MikeClev said:
Social media is perfect for pooling together like minded people who's opinions then sum coherently. In the absence of a balancing counter opinion, this means people feel right and justified in their otherwise extreme actions and opinions.
I'm not in favour of banning social media, its a tool like anything else, bad people use it for bad things, thats all.
Nobody is talking about banning social media, even if does amplify bad behavior, not the first time technology has done that.
I believe the UK was looking at temporarily blocking it in the middle of the riot areas to maybe prevent it making a bad situation worse.
Like I mentioned some countries like Iran are watching with interest since they were criticized for blocking social media in their country when it was used by opposition groups against them. This is not quite an apples and apples comparison, but i can imagine the propaganda spin meisters already.
Note: an interesting variant on this is the new technique of calling a flash mob to swarm some small retailer and they shop lift the innocent retailer clean as he is helpless against the crowd acting in symphony.
On the US Government... can we call the US a failed state yet? It hardly has a functioning government these days. Just a bunch of people who's reason to get up in the morning is to block the opposing party from getting anything that they want. How can a country go anywhere but down with those squabbling chimps at the wheel.
The measure of a failed state includes : (from wiki)
--loss of control of its territory, or of the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force therein,
--erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions,
--an inability to provide public services, and
--an inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community
We aren't remotely close, so that is not accurate.
If you inspect history the economy and country has generally done better when there was divided government. One party controlling the legislature and executive branch generally leads to excess and problems.
The lesson I draw from this is that cooperation and passing lots of legislation is not a great thing.. We already have a pretty good set of basic rules in the constitution and the amendments, that were made hard to pass for a reason. Our founding fathers were wise.
Regarding the squabbling chimps at the wheel, this is classic political posturing to paint a picture that makes one side or the other look better. The recent debt limit stand off is embarrassing to all of us. Embarrassing in so many ways. Nobody with an IQ above 12 believed either side would default on our debt... We already smoked that dope, we have to pay the man, or the bond trolls will get us.
before we inspect the individual monkeys, how about the expectation that having a debt ceiling statute, that must be raised periodically would ever effectively limit borrowing? if we rubber stamp raising it every time, what is the point? The debt ceiling is reviewed after it is much too late to avoid exceeding it, so this is just more bullshit legislative wallpaper that superficially looks like they are being responsible, but in fact does nothing. So the high wire act was over the top, but in fact got the monkey's attention, at least momentarily
So how do we control government spending to live within our means? It's our money and credit line they are pissing away. Well there is supposed to be a federal budget, while that routinely tolerates a certain amount of deficit spending (this is why everyone around the world is so frantic to find some growth). Growth is the magic bean that makes modest deficit spending work. No growth, and everybody is in a hurt. I think the recent anger and over reaction to the debt hike is related to lack of a formal budget for a few years and wanton spending with no apparent end in sight. All I hear still is that we didn't spend enough and calls for a new infrastructure bank, and more participation from Fannie and Freddie to prop up housing. Now there's a matched set of failed states (F&F), put in receivership years ago, but still spending taxpayer money like it will never run out.
There is a proposal for a balanced budget amendment (which would take years to ever pass), and i don't support a strict net zero cash balance...IMO there needs to be a little wiggle room. Some capital spending has persistent value so doesn't need to be expensed immediately, but even some modest amounts of deficit spending makes sense in lean times, but this should net out to zero over time (including the growth). But I'm not worried that we would ever pass a simple cash balanced budget... however what we are doing now is out of control...
We blew a wad ($1T+) on deficit spending to buy a couple years of a short term pop to the economy (yes the last two years have been the good years with the updraft). So now the false lift is over and we are no better off... Short term stimulus spending is just like a shock absorber, good to level out small bumps in the road.but we fell into a debt caused hole and we can't get out by digging even deeper. It will be painful for all, especially those who have been getting fat from all that government cheese.
Government is in theory capable of great things that no corporation would ever think of doing. These guys (and many before them) seem to do everything they can to give it a bad name...
Government can do great good, when they empower their citizens by providing rule of law and a stable base to build upon. The true greatness comes from the people. Business is just a vehicle for creating wealth. it needs to be regulated lightly to prevent excess, but mostly left alone to create wealth. Business/government partnership is a dangerous road to follow. Eisenhower warned us about the military industrial complex long ago. Wall street and big business has been more than a little too friendly with government and now we have, who know how many government funded projects to build electric cars and other manifestations of their vision of the (green) future. A timely object lesson in that area is the the solar cell factory that just went bankrupt in MA.
About the only thing government should ever be trusted with is running the military, because we don't really want them to get too productive, while they do kick ass despite government oversight (boorah).
Of course I could be wrong.
JR