our lessons and it won't happen this time around. -Paul
[2009-02-09 13:57:47] - mig: You're not even touching on the most ironic part of this entire war on terror: Sadam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden are the bad guys (except for when we were providing them with weapons and they were the good guys). -Paul
[2009-02-09 13:48:03] - mig: Well, we should! But not that group of people. The other group of people in Afghanistan. And we were doing it wrong before. Now it'll be done properly, with bombing runs. Much lower chance for U.S. casualties. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-09 13:33:11] - hell even with Iraq Obama takes that stance. He doesn't object to killing people in Iraq because it's wrong, it's that he thinks we should be killing people in afghanistan. - mig
[2009-02-09 13:28:51] - mig: I totally agree, except to say that it more than "mildly" irritates me.
-Paul[2009-02-09 13:08:13] - and those same people go whenever the free market makes even the slightest error, "holy fucking moses! the government needs to fix this asap!" - mig
[2009-02-09 13:07:28] - paul: it's something that mildly irritates me about the defense of government solutions in general. no matter how many times the government fails at something, it's always excused by "oh well it wasn't done right", or "the wrong people were in charge", or whatever. - mig
[2009-02-09 12:47:02] - http://reason.com/blog/show/131581.html It's awfully convenient for stimulus supporters that every time a government has tried to spend an economy out of a recession, the failure was due not to the fundamental unsoundness of this approach but to poor timing, inadequate funding, and/or bad investment decisions. -Paul
[2009-02-09 12:37:25] - It's like the crew of the Titanic trying to fix their sinking problem by running into more icebergs.
-Paul[2009-02-09 12:36:55] - Because so far we keep throwing more and more money at the economy and nothing has gotten any better and the lesson we have "learned" is that clearly we didn't throw enough money at the problem. -Paul
[2009-02-09 12:36:03] - Pierce: I've asked a few people this, and haven't gotten a good answer yet. Maybe you can answer for me. What would have to happen for these continued bailouts and stimulus packages to be considered a bad idea? -Paul
[2009-02-09 12:33:43] - Pierce: On the contrary, I don't think Adam Smith would be at all surprised to find out that when the government meddles in the market and artificially creates bubbles that it would lead to a crash. -Paul
[2009-02-09 12:12:27] - he's absolutely right about the born-again fiscal conservatives, which also serves to show why he couldn't get the republican nomination. it's nice that someone's calling them out on being fair-weather republicans, but pointing out that "partisan congressmen are partisan" doesn't really accomplish much besides pissing those congressmen off. - pierce
[2009-02-09 12:09:58] - I appreciate the principle of it, and under normal circumstances I'd agree to a certain extent. but whether you want to blame too much regulation or too little, the market is tanking in a way that's not exactly covered by Adam Smith. he might as well be looking to the crew of the titanic to solve their own sinking problem. - pierce
[2009-02-09 12:09:50] - Pierce: I think he's saying that government spending isn't going to do a lick of good until "we" go back to spending money again, because an economy doesn't work if everybody is saving and nobody is spending. -Paul
[2009-02-09 12:05:09] - "We need a lot more spending in the economy, but it has to be done by market forces..." and where does he think that spending is going to come from, in the near term? on average we're all losing money right now, so barring some miraculous new product that can be exported but not manufactured more cheaply abroad the market's not going to solve this. - pierce
[2009-02-09 11:30:43] - There are days like that. Quiet. Quiet. 100 posts in 30 minutes. Quiet. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-09 10:10:31] - a: me too ~gurkie
[2009-02-09 09:57:50] - http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/07/stimulus.paul/index.html Looks like Paul agrees with me in wondering where these born-again budget conservatives were for the past 8 years.
-Paul[2009-02-08 20:26:08] - pierce: there was a flurry of posting that i missed. ~a
[2009-02-08 19:57:27] - mel: interesting... I love Sunny, but my favorite episodes are the ones that are relatively down-to-earth, to put not too fine a point on it. Maybe I'd have an easier time suspending disbelief for the outlandish storylines in a sci-fi setting, though. - pierce
[2009-02-07 16:41:08] - mel: yay, thanks! - pierce
[2009-02-06 20:17:14] - aba: http://www.thefutoncritic.com/rant.aspx?id=20080709 -mel
[2009-02-06 20:14:28] - pierce: I like the way you think! -mel
[2009-02-06 19:06:24] - a: ? - pierce
[2009-02-06 18:53:05] - oh my god. ~a
[2009-02-06 16:20:32] - mig: our current support pales in comparison to the financial (and personal) cost we'd face if those companies collapsed in the current market. that's my opinion, but is obviously also the opinion of those setting policy. - pierce
[2009-02-06 16:16:15] - pierce: we're supporting gm and ford already. - mig
[2009-02-06 16:12:58] - paul: the problem with doing that right now is that no one's in a position to pick up the bits and pieces, so those jobs would actually be lost for a long time, and the burden of that period would be borne by those least able to support it. then, when they can't support it anymore, it would be borne by the taxpayer. - pierce
[2009-02-06 16:10:48] - paul: I think so. under normal circumstances, I don't have a problem with the big guys falling because despite the public rhetoric they're not going to "die". the bits and pieces would be picked up by other companies... and while some jobs would be lost in the short term more would be created by a market of efficient competitors. - pierce
[2009-02-06 16:08:06] - xpovos: yeah, the drug war was outside the defense spending scope, but I agree that it's another juicy target for spending decreases. not only that, but I think it would be a not-insubstantial bonus to the economy to have a thriving (taxed! regulated!) pot market. - pierce
[2009-02-06 16:08:00] - Pierce: Does that mean we can also let GM and Ford die once this recession has passed? -Paul
[2009-02-06 16:03:31] - paul: we can't cut spending in the short term because of the economic situation. like it or not, defense spending does play its part in propping up our current economy, and decreasing it now would just exacerbate the problem. I'm merely mentioning it as the low-hanging fruit when we do get to a point (hah!) when we can support simultaneous tax and spending cuts. - pierce
[2009-02-06 16:01:32] - pierce: Multiple wars on abstract concepts. Although to be fair, only the war on terrorism is military at all. Drugs seems to be mostly USCG. I'm probably the biggest proponent of military spending here (save maybe dave) and even I agree with military budget cuts. Particularly with matching cuts from other spending. Even matching at a reduced %. Say 85%? -- Xpovos
[2009-02-06 16:01:23] - aba: Not until I have my replicator and holodeck! -Paul
[2009-02-06 16:00:44] - Pierce: So wait, I'm confused. We can't cut spending even though our defense budget is completely ludicrous? -Paul
[2009-02-06 15:59:48] - we should just abolish money and start on our star trek type society today.
- aba[2009-02-06 15:55:24] - paul: vinnie beat me to it. our defense budget is completely ludicrous, particularly in light of the way it was used in the previous administration. we've been in perpetual wartime spending even when there wasn't a war going on... nevermind a war we initiated on false pretenses, and a war on an abstract concept. - pierce
[2009-02-06 15:53:50] - pierce: I agree. Yay. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-06 15:53:21] - Pierce: Let me be clear, spending cuts are just as important (perhaps more important) than tax cuts in my "ideal situation". Hence my: "(and subsequent spending) cuts" -Paul
[2009-02-06 15:52:20] - Vinnie: Exactly, there's probably hundreds of billions of dollars right there that could be cut. -Paul
[2009-02-06 15:50:53] - Pierce: I'm sure that some businesses would hoard some of the tax cut savings, but even that could have positive effects because it would hopefully translate into reduced layoffs. Either way, it's almost certainly the quickest and most efficient way to get money back into the economy. -Paul
[2009-02-06 15:49:22] - xpovos: I know, I was responding to paul's ideal situation, not what's being proposed by republicans. they want us to borrow from the future to offer bear-market tax cuts today. that is lunacy, as far as I'm concerned. - pierce
[2009-02-06 15:49:18] - paul: and hopefully some of those cuts should be coming *cough defense* - vinnie
[2009-02-06 15:47:54] - for example: "If you think the intention here is to help kids learn, the House declares on page 257 that 'No recipient... shall use such funds to provide financial assistance to students to attend private elementary or secondary schools.'" as if private or secondary schools were the only possible way to support kids learning. - pierce
[2009-02-06 15:47:25] - as for that wsj article, I think it's waaay too handwavy about why the programs it's criticizing have no merit. - pierce
[2009-02-06 15:46:03] - Pierce: Leaving aside our disagreement on whether or not the public services are truly needed, I think we could pretty easily cut out huge areas of spending with hardly any decrease in public services. -Paul
[2009-02-06 15:45:26] - pierce: None of the tax cuts being discussed at the federal level are going to result in any decrease in spending. This is purely a debt-increasing thing. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-06 15:43:33] - tax cuts in a bear market are not all that helpful, because everyone's in emergency-lockdown mode. they wouldn't stimulate significant new business in that environment unless they were hefty enough to overcome that inertia, and I don't believe our existing government can afford cuts of that magnitude. - pierce
[2009-02-06 15:39:13] - ...the problem with your option, paul, is that spending cuts right now would have a pretty horrible impact on public services just as people need them most, and would suck even more oxygen out of an already-gasping economy. at the same time, I think tax cuts without simultaneous spending cuts are incredibly damaging, even in their optimal environment (prosperity). - pierce
[2009-02-06 15:35:01] - I agree that some of these programs are of less-than-optimal benefit in a bill designed to be a shortish-term stimulus. some of the programs I'd probably disagree with altogether. but overall I like the direction the democrats are going with it... - pierce
[2009-02-06 15:32:29] - vinnie: I think the democrats realize that whatever they propose, the republicans will say it's too much. so they're starting with everything on the table so that the final compromise will be closer to what they actually think is the best outcome. - pierce
[2009-02-06 15:24:20] - This probably surprises nobody, but pretty much the only stimulus I am in favor of is tax (and subsequent spending) cuts. -Paul
[2009-02-06 15:20:32] - ... to fix those programs later - vinnie
[2009-02-06 15:20:16] - I've been a fairly big Obama proponent, but I don't like the direction this bill is going. I feel like he and the Dems are trying to get it passed too quickly and there does appear to be a lot of wasteful things on the bill. I get the idea that they want to fund everything in place now, even the programs that don't work, and THEN spend more...
[2009-02-06 15:17:55] - what I've read about the stimulus sounds like it's a good idea but the one we're getting may not be so good. here's a nicely biased article for us: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310466514522309.html?mod=djemEditorialPage - vinnie
[2009-02-06 15:15:25] - paul: amen to that. - pierce
[2009-02-06 15:15:03] - I know I never expected him to instantly clean up Washington, and I didn't vote for him hoping he'd spend his days shouting from his high horse and getting nothing done. I hold him to a high standard, but not an impossibly high standard. - pierce
[2009-02-06 15:14:36] - Pierce: Yeah, it's amusing. On the one hand, I am very pleased to see the Republicans in congress rediscovering their small government and anti-pork roots, but on the other hand I'm wondering where they were for the past 8 years. -Paul
[2009-02-06 15:12:02] - I think the republicans are getting so much traction on this because there was such an effective narrative before the election that Obama's support was based on naive idealism, and so now anything he does that reflects the pragmatic reality of politics is him being Just Like Bush. - pierce
[2009-02-06 15:09:23] - paul: I agree. Nevermind that it would be nigh-impossible to pass something of this magnitude without pork, no matter how objectively necessary it may be. And nevermind, as TDS made so clear, that the people decrying pork now are the same ones who have so richly benefitted from it in the past. - pierce
[2009-02-06 15:06:41] - ...when you have congressmen talking about a stack of dollar bills hundreds of miles high as if that's a relevant counterpoint to the stimulus, you know that the debate has lost its grounding in reality. - pierce
[2009-02-06 15:06:35] - Ugh, that's was a lot of "generals" in my statement. -paul
[2009-02-06 15:05:02] - I'd further note that there's a difference between thinking stimulus in general is the wrong approach, and disagreeing with the merits of any part of the proposed stimulus. The Daily Show had a lot of coverage last night about how backwards the discourse has been even at the congressional level... - pierce
[2009-02-06 15:03:16] - Pierce: And it doesn't help that the Republicans have done an excellent job in making the stimulus seem very pork-laden and special interest heavy. -Paul
[2009-02-06 15:02:46] - Pierce: My guess (and this is purely a guess, since I haven't read anything to this affect), is that people are in general in favor of a stimulus in the general sense but get far more pessimistic about it when they hear the details. -Paul
[2009-02-06 15:01:45] - Pierce: Hey! You used my real name too! -Paul
[2009-02-06 15:01:21] - Aaron: Purely my opinion, but I think a lot of harm often comes from the thinking that "something is better than nothing". -Paul
[2009-02-06 14:59:12] - mig: also this, from paul's link... "Part of this concern is a natural reflection of voter skepticism about the legislative process. Many Americans simply accept the notion that no matter how bad things are, Congress could make them worse." - pierce
[2009-02-06 14:58:19] - mig: oops! I breached msgboard etiquette! sorry for revealing your real name! - pie
[2009-02-06 14:57:41] - mig: I remember thinking that Obama had learned that trick very well from the Bush administration. -Paul
[2009-02-06 14:57:32] - miguel: this pretty directly responds to your point. - pierce
[2009-02-06 14:56:49] - mig: I was thinking the same thing when I read an article about Obama bashing the stimulus critics (the article's words, not mine) and urging congress to hurry up and pass it before economic devestation happens. -Paul
[2009-02-06 14:40:46] - aaron: I would assume the people saying that it would make things worse from the article paul linked probably don't want it. probably saying "no one" is probably a bad choice of words, but it doesn't seem that there's much enthusiasm for this "stimulus" bill from anybody other than Obama. - mig
[2009-02-06 14:32:58] - mig: who doesn't want the stimulus bill? I only know what I've heard on CNN and NPR and what I've read on a few news sites, but it sounds like doing nothing would be worse than doing something - aaron
[2009-02-06 13:52:20] - i like how obama uses fears of a finanicial apocalypse to try and get this horrendous stimulus billl that no one seems to want. it's such a refreshing change from the bush administration. - mig
[2009-02-06 13:10:57] - aaron: hahahaha - vinnie
[2009-02-06 13:02:13] - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/4401631/Cake-Wrecks-when-professional-cakes-go-horribly-hilariously-wrong.html when professional cakes go horribly wrong - aaron
[2009-02-06 11:29:37] - a: Yeah, we're in the process of testing it but the variance is really really high. Variance is on the order of like 15 seconds, but I would still like it if having it uncompressed made my app 15 seconds faster - aaron
[2009-02-06 10:22:59] - Although it's 50%, not 50 people.
-paul[2009-02-06 10:22:41] - http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/economic_stimulus_package/50_say_stimulus_plan_likely_to_make_things_worse With a URL like that, I hardly need a description. -Paul
[2009-02-06 09:19:24] - not me. i mean there will be a performance bump on the the first load, but your server might cache the uncompressed ear. but it's easy enough to test, right? ~a
[2009-02-06 09:06:50] - does anybody know whether having 0% compression on a war/ear file improves performance within a web container? - aaron
[2009-02-06 08:19:02] - Bill Gates releases more bugs on the world. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-05 17:59:13] - http://i40.tinypic.com/5yxcu0.jpg obama is kind of a dick - aaron
[2009-02-05 15:39:26] - vinnie: Sorry to hear about that
I'll skip too, I should make up some hours anyway - aaron[2009-02-05 14:19:27] - skipping ddr again.
this time recovering from a bout of food poisoning. I'm not feeling sick anymore, but I am feeling weak - vinnie[2009-02-05 13:31:21] - So... everyone still have their job? That was an impressively bad jobs report. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-05 12:04:17] - xpovos: I don't think your opinion about firefly has any predictive weight for friday night lights one way or the other. - pierce
[2009-02-05 11:14:41] - a: Thanks, I appreciate the offer. I'll let you know if I ever want to take you up on it. -Paul
[2009-02-05 11:14:13] - Xpovos: Yes, animated. I've seen some episodes but not all of them. -Paul
[2009-02-05 11:09:21] - i was just throwing it out there. you don't have to borrow it. ~a
[2009-02-05 11:03:14] - Paul: Animated Tick? 'Cause you own the live-action, so I have to assume you've seen that. -- Xpovos
[2009-02-05 09:57:43] - a: It's not a matter of lack of access to the DVDs, it's about time. I'm on the one-dvd-a-month plan and I struggle to watch one a week. -Paul
[2009-02-05 09:55:13] - paul: i can lend you sportsnight if you want to borrow. ~a
[2009-02-05 09:49:09] - Pieba: Keep in mind, though, that it's behind a bunch of other shows (Veronica Mars, Freaks and Geeks, Sports Night, How I Met Your Mother, The Tick, Battlestar Galactica) that I have wanted to watch for years and still haven't gotten around to it. -paul
[2009-02-05 09:46:51] - I never saw the appeal of Arrested Development (and I did watch some episodes) and I'm still highly dubious of Friday Night Lights (how can a show about HS football be any good?), but I will add it to my queue. -Paul
[2009-02-05 09:23:20] - pierce: I expected I would like it which is why I streamed it... Maybe when I have more time I will try watching it again... Its possible that I was trying to sew while watch which might have made it lose some of its appeal... ~gurkie
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