So an aquaintance of mine shares this on Facebook, and my gut reaction is to want to refute the claim. But then prevailing reasoning takes over and reminds me that I am unable to articulate a coherent and effective defense.
I think I am getting better at arguing my positions as I read more, but it is still disappointing to know that If I tried to debate the issue, I would probably fall into fallacy traps and appear to lose. So yeah, not going to respond. I just want to share on the off-chance someone would like to offer their view of a defense.
14 cents seems like a rather low number for the cost. People may think health care preiums are cheap for companies, but I doubt it. If the information I saw from my employeer was correct, they are paying close to 20k a year for preiums on me alone.
im not going to look that into it but think about it. how many pizza's do they make a year!? its probably over a billion a year company if the average pizza is a $10. thats going to be 14 million $ obama care is going to raise on his taxes.
You dont own a business that successful as papa john's by eating $14 million dollars.
then lastly any predictions on how much obamacare will add on a business is impossible. Its probably going to be a lot more than that.
Official: Harassing emails led to FBI probe
Vatican digs in after gay marriage advances
BBC chief quits after saying TV report was wrong
Gen. David Petraeus: soldier, scholar, statesman
Victims testify about details of Afghan massacre
Pentagon moves to silence SEALs about missions
High court to take fresh look at voting rights law
How to Devise Passwords That Drive Hackers Crazy
Did the Husband of Petraeus' Mistress Write NYT's 'Dear Abby'?
The XX Committee Weighs in On Petraeus
Food For Thought
Another Electric Car Floperoo
Petraeus scandal is reported with compelled veneration of all things military
Extend and Pretend
When a C.I.A. Director Had Scores of Affairs
Wow, this Petraeus thing smells of power-play all over it. From the article:
The FBI was looking into "an issue with two women and they stumbled across the affair with Petraeus," a U.S. government security source said.
Yeah, sure. That's what happened.
The FBI probe was triggered when Broadwell sent threatening emails to an unidentified woman close to the CIA director, a security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. It was unclear what the relationship of the woman who received the emails was to Petraeus.
So, someone at the CIA told someone at the FBI to investigate Petraeus' mistress? Um.
Once Petraeus' name turned up in the investigation, the importance of the FBI inquiry was immediately escalated, as investigators became concerned the CIA chief somehow might have been compromised, the law enforcement official said.
But, of course, it wasn't escalated to the level of notifying the President. Note that DCI reports directly to POTUS.
At this point, it appears unlikely that anyone will be charged with a crime as a result of the investigation, the official said.
Threatening emails sent to a woman at the CIA who reported it to the FBI resulted in splattering Petraeus' affair all across the headlines a few days after the election. The President had no knowledge of any of this until just a few days ago. Will wonders never cease.
The FBI investigation began fairly recently ... when Petraeus would still have been in uniform
And nobody thought to mention anything to the President before he came over as DCI. Uh huh. And when they did finally tell the President, they made sure it was national news a few days later.
Representative Peter King, Republican chairman of the House of Representatives' Homeland Security Committee, said in an interview on MSNBC: "... I'm not into conspiracy theories but this one just doesn't add up,"
Yeah. I am into conspiracy theories... and, Republican or not, Crazy King is right... it doesn't add up. I have no idea what this is about, but something doesn't make sense here.
The FBI and CIA are mortal enemies. There is no camaraderie at all between these two organizations and they are constantly involved in power plays against one another. So, the idea that a woman at the CIA would dial the FBI for help after receiving a "threatening email" from Petraeus' mistress is just, it wouldn't even make a believable movie plot.
Clayton -
I just got my 1/2 gallon bottle of raw milk at sprouts; whole milk!
It tastes good.
While there are benefits to drinking raw milk, i think that this vid does hype it up too much. nevertheless its a good vid.
“Since people are concerned that ‘X’ will not be provided, ‘X’ will naturally be provided by those who are concerned by its absence.""The sweetest of minds can harbor the harshest of men.”
http://voluntaryistreader.wordpress.org
I am still not sure why the director of CIA sex life is of any concern. It is not like he is the head of red cross or a social worker department. If for example he beat his wife and he was in heading up the against domestic abuse department, then I could understand the concern. It is not like the CIA is known for its integrity.
http://voluntaryistreader.wordpress.com/
Come on guys, mises community blog project!
I usually have no sympathy for the muckety-mucks - particularly the generals that administer the murderous Pentagram's war machine - but I have to say that this Petraeus thing has invoked a tiny quiver of sympathy in my otherwise cold, unfeeling soul. Justin Raimondo has, I think, decoded the whole mystery.
We never did find out what was the dealio with Dominique Strauss-Kahn, though the most plausible theory there was it was just a low-down, dirty stunt by Sarkozy to secure his reelection against what would have been a formidable DSK challenge.
But I think this Petraeus thing is relatively cut-and-dry by comparison. Petraeus was not sufficiently pro-Israel (this is equivalent to being anti-Israel in the minds of the Zionist fanatics). The American-Israel lobby and its gestapo apparatus in the intelligence agencies decided something had to be done about it. Enter Paula Broadwell. Let he without sin cast the first stone.
Education lesson number 1 for the day:
war is good for prosperity!
Lesson Numero DOS! just popped open my study guide for my accounting class...
Chapter 7 1. Which of the following never depreciates? a. Equipment. b. Furniture & Fixtures. c. Land. d. Buildings.
Im learning soooo much today. Goto war to boost the economy and funnel as much money as possible to purchase land because it cant go down. Today i learned how to run the fed and be president of the US. What did you do today?
Amazon Ordered To Pay $252 Million In Back Taxes
Walmart Health Care Premiums To Rise Up To 36% For Employees
If you have any faith in humanity left, I'd invite you to read the comments on both of those articles. That should cure you.
@Grant
... How exactly is it that land never depreciates? That almost sounds like a bad econ joke...
Neodoxy - that is what economists were saying before the crisis - of course, using historical data as proof.
and its now a bad accounting joke. This practice is still being used and is accepted by the GAAP. Just another reason why so many businesses failed during the recession.
I just realized Joseph Salerno was in the Keynes v. Hayek rap.
He...was...playing...Mises...you didn't realise?
I only saw Mises from the back when he was helping Hayek. Him and Say.
Why Obama is better for gun companies:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2012/11/07/4-more-years-of-obama-is-better-for-gun-companies-than-a-romney-would-have/?partner=yahootix
I've been reading about Orthodox Marxism recently, and one of the core aspects about it is that it makes the claim that Marxism is a science. I Googled the definition of science in Google's Dictionary, and here it is:
"The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment"
Okay, so under that, I suppose both Marxism and Libertarianism could be considered a "science." Thoughts?
AE (which is value-free) is a science, though it eschews experimentation. Libertarianism, OTOH, is all about value, it's a system of beliefs. Very roughly, the former tells you how to pick means to achieve ends, while the latter tells you what ends are worthy.
A solid debunking of an old blog post where a physicist supposedly disproves economics:
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.ca/2012/11/murphys-law.html?m=1
:-( :-( @ "economic growth"... particularly the part where he starts talking about virtual reality as having something to do with this mysterious "growth".
1) Growth is not an essential ingredient of free market theory. In fact, growth is just an unwanted by-product of the fact that it takes time for solutions to problems to actually be applied to those problems. Once the steam-engine is invented, it takes quite a bit of time before steam engines actually begin solving people's problems and having a significant impact on reducing the cost-of-living. Calling it "growth" is masking - almost reversing - the true nature of the phenomenon.
2) Growth is not even a proper end. People desire satisfaction of their wants but whose wants are satisfied by "growth". Perhaps you can argue that a taxing authority that can cut a larger slice of the larger economic pie without rousing the suspicion of the unwitting plebes is satisfied by growth. But I can't think of anybody else who is.
3) As for the virtual reality thing, this is a blatant misrepresentation of the concept of economic satisfaction - satisfaction is not "tingling the pleasure centers of the brain", it is removing felt uneasiness of any kind. Virtual reality is only a factor in enhancing one's leisure time... think of computer games as they are with present technology. Otherwise, the idea of people laying around in Matrix cocoons zapping themselves with pleasure jolts is ... science fiction nonsense and doesn't even merit discussion.
Still, the rest seems valid.
FDR Economics - This month in 1932 FDR signed an executive order to move Thanksgiving a week earlier in hopes that people will start their Christmas shopping and get the economy out of the depression.
Sometimes i wonder if Obama is even trying to get us out of this recession. Hello OBAMA!????! Move Christmas around and lets shake this economy up!
@grant: You hush up. Don't be giving them any more tyrannical ideas than they already have.
The Bank of England has just crossed the line into straight government financing
I've been thinking about starting to read Peter Kropotkin. Anybody have any suggestions?
http://youtu.be/LcvLHHMC4iI
^video on the debt from "seeprogress"
SM - how about reading some AE books first?
...Who says I haven't?
Could someone read and understand Henry Hazlitt's "Failure of the New Economics" even if they have a limited understanding of Austrian economics?
Fair enough.
Anyway, here is an interesting article on why an individual cannot really cause mass destruction all by himself:
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2012/11/myth_of_the_lon.php
Just a heads-up: LibertyHQ is slowly chugging along, and I hope to allow registration by the end of the month.
History lesson on why wages rise - "its a system called 'welfare capitalism' and companies basically bribed their employees not to join unions." - there you go people. The only reason wages rise, other than unions, is to bribe the people too stupid to join unions from not joining unions. What a joke.
When you're talking about how fiat currency/central banking causes booms and busts to someone, and later on when you bring up how Hong Kong is free-market capitalist and "look at how successful they are," when they ask why Hong Kong is so successful when they are on a fiat currency system, what do you say?
Grant - please call that out. Just flat-out. Be like "That's wrong. Wages rise because of productivity increases"
Wheylous I trust you'll be plugging LHQ on every nook and cranny of the politosphere?
Also, just browsed through your articles and noticed that you didn't reference Kevin Carson? Why not? In my opinion, one of the best selling points of liberty is helping us understand how badly we're getting screwed by the regulatory system. Carson is excellent at helping to understand how un-free our markets are and what free one's would look like. He's great on land politics, healthcare, labor unions, all some of the ostensible "weak spots" of a free market, all revealed to be manipulated by the state for skewed outcomes. Have you read Studies in a Mutualist Political Economy?
The Anarch is to the Anarchist what the Monarch is to the Monarchist. -Ernst Jünger
@Wheylous's post of the article The Myth of the Lone Villain
Initially I thought this was going to be about the division of labor, but the author doesn't really go there. He really misses the point:
Always the lone evil genius works in a high tech haven, hidden from others, all by himself...The madman's electronic door hatch probably crashes once a month, particularly if the madman just invented it. So can you invent and keep operational the death ray? No. Way.
As technology develops, it will become cheaper and easier to create your own hidden high-tech haven. It follows that inventing and maintaining an operational death ray will also be cheaper and easier than it is today.
What he misses is the fact that defense technology will develop, as well. We will have better ways of detecting and preventing crime before it happens. So even though the weapons themselves will be easier to make, it will be more expensive to make weapons that will be effective, weapons that can get around the defense mechanisms. Maybe someday the good guys can even create shields that defend against nuclear explosions, who knows. It is this that will make the lone villain's plans less likely to be executed.
Jargon - I am far from done. Also, I am only one individual collecting the lists. If I had some help the lists would be a lot more thorough. I will implement a feature where users can suggest articles.
In case you don't all read The Police Brutality/Aggression Thread, I wanted to repost these two links I just posted there:
Man tasered by police for trying to save his own house from burning down
Good Samaritan treated like thief by cops, he says, sues for $1 million
Bob Wenzel misses the mark on email advice.
No. If you're the mistress of the CIA, you don't secure your communications with Google or Yahoo. The root problem is that the emails can be read by the FBI or Yahoo or Gmail or anyone at all. In other words, encrypt your shit. This is the head of the goddamn CIA we're talking about, not some marketing exec having a fling. And while you may not be the head of the CIA, I think it's bad advice to say "use Google, not Yahoo."
How about some solid advice: encrypt anything you don't want people other than the recipient to be able to read. If Google or Yahoo can read it, the FBI can read it. It is my opinion that the digital surveillance capabilities of USG are underestimated by several orders of magnitude in the mainstream press. There are tools out there that can help you with this.
Now, this won't stop traffic analysis (checking what IP you're using etc.) However, if your communications cannot be read, traffic analysis is of very little value because they won't have "evidence" of anything to arrest and charge you, anyway (which is where traffic analysis matters). If you're doing the kinds of things where even traffic analysis is a threat, you need to be thinking at a professional level of security. There are tools for evading traffic analysis but you really need to start to understand security holistically at that point. Unless you like jail.