Quotation of the day

[krw]

Perhaps JF doesn't have the same personality as habitual lottery
players?

I don't either. Perhaps that's why I never win. ;-)

 

[John Larkin]

However the 'trickle down' theory didn't work either.

I think it does work, if done in the right proportion. Since tax rates
are high enough in NA and Europe that taxes strongly steer behavior,
tax policy should be optimized first to create wealth, and second to
encourage it to be shared reasonably. Too often it's simply meant to
be punitive against business and the wealthy, which really does harm
to everybody. The easiest commodity to export is jobs.

It gave me the
sensation of being pissed upon from a great height.

Jealousy is a bad basis for policy. It's ironic that the public seems
to resent people who make a lot of money running real businesses, but
don't mind when an actor or a baseball player signs a contract for
$100 million.

But in reality, the US/Canada/Europe/Japan have lots of material
stuff, maybe too much. We are far past both Adam Smith and Karl Marx.
We should be helping the rest of the world, where people are truly
poor.

John

 

[John Larkin]

As the gap between the haves and have nots increases, and my what
once was skilled labor job gets beat out by trash collectors and tow
truck drivers, you'll see the crime rate go up right along with said
gap.

Except the gap in the US is largely driven by immigration, which will
fix itself in a generation or so. And crime is down and falling, and
unemployment is at historical lows.

John

 

[John Larkin]

---
Sure you can. Ever since we stopped backing up our paper money with
gold and silver, all those notes say is: "Trust me, I'm good for
it."
---



---
Really?

How do you think banks get wealthy? By selling popcorn?
No, they get wealthy by charging me money to borrow your money.

Sure, they take wealth from you, and give it to their employees and
shareholders, but that's just redistribution. Banks don't *create*
wealth, unless the loan facilitates something truly efficient and
productive.

I never borrow money, except for mortgages, where the asset
appreciates faster than the interest. The bitch with borrowing is that
you have to pay it back.

Maybe. But a lot of lottery winners wind up very unhappy as a result.


John

 

[John Larkin]

Said the utter retard that doesn't think that gapped transformers
exist or have any purpose.

Cite?

John

 

[Homer J Simpson]

Except the gap in the US is largely driven by immigration, which will
fix itself in a generation or so. And crime is down and falling, and
unemployment is at historical lows.

If VCRs used tubes I'd be working 24/7

 

[Homer J Simpson]

Yeah, not buying any tickets probably does tend to lower the odds.

Not by much.

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

Sure, they take wealth from you, and give it to their employees and
shareholders, but that's just redistribution. Banks don't *create*
wealth, unless the loan facilitates something truly efficient and
productive.

I never borrow money, except for mortgages, where the asset
appreciates faster than the interest. The bitch with borrowing is that
you have to pay it back.


Maybe. But a lot of lottery winners wind up very unhappy as a result.


John

Perhaps JF doesn't have the same personality as habitual lottery
players?

 

[John Larkin]

Yeah, not buying any tickets probably does tend to lower the odds.

It just about doubles your probable payback!

John

 

[John Larkin]

Of course not. MP couldn't stop insulting and cursing if he wanted to,
which apparently he doesn't.

You should know better and you've been
around here long enough and, ostensibly, are smart enough to know
the difference between conciliatory language and a flame.

You pretend that you want to play nice, but you fire off snide barbs
often enough to make me think that deep down you're nothing more
than an elitist prick.

I enjoy life. And I'm polite to anybody who acts at all reasonably.
And I try to help people with real problems. And a newsgroup ain't
life.

Something like:

Larkin "san" Haiku

I'm rich and you aren't.
Don't you wish you were like me?
Too bad you can't be.

It's not my fault that my wife has a good job.

Are you talking about MP? What useful info has he passed on, other
than that you should degass potting compound? And that everybody is a
retard?

John

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

I don't either. Perhaps that's why I never win. ;-)

Yeah, not buying any tickets probably does tend to lower the odds.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[John Fields]

Sure, they take wealth from you, and give it to their employees and
shareholders, but that's just redistribution. Banks don't *create*
wealth, unless the loan facilitates something truly efficient and
productive.

---
Nonsense. They create wealth by charging interest. Whether wealth
is created by the borrower or not is immaterial; their interest is
in the interest.
---

I never borrow money, except for mortgages, where the asset
appreciates faster than the interest.

---
That's conjecture, and a guess on your part as to what the asset
will be worth in the future. If real estate values fall and you
want to sell, you could be in for a come-uppance.

 

[Homer J Simpson]

Hell, I learned to design with tubes, and that's what they were still
teaching when I went to Tulane. You've got to keep up.

I have. I actually used to service computers down to the board level, in the
days of 8 bitters.

 

[Homer J Simpson]

They pay out lots of small prizes to keep their customers coming back
in the hopes of a big win. The value of x_bar for most lotteries is
probably in the range JL suggested, or around 50%, less taxes in the
US.

It's hard to overcome "You have to be in to win".



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[Eeyore]

Here they refer to $20 notes as luncheon vouchers.

Sounds on the pricey side just for 'luncheon'. I can still recall when a pound
note would buy 7 pints of the local brewery's beer..

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

---
Well, the notes are, but what they represent isn't.

So let's see...

At first the house wasn't there, so nothing was happening and nobody
was making any money.

Then the decision was made to build the house.

Ding!!! An architect is hired and he and his firm are making money.

The plot of land is bought and the seller makes money.

A contractor is hired and his people make money and add value to the
land and to the sticks and stones the use to build the house with,
same as when you buy parts and sell finished goods.

Notice that something of value is now in place where nothing was
before, and everyone involved used their resources productively to
make it happen.

Finally, now that the house is up and property taxes must be paid on
it, those taxes will be used to reward members of the community (pay
their salaries) who are also using their resources productively.

Anyway, that's how it works here. Where you live, YMMV.

And the architect, contractor and his team will all eventually spend the money they earn
helping to employ other ppl too. Plus they all pay their taxes as well.

Economic activity is good for everyone.

Graham

 

[Lord Garth]

We NEED HUGE derigibles with big scrubber devices (chlorine hoovers)
down there scrubbing it out of the air.

An idea from the film 'Alien'... except that it was a fusion powered &
ground based.
Still. the idea is to change the atmosphere.

 

[Eeyore]

The big picture is that you can't distribute more than there is.

But building a house rather than digging a hole and filling it in creates more than you
had to start with..

Graham

 

[John Larkin]

If VCRs used tubes I'd be working 24/7

Hell, I learned to design with tubes, and that's what they were still
teaching when I went to Tulane. You've got to keep up.

John

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

JFK started the war. LBJ escalated it massively. RN ended it. So you
blame RN for the deaths. Logic, I suppose.

He was interviewed on American Interests in the late 80's. Morton Kondrake
asked if he would have sent troops to Vietnam if he was president instead of
JFK. He said, "I wouldn't have had to send troops because I wouldn't have
been involved in the assassination of Diem."

In the final year of 72-73 we lost hundreds, compared to thousands per year
before, because the South Vietnamese forces were able to take over. RN
built them up and forced them to get rid of the corrupt officers. So
Democrats halted their aid and let our allies run out of ammo. If they
hadn't done that the public perception of the war would have been very
different. Democrats didn't want it to be remembered that Nixon fixed the
mess they made.